Catcher in the Rye

Catcher in the Rye is on the BBC list of books I'm reading this year.  I am not, however, going to read this one.  I started, but I'm not going to finish based on the following recommendation from Nancy Pearl, the author of a book called Book Lust.  Pearl is a librarian and voracious reader who recommends "reading for every mood, moment, and reason."  She says,

One of my strongest-held beliefs is that no one should ever finish a book that they're not enjoying, no matter how popular or well reviewed the book is.  Believe me (and I do), nobody is going to get any points in heaven by slogging their way through a book they aren't enjoying but think they ought to read.  I live by what I call "the rule of fifty," which acknowledges that time is short and the world of books is immense.  If you're fifty year old or younger, give every book about fifty pages before you decide to commit yourself to reading it, or give it up.  If you're over fifty, which is when time gets even shorter, subtract your age from 100--the result is the number of pages you should read before deciding.  Keep in mind that your mood has a lot to do with whether or not you will like a book.  I always leave open the option of going back to a book that I haven't liked (especially if someone I respect has recommended it to me) sometime later.  I've begun many books, put them down unfinished, then returned a month or two, or years, later and ended up loving them.

I live by this in my reading, but I have a confession to make.  I'm not giving Catcher even fifty pages.  I have read two chapters and I can't stand it.  I asked Kent if he had read it and he had.  I asked what he thought and he used words like "overblown teenage angst" and "overrated for an adult audience."  This is pretty much how I feel.  Wikipedia says, "Originally published for adults, it has since become popular with adolescent readers for its themes of teenage confusion, angst, alienation, language, and rebellion."  There might have been a period in my life when I was interested in reading a novel with foul language about teenage angst and rebellion, but now is not that time.  I am marking it in italics on my list and moving on to other things.  Like The Wind in the Willows.

Thoughts on Food

My sister-in-law Brenda sent me this picture in the mail.

The caption reads:

"One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop 

whatever it is we are doing and devote out attention to eating."

Luciano Pavarotti, My Own Story

I wholeheartedly agree with Luciano.

Lord of the Flies

The Lord of the Flies is another selection from the BBC list.  Over the years, I have heard about Lord of the Flies.  I knew there were boys on an island, they turned savage, and some boys killed other boys.  I knew no details, however.  Now that I have read it, I can say The Lord of the Flies is a book about a group of boys who are trapped on an uninhabited island following a plane crash.  Initially they form a tribe and work together to build shelters, find food, and maintain a fire on the top of the island to serve as a beacon to ships that may pass by and could rescue them.  Within a short span of time, some of the boys form a separate tribe and give in to their more savage tendencies.  Boys are killed.  They are eventually rescued.  Not much different from my initial understanding.

This book has been hailed as one of the 100 best English language books.  Rave reviews all around and required reading in many schools (although I escaped high school and college without reading it).  I'm not sure why.  I didn't find it all that spectacular.  It was a fine story and it was well written.  I cared about the characters and I hoped that they would be rescued.  I knew almost immediately which character would be killed and why, and I wasn't wrong.  From a literary perspective, I can see how it is allegorical, but I guess I am sort of past caring about that sort of thing.  I can see how it could make an impression on high school aged children, but I wasn't enthralled.  

This was certainly a fine read and has been popular now for decades, so perhaps I am missing something everyone else appreciates.  While it was interesting and engaging, I'm not sure I would recommend it to others as a "must read."  Save it for one of those days when you have absolutely nothing else to read, and then see if you can't find something else first.

Devil's Food Cake

Devil's Food Cake was the fluff I needed after reading the two war books (Birdsong and Captain Corelli's Mandolin) that I was looking for in Notes From a Small Island and didn't really find.  I found this book on a friend's book club list, and thought I would give it a try.  

Kilpack has written several murder mysteries all bearing titles of tasty desserts.  They feature a woman named Sadie Hoffmiller who is something of a nosy Parker.  The story line in this book takes place in a 15 hour time period, so the story moves along quickly and the murder is solved within a short period of time.  I liked the character of Sadie Hoffmiller, I thought Kilpack did a fine job of maintaining suspense, and the whole thing is a very quick read.  I finished this in a day without completely ignoring my children (although I did spend an hour reading it while I rode my bike, and more time while the children played outside).  I would not call this a fine piece of literature that is likely to stand the test of time, but it was fun and light.  

The recipes sounded tasty too.  

Notes From a Small Island

You know how I'm reading through the list of books the BBC thinks no one has read but probably should have?  This is one of those books, and I had to ask myself, "Why?"  

Bill Bryson is an American humorist who lived in England for two decades.  Prior to his return to the States, he took one final trip around Great Britain visiting places he had always wanted to go (and some he hadn't), and then wrote this travel log.  It was apparently very well received by the British, but I'm not sure why.  I found Bryson to be snarky and intent on finding fault with most places he went.  There were cities and villages that he seemed to like and moments he enjoyed himself, but they were few by comparison with all the places he seemed to loath.  

I had hoped for a light read after the two books about wars, and I would say Notes From a Small Island is light.  It has little or no real substance.  I know that many would say this was an amusing read, but I really didn't like it.  Bryson was far too cynical and seemed to be trying too hard to be funny.  The book is full of interesting tidbits about places he is visiting and about England in general, but I wasn't impressed.  On the back cover of my copy, one reviewer said that the book was like a valentine to Great Britain.  Well, I can tell you, it is not the sort of valentine I would like to receive.

Telling Memories Among Southern Women

When I finished reading The Help a few months ago, I was happy I had read it, but I wanted more.  I suppose this has something to do with my graduate work, but I wanted to read actual stories of actual women who had been domestic workers in the South.  At the end of The Help, Kathryn Stockett makes mention of a book she found very helpful when she was writing and thanked the author, Susan Tucker.  That book was Telling Memories Among Southern Women.  This was the book I wanted.

The book is a compilation of interviews Susan Tucker and an assistant conducted of women who were domestic workers or those who employed them.  These are first hand accounts, edited somewhat for length and ease of readability.  These are the voices of actual women like those portrayed in The Help.  Having read The Help first, I was pleased to see that much of what was Stockett had written was validated by the first person narratives in Telling Memories.  There was good and bad, funny and sad, and perspectives of both black and white women.  Tucker is white, but her assistant, Mary Yelling, is black.  Tucker says Yelling was able to speak to and record the stories of many women who would not otherwise have opened up to her because of racial differences.  

The oral narratives are powerful and I recommend this book as supplemental reading material if you read The Help.  It may be difficult to find, however.  I looked for it unsuccessfully at our local library, but found a copy at BYU.  It is available for purchase on Amazon (but not really very cheap).  Worth the search, however.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

By way of introduction, I'm going to include the information you would read on Amazon if you wanted to know what this book is about.

From a single, abbreviated life grew a seemingly immortal line of cells that made some of the most crucial innovations in modern science possible. And from that same life, and those cells, Rebecca Skloot has fashioned in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks a fascinating and moving story of medicine and family, of how life is sustained in laboratories and in memory. Henrietta Lacks was a mother of five in Baltimore, a poor African American migrant from the tobacco farms of Virginia, who died from a cruelly aggressive cancer at the age of 30 in 1951. A sample of her cancerous tissue, taken without her knowledge or consent, as was the custom then, turned out to provide one of the holy grails of mid-century biology: human cells that could survive--even thrive--in the lab. Known as HeLa cells, their stunning potency gave scientists a building block for countless breakthroughs, beginning with the cure for polio. Meanwhile, Henrietta's family continued to live in poverty and frequently poor health, and their discovery decades later of her unknowing contribution--and her cells' strange survival--left them full of pride, anger, and suspicion. For a decade, Skloot doggedly but compassionately gathered the threads of these stories, slowly gaining the trust of the family while helping them learn the truth about Henrietta, and with their aid she tells a rich and haunting story that asks the questions, Who owns our bodies? And who carries our memories?

When I was doing my graduate work in Albany, I took a class called something like Black Women and Feminist Theory.  This book would have made a fabulous addition to our curriculum.  The author, Rebecca Skloot, became interested in HeLa cells when she was in a high school  biology class, and her interest remained until she graduated from college.  She doggedly researched the medical history and personal life of the obscure woman whose cells  live on and then wrote this fascinating book of her discoveries.

For class, we could have discussed medical care for blacks versus whites in the 50s as well as currently, and employment options for black women.  Another major theme is how we interact and support family members and keep memories of loved ones alive.  And then the question, as mentioned above, of who owns our bodies and what can be done with our tissues after they have been removed from our bodies.  There is also the currert debate among some about the HPV vaccine and who should receive it.  I can imagine a very heated discussion about trust in both our public and private lives.  Great stuff.

This is a good read.  Not only is it educational, it is compelling (I read it in about three days, while still taking care of my family).