The Jazz Cats: Update

Having two new kittens in my house has completely absorbed my attention. Ever since their arrival a week ago, we spend all the time we can just watching them. Again, I promise this won't become an all-kitten blog, but there are just too cute to ignore.

A brief update:

After spending two days not moving much and hissing at Ella, Billie transformed into über-kitten, playing with every toy (a bent pipecleaner being her favorite) and running around like a nut. That lecture we gave her about kittens with no personality having to go back to the pound must have sunk in.

She even started to tolerate Ella and came withing a belly's distance without hissing (that's Ella on top, Billie below, Husband in the middle).

But meanwhile, Ella, who came with the kitten cold most cats catch at the Humane Society, got sicker and sicker. She stopped eating. A quick trip to the vet and $175 later, she was pumped full of fluids, vitamins, antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, and an appetite stimulant and was on the road to recovery. The only good thing about her being sick was that Billie (who had caught the kitten cold herself) was sympathetic and let Ella sleep in the same basket with her.(Ella is the one talking in the picture.)

Now they are both on antibiotics but are feeling pretty frisky, even if they do sneeze a lot. Ella has packed on some pounds -- well, ounces -- thanks to the special fat food from the vet. They still sleep in the same basket, but they spend most waking hours playing an elaborate game of Kitten Tag that involves lots of wiggling, hopping, nose tapping, and mad dashes across the free-fire zone of the bedroom.

Okay, okay . . . back to the books. I just started Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. Perfect for this rainy weekend while I watch the Jazz Cats play.

Opening Sentence of the Day: Let the Great World Spin

"Those who saw him hushed."

-- Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann.

This won the National Book Award last year. I am reading it as my National winner pick for the Battle of the Prizes, American Version challenge.

I had originally picked Them by Joyce Carol Oates as my National choice, and Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler for my Pulitzer winner, but I decided to switch. I just read Olive Kitteridge for my Pulitzer winner and decided to stick with the short-stories-as-novel idea with my National pick. They tie in with The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter for my double dipper choice.

Now I am finally making progress on my own challenge. It's about time.

Review: Another Way the River Has

To say that Another Way the River Has is a collection of essays inspired by the Pacific Northwest is both an overstatement and inadequate. The essays are inspired by the northwest corner of one Northwest state, Robin Cody’s Oregon, but they are broader in scope than their geographic setting.

Cody writes about gyppo loggers, boat builders, Coast Guard rescue crews, sheep farmers, rodeo cowboys, Indian fishermen, birders, and his own experiences as a coach, umpire, and school bus driver. The stories are fascinating in and of themselves. And Cody uses them to mull on larger topics, such as man’s impact on the natural world – and vice versa – and how people and nature adapt to life’s unfairness.

Many of the pieces were previously published in Northwest Magazine in The Sunday Oregonian and other regional publications, although several appear here for the first time.

Because they were written over a span of 25 years and for different audiences, the collection has a bit of a hodgepodge feel to it. It is easy to stumble over some of the transitions, such as the one between “Deaf Basketball,” a quirky story about refereeing a game for the Oregon State School for the Deaf, and “Hideaway Slough,” a mystically personal reflection on solitary boat camping in a sleepy Columbia River backwater. Perhaps the contrast is intentional, but it can be a little distracting.

Cody is probably best known for his popular coming-of-age novel, Ricochet River, and he won the Oregon Book Award for Voyage of a Summer Sun. The essays in Another Way the River Has further showcase Cody’s keen awareness of what makes his corner of Oregon endlessly fascinating.

OTHER REVIEWS

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

NOTES

Published by OSU Press.

Review of the Day: Echoes

Maeve Binchy has the knack for making stories about ordinary people be very interesting. She is like Anne Tyler in this.

Echoes is no exception to the usual Binchy “Aga saga” formula, and it is just as absorbing as her later books. It is the story of Clare O'Brien, a shopkeeper’s daughter in a second-rate Irish beach town, and David Power, the son of the town’s only doctor. The two have mostly divergent, post-war childhoods, but meet up in Dublin in the early 1960s when Clare goes to college and David is in medical school.

It feels like Binchy took a look at an older couple she knew in the present day, went back, and told the story of how they grew up, met, and fell in love. Their lives are not extraordinary, but their story keeps your attention.

OTHER REVIEWS

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

NOTES

This counts as one of my books for the Chunkster Challenge. I am not doing so well with this challenge and think I over-committed. Luckily, the punishment for changing my participation level at this late stage is . . . nonexistent. That's the thing about blogging -- it is not obligatory.

Teaser Tuesday: Another Way the River Has

While he maneuvered to pass a towline to the disabled trawler, a breaker caught the lifeboat broadside.  The boat did what it was designed to do in overpowering conditions [-- it] began a 360-degree roll.

-- from "Surf Savvy" in Another Way the River Has: Taut True Tales from the Northwest by Robin Cody (published by OSU Press).

This is a terrific collection of essays by the author of Ricochet River.  Set in Oregon and Washington, but definitely stories with universal appeal.

For those in the area, Robin Cody will be reading from this book tomorrow night at the Press Club.  Details here.


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