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Daydreaming about Beach Reading
Danny has wanted to take a vacation at the beach since I moved to Virginia 11 years ago. Since my family is in Michigan area, our vacations inevitably take place someplace to the North West. Danny’s long wait is about to come to an end. We are headed to Myrtle Beach on Memorial Day and I cannot tell you how excited we all are. The girls are excited to hunt for shells and play on the beach. Danny and I are excited to get away from the every day and to be alone on a vacation as a family. It’s going to be great.
Today I bought some noodle floaters, swim rings, swimmies, and sand toys for the girls at the dollar store and Wal-Mart. I’ve bought Danny and me some bigger beach towels and have expanded my wardrobe accordingly. Danny made the plans for lodging and we’re going to be stocking the refrigerator in our suite when we get there Monday afternoon. Other than packing, there is only one thing left for me to plan – the books I plan on taking with me.
As the beach hasn’t been a frequent destination, it’s been a long time since I’ve needed some beach reading. Usually, I don’t differentiate what I take to read on a trip; but, I want the entire beach experience. When people talk about beach reading, they are talking about fun, happy, frolicking, quick books. They definitely don’t bring intense, morose, or complicated books. For example, I’m going to hold off on starting The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai. This book won the Man Booker prize. I am also excited to read that book because Ms. Desai is a fellow Hollins graduate. Still, when I’m at the beach, I don’t want to read anything that has the word “loss” in the title.
Weeding out books that won’t be acceptable as beach reads helps to narrow down the field of contenders a great deal. It doesn’t make my choices obvious, though. I have had Memoirs of a Geisha for a long time now. I haven’t seen the movie or read any reviews of the book. My hope is that it is saucy and sensual. To me, that would qualify as something to read on a vacation at the beach. However, this book could also veer in the direction of Snowflower and the Secret Fan. I loved that book. It gave me a lot to think about. It made me mad how women perpetuate male fantasies of female inferiority to the next generation, regardless of how painful or deadly living up to that ideal was. I don’t want to upset myself on my vacation. So, are the Geishas in or out? I’m not sure.
Once I fully compare my stash of books against the fun, happy, frolicking, quick criteria, I need to figure out how many to bring. How much time is a mother of a 4.5 and a 2.5 year old daughters going to have to read? Do I need to even bring more than one book? Taking only one with me might invite the girls to place safely, peacefully, and quietly play while Danny and I lay on the beach. Hmmm… A compromise would be to bring one huge book. There is The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers that I’ve been dying to read. Now that I’ve read books about all of his wives with the exception of Jane Seymour, I’m ready for his version of things. What if that book rots? It’s unlikely, but it could happen. I’ll definitely bring more than one book. Do I stick with one type of genre or bring choices from many? Etc….
What have you enjoyed reading at the beach? I’m always open to suggestions.
Do you have any beach reading experiences to share? I’d love for you to share.
Also, don’t forget to enter my free book giveaway.
#25 ~ March
I have loved Little Women for as long as the first time I picked the book up to read it. My parents gave me a beautiful set of Louisa May Alcott’s books for Christmas one year. Those books remain my most treasured gift from them (I ought to let them know). When I first heard about this book, I knew that I had to read it. I haven’t really spent much time researching authors, so I knew very little about the world of the Alcott’s other than that the poverty experienced by the March’s in Little Women was based on reality.
March is about seeking redemption and finding forgiveness. It show the effects of demanding yourself to redeem past wrongs without allowing yourself to be forgiven by those you have wronged or, most importantly, yourself. It is also the story of having the courage to understand your spouse and to forgive mis-communications and wrongs.
Captain March started life in a poor family. He made his fortune by traveling through the South selling trinkets along the way. Although attempting to enrich himself, Mr. March’s passion is for learning and reading. Once, while in Virginia, he stays with a wealthy land and slave holder who has the most amazing library Mr. March has ever seen. He revels in his time to freely pursue intellectual pursuits. As an idealistic young man and Yankee, he finds it necessary to argue with his host, Mr. Clement, about slavery when in fact, he does not understand the society at all. With the help of Grace, a house slave, he takes it upon himself to begin teaching a young slave girl how to read. His time spent teaching is immensely rewarding to him, but he has no concept of what his self-righteous pleasure could cost those involved with him. His desire for Grace leads his host to discover what has been happening. Mr. March is dismissed from his plantation, but not before he is forced to watch Grace, stripped from the waist down, have pieces of flesh slashed from her buttocks by the overseer’s whip. We find that even after marrying Marmee and raising a strong abolitionist family that Mr. March cannot forgive himself for causing Grace this humiliation and pain.
Mr. March becomes a preacher and blindly celebrates any person or group working for the end of slavery. Although it causes his family to suffer, he does not much regret giving his entire fortune as an investment to the deceitful John Brown. Brown claimed that the money would be used for peaceful abolitionist purposes, but instead, March unknowingly helped to fund the rebellion that never took off at Harper’s Ferry. He is so enamored of what Brown’s vision that he did not speak out against Brown after he and his family are forced into poverty. He does not want to do anything to smear the reputation of abolitionists.
When the country fell into Civil War, Mr. March gave a sermon for the troops leaving for battle and it is during this speech that he sees a way to clear his conscious – he could join the army as a chaplain and provide aid to soldiers fighting for the cause. He sees his wife in the crowd lifting her hands to him and he takes that as a sign of her unity of purpose. What he didn’t anticipate was that his stringent religious views would irritate his superiors and that the soldiers were not fighting for “the cause.”
After he was unable to save a soldier who couldn’t swim from drowning, he came upon the Virginia plantation that was the sight of the barbaric beating of a woman he loved. Sure enough, Grace is still there. Due to the old age of the Mr. Clement, she stayed when everyone else left. Seeing her again only adds to the heaping pile of sin and unworthiness he feels. After being caught in a somewhat compromising position with Grace, Captain March is forced to leave his post and set up shop as a teacher once again on a homestead for freed slaves. This type of a homestead was a trial to see how a plantation would run when the workers were actually paid for their labors. Over and over again, Captain March is shocked and bewildered when people do live up to the “utopia” he envisioned when blacks and whites lived together in equality. He gets lost in reality that a snap of the fingers doesn’t change hundreds of years of history. He does assimilate as best as he could and did good work until a fever sent him to a military hospital in Washington, DC.
It is while Captain March is delirious that the reader discovers that Marmee March is not in lock step with her husband. Certainly she is an abolitionist and made her home a safe haven along the Underground Railroad, but she resents the loss of the easier life she grew up with and married into. There were a lot of assumptions made on both sides. Captain March’s attempts to redeem himself for Grace’s beating caused his family great harm and ultimately failed to ease his conscience. While tending to her husband in the hospital, Marmee has to deal with her resentment and come to a place of understanding and forgiveness, but Captain March won’t accept it from her.
In the end, the reader is unsure if Captain March ever gave up the ghost of the past and forgave himself. I’m not entirely sure he would know what to do without that hanging over his head. He could not give in to happiness. Blindly following his political and religious ideology throughout his adulthood to impress his wife caused his burden to grow exponentially. All these things he’s blamed himself for were, for the most part, entirely were out of his control. One might even conclude that he was most guilty of the sin of pride – something he did not see.
March is an interesting look at how ideology and merciless self-judgment can take a good man and ruin him. It is unfortunate that Captain March never took the well deserved credit for raising honest, intelligent, hard-working, and humble daughters. It’s funny those people who can see every possible fault in their lives cannot for one second relax and see the beauty.
#24 ~ The Last Wife of Henry VIII
The Last Wife of Henry VIII by Carolly Erickson
This was my first foray into books about the wives of Henry the 8th that was not written by Philippa Gregory. I have to admit that I was somewhat concerned that the quality of the writing and the story would not meet my expectations. Thankfully, that was not so. I enjoyed The Last Wife of Henry VIII very much.
This novel tells the story of Catherine Parr, the woman who was to become Henry’s last wife – and one of only two who managed to survive him. Unlike several of Henry’s wives, Catherine Parr did not have ambitions to become queen or to hold any lofty title at that. She remained in Henry’s favor long after she first asked him to intercede on her behalf when settling the issue of her first marriage. From that point forward, it was simply a matter of the right stars falling into proper alignment.
Catherine blamed Henry for the death of her first husband and her unborn child. She cursed him and avoided him whenever possible. She even accepted the marriage proposal of a kindly, yet old, man to “escape” the king’s request that she join the court as one of Queen Katherine Howard’s ladies in waiting. She did not love Lord Latimer, but he was a gentleman in every sense of the word and she enjoyed caring for her stepdaughter. It was while married to him that she met and became lovers with Thomas Seymour, the uncle of Henry’s only male heir, Prince Edward. There plans for marrying after Lord Latimer’s death were thwarted, however, by Henry. As her soveriegn king, Catherine could not turn down his proposal. All that Catherine had left was the courage and the hope to survive her third marriage with her life.
While reading this book, I felt as though I got to know a little of what it was like to live with our King Henry at the end of his life. It was actually quite sad how paranoid and unhappy he became. He started down the slippery slope of believing his own hype years before, but as his health declined, his common sense and ability to discern situations and people quickly deteriorated. He was a man who had everything, yet nothing at all.
The Big 3-0 = A Free Book for You
I created 52 Books or Bust as a way to document the challenge I gave to myself to read a book a week this year. Along the way, I’ve made up only two rules for myself:
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I won’t use quick reads to bump up my numbers (I’ve actually read three of Janet Evanovich’s books but only counted one)
- I will finish every book I start.
Along the way, I’ve discovered some great books and a passion for types of books I never would have imagined. Still, all of the books I’ve read have been chosen by me. Even the time I asked my readers to select a book, the options were things I was interested in reading in the first place. I want to do something different. I want to add some spice to my reading. I want to take a walk on the wild side.
Can you help me out? I want one Lucky Reader (LR) to pick book #30 for me. In order to entice you, I’ll send LR my copy of the book after I’ve finished it and written my review. I see this happening something life this:
- Readers will leave a comment on this post that in some way indicates who you are (does not have to be your real name) but does not mention the book you have in mind.
- Once I’ve received your entry, I’ll add your name to the hat. The deadline for entering the contest is Friday, June 8 at 11:59pm.
- On Saturday, June 9, I’ll have my gorgeous, vivacious, and currently illiterate four-year-old daughter select the lucky winner from the hat. My talented, suave, and extra tall husband will be on-hand to validate the drawing with pictures.
- I will announce the identity of LR on 52 Books or Bust after the drawing. That will be LR’s cue to reveal #30.
- Assuming that I don’t already own the book, I will order it, read it as #30, and review it here. When all is said and done, I will send the book to LR as a token of my appreciation.
Is there really an easier way to get a free copy of the book of your choice? All you have to do is post a comment and select a book (under $30, please). Simple enough? Come on aboard. Jump on my bandwagon. I promise you, you won’t hurt the horse. Promise.
#23 ~ I Am Charlotte Simmons
I am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe
Have you ever read a book like mad just to get the darn thing over with? That’s what I’m doing right now. It’s not that I Am Charlotte Simmons is a bad book. It’s not. Tom Wolfe is a wonderful author. Reading this book is like getting a second hand look at the thought processes I had when I was in the midst of the worst two years of my life suffering from PPD. Charlotte’s situation and neurosis are very different from mine, but it all stems from “perfection anxiety” that is entirely focused on the body. I recognized this pretty quickly after the first time I found myself yelling inside my head, “If she thinks about that again I’m going to throw this book against the wall.” If Tom Wolfe were to write a novel about me, Charlotte would do the same thing. “Get over it already!”
While I’m determined to finish every book I start this year, it is tempting to skip over some of those page and a half long paragraphs. I just can’t wait to finish this book. It’s painful to get such a close-up look at how crazy things were in my head while I thought I was thinking and reacting in a perfectly rational way.
Tom Wolfe accurately paints a portrait of someone whose unrealistic expectations for herself and her body morph into a deep depression and anxiety when experiences related to those expectations head south. That isn’t all that is included in this book. It’s a pretty interesting look at modern college life. I Am Charlotte Simmons is different from anything I’ve read thus far. I don’t regret reading the book, but I’ll be very happy when Charlotte and my experiences with PPD are put someplace on a shelf and get lost in the dust.
Reading in the Workplace
I often use my breaks and lunch hours to read. Being a mother with young children, this can be some of the only uninterupted time I have to read each day. I don’t like read at my desk, so I usually take a seat in the kitchen at times when it is less likely that a co-worker will also be using the room. For the past couple of weeks, however, it’s as if people are waiting with baited breath for me to head to the break room to talk about what I’m reading. These are not strangers who just happen upon me reading and are truly interested. These are people who see me three thousand times each day and could ask me questions or engage me in conversation at any time. I enjoy reading and I enjoy talking to others about what I’m reading, especially if it has captivated my imagination. I just don’t like to do those two things together. ARG! Maybe I’ll have to resort to hiding away in the stairwell. That way, if I’m interupted by a talkative co-worker I will at least get some inspiration for that short story or novel that’s just waiting for me to pick up my pen and start writing.
And Now Begins…
#22 ~ The Thirteenth Tale
The Thirteenth Tale
It took me a while to read this book, but that is not because it wasn’t interesting and delightful. Suffice to say that sometimes work gets in the way of life. I completely enjoyed reading a Gothic ghost story once again. I keep forgetting how much I enjoy them. There’s something about a misty, haunted moor filled with secrets and lies to keep my interest until the very end.
The narrator, an avid reader, lives above her father’s bookstore. From a very young age Margaret spent a majority of her time reading. Her ability to read expanded once she began working at the store full-time. The store is full of exotic books, but it is not the main way in which their livings are earned. Her father has a knack for finding the most difficult books. Four of those sales a year is all they need.
Her life is sheltered within this world of books until she is offered the opportunity to write the biography of one of Britian’s greatest living novelists. Vida Winter spent her life spinning tales when asked about her private life. To Margaret, she wants to come clean. Margaret’s family also has its secrets that keeps her at arms length from her mother. After some discussion with her father, she accepts the position and makes a temporary move to Ms. Winter’s estate.
The world of shadows, ghosts, and mentally unstable relatives unfolds for Margaret during sessions with the author in her library. As Margaret tries to tie together loose ends and prove to herself that Ms. Winter is not making a fool of her, the reader is, too. The rules that Ms. Winter put in place about not asking questions and not jumping ahead in the story are as tantalizingly frustrating to the reader as they are to the narrator.
The conclusion to this book is reminiscent to many other Gothic novels. Asylum by Patrick McGrath , which is my favorite novel in this genre, came to mind. I finished the book with satisfaction. It was nice to not feel disappointed. The fact that I wasn’t longing for more is far from negative. It felt complete and that is a joy to me. Not everything has to end with Scarlett tormented on the stairs determined to get Rhett back after first rejuvenating her soul at Tara.
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When Encouraging Reading Brings Up Parenting Issues
I love to read and hope that one day my daughters will as well. While reading to them this weekend, I encounter text that negatively mentioned adoption. My oldest daughter was domestically adopted at birth. Here is what happened to me over the weekend…
Every Saturday morning we have a young woman come to the house to watch the girls so we can get things done around the house. E is currently working on a MFA in Writing Children’s Literature. She let us borrow some books to read to the girls. These books were amazing even though they were a little above Emma and Allison’s comprehension level. One of the most interesting and creative of those books was The Day I Swapped my Dad for Two Goldfish by Neil Gaiman. I loved reading the book. The illustrations were great. I think children would have even more fun reading it themselves because of the way it is put together.
As much as I enjoyed reading the book, it posed a parenting problem that I wasn’t anticipating. At one point during the book, a brother gets mad at his sister and torments her by telling her that she was adopted. I was on a roll and read through it without before I had a chance to think about it. I immediately looked over at Emma while I continued to read. She didn’t have any reaction this time. The next time I read that book, I can easily skip over that part. That isn’t the issue. The issue is that Emma isn’t always going to be in the company of people sensitive to adoption issues. They will not know to insert something else or to avoid it all together. Even then, Emma will one day soon be able to read herself. I won’t be able to review everything she reads to make sure that it is adoption friendly. Emma is going to hear someone refer to adoption as an insult. As much as I want to shield her from the ugliness in this world, sheltering her would hurt her more in the long run. She is going to have to learn to come to terms with adoption in general just as she will have to come to terms with her own experience. The same is true for me. I wonder if it would be the correct thing to do to skip or substitute unflattering references to adoption. Should I protect her from that or use it as a teaching moment when she gets older? She’s too young to catch on to what was read yet. When that time comes, should I bring it up myself or wait for her. Not saying anything about such literary references lead her to believe that I agree with those statements or don’t care about her feelings? Would saying something make an issue where this isn’t one for her?
I’m unsure of how to handle this. Has anyone else come across this before? If so, how did you handle it? If not, I would really appreciate your thoughts or suggestions.
#21 ~ The Constant Princess
The Constant Princess
After reading both of her Boleyn books, I was very excited to read this book about Katherine of Aragon, even though it was out of chronological order so to speak. She was such a wonderful character seen through the eyes of Mary Boleyn. This book was good and provided some interesting insights on King Henry as a boy and young man. Still, I liked Katherine of Aragon much better from another person’s point of view. Her continuous references to herself as chosen and favored by God drove me nuts. It was very much in her character to believe that all that she wanted for her life were due to her. She was raised that way and that did appear to be the royal mindset of the day. It was very annoying to read. I would have loved to smack her silly.
This is not to say that I didn’t enjoy the book. It was well written and hard to put down. The scenes following the birth of Katherine and Henry’s son were beautiful. Of the three books I’ve read thus far, I could re-read those scenes over many times. Still, reading books about self-righteous people in the first person drive me to madness. King Henry had to start his downhill slide somewhere, right? How appropriate.
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Book Blogger Con
Have you heard about the 1st Annual Book Blogger Convention that will be held in NYC during the BEA? You should check it out. I know it will be a fantastic experience. Unfortunately I won't be able to attend due to family obligations, but I'll be trolling blogs for up to the minute news.
WE Magazine’s A Woman Blogger to Watch
Literate Challenges
What's in a Name? 3
Random Reading Challenge
