A Brief Escape

We're off to Puerto Rico! My husband has a three day conference and my parents are staying with the twins, so the two of us are taking our first child-less trip (not counting a few overnight getaways) since 2002! It's been quite some time since my parents have dealt with teenagers, but they were very good at it then and feel up to the challenge now.

I will be taking along a few books:
The Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever (I'm loving this book)
The Shack by William Paul Young (for my April book club meeting)
Heir to the Glimmering World by Cynthia Ozick (it looks really good and a girl needs options!)

I hesitated at just three titles, but then remembered my copy of The Wapshot Chronicle actually contains all the novels of John Cheever. That should be enough to last until Wednesday. Now it's time to think about what clothes to pack...

Booking Through Thursday - Best Bad Book?

Today's Booking Through Thursday question, suggested by Janet:
The opposite of last week’s question: “What’s the best ‘worst’ book you’ve ever read — the one you like despite some negative reviews or features?”

My answer to this question is one, I suspect, will pop up a few times today. The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown certainly isn't a very well-written book, but I found it to be an entertaining page-turner. I read it when it was newly released so, when it was the hot topic of conversation at cocktail parties, I was able to add my two cents.
Another book that comes to mind is Jemima J: A Novel About Ugly Ducklings and Swans by Jane Green. This was an enjoyable beach read, even though it got mixed reviews.

Click over to Booking Through Thursday to see more responses...or play yourself.

The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike

The Witches of Eastwick
by John Updike
1984, Alfred A. Knopf
307 pages

In the months following John Updike's death, I've sensed a renewed interest in his work. The Witches of Eastwick has been on my shelf for years, and this seemed like a good time to pull it down and finally read it.

From the back cover:
In a small New England town in that hectic era when the sixties turned into the seventies, there lived three witches. Alexandra Spofford, a sculptress, could create thunderstorms. Jane Smart, a cellist, could fly. The local gossip columnist, Sukie Ridgemont, could turn milk into cream. Divorced by hardly celibate, the wonderful witches one day found themselves under the spell of the new man in town, Darryl Van Horne, whose strobe-lit hot tub room became the scene of satanic pleasures.
To tell you any more, dear reader, would be to spoil the joy of reading this sexy, hexy novel by the incomparable John Updike.

Obviously, these blurbs are meant to sell books, but The Witches of Eastwick isn't quite as raunchy as this one makes it sound. However, it didn't quite deliver on the "joy of reading" either.

From the outset, it's clear the witches are not popular with other women of the community.

"...I don't know why these women bother to go on living, whores to half the
town, and not even getting paid. And those poor, neglected children of
theirs, it's a positive crime." pg. 127

As strange activities occur at the Van Horne mansion, tension between the witches and the community mounts.

"When she tossed the ball up, it became an egg and spattered all over her
upturned face, through the gut strings. Sukie threw down her racket in
disgust and it became a snake, that had nowhere to slither to." pg.
177

Newcomers to the mansion crowd lead to doubts, suspicion, more spells and an unfortunate resolution.

There are, however, passages that are vintage Updike, including a couple of my favorites:

"Certainly the fact of witchcraft hung in the consciousness of Eastwick, a lump.
a cloudy destiny generated by a thousand translucent overlays, a sort of
heavenly body, it was rarely breathe of and, though dreadful, offered the
consolation of completeness, of rounding out the picture..." p.210

"It [witchcraft] had the uncertain outlines of something seen through a
shower door and was viscid, slow to evaporate: for years after the events
gropingly and even reluctantly related here, the rumor of witchcraft stained
this corner of Rhode Island, so that a prickliness of embarrassment and unease
entered the atmosphere with the most innocent mention of Eastwick."

Unfortunately, there weren't enough passages like these and the book failed to live up to my expectations. In The Beauty of the Lilies will remain my favorite Updike novel and perhaps someday I'll read the Rabbit novels. I will pass on The Widows of Eastwick, Updike's final novel and sequel to Witches, released last summer.

My rating for The Witches of Eastwick is 3/5.
This book is my second read for My Year of Reading Dangerously challenge.

Teaser Tuesdays - The Wapshot Chronicle

Teaser Tuesdays, hosted my MizB at Should Be Reading, asks you to:
Grab your current read. Let the book fall open to a random page. Share with us two "teaser" sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12. You also need to share the title of the book that you're getting your teaser from...that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given. Please avoid spoilers!

My teaser is from page 56 of The Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever:

"Coverly knew that he had offended his father but guilt would have been too exact a word for the pain and uneasiness he felt and this pain may have been aggravated by his knowledge of the conditions of Honora's will. The sense was not only that he had failed himself and his father by bringing a cookbook to a fishing camp; he had profaned the mysterious rites of virility and had failed whole generations of future Wapshots as well as the beneficiaries of Honora's largess-... "
Visit here to play along and read more Teaser Tuesdays.

Mammon and the Archer by O. Henry

It's Monday again...and time for a third installment of Short Story Monday. The decision to choose an O. Henry story came from a comment Molly made last week. She enjoys Short Story Monday because it introduces her to stories other than the O. Henry and Guy de Maupassant she generally teaches her 9th graders. Now I must have read "The Gift of the Maji" in high school, but I have no recollection of it. So, I decided to re-visit O. Henry with one of his lesser-known stories.

Mammon and the Archer opens with the line:

"Old Anthony Rockwell, retired manufacturer and proprietor of Rockwell's
Eureka Soap, looked out the library window of his fifth Avenue mansion and
grinned."

It's written with a tone of cheerful cynicism emphasising the pleasures of money and setting up an ideological battle between love and money. Mammon (and I had to look this up) is wealth regarded as evil and the object of greedy pursuit. The archer, of course, is Cupid. Anthony's son, Robert, is bemoaning the fact that the love of his life will be leaving for Europe before he has the opportunity to reveal his true feelings.

Anthony represents wealth in the story. He makes his position clear:

"I bet my money on money every time. I've been through the encyclopaedia down to Y looking for something you can't buy with it; and I expect to have to take up
the appendix next week..."

Love is championed by his sister, Ellen:

"... Aunt Ellen, gentle, sentimental, wrinkled, sighing, oppressed by
wealth..."
"Oh, Anthony," sighed Aunt Ellen, "I wish you would not think so much of
money. Wealth is nothing where true affection is concerned. Love is
all-powerful..."

O. Henry's stories are famous for surprise endings. Mammon and the Archer is no different. Just as you think the story is wrapping up, a surprise twist grabs the reader adding to the delight of the story.

Read the entire story on-line here, then visit The Book Mine Set to see who else is participating in Short Story Monday this week.

Audio Favorites

Carrie at Books and Movies wrote a great post about her favorite audio books last week. It got me thinking about the role audio books play in my reading.

I discovered audio books in 2002, a year I spent an inordinate amount of time behind the wheel of my car. My main source of audio books then was the public library. Late in 2003, I became member of audible.com and have had a membership ever since. My time in the car has decreased considerably, but my audio book habit has continued. My listening preference is fiction (occasionally even a best-seller I wouldn't pick up and read), but I've also enjoyed lighter non-fiction and memoirs.

Here are some of my favorites:




Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

-an outstanding collection of short stories very effectively read by two different narrators

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

-a collection of stories about life in a small Maine town, each featuring an appearance by larger-than-life character Olive Kitteridge

-the narrator's Maine accent contributes to it's audio success

Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle

-examines the problem of illegal immigration by putting a 'face' on both sides of the issue

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

-an elderly man recalls his younger years travelling with the circus

-effectively done with two readers

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

-a very unusual love story with a literary twist

-read by multiple narrators

I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron

-very funny essays about growing older and other feminine issues

-read by the author

Digging to America by Anne Tyler
-two very different families meet at an airport while picking up their adopted Korean daughters and form a life-long friendship

The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

-a father delivers his set of twins and gives up his Downs Syndrome daughter without his wife's knowledge

The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates

-sprawling novel set in 1950's Niagara Falls...typical JCO





My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

-a child is conceived specifically to be a bone marrow donor for her older sister

-a riveting, Picoult formula story read by multiple narrators

Clara Callan by Richard B. Wright
-Giller Award winning epistolary novel depicting the lives of two sisters during the depression

-this is the novel that got me hooked on audio books

And finally, The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith.

For some reason, Blogger won't let me upload a picture, but this is one book where the reader makes the experience!

What audio books have you enjoyed?

Spring Reading Thing 2009

Spring is finally here and Katrina at Callapidder Days has come up with the perfect challenge to celebrate the season! Spring Reading Thing 2009 is a fun, low-pressure challenge that allows each participant to select a reading list and set personal goals. It begins today and will end on June 20.

Since I am a slow reader, and because I've been spending almost as much time blogging as reading lately, my goals are relatively modest. Two books a month is manageable, so here is the list I'll choose from.

1. The Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever
2. The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry
3. The Homemaker by Dorothy Canfield
4. The Shack by William Paul Young (April book club selection)
5. May book club selection (we only choose one book at a time)
6. June book club selection
7. one non-fiction book

Additional goals include:
1. read at least one short story per week and participate in Short Story Mondays
2. listen to three audio books
3. whittle down my stack of New Yorker magazines

There will be a wrap-up post in June to let you know how I've done. Visit Callapidder Days if you'd like to sign up...and add some springtime your blog with the adorable button!