Ursula Le Guin's Gifts

I first met Ursula Le Guin when I was in middle school. I had just finished Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, and I was wallowing in a post-read depression. My brother, ever intuitive to my reading nuances, introduced me to Le Guin’s Earthsea Trilogy. Set in the mythical world of Earthsea, the trilogy tracks the life of the young wizard, Ged, from adolescence, through middle-age, and completes the cycle in Ged’s wizened golden years. I fell in love once again and found a balm for my Tolkien-tried heart. (Of course, I would re-read Tolkien’s trilogy AND the Silmarillion two more times after this. That is the beauty of making friends with books - you can revisit them again and again and again...)

So it was with much enthusiasm and anticipation that I picked up a “new to me” Le Guin work, Gifts. While supposedly a mythical setting as well, the tale was clearly reminiscent of the Scottish highlands complete with clans, keeps, and kilts. These highlander clans all possessed unique “gifts” such as calling animals, unmaking, and crippling -- gifts they used to protect their clans and support their keep. Until two young people started to question why the gifts were used defensively when so much good could be accomplished if used for the betterment of all the clans. Thus the focus of the book is on the two young protagonists -- Orrec and Gry -- and their private rebellion against their clan by refusing to use their gifts.

It was an intriguing read as I once again fell in love with Le Guin’s writing. And I have since discovered that it is the first in a series called The Annals of the Western Shore. So now, of course, I simply MUST read on to book two - Voices.

As much as I delighted in my reacquaintance with Ursula, I must be truthful when I say Gifts comes no where near the magnitude of her Earthsea Trilogy. Of course, this could be a matter of perspective when we take into consideration I first read the Trilogy on the heels of Tolkien. Perhaps I should reserve judgment until after I complete an adult reading of the Earthsea series. And of course I will keep you updated on the Western Shore series as soon as I finish Voices.

Where have I been?

Okay - some of you have asked me on my Facebook wall whether I am still pushing forward with my goal of 52 in 52. And my answer to you is "YES!" But here is a little run down of what has been going on the last few weeks.

First - I was ahead of the game while I was down in NC with Steve reading two books in one week. But when I arrived home, I contracted shingles, and my doctor put me on prednisone. Holy Smokes! You will not believe what I accomplished in just one short week from that steroid high. Let me suffice to say that there is not one file drawer, kitchen drawer, closet in my house that is not purged, color coded, and organized. Needless to say, my wild frenzy did not allow my body enough down time to sit and read. Hence -- I fell behind schedule.

Subsequent weeks, I continued to compile all our tax information for our CPA which took precedence over blogging. However, after I came down off the prednisone, I did continue to read. Unfortunately, the previous frenzy affected my hardwiring a bit, and I resorted to my old ways of reading five plus books at the same time.

As an overview, I have been reading the following: The Primal Teen (neuroscience's PROOF that teenagers are crazy), Critical Condition (do NOT read if you already have high blood pressure -- it is an investigative piece about the state of our health care system), The Happiness Project (totally delightful and a perfect foible to Critical Condition), The Butterfly and The Diving Bell (autobiography by a French man that spent a year in lock down syndrome following a stroke), Gifts (Ursula Le Guin's latest fantasy novel for young adults), Julie and Julia (book the movie is based on).

Okay - so that was six books! I did finish Gifts yesterday and will post a review soon. My plan is to finish all these "almost finished" books, and then get back to my "one book at a time" resolution. I should finish many of these "half reads" this week which will put me back on track once again.

Looking forward to the interactive nature of this blog.

Week Six - Book Six: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

This book was my suggestion for my book club. It was met with mixed reviews anywhere from "I LOVED it!" to "It was so depressing." While I did LOVE it, I can easily see why others would find it a real downer.

Once again, I was delighted by the style and layout of the book. Each chapter was a short story in itself from the perspective a various residents of the Maine town in which Olive Kitteridge lives. As you read each chapter and become engrossed in that person's life, POP! all of a sudden, Olive Kitteridge appears on the scene. The reader learns to love and hate (and everything in between) Olive from the various glimpses one gets of her as she connects with each individual life. It is a very unique writing style that reminds me of several movies and television dramas that also depart from the classical linear story telling structure. Movies such as Crash and Babel and mini series such as Lost. Just when one begins to wonder what this person's story has to do with the main character of the book, Olive appears. Some times she interacts with the character. Other times, she does not but is only observed and critiqued.

There are specific chapters that are purely Olive's perspective, and it is delightful to get inside this woman's life and thoughts as you see the other characters through her eyes. The author has done a wonderful job reenforcing the fact that in real life, there are no stock "black hat/white hat" people. People are people, and one must learn to accept the whole person - warts and all.

Week Four - Book Five: The Personal Efficiency Program (2nd edition) by Kerry Gleeson

Apparently, there is a 4th edition of this book now. The one I read was published in 2000, so it was a bit outdated regarding technological advancements. But still -- no matter. It was a jump start for me to grab control of my “spiralling out of control” business tasks.

I found this book on the shelf of the house I was staying in with Steve this week in Winston-Salem, so I was motivated to finish it before we returned home again. I was unprepared for my reaction to its simple mantra of “Do It Now!” I started compiling focus sheets and project plans which pushed me on to tackle the annually daunting task of compiling all our tax related receipts and records for our accountant.

I don’t know if this book is all that compelling, or if it just hit me at the right time (January is the month to organize, right?). But it gave me the tools to jump start what has lived latent in my brain for the past year. From there, I subscribed to the Home Office Organizer podcast (in iTunes) and joined the No Guilt Big Goals 30 Day Challenge (just google it) all in an effort to get my life back on the right track of order and efficiency.

So my projects? Get my taxes stuff to my accountant by the middle of February and get my home office organized by the end of February. There! I posted it so now I have to do it, right?

Somewhere in there is the goal of finishing my book. (Don’t ask me which one -- I’ve started writing several.)

Week Four - Book Four: The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande

Steve picked this book up the last time we went to B&N for “coffee.” Dr. Gawande is a general surgeon, and so many of his anectdotes are medical and applicable to Steve’s life. However, being the calendar keeper/schedule maker/color coding freak that I am, the idea of a book about checklists piqued my interest. Needless to say, I finished it within 24 hours of starting it.

Fascinating is all I can say -- how the simplicity of a clear cut highly developed checklist can improve surgical safety, build skyscrapers, save lives of airline passengers, keep investment firms afloat during financial crisis! Amazing.

While it is obvious this book is an asset to medical and/or business professionals (of which I am neither), I would encourage ANYONE to read it. The thesis is just too simple to pass over. (Of course, I’ve been making checklists for years and couldn’t survive without them. Now I am vindicated!)

Bees Review

Sweet as honey! :) In a way, Lily reminded me of Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. I loved the innocence in which she related with the “colored” women in her life, and the joy she felt when they included her in their joking about the “white folks.” At one point, Lily says she doesn’t know why color matters at all. Wisdom beyond her years...

I could go on, but I am choosing to remain silent so that I can ponder this book in my heart. It is that kind of book.

Just read it if you haven’t already done so!

Week Three - Book Three: A Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Believe it or not, I have never read this book despite all the time on the best seller lists and book club reading lists. And since I really want to see the movie, I decided I had better read the book first. As you saw in my previous blog, I started this book before I had finished the last one. Oh well -- old habits die hard.

I need to read this one right now after the previous mind boggling read. Bees is a guilty pleasure as I am not able to put it down.

Next week I will be in North Carolina with Steve, so my plan is to move this blog to another server so that it will be interactive. I am really interested to see what all of you are reading and to hear your comments on my picks. Soon...

Week Two - Book Two: A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink

As I said in my last blog, I am a member of our school district’s high school task force searching out ways to make our school better. So I am trying to get this book read before our next meeting which is Monday, January 18th. This guy does a great job of writing research based information in a friendly format. I am really enjoying his findings and think they are very profitable especially as we guide our college-bound daughter in career choices. It is a bit denser, so I am not glued to it like I should be. And yes, I confess -- I started another book on the side which I said I wouldn’t do. But hey - everyone needs a bathroom book, right? So, I am simultaneously reading The Secret Life of Bees. LOVE IT! (More on that book at a later date.)

But if any of you out there are in education, I would highly recommend A Whole New Mind. For me, it is one big “Aha!” Finally, someone that sees education from my perspective. But then again, I am a right-brain directed thinker.

Wallflower Finished

I finished The Perks of Being a Wallflower this morning. I really enjoyed the writing style - it was written in letters to an unknown recipient during “Charlie’s” first year of high school. The style was reminiscent of Donald Miller in Blue Like Jazz - very conversational and simple drawing the reader in and immersing you in the world of Charlie and his friends. The honesty of Charlie’s experiences is raw at times but continually insightful.

Not particularly upbeat nor depressing, the book hovers somewhere in between where many of us live the majority of our lives - the mundane experience of getting through each day. Probably not the best book for me to read coming out of the holidays -- I tend to battle depression after Christmas, and this book did not do much to help me out of that pit. But I continued reading for the pure joy of the language and topic.

Truly well written. I recommend it to older teens and young adults - middle school kids still much too young for Charlie’s world (in my opinion).

On another note -- I am aware of the fact that this is NOT an interactive web sight (much to my chagrin). I was looking forward to all your responses to my blogs, but that isn’t going to happen with iWeb. So, I am exploring alternatives. If you are web sight savvy, I look forward to suggestions as I am new to this world. Email or Facebook me with your insights.

On to book two - A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future by Daniel H. Pink. I am a member of a task force team at our district’s high school, and this is recommended reading. So, I want to complete this before our next meeting mid-January.

Onward!

Week One - Book One: The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

This was given to me as a Christmas present from my daughter’s boyfriend, Greg Parker. It is one of his favorite books that he read his senior year of high school. I was curious and asked if he HAD to read it for a class, and he said, no - it was a book that got passed around the senior class and a lot of his friends read it. So, I am curious to read a book that high school seniors willingly read and recommend.

December 31, 2009 - Tentative Reading List

Several of you have asked me lately if I really intend to go through with this challenge, and my answer is YES! I’m hoping all of you will help me achieve my goal my continuing to encourage and goad me to keep going. AND, I’m hoping that some of you will join me and make your own reading list for 2010. It might not be a book a week, but it could be a book a month or two a month.

Okay - here is my rough reading list. Of course, I will need 52 books in all, and as you can see, I don’t have quite that many YET. So, feel free to pipe in here with some of your favorites -- and make sure to tell my WHY I should read it. “It’s a great book!” won’t suffice! Tell me what components of the book make it great, how did it make you feel, why do you think I would enjoy it, etc. Remember, this isn’t just to help ME compile my 2010 reading list. This is also for all the other bibliophiles reading this blog.

So, here goes (in no particular order):

1. A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf
2. In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens, Alice Walker
3. Agnes Grey, Anne Bronte
4. The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James
5. Chance, Joseph Conrad
6. Courage for the Earth, Peter Matthiessen
7. The Fragile Absolute, Slavoj Zizek
8. J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography, Humphrey Carpenter
9. A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold
10. Meeting the Tree of Life, John Tallmadge
11. Teacher Man, Frank McCourt
12. The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
13. Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
14. Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
15. Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy
16. Darwin on Trial, Philip E. Johnson
17. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig
18. Catch 22, Joseph Heller
19. Wherever You Go, There You Are, Jon Kabat-Zinn
20. The Stranger, Albert Camus
21. Religion and Nothingness, Nishitani
22. Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse
23. The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd
24. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
25. Julie and Julia, Julie Powell
26. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
27. Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout
28. My Life in France, Julia Child
29. The Band of Brothers, Stephen E. Ambrose
30. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard
31. Small Wonder, Barbara Kingsolver
32. Touching the Void, Joe Simpson
33. Prodigal Summer, Barbara Kingsolver
34. The Kingdom of God is Within You, Leo Tolstoy
35. The Sea Around Us, Rachel Carson
36. My Antonia, Willa Cather
37. Night, Elie Wiesel
38. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
39. The Longest Trip Home, John Grogan
40. Howard’s End, E. M. Forster
41. Crazy for the Storm, Norman Ollestad
42. The Celtic Way of Seeing, Frank MacEowen
43. The Primal Teen, Barbara Strauch
44. A Whole New Mind, Daniel H. Pink
45. The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis

Welome to the new blog!

Welcome! I have finally made the switch over to an interactive blog. I apologize for how long this task has taken me and hope I have not lost too many followers. I have moved over my previous posts from the original blog, and I look forward to moving forward and being more consistent in my posts.

Cheers!