Upcoming book picks

September's meeting will be hosted by Lisa and she picked The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. It is non-fiction (sort of a biography but sort of not) but reads like a fast paced novel. I'm 80 pages in and have found myself going to bed at nine every night this week so I could get more reading time in!

Other upcoming books are Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami and Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros (this one is my pick)... I'm hoping for some theme eats/drinks to go with these culturally specific books. We'll see if Japanese night and Mexican night pan out.

Happy Reading!

Tenth Meeting: Stiches A Memoir

When Eat, Drink, and Be Literary regular Sarah told me her pick for book club I was excited and very nervous. Sarah picked Stitches: A Memoir by David Small which happens to be a graphic novel. I had never read (er.... looked at) a graphic novel before so I was nervous that I wasn't going to do it properly. I realize how crazy that sounds, but I stand by it. I was afraid that I wouldn't "get" the book fully or notice what I was supposed to. Luckily, it seemed to go pretty well. Small's story was actually best told through images.

Since I have recently been on a memoir-about-a-messed-up-childhood kick, this fit right in. Small grew up in a love-less and silent home. His mother, who he later found out was a closeted lesbian, was harsh and cold and silent. His father was fairly absent. His brother barely in his life. If that wasn't enough to be considered a "messed up" childhood, Small had a growth on his neck removed, and the doctor took half of his vocal chords leaving him voice-less. Several months later he found out that this growth was actually cancer that had gone untreated for years. Small spent the rest of his youth, and much of his adulthood dealing with the fact that he couldn't speak above a raspy whisper, and that he had been lied to about his life.

The minimal words and dark artwork in this memoir were incredible vehicles for the theme of silence in Small's life. The silence of anger, of confusion, of unhappiness, and of actually being voice-less were all uniquely powerful depicted in one scene after another.

Sarah did a great job hosting a discussion about this book. Our discussion drifted back and forth from the content and the format of this book almost seamlessly.

If you have never read a graphic novel before, this is a good gate-way novel as it is not comic book-y or super hero-ish, but is definitely a piece of literature. I'm very glad it was picked for book club and that I was able to expand my horizons.

Jeannette Walls Extravaganza!

I am always a few years behind on summer beach reading. I don’t know if it’s because I am too busy reading other books, or just never have the attention span to read a whole book while I’m at the beach, but I typically don’t hear about , let alone read, the “fabulous” best seller types until after the movie interpretation has come out on DVD. So, in true fashion, I am six years behind the craze for Jeannette Walls’ incredible memoir The Glass Castle. However, I’m only 2 years behind in reading Half Broke Horses: A True Life Novel which could be considered a prequel to her memoir.

Because I’m a rebel, I decided to read Half-Broke Horses first. I figured it happened first chronologically speaking, so what was the difference? Also there was the tiny practical matter that I already had that book in my possession.  Last month I was in Tucson for four days visiting my boyfriend’s family, and I figured the flight down was the perfect time to start the novel. I was pleasantly surprised by the book. Walls wrote in the voice of her grandmother Lilly Casey, whom there are not enough adjective to describe. Born in 1900, she practically defined my idea of feminism-- she spent her life surviving and trying to find her purpose and never let a matter as small as her gender get in her way.  The “true-life novel” was the perfect format for telling this incredible woman’s story, and it is a concept I’ve fallen in love with.  I’m jealous of Walls and her ability to so beautifully bring to life the mythology of her grandmother and I wish I could do the same for my own grandparents!I finished Half-Broke Horses over the first few days of my visit to Tucson, and I relished every minute of it. As I experienced the desert in the summer for the first time, I got to read about Lily and her family living in that very desert—conquering it at times, and allowing it to conquer them at others. I felt a great appreciation for the fragile but harsh environment I found myself exploring, and some of Lily’s pluck rubbed off on me and I felt empowered and strong (which came in handy when hiking through the Sabino Canyon).

The last morning of my trip, as I packed my bags to travel back to Iowa, I serendipitously found The Glass Castle which my boyfriend’s mom had laid out for me to read. I started it over my morning coffee while I sat by the pool, and then somehow managed to finish it before my flight landed in Iowa. The Glass Castle is Jeannette Walls' memoir, and chronicles her simultaneously fascinating and disturbing childhood. Her parents, Rex  (a brilliant but irresponsible and somewhat abusive alcoholic), and Rose Mary, (an artist, the daughter of Lily, and in my opinion the worst mother of all time) were constantly on the run from bill collectors and raised four children, Lori, Jeannette, Brian, and Maureen on "adventures" around the U.S. The family lived in poverty most of the time, and while never short on creativity, or story-telling, the family was constantly short on food, and, well, responsible parenting. It was shocking to me that a family like this existed in the not-so-distant past, and that the children raised in this way were able to overcome.

Most of all what shocked me was a look at mother daughter relationships across both of the books. My own mother recently told me that the most surprising thing to her about motherhood was that when I was born I was my own person with my own opinions and values and personality right away. I thought of this while reading these novels because as different Lily was from Rose Mary, Rose Mary was from Jeannette. While I of course know plenty of sets of mothers and daughters in real life, these books offered a unique view of the mother/ daughter dynamic. I got to experience firsthand through Walls' descriptions how three generations of women were from childhood to womanhood to motherhood and how beautifully complex their relationships were with one another.

In short, I would recommend both of these books to any woman whether read alone or as a set. I would also recommend reading them while sitting poolside overlooking the Catalina mountains, but that's another story!