Little Earthquakes

Author: Jennifer Weiner
Date Finished: 6/28/06

I didn't write about it, but I also read Good in Bed during this early summertime and really liked both novels. I won't weigh in on whether Weiner is writing chick lit and so should be dismissed, but I will say that these books probably won't be on any English major's required reading list in the next 20 years.

But, they are fun. And they are books as opposed to daytime television. A funny (to me) aside here: when I first discovered this here Internet, in late 1994, the first thing I sought out were mailing lists and bulletin boards discussing Days of Our Lives. I know, shameful. A couple of months ago, I had retreated to the basement while the kids were napping and flipped over to NBC to see what the residents of Salem were up to. The answer, and the universal appeal of soap operas (or "so poppers" as I first understood the phrase), is pretty much the same things they were up to fifteen years ago when I watched during my lunch hour my senior year of high school. Of course I would never abuse the Internet for such low brow purposes these days; instead I read blogs. (insert pointed silence here)

What was I talking about? Oh, right. Weiner. She's a good writer. I like her stories. Her books won't change my life, but they will give me a nice diversion and, frankly, I'm okay with that.

The Broker

Author: John Grisham
Date Finished: 6/27/06

I like me some Grisham, even though he can be a bit uneven as a story teller. This was a pretty good one, fast read and sufficiently interesting characters and plot. Although for a person working on an alarming caffiene habit, having the main character spend most of his days looking around Italy for an espresso may be a bit dangerous. I won't say that I brewed a pot of coffee at 8:45 p.m. last night, but I won't say that I didn't.

I took back a huge haul of books to the library this evening after I realized that I have a couple on my in progress stack that are going to require serious concentration if I'm going to finish them. A biography of Leonardo da Vinci, Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris (which I've started numerous times but never gotten out of the season of Advent) and Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner. What? Oh, the Weiner? Well, concentration is well and good, buta spoonful of sugar (or chick lit) makes the medicine go down.

A Room With a View

Author: E.M. Forster
Date Finished: May, 2006

Catching up on old stuff here. I've been reading a lot, but unsure where I want to go with this blog. I started it mainly to use as a way of keeping track of what I've read and practicing for querying our newspaper about a local book column. Then I lost my nerve a little and became annoyed with myself sitting here thinking pretentious thoughts about what I'm reading. Or writing drivel about what I'm reading, same thing really.

So, A Room With a View. I've read this before. I bought a bunch of Forster books on a spree at my downfall, Barnes & Noble, because it's our main bookstore here in town. We have a local independent and a couple of used bookstores, but B&N is a hangout of mine due to some work I do for my mother in law with packaging up children's books for teachers. This day, I was waiting for them to ring up my (large) order of children's books and went over the the fiction shelves. I bought A Room, Howards End, and A Passage to India.

I remember liking A Room when I read it before. I liked the idea of Lucy waking up and figuring out what she really wanted. In fact, this book probably laid the bones for my three or four year long infatuation with romance novels. What are romance novels but stories about women convincing themselves that no, not at all, most emphatically never, they do not love the man that they in fact love. Same with Lucy. And then she figures it out and is happy. Problem solved, the end.

As a young woman, very much in love with someone, books of this kind validated my love and romance. They showed me that there is such a thing as love so strong that it reverses the direction you thought you were going. Now that I've married and become swarmed with children, some of the romance (okay, most of the romance) of discovering my husband has been siphoned away into the everyday logistics of managing our household and into the delight of watching my children discover who they themselves are. I don't think I could read romance novels again at this point in my life, but A Room was a pleasant reminder of the first plunges into uncovering the man who I will love until I die.

I don't mean to diminish A Room by comparing it to a romance novel. I think Forster is onto something with the theme of the novel; using travel and the character of Charlotte Bartlett as a way of showing the boxes we place ourselves into, how suffer when we cling to social delicacy over the wonder and beauty of humanity. I am glad I purchased a copy of A Room; if I ever come into money I will seek out a hardback edition for my imagined library collection. Reminders to embrace love and beauty should be revisited periodically, if only to remember what it was like to change from I don't care for this to this I embrace.