October's genre is Horror/Thriller

I was late to the Ray Bradbury game. After reading enjoying Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles in the past few years, I was happy when Books and Beer Club selected Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes for our October horror/thriller selection. I'm not a fan of horror or thrillers, but this one sounded interesting... and I liked the author.

Something Wicked is about a creepy carnival that comes to town in October. The centerpiece of the carnival is a carousel. When it goes forward, the rider ages rapidly. When the carousel goes backwards, the rider gets younger. Rapidly. For me, this novel was tedious, and the language which was very poetic and created wonderful images really did slow me down.

I'll keep this short. Horror and thrillers aren't my genres and as such, I didn't really enjoy reading this book. I did find one of the father's observations on aging interesting. And I liked the way the relationship between one of the boys and his father developed over the novel.

I'm glad I stuck with it. I'm looking forward to dressing up as The Illustrated Man for our costumed book club meeting this Wednesday evening. But as for a review or a recommendation, I'm not going to bore you.

A break in my reading slump

I'm not sure if I'm in a reading slump because I just can't seem to get into Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes (which I'm reading for Books and Beer Club) or if I just haven't felt like reading. But the longer I went without making a dent in any book, the more anxious I began to feel. So I picked up The Red Address Book which I'd read about in a "reading lovers" Facebook group I'd joined. Everyone in the group loved it. It sounded like it could be a quick, easy read.

It was quick. I finished it in a single day. It was relatively easy. And it was just okay. What really made it relatable, though, was the day before, while visiting an elderly cousin, she spent time thumbing through her address book, reminiciscing about the people listed in the pages. That had brought back memories of my dad and I going through his contacts on his smart phone, "updating" the contacts. While we updated, we talked about nearly every person he had listed. I learned more about his life and relationships in addition to learning who was still alive and who was dead.

In an attempt to tell her great niece, Jenny, about her life, 96-year old Doris thumbs through the old address book her father had given her when she was just a girl. As each entry died, she marked them dead. This novel focuses on just a few of the entries. I think I wish there had been some other people she told stories about, even if they weren't so central to her story. We learn about the impact each individual had on Doris' life. And she had quite a life!

I did love how relatable and authentic Jenny was portrayed. Her interactions with her great aunt were spot on!

Would I recommend it? If you're in the mood for a book about a full life and what it's like to reach the end of it, you might enjoy this.

I reread a book for the third time last month

Mark Haddon's the curious incident of the dog in the night-time was one of the first novels I read after finishing my graduate degree in 2003. It's written from the perspective of one we assume to be on the autism spectrum (which may or may not be the case) and was fascinating to me as a newly minted highly qualified teacher.

Shortly after graduation, I joined my first book club. The club was  sponsored by our local educational foundation and was open to anyone employed in our school district. It took them a year or so to select the curious incident... for the book club to read and discuss. It was a perfect fit for the group. I wanted to get the most out of the discussion so I reread the book.

September is "Banned Books Month." Every year, Books and Beer Club selects a banned book to read in September. We came up with a long list of titles this year, but this was the one selected. You might be wondering why it was banned. I know that I was. It was banned for language, which I didn't notice so it couldn't have been terrible. But it was also banned because the main character, Christopher, is an atheist. None of the members of my book club where the least offended by this.

Third time around, the book felt too short. Maybe because I knew what was coming. I wanted to dig deeper into the characters of Christopher and his parents. That made it a quick read, though, so I was easily able to finish this book with lots going on in my life.

One of the book club members invited the woman who started and runs our local autism support group. What a resource that must be for parents and caregivers. She even brought along her son who is on the spectrum. He spoke to us first, then she spoke to us. We talked about what might or might not have been inaccuracies in the book and what totally rang true. Afterwards we had our usual interesting discussion. Most of us gave the book a thumbs up.

We talked about going to see the traveling production of the play which was an adaptation of the book, but the only date that many us were free was the weekend we were waiting to see if Hurricane Dorian was coming to town. I think others did eventually see the play, but I did not.

I definitely recommend this book if you haven't already read it.

Best Sedaris yet!

My entire "immediate' family gathered together - on vacation - in North Carolina right after Labor Day this year. We hadn't been all together for anything but sad and tragic events in over 9 years. It was great.

We were all posting photos on Facebook - of the scenery and of each other. One of my brother's friends recommended Calypso by David Sedaris in response to one of my brother's posts. This latest Sedaris collection of essays is about his North Carolina beach house - and his family. See the connection? We weren't at the beach, but we were in North Carolina - and we were with family.

As soon as I read this guy's comment, I looked up the book, added it to my TBR list... and ended up starting it a few days later. I think this is my favorite of all the Sedaris books I've read.

As much as this book is about family vacations in North Carolina, it's more about aging within the context of being part of a family. It's about loss. It's about watching parents age. I connected with this book on so many levels.

It started with this: ...thinking all the while about my ever-shrinking family. A person expects his parents to die. But a sibling? I felt I'd lost the identity I'd enjoyed since 1968, when my brother was born.

I caught my older daughter getting weepy several times on our North Carolina vacation. She was missing the four members of our family who were no longer with us. Within the past few years, we've lost my parents, my aunt, and a cousin who was more like a sister. My cousin helped me get through the first three losses, and my identity was so tied to hers. I was the little cousin and she was my idol. How many times after my cousin died did I say the exact words that Sedaris used, changing the word sibling to cousin? I expected to grow old with my darling cousin. Now, years later, I miss my parents, but they lived a good life. I expected to live to old age with my cousin. When her life ended, our life together was cut short.

He wrote this about diaries: "After I die, and you read something bad about yourself in my diary, do yourself a favor and keep reading," I often say to Hugh. "I promise that on the next page you'll find something flattering. Or maybe the page after that."

Just the day before, I'd had a discussion about just this with fellow bullet journalers. The question came up about whether or not to keep your bullet journal after you complete a notebook. My thought was, of course keep it! I treasured little things that I found from my parents after they died. I like to think that my kids or grandkids will find my bullet journals a treasure. One of the journalers in my group writes something at the front of each of her journals similar to what David spoke to Hugh. Perhaps I should do the same.

There were some political bits in the book that I thoroughly enjoyed. Then again, we think along the same lines. Enough said. Sad to think that our society is so politically divided right now that some people might not be able to make it through this entire book without throwing it against the wall in disgust. But based on that, I can not recommend this book unconditionally even though I gave it five stars on goodreads.