Wonder

I'd seen the trailers for the movie, "Wonder," and  it seemed like my kind of movie. I never gave much thought to whether it was a book first or not, even though these stories usually are. But when I was in New York to celebrate Christmas with my granddaughters, and the 9 year old was engrossed in the novel by R.J. Palacio, I decided that I needed to read the book. I immediately requested the e-book from the library. Not quite 2 months later, I had the book in my hands, virtually speaking.

I loved this book. All the voices in the book were authentic. Which is quite a feat considering the story is told from several different perspectives. There were lots of characters to really like, a few to really dislike, and a few characters that changed my opinion over the course of the novel.

August (Auggie) was born with cranofacial differences which require lots of surgeries and at age ten, he still looks very different. Until fifth grade, Auggie was home-schooled. In fifth grade, his mother feels that he belongs in a regular classroom setting. His father disagrees at first. Once he's on board, the mother balks.

This book is about how kids who are different - in any way - are treated in middle school. (At the prep school Auggie attends, fifth grade is middle school.) As a former fifth grade teacher, I can confirm that I have seen some of the minor bullying that takes place in this story. There's been a lot of push back by the cranofacial organizations that it was a) unfair to put prosthetics on a normal featured boy rather than casting a child with one of the conditions that causes an appearance such as that portrayed and b) Auggie was celebrated as an inspirational hero just for being... nice? resistant to bullying? I get that. But I see a bigger picture.

I see the bigger bullying picture. Fifth graders can be really mean. Friendship groups shift based on rumors.

Auggie has a sister starting high school. In addition to dealing with a younger sibling who gets most of the parental attention, she's also dealing with old friendships that no longer quite fit.

The characters are authentic,the voices are authentic, the situations are, for the most part, real. I got to read about some pretty cool fifth graders, an understanding school director and an inspirational teacher. For me, what wasn't there to like?

Promise Me, Dad

As soon as Joe Biden's memoir, Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose was published, I got myself on the waiting list for the e-book. Even before any of the libraries even owned the book. I'm not sure why I really wanted to read this.

My daughter, the one who reads, said she didn't think she could read this book about the Biden family living through the illness and death of son, Beau. That it would be just too sad. I remember telling her that I thought I could handle it.

The book was relatively short. I'd made it nearly two thirds of the way thru the book without doing more than a little tearing up. At one point, Biden is talking about "all the people" (not a direct quote, just the way I remember it) who died in 2014. That did bring a tear to my eye since that was the year that my mother, then my aunt and then my dad all passed away. There were times during the final third of the book where tears were simply streaming down my cheeks.

This book chronicles the diagnosis and death of Beau, some things going on in the world from about 2014 to 2015, and finally, Biden's decision not to seek the Democratic nomination for president in late 2015. I'm sure this book will hold no appeal for anyone who's not a fan of Biden. But I like Joe Biden and this book made him seem even more of a "regular Joe" and more of a multidimensional person to me. It makes me wish I knew Joe Biden personally and was part of his circle.

The death of Biden's son wasn't his first personal tragedy. As a new senator and a young father, his first wife and baby daughter were killed in a car crash, leaving Biden as the single father of two young boys, Beau and Hunter. A few years after the death of his first wife, Biden meets his current wife, Jill. And shortly after they have a baby girl together. For as crazy busy as Biden's life as a politician was, his family was and remained his number one priority. He was a great dad to his sons and his daughter. And he was lucky to find a wonderful women to help him complete his family.

I could have done with less of the details of the diplomatic commitments of Biden in the Ukraine-Russia crisis, Iraq and the Northern Triangle. I feel shallow in saying that those issues don't matter to me. But that's not why I picked up the book. I picked it up to see the humanity that is Joe Biden.

I loved reading about his commitment to family, about the importance of public service in both the lives of Joe and Beau. I enjoyed reading about his growing friendship with Barack Obama and about the difference he made in the lives of other Americans. I was moved by his struggle to make a decision about whether or not to run for President in 2016. 

There's a part of the book where he talks about a conversation he has with Andrew Cuomo, son of Mario, who I hadn't realized was still alive at the time my parents' died. My family had a loose connection with Matilda Cuomo and I loved hearing about how based on Mario's life, Andrew Cuomo strove to live his life taking the actions that would lead to the fewest regrets. That's how I choose to live my life. Andrew passed that bit of advice along to Biden who really took it to heart.

To me, this was a book about family relationships. It's about the promise that Beau extracted from his father that Joe Biden would "be all right." This is a book about the great love and admiration between father and sons, brothers, and friends. This was a book about dealing with the ugliness of cancer.  This was a book about compassion and grace. It was also about finding comfort and the strength to move forward. At a pace that is right for you.

I wonder if Biden wrote the book as a clear explanation of why he didn't run for president. Perhaps. And I certainly respect his reasons. I believe he's fulfilling his promise to Beau.

Teddy Roosevelt's Amazon Adventure

Yay me! I finished my first book!

It took me until February 19th, but I finally finished my first book of 2018. The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard is now complete and I'm ready to discuss with Books and Beer Club next week.

 

I thought I knew about Teddy Roosevelt. When my daughter was a student at the University of Tampa, I learned about his connection to the University (which was then the Tampa Bay Hotel) as a Rough Rider during the Spanish-American War. I felt like I knew more about that war than most other people I know. Only because I'm interested in historic buildings. I'd watched the Roosevelt mini-series on PBS either last year or the year before. Then again, maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention during the mini-series.

 

I learned that Teddy ran for a third term as president - as a third party candidate - 4 years after he left office. His main goal was to get the incumbent out. He succeeded with that. But when he wasn't re-elected, he needed another challenge. Going on an expedition to the Amazon seemed to be what was in order. Millard's book chronicles that expedition in an easy to read narrative style.

 

I learned a little bit more about South American, about the Monroe Doctrine and the Panama Canal. And I learned a lot more about the Amazon. I'd hear "rain forest" and I'd think of rain forests I'd visited on Caribbean islands. Nothing the same.

 

It became important to me about halfway thru the book that I really needed to know when  Teddy - and his son,Kermit, who accompanied him on the expedition, died. It wasn't important to know how they died. Just when. I googled it. Kind of weird, right? Like if was a novel, I would have needed to read thru to the end to find out which characters live and which die. Millard deals with the hows of their deahts in the epilogue. Oops, did I just give something away?

 

There were some things I really enjoyed about the book. I loved reading about the preparation for the trip, the family relationships, especially the father/son relationship. I enjoyed seeing how the expedition members worked as a team. I was astonished by all the provisions they thought to bring along with them and what happened to those provisions as they want along. (Parts of the books that dealt with provisions and illnesses so reminded me of playing one of my first computer games, Oregon Trail, first with my little cousin, then with my own kids and finally with my students. Different journeys, similar issues.)

 

I always find it mind boggling to think back to the days when people regularly traveled uncharted territories and what that meant. So that was fascinating.

 

But that's where I also got bogged down. I needed the details of the journey to understand the challenge of the Amazon, but sometimes the details became too much for me.

I'm anxious to discuss this next week. I'm glad the meeting got changed to a different day of the week since I wouldn't be available to meet on the regular day.

 

Discussing Barkskins was all that I hoped for and more

Over the summer, many members in my community book club poured through Annie Proulx’s latest epic novel, Barkskins in preparation for the September book club discussion. That meeting never happened due to Hurricane Irene blowing through town. I was disappointed truly disappointed. As I mentioned in my initial review, Barkskins is a book that needs to be talked about so not discussing was out of the question. As leader of the book club, I made an executive decision for the title to be shifted to February’s meeting. I figured it gave those who hadn't yet finished the book the opportunity to do so. And since the specific characters in the book weren't of super importance, I figured that those who read it would remember enough for us to have a good discussion. This book club meeting exceeded my expectations. Normally, not everyone who attends book club meetings finishes the book. But all 15 at this meeting finished the book. Not only that, everyone either liked or loved the book. Barkskins is about the history of the logging industry, concentrating in but not limited to northeast Maine and southeast Canada. It’s not a typical Proulx novel. This one took 15 years of research and planning and then five years to write. The forests and the trees are much more the main characters of this multi-generational saga than the family members themselves. Some readers knew more about forests than others, but all agreed they learned quite a bit from reading the book. Several members shared family connections to Native Americans, logging and French Canadians which enriched the conversation.  Because of the length of the book, it was interesting to note that those reading the print book had a significantly different reading experience than those reading the e-book. Those reading the print book had a better sense of how much of this very long book they had left to read. They were able to portion out how much to read in a given sitting. They also seemed to reference the family trees at the back of the book more frequently. (Did I not even realize there were family trees at the back of the book? Or were they not in the e-book edition that I read?) The group's identification of themes in the book that were discussed included the environment, degradation of natural resources, mix of races, growth of mega family businesses and greed. A whole lot of other social issues were thrown in, most likely to reflect the world as seen by Annie Proulx. Issues like alcoholism and homosexuality. Bloodlines versus adoption and how they impact family lines. Throughout the book, the language was reflective of the time period that Proulx was writing about. That meant that the language early on in the book was more difficult to understand than towards the end of the book. But many in the club agreed that they preferred the family stories with well-developed characters in the first half of the book to the second half of the book where the characters moved the story forward but we didn't get to really know them. Some important points brought up by different participants: The need to remember that we, in 2018, have a lot more information at our finger tips than people during the past 300 years had. People moved far away from where they started with “relative ease.” The assumption was that they were moving towards opportunity and success for their families where that possibility didn’t exist before The needs for wood were quite different in the late 17th century, 18th century, 19th century and early parts of the 20th century than they have been recently.  Most people who moved from a place try to create something familiar in their new homes. Europeans came to North American and developed towards the goal of making it like where they came from. The deforestation of many parts of Europe happened here so the fact that trees were falling in increasingly amounts was no surprise or concern. The book ends in kind of rushed manner. It left most in the group with a lot of questions. “What happens next?” seemed to be a common one. I suppose only time will tell. How did the book club members feel about recommending this to others? Everyone would recommend it to some but not to all of their reader friends. Unanimously, though, the book club agreed that this was a marvelous book club book and they’d recommend it to any book club to read. Click here if you'd like to read my original review of the Barkskins.

Update on my readerly life

After only reading once in a blue moon in January (how appropriate, right?), I realized towards the end of the month that I was never going to finish Les Miserables so I spent the two nights before Books & Beer reading the Sparknotes. Which was very helpful in discussing the book - and in watching the Liam Neeson from 20 years ago.

Once I made the decision that I wasn't going to attempt to continue with the book but I was ready to ease back into reading after my fall, I picked up Maeve Binchy's Chestnut Street, a collection of short stories. I was able to read a short story a night. Until Books and Beer Club picked the February title, The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard. It's slow reading for me. And at about a little more than a third of the way thru with  the book, I believe it's going to be the type of book that I sort of slog through, but that I'm very anxious to discuss with the book club. It's got so many talking points, even though a lot of the details of the book don't interest me at all. The big ideas intrigue me.

That was the case with Barkskins by Annie Proulx which my community book club got to discuss yesterday. I'll write a separate post about the book club discussion later in the week.

During the days when I wasn't reading Les Miserable and was reading Chestnut Street, I requested quite a few ebooks from the library. As should have been expected, 3 of them came in in the past 2 days. All 3 of them hold more appeal to me than The River of Doubt, but because of how much I am looking forward to discussing Roosevelt's expedition thru the Amazon, I really do need to focus on finishing that book.

So that's where I am. It's pretty distressing to think that February is half over and I haven't finished a single book. I finally set a total number of books on the goodreads reading challenge for 2018. I unrealistically set my goal at 32 books. Last year my goal was 36 books, 3 per month. So based on that, I subtracted 3 for the books I didn't read in January... hoping that even though I've yet to finish a book that I can finish 2 books in this very short month.

I guess my biggest success (and luck) is that I'm once again able to read.