Seabiscuit: An American Legend

by Laura Hillenbrand
New York : Ballantine Books, 2002 (originally published 2001).

In the mid-1930s, an unlikely team of men and horse took the racing world by storm. Charles Howard made his fortune selling cars, but purchased racing horses and loved the limelight. Tom Smith was a horse trainer with a unique horse sense and methods. Jockey Red Pollard was a witty, hard-fighting competitor who read classics and affectionately referred to Emerson as "Old Waldo." And then there was Seabiscuit: a stocky, short-legged horse who loved to sleep but also loved to run.

I bought this book years ago at the library book sale and it has languished on my shelves unread. In fact, I had it so long I finally put it in the box of books ready to donate back to the book sale. Then I read Unbroken, and was so completely blown away I had to dig this book out and put it back on my shelves. So, needless to say, I'm a bit behind the times in reading and loving this book. Hillenbrand deftly paints a picture of a moment in history, of a detail that makes it come alive, and of the people involved in these events. This is true in both of her books, though the subjects are very different. Seabiscuit's story is both inspiring and bittersweet, and if you happened to have put it on your pile of books that has been there so long you've nearly given up - give it a chance. Like me, you may be glad you did.

Gillespie and I

by Jane Harris
New York : Harper Perennial, 2012 (published in the UK in 2011).

Miss Harriet Baxter, in 1933, is writing her memoirs recounting events in 1888 when she traveled to Glasgow and befriending struggling artist Ned Gillespie and his family.

This is a difficult book to talk about without giving spoilers, but I shall try. I've given only a bare bones account of the plot because the brilliance of the book is the way the story unfolds as Harriet narrates her story and how the reader's interpretations evolve in the course of the story. As I was reading, I was struck by the thought that in young adult literature a first-person narration means that you can get to know a character because you're in their heads and reading their thoughts while in adult or literary fiction, you actually know the character less. It's a good book to read slowly, partly because of the writing, but mostly because it's deceptively complex. I'm still pondering the book, not sure exactly how much I liked it, but at the same time I want to find someone who's finished it so I can talk about it.

Insurgent

by Veronica Roth
New York : Katherine Tegen Books, 2012.

**Spoiler warning for the first in the series, Divergent**

On the run from the old Dauntless compound, Tris, Tobias, and the others go to Amity for help. Will the faction that wants peace and accord above all else ally with them against Erudite? While there, Tris discovers that Tobias' father, Marcus, knows something important about why Jeanine attacked Abnegation, and she's determined to find out what's going on.

Ever since a friend had me read Divergent, I've been waiting for the sequel. I was one of the first people to put a hold on the library record (before anyone had the book in). The day it came in, I snagged it immediately and started reading it on my first break. The story picks up exactly where Divergent left off, and I was a little afraid I would lose out because I hadn't reread the first book and couldn't remember who everyone was and what had happened. But Roth does a good job of reintroducing characters and their situations in a natural way, and I was soon speeding along, lost in the story. I liked the development of Tris and Tobias; they each have secrets, and they have to deal with how that affects their relationship. The narrative clips along at a fast pace, taking turns here and there which sometimes surprised me and sometimes didn't, but I was enjoying myself so much I didn't mind when the revelations were not entirely unexpected. The end definitely left me wanting more - I predict I'll do exactly what I did with this one when Book 3 comes out.

Gentlemen of the Road

by Michael Chabon
New York: Ballantine Books, c2008, 2007.

Two swash-buckling Jews, Amram and Zelikman, travel in search of adventure - or perhaps adventure/trouble is in search of them - in the region of the Caspian Sea in the 10th century. I hesitate to say more, because the fun is in seeing how their story unfolds. I can just imagine Chabon unwrapping his story, a sort of homage to the old-fashioned adventure story but one that is delightfully unique. I seem to remember putting it on my ever-growing TBR list when it was brought up at a Readers' Advisory library workshop as a title that is particularly hard to categorize: Is it adventure? Historical fiction? Literary? Yes.

Though it is a fairly short novel (less than 200 pages), and I turned pages quickly, I never did have that moment where I was so engaged and involved that I practically forgot I was reading. Perhaps it was because it took me until halfway through to realize that this was set in a real place and time (Khazaria, 10th century). Perhaps it was because I had to have my dictionary out - not just because I wanted to learn the new words, but because I sometimes couldn't picture what was described without it. Perhaps I am just not the right reader in the right mood for this book. Gentlemen of the Road was a fun story that made me aware of a part of history I'd never known before, and while I may not be inclined to read this particular title again, I'm certainly intrigued enough to try the other Chabon titles on my TBR list sooner rather than later.

The Best American Short Stories 2011

edited by Geraldine Brooks (book) and Heidi Pitlor (series)
Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011.

This book presents 20 stories originally published in US or Canadian periodicals between January 2010 and January 2011, culled from 120 by author Geraldine Brooks. After a foreword and an introduction, by the series editor and the book editor respectively, in which they both discussed the "sameness" of short stories, I knew I was in for a unique collection.

Like any collection, there were some that I hated and some that I loved. Most I liked, in some form or another. Mostly, I admire the form of the short story and how an author can say so much in so little space where every word counts and not an image is wasted. So while I never rate a collection highly if I rate it at all (because I wouldn't read the whole collection from cover to cover again), I really enjoy the time spent dipping into these collections. (After all, even if I really hated a story, I've discovered an author to stay away from!)

Of the stories that stood out to me, I enjoyed "Property" by Elizabeth McCracken, which was bittersweet but the first story I really connected to, and "Phantoms" by Stephen Millhauser, which was deliciously creepy without being horror. Honorable mention goes to "The Sleep" by Caitlin Horrocks about a town that decides to hibernate, and which just begs for discussion - I asked by English major brother to read it because I wanted to see what he came away with. But my absolute favorite of the collection was "To the Measures Fall" by Richard Powers. Its format is really unique, using second person and questions at the end of each section that are reminiscent of English tests. This could have distracted me from the story itself, except for the premise: you discover a used book that eventually becomes part of your life, even though its meaning and your responses change over time. I could relate so well that it doesn't matter that the "you" in story is quite a bit older than me and has a life ultimately different from mine. That experience is one I can understand.

A Passion for Books

edited by Harold Rabinowitz and Rob Kaplan
New York : Times Books, c1999.

The subtitle summarizes this collection better than I can: "A book lover's treasury of stories, essays, humor, lore, and lists on collecting, reading, borrowing, lending, caring for, and appreciating books." The only things in this collection left out in the subtitle are comics and quotes on books and reading.

Do you love to read? Do you love books just for the feel of them, for their presence in your home? Then this sort of collection, a book about books, is likely the type of read you'd be drawn to whether I had anything good to say about it or not. Fortunately, I found it to be a lot of fun dipping into this collection, whether reading for a prolonged period of time or trying to fit an essay into my lunch break.

I especially enjoyed "Lending Books" by Anatole Broyard, "Pillow Books" by Clifton Fadiman," "Invasion of the Book Envelopes" by John Updike, and "Why Does Nobody Collect Me?" by Robert Benchley. On the whole, the essays on collecting interested me less than others - but then, I'd be surprised if such a collection met my individual reading tastes precisely. This is the sort of book I would enjoy owning so I could simply read a selection of my choosing whenever I wanted and leave the rest behind. (Oh, let's be honest, what I'd really love to is to have a hundred such books and select my own favorites for compilation!) Recommended to all who would immediately identify themselves as Readers, and even more so to collectors.

The Screwtape Letters

by C.S. Lewis
New York: HarperCollins, 2001 (orig. pub. 1943).

Screwtape, an old demon, writes letters of advice to his nephew Wormwood, who is on assignment tempting a young man with the ultimate goal of bringing his soul to Hell.

This has long been one of my favorites of Lewis' works, and a friend's recent read of it for a class prompted me to pick it up and reread it along with her. To my surprise, I found that though I've owned a copy for over a year, I have not reread it in the last six years or so (when I started tracking my reading). As a result, it didn't have the same sort of immediate familiarity of a yearly reread; it was more a gradual recognition as I read a letter and thought, "Oh yeah, I remember that now!" I had a lot of fun revisiting the book: it's at once humorous and hard-hitting, even convicting. The essay at the end, "Screwtape Proposes a Toast" was, if not entirely new, one I had forgotten entirely. In it, he talks about the way in which the idea of "democracy" can be twisted in education, and I was really amazed at how prescient some of Lewis' predictions were.

I've been debating whether or not I would recommend it to someone who didn't share Lewis' faith, and ultimately I would say, if the conceit interests you, then go ahead and try it, but I think that like his apologetic works it would really interest and have the greatest impact on those who already agreed with a Christian worldview.