WEB Griffin and Alexander McCall Smith

It took me rather a long time, but I have finished W.E.B. Griffin's In Danger's Path. It was very clearly a Military Adventure book, as defined by Joyce Saricks Genre Study. The interesting thing was that I didn't find much of it to be "fast-paced action," quite a bit of it was meetings and military orders. It left me thinking that it was just as neccesary to know the enemy within (other members of the service) as it was to know the enemy without (the actual adversaries in the war.)

It was interesting to read as a way of getting familiar with that particular sub-genre, but I don't feel the need to read any others by this author. The Marine moral code was big, and there was a lot of lower ranking officers being proven right over the wrong-minded higher ranking officers. Lots of who has the right to give who orders, lots of "the correct answer to that is "yes sir!"

It's made it hard for me to parent this week...I wouldn't mind (but would probably faint with shock) a little unquestioning obedience around here.

I probably could have gotten away with just skimming and sampling, but felt I needed to read the whole book. But it was a bit of a slog for me. The one story line I was most interested in, that of one of the Marines and his russian wife, was only touched on very briefly. It made me want to go down the street and knock on the door of one of my neighbors who I'm pretty sure was a Marine ("Semper Fi!" on the gate), hand him the book, have him read it and give me briefing on how accurate and how enjoyable it was to him.

As a treat, I read The Sunday Philosophy Club today after I finished the Griffin. I liked it, and found some nice pithy quotes in at as I do in The #1 Ladies Detective Agency but didn't find the ending as satisfying as the other series. But I expect it will grow on me. Tomorrow it's back to the Five Book Challenge. I think my next one will be Wilbur Smith Birds of Prey. At least that's what I've got sitting here next to my chair. 17 year old new captain intent on avenging his father's "horrific torture and execution," while sharing "lusty pleasures" with multiple women. Multiple beautiful women. Lots of swashbuckling. The last pirate experience I had was the movie "Pirates of the Caribean" which was more swishbuckling than swash, so I'm looking forward to this one. I think I'll enjoy it more than the Griffin...I'm just not much of a military reader.

5 Book Challenge

As I mentioned last post, I have embarked on a concentrated reading plan, following Joyce Saricks "5 Book Challenge" in her book The Readers' Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction. While I sat in that workshop last Saturday with Shelley Quezada, I realized that although I pride myself on being a lifelong voracious reader, I'm like a kid in a candy shop when it comes to books. I have no real plan, no real purpose (which is fine, it's served me well all these years) but if I want to be a Reader's Advisor, I have to be more deliberate in my reading. And I have to start keeping records.

In the past, I've gobbled up books hand over fist, forgetting about the one I've just finished before I'm done chewing the last bite, eyes searching for the next. Generally I don't remember authors or titles, though occasionally I'll get a little frisson of recognition.

Recently I read Will Manley's column "Smoky the Cowhorse" in the May 1 2005 issue of Booklist. He mentioned the 2004 report "Reading at Risk: A survey of Literary Reading in America" issued by the National Endowment for the Arts. In the very broadest of terms, Manley asserts that we are "a plugged-in people," and that very few of us read books. He cites his friend Fred as an example of the rare un-plugged person who has read widely, including The Ilead and The Odyssey and the entire list of Newbery winners. Manley mentions that Fred has read 1927 Newbery Award Winner Smoky the Cowhorse and asks "do you know anyone who has read Smoky the Cowhorse from cover to cover?"

Well, let me be the first to tell you...I have read Smoky the Cowhorse from cover to cover, and I distinctly remember being very proud of myself at the time. Of course I was in fifth grade back then, and if I remember correctly I tried to convince my teacher that Smoky was a biography of a horse and therefor qualified for the biography book report. I don't remember if I succeeded or not, but I do remember that as a horse-crazy girl I ranked the book with My Friend Flicka and Black Beauty on the horse book must-read list. It doesn't seem possible that Will Manley's friend Fred and I are the only two people alive who have read it. Have you read any of the Newbery Award winners? Check this list to find out. You might surprise yourself.

I work in the Children's Room at my library once a week, so last year I did start reading on a plan...I decided to read all of the Newbery Award books. I'm not done yet, but I have knocked off quite a few of the more recent ones. I'm putting that on hold though, in favor of Joyce Saricks 5 Book Challenge for Genre Reading. Starting at the top of the list with the Adventure Genre, I'm reading:

Clive Cussler Atlantis Found
Dorothy Dunnett Game of Kings
W.E.B. Griffin Danger's Path
Patrick O'Brien Master and Commander
Wilbur Smith Birds of Prey

I finished Atlantis Found last night. My husband, a huge Clive Cussler fan, was thrilled that I had finely succumbed to the charms of Dirk Pitt. I have started annotating what I read, here's Dirk's annotation.

Reader's Advisory

I went to an absolutely excellent workshop on Saturday. It was put on by Simmons College GSLIS Continuing Ed, taught by Shelley Quezada.

Reader's Advisory is that craft by which librarians, using their experience and expertise in Genre Fiction (and NonFiction) and electronic and text tools, guide readers in selecting books to read according to their interests and preference. Which is a long and complicated way of saying "helping people find books to read." The most exciting part of this is that with the proper study and tools, a librarian can guide readers toward books she hasn't read herself and would prefer not to.

Shelley's enthusiasm was contagious, and I left the workshop with a tremendous amount of material to go over and use in building my own Reader's Advisor skills. One of the handouts was a list of 5 books in each of 15 genres, suggested by Joyce Saricks (author of Readers' Advisory Service in the Public Library) as a challenge to familiarize ourselves with each genre.

Which is why the next book I'll be mentioning here is Atlantis Found by Clive Cussler.

Alexander McCall Smith

I finished In the Company of Cheerful Ladies and loved it. A friend of mine asked me to give her the list of all of Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Detective Agency books, and here it is:

The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency
Tears of the Giraffe
Morality for Beautiful Girls
The Kalahari Typing School for Men
The Full Cupboard of Life
In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

There is a website devoted to Andrew McCall Smith, which is where I found out that he has other books also. I have put Irregular Portuguese Verbs on hold and am eager to see how it is. The excerpt read well.

I initially tried reading The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency on tape while I was folding laundry and found that the narrator went too slow. I read rather quickly and found the pace of the book on tape maddening. On the other hand, when I went on to read the books, I enjoyed hearing the memory of the narrator speak the names. They are unfamiliar sounds, and I would recommend getting at least one of them on tape so you can hear the cadence of "Mma Ramotswe" for yourself.

Despite the completely different setting, I compare these books to the Mitford Series by Jan Karon. I found those books to be sweet and pleasant, and though I must admit I got a little tired of them before the series was over, I really enjoyed them on first reading. I do like the character of Precious Ramotswe better than that of Father Tim, and find her infinately more quotable. For instance:

"There was so much need, even in a fortunate country as Botswana; it seemed as if the resevoirs of suffering were never empty, and no matter what progress was made there would always be people for whom there was no job or no place to live, or not enough food. And when you became aware of these needs, especially if they were being felt by those who had a claim on you, then it was hard to put them out of your mind." (In the Company of Cheerful Ladies)

It's possible that if I went back and revisited the Mitford books that I would enjoy them as much again. I'll have to go back and see. I've been thinking about re-reading books recently...The Mermaid Chair and The Secret Life of Bees really seem to be books that improve with re-reading, and the No. 1 Ladies books seem like they will too. But it remains to be seen. Other books that I have absolutely loved don't seem like they could be read again until the details were forgotten. Janet Evanovitch's Stephanie Plum books come to mind. But I still EAGERLY await Eleven on Top, due out on June 21, according to Amazon.

All Reading, no Blogging

My son has to write a bookslip every week, telling his teacher the titles, authors, and page count for any and all books he's read over the last week. I sort of feel like I need to do that here, because I've been doing an awful lot of reading, and no blogging. The only problem is that I can't remember what I've read!

I'm still in the middle of "The Bookseller of Kabul." I'm also in the middle of the newest in the #1 Ladies Detective Agency, In the Company of Cheerful Ladies. And I have The Know it All going in the car. It's the perfect book for the car, there's no real plot, just a guy talking about reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. It's pretty interesting, and very funny. His humor is usually self-depreciating, ocassionally a bit wicked.

I have also read "A Good Yarn."

Resonating

It's hard to talk about a book without giving away important points that might ruin the story for someone who hasn't read it yet. And all Reader's Advisory aside, it's hard to blithely recommend a book to someone without knowing all their various likes and dislikes. It all comes down to taste, just like food.

I love salad, especially salad with lots of unexpected un-salad-y ingredients, like mandarin oranges, and nuts and seeds. If someone made me a wonderful salad and proudly presented it, carefully arranged on a chilled glass plate in front of me, I would be thrilled. But if, halfway through, I found olives in the salad, I couldn't eat the rest of it, and would feel faintly ill as I remembered how much I'd already eaten, wondering if I'd already ingested the tiniest bit of olive essence. Because I absolutely despise olives. The most savory of dishes is completely ruined for me if there are olives in it. I can't just pick them out and politely leave them on the side of my plate, I am almost overpowered with the desire to go rinse my mouth and then consume copious amounts of bread to wash the taint away.

It's the same with books. I could recommend a mystery to you, knowing that you like mysteries, but unless I know that you absolutely can't read a book where a dog is mistreated, I can't know that you would find a fabulous mystery that just happens to contain a mistreated dog to be a horrible book.

A few years ago I recommended a favorite book to a friend. She hated it, because of a horribly repulsive scene. She wondered out loud how I could recommend a book with such a repulsive scene in it. I had been equally horrified by the scene, but for whatever reason, had been able to put it aside and loved the rest of the story.

I've mentioned to a few people recently that I just read "The Kite Runner" and each of them have said "Ohhhhh, wasn't it good?" It startles me each time. Was it good? Well written? Undoubtedly. Did I like it, did I enjoy reading it? I don't think so. Would it make sense for me to say it was good, like cod liver oil, but not good like freshly baked bread with melted butter? Or is it like a grilled pizza with sundried tomatoes, goat cheese and olives? Something I can recognize as delectable for other people, but not for me.

Either way, I read my vampire book, and enjoyed it. It was pretty light and fluffy. Then I picked up "The Mermaid Chair" by Sue Monk Kidd, of "The Secret Life of Bees" fame. Again, I can't really talk about it without giving away key points and thereby ruining it for someone who might inadvertently read this. Suffice it to say that I enjoyed it, and will want to read it again in a few months, and then again some time after that. I think some of the themes will resonate in me for a while, and a book that I really liked upon first reading will mean more and more to me as I read it again and again. I finished it this time on a cold and overcast day, tucked into bed with my two kitties and my two quilts. One kitty tucked up against my side where I could dry my tears in the soft fur of his neck, the other kitty curled up on the other side of the bed, just out of reach, with her nose tucked under her paws and one eye open, looking at me. Did you ever wonder what cats think about our reading habits?

Undead and Unemployed

Finished Kite Runners late last night, then went to bed and dreamed that I got really old overnight. I looked at my arms in my dream and they had big huge dry spots, like the shapes dried into a river bed when the sun dries out the mud.

Then I was working the circulation desk today and a woman brought up Kite Runners to check out. I mentioned that I had just finished reading it last night she asked if I had liked it and I didn't know what to say. I couldn't put it down last night, I was completely enthralled once I was committed to finishing it as soon as possible. It was evocative and educational and interesting...but I don't know if I liked it or not. I'll have to think on that some more.

Tonight I'm going to dive into Undead and Unemployed by MaryJanice Davidson. This will the second of the Undead books for me. I read the first one in the middle of the semester (guilty pleasure) and absolutely loved it. If Janet Evonovitch's Stephanie Plum had another sister who became a vampire, she would be the character in Undead and Unemployed. And lo and behold, when I went looking for links to drop into this post, I found out that MJ Davidson is just starting her own blog. Talk about a small world.