Summer Rental |
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—Excerpt—
* * * * *
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Never Knowing |
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—Excerpt—
* * * It started about six weeks ago, around the end of December, with an online article. I was up stupidly early this one Sunday—no need for a rooster when you have a six-year-old—and while I inhaled my first coffee I answered e-mails. I get requests to restore furniture from all over the island now. That morning I was trying to research a desk from the 1920s, when I wasn’t laughing at Ally. She was supposed to be watching cartoons downstairs, but I could hear her scolding Moose, our brindle French bulldog, for molesting her stuffed rabbit. Suffice it to say, Moose has a weaning issue. No tail’s safe.
* * * A week later, just after New Year’s, Evan headed back to his lodge for a few days. I’d read a few more adoption stories online, and the night before he left I told him I was considering looking for my birth mother while he was gone. * * * I did think about waiting, especially when I imagined my mom’s face if she found out. Mom used to say being adopted meant I was special because they chose me. When I was twelve Melanie gave me her version. She said our parents adopted me because Mom couldn’t have babies, but they didn’t need me now. Mom found me in my room packing my clothes. When I told her I was going to find my “real” parents she started crying, then she said, “Your birth parents couldn’t take care of you properly, but they wanted you to have the best home possible. So now we take care of you and we love you very much.” I never forgot the hurt in her eyes, or how thin her body felt as she hugged me. * * * Throughout our lives Mom’s health had been up and down. For weeks she’d be doing fine, painting our rooms, sewing curtains, baking up a storm. Even Dad was almost happy during those times. I remember him lifting me onto his shoulders once, the view as heady as the rare attention. But Mom would always end up doing too much and within days she was sick again. She’d fade before our eyes as her body refused to hang on to any nutrients, even baby food sending her rushing for the bathroom. * * * When I phoned Lauren that night she told me she and the boys had just gotten home from dinner with our parents. Dad had invited them. * * * The next day I filled out the form at Vital Statistics, paid my $50, and started waiting. I’d like to say patiently, but I practically tackled the mailman after the first week. A month later my Original Birth Registration, or OBR, as the woman at Vital Statistics called it, arrived in the mail. I stared at the envelope and realized my hand was shaking. Evan was at his lodge again and I wished he could be there when I opened it, but that was another week. Ally was at school and the house was quiet. I took a deep breath and ripped open the envelope. * * * The next morning I woke early and went online while Ally was still sleeping. The first thing I checked was the Adoption Reunion Registry, but when I realized it could take another month to get an answer, I decided to look on my own first. After searching Web sites for twenty minutes, I found three Julia Laroches in Quebec and four down in the States who seemed around the right age. Only two lived on the island, but when I saw they were both in Victoria my stomach flipped. Could she still be there after all this time? I quickly clicked on the first link, and let my breath out when I realized she was too young, judging by her article on a new mom’s forum. The second link took me to a Web site for a real estate agent in Victoria. She had auburn hair like me and looked about the right age. I studied her face with a mixture of excitement and fear. Had I found my birth mother? * * * I cried. For hours. Which kicked off a migraine so bad Lauren had to take Ally and Moose for me. Thankfully, Lauren’s two boys are around Ally’s age and Ally loves going over there. I hated being away from my daughter for even one night, but all I could do was lie in a dark room with a cold compress on my head and wait for it to pass. Evan phoned and I told him what had happened, speaking slowly because of the pain. By the next afternoon I’d stopped seeing auras around everything, so Ally and Moose came home. Evan phoned again that night. * * * As I made the hour-and-a-half trip down-island the next day I felt calm and centered, confident I was doing the right thing. There’s something about the Island Highway that always soothes me: the quaint towns and valleys, the farmland, the glimpses of ocean and coastal mountain ranges. When I got closer to Victoria and drove through the old-growth forest at Goldstream Park, I thought about the time Dad had taken us there to watch the salmon spawning in the river. Lauren was terrified of all the seagulls feasting on the dead salmon. I hated the scent of death in the air, how it clung to your clothes and nostrils. Hated how Dad explained everything to my sisters but ignored my questions—ignored me. * * * My plan was to drop off the letter requesting information at Julia’s office. But when the woman at the front desk told me Professor Laroche was teaching a class in the next building, I had to see what she looked like. She wouldn’t even know I was there. Then I’d leave the letter at the front desk. * * * So you understand why I had to talk to you. I feel like I’m standing on ice and it’s cracking all around me, but I don’t know which way to move. Do I try to find out why my birth mother lied or heed Evan’s advice to just leave it alone? I know you’re going to tell me I’m the only one who can make that decision, but I need your help. * * *
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Every month we seek out books that work together thematically. You'll find a variety of themes—some fun, some serious, but all of them thoughtful.
The books are listed in the order of: |
2015 BookReviews — Themes | . . . and the Books | |
June '15 — The Sibs
Brothers and sisters make for some of our most intimate life relationships. Undergirding the rivalries, jealousies and suspicions, is a shared history and often deep, abiding love. |
• A Reunion of Ghosts • Early Warning • The Children's Crusade |
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Apr '15 — Stranger Than Fiction
Real-life events and personalities in this month's nonfiction works are far stranger than can be found in most novels. When it comes to the incredible, history trumps fiction...easily. |
• Dead Wake • Little Demon in the City of Light • A Spy Among Friends |
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Mar '15 — The Western, 21st-century style
The Westerns of yore—cowboys, Indians, and stagecoach robbers— have given way to far more nuanced stories. The vast spaces and endless skies are the same, but characters struggle with complex issues of love, memory, and redemption |
• Etta and Otto and Russell and James • Black River • All the Pretty Horses (coming soon) |
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Feb '15 — We Are All Looking for Ourselves
Three wonderful books with characters in search of themselves—arguably literature's most enudring theme.. |
• We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves • We Are Not Ourselves • We Are Pirates |
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Jan '15 — Stuck
It's easy to get stuck—in a dull job, untenable relationship, or humdrum life. But this month we follow three men, often with hilarity, who find themselves stuck in unimaginable situations. |
• The Global War on Morris • The Martian • Catch-22 |
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2014 Book Reviews — Themes | . . . and the Books | |
Dec '14 — Women Unboxed
This month's books look at three women who defy convention and tackle careers traditionally reserved for those with the Y chromosome. These are women who think—and live—outside the box. |
• Wildfire • The Signature of All Things • The Spy Who Loved: Christine Granville |
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Nov '14 — End times
Three remarkable books offer glimpses into end times: one imagines the end of civilization; another examines medicine and the end of life; and a third considers ... well, it's hard to say. |
• Station Eleven • Being Mortal: ...What Matters in the End • 10:04 |
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Oct '14 — Strangers in Their Own Land
This month's book take a look those who through racism, misogyny, or maltreatment are excluded from the full rights and comforts of their own culture. They're aliens in their own land. |
• Mountaintop School for Dogs • Hidden Girls of Kabul • Invisible Man |
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Sept '14 — Hell's a Kitchen
Conditions are brutal in restaurant kitchens. So what keeps chefs and cooks standing for 12-hour stretches, non-stop, in 110-degree heat? Find out. |
• Delancey • Sous Chef • Kitchen Confidential |
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Aug '14 — Grumpy Old Men
Three books in which older men have reached the age where more of life lies behind them then ahead. Still, maybe it's not too late to start living large. |
• A Man Called Ove • The Unlikley Pilgrimage of Harold Fry • The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window |
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June / July '14 — The Bawdy Politic
A double standard has long existed when it comes to the feminine body. The daring heroines of this month's books fight that standard in ways that even today we find troublesome. But what's a girl to do? |
• The Wife, the Mistress, and the Maid • Belle Cora • Moll Flanders |
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May '14 — Women and the Bomb
This month's theme was inspired by two recent books on women and the Manhattan Project—fiction and history. Then we added a 2005 biography on Madame Curie, who helped usher in the nuclear age. |
• The Los Alamos Wives • Girls of Atomic City • Obsessive Genius: Marie Curie |
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Mar '14 — War Lines: at the front and behind
Extraordinary books continue to be written about the Mideast wars, and despite the lack of media coverage, we believe they're essential. They cover those on the front lines and those behind the lines. |
• Thank Your For Your Service • Redeployment • Duty: Robert M. Gates |
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Feb '14 — Marriage: For better or for . . .
For worse? If Gone Girl gave you a thrill, these books centered on spooky marriages will too. The fun is in not knowing who's nuts—is it he or she? |
• Before I Met You • Before I Go to Sleep • Rebecca |
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Jan '14 — The Cinder-Fella Complex
Young boys, bereft of parents, struggle to find love, belief in themselves, and maturity—in a hard-knock world that works against them. |
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone • The Goldfinch • David Copperfield |
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2013 Book Reviews — Themes | . . . and the Books | |
Nov '13 — LOL Books
Yes, we're laughing out loud. Sometimes it feels good to take a break from all the heavy lifiting. Each of this month's books is a humorous take on a particular slice of life. |
• The Rosie Project • Truth in Advertising • Me Talk Pretty One Day |
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Oct '13 — The JFK Assassination: 50 years
Three books on the death of the president: one, a portrait of Kennedy and Oswald; one fiction, and one challenging the lone gunman theory. |
• Killing Kennedy • 11/22/63 • Conspiracy |
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Sept '13 — D.C. Dysfunction...was it always so?
Given the state of the nation's capital, this month's books take a good look at the ins and outs of life as it is—and was—in the District of Columbia. |
• This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral • Gore Vidal's Lincoln and/or Team of Rivals • Advise and Consent |
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Aug '13 — Scott & Zelda, Beautiful & Damned
America's first Jazz-Age couple. Fitzgerald's famous Flapper girl stories, inspired by Zelda; a fictional bio of Zelda; and The Great Gatsby, a love story paralleling Scott's deep attachment to his wife. |
• The Gatsby Girls: Stories • Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald • The Great Gatsby |
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June '13 — The Power of Perfume
Three books explore the age-long hold that exotic scent has over the human imagination—it's power to evoke memory, elicit passion, and inspire crime. Two works of fiction and one nonfiction. |
• The Perfume Collector • The Book of Lost Fragrances • The Emperor of Scent |
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May '13 — Class Conscious / Class Conscience
We like to think of ourselves as a "classless" society. But as this month's books show, socio-economic divisions are part of our history and still with us today. |
• Seating Arrangements • The Accursed • The House of Mirth |
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Apr '13 — The Process of Becoming
Young women who withstand hardship, in both body and soul, as they struggle to become the person they know they're meant to be. |
• With or Without You • An Unquenchable Thirst • Jane Eyre |
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Feb '13 — Mystery Meet
What makes people fall in and out of love, hurt those closest to them, even commit murder? And how is justice best served? Questions our three mystery books ponder. |
• Gone Girl • Faithful Place • And Then There Were None |
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Jan '13 — Family Matters
What makes a family? This month we consider three books with different ideas of what constitutes family. |
• The Death of Bees • Arcadia • Little Women |
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2012 Book Reviews — Themes | . . . and the Books | |
Dec '12 — War
Three books about the brutality, randomness, and absurdity of war—and the impossibility for civilians to ever comprehend combat. |
• Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk • The Yellow Birds • Slaughterhouse-Five |
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Nov '12 — The Age of Edith
We've been through "The Age of Jane"; now it's Edith's turn. We feature a fictionalized biography of Edith Wharton, a re-make of her masterpiece, and the masterpiece itself. |
• Innocents • The Age of Desire • The Age of Innocence |
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Oct '12 — Quests: Personal & Epic
This month's books are about quests—one to find love, one to answer to a desperate question, and one to rid the world of evil. Ultimately, though, all quests are about the search for Self. |
• Coral Glynn • A Partial History of Lost Causes • The Lord of the Rings |
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Sept '12 — The Ways of Grief
Grief—the most painful and universal of emotions but experienced in profoundly different ways. Two recent novels and Shakespere's greatest drama explore how those left behind cope with loss. |
• The After Wife • The World Without You • Hamlet, Prince of Denmark |
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August '12 — Hollywood, vanity of vanities
We take aim at the self-consuming, self-important world of Hollywood. Yet all three books remind us it's our wider culture that drives Hollywood's vanity. |
• The Next Best Thing • Beautiful Ruins • The Last Tycoon |
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June '12 — River Journeys
Authors often use rivers to represent life's passage —and journeys on rivers to explore mysteries of the human soul. |
• Once Upon a River • State of Wonder • Heart of Darkness |
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May '12 — Good Books, Tough Subjects
Some books tackle difficult, painful subjects but do so with exceptional prose, wit and, most of all, compassion. They make for compelling reading. |
• The Fault in Our Stars • The Orphan Master's Son • Lolita |
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Mar '12 —Pride & Prejudice, Murder & Mayhem
Pure fun. Start with Austen's original...then turn to either P.D. James's mystery...or Graham-Smith's zombie send-up. Have fun comparing the homage to the "homagee." Oh! 'Tis too much joy. |
• Death Comes to Pemberley • Pride & Prejudice & Zombies • Pride & Prejudice |
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Feb '12 — Baseball, the Art of Perfection
In the eyes of literature, baseball is life—the heroic individual standing against forces both within and out. Three books pit players' drive for perfection against their own human frailties. |
• The Batboy • The Art of Fielding • The Natural |
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Jan '12 — The Past Is Never Past
As Faulkner put: "The past is never dead. It's not even past." This month's characters are haunted by events of their childhoods. To move on, each must achieve understanding and let go. |
• The Language of Flowers • The Cat's Table • Death of a Salesman |
2011 Book Reviews — Themes |
. . . and the Books |
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Dec '11 — Kids Raising Cain
Kids on the loose, their compasses askew—"fierce savages" as one of our books puts it. All of which makes you wonder: how did they get like this? Did we do it? |
• LIE • Nightwoods • Lord of the Flies |
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Nov '11 — Nuclear Family Explosions
Ordinary families explode under pressure from everyday life. Yet their struggles to put the pieces back together is a tacit acknowledgment of our primal need for family ties. |
• Fathermucker • The Astral • Freedom |
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Oct '11 — Love You To Death
Vampires don't die...and neither, it seems, does our fascination with them. So why not cozy up to our trio of scary vampire books this month? |
• Twilight • The Radleys • Dracula |
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Sept '11 — That New York Glitter
Three books with characters on the outside looking in at New York's glittering society. They discover life's sad maxim—all that glitters is not gold. |
• Rules of Civility • The Emperor's Children • The Age of Innocence |
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Aug '11 — The Books of August
August, the last gasp of summer—when temper- atures run high and emotions run hot. We've got three great reads, all with August in the title. |
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July '11 — Eastward Ho
Many authors have explored the cultural divide faced by Asians making their homes in the West. We're bucking the tide to find out what happens when Westerners head to the East. |
• City of Tranquil Light |
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June '11 — Crash of the Titans
So many books have been published about the 2008 Wall Street crash that book clubs might want to take note. We've chosen three—all great reads, like the best of fiction. |
• The Big Short |
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May '11 — Ghostworld
Authors use the paranormal to explore the normal— their earthbound human characters who turn out not to be so normal after all. |
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Feb '11 — Stranger than Fiction
When it comes to history—especially the history of human achievement—what constitutes real life is simply stranger than fiction. |
• The Professor and the Madman |
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Jan '11 — Sisters in Exile
Sisters banished from lives of comfort and security find unknown reserves of strength and courage in adversity. They discover who they are—and learn what matters most. |
• The Three Weissmanns of Westport |
2010 Book Reviews — Themes |
. . . and the Books |
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Dec '10 — Time's (Crooked) Arrow
Time appears to us as a steady forward movement. This month's books disrupt its normal flow—and two of the books do curioius things with aging. |
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button |
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Nov '10 — Rock-Paper-Scissors
ROCK for the fossils at Lyme Regis, PAPER for an international newspaper, and SCISSORS for the medical profession satirized in Sinclair Lewis's Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel. |
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Oct '10 — Work, If You Can Get It
A tribute to everyday heroes who labor in the underbelly—the infernos of restaurant kitchens, coal mines, and assembly lines—to make life habitable for the rest of us. |
• Last Night at the Lobster |
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Sept'10 — Tudor History - Herstory
The momentous events surrounding Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn: three books follow the same figures...yet a hero in one is a villain in another. Who says history is dull? |
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May '10 — The Good, Bad & the Ugly
A nod to the iconic Clint Eastwood Western—with it's stark mix of heroes and villains. This month's books remind us it's not always so easy to tell who's good...and who's not. |
• The Pursuit of Alice Thrift |
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April '10 — Urban Mysterioso
Cities lend themselves to the mysterious—their immensity, anonymity, and teeming diversity make them ideal settings for the fantastic. |
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Mar '10 — M is for Magic
Despite our knowledge of science—from the big bang to the human cell—we continue to strain to the possibilibies of magic. |
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Feb '10 — True Grit
Three real-life Americans who helped shaped their country—courageous, persevering, inventive, they found ways to do what needed to be done. |
• Half Broke Horses |
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Jan '10 — Coming of Age
Young people, crossing over the threshold into the adult world, often find that passage bittersweet, even searing, as they leave their innocent childhoods behind. |
2009 Book Reviews — Themes |
. . . and the Books |
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Dec '09 — Domestic Disturbances
Marital bliss—a bumpy road toward a dubious destination. A sustaining marriage depends not on the ignorance of bliss but on self-knowledge. |
• The Motion of the Ocean |
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Nov '09 — Criminally Addicted
Murder mysteries offer a strange sort of comfort by presupposing a world that can be known, answers found, and order restored. No wonder so many of us are addicted. |
• The Stephanie Plum Series |
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Oct '09 — Those Who Teach...Must
Teaching is in the DNA for some. It's a passion—a need, really, to offer young minds a glimpse of a wider world and guide them through the first rumblings of self-knowledge. |
• Ms. Hempel Chronicles |
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Sept '09 — Henry's Ladies
Henry James' most famous heroines are wealthy, young Americans—vibrant, intelligent yet untested innocents, who find themselves up against a rigid, even duplicitous society. |
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Aug '09 — Municipal Bonds
Communities bind us together, for better or worse. They offer comfort and aid—and something larger than ourselves—but they can stifle and exclude. |
• Hotel on the Corner of Bitter & Sweet |
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July '09 — The Kindess of Strangers
Those who stretch out a hand to strangers end up changing not just the lives of those they help, but their own lives as well. |
• The Cure for Modern Life |
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May '09 — Chick Lit on Steroids
Real Chick Lit: vibrant heroines living rich, complex lives. Their stories give us a lot more to chew on than Prada shoes and Gucci bags. |
• Ex Libris-Confessions of a ... Reader |
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Apr '09 — What Women Want. Really.
Earth to Freud.... Why was it so hard to for the great man to figure out what women want? Women want what men want—love, family, and freedom to pursue their dreams. |
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Mar '09 — Animal Planet
This month's books honor those creatures that domesticate their owners. |
• Dewey: the Small-Town Library Cat |
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Feb '09 — Remembrance of Things Past
When we explore the past—the confluence of events, family and friends, choices made and made for us—we uncover our present selves. |
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Jan '09 — The Gatsby Effect
What does it mean to be an American? This month's main characters attempt to re-invent themselves in order to achieve their ideal of the American dream. |
2008 Book Reviews — Themes |
. . . and the Books |
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Dec '08 — African Trio
A newly elected US president—half African; a reader requesting a book guide for Cry, the Beloved Country; and a daughter taking a semester in Africa all served as inspiration for this month's LitPicks, beautiful books, all. |
• The Syringa Tree |
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Nov '08 — A Boy's Life
Three boys come of age in the years soon after World War II—one from the American Midwest, one from Norway, and one from India during the tumultuous years of independence. |
• The Life & Times of the Thunderbolt Kid |
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Oct '08 — Quiet Intimacy
Some books speak to us softly, peering into the corners of our lives and matters of the heart. Plot is secondary to characters and relationships. These works are quiet but remarkable. |
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Sept '08 — Beyond the Pale
This month's authors tackle horrific subjects, the unthinkable. Yet as readers we end up sympa-thasizing with characters we would otherwise villify. This is life in its irreducible complexity. |
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Aug '08 — Uses of Mythology
Literature draws on mythology, primitive stories that frame life's events. Populated with heroes & heroines, deities & monsters, myths reveal a universal pattern of human behavior. |
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July '08 — No theme this month, just a few good books. |
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June '08 — War Torn Lives
Lives and communities torn apart by World War II. This month's stories are tales of survival. Though grim at times, each offers a transcendent vision of humanity. |
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May '08 — Wherefore Happiness?
What is happiness? How does one attain it, who deserves it, and how does one hold onto it? Three books consider happiness—using vastly different lenses and reaching very different conclusions. |
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Apr '08 — Transgressions
Three women cross boundaries, defy codes, and flout tradition. They gain much—and lose much—as they search for a truer self. What are we to make of them? |
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Mar '08 — Healing: horses, books, people
Three books use parallel symbolism to explore human healing. A sick horse heals her owner; a damaged manuscript heals its conserver; and a returning spirit heals her mother. |
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Feb '08 — Magical Realism
These books use a pretense of realism while weaving in fantasty and the supernatural. The magic blends seamlessly with the natural world to reveal life's wondrous possibilities. |
• Garden Spells |
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Jan '08 — No theme this month, just a few good books. |
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn |
2007 Book Reviews — Themes |
. . . and the Books |
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Dec '07 — In Praise of This Land
This month's books delve into the soil of the great American plains where their characters find rootedness, connection and community. |
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Nov '07 — Sons and Mothers
A connection like no other—born of intensity, bound by love, and fed by dreams. The lives of three men are shaped, for better or worse, by their mothers' ambitions. |
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Oct '07 — Novelist as Master Weaver
"Social Novels" are sprawling works, inter-weaving multiple plot strands with large casts of characters. They reflect the complex social fabric of an era, it's ideals and traditions. |
• Can't Wait to Get to Heaven |
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Sept '07 — The Novel of Ideas
Some works masquerade as fiction—they use the narrative mask of plot and character to explore serious philosophical ideas. Serious, yes, but gripping stories, too. |
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Aug '07 — The Inimitable English Woman
Three very different English heroines from three different eras. Bridget, Edith, and Elizabeth—all distinct characters, but each delightful...and each very, very English. |
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July '07 — Male Bonding
Male friendship is a literary theme reaching back to Homer. Rarely without conflict, books about friendship are windows onto our own capacity for love, loyalty...and sometimes betrayal. |
• A Walk in the Woods |
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June '07 — Seeking Wholeness
This month's works revolve around those who seek to piece together broken hearts, fill empty souls, and mend divided identities. |
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May '07 — The Meaning of Water
Water occupies a special niche in our collective psyche: it connects us, it binds us in common humanity. We spring from water, we are made of water. Water is pure, it cleanses, it nourishes, it heals, it renews. Water is mysterious, it is eternal, it merges past with present. To be adrift on water is to be adrift in life, it is to be in life, it is life. |
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From this point on there are no themes. It just hadn't dawned on us until May 2007. So don't quit now—you're near the end! Scroll down just a bit farther to see our earliest Book Reviews. There are some great ones!
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April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 — End — |
Every month we seek out books that work together thematically. You'll find a variety of themes—some fun, some serious, but all of them thoughtful.
The books are listed in the order of: |
2011 BookReviews — Themes | . . . and the Books |
Dec '11 — Kids Raising Cain
Kids on the loose, their compasses askew—"fierce savages" as one of our books puts it. All of which makes you wonder: how did they get like this? Did we do it? |
• LIE • Nightwoods • Lord of the Flies |
||
Nov '11 — Nuclear Family Explosions
Ordinary families explode under pressure from everyday life. Yet their struggles to put the pieces back together is a tacit acknowledgment of our primal need for family ties. |
• Fathermucker • The Astral • Freedom |
||
Oct '11 — Love You To Death
Vampires don't die...and neither, it seems, does our fascination with them. So why not cozy up to our trio of scary vampire books this month? |
• Twilight • The Radleys • Dracula |
||
Sept '11 — That New York Glitter
Three books with characters on the outside looking in at New York's glittering society. They discover life's sad maxim—all that glitters is not gold. |
• Rules of Civility • The Emperor's Children • The Age of Innocence |
||
Aug '11 — The Books of August
August, the last gasp of summer—when temper- atures run high and emotions run hot. We've got three great reads, all with August in the title. |
• August Heat • Dry Grass of August • Light in August |
||
July '11 — Eastward Ho
Many authors have explored the cultural divide faced by Asians making their homes in the West. We're bucking the tide to find out what happens when Westerners head to the East. |
• City of Tranquil Light • Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet • A Passage to India |
||
June '11 — Crash of the Titans
So many books have been published about the 2008 Wall Street crash that book clubs might want to take note. We've chosen three—all great reads, like the best of fiction. |
• The Big Short • Too Big to Fail • All Devils Are Here |
||
May '11 — Ghostworld
Authors use the paranormal to explore the normal— their earthbound human characters who turn out not to be so normal after all. |
• Maybe This Time • The Third Angel • The Turn of the Screw |
||
Feb '11 — Stranger than Fiction
When it comes to history—especially the history of human achievement—what constitutes real life is simply stranger than fiction. |
• The Professor and the Madman • The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks • The Great Bridge: The Brooklyn Bridge |
||
Jan '11 — Sisters in Exile
Sisters banished from lives of comfort and security find unknown reserves of strength and courage in adversity. They discover who they are—and learn what matters most. |
• Three Weissmanns of Westport • Shanghai Girls • Sense and Sensibility |
2010 Book Reviews — Themes |
. . . and the Books |
|
Dec '10 — Time's (Crooked) Arrow
Time appears to us as a steady forward movement. This month's books disrupt its normal flow—and two of the books do curioius things with aging. |
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button • A Visit from the Goon Squad • The Picture of Dorian Gray |
|
Nov '10 — Rock-Paper-Scissors
ROCK for the fossils at Lyme Regis, PAPER for an international newspaper, and SCISSORS for the medical profession satirized in Sinclair Lewis's Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel. |
• Remarkable Creatures • The Imperfectionists • Arrowsmith |
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Oct '10 — Work, If You Can Get It
A tribute to everyday heroes who labor in the underbelly—the infernos of restaurant kitchens, coal mines, and assembly lines—to make life habitable for the rest of us. |
• Last Night at the Lobster • Coal Run • Studs Terkel's Working |
|
Sept'10 — Tudor History - Herstory
The momentous events surrounding Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn: three books follow the same figures...yet a hero in one is a villain in another. Who says history is dull? |
• Briref Gaudy Hour • Wolf Hall • A Man for All Seasons |
|
May '10 — The Good, Bad & the Ugly
A nod to the iconic Clint Eastwood Western—with it's stark mix of heroes and villains. This month's books remind us it's not always so easy to tell who's good...and who's not. |
• The Pursuit of Alice Thrift • Mr. Golightly's Holiday • Nostromo |
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April '10 — Urban Mysterioso
Cities lend themselves to the mysterious—their immensity, anonymity, and teeming diversity make them ideal settings for the fantastic. |
• When You Reach Me • The City and the City • The Quincunx |
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Mar '10 — M is for Magic
Despite our knowledge of science—from the big bang to the human cell—we continue to strain to the possibilibies of magic. |
• The Magician's Elephant • The Magicians • The Magus |
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Feb '10 — True Grit
Three real-life Americans who helped shaped their country—courageous, persevering, inventive, they found ways to do what needed to be done. |
• Half Broke Horses • Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom • The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
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Jan '10 — Coming of Age
Young people, crossing over the threshold into the adult world, often find that passage bittersweet, even searing, as they leave their innocent childhoods behind. |
• Sag Harbor • A Gate at the Stairs • A Separate Peace |
2009 Book Reviews — Themes |
. . . and the Books |
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Dec '09 — Domestic Disturbances
Marital bliss—a bumpy road toward a dubious destination. A sustaining marriage depends not on the ignorance of bliss but on self-knowledge. |
• The Motion of the Ocean • That Old Cape Magic • Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? |
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Nov '09 — Criminally Addicted
Murder mysteries offer a strange sort of comfort by presupposing a world that can be known, answers found, and order restored. No wonder so many of us are addicted. |
• The Stephanie Plum Series • When Will There Be Good News? • The Woman in White |
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Oct '09 — Those Who Teach...Must
Teaching is in the DNA for some. It's a passion—a need, really, to offer young minds a glimpse of a wider world and guide them through the first rumblings of self-knowledge. |
• Ms. Hempel Chronicles • Mister Pip • The Prime of Miss Jean Brody |
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Sept '09 — Henry's Ladies
Henry James' most famous heroines are wealthy, young Americans—vibrant, intelligent yet untested innocents, who find themselves up against a rigid, even duplicitous society. |
• Daisy Miller • The Master • The Portrait of a Lady |
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Aug '09 — Municipal Bonds
Communities bind us together, for better or worse. They offer comfort and aid—and something larger than ourselves—but they can stifle and exclude. |
• Hotel on the Corner of Bitter & Sweet • Olive Kitteridge • The Hamlet |
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July '09 — The Kindess of Strangers
Those who stretch out a hand to strangers end up changing not just the lives of those they help, but their own lives as well. |
• The Cure for Modern Life • The Soloist • Bartleby the Scrivener |
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May '09 — Chick Lit on Steroids
Real Chick Lit: vibrant heroines living rich, complex lives. Their stories give us a lot more to chew on than Prada shoes and Gucci bags. |
• Ex Libris-Confessions of a ... Reader • The Stone Diaries • Vanity Fair |
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Apr '09 — What Women Want. Really.
Earth to Freud.... Why was it so hard to for the great man to figure out what women want? Women want what men want—love, family, and freedom to pursue their dreams. |
• Good Grief • The Ten-Year Nap • The Feminine Mystique |
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Mar '09 — Animal Planet
This month's books honor those creatures that domesticate their owners. |
• Dewey: the Small-Town Library Cat • The Story of Edgar Sawtelle • Call of the Wild and White Fang |
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Feb '09 — Remembrance of Things Past
When we explore the past—the confluence of events, family and friends, choices made and made for us—we uncover our present selves. |
• Tender at the Bone • Charming Billy • Absalom, Absalom! |
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Jan '09 — The Gatsby Effect
What does it mean to be an American? This month's main characters attempt to re-invent themselves in order to achieve their ideal of the American dream. |
• Away • Netherland • The Great Gatsby |
2008 Book Reviews — Themes |
. . . and the Books |
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Dec '08 — African Trio
A newly elected US president—half African; a reader requesting a book guide for Cry, the Beloved Country; and a daughter taking a semester in Africa all served as inspiration for this month's LitPicks, beautiful books, all. |
• The Syringa Tree • Half of a Yellow Sun • Cry, the Beloved Country |
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Nov '08 — A Boy's Life
Three boys come of age in the years soon after World War II—one from the American Midwest, one from Norway, and one from India during the tumultuous years of independence. |
• The Life & Times of the Thunderbolt Kid • Out Stealing Horses • Midnight's Children |
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Oct '08 — Quiet Intimacy
Some books speak to us softly, peering into the corners of our lives and matters of the heart. Plot is secondary to characters and relationships. These works are quiet but remarkable. |
• Gilead • Matrimony • To the Lighthouse |
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Sept '08 — Beyond the Pale
This month's authors tackle horrific subjects, the unthinkable. Yet as readers we end up sympa-thasizing with characters we would otherwise villify. This is life in its irreducible complexity. |
• Skinny Dip • Nineteen Minutes • Lolita |
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Aug '08 — Uses of Mythology
Literature draws on mythology, primitive stories that frame life's events. Populated with heroes & heroines, deities & monsters, myths reveal a universal pattern of human behavior. |
• Edith Hamilton's Mythology • The Human Stain • The Iliad |
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July '08 — No theme this month, just a few good books. |
• Blink • The Lovely Bones • The Grapes of Wrath |
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June '08 — War Torn Lives
Lives and communities torn apart by World War II. This month's stories are tales of survival. Though grim at times, each offers a transcendent vision of humanity. |
• The Book Thief • Suite Francaise • Night |
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May '08 — Wherefore Happiness?
What is happiness? How does one attain it, who deserves it, and how does one hold onto it? Three books consider happiness—using vastly different lenses and reaching very different conclusions. |
• The Jane Austen Book Club • Saying Grace • A Doll's House |
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Apr '08 — Transgressions
Three women cross boundaries, defy codes, and flout tradition. They gain much—and lose much—as they search for a truer self. What are we to make of them? |
• Their Eyes Were Watching God • Loving Frank • Anna Karenina |
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Mar '08 — Healing: horses, books, people
Three books use parallel symbolism to explore human healing. A sick horse heals her owner; a damaged manuscript heals its conserver; and a returning spirit heals her mother. |
• Chosen by a Horse • People of the Book • Beloved |
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Feb '08 — Magical Realism
These books use a pretense of realism while weaving in fantasty and the supernatural. The magic blends seamlessly with the natural world to reveal life's wondrous possibilities. |
• Garden Spells • The House of the Spirits • One Hundred Years of Solitude |
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Jan '08 — No theme this month, just a few good books. |
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn • The Remains of the Day • Far from the Madding Crowd |
Lord of the Flies
William Golding, 1954
Penguin Group USA
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780399537424
Summary
William Golding's compelling story about a group of very ordinary small boys marooned on a coral island has become a modern classic. At first it seems as though it is all going to be great fun; but the fun before long becomes furious and life on the island turns into a nightmare of panic and death. As ordinary standards of behaviour collapse, the whole world the boys know collapses with them—the world of cricket and homework and adventure stories—and another world is revealed beneath, primitive and terrible.
Lord of the Flies remains as provocative today as when it was first published in 1954, igniting passionate debate with its startling, brutal portrait of human nature. Though critically acclaimed, it was largely ignored upon its initial publication. Yet soon it became a cult favorite among both students and literary critics who compared it to J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye in its influence on modern thought and literature.
Labeled a parable, an allegory, a myth, a morality tale, a parody, a political treatise, even a vision of the apocalypse, Lord of the Flies has established itself as a true classic. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—September 19, 1911
• Where—Conwall, England, UK
• Death—near Truro, Cornwall
• Where—June 19, 1993
• Education—B.A., Oxford University
• Awards—Nobel Prize; Man Booker Prize; James
Tait Black Memorial Prize
Sir William Gerald Golding was a British novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate, best known for his novel Lord of the Flies. He was also awarded the Booker Prize for literature in 1980 for his novel Rites of Passage, the first book of the trilogy "To the Ends of the Earth."
In 2008, The Times (London) ranked Golding third on their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945."
Early years
William Golding was born in his grandmother's house in Newquay, Cornwall, England, and he spent many childhood holidays there. He grew up at his family home in Marlborough, Wiltshire, where his father, Alec Golding, was a science master at Marlborough Grammar School (1905 to retirement). Alec Golding was a socialist with a strong commitment to scientific rationalism, and the young William and his elder brother Joseph attended the school where his father taught. His mother, Mildred, kept house and supported the moderate campaigners for female suffrage.
In 1930 Golding went to Oxford University as an undergraduate at Brasenose College, where he read Natural Sciences for two years before transferring to English Literature. Golding took his B.A. (Hons) Second Class in the summer of 1934, and later that year his first book, Poems, was published in London through the help of his Oxford friend, the anthroposophist Adam Bittleston.
Golding married Ann Brookfield, an analytic chemist, in 1939. The couple had two children, Judy and David.
War service
Golding joined the Royal Navy in 1940. During World War II, Golding fought in the Royal Navy and was briefly involved in the pursuit and sinking of Germany's mightiest battleship, the Bismarck. He also participated in the invasion of Normandy on D-Day, commanding a landing ship that fired salvoes of rockets onto the beaches, and then in a naval action at Walcheren in which 23 out of 24 assault craft were sunk. At the war's end, he returned to teaching and writing.
Writing
In September 1953, Golding sent a manuscript to Faber & Faber of London. Initially rejected by a reader there, the book was championed by Charles Monteith, then a new editor at the firm. He asked for various cuts in the text and the novel was published in September 1954 as Lord of the Flies. It was shortly followed by other novels, including The Inheritors, Pincher Martin and Free Fall.
Publishing success made it possible for Golding to resign his teaching post at Bishop Wordsworth's School in 1961, and he spent that academic year in the United States as writer-in-residence at Hollins College, near Roanoke, Virginia. Having moved in 1958 from Salisbury to nearby Bowerchalke, he met his fellow villager and walking companion James Lovelock. The two discussed Lovelock's hypothesis that the living matter of the planet Earth functions like a single organism, and Golding suggested naming this hypothesis after Gaia, the goddess of the earth in Greek mythology.
In 1970, Golding was a candidate for the Chancellorship of the University of Kent at Canterbury, but lost to the politician and leader of the Liberal Party Jo Grimond. Golding won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1979, and the Booker Prize in 1980. In 1983 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, a choice which was, according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ONDB), "an unexpected and even contentious choice, with most English critics and academics favouring Graham Greene or Anthony Burgess." He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1988.
Golding's later novels include Darkness Visible (1979), The Paper Men (1984), and the comic-historical sea trilogy To the Ends of the Earth, comprising the Booker Prize-winning Rites of Passage (1980), Close Quarters (1987), and Fire Down Below (1989).
The ONDB asserts that "At the end of the twentieth century, Golding's reputation was at its highest in continental Europe, particularly in Belgium, Holland, Germany, and France."
Later years and death
In 1985, Golding and his wife moved to Tullimaar House at Perranarworthal, near Truro, Cornwall, where he died of heart failure, eight years later, on 19 June 1993. He was buried in the village churchyard at Bowerchalke, South Wiltshire (near the Hampshire and Dorset county boundaries). He left the draft of a novel, The Double Tongue, set in ancient Delphi, which was published posthumously. He is survived by his daughter, the author Judy Golding, and his son David, who still lives at Tullimaar House. (Adapted from Wikipedia..)
Book Reviews
(Books prior to the Internet have few, if any, mainstream reviews online. See Amazon or Barnes & Noble for helpful customer reviews.)
Since first published in 1954, Lord of the Flies has stood as a sort of Rorsach test. Some readers see it as a religious allegory between good and evil...others as a Freudian battle between id vs. superego...still others as a history of the rise of civilization. Finally, many see it as a commentary on the world's political institutions.Any, in fact all of those readings lend themselves to Golding's chilling tale of boys gone bad. Read more
LitLovers LitPicks - Dec. 2011
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Lord of the Flies:
1. Talk about the differences between the two main antagonists, Ralph and Jack. How are they different from one another, and what broad "types" of individuals do they represent?
2. In what way can Piggy with his eye glasses be seen as representing the rational, scientific aspects of society?
3. What role does the conch play? How does it represent a civilizing force?
4. What does the beast represent? How is it used by Jack to control the others? Are there parallels for "the beast" in the real world, the one outside of fiction?
5. What does Simon mean when he suggests that the beast is only the boys themselves?
6. Why do the littleuns choose to follow Jack and the hunters rather than Ralph? Is it because they feel safer with Jack's group, believing that Jack can protect them? Or do they enjoy what the hunters do?
7. What do you feel Golding's vision of humanity is? Do you think he believes we born with an instinct for peace and cooperation...or for dominance and savagery? Does his vision accord with your own?
8. What do you think about the rules of civilization? Do they free us and enable us to rise to our best selves? Or do the rules constrain our bad nature that lie at the heart of ourselves?
9. What does hunting mean to Jack...at the beginning, and then later? What happens to his mental state after he kills his first pig?
10. What is ironic about the naval officer who arrives to "rescue" the boys? How does Ralph feel about returning to the safety of civilization? Why does he weep—is it relief, or something else?
m. Golding wrote his novel 10 years after the close of World War II and during the era of Communist containment. In what way does his book reflect the particular world politics of his time? Does the book have relevance today?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)