Books

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: “The Garden of Eden” by Ernest Hemingway

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It’s a rare day that I put down a book after the requisite 50 pages because I no longer want to keep reading. (I’ve done that with maybe a handful of books.)

It’s an even rarer day that I put down a book that I want to keep reading but that I mustn’t keep reading.

Yet this is what I have done with The Garden of Eden

This is the story of a young writer and his new bride, on their honeymoon in the French Riveria. It’s written with Hemingway’s typical terse prose. From the beginning, the interpersonal dynamics between the girl and the writer are fascinating–all the more fascinating by the way Hemingway tells his stories.

Unfortunately, the story starts off with quite a bit of sex (not surprising for a honeymooning couple–or for Hemingway)–and denigrates further as the story progresses.

First the girl cuts her hair like that of a boy.

Then she wants to be more experimental in the bedroom. (Given Hemingway’s somehow less-than-graphic prose in this segment I made it past this part.)

But when she starts taking on with a girl she meets–and when she practically orders her husband to sleep with the other girl–and when I realized that what was coming next was that she too would be sleeping with the other girl–

I knew I had to close the book.

Writing it out like this, so cold on my computer screen, it’s hard to believe that the story thus far was as engaging as it actually is.

It’s a perverted, immoral tale.

So why did I want to keep reading?

I wanted to keep reading because Hemingway truly is a master of his art, and he is tremendously masterful in this particular story.

The writer intrigued me and puzzled me. He very clearly had no desire to be involved in what his wife was drawing him into. He was uncomfortable with it from the first. Yet time after time, he accedes to her wishes. He tells her he likes her hair when he doesn’t. He cuts his hair in the same style as hers. He kisses the other girl.

Why?

Why does he continue this wicked little game?

I won’t ever know. I don’t need to know.

Yet I feel somewhat like Digory Kirke, standing by the bell and wanting so much to ring it.

Thankfully, the book was due back to the library the day I decided, so the temptation to read the rest will subside with the opportunity to do so less accessible–and I will not live to regret having rung a bell that could not be unrung.

This “review” is somewhat unusual among my reviews in not having a summary statement at the end. I feel it unnecessary to rate or provide a short synopsis of this title. On the other hand, I do feel it valuable to give my recommendation: don’t go near this particular bell. And if you find yourself hearing the warning of the Holy Spirit, as I did, over a book you’re reading–please put it down. The paradise this world offers is but a pale imitation, a twisted shadow, a tormented image of the Paradise God offers. Let the vision of the One cause you to turn your eyes from every deformed other.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak

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What is it about books that makes them so tantalizing?

What is it about them that begs to be picked up, to be enjoyed, to be READ?

I’m not quite sure what it is…but it is a powerful force.

It’s the force that made young Liesel Meminger perform her first act of thievery: picking up a book lying half hidden in the snow by her even younger brother’s grave.

What follows in The Book Thief is a masterful tale of the power of written words snatched from snowy seclusion, from a censor’s fire, from a kindly cruel neighbor’s library.

The illiterate Liesel is taught to read by her near-illiterate foster father. Liesel reads to the Jew her foster parents are hiding in their cellar. And both the Jew and Liesel write as death looks on.

For this story is set within Nazi Germany, while the Grim Reaper is busy across the whole of Europe.

The Book Thief is a fascinating story, not the least because it’s narrated by the Grim Reaper himself.

An excerpt from the beginning of the book:

“As I’ve been alluding to, my one saving grace is distraction. It keeps me sane. It helps me cope, considering the length of time I’ve been performing this job. The trouble is, who could ever replace me?….The answer, of course, is nobody, which has prompted me to make a conscious, deliberate decision–to make distraction my vacation. Needless to say, I vacation in increments. In colors.

Still, it’s possible that you might be asking, why does he even need a vacation? What does he need distraction from?

Which brings me to my next point.

It’s the leftover humans.

The survivors….

Which in turn brings me to the subject I am telling you about tonight, or today, or whatever the hour and color. It’s the story of one of those perpetual survivors–an expert at being left behind.

It’s just a small story really, about, among other things:

  • A girl
  • Some words
  • An accordianist
  • Some fanatical Germans
  • A Jewish fist fighter
  • And quite a lot of thievery

I saw the book thief three times.

The Reaper tells the story of all his dealing with Leisel–the Book Thief, as he calls her–from her first act of thievery to her last breath. Along the way, he tells a story of men and women and little girls and boys who risked much and gained much in silent resistance to the Reich.

I found it wonderful.

Rating: 5 stars
Category:Historical fiction
Synopsis:The Grim Reaper tells the tale of a young girl inside Nazi Germany who finds herself enamored with books–and willing to go to great lengths to obtain them.
Recommendation: I greatly enjoyed this book–although it took a bit to get accustomed to the Reaper’s unique style

Interesting note about this book–This was my first, and last, adult fiction book with last name “Z”. Just so happens, all the other books my library owns by authors with last names starting in Z are either sci-fi or mysteries–books I determined from the outset that I wouldn’t include in my personal challenge. So there you have it :-)

Categories Reading My Library

Incarnations of Beauty and the Beast

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By a strange flight of fancy, certain children’s picture books are categorized in my no-longer-so-local library by something other than the author’s last name.

Beauty and the Beast tales fall into that category.

Which means I read two renditions of Beauty and the Beast while reading the BEAs (instead of the BREs or the EILs, based on who was retelling the classic tale.)

I didn’t mind in the least.

Sometimes it’s nice to see a couple different retellings of a story side-by-side.

In Jan Brett’s retelling (also illustrated by herself), Beauty is waited on by a collection of exotic animals in the Beast’s house–monkeys, peacocks, and the more tame dogs. The Beast has a man’s legs and a boar’s upper body. He only appears at dinner, where he engages Beauty in thoughtful conversation before closing the evening with a question: “Beauty, will you marry me?”

Jan Brett's Beauty and the Beast

Brett’s illustrations are a delightful treat, especially since they foreshadow the exciting denouement. We see statues and friezes of the prince’s former life in the garden as the merchant contends with the furious beast. Once Beauty is ensconced within the castle, scene after scene includes decorative tapestries which display the scene playing out in “real time”–except with the animals as the people they once were and will again become. Often, these tapestries include little messages–“Do not trust to appearance” or “Courage, Beauty-Your Happiness is not far away.”

Brett’s retelling is relatively simple and follows the classic storyline quite closely (although the classic storyline might come as somewhat of a surprise to those whose only acquaintance with “Beauty” is through Disney!) All in all, I greatly enjoyed this particular retelling.

Max Eilenberg’s retelling, illustrated by Angela Barrett, takes on a different tone.

For one thing, both the writing and the illustrations draw to mind the Victorian age, with delicious gowns for the girls and tails and top hats for the men.

Max Eilenberg and Angela Barrett's Beauty and the Beast

For another, unlike in Brett’s retelling, where the characters retain their types, being merely “Beauty” or “the merchant” or “the Beast” or “Beauty’s sisters”, Eilenberg’s retelling gives each character character beyond type. The merchant becomes “Ernest Jeremiah Augustus Fortune, Esquire, Merchant”. The sisters become “Gertrude” and “Hermione”, who are crazy about jewels and fashion respectively. Beauty and the Beast, on the other hand, maintain their typical names–although they’re given some roundness of character.

Beauty becomes a romantic, a dreamer who longs to marry for love–and who thinks nothing would be better than to marry a prince for love. Nevertheless, she keeps her romantic dreams to herself, choosing to seek her family’s best rather than her own. When her father’s fortunes appear to have taken a turn for the better and Mr. Fortune asks his daughters what they’d like him to bring back for them from his trip to the sea to recover his lost ship, Beauty wants to ask for a Prince–her true heart’s desire. But since she knows it isn’t within her father’s power to bring her back such a thing, she asks instead for something she believes will cost him little–just a rose.

Of course, she doesn’t know how costly the rose will be to her father–and to herself. And she doesn’t know that, in asking for the rose, she will be acquiring for herself a prince. But such is the charm of this story. For in being selfless, Beauty indeed obtained her heart’s desire.

The Beast, too, takes on a human quality. He is terrible in his hairy, fanged, and clawed beastliness; but even more so in his fury at what has become of him.

“Do not call me ‘lord’!” roared the creature. “Do not try to flatter me with pretty words. I do not like it. We should say what we mean and be what we are. I am a beast. My name is Beast. You will call me Beast. Beast by nature, Beast by name. Beast! Beast! Beast!.”

He is terrible and beautiful when he acquiesces to Beauty’s request that he no longer ask her to marry him again.

The Beast was silent for a time, his head bowed. “I would not hurt you for any price,” he said at last. “Forgive me.” He raised his eyes to Beauty, and for a moment she feared that she had wounded him beyond repair, so broken and hopeless did he seem. But then he seemed to find courage and somehow she knew what he would say even before he spoke. “I will not ask you again–I promise…I ask only one thing: if you are happy to be my friend, please promise that you will never leave me alone.”

And he is just plain beautiful once Beauty’s love has turned him into a prince again.

“Now you see me as I really am,” he said. “Your love has saved me from a terrible spell. I was turned into a beast, and only a heart who loved me for my self could set me free.”

I enjoyed this retelling immensely–partly for the beauty of the retelling, partly for the loveliness of the illustrations, and partly for my own identification with Beauty’s dreams and with the Beast’s dreadful pain.

I highly recommend either tale.

Reading My LibraryFor more comments on children’s books, see the rest of my Reading My Library posts or check out Carrie’s blog Reading My Library, which chronicles her and her children’s trip through the children’s section of their local library.


Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: “The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society” by Beth Pattillo

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I’ve maligned Beth Pattillo’s authorly name often enough (see here and here) that you probably think I’ve got a personal vendetta against her.

True, I wrote a much-better-but-still-lukewarmish-mini-review of Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart–but you’d still get the overall impression that I’m not a Pattillo fan.

The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society might have forced me to revise my opinion. I might just have to say that Pattillo is a good author so long as she gives Christianity a wide berth.

Knit Lit tells the story of a unique book club in small town Tennessee–a book club that knits a project for every book they read.

The group couldn’t be more diverse: a spinster librarian, an upper middle class housewife, a fashion forward young thing stuck in a small town dressmaker’s shop while caring for her dying mother, a not-exactly-hip-but-eco-friendly church secretary, and the ridiculously rich queen bee of the town. Nevertheless, they manage to maintain a relatively peaceful co-existence until the librarian finds a teenage girl defacing a library book and decides to make her “punishment” include attending the Sweetgum Knit Lit Society.

The introduction of Hannah, the deliquent-wannabe daughter of the last-generation’s white-trash sleep-around, to the society causes the other womens’ well-established facades to come crashing down.

Merry, the middle-upper-class housewife, learns that all is not perfect in her little suburban paradise when taking Hannah under her wing sparks conflict with her own daughter–and when her husband starts with withdraw more and more from family relationships.

Camille, the fashion forward young thing stuck in a small town dressmaker’s shop while caring for her dying mother, ends up employing the young Hannah–and when Hannah learns about the affair she’s having with a married man, Camille has to come to grips with the reality of what she’s doing.

Ruthie (the not-exactly-hip-but-eco-friendly church secretary) and Esther (the ridiculously rich queen bee of the town) have to somehow make peace from their decades-long sibling rivalry complicated by the fact that they both love (or perhaps just want) the same man.

And Eugenie (the spinster librarian) suddenly comes face to face with the future she ran from so long ago in her past–the future embodied in the no-longer-young, now-widowed pastor she refused years ago.

All in all, The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society is a wonderful story and a great piece of women’s interest fiction. The only downside was knowing that Pattillo is a pastor and still seems to have no grasp on how relationship with Christ actually impacts life. You won’t find grand themes of reconciliation, redemption, or righteousness in this book. This is a novel of the world, describing it well, but offering it no lasting hope.

Rating: 4 stars
Category:Women’s fiction
Synopsis:A women’s book club finds themselves in sudden tailspin with the introduction of a young wanna-be delinquent into their midst.
Recommendation: This was a good book in the genre of women’s fiction (that is, the book club/sewing circle/knitting club/country club sorta fiction for women). If you enjoy the genre, you’ll enjoy this book.

Categories B3RD, Book Reviews

Book Review: “The Biggest Loser” by The Biggest Losers with Maggie Greenwood-Robinson

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Did I ever tell you about the week I went on a diet?

No, of course I didn’t.

I had to quit because I lost weight.

Yes, that’s right. I’m sorry. I wanted to see how the rest of the world, the diet-following world, lives–but I had to cut the experiment short because I managed to achieve what many of them only dream of: weight loss.

Which, for me, is not really a good thing. I’m about as low as I’m comfortable going.

But I did want to review The Biggest Loser, the book written after the first two seasons of the successful TV reality show by the same name. And I wanted to do more than just give comments on the theory. I wanted to have some useful comments on the practice.

So here you go…

The Diet:

The Biggest Loser weight loss plan as propounded within this book isn’t bad. The nutrition component proposes an alternate pyramid–4 (or more) servings of fruits and vegetables, 3 (only 3) servings of low-fat protein foods, 2 (only 2) servings whole grains, and 1 (200 Calorie) serving of “Extra”. This would be significantly less than ideal from a nutrition standpoint if the servings were standard servings such as are found on myPyramid or even in diabetic exchanges. There’d be far too little grain. But it just so happens that The Biggest Loser considers 1 serving of grain to be 1 cup of cooked grain or two slices of bread (twice the size of a standard myPyramid ounce.) As a result, the diet isn’t too off balance.

It’s relatively simple and it’s low calorie without being too low calorie.

The problem? It’s really hard to cook like this. There are recipes in the back of the book–and a few of them look good–but you’d have to be pretty creative to keep this diet from getting dreary. For my part, since I work all day and often have extra activities at night, I don’t have time to be in the kitchen all day–and the “grab and go” or “quick prep” options get old quickly. I can only eat so many smoothies or cottage cheese with vegetables or baked/grilled chicken breasts. I need me some OIL, some real FAT.

I was hungry all the time. It stunk.

But I did lose weight. So it does work.

Other than the 4-3-2-1 plan, the chapter on nutrition had plenty of information, about half of which was correct. It gave tips on label reading (generally a good idea), suggestions for including more fruits and vegetables (some decent advice, some ridiculous like “potatoes make you hungry”), what to drink (suggested that you can burn extra calories by drinking your water cold–sorry folks, but ice cold water does not a diet make.) While following the recommendations found within the chapter on nutrition won’t hurt you, quite a bit of it is unnecessary or based on tenuous (at best) science.

The Exercise:

The exercise component of The Biggest Loser varies depending on an individual’s starting fitness level, but includes cardio workouts and circuit training (cardiac speed resistance/stretching).

I’m not a fitness expert, but the recommendations for exercise seem fairly consistent with the recommendations of organizations such as the American College of Sports Medicine (as well as MyPyramid)–increasing activity to 60 minutes of moderate to high intensity aerobic activity on most days of the week.

The Rest:

While the diet and the exercise sections of this book weren’t awful, they weren’t anything extraordinary (or anything extraordinarily accurate) either. What might really make this book useful is the collection of strategies found in chapters two and five.

Chapter 2 helps the reader explore his motivations for weight loss and gives some tips for getting organized for weight loss. Two of the organizational tips are very useful: Buy a food scale or use measuring cups and spoons to measure out your food and keep a food journal. The ideas for motivation are also useful. However, the chapter could easily encourage people to think that weight loss is somehow a panacea that will make their life all better. It’s not. And sometimes, one needs to make some basic quality of life/self respect changes in order to make weight loss happen (as opposed to the other way around).

Chapter 5 has participants from the first two seasons of the television show sharing some of their own strategies for weight loss. This, I think, is probably the best part of the book. A lot of weight loss (or healthy eating in general) is about finding what works for you, with your lifestyle. The more ideas you hear, the more likely you are to find something that will work for you.

The final chapter gives instructions for starting a Biggest Loser challenge of your own with friends or in your workplace.

Eh, if you’re interested in that sort of thing.

For my part, I prefer to look at better indicators of overall health rather than simply at numbers on a scale.

But if you’re interested in weight loss or interested in the Biggest Loser show, you could do worse than following the recommendations found in this book.

Rating: 2.5 stars
Category:Weight Loss
Synopsis:The Biggest Loser coaches and participants from seasons 1 and 2 of the show give a basic diet and exercise program as well as tips for weight loss.
Recommendation: This plan won’t kill you. It’ll probably help you lose weight (if you can manage to stick to it). But it’s not for everyone–and likely very difficult to fit within a “normal” (that is, ridiculously busy) life.

Categories What's on Your Nightstand?

Nightstand (April 2011)

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Last month, I had just been to the library and my nightstand was full:

Books on my nightstand

The books were flying off the nightstand this month–so fast that I replenished my supply halfway through!

This month, I read:

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary Pearson
A terrific dystopian novel that touches on bioethics, personhood, genetic engineering, helicopter parenting, and more–but does it in a non-propagandist, non-pedantic way. Imagine that! (Read my full review.

Another Homecoming by Janette Oke and T. Davis Bunn
When Martha’s husband of less than a year is missing in action, she’s not sure what she should do. One thing is for sure-she knows she wants better than she can give for the daughter growing in her womb. So she gives her baby up for adoption. Then her husband returns, a broken man–and their family is a broken family, grieving for the lost child even as a new child arrives. A lovely little story about a family split by war, later to be brought together by God’s grace.

Batman: No Man’s Land
I’ve always kinda assumed that comic books aren’t really my thing–and after reading this, I have decided that my assumption was correct. The format is lost on someone like me who cares only for words and little for illustrations.

The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
More Wooster and Jeeves hilarity. These follow a typical formula, but manage to be funny regardless.

A Family-Style Christmas by Carolyne Aarsen
A “Love Inspired” novel in the typical “Love Inspired” fashion. Twaddle. Short on plot, characterization, and pretty much everything. But that’s the “Aa’s” in the adult fiction section of my library.

An Honorable German by Charles McCain
This story centers around a youngish Max Brekendorf, a German Naval officer who finds himself embroiled in Germany’s war–what would become World War II. Seeing World War II from the perspective of an “honorable German”–a German warrior who wasn’t a Nazi–was interesting. The story itself? Meh. Nothing spectacular, but not bad. Some gratuitous sex, lots of descriptions of life on board a U-boat. A so-so book altogether.

Kristallnacht by Martin Gilbert
A stunning look at the night that began the Holocaust–from the personal viewpoints of dozens of heretofore unpublished eyewitnesses. This is a great book that clearly shows the widespread devastation of “the night of the broken glass”.

Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart by Beth Pattillo
This novel tried (unsuccessfully) to be profound–but succeeded wonderfully in greatly surpassing Pattillo’s “Betsy Blessing” series (see here.) I enjoyed this novel–and it’s induced me to give Pattillo a second chance after those two awful “Betsy” books.

The Obama Diaries by Laura Ingraham
It’s true. I enjoy reading conservative rants. Most are entertaining but few have lasting power. I enjoyed this specific conservative rant. But with money tight and opportunities to spend it plentiful, I’ll keep borrowing these from the library (but not even consider spending money on them.)

The Third Reich by David Williamson
Another children’s nonfiction title–this time a not-so-great children’s nonfiction title. Even with all my prior reading on the topic, it was hard for me to follow this title. It used quite a few names, places, and unique terms without bothering to identify or define them. So, if you didn’t already know what the SA and the SS and Lebensraum and Kristallnacht and the Treaty of Versailles were, you would be completely lost.

What? What? What? by Lyn Thomas
Subtitled “Astounding Weird, Wonderful, and Just Plain Unbelievable Facts.” Interesting, but not as jam-packed or information-full as one of the Dorling-Kindersley books I’ve read previously. I don’t think I’d be buying this one for my reference library.

The Wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum
It was filed in with the children’s picture books–and since I was reading the “BAU”‘s, I read it. Then I got to the end and realized it had been misfiled. This illustrated edition of The Wizard belonged in the general old juvenile fiction section. Oh well.

Also read, but not (yet) reviewed (even in short):

  • The Amusement Park Mystery created by Gertrude Chandler Warner
  • The Book Thief by Markeus Zusak
  • Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Stolen Diamonds and Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the UFO by David A. Adler
  • The Complete Worst Case Scenario Handbook: Man Skills
  • Mike’s Mystery by Marcie Aboff
  • The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
  • The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society by Beth Pattillo
  • Your Teeth by somebody whose name I’ve forgotten
  • Children’s picture books author name BAUER-BECCIA

Having read all that I read this month (and with the extra additions along the way, I still have a bit left on my shelf for next month:

Bookshelf this month

Don’t forget to drop by 5 Minutes 4 Books to see what others are reading this month!

What's on Your Nightstand?

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: “The Adoration of Jenna Fox” by Mary E. Pearson

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What does it mean to be human?

What makes me myself?

Is it the endless combinations of A T G and C that make up my DNA?

Is it the way my environment has shaped my genetic material such that I am expressed as a specific phenotype?

Or perhaps it is my memories that make me myself. Perhaps it is the collection of information and experience stored somewhere within my brain that makes me myself.

Then again, maybe it is some ethereal thing, something beyond my physical makeup, such that even if my physical being were to be completely annihilated, I would still be–and be complete.

Jenna Fox wakes up after a year-long coma to find that she’s not quite sure who she is.

She’s walking around in an unfamiliar body, remembering unfamiliar ideas.

She’s living in an unfamiliar world, watching videos of an unfamiliar her living an unfamiliar life.

She’s just starting to get comfortable in her own skin, just starting to remember herself, her life, her family…

when the truth smacks her in the face and she finds herself at square one again.

Who is she? What makes her herself? Is she herself? Or is she merely a product of her parent’ unceasing adoration?

The Adoration of Jenna Fox was my first ever dystopian novel–and oh what a first!

Set only a hundred or so years from now, The Adoration of Jenna Fox sees the world continuing on its current trend of helicopter parenting and biomedical advances–with disastrous results.

Adoration is a meaty novel, full of thought-provoking ideas about personhood (as mentioned above) as well as about ethics in medicine, genetic engineering, and beyond.

Nevertheless, this is by no means a novel intended as a text book. The Adoration of Jenna Fox is an engaging story in and of itself–and one that begs to be read, even if one would rather not think about the issues it raises.

Yet force you to think about the issues it does. This is no propaganda piece, intended to convince the reader to one side of a spectrum or another. Instead, it is does exactly what a good book ought–it forces the reader to think through sides of an issue he might not have thought about before, challenging his ideas regardless of which “side” he might have originally found himself on.

(For the record, I’m a conservative, evangelical Christian who believes that humans are created in the image of God and have intrinsic worth as such. I’m also the sister of a student of biomechanical engineering who is doing his graduate research with adult stem cells and who is always sharing fun stuff about manufactured skin and transplanted blood clots. And I found plenty to make me think in this book–things I agreed with and things I didn’t.)

This is a novel I highly recommend.

Rating: 5 stars
Category:Young Adult Dystopian Fiction
Synopsis:Jenna Fox seeks to discover who she is after a year-long coma leaves her in the dark–and discovers that who she is is scary.
Recommendation: Absolutely read this one! (Parents might want to read through it first before passing it on to their children–I’m not sure exactly what age group this’d be appropriate for, but I’m thinking probably older rather than younger. Like seventeen, eighteen year old kind of older. At least, that’s what I’m guessing. Not that the content is necessarily inappropriate–there’s a bit of girl/boy stuff but much less and less explicit than the usual YA fare; and a bit of violence I think–but I think the concepts and ethical questions would be much for a younger teen to think through.)

I originally added this book to my TBR list based on reviews from Diary of an Eccentric and Jennifer of 5M4B

Categories What's on Your Nightstand?

Nightstand (March 2011)

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The oddest part of my new library routine is the experience of finding myself “booked out” by the end of my library visit.

The children’s picture books are easy–just grab the next 50. The rest, not so easy. I select my five fiction, my five nonfiction, my three juvenile nonfiction, my three juvenile fiction. I’ve followed all my rules in selecting–2 Christian fiction, 2 secular fiction, 1 literary fiction, 1 biography, 1 craft book, 1 theology/Christian living, etc…

And then I get to my nine “my picks”. And find myself getting “booked out.”

By the last couple, I’m forcing myself to keep looking, even though I’m feeling like book overload.

The nice thing, however, is that I haven’t yet gotten “booked out” in the six weeks between trips to the library. My new system seems to be giving me just the right mix of fiction and nonfiction, stretching and fluff, structure and freedom to keep me engaged for the full six weeks.

Viva la system!

Books on my nightstand

This month, I made it through:

Across the River and Into the Trees by Ernest Hemingway
It took me twelve weeks of slogging to figure out that I was never going to figure out the pull of Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. Now, having demolished Across the River and Into the Trees I’m stuck trying to figure out why I absolutely love some Hemingway–and absolutely hate others. This particular piece, about an old colonel and his young Italian lover, kept my nose sandwiched in a book even when the weather outside was lovely (and should have been pulling out there.) Maybe because this one mentioned World War II? But I don’t think that was it. Or maybe it’s the “old man” aspect–I certainly liked Old Man and the Sea. Or perhaps it was the love story–like the reason I enjoyed For Whom the Bell Tolls. I’m not sure. But this one was a good one in my book (although it does have a fair bit of Hemingway’s own unique brand of er.otica, caveat emptor.)

The Amusement Park Mystery created by Gertrude Chandler Warner
My opinion of the “created by” books remains unchanged.

The Confessions by St. Augustine
Good book. Difficult to get through. Definitely God-honoring. Definitely though-provoking. A few of my thoughts can be found here (The Blessed Life), here (A Poor Counterfeit), and here (The Bridge across the Chasm)

Earth to Betsy by Beth Pattillo
The sequel to Heavens to Betsy (which I most decidedly did NOT like), this book is more of the same. If you want to read a story about a female pastor who seems to never think of God except to make puns using liturgical terms, this is the book for you. I only read it because I’m reading every book in my library (and eager to close this author out before she writes another book about Betsy Blessing.)

The Factastic Book of 1001 Lists by Russell Ash
Another Dorling-Kindersley book that I enjoy WAY too much. Facts on everything from art to science to food to geography to… you name it. This one wasn’t as evolution-focused as Ask Me Anything–so I’m inclined to recommend this one as a great general trivia book.

The Guernsey Literary and Sweet Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
It’s been on my TBR list forever, because it seemed like a while back the whole blog-o-sphere was raving about it. Unfortunately, I never took down the links to the many reviews that convinced me to read this book. I say this with true regret because I am truly thankful for having read this book. A novel written entirely in letters, this is a sweet story of how a youngish female writer from London meets a group of people who had survived the Nazi occupation of Guernsey (island). She first meets them via a letter from a man who had purchased a book secondhand–a book that used to belong to her. By the end of the novel, her whole life is taken up in that of the Guernsey Literary and Sweet Potato Peel Pie Society. This was a marvelous book.

The Liturgical Year by Joan Chittister and Phyllis Tickle
I realized after writing my review that I’d promised Thomas Nelson I’d read the entire book. I forced myself to do so. My opinion is the same. I didn’t really like this book. At all. Click the link to find out why.

Norah’s Ark by Judy Baer
Christian chick-lit, borrowed from my little sister, who borrowed it from the library. Amusing, but I begin to tire of the woman-being-chased-by-three-men plot–and the “waiting for bells” line too. (I fear I am becoming a bitter single, Lord help me!)

Paris Encore and Dunkirk Crescendo by Bodie Thoene
Yes, I know, you’ve already heard me rave about these books a bazillion times. But I wrote a little piece about this series–or about what this series has done for me. I called the piece In Praise of Historical Fiction

The Shallows by Nicholas Carr
Like every book blogger out there, I loved this book. But since every book blogger out there (or at least Lisa of Lisa Notes, Janet of Across the Page, and Tim Challies of Challies.com-who made it one of his top books of 2010) has already reviewed it, I won’t be reviewing it here. I did, however, write a few reflections on what I read: “Outsourcing Humanity”.

The Nazis by William W. Lace
The Rise of the Nazis by Charles Freeman
Hitler Youth by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
I’m on a World War II kick, surprise, surprise–see above under Paris Encore–and I wrote up a joint review of all three of these juvenile history books.

Winston Churchill by John Keegan
At 192 pages, this was a nice, quick, easy-to-read intro to Churchill’s life. It’s whetted my appetite for more–I imagine I could spend the rest of my life reading about this man and still not exhaust what there is to know about him. He seems a very…LARGE man.

Children’s Picture Books author name BASE-BAUER

  • Books by Graeme Base: Picture books with riddles hidden in every layout. In one book, readers are encouraged to find a dozen animals hidden in each layout. In another, there’s a who-dun-it crime that readers can solve by decoding a variety of simple ciphers found in the borders of each layout. It takes a while to read these because you spend so much time on each page–but they’re pretty neat. These are for slightly older readers. Probably third or fourth grade?
  • Books by Teresa Bateman: Whimsical Irish folktales starring leprechauns, lyrists, and liars or hilarious little farm tales hosting silly children and equally silly animals. I enjoyed reading these books quite a deal.
  • The Princess and The White Bear King by Tanya Robyn Batt: A retelling of the ancient Norse fairy tales “East of the Sun, West of the Moon”, “The Black Bull of Norway”, and “The White Bear King.” I was delighted with this story and its illustrations–and when I got to the end of the book, I found that it was published by none other than Barefoot Books (a publisher Carrie raves about, but who I hadn’t encountered until this book.) Perhaps Carrie’s right–I’m definitely impressed with my first taste of Barefoot Books.
  • Papa’s Mark by Gwendolyn Battle-Lavert: I enjoyed this story about an African American man who learned to write his name so that he could write his own name when he voted (just after the Civil War.)

‘Twas a good reading month–and now my library crates stand empty, ready to be refilled with books to be returned once I’m done reading them. This six-week’s haul is pretty exciting–I can’t wait to dig into them!

My crates waiting for books

Don’t forget to drop by 5 Minutes 4 Books to see what others are reading this month!

What's on Your Nightstand?

Categories Book Notes, The Week in Words

WiW: Breathing Room/Living Space

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The Week in Words

While reading John Keegan’s Penguin Lives biography of Winston Churchill (unsurprisingly titled Winston Churchill), I found the following quote by Churchill, describing his vision for the world:

“The cause of the poor and the weak all over the world will [be] sustained; and everywhere small peoples will get more room to breathe; and everywhere great empires will be encouraged by our example to step forward into the sunshine of a more gentle and more generous age.”

Churchill said this in 1910 or so, four years before the world would be drawn into a Great War.

At the same time, German thinkers and political theorists were developing their theory of Lebensraum or “Living Space” which Hitler would take as a main Nazi party doctrine.

Hitler writes of the principle of Lebensraum in Mein Kampf:

“Without consideration of traditions and prejudices, Germany must find the courage to gather our people and their strength for an advance along the road that will lead this people from its present restricted living space to new land and soil, and hence also free it from the danger of vanishing from the earth or of serving others as a slave nation.

The National Socialist Movement must strive to eliminate the disproportion between our population and our area—viewing this latter as a source of food as well as a basis for power politics—between our historical past and the hopelessness of our present impotence.”
~Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf found in the Wikipedia article on Lebensraum

Living space, Hitler declares. Give us living space.

Breathing room, Churchill proclaims. Give them breathing room.

I couldn’t help but be struck by the similarities between the two phrases.

“Living space”

“Breathing room”

The same sort of vision.

One led to the destruction of over six thousand Jews and many thousand more minorities (whether political, ethnic, religious, or social).

The other led to the liberation of Western Europe from encroaching totalitarian regimes.

Similar dreams, completely at odds with one another.

The two men would be pitted against one another in the largest war the world has seen yet.

Hitler would fight for his Lebensraum, bowling over nation after nation in Europe.

Churchill would stand, for the most part alone, to regain “breathing room” for the many marginalized peoples of Europe.

What is the difference between the two?

While Hitler argues for the benefit of himself and his people, those he has considered to be the “master race”, Churchill argues on behalf of the poor, the weak, the “small peoples”.

The same goal, but two separate targets.

Fight for my rights, for my people, for my way of life?

Or fight for others?

Not to say that Churchill was not interested in Britain’s rights or people or way of life. In fact, he was, rather oddly, a British imperialist–and certainly interested in Britain’s interests.

But he was nevertheless conscious of the rights and desires of the downtrodden, the oppressed, the “small peoples”–and it was this that made his “breathing room” so different than Hitler’s Lebensraum.

Don’t forget to take a look at Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”, where bloggers collect quotes they’ve read throughout the week.

Categories Books

Nazi History: Some Cliff’s Notes

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Some people figure that the internet makes books obsolete.

Why buy a book, why spend money and space on a paper copy of something when you can find it all online anyway?

Encyclopedias, once the hallmark of a well-educated home, have all but disappeared as wikipedia and online subscription “encyclopedias” rush to take their place.

For my part, I won’t be throwing away my books any time soon.

‘Cause while the internet is great for looking stuff up quickly or following rabbit trails endlessly, books are still best for immersing yourself in a topic.

Like when Bodie Thoene’s Zion Covenant series turned me into a fan of history.

I suddenly wanted to learn everything I could about World War II and the events leading up to it.

That’s a rather vague topic for the internet to handle.

Instead, I turned to my (not-so-local-anymore) library.

As per my M.O., I headed to the children’s section first for my Cliff’s Notes.

What I found was three excellent resources for immersing myself in World War II (particularly in the events leading up to World War II): The Rise of the Nazis by Charles Freeman, The Nazis by William W. Lace, and Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler’s Shadow by Susan Campbell Bartoletti.

Nazi History books

The Rise of the Nazis begins its coverage with the opening of a new session of the Reichstag, this time with Adolf Hitler as the chancellor of Germany. Having described the crux of German history as it relates to the Nazi party, Freeman moves back in time to the events that led up to that fateful moment: the Versailles treaty and it’s crippling demands on Germany, Hitler’s educational and military background, the early life of the German Socialist Worker’s Party that would become the Nazis, Hitler’s entrance to the party and rapid domination of its politics, the failed coup staged by the Nazis, and the imprisonment during which Hitler wrote his Mein Kampf.

By the last chapter, Freeman is ready to move past the opening scene. He quickly describes how Hitler, once appointed as chancellor, took over the presidency and ultimately, the country.

This story ends, as promised, just as the Nazi party reaches its political pinnacle: at the declaration of Adolf Hitler as Germany’s Fuhrer (supreme leader).

William W. Lace’s The Nazis covers this same material, but with a different emphasis. While The Rise of the Nazis focuses on how the party and Hitler came into power, The Nazis (a book in the Holocaust Library) focuses on the Nazis’ attitude towards the Jews and how the Nazi takeover of Germany affected the Jews.

The events leading up to Hitler’s takeover of the German government take up about two-thirds of the book, while the final third rushes quickly through the high (or perhaps low?) points of the War in Europe, how the war ended, and what the results of the Nuremberg trials were.

Unlike The Rise of the Nazis, which is simply an informative book, The Nazis introduces a question for the reader: What were the moral or spiritual causes that allowed Nazism’s blatant evil to run rampant in Germany–and how can such an evil never be allowed to rise again?

In this sense, The Nazis is an ideological story. Every event is told in such a way as to inspire horror and repugnance in the eyes of the reader. (Not that one should not be horrified by the acts of the Nazi party…) The goal of this book is to impress upon its readers the necessity of never again allowing evil to reign as it did in Nazi Germany. (Which isn’t a bad goal, but it’s a goal beyond just information nevertheless.)

Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler’s Shadow takes a completely different approach to the Nazis than the previous two books.

While The Rise of the Nazis informs the reader and The Nazis convinces the reader, Hitler Youth enjoins the reader to empathize–this time not with the Jews against whom the Nazis rage was focused, but with the children who joined the Nazi party, the children who couldn’t join because they were racially “unfit”, the children who spoke out against the Nazi party.

Hitler Youth describes the incredible pull of the scout-like community the Hitler Youth movement created, the heady sense of power its organization imparted to youth, the voluntary-and-then-compulsory character of participation.

Telling the true stories of specific, individual children–Germans, Jews, girls, boys, loyal Nazis, and subversive anti-propagandists–Hitler Youth describes the double tragedy of Hitler’s methods.

In raising up a children’s army, he destroyed both the children that he lured through adventure and false loyalty and the rest of the world through those children.

This was an intensely moving book.

All in all, I am glad to have had a look at the Nazi party through the very different viewpoints of each of these books.

Certainly, there is still much that I do not know (especially since these barely glanced on the war itself–or the Holocaust “proper”)–but I feel that these three books gave me a good introduction to some of the historical and moral dilemmas that surround World War II.

I’m heading back to my library on Saturday, and I’m ready for the big guns now. It’s time to start looking for adult histories.

Sorry internet, you’re just not cutting it for this newly-minted history lover.