Book Beginnings: Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I am trying to follow all Book Beginning participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

MR. LINKY: Please leave a link to your post below. If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.

UPDATE: SORRY FOR THE MISSING LINKY. OPERATOR ERROR. I WILL GET IT FIXED BY NEXT WEEK. THANKS FOR LEAVING YOUR LINK IN THE COMMENTS.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

The great malady of the twentieth century, implicated in all of our troubles and affecting us individually and socially, is "loss of soul."

-- Care of the Soul:: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life by Thomas Moore.

I've read a couple of his other  books, but never this first one in his "Soul" series.  This one is certainly making me think.

Review: The Tin Drum by Günter Grass

Most books you can read, analyze, and review, but some you just have to accept. The Tin Drum by Günter Grass is a book I had to take on its own terms.

The hero of this postwar German classic is Oscar Matzerath, who thought like an adult from the moment he was born.  At his birth, he heard his mother exclaim that he would get a tin drum on his third birthday, while his father announced that the baby would someday take over the family grocery store.  Having no interest in running a grocery store, baby Oscar determined that he would stop growing on his third birthday and remain forever a toddler with a tin drum.  Which he did.

Oscar can also shatter glass with his voice, which he does in dozens of creative and destructive ways.  (The scream singing and a glass shattering are reason enough to skip the movie adaptation.)

Oscar narrates his life story from an insane asylum where he is confined awaiting the outcome of an appeal of a criminal trial.  The story begins with his grandmother rescuing and marrying an escaping arsonist, continues through childhood with his two "presumptive fathers" (his mother's husband and her lover), follows Oscar as he tours with a troupe of performing dwarfs during World War II, to his later role as the leader of a youth gang, and finally his career as a jazz drummer in an avant-garde club where the customers eat raw onions.

So, yes, The Tin Drum is a crazy book, with so much imagery and so much going on and so many ideas swirling around that it is impossible to make sense out of it.  It's a book only a Ph.D. candidate could love.  I had to just let it roll on, laughing at the funny bits – and there are many – mulling over the ideas that grabbed me, and letting go of the rest of it.

OTHER REVIEWS

If you would like your review of The Tin Drum listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.

NOTES

I've had a copy of The Tin Drum on my TBR shelf forever, but it daunted me.  The whole notion of German literature daunts me.

But I saw that my library had an unabridged audio version of the new translation of this Nobel Laureate's classic, and decided to go that route.  I never would have gotten through the paper version.  I highly recommend the new audiobook from Blackstone Audio.  The reader, Paul Michael Garcia, was over-the-top good. 

Teaser Tuesday: Groves of Academe by Mary McCarthy

Whenever, during the summer, he took a party of students abroad under his genial wing, catastrophic event attended him.  As he sat sipping his vermouth and introducing himself to tourists at the Flore or the Deux Magots, the boys and girls under his guidance were being robbed, eloping to Italy, losing their passports, slipping off to Monte Carlo, seeking out an abortionist, deciding to turn queer, cabling the decision to their parents, while he took out his watch and wondered why they were late in meeting him for the expedition to Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

-- Groves of Academe by Mary McCarthy, which is on the Anthony Burgess list of Top 99 novels. Every sentence in this book is a gem. It is a short book, but I keep rereading sentences over and over because they are so wonderful.

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

Kitchen Remodel, Week Seventeen: Starved for Foodie Books

The tile phase of the kitchen is finally underway.  We are still waiting on the subway tile for the kitchen backsplash, but the tile guy came this week to put the tile floor in the powder room.

The subway tile is supposed to get here this week.  Also, we are crossing our fingers that they can start putting up the stucco on the outside walls.  To mangle Churchill, I think we are well passed the end of the beginning and on to the beginning of the end.  Knock wood.

My weekly reading was again food-free.  I took a break from The Autobiography of Mark Twain to listen to the audio edition of Prince of Fire, a Gabriel Allon thriller by Daniel Silva.  My family loves the series, but I hadn't read any until this one.  It was really good. Now I want to go back and read the others.

If I can power through the rest of Mark Twain this week, I'm going to treat myself to a foodie book for the Foodie Reading Challenge.  Either Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain or The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry by Kathleen Flinn.

WEEKEND COOKING

Hosted by Beth Fish Reads

Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday this holiday weekend! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event (details here).

Dolce Bellezza is hosting in June, where she also just launched the seventh Japanese Literature Challenge.  Be sure to visit her elegant and inspiring blog.

I'm leaving for Idaho for work this afternoon, so am posting my Mailbox Monday post early. 

I got one book last week, from the author who is a doctor in Eugene, Oregon. The cover is funny, but a little shocking:



Pet Goats & Pap Smears: 101 Medical Adventures to Open Your Heart & Mind by Pamela Wible, MD. "[T]his book reveals the secrets to solving your waiting-room frustrations, slashing your medical bills, and securing first-rate health care now."

Dr. Wible has a pioneering vision of community healthcare, which you can learn more about on her Ideal Medical Care website. She has essays in two award-winning anthologies: Goddess Shift: Women Leading for a Change, along with Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey, and Optimism: Cultivating the Magic Quality that Can Extend Your Lifespan, Boost Your Energy, and Make You Happy Now, along with Jimmy Carter and Steve Jobs.

You can learn more about Pamela's enthusiastic and uplifting approach to medicine on her personal blog, facebook, twitter, YouTube, and her Oregonian blog.