"The Book Thief"

    Three years ago, my granddaughter, Erika, told me about this book.  She thought that it was the best book that she had read because of the excellent language.
  Set in Germany during the Second World War, this story is about a girl whose family decided to hide a Jewish man in their basement. 
   I decided to buy the book but it sat on my shelf  until this week.  I have suggested it for one of my book clubs and now I have to prepare to lead the discussion.
   
   The novel is full of foreshadowing and Erika disliked that.  I also felt that it was annoying at the beginning, but after awhile, I felt that it was 'endearing'.  Yes, that is the word that I want.  It seems to add to the quirkiness of the book.  And it is quirky!  With death as the narrator, how can it be anything else? But it's written for teens and I think it works for youth fiction.

  The author, Markus Zusak, lives in Australia.  I think it's important to notice that his mother was from Germany and his father was born in Austria.
  Zusak has written 6 books.  "The Book Thief" was published in 2005 and has been translated into more than 30 languages.  It was made into a film in 2013.  This movie is available from our local library, but the book is so emotional that I am not anxious to see the movie. Too sad!
  This really is a spectacular book!  It showed so clearly the worst of humanity and the best of humanity.  And, of course, the setting is real- Germany, beginning in 1939.
  The title reflects the main theme of this novel: books, the importance of words.
  Human nature and the importance of words.  Can it get any better than that?  I am looking forward to this discussion!

"Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World"

  An article in the newspaper, sent to me by my daughter,  caught my attention.  It was about reading in the digital age.  "Skim reading is the new normal".  Has this skimming, altered our brains?  Are readers losing the knack of sustained reading?
   "The reader who skims can lose the ability to grasp another person's feelings or perceive beauty."
  It has been noticed that university students are not signing up for 19th century literature because they cannot persevere through Dickens or Eliot.
   This article was written by Robert Fulford, but he quoted Maryanne Wolf, who is a neuroscientist.

   So I tracked down Maryanne's book "Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World".

   In the past, Maryanne has researched how the brain learns to read.  She believes that humans were never born to read. "The acquisition of literacy is one of the most important epigenetic achievements of Homo sapiens...The act of learning to read added an entirely new circuit to our hominid brain's repertoire."

   In this book, Maryanne explores how the digital age has affected the reading brain.  The concept is fascinating, but the complexity of the brain, which is the focus of the first two chapters, overwhelmed me and I skimmed to get to the information I was looking for.
  Her question is this:
"Are we as a society, beginning to lose the quality of attention necessary to give time to the essential human faculties that make up and sustain deep reading?  If so, what can we do about it?"
   Having taught young children to read, I was wondering how such learning would need to change in the future.
   Since this is new territory,  there is great debate about the future of reading.  Technology brings benefits.  We cannot ignore it. So we need to work toward "building a bilateral brain".
  As I have said, this book is complex and I feel that I just scratched the surface.  But it makes me more concerned about the fact that our libraries, which have jumped on the technology bandwagon, have lost the focus on literacy.

"Dear Life" by Alice Munro

"English-Canadian Fiction  in the 21st Century"

   This is the title of a course being offered  by Third Age Learning in Guelph this fall. I am enrolled and looking forward to the lectures . One of the first books in the lecture series is "Dear Life" by Alice Munro.

  I had previously read 2 books by Alice Munro: "Lives of Girls and Women" and "The Love of a Good Woman".  I was not impressed by either book, and this one did not excite me either.

  But..many readers greatly enjoy her writing.  Amazon has printed 747 reviews from readers about this book. Almost half of them rated this book with five stars (5 stars out of 5).  Wow!
   Alice Munro has won many prestigious awards-notably the Nobel prize for Literature in 2013.
   In the reviews in Amazon, I read this type of response:
- her beguiling characters are nuanced, headstrong and surprising
- she has revolutionized the architecture of short stories especially in its tendency to move forward and backward in time
  I have not found any of her characters memorable and I wouldn't really enjoy a story 'moving forward and backward in time'.
  I look for a clear narrative forward and I enjoy interesting characters.  I really appreciate seeing the characters develop as the story unfolds.  I never felt a connection with any of Alice Munro's characters.  They did not evoke any emotion.  Each character was just moving along through life.  Perhaps that is what people enjoy- just the ordinariness of her stories.

Broken Promise

   I have already written about One Book One Community 2018, with this year's book: "Broken Promise".  
  You can read that blog here.
  I decided to re-read the book in anticipation of our library book club discussion and the author's appearance at the end of the month. 
  Because I am not a mystery-lover, I looked for some information on mystery novels.  And I found this interesting list of requirements for a mystery novel.

Mystery novels have 7 elements:

1.  A strong hook
2.  Active reader involvement in piecing together information
3.  Red herrings
4.  Suspenseful dialogue
5.  Effective, descriptive mood and language
6.  Well-structured chapters
7.  A satisfying conclusion

    As I read the book this time, I thought of these aspects of a mystery novel, and I concluded that this is a great mystery novel.  There is a hook in the first sentence "before all hell broke loose".  There is much piecing together of information with some red herrings (at least, I think they were red herrings).  There are so many characters and so many sub-plots, that it becomes confusing.  Certainly there is a suspenseful mood and language. The chapters are short and snappy, leaving you thinking. 

   In this small town of Promise Falls, it seems that all residents have horrific things happening in their lives- either now or in the past.  And you DO read about many of those residents.

  I cannot say that this novel had a satisfying conclusion for me.  But what is a satisfying conclusion- when so many people have been murdered.  As it said at the beginning-"all hell broke loose".  what is a satisfying ending for that???

   So, on second reading,  I did realize that this novel has most of the elements it needs to make a great read for mystery lovers.

   But the focus on death- murder actually, does not make a good read for me.

   Let's see what the rest of the book club think.

The Winding Road

   What is more delightful than an old, well-read book from years

gone by?

   My daughter's friend inherited this book along with the other books in her father's library.  I had a chance to read it and was fascinated.  

  The author is given as "Patience Strong", a pen name.  

Winifred Emma May

Winifred Emma May was born in England in 1907.  She grew up with books and Sunday School.  Her writing reflects both.  Her very short, poetic writings focus on nature and philosophy of life.

  She also was musical and some of her writing was put into song.  Her poems were often printed in "Good Housekeeping" and other magazines.

Here is an example of writing from "The Winding Road":

"Make Yourself Forget"

When you think of other people, try to blot from mind

all that they have done to you that seemed a bit unkind.

All the small misunderstandings and the big ones too

The words that stung you to the quick, the stones they flung at you.

It is hard, but try to do it. Make yourself forget-

everything that tends to make you angry or upset.

It's not sentimental nonsense- It's the wiser way-

The people who have hurt you most, may be your friends someday.

If you try to see them from a different point of view-

Seeing only what is best and not what vexes you.

Every Note Played

    Lisa Genova is an amazing author, who brings her expertise in neuroscience to the reader in a powerful way.
  You can read about her in this blog, where I wrote about her first book "Still Alice".  Her goal is to raise awareness of unusual but devastating illnesses.

  In this book, "Every Note Played", she writes about ALS.  I was very interested because I have been close to two people who lived with this disease.
  Lisa Genova is able to put all the necessary science into the book, but also include very basic human emotions of love, guilt, regret.  Her writing is amazing.
Plot:
  The protagonist, Karina had been married to Richard, a concert pianist, but the marriage dissolved in anger and hatred.   However, when Richard was diagnosed with ALS and was  no longer able to care for himself, Karina invited him back to the family home. He had run out of money and there were no other options. Here, in the family home,  his physical needs were met, but the anger of his wife and daughter filled the home.

  Lisa Genova's writing is fascinating:
"She can feel the razor-sharp point of every edge between Richard and her, but she assumed their animosity was traveling on a private, restricted highway."

  Because the author is a neuroscientist, ALS is described in minute detail, perhaps a little too much.  Her interest in this disease began when her book "Still Alice" was being made into a movie.  One of the writer-directors, was in the early stages of ALS and she learned from him, the details of life with ALS.  She later met many people who inspired and encouraged her in her desire to teach the world about this very devastating disease.