9/11 fiction.

I knew that eventually there were going to be books about September 11th. The horror of it is imprinted on every American who was alive to remember it. Even 10 years out now, it seems too fresh to be fictionalized, though. Claire Messud does a nice job with The Emperor's Children of coming up with some likeable characters and an interesting story. So I did like reading the book, even though it is difficult and sad to read about such a horrible day. You can see how things are leading up to the events and you almost don't want to keep reading because you don't want these people to be affected by the terrorism. But you know the fictional characters will be affected, just like we all were.

The cultural references in the book are great - very 2001. It's amusing to look back at them now just 10 years later. The author really captured what 2001 was like in a very clever way. I'm glad I read this Best Book of 2006 for sure.

It's a catchy song.

So this is embarrassing. I knew the Deep Blue Something song, "Breakfast at Tiffany's" before I knew that there was a book! And whenever I so much as catch a glimpse of the book on my table, I get that silly song in my head. I think that is called an earworm.

Despite the associated earworm, this was a really good story. One aspect of it that was especially cool is how Holly's story is presented through her neighbor - who starts out disinterested but winds up being intrigued and caring about her, enough where he helps her leave at the end.

I'm surprised that I never read this before!

You Can't. Always. Get. What You. Want. (and you wouldn't like it much if you did)

Having a 3 year old can be tough. She is amazing, funny and sweet. And can be demanding and difficult. Sometimes the things she wants are, well, just not a good idea. She LOVES to stay up late, doesn't enjoy taking a bath very frequently, and if it were up to her, she'd have all 9 billion of her toys out at once.

I see part of my role as her parent to help guide her to do those things that she may not want to do initially, but are good for her in the long term. Sure, it is not fun to take a bath in the winter when it is freezing cold. But you feel better after, you don't smell, and you are clean. It is fun to stay up late, but then you feel terrible the next day. If you go to bed at a normal-person time, you sleep well and wake up happy and have more energy to do fun stuff the next day.

How does this relate to Brave New World, you ask? Because in Brave New World the society has abandoned the idea of long term good entirely. Immediate pleasure is maximized. The whole society functions around immediate wish gratification. Any sort of pull to do otherwise has been conditioned out of people, whether in their test tube gestational bottles, or in the whispered messages to them while they sleep as they grow up. It's basically like living in a society of unparented 3 year olds. Horrifying.

As I read this book I kept waiting for the Savage to figure out a way to save the society, or at least contribute to its downfall. But now I realize that is part of what is scary about the book - the society keeps going. It gets the best of everyone.

I really, really liked this book. Much more than when I read it in high school.

Adventures as a gay adolescent.

Merry Christmas! My first Christmas as a mama of 2 was wonderful. I even had a little time to get some reading done. A Boy's Own Story is a pretty sensitive account of growing up gay in mid 20th century America. A lot of topics I never thought about or considered in there. It wasn't light holiday reading by any means, but certainly gave me some things to think about. For example, how a gay young man looks at marriage, not as an inevitability but more of a far fetched aspirational thing. He wanted to get married, but he wanted to marry a man. Not possible then.

Now we are in the process of unpacking from our trip, finding homes for all of this stuff (including a big jar of 108 miniature plastic frogs for Peanut, which she adores and are currently all over the living room carpet), and I will start Brave New World. I read it in high school but remember next to nothing about it.

From the depths of under my bed...

I found my paperback copy of Adam Bede. I thought it was gone forever, so I got it for free from the iBookstore since it's in the public domain. And I'm still not done. It's a great story, but I get so tempted by all the books around the library. Maybe I commit to finishing it before the year is out? Marissa

It has been a busy busy month. To say the least. I noticed this same fuzzy headedness and utter lack of attention when I had just had Peanut too. But it seems even more pronounced this time around with Fuzzy.

Bouvard and Pecuchet was not a great book to read when fuzzy brained. It was a long, difficult slog. These two guys get together and basically amble through knowledge as it existed in 1840. Not much of a plot here. They have no attention span either, and it's not because they just had babies! I'm glad to be through this one and hope to be back reading a little more regularly once the fuzzy headed fog lifts!

A real story...

So I started reading Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan at the end of October. Then I had a baby! So it took a while for me to finish this one. I do enjoy reading while I nurse but the first couple of weeks are so chaotic and I just couldn't focus on anything.

I really liked this book, though. It is a story of a young IRA soldier caught in Great Britain and sentenced to juvenile prison, and the adventures he has there. It was not, as I anticipated, depressing or violent, just an interesting story. It is an autobiography so that aspect of it is cool too...I could really get interested in the characters because they were really real.

Anyway, good story. Time to take the little guy on his first outing to the library to return it!