A Thousand Splendid Suns

Thoughts   A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, RiverHead Books 2007, 367 pages

MOTIVATION for READING:    I was eager to read this book based on the many fabulous reviews.   I was ready to read it now because I wish for more diverse settings in my reading.    This satisfies another read for ASIA for my Global Challenge.    It is also an excellent selection for the Women Unbound Challenge.

FIRST SENTENCE:   “Mariam was five years old the first time she heard the word harami.”

WHAT’s it ABOUT:   This book is the intersecting stories of two orphan girls a generation apart in Kabul Afghanistan.   Beginning in the 1970s through today and set against the political wars of this country, we meet Mariam and Laila and are immersed in their dreams, their fears, their decisions, and the processes of survival.

I love literature like this set in a country often in the news and usually misunderstood, at least by me.   We are given images on TV of dust and drab, of soldiers armed, and citizens scurrying and we (I) don’t take the time to realize these are people!   People trying to make a life, having few choices, making the best of what is.    (WHY?!   How?   I don’t get why we fight.)     I am sad when I am presented (in print) with lush images of beautiful landscapes that may exist or existed once, that I am surprised that that part of the world could be lovely.    I am sad that the cultural and historical heritage has been so decimated by war.    A Thousand Splendid Suns gives a beautiful representation of lost Afghanistan and what has gone on ‘over there.’    War sucks.    This book may be fiction but literature makes the world come alive more than the news ever seems to.

Hosseini can write.    Easy but powerful prose, instant transportation into the world of the characters, palpable.   The most striking and memorable reminder I took away from this experience is that people are people.    The cruelty that exists in this world is just not understandable!   and we humans somehow can survive horrible conditions with goodness intact.    The human condition is multi-faceted.   The triumph of the human spirit is astonishing.

♦

“In the coming days, Laila would scramble frantically to commit it all to memory, what happened next.   Like an art lover running out of a burning musuem, she would grab whatever she could  - a look, a whisper, a moan – to salvage from perishing, to preserve.  But time is the most unforgiving of fires, and she couldn’t, in the end, save it all.”

“I’m sorry,”  Laila says, marveling at how every Afghan story is marked by death and loss and unimaginable grief.  And yet, she sees, people find a way to survive, to go on.

“And then, from the darkened spirals of her memory, rise two lines of poetry, Babi’s farewell ode to Kabul:

One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,
Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.

- generally accepted translation by Dr. Josephine Davis of a poem by Saeb-e-Tabrizi, a seventeenth-century Persian poet

♦

This is Hosseini‘s second book;  his debut, The Kite Runner, was also critically received.   I look forward to more.

RATING:    Five slices of pie.

OTHER REVIEWS:     So many!!   So I will point to  the search results from Fyrefly’s Book Blog Search Engine.

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Copyright © 2010. Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Online Book Club.  It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Dykes To Watch Out For

Thoughts     Dykes To Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel, Firebrand Books 1986, 78 pages.

MOTIVATION for READING:     I had read so many great reviews of various titles by Alison Bechdel and so was testing my area’s InterLibraryLoan system;  this one popped up.    I reserved it for my GLBT Challenge and my OPEN category in the Twenty in Ten Challenge:  Graphic Novel.     I’m going to say that this book picked me.

Don’t you love books that are SMART FUNNY?   This one is.    And I howled at the 80s references (see the published date of 1986) – so spot on.

I have to admit I was delighted (in hopes of reading 100 books this year and I’m off that mark) at the page count of 77 – I am seriously taking more time to write this review than it did to flip through every panel!      Little humorous vignettes that are obviously about lesbian relationships but have universal themes.     Truly, it is a look at the craziness of relationships, ANY relationships – beginnings, middles, and ends, etc.

One of my favorite things was the smattering of panels for each letter of the alphabet that showcase a type of lesbian.   I love the alphabet!   I love to read books, blog posts, anything that features the alphabet.     And then – surprise!!!    The last pages has “the Amazon’s Bedside Companion:  A Sophisticated Alphabet and Subliminal Picture Quiz” which had me breezing through once again from the beginning!   For example, the Z page featured a Zinnia and I totally missed it.   So clever and fun.

Nymeth recently reviewed one of Bechdel’s latest (as I understand it, an extension/compilation of what she started in the book I’m reviewing here); I must quote her:

“the main appeal of The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For is actually how very universal and how human it is.”

Yes.

RATING:   Four slices of pie.

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Save-the-Date – August 10 – Fingersmith – COBC

I just started reading our next book,  FINGERSMITH by Sarah Waters, for the next COBC Discussion August 10th!     I’m excited that 8/10 is a Tuesday.  Tuesdays are good days for me.

AND, since this sounds like it will be a spoilerFULL discussion, I will set up that post with a SPOILER-free opening page where we can just say the like/dislikes and then we can JUMP over to another page where we can discuss the OMG!!!s.    Sound like a plan?

Have you started reading yet?   You have 15 days…

Thanks to Sheila at Book Journey for these awesome buttons!    

Also, be thinking of suggestions for Sept 10.    That one will be a Friday and I already know it is going to be tough for me to be involved that weekend so it may end up spilling over to the next Monday/Tuesday…   AndButSo, if you have a short book you are needing to read for Sept, pitch it.    I was thinking Wind, Sand and Stars might be a nice one (it will be a re-read for me.)

The Samurai’s Garden

Thoughts   The Samurai’s Garden by Gail Tsukiyama, St. Martin’s Griffin 1994, 211 pages.

FIRST SENTENCE:  ”I wanted to find my own way this morning so I persuaded my father to let me travel alone from his apartment in Kobe to my grandfather’s beach house in Tarumi.”

MOTIVATION for READING:   My friend Holly enthusiastically recommended this and since it is set in Japan, I selected it for the Asia component of my Global Reading Challenge.     And since I gave up on my original choice for Place in the What’s in a Name 3 Challenge, I’m substituting this one.

WHAT’s it ABOUT:   A young Chinese man is sent to the family’s vacation home to recuperate from an illness.   It is the eve of World War II;  Japan is invading China, and our protagonist learns about life and relationships from the wise caretaker of the house.

WHAT’s GOOD/NOT so GOOD:    In quiet beautiful prose, we are taken on a slow journey as we learn along with Stephen about family and friendship, goals and dreams, duty and love.   The descriptions are vivid and create a serene sense of place and time amid the tragedies of war, disease and misunderstandings.     Early on, I was struck by a few sentences that explained more than necessary and a few that lacked but this is very minor compared to how lush the writing was most of the time.

FINAL THOUGHTS:    I enjoyed this slowly unfolding novel (when I told myself to not be impatient for something big to happen.)    It’s richness is not in the action but the careful progression of the relationships.    It’s lovely.   I’m quite surprised I didn’t find more reviews — it seems to be on many lists, though.

RATING:   Three slices of pie.

OTHER REVIEWS:  BookGirl’s Nightstand, ???  Anyone else?

POEM BETWEEN the DEDICATION and the ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

No one spoke,
The host, the guest,
The white chrysanthemums.
ZZZZZZZZZZ- Ryóta

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Copyright © 2010. Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Online Book Club.  It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

Making Rounds with Oscar

Thoughts   Making Rounds with Oscar:  The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat by David Dosa MD, Hyperion 2010, 215 pages.

MOTIVATION for READING:   I volunteer at a nursing home and enjoy reading books about our elders.    (If I could figure out a clever term to call this opposite of YA, I would use it;  EA for Elder Adult?   SA for Senior Adult?)    AND I have a pet named Oscar, albeit a dog.    I blame Nancy the BookFool for telling me about this book:

A clearly-written tale told with a tenderness for dementia patients as well as objectivity and scientific curiosity about a very special feline.

and I thank Esme at Chocolate & Croissants for sending it to me:

Death is a subject that we do not like to discuss. As Dr. Dosa tenderly tells us “Oscar’s gift is a tender mercy. He teaches by example: embracing moments of life that so many of shy away from”.

WHAT’s it ABOUT:    Oscar is one of two cats that lives on the dementia floor in a Rhode Island nursing home.    He seems to have figured out that his special talent is to give comfort to patients in their last hours of life.    The family members and staff begin to recognize and appreciate it when Oscar makes his appearance, surveys the situation and curls up to sleep on the bed, snuggled in at their feet.   At first, Dr. Dosa is skeptical but warms up to this special cat as he shares the many stories and examples of Oscar’s care.

WHAT’s GOOD and NOT so good:    The lovely stories had me crying through every section.   There is a good balance of humor and sadness;  the stories are both heart-breaking and touching.    Dr. Dosa actually does a good job (intentionally or not?) of showing that nursing staffs are typically over-worked and under-appreciated and that doctors can be quite dense.    He does give an excellent description of dementia care and what is involved;  that each case is different and that adequate resources within our medical system continue to be a challenge.    The writing is simple and sometimes Dosa gives personal facts that were unnecessary;  I just wanted more Oscar the Cat.    I did enjoy all the cat quotes at the beginning of each chapter.

Overall, I was charmed by Oscar and the work he is being recognized for.     Four slices of Pie.

For a less than gushy  review, check out Citizen Reader’s.   Be sure to read the comments, too.

And just one more photo of MY Oscar!  The day he graduated from Pet Therapy School:

(This is the only size image I could find!  oh well…)

Here’s another;  with Copley.

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Mid-Year Challenge Update

I decided to count how many books I needed to read in order to finish all my challenges for 2010…    I need 37 books to finish everything!  I’ve only read 40 in the first 6.5 months of this year;  do-able but scary.   Scary because I’m worried that I’ll rebel and not want to read what I ‘have to’ read.

I haven’t finished any challenges yet.   I have one 1 book to go in 3 challenges…

It just occurs to me that 37 is likely a high number because I can duplicate books over challenges.  Whew!  For example, if I read Dykes to Watch Out for by Alison Bechtel, I could count it for the Twenty-in-Ten as my Graphic Novel selection, for Women Unbound AND for the GLBT Challenge!      (How sad –  only one copy of this in the entire InterLibraryLoan system…)

I just finished The Samurai’s Garden by Gail Tsukiyama and am glad to count this for the What’s in a Name 3 Challenge (for Place) and the Global Challenge since it is set in Japan.    I could also count it for the New-To-Me-Author in the Twenty-in-Ten but I don’t think I need to – I should have plenty of new authors by the end of the year.

I have one more to go to finish Women Unbound, the GLBT Challenge, and my Reading Deliberately Personal Challenge.   I have two more books to read to complete the Flashback Challenge per my original list but I could count a re-read that I didn’t schedule so we’ll see what happens by December.   I have three more to go for the What’s in a Name 3 Challenge (titles are scheduled) and the Global Challenge (totally open and unknown at this time!);  four for Read-Book-See-Movie, five more for my own Cusack Challenge – which is the one I find to be the most intimidating.    The Twenty-in-2010 Challenge is a fun one and I love that I have two OPEN slots which means they will be easy to fill at the last minute but I also realize I need to shop at Goodwill or somewhere to fill two slots.   Let’s go shopping!   If you are counting along with this tally, you may think I’m missing some but that’s because I have a few monthly readalongs I have the remaining months of the year to read for my In-Real-Life club (the Bookies!) and for my own COBC.   (Interested in reading Fingersmith with us?!)

Besides the actual reading to-dos, I have been quite the slacker at tracking my page counts and various other categories on my personal spreadsheet so I need to do that, too.   So no Fiction vs NF stats to share, sorry.    Pretty boring post, huh?  :P

Kim the Sophisticated Dork asked me to post a photo of my new iPad, so this is for her:

I have no books downloaded yet because the few titles I’ve searched for are not available (yet?);   I guess I need to download the right ebook app or keep searching more titles.   Both, probably.

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North Dallas Forty

Thoughts   North Dallas Forty by Peter Gent, A Signet Book NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY Times Mirror 1974, 294 pages (given up on page 105.)

I was going to count this book for both the What’s in a Name 3 Challenge* and the Read-the-Book-See-the-Movie Challenge, but I’m throwing it on the DNF** pile.     I have no idea how this paperback came to be in my possession.

This is what the back of the book says:

Eight days in the life of a pro-football player.  Eight days of savagery, pain, drugs, drinking, laughter, raunchy sex, and haunting love between a man and a woman you come to care about deeply.  Eight days that take you into the heart of a man, a team, a sport, a game, and the raw power and violence that is America itself.  The author, Peter Gent, former offensive end for the Dallas Cowboys, has emerged as an astonishing writing talent.

I never read the blurbs when I start a book.    Perhaps I should.    As I typed that quote above, it was the first time I had read it.     And except for the part about caring deeply, it is accurate.   And the laughter;  no chuckles at all from me.   Oh, and I don’t know if I would go so far as to call Gent an astonishing talent.

I made it a third of the way through when I started to wonder if anything was going to happen.   The plot never seemed to take off and suggest it was going anywhere at all.    We just followed poor Phil Elliot around Dallas from his professional football practice sessions to his affair with a woman engaged to one of the owner’s of the team to more parties where he drank a lot and smoked a bunch of pot.  Lots of pain, lots of drugs, not much else.

I must have missed that ‘conflict’;  the one required for a story to be a story so I could care about it getting resolved one way or the other.

I was reading in the best conditions, too – no demands on my time (on vacation), sitting by the pool, enjoying a cool and refreshing beverage.   Then I realized ‘This guy is an asshole.”    I doubt I’ll ever watch the movie.

ONE to NONE slices of pie.   “I didn’t like it.“

*  Looking through the books stacked around the house, I have these to offer for a PLACE replacement for the What’s in a Name 3 Challenge:    Daphne DuMaurier’s Jamaica Inn, Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates, Cape Cod by William Martin, Hard City by Clark Howard, Laura Moriarty’s The Center of Everything.   But then I realized that the title of the book I’m currently getting into, The Samurai’s Garden, is a PLACE and will slide into the spot beautifully. Up in the Air might work, too.   It’s a place, right?

** DNF = Did Not Finish

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Good Dog. Stay.

Thoughts   Good Dog.  Stay. by Anna Quindlen, Random House 2007, 82 pages and lots of awesome photos of dogs.

MOTIVATION for Reading:    Every July 4th since moving to New England, we have had the pleasure and privilege of attending the family get-together of my mom’s older sister.    The gals in this clan are all readers and we have a tradition of swapping, sharing, and chatting about books.   This year, my cousin handed me this one and said I would love it.    I did not doubt that I would.     What I was afraid of was that I would have my heart wrenched and my face drenched with tears.   I did.

WHAT’s it ABOUT:   Ms. Quindlen describes the impact of sharing your life with a dog by focusing on one dear Labrador and how he came to be a part of her family.  The word count is low but the emotional content is high.    I wouldn’t call Quindlen a sentimental writer but she knows how to be effective and smart.     The book contains many beautiful black and white portraits of a variety of dog breeds and they all capture your heart – if you’re a dog lover, I might presume.

In a world that seems so uncertain, in lives that seem sometimes to ricochet from challenge to upheaval and back again, a dog can be counted on in a way that’s true of little else.

Anna Quindlen won the Pulitzer Prize for her column in the New  York Times and is now focusing on writing fiction and nonfiction, plus a regular contribution in Newsweek. She is a terrific writer.

RATING:   Four slices of pie.

This is my Oscar.   He is 5 years old.

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Copyright © 2010. Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Online Book Club.  It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

COBC’s August Book Selection Scheduled 8/10/10

Just realized that I still don’t have a button….

Allow me to introduce the selection for the August Discussion of Care’s Online Book Club.   (You did figure out that COBC is the acronym for Care’s Online Book Club, right?    good.)

FINGERSMITH by Sarah Waters!!!

Blurb on my copy, quote from Entertainment Weekly:

A deftly plotted thriller with two equally compelling heroines, orphans Sue Trinder and  Maud Lilly.  Manipulated by someone she knows only as Gentleman, Sue is sent to a country estate to work as Maud’s maid and help him woo the simple heiress.  The plot twists = then again and again – until one girl is in a terrifying insane asylum and another and another held captive.  An absorbing and elegant story that’s old fashioned in the best way.

How about I share the link in Wikipedia to the novel (there’s also a BBC television series?  oo la la!) and what I found in imdb.com for “Fingersmith” which is also about the TV series, I guess…    Anyone seen it?

I want to read this because of the author mostly – I probably thought I would start with Tipping the Velvet but this one fell into my house one day – can’t quite recall how.    Fingersmith does seem to pop up often on the best-of lists around the blogosphere.

I do think we need to change up the format until we get something that…   feels right.   The best ReadAlong that I’ve participated in set a date and then everyone who participated blogged on or after (some before, I guess – that’s fine, too) said scheduled date and the Leader would post the various links to everyone’s posts.  Then everyone and then some commented at the Leader’s post and everywhere else.     Any suggestions?     Or we can keep trying what I’ve attempted so far which is a list of questions from yours truly on the 10th of the month and participants may comment answers or whatever strikes the fancy.  Ever flexible, I take suggestions.

Tell me now, have you read Fingersmith?   ☆  Loved it?   yes or no.    ☆   I am guessing the genre is Victorian Thriller.   Is this a genre  you adore?     ☆     If you haven’t read it, is it already on your tbr?   ☆    If the answer is YES to that last question, why do you want to read it?  ☆   Are you going to join me? If you need help being convinced, does knowing it was a finalist for the Orange Prize assist you in deciding?

If you’ve already read Fingersmith, you can leave a link here and/or come back on August 10.   Thank you all.

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American Gods

Thoughts   American Gods by Neil Gaiman, HarperTorch 2002/orig pub’d 2001, 588 pages.

MOTIVATION for READING:    Maree suggested on Twitter that we have a July read-along for this book.   I’ve been meaning to read some of Gaiman’s adult fiction since I discovered that he is one of the true “author-rock-stars” – I had no idea such a concept existed (John Green is another;  perhaps Jane Austen is in that category, too?)    Challenge:  Personal Year of Reading Deliberately.   Disclosure:   I purchased this paperback from the closest big box bookstore, Borders.

WHAT’s it ABOUT:     A man just getting out of prison finds that the world he hopes to return to has been altered by tragedy.   He quickly and unavoidably meets some extremely interesting characters and ends up getting involved with their troubles since he has nothing else to do.

WHAT’s GOOD/NOT so good:    I was reading this during my 4th of July Holiday trip and when my cousin asked if it was good, I answered, “It’s so gripping!”    She took the book to read the blurbs and sure enough – the  USA Today quote on the cover says, “Powerful and gripping.”   I concur.

I found Shadow, the protagonist, charming and rooted for him from the very beginning to the climatic end.    His wife, however, I never trusted, which is OK.  Actually, this only added to my respect for Gaiman and his story-telling character-developing skills.   And yes, I guessed a few plot points and chuckled at a few contrived coincidences;  I thought it all worked beautifully.   VERY entertaining morality tale.

QUOTES:

“Fiction allows us to slide into these other heads, these other places, and look out through their eyes.  And then in the tale we stop before we die, or we die vicariously and unharmed, and in the world beyond the tale we turn the page or close the book, and we resume our lives.” p.323

RATING:   Four pie slices and an extra big bite.

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Copyright © 2010. Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Online Book Club.  It should not be reproduced without express written permission.