tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58475445964051604862023-11-15T11:07:16.388-06:00Opening Lines......From Books I Find Interestingtheuncladsoul.blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527713963936529196noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5847544596405160486.post-89747994530996243352014-05-08T11:07:00.000-05:002014-05-09T10:40:15.741-05:00The Cemetery of Forgotten Books<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">I still
remember the day my father took me to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the
first time. It was the early summer of 1945, and we walked through the streets
of Barcelona trapped beneath the ashen skies as dawn poured over Rambla de
Santa Monica in a wreath of liquid copper.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> “Daniel, you musn’t tell anyone what
you are about to see today,” my father warned. “Not even your friend Tomas. No
one.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> “Not even Mommy?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> My father sighed, hiding behind the
sad smile that followed him like a shadow through life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> “Of course you can tell her,” he
answered, heavyhearted. “We keep no secrets from her. You can tell her
everything.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> Shortly after the Civil War, an
outbreak of cholera had taken my mother away. We buried her in Montjuic on my
fourth birthday. I can only recall that it rained all day and night, and that
when I asked my father whether heaven was crying, he couldn’t bring himself to
reply. Six years later my mother’s absence remained in the air around us, a
deafening silence that I had not yet learned to stifle with words.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">From, <i>The
Shadow of the Wind</i>, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> One of the greatest names of any
place in any novel is Zafon’s “Cemetery of Forgotten Books.” What images that
name summons. It is of course the name of a used book store where ancient and
lost and out of print books are rescued and given another chance to find
welcome in some book lover’s personal library.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";"> <i>The</i> <i>Shadow of the Wind</i> is about a young boy, Daniel Sempere, whose
father, himself a bookshop owner, takes him to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books
on his tenth birthday to pick out whatever book he chooses. Daniel’s selection
takes him then on a journey of remarkable experiences centered on the book and
its author. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">He
encounters sleazy and shadowy figures, thieves and criminals, downtrodden and
abused victims, and beautiful but out of his reach women who break his heart
and teach him that life is often not fair.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">He
learns that brutal, tyrannical people have no appreciation for books. Their
learning is all underhanded and driven by selfish motives.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Zafon’s
novel was an international bestseller and remains popular since it was first
published in 2001.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
theuncladsoul.blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527713963936529196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5847544596405160486.post-26147495084202505842014-02-13T00:36:00.003-06:002014-02-13T00:51:41.027-06:00What Time Travel Is Really Telling Us<div align="CENTER" style="widows: 4;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><i>Saturday,
October 26, 1991 (Henry is 28, Claire is 20)</i></span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Clare:
The library is cool and smells like carpet cleaner, although all I
can see is marble. I sign the Visitors' Log:<i> Clare Abshire, 11:15,
10-26-91 Special Collections</i>. I have never been in the Newberry
Library before, and now that I've gotten past the dark, foreboding
entrance I am excited. I have a sort of Christmas-morning sense of
the library as a big box full of beautiful books. The elevator is
dimly lit, almost silent. I stop on the third floor and fill out an
application for a Reader's Card, then I go upstairs to Special
Collections. My boot heels rap the wooden floor. The room is quiet
and crowded, full of heavy tables piled with books and surrounded by
readers. Chicago autumn morning light shines through the tall
windows. I approach the desk and collect a stack of call slips. I'm
writing a paper for an art history class. My research topic is
Kelmscott Press <i>Chaucer</i>. I look up the book itself and fill
out a call slip for it. But I also want to read about papermaking at
Kelmscott. The catalog is confusing. I go back to the desk to ask for
help. As I explain to the woman what I am trying to find, she glances
over my shoulder at someone passing behind me. “Perhaps Mr.
DeTamble can help you,” she says. I turn, prepared to start
explaining again, and find myself face to face with Henry. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">I
am speechless. Here is Henry, calm, clothed, younger than I have ever
seen him. Henry is working at the Newberry Library, standing in front
of me, in the present. Here and now. I am jubilant. Henry is looking
at me patiently, uncertain but polite.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></span>
“<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Is
there something I can help you with?” he asks.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></span>
“<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Henry!”
I can barely refrain from throwing my arms around him. It is obvious
he has never seen me before in his life.</span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><b>From,
<i>The Time Traveler's Wife</i>, by Audrey Niffenegger</b></span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">There
are important lessons in this time travel stuff. Henry's shuffling
from the future to the past and then to the present and back again.
It's nifty and fun and all of that. But it is cautionary, too. This
is why the growing and enduring intimacy between Henry and Clare
carries the story.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">There
are strange comical surprises for both of them. There are struggles
with their uncommon circumstances. There are vexing obstacles thrown
in their way. And yet, through the tangled mess of time travel what
we have here is the story of two people completely in love, finding
their way through the mystery of that, as well as facing the ever
complicated encumbrances of time.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">This
was Niffenegger's first novel and it became a <i>New York Times</i>
bestseller and was made into a popular motion picture.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">There
is something to be said for couples who find themselves in a
relationship where waiting and distance becomes an uncontrollable
part of their alliance. In spite of the charm and lightheartedness of
this novel, time is a heavy and serious theme throughout. And
underneath all the mayhem created by Henry's time traveling capers is
the impermanence of life and the certainty of our own mortality.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></span>
<div align="CENTER" style="widows: 132;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Henry
and Clare remind us we really should love while we can however
difficult in time that may be. ~ TM</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><br /></span></span>theuncladsoul.blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527713963936529196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5847544596405160486.post-5091004594819727022014-01-29T15:16:00.000-06:002014-01-29T15:18:52.077-06:00A Defender of Loners and Misfits<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">“A mile above Oz, the Witch balanced on the wind’s
forward edge, as if she were a green fleck of the land itself, flung up and
sent wheeling away by the turbulent air. White and purple summer thunderheads
mounded around her. Below, the Yellow Brick Road looped back on itself, like a
relaxed noose. Though winter storms and the crowbars of agitators had torn up
the road, still it led, relentlessly, to the Emerald City. The Witch could see
the companions trudging alone, maneuvering around the buckled sections,
skirting trenches, skipping when the way was clear. They seemed oblivious of
their fate. But it was not up to the Witch to enlighten them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";"> She
used the broom as a sort of balustrade, stepping down from the sky like one of
her flying monkeys. She finished up on the topmost bough of a black willow
tree. Beneath, hidden by the fronds, her prey had paused to take their rest.
The Witch tucked her broom under her arm. Crablike and quiet, she scuttled down
a little at a time, until she was a mere twenty feet above them. Wind moved the
dangling tendrils of the tree. The Witch stared and listened.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">From,
<i>Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked
Witch of the West</i>, by Gregory Maguire<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">Maguire’s brilliant imagining of the life of Elphaba,
the Wicked Witch of the West, before the story of <i>The Wonderful Wizard of Oz</i> and Dorothy is told, has become itself a
classic novel and phenomenal musical.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">This is a book for adults. Its themes and language are
for those who welcome imagination and are open to reading something completely
different about a subject as familiar and prized as Dorothy and the Wizard of
Oz.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">There are many familiar characters in Maguire’s novel
but the one who hoists the story into literary history is Elphaba. Green
skinned, socially awkward, misunderstood, and mistreated, Elphaba develops a
tough exterior and learns to fight for herself. She is a heroine of
extraordinary gifts. She longs for tolerance. She champions the rights of
animals. She defends loners and misfits, which she knows all too well
about. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">This novel has been welcomed by enthusiastic fans of all
ages and backgrounds since it was first published in 1995. But what we clearly have
here is a book for older girls and young women in the throes of heartbreaking
issues: body image, self loathing, defeating inner voices, fears of enormous
power, and the urge to simply belong and be accepted without cruel and demoralizing
demands from others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">Elphaba rises above these defeating emotions and lives a
life, though troubled and attacked, with intrepid courage and a relentless pushing
of herself to overcome. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">“I don’t cause commotions,” says Elphaba, “I am one.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">This book is right at the top with all of my favorites.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";"><br /></span></div>
theuncladsoul.blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527713963936529196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5847544596405160486.post-78053865842690519202014-01-24T09:31:00.000-06:002014-01-31T17:06:45.410-06:00Human Needs and Human Relationships<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: 'MS Reference Sans Serif', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“By Sunday the wedding would be
over, and for that Winn Van Meter was grateful. It was Thursday. He woke early,
alone in his Connecticut house, a few late stars still burning above the
treetops. His wife and two daughters were already on Waskeke, in the island
house, and as he came swimming up out of sleep, he thought of them in their
beds there: Biddy keeping to her side, his daughters’ hair fanned over their
pillows. But first he thought of a different girl (or barely thought of her—she
was a bubble bursting on the surface of a dream) who was also asleep on
Waskeke. She would be in one of the brass guest beds up on the third floor,
under the eaves; she was one of his daughters’ bridesmaids.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";"><b>From <i>Seating Arrangements</i>, by Maggie Shipstead</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">I admit I had a difficult time
liking this novel. I list it only because I think I need to be reminded now and
then of the pretenses I and perhaps all of us often wear and how the fear of being
human can drive us to respond to life in such wishy-washy ways. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">The main character, Winn Van Meter,
is a vain, petulant, emotionally immature man with plenty of money and even
more angst. At times I fume at him and at other times I feel sorry for him. His
oldest daughter, pregnant and silly and self-absorbed herself, is getting
married and the book revolves around the wedding preparations and festivities
at their New England summer home. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">Here we see how the most privileged
can slosh about in emotional unhealthiness. Jealousy, pride, rejection,
resentment, arrogance, loneliness and fear shadow the lives of these often
shallow people and keep them off balance. But there are redeeming and revealing
moments and some of the cast in this truly fractured family remind us of our worst
and better selves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: 'MS Reference Sans Serif', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Observing this weekend of both joy
and confusion shows us that family, marriage, fidelity, aging, siblings, and
life itself is often a messy undertaking. Think of Downton Abbey… without the
servants. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'MS Reference Sans Serif', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'MS Reference Sans Serif', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span>theuncladsoul.blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527713963936529196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5847544596405160486.post-45414546444603464712014-01-21T09:19:00.000-06:002014-01-31T17:06:57.290-06:00Who is Writing Your as Yet Uncompleted Biography?<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: 'MS Reference Sans Serif', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“Something wakes you at three in
the morning—a forgotten face reappears in a dream, a familiar apprehension
stirs slumber, some ache agitates the soul. Or, driving on the expressway,
hurrying home, a moment long ago leaks through psyche’s floorboard into consciousness,
and you wonder why it came to the surface just now, in this quiet different
place. You see your child, or grandchild, and recall a moment like that, and
wonder where it all got lost, and how it all led to this place you are now
obliged to call your life. You wonder how you became the person you think you
are. How is it that you married the person you married? How is that familiar
doubts, self-sabotaging behaviors, predictable outcomes still govern your
choices? Who is writing your as yet uncompleted biography—you, someone else, or
unnamed sinister agencies? Just how is it that you got to this place, so
different from the beginning of the journey, and how do you get back to where
you lost your track amid the blizzard of necessary choices?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";"><b>From <i>What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life</i>, by James Hollis,
PhD </b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i><span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">Spirituality & Practice</span></i><span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";"> reviewers, Frederick and Mary Ann
Brussat, have called this “a thorough book,” and say it is filled with
“insights on learning to tolerate ambiguity, feeding the soul, respecting the
power of Eros, stepping into largeness, risking growth over security,” and much
more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">Hollis is a Jungian Analyst,
professor, and much published author. I love his writing style. His brilliance
sometimes gets in the way of his very useful counsel. But he is still one of my
favorite writers on how to confront our sometimes phony lives and learn to be ourselves
with fierce courage, honesty, delight and meaning.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">If you are struggling with any
secret personal issues this book will knock you off your feet and then help
lift you back up into possible healthy solutions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
theuncladsoul.blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527713963936529196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5847544596405160486.post-45466351181427540752014-01-14T09:37:00.002-06:002014-01-31T17:07:21.581-06:00A Detective's Relentless Search for Truth, at Work and Within<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">“What I warn you to remember is
that I am a detective. Our relationship with truth is fundamental but cracked,
refracting confusingly like fragmented glass. It is the core of our careers,
the endgame of every move we make, and we pursue it with strategies
painstakingly constructed of lies and concealment and every variation on
deception. The truth is the most desirable woman in the world and we are the
most jealous lovers, reflexively denying anyone else the slightest glimpse of
her. We betray her routinely, spending hours and days stupor-deep in lies, and
then turn back to her holding out the lover’s ultimate (claim): <i>But I only did it because I love you so
much.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i><span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";"> </span></i><span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">I have a pretty knack for imagery,
especially the cheap, facile kind. Don’t let me fool you into seeing us as a
bunch of parfit gentil knights galloping off in doublets after Lady Truth on
her white palfrey. What we do is crude, crass and nasty. A girl gives her
boyfriend an alibi for the evening when we suspect him of robbing a north-side
Centra and stabbing the clerk. I flirt with her at first, telling her why I see
why he would want to stay home when he’s got her; she is peroxided and greasy,
with the flat, stunted features of generations of malnutrition, and privately I
am thinking that if I were her boyfriend I would be relieved to trade her even
for a hairy cellmate named Razor. Then I tell her we’ve found marked bills from
the till in his classy white tracksuit bottoms, and he’s claiming that she went
out that evening and gave them to him when she got back. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";"> I
do it so convincingly, with such delicate crosshatching of discomfort and
compassion at her man’s betrayal, that finally her faith in four shared years
disintegrates like a sand castle and through tears and snot, while her man sits
with my partner in the next interview room saying nothing except ‘Fuck off, I
was home with Jackie,’ she tells me everything from the time he left the house
to the details of his sexual shortcomings. Then I pat her gently on the
shoulder and give her a tissue and a cup of tea, and a statement sheet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";"> This
is my job, and you don’t go into it—or, if you do, you don’t last—without some
natural affinity for its priorities and demands. What I am telling you, before
you begin my story, is this—two things: I crave truth. And I lie.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";"><b>From <i>In the Woods</i>, by Tana French</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">I love this author. Her books are
filled with terrific metaphors and just great writing and storytelling skill.
Her characters have such interesting personalities—human, flawed, struggling in
all the ways most of us do in our attempt to fit the pieces of life’s puzzle
together. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">Her Irish heritage, setting, language,
and culture often pop up within these pages and it gives an interesting look
into another country’s particularities while at the same time reminding us
we’re all, wherever we live, pretty much alike.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">This was her first novel and it is terrific.
Dealing with the vulnerability and innocence of children, the worst news a parent
can get, the strange obsessions and violence of the deranged, and an unflinching
ragged detective caught in forlornness and misgivings, French weaves a story of
alarm and mystery that holds the reader’s attention from page to page. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">This novel led me to the ones that follow
and you will want to read them as well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
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theuncladsoul.blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527713963936529196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5847544596405160486.post-78627357123947855862014-01-13T09:30:00.000-06:002014-01-31T17:07:33.551-06:00The Absolute Mystery of Good and Evil<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">“In the late autumn of 1909, two
men who would each transform the world were living in Vienna, Austria. They
were in almost every way what the poet William Blake called ‘spiritual
enemies.’ One was Sigmund Freud, the creator of psychoanalysis, who would
become the most renowned and controversial thinker of the twentieth century. In
1909, Freud was in vigorous middle age, fifty-three years old and at the height
of his powers. The other man, whose impact on humanity would be yet greater,
was young.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";"> The
young man had come to Vienna in hopes of making his fortune as an architect and
an artist….People who met the man sometimes had doubts about his sanity: none
of them imagined that Adolf Hitler, for that, of course, is who the young man
was, would ever be of consequence in the world.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";"><b>From, <i>The Death of Sigmund Freud: The Legacy of His Last Days</i>, by Mark
Edmundson</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">This excellent biography reads like
a novel. And a thrilling one at that. Edmundson captures the peculiar personalities
of Freud and Hitler with amazing clarity and offers some ghastly yet warm
surprises about both their lives. Adolph Hitler loved animals. Sigmund Freud smoked 20 cigars a day. Do we ever really get to know all there is about anyone? Both men poured their lives into their work until there wasn't anything left of either of them. The consequences, of course, were dramatically different.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">Even if you are not at all
interested in psychology or Freud or Hitler, that’s okay; this book is about
humanity and how people often do the most extraordinary and sometimes shocking
things in the pursuit of ambition and need. And it’s also about how every
person is fundamentally shaped by all of their experiences, especially the
experiences of childhood. Those experiences could not have been more
contrasting for these two powerful and perplexing men.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">This is a book I will read again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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theuncladsoul.blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527713963936529196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5847544596405160486.post-42300975604695061562014-01-11T10:14:00.004-06:002014-01-31T17:07:43.910-06:00An Unstoppable Force in a Fragile Female Character<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It happened every
year. Was almost a ritual. And this was his eighty-second birthday.
When, as usual, the flower was delivered, he took off the wrapping
paper and then picked up the telephone to call Detective
Superintendent Morell who, when he retired, had moved to Lake Siljan
in Dalarna. They were not only the same age, they had been born on
the same day—which was something of an irony under the
circumstances. The old policeman was sitting with his coffee,
waiting, expecting the call.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> “It arrived.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> “What is it this
year?”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> “I don't know
what kind it is. I'll have to get someone to tell me what it is. It's
white.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> “No letter, I
suppose.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> “Just the flower.
The frame is the same kind as last year. One of those do-it-yourself
ones.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> “Postmark?”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> “Stockholm.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> “Handwriting?”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> “Same as always.
All in capitals. Upright, neat lettering.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> With that, the
subject was exhausted, and not another word was exchanged for almost
a minute. The retired policeman leaned back in his kitchen chair and
drew on his pipe. He knew he was no longer expected to come up with a
pithy comment or any sharp question which would shed new light on the
case. Those days had long since passed, and the exchange between the
two men seemed like a ritual attaching to a mystery which no one else
in the whole world had the least interest in unraveling.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>From <i>The Girl
with the Dragon Tattoo</i>, by Stieg Larsson</b></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Unraveling things is
the genius behind Larsson's fantastic Millennial Trilogy, this book
being the first in the series.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I saw the original
Swedish movie with English subtitles first and I was completely
captivated. I had never heard of Stieg Larsson and just happened one
Saturday afternoon to wander into the Angelika theater here in Dallas
and saw “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The movies and the
books became instant successes. How could they not have been?
Larsson's skill as a writer was brilliance at work. The characters in
this series come to life with amazing reality.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In this first book
we meet a star, a heroine of such extraordinary strength, quirkiness,
bad ass bravery, vulnerability and enthralling fierceness that she
immediately wins our hearts. That is Lisbeth Salander, and her
character carries all three novels and movies into monumental
publishing and film history.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Actress Noomi
Rapache played Lisbeth in the three Swedish movies and became
overnight a celebrated new talent.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It has been written
that Larsson based his character Lisbeth on the children's book
character Pipi Longstocking imagining her now as a young woman,
tormented, perhaps with Attention Deficit Disorder, failing to fit
into regular society but unstoppable when confronted with a
challenge.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sounds about right
to me.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I thoroughly enjoyed
this book and the series. And I keep it in plain sight in my book
stack to remind me of how entertaining and satisfying a read these
books are.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>theuncladsoul.blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527713963936529196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5847544596405160486.post-1544005584721561112014-01-10T09:22:00.000-06:002014-01-31T17:08:11.780-06:00Great Divisions in a Small World<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">“It was one of those rare summer
evenings when it did not rain, and the smoke cleared from the atmosphere,
leaving the sky a deep blue color, and the air soft and fresh and balmy. It was
the kind of evening when people brought their stiff-backed wooden kitchen
chairs out to the front to sit and smoke, and perhaps listen to the Forshaw’s
gramophone. They were the only people on our street who had one, and they left
their door open so that everyone could hear. In the meantime, the sun would
sink, a huge red ball, behind the square brick tower of the India Mill. After
it disappeared, there would be fiery streaks in the sky, and these would fade
gradually as the sky became very pale, and twilight would fall gently, and you
would see the glow of pipes or cigarettes along both sides of the street. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";"> We
had finished our tea, and my two sisters had quickly disappeared before my
mother could get them to clear the table and wash up. My two brothers were
about to do the same. Having gulped down the last of their tea, and still
chewing on their bread and butter, they were half way out the door to join
their friends in the street when my mother stopped them.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";"><b>From, <i>The Invisible Wall: A Love Story That Broke Barriers</i>, by Harry
Bernstein</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">This was Bernstein’s first book
written at age 93 and published when he was 96. He went on to write three more
books before his death in 2011 at the age of 101.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">This is a beautiful and at times
disturbing memoir of his growing up years in the fiercely divided streets of a
small mill town in England where Jews lived on one side and Christians on the
other. Anti-Semitism was ugly and raw. And tolerance for either group was seen
as a dishonorable weakness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">Born into a home of six children
with a surly indifferent alcoholic father, Harry’s valorous mother carried
alone, the oppressive burdens of so many children and the endless stresses of
tiptoeing around an explosive bullying husband. Their poverty was strangling; their
lives dismal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />
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<span style="font-family: "MS Reference Sans Serif","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">Out
of this immense darkness, however, shines glorious beams of light and Bernstein
inspires us with stories of humor, bravery, tenacity and tearful affections. There
are many worthy life lessons scattered all over these pages. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
</div>
theuncladsoul.blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527713963936529196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5847544596405160486.post-72820282703940323632014-01-08T09:46:00.001-06:002014-01-31T17:08:22.962-06:00A China Rabbit on Egypt Street Learns How to Love<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">“Once, in a house on Egypt Street,
there lived a rabbit who was made almost entirely of china. He had china arms
and china legs, china paws and a china head, a china torso and a china nose.
His arms and legs were jointed and joined by wire so that his china elbows and
china knees could be bent, giving him much freedom of movement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";"> His
ears were made of real rabbit fur, and beneath the fur, there were strong,
bendable wires, which allowed the ears to be arranged into poses that reflected
the rabbit’s mood—jaunty, tired, full of ennui. His tail, too, was made of real
rabbit fur and was fluffy and soft and well shaped. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";"> The
rabbit’s name was Edward Tulane, and he was tall. He measured almost three feet
from the tip of his ears to the tip of his feet; his eyes were painted a
penetrating and intelligent blue.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";"> All
in all, Edward Tulane felt himself to be an exceptional specimen. Only his
whiskers gave him pause. They were long and elegant (as they should be), but
they were of uncertain origin. Edward felt quite strongly that they were not
the whiskers of a rabbit. Whom the whiskers had belonged to initially—what
unsavory animal—was a question that Edward could not bear to consider for too
long. And so he did not. He preferred, as a rule, not to think unpleasant
thoughts.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";"><b>From <i>The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane</i>, by Kate DiCamillo</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">This is the story of Abilene and her china rabbit, Edward Tulane. I read this book to Ingrid when she was little and it became one of her favorite books of all time. "New York Times" reviewer Michael Patrick Hearn said this book "belongs to an undervalued but nonetheless beloved genre concerning the private lives of playthings." Unlike many chapter books and other books for kids today, which Hearn calls "entertaining fluff," <i>The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane </i>has "deeper implications."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">This is a terrific book for older children and is filled with adventure, the importance of respect for self and others, courage, loss, endurance, and yes, love. A very wise love.</span><br />
<br /></div>
theuncladsoul.blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527713963936529196noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5847544596405160486.post-5411176341907015682014-01-07T12:46:00.001-06:002014-01-31T17:08:36.456-06:00The Searing Wounds of Family<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">It was five o’clock in the afternoon Eastern Standard
Time when the telephone rang in my house on Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina.
My wife, Sallie, and I had just sat down for a drink on the porch overlooking Charleston
Harbor and the Atlantic. Sallie went in to answer the telephone and I shouted,
“Whoever it is, I’m not here.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">“It’s your mother,” Sallie said, returning from the
phone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">“Tell her I’m dead,” I pleaded. “Please tell her I died
last week and you’ve been too busy to call.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">“Please speak to her. She says it’s urgent.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">“She always says it’s urgent. It’s never urgent when she
says it’s urgent.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">“I think it’s urgent this time. She’s crying.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">“When Mom cries, it’s normal. I can’t remember a day
when she hasn’t been crying.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";">“She's waiting, Tom.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";"><b>From <i>The Prince of
Tides</i>, by Pat Conroy</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode";"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">This is a
book I have read three times, and every time I am devastated by its themes, by the
gorgeous lyrical writing, and the deep human emotions that run entirely through
it.</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><br />
</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Could
there be a more troubled, dysfunctional family than Tom Wingo's? He grew up
under the shaming of an angry bitter brutal father. His mother taught him to
feel the heartbeat in nature, to love the water and the island he grew up on.
But she turns brooding and smothering and manipulative from wounds deep within
her. Tom's brother, Luke, is a hero, a free spirit, a person of integrity and
grit, but incapable of following rules he considers meaningless and oppressive.
Their sister, Savannah, possesses a poet's heart and skill, but she is so
desperately damaged by events you will find shocking that her brilliance is wasted in
some impenetrable despair. And Tom himself, smart and funny and often tender, is nevertheless a broken man, wrestling
with self loathing and rejection and things that make every man less than his potential; he gives an identity to
loneliness that we don't ever forget.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">
The range of human urges and fears and hurts and yes triumphs in this stunning
calamitous novel is something to behold. This book is like a Bible to me. I
often turn to it for inspiration as a writer and truth as a human being.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<span style="font-family: 'MS Reference Sans Serif', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: MS Reference Sans Serif, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>theuncladsoul.blogspot.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527713963936529196noreply@blogger.com0