LitPicks - May '09 

Chick Lit on Steroids: Not your typical chick lit. Meet some vibrant women living rich, complex lives...not chasing down the latest Prada or Gucci or Manolo Blahnik. They've got better things to occupy their time.

A Lighter Touch | Wonderfully Written | Great Works      




Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader
Anne Fadiman, 1998
162 pp.

By Molly Lundquist
So much good stuff packed into such a small package—a book the size a large index card and a mere half-inch thick.

Anne Fadiman, is a true bibliophile. While most of say we love books, Fadiman really loves them. Perhaps better known for The Spirit Catches You, You Fall Down (1997), Fadiman here takes a lighter approach and, in 18 short essays, talks about how books, their contents and phsycial selves, have shaped her life.

In the first essay, Fadiman recounts how unsure she was after five years of marriage, not of her husband but of his library. How could the two safely "conjugate" their books—his casual "English garden" approach with her disciplined "French" one? Fadiman treats all objects as "unreliable vagrants, likely to take off for parts unknown unless strictly confined to quarters." Thus, her books are "strictly regimented." Her husband's are not.

Fadiman's writing is funny, personal, and intelligent—packed with enough bookish arcana to make a biblioholic's cup runneth over. Another favorite is the story of friends who sublet their apartment and, upon their return, find their books all rearranged—attractively, according to color. Another chapter talks about the ways people love their books—as courtly or carnal lovers. Even snacking in bed (while reading, of course) is discussed at length.

Ex Libris is both smart and fun. Book clubs can have a good time talking about their own bibliophilic experiences—favorite authors, books that shaped lives, lending books and never getting them back (or borrowing and not returning), how to get rid of less-loved books, and what the new world of electronic readers will look like. (The links take you to my blog posts.)

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The Stone Diaries
Carol Shields, 1994
400 pp.

By Molly Lundquist
Canada has produced a number of fine prize-winning writers (Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Michael Ondaatje), and one of the finest was Carol Shields. I say "was" because Shields died of cancer in 2003. She was only 68.

The Stone Diaries, what Margaret Atwood called her "glory book," brought Shields acclaim: it won the Canadian Governor General's Award and was short-listed for Britain's Booker Prize, both in 1994. In 1995 Diaries won the U.S. Pulitizer Prize.

The story centers on the life of Daisy Goodwill, from her birth on the kitchen floor in 1905 till her death in old age. It is a life rich and complete in every way, yet strangely empty—and Daisy remains till the end a mysterious entity, a bit of an enigma. We don't really know who she is, nor I think, does Daisy.

The story centers on the life of Daisy Goodwill, from her birth on the kitchen floor in 1905 till her death in old age. It is a life rich and complete in every way, yet strangely empty—and Daisy remains till the end a mysterious entity, a bit of an enigma. We don't really know who she is, nor I think, does Daisy.

I love this book: the beginning in particular, has the quality of a fable—unforeseen births, stone towers and mystical rainbows. All the while, Shields is having a bit of fun with the form of the memoir—readers here get different view points, sometimes "I" and other times an omniscient narrator... who tells us that Daisy is "not always reliable when it comes to the details of her life."

At the novel's heart, shimmering through its luminous prose, is a woman who searches for her own center, the center of the daisy around which the petals of her life revolve. Treat yourself to a wonderful read from a terrific writer.

Also, be sure to see the LitLovers Reading Guide for The Stone Diaries

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Vanity Fair
William Makepeace Thackeray, 1848
pp. 912

By Molly Lundquist
Becky Sharpe is the heroine you love to hate. She so dominates this novel— like Satan in Paradise Lost—that Thackeray must have been, as William Blake said about Milton, of the devil's party and didn't know it. His Becky is so deliciously awful!

Yet maybe she isn't. Placed in the early 1800's, in a cultural mileau that values only lineage and wealth, Becky Sharpe has neither. And so she makes use of the only assets in her possession—beauty, intelligence, and a sturdy will—to gain entry into the good life. If people are foolish enough to be taken in ... then so be it.

If you love Jane Austen with her keen social eye and devastating wit, you'll love Thackeray. He lampoons it all—the hollow pomp, the self-regard, hypocrisy, and false morality. Here's a lovely sample:

My Lord George Gaunt could not only read, but write pretty correctly. He spoke French with considerable fluency; and was on of the finests waltzers in Europe. With these talents...there was little doubt that his lordhip would rise to the highest dignities in his profession.

Even Amelia Sedley, Becky's angelic opposite, remains stubbornly deluded in her love for the wrong man and blind to the only man who offers her selfless devotion. And all is played out against the backdrop of the Napoleonic wars, whose skirmishes on the battle field mirror those on the domestic front.

Ah, vanity of vanities. It's great fun! Long but fun. Also, see our Reading Guide for Vanity Fair.

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