thursday october 11
I am privileged in my work to serve the population of special needs children in our county. While I enjoy all of them, there is a special spot in my affections for the Autistic and Asperger's kids.
John Elder Robison's look me in the eye: my life with asperger's (2007) is the memoir of a life with Asperger's syndrome. Undiagnosed as a child, his unusual family did not really help this brilliant man on the road to normalcy (whatever that may be), and his younger brother Augusten Burroughs wrote his own memoir about that, Running with Scissors (2002).
Daniel Tammet's Born on a Blue Day (2007) also relates what it is like to grow up with Asperger's. This incredibly creative man, who recited Pi to over 22,000 digits, also has savant syndrome capabilities and synesthesia; but he has grown up to fit in to his everyday world and excel in it, developing a language-tutoring website for learners of new languages.
In their own words, these books describe how these incredible men grew up. I admire them.
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wednesday october 10
The word “haunting” has shown up in virtually every review I’ve seen of The Tenderness of Wolves, Stef Penney’s debut historical, which won the 2006 Costa first novel award (formerly the Whitbread).
Partly, that may be because of the book’s ending, which isn’t entirely resolved—fair warning if you like to close a book and have things wrapped up. But mostly it’s because the book is so eerily atmospheric. Fair warning number two: don’t read this book in February.
Dove River is a nineteenth-century settlement in Canada’s Northern Territory. Despite its tenderly peaceful name, it’s a harshly isolated place dominated by the majestic, menacing subarctic winter.
Mrs. Ross, one of the settlement wives, finds the murdered body of Laurent Jammet, a Hudson Bay voyageur turned hunter. She rouses the authorities, but then realizes she has a stake in the investigation—her seventeen-year-old son, Francis, Laurent’s friend, has disappeared and is soon a suspect in Laurent’s murder.
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monday october 08
I don't know why, but as far back as I can remember I've had a passion for scuba diving. There's something about entering a completely different environment surrounded by a strangely organic and colorful world that is just mind-bending. In Stephen Harrigan's book
Water and Light: A Diver's Journey To a Coral Reef, he asks the question about his own passion for diving and where it originates
. In an attempt to answer this question, he sets out to spend several months diving off
Grand Turk Island. He explores the quiet, exquisite, and powerful beauty of coral reefs along dozens of sites around the island.
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friday october 05
With Halloween just around the corner, it’s the perfect time to stock up on these spooky (and not so spooky) titles for the little trick-or-treaters in your life!
New Titles
One of my favorite new seasonal books has to be How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin (2007) Author Margaret McNamara provides a lot of fun pumpkin science and even pumpkin math in this delightful story that reminds us that, "Small things can have a lot going on inside!"
Owl is back in Jonathan Allen’s I’m Not Scared (2007), the sweet and not so scary sequel to I’m Not Cute. Baby Owl, clutching his plush lovey, sets out for a walk in the woods declaring, “I am NOT scared!” Still, the woods are dark and deep and spooky. Can Owl conquer his fears?
Happy Halloween Stinky Face (2007)- It’s almost time for trick-or-treating, but first Stinky Face has a few questions for Mama. A reassuring tale from the author of Merry Christmas Stinky Face.
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Charlie and I went on another road trip to Chicago, and of course, music was involved.
Dinosaur Junior and the related Sebadoh, with Dinosaur Junior's bass player, were great. They bring to mind the rock bands of 15-20 years ago, and the fabulous guitar playing of J Mascis took me back to the glory days of my youth, admiring the great guitar players. Oh wait...he was one of them!
The Hold Steady are kind of gritty, kind of bouncy, with folk music overtones but solid rock presentation.
Bright Eyes calmed us right down with mellow acoustic pieces, and the easygoing county music-like songs set a very nice no-stress atmosphere.
My pick for the day was Gary Allan's Greatest Hits, country music with a rough-cut rocky edge.
I must mention
It's a long drive to Chicago and back in one day, but it's a great time for music.
wednesday october 03
I don’t like football. I understand the rules, but not the fascination with the game. As strange as it may seem, I enjoy watching the television show Friday Night Lights, starring Kyle Chandler and the Dillon Panthers, the high school football team of small town Dillon, Texas. Season two kicks off this Friday, October 5th.
The television series (and the 2004 movie) is based on the book Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream by H.G. Bissinger. Originally published in 1990 (around the time yours truly was graduating from high school), Bissinger follows the 1988 Permian Panthers of Odessa, Texas into the locker room and onto the field, from preseason to playoffs.
The Panthers keep the hopes and dreams of this oil town alive, so Odessa takes its championship team seriously. The Permian High School stadium seats 19,000 and has artificial turf. Women carry black leather purses that look like footballs. One man has attended every game since the school opened in 1959 (except when he had heart bypass surgery). And angry fans, upset over a loss, place “For Sale” signs in the coach’s front yard.
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Here’s an oddball little title that has stuck with me for years: Claudia Casper’s debut novel The Reconstruction. It begins as a well-done but fairly predictable story of a woman at a loss at the loss of her marriage. But midway through, things get considerably more quirky and charming.
Artist Margaret has been plunged into a stagnating depression since her marriage fell apart. She’s not working or doing anything else too constructive until she is hired to make a museum diorama figure of a (presumed) female Australopithecus afarensis hominid. This recreation is to show the hominid pausing, half-turned, as recorded in the famous fossil footprints of Laetoli.
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