Girl Detective

A selection for one of my book groups, Godless by Pete Hautman is a re-read. It’s told in first-person from the point of Jason during the summer before his junior year in high school. His parents are forcing him to attend a Catholic teen group. Jason’s not sure he’s atheist or agnostic, but he knows he’s not Catholic. A chance encounter with a troubled kid from school gives him the germ of what becomes a dangerous idea: why not make anything a god, even the town water tower? As Jason and his friends invent a religion, they get in a great deal of trouble with grown ups (much of it deserved) and Hautman gets to ruminate, via Jason, on the difficulty of not just believing what everybody else believes, or what ANYbody else believes.

I was reminded of that afterschool special, The Wave, from my childhood, as well as the Catholic storyline in King Dork, a book which also mixed dark and funny to excellent effect.

or, “I Have a Severe Book-Buying Problem”

I knew this Summer of Shelf Discovery project would hit me in a weak spot. Oh, sure, I’ll just read one book from each chapter. I’ll get what I don’t have from the library. I won’t make a searchable spreadsheet out of the 74 books, and go to every Half Price Books in my area. No, not me.

Here is what I’ve learned. Treasures abound in the clearance sections at Half Price Books. Also Uncle Hugo’s has used young-adult books! Also, see above. I have a severe book-buying problem. But oh, aren’t they just lovely?

As you can see, not all of these are from Shelf Discovery. But some, like Dragonsong and Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey, were what I read growing up, so adding them to the library feels right.

Hmm. The photos look like they’re in a fun mirror. But it’s easy to read the titles, so I’ll leave them, unless you disagree.

Fair warning: Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer (brother of Jonathan Safran) has nothing to do with Einstein. It was a selection for one of my book groups.

The book zooms from a myth of the creation of the art of memory in the 5th century BCE to the 2006 United States Memory championship. It then rewinds to a year before that, when Foer stumbled onto what would become a consuming interest in memory training. Turns out the brain _is_ like a muscle, and can be trained in the art of remembering. A key strategy is one you’ve probably heard of, memory palaces. Foer has a section in the middle where he gives a brief tutorial. Thanks to that, I’ll try to recall a list from the book 2 weeks after I finished it:

pickled garlic, cottage cheese, peat-smoked salmon, 6 bottles of white wine, 3 pairs of socks, 3 hula hoops, a scuba mask, dry ice, email [someone], flesh-toned catsuit, Paul Newman movie, elk sausage, directors chair and megaphone, pulleys and a barometer.

Results: remembered 15 items, but missed snorkel for scuba mask, dry ice for dry ice machine, email _Sophia_, SKIN toned catsuit, harness and ropes rather than pulley. You can see I did pretty well, but the differences are important in the international competitions.

Foer’s book is an easy, engaging read that covers history and neuroscience in interesting, accessible ways. He shows how our evolving technology is leading to less and less memory and he presents the question to the reader whether working to strengthen one’s memory is silly, admirable, or something else. I was struck that memorization is a neat trick, and can be useful, but wonder still, is it better than living in the moment?

Welcome to the Summer of Shelf Discovery Readalong, where every week we’ll be reading one chapter of Lizzie Skurnick’s bookish memoir Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading along with ONE of the books she writes about in each chapter.

This week, read Chapter 1, “Still Checked Out: YA Heroines We’ll Never Return”, and one of these:

Starring Sally J Freedman as Herself by Judy Blume
Danny, the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl
The Great Brain by John D.Fitzgerald
Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Ludell by Brenda Wilkinson

Or read a book you enjoyed as a teen that has a memorable heroine, or a modern book that you think belongs in this “canon.” Then join us next Monday June 11 where we’ll discuss the chapter and the books we read in the comments.

This is not one of those reading challenges with lots of rules–I hope this will be a fun and easy way for many of us to live the joy of re-reading that Skurnick writes about.

I combed the stacks where I live now (like many of you, I’ve lived so many places that ‘home’ is a complicated word, fraught with baggage) for some of the books for this summer’s reading project, the Summer of Shelf Discovery. Skurnick writes about a whopping seventy-plus books. While the project is to just read one of them a week, I suspect I may get a little, um,. ambitious, about acquiring and reading books. But here’s what I started with:

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
I Am the Cheese by Robert Cormier
Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson
Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield (Fisher, though that’s not on this edition)
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (with the sci-fi 1976 cover)

Oh, I’m looking forward to reading these again.

In preparation for the Shelf Discovery Summer reading project, I had my mom see what books were still at home and send them. Oh, the geek joy when I opened these old friends today! Thanks, Mom!

Note the prices on the spines: ah, those were the days.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle,
Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret? by Judy Blume
Meet the Austins (not in SD), The Moon by Night and A Ring of Endless Light by L’Engle
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Beat the Turtle Drum by Constance Green
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg

I’ve posted on this project already, but this is simpler, I think. If you’re interested in the summer project, email me or say so in the comments if you haven’t, yet.

Lizzie Skurnick’s book Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading is a reading memoir about the books she read growing up, by authors like Judy Blume, Lois Duncan, Madeleine L’Engle, V.C. Andrews, and the joys of re-reading them as an adult.

Each of the 10 chapters has a theme and several books that Skurnick revisits (see list below.) This summer, a group of us is going to read a chapter a week from Shelf Discovery and ONE book (you choose) related to that chapter. Each Monday starting June 11, 2012 and ending August 20, 2012, we’ll “meet” here to discuss the chapter and books in the comments.

The challenge is to read just a chapter and a short book a week. (You can comment even if you’re not reading the book/s. I bet you remember many of the books we’ll discuss, or can find modern equivalents.) As an incentive for those who read Shelf Discovery plus a related book a week, I’ll have a drawing at the end for a prize pack including a copy signed by the author!

Summer of Shelf Discovery Schedule:

Monday June 11
Chapter 1 “Still Checked Out: YA Heroines We’ll Never Return”, and pick one:

1 Starring Sally J Freedman as Herself by Blume, Judy
1 Danny, the Champion of the World by Dahl, Roald
1 The Great Brain by Fitzgerald, John D.
1 Harriet the Spy by Fitzhugh, Louise
1 From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by Konigsburg, E.L.
1 A Wrinkle in Time by L’Engle, Madeleine
1 Farmer Boy by Wilder, Laura Ingalls
1 Ludell by Wilkinson, Brenda

Monday June 18
Chapter 2 “She’s at That Age: Girls on the Verge”, and pick one:

2 Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Blume, Judy
2 Blubber by Blume, Judy
2 Tiger Eyes by Blume, Judy
2 Then Again, Maybe I Won’t by Blume, Judy
2 Sister of the Bride by Cleary, Beverly
2 Cat Ate My Gymsuit by Danziger, Paula
2 The Long Secret by Fitzhugh, Louise
2 A Ring of Endless Light by L’Engle, Madeleine
2 And You Give Me a Pain, Elaine by Pevsner, Stella
2 Caroline by Roberts, Willo Davis
2 To Take a Dare by Zindel, Paul and Dragonwagon, Crescent

Monday June 25
Chapter 3 “Danger Girls: I Know What You Did Last Summer (Reading)”, and pick one:

3 Secret Lives by Amoss, Berthe
3 I Am the Cheese by Cormier, Robert
3 Daughters of Eve by Duncan, Lois
3 Summer of Fear by Duncan, Lois
3 The Arm of the Starfish by L’Engle, Madeleine
3 Dragons in the Waters by L’Engle, Madeleine
3 The Westing Game by Raskin, Ellen
3 The Grounding of Group 6 by Thompson, Julian F.

Monday July 2
Chapter 4 “Read ‘Em and Weep: Tearing Up the Pages”, and pick one:

4 The Gift of the Pirate Queen by Giff, Patricia Reilly
4 Summer of My German Soldier by Green, Bette
4 Beat the Turtle Drum by Greene, Constance C.
4 Jacob Have I Loved by Paterson, Katherine
4 Bridge to Terabithia by Paterson, Katherine
4 A Day No Pigs Would Die by Peck, Robert Newton
4 Tell Me if the Lovers are Losers by Voigt, Cynthia
4 The Pigman by Zindel, Paul

Monday July 9
Chapter 5 “You Heard It Here First: Very Afterschool Specials”, and pick one:

5 Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
5 Deenie by Blume, Judy
5 It’s Not the End of the World by Blume, Judy
5 Are You in the House Alone? by Peck, Richard
5 Don’t Hurt Laurie! by Roberts, Willo Davis

Monday July 16
Chapter 6 “Girls Gone Wild: Runaways, Left Behinds and Ladies Living Off the Fat of the Land”, and pick one:

6 Understood Betsy by Fisher, Dorothy Canfield
6 Julie of the Wolves by George, Jean Craighead
6 The Endless Steppe: A Girl in Exile by Hautzig, Esther
6 Island of the Blue Dolphins by O’Dell, Scott
6 The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Speare, Elizabeth George
6 Homecoming by Voigt, Cynthia
6 Little House on the Prairie by Wilder, Laura Ingalls

Monday July 23
Chapter 7 “She Comes by It Supernaturally: Girls Who Are Gifted and Talented”, and pick one:

7 Jane-Emily by Clapp, Patricia
7 A Gift of Magic by Duncan, Lois
7 Stranger with my Face by Duncan, Lois
7 Down a Dark Hall by Duncan, Lois
7 Hangin’ Out with Cici by Pascal, Francine
7 Ghosts I Have Been by Peck, Richard
7 Girl with the Silver Eyes by Roberts, Willo Davis

Monday July 30
Chapter 8 “Him She Loves: Romanced, Rejected, Affianced, Dejected”, and pick one:

8 Forever by Blume, Judy
8 Fifteen by Cleary, Beverly
8 To All My Fans, With Love, From Sylvie by Conford, Ellen
8 The Moon by Night by L’Engle, Madeleine
8 In Summer Light by Oneal, Zibby
8 Happy Endings are All Alike by Scoppetone, Sandra
8 My Darling, My Hamburger by Zindel, Paul

Monday August 6
Chapter 9 “Old Fashioned Girls: They Wear Bonnets, Don’t They?” Pick one:

9 Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Aiken, Joan
9 An Old Fashioned Girl by Alcott, Louisa May
9 The Secret Garden by Burnett, Frances Hodgson
9 A Little Princess by Burnett, Frances Hodgson
9 Belles on the Their Toes by Carey, Ernestine Gilbreth
9 Cheaper by the Dozen by Gilbreth, Jr, Frank B.
9 All of a Kind Family by Taylor, Sydney

Monday August 13
Chapter 10 “Panty Lines: I Can’t Believe They Let Us Read This”, and pick one:

10 My Sweet Audrina by Andrews, V.C.
10 Flowers in the Attic by Andrews, V.C.
10 Clan of the Cave Bear by Auel, Jean
10 Wifey by Blume, Judy
10 Domestic Arrangements by Klein, Norma

Monday August 20: Discuss the book as a whole, and the re-reading/reminiscing experience.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Since I’m going to host a summer reading project here, I should probably do some straightening up, like getting a new theme since the old one broke (*sniff*) and taking off the outdated book list.

Probably should have considered this beforehand.

The more I think on a group reading project around Lizzie Skurnick’s reading memoir, Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading, the more excited I get.

NB: it’s a project, not a challenge. I’m going to try and make this as easy, enjoyable, and participatory as possible.

The Project: In the summer of 2012, we’re going to read a chapter a week from Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading. Each of its 10 chapters has a theme, and essays on several books. In addition to the chapter, read one of the books from the chapter, OR a book from your reading past OR a modern YA or adult book, OR a genre book (sci fi, fantasy, mystery, etc.) that fits the theme. OR don’t read a book, just read along, or reminisce on the ones that you did.

To recap: read a chapter, and a book from or related to that chapter. Or remember rather than read a book. Then discuss. Or just lurk.

See? Easy. Fun!

Every Monday starting June 4, 2012, here at Girl Detective, I’ll post the chapter and book list for the coming week. The following Monday, starting June 11, 2012 and ending August 20, 2012, I’ll write a post on the chapter and book/s, and we’ll discuss in the comments section. I’ll also be posting the blog entry on Facebook. The book has ten chapters, but we’ll go to week eleven for related books, modern books, and a recap/post mortem.

I’ll keep this as the introductory entry, and modify it as needed, so that there’s only one starting place with all the info. I’m also going to try to come up with a spreadsheet in Google docs of the books Skurnick references, and see if that’s a good way to compile and share them. (Because you, like me, may be sending it to your mother to spelunk in the basement for your childhood copies, perhaps?)

I am really excited about this group read, and hope you are, too. Spread the word! And by all means, if you have kids, have them read along for the less racy books.

Shelf Discovery Summer Schedule:

Monday June 4: Start Your Engines. Prepare to read Foreword, Introduction, and Chapter 1: Still Checked Out: YA Heroines We’ll Never Return from Lizzie Skurnick’s Shelf Discovery. Read, or reminisce about, a book with a memorable heroine/hero.

Monday June 11: Discuss Chapter 1 and books. Prepare to read Chapter 2: She’s at That Age: Girls on the Verge. Read or reminisce on, a book about puberty.

Monday June 18: Discuss Chapter 2 and books. Prepare to read Chapter 3: Danger Girls: I Know What You Did Last Summer (Reading). Read or reminisce on a book involving kids in danger.

Monday June 25: Discuss Chapter 3 and books. Prepare to read Chapter 4: and Read ‘Em and Weep: Tearing Up the Pages. Read or reminisce on a book that made you cry.

Monday July 2: Discuss Chapter 4 and books. Prepare to read Chapter 5: You Heard It Here First: Very Afterschool Specials. Read or reminisce on a book about Special Topics like Child Abuse, Rape, Drugs, Alcohol.

Monday July 9: Discuss Chapter 5 and books. Prepare to read Chapter 6: Girls Gone Wild: Runaways, Left Behinds and Ladies Living Off the Fat of the Land. Read or reminisce on girls who are out of place in some way, shape, or form.

Monday July 16: Discuss Chapter 6 and books. Prepare to read Chapter 7: She Comes by It Supernaturally: Girls Who Are Gifted and Talented. Read or reminisce on a book with ESP, time travel, ghosts, and other “In Search of…” topics.

Monday July 23: Discuss Chapter 7 and books. Prepare to read Chapter 8: Him She Loves: Romanced, Rejected, Affianced, Dejected. Read or reminisce on a book about teen romance, or the lack thereof.

Monday July 30: Discuss Chapter 8 and books. Prepare to read Chapter 9: Old Fashioned Girls: They Wear Bonnets, Don’t They? Read or reminisce on an old-school heroine.

Monday August 6: Discuss Chapter 9 and books. Prepare to read the last chapter, 10: Panty Lines: I Can’t Believe They Let Us Read This. Read or reminisce on a book that gets panties in a twist either through intense interest, or outrage.

Monday August 13: Discuss Chapter 10 and books. Prepare to read or reminisce about any other book referenced in Shelf Discovery, or related to any of the themes.

Monday August 20: Discuss the book as a whole, and the re-reading/reminiscing experience. Possibly win a signed copy of Skurnick’s book through a random drawing of those readers who make it through the entire summer.

Let me know if this schedule and the project make sense and if you’re going to read along.

Here are the 74 books referred to in the book. Don’t panic! (See how that’s written in large, friendly letters?) Remember, the suggestion is to read (or just recall) one book from the chapter of the week, so a total of ten or eleven all summer. I’ll also include the list, alphabetically by author, for easier library/bookstore searching. FYI for those in Half-Price Books range, they are having a sale this Memorial Day weekend.

Books from Shelf Discovery, by chapter.

1 Starring Sally J Freedman as Herself by Blume, Judy
1 Danny, the Champion of the World by Dahl, Roald
1 The Great Brain by Fitzgerald, John D.
1 Harriet the Spy by Fitzhugh, Louise
1 From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by Konigsburg, E.L.
1 A Wrinkle in Time by L’Engle, Madeleine
1 Farmer Boy by Wilder, Laura Ingalls
1 Ludell by Wilkinson, Brenda

2 Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Blume, Judy
2 Blubber by Blume, Judy
2 Tiger Eyes by Blume, Judy
2 Then Again, Maybe I Won’t by Blume, Judy
2 Sister of the Bride by Cleary, Beverly
2 Cat Ate My Gymsuit by Danziger, Paula
2 The Long Secret by Fitzhugh, Louise
2 A Ring of Endless Light by L’Engle, Madeleine
2 And You Give Me a Pain, Elaine by Pevsner, Stella
2 Caroline by Roberts, Willo Davis
2 To Take a Dare by Zindel, Paul and Dragonwagon, Crescent

3 Secret Lives by Amoss, Berthe
3 I Am the Cheese by Cormier, Robert
3 Daughters of Eve by Duncan, Lois
3 Summer of Fear by Duncan, Lois
3 The Arm of the Starfish by L’Engle, Madeleine
3 Dragons in the Waters by L’Engle, Madeleine
3 The Westing Game by Raskin, Ellen
3 The Grounding of Group 6 by Thompson, Julian F.

4 The Gift of the Pirate Queen by Giff, Patricia Reilly
4 Summer of My German Soldier by Green, Bette
4 Beat the Turtle Drum by Greene, Constance C.
4 Jacob Have I Loved by Paterson, Katherine
4 Bridge to Terabithia by Paterson, Katherine
4 A Day No Pigs Would Die by Peck, Robert Newton
4 Tell Me if the Lovers are Losers by Voigt, Cynthia
4 The Pigman by Zindel, Paul

5 Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
5 Deenie by Blume, Judy
5 It’s Not the End of the World by Blume, Judy
5 Are You in the House Alone? by Peck, Richard
5 Don’t Hurt Laurie! by Roberts, Willo Davis

6 Understood Betsy by Fisher, Dorothy Canfield
6 Julie of the Wolves by George, Jean Craighead
6 The Endless Steppe: A Girl in Exile by Hautzig, Esther
6 Island of the Blue Dolphins by O’Dell, Scott
6 The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Speare, Elizabeth George
6 Homecoming by Voigt, Cynthia
6 Little House on the Prairie by Wilder, Laura Ingalls

7 Jane-Emily by Clapp, Patricia
7 A Gift of Magic by Duncan, Lois
7 Stranger with my Face by Duncan, Lois
7 Down a Dark Hall by Duncan, Lois
7 Hangin’ Out with Cici by Pascal, Francine
7 Ghosts I Have Been by Peck, Richard
7 Girl with the Silver Eyes by Roberts, Willo Davis

8 Forever by Blume, Judy
8 Fifteen by Cleary, Beverly
8 To All My Fans, With Love, From Sylvie by Conford, Ellen
8 The Moon by Night by L’Engle, Madeleine
8 In Summer Light by Oneal, Zibby
8 Happy Endings are All Alike by Scoppetone, Sandra
8 My Darling, My Hamburger by Zindel, Paul

9 Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Aiken, Joan
9 An Old Fashioned Girl by Alcott, Louisa May
9 The Secret Garden by Burnett, Frances Hodgson
9 A Little Princess by Burnett, Frances Hodgson
9 Belles on the Their Toes by Carey, Ernestine Gilbreth
9 Cheaper by the Dozen by Gilbreth, Jr, Frank B.
9 All of a Kind Family by Taylor, Sydney

10 My Sweet Audrina by Andrews, V.C.
10 Flowers in the Attic by Andrews, V.C.
10 Clan of the Cave Bear by Auel, Jean
10 Wifey by Blume, Judy
10 Domestic Arrangements by Klein, Norma

***

Books from Shelf Discovery, alphabetically by author:

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Aiken, Joan
An Old Fashioned Girl by Alcott, Louisa May
Secret Lives by Amoss, Berthe
My Sweet Audrina by Andrews, V.C.
Flowers in the Attic by Andrews, V.C.
Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
The Clan of the Cave Bear by Auel, Jean
Starring Sally J Freedman as Herself by Blume, Judy
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Blume, Judy
Blubber by Blume, Judy
Tiger Eyes by Blume, Judy
Then Again, Maybe I Won’t by Blume, Judy
Deenie by Blume, Judy
It’s Not the End of the World by Blume, Judy
Forever by Blume, Judy
Wifey by Blume, Judy
The Secret Garden by Burnett, Frances Hodgson
A Little Princess by Burnett, Frances Hodgson
Belles on the Their Toes by Carey, Ernestine Gilbreth
Jane-Emily by Clapp, Patricia
Sister of the Bride by Cleary, Beverly
Fifteen by Cleary, Beverly
To All My Fans, With Love, From Sylvie by Conford, Ellen
I Am the Cheese by Cormier, Robert
Danny, the Champion of the World by Dahl, Roald
The Cat Ate My Gymsuit by Danziger, Paula
Daughters of Eve by Duncan, Lois
Summer of Fear by Duncan, Lois
A Gift of Magic by Duncan, Lois
Stranger with my Face by Duncan, Lois
Down a Dark Hall by Duncan, Lois
Understood Betsy by Fisher, Dorothy Canfield
The Great Brain by Fitzgerald, John D.
Harriet the Spy by Fitzhugh, Louise
The Long Secret by Fitzhugh, Louise
Julie of the Wolves by George, Jean Craighead
The Gift of the Pirate Queen by Giff, Patricia Reilly
Cheaper by the Dozen by Gilbreth, Jr, Frank B.
Summer of My German Soldier by Green, Bette
Beat the Turtle Drum by Greene, Constance C.
The Endless Steppe: A Girl in Exile by Hautzig, Esther
Domestic Arrangements by Klein, Norma
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by Konigsburg, E.L.
A Wrinkle in Time by L’Engle, Madeleine
A Ring of Endless Light by L’Engle, Madeleine
The Arm of the Starfish by L’Engle, Madeleine
Dragons in the Waters by L’Engle, Madeleine
The Moon by Night by L’Engle, Madeleine
Island of the Blue Dolphins by O’Dell, Scott
In Summer Light by Oneal, Zibby
Hangin’ Out with Cici by Pascal, Francine
Jacob Have I Loved by Paterson, Katherine
Bridge to Terabithia by Paterson, Katherine
Are You in the House Alone? by Peck, Richard
Ghosts I Have Been by Peck, Richard
A Day No Pigs Would Die by Peck, Robert Newton
And You Give Me a Pain, Elaine by Pevsner, Stella
The Westing Game by Raskin, Ellen
Caroline by Roberts, Willo Davis
Don’t Hurt Laurie! by Roberts, Willo Davis
The Girl with the Silver Eyes by Roberts, Willo Davis
Happy Endings are All Alike by Scoppetone, Sandra
The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Speare, Elizabeth George
All of a Kind Family by Taylor, Sydney
The Grounding of Group 6 by Thompson, Julian F.
Tell Me if the Lovers are Losers by Voigt, Cynthia
Homecoming by Voigt, Cynthia
Farmer Boy by Wilder, Laura Ingalls
Little House on the Prairie by Wilder, Laura Ingalls
Ludell by Wilkinson, Brenda
The Pigman by Zindel, Paul
My Darling, My Hamburger by Zindel, Paul
To Take a Dare by Zindel, Paul and Dragonwagon, Crescent

I finished Middlemarch by George Eliot, and am feeling very pleased with self. However, what to write about this long, fabulous novel?

One, that several people, including literary nobodies like Virginia Woolf, Martin Amis, and Julian Barnes have said it’s the best novel in the English language. No faint praise, that.

Two, it’s not hard to read. If you’ve read Austen, or Dickens, or the Brontes, then you can read this. While it’s long, it’s split up into manageable chunks of about 100 pages per section.

Three, it’s got fabulous characters. The heroine, Dorothea Brooke, is a young woman who defies the wishes of those about her to marry a scholar in the hopes of learning and helping. As many in this book find out,

a fellow-mortal with whose nature you are acquainted solely through the brief entrances and exits of a few imaginative weeks called courtship, may, when seen in the continuity of married companionship, be disclosed as something better or worse than what you have preconceived, but will certainly not appear altogether the same. (183)

Four, where many books end with marriage, this book delves into married people’s lives and the relationship of marriage.

Five, this is a book not only about people, but also ideas, and art, and philosophy. This novel is full of so much good stuff that I was happy to spend weeks with it, and will happily read it again.

It is one of the best books I’ve ever read.

I’m posting this before I second guess myself. Lizzie Skurnick wrote a book called Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading based on a popular column, Fine Lines at Jezebel. It’s goes through the various books many of us read growing up, their themes, their strengths, their flaws, etc.

(It’s rather like a Teenage Girls’ Canon, a pop-cultural milieu many of us, especially those who came of age in the late 70’s/80’s/early 90’s shared.)

Examples: Chapter 1, “YA Heroines We’ll Never Return” includes A Wrinkle in Time (Meg!). Chapter 4: “Read ‘Em and Weep” includes Jacob Have I Loved and Bridge to Terabithia. Chapter 7 on Romance includes Forever, and Chapter 10, “I Can’t Believe They Let Us Read This”, includes Flowers in the Attic, My Sweet Audrina, Clan of the Cave Bear, Wifey and Domestic Arrangements. It’s one of the three chapters where I read all the books. Heh. The oevres of Judy Blume, Lois Duncan, Madeleine L’Engle are all well represented in it.

I don’t think there’s a way to do a reading challenge and ask that people read all the books she references even if they’re often super short–72! BUT there are ten chapters, and twelve weeks between June and August.

I propose a chapter a week starting the first or second week in June, and reading ONE book from the chapter a week, then coming here to discuss it. And I’d add an eleventh week (it’ll be so good it’ll go to 11!) for what book you loved that isn’t included. (Mistral’s Daughter. Ahem.)

SO, you’d be reading one chapter of Shelf Discovery, and one short YA book a week, perhaps one you already read as a child, and perhaps for you parents even one you could read WITH your kid. (Not Wifey, but maybe A Little Princess, right?)

Whaddya think?

If there’s interest, then a schedule and bibliography to come.

New to the Criterion Collection, you know the iconic movie poster for Anatomy of a Murder, even if you haven’t seen the film. And you should see the film.

I’m just a humble country lawyer trying to do the best I can against this brilliant prosecutor from the big city of Lansing.

Jimmy Stewart is that “humble” lawyer, Eve Arden is his sassy secretary, Lee Remick is the femme fatale, and Ben Gazzara her husband, accused of murder. Duke Ellington did the music and has a cameo, George C. Scott is terrific as a city lawyer, and the whole thing is just kind of jaw dropping for its subject matter and its all-over-the-map tone. Bizarre, but entertaining.

Have to go meet the boys’ bus in a moment, so this’ll be quick. My husband G and I decided to test whether our boys, 6yo Guppy and 8yo Drake, were ready to go with us to see The Avengers when it opened last Friday. We had a Marvel movie marathon last week, starting with Iron Man, which they liked, followed by Thor, which Guppy really liked, and by Captain America, which Drake really liked. We picked them up at school on Friday, went to a nearby theater, not crowded because it’s not fancy, and had a tremendous time.

If you like the other movies, you’ll like Avengers.

And in case you want to go out for schawarma after, look for an Arabic restaurant. Schawarma is like Greeky gyros or Turkish donen, but it’s from places like Kuwait, I think. We went to Holy Land in Minneapolis.

For someone who claims not to like short stories, I’m reading a lot of them lately, and I’m liking them a lot. Coincidence that they’ve all been written by women? I think not. I suspect it’s because the books I’ve been reading lately delve more into emotional icky-wow factors than physical ones. I’m much more able to tolerate being haunted by emotional echoes than by gruesome word pictures, which, probably unfairly, I tend to associate with short stories by men.

The latest collection was After the Apocalypse by Maureen McHugh. My husband G. Grod and I had seen it praised in various corners of the web, he requested it from the library, then liked it so well he encouraged me to read it before the due date (no renewals). I crammed it into an already too full reading schedule, but am glad I did, because it was good. Really good.

McHugh writes stories that aren’t easily defined by genre. She’s science fiction-y, and fantastical, but not exactly either one of those. Her stories here are mostly set in a not-too-distant future where something has changed; most often they’re set in the aftermath of a dirty bomb, but there are other environmental mishaps as well. She is sure handed at setting a stage and peopling it quickly in diverse settings as China, Ohio and the West. With zombies, enclaves, artificial intelligence, and medical experiments gone awry, she ably captures an eerie, unsettling tone that makes me think and feel, but never want to wash my brain out.

To see if it’s your cuppa, one of my favorite of the stories, “Useless Things” is available online here.

But it might only be irony is the Alanis Morissette aspect, in which it’s just fitting, thought it’s not sucky.

I started blogging nearly 10 years ago over at Blogspot to increase my writing practice, which was sporadic at best. I didn’t yet have a kid, though I did have a full-time job as a copyeditor. Over the next few years, I wrote a bad novel, had a kid, resigned that job, moved, had another kid, survived a prolonged bout of post-partum despression, and hung around long enough that Kid 2, Guppy, started kindergarten last fall.

Over the past 10 years, I wrote a few things that got published in obscure places. I’ve revised that novel several times. (I’m _still_ working on it.) I started writing for my grocery store, the Eastside Food Co-op’s newsletter about food and wellness. Based on that I got a gig writing for a local-food website Simple Good and Tasty. Then I got a gig writing about kids and food for Minnesota Monthly’s food blog.

Over the past year, blogging here has gotten less and less frequent. I realized just this morning that it’s because I’m doing so much other writing. So the blog I started 10 years ago has resulted in a regular writing practice. (NB: not a lucrative writing practice, alas.) So regular, in fact, that I rarely have time for the practice that led up to this regularity. Huh.

I’m not saying I’m going to stop blogging. It’s a hard habit to break. (Apologies to you if that puts the Chicago tune in your head.) But it may help me stop feeling so bad for how infrequently I post nowadays, compared to those early, kidless, gigless years. It’s a higher class of problem, or a nice problem to have, as friends of mine might say.

As I Lay Dying was a recommendation from SFP of Pages Turned. I wrote to ask which she’d recommend for a book group*. She said As I Lay Dying, as it was more accessible than others of his works, due in part to its dark humor.

I began to read it, and floundered immediately. If this is his most accessible, I thought, I’m really glad we didn’t read The Sound and the Fury. Who were these people? How did they relate to one another? Why so many names? Welcome to a stream-of-consciousness multi-narrator novel with fifteen–FIFTEEN!–points of view. Also, I wondered, funny? This isn’t funny, I thought, this is HORRIBLE!

In my initial flailing, with all good intention, I looked for help online to out the characters. It did help, yet it was a mistake, one I warned others not to make. As soon as I looked up the book, about half a dozen things got spoiled, including the jaw-dropping last line. Stupid internet. I wish I had stuck with my original impulse, which was to keeping reading till things made sense, and assume a second reading.

As I read, then re-read the book, I was able to figure out who was who, how they were related, and what was going on. More importantly, I was able to see past the horrific particulars of the story to the humor that lay not far below the surface.

Two of my book groups read it. In the first, only one other person besides me had finished the book, and I hadn’t yet studied up on the book or re-read it. The discussion was necessarily short, and focused on how challenging and slow the book was to read. (A comment I don’t disagree with.) I liked this book, but hadn’t yet succumbed to its charms.

Then I spent a couple hours reading about the book on Schmoop, did some more online reading about Faulkner**, and then re-read the book. And was so stirred by one particular scene involving a bridge (SPOILERS: don’t click through if you haven’t read the book) that I kept imagining a diorama. Once I realized I possessed one of the key ingredients of my imaginary diorama, I had to make it. With the help of 6-year-old Guppy, I did. He helped me find particular Lego body parts, like shorter legs, matching hair, and grumpy faces, then colored in the cardboard base because we didn’t have enough blue, green and brown Legos to make it as big as I’d envisioned.

Armed with my diorama, a bottle of wine, leftover Easter candy and my newly bolstered background on the book, I went to my second book group, and we had a rousing discussion. We talked about life, death, family, pity, religion, spirituality, ESP, feminism, and much more.

It took a while, but I am now a huge fan of the work, and look forward to reading more Faulkner. No fear!

(If I had to do this again, though, I would probably start with the short stories, and THEN move to As I Lay Dying.)

*For one of my book groups, Faulkner became an obvious choice of an author we had to read, since so many of the authors we read already named him as an influence: Marilynne Robinson, Cormac McCarthy, Margaret Atwood, and Louise Erdrich, to name a few. And I loved the serendipity that I finally got around to reading Faulkner at the same time as I finally go around to reading Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson, an early influence on Faulkner.

**In my admittedly cursory research, I did not find any evidence that As I Lay Dying influenced Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, but I found the “white-trash road trip” theme too strikingly similar.

My entry on As I Lay Dying is forthcoming, but one scene in the book so stirred my imagination that I felt compelled to make a diorama. Just for fun. I don’t know that I’ve ever made one in my life. 6yo Guppy helped me out.

SPOILERS! Also, this diorama is not to scale. And we didn’t have enough blue Legos to make a big enough river, so we used a cardboard base and Guppy colored it with marker.

The bridge:

Anse was setting there, looking at the bridge where it was swagged down into the river with just the two ends in sight…The boy was watching the bridge where it was mid-sunk and logs and such drifted over it. (123-4)

The wagon:

Then the wagon tilted over and then it and Jewel and the horse was all mixed up together. Cash went outen sight, still holding the coffin braced, and then I couldn’t tell anything…(154)

The mules:

They roll up out of the water in succession, turning completely over, their legs stiffly extended as when they had lost contact with the earth. (149)

Anse:

Since he lost his teeth his mouth collapses…The stubble gives his lower face that appearance that old dogs have. (17)

Dewey Dell:

pa and Dewey Dell stand watching us (149),

Squatting, Dewey Dell’s wet dress shapes for the dead eyes of three blind men those mammalian ludicrosities which ar the horizons and the valleys of the earth. (164)

Vardaman:

Cash tried but she fell off and Darl jumped going under he went under and Cash holleringto catch her and I hollering running and hollering…

“Where is ma, Darl?” I said. You never got her. You knew she is a fish but you let her get away. You never got her. Darl. Darl. Darl.” I began to run along the bank, watching the mules dive up slow again and then down again. (150-1)

Darl:

[Darl] is looking at me. He dont say nothing; just looks at me with them queer eyes of hisn that makes folks talk. I always say it aint never been what he done so much or said or anything so much as how he looks at you. It’s like he had got into the inside of you, someway. Like somehow you was looking at yourself and your doings outen his eyes. (125)

Lego interpretation: Note his self-satisfied expression and arresting eyes.

Cash:

Cash lies on his back on the earth, his head raised on a rolled garment. His…face is gray, his hair plastered in a smooth smear across his forehead as though done with a paint brush. His face appears sunken a little, sagging from the bony ridges of eye sockets, nose, gums, as thought the wetting had slacked the firmness which had held the skin full….He lies pole-thin in his wet clothes, a little pool of vomit at his head. (156)

Dewey Dell has laid Cash’s head back on the folded coat, twisting his head a little to avoid the vomit. Beside him his tools lie. “A fellow might call it lucky it was the same leg he broke when he fell offen that church,” pa says. (163)

Lego interpretation: the grey spot to the right of his head is vomit and Dewey Dell attends to him. His tools are in the water and at his side. His injured leg is elevated, he’s pale from almost drowning, and he’s in a lot of pain.

Jewel:

Lego interpretation: he is taller than the others, has a different skin tone, black hair instead of brown, and has a cranky, man-of-action expression on his face. Note the circular bumps on the narrow end of the coffin, where Addie’s head would be, and where Vardaman drilled air holes, then Cash carefully filled them. Also note one of Cash’s tools in river and the dead mule in the background.

It took a great deal of time to sort through our Legos to find appropriate expressions and hair for the characters. I was quite surprised how easy it was to find coffin-shaped pieces. Discerning Lego enthusiasts may recognize many Star Wars elements.

Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson was recommended to me originally in the mid ’90s by one of my first writing teachers, Diana Cavallo. I took a copy from my in-laws’ basement on my trip west from Philadelphia to Minneapolis in 1998. It sat on my shelves until this year, when the same friend’s author mentor recommended it to her and she recommended it to me as happened with Maile Meloy’s Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It.

Anderson’s name is barely recognized today, and his most famous book relatively obscure compared to those of some of the writers who came after and credited him as an influence, like Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck.

The book is a novel in linked stories. Even though each story was about different people in the town, they all orbited one young man, George Willard, a reporter at the small town’s paper. His story is the anchor at the end.

The town is full of complex people leading quiet lives. They have painful pasts and often long for a lost love, or present sexual shenanigans. For a book from 1919, it’s quite sexually frank, I thought. I found it tough to get into but once the stories began to accumulate, I became involved in the town and its people, even when they thought and behaved badly, just as real people do.

The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor is one of the classics that I’m kicking myself I only got around to now. She’s emotionally brutal, her titles are brilliant, and the stories make me think and feel. This is the end to my self-education on O’Connor that started with Wise Blood, then Brad Gooch’s Flannery and now this. Not all the works from her tragically short life, but plenty to see her themes of pain, alienation, fear of change, and religious struggle.

In the weeks after I read this, I found connections again and again in real life, in what I was reading, and in what I was watching on TV.

These stories will stick with me. Even if I forget which title goes with which story, I bet I’ll be able to recall these as long as I’m able to recall things: the surprise ending of The Barber, the car trip in A Good Man is Hard to Find, the general in A Late Encounter with the Enemy, the tractor scene in The Displaced Person, the Bible salesman in Good Country People, Mary Fortune and her grandfather in A View of the Woods, the invalid Asbury in The Enduring Chill, the bus trip in Everything that Rises Must Converge, the asylum visit of The Partidge Festival, the well-meaning father who tries to take in a troubled boy in The Lame Shall Enter First, the doctor’s office in Revelation, the tattoo of Parker’s Back, and the reworking of The Geranium in Judgment Day, her last complete story.

While the book works terrifically as a whole, from its first story, The Geranium, to its last, Judgment Day, I don’t recommend reading it all at once. I started this way, and had to stop. The stories have a lot of similarity, so run together if read together, but stand apart when read over a period of time, as I did, a story at a time between other books.

Stuff White People like is Christian Lander’s collection of 150 of the blog entries from his popular blog of the same name. It’s been sitting around for years, and finally graduated to bathroom book, for which it’s ideal. Short, funny. But the funny is also a little painful for me. As my dad often jokes, I resemble those remarks in my earnest white well-meaning but often less-than-world-changing actions. Funny, disposable. Will make you think self-deprecating things (#103), rather than just saying them or writing them. Also, hasn’t aged appreciably. All these things seem still to be true of aspiring regular folks masquerading as hipsters and vice versa. Plus many more. Which is why there is a sequel.

Here’s a sampling of those I’m guilty of:

1. Coffee
5. Farmer’s Markets
6. Organic Food
7. Diversity
8. Barack Obama
9. Making You Feel Bad for Not Going Outside (a Minnesota pastime)
13. Tea
15. Yoga
21. Writers Workshops
41. Indie Music
42. Sushi
44. Public Radio
48. Whole Foods and Grocery Co-ops (I bet I get extra white-people points for disliking the former along with Trader Joe’s and loving the latter.)
54. Kitchen Gadgets
61. Bicycles
63. Expensive Sandwiches
70. Difficult Breakups
81. Graduate School
82. Hating Corporations
83. Bad Memories of High School.
85. The Wire
96. Having Children in Their Late 30’s

and on through 150. I come in at about 75%. Sigh. The unique taste of millions, indeed.