End of December Reads
The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens
I never thought there would be the day when I could say I didn’t like something by Dickens. But I am so bored by this book! I’m reading this in the form of an eBook. I’ve only read two other books by Dickens: The Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations. Both of these were serious, soberly written, and wonderful. The Old Curiosity Shop, by contrast, is written in quite a light-natured way. It shows the silly side of Dickens, despite the fact that the plot is grim enough. Despite this, the reading is somewhat tedious. If he wasn’t already dead, I’d write to Dickens and tell him to give it up and stick to what he does best….drama!
Young Nell (a saccharin young do-gooder) lives with her grandfather. Everyone believes him to be a very wealthy man, including his grandson (Nell’s older brother). But, he has apparently gambled it all way. Near the early middle of the book, Nell and the grandfather sneak out of their home to try to avoid the debtors. The grandfather thinks that Nell doesn’t know what is going on, but she quickly figures it out when the old man gambles away their little bit of cash and then sneaks into her room after dark to steal from her.
It appears to be a book about avarice. The grandson, believing his grandfather to be rich, is angry when the old man cuts him off. Whether the grandfather cuts him off because the money was already gone or because he recognized his grandson’s grasping greed, I’m not sure. A dwarf, violent and nasty, appears to have lent money to the grandfather, and gleefully takes over the house and all of the property.
Now that Nell and the grandfather have left town, the grandson and the dwarf are both trying to find them. Both have made partnerships with unsavory characters in attempts to land the old man’s wealth for themselves. The rest of the book is a trip back and forth between the schemings of evil doers, and Nell and her grandfather who seem to always come upon loving people. A tedious, read.
The Storytellers Companion to the Bible – Jesus’ Parables
Fascinating. I’m not all that interested in the new stories, frankly. But, the scholarly discourses on the little bits of readings is very information and interesting. For example….when Baby Jesus was born, and is surrounded by shepherds guarding their flocks….who knew that to the original audience of the Bible this was a symbol of danger??? Today we see shepherds as pastoral, gentle, protective, benign, etc. However, being out in the country was to be unprotected from brigands, and shepherds were themselves known to be violent persons at this time. I’m really enjoying this book.
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
A book on tape that mom gave me. Excellent! Placed in turbulent Afghanistan , two women, with very different backgrounds, both find themselves married to the same creepy man. At first, they are enemies (how fascinating that they, both powerless in their situation, would fight each other instead of the real enemy), and then they eventually become friends and co-protectors. This story shows how powerless the Afghanistan woman is against male brutality. The story ends with the ultimate sacrifice.
Runaway by Terry Kay
Kay is a white man raised in the south, and he experienced first hand the change the south experienced following WWII. Not that prejudice and hatred were not still rift. But he said many awakened to the fact that freedom and dignity were important things worth fighting for and should belong to every human. His story is his attempt to capture that subtle but powerful conversion in southern thinking.
The story starts with two boys born on the same day: Tom, a white boy, and Son Jesus, a black boy. On the day of their birth, the feared and respected Conjure Woman appears to announce that these boys would begin “the change.” We follow the story of these boys, best of friends, when they discover a human leg bone while on one of their adventures. The bone turns out to belong to Son Jesus’ father, one of several colored murders that had occurred several years prior, but never been solved. Enter the Frank, the sheriff and WWII hero. Frank investigates the murders unrelentingly, facing the derision of white men who ask him why the death of a few black men should matter. But, Frank has been changed by the war, and the prejudices he sees (seemingly worse among those who had never gone to fight) make him angry and ill. We meet several other white people who also are battling the long engrained prejudice they meet every day (such as Tom’s family). We also see many black men and women who, despite their fear and a long history of terror, are no longer willing to accept the status quo. The veneer of white superiority is cracking.
This book is wonderful on many levels. The delight of watching childhood’s friendship, a murder mystery, and a peek at the splintering of a long-standing and evil institution.
The Wild Irish by Robin Maxwell
The story of Grace O’Malley, the famous Irish woman pirate.
The Floating Life: The Adventures of Li Po by Simon Elegant
Li Po was a famous poet in China . In this novel, he is telling the story of his life, after he had already been banished from the city. He is arrogant, impetuous, and a drunk. But the story is told in an interesting manner.
The Professor’s Daughter by Emmanuel Guibert
What a hoot. This is a graphic novel, and I admit that it WAS kinda fun to read. The design work was a simple watercolor style, but very well done. The story was cute. The 1800’s daughter of an archeology professor falls in love with a mummy. No common mummy, mind you, this is Prince Ihotep….walking around and communicating. They fall in love with each other, knowing it is doomed. Enter another mummy, Prince Ihotep’s father, who is rather a brute and tends to botch up the works. It was fun to see that the Prince and his father had a long history (several centuries, in fact) of disagreeing. I got a few chuckles out of this little book. A very quick read.
MirrorMask by Neil Gaiman
Another graphic novel, but this one I didn’t like. It was a dream story, and as such, made no sense. I didn’t enjoy reading one nonsensical thing after another. What I DID enjoy was how the book was laid out. It looked like the “found item” art books that were so popular a few years ago. The text followed unusual patterns, the pictures and sketches scattered about in an artistic way. Visually, I found this book appealing. I might have enjoyed it had the story been worthwhile.
Cairo by G Willow Wilson
Now this graphic novel I really enjoyed. A combination of current day history, Egyptian mythology, and spiritualism. The characters are surprisingly well defined, and each one very individualistic. There was a surprising amount of really good humor. Also, the artwork was fabulous. I enjoyed this one a lot.
Here if You Need Me by Kate Baestrup
It’s about this woman, Kate, who was raised by agnostics (people who don’t know if there is a God or not), but married a man who was very faithful. He was a police officer, and studying to become a clergy for the police department. Anyway, he is killed in an accident, leaving her a widow with four children. For some reason, she felt compelled to study herself, and is now a clergy for the Forest Rangers. I didn’t even know they had a clergy. It’s a part-time job, called out only in search and rescue cases. But, her experiences and personal growth are also interesting to read.
Once chapter in particular struck me. You know how many faiths teach that suicide is the one unforgiveable sin. She had a take on this theory that I found remarkably insightful. She is called out to assist on the search for the body of a suicidal woman. They find the woman, but she is already dead. She took a lot of amphetamines, then crept off into the woods to die. When her body is found, they contact the brother. Kate speaks to the brother, who tells her that this sister had been getting therapy and was on medication, but nothing could help her out of her depression (poor thing. I’m so glad that meds work for us). Anyway, he said that she had really suffered. But, HE was struggling because his personal church told him that she couldn’t receive a Christian burial and that she was doomed to hell because of her suicide, and he asks Kate about this. I loved what she wrote. She said, as she listened to him, she felt such an anger at the church. She told him that she didn’t personally know the pastor he had spoken with, didn’t know what that man knew or didn’t know. But, she told him, this was what she knew. The park rangers were willing to go out in a snow storm and search all day for several days for this woman. They left their families, and were willing to spend hours and days in discomfort (sub zero weather), risking their own health and lives to find her. She was that important to THEM. She said, surely these men couldn’t love this woman more than God himself did….and if they were willing to go so far for the sake of a woman they suspected had killed herself, how much more could God love her and want her back?
I thought that was really beautiful and well said.
She also had another little discussion that I found interesting. She said that she was a Christian Universalist (I don’t really know what that is), so as such, her church didn’t spend a lot of time talking about Jesus and the afterlife. However, she studied a lot about it in seminary. She said that she noticed that Jesus didn’t spend a lot of time describing heaven. Only things like heaven having many rooms, and heaving being like yeast mixed with flour. She found that amazingly vague. Her opinion, in reading Jesus teachings to love others and to give everything you had, was that Jesus was teaching us how to LIVE, not how to die. She thinks that when we die, we die. She thinks that God’s ruling is for how we live, and that when we love people and are loved by others, we are in heaven no matter where we are. If we do not feel love, we are in hell, not matter where we are. I don’t know if I believe this, but it is an interesting and viable opinion.
Aesop’s Fables
OK, so what is the big deal? Why is this considered great literature? Boring.
Empress Orchid by Anchee Min
The tale of a poor, young Chinese girl who becomes the favorite concubine of Emperor Hsien Feng (Ch’ing Dynasty), which is the during the last days of its imperial glory. She is “married” to the Emperor, but then doesn’t see him for almost a year. It was interesting to learn that, despite the fact that it is the concubine’s duty to provide the Emperor with many male heirs, getting visited by the Emperor is not a given. The story tells how the concubines must suck up to and bribe the Chief Eunuch in order to get time with the Emperor. Interesting how little control the Emperor has over his own life, really just a slave to the power and intrigues of his court officials. Also, the concubines compete with and hate each other. Perhaps worse than being ignored by the Emperor (which seems to be Orchid’s fate in the beginning) is the danger of becoming a favorite. A concubine accused of selfishly keeping the Emperor’s attention all to herself (because then how can he spread his seed and have many sons?) is in danger. In the early chapters, the new concubines are showed the Emperor’s old favorite, her arms and legs removed and kept a live in a glass jar to serve as an example to the new concubines.
The kingdom is failing, and the Emperor is under great stress…and thus, is often unable to sleep and is often impotent. Orchid’s rise to favoritism is through her intelligence and willingness to help him with his daily tasks (acts that are forbidden to her).
300 by Frank Miller
I was itching to read this graphic novel since I loved the movie so much. I loved it!
9-11 Emergency Relief by Alternate Comics
A whole bunch of comics artists created their takes/responses on the 9-11 disaster. It was kind of interesting to see all the different design styles.
Ghost World by Daniel Clowes
Another graphic novel. This is about to bitchy girlfriends who spend their time mocking and insulting others. They think they are cool, but really they are bored, aimless, and being left behind. They are always shocked when they see how the lives of school mates have changed. Their friendship is tested when one takes an exam to go to college, which means the two would be separated. In fact, they become separated for other reasons. You are left hoping that they both will change for the better.
Gob’s Grief by Chris Adrian
This is a strange story about a man, Gob, who builds a machine in an attempt to defeat death. His twin brother, Tom, dies in the Civil War, and Gob is forever haunted by the loss, and sets out to bring back every soldier that died in the war. Characters, such as Walt Whitman and Abraham Lincoln, visit the pages, and many viewpoints of death are shared.
I never thought there would be the day when I could say I didn’t like something by Dickens. But I am so bored by this book! I’m reading this in the form of an eBook. I’ve only read two other books by Dickens: The Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations. Both of these were serious, soberly written, and wonderful. The Old Curiosity Shop, by contrast, is written in quite a light-natured way. It shows the silly side of Dickens, despite the fact that the plot is grim enough. Despite this, the reading is somewhat tedious. If he wasn’t already dead, I’d write to Dickens and tell him to give it up and stick to what he does best….drama!
Young Nell (a saccharin young do-gooder) lives with her grandfather. Everyone believes him to be a very wealthy man, including his grandson (Nell’s older brother). But, he has apparently gambled it all way. Near the early middle of the book, Nell and the grandfather sneak out of their home to try to avoid the debtors. The grandfather thinks that Nell doesn’t know what is going on, but she quickly figures it out when the old man gambles away their little bit of cash and then sneaks into her room after dark to steal from her.
It appears to be a book about avarice. The grandson, believing his grandfather to be rich, is angry when the old man cuts him off. Whether the grandfather cuts him off because the money was already gone or because he recognized his grandson’s grasping greed, I’m not sure. A dwarf, violent and nasty, appears to have lent money to the grandfather, and gleefully takes over the house and all of the property.
Now that Nell and the grandfather have left town, the grandson and the dwarf are both trying to find them. Both have made partnerships with unsavory characters in attempts to land the old man’s wealth for themselves. The rest of the book is a trip back and forth between the schemings of evil doers, and Nell and her grandfather who seem to always come upon loving people. A tedious, read.
The Storytellers Companion to the Bible – Jesus’ Parables
Fascinating. I’m not all that interested in the new stories, frankly. But, the scholarly discourses on the little bits of readings is very information and interesting. For example….when Baby Jesus was born, and is surrounded by shepherds guarding their flocks….who knew that to the original audience of the Bible this was a symbol of danger??? Today we see shepherds as pastoral, gentle, protective, benign, etc. However, being out in the country was to be unprotected from brigands, and shepherds were themselves known to be violent persons at this time. I’m really enjoying this book.
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
A book on tape that mom gave me. Excellent! Placed in turbulent Afghanistan , two women, with very different backgrounds, both find themselves married to the same creepy man. At first, they are enemies (how fascinating that they, both powerless in their situation, would fight each other instead of the real enemy), and then they eventually become friends and co-protectors. This story shows how powerless the Afghanistan woman is against male brutality. The story ends with the ultimate sacrifice.
Runaway by Terry Kay
Kay is a white man raised in the south, and he experienced first hand the change the south experienced following WWII. Not that prejudice and hatred were not still rift. But he said many awakened to the fact that freedom and dignity were important things worth fighting for and should belong to every human. His story is his attempt to capture that subtle but powerful conversion in southern thinking.
The story starts with two boys born on the same day: Tom, a white boy, and Son Jesus, a black boy. On the day of their birth, the feared and respected Conjure Woman appears to announce that these boys would begin “the change.” We follow the story of these boys, best of friends, when they discover a human leg bone while on one of their adventures. The bone turns out to belong to Son Jesus’ father, one of several colored murders that had occurred several years prior, but never been solved. Enter the Frank, the sheriff and WWII hero. Frank investigates the murders unrelentingly, facing the derision of white men who ask him why the death of a few black men should matter. But, Frank has been changed by the war, and the prejudices he sees (seemingly worse among those who had never gone to fight) make him angry and ill. We meet several other white people who also are battling the long engrained prejudice they meet every day (such as Tom’s family). We also see many black men and women who, despite their fear and a long history of terror, are no longer willing to accept the status quo. The veneer of white superiority is cracking.
This book is wonderful on many levels. The delight of watching childhood’s friendship, a murder mystery, and a peek at the splintering of a long-standing and evil institution.
The Wild Irish by Robin Maxwell
The story of Grace O’Malley, the famous Irish woman pirate.
The Floating Life: The Adventures of Li Po by Simon Elegant
Li Po was a famous poet in China . In this novel, he is telling the story of his life, after he had already been banished from the city. He is arrogant, impetuous, and a drunk. But the story is told in an interesting manner.
The Professor’s Daughter by Emmanuel Guibert
What a hoot. This is a graphic novel, and I admit that it WAS kinda fun to read. The design work was a simple watercolor style, but very well done. The story was cute. The 1800’s daughter of an archeology professor falls in love with a mummy. No common mummy, mind you, this is Prince Ihotep….walking around and communicating. They fall in love with each other, knowing it is doomed. Enter another mummy, Prince Ihotep’s father, who is rather a brute and tends to botch up the works. It was fun to see that the Prince and his father had a long history (several centuries, in fact) of disagreeing. I got a few chuckles out of this little book. A very quick read.
MirrorMask by Neil Gaiman
Another graphic novel, but this one I didn’t like. It was a dream story, and as such, made no sense. I didn’t enjoy reading one nonsensical thing after another. What I DID enjoy was how the book was laid out. It looked like the “found item” art books that were so popular a few years ago. The text followed unusual patterns, the pictures and sketches scattered about in an artistic way. Visually, I found this book appealing. I might have enjoyed it had the story been worthwhile.
Cairo by G Willow Wilson
Now this graphic novel I really enjoyed. A combination of current day history, Egyptian mythology, and spiritualism. The characters are surprisingly well defined, and each one very individualistic. There was a surprising amount of really good humor. Also, the artwork was fabulous. I enjoyed this one a lot.
Here if You Need Me by Kate Baestrup
It’s about this woman, Kate, who was raised by agnostics (people who don’t know if there is a God or not), but married a man who was very faithful. He was a police officer, and studying to become a clergy for the police department. Anyway, he is killed in an accident, leaving her a widow with four children. For some reason, she felt compelled to study herself, and is now a clergy for the Forest Rangers. I didn’t even know they had a clergy. It’s a part-time job, called out only in search and rescue cases. But, her experiences and personal growth are also interesting to read.
Once chapter in particular struck me. You know how many faiths teach that suicide is the one unforgiveable sin. She had a take on this theory that I found remarkably insightful. She is called out to assist on the search for the body of a suicidal woman. They find the woman, but she is already dead. She took a lot of amphetamines, then crept off into the woods to die. When her body is found, they contact the brother. Kate speaks to the brother, who tells her that this sister had been getting therapy and was on medication, but nothing could help her out of her depression (poor thing. I’m so glad that meds work for us). Anyway, he said that she had really suffered. But, HE was struggling because his personal church told him that she couldn’t receive a Christian burial and that she was doomed to hell because of her suicide, and he asks Kate about this. I loved what she wrote. She said, as she listened to him, she felt such an anger at the church. She told him that she didn’t personally know the pastor he had spoken with, didn’t know what that man knew or didn’t know. But, she told him, this was what she knew. The park rangers were willing to go out in a snow storm and search all day for several days for this woman. They left their families, and were willing to spend hours and days in discomfort (sub zero weather), risking their own health and lives to find her. She was that important to THEM. She said, surely these men couldn’t love this woman more than God himself did….and if they were willing to go so far for the sake of a woman they suspected had killed herself, how much more could God love her and want her back?
I thought that was really beautiful and well said.
She also had another little discussion that I found interesting. She said that she was a Christian Universalist (I don’t really know what that is), so as such, her church didn’t spend a lot of time talking about Jesus and the afterlife. However, she studied a lot about it in seminary. She said that she noticed that Jesus didn’t spend a lot of time describing heaven. Only things like heaven having many rooms, and heaving being like yeast mixed with flour. She found that amazingly vague. Her opinion, in reading Jesus teachings to love others and to give everything you had, was that Jesus was teaching us how to LIVE, not how to die. She thinks that when we die, we die. She thinks that God’s ruling is for how we live, and that when we love people and are loved by others, we are in heaven no matter where we are. If we do not feel love, we are in hell, not matter where we are. I don’t know if I believe this, but it is an interesting and viable opinion.
Aesop’s Fables
OK, so what is the big deal? Why is this considered great literature? Boring.
Empress Orchid by Anchee Min
The tale of a poor, young Chinese girl who becomes the favorite concubine of Emperor Hsien Feng (Ch’ing Dynasty), which is the during the last days of its imperial glory. She is “married” to the Emperor, but then doesn’t see him for almost a year. It was interesting to learn that, despite the fact that it is the concubine’s duty to provide the Emperor with many male heirs, getting visited by the Emperor is not a given. The story tells how the concubines must suck up to and bribe the Chief Eunuch in order to get time with the Emperor. Interesting how little control the Emperor has over his own life, really just a slave to the power and intrigues of his court officials. Also, the concubines compete with and hate each other. Perhaps worse than being ignored by the Emperor (which seems to be Orchid’s fate in the beginning) is the danger of becoming a favorite. A concubine accused of selfishly keeping the Emperor’s attention all to herself (because then how can he spread his seed and have many sons?) is in danger. In the early chapters, the new concubines are showed the Emperor’s old favorite, her arms and legs removed and kept a live in a glass jar to serve as an example to the new concubines.
The kingdom is failing, and the Emperor is under great stress…and thus, is often unable to sleep and is often impotent. Orchid’s rise to favoritism is through her intelligence and willingness to help him with his daily tasks (acts that are forbidden to her).
300 by Frank Miller
I was itching to read this graphic novel since I loved the movie so much. I loved it!
9-11 Emergency Relief by Alternate Comics
A whole bunch of comics artists created their takes/responses on the 9-11 disaster. It was kind of interesting to see all the different design styles.
Ghost World by Daniel Clowes
Another graphic novel. This is about to bitchy girlfriends who spend their time mocking and insulting others. They think they are cool, but really they are bored, aimless, and being left behind. They are always shocked when they see how the lives of school mates have changed. Their friendship is tested when one takes an exam to go to college, which means the two would be separated. In fact, they become separated for other reasons. You are left hoping that they both will change for the better.
Gob’s Grief by Chris Adrian
This is a strange story about a man, Gob, who builds a machine in an attempt to defeat death. His twin brother, Tom, dies in the Civil War, and Gob is forever haunted by the loss, and sets out to bring back every soldier that died in the war. Characters, such as Walt Whitman and Abraham Lincoln, visit the pages, and many viewpoints of death are shared.
posted by Rhonda L at 9:28 PM
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