Ain't Nothin' Like the Real Thing, Baby

Tracy is a purist. When it comes to fizzy beverages, it’s Coke: straight up, fully sugared, with the right amount of ice–preferably pebbled–or NOTHING. I’m a bit more flexible. Sure, all things considered and in the perfect circumstances, I prefer a Coke Zero with pebbled ice, but if the situation calls for it, I’ll happily substitute a Diet Coke, less happily a Diet Dr. Pepper, and rather begrudgingly, a Diet Pepsi—especially if I can mix in some regular Pepsi. I mean I love my Coke Zero, like addiction-level love, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Popcorn and Duds demand fizz, and if Diet Pepsi is the only offering, it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. Not Tracy. I’ve personally witnessed her swallow down her popcorn and Jujyfruits with...gasp…water. I can’t even imagine.

So it comes as no surprise that Tray turns her nose up at audiobooks. In her mind, audiobooks are a woeful imitation, the ugly stepsister masquerading as the lovely Cinderella. While she’s never actually tried one, she pitches her tent squarely in the camp of Joe Queenan, author of One for the Books, who declared: “I do not listen to audiobooks for the same reason I do not listen to baked ziti: it lacks the personal touch.”

Hold on there, Joe, I beg to differ. I’ll admit my tent was once smack dab in the middle of your camp, right next to my “no e-readers for me” tent (that one’s still standing, but that is another story for another day). Once I actually tried listening to a book, I found it to be quite the opposite: listening to books often adds a personal touch. Especially if it's Adriana Trigiani bringing Ave Maria to life in Big Stone Gap or the voices of Minny and Aibileen in The Help. William Kent Krueger, author of Ordinary Grace, reminds us that "stories come out of the oral tradition." The art of storytelling has been around far longer than books on the page. For me, there are some books where listening heightens the experience: The Help, The Invention of Wings, All the Light We Cannot See, and pretty much any book by Ivan Doig, to name a few. Now that's not to say I don't go out and buy the actual book as well. I do that way more than I'll ever admit to if my husband is doing the asking. Books like All the Light We Cannot See, Rules of Civility, and The Bartender's Tale have sentences so divine they demand to be savored. So I buy them, reread them, and mark passages to return to again and again. And admittedly, there are books that something is lost when you listen to them, like The Book Thief.

All this to say that while I know I'll never win Tracy over, if you love a good listen, I'll let you know when I've listened to a book and whether or not I recommend it (just check the listening section on our bookshelf). So happy listening or reading...or both!

Posted by Rachel

Throwback Thursday

I am haunted by humans.

Throwin’ it back a decade today.  Ten years older, and I’m still celebrating Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief. Some books simply have staying power. Some books draw me in and never let me completely leave.  One of my mom’s favorite writers, Pat Conroy, professed this wisdom in his book My Reading Life:

Here's what I love: when a great writer turns me into a Jew from Chicago, a lesbian out of South Carolina, or a black woman moving into a subway entrance in Harlem. Turn me into something else, writers of the world. Make me Muslim, heretic, hermaphrodite. Put me into a crusader's armor, a cardinal's vestments. Let me feel the pygmy's heartbeat, the queen's breast, the torturer's pleasure, the Nile's taste, or the nomad's thirst. Tell me everything that I must know. Hold nothing back.

Zusak turned me into an embattled, gutsy German schoolgirl named Liesel Meminger.  
Liesel lives in Germany with her foster family during World War II, still reeling from her brother’s death and her mother’s willful disappearance. Her new papa, Hans Hubermann, (an instant beloved literary father figure for Rae and me, so naturally, you’re bound to love him) comforts her by teaching her to read.  Words soothe her.  

Death is the narrator of the novel, which is a new one.  Zusak needed a storyteller who could share Liesel’s dauntless point of view, but he also needed someone to supply snapshots of the war outside of Himmel Street to offer sobering and inspiring insights into the human condition.  We can see the horror and the sublime of human choice.  I was also reminded that many Germans became bonafide victims of war.  

Of course there’s resilience in precocious Liesel that inspires palpable hope in me, it will you too—the kind of hope Anne Frank gave us.  The Book Thief is a hauntingly beautiful novel that deserves to be read more than once over the years.

When you’ve finished this captivating read, check out the movie.  It will move you too.  Here’s a sneak peek:

Posted by Tracy

You're Suffering From Weltschmerz, Darling

In my old age, I see that life itself is often more fantastic and terrible than the stories we believed as children, and that perhaps there is no harm in finding magic among the trees.

I find there are few sorrows that cannot be quelled by a blanket of freshly fallen snow. When longing for my dad, who passed away several years ago, threatens to overwhelm me, I go to my favorite moment with him: I'm home from college on winter break, it's midnight and I've just come in from visiting friends. It's snowing, the kind of snow that makes the world quiet and lights up the night sky, and my dad gets that twinkle in his eyes and says "let's go build a snowman." And we do just that. Right there at midnight. That midnight snowman has chased many a blue day away.

Before I was married, I would fantasize about having kids and how I'd let them all stay home the first day it snowed each year and we'd drink hot cocoa and play in the snow all day. So where did I end up putting down roots to raise a family? The desert. As my sister-in-law said to me the other day, "One of the tragedies of your life is that you have to live in Nevada." While Southern Nevada is a lovely place with even lovelier people, it is sadly lacking in seasons. And snow? Pretty much nonexistent. Sigh. I try to pretend I live somewhere else. I light fires in my fireplace when I don't need them, I turn down the AC in September and October and burn pumpkin candles to trick myself into thinking it's fall outside. Every once in a while though, reality rears its ugly head and I can get rather melancholy. I learned a new word the other day that describes my condition perfectly. I'd like to say I found it while reading, but it came from one of my other reliable sources: Sheldon Cooper.

Weltschmerz! The depression that arises from comparing the world as it is to a hypothetical idealized world. So now I know what I'm feeling when, after three whole weeks of spring in which my English roses are in their glory, I wake up to summer with its blistering heat and wilting flowers, and I'm hit smack in the face by the fact that I don't actually live in an English cottage. Weltschmerz!

So you're probably wondering by now, and who could blame you, what any of this has to do with Eowyn Ivey's The Snow Child. I can't always explain the meanderings of my tired brain, but I will try to do so here. No, it isn't about a child who grows up in the snow and then has to move to the desert and have all her winter dreams crushed. But I would say Mabel, a childless woman on the verge of being defeated by life, suffers from severe weltschmerz, or world-weariness, as it is officially described, and that leads her to convince her husband, Jack, to leave his family farm behind in Pennsylvania to homestead in 1920's Alaska. More than that, though, is that in this tale, the snow stirs magic, blankets sadness, and heals wounds. Like my midnight snowman. 

The writing is exquisite. There are sentences that will stop you dead in your tracks and fill you with awe. Like this one: "Not many thirteen-year-old boys could win a wrestling match with envy." I'm brimming with envy over that sentence. And this:

She told no one of the otter. Garret would want to trap it, Faina would ask her to draw it. She refused to confine it by any means because, in some strange way, she knew it was her heart. Living, twisting muscle beneath bristly damp fur. Breaking through thin ice, splashing in cold creek water, sliding belly-down across snow. Joyful, though it should have known better.

When you finish reading it, to ease the melancholy that inevitably comes when reaching the end of a great book, read the interview with the author in the back. She lives in Alaska (dreamy), works in a bookstore (also dreamy), and she's utterly delightful. She's officially on my list of people I'm best friends with in my mind.

This has been a LONG post, but I must end with Robert Goolrick's review because upon reading it I immediately knew I could not come close to summing up this book so brilliantly:

If Willa Cather and Gabriel Garcia Márquez had collaborated on a book, The Snow Child would be it. It is a remarkable accomplishment—a combination of the most delicate, ethereal, fairy-tale magic and the harsh realities of homesteading in the Alaskan wilderness. Stunningly conceived, beautifully told, this story has the intricate fragility of a snowflake and the natural honesty of the dirt beneath your feet, the unnerving reality of a dream in the night. It fascinates, it touches the heart. It gallops along even as it takes time to pause at the wonder of life and the world in which we live. And it will stir you up and stay with you for a long, long time.

Posted by Rachel

Oy With The Poodles Already

So 15 years ago today, this happened:

How I love my Gilmore Girls. What's not to love, really? Stars Hollow. I'd move there tomorrow if I could, and if it really existed. Mere formality. Quirky characters, witty banter, captivating story lines: all the makings of a great book wrapped up in a television show. Good writing, whatever the platform, should be celebrated.

My son Ben, who was twelve at the time, and I were on our way to an event a few years ago when I realized I'd left our tickets at home. I jokingly blamed him for not doing his job and reminding me to grab them. He replied, without skipping a beat, "So you're saying I'm your Rory?." I knew then and there I was raising a fine young man.

Posted by Rachel

You Bring The Popcorn And I'll Bring The Duds

Or maybe when she realized that he was never going to come and rescue her, she did what all strong women do. She found a way to save herself.

There's a small-town southern girl inside of me, itching to get out. She lives right next to the British girl who longs to call London home and the girl who's pretty sure she could live out her days in a small cabin in the woods. I'm a mixed bag of characters. As is Ave Maria Mulligan. Maybe that's why I took an immediate liking to her.

When we first meet Ave, she is the self-proclaimed town spinster, although only in her mid-thirties, whose favorite days are when the bookmobile rolls into town. Things soon take a turn for the less predictable, and we, along with the other inhabitants of Big Stone Gap, get to come along for the ride. I settled right into small town living and found myself befriending a whole cast of quirky and endearing characters: Fleeta, Iva Lou, and Pearl, to name a few. Tell me those names don't make you want to spend some time in Big Stone Gap as well.

I was first introduced to Adriana Trigiani's work when a dear friend gave me The Shoemaker's Wife and I became an instant fan. As Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help, wrote, "I don't know how Adriana goes into her family's attic and emerges with these amazing stories, I'm just happy she does. If you're meeting her work for the first time, get ready for a lifelong love affair." And a love affair it has been. Stories rich in history and strong female characters, in settings as diverse as rural American towns, Italian villages, and early-century New York City, I've yet to find one I didn't love. I hate playing favorites, but if pushed, I'd say that along with Big Stone Gap and The Shoemaker's Wife, I'd especially recommend Lucia, Lucia, Big Cherry Holler, and Milk Glass Moon.

The last two mentioned above are sequels to Big Stone Gap. She wrote a fourth in that series, Home to Big Stone Gap, that I didn't love quite as much. It could have something to do with the fact that I listened to the series, and all but the last were narrated by Trigiani herself. I fell in love with the way she brought Ave to life and couldn't get used to a new voice; it seemed to lose some of its charm. I probably should have read that one instead of listened.

Now for the news that is bound to bring a smile to every Ave Maria Mulligan fan and future fan out there: Big Stone Gap, the movie, is being released this Friday. It's written and directed by Adriana Trigiani herself, which makes it over-the-top good news. Here's the trailer:

Posted by Rachel

It Doesn't Matter Where You Live, It's How You Live

Literature has been called a handbook for the art of being human.

I know what you're thinking...do I really want to read a book about people living on a trash heap in Cambodia?? You do. I'll admit that when Tracy sent me The Rent Collector, my first thought was it would be one I'd have to gear up for before reading. It just looked depressing. And the nice little review on the cover touting it as a story about the perseverance of the human spirit did nothing to assuage my fears. More often than not, that is code for "it will take perseverance to finish this novel."

Now I'm not one to shy away from a good depressing read, but I do have to be in the mood. (Which begs the question: what kind of mood does one need to be in before beginning a depressing novel? Already in the depths and wanting to wallow there? Happy and feeling the need to curb that enthusiasm?) Tracy was no help in the matter as she hadn't read it yet...so I did something I don't usually do: I dove right in, throwing care to the wind, not reading a single review. I'm so glad I did. How glad? It's been the birthday gift of choice ever since—and you should know Tracy and I take book giving very seriously.

There are so many things I love about this book. Mostly, the characters. Ah...Sopeap. You had me at, "if every story ended with a handsome prince, there wouldn't be anybody left in the kingdom to stand around and cheer." And Lucky Fat, who more often than not, displays "more animation than any human being living in a dump should." My love only waxes stronger as the narrative illustrates literacy's ability to change lives, champions the need to read fiction because we each find our own stories in the pages of made-up stories (cue my standing ovation), and perhaps most of all, the author's tremendous restraint in resisting the urge to make everything better by changing the characters' circumstances. Then comes a beautiful section where we witness the magical lure of stories read aloud and I'm sold: hook, line, and sinker.

Enough from me. I'll end with one of the many passages I have marked, although it pains me to only include one:

Literature is a cake with many toys baked inside—and even if you find them all, if you don't enjoy the path that leads you to them, it will be a hollow accomplishment. There was a playwright named Heller, American, I believe, who summed it up this way. He said, "They knew everything about literature except how to enjoy it."

Heller just summed up many of the overachievers in my college English Lit classes.

Posted by Rachel

Throwback Thursday

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is not the sort of book that can be reduced to its plot line. The best anyone can say is that it is a story about what it means to be human. —Anna Quindlen

Each week we'll throw back to one of our favorite classics...or books that are classics to us. We're kicking off our first Throwback Thursday with a longtime favorite: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. If you've never read it, we highly recommend you remedy that pronto. Go ahead, we'll wait as you dash to your nearest library or bookstore. Tracy has even agreed to look the other way while you download it to your phone in order to listen to it. That is how much we want you to read this book. You'll be better for having known Francie Nolan. Here's a favorite passage:

From that time on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood. There was poetry for quiet companionship. There was adventure when she tired of quiet hours. There would be love stories when she came into adolescence and when she wanted to feel a closeness to someone she could read a biography. On that day when she first knew she could read, she made a vow to read one book a day as long as she lived.

For those of you that have already spent time with Francie, looking out her third-story window at the tree that grew in cement, the tree "that liked poor people," here are a few enticements to encourage your return:

Did you know the book is autobiographical? It was originally written as a memoir but an editor encouraged Smith to re-configure it as fiction. So that English teacher who gave Francie "C"s for daring to write, as Anna Quindlen put it, stories about "real-life horror instead of gerrymandered tales of apple orchards and high tea," got her comeuppance when Betty's story became a bestseller. Who doesn't love a little poetic justice?

If you don't already have the edition with a forward by Anna Quindlen (another person we are best friends with in our minds), it is well-worth your money. You can find it here.

During WWll, librarians who were angered by Hitler's banning and burning of millions of books, launched a campaign to send books to American troops overseas. They issued a rally call for donations and over 20 million hard cover books were donated from across the country. Soon, the War Department and the publishing industry became involved and printed what would become known as Armed Services Editions (ASEs) of well-loved novels. These editions were small, lightweight paperbacks that the soldiers could carry in their pockets. You can read more about this in Molly Guptill Manning's When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win WWll. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn quickly became one of, if not the most, popular of all ASEs, turning Betty Smith into a national icon. Manning writes:

Smith once estimated that she received approximately four letters a day from servicemen, or about fifteen hundred a year. She responded to almost all of them...Smith and the council were so inundated with letters about A Tree Grows in Brooklyn that the council decided to reprint the book. "I think it's wonderful that the armed services edition is going into a second edition," Smith told a friend. "Most of my mail is from servicemen overseas and without exception, they say that everything in [A Tree Grows in Brooklyn] seems so true that it's not like reading a book—it's like being home in Brooklyn again." "Some letters bring tears to my eyes," she admitted. "I am very much touched by the service men away from home thinking so much of the book. I feel that I have done some good in this world."

Smith did indelible good when she published her essay, "Who Died?" personalizing the deaths of the soldiers lost on the beaches at Normandy:

I've just been told that over 3,000 of our American boys died in the first eleven days of the invasion of France.

Who died? I'll tell you who died.

Not so many years ago, there was a little boy sleeping in his crib. In the night, it thundered and lightninged. He woke and cried out in fear. His mother came and fixed his blankets better and said, "Don't cry. Nothing will ever hurt you."

He died...

There was another kid with a new bicycle. When he came past your house he rode no-hands while he folded the evening paper in a block and threw it against your door. You used to jump when you heard the bang. You said, "Some day, I'm going to give that kid a good talking-to." He died.

Then there were two kids. One said to the other, "I'll do all the talking. I just want you to come along to give me nerve." They came to your door. The one who had promised to do all the talking said, "Would you like your lawn mowed, Mister?"

They died together. They gave each other nerve...

They all died.

And I don't know how any one of us here at home can sleep peacefully tonight unless we are sure in our hearts that we have done our part all the way along the line.

Posted by Rachel

You Have One Day To Read Me Before You

A hilarious, heartbreaking, riveting novel...I will stake my reputation on this book. —Anne Lamott on Me Before You

First of all, can we just reflect for a moment on what it would feel like to have an author like Anne Lamott write that about your novel? I can't even imagine. If you aren't familiar with Lamott, stick around. We'll introduce you soon and you'll be fast friends. For now, take our word for it, any novel she's willing to stake her reputation on is a safe bet, indeed.

Jojo Moyes's Me Before You is one of those books you won't want to put down. You'll laugh and you'll sob. Yes, sob. I'm talking ugly crying here. And like any novel worth the salt of your tears, it will stay with you long after you finish.

That being said, it is chick lit. So if you have an aversion to that sort of thing, chances are you won't be a fan. This one isn't going to win the Pulitzer. It is, however, what I like to call a beach read with a brain: breezy and comical at times, yet able to tackle difficult subjects without being predictable. Think of it as the Gilmore Girls genre of fiction. So if you're like me, and aren't above some good ol' escapism, dig in. This one is a winner.

Why only one day to read it, you ask? Because tomorrow the sequel, After You, is being released. I've cleared my schedule.

Posted by Rachel