Long May She Reign

A while back in the midst of Harry Potter frenzy, Anstrat had a post about what other books are you anticipating and this was my selection. The first book in this series, The President's Daughter, was an earlier pick of mine, as it and its two sequels were among my friend Krista's favorite books in junior high and high school. Now, nearly twenty years after the last sequel, Meg Powers, daughter of the first woman president is back. The story picks up soon after the end of Long Live the Queen with Meg and her family still dealing with the immediate aftermath of Meg's kidnapping and injuries. Eventually Meg realizes she needs to be more independent and goes away to college at Williams. This book, like LLTQ, isn't easy to read-- Ellen Emerson White is almost too good at depicting Meg's mental and physical anguish. But for long time fans of the series, there is a lot to find satisfying, specifically Meg's deeper, more adult conversation with her parents, Trudy, the family's former housekeeper, and Preston, a white house staffer who is also one of the first family's closest friends. White brings in a character from some of her other novels which I found distracting, especially in the face of the updated time period for this book compared to the first three. While I enjoyed the book, I'm not sure how someone who hadn't read the prequels would react and I may have had unrealistically high expectations.

Family Shoes

Noel Streatfield wrote lots of kids books, mostly with kids who had some sort of occupation, i.e. Ballet Shoes. This book is the story of a more ordinary family, the Bells- a family of four kids who's father is a minister. Along with the sequel, New Shoes, it was one of my favorite books growing up because of the relationship the family has with their grandparents and other extended family. Usually families in kids books are either cruel and heartless or wonderful every moment of the day. Here there is true tension in the family (grandfather disapproves of the father's decision to become a minister and to consequently have much less money than the rest of the family. Nobody is a bad guy, but everyone is constantly frustrated by each other. The book is very funny, as the younger daughter is constantly scheming to get things to go her way and the younger son is a dreamer and always saying something outrageous.

The Shop On Blossom Street

I read this book for my book club at the public library and while I wasn't expecting it to be a deep, introspective piece of fiction, I was still disappointed. I had read a romance or two by this author and they were fine, nothing special --but they were ok. This book? Bad. It's one of those "women's" novels, where an unlikely group of women (each with a specific problem, such as infertility, a rough childhood, or being incredibly snotty) bonds in a unique setting (such as a book club or this case, a knitting class) and they grow to like and respect each other and ultimately help each other solve their problem (and much faster than usual, to quote Homer Simpson). Bleah. One of the ladies in my book club commented that if the book were music, it would be Lawrence Welk and she's quite right. The book is bland (her troubled childhood character was arrested for marijuana possession but the author makes it abundantly clear IT WAS HER ROOMMATE'S because otherwise she'd just be too horrible for readers to care about) unrealistic, (incredibly snotty is mean to her daughter-in-law for most of the book, but the daughter-in-law just keeps acting like Mrs. Snotty is her best friend) and totally simplistic (all problems solved by the end of the book (ooh spoiler alert) Yes!). And great news, there is a sequel!! yay!.

An Assembly Such as This

This is the first in a series of three books that retell the story of Pride and Prejudice from the perspective of Mr. Darcy. I had just about sworn-off Jane Austen sequels and spin-offs, having read some terrible ones, but I decided to give this a try based on the positive reviews on Amazon. It's actually kind of entertaining, although I've always had my own interpretation of Mr. Darcy that differs from this author, namely that shyness causes some of Mr. Darcy's seeming rudeness early in the book. The A&E/BBC mini-series (the Colin Firth version) seems to have a heavy influence here too, though I am going to have to re-read P&P to double check some lines. Interestingly, when read from Elizabeth Bennett's perspective in the original, you put yourself entirely in her shoes, so when reading this version, I found myself getting a little jealous of Darcy's high opinion of her- he is supposed to be mine!! There are some subplots that are added which aren't really working for me, but I enjoyed the book as a whole and plan to read the next two books.

A Girl Named Zippy

This memoir of growing up poor in small town Indiana in the 60's and 70's is by turns hilarous and heartbreaking. Zippy has terrible health problems and doesn't speak until she is three, and so is a bit of a miracle child. Her parents and older brother and sister love her dearly, but her world is also filled with mean teachers, dangerous situations and a crazy lady across the street. It's told with a child's perspective and is a very quick read. Zippy's story continues in She Got Up Off the Couch.

The Road from Coorain

This is one of the books that touched off the memoir craze. Jill Ker Conway grew up on a isolated sheep station in the Australian outback during the 1950's, eventually growing up become the president of Smith college and later MIT. Her family life was less than ideal, in part because as a brilliant and intellectual girl, her family and particularly her mother, had no idea of how handle her. Conway is deeply isolated both on the Coorain, and later in Sydney where she eventually attends school. Beautifully written and a nice corrective to too much 1950's nostalgia. There are two sequels, True North, and A Woman's Education.

Homecoming

This should have been up last night, oops! Homecoming by Cynthia Voight is the story of the four Tillerman children, Maybeth, the pretty, quiet, almost other-worldly youngest, Sammy, solid and stubborn, James, smart but with a chip on his shoulder, and Dicey, the oldest, who is charged with looking out for her siblings when their mentally ill mother abandons them in a mall parking lot. Somehow she keeps them safe and together as they travel by themselves with few resources to their great aunt's house and then their grandmother's. The sequel, Dicey's Song, about Dicey's adjustment to her new, more stable life, won the Newberry, and there are several other books about the Tillerman's and their friends.

Swann's Way

Larry McMurtry's book of essays Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen talks a lot about Proust. McMurtry discusses his open heart surgery and how he felt like a different person afterward including feeling differently about reading (shudder), saying that right before this cognitive dissonance started he reread Proust and he was glad to have this last hurrah. In the past this novel, made up of seven volumes was known as Remembrance of Things Past, but the powers that be have decided In Search of Lost Time is a better translation. Swann's Way is the first volume, made up of two parts : Combrey, the story of the narrator's childhood and Swann in Love, the story of Swann's (a friend of the narrator's family) for Odette, a totally inappropriate woman. Combrey is amazing for Proust's ability to describe how the mind works in ways I could never articulate (the way your mind drifts before you fall asleep, or sense memory-the famous madeleine (a cookie from his childhood) , which makes you experience the past again, not just remember. Swann in Love is great for Proust's observations of love, especially unrequited love. I haven't finish Proust, I'm still bogged down in volume four, seven years after I started. But he's amazing. Once I finish I know I'm going to have to start over.

Time and Again

Time and Again by Jack Finney is a bit of a time travel classic, althought I had never heard of it before I picked it up at a library book sale. The government has funded an experiment in time travel ("the project" )and Si Morley has been recruited to participate. Through a method that is one of the more interesting parts of the book, Si travels back to the New York City of 1882 and falls in love with young woman of that time. He begins to question the morality and wisdom behind this meddling with the past and ultimately takes action to address "the project". There is also a sequel, From Time to Time. The book is not a fast paced thriller, but instead is a more deliberate meditation on what time travel and the differences between the 1880's and the 1970's mean.

The Chosen

I first read this book for high school English class, so this pick comes to us courtesy of Ms. Ryan,or possibly the school district. Chaim Potok's the Chosen tells the story of two 15 year old Jewish boys, Danny the son of Hassidic Rabbi and Reuven, an Orthodox Jew, who's father has a growing interest in Zionism. The boys meet in a fluke accident and become friends against the backdrop of World War II and its aftermath. Their relationship with their fathers and each other highlight the ushering in of a new era, both in their lives and in the Jewish faith. Even being "forced" to read it, most of our class ended up loving this beautifully written book, which is a high compliment indeed from a bunch of crabby teenagers. There is also a sequel, The Promise.

The President's Daughter

Today's post is in honor of Crowinator, of Trapped Inside my Huge Chattering Head fame. We read this book over and over again along with the sequels (White House Autumn and Long Live the Queen). Meg is a typical 16 year old girl. She lives in Boston, her dad is a lawyer, her mom is a senator and she has two younger brothers, Steven and Neal. Then her mother runs for president and wins and her life goes crazy. She has to deal with moving, boys asking her out just because of who her mother is and dealing with pressures to be the perfect political kid. The characters in these books are really witty and sarcastic, especially her best friend Beth and her mother's press secretary Preston. Some of the references are a little dated as these are from the 80's, but who cares, we love 'em!. I just found out while working on this post that a fourth sequel, Long May She Reign is scheduled to come out in October 2007. So stay tuned.

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing

Since Angstrat's post yesterday was a NYC tribute, I went with a book that opened my eyes to New York. Nine year old Peter Hatcher has his hands full. Not only is he dealing with normal fourth grade stuff, like friends, schoolwork, his pet turtle and a girl he's constantly bickering with, but his three year old brother Farley Dexter Hatcher, nicknamed Fudge is a holy terror getting into trouble all over New York City. Not only is this a funny story of sibling rivalry, the parents are hilarlous too. The chapter where the mom gets rid of one the kids' friends who is always inviting himself over for dinner by cooking every food he hates is hilarious (and kind of a forerunner to the mom's cooking inThe Corrections, if you think about it). As a kid in suburban Chicago, I was surprised to learn that grown-ups with kids lived in apartments, even ones that seemed rich. And they were always eating stuff like egg creams, that I'd never heard of. This book has several sequels, but I haven't read the more recent ones.

Standing at the Scratch Line

Standing at the Scratch Line by Guy Johnson was recommended to me by a former co-worker. It's the saga of LeRoi "King" Tremain and it's a helluva page turner. The book opens in the Louisiana Bayou, where the teenage LeRoi is pushed out of his home and ends up in the army serving in World War I. From the second he joins the army, I couldn't put it down. The book covers approximately 30 years in his life, during which he experiences bootlegging, the Harlem Renaissance, extreme Southern racism, extreme Northern racism,and about a million family secrets. He is an angry man, and the book always takes his side, even when I am not sure he's right. But who cares? He's fascinating. If anybody out there has read this, PLEASE post in the comments, I am dying to compare and contrast his actions with his wife's. This book also really opened my eyes to a lot of racial issues that I had never fully considered before (such as the disrespect of calling a man by his first name rather than Mr. So and so). There is a sequel, which I think was actually written first and side note, this author is Maya Angelou's son.

Bloodsucking Fiends

My husband is now on a full fledged Christopher Moore spree. This is the story of Jody, a San Franciso woman who is attacked on the way home from work one night, only to wake up in a dumpster a vampire, with $100,000 in cash stuffed in her blouse (her sire's idea of a parting gift). Eventually she figures out WHY she has super human strength and senses and a burn on her hand, and she realizes she can't survive in the human worl without assistance. She meets up with Tommy (who my husband describes as her minion), a 19 year old recent transplant from Indiana, who she starts a relationship with to help her survive the restrictions of being a vampire. Tommy, for his part, knows she's a vampire and he's ok with that. The book is incredibly funny and the characters are really engrossing. There is a also a sequel, You Suck.

Cherry Ames, Student Nurse

Before ER, before Grey's Anatomy, there was Cherry Ames. Cherry Ames, Student Nurse by Helen Wells was written and set during World War Two, at least in part to get girls to go into nursing. That didn't work on me but the first four books in this series,(the others being Cherry Ames, Senior Nurse; Cherry Ames, Army Nurse; and Cherry Ames, Chief Nurse are a lot of fun and now are a view back in time. Cherry starts off book one, fresh out of high school and heading for nursing school at Spencer Hospital. Her nursing program is three years and is considered a top nursing education, the way an Master's in Nursing might be today. Cherry is serious about nursing as a career, as are all her classmates. The war is felt from the very beginning, Cherry's twin brother, Charlie is an Army pilot and the Ames' family neighbor, Dr. Fortune (who inspired Cherry to go into Nursing) is working on a top secret wonder drug(pencillan). This series is a cousin of Nancy Drew, so Cherry solves a mystery in each book, but these first four are more focused on Cherry becoming a nurse, her friends, her love life (the crushworthy Dr. Lex Upham is introduced in book two) and the war. As the series goes on, the war ends, and the books become more straightforward mysteries (and not as good). There is an exhaustive Cherry Ames web page, with lists of all the books and characters here. The books are fluffy fun and example of the rare "career" books for girls.

On a Pale Horse

I first read this book, On A Pale Horse by Piers Anthony, when I was in high school at the recommendation of my friend Beth, who LOVED Piers Anthony and my high school boyfriend, Jacob, who said this series was the only good stuff by Piers Anthony. I don't think these are the only good books he's written, but they are the best, and this one is the best of the best, by far. The premise is --what if Death were a job? The book opens a magically enhanced version of our world, with Zane alone and in despair, trying to kill himself. However as he sees a corporal version of death approach him (think hood, skull, scythe) he panics and turns the gun on him, killing Death instead of himself. By doing this he assumes the office of death. Zane tries to fight this, refusing to reap souls, but eventally embraces his role (sort of), sorting through the souls of those who fall somewhere in the middle of good and bad. His pale horse, Mortis, changes from a steed to a car at the flip of a button and he has a computerized system to help him in his work. There is an entire series, called the Incarnations of Immortality, which include time, nature, fate, war, and good and evil.

The Cape Ann

This recommendation, The Cape Ann by Faith Sullivan, comes to us from my entire book club. I think this may be the only book that we have all 1) finished and 2) completely loved. Told from the point of view of Lark, a little girl growing up in the Depression, the book centers around her parents troubled marriage. Lark and her mother dream of building a home of their own, pouring over blueprints for their dream home, a Cape Ann. Her father seems satisfied with their current living arrangements, a sectioned off room in the train depot where he works. The story unfolds to include her mother's family, in particular her aunt, who's tumultuous life plays a huge role in the second half of the novel. There is a sequel, Gardenias, which I haven't read, but plan to soon. (Warning: the description of Gardenias has mild spoilers for the Cape Ann)

Master and Commander

My husband LOVES this book. In fact he loves the whole series. Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brien is the first in a series of twenty novels (and a twenty-first unfinished novel) about sea captain Jack Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin. The books are set in the Nepoleonic Era and follow the career of Aubrey as he rises through the ranks in the British navy. The books are full of details about history and boats, have lots of action, and depict a great friendship between Aubrey and Maturin, who serves as ship's doctor and Aubrey's closest advisor. If you have seen the movie, don't be suprised that the book is different, as it actually based on one of the later books in the series. Also check out Salon's Table Talk, there are many mentions of Stephen Maturin in the characters we love thread.

The Sparrow

Today's book is a recommendation of a co-worker at my previous job: The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. He and his wife are both crazy about this book- she says its her favorite book ever. Although they assured me it isn't science fiction, I have to say it does have science fiction elements, but there is also more, as the novel is an exploration of cultural misunderstanding. The book is the story of a mission to Rakhat, the home of the first discovered extra-terrestrials. The mission was funded by a Jesuit group and half of the members are Jesuits themselves. From the first pages, the reader learns that things went disastrously wrong and the details of the story slowly unfold as the only survivor, Father Emilio Sandoz, gradually reveals what happened on Rakhat. This book also has a sequel, Children of God.