Ahira's Hangar

Just finished reading Blood Meridian: or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy, and I gotta say the comparisons to Faulkner and Melville are not unjustified. This is a momumental book, easily one of the best I've ever read. One character, known simply as "the judge", will haunt my nightmares for some time to come. ******************

To seek the sacred river Alph, to walk the caves of ice ...<i></i>

I'm jealous--I've read All the Pretty Horses and have been dying to get my hands on The Crossing--He is one of my all time fav authors! *****
Before, you are wise; after, you are wise. In between you are otherwise.
Fravashi saying (from the formularies of Osho the Fool) <i></i>

Yesterday, I read a book called Monster Rules by Jamie Taylor.

Good story, about a boy who is abandoned by his father and then gets shuttled between several different relatives. His experiences and fears are realistically presented, and there is a suspenseful ending to the book. I read the whole thing in one day.

A brief description of the book, from the website:
Quote:In Key West, Saul's dad left him, but the feeling that he could return always haunted him. Sent for the summer to Massachusetts, things didn't improve by much. Then Allison drowned. After that, he wasn't wanted. It wasn't that they didn't love him; they just couldn't bear the sight of him anymore, because he was Allie's look-alike cousin. So Saul was sent to a relative of his mother's, to a house where he could have the opportunity to be safe, to a house where he was haunted not only by the ghost of his father's return, but by supernatural spirits as well.

~MsMary~ "Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?"<i></i>

I am reading the wonderful first novel by a woman named Anita Rau Badami, called Tamarind Woman.

Quote:A moving novel about the ties of love and resentment that bind a mother and daughter...Set in India's railway colonies, Tamarind Woman tells the story of two generations of women. Kamini, an overachiever, has moved to Canada to begin her graduate studies. Her mother, Saroja, the eponymous Tamarind Woman who is given her nickname due to her sour tongue, is bittter because if her loveless marriage and her thwarted ambition to become a doctor. When Kamini receives a postcard from her mother saying that she has sold their home and is travelling through India by train, both women are plunged into the past - and confront their dreams and losses. Tamarind Woman is a deeply wise and compassionate novel about family, memory, and the traditions that both tear us apart and bring us together.

Quote:Anita Rau Badami is the author of The Hero's Walk which won the Commonwealth Best Book Prize in the Canada/Carribean region and was a Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize finalist and a Borders Original Voices selection. She lives in Montreal with her husband and son. ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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I finished reading The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott which was recommended to me as the best novel about the Crusades (written around 1825). I enjoyed it thoroughly, though it turned out to be much more satirical in tone than I was expecting. Great witty dialogue and more of a fun romance than a historical adventure. The portayals of the historical figures (Richard the Lionheart, etc.) are actually pretty whimsical, especially the actions of the great muslim ruler Saladin.

Ever read a book just because the title stuck in your head and you felt you had to exorcise the thing or it would bother you forever that you never read it? Well, that's why I'm reading The Sheltering Sky (1949) by Paul Bowles right now. I know, almost as dumb as judging a book by its cover ... ******************

To seek the sacred river Alph, to walk the caves of ice ...<i></i>

Eh, I'm not sure what my last post was in here, after the hacker attack.

I have recently read two general novels.

One was by Sue Monk Kidd, the author of Secret Lives of Bees, which was a wonderful novel set in the South during the Civil Rights Movement. Her new book is called The Mermaid Chair, and unfortunately, I hated it. A middle aged woman in a full blown midlife crisis is summoned back to the place of her birth, a remote barrier island off the South Carolina coast due to a family emergency. She then acts completely irresponsibly, leading to more, wider spread, and more serious family problems. It was an ugly, creepy book, and it is going into the library donation box!!!

Women of the Silk by Gail Tsukiyama was a good read. It was set in mainland China right about the time the Asian theater in WW2, and the Japanese invasion of China were about to happen (the war figures importantly into the story by the end of the book). A peasant faced with a drought/famine sends one of his young daughters to work in a silk factory in a nearby city. This way he has one less mouth to feed, and her labor sends money back to her family. As the girl grows up, she makes a new family for herself among the girls and women who work in the silk factory. A moving story of sisterhood and the loving friendship that can devleop between women. ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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Tam loves The Secret Lives of Bees and has turned Autumn and all her girl friends onto it... *****
Before, you are wise; after, you are wise. In between you are otherwise.
Fravashi saying (from the formularies of Osho the Fool) <i></i>

The Secret Life of Bees is a truly enjoyable book!!! That's probably part of why I was so disappointed and disgusted by The Mermaid Chair. It was really hard to believe that the same author who could produce a story as warm and as charming as The Secret Life of Bees wrote that mess of a book, too!!! ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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Tonight I started reading the latest novel by a marvelous writer named Susan Vreeland.

The first book I read by her was called Girl in Hyacinth Blue and it followed a painting by Dutch master Vermeer back through time and showing its impact on its owners through the generations. The story of the Dutch Jewish family who owned it during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands was particularly moving.

The second book was called The Passion of Artemesia, and told the story of a great (and little known) woman painter. But her story also tells how an artist's greatest passion can be for his or her art, and how an artist can be married to the creative drive rather than to another human...wonderful stuff.

Here is the Barnes & Noble review:
Quote:
In her luminous debut novel, Girl in Hyacinth Blue, Susan Vreeland told the story of a Vermeer painting that transformed the lives of its many owners with its beauty. Now, in her stunning new novel, she tells the story of a painter who transformed Renaissance Italy with the beauty of her work. The Passion of Artemisia chronicles the extraordinary life of Artemisia Gentileschi, the first woman to make a significant contribution to art history.

At age eighteen, Artemisia Gentileschi finds herself humiliated in papal court for publicly accusing the man who raped her -- Agostino Tassi, her painting teacher. When even her father does not stand up for her, she knows she cannot stay in Rome and begs to have a marriage arranged for her. Her new husband, an artist named Pietro Stiatessi, takes her to his native Florence, where her talent for painting blossoms and she becomes the first woman to be elected to the Accademia dell'Arte. But marriage clashes with Artemisia's newfound fame as a painter, and she begins a lifelong search to reconcile painting and motherhood, passion and genius.

Set against the glorious backdrops of Rome, Florence, and Genoa, peopled with historical characters such as Cosimo de' Medici and Galileo, and filled with the details of the life of a Renaissance painter, The Passion of Artemisia is the story of Gentileschi's struggle to find love, forgiveness, and wholeness through her art. At once a dramatic tale of love and a moving father-daughter story, it is the portrait of an astonishing woman that will captivate lovers of Gentileschi's paintings and anyone interested in the life of a woman who ignored the conventions of her day and dared to follow her heart.



I was very excited and happy to see a new Vreeland book at the store the other day. It is called The Forest Lover and tells the story of a great Canadian painter, Emily Carr, who breaks out of the strict Victorian life expected of her in early 20th century British Columbia, in order to befriend and paint the Native Americans whose traditions and way of life are either rapidly changing or vanishing altogether. I have only read the first few chapters, but it looks as if Vreeland has delivered once again.

She is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors. ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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Guess my posts about Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer, were lost. Wish I could remember what we said. "Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?"<i></i>

MsMary, was that the book that you were reading that some people thought was anti-Mormon? If it was, we were having an interesting talk about it.

Just finished reading a little book called The Final Season by Tom Stanton. He tells the story of the last season the Detroit Tigers played in Tiger Stadium. But the story is really about male bonding through the generations through love of sports, and time spent together at the stadium by grandfathers, fathers, uncles, and sons.

Quote:
If we have felt loved as children, we yearn as adults to give back to our parents. We try to repay them with time and attention for all the gifts they bestowed never expecting any in return. We yearn to show them that their investment paid off and to prove that the sacrifices were worthwhile. We aim to make up for the sleepless nights we caused while out late with friends speeding through subdivisions and sipping Boone's Farm wine. We aim to erase the little injustices we did, the times we doubted them, the times we chastised them for something as silly as jangling the coins in their pockets. ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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I recently read a novel by Deb Macomber, which was a bit mushy and girly, but quite enjoyable nontheless. Thursdays at Eight told the story of four women, unlikely aquantances, who recently met in a journal writing class at their local college. One woman is in her twenties (single, no children) and wants to be an actress. One woman is the middle aged mother of older teens, who has recently gone through a very nasty divorce. One woman is a middle aged mother of young teens, happily married, who has found herself very unexpectantly pregant (she took an antibiotic, which messed up her birth control pills). The fourth woman is a middle aged single (no children) high powered hospital administrator who finds herself attracted to a younger brilliant male doctor. The novel tells of a year where they meet for breakfast every Thursday morning after their class ends, strongly bond as friends, and help each other through their problems.

I started reading Haywood Smith's The Red Hat Club, but so far its not doing much for me. It seems thus far to be yet another retread of wronged-wives-make-horrible-revenge-on-soon-to-be-exes. I don't like stories like that. The best revenge in my eyes is to get going with your life and live the best life you can. Greater happiness without your tormentor is fantastic stuff. If someone has been evil to you, how does that give you the right to be evil back? Yuck. I'll give it a little longer, and if it doesn't get any better, into the library donation box it will go. <i></i>

It's been awhile since I've been in this thread. I never did finish that Red Hat book. I gues I'm just not into revenge fantasies.

I just finished reading through a stack of mystery books a friend gave me, so I decided to go with a classic I have never read before, Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. I've never really gotten into Dickens - the one book of his I really really enjoyed was A Tale of Two Cities -- but so far this one is great. I had forgotten how much Dickens like to play with words. It is actually quite fun reading his descriptions of Scrooge. I have seen the play and various movies many times, but the novella is a hoot so far. ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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I recently read The Virgin's Lover by Phillipa Gregory. It is the third book Gregory has set in the various Tudor courts of England. They have cross-over characters, but each can also be read as a stand alone story.

This one is not quite up to the standard of the two earlier stories, The Other Boleyn Girl and The Queen's Fool. The other two books, while set in the Tudor courts, and featuring well known historical figures, each had a main character little known to history. You did not know if the main character would be able to survive the danger and power politics of the courts and the power grabs by the Great Houses. Some of the dramatic tension is missing in this story, as it features three well known historical figures as the three main characters, and I knew what would happen to all three of them. That said, the only author I know who is able to so well describe the jockeying, backstabbing, and power plays of Great Houses and the Royal Family for wealth and power is George R. R. Martin in his fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire.

I am now rereading a great favorite novel of mine, Bad Girl Creek by JoAnn Mapson. It tells the story of a woman confined to a wheel chair who inherits a flower farm in California, and how she begins taking in women who cannot find homes because of their unusual pets. The women help her with the farm, the women and pets have homes, and strong bonds of love and friendship are formed. A truly heartwarming and lovely story! Danlo, if you happen to see this, I think Lady Tam would love this story. ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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I have followed up Mapson's Bad Girl Creek with its two sequels, Along Came Mary and Goodbye, Earl. I did not like either of the sequels as much as the original, but liked the third better then the second. The middle book introduced a new main character and elevated an extremely minor character from the first book as a second main character. And there was nothing enjoyable or likable about either of these characters to me. With the third book, the author focuses back on her original cast of characters, for a much better read. ******************************************************

Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
<i>Edited by: Duchess of Malfi at: 12/25/05 11:26 am
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