Nina Lewis

Archive for the ‘Books’ Category

I almost didn’t read the book that our book club selected for our October meeting:  Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson.  But, one day I forgot to pack a book to read on the bus.  (Oops.  There I go again mentioning the bus. Sorry.)  I went to the library and checked out Speak and I’m so glad I did.

Speak (fiction) is about a girl’s experience as a freshman in high school.  She is the pariah of the school.  Her grades are horrible and she refuses to speak to anyone — even her parents.  In the climax of the book, you find out the cause of her problems.

This is a superbly written Young Adult book.  There are well turned phrases, subtle symbolism, great plot.  It’s funny.  It’s poignant.  It’s powerful.  It’s an easy read — one that is well worth your time.

Since I started riding the UTA to and fro, I set the goal to read a book a week.  That’s doable — especially if I quit dozing on the way home . . .

This week I finished my eighty-second book, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Barrow.  Love that title!

This book is about the suffering of the people who lived on the island of Guernsey (in the English Channel) during five years of German occupation in World War II.  I’ve read lots of grim, gripping, grisly books about the effects that war had on people.  Those aren’t the words I would use to describe this book.  Sweet, charming, enchanting come to my mind instead.  Hardly words normally connected to war.

The novel is a series of letters written among a 30-something spinster novelist, the people of the island, and the novelist’s friend and her friend’s brother (who also happens to be the novelist’s publisher).  Because the letters are written from different perspectives, you get a good understanding of what the people are really like.  By the end of the book, you feel as if these folks are your friends. You want to invite them over for milk and cookies — and to introduce them to the Beatles Rockband.

Even though the treatment of the book is light and delicate, you still learn of the pain and the suffering the people experienced.  I highly recommend this book to everyone — even those whose bodies are filled to overflowing with testosterone.

Talk about being humbled.  Here, I sit as I write:  in a 4 bedroom home, 2 1/2 baths, carpet on the floors, with electricity and indoor plumbing and heating.  I have a stove, fridge, microwave and dishwasher.  PLENTY of clothes and shoes.  And food.  All that I want.  Whenever I want.  And if I need more, the store is a short 4 minute drive away.  My house sits on 2 acres surrounded by lawn, trees, shrubs, and flowers.

Compare that to what I read in the book Eleni by Nicholas Gage.  Eleni Gatzoyiannis lived in Greece.  Her husband lived in the United States while she stayed behind to raise their children.  (He thought it was better to raise their daughters in Greece becasue the women in America were so loose!)  WWII came to their mountain village and then the Greek civil war afterward.  In her village, Elani was considered well-to-do because she had a house with 4 rooms (but with a dirt floor) and because she had a ‘rich’ husband who lived in America.

During the civil war, the Communists guerrillas took over Eleni’s village using many of the villagers as slave workers for the guerrillas.  They had to bake food for the soldiers.  Clean the soldiers clothes.  Give all of their food to the soldiers.

Young girls were forced into the army (as was one of Eleni’s daughters).  Younger children were taken from their families and sent into other Communist countries for ’safe keeping’ (indoctrination).

Eleni tried to escape to save her children.  Her children were able to escaped but she didn’t.  She was tortured and eventually murdered.  Her son, Nicholas (who escaped and eventually made it to live with his father whom he had never seen) wanted to bring the person responsible for her death to justice (personally kill him).  But, when he finally had the chance, Nicholas realized he couldn’t kill the man.

A very touching and troubling book.   (Troubling because of the brutality of war and what the Communist guerrillas did to the villagers and the poverty and hardships they had to endure.)

Thank you, Kerilyn, for suggesting I read it.  I’m glad I did.

The book On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser languished on my list of books to-be-read.  For years.  Somehow it just wasn’t compelling reading like The Bonesetter’s Daughter or The English Patient or even The World is Flat. Three months ago, I bought it at a bargain book sale for one third the regular price.

Then, it languished on my bookshelf.

Every time I passed it, the book looked at me, tears welling up in its eyes.  “Read me, read me,” it begged, lips trembling.  It sniffled back the tears as I ignored it and walked on by.

“Enough of this whining,” I finally chastised it.  “Snap to it.  Let’s get you read!”  I grabbed it off the shelf and stuffed it in my bag so I could read it on my daily bus ride.

What a delightful surprise.  I’m not sure what I expected — lots of rules about commas, split infinitives, and semi-colons I guess.  (Semi-colons scare me.)  Didn’t get that.  I expected lots of advice about eliminating adverbs and adjectives and about using strong verbs.  Got that.

What I got (but didn’t expect) was exceptionally compelling reading.  Zinsser definitely practices what he preaches.  My favorite part was his trip to watch a camel caravan bring huge salt slabs (Africa’s white gold) 1,000 miles across the desert to land-locked Timbuktu.

Even if you aren’t interested in improving your writing, his words are so compelling that you won’t want to put the book down even when you come to the end.

Now the million dollar question is:  will my writing remain a wallflower shyly tapping her toe while hiding along the sidelines of life?  Or will my words dance off the page, a haughty tango, foot stomping, hand clapping overhead, rose clenched in my teeth, red skirt swirling, and hair flung over my shoulder (gray-roots and all 4 inches of it)?

I’m not sure . . .

I have just completed the 49th and 50th book since I started riding the UTA.  And in 2 more weeks, it will be the one year anniversary of riding the bus.  Hopefully by then I’ll have finished reading books #51 and #52 thus reading one book a week for a year.

Book #49 was Glenn Beck’s Inconvenient Book.  He has some interesting things to say.  And I must admit, I enjoyed the writing style: humorous, succinct, to the point.  Clever sidebars dot the pages.  While many of them might be satirical, truth runs through them.

I agreed with many of the things that he said.  I agreed with what he said in the chapter about education (do away with tenure, teach the students how to think and not what to think).  The College Pledge for college-aged students and their parents to sign is interesting.  But I don’t think it will be used.  (Maybe it was meant to be one of those satirical sidebars . . .)

While in one chapter he berates our society that inundates girls with media that makes them believe they have to have perfect skin, perfect hair, perfect teeth, and a perfect size 0 body, I find it interesting that most of the time when he refers to his wife it is to say how beautiful she is and how ‘hot’ she is.  Does he praise her for her intellect?  Once.  For her kindness, compassion, humanitarian service, community service, success in the business world, political activeness?  Nope. Nada. So, in a way, isn’t he aiding and abetting through his comments the belief that women should have perfect bodies, be beautiful, be sexually alluring?  Isn’t he being hypocritical?  Mmmmm . . .

And the chapter about the lies behind illegal immigration — what an eye-opener!  If what he says is true, that will be scary.  If you don’t read the book, I recommend at least reading that one chapter.  I just hope I don’t live to see it happen.  Nor my grandchildren.  Nor my great-grandchildren.  Nor my great-great grandchildren.  Nor my great-great-great . . .

As always, it’s interesting how things come together at the same time.  I finished Glenn Beck’s book and a couple of days later came across a blog with this video.  I think Glenn makes a good point here.

Book #50 was The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.  Boy howdy!  Are these two disparate books, or what??  A I read the book, I vacillated back and forth and then forth and back on whether or not I liked it.  In the end, the verdict was yes.

I ended up caring about Sidda and her mother, Vivi, and the members of the sisterhood.   I wanted Sidda to marry Connor (which I knew would happen because I read the last few pages before I started reading the beginning of the book!).

I wanted Sidda and Vivi to ‘kiss and make up’ and have a good mother-daughter relationship.   I wanted Vivi to have a good relationship with her mother.  I wanted everybody to be happy.  They weren’t and there were lots of ups and downs and loop-dee-loops because life happened (as it does to all of us).

Sidda flees to Lake Quinault near Forks, Washington, to sort through her feelings about marriage to Connor. This made me think of the book Twilight that was set in Forks, Washington. It so happens that both of these books were published in the same year. Was there something in the air that compelled these two authors to base their stories in this area? Just what are the odds of two popular books being published at the same time that take place in the same location?

Lots of raw emotion in this book!  And, good writing.