Review of the Day: The Marmot Drive

Published in 1953, The Marmot Drive was the first of John Hersey’s novels not set during WWII. It takes place over a weekend in a New England village, when the town decides to drive out a plague of “marmots” or woodchucks. This happens to be the weekend when Eben Avered brings his fiancée Hester out from New York City to meet his charismatic father, the town’s Selectman, and his faded mother.

The book is a mishmash of conflicts and contradictions. Eben and his father are in a continual battle over ideas, values, and Hester – the kind of battle all too recognizable between powerful men and their newly adult sons. Hester battles with Eben and herself. The villagers battle with each other, rearrange allegiances, and battle some more. And everyone battles the woodchucks.

The book has all the markings of allegory, but it hard to tell what the allegory is. Do the woodchucks stand for something else? Cityfolk? Black people? Commies? All might have been possible contenders back in the 1950s, depending on whether the village is to be condemned for the drive or praised. But the book does not tie things together so easily.

The novel ends up a big stewpot of paradox, where the characters are more bad than good, the country people more open minded than the city people, all of life more complicated than simple. It is thought-provoking and interesting, but peters out in a messy, paltry ending, just like the marmot drive itself.

Review of the Day: Leaving Brooklyn

At my law office, we have a word for 15-year-old girls who have a sexual relationship with their 37-year-old doctors – we call them “clients.” I spend my days suing child molesters and the institutions that allowed the abuse. So the fact that I could set aside my professional and personal outlook and be swept up in this novel is a testament to Lynn Sharon Schwartz’s literary gifts.

In Leaving Brooklyn, Schwartz spins a post-war coming-of-age story out of the heroine’s damaged eye. Audrey is legally blind in her right eye, a lazy eye prone to wander on its own. The eye gives Audrey a creative, imaginary way of seeing “behind” things, including ideas. Her eye is the center point for the story; it is also a metaphor for the inward gaze that perfectly captures the mind of a 15-year-old girl.

Audrey feels stifled by what she considers the narrow-mindedness of her Brooklyn neighborhood. She escapes Brooklyn, and ultimately her childhood, through a series of weekly sexual encounters with her Manhattan eye doctor.

Schwartz tells the story as a memoir that entwines the adult Audrey’s perceptions with the child’s. In moving between the two – and in recognizing the ambiguity inherent in memory and perception – she paints an accurately ephemeral portrait of Audrey as “Everywoman.”

NOTES

Leaving Brooklyn by Lynn Sharon Schwartz was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner. This super cool Hawthorne Books & Literary Arts edition has a new introduction by Ursula Hegi.

OTHER REVIEWS

(If you would like your review posted here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.)

Opening Sentence of the Day: A Small Fortune

"It was partly my fault for staying up so late copyediting the latest volume in Dee Dee Dawson's Legends of Lust series."

-- A Small Fortune by Audrey Braun

So begins what is described on the back as "a fast-paced, sexy thrill-ride." I am very excited to read this for a couple of reasons.

First, my friend wrote it. She wrote it while waiting for her two (I think it's two) literary novels to finally percolate up to the top of some publisher's Must Print list.  In the meantime, she had fun writing this thriller -- using a thriller-ish pen name -- and I am going to have fun reading it. There is even a character in it with my first name.

(You can expect to hear nothing by praise from me for this one and I encourage everyone to buy a copy. When my friend becomes famous, you'll be happy you did.)

The second reason I am excited to read this is because I am alternating back and forth between this and The Wall in My Head: Words and Images from the Fall of the Iron Curtain, published by Words Without Borders Anthologies. When that one gets too dense, I switch over to Mexico beaches and adventure for a while.

NOTE
Book Beginnings on Fridays is a Friday "opening sentence" event hosted by Becky at Page Turners. 

Challenge Update: Battle of the Prizes

Although I have not made any progress, so far, on my own challenge, others have. I want to thank everyone who has been participating. We have six reviews in so far. Click the links to get to the reviews.

REVIEWS

Morte d'Urban by J. F. Powers on Musings 

World's Fair by E. L. Doctorow on chaotic compendiums

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner on 100 Books. 100 Journeys 

The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow on 100 Books. 100 Journeys 

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry on chaotic compendiums 

Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler on Book Psmith 

There is still time to sign up and participate. The challenge requires reading only three book by the end of next January (1/31/11). Details are on the main challenge post or you can click on the logo button above.

There is also time to join the British Version if that is more your cup of tea. Details are here or you can click on the logo button.

Opening Sentence of the Day: The Wall in My Head

"In the mid-to-late 1990s, while living mostly in Moscow, I managed to travel through a good part of the former Soviet Bloc."

-- Introduction by Keith Gessen to The Wall in My Head: Words and Images from the Fall of the Iron Curtain, published by Words Without Borders Anthologies.

This is one of my LibraryThing Early Reviewer books. I asked for it specifically because I think it sounds fascinating.

But now that I am getting into it, I realize that it is going to take me a while -- it is dense and, because the pieces are written by behind-the-Iron-Curtain authors, there are insider references and imagery that take me a while to figure out. Also, I can't tell which pieces are fiction and which are not, because it doesn't label the pieces.

I think it may be a book I am glad I read, even if I am not glad to be reading it. Do you read those kind of books?

NOTE
Book Beginnings on Fridays is a Friday "opening sentence" event hosted by Becky at Page Turners.  

Opening Sentence of the Day: The Marmot Drive

"One fog-lidded dawn in summertime a city girl, whose name was Hester, stood near the whipping post on the Tunxis village green with half a hundred strangers waiting to round up woodchucks."

The Marmot Drive by John Hersey

That may be my favorite opening sentence of the year. Woodchucks! You don't get to read a novel about woodchucks just every day.

I am on a mid-Century fiction jag, and this one definitely counts. It was published in 1953 and is about the conflicts that arise in a Connecticut village when the townsfolk gather to drive the "marmots" out of Thighbone Hollow.

I used some of my Reading Local contest money to buy this book from Hawthorne Boulevard Books, a little gem of a used book store in southeast Portland (and not to be confused with Hawthorne Books, our local literary publishing company).Thanks Reading Local!


NOTE
Book Beginnings on Fridays is a Friday "opening sentence" event hosted by Becky at Page Turners.  

Teaser Tuesday: Leaving Brooklyn

"Had these women, hair carved by beauticians, bodies encased in God knows what steely underclothes, ever felt what I felt? . . . If they had, how could they be sitting here calmly playing mah jongg"

Leaving Brooklyn by Lynn Sharon Schwartz (nominated for the PEN/Faulkner; new introduction by Ursula Hegi; super cool Hawthorne Books & Literary Arts edition).

I love that carved hair image!


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

Mailbox Monday

While waiting for a jury last Friday (we are still waiting today), I went for a walk to stave off the jitters and, not surprisingly, ended up doing a little book shopping. I found several for my Mailbox Monday list.

Encore Provence by Peter Mayle (which it turns out I already have and have already read, but this Penguin edition is so pretty that it makes me want to read it again)



A Friend From England by Anita Brookner (because I am in a Brookner mood ever since learning the term "Aga saga" from Frances Mayes's A Year in the World)



The Golden Child by Penelope Fitzgerald



Time's Arrow by Martin Amis



All would count for the Typically British challenge.

Review of the Day: Second Wind

Second Wind starts off like a typical Dick Francis novel: A random assortment of characters shows up at a Stately Home of England for a swanky weekend lunch and a prized racehorse ends up poisoned. But before you can button up your tweeds and pet the corgi, it switches to a meteorological adventure when two BBC weathermen decide to spend their vacation flying through a Caribbean hurricane.

In the course of bringing these two storylines together, Francis drags the reader on a rambunctious trip from Newmarket to Florida mansions to the Grand Caymans to a mysterious island of dubious ownership. It is not as tight a plot as Francis usually provides, and there is a lot of ink spent on weather science, but the loose ends get tied up for a satisfactory ending.

NOTES

This is one of the books I read for the Typically British challenge. Dick Francis certainly qualifies.

OTHER REVIEWS

Review of Even Money on Book Dilettante 

(If you would like your review of this book or any other Dick Francis book listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.)

Review of the Day: Ex Libris

Ex Libris is Anne Fadiman’s “Confessions of a Common Reader,” a collection of essays on books, reading, and related foibles. She writes about particular books, but most of the essays are more generally book related, on topics such as marginalia, home libraries, inscriptions, compulsive proofreading, plagiarism, and fountain pens.

Fadiman on books is not laugh out loud funny like Nick Hornby in his book column for the Believer. But she is smart and warm-hearted and many a passage will make bibliophiles smile. For instance, her “Marrying Libraries” essay will touch a cord with anyone who has tried to merge their book collections with a live-in love. And most readers will recognize something in themselves when Fadiman describes her collection of books on Arctic exploration as her “Odd Shelf,” explaining:

It has long been my belief that everyone's library contains an Odd Shelf. On this shelf rests a small, mysterious corpus of volumes whose subject matter is completely unrelated to the rest of the library, yet which, upon closer inspection, reveals a good deal about its owner.

These kinds of observations will keep book lovers flipping the pages and wishing Fadiman had included more essays in this short book.

NOTES

This is one of the books I read for the Bibliophilic Books Challenge.

I was bowled over by Fadiman's first book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, an anthropological classic about the clash between an Hmong family whose little girl has epilepsy and the Western doctors who tried to treat her. I never reviewed it because it was so overwhelming to me, but I recommend it highly.

OTHER REVIEWS

(If you would like your review listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.)

Hopping Around

I am trying to be productive today while waiting for a jury to come back with a "Phase I" verdict in the trial I've been working on. But it is hard to concentrate, so real work is going to be all but impossible and hopping around looking at book blogs seems like the only kind of blogging I may be able to accomplish today.

Crazy-for-Books hosts a weekly Book Blog Hop "to give us all bookies a chance to connect and find new blogs that we may be missing out on!" Click the link or the button for details.

UPDATE: Woo hoo! Thanks to the Book Blogger Hop, I now have 100 followers! Thanks everyone! Of course, my list of blogs I follow is also growing -- hope I can keep up!

The Plot Thickens . . .

This week's Booking Through Thursday question asks for a preference between plots or stream-of-conscious writing.

That's an easy one. Not since I tackled Ulysses in college have I been too enamored of the stream-of-conscious style. I admire books like The Sound and the Fury (see here) for the masterpieces they are, but I generally prefer a good story, well told.

I don't mean I need a lot of action and adventure (although they have their place), but I like things to happen in the book I read. This is clear from my Top 10 list of favorites -- all are plot-driven novels.

I am interested to read answers of people who prefer stream-of-conscious or am I? maybe they could convince me, if my foot didn't itch or I could go get coffee first, just what is conscious, anyway? if a book could really convince . . .

Opening Sentence of the Day: Leaving Brooklyn

"This is the story of an eye, and how it came into its own."

Leaving Brooklyn by Lynn Sharon Schwartz (nominated for the PEN/Faulkner; new introduction by Ursula Hegi; super cool Hawthorne Books & Literary Arts edition).

This novel has mesmerized me. I am generally not a fan of coming-of-age novels, not having much interest in teenagers since I stopped being one myself. But Audrey appeals to me. She has a "lazy eye" that is legally blind, but gives her a creative, imaginary way of seeing "behind" things, including ideas. Her eye is the center point for the story; it is also a metaphor, I think, for the inward gaze that perfectly captures the mind of a 15-year old girl.

NOTE

Book Beginnings on Fridays is a Friday "opening sentence" event hosted by Becky at Page Turners.

Review of the Day: Eden Springs

Laura Kasischke’s moody novella, Eden Springs, is a historical mystery of sorts, based the true story of a spooky religious colony on the shores of Lake Michigan in the early 1900s. The House of David in Benton Harbor, Michigan, was founded by Benjamin Purcell as a lakeside Eden where he and his avowedly celibate followers could await the Second Coming.

The colony thrived for many years, becoming rich first on fruit crops, later on proceeds from the Eden Springs amusement park. Followers of “King Ben” ran the park, staged musical performances, and fielded a baseball team famous for the players’ long hair and untrimmed beards.

From this factual background, Kasischke pulls at a loose thread of scandal, focusing on King Ben’s predilection for sleeping with his young female converts. Kasischke creates a narrative collage from third-person and first person fictional accounts, excerpts from contemporary news articles, court documents, Purcell’s own writings, and vintage postcards of the colony and park.

From this mix comes a story of religious fervor, egomania, lust, jealousy, and murder. Eden Springs is a captivating little book that linger long after the last page is turned.

NOTES

Eden Springs is part of the Made in Michigan Writers Series published by the Wayne State University Press.

This review first ran in the February 2010 edition of the Internet Review of Books. 

OTHER REVIEWS

(If you have reviewed this book and would like your review posted here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.)

Teaser Tuesday: Ex Libris

"It has long been my belief that everyone's library contains an Odd Shelf.  On this shelf rests a small, mysterious corpus of volumes whose subject matter is completely unrelated to the rest of the library, yet which, upon closer inspection, reveals a good deal about its owner."

-- Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman.

What's on your Odd Shelf?

Here is a sampling from mine:

Urgent 2nd Class: Creating Curious Collage, Dubious Documents, and Other Art from Ephemera by Nick Bantock



Creative Correspondence by Judy Jacobs



Collage Lost and Found: Creating Unique Projects With Vintage Ephemera by Giuseppina Cirincione




Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

Mailbox Monday

My family was in town for Easter, and there were several books found in Easter Baskets. Just in time for Mailbox Monday.

Mine was One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson. This is the second of her three Jackson Brodie mysteries. I listened to the audiobook of the first one, Case Histories, and loved it. I'm looking forward to reading a paper version and seeing how they compare.

Happy Easter!

Review of the Day: Cold Comfort Farm

I never write in books. Underlining, highlighting, and marginalia are not for me. I like my books to be straight of spine and clean of page. So what am I to do with Cold Comfort Farm that makes me itch to underline? There is a funny, quotable, commit-to-memory-in-case-of-long-imprisonment passage on every page.

Stella Gibbons published Cold Comfort Farm, her first novel, in 1932, as a satire of the moulderingly rural romantic novels of Thomas Hardy, D. H. Lawrence, and others. The set up is pitch perfect: Newly orphaned Flora Poste is taken in by distant relatives to live at their grim, decrepit Sussex farm, where morbid Judith lurks in shawls, Amos seethes with religious fury, oversexed cousin Seth lounges half naked, and crazy Aunt Ada Doom won’t leave her room because she “saw something nasty in the woodshed” 68 years ago.

Instead of wallowing in the gloom like some Brönte heroine, Flora takes the situation in hand. Starting with having the curtains washed, she moves on to fixing everyone’s problems with dispatch. She finds careers for the under-employed, spouses for the lovelorn, care for the ill, and a new lease on life for Aunt Ada. Even the cows are better off for Flora’s attentions.

What makes the book so spectacular is that it is funny. Flora’s spot-on commentary about everything from intellectual women gone “all queer about the shoes and coiffure,” to Japanese art films, to rural fecundity is just dead clever.

I am going to have to buy a second copy of Cold Comfort Farm so that I can have one to sit and look pretty on my shelf and another that I can underline to my heart’s content.

OTHER REVIEWS

Serendipity

(If you would like your review listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.)

Opening Sentence of the Day: Ex Libris

"When the Irish novelist John McGahern was a child, his sisters unlaced and removed one of his shoes while he was reading."

From the Preface to Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman.

"A few months ago, my husband and I decided to mix our books together."

From "Marrying Libraries," the first essay in Ex Libris.

I love the opening to the Preface because I remember reading like that, especially when I was a kid. I could be so engrossed in a book that I was oblivious to anything around me.

And the "marrying libraries" idea had me laughing. My husband and I have been married now for nigh on 10 years, and our books only started co-habitating when we moved to our present house a year ago. They are still not fully integrated.


NOTE
Book Beginnings on Fridays is a Friday "opening sentence" event hosted by Becky at Page Turners. 

I've Seen the Light!

Inspired by the Geneva scientists who successfully smashed atoms at high speed this week, I have decided to devote this blog to physics.

Physics covers a wide range of phenomena, from the smallest sub-atomic particles (such as quarks, neutrinos and electrons), to the largest galaxies. Included in these phenomena are the most basic objects from which all other things are composed, and therefore physics is sometimes called the "fundamental science".

While physics deals with a wide variety of systems, there are certain theories that are used by all physicists. These central theories are important tools for research into more specialized topics, and any physicist is expected to be literate in them. These include classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, electromagnetism, and special relativity.

Starting today, this blog will be devoted to my study of these central theories. Check back tomorrow for my expostulation on thermodynamics and the important unsolved theoretical problems of high-temperature superconductivity.

State of the Blog, Part Three: The Authors

Spring has sprung.  The pink trees are blooming and Easter is on the way. It is time to assess what bookery bloggery progress I've made in the first quarter of 2010.

This is a three-part assessment. The Part One addressed the book lists. Part Two covered the challenges I joined this year. 

This Part Three looks at progress on my author lists. Links to each author post are listed in the right hand column.

THE AUTHORS


Kingsley Amis
Books read so far: 5/48
Books read in 2010: one (One Fat Englishman, reviewed here)
Books I hope to read in 2010: at least one more, probably Everyday Drinking
Books on my TBR shelf: 6

Kate Atkinson
Books read so far: 2/8
Books read in 2010: one (Case Histories, for the Typically British Challenge)
Books I hope to read in 2010: 2

• One Good Turn
• When Will There be Good News?

Books on my TBR shelf: one

Cara Black
Books read so far: 2/9
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: one, if the one on my TBR shelf is the next in order
Books on my TBR shelf: one

William Boyd

Books read so far:3/16
Books read in 2010: one (The New Confessions, reviewed here)
Books I hope to read in 2010: one more (A Good Man in Africa)
Books on my TBR shelf: 3

James Lee Burke
Books read so far: 13/17 (Dave Robicheaux series only)
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: 2 or 3 -- I'm almost done with them
Books on my TBR shelf: 3

Lee Child
Books read so far: 12/14
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: 2

• Gone Tomorrow
• 61 Hours

Books on my TBR shelf: zero

A. J. Cronin

Books read so far: 1/25
Books read in 2010: one (Three Loves, reviewed here)
Books I hope to read in 2010: that may be it for this year
Books on my TBR shelf:5

M. F. K. Fisher
Books read so far: 4/27
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: 2, but I have not decided which ones
Books on my TBR shelf: 4

F. Scott Fitzgerald
Books read so far: 8/13
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: probably zero, this is a future goal
Books on my TBR shelf: zero

Penelope Fitzgerald
Books read so far: 2/9
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: one (The Bookshop, for the Bibliophilic Books Challenge)
Books on my TBR shelf: 2

Richard Ford
Books read so far: 5/10
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: undecided
Books on my TBR shelf: 3

Jim Harrison
Books read so far: 19/20 (prose only)
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: one (his new Farmer's Daughter)
Books on my TBR shelf: one

Nick Hornby
Books read so far: 2/11
Books read in 2010: one (The Polysyllabic Spree, reviewed here)
Books I hope to read in 2010:2

• Housekeeping vs. the Dirt
• Shakespeare Wrote for Money

Books on my TBR shelf: 3

John Lescroart
Books read so far: 16/17 (Dismus Hardy series and spin offs)
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: one (A Plague of Secrets)
Books on my TBR shelf: zero

Elinor Lipman
Books read so far: 4/10
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: one (Then She Found Me)
Books on my TBR shelf: 2

David Lodge
Books read so far: 2/15 (fiction only)
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: at least 2, but I don't know which ones
Books on my TBR shelf: 8

Ian McEwan
Books read so far: 5/13
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: at least one, but I do not have any on my TBR shelf
Books on my TBR shelf: zero

Jack Ohman
Books read so far: 5/10
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: one (Angler Management)

Books on my TBR shelf: one

Anthony Powell
Books read so far: 13/32
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: one (Venusberg)
Books on my TBR shelf: one

Philip Roth
Books read so far: 8/30
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: at least one, but I haven't decided which one
Books on my TBR shelf: 5

Martin Cruz Smith
Books read so far: 6/6 (Arkady Renko series only)
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: zero, unless I get my hands on Three Stations, which hasn't been released yet
Books on my TBR shelf: zero

Julia Spencer-Fleming
Books read so far: 5/7
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: one (I Shall Not Want)
Books on my TBR shelf: zero

William Styron
Books read so far: 2/10
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: probably zero
Books on my TBR shelf: 3

Anne Tyler
Books read so far: 4/18
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: one (Breathing Lessons, for my Pulitzer pick for the Battle of the Prizes challenge)
Books on my TBR shelf: 5

John Updike
Books read so far: 8/26
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: at least one, but I do not know which one
Books on my TBR shelf: 9

Andrea U'ren
Books read so far: zero/2
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: hopefully both of them
Books on my TBR shelf: zero

Simon Winchester
Books read so far: 5/16
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: two

1. The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology
2. Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded

Books on my TBR shelf: one

Teaser Tuesday: Cold Comfort Farm

"Had she not enough to do at Cold Comfort without there being a genius named Mybug staying a mile away from the farm who would probably fall in love with her? For she knew from experience that intellectuals and geniuses seldom fell for females of their own kidney, who had gone all queer about the shoes and coiffure, but concentrated upon reserved but normal and properly dressed persons like herself . . ."

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons.

There are so many good teasers I could have picked. My copy is positively bristling with book darts.


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

Mailbox Monday

I am still in trial (which means I am still whining about being in trial), but a couple of books still managed to make it into my house in time for Mailbox Monday. Funny how there is always some excuse to buy a book!

Fraud by Anita Brookner (because I liked her Incidents in the Rue Laugier, reviewed here, and want to read more)



Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon



A friend saw this at my house, said she had read it in college a few years back and really liked it, but didn't think it was a book that "old people" would read. I threw her in the dungeon.

List of the Day: Favorite Series

I can't resist a list. So when I saw this "Top 10" event on Random Ramblings, I was sucked in. 

I enjoy a good series, usually a mystery, sometimes a literary series. I'm not a fan of sci-fi or fantasy, so several more popular series will never make my list. And I limited this to adult books, so my all-time favorite Trixie Belden series didn't make the cut, no matter how many times I read it as a child.

Here is my list of favorite "series" in alphabetical order by author's name.

Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie mysteries

James Lee Burke's Dave Robechiex cop mysteries (reviews here and here)

Lee Child's Jack Reacher mysteries

Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet 

John Lescroarte's Dismas Hardy lawyer mysteries (discussed here)

David Lodge's academia trilogy (review here)

Anthony Powell's Dance to the Music of Time (discussed here)

Philip Roth's Nate Zuckerman books

Julia Spencer-Fleming's Clare Furguson priest mysteries (reviews here and here)

John Updike's Rabbit books

Review of the Day: City Limits

There is a line around the Portland metropolitan area called the Urban Growth Boundary – a controversial land use tool designed to control sprawl and protect Oregon’s farmland and scenic beauty. It’s one of those things that sounds like a terrific -- if somewhat utopian -- idea but that gets messy in practice.

Inner city yuppies, me included, tend to like the idea of the UGB because we can live in old, established neighborhoods with tree-lines sidewalks, but drive to a vineyard tasting room in 30 minutes. For families looking for an affordable house in the exurbs, or the grandchildren of farmers unable to subdivide just because they are on the other side of the line from a new strip mall, the UGB can seem like an arbitrary, unfettered exercise of government interference.

In City Limits: Walking Portland's Boundary, David Oates explores the UGB line – physically and metaphorically. He spent two years walking and kayaking around the entire boundary and writing essays inspired by his explorations. He also includes essays by some of the people he invited on his journeys, and dialogs with a few of his favorite dead environmentalists, such as John Muir.

Oates is definitely in the pro-UGB camp, sometimes waxing rhapsodic about the glories of centralized urban planning. But he shows a libertarian streak that chaffs at capricious and heavy-handed government action. While he bemoans -- with the drama of Chicken Little -- voters’ attempts to dismantle the current land use system, he acknowledges that a “system which seems immune to logic, above explanation, and insulated from individual citizens’ rights, complaints, and questions” will inspire revolt. If not evenly balanced, City Limits at least recognizes that there are two sides to the debate.

The book is best when Oates writes about what he sees and the people he meets while walking the boundary. He has a lyrical style that brings life to his subject, especially his musings on how people chose to live together. His poetic imagery occasionally overwhelms his ideas, and his imagined dialog with Italo Calvino is downright mystifying, but overall, reading his essays is like walking and talking with a thoughtful friend.

NOTES

Published by the Oregon State University Press.

OTHER REVIEWS

Oregon Historical Quarterly

(If you would like your review listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.)

State of the Blog, Part Two: The Challenges

Spring has sprung.  The pink trees are blooming and Easter is on the way. It is time to assess what bookery bloggery progress I've made in the first quarter of 2010.

This is a three-part assessment. This first part addressed the book lists. Part Two, here, deals with the challenges I joined this year. Part Three will take a look at the author lists.

I am hosting two "Battle of the Prizes" challenges this year and working on several others.  All are listed in the right-hand column.

CHALLENGES HOSTED BY ROSE CITY READER

Battle of the Prizes: American Version

National Book Award winners v. Pulitzer Prize winners, rules here. There is still plenty of time to sign up!

Books read so far: zero

Books I'm going to read for this challenge: 3

• Them by Joyce Carol Oates for my National winner;
• Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler for my Pulitzer winner; and
• The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter for my double dipper choice.

Battle of the Prizes: British Version

Man Booker Prize v. James Tait Black Memorial Prize, rules here. Again, there is still time to sign up!  

Books read so far: zero

Books I'm going to read for this challenge: 3

• The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch for my Booker winner;
• The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry for my James Tait Black winner; and
• G by John Berger for my double dipper choice. 

CHALLENGES I AM PARTICIPATING IN

Bibliophilic Books Challenge



A challenge to read books about books. The home page is here.

I signed up for the "Bibliomaniac" level, which means I have 12 to read by the end of the year. I do not have a final list yet, but I have several in mind.

Books read so far: 2

• The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby (reviewed here) 
• The Flaneur: A Stroll Through the Paradoxes of Paris by Edmund White (reviewed here)

Books I may read for this challenge (so many to chose from):

• Housekeeping vs. the Dirt by Nick Hornby;
  
• Shakespeare Wrote for Money by Nick Hornby; 
• Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman;
• Rereadings: Seventeen Writers Revisit Books They Love, edited by Anne Fadiman; 
• 99 Novels by Anthony Burgess;
• The Well-Educated Mind by Wise S. Bauer;
• How to Read and Why by Harold Bloom;
• Studies in Classic American Literature by D. H. Lawrence;
• The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald;
• The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte; 
• Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon;
• At Home with Books: How Booklovers Live with and Care for Their Libraries by Estelle Ellis;
• The Most Beautiful Libraries in the World by Guillaume de Laubier;
• Literary Essays by Mark Twain;
• Speak Memory by Vladimir Nobokov;
• Saul Bellow: A Biography of the Imagination by Ruth Miller;
• Oscar Wilde: A Certain Genius by Barbara Belford;
• Capote by Gerald Clarke;
• Greene on Capri: A Memoir by Shirley Hazzard; and
• Walks in Hemingway's Paris: A Guide To Paris For The Literary Traveler by Noel Fitch

Birth Year Reading Challenge 

This challenge is to read one or more books published in the year you were born, hosted by Hotchpot Cafe. I signed up, but I haven't created a post yet. I really want to read The Valley of the Dolls by Jaqueline Susann (what a great excuse!), but I don't have a copy yet.

Book Awards Challenge

The challenge involves reading ten books that won ten different prizes by November 1, 2010. The home page is here. Many of my picks overlap with other challenges.

Books read so far: 2

• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (National Book Critics Circle winner;
• The Well and the Mine by Gin Phillips (Discover Award winner; reviewed here)

Books I may read for this challenge:

•  Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler (Pulitzer winner);
• Them by Joyce Carol Oates (National winner);
• The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch (Booker winner);
• G by John Berger (James Tait Black winner);
• The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry (Costa winner);
• Citizen Vince by Jess Walter (Edgar winner);
• Small Island by Andrea Levy (Orange winner);
• Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset (Nobel winner); and
• Seaview by Toby Olson (PEN/Faulkner winner)

Chunkster Challenge

I signed up for the "Mor-book-ly Obese" level, meaning I will read six 450+-page books (or three 750+-pagers). Caribousmom hosts this challenge.

Books read so far: one (Three Loves by A. J. Cronin; reviewed here)

Books I may read for this challenge: 

•  Them by Joyce Carol Oates (which I am reading for my Battle of the Prizes: American Version challenge); 
• The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch (which I am reading for my Battle of the Prizes: British Version challenge);
• The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie (on the Radcliffe list); and
• Up in the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell (because it has been on my TBR shelf forever.

100+ Challenge

I signed up for this because I am pretty sure I'll read more than 100 books this year. But I do not have my own post for it. The challenge home page is here.

I keep a book cover list of the books I've read this year in the right-hand column of this blog. There are 28 books on the list so far and I think that is about accurate. Sometimes books don't show up over there because they are missing a cover picture on my LibraryThing library.

Typically British Challenge



I signed up at the "Cream Crackered" level to read eight "Typically British" novels. I will blow through those eight pretty quickly, since probably half of the books I read would qualify. The challenge home page is here.

Books read so far: 6

•  One Fat Englishman by Kingsley Amis (reviewed here);
• Case Histories by Kate Atkinson (finished, not reviewed);
• The New Confessions by William Boyd (reviewed here);
• Three Loves by A. J. Cronin (reviewed here);
• Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M. Forster (reviewed here); and
• The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells (reviewed here)

Books I may read for this challenge:

• The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry;
• The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch;
• Bolt by Dick Francis; and
• Orlando by Virginia Woolf

Opening Sentence of the Day: Cold Comfort Farm

"The education bestowed on Flora Poste by her parents had been expensive, athletic and prolonged; and when they died within a few weeks of one another during the annual epidemic of the influenza or Spanish Plague which occurred in her twentieth year, she was discovered to possess every art and grace save that of earning her own living."

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons.

That is one of the best opening sentences I've read in forever. It is a whole short story in one sentence. I want to live in this book for a long, long time.

Cold Comfort Farm is one of my all-time favorite movies (I think it is actually a British TV show patched together into a movie). It is the source of several "lines" in my household, including the best, "I saw something nasty in the woodshed," always said in a quavery, sepulchral voice. So far, the book is just like the movie, which is fine by me.


NOTE
Book Beginnings on Fridays is a new "opening sentence" event hosted by Becky at Page Turners. 

Review of the Day: The War of the Worlds

The War of the Worlds is a perennial favorite. Every couple of decades, its popularity is regenerated with a new adaptation, most famously with Orson Wells’ 1938 radio production that convinced listeners that Martians were invading in real time, and most recently with Steven Spielberg’s 2005 blockbuster. But there is something to be said for revisiting the original – H. G. Wells’ 1898 novel.

The book is a monumental work of science fiction, both for its science and its fiction. The story itself is particularly exciting in the original because of its historical setting. Martians land in the suburbs of London and proceed to massacre the inhabitants with a terrifying heat ray and smothering toxic smoke. But this is the 1890s – the people have to fight back with infantry and cavalry troops. There are no tanks, no planes, no nothing.

The science gives the book depth beyond the adventure story. Wells provides a roadmap to late-Victorian popular issues, covering Darwinism, Marxism, microbiology, planetary science, military advancements, and even that Victorian favorite, botany. Discussion on these topics gives the reader ideas to mull over after the excitement fades.

NOTES

This counts as one of my books for the Typically British Challenge.

OTHER REVIEWS

(If you would like your review listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.)

State of the Blog, Part One: The Lists

Spring has sprung.  The pink trees are blooming and Easter is on the way. It is time to assess what bookery bloggery progress I've made in the first quarter of 2010.

My List of Lists is over in the right-side column. These are Prize Winners, Must Reads, and other lists of books I have read or intend to read for some reason or another. Also in the right-side column is a list of my favorite authors. I add to both lists from time to time.

This is a three-part assessment. This first part addresses the book lists. Part Two, coming soon, will deal with the challenges I joined this year. Part Three will take a look at the author lists.

THE LISTS

1899 Top 100
Books read so far: 7/100
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: 2

1. The Moonstone by Willkie Collins
   
2. Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz

Books on my TBR shelf: 13

All-TIME Top 100
Books read so far: 75/100
Books read in 2010:

• The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
• Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion (reviewed here)
  

Books I hope to read in 2010: those two, plus two-thirds (I really hope to finish The Lord of the Rings.)
Books on my TBR shelf: 14

Anthony Burgess
Books read so far: 28/99
Books read in 2010: 2

• A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood (reviewed here)
• Titus Groan by Mervin Peake (reviewed here)

Books I hope to read in 2010:one more (Strangers and Brothers by C.P. Snow)
Books on my TBR shelf: 20

BBC's Big Read
Books read so far: 52/100
Books read in 2010: one (Black Beauty, Anna Sewell)
Books I hope to read in 2010: one more (Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake)
Books on my TBR shelf: 10

Book Club
Books read so far: 15/16
Books read in 2010: one (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz)
Books I hope to read in 2010: 5 (but The Red Tent is the only one I know so far)
Books on my TBR shelf: zero

College Board
Books read so far: 75/101
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: one (The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath)
Books on my TBR shelf: 15

Costa Book of the Year
Books read so far: 3/24
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: 2 

• The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry
• Small Island by Andrea Levy
  

Books on my TBR shelf: 2

Easton Press
Books read so far: 56/100
Books read in 2010: one (The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan)
Books I hope to read in 2010: only the one
Books on my TBR shelf: 25

Edgar Award
Books read so far: 6/55
Books read in 2010: one (New Orleans Mourning by Julie Smith)
Books I hope to read in 2010: only one
Books on my TBR shelf: 3

Erica Jong
Books read so far: 29/100
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: several, including

1. Orlando by Virginia Woolf
   
2. Rebecca by Daphne duMaurier
   
3. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
   

Books on my TBR shelf: 19

French Connection
Books read so far: 43/109 (and counting -- there are more books to add to the list)
Books read in 2010: one (The Flaneur by Edmund White)
Books I hope to read in 2010: one more (The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein)
Books on my TBR shelf: 20

Guilt List

Books read so far: I don't keep track, because I delete them after I read them
Books read in 2010: same
Books I hope to read in 2010: 15 more (I'll be busy)

1. The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos
2. The Art of Disappearing by Ivy Pochoda
3. The Evolution of Shadows by Jason Quinn Malott
5. The Mermaid and the Messerschmitt by Rulka Langer 
6. Soldiers in Hiding by Richard Wiley
7. Leaving Brooklyn by Lynn Sharon Schwartz
8. Saving Stanley: The Brickman Stories by Scott Nadelson 
9. Clown Girl by Monica Drake 
10. The Farmer's Daughter by Jim Harrison 
11. Jumptown: The Golden Years of Portland Jazz 1942-1957 by Robert Dietsche
12. Another Way the River Has: Taut True Tales from the Northwest by Robin Cody   
13. An Architectural Guidebook to Portland by Bart King 
14. The Grail: A Year Ambling & Shambling Through an Oregon Vinyard in Pursuit of the Best Pinot Noir Wine in the Whole Wild World by Brian Doyle  
15.  The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott by Kelly O'Connor McNees

Books on my TBR shelf: 15

James Tait Black Memorial Prize
Books read so far: 8/96
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: one (The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry)
Books on my TBR shelf: 9

LT Early Reviewers
Books read so far: 25/27
Books read in 2010: two

• A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood (reviewed here)
• Maimonides: and the Biblical Prophets by Israel Drazin
• Homer and Langley by E. L. Doctorow (reviewed here)

Books I hope to read in 2010: two more

1. The Wall in My Head: Words and Images from the Fall of the Iron Curtain, published by Words Without Borders Anthologies
2. Short Stories, Book I by Anton Chekhov

Books on my TBR shelf: 2

Man Booker Prize
Books read so far: 21/43
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: at least one, but I don't know which
Books on my TBR shelf: 13

MLA's 30
Books read so far: 22/30
Books read in 2010: one (The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver)
Books I hope to read in 2010: just the one
Books on my TBR shelf: 4

Modern Library
Books read so far: all of them!
Books read in 2010: zero (finished this list a couple of years ago)
Books I hope to read in 2010: none
Books on my TBR shelf: zero

National Book Award
Books read so far: 24/63
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to Read in 2010: 2 (for the Battle of the Prizes Challenge)

• Them by Joyce Carol Oates
• The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter

Books on my TBR shelf: 15

NBCC Award
Books read so far: 16/33
Books read in 2010: one (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz)
Books I hope to read in 2010: one more (Counterlife by Philip Roth)
Books on my TBR shelf: 8

Nobel Laureates
Authors read so far: 19/105
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: one (Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset)
Books on my TBR shelf: 30 (but most by authors already read)

Observer's Top 100
Books read so far: 55/100
Books read in 2010: 2  

• Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
• The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

Books I hope to read in 2010: two-thirds (the last two book in The Lord of the Rings)
Books on my TBR shelf: 19

Orange Prize
Books read so far: 1/13
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: one (Small Island by Andrea Levy)
Books on my TBR shelf: 4

Oregon Books
Books read so far: 3/20
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: maybe none
Books on my TBR shelf: 2

PEN/Faulkner

Books read so far: 7/29
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to read in 2010: 2

• Soldiers in Hiding by Richard Wiley (also on my Guilt List)
• Seaview by Toby Olson

Books on my TBR shelf: 12

Pulitzer Prize
Books read so far: 40
Books read in 2010: one (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz)
Books I hope to read in 2010: at least 2 (for the Battle of the Prizes Challenge) 

• The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter
• Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler

Books on my TBR shelf: 15

Radcliffe's Top 100
Books read so far: 86/100
Books read in 2010: tqo

• Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster (reviewed here)
• O Pioneers! by Willa Cather

Books I hope to read in 2010: 4+

• the rest of The Lord of the Rings
• Orlando by Virginia Woolf
• Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
• Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
• Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally
  

Books on my TBR shelf: 9

RCR Top 10
Books read so far: 10/10 (it's my list)
Books read in 2010: zero (the list has not changed -- so far)
Books I hope to Read in 2010: maybe a new book will make it to the list
Books on my TBR shelf: zero

Well-Stocked Bookcase
Books read so far: 35/60
Books read in 2010: zero
Books I hope to Read in 2010: one (The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath)
Books on my TBR shelf: 14

I want to concentrate on the Radcliffe list because I have a shot at finishing that one once and for all. But my Guilt List is in danger of toppling over, so is claiming my immediate attention.