Dakota Picks a Winner: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

It wasn't easy, but I managed to get Dakota to pick a winner.




To read my review of Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout go here.

I'll post an email to you later today, Simon.

One correction/clarification. I did not rub kibble on any one entry in particular. That would be cheating. I did rub kibble around the cake lid that I put all the entries in to get Dakota's attention. Bassets are all about smell.

Les Miserables: Pt. 5 - Jean Valjean

Somehow I made it to this point in life without knowing how Les Miserables ends. This is quite a feat, considering I read an abridged version of it several years ago while vacationing in Paris. Maybe the city so overwhelmed the reduced book that I forgot it. It's very difficult to write about the last part of the novel without giving away the plot so if you are the rare person who does not know how it ends, be warned.

Part five doesn't begin until page 987, and by the time the reader gets there he really has stuck with the book through thick and thin. Mostly thick I guess. The payoff in part five is worth the effort. We get the battle scene at the barricade, the subsequent escape trough the sewers of Paris, the marriage of Cosette and Marius and the deaths of both Inspector Javert and Jean Valjean, and they both get exactly what's coming to them.

As with much of the novel, part five is both wonderful and maddening. Cosette and Marius are maddening--I find it difficult to believe that any modern reader would find them otherwise. Marius remains such an unforgiving prude that he continues to inflict needless suffering on those who care for him; as he did earlier on his grandfather, he does this time on Jean Valjean. Cosette remains such an empty headed woman/child that she is almost laughable. Even nineteenth century readers must have found this couple tested their patience.

But I suppose the book is really about the conflict between Jean Valjean and Inspector Javert, the conflict between what is right and what is the law. This part of the story does not disappoint--I gasped out loud at the turn of events three times. How often does a book make you gasp out loud?

Victor Hugo's writing is one of the real rewards for reading all 1200 pages of Les Miserables. (A paperback edition of the King James Bible contains less than 700 pages, for comparison.) At times Mr. Hugo can go on at mind-numbing length, the 80 page history of the battle at Waterloo that opens part two comes to mind, but at other times the length he goes to is not to be missed. Take this passage describing the barricade built by the rebels in Saint-Antoine:

Of what was it built? Of the material of three six-storey houses demolished for the purpose, some people said. Of the phenomenon of overwhelming anger, said others. It bore the lamentable aspect of things built by hatred - a look of destruction. One might ask 'Who built all that?'; but one might equally ask, 'Who destroyed all that?' Everything had gone on to it, doors, grilles, screens, bedroom furniture, wrecked cooking-stoves and pots and pans, piled up haphazard, the whole a composite of paving-stones and rubble, timbers, iron bars, broken window-panes, seatless chairs, rags, odds and ends of every kind -- and curses. It was great and it was trivial, a chaotic parody of emptiness, a mingling of debris. Sisyphus had cast his rock upon it and Job his potsherd. It short it was terrible, an Acropolis of the destitute. Overturned carts protruded from its outer slope, axles pointing to the sky like scars on a rugged hillside; an omnibus, blithely hoisted by vigorous arms to its summit as though the architects had sought to add impudence to terror, offered empty shafts to imaginary horses.

They don't write 'em like that anymore. One could edit this passage down to 25 or 30 words and get the point across, but the point is not the point here, the emotion is. Take away a sentence or two, maybe even a word or two, and the emotional impact is reduced. If all Hugo wanted to convey was that the barricade was large and made up of everything the rebels could find, he could simply have said so--many a lesser writer would have done just that. But the piling on of individual item after individual item adds to the emotion of the moment, and gives the reader a sense not just of what it felt like to be there on the barricade but of what it felt like to build a barricade topped by a great passenger wagon, a horseless omnibus. Take even that one detail away and the experience of reading Les Miserables is lessened. It's a 1200 page book, and, in the end, every page in it is necessary. (If reading a book is like going on a journey, then reading a long book is like going on a long journey. It's different from a short trip.) Even the dreaded 80 page history of Waterloo has had a purpose because it has provided a counterpoint to the doomed battle on the barricade. Reading it now one can't help but find parallels with the protests in Tehran. Rebellions are almost always crushed in the end, but the spirit of rebellion lives on.

I'm glad I read Les Miserables, and you can bet that I'm counting this book as part of The Classics Challenge.

What was the last book that made you gasp out loud?

Short Story Sunday: Winter's Tales by Isak Dinesen.

Sandy asked me to write a guest post for her blog You've Gotta Read This. She is on vacation in Poland. Sandy had written several guest posts for Ready When You Are, C.B., so I was happy to return the favor. Today's Short Story Sunday can be read in full at You've Gotta Read This. Give Sandy's site a visit. You may become a regular.

The low, undulating Danish landscape was silent and serene, mysteriously wide-awake in the hour before sunrise. There was not a cloud in the pale sky, not a shadow along the dim, pearly fields, hills and woods. The mist was lifting from the valleys and hollows, the air was cool, the grass and the foliage dripping wet with morning dew. Unwatched by the eyes of man, and undisturbed by his activity, the country breathed a timeless life, to which language was inadequate.


Perhaps I can be forgiven for thinking Isak Dinesen was a 19th century writer. The opening passage from her short story "Sorrow-acre" quote above certainly sounds like 19th century writing to me, not something a mid-20th century author admired by Ernest Hemingway would produce. Isak Dinesen's writing seems world's away from the writing in "A Clean Well-Lighted Place," in fact, it seems a century away. Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) did not become a writer until mid-life. Born in Denmark in 1885, she married, divorced and ran a coffee plantation in Kenya until the early 1930's when the depression brought it to an end. This experience was the basis for her memoir Out of Africa. She returned to Denmark where she lived until her death in 1962. While she is a 20th century writer, she is also a writer in love with the past. The stories in Winter's Tale are set in the previous century which suits her formal, elegant writing style.

"Sorrow-acre" is set in the Danish countryside during the closing days of the manor system. A young man, Adam, has returned to his family estate to visit his uncle, the lord of the manor, and his uncle's new, much younger wife. Adam's cousin has recently died, making Adam the next-in-line to inherit the estate unless the new wife can bear his uncle a son. Much is at stake for the current lord of the manor. Should Adam decide to remain in Denmark the situation could become very difficult.

"Sorrow-acre" takes place over a single day. In the early morning one of the local peasants, an old woman, comes to the lord of the manor to plead for her son who has been sentenced to ten years in prison for a crime she says he did not commit. The woman insists that this will be the death of her as she has no one but her son to take care of her in her old age. The lord agrees that he will pardon her son if she can harvest the grain on the plot of land in front of them. The woman agrees without hesitation, though everyone knows the plot is too big for a single person, let alone and old woman, to harvest in one day. The lord of the manor insists that no one help the woman and stations his men around the field to ensure that no one does. The woman works steadily throughout the morning without stopping and soon it becomes clear that she may actually complete the task before nightfall. Everyone from the surrounding area abandons their work to watch the old woman. Adam and his uncle watch as well. Once, Adam understands that while the old woman may earn her son's freedom, she is clearly working herself to death, he abandons his uncle and Denmark and heads back to his new home in England.


You can read the full article at You've Gotta Read This.




There is still time to enter to win a copy of Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. For one entry, become a follower of Ready When You Are, C.B. For five entries, read a short story, write a quick review and post a link to it with Mr. Linky below. Each link earns five entries. The deadling is Monday, June 29. Dakota will select the winner at random on Tuesday.

Library Loot, Not Really

Here are links to some of the books mentioned in the video:

Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge
Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio
Philip K. Dick's In Milton Lumky Territory
M.F.K. Fisher's The Boss Dog

You can find more about Berkshire Books at their website.
To see some of my artwork go here.

Dakota's Favorites: A Sense of the World by Jason Roberts

The best thing about doing Dakota's favorites twice a month is that I get another chance to push a book I really loved, maybe a book that was largely overlooked the first time around. A Sense of the World is an excellent example. A Sense of the World is a terrific history about someone you've probably never heard of. James Holman was a blind man who became an internationally known traveller during the first half of the 19th century. Jason Roberts book about him makes for perfect summer reading. While it's non-fiction, its also an excellent beach read.

My review of it first ran in June of 2007.

I loved this book.

The story of James Holman (1786-1857) who became blind while serving as a lieutenant in the British Navy. Holman had more wanderlust than probably anyone in history, perhaps even more than Ibn Buttata.

In spite of his blindness, maybe even because of it, he was able to travel around the world, through Siberia, through Brazil and through Africa. He helped fight the slave trade in West Africa; he met the czar of Russia; he climbed to the top of Mt. Vesuvius; and visited every country in Europe, on his own, without knowing the local languages before arriving, and with very little money.

He supported himself through a small pension and through writing about his travels. His books were very popular and he was very famous, but all of that faded away before the end of his life. He died, almost penniless, in a disreputable part of London, just about forgotten. The autobiography he was working on at the time of his death was never published and is now lost.

A Sense of the World is a fascinating read, perfect for the summer. Roberts focuses on the most interesting aspects of Holman's life and travels. While the book is not comprehensive, it is made more entertaining by this fact. We do not have to wade through the details a more scholarly biography would include just to get to the good stuff. Roberts conveys the personality of Holman, his conviviality, his humor, his positive outlook on life and on his situation, not without pathos, but with a sense of wonder and appreciation for all Holman accomplished.

I am grateful that Mr. Roberts found out about the Blind Traveler and could bring his story to us. I'm giving A Sense of the World five out of five stars.

Out of the Pocket by Bill Konigsberg

I was in the closet with Tamara Muncie.

Out of the Pocket by Bill Konigsberg is the story of Bobby Framingham, star quarterback of his high school team and closeted gay teen. During his senior year he begins to come out, first to his best friend then to his coach. There are a few rough spots, but basically no one is all that bothered by it, certainly not enough to jeopardize Bobby's spot on the team which he hopes is his ticket to Stanford University. Things go well for Bobby until a duplicitous reporter for the school newspaper outs him in a front page story. Suddenly everyone knows--the team, Bobby's parents, his "girlfriend"--and the media is camped out in front of the school after every practice looking for the gay quarterback.

Mr. Konigsberg creates a believable and sympathetic cast of characters in Out of the Pocket. Bobby and his teammates, his parents and girlfriend, the coach, even the school reporter who betrays him are all portrayed sympathetically as they each come to terms with the revelation that Bobby is gay. Clearly Mr. Konigsberg, a sportswriter by profession, knows his football; the descriptions of the games Bobby plays, and mostly wins, are exciting and convincing. (I should state the my knowledge of football largely begins with Friday Night Lights, the book, the movie and the television series which are all wonderful and without gay teammates.) Bobby does begin a romance with a slightly older boy, but this does not go beyond a very chaste kiss so the novel remains safe for work.

It's easy to argue that there is at least some wish fulfillment going on in Out of the Pocket. To date, to my knowledge, no professional male athlete has come out as gay while still playing a professional team sport. Certainly, none has come up through the ranks while openly gay. But there are a growing number of them in fiction--Take Me Out, a hit play about baseball, The Dreyfus Affair, a novel also about baseball--but to date none in real life. Maybe some things have to happen in fiction first. We had several black presidents on television and in movies before we had one in real life. Maybe somewhere in America there is a high school football player secretly reading Out of the Pocket right now. Maybe he'll be the first one.

This book counts towards The Challenge That Dare Not Speak Its Name.

Uncle Bobby's Wedding: Censored? Not Yet.

Picture books can really get some people riled up.

Uncle Bobby's Wedding by Sarah S. Brannen is the story of young Chloe who is worried that her favorite Uncle will no longer have time for her now that he is getting married. But after attending his wonderful wedding, she realizes that he still loves her, and she has nothing to worry about. Now she has two wonderful uncles who love her.

Doesn't sound like the end of the world, but remember, same sex marriage has the power to destroy the fabric of society as we know it. At least it does according to several people who have asked the libraries of Douglas County, Colorado to remove Uncle Bobby's Wedding from the local public library. Jamie Larue, the library's director, has written an eloquent response that is well worth reading. Mr. Larue expects Uncle Bobby's Wedding will face similar challenges in the future, so he has generously made his letter available to any librarian who needs it. A passage follows; the bold facing is mine:

You suggested that the book could be “placed in an area designating the subject matter,” or “labeled for parental guidance” by stating that “some material may be inappropriate for young children.” I have two responses. First, we tried the “parenting collection” approach a couple of times in my history here. And here's what we found: nobody uses them. They constitute a barrier to discovery and use. The books there – and some very fine ones -- just got lost. In the second case, I believe that every book in the children's area, particularly in the area where usually the parent is reading the book aloud, involves parental guidance.

The labeling issue is tricky, too: is the topic just homosexuality? Where babies come from? Authority figures that can't be trusted? Stepmothers who abandon their children to die?Ultimately, such labels make up a governmental determination of the moral value of the story. It seems to me – as a father who has done a lot of reading to his kids over the years – that that kind of decision is up to the parents, not the library. Because here's the truth of the matter: not every parent has the same value system.

You feel that a book about gay marriage is inappropriate for young children. But another book in our collection, “Daddy's Roommate,” was requested by a mother whose husband left her, and their young son, for another man. She was looking for a way to begin talking about this with her son. Another book, “Alfie's Home,” was purchased at the request of another mother looking for a way to talk about the suspected homosexuality of her young son from a Christian perspective.

There are gay parents in Douglas County, right now, who also pay taxes, and also look for materials to support their views. We don't have very many books on this topic, but we do have a handful. In short, most of the books we have are designed not to interfere with parents' notions of how to raise their children, but to support them. But not every parent is looking for the same thing.

Mr. Larue is currently standing tall, keeping Uncle Bobby's Wedding on the shelves in the children's section of the Douglas County libraries. People don't realize just how heroic librarians are. They take this kind of heat far too often, and they never get medals or certificates for doing so. They never get their faces on stamps nor statues in the town square. Like many of my heroes, they are people no one has ever heard of. You can read all of Mr. Larue's letter and let him know what you think here.

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Day: A Video Celebration

I learned from Booking Through Thursday that today is science fiction and fantasy writers day. To celebrate, I made this little video of some of the better science fiction and fantasy books featured here at Ready When You Are, C.B.



The music is Rocket Man as covered by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. It's a little racaus. You may want to turn the volume down, or you may want to really crank it.

Run by Ann Patchett

Bernadette had been dead two weeks when her sisters showed up in Doyle's living room asking for the statue back.

Seldom has my book club enjoyed a book more.

Run by Ann Patchett takes place in a single, eventful day. It's a character driven novel, but it's full of so many plot twists that it becomes very difficult to put down. (I think you can see this from the opening sentence quoted above.) It's also very difficult to write about without giving anything away. Be warned.

Run tells the story of the the Doyle family. Bernard Doyle, who becomes mayor and then former mayor of Boston, and his wife Bernadette already have a 12-year-old son, Sullivan, when they adopt a child. Bernadette wants a big family and has tried for years to adopt, so she does not hesitate to accept the baby even though it is black and the Doyles are Irish catholics. A week later the Doyles are told that the baby's mother has changed her mind. She will only allow the adoption to go through if the Doyles also adopt the infant's 14-month old brother as well. Bernadette and Bernard do not hesitate to say yes. Unfortunately, less than five years later, Bernadette falls ill and dies leaving Bernard with one teenage son, Sullivan, and two sons under six, Tip and Teddy, to raise on his own.

Run takes place many years later, when the two biological brothers are grown and in college. One night cold winter night, after a lecture by Jesse Jackson that Bernard dragged Tip and Teddy to, Tip walks into the street in front of an oncoming car. Out of nowhere, a woman rushes at him and shoves him out of the way probably saving his life. Only his ankle is injured, but the woman is struck by the full force of the car. The Doyles find she was with her young daughter, Kenya, who has no one else to look after her. They take Kenya to the hospital and end up bringing her home to stay the night with them.

Over the course of the next day, while the Doyles and Kenya await the outcome of her mother's surgery, we learn the full history of the Doyle family as well as that of Kenya and her mother. We also learn how the two family's are connected. To Ms. Patchett's great credit, this never once feels forced or contrived. It also makes Run something of a page-turner. Just as the reader thinks one thing is true, Ms. Patchett gives another detail that changes everything. (This even happens in the story's epilogue.) The danger with plots twists and with the big reveal is that some readers won't buy it, that the author will lose a few members of the audience along the way. This never happened with Run, at least not with the members of my book club. In the end were all left not with a sense of how tragic life can be, but of how wonderful it is.

It's been a while since I've been able to say this, but I expect Run by Ann Patchett will find a place on my list of ten favorite reads from 2009. I don't rate books on Ready When You Are, C.B. anymore, but if I did, Run would get five out of five stars.

Short Story Sunday "The Pale Pink Roast" by Grace Paley

If you're new to the short story, or if you're looking for a new short story writer, new to you that is, allow me to suggest Grace Paley. I only "discovered" her this year and I'm already a big fan. Where has she been all my life?

"The Pale Pink Roast" is a good example of why I like Grace Paley so much. The plot is a simple one--two former lovers meet after many years apart. Anna has just begun to show her age, while Peter has just begun to come into his own.

A year ago, in plain view, Ana had begun to decline into withering years, just as he swelled to the maximum of manhood, spitting pipe smoke, patched with tweed, an advertisement of a lover who startled men and detained the ladies.

("A year ago, in plain view," I love that.) Anna is married and has a daughter; Peter is still single and still a little bit in love with Anna.

Grace Paley's heroines, at least the one's I've read about so far, are in charge of their lives and are do not hesitate to go after what they want. Anna wants to have sex with Peter one more time. She quickly contrives to make this happen by asking him back to her new apartment to help put up a set of venetian blinds. Afterwards, Peter is disappointed to discover that Anna is happily married and has no intention of leaving her husband for him.

"Why did you do it? Revenge? Meanness, Why?" he asks.

"Honest to God, listen to me, I did it for love, " she replies.

There's not much story after this point, but I have left one delightful surprise for you, should you choose to read "The Pale Pink Roast." Ms. Paley's women, and her men, are full of surprises.

If you've read a story or two and would like to leave a link to them you can use Mr. Linky below. This month I'm giving away one copy of Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. For one entry, become a follower. For five entries leave a link to a short story review on your blog. Each review earns five entries. Dakota will be selecting the winner on Tuesday, June 30.

If you need some more inspiration to start reading short stories, Katrina at Katrina Reads is hosting the Orbis Tererum Short Story Mini-Challenge this summer. The idea is to read ten short stories from ten different countries throughout the world. You can check her site for details and an ecellent list of links to some very good short story sources.

Sites Worth Reading

People do pay attention to what's on your blogroll. I do anyway. Here are five interesting sites I've found via your blogrolls. They're all worth checking out.

Maybe you'll add one to your own blogroll.

• Letters on Pages. Devoted strictly to non-fiction. A good way to keep current with non-fiction titles.
• Worth the Trip. Young adult and kids books with LGBT themes. A good resource if you're doing The Challenge that Dare Not Speak It's Name.
• Things Mean A Lot. How is it that Nymeth's blog hasn't been on my blog roll all this time? A terrible oversight on my part.
• Six Sentences. Various writers contribute their posts. The only rule, a limit of six sentences. What can you say in six sentences?
• Notes from Camp Swampy. Gail, in Maryland, reviews a wide range of books and hosts frequent giveaways.

So, why not read someone new to you today?

Friday Picture Reading #3

Young Girl Reading by Mary Cassatt, 1844-1926

Booking Through Science Fiction and Fantasy

This week from Booking Through Thursday:

One of my favorite sci-fi authors (Sharon Lee) has declared June 23rd Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers Day.

As she puts it:
So! In my Official Capacity as a writer of science fiction and fantasy, I hereby proclaim June 23 Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Day! A day of celebration and wonder! A day for all of us readers of science fiction and fantasy to reach out and say thank you to our favorite writers. A day, perhaps, to blog about our favorite sf/f writers. A day to reflect upon how written science fiction and fantasy has changed your life.

So … what might you do on the 23rd to celebrate? Do you even read fantasy/sci-fi? Why? Why not?

I have a feeling that this will be a love/hate topic. Many people are very passionate, without realizing how passionate they are, in their view of science fiction and fantasy. There are several members of my book club who refuse to read anything in these genres. I point out to them that they enjoyed and admired The Sparrow and Slaughterhouse Five but they don't really count these as science fiction. I, on the other hand, will openly admit that I like the stuff.

I read science fiction on a regular basis. A die-hard science fiction fan would probably call me a snob because I tend to read classic and more literary science fiction though I do read pulp on occasion. But even that tends to be classic pulp authors like Andre Norton.

I don't read much fantasy. I'm often attracted by the cover artwork which so often holds the promise of fun and adventure. But I've found fantasy to be lacking in characters and to just go on and on. If you want to read long scenes of debating what to do next, fantasy is for you. In the book store, I see fantasy series that go on for multiple volumes that are 800 plus pages each. Take a look and see how much talking they have in them. Who wants lots of conversation in a book with a dragon on the cover? I've tried to like Neil Gaimon several times, and I've failed to like him several times. Too precious for me.

I recently started listening to podcasts and have found that the science fiction and fantasy short story podcasts are some of the best available. In the short story form authors are able to avoid the endless conversations about what to do next. Short stories force authors to create characters quickly and economically, too. One recent favorite, in fact on of the better short stories I've read in a while, was from the Escapepod podcast called N-words by Ted Kosmatka.

I don't think either science fiction or fantasy have changed my life, but I do enjoy the genre.

Tale of Genji Read-a-long #2 (Ch. 5-8)

Okay, this parts gets a little twisted.

Genji continues to woo a series of new women while maintaining relationships with the women he won in previous chapters. Had he lived in Renaissance Europe he would have given Casanova a run for his money. Because the writing in Tale of Genji is often so refined, few names are actually used, it can be difficult to tell just who Genji has actually slept with, but I expect this will become old-hat by the end of the first volume.

In chapters five through eight Genji has enough affairs to fill several 20th century novels, some of them problematic to say the least. While traveling to the mountains to see an ascetic who may hold the cure for his fever, Genji sees a beautiful girl of nine years. He becomes so obsessed with her, she is an orphan like he is, that he wants to adopt her, take her back to his home and raise her to become the perfect woman. All of the adult women who care for this girl object, saying repeatedly that it is inappropriate for a man of 19 to have anything to do with a girl of nine, but in the end Genji succeeds. He plans to educate the girl himself, to avoid turning her into the kind of high society woman too reserved to be pleasing but to make sure she is reserved enough to be acceptable to high society. It sounds to me like he is raising a future wife.

This is creepy, but not that out of the ordinary as far as romantic fiction goes. It fits in with books like Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and Bleak House by Charles Dickens which both feature plot lines with a male guardian growing to love and eventually marry his much younger charge. The judge in Sweeney Todd, though a villain, plans on marrying his ward with society's approval. One of my mother's favorite books growing up was Daddy Long Legs which was about a girl raised by a male guardian who sent her to boarding school and eventually married her. It's a very common plot, but it's still a bit creepy.

Also in this section, the emperor, Genji's father, has a son with a woman Genji once courted. The son looks remarkably like Genji which everyone notices except the emperor who believes that all beautiful people look alike because they are beautiful, so why wouldn't his beautiful son look like the beautiful Genji. That's kind of creepy, too.

Towards the end of this section Genji has an affair with a much older woman, in her 50's. At first he is put-off by the older woman's very forward nature but eventually he succumbs to her repeated and emotional advances. The two exchange some very racy dialogue including two poems that I read as quite dirty. I'm quoting them because I find them to be very funny. Honest. That's my only reason.

"Whenever you come, I shall cut for your fine steed a feast of fresh grass,

be it only lower leaves, now the best season is past."

She said with shameless archness.

He answered,

"If I made my way through the brush I might be seen, for it seems to me

many steeds must like it there, underneath the forest trees."

Hubba-hubba, as they say.

One of the tools Genji uses to woo women is his skill with the hichiriki, a kind of flute. In the video below you can see and hear a sho and a hichiriki being played as they would have been in the time of The Tale of Genji. The hichiriki is on the left. Honestly, I can't see how either would be a useful way to woo anyone, but, as Shakespeare said, "If music be the food of love, play on."

Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere.

Tell me if this sounds familiar. A man wakes up from a coma in a hospital bed. He soon realizes that the hospital is deserted. He goes outside and finds that he is the only "survivor" of a disaster that has left the streets of London empty and quiet. He is pursued by thoughtless killers who want nothing but to do him in and eat him. He finds a handful of other survivors and tries to escape London and find somewhere safe. The band of survivors have to avoid a militaristic group bent on forcing everyone to join their new feudal like colony. Many of them die, but they make it to a remote farmhouse where they can remain until help arrives.

To his credit, Alex Garland the screenwriter for 28 Days Later has stated that The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham inspired his script. Reading one and viewing the other is like seeing how two artist interpret the same basic story 50 years apart. If you liked one, there is a very good chance that you'll like the other.

The set-up for The Day of the Triffids is extensive. The reader is given the back story in a series of flashbacks so it does not hinder the narrative much, but there is a lot to know before one can fully understand what is going on. Triffids, a new type of plant that may have been the result of Soviet biological experimentation, are accidentally released on the world when a large dose of their seeds is blown up. The seeds spread with the winds to all of the continents. The triffids produce an oil that is edible and highly useful so no one is concerned at first. After ten years, the plants reach maturity and begin to walk around. The have a sort of three legged root system that lets them move about like a man on crutches and enables them to hunt. They also have a ten foot long poisoned stinger capable of killing a man in a single dose. However fearful this may sound, the triffids are plants and can simply be cut, trimmed of their poisoned stingers, and safely kept within garden walls. Until a mysterious green comet appears and blinds everyone who looks at it. This is where the story opens--the hero and narrator, Bill Masen, wakes in a hospital bed and removes the bandages from his eyes which prevented him from looking at the comet and made him one of the very few sighted people left in London and the world.

Bill Masen delivers all of this back story while he wonders around London looking for food and for other sighted people. Even with such complex flashbacks, the story never becomes boring. In fact, by the end of the book I was hoping the author would give the characters a break. Like many end of civilization novels, The Day of the Triffids becomes a way to examine possible societies. What would you want the world to be like if you could start over from scratch? Bill Masen joins a group that intends to start a new community to repopulate the world by abandoning the blind and marrying three women to each man. He is soon forced to join a different group that refuses to abandon the blind by chaining one sighted person as a guide to small groups of blind people. Next he encounters a group that insists on living like Christians in a sort of monastery, caring for the blind and farming the land. In the end, he finds temporary safety on an isolated farm with a small group of sighted and blind people. Meantime, the triffids are growing in number every day.

If some of the particulars of The Day of the Triffids strike contemporary readers as far fetched, they are all handled so well that the result is an entertaining and believable thriller. Mr. Wyndham writes science fiction but he is concerned with character. So much so that the reader can identify with the people fighting blindness and carnivorous plants and is quickly drawn into the story. I'm not sure that The Day of the Triffids is better than Mr. Wyndham's novel The Chrysalids, but it certainly is more epic. While Chrysalids dealt with one community, one possible society of the future, Triffids deals with several possible societies along with the end of the civilization. Both make for interesting reading.

On a side note: I finally got around to renting the sequel to 28 Days Later which I liked though it was basically a retread of the first movie, but in the opening scene the survivors of the apocalypse are hiding in a house eating dinner at a table lit by candles, lots of candles. Who keeps candles around? Lots of candles? If the civilization fell apart today, would you have enough candles in your house to light the place? I have an old bag of tea-candles I bought at a garage sale for a dollar, so I could keep my house lit for about an hour. Then I would have to go to bed.

The Inspector Barlach Mysteries: The Judge and His Hangman by Friedrich Durrenmatt.

On the morning of November third, 1948, Alphons Clenin, the policeman of the village of Twann, came upon a blue Mercedes parked by the side of the highway right by the woods where the road from Lamboing comes out of the Twann River gorge.

It is my personal belief that a truly great detective novel always opens with the discovery of a body. Friedrich Durrenmatt's novella The Judge and the Hangman does just that. The body of a police inspector has been found in a car parked on a lonely road. The village police man who found it, drove the car into down, the body still in the passenger seat, and filed his report. Inspector Barlach, at the end of his career and at the end of his life, he is suffering from a terminal illness, soon arrives and begins his investigation.

There are essentially two reason to read detective novels: the complexities of the plot, and the character of the detective. Some may argue that the writing style is a third reason, but I think this is so closely tied to the character of the detective that the two can't be wholly separated, they are one in the same. Soon after we meet Inspector Barlach he begins his investigation, and I suspect whether or not you love him as much as I did depends on how you react to this scene.

"Where was the car, Clenin?" (Barlach asked.)

"Here," the policeman replied, pointing at the pavement, "almost in the middle of the road, " and since Barlach was hardly paying any attention, "Maybe it would have been better if I had left the car here with the body inside."

"Why?" Barlach asked, looking up at the cliffs of the Jura mountains. "The dead should be removed as quickly as possible, there's no reason why they should stick around. You were right to drive Schmied back to Biel."

Barlach stepped to the edge of the road and looked down over Twann. There was nothing but vineyards between him and the old village. The sun had already set. The road curved like a snake between the houses, and a long freight train stood waiting in the station.

"Didn't anyone hear anything down there, Clenin?" he asked. "The village is nearby. You would hear a shot."

"No one heard anything down except the sound of the motor running all night, and no one thought that meant anything bad had happened."

"Of course not, why would they." He looked at the vineyards again. "How is the wine this year, Clenin?"

"Good. We could try some."

"Yes, I would very much like a glass of new wine."

And he struck against something hard with his right foot. He bent down and picked up a small, longish piece of metal flattened in the front, and held it between his thin fingers. Clenin and Blatter leaned in to look at it more closely.

"A bullet," Blatter said. "From a pistol."

"You've done it again, Inspector!" Clenin said admiringly.

"Just a coincidence," Barlach said, and they walked down the road toward Twann.

Inspector Barlach, my new favorite detective. Everything he says in this scene ought to drip with sarcasm, and may do so in his mind, but Inspector Barlach plays it with a straight face, never letting on that the local policeman is a near complete idiot. And, the writing style has forced me to read every bit of that into the scene. Mr. Durrenmatt never describes Barlach's tone of voice, nor lets us in on exactly what he is thinking. We know detectives like Inspector Barlach and can fill in these details for ourselves.

The plot of The Judge and His Hangman is a masterwork. We soon discover that the main suspect in the policeman's murder is a lifelong enemy of Inspector Barlach, someone the detective was unable to convict of a murder he actually saw him commit for lack of evidence. Barlach engages his old nemesis in a battle of wits that culminates in a double plot twist ending that leaves the reader satisfied and then leaves the reader satisfied again. So if you read detective novels for the plots, The Judge and His Hangman will not disappoint.

The Inspector Barlach Mysteries are available in translation from the German by Joel Agee.

Short Story Sunday: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

For many years Henry Kitteridge was a pharmacist in the next town over, driving every morning on snowy roads, or rainy roads, or summertime roads, when the wild raspberries shot their new growth in brambles along the last section of town before he turned off to where the wider road led to the pharmacy.

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout is a short story anthology for people who don't like short stories. One complaint I often hear against short stories is that they don't fully satisfy the reader's desire to know; they whet your appetite and are over so soon that many readers don't think they are worth the effort. I don't agree, but I do understand. Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout's Pulitzer Prize winning "novel" may be the antidote some non-short-story-reading readers need, an anthology with training wheels.

The stories in Olive Kitteridge are all linked in that they all share a common character. In just over half of the stories Olive Kitteridge is the main character, though she is never the narrator. In others she is a supporting character and in a few she makes only a brief cameo appearance, but she is in every one. All of the stories are set in small town Maine, Crosby, where Olive and her pharmacist husband live their lives and raise their one child, a son, who they hope will continue to live nearby and raise grandchildren in the house they have built for him. Of course, things do not go as planned. Olive's husband suffers a stroke and is confined to a nursing home, her son moves to California and then to New York where he becomes estranged from Olive, and Olive is forced to face the final years of her life alone. But it's not a sad story, not at all. Olive won't let anyone feel sorry for her, not really. She wants no one's pity, not even the readers. She is a very strong woman, the teacher all the children at the middle school where she taught math were afraid of. She cares little what people think of her and has never apologized for anything in her life, nor ever felt she had reason to. She is a difficult woman, but she is a wondeful character. The more the reader knows her the more the reader wants to know about her. But the thing is, the reader is the only one who truly knows her; none of the other characters, not even Olive really, see her well enough to understand why she is the way she is and to appreciate her for all she has done.

Olive Kitteridge can be read as a novel, but if you read novels solely for their plots you may end up disappointed. There is a plot arc to the collection, a compelling one, but Olive Kitteridge is much more about character than it is about plot. By the end, the reader knows Olive inside and out. The stories that focus on her let us see what she thinks about herself, the people she knows and the people she loves, and about the things that have happened to her throughout her life. She is always honest with herself, she just doesn't always understand her affect on those around her. The stories that do not focus on her let us see what the other people in her life think of her, from her husband who has remained devoted to her for so many years to townspeople who barely have a passing acquaintance with her.

It is through these other stories, the ones in which Olive plays only a passing role, that Olive Kitteridge becomes much more than the portrait of one woman--it becomes the portrait of a town. I was reminded of Sherwood Anderson's collection Winesburg, Ohio which features stories all set in a single town, some that share an occasional character as I recall. Anderson's collection is sometimes called a grotesque because so many of its stories feature isolated characters, haunted by destructive desires. "Hands," is a classic example. Anderson's wonderful collection drives home the sense of isolation so many people in small towns feel, and Ms. Strout's book covers much of this same territory, but where Anderson leaves the reader thinking the only thing to do is leave town, Olive Kitteridge is life affirming and, in the end, small town affirming as well. I never wanted to visit Winesburg, but I would like to spend more time with the people in Ms. Strout's town of Crosby, Maine. I hope there are more stories of life in Crosby to come, maybe even another novel, and maybe Olive Kitteridge herself can make an appearance or two.

If you'd like to join Short Story Sunday please feel free to use Mr. Linky below. As an added incentive, this month I'm giving away my slightly worn copy of Olive Kitteridge. As usual, all followers will be entered, but everyone who leaves a link to a review on their blog will receive five entries. Enter by June 29, that gives you an extra day. Dakota will be selecting the winner at random on Tuesday, June 30.

Dakota's Favorites: 1491 by Charles C. Mann

History can be very exciting. Sometimes history can be like reading a novel--full of characters and events that capture the reader's imagination. Other times the excitement comes from discovering an idea so new that everything you previously believed about history changes. 1491 forces many of its readers to reconsider what they believe to be true about America before Columbus. It just may not have been what we were led to believe. It's also a very readable, entertaining book.

This review originally ran here in May of 2007.

I loved this book.

Charles C. Mann's thesis here is that when the Europeans arrived in the Americas they did not find a pristine wilderness, but rather a landscape that had been completely modified by its human inhabitants. Mann goes about proving this with evidence about indigenous cultures from New England to the Andes and the Amazon, all of it interesting, most of it fascinating.

For Example, the natives of the Amazon, unable to grow much in the way of corn like the rest of the Americas due to the poor soil, instead planted trees, creating a forest full of fruit most of which eco-tourists can still find there. The Amazonians also altered the soil by mixing it with charcoal creating fertile farmland with a yeild 880% greater than that of surrounding soil. This made it possible to build cities along the banks of the Amazon with populations up to 100,000 people.

In New England and in the rest of what became the eastern United States, the native people modified the landscape through fire, burning away the underbrush to create huge meadows good for both planting and for hunting. This also cleared the forest so well that when settlers first arrived in Georgia they could ride through the forests with ease. All of this was lost to history when the diseases Europeans brought with them ravaged the native population. When the settlers arrived, they often found a countryside largely devoid of people, and assumed that the land was natural, not modified.

Mann's prose is highly readable. When there is drama in the history there is drama in his account of it. He lays out his case well, and provides enough evidence to convince the reader that his claims are at least possible. He states in the closing chapters that what he's telling us is not really new revelations; most of the information has been around for 50 years or more, but that it's new to the general public. It should be in the history books. It's much more interesting than what is there, and certainly much more vital.

I'm giving this book a rare five out of five stars.

BTT: Niche Books

This week from Booking Through Thursday:

What niche books do YOU read?

There are two types of niche books I regularly read. The first is books about book arts and book binding. I've been making my own books for several years now and have developed a small library of books on how to do various types of bindings. (You can see some of my books here and here.) I did not make the book pictured to the left, but I do know how to do this type of binding, called a Coptic stitch binding.

The second type if niche book you'll find on my shelves is books on model railroads, especially books of layout plans. I don't often publicly admit to this, but I've been a life long fan of model railroads. Unfortunately, I'm much more of an what's called an armchair model railroader, which means I spend more time reading about it and perusing layout plans and pictures than actually building models. I've yet to complete a layout, but I do have a small one down in the basement that I plan to work on once school is out for the summer. The picture to the right is the San Diego Model Railroad Museum which you must go to if you're ever in San Diego. You can tell everyone you're taking the kids to see it if you want to.

Tale of Genji Read-a-long #1

In a certain reign (whose can it have been?) someone of no very great rank, among all His Majesty's Consorts and Intimates, enjoyed exceptional favor.

Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji is full of poetry.  In tenth century Japan when Murasaki Shikibu was a member to the emperor's court, Chinese poetry was all the rage.  Court members made a sport of it, sending each other cryptic messages quoting lines of poetry, inventing games to see who could guess the second line when given the first or who could come up with the best original ending.    This exchange of poetry typically had one goal in mind, winning some potential lover's favor.

Genji, along with the other characters in the novel, uses poetry often, so figuring out how it works becomes very important if the reader is to understand what is going on.  The plot of The Tale of Genji is very straightforward and largely easy to follow, but if you find yourself skipping the poetry, you'll miss a lot of the book's subtleties and it has many.  Thankfully, after a few chapters, figuring out the poetry becomes fairly easy.  I was able to do it by the end of chapter three.

In chapter three Genji pursues a woman who resists his advances out of concern for her position, though she is attracted to the 17-year-old.  By the closing page of the chapter, Genji has basically given up his pursuit.  He sends her this poem:

Underneath this tree, where the molting cicada shed her empty shell, 

my longing still goes to her, for all I knew her to be.

The footnotes tell me that the cicada larva leaves its shell and then climbs the nearest tree as an adult.  Abandoning childhood love for adulthood seems clear, but I think the second line is the most important one.  Genji says he still loves her, but he loves what she used to be, what he knew her to be.

She replies with this poem:

Just as drops of dew settle on cicada wings, concealed in this tree,

secretly, O secretly, these sleeves are wet with my tears.

It's easy to see that she still loves Genji, though 

she thinks he has abandoned her in this poem which nicely links the image of cicada wings with

 the sleeves of a kimono.  

I admit, I may be over-reading the poetry in Genji and I am reading it in translation, but that's always been part of the fun of poetry as far as I'm concerned.  There should always be at least three different ways to read a good poem, even one with only two lines.

Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed The World by Dan Koeppel

If you are average American, about forty years old, you're probably approaching banana ten thousand, just as I am.

This review is cheating. I posted about Banana a couple of weeks ago as part of library loot. I had a bunch of non-fiction books all with one word titles. As is often the case with large piles of library books, in the end, I didn't read any of them. However, my spouse C.J. decided to read Banana and thoroughly enjoyed it. For the past two weeks, I've been greeted at the door or the dinner table with the latest interesting fact about bananas and their history including:

• The forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden was a banana, according to the Koran.
• A Spanish missionary, Tomas de Berlanga, brought bananas to the Americas in 1516.
• The Chiquita Banana mascot was a talking banana before it became a woman in 1967.
• The banana split was invented in Pennsylvania in 1904, in Columbus, Ohio in 1904, in Iowa in 1906, and in Wilmington, Ohio in 1907. All homes of the original banana split, but none of them have the paperwork to prove it.
• Banana slices on cereal were the result of a coupon campaign in 1924.
• The original great white fleet were banana boats painted white to reflect sunlight and keep the bananas cool. They were commandeered by the U.S. Navy for the Spanish American War.

Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World comes with a favorable recommendation from C.J. He says that while it's not a deep book, it is "light and tasty," a perfect airplane read for fans of non-fiction.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.

Several years ago a Japanese movie called Battle Royale created some controversy both when it opened in Japan and then again at art houses in the United States. Battle Royale, based on the manga series of the same name, took place in a alternate Japan where an annual competition glued everyone in the country to their television sets. The competition featured one class of graduating middle school students, chosen at random, who were flown to a secured island camp, given weapons, and told to kill each other until only one student remained. That student would be lauded with prizes and made a national hero. To ensure a competitive game, the students had explosive rings placed around their necks which would go off if they didn't make enough of an effort.

Battle Royale really is an over-the-top gore fest, but it also makes a point about the competitive nature of Japanese society and the pressure to excel that is placed on Japanese students. There's a reason why the suicide rate in Japan is so high.

In her novel The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins takes this basic idea and cleans it up enough to avoid the controversy that stalked Battle Royale and to safely market it to the younger ends of the YA spectrum. In spite of it's horrifying theme, there are only a few moments of PG, maybe PG-13, violence in The Hunger Games. This is a Scholastic book, after all.

The setting for The Hunger Games is the distant future. North America has become a wasteland, devastated by years of war and famine which have left the continent divided into 12 districts. The central ones were the victors, and they control the outlying districts through an oppressive system based on continual famine. Katnis, aged sixteen, lives with her healer mother and her 12-year-old sister. She has done all she can to make sure her family has food to eat including hunting in quarantined zones others are afraid to enter and accepting extra rations handed out by the government. These extra rations come at a steep price. Each year, beginning at age 12, the name of every child is entered into the drawing for The Hunger Games. At age 16, Katnis's name would have been entered four times, even without the extra rations. But each time she took the rations, her name was entered in once more.

The Hunger Games are a nationally televised event, shown on large screens in the town square in District 12 where Katnis lives. One boy and one girl are selected at random to compete. They are taken to the capital city in District 1, feted as national heroes before they are thrown, unarmed, into the Hunger Games playing field. Once there, they must fight first for weapons, then each other until only one remains.

Lately, The Hunger Games has been getting a lot of play on several of the book blogs I read so I came to it with high expectations. It largely delivers the goods. The story is compelling, the characters are real characters with much more than the standard cookie-cutter backgrounds you'll find in similar novels. The workings of the Hunger Games are described in enough detail to always be interesting and believable in the context of the future Ms. Collins has created. The contestants in The Hunger Games do not know each other ahead of time, except for Katnis and Peeta the boy chosen from district 12, which makes the premise a little easier to take than it was in Battle Royale where the students had all spent many years together. The violence in The Hunger Games is also much easier to take. There are no shocking scenes of graphic death in The Hunger Games. In fact, almost all of the deaths occur off-stage, out of sight of Katnis, our first person narrator.

All of which puts me in the uncomfortable position of preferring the more violent story, the one I hesitated to admit I've seen when I started writing this review. Battle Royale shocked and offended the viewer, but shouldn't a story like that shock and offend? Friends forced to turn against each other to fight to the death makes an emotional impact on the viewer and offers a comment on a system that pits students against each other in academic settings. The deaths, with one or two exceptions, fail to move the reader in The Hunger Games. Through a series of rule changes, that almost feel like cheating on the author's part, the main characters fall in love and then escape having to fight each other to the death. The resulting novel is entertaining, and will probably be very popular, but it fails to say much of anything about our times.

And then, in the end, I found out that The Hunger Games is the first part of a trilogy. I hate when that happens. But, I'm sure, many of the younger readers The Hunger Games was written for will be happy to hear that volumes two and three are on their way.

Some reviews by people who liked The Hunger Games more than I did:

• Booking Mama
• Maw Books Blog
• Farm Lane Books
• Semicolon
• Sandy Nawrot

I seem to stand alone in my lukewarm reaction to The Hunger Games. But that's okay. If you've read it, let me know what you think and please feel free to leave a link to your own review, whether you liked it or not.

Short Story Sunday: The Good Doctor by Neil Simon and Anton Chekhov.

The literature text book I use with my 7th graders has a short play in it called "A Defenseless Creature" by Neil Simon and based on a short story by Anton Chekhov. It's a simple scene about a woman who describes herself as defenseless and the banker she tries to get her husbands back wages from. The fact that the banker has nothing whatever to do with the woman's husband does not deter her from begging and pleading for the money. It's a very funny scene that never fails to get lots of laughs from my students. So I thought why not use the entire play?

"The Good Doctor" is a very funny collection of nine skits based on the short stories of Anton Chekhov. They make for amusing reading and would have been excellent for use with my students, but for the last skit. Even when Chekhov is at his most farcical, as he is in "The Sneeze," he still manages to make a point or two about life in his times. In "The Sneeze," an average worker goes to the theatre on opening night. He is a devotee of the arts and saves all the money he can to spend on good seats. Before the play begins he realizes that the couple sitting in front of him is his employer and his wife. The man becomes uncomfortably aware that his situation is awkward. What will his employer think about his presence in such an expensive seat on opening night? Should he greet his employer? Can he use this opportunity to advance his career? Unfortunately, as the play begins, the man sneezes an enormous sneeze directly on the bald head of his employer. My students would have loved this.

The rest of the play is just as funny and still manages to have a point. There are lots of parts, enough for every student in the class. It's perfect. Right up to the very last skit. In "The Arrangement" the author's father takes him to visit a brothel on the occasion of the young man's birthday. It's a very good skit, touching actually. The young man is nervous, worried about what is going to happen and what he'll be like afterwards, unsure that he wants to become a man so soon. The father is understanding, carrying on a tradition his own father started, but not quite sure himself that he wants his son to become a man. Can this wait another year? I liked the skit. I also like my job and want to keep it.

So we won't be using Neil Simon's "The Good Doctor" in my seventh grade class.

If you'd like to participate in Short Story Sunday please feel free to leave a link to your site below, or just leave your review in a comment below.

Thanks to everyone who joined Short Story Sunday in May. If you're looking for a story to read, try one of these.


Short Story Sunday Participants

1. Puss Reboots (Shadow-Below) 2. Sam Sattler (The Worm in the Apple) 3. ds (The Ice Man, Murakami) 4. Puss Reboots (The Tribes of Bela) 5. gautami tripathy

6. J.C. (Good Country People) 7. vijesh 8. Gail 9. Katrina (Aristotle's Lantern) 10. ds(Career by Kay Boyle)

11. gautami tripathy (The Ugly Duckling) 12. LizzySiddal (Scottish Short Stories) 13. Ali (Unaccustomed Earth) 14. ds (Nightingale, Tobias Wolff 15. gautami tripathy (Lanndscape with Flatiron by Murakami)

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Dakota Picks a Winner: Paris Pan Takes the Dare

Dakota came with me to school today, on a Saturday, to keep me company while I packed up the room.

Afterwards, I took her to the dog wash place and gave her her bath.

She was not all that happy with me, as you can see in the video.




Here's the link to the review of Paris Pan Takes the Dare.

Friday Picture Reading #2

Man Reading by John Singer Sargent. 1858-1925

BTT: Books that Stick.

This week from Booking Through Thursday:

“This can be a quick one. Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.”

I'll be as quick as I can. Here they are in the order I thought of them:

1. Theory of War by Joan Brady. I just posted about Joan Brady here.

2. A Bully on Barkham Street. This is the first book I ever read that made me seriously rethink how I saw the world. It's a sequel that completely undermines what you thought was going on in the first book. I read it in third or fourth grade and have not been the same since. It's also the first book I ever threw against a wall. When his parents took his dog away..... unforgiveable!

3. The Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Popular opinion seems to be turning against this book lately, But I was surprised by it and moved by it and it really did make me rethink my ideas about God just like the back cover promised.

4. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. That bit with the storm and the lightning splitting the old tree in two just gets me.

5. The Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin. Did I move to San Francisco because of these books? I don't think they were that influencial, but I've read them more times than I can remember and still keep a complete set for when the mood strikes.

6. Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner. This was the first book my book club read. We're well past 100 books now, including two other Stegner titles.

7. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. I tried to memorize a book myself after reading this back in seventh grade. I couldn't do it so I memorized poetry instead. I can still recite a few of them.

8. Bleak House by Charles Dickens. The way the Jarndyce v. Jarndyce legal case comes to an end has kept me from ever trying to sue anyone and from ever thinking I can rely on inheritance.

9. Middlemarch by George Eliot. The fate of Mr. Causabom's thesis haunts me to this day.

10. Midnight's Children by Salmon Rushdie. The opening section about how the narrator's parents meet and fall in love is still the most romantic and the sexist scene I've read.

11. MacBeth by William Shakespeare. Why this particular play should be my favorite I don't really know. I'm nothing like him. Honest. I think it's the "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" speech.

12. On The Duty of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau. I read this back in my undergraduate days and have been marching regularly ever since.

13. The Bible. It probably would have topped my list 25 years ago. I can still quote it better than most. I just seem to quote parts that tend to aggrevate people these days.

14. The Oxford English Dictionary unabridged micro-print edition that came in a box with a magnifying glass. I actually saved up to buy this while still in high school. Yes, I was something of a nerd.

15. The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass. This was one of the first literary books I figured out on my own. Lots of very strange symbolism that my brother and I spent hours trying to decypher. What did the eels represent? What's with the onion peeling in the cafes? It was fun.

It would be interesting to see how this list changes over time. What would it be like ten years from now?