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I'm so glad I'm the leader of my book club (the Wonderland Book Club) or I'd never make time to read. I read quite a few books this summer starting with

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I planned to read this one and I did! Sylvia Plath's novel was deceptively fun to read, despite the heavy themes of death and depression. So many of her character's experiences (really her alter-ego) echo the experiences I've faced and that many young women face today. That's amazing, considering that this book was set in 1953! Now I want to get all of Plath's poetry books.

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler. On the surface, "Kindred" by Octavia E. Butler is a fantasy thriller, but it's so much more than that. It's an examination of gender, power struggles, race, history and socioeconomic divides. This book is also a memoir -- Dana resembles young Octavia. Both Dana and Octavia's fathers died before they knew him, both worked in menial jobs and both grew up in Southern California. As usual, Butler creates a strong, yet sensitive heroine that readers can root for. Dana is a modern day intellectual black woman who is a writer and she is married to another writer, who happens to be white. On her 26th birthday, she time travels back to 1815 to save Rufus, her white ancestor from drowning. As the story progresses, she returns to this era for over a year in her time, but over the span of 21 years in their time. In every visit she faces more danger and increasing violence. Butler doesn't lecture the reader about the psychological effects of slavery on both blacks and whites, but we discover how slavery leaves mental/physical scars on master and slave. She also examines through her first person narrative and characters how black women had to negotiate a space in this culture in order to survive. All of her characters are complicated and I think this is one of Butler's strengths in all of her fiction. Her plot is tight and suspenseful and she doesn't over foreshadow -- she gives just enough dread for you not to stop reading. The only quibble I had with the book was that there was too much unattributed dialogue between Dana and her husband Kevin at the beginning of the book. We didn't see these characters talk or experience their actions -- it was just straight expository dialogue. However, the writing got a lot stronger twenty-five pages later. Butler's short, imagistic descriptions and Dana's thoughts made me quickly forget about the shaky beginning. I also loved the ending which I won't give away. After you've read this book check out "Parable of the Sower" and "Parable of the Talents."

Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir by Natalie Goldberg.As a fan of Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones, I read her latest "how-to" book. I own the audio version of this title, but would like to experience the updated print version. It was a short read and I loved the exercises and how she blended her own failings and vulnerabilities into the exercises. A must for any writer's bedside table.

Tomato Girl by Jayne Pupek. I read this book because it was assigned to me as a book review for Pedestal Magazine, but reading this charming dubut novel never felt like work! Jayne Pupek's "Tomato Girl" was a book I couldn't put down. Well-paced, funny, and authentic with vulnerable and memorable characters, Pupek throws the proverbial rocks at her protagonist, 11-year-old Ellie Sanders throughout the book -- Ellie's troubles never seem to relent, except when she lets them go at the end. Beginning in a circular fashion with her mentally ill mother("a lily caught in a hurricane was how Daddy described Mama. If we calmed the winds around her, she would be fine") having a breakdown at the outdoor food market in town, Ellie recounts the events that led to her father leaving the family with "The Tomato Girl" a 17-year-old, fragile epileptic incest survivor. Then Pupek rushes furiously to the end where Ellie is taken into foster care and is told to let go of her troubles by Clara, a clairvoyant who saves Ellie's spiritual soul. The heart of the book takes place during Holy Week. Ellie's pregnant mother, Julia, falls down the cellar steps trying to retrieve an onion (Ellie believes this is her fault because she wanted to rush to her dad's store and pick out a new Easter chick instead of getting her mother that onion). Rupert Sanders manages the general store in town and has gotten close to Tess, the tomato girl, who sells him her produce. After Julia falls, Rupert has Tess come home with him (to help out his wife), which leads to tragedy for everyone involved. Ellie is now caught in the hurricane of her father's creation, as she struggles to help her mother, compete for her father's love with Tess, and witness her mother attack Tess and her father, both verbally and physically. She manages to hold on because of her two constants: Jellybean her baby chick and Mary Roberts, her know-it-all best friend, but these two don't remain by her side as the narrative unfolds. I loved how Pupek named all of her chapters: "Market Day," "Bad Letters," "Spoon,"The Gun," which allowed some clever foreshadowing. Pupek is also a poet and her taut verbal skills shine throughout the novel, especially when she uses analogies ("She (Julia) buys cabbages as twisted as a man's fist. Red radishes the size of a doll's heart.")without ever going overboard. Her images are grounded in the real world so I always could picture myself in the scene with smells, tastes and texture. "Tomato Girl" is sad, yet hopeful and is the book that should have been "The Secret Life of Bees". It's one of the best books I've read all year and I'm rooting for it to be a big hit.

The last book I read this summer was Jon Krakauer's "Into the Wild." This book is a fine companion to the 2007 Sean Penn movie. After seeing the film, I wanted to know what made Chris McCandless tick and what made him so angry. As a mother, I can't even imagine my son going off and not telling us where he was for two years. And then when he's found, he'd dead. What a horrible thing to have happened to Walt and Billie McCandless, Chris's parents. Through Krakauker's fine details of the landscape of Chris's travels, his interviews with those that knew Chris and his descriptions of other bold and tragic adventurers, we gain a clear context of what made Chris escape his late 20th century life in favor of being alone in the Alaskan wild. Not only does Krakauer tell us why men must risk all to climb mountains and venture into the wilderness, he shows his vulnerability through his own personal narrative. When he was 23, he was determined to climb Skikine Ice Cap in Alaska -- alone. He made it, but it humbled him. From these experiences, he's the perfect author to understand Chris and give readers an idea of who Chris McCandless was. From this book, I know he was stubborn, arrogant, loyal, super smart, entrepreneurial and highly ethical. The people he briefly met on the road fondly remember him and feel that Chris positively touched their lives. He marched to his own beat. I made up my mind that Chris was born in the wrong century and just couldn't fit into postmodern America. My sentiments were echoed in the book by Andy Horowitz, one of Chris's close high school friends. While reading I felt two connections to Chris: he graduated from high school 4 years before I did from Woodson HS (I went to Robinson Secondary, about 6 miles away) and we both grew up in Annandale, VA, about 5 miles from each other. I, too, found NOVA a stifling place and couldn't wait to flee from it the first chance I got. Like Chris, I never went back after graduating from Virginia Tech. We were also both competitive runners and I understand what makes someone good at long distance running: sheer will and raw determination. Chris had these in great quantities. Yes, he didn't go to Alaska prepared, but he did survive for 111 days using his wits and living off of the land. Although it cost him his family and his life, McCandless lived his dreams and I believe he found redemption at the very end of his life. This books amply provides more of the answers and background information for fans of the film version.

I'm currently working on Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" which I look forward to reading when I get a few minutes of downtime and "Ahab's Wife" by Sena Jeter Naslund, which at 665 pages is a dense but worth the time investment from what I've read so far.

Cheers,
Alice

Looking through my blog, from June 29 til my last journaling of books, I've read 61 books this summer! Not a bad haul, I guess.

My most recent favorite is Whale Talk, by Chris Crutcher. He writes for the YA market, but adults will be moved by the powerful story and Crutcher's honest writing. Time after time, this book brought tears to my eyes. A few times I wanted to flat-out sob. This is the kind of book that stays with you, and I can't recommend this one highly enough.

Boy's Life by Robert McCammon was a fun summer read (but really, anytime is a good time to relax with a book, right?). It's a coming of age story, set in 1960's Alabama, at a time when there's just enough magic left around the edges of Cory Mackenson's childhood to liven things up. McCammon has a gift for storytelling.

I've seen A Tree Grows in Brooklyn on a lot of 'My Favorite Books of All Time' lists, but I don't often see anything else by the author. Betty Smith's Joy In The Morning is just as amazing. Her writing is distinct enough that it's impossible to not recognize her style all over Joy, if you've read Brooklyn. This one is set in 1928 and tells the story of newlyweds Carl and Annie. Carl's working his way through law school. They've got next to no money, their parents don't support their marriage, and things aren't always easy, but love, commitment and a strong sense of determination conquer all. This is fun to read if just for the historical bits- at one point, Annie and Carl discuss if they can make it on ten dollars a week. Can you imagine?

If you didn't get to read everything you wanted during the summer, fall is a great time to curl up with a good book. ;)

Our little neighborhood book club (six mothers of school-age/teenage children) read Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. This is an amazing book, and honestly, I would make it required reading for every student before they graduate from high school in North Carolina. Due to the writing expertise of David Relin, the narrative prose is beautifully-written, and Relin's descriptions of the physical settings in the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the hardships there, are stunning. Throughout the book, I was amazed by the perseverance, patience, endurance and vision of Greg Mortenson in his quest to build schools, especially for girls, in these remote, treacherous mountain villages; his story is such an inspiration. The authors also convey an impressive understanding and awareness of Muslim culture, and how we cannot generalize an entire culture based on the action of a terrorist subpopulation of that culture.

After seeing the movie "Persepolis," I wanted to read the book, especially because I haven't read many graphic novels. Fortunately for me, a wonderful librarian at the Cary Public Library suggested that I check out ALL of Marjane Satrapi's novels, not just "Persepolis." She gathered the books for me, and I gobbled them up in a couple of days. Satrapi is such an engaging writer, and I learned more about Iran (particularly the lives of women there) than decades of news reports could provide.

If you've seen the movie, you'll also know how charming Satrapi's drawings are--very simple, but powerful. I'd recommend that everyone seek out "Persepolis," its sequel, and any other Satrapi novels you can find.