A Night Without A Good Book.....

you might as well shoot me. After I finished The Stand (outstanding book), I was left with that awful dilemma of needing a really good book to read. It is so difficult to find a really good book when you just finished one. I started reading Lake of Sorrows by Erin Hart a couple of nights ago. Just hasn't grabbed me.

So, back to the bookstore today and, of course, in my panic for a really good book, I bought 3 new books:

Out Stealing Horses
The Plain Sense of Things
Home

Never mind that I have 6 non-fiction books sitting by my bed waiting to be read, and 3 non-fiction books that I am in the midst of.

If you are a reader (and why else would you be reading this blog? for the outstanding pleasure of my prose?), then you will understand that I have to have a good novel to be reading at all times. And by that, I mean, that I am never without a novel of some sort that I am reading. I'm afraid that I would lie awake in bed all night if I didn't read first.

Anyway, I am very eager to start a new novel tonight. Which will I choose? Easy, I will be reading Home by Marilyn Robinson. She wrote my second favorite book, Gilead, so I have great expectations for this book!

The Stand

THE STAND by Stephen King


I know that you must think that I had either dropped off the face of the earth or had quit reading altogether, but it’s not so. As stated in an earlier blog, I decided to read The Stand by Stephen King in 1978. SO?, you say. Well, for starters, I picked up the complete and uncut edition (of course, what great reader would choose a digested version?) and guess how many pages the uncut edition is? Yep, 1141 pages of the smallest print probably possible! I mean, we are talking a BIG book.

Was it worth it? Did I complete it? Oh, my goodness, what a good book! Yes, it was worth it and I did complete it. Now, I am kind of eager to watch the video version just to see how well (or not) they cover the book.

It is an amazing book. I have always thought that Stephen King was a master of character development (although that is based on just the couple of his books that I have read), and he really came through with it in this book.

The premise of the book is that an accident occurs in a government facility in California and a “superflu” is released. Everyone at the facility dies of it, except for one man who was able to escape the facility before it was locked down. He grabbed his family and headed east. By the time he reached Texas, he and his family had already infected others and the original source family died in Texas. But the superflu is well on it’s way to destruction. About 99% of the country ends up dying of it.

However, 1% of the population appears to be immune to it. Those people began having dreams. They dream of an old, old lady called Mother Abigail living in Nebraska who seems to be calling them to her. They also dream of a “Dark Man” whose face can’t be seen, but he seems to be an evil force.

Several groups of people from the East coast set out seaparetely to go to Mother Abigail and thus, the journey begins. The people aligned with Mother Abigail end up in Boulder, CO and begin remaking society. Meanwhile, there are also groups of people who decide to join forces with the Dark Man in Las Vegas NV. It is classic good and evil.

What I found to be “scary” about the book was the actual possibility of 1) a superflu actually existing and 2) being exposed to the superflu. The first couple of weeks that I was reading the book, everytime I was out in public and someone coughed or sneezed, I froze for the briefest moment. It became that real to me!

I definetely recommend this book, but again, it is really long! Well worth it, but long!

Note: It was interesting to read this after reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy earlier this year. Very similar themes about survivial after the country's holocaust occurs.

Rush Home Road

Rush Home Road by Lori Lansens

Rush Home Road is another first novel book. I am SO amazed at the number of really good first authors out there. Gives me great hope for wonderful reading in my retirement!

Rush Home Road is the story of a five year old little girl, Sharla Cody, who is dumped off at Addie Shadd’s small trailer in Chatham, Ontario Canada by her mother. Addie is about seventy years older than Sharla and is fearful that she cannot keep the young girl for long. When Sharla comes to live with her, Addie begins to enter the stage of reliving her life in her mind often, including talking out loud to some of the people in her life who have passed on. Although she has not returned to her home town of Rusholme since she was herself a child, she remembers all that happened to her there and why she thought that she could never return. The author, Lori Lansens is from Chatham and reported in her Reading Group Guide that the southern part of Ontario was a terminus on the Underground Railroad. In the book, Rusholme is a town settled by fugitive slaves from the US seeking freedom.

There are a lot of different themes in this story, and the author tied them all together well. It is basically a book about love and forgiveness, but there are also significant themes of “lost children”, racial attitudes, and death, as Addie tells her story. It is a good story and a book worth reading. I did feel like the end tied up a little too neatly and quickly, but overall, I recommend the book for light reading.

World's Oldest Blogger and AOL's Top 10 Books

A couple interesting items that I saw today and just thought that I would share.

First of all, the World's Oldest Blogger died at age 108 today. Here’s the story from Reuters:

updated 11:06 a.m. CT, Mon., July. 14, 2008
CANBERRA, Australia - An Australian woman renowned as the world's oldest blogger has died at the age of 108, with her last posting talking about her ailing health but also how she still sings a happy song every day.
Olive Riley, of Woy Woy about 50 miles north of Sydney, began blogging in February last year, sharing stories from her life during the two world wars, raising three children on her own, and working as a station cook in the outback.
The physically frail but mentally alert Riley won an international audience with her blog, The Life of Riley (www.allaboutolive.com.au), and series of videos posted on YouTube with her talking and singing.
‘It kept her mind fresh’
Riley was said to be the world's oldest blogger as she was 12 years older than the previous titleholder, Spain's Maria Amelia. She was born in 1899 and would have turned 109 in October.
"She enjoyed the notoriety -- it kept her mind fresh," her great-grandson Darren Stone of Brisbane told local newspapers.
"She had people communicating with her from as far away as Russia and America on a continual basis, not just once in a while."
Riley had posted more than 70 entries on her blog -- or "her blob" as she jokingly called it -- since February last year. She set up the site with the help of a friend who entered her posts for her.
In her last and 74th post (http://worldsoldestblogger.blogspot.com) on June 26 she spoke of moving into a nursing home and of her ill health, saying: "I still feel weak and can't shake off that bad cough."
She spoke about singing "a happy song" with a visitor to the home as she did every day and said she had "read a whole swag of email messages and comments from my internet friends today, and I was so pleased to hear from you. Thank you, one and all."
She died in the nursing home on Saturday.

So now that means that I have to continue this blog for over 50 more years to beat the record and become the world’s oldest blogger. I accept the challenge!

On an unrelated note, today AOL listed the Top 10 Books to Read Before You Die. I have no idea who actually thought up the list, but I sure question some of their choices. See what you think:

Gone with The Wind-of course, a good book, but in the Top 10 to read before you die? Come on!

Lord of the Rings-I have not read any of this series; someone, what have I been missing? Right now, I am still not convinced that I need to read them.

Harry Potter-being in the Top 10? goes without saying. They are destined to be classics.

The Stand-I haven't read it, but it may be my next read. The books that I have read by Stephen King (not many) have been outstanding writing, so I may have to give this one a try.

The DaVinci Code-again, a good book, but Top 10?

To Kill A Mockingbird-My All-Time Favorite Book. It should be required reading for everyone beginning at age 12 and every couple years thereafter.

Angels and Demons-that’s a crazy choice. I did think that it was better than the DaVinci Code, but still….

Atlas Shrugged-may be my 2nd All-Time Favorite Book. Good choice!

Catcher In The Rye-never read it…have I missed anything with this one?

The Holy Bible-a good read.

So, that’s the list that AOL came up with. I can’t even imagine figuring out my top 10 list, but maybe after I am retired I will work on that. It will be hard! I am not sure that I could ever limit my list to 10.

In The Woods

In The Woods by Tana French

In The Woods had me up at night, reading while eating, considering calling in sick to work so I could read, etc. I could hardly stand to put it down! It was just that good. What seems really odd to me is that, once again, this is a first novel for the author. There are some REALLY good new authors out there! Makes me look even more forward to retirement! Good books to read and the time to read them...Heaven!

Anyway, this is a mystery novel...about 20 years earlier in Ireland, 3 children go out to play in the woods, but they don't return home. The police are called and one of the boys (Adam Ryan) is found gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing his blood-filled sneakers. He is unable to remember anything that has happened and his 2 friends are never found. Now enter present time, and that little boy had changed his first name to Rob, kept his past a secret, and went on to become a police detective. A 12 year old girl is found murdered in the same woods, and he and his partner, Cassie Maddox are assigned the case, which has some significant similarities to the case from 20 years ago.

Rob now finds himself back in that part of Ireland that he left years ago and brief memories of long-buried incidents return to him. Through-out the book, Rob is struggling with dealing with memories and/or lack of memories. It is interesting to follow the struggles he has as they begin to affect all areas of his life...personal relationships, work relationships and self-relationship (I just made that word up...but you know what I mean, don't you?).

The writing in this novel is great. Her writing style grabbed me right from the beginning. The end is somewhat different and that has upset some readers. I found the ending to be quite realistic and real-life-ish (another made-up word--no wonder I'm not an author). Some things were resolved and some weren't. There is speculation that the ending was left for a sequel, but I am not sure that will be the case.

Whether there is a sequel to this novel or not, I am definitely looking forward to her next book!

The Year of Fog

The Year of Fog is Michelle Richmond’s third novel, but the first one that I have read. The story is about Abby, a photographer who is engaged to a man who has a six year old child, Emma. They live in San Francisco. Abby took Emma to the beach one day while she was shooting photographs. It was a foggy day at the beach and while Abby was photographing a dead baby seal on the beach, Emma ran up ahead and then disappeared.

While this is a mystery novel that involves Abby never giving up searching for Emma, it is also a very interesting study of memory. I found this to be a quite captivating take on the story. Emma studies all that she can find about memory, convinced that there is something that she saw that she needs to remember in order to find Emma.

This is a good novel, with several themes going on, including the nightmarish tragedy of a child missing, the study of memory and the impact on relationships that such tragedies impose. I also thoroughly enjoyed all of the San Francisco background and history in the book…so far my most favorite city that I have visited.

What I also found interesting is that the novel is based upon a happenstance incident that occurred to the author. She wrote about it in the San Franciscan Gate. I include the article below.

One more side-note: I was reading a magazine review of a book the other day that sounded very good and I decided to write down the name of it in order to remember that I want to read it…it is by the same author! (The book is called No One You Know.)
The original article can be found on SFGate.com here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/04/29/CMGRJN7UTO1.DTL_
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, April 29, 2007 (SF Chronicle)
The Stories We Tell
Michelle Richmond
Emma Balfour walked into my life in the summer of 2003. Our paths collided
on Ocean Beach, the 3-mile stretch of gray sand and graffiti-spattered
seawall marking the western edge of the city.
It was a cold day and the beach was buried in dense fog, the kind of fog
that makes you feel as if you are lost in some strange dream. It was in
this bleak landscape that the child appeared, wearing a red sweatshirt,
blue jeans rolled up to her calves, no shoes. She was carrying a small
yellow bucket. Although she was only 6 or 7 years old, she appeared to be
alone. She had long black hair, blue eyes, dimples.
She bent down, picked something out of the sand and laid it gently in the
bucket.
"Hi," I said.
"Hi." Her voice was sweet and raspy, completely unguarded.
"What are you collecting?"
"Sand dollars," she said seriously, holding out the bucket for me to
examine. At the bottom lay a single, perfect sand dollar.
I reached down and touched it admiringly. "Lovely."
"I know!" she said, returning to her search.
I continued walking slowly, turning around every few steps to glance at
her. I kept waiting for an adult to appear. None did.
Then something caught my eye -- a shape in the sand, a dark crescent
several feet away. I went to examine it. It was a dead seal pup, partially
covered by sand.
A minute or two later, I turned back toward where the girl had been, but
she wasn't there. She had disappeared into the fog. If I had not talked
with her and heard her raspy voice, if I had not felt the rough sand
dollar with my own fingers, I might have believed I had dreamt her up.
I never saw her again. But something had happened; this stranger had
walked into my imagination, and she would not go away. For the next few
weeks, I thought of her several times a day. Finally, having nowhere else
to go, she stepped into a novel. I had not planned to write this novel. In
fact, having recently completed my first, I was rather determined not to
write another one. But there she was, the mysterious girl on the beach,
demanding my attention.
Three years and almost 400 pages later, I had figured her out. I knew what
she was doing at Ocean Beach, why she vanished and what happened to her
afterward. I had given her a name, Emma Balfour, and I had uncovered her
secret history. In the process, I had uncovered secrets about San
Francisco as well -- the mass grave beneath the swank Lincoln Park Golf
Course, for example, and the broken tombstones that make up parts of the
gutter at Buena Vista Park. I had come to understand my neighborhood, the
Outer Richmond, and its previous life as the Outside Lands, once home to
sand dunes and bordellos. I discovered that the windmill at the
northwestern edge of Golden Gate Park, where I often take my toddler son
to play, once pumped the water that turned the desolate sand dunes into
lush greenery.
By the end of my fictional journey, I had also learned a thing or two
about myself, for the places we love are a key to our own inner workings.
My husband grew up in the Bay Area, left for seven years and returned. I
am one of the many who grew up somewhere else, arrived and immediately
recognized San Francisco as home. But I never really knew my adopted city
until I began seeing it through the eyes of my characters. Its hills and
hideaways, its woods and water, lend to it a magic and mystery that is
missing from the flat Gulf Coast landscape of my childhood. And while the
balmy waters and gentle waves of the Gulf of Mexico beckon swimmers, the
wild Pacific in these northwesterly climes does just the opposite. It is a
place for rugged surfers armed with wetsuits and surfboards, not
swimsuit-clad children with floatees. The beach itself is strewn with
glass and garbage and the ashes of illegal bonfires. Not long ago, a
homeless man was found dead on Ocean Beach, suffocated by the shifting
sand. When I take my son there to play, I always have an eye out for
potential dangers.
Which is perhaps why the girl stayed with me: She was a version of myself
from nearly three decades before, but in a drastically altered context. On
one hand, I felt a bit jealous. How different my life would have been had
my parents chosen to stay in the Bay Area, where my father's naval ship
was stationed during Vietnam, instead of returning home to Alabama. On the
other hand, she called to mind buried fears about raising a child in the
city.
It is possible that Emma -- not the actual girl on the beach but the one
she became, in my novel and in my imagination -- was a product of my own
deepest fears, as so many of our stories are. A child vanishes into the
fog -- truly, a parent's worst nightmare. Like a Wes Craven flick or an
amusement park house of horrors, the stories we read, and the stories we
tell, serve as a repository for the unthinkable. By way of story, we
relegate the terrible to the realm of the imagination. And then we rely on
the flimsiest of things -- vigilance and good luck -- to keep it there.
Michelle Richmond's novel set in contemporary San Francisco, "The Year of
Fog," is just out from Delacorte and has been optioned by Newmarket Films. ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2007 SF Chronicle

The Road

The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

This is an amazing book and one that I will definitely return to in order to read it again. It was written in It is the story of a father and son walking through a burned out America. They push or drag a cart with the little that they own, including any scavenged food that they can find, as they try to walk to the coast. They have a pistol to defend themselves when they come across “the bad guys” who try to steal whatever goods they might find on others. The story never tells what has happened to destroy the country, for that is not what the story is about at all. It is about love and survival. It is amazing. I highly recommend this book!

This book was published in 2006 and won the 2007 Pulitizer Prize for Fiction.

Taken from the back of the book:

“The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, ‘each the other’s world entire’ are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, The Road is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.”

If you have read my other posts, you will know that I did a review on No Country for Old Men, also by Cormac McCarthy. His themes in these two books are very basic and touching. I found this short biography on him at the Barnes and Noble website:

Biography
Cormac McCarthy was born in Rhode Island. He attended the University of Tennessee in the early 1950s, and joined the U.S. Air Force, serving four years, two of them stationed in Alaska. McCarthy then returned to the university, where he published in the student literary magazine and won the Ingram-Merrill Award for creative writing in 1959 and 1960. McCarthy next went to Chicago, where he worked as an auto mechanic while writing his first novel, The Orchard Keeper.
The Orchard Keeper was published by Random House in 1965; McCarthy's editor there was Albert Erskine, William Faulkner's long-time editor. Before publication, McCarthy received a traveling fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which he used to travel to Ireland. In 1966 he also received the Rockefeller Foundation Grant, with which he continued to tour Europe, settling on the island of Ibiza. Here, McCarthy completed revisions of his next novel, Outer Dark.
In 1967, McCarthy returned to the United States, moving to Tennessee. Outer Dark was published by Random House in 1968, and McCarthy received the Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Writing in 1969. His next novel, Child of God, was published in 1973. From 1974 to 1975, McCarthy worked on the screenplay for a PBS film called The Gardener's Son, which premiered in 1977. A revised version of the screenplay was later published by Ecco Press.
In the late 1970s, McCarthy moved to Texas, and in 1979 published his fourth novel, Suttree, a book that had occupied his writing life on and off for twenty years. He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1981, and published his fifth novel, Blood Meridian, in 1985.
After the retirement of Albert Erskine, McCarthy moved from Random House to Alfred A. Knopf. All the Pretty Horses, the first volume of The Border Trilogy, was published by Knopf in 1992. It won both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award and was later turned into a feature film. The Stonemason, a play that McCarthy had written in the mid-1970s and subsequently revised, was published by Ecco Press in 1994. Soon thereafter, Knopf released the second volume of The Border Trilogy, The Crossing; the third volume, Cities of the Plain, was published in 1998. McCarthy's next novel, No Country for Old Men was published in 2005. This was followed in 2006 by a novel in dramatic form, The Sunset Limited, originally performed by Steppenwolf Theatre Company of Chicago and published in paperback by Vintage Books. McCarthy's most recent novel, The Road, was also published by Knopf in 2006.