Caroline Bookbinder

Chunkster Reading Challenge wrap-up

2012-02-11T17:06:00.001-08:00

So. I did not finish this challenge! But I did get 5.5 of 6! Alas. I finished the last one last night, 10 days late. Super-bummer. Here is what I'd signed up for:

February 1, 2011 - January 31, 2012
A chunkster is 450 pages or more of adult literature. A chunkster should be a challenge. No Audio books in the chunkster.

I signed up for:
Do These Books Make my Butt Look Big? - this option is for the reader who can't resist bigger and bigger books and wants to commit to SIX Chunksters from the following categories:
2 books which are between 450 - 550 pages in length; CHECK
2 books which are 551 - 750 pages in length; CHECK
2 books which are GREATER than 750 pages in length. ONE

Peyton Place by Grace Metalious - 512 pages
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee - 470 pages
Shogun: A Novel of Japan by James Clavell - 1210 pages
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins - 567 pages
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky - 675 pages

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (975 pages) was my last one. I made a big mistake in both increasing my Chunkster level AND aiming to read 100 books in 2011 (which I did). Either one would have been much easier than trying for both together, alas.

So I was thinking I was done signing up for challenges this year but the Chunkster is so tempting. And this year I am already planning on definitely reading:
The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough (692 pages)
The Fatal Shore: The Epic Of Australia's Founding by Robert Hughes (688)
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (550 pages)
Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond (496 pages)

Which means I can easily make the Chubby Chunkster level (4), but since I can count Lonesome Dove towards my 2012 books, I think it would be relatively reasonable to aim for The Plump Primer - this option is for the slightly heavier reader who wants to commit to SIX Chunksters over the next twelve months. But unlike Do These Books Make my Butt Look Big? I don't have to commit to the three subcategories. While I did enjoy my two Chunky Chunksters, I don't foresee those this year and might struggle to add them in with everything else. I can do six, but only if they're all just at the 450 page cutoff. And I am definitely not aiming for 100 books this year, so fingers crossed, I should make it this year.

Book Beginnings on Friday: Rilla of Ingleside

2012-02-10T04:17:00.000-08:00

Book Beginnings on Friday is a meme hosted by Katy from A Few More Pages. Anyone can participate; just share the opening sentence of your current read, making sure that you include the title and author so others know what you're reading.

Rilla of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery

"It was a warm, golden-cloudy, lovable afternoon."

This seems like an appropriate start for a Montgomery book - they are always poetic and optimistic. I am particularly looking forward to this one because it's the last in the Anne of Green Gables series, and also it's set during WWI (and was written during that time - when they couldn't conceive of a WWII) which makes me think of Downton Abbey.

“Waiting On” Wednesday: The Lost Saints of Tennessee

2012-02-08T03:29:00.000-08:00

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted here, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating. This week's pre-publication “can't-wait-to-read” selection is:

The Lost Saints of Tennessee: A Novel by Amy Franklin-Willis

Synopsis from Goodreads:
With enormous heart and dazzling agility, Amy Franklin-Willis expertly mines the fault lines in one Southern working-class family. Driven by the soulful voices of forty-two-year-old Ezekiel Cooper and his mother, Lillian, The Lost Saints of Tennessee journeys from the 1940s to 1980s as it follows Zeke’s evolution from anointed son, to honorable sibling, to unhinged middle-aged man.

After Zeke loses his twin brother in a mysterious drowning and his wife to divorce, only ghosts remain in his hometown of Clayton, Tennessee. Zeke makes the decision to leave town in a final attempt to escape his pain, throwing his two treasured possessions—a copy of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and his dead brother’s ancient dog—into his truck, and heads east. He leaves behind two young daughters and his estranged mother, who reveals her own conflicting view of the Cooper family story in a vulnerable but spirited voice stricken by guilt over old sins and clinging to the hope that her family isn’t beyond repair.

When Zeke finds refuge with cousins in Virginia horse country, divine acts in the form of severe weather, illness, and a new romance collide, leading Zeke to a crossroads where he must decide the fate of his family.

Publishing February 7, 2012 by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

Teaser Tuesdays: Lonesome Dove

2012-02-07T06:55:00.000-08:00

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

2012-02-06T04:49:00.000-08:00

This meme is now hosted by Sheila at One Persons Journey Through a World of Books.

Books completed last week:
alas, none again. But I am over halfway in Lonesome Dove!

Books I am currently reading/listening to:
Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
The Killer of Little Shepherds: A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Science by Douglas Starr (audio)

Up next:
The Secret River by Kate Grenville
Foreign Correspondence: A Pen Pal's Journey from Down Under to All Over by Geraldine Brooks
Eucalyptus by Murray Bail

“Waiting On” Wednesday: Ragnarok

2012-02-01T02:57:00.000-08:00

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted here, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating. This week's pre-publication “can't-wait-to-read” selection is:

Ragnarok: The End of the Gods by A.S. Byatt

Synopsis from GoodReads:

Recently evacuated to the British countryside and with World War Two raging around her, one young girl is struggling to make sense of her life. Then she is given a book of ancient Norse legends and her inner and outer worlds are transformed.

Intensely autobigraphical and linguistically stunning, this book is a landmark work of fiction from one of Britain's truly great writers. Intensely timely it is a book about how stories can give us the courage to face our own demise. The Ragnarok myth, otherwise known as the Twilight of the Gods, plays out the endgame of Norse mythology. It is the myth in which the gods Odin, Freya and Thor die, the sun and moon are swallowed by the wolf Fenrir, the serpent Midgard eats his own tail as he crushes the world and the seas boil with poison. It is only after such monstrous death and destruction that the world can begin anew.

This epic struggle provided the fitting climax to Wagner's Ring Cycle and just as Wagner was inspired by Norse myth so Byatt has taken this remarkable finale and used it as the underpinning of this highly personal and politically charged retelling.

Publishing Feb. 7, 2012 by Grove Press.

Wondrous Words Wednesday: Doctor Zhivago (part II)

2012-02-01T02:56:00.000-08:00

Teaser Tuesdays: Lonesome Dove

2012-01-31T01:58:00.000-08:00

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading

Grab your current read. Open to a random page. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry p. 368

"The girl was a handy person to have along on a trip, he had to admit. On the other hand, she was a runaway, and it would all be hard to explain to July."

Roscoe is speaking here. He is really not good on a trip so just about anyone else would be good but this girl seems resourceful as she just ran away from an elderly man who considered himself to "own her," beat her and raped her. July is the sheriff, and Roscoe is his deputy and has gone after him to give him some important news about something that happened in Fort Smith after he left in search of the man who killed his brother the mayor. It may seem complicated but it's not really. I'm finding the book to my surprise to be occasionally funny!

Book Review: Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

2012-01-30T13:23:00.000-08:00

I had never read a Russian novel before and was really looking forward to finally knocking that off my list this year. This isn't the one I would have picked but my book club did, and alas, I wish I had begun with another.

Basically there is the story you've heard of, of the love between Doctor Yuri Zhivago and Lara, both married to others, in Siberia. But if you boiled it down to that actual story, it'd be about 40 pages. Not 600+. The other 560+ pages are a confusing and boring political treatise. Ugh.

The book begins when both Yuri and Lara are small children (never a good sign in my book) and from there gives excruciating detail about absolutely everything and everyone they run into growing up. As young adults Yuri and Lara's husband Pasha go to war (it was at least 50 pages before I figured out what war - turns out it is WWI.) Lara becomes a nurse to find her husband and she then meets and becomes friends with Yuri. Her husband is reported dead but really isn't and has taken another name and now it's during one of many revolutions in Russia in 1917-1919 and he's leading a very successful and scary group of revolutionaries. To make things more confusing, the revolutions and civil wars in Russia don't involve just two sides, but instead there are four, so good luck keeping them straight. Yuri and his family get into trouble in Moscow so they decide to go to Siberia to avoid it and coincidentally his wife has family in the same town in the middle of nowhere, where Lara is from. Also coincidentally Yuri and Lara met each other twice as small children (and remember it!) And several times, in a very Dickensian fashion, Yuri runs into people he met 200+ pages ago (except that it's hard enough to believe in Dickens and England is itty bitty and Russia is ginormous so it's totally unbelievable!)

Every single character we meet is described to the nth degree - a librarian is wearing a black silk blouse and has a cold and holds a tissue to her nose the whole time and feels better after Lara talks to her, and this librarian is a non-entity who is never mentioned again and matters not one whit to the novel overall. By giving us such amazing detail about every encounter, the author gives the reader no help at all in distinguishing between important and unimportant characters, and so readers spend a lot of time and effort remembering these ancillary characters for absolutely no reason, and it ends up being exhausting. And boring. Who cares about the librarian? (No dissing on librarians, this is just an example.) What does it matter what color and fabric her shirt is? Why do we care that she has a cold? Not only do we need none of these details, I'd venture that we don't need her at all, she could be cut entirely and not only would the book be just as good without her, it would be better without so much extraneous and pointless description.

We argued a bit at bookclub about whether or not the translation had to do with how much we didn't like it. I spoke with a friend, H, a few weeks ago who had read it in college 3-4 years ago in the previous translation and she also had not liked it at all (she called it "a slog.") Someone else in bookclub had read it in college 30+ years ago and remembered liking it then. She started reading this one and didn't like it but isn't sure if it is the translation or simply the passing of time. One of our members has read pretty much all of the famous Russian novels now so she knows it's not an unfamiliarity with the style and conventions of Russian novels that is the problem. But none of us were willing to give another translation a try to see if it was as bad. I personally though the translation was great. The book read very smoothly and easily, and wherever there were puns or rhymes or plays on words, which can be very difficult to translate, they were done beautifully. Unless the translators had edited liberally (and added half the book!), I don't see how they were the problem. They didn't insert all the pointless detail and all the blather about politics. We heard that in their zeal for accuracy, they lost some of the beauty and poetry of the novel, but none of us felt that if it were more beautiful and poetic, it would be better (in fact, it could even make it worse, I think.)

So sadly, my first Russian novel was a bust. I did not enjoy it at all. I wouldn't have gotten past page 30 if it weren't for book club. It did not improve as I read it. I had to continually refer to wikipedia to figure out what was going on. I even looked for the Cliff's Notes at the library! At this point, I'm not even sure I'd be willing to sit through the movie. A disappointment.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

2012-01-30T02:14:00.000-08:00

This meme is now hosted by Sheila at One Persons Journey Through a World of Books.

Books completed last week:
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

Books I am currently reading/listening to:
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert

Up next:
War and Peace: Original Version by Leo Tolstoy
The Eight by Katherine Neville
The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler

“Waiting On” Wednesday: Sister Queens

2012-01-25T04:52:00.000-08:00

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted here, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating. This week's pre-publication “can't-wait-to-read” selection is:

Sister Queens: The Noble, Tragic Lives of Katherine of Aragon and Juana, Queen of Castile by Julia Fox

Synopsis from the publisher:
The history books have cast Katherine of Aragon, the first queen of King Henry VIII of England, as the ultimate symbol of the Betrayed Woman, cruelly tossed aside in favor of her husband’s seductive mistress, Anne Boleyn. Katherine’s sister, Juana of Castile, wife of Philip of Burgundy and mother of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, is portrayed as “Juana the Mad,” whose erratic behavior included keeping her beloved late husband’s coffin beside her for years. But historian Julia Fox, whose previous work painted an unprecedented portrait of Jane Boleyn, Anne’s sister, offers deeper insight in this first dual biography of Katherine and Juana, the daughters of Spain’s Ferdinand and Isabella, whose family ties remained strong despite their separation. Looking through the lens of their Spanish origins, Fox reveals these queens as flesh-and-blood women—equipped with character, intelligence, and conviction—who are worthy historical figures in their own right.

When they were young, Juana’s and Katherine’s futures appeared promising. They had secured politically advantageous marriages, but their dreams of love and power quickly dissolved, and the unions for which they’d spent their whole lives preparing were fraught with duplicity and betrayal. Juana, the elder sister, unexpectedly became Spain’s sovereign, but her authority was continually usurped, first by her husband and later by her son. Katherine, a young widow after the death of Prince Arthur of Wales, soon remarried his doting brother Henry and later became a key figure in a drama that altered England’s religious landscape.

Ousted from the positions of power and influence they had been groomed for and separated from their children, Katherine and Juana each turned to their rich and abiding faith and deep personal belief in their family’s dynastic legacy to cope with their enduring hardships. Sister Queens is a gripping tale of love, duty, and sacrifice—a remarkable reflection on the conflict between ambition and loyalty during an age when the greatest sin, it seems, was to have been born a woman.

Publishing on 1/31/2012 by Ballantine Books.

Wondrous Words Wednesday : Doctor Zhivago

2012-01-25T03:24:00.000-08:00

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Kathy aka Bermuda Onion where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our reading. Feel free to join in the fun.

Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

tarantass 6
"In the summer of 1903, Yura and his uncle were riding in a tarantass and pair over the fields to Duplyanka..."
a large, four-wheeled Russian carriage mounted without springs on two parallel longitudinal wooden bars. (see picture)

zemstvo 7
"In the Pankovo area they cut a merchant's throat and a zemstvo man had his stud burned down."
one of a system of elected local assemblies established in 1864 by Alexander II to replace the authority of the nobles in administering local affairs after the abolition of serfdom: became the core of the liberal movement from 1905 to 1917.

muzhiks 7
"Give our muzhiks their head, they'll throttle each other, it's God's truth."
a Russian peasant.

modistes 24
"mme Guichard bought a small business, Levitskaya's dressmaking shop near the Triumphal Arch, from the seamstress's heirs, with the right to keep the old firm intact, with the circle of its former clients and all its modistes and apprentices."
a female maker of or dealer in women's fashionable attire.

cheviot 31
"Fuflygin was wearing an expensive fur coat, unbuttoned, trimmed with railway piping, and under it a new civilian suit made of cheviot."
a woolen fabric in a coarse twill weave, for coats, suits, etc.

mandril 34
"A thousand times he's been told, first bring the mandril under, then tighten the stop, but no, he's got his own way."
a shaft or bar the end of which is inserted into a workpiece to hold it during machining.

papakha 40
"...suddenly the man who had been walking backwards ahead of the marchers and conduction the singing by waving a papakha clutched his hand, stopped directing, put his hat back on, and, turning his back to the procession, began to listen to what the rest of the leaders marching beside him were saying." (see picture)

a tall hat, usually of lambskin and often wuth a flat top, originating in the Caucusus.

nenuphars 47
ephebes 47
"And now it's these fauns, nenuphars, ephebes, and 'let it be like the sun.'"
The great white water lily of Europe.
a young man, especially an ephebus. And an ephebus is: a youth of ancient Greece just entering manhood or commencing training for full Athenian citizenship.

galimatias 49
"She comes in the morning, sits till dinnertime, and for a whole two hours tortures me reading that galimatias."
confused or unintelligible talk.

sophistry 55
"She entered on the path of sophistry."
a subtle, tricky, superficially plausible, but generally fallacious method of reasoning.

bashlyks 58
"Yet the ends of their bashlyks were tied at the back with such knots that it gave them away as children and showed that they still had papas and mamas." (see picture)

cineraria 64
"...the almond-scented blue-violet cineraria in baskets seemed to excite the appetite."
any of several horticultural varieties of a composite plant, Senecio hybridus, of the canary Islands, having clusters of flowers with white, blue, purple, red, or variegated rays. (see picture)

catafalque 74
"In appearance and size it resembled a catafalque or a royal tomb."
a raised structure on which the body of a deceased person lies or is carried in state. (see picture)

stearine 91
"The flame choked on the stearine, shot crackling little stars in all directions, and sharpened into an arrow."
the crude commercial form of stearic acid, used chiefly in the manufacture of candles.

mummers 94
"...clowning mummers played at hide-and-seek and pass-the-ring."
a person who wears a mask or fantastic costume while merrymaking or taking part in a pantomime, especially at Christmas and other festive seasons.

rostrum 158
"Thus inconspicuously she became a real speaker from the rostrum."
any platform, stage, or the like, for public speaking.

withes 165
"From the mud long fences of woven willow withes stuck up, looking like nets thrown into a pond or baskets for catching crayfish."
any tough, flexible twig or stem suitable for binding things together.

Teaser Tuesdays: Lonesome Dove

2012-01-24T05:40:00.000-08:00

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

2012-01-23T05:17:00.000-08:00

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?
This meme is now hosted by Sheila at One Persons Journey Through a World of Books.

Books completed last week:
none! again! Why am I reading two enormous books simultaneously?

Books I am currently reading/listening to:
Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

Up next:
The Crofter and the Laird by John McPhee
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
Keeping the House: A Novel by Ellen Baker

“Waiting On” Wednesday: An Available Man

2012-01-18T04:32:00.000-08:00

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted here, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating. This week's pre-publication “can't-wait-to-read” selection is:

An Available Man by Hilma Wolitzer

In this tender and funny novel, award-winning author Hilma Wolitzer mines the unpredictable fallout of suddenly becoming single later in life, and the chaos and joys of falling in love the second time around.

When Edward Schuyler, a modest and bookish sixty-two-year-old science teacher, is widowed, he finds himself ambushed by female attention. There are plenty of unattached women around, but a healthy, handsome, available man is a rare and desirable creature. Edward receives phone calls from widows seeking love, or at least lunch, while well-meaning friends try to set him up at dinner parties. Even an attractive married neighbor offers herself to him. The problem is that Edward doesn’t feel available. He’s still mourning his beloved wife, Bee, and prefers solitude and the familiar routine of work, gardening, and bird-watching. But then his stepchildren surprise him by placing a personal ad in The New York Review of Books on his behalf. Soon the letters flood in, and Edward is torn between his loyalty to Bee’s memory and his growing longing for connection.

Gradually, reluctantly, he begins dating (“dating after death,” as one correspondent puts it), and his encounters are variously startling, comical, and sad. Just when Edward thinks he has the game figured out, a chance meeting proves that love always arrives when it’s least expected. With wit, warmth, and a keen understanding of the heart, An Available Man explores aspects of loneliness and togetherness, and the difference in the options open to men and women of a certain age. Most of all, the novel celebrates the endurance of love, and its thrilling capacity to bloom anew.

Publishing by Ballantine Books on 1/24/2012.

“Waiting On” Wednesday: The Flight of Gemma Hardy

2012-01-18T02:24:00.000-08:00

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted here, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating. This week's pre-publication “can't-wait-to-read” selection is:

The Flight of Gemma Hardy: A Novel by Margot Livesey

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Acclaimed, award-winning author Margot Livesey delivers her breakout novel: a captivating tale, set in Scotland in the early 1960s, that is both an homage and a modern variation on the enduring classic, Jane Eyre.

Fate has not been kind to Gemma Hardy. Orphaned by the age of ten, neglected by a bitter and cruel aunt, sent to a boarding school where she is both servant and student, young Gemma seems destined for a life of hardship and loneliness. Yet her bright spirit burns strong. Fiercely intelligent, singularly determined, Gemma overcomes each challenge and setback, growing stronger and more certain of her path. Now an independent young woman with dreams of the future, she accepts a position as an au pair on the remote and beautiful Orkney Islands. But Gemma's biggest trial is about to begin . . . a journey of passion and betrayal, secrets and lies, redemption and discovery that will lead her to a life she's never dreamed.

Publishing January 24, 2012 by HarperCollins Publishers.

Teaser Tuesdays: Lonesome Dove

2012-01-17T02:45:00.000-08:00

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading

Grab your current read. Open to a random page. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry p. 42

"Accustomed as she was to hard doings, it had still taken Lorena a while to get used to the way Lippy slurped when he was eating, and she had once had a dream in which a cowboy walked by Lippy and buttoned the lip to his nose as if it were the flap of a pocket. But her disgust was nothing compared to Xavier's, who suddenly stopped wiping tables and came over and grabbed Lippy's hat off his head."

So why do these people hang out with the well-named Lippy if they don't like him? McMurtry is very good at simple but on-point descriptions.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

2012-01-16T04:11:00.000-08:00

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?
This meme is now hosted by Sheila at One Persons Journey Through a World of Books.

Books completed last week:
none

Books I am currently reading/listening to:
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert

Up next:
Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love, and the Search for Home by Kim Sunée
The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt
The Snowman by Jo Nesbø

Book Beginnings on Friday: Lonesome Dove

2012-01-13T02:40:00.000-08:00

Book Beginnings on Friday is a meme hosted by Katy from A Few More Pages. Anyone can participate; just share the opening sentence of your current read, making sure that you include the title and author so others know what you're reading.

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

"When Augustus came out on the porch the blue pigs were eating a rattlesnake - not a very big one."

Kind of creepy. Blue pigs? Are they really blue? If the snake was bigger would they not be eating it? This line is intriguing.

“Waiting On” Wednesday: Thinking Small

2012-01-11T02:00:00.000-08:00

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted here, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating. This week's pre-publication “can't-wait-to-read” selection is:

Thinking Small: The Long, Strange Trip of the Volkswagen Beetle by Andrea Hiott

Sometimes achieving big things requires the ability to think small. This simple concept was the driving force that propelled the Volkswagen Beetle to become an avatar of American-style freedom, a household brand, and a global icon. The VW Bug inspired the ad men of Madison Avenue, beguiled Woodstock Nation, and has recently been re-imagined for the hipster generation. And while today it is surely one of the most recognizable cars in the world, few of us know the compelling details of this car’s story. In Thinking Small, journalist and cultural historian Andrea Hiott retraces the improbable journey of this little car that changed the world.

Andrea Hiott’s wide-ranging narrative stretches from the factory floors of Weimar Germany to the executive suites of today’s automotive innovators, showing how a succession of artists and engineers shepherded the Beetle to market through periods of privation and war, reconstruction and recovery. Henry Ford’s Model T may have revolutionized the American auto industry, but for years Europe remained a place where only the elite drove cars. That all changed with the advent of the Volkswagen, the product of a Nazi initiative to bring driving to the masses. But Hitler’s concept of “the people’s car” would soon take on new meaning. As Germany rebuilt from the rubble of World War II, a whole generation succumbed to the charms of the world’s most huggable automobile.

Indeed, the story of the Volkswagen is a story about people, and Hiott introduces us to the men who believed in it, built it, and sold it: Ferdinand Porsche, the visionary Austrian automobile designer whose futuristic dream of an affordable family vehicle was fatally compromised by his patron Adolf Hitler’s monomaniacal drive toward war; Heinrich Nordhoff, the forward-thinking German industrialist whose management innovations made mass production of the Beetle a reality; and Bill Bernbach, the Jewish American advertising executive whose team of Madison Avenue mavericks dreamed up the legendary ad campaign that transformed the quintessential German compact into an outsize worldwide phenomenon.

Thinking Small is the remarkable story of an automobile and an idea. Hatched in an age of darkness, the Beetle emerged into the light of a new era as a symbol of individuality and personal mobility—a triumph not of the will but of the imagination.

Publishing on 1/17/2012 by Ballantine Books.

Book Review: Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder

2012-01-10T14:38:00.000-08:00

I was so blown away by Tracy Kidder's previous book, Mountains Beyond Mountains, that I didn't think twice about picking up this one (in fact, I think I will search out more of his books, he's such a great writer.) And while the story of Deo's escape from civil war in Burundi to New York City with only $200 and not a single contact or word of English is inspiring, he's a little more of an enigma than Dr. Paul Farmer. I never really feel like I get to know him, and he always hovers slightly outside of my line of vision.

Deo grows up in a family of cowherders. He goes to school most of the year (except when he's needed to work) and eventually goes to medical school. In his third year war breaks out between the Hutus and the Tutsis. Deo didn't even know which he was until he was in his teens, as it was a non-issue in his life until all this happened. With slaughter all around him, he manages to hide and be overlooked and then walks to Rwanda, where the exact same civil war (but with the dominant racial group reversed) broke out a few months later. He returns to Burundi and eventually, with help from friends, is able to secure a visa and a flight to Kennedy. A customs official (a fellow African emigre) pities him and takes him to his flop house in the Bronx and helps him figure out the subway system and get a job delivering groceries. At one delivery at a church, he meets a woman who adopts him as her cause. Through her he is eventually de-facto adopted by an older couple in the Village. Meanwhile he begins to attend Columbia University as an undergraduate (his paperwork from Burundi is hard to come by and some of it claims he is dead.) One day he goes to hear a lecture by Dr. Paul Farmer and afterward he speaks further with Farmer who offers him a job at his foundation in Boston. The foundation works to open medical clinics in Haiti, and Deo has the idea that maybe one day through it he can open a clinic in Burundi.

Inspiring, although filled with breathtaking violence, this book does make you wonder what you would do in Deo's shoes. Would you give up and die as so many did in his home country? Would you have found the resources in New York? Would you have been able to put a life together as he has with such terror and tragedy in your history? Deo is a persistent, driven, caring man who is making a definite difference in the world. The writing is effortless, smooth, and even with jumps back and forth in time and continents you are never confused or jarred in the transitions. Kidder is a masterful author.

Teaser Tuesdays: Doctor Zhivago

2012-01-10T02:26:00.000-08:00

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading

Grab your current read. Open to a random page. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky p. 132

"Before Galiullin's eyes was the habitual spectacle of a unit attacking. They were supposed to advance quickly, almost at a run, across the space that separated the two armies, an autumn field overgrown with dry wormwood swaying in the wind and prickly thistles motionlessly sticking up."

I didn't know there were battles in this book, but I am very pleased by the writing - I was told this new translation is excellent and this sample does seem so, very smooth and poetic.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

2012-01-09T01:26:00.000-08:00

This meme is now hosted by Sheila at One Persons Journey Through a World of Books.

Books completed last week:
Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder

Books I am currently reading/listening to:
Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

Up next:
The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin
Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West by Dorothy Wickenden
The Darwin Awards Countdown to Extinction by Wendy Northcutt

One More Reading Challenge

2012-01-06T05:02:00.000-08:00

From Books in the City:
For the second year, I am proud to host the Immigrant Stories Challenge. As I said in the post announcing the inaugural Immigrant Stories Challenge last year, I am the child of immigrants and have always been drawn to immigrant stories in my reading. As I started to pay attention to the theme, I realized it is actually very prevalent in literature. Across many genres, books features immigrants from and to many nations in addition to the stories of their children as they try to fit in.

The Challenge
The only requirement of the challenge is that the books read for it include an immigrant story. The immigrants can be coming to or from any country - expand your horizons!

How Many Books Do I Need to Read?
There are three levels for the challenge:
Just off the boat: 1-3 books
This land is my land?: 4-6 books
Fully assimilated: 6+ books

What types of books are eligible? Only fiction? How about audiobooks?
All types of books are eligible - fiction, non-fiction, short stories, audiobooks, e-books.

Other details?
Re-reads are acceptable as are cross-overs with other challenges.

What are the dates for the challenge? January 1, 2012 - December 31, 2012.

Carin:
I noticed this challenge last year (even suggested a couple of titles for it) and it intrigued me again this year but I was trying to sign up for fewer challenges. But then I realized that the very first book I am reading in 2012 qualifies, and one other book I am definitely reading this year also qualifies and darn it, I am up for the challenge! But I am signing up for Just Off the Boat, 1-3 books.

Books I might read for the challenge:
Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder (currently reading)
The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia's Founding by Robert Hughes
The Long Way Home: An American Journey from Ellis Island to the Great War by David Laskin
Outcasts United: An American Town, a Refugee Team, and One Woman's Quest to Make a Difference by Warren St. John
A Brave Vessel: The True Tale of the Castaways Who Rescued Jamestown and Inspired Shakespeare's The Tempest by Hobson Woodward

Book Beginnings on Friday: Doctor Zhivago

2012-01-06T02:35:00.000-08:00

Book Beginnings on Friday is a meme hosted by Katy from A Few More Pages. Anyone can participate; just share the opening sentence of your current read, making sure that you include the title and author so others know what you're reading.

Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

"They walked and walked and sang 'Memory Eternal,' and whenever they stopped, the singing seemed to be carried on by their feet, the horses, the gusts of wind."

Hm, not a famous first line like you expect from Russian lit, but not bad. Makes me wonder where they are going.