Current Reading: The Boys in the Boat

Monday, October 9, 1933, began as a gray day in Seattle. A gray day in a a gray time. 

Along the waterfront, seaplanes from Gorst Air Transport company rose slowly from the surface of Puget Sound and droned westward, flying low under the cloud cover, beginning their short hops over to the naval shipyard at Bremerton. Ferries crawled away from Colman Dock on water as flat and dull as old pewter. Downtown, the Smith Tower pointed, like an upraised finger, toward somber skies. On streets below the tower, men in fraying suit coats, worn-out shoes, and battered felt fedoras wheeled wooden carts toward the street corners where they would spend the day selling apples and oranges and packages of gum for a few pennies apiece. Around the corner, on the steep incline of Yesler Way, Seattle's old, original Skid Road, more men stood in long lines, heads bent, regarding the wet sidewalks and talking softly among themselves as they waited for the soup kitchens to open. Trucks from the Seattle-Post Intelligencer rattled along cobblestone streets, dropping of bundles of newspapers. Newsboys in woolen caps lugged the bundles to busy intersections, to trolley stops, and to hotel entrances, where they held the papers aloft, hawking them for two cents a copy, shouting out the day's headline: "15,000,000 to Get U.S. Relief."

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
by Daniel James Brown

Descriptive, but not exactly riveting. That was my impression of this opening, but don't be fooled... this book gets interesting very quickly. My book club will meet next week to discuss The Boys in the Boat  and I've got both a print and an audio copy from the library. I'm primarily listening, but enjoy having the book to double check names, look at photographs, and read a few more pages each evening.

What do you think of the opening? Would you keep reading?

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the opening paragraph (sometime two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening. Feel free to grab the banner and play along.

The Classics Club Spin #5

The results are in! The Classics Club Spin number is 20, which means I'll be reading Middlemarch by George Eliot.

Middlemarch is one of five books added to my original Classics Club list as a personal bonus challenge. All five are "books in progress"... neglected for so long that a fresh start is a necessity. I started reading Middlemarch six or seven years ago with an online reading group and fell behind schedule. My bookmark is somewhere around page 300, but I'll definitely move it back to the beginning. I'm excited, but also a little intimidated. Have you read Middlemarch?

What was number 20 on your list?

The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes

The Girl You Left Behind
by Jojo Moyes
Pamela Dorman Books, 2013
385 pages
source : purchased e-book (I love amazon's kindle daily deals!)

Summary (from goodreads):
In 1916, French artist Edouard Lefevre leaves his wife Sophie to fight at the Front. When her town falls into German hands, his portrait of Sophie stirs the heart of the local Kommandant and causes her to risk everything - her family, reputation and life - in the hope of seeing her true love one last time.

Nearly a century later and Sophie's portrait is given to Liv by her young husband shortly before his sudden death. Its beauty speaks of their short life together, but when the painting's dark and passion-torn history is revealed, Liv discovers that the first spark of love she has felt since she lost him is threatened...

In The Girl You Left Behind two young women, separated by a century, are united in their determination to fight for the thing they love most - whatever the cost.

My thoughts:
I rarely read two books by the same author in such quick succession, but this is my second Jojo Moyes novel in as many months… and I enjoyed it even more than Me Before You.

The Girl You Left Behind  utilizes a device that has become increasingly popular in recent years. It alternates between a story set in the past and one in the present. The German occupation of France during WWI serves as the historical backdrop, a lost love is central to both plot lines, and a painting connects the two.

I am not normally drawn to fiction featuring either art or war, but that didn't seem to matter here because Moyes' storytelling is simply captivating. I was hooked by the first chapter and once I reached the midpoint, I could not put the book down.

Moyes has a new novel coming this summer, but in the meantime I plan to work my way through her backlist.

My rating:

Bottom line:
Very different from and, in my opinion, even better than Me Before You... The Girl You Left Behind is a must read!

The Classics Club Spin: Round 5

The Classics Club Spin has been a huge successes. Previous rounds have dealt me Tess of the d'Urbervilles, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Cheerful Weather for a Wedding. The rules are the same this time, only the dates have been changed.

Here's how it works:
- Go to your blog.
- Pick twenty books that you’ve got left to read from your Classics Club list.
- Post that list, numbered 1-20, on your blog by next Monday. (2/10)
- Monday morning, we’ll announce a number from 1-20. Go to the list of twenty books you posted, and select the book that corresponds to the number we announce.
- The challenge is to read that book by April 2.

I'm still sticking with a slightly modified version of my original list. Here's what it looks like this time:

Pick Me, Pick Me (books I want to read now)
1. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
2. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
3. Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty
4. Wild Strawberries by Angela Thirkell
5. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Quickies
6. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
7. Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
8. A Lost Lady by Willa Cather
9.  Gigi by Colette
10. A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf

Favorite Authors
11. The Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton
12. What Maisie Knew by Henry James
13. They Were Sisters by Dorothy Whipple
14. The Winter of our Discontent by John Steinbeck (reread)
15.  Imperial Woman by Pearl S. Buck

Chunksters 
16.  Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
17.  An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
18. Vilette by Charlotte Bronte
19.  Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
20.  Middlemarch by George Eliot

Here is a link to The Classics Club's announcement post.
Are you participating this time around? Let's Spin!

UPDATE: The results are in... the spin number is 20. Looks like I'll be reading Middlemarch by George Eliot. Wish me luck!

Tuesday Intro: This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage

Nonfiction, an Introduction

The tricky thing about being a writer, or about being any kind of artist, is that in addition to making art you also have to make a living. My short stories and novels have always filled my life with meaning, but, at least in the first decade of my career, they were no more capable of supporting me than my dog was. But part of what I love about novels and dogs is that they are so beautifully oblivious to economic concerns. We serve them, and in return they thrive. It isn't their responsibility to figure out where the rent is coming from.

This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
by Ann Patchett

I've read all of Ann Patchetts books, fiction and nonfiction, and have eagerly awaited her new collection of essays. At nearly the half-way mark, I'm enjoying the audio version (read by the author) immensely and would be hard-pressed to choose a favorite. I should really read more essays...

What do you think of the opening? Would you keep reading?

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the opening paragraph (sometime two) of a book she decided to read based on the opening. Feel free to grab the banner and play along.

TSS: Super Bowl Sunday Edition

Good morning, friends. Today is Super Bowl Sunday, but around here the really  big game happened last night: #DUKEvsCUSE. The Syracuse University men's basketball team defeated Duke 91-89 in OT. In addition to improving to 21-0 (their best start in school history), it was the largest on-campus crowd ever, the official birth of a new rivalry, and, quite possibly, one of the best college basketball games ever... what a night!

Sure, we'll watch the Super Bowl, but it can't possibly match the excitement of last night's contest. I like football, but without a real stake in today's game, food and commercials become the main attractions.

January Wrap-Up//  Well, January sure was a long month. It actually seemed more like two separate months to me. We began with a couple of beautiful weeks in Florida and ended with two (can it really be only two?) weeks of bone-chilling cold, battling the lake-effect snow machine here in central New York.

On the plus side, time on the beach plus time holed up indoors allowed for some pretty decent reading. A book a week is generally as good as it gets for me, and I finished five books this month:

• Julia Child Rules: Lessons on Savoring Life by Karen Karbo
• The Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes
• Tigers in Red Weather by Liza Klaussmann
• The Gravity of Birds by Tracy Guzeman
• The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert (audio)

My favorite is a toss-up between The Girl You Left Behind and The Gravity of Birds - both 4.5 star reads. The audio version of The Signature of All Things also rated 4.5 stars. I hope this streak of choosing great books continues.

And now it's February...

Current Reading//  We Are Water by Wally Lamb, on page 200 (of 561) and fully invested in the story.

Current Listening//  This is The Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett, read by the author is amazing. I'll have a hard time picking a favorite essay from this bunch.

On the horizon//  The Boys in the Boat for my book club meeting at the end of the month, I'm still trying to decide whether to read or listen.

In the kitchen//  Lots of soup! There's nothing better than soup on a bitterly cold day. Butternut Bisque from Susan Branch has become a new favorite. This afternoon I'll whip up some Buffalo Chicken Dip for the Super Bowl party... calories don't count today, right?

Will you be watching the game? What about the conflict with Downton Abbey?

Julia Child Rules: Lessons on Savoring Life by Karen Karbo

Julia Child Rules: Lessons on Savoring Life
by Karen Karbo
skirt!, 2013
240 pages
source: purchased e-book

In a nutshell:
In the spirit of The Gospel According to Coco Chanel and How Georgia Became O'Keeffe,  Julia Child Rules dissects the life of the sunny, unpretentious chef, author, cooking show star, and bon vivant, with an eye towards learning how we, too, can savor life. (from publisher)

My thoughts:

"My theory is that our real attachment to Julia is less about her cooking, or even about what she did for the cause of serious cuisine, and more about our admiration for her immutable aptitude for being herself. Julia’s real genius wasn’t in breaking down the nine million steps in cooking a mind-blowing beef bourguignon, or assembling a thousand-page cookbook, but in having the confidence to stand in front of a camera, week after week, without trying to change one thing about herself." p. 10

I think this statement by Karen Karbo pretty much nails it. Julia Child fans are legion, yet who among us is actually preparing her beef bourguignon on a regular basis? Surely Julia's appeal must transcend both cooking and food.

 In Julia Child Rules, Karen Karbo's exploration of Julia's life and philosophy is formatted to fit ten basic life rules. From Rule 1: Live with Abandon through Rule 10: Every Woman Should Have a Blowtorch, her off-beat approach is both fun and inspiring.

Karbo's own, sometimes humorous, adventures are also included in the narrative. I can't imagine trying to follow in Julia's footsteps while living in an ovenless Paris apartment! Although these sections were entertaining, I was always happy when the focus returned to Julia.

This book was not quite as much to my liking as My Life in France, but it contained new (to me) information, a fresh voice, and I loved the life lessons twist. You certainly don't need to be a foodie to appreciate this one.

My rating:

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