100+ Reading Challenge 2009

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout is a book of short stories- well maybe not short stories but chapters which are separate but which link back to Olive Kitteridge in some way. I wasn’t expecting this. For some reason I thought it was a full length novel about Olive Kitteridge. Now anyone who reads my blog knows that I’m not a fan of short stories but I will say I enjoyed this book although not as much as I would have had it been a full length story. I read it for my book club, The Page Turners, as our November read.

The story takes place in the small town of Crosby, Maine. Some of the stories are about the people in the town and some are about Olive herself, a retired school teacher, but all the stories do relate to Olive in some way or another whether it be something she said or something she did to the person in the story being related.

At first I really didn’t like Olive. I found her rude and quite mean to her husband Henry who seemed kind of sweet to me. Yet as the novel wore on I came to feel more sympathy towards Olive and even liked her. I think Olive used this hard exterior as a way to protect herself. Underneath it all I think she was a very vulnerable person who had a lot to give; she just didn’t know how.

This book really is quite simple yet not simple at all. It’s about people – the good and the bad. Some of the stories are depressing but still when you finish reading them, you find yourself sitting there and thinking about the story and the people it’s about, especially Olive. It’s about a town and all the little and big things that may happen there. It’s about life and getting older and all that goes with that and realizing that all the small moments in life end up being huge ones when the people you shared them with are no longer there.

This book deals with a lot of issues including marriage, infidelity, children and aging. There is definitely a lot to talk about in terms of choosing this book for your book club. For myself, I did enjoy the book but I think that I probably didn’t get all that it has to offer out of it. It could be the time I read it or just the fact that it’s portrayed in the short story type format which I’m not fond of. I’m glad I read it and will say that it kept my attention throughout and even a week or so after I finished it, I’m still thinking about Olive and her life so I’d say that says a lot about her character and Elizabeth Strout’s writing.

For another much better review than mine of Olive Kitteridge, take a look at my fellow book club member Toni’s review coming from A Circle of Books.

My Thanks…to myself. I purchased this book and it came off my very own bookshelf.

Share this post!

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett is a book about a group of people, many important people, that are held hostage by a group of terrorists in some South American country – we never really learn where exactly. The party is for a Japanese businessman and as a gift to him he is going to get to see a famous opera singer that he has loved for years. In the middle of the party the terrorists come in from the air vents and cause chaos.

The terrorists originally were looking to kidnap the President of this country but unfortunately for the rest of the people at the party he had chosen not to attend, leaving them as the hostages instead. The women and children are let go but because the opera singer is famous, she is held back as she might be useful down the line. This hostage taking continues on for months with the terrorists demanding unreasonable things and being turned down by the government.

However, what starts as a panic and terror filled incident slowly turns into friendships and relationships between the hostages and the terrorists. Over the course of the months the hostages are allowed to walk around and even go outside. They don’t even try to escape as they really don’t feel threatened by the terrorists anymore. People that would never have been friends before find they have more in common than they would have thought and others even find love.

My reason for not using any names in this review stems from the fact that I felt no connection to any of the characters. I did find the story interesting but I didn’t find myself laughing or crying for anyone. I found the first part of the book when the hostages were taken and the last part of the book when things were being settled out the most interesting but the middle of the book for the most part kind of dragged on for me. The writing is very good and I’m sure some others may be able to get more from the book than I did.

I’m glad I read it though as it did keep my attention enough to finish it but my favorite of hers still remains her novel called Run. I think for me I was expecting more – maybe more chaos with the hostage taking, I’m not sure. While this wasn’t a favorite for me, it certainly wouldn’t keep me from reading more from Ann Patchett as I do enjoy her writing style.

My Thanks…to myself. This was a copy purchased by yours truly.

Share this post!

The Paper Bag Christmas by Kevin Alan Milne is a wonderful Christmas story showcasing the true meaning of Christmas. This story captured my heart from the very beginning and didn’t let go. I laughed, I cried but mostly I just loved this story. I often think that the meaning of Christmas is really lost today in the hustle and bustle of shopping and planning. This book shows us how important it is to take the time to do something for someone else and in turn bringing the true spirit of Christmas into our lives.

The book opens on the day after Thanksgiving when Mo and Aaron’s father announces that they are going to head to the mall and visit with Santa. While there an elf gives them a sheet of paper and tells them to write their Christmas wishes down so that they’re ready when they get to see Santa. Well the two boys fill their sheets up with every toy imaginable. Finally they get to see Santa and he finds their lists totally unacceptable and tells them that he can show them how to get “the best gift they never wanted”.

Santa turns out to be Dr. Ringle, a pediatric oncologist at a children’s hospital. He has the boys come and volunteer at the hospital as elves in the evenings before Christmas. Their first job is to hand out candy canes and a sheet of paper so the kids can write out their Christmas lists. The boys meet many very sick children but become friendly with two in particular, Madhu and Katrina. Through meeting these children and planning for a Christmas pageant, Mo and Aaron truly learn what Christmas should be about along with doing a lot of growing up in the process.

This is a quick read, on my eReader only 91 pages but in those pages it’s such an amazing story that you just won’t be able to put it down. I really do recommend this one for Christmas reading this year. It makes you sit back and realize what should be important this Christmas and it also makes you think about how lucky most of us are that are reasonably healthy.

To end, I’d like to share a few quotes from the book…

• ‘The only gift is a portion of thyself.’ —Ralph Waldo Emerson (pg 71, eReader edition)
• ‘Somehow, not only for Christmas but all the long year through, the joy that you give to others is the joy that comes back to you. And the more you spend in blessing the poor and lonely and sad, the more of your heart’s possessing returns to you glad.’ —John Greenleaf Whittier (pg 79, eReader edition)
• ‘But Christmas magic is silent. You don’t hear it —you feel it, you know it, you believe it’. (pg 88, eReader edition)

My Thanks…to myself for purchasing this book for my Sony eReader.

Share this post!

House of Reckoning by John Saul was a return to his older style of writing when he wrote about kids as his main characters. It’s a welcome return and House of Reckoning certainly kept me turning the pages especially in the spooky parts. John Saul has long been a favorite author of mine back from my teenage years when I first started reading his books. This is his thirty-sixth novel and I’m still hanging in there anxiously waiting for the next one.

In House of Reckoning, our main character is fourteen year old Sarah Crane. Sarah is one of those kids who has had to grow up in a big hurry after losing her mother. Her father is a basket case and barely able to see past the bottle he’s been drinking out of. Sarah is trying to hold things together as best she can when her father gets into a drunken brawl one night and ends up killing someone. To top it off, that same night, he severely injures Sarah on his way home when he hits her on her bicycle as she’s riding to the bar to bring him home.

Sarah’s life is turned upside down. She has a bad leg now and is ridiculed by the other school kids where she has been going since being placed with an awful foster family. Sarah is miserable until she meets two people – one of her teachers Bettina and a schoolmate Nick, who is also shunned by his peers for being different. These three people together manage to change each other’s lives in ways that they hadn’t known were possible.

So as not to give away the story I will say that Bettina owns an old ancestral home and in a very interesting way Sarah has a very deep connection with this home and it’s people as does Nick in a different way. Something happened in this house long, long ago and the spirits dwelling within it’s walls want revenge for their suffering and they are using both Nick and Sarah to get it.

This is another good one from John Saul and I really enjoyed it as I have most of his novels. I had started it a while back but didn’t get a chance to read more but when I picked it up again, I never managed to put it down until I was finished. If you’re a fan of horror, check out John Saul’s books.

My Thanks…To myself. This book was purchased by yours truly.

Share this post!