The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman

The Complete Maus consists of both Maus I and II, bound together in a hardcover volume. I wanted to read them both together, to get the full story, and I am very glad I did. Maus is the story of Art Spiegelman's father, Vladek, and how he survived the holocaust. In the graphic novel, Jews are drawn as mice, Germans are cats, Poles are pigs, French are frogs, and Americans are dogs. The drawings make the material more unrealistic and yet they also draw us in more to the fact that though it seems unreal, this really happened.
Vladek survived the holocaust mainly through luck, but also by taking advantage of the situations he finds himself in. His wife, Art's mother, also survives, but ends up committing suicide more than 20 years later. The novel is not just about the holocaust, but it also documents Art's efforts to get his father's story. He does not have a very good relationship with his cantakerous father, and the novel shows how he has a difficult time being fair to his story. It gives the work more depth, and makes it that much more real to the reader. So much has already been said about this book, but I had never gotten around to reading it. I am so glad I did, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who has ever considered picking it up.
This book is my first read for the second quarter of the 2009 Martel-Harper Challenge. As I have described in previous posts, this challenge follows the list of books that Canadian author Yann Martel sends to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. In his letter to Harper about this choice, Martel says that we sometimes need to be ripped apart in order to find our own stillness. The story of the holocaust certainly does that, and Maus is an incredible way of telling that story. I am also trying to read some of the books that another book blogger, Dewey, read throughout her book blogging years. This is for the Dewey's Books Challenge. She reviewed Maus back in January of 2006. And of course as a graphic novel it counts for the Graphic Novels Challenge - also the New Author Challenge, as I have never read Art Spiegelman before.

Well-Seasoned Reader Challenge Wrap-Up

Another challenge finished, but finished late. This challenge ran from January 1st through March 31st. The goal of the Well-Seasoned Reader Challenge was to read three books that:
have a food name in the title
OR
be about cooking/eating
OR
have a place name in the title
OR
be about one (or more) person's travel experience
OR
be about a specific culture
OR
be by an author whose ethnicity is other than your own. I chose to read three books with a place name in the title. The three books I chose were The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmin Khadra, The News From Paraguay by Lily Tuck, and Europe Central by William T Vollmann. My favorite of these three was probably Europe Central. I own The Swallows of Kabul, and had wanted to read it for awhile, but it wasn't the best of the three. The News From Paraguay won a National Book Award for Fiction, as did Europe Central, but it was less obvious why. The book was interesting, but definitely not one of the best that I've read.
I enjoyed this challenge, it's original at least. I may or may not participate in such a challenge in the future.

Europe Central by William T Vollmann

Wow. This book was not what I was expecting, but I am glad I picked it up. (I honestly don't know what it was I was expecting, but anyway.) Europe Central won the 2005 National Book Award for fiction, and it is easy to see why. The writing is magnificent - I felt swept away, caught up in the stories. The book itself is difficult to describe. Each chapter is a parable of sorts, and the chapters are paired in a way that illuminates the story. Basically the book is about World War II, focusing on Germany and Russia. There is no main character, except perhaps Europe Central. Each story is told from a sort of omniscient narrator point of view, with the voice sometimes changing in the middle of the story. Like I said, it's hard to describe.
Even though it took me longer to read than I would have thought, I am really glad I invested the time in it. I know almost nothing about WWII, so a lot of what is described I had never known, but I only felt lost during one story (Airlift Idylls - that one completely lost me for a bit). Some of the chapters focus on real people, telling their stories as the author envisions it, people such as Field-Marshal Friedrich Paulus, Kurt Gerstein, Shostakovich, and then sometimes the story is told by someone who seems to be an individual but is really not (those chapters reminded me of And Then We Came to the End, if you've read that). Basically this book would be enjoyed by anyone who can invest the time, who is interested in that time period, or who loves it when an author can use the language so beautifully (even when describing terrible things). Vollmann obviously did a ton of research for this book, and it makes me curious to see what his other books are like.
I picked this book up because it was a National Book Award winner, which I am reading for my 999 Challenge (my list is here). I also read it for the Well-Seasoned Reader Challenge which ended in March, so I obviously didn't get it done quite in time for that challenge, but oh well. The National Book Award Winners have been interesting so far, so I'm excited to continue my list! This book is also my Read Your Name Challenge "E" book.

Library Loot - April 8, 2009

Once again, a killer week at the library. Next week promises to be just as big!

library loot

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So, we have:

• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (for the Victorian Challenge)
• The Queen's Husband by Jean Plaidy (also for the Victorian Challenge)
• The Complete Odes and Satires of Horace (Really Old Classics Challenge)
• Satires by Juvenal (Really Old Classics Challenge)
• Secondhand Chic by Christa Weil (I picked this one up after flipping through it at the library - I love thrift store shopping, so I'm looking forward to reading this one)
• The Art of War by Sun Tzu (Really Old Classics Challenge)
• The Living Bread by Thomas Merton (Spiritually Speaking Challenge)
• The Epic of Gilgamesh, Stephen Mitchell translation (I took back my other copy of Gilgamesh, as I wanted to check out this edition for the Martel-Harper Challenge)
• Queen Victoria by Christopher Hibbert (Victorian Challenge)

Whew. I didn't have to return any this week, without having read them I mean, but next week might be a different story.

Dewey's Read-A-Thon

My first ever read-a-thon! I'm super excited. As of right now there are 66 readers signed up, and seven cheerleaders. I am sort of going to be doing both. I'll be reading for the most part, but I have a five-hour shift kind of right in the middle, so I'll be cheerleading during that time. I'm even hosting a mini-challenge, although I haven't heard back from the organizers on that yet. So we'll see how it all goes.
The Read-A-Thon begins at 5am pacific on April 18th. I haven't yet decided how I'll be doing updates, but I may do hourly. Or I might do an update every time I need to take a break, which will not necessarily be hourly. But I guess we'll find out! Check the blog for updates!

The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo

I picked up The Tale of Despereaux because of the movie that came out a few months ago. I didn't see the movie, and I actually heard that it wasn't very good, but I had the book at home anyway. And then I realized that it was on the list for the Unshelved Bookclub. I signed up for a challenge to read three of these books before June, so it works out well. Unshelved is a comic strip about working at a library, and it is right-on most of the time. Here is what the website says about the bookclub: "Every Sunday our characters talk about a book they've read in full-page full-color comic strips. " The comic strip about The Tale of Despereaux is not particularly amusing or insightful, but it does give a fairly decent summary of the plot.
Despereaux is a tiny mouse: the only one of his litter to survive, he was born with his eyes open. This would be enough for his family to find him strange, but his odd behavior continually sets him apart, eventually leading to his banishment. He refuses to learn how to scurry, and when he one day hears beautiful music, he follows the sound and finds the Princess Pea, who he promptly falls in love with. When she is kidnapped, he must face his fears to save her, the way a knight in a fairytale would.
I loved this story, and I definitely plan on having a copy around for myself. This would be a perfect book to read to child, one that they could grow into and read for themselves one day. It has some sadness - the fact that Despereaux is the only one of his litter who lives through their birth; the serving girl Miggery Sow (the name is bad enough), who has been beaten so badly throughout her life that she has gone practically deaf; the Queen who dies of fear of a rat. And even the protagonists are shown as having darkness in their hearts. Despereaux must learn to forgive his family for their part in his banishment, and the Princess must forgive the rat who kidnaps her. The whole story is done so well, however, I am in no way interested in seeing a movie version of it now. It's one of those books that is better read out loud than seen on screen.

The Fearless Fish Out of Water by Robin Fisher Roffer

I have not been keeping up with the 2009 Mini-Challenges, so I thought I would use this book for one of them. There are twelve mini-challenges, and while it would make sense to do one a month, I obviously haven't done that. So I'll do a couple a month to catch up. This book is for challenge # 3 - read a non-fiction book.
The Fearless Fish Out of Water: How to Succeed When You're the Only One Like You is a book about using your uniqueness to do well in your career. The idea of the book is that many of us feel like fish out of water when it comes to corporate settings, or maybe just in particular situations. Roffer suggests that we use that outsider feeling to our advantage. There are seven chapters, each one with an overarching theme, like "Go Fishing For the Real You" or "Swim in Their Ocean Your Way". Obviously she keeps up the fish theme throughout the book.
This would be a really good book for anyone who fears losing their individuality in a corporate setting. Roffer advocates being true to yourself, while still maintaining good business relationships. She does not want her readers to stand out just for the sake of standing out however. She makes it clear that you should always be true to yourself, and not try to force or emphasize difference just to make a statement. And she counsels conformity up to a point, in cases where it shows respect.
As someone who would definitely be a fish out of water in a corporate world, this book made a lot of sense to me. However, I think I would rather eat my shoes than go back to a job in an office, so I won't be trying this advice out in that realm. It does apply to other types of jobs as well though - this advice could be useful in many fields. In the library field, at least where I work, uniqueness is a strength, and it is encouraged. Roffer's suggestions would still work well even in a field that embraces the fish out of water.

Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge

Rainbows End won the 2008 Hugo Award, which is why I decided to pick it up and read it. I am a fan of science fiction, although it is not my favorite genre (that would be fantasy - similar, but not the same). This book is almost in the realm of speculative fiction, as it only takes place a little more than fifteen years in the future, and relies on the world remaining pretty much the same.
The book takes place over the course of several weeks, with most of the action happening in a single night. It is 2025, and our world looks very similar, although there are obvious differences. Technology has continued moving forward in leaps and bounds, paving the way for medical miracles and wearable computer hardware. Most young people have grown up with "wearables" - contact lenses and clothes that allow them to surf the internet and communicate as long as they are in range of the network (which means pretty much anywhere). The world has suffered from some horrendous events, which are mainly unspecified, but seem to be terrorist attacks as well as natural disasters. Two of the characters in the book are high-level Marines, and it is interesting to see how the past affects the way the military does things.
The main character is Robert Gu, a former world-renowned poet who lost much of his life to Alzheimer's. The medical establishment was able to cure him, and now he is making his way back in this strange new world. He lives with his son and daughter-in-law (the Marines), and their daughter Miri. In order to get up to speed with his clever grandaughter he goes to a local school for retraining - he is there with high school students and other elderly people who are trying to learn the same as him. From this point the plot gets rather complicated, and it is difficult to summarize without taking up paragraphs.
I really enjoyed Vinge's look at the future. It is easy to see how our world could become such a virtual place. One of the most entertaining and fascinating pieces of this future is the "belief circles". These are virtual realities created by fans of a particular author or work. An example from the book is the world that Terry Pratchett fans have created, which, if you tune in to their network, makes your world appear to be Discworld. It is very interactive and creative, as fans all over the world contribute to their particular belief circle to make it more fun for everyone. Vinge also does a great job of showing how not everyone is up to speed with all of the new technology. It's very much like today - some people are super internet-savvy, while others barely know how to use a mouse.
This was a great read, and I would recommend it to any science fiction fans, or anyone interested in speculative fiction. I read it for my 999 Challenge, for which I am reading award-winning books. It is also my "V" book for the A-Z Challenge, and Vernor Vinge is a new author for me, so I am counting it for the New Author Challenge as well!

Love Bites Reading Challenge

I had to do it. I just had to sign up for another challenge, crazy as that is. For this one I only need to read three books, three paranormal romances, between now and the end of June. I don't have a list, just the first book I plan on reading: Wild Highland Magic by Kendra Leigh Castle. It's a werewolf romance.
After that I may read some of the vampire romances that my sister-in-law reads and enjoys. She has a great list already for me to choose from!
If you would like to participate, head to the challenge blog, or to Royal Reviews.

Library Loot - April 1, 2009

Ah yes, another week with only one book added to the pile. Hooray! That book is The Street-Smart Naturalist: field notes from Seattle by David B Williams. I expected this one to be more field-guidey, but it looks more like a series of essays. I guess we'll see.
Also, I had to return The Story of Edgar Sawtelle this week, unread. Alas, another book has been added to my virtual to-read list.
But now that a new month has started, I have placed more holds in order to help me with my challenges. So unfortunately, this is probably the last light week for awhile. Just when school is getting more hectic! I think I need to do something about my priorities . . .