the one that was supposed to inspire cooking.

I haven't been this enmeshed with the library since I was a teenager.  Currently, I have 10 books checked out from Washington County.  I am there almost daily.  I couple my visits with a mini ice cream cone from Cups and Scoops (located in the same building).  I needed to restrain from ice cream on Saturday b/c I was afraid the cashier might think I actually have a problem.

I do have a problem.  I keep reading blogger books.  This one, The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove, sounded inspiring.  And the beginning really was.  I think I could save a bundle of money by cooking at home.  I do have a desire to bake bread and raise chickens.  But, she really lost me about a hundred pages in.  There wasn't any meat in the book (figuratively, that is.)

A much better book is Molly Wizenburg's A Homemade Life.

And yet, I'll probably still keep listening to Cathy Erway's podcast b/c I'm awed by anyone that can write a book at the age of 24.  And I really need to learn how to cook.  Nightly.  More power to her.

the one about caritas.

Reading this novel marks a significant departure for me in three ways:

1) I am embracing the Washington County Library and a new book budget of $15/month.  Really.

2) It makes me want to explore more deeply the beliefs of the Unitarian church.

Did you know, for example, that it was the Unitarian Julia Ward Howe whom established Mother's Day?  It was originally a call for peace and disarmament so that mothers could have a day without worry for their sons in battle. 

2) I am departing from the book 2666.  I shall return, perhaps.

The book Marriage and Other Acts of Charity is written by Kate Braestrup.  I think I offended Matt by the title of this book.  But, really this is a book about caritas (the Latin word for charity).  A word that describes a kind of love that is unconditional, selfless and self-giving.  The author lost this kind of love in her first marriage but found it again through reflection and acts of charity.

And then tragically, Kate lost her husband in a traffic accident.  She is now a Unitarian Universalist minister and game warden for the Maine warden service.   The novel reads like the funniest, most intelligent sermon on love and God that you've ever heard.  It's a book that I could pick up again and again for its insight, charm and perspective. 

But, unfortunately, I'll have to buy it first - within my $15 budget for the month of May.

My favorite quote:
If your heart breaks, let it break open.  Love more.

the one with the yellow cover.

Well, I finally read an Emily Giffin novel.  It was a bit exhausting.

I felt by the end of Baby Proof that I really didn't know the character.  Didn't know what she looked like, what she ate for dinner, how she styled her hair.  Honestly, I just really hated this book.  Nuff said.

Guess I'll have to stick with Curtis Sittenfeld & Jennifer Weiner if I really want to delve into the chick lit world.

And stay away from the pastel books.

They really don't look good on my book shelf.

the one by Anna.

What a blissful week it has been reading a book I love.  A vacation from nasty, grueling books that are tedious chores to get through.  A book with characters I can relate to, free from shock tactics of sex and gratuitous violence.  A book with heart.

What I love about Anna is that she gets grief.  She lost her mom in her twenties to ovarian cancer.  My favorite passage in this novel takes place when Mary Beth questions another's grief.  She says "whatever she did was fine.  That's what I've learned.  It's fine.  Whatever you manage to do."  Life should be about more than just managing but some days we can only do our very best.

I was charmed by the ending of this novel.  I have a dream about moving to Vermont someday and living in a barn and having antiques and cooking chicken tetrazzini for my family and learning to be a master gardener.  But the life I envision now will ultimately be disappointingly different and much, much grander than I could ever imagine.

I know I shouldn't reveal the last sentence of the book but darn it, I love it.
"This is my life.  I am trying."

Can't wait to meet Anna tonight.

the one that is really sick.

The Cement Garden is the first novel that Ian McEwan ever published and it really makes me question the author's lucidity and values.  This book is chillingly morbid and dark as it explores themes of sexuality and death.  Four children are left orphaned by the death of their two parents.  What ensues after they are left to their own devices in their home is nothing short of awful. 

I don't know what to do with this book now.  It feels wrong on my book shelf.  I can't believe I was gifted this book by a member of the Stillwater Book Club. 

Perhaps being totally creeped out by a book is a sign that the author has extraordinary skill in expression and imagination.  But something this bad cannot be good.  I think I might be done with McEwan now.

the one I didn't pick

I am in a book slump that only Anna Quindlen can save.   Thanks be that she is coming to MN and launching a new book April 13th.  And yes, I will be first in line.

The Outlander by Gil Adamson was picked by Diane in my Stillwater Book Club.  A woman who normally has exquisite taste in books.  We all pick duds sometimes.

The only good thing to say about the novel is that it has a pretty cover.  Matt almost picked it up recently at BNoble because of his pretty cover theory.  Let's just say that I will continue to pick the books around here.  I mean, really.  It's true what they say about never judging a book by its cover, you know?

This was a book about a women who killed her husband and runs off into the Wild West in a state of despair and madness.  I skipped paragraphs at a time and annoyed my husband endlessly with exclamations of "I hate this book." I didn't throw it across the room but I certainly thought about it.
 
Bring on Anna!

the weird one about twins.

 Who writes a book like this?  Terribly, terribly strange and disturbing.  Or maybe just further evidence that I am not a fan of sci fi and never will be.

Her Fearful Symmetry is the follow-up novel to Audrey Niffenegger's Time Travelers Wife.  The topic of the novel was intriguing: a quirky aunt dies and leaves her fortune to her nieces; becomes a ghost and observes them. There is a cast of equally quirky characters and an interesting setting near a cemetery in England.  That said, the relationship between the twins is at once dark and incestuous.  And what ultimately happens in the book is downright dumb.

The reviews of Her Fearful Symmetry have been horrific.  Kirkus Reviews calls the plot of this book "breathtakingly far-fetched."  The book is terribly readable but ridiculously macabre. 

This book was a gift - if you want to call it that.  I should have known the novel was a stinker from the first page.  The names of the two main characters are Edwina and Elspeth.  Shame on me that I didn't put the novel down after page 50.

the one about butchers.

I am BEYOND thrilled about my new book club.  Kate is hosting at her house next week for an eclectic group of girls (non-related except for a love of books).  I'm eager to meet some of Sarah's blogging friends and someone who lived kitty korner from me freshman year in Brandt!

But about the book.  I'm pretty sure I read Master Butchers Singing Club years ago.  It was on my shelf.  But as I read the book again ??? it was so unfamiliar.  I'm hoping this book will cement in my memory now with a lively discussion.  It is a saga of grand proportion and written by a woman who knows words.

Without revealing too much, thoughts I had about the book:
1) What must it have been like to be a German American during/after WWII?  I'm German after all.
2) Has Louise Erdrich experienced death/cancer?  B/C she writes so authentically about the experience.
3)  How in the world did Erich get to a POW camp in N.  Minnesota?  Really?
4)  How was Delphine's relationship with Fidelis any different than with Ciprine?
5)  Did TOO much drama sacrifice character dev?  The female undertaker and Step and a Half?

I'm excited to read Last Report at Little No Horse now set in the same fictional town of Argus.  And I anticipate the next assigned novel for our new book club without a name.

the lukewarm one.

I have been dying to read The History of Love by Nicole Krauss.  And now that I've read it, I'm not even sure what to say.  The book was confusing and it didn't have to be.  Just trying to understand the plot took away from reveling in the beauty of the characters.  If it weren't for old man Leo, I would have put the book on the shelf days ago. 

This seems to be a popular book attracting those that enjoyed Time Travelers's Wife and flocked to the  movie Julie and Julia.  The novel has a very devoted following.  Just hoping that someone who loved the novel can help me understand.  My brain is a muddied mess after reading the last page.

ho-hum.

another one about a blogger.

So, I just finished The Happiness Project - a novel that has been lauded all over blogland.  But I wasn't impressed.  I'm getting tired of thirty somethings with cliche ideas that can't write.  Harsh, I know.  Would I, could I be ambitious enough to publish my own little thing.  Then, I could judge.

The author Gretchen Rubin counters John Stuart Mill and his quote:
"ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so."

Rubin firmly believes in the intentional pursuit of happiness.  She directs us to create a resolution checklist full of activities to bring joy to our days (i.e. straightening the piles, always accepting invitations and reading memoirs of catastrophe to build gratitude).  The checklist made me exhausted. I'm left feeling that for most of us the solution to finding happiness is to lighten up.

I'd like to recommend Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner (a former NPR reporter) for those that want to delve into the genuinely compelling topic of happiness.  God knows, Americans don't corner the market on what it means to be happy AND Eric Weiner explores the globe to explain why.