Winter Wonders; the Accidental Feminist; We Others; Dangerous Laughter

Another Grace Chapel Inn book by Melody Carlson, "Winter Wonders" has the ladies looking forward to a little winter break in January after the holidays, but it wasn't meant to be. Cynthia, Louise's daughter, is bringing a famous home and garden guru (think Martha Stewart) to the Inn to try to get her the peace and quiet she needs to buckle down and finish her children's book (which Cynthia is editing). Then Alice gets involved in animal rights issues when she discovers deplorable conditions at the local dog racing track. There was actually quite a lot going on in this one.
"The Accidental Feminist" by M. G. Lord took a look at the films of Elizabeth Taylor from a feminist standpoint. It was interesting, although some of them were a bit of a stretch. For instance, she insists that "A Place in the Sun" is a movie about abortion. Well...I think that's just one small part of that film. It's more (at least in my mind) about class struggle. Anyway, Lord admits that she doesn't think Taylor picked her parts specifically to advance any sort of agenda, and it was a different way of looking at familiar films.
I actually read Steven Millhauser's "We Others" a few weeks ago, except for the last story, which I didn't quite get to finish. It was one of his older stories from "Dangerous Laughter", so when I finished that one today I figured I could now in good conscious say I had finished "We Others" as well. It was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner award, and I really enjoyed it. Normally I'm not a big short story fan, but I liked almost all of his in both collections. He has a great way of building up tension and making you wonder what comes next. Some of my favorites were "The White Glove", about a boy and a girl who start dating and she starts wearing a white glove on her left hand, which intrigues him. He dreams of sneaking into her bedroom and peeling it off to see what she's hiding. When she finally does reveal her secret, he is so repulsed he never speaks to her again. "The Next Thing" was a treatise on consumerism and just how far we're willing to go and how much we're willing to give up in the name of progress. "Dangerous Laughter" had some really good ones, too, like "The Room in the Attic", about a girl who refuses to be seen in daylight and "The Tower" about a society that, over the course of many generations, builds a tower that pierces heaven. Good stuff.

Artist of Disappearance; Chronicles of Old Las Vegas; Read My Hips; Return to Peyton Place; Peyton Place; Hidden History: Stories from the Grace Chapel Inn

"Artist of Disappearance" by Anita Desai was also nominated this year for the PEN/Faulkner award for fiction. The winner was announced yesterday, and it went to Julie Otsaku for "Buddha in the Attic". I enjoyed this collection of three novellas set in modern day India as well. Good nominees this year.
"Chronicles of Old Las Vegas" by James Roman took a look at the history of the city and how it started it out. It was quick but thorough and interesting. For instance, I had no idea that the Strip is actually not really in Las Vegas proper, but the nearby towns of Paradise and Winchester. Interesting.
"Read My Hips" by Kim Brittingham was very uplifting and encouraging. She chronicles her journey, how she started dieting as a teen and tried everything under the sun (boy, doesn't *this* sound familiar!!) until finally reaching the point in her life where she is happy and comfortable with who she is. Good for Kim! I hope I get there someday, too.
Years ago I wanted to read Grace Metalious's sequel to "Peyton Place", "Return to Peyton Place", but I could never find it. Well I finally did and read it. It was pretty bad. Metalious didn't want to write it, and I don't blame her, so she really half-assed it. It was pretty unforgettable.
After that I pulled out my worn, tattered, falling apart copy of "Peyton Place" and reread it (perfect for a lonely rainy day weekend, I might add). I bought it years ago for fifty cents at a used bookstore and tore through it, eager to find out what all the fuss about this scandalous book was about. I remember being very disappointed, since it's not terribly graphic to modern day readers. I could see why it made such a scene back in the 50s, but not so much for today. Still, I enjoy Metalious's book. I like her characters, they seem very real.
And finally, a gentle Christian fiction to round out the smut :) "Hidden History: Stories from the Grace Chapel Inn" by Melody Carlson. The three sisters who run the B&B find their father's old journal from when he was a teenager in with some paperwork of his, and they start reading it and discover his journey from atheist teenager to believer after the death of his mother. It was sweet and kind and utterly predictable.

The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb; Back Home Again; Bright Lights, Big Ass; Betsy Tacy; Betsy Tacy and Tib; Wild Thing; Lone Wolf; Buddha in the Attic; The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes

I didn't realize I was so far behind. Okay, here we go!
"The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb" by Melanie Benjamin was very sweet. Lavinia Warren Bump (known as Vinnie) is a dwarf not quite three feet high who dreams of leaving her simple country farm home and seeing the world. She signs on with a riverboat of curiosities, but the Civil War sends them back north in a hurry. After a few more years of boredom on the farm, she writes to P. T. Barnum, asking if he'd like her to join his American Museum in New York. He does, and she goes. Barnum has another dwarf he's made a fortune off of, General Tom Thumb, and he hatches a scheme for Vinnie and Tom to marry, which they do. Vinnie has many happy years with Barnum, although theirs is a love/hate relationship. She loves what opportunities he is able to give her, but at the same time she doesn't like going along with his "humbugs", like pretending she gave birth to a little girl. I'd love to read some nonfiction about General Tom Thumb and his bride, I bet their lives were fascinating.
"Back Home Again" by Melody Carlson is a gentle Christian fiction about three women who inherit a large Victorian home after their father passes away and decide, despite their wildly different personalities, to turn it into a bed and breakfast with predictable results. It was sweet and not too taxing on the brain.
"Bright Lights, Big Ass" by Jen Lancaster is her second book and the only one my library doesn't own, so I had to get it from a different one. It hilariously details why living in the big city is not as glamorous as most people think. Jen's snarky humor is so sharp and so brilliant. I can't wait for her next book.
I reread a few Maud Hart Lovelace books, the first two in the Betsy Tacy series: "Betsy Tacy" and "Betsy Tacy and Tib". I tried reading these when I was younger (not a child, but a 20 something) and my library at the time didn't have all of them, so I've read some but not others. They're sweet (guess I'm in the mood for that all of a sudden!), like the "Little House" and "Anne of Green Gables", but without all the drama and bad stuff. Betsy, Tacy, and Tib live idealized lives in Minnesota, getting into typical children messes but never anything awful.
"Wild Thing" by Josh Bezell was a huge disappointment. I loved his first book, "Beat the Reaper", and was looking forward to this one. But it wasn't funny. It was boring and preachy and I know I've said this before: politics is NOT funny. Making fun and calling people who don't believe the same as you stupid is NOT going to make me laugh. It's so hypocritical, too. It really bugs me.
I liked "Lone Wolf" by Jodi Picoult quite a lot, because I didn't feel torn on the issue like I usually do with her books. Luke Warren and his daughter, Cara, are in an accident and Luke is in a coma. The doctors don't expect him to recover. His estranged son, Edward, comes home as soon as he hears about his dad and sister, and because Cara is under 18 Edward must be legally responsible and he decides his adventurous, outdoorsy dad (who lived with a pack of wolves for 2 years) wouldn't want to live as a vegetable on life support and decides to pull the plug. Cara is horrified at the thought that Edward isn't even giving their dad a chance to get better and fights him every step of the way. While I understood Cara's distress and desire to cling to hope that her dad would get better, I agreed with Edward solidly on this one. Let him go.
Nominated for the PEN/Faulkner award for fiction this year, Julie Otsuka's "Buddha in the Attic" is a novella about the Japanese immigrants experience in California in the years before and during WW2. It was beautifully done, she skillfully weaves everyone's story into one in such a way that makes for compelling reading.
And finally (whew!!) "The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes" by Diane Chamberlain made me cry. CeeCee was only 12 when she watched her Mom die of breast cancer. She bounces around the foster system, working hard and graduating from high school at 16. She gets a job waitressing, hoping to earn money for college, when she meets 22 year old Tim. Tim is suave and charming and they start dating. He tells CeeCee his twin sister, Andie, is on death row, railroaded by the system after she murdered the man who raped her. CeeCee is horrified for Tim and when he asks if she'll help him get Andie out, she wavers but eventually gives in. Tim and his brother Marty have a plan: to kidnap Governor Russell's wife Guinevere and hold her as ransom until the Governor frees Andie. They need CeeCee to babysit Guinevere while they negotiate with the Governor. CeeCee is distraught when they bring Guinevere to the remote mountain cabin and sees she is heavily pregnant. Tim and Marty leave them alone and Guinevere goes into labor. CeeCee delivers the baby girl but Guinevere hemorrhages and dies. Panicked, CeeCee flees and with the help of some underground anti-death penalty crusaders, is able to get a fake identity and start a new life with the baby she has named Corrine. Twenty eight years later Guinevere's body is found and Tim is arrested for murder, tried and convicted. Worried that he will go to death row for a crime he didn't commit, CeeCee turns herself in, stunning her entire family, especially her semi-estranged daughter Cory.

Persepolis; Death Comes to Pemberley; Sister Queens; Pride and Prejudice and Zombies; The Night Strangers

"Persepolis" is Marjane Satropi's semi-autobiographical graphic novel about growing up in Iran during the 80s. When she was 14 her parents sent her out of the country to escape from the war, but Marjane returned four years later and went to college and became a revolutionary, fighting the restrictive government. A few years later she left Iran for good and moved to Paris in search of a freer life. She painted a vivid picture of what life must have been like for a young girl just discovering herself in a restrictive and increasingly frightening world.
"Death Comes to Pemberley" by P.D. James did a great job of capturing Jane Austen's sparking characters from "Pride and Prejudice". On the eve of a ball held in honor of Darcy's mother, Lydia shows up at Pemberley, screaming that Wickham is being murdered in the woodland. When Darcy and his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, go to investigate, they find Wickham sobbing over the body of his dead friend, Denny, saying it was his fault he was dead. There is an inquest, and Wickham is bound over for trial, but arrogantly confident that he will be found not guilty of the crime despite there being no other viable suspect. The solution was very plausible and it was an enjoyable journey.
"Sister Queens" by Julia Fox examined the lives of Catherine of Aragon and her sister, Juana, known as Juana the Mad for her antics. Fox tries to make the argument that Juana was actually perfectly sane and that her father and eldest son made up her ailments to keep control of her vast property and wealth, and rule her lands in her stead. While I don't doubt that Ferdinand and Charles probably exaggerated her condition in order to take more control than they should have, I think Fox is stretching it a bit. She glosses over well documented instances of Juana's strange behavior and keeps harping on the times when she acts sane. If you've had any contact with crazy people like I have, you know they are perfectly capable of acting just as normal as anyone else if the mood strikes them, and I wouldn't doubt if that was the case with Juana. There was no real new information about Catherine of Aragon for me, but what was there was well written and interesting.
After P.D. James's Pemberley excursion I felt like rereading a bit of "Pride and Prejudice", but instead reread Seth Grahame-Smith's "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" because it is funnier.
And finally, Novelist recommended Chris Bohjalian's "The Night Strangers" as being like Jodi Picoult, so I wanted to read it. I didn't find it the least bit like Picoult, other than being set in New England, but I did enjoy it. It reminded me more of Joyce Carol Oates, or a very subtle version of Stephen King. Chip and Emily and their twin daughters, Hallie and Garnet, move to New Hampshire after Chip has a disastrous plane crash. While working through the guilt of surviving while 39 of his passengers and crew died, Chip starts seeing the ghosts of some of the dead passengers. One man, Ethan, is particularly angry that his little girl, Ashley, doesn't have any friends and she deserves them, trying to convince Chip to murder his daughters so they can be playmates for Ashley. Meanwhile, there is a strange cult of herbalists in town who need the blood of a traumatized pre-pubescent twin in order to make a tincture that will prolong their lives. They did it once before, accidentally killing the twin in the process, and they hope not to make the same mistake this time. It was very chilling, and tense, and I liked it up until the ending.