Way, Way Behind

115. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

 

Everywhere I went while reading this book, I heard, “You’re reading Great Expectations?  I love that book!  It’s one of my favorites!”  Which led me to have great expectations about it.

 

Of course, now, after finishing the book, I see where having great expectations can lead…how one could and should find happiness in one’s own backyard or enormous TBR stack…

 

I’ve given away the plot here, but this book is so much a part of American high school life that I can’t be giving away much. How did I get through high school without reading it? My hs English teachers chose the heartbreaker, David Copperfield, so it’s not my first Dickens. I can see that Dickens can tell a story. Who wouldn’t love this book? It’s the Harry Potter of its time.

 

116. The Underneath by Kathi Appelt

 

A hound dog worn down by life with a mean owner is befriended by a pregnant cat who has been discarded by her owner and everything changes for them both. This book has a mythical East Texas feel with a rattlesnake mother bent on revenge and an enormous alligator and a scarred man full of hate and the power of love….I liked it a lot. What do kids think?

 

117. Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson

 

Trond Sander has removed himself to an isolated cabin to live out the remainder of his lonely life when he comes across a man in the dark and he suddenly remembers all the events of one memorable summer.

 

118. L is for Lollygag by Chronicle Books

A wonderfully fun book of wonderfully fun words the authors feel are not used enough. Oddly, I know and use them all.

 

 

119. Pale Male: Citizen Hawk of New York City by Janet Schulman

GN: Animal characters we always love; great length. BN: Illustrations somewhat bland.

 

120. Help Me, Mr. Mutt by Janet Stevens

GN: Hilarious plot with clever subplot. BN: Much of humor may be over kids’ heads.

 

121. The Luck of the Loch Ness Monster: A Tale of Picky Eating by A.W. Flaherty

GN: Oatmeal is finally useful for something. BN: Dark illustrations make text hard to read.

 

122. Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things by Lenore Look

GN: Great title; nice illustrations throughout; Alvin has troubles with all the things boys typically have troubles with. BN: Alvin is neurotic.

 

123. The Penderwicks on Gardam Street by Jeanne Birdsall

GN: Wonderful plot, a happy family for once. BN: Why aren’t there any boys in the story?

 

124. The Hound of Rowan by Henry H. Neff

GN: Boy discovers he has secret powers and is carted off to a school to study how to use his powers to save the world. BN: Sound familiar?

 

125. The Gollywhopper Games by Jody Feldman

GN: Fun puzzles. BN: Derivative plot.

 

126. Piper Reed, Navy Brat by Kimberly Willis Holt

GN: Great heroine; great family tale. BN: A bit girly.

 

127. Surprises According to Humphrey by Betty Birney

GN: Humphrey is every kid’s dream friend. BN: Humphrey can be a little too good to be believed.

 

128. The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Help is on lots of 2009 must-read lists and it appeared over and over on lists bloggers provided for me of books to read this summer.

 

I couldn’t help myself…I had to go ahead and get it and read it.

 

The help is the stories of maids and housewives in the 1960’s in the South told in alternating chapters. It was an uncomfortable read, at times, as I could have been a little girl listening in on the conversations of the maids or the housewives during this time. Though we only had a maid for one day (she ironed too slowly, my mom said), I feel almost certain that I’ve heard these words here and there. The majority of the housewives seemed to be unaware that slavery had ended and, sadly, the maids seemed likewise uninformed.

 

This is the kind of book I’d recommend to someone who says, “What’s wrong with black America? Why can’t black America get with the program?”

 

129. Savvy by Ingrid Law

GN: Beautiful cover; clever blurb. BN: Story wasn’t quite as good as cover and blurb promised.

130. Maybelle in the Soup by Katie Speck

GN: Funny, short, and readable. BN: Can you love a roach as a main character?

 

131. We Are the Ship by Nelson Kadir

GN: A story that has needed to be told; baseball; riveting tale. BN: Difficult text.

 

132. Where I Live by Eileen Spinelli

GN: Readable; poetry format is fun and light. BN: Writing a tale in poems can be tiring to read.

 

133. Martina the Beautiful Cockroach by Carmen Deedy

GN: Clever plot; beautiful illustrations. BN: A cockroach and a mouse?

 

134. ¡Yum! ¡MmMm! ¡Qué Rico! By Pat Mora

GN: Food as characters; brilliant illustrations. BN: Haiku is hard to follow.

 

135. Two-Minute Drill by Mike Lupica

GN: Football; boy characters, for a change. BN: Football; boy characters.

 

136. Someone Named Eva by Joan Wolf

GN: Another book about Nazis. BN: Another book about Nazis.

 

137. The Best American Poetry 2008 edited by Charles Wright

 

Is this my least favorite best American poetry collection? Yes, I think it is. I was pretty sure I’d not take to this collection when I saw the name of the editor; I’m not a big fan of Charles Wright.

 

The vast majority of the poems struck a Hemingway-esque note with me, a macho man trying to make it in this kinder, gentler world. But here and there, I found a common spirit. How can I read fifty poems and not find a few that light up my heart?! Impossible.

 

138. Still Alice by Lisa Genova

 

This is a sad story. You are prepared going in, but, still, it’s a tough read.

 

Alice is a Harvard professor who studies the brain. She begins to notice that she is forgetting things. The pattern continues and grows bolder, and Alice is forced to seek help. What she feared most is true: She has early-onset Altzheimer’s.

 

Reading the story from Alice’s point of view is difficult. She grows less and less aware of things and more and more estranged from her world.

 

Very sad story.

 

139. Do-Over! by Robin Hemley

 

Another book in the genre I call challenge books. Hemley takes on the personal challenge of going back to places in his life where he fumbled the ball and tries to do things over. Better.

 

Who wouldn’t like to try these things?

 

Loved the kindergarten do-over but I grew less and less intrigued with his subsequent trials. A good summer read.

 

140. Esta noche en el Titanic by Mary Pope Osborne

 

Whew!  Happy day!  I read the entire chapter book (okay, yes, it is a children’s book) in Spanish!  I’ve been reading a collection of fairy tales in Spanish, now, but I think I’ll try another MTH in Spanish next during our trip to Utah.

 

141. Home by Marilynne Robinson

 

I had checked out Home when it first came out but turned it quickly back when, thinking it was too much like Gilead. The reviews for Home continued to pour in and all of them were good. So I went back to it. And loved it. Robinson knows the Prodigal Son.

 

142. Shakespeare Wrote for Money by Nick Hornby

 

Shakespeare Wrote for Money is a collection of Hornsby’s last columns for the Believer magazine. I’m glad he’s given up on these. I must say I liked his earlier columns, but his river of reading has seemed to dry up and lose its charm, so to speak.

 

143. Arriving at Your Own Door by Jon Kabat-Zinn

144. Walking Meditation by Nguyen Ann-Huong

145. Breathe: Yoga for Teens by Mary Kaye Chryssicas

 

I’ve been playing around with yoga and Christian meditation in recent days. The three books I read all sent me off to try out some new poses, new thoughts. Worthwhile, I think.

 

146. The Tall Stranger by Louis L’Amour

 

Don’t ever say I don’t venture out from my comfort zone in my reading. I finished my first real Western (unless Lonesome Dove counts). And it’s a Louis L’Amour, the John Wayne of Western writers.

 

I knew where this book was going from page one. No doubt about it…it’s a guy book, through and through. Fellow (Mercy! His name is ROCK Banyon…please!) joins up with a wagon train headed west. The man who’s guiding the wagon train is Mort Harper. Harper has persuaded the train to take a southern route, a route that Rock Banyon knows will lead straight to the Salt Lake Desert. Harper and Banyon both fall for the same girl and they squabble back and forth until they reach a tranquil valley owned by a rancher Banyon knows won’t take kindly to having strangers move in. Banyon can’t quite figure out what Harper’s scheme is, but he lurks around on the fringes as the wagon train decides to appropriate some of the rancher’s land.

 

There’s some gun fights, some fist fights, a saloon, beautiful farm land, and a pretty girl. You feel pretty confident early on that the good guy’s gonna win out. And, apparently, that’s a Western.

 

147. The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative by Vivian Gornick

 

One book was required and one book was recommended for the eight week class I’m taking this summer on writing personal narratives. This was the recommended book. I read it and a Western on the plane ride from Houston to Salt Lake. A quick read.

 

Not sure I took much away from this book. Did I miss something? It seemed to be a series of short essays where the author analyzes what works in good personal narratives. But what did I retain from reading this book? Just an idea about going with one’s gut feeling about what works.

 

Maybe I need to read this again.

 

148. Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place by Terry Tempest Williams

 

I had Williams recommended to me by fellow bloggers when I posted about wanting to read a Utah voice while on my trip. My first stop in Salt Lake City was The King’s English Bookstore. I asked for recommendations at the bookstore and I was led to this author and this book. It was a good choice for this trip.

 

Williams tells two stories in the book: the story of her mother’s four year struggle with cancer and the simultaneous and parallel story of the struggles of birds finding refuge near a swelling Great Salt Lake.

 

149. The Lonely Planet Guide to Experimental Travel

 

A book of wacky games to play while traveling. Here’s one: “Leave your home on foot. Take the first road on the right, then the next on the left, then the next on the right, then the next on the left, and so on. Carry on until something…blocks your path and you can go no further.”

 

Each game is assessed according to difficulty and is followed by laboratory results.

 

The game I’d be most likely to try? Literary Journey. Here’s the info on it: “Choose a book from the bookshelf and commence reading. Continue reading until a foreign country is mentioned in the text. Then choose a second book that’s somehow related to that country and begin reading again. Repeat until you have either returned to your point of origin or have completed one circumnavigation of the globe.”

 

The game I’d be least likely to try? Horse Head Adventure. It basically involves putting on a strange prop or costume and venturing into society. The lab results involved the traveler walking around Tokyo wearing a horse head.

 

150. Poems for a Good and Happy Life by Myrna Grant

 

I bought this book at a bookstore (the bookstore) in Delta, Utah for two dollars. I got worried about the amount of remaining reading material after I finished two of the four books I brought with me on the plane.

 

Most of the poems were known to me. I especially like the one with the line, “Life ain’t been no crystal stair.” The book also included “The Red Wheelbarrow” and some Emily Dickinson and some Bible quotes.

 

I left it next to a computer at the Days Inn at which we were staying in Delta. I set the computer at the BookCrossing website. Hope someone finds it and logs it in.

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