Monday, January 30, 2012

Gene Stratton Porter - An author you need to acquaint yourself with

In the last week I have finished 3 Gene Stratton Porter books and started a 4th. I can't stop reading stuff from this author.
For a woman who started her professional writing career in secret (she didn't even show her husband her writings until they were published in a magazine) her books have been published in 7 languages and distributed all over the world.
Her book are primarily about the beauty and secrets of nature. She tempers that with love stories, sometimes unorthodox ones, that magnify the absolute best in humankind. The characters she's created are so pure and so tremendous that they're almost impossible. Despite the character's luminosity, they don't display an unattainable sort of sainthood. They are just regular people who choose to be respectable, kind human beings.
The only blot I found was her book "Her Father's Daughter". The story itself was wonderful, but there were so many intense and clearly racially prejudiced sermons it was almost out of touch with anything in the current world. But the determination and tenacity of the main character was so strong it creates a blueprint to reaching one's goals, making it worth the read.
I think what draws me most to these books is the fact that even though the characters seem snow white and unattainable, they are still struggling and real and they stay positive through their problems. With so many books that insist that life is terrible and always will be, it's refreshing and inspiring to find an author who recognizes that there is good in the world and shows us that it is possible to be decent too.
If you want to read a book written by a strong woman who stuck to her guns and wrote what she believed in, you want to read Gene Stratton Porter.

"To deny that wrong and pitiful things exist in life is folly, but to believe that these things are made better by promiscuous discussion at the hands of writers who fail to prove by their books that their viewpoint is either right, clean, or helpful, is close to insanity. If there is to be any error on either side in a book, then God knows it is far better that it should be upon the side of pure sentiment and high ideals than upon that of a too loose discussion of subjects which often open to a large part of the world their first knowledge of such forms of sin, profligate expenditure, and waste of life's best opportunities. There is one great beauty in idealized romance: reading it can make no one worse than he is, while it may help thousands to a cleaner life and higher inspiration than they ever before have known." - Gene Stratton Porter

Friday, January 20, 2012

The Big Flush

This may be a sensitive question given that you and I have just started this relationship and all, but I feel like this is something that everyone can relate to, in one way or another.
So;
Do you read on the toilet?
Given that the toilet is a place of relief and the deepest kind of satisfaction, it makes sense that it be used as a place of concentration. Plus, lets face it, it gets a little boring when things are, ahem, backed up.

To set your curiosity at rest I'll answer my own question. Yes; I read in the bathroom. Books, magazines, my kindle, sometimes I'm reduced to reading the backs of shampoo bottles (you've done it.). I don't know why this seems to be a taboo thing to admit, but we potty-readers are a shunned party.

My dad was totally a toilet reader. I don't think he knew that we were aware of it either. But every night before dinner he would disappear. By the closed door and absolute silence emitting from the bathroom we knew exactly what was going on in there.He always sounded completely surprised when we called him too. Like he was sitting there minding (and doing) his business and he had somehow time traveled to an hour in the future without his knowledge. We all knew to steer clear of that side of the house for a while after one of those sessions.
I don't see what the big deal is. My husband says it's gross, but I told him it isn't any grosser that what he's already doing in there. I get some of my best reading done there. I'm relaxed, it's quiet and interruption free. People might say you get the same qualities from a library, but just try and relieve yourself at a library and see how that goes.

So I say read on potty-readers! Read until your legs are asleep and people forget that you're even home. Wear the red ring around your butt as a badge of honor! Install a cushiony seat and never leave the bathroom again!

Monday, January 16, 2012

Martin Luther King Jr. "I have a dream"

This is an important thing for your to read on today of all days. My guess is that most people have never heard or read the whole thing, just the last 16 stanzas. Change that.


I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But 100 years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men -- yes, black men as well as white men -- would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check that has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and security of justice. We have also come to his hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. 1963 is not an end but a beginning. Those who hoped that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. ****

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "for whites only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back toGeorgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today my friends -- so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my father's died, land of the Pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!"

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi -- from every mountainside.

Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring -- when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children -- black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics -- will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Hunger Games 2 and 3

I finished the series. Then I read it again. I really struggled with the review for this one because I wanted to like the series so bad, but something held me back from saying I do. Plus I got a little lazy and didn't want to write.

At the very least, I appreciated the name of the trilogy. The Hunger Games. There are times when the reader is left salivating after more of the book, but there are also deeper and baser themes of raw, consuming, needy hunger. Unfortunately, the ending leaves me with the empty feeling of a hunger not sated.

Catching Fire

In Catching Fire, the second book, Katniss and Peeta find themselves to be the faces of a budding rebellion in the Districts. With the Capitol's threat of their families' lives, they must tour the country trying to quell these uprisings, but they are unsuccessful. So, be it a result of this failure, or pure accident, they are both sent back to the arena in a game against the Victors from all the Districts.

This Hunger Game, a reminder that "...even the strongest among you may not survive..."is a strain on Katniss's already precarious grip on her life. She has been feigning her love for Peeta to retain the public's favor, but is still fiddling with feelings of love for Gale, he best friend. Unfortunately there is so little of Gale in this book and even less of him in the first, that it isn't clear why Katniss feels like she loves him, We haven however, had time, reason and opportunity to root for Peeta, who despite his awareness of Katniss's indecision, still loves her and still works to protect her always.

Unfortunately parts of this book are a tedious re run of the first one. We are launched into a second round of preparation, training and waiting for the games to begin. We do get introduced to a few new and interesting characters though. All of which are Victors from other years who will be joining Katniss and Peeta in the arena, making this year particularly deadly with a  combination of experienced tributes and dangerous surprises that the game makers have planned.

There's a terrible lot of angst on the part of Katniss as Peeta and the other candidates get themselves wounded and killed off to protect her. The about face of the contestants helping Katniss rather than trying to kill each other off is curious considering the object of the games. This obvious shift tips us off that something different is happening this year.

The end of the book is a little expected since it's really the only explanation for the way the characters have been acting and the prior events of the series. I have to say the only reason that I read on to the third book is because the second one ends with such an obviously unfinished story. All in all, the second book struck me as the necessary and slow moving link to the third book.


Mockingjay


The third and decidedly final Hunger Games book is Mockingjay. We've reached the ending where the groundwork for the real themes of this series finally develop themselves.

The final book finds Katniss working with the rebels in the long underground (and previously assumed destroyed) District 13. Peeta has been taken by the Capitol and Katniss is the reluctant figurehead to the now full-fledged rebellion. She is still in recovery when she begins to visit other districts and encourage them or even lend a hand in the fighting. Through all of this she is pining for Peeta, who is shown on televised broadcasts deteriorating under torture.

It takes a while for the action to get going in this book. Finally about halfway through a rescue mission is mounted for Peeta. It's successful in that they rescue him, but the Capitol has altered his memories making him perceive Katniss as a threat. So Peeta is lost to Katniss, even though he is in the next room.

The story line in this final book was pretty good. There were a few false starts and it dragged in places. Katniss is reluctant to do just about anything and we're still playing around with that weird Gale/Peeta love conflict. The presented relationship with Gale is so under developed that it leaves the reader wondering why she's bothering with him at all.

But Gale's isn't the only malnourished relationship. Prim, the sister that Katniss was willing to sacrifice herself for, makes very few appearances in this, or any of the other books. She's always tucked away working with their mother. All in all, we've spent more time with Katniss's stylists than with her sister. Through the whole series there are very few moments that make us feel attached to this character, which backfires and makes a major event in the series much less of an impact than it should be.

However, the overall theme of games is entrenched through the whole series, which I seriously appreciated. The arena has extended past an annual televised event. It's now a full time occupation that every person is involved in. The contenders for this final Hunger Games are more than just the rebels and the Capitol. It ranges to a series of showdowns between individuals who battle for control. The weapons they use are just as devastating as any in the arena and the strategies are aimed at the same goal: To be the Victor.

The motivation of these games is the same as it's ever been: Hunger. Hunger for justice, hunger for vengeance, hunger for control, hunger for relieve, and even Katniss's hunger for Peeta. Gale boils down the theme of the series; "She's choose whichever on of us she can't survive without." Survival and choices are dictated by the strength of hunger. The games the districts are playing now are as much about these two things as they every where in the arena. Survival goes hand in hand with hunger. It always has.

I call the ending of this series anticlimactic because the lead character is left mourning for things we never related to. There are aspects of a happy and victorious ending, but there are undertones of melancholy that don't feel justified. So it makes the payoff of the happy parts much less poignant.

All in all the series is worth reading. Exciting and action packed for the most part and downright bloody at times. A good series that, believe it or not, I actually think will make a better trilogy of movies than books.

Monday, January 9, 2012

Hunger Games

So last night I read the first book in the Hunger Games Series, by Suzanne Collins. It was absorbing definitely. I literally read 6 hours straight.
The feel of the book reminded me of Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, while the concept itself harkens the Running Man by Stephen King. Don't get the wrong idea, there wasn't a whiff of plagarism, it was an excellent and original story only reflecting  the best and most terrifying themes of those two books.
Set far into the future atop the land that once was named North America, the Capitol is in grim control of its 12 outer lying districts. There was once 13 but the final one was obliterated when the districts rose against the Capitol in civil war. Now, to maintain complete control and remind the poor providences of their utter defeat and humiliation, the Capitol demands annual tributes, in the form of children aged 12 to 18. These tributes are sent to an arena and made to kill one another off down to the last person standing, who is then emulated at a hero, and in charge of training next year's tributes.
Katniss, the main character is not supposed to be a Tribute, she has volunteered to take her very young sister's spot. She is a huntress for her family so her skill with a bow and arrow make her deadly, while her ability to scavenge for roots and other edibles make her a survivor. Despite this, Katniss knows she doesn't stand a chance against the other district's Tributes, who have been reared with a Sparten like mentality that to die fighting is to die with honor. The only help she will get in the arena, although she often doesn't know it, is from the second District 12 Tribute, Peeta. Peeta makes no secret of the fact that he's been in love with Katniss for years and has always gone out of his way to help her, which doesn't stop now.
This book is gruesome and terrifying. These are kids pitted against one another gladiator style while it is televised to cheering crowds who inanely see it as sport. The slaughter extends past the physical and into the emotional as even the very young and innocent are picked off in all manner of gory deaths. The Capitol fights dirty, changing the rules and inventing new ways to drive up viewer ratings and enflame desperation in the remaining Tributes.
To me this book felt a little fast paced to the point of rushing the story, but then again it's only the first installment in  a series. The story is obviously about much more than just survival and I predict another huge uprising of the Districts. By the end you are completely aware that winning the games is paltry. Death would really be the best way out, while living would demand that you constantly replay the games every single day over and over in your head. The system is broken and a fire of anarchy is in Katniss.

Excellent read and I will be getting the others soon.

There. I wrote about a book. I earned the right to read another.

Friday, January 6, 2012

Resolution or Restitution?

I don't like blogs.
 And I'm a little incredulous that anyone will actually read something that is written by me, about me and the things I do. I don't read about you and the things you do.

I guess I don't really mind blogs in general, but I don't relish the idea of being committed to one myself. Theres daily updates, essays and the endless demand for fresh ideas. Why sign up for that? ( Insert snarky Facebook comparison here)

The answer is that as much as I dislike writing, I am fanatical about reading. A blog is a valid, semi-easy, FREE excuse to read all the time and then talk about it. If I could throw sushi and Disneyland into that mix somehow I'd be set.
So there it is. a blog not only about book reviews, but everything reading. There will be reviews, book lists, reading goals and discussion. All of this sounds great and makes me look very studious indeed when really I'm being sneaky about feeding a really terrible addiction.

Really, it's bad. The dog goes unwalked, my husband unfed and even "calls of nature" unanswered. I'll sit in agony vaguely wondering why I can't empty my bladder by remote control so I can finish the chapter I'm on.

The great love that I have for reading is matched only by the great dislike I harbor for writing. I find it tedious and treacherous, filled with pitfalls like grammar and spelling.
To check the growth of my increasing book shelves, I have resolved to write about the books I read over the course of a year. It seems appropriate and self fulfilling that the cost of reading my beloved books be writing about them, since writing is obviously what brought them here in the first place. Experiencing the agonies of the labor will make the value of the book more poignant.

So just like in school when fun things required an educational penance, this year I will atone for my copious reading by writing about it.

Happy reading. At least one of us gets to have fun.


P.S - It took me all day and several drafts just to write this. Which means I only got to read 6 chapters in my book.