LitLovers Blog

True (American) Grit. This month’s book reviews look at three real American heroes, people whose courage, grit and ingenuity helped create the American Dream.

We look at Jeannette Walls’ new book, Half Broke Horses, about her grandmother, Lily Casey Smith. Walls’ book will surely lift her out of obscurity and endow her with celebrity-like status. Lily would hate it. Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom, tells the true story of a  slave who escaped to freedom and placed herself in harms way for 10 years to bring others out of slavery. But that is only one part of her remarkable story.

And Ben Franklin, the true American original, tells his own story in The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.  His memoir is a great classic. 

See all our monthly book reviews . . .

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 A recent quip from the New York Times about book clubs caught my ire. It’ll probably catch yours, too. So here it is…

Gaggles of readers get together monthly to sip chardonnay and discuss the latest Oprah selection.*

Ouch. Don’t know about you, but that sounds a little…oh, I dunno… condescending? Not to get too upset about an analogy to unruly geese, but it’s kind of a potshot to all those who get together, out of a passion for literature, to talk (not honk) about something of value—books!

So…are mindless cocktail parties better? I’m Just asking…. Besides, I don’t like chardonnay; I like pinot grigio.

And what’s wrong with Oprah selections? —Breath, Eyes, Memory; Edgar Sawtelle; 3 Faulkner novels (Faulkner!); House of Sand & Fog;   We Were the Mulvaneys. That’s some pretty good reading.

To counter that unfortunate “gaggle” image (nothing against geese…understand?), I offer, again, two defenses of book clubs: one by moi and one by Joshua Henkin, author or Matrimony:

• Book Clubs—Smarter than Critics? 
  An April 2008 post on LitLovers Blog quoting Josh Henkin
• Saving the World—One Book Club at a Time
  My March 2009 guest post on the literary blog, Books on the Brain

Oh, heck…maybe I’m just over reacting. Honk. 

* Mokoto Rich. ”The Book Club with Just One Member.” New York Times, “Week in Review” section (1.24.10)

Tags: Blogging & Musing // 3 Comments »

A real challenge for any author is the remaking of a classic story. The new novel might set the older work in the modern era (Hamlet→ Edgar Sawtelle). Or it might use the older novel as a starting point—for a sequel, or a retelling of the story from a different perspective (Wizard of Oz→ Wicked).  Here’s what I’ve come up with so far…

Makeovers
Resetting a classic in the modern era. 

Anna Karenina ………  What Happened to Anna K by Irina Reyn
The Great Gatsby …..   Netherland by Joseph O’Neill
Hamlet ……………….. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
Howard’s End ……….  On Beauty by Zadie Smith
King Lear …………….   A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
Mrs. Dalloway ………   The Hours by Michael Cunningham
The Odyssey ………..   Ulysses by James Joyce
Pride & Prejudice ……  Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding

Starting Points
Writing a sequel, ”prequel,” parody, or using a secondary character’s point of view.

A Christmas Carol ……  Mr. Timothy by Louis Bayard
Dr. Jekyll &Mr. Hyde ….   Mary Reilly by Valerie Martin        
Gone With the Wind …..  Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley
Gone  With the Wind ….. The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall
Great Expectations ……  Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
The Great Gatsby ……… The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian
Jane Eyre ……………….. The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Ryhs
Huckleberry Finn ……….  Finn by Jon Clinch
The Illiad …………………The Human Stain by Philip Roth
King Arthur ……………..  The Mists of Avalon
Mansfield Park …………  Murder at Mansfield Park by Lynn Shepherd
Moby Dick ………………  Ahab’s Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund
Pride & Prejudice ……… Pemberley by Emma Tennant
Pride & Prejudice ……… Pride & Prejudice & Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith
Rebecca ………………… Mrs. DeWinter by Susan Hill
The Scarlet Letter ……..   Angel and Apostle by Deborah Noyes
A Tale of Two Cities …… A Far Better Rest by Susanne Alleyn
The Wizard of Oz ……….  Wicked by Geoffrey MacGuire
Wuthering Heights …….. Heathcliff: The Return to Wuthering Heights by Lin Haire 
                                               Sargeant

What have I missed?  Surely, there are more.

Tags: Blogging & Musing // 5 Comments »

Apparently, I’ve got a good face for radio. Two days ago, I was on the air again, this time on Martha Stewart’s Living Radio—Sirius Radio/XM, the satellite radio.

No, it wasn’t Martha, but two shock-jocks, Kim and Betsy, who banter their way through morning drive time.  They’re a hoot.  We talked about starting a book club, how to talk about a book, etc.—the usual book club stuff. Here’s the short version (6 min.):

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Coming of Age —book reviews — What better way to enter a new decade than with coming-of-age novels—stories in which young people cross a threshold and enter the adult world?  Sag Harbor centers on a young African-American man who spends his summers on Long Island–hilarious and poignant. Lorrie Moore’s long awaited novel, A Gate at the Stairs, follows a young white college student in the midwest who becomes a nanny for an sophisticated couple.

Finally, John Knowles 1959 work, A Separate Peace, follows the friendships of young males at a New England prep school.

See all our monthly book reviews . . .

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Nobody knows book clubs like my Cousin Pru—she’s joined dozens and dozens over the years and is always on the lookout for a new one to take her in.

Pru begged me to let her use this blog as a way to share some of the many requests she receives for book club advice.  (How could I say no?)  Here’s one of her recent exchanges:

—Letter—

Dear Pru,

We always have food left over from our book club meetings. Do you think it would be okay to take some home?

Sincerely,
Leftovers in Lexington

 

—Reply—

Dear Leftover,

Sure! It’s like asking for a doggy bag at a restaurant.

But why not carry your own containers with you? (It’s what I do.)  That way you don’t have to bother the hostess—and you can scoop the food up, quietly, when no one’s around.

Hope this helps.

Happy clubbing,
Pru Prudenza

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I just came across this wonderful quote from Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin.

Literature can stop my heart and execute
me for a moment, allow me to become
someone else.*

This is truly fiction’s greatest gift—the chance to crawl inside another being, poke around his consciousness, feel what it’s like to “be” that individual. Often it means changing age, gender, race, or nationality. No other medium does this so completely.

Fun Book Club Exercise
Is there any one particular fictional character you most enjoyed “being”?  Or a book that carried you most completely into the mind of its primary character?

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From the mailbag again:  here’s a question I received from a reader who has a fairly common book club issue.

QUESTION:  What do you do with members who stray from the book and talk about…well, whatever comes to mind?  How do you keep the discussion focused on the book?

ANSWER: 
1. Delineate social time from book discussion time.

• Set a strict time limit for socializing—say, 45-60 minutes. Then….ring a bell… make an announcement…clear away food dishes…move to a different room.

2.  Keep it light-hearted

•  Turn it into a game. Whoever talks off topic gets a token—a poker chip, a pebble, a raw potato, a burnt candle nub…whatever. The person with the most tokens at the end of the meeting—or year—wins a booby prize.

3.  Survey member expectations

• Discuss among yourselves what you want out of your club—more social interaction or book discussion. If members are divided, then perhaps you need separate clubs. It should be done without rancor or hurt feelings. Everyone has different expectations. It’s life.

Other ideas?  We’d love to hear from you.   Leave a commen

Tags: Book Club Blues // Add Comment »

This comment caught my eye, from a Publishers Weekly review of Bridget Asher’s The Pretend Wife. 

It’s more than a little disappointing, if not surprising, that Asher inserts an improbably happy ending ….

Ouch.  I’m not sure which word is more distressing in that sentence:  “disappointing” or “improbably.”  And here’s another comment on happy endings, this one from Josh Henkin, author of Matrimony:  

Nothing is more depressing than a happy ending that  feels tacked on, and there can be great comfort in literature that doesn’t admit to easy solutions, just as our lives don’t.  [See my post of 9/19/08].

Fortunately, Henkin isn’t discounting happy endings per se, only those that feel forced or “tacked on” (i.e., improbable). Still, there’s the suggestion that happy endings are “easy solutions.”

Some questions for Book Clubs . . .

1. What kind of books do we clubbers like to read?  Do we prefer ones with happy endings? 
2. What about the great works of literature…so many end on unhappy notes? Does that mean books with happy endings aren’t considered good literature?
3. Do all happy endings feel manipulative, or as Henkin says, ”tacked on”?  Can books end happily in a natural, unforced manner? 

Tags: Blogging & Musing // 3 Comments »

Domestic Disturbances—This month’s book reviews dissect marriage. What does it take to achieve marital bliss? Does ignorance really lead to bliss?  Perhaps self-knowledge is the key to sustaining a relationship.

Motion of the Ocean follows a newly married couple on voyage across the Pacific, a voyage of discovery and self-discovery.  Richard Russo checks in with another intimate view of life-inside- life in That Old Cape Magic.

Finally, the greatest dysfunctional marriage of all time—the stage drama, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf—shocks, saddens, and delights at the same time.

See all our monthly book reviews . . .

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