One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez # 39, Contemporary Literature

It is books like One Hundred Years of Solitude that scream for some translation/discussion/explanation, especially for the bible illiterate, like myself. I started off really enjoying the book. I remember, three weeks ago (way too long when I have 11 more books to read), laughing about pig's tails and quirky characters, but it was all downhill for me when two of the four main characters had the same name, and then four of the eight had the same name, and then eight of the sixteen . . . you get the point. I have a hard enough time learning the characters and keeping everyone straight in complicated novels, but add in the fact that they all have the same name. It was too much to handle.

I have been wanting to read a novel by Marquez for years, pretty much ever since the movie Serendipity, when Sara writes her number in Love in the Time of Cholera. Multiple people have told me that their favorite book of all time is One Hundred Years, but it definitely wasn't for me. I was also speed reading through the last two hundred pages when I was making such slow progress. No time for casual reading with thirty-one days to go.


39 down. 11 to go.

A Weekend to Change Your Life by Joan Anderson (#42, Nonfiction)

While I took some flack for reading this, I can see myself coming back again and again to this book. I will read it again, and I think I will get something new each time I do. There is a lot of wisdom, hope and inspiration in the pages of Joan Anderson's A Weekend to Change Your Life.

I remember watching the Oprah episode where Anderson talked about her year away from her husband. It was a year she spent getting to know herself. She said it was the best year of her life because it rejuvenated her spirit and gave her a better understanding of how she works as a person. This book offers readers everything she has learned, but in such a way that gives them the power to go out and find it on their own. While Anderson shares her hard earned lessons with you, she also gives you directions on how you can find your own answers.

I finished this book on the same day I read most of The Awakening and I must say, if only poor Edna had had this book at her disposal, she might not have walked into the water at the end. Anderson gives her readers the tools to find themselves. I look forward to doing the activities, to finding out about myself, to learning who I really am.

I underlined a lot in this book too. Here are some of the gems:

It's a weakness to just sit around and wait for life to come to you.

Relationships can only flourish when there is a meeting of the minds--when each party wants to continue seeking, developing, and eventually evolving.

Out of your very breakdown, you will experience myriad breakthroughs.

And my favorite, from psychologist Douglas LaBier: Each partner in a couple must leave the relationship, figuratively or literally, in order to find his or her gift or bliss, and then return with a newfound energy that will reignite the relationship. Long-term relationships need new energy, which they can get when either partner grows or changes.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin (#41, Classic)

Is it wrong that I really enjoyed this book? I guess it came along at the right time. Kate Chopin's The Awakening is about a woman who undergoes and spiritual awakening that will forever change the course of her life. There were a lot of passages that I underlined while reading this in the car on the way back to Maine. Edna's ignited passion for life and her utter refusal to be controlled by her overbearing husband inspires me to be a stronger woman. I agree with her assertion, "The years that are gone seem like dreams--if one might go on sleeping and dreaming--but to wake up and find--oh! well! perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than remain a dupe to illusions all one's life" (105). No one wants to go around with their head stuck in the clouds, never truly understanding, never truly feeling things.

I also liked this line: "One of these days," she said, "I'm going to pull myself together for a while and think--try to determine what character of a woman I am; for, candidly, I don't know. By all the codes which I am acquainted with, I am a devilishly wicked specimen of the sex. But some way I can't convince myself that I am. I must think about it." (79) I think Edna's struggle to find herself, to awaken her soul, is one that us girls are still struggling with. The times have changed since the days when women wore full coverage outfits for swimming and were required to sit at home and raise the children, where propriety dictated what she could and could not do, where the husband had all the power and the woman was his property. But society still operates through gender codes. Women are still confined in a gender role and certain things are expected of us. We can get lost in these gender roles and I really enjoyed reading about a woman who awoke out of her socially induced stupor and came into her own. Edna makes decisions, Edna chooses her independence and she ends things on her own terms.

And I kind of love how Edna turns into a player near the end of the book. The woman is married, yet she falls in love with Robert and then there is this other guy who spends the night a lot. We never know for sure if she is unfaithful to her husband but there are references to how Monsieur Arobin stays over and caresses her. I guess for late 19th century literature, that was as racy as the descriptions could get. But the strange thing to me is that she never gets "caressed" by the man she loves. Robert remains unattainable, even in the end when he declares his love for her on a piece of paper.

Hoot by Carl Hiassen (#40, Reader's Choice)

Guilty as charged. This is another Young Adult book but before you go making judgments, it was of substantial length and it won the Newbury Book Award. This was a quick read but that doesn't mean it wasn't good. While I thought the ending was a bit cliche, I did enjoy it. Hiassen presents a story that is both comical and serious. The main character, Roy, learns to stand up for not only himself, but also for that which he believes in and he teaches other people to do the same without meaning to. This would be a good novel to teach to perhaps a fourth or fifth grade class. It does have a moral background and it does juggle that ever important question of what is right and what is wrong when the line between the two becomes blurred.

I laughed out loud a couple times while reading, mainly because there is a character, the vice principal of the school, who has one stray black hair on her upper lip. Roy fixates on this hair when he is forced to go see her at various times throughout the story and the things he says are hilarious. Last night I had to read a line to my sister because it was just too funny not to share with someone.

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare (#39, Classic)

Oh Shakespeare how I have missed you. I've decided that one of my lifetime goals is to read every Shakespeare play. If I read two plays a year for the next twenty years, I should accomplish that goal. Twelfth Night, along with the Tempest and King Lear, are on my self-induced Shakespeare reading list. I once blogged about how much I disliked Shakespeare but now I find myself missing the language.

I don't think Twelfth Night was one of his major plays, but I have always wanted to read it because they use it at the end of Shakespeare in Love as the play he writes about Gwyneth Paltrow's character. In the movie he bases the character Viola on her. I enjoyed the cross-dressing and same sex attraction. This was a comedy, so at the end everyone ends up getting married and the topsy-turvy world created by the gags and pranks gets righted in the end. It wasn't my favorite but it passed the time and provided me something to read that I could keep a safe distance from.

Girlcook by Hannah Mccouch (#38, Reader's Choice)

I am embarrassed to have to post about this book. I don't know why I picked it. Becky took one look and announced it's chick lit status. I don't know why I couldn't see that that is exactly what this book was. I guess I wanted to learn about cooking?

This book was bad. It was your typical chick lit. The main character was the requisite twenty-something living on her own and trying to make her way in a big city. She struggles with guys, her career and her looks. It had very little substance and was pretty horrible overall--even for this genre. I could have written a better book without even trying. The fact that they published this gives me hope that one day my novel will make it to the shelves too.

I promise something of a little more substance for my next book!

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons (#37, Reader's Choice)

One of the librarians at the library saw me returning and asked me how it was. I answered honestly, telling her that I had not been able to get through it. Then I added that I was trying to read 50 books in one year and the Terror's daunting 800 page count became too much for me to handle when I had about 16 more books to go. She then threw out a recommendation. That is what brought me to Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm, a satire on the British Gothic novel.

I was skeptical at first because sometimes British novels tend to be overloaded with annoying frippery but this one proved to be as refreshing as the librarian said it would be. I enjoyed this strange little world filled with strange little characters. I mean, who doesn't get a kick out of a character that is obsessed with brassieres and travels around England looking for new ones? I certainly do.

Cold Comfort Farm is bizarre. I was unsure of how to categorize it. I wanted to put it under Contemporary Lit but it was written in 1932 so that doesn't work. I can't rightfully put it under Classics because I feel like it has to be on some list, or at least have more written about it to be considered such. The writing definitely demands an apt reader otherwise all the humor will be lost on deaf ears. It really is a funny book. One character, Adam, cleans dishes with a thorny twig. Another character, Aunt Ada Doom saw something nasty in the woodshed. Do we find out what that nasty thing was? You'll just have to read the book to find out.

Eragon by Christopher Paolini (#36, Reader's Choice)

Yes, I grabbed this book from the Young Adult section of the library. It is crunch time here at Booknymphs and you cannot begrudge me my youth novels. But I will say that Paolini's writing is sophisticated enough for an adult reader to enjoy. I thoroughly enjoyed Eragon. From the beginning I was hooked. It has been a while since I have been able to find a science fiction/fantasy novel that satisfies me to the point where I actually finish it.

Eragon actually smacks of Harry Potter. It is a well-crafted magical world. I read a lot of it at work during down time and the moment my eyes would lock onto a paragraph and I would start reading, I was thrust into a world with dragons, elves, scary creatures called Urgals and magic. It is hard to read at the counter because there are constant distractions but I had no trouble drowning out the phones and even customers while I was reading this book.

I finished it this morning at work, about ten minutes after we opened. To my dismay I found that this is not a stand alone book. The ending is a cliffhanger. There are no answers on the last page; instead, Paolini just gives us more questions. I was thoroughly annoyed but kind of glad that there was a second book waiting for me, and a third one that has yet to be written. These characters, Eragon, Murtagh, Saphira--they are new found friends who will be around for a little while longer. I can't wait to read the next one.

The Pesthouse by Jim Crace (#38, Contemporary Literature)

In eighth grade my parents made me read a book a week and write a book report about it in addition to my regular homework. I had to turn in the book report to my dad on Thursday night. He would then decide whether my work was worthy of allowing me to go out with friends over the weekend. Clearly my parents did not think I was doing enough reading at the Rochester Middle School, and they were definitely right. But I pose this question: is there such a thing as reading too much? After the past six week I would have to say YES! YES! YES! 50 books in one year is great, I am glad I will do it (yes, I will do it) I will brag to all my super smart friends, I may even put it on my resume ;), but looking at the challenge from where I am now I don't think it is a good idea. There may be a good number, but fifty is just too many. If you stay on track and read one book a week that is fine, I could do that, but don't forget that little thing that always gets in the way . . . LIFE. Whether it's a vacation with family, catching strep throat for the second time, drinking too much, or any other minor or major occurrence it is pretty much impossible to stay to a strict reading timetable. I feel like reading so many books in such a short time cheapens each book. A book I may have enjoyed I end up just getting annoyed at because I don't have the time to let it sink in. Bottom line, I am book burned out.

Back to The Pesthouse. Think 1984, and The Handmaid's Tale star in the Day After Tomorrow set to the backdrop of the Oregon Trail. I enjoyed the book while I was reading, but thinking about it now and comparing it to books I have read before I realize it didn't offer anything new. It contained an already used theme with no new twist or take to it. It did win the National Book Critics Circle Award though, so I guess I didn't waste my time. Maybe this is what I am talking about--books that may be so much more seem superficial to me because I don't give them the time to sink in and and mean more. Oh well, maybe my goal next year will be to read 25 books and thoroughly scrutinize every meaning, every theme, every word . . . or maybe I will just get a job :)

The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship by David Halberstam (#37, Nonfiction)

Other than being at the Red Sox winning game or attending the celebration parade in Boston (neither of which I did) what better way to bask in the glory of a World Series win for the Red Sox than to read a book about some of the most memorable Sox players of all time?

Teammates is a lovely little book that takes you back to a time of some of the "greats" of baseball. Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, Dominic DiMaggio and Bobby Doerr were not only teammates on the Red Sox back in the 4o's, but also lifelong friends. So, when Ted Williams' health takes a turn for the worse, Pesky and DiMaggio, along with Dick Flavin, road trip it from Massachusetts down to Florida for one last visit with Williams.

The book recounts each player as an individual, as well as a team, through baseball and their personal life. They all have amazing stories, coming from poor, immigrant families, and rising to fame through their love of baseball. Funny though, I say fame, and were you expecting me to say fortune as well? Think again. Any monetary success any of these four players had came after their baseball careers were over. When comparing numbers of how much they made in all their years of baseball neither DiMaggio nor Pesky netted more than 40K!!! I bet bat boys make more than that in a year these days!

It was a quick read, not difficult, but well written. David Halberstam puts together a great story through lots of hard work interviewing and researching. Although, I do think that my favorite part is when Bart Giamatti is mentioned. Just recently I have learned about Mr. Giamatti and his success as the President of Yale and his love of baseball, so it was very exciting to read a passage about him in the book. Unexpected and very cool.