tuesday september 11
I was one of those kids who left the library each week with a new stack of books, getting carsick on the way home because I couldn't wait to start reading. From Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden to C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, my childhood books usually involved misfits and hidden worlds of one kind or another.
Madeleine L'Engle passed away last week at the age of 88. She wrote more than two-dozen works of fiction as well as volumes of poetry and non-fiction.
After I read about L'Engle's death, I immediately retrieved our copy of her most celebrated book, A Wrinkle in Time. This book has some of my favorite misfits and hidden worlds. Meg is a high school student (or junior high? We're never given an exact age) who never seems to work to her potential. She wears glasses and braces and is belligerent toward adults and other students alike. Charles Wallace, Megs brother, didn't start talking until he was four; he now speaks, at age five, in complete sentences with perfect diction. Calvin is one of the popular kids in high school, but only because he pretends. The three of them--with help from Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which--embark on a journey through time and space to find Meg and Charles Wallace's father.
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monday august 06
Every day at the library, customers check out the newest titles by authors such as Janet Evanovich and James Patterson. But they aren't just checking out the books. Many seek out these titles in audio book form. I was surprised last week by an article in the New York Times that debated whether listening to a book on cd was equal to reading that same book:
"Dain Frisby-Dart, 40, an avid audio book listener from Trempealeau, Wis., told her book group a few years ago that she was listening to the current selections. One of the members, a man in his 70s, reacted as if she had been reading CliffsNotes."
The article describes how many of the people who listen to audio books do so in private: in the car, at home, or while wearing headphones. But with book clubs growing in popularity, people's reading - and listening - habits are being made public.
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thursday may 31
The History of Love, by Nicole Krauss, was one of those rare novels that captured me on page one then held me hostage from other activities—namely eating and sleeping—until I reached the final page. And once I was released, all I wanted to do was find someone else who'd read it and shared my experience.
History is about many things—aging and loss, love and friendship, memories—but it is also a book about a book with the same title. The mystery of this book within a book propels the action towards a breathless conclusion. I often found myself flipping through pages I'd already read in order to confirm my suspicions. And I restrained myself from flipping ahead in the book or even reading the summary on the back of the book to avoid becoming spoiled.
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saturday april 07
As readers all across Cincinnati discuss and celebrate Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club, I’d like to introduce another fantastic author. Like Tan, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni tells stories about the the power of tradition and the experiences of first-generation Americans. Divakaruni has written a few novels as well as numerous short stories, nine of which appear in the 2001 collection, The Unknown Errors of Our Lives. I highly recommend this collection to any fan of great writing.
In the first story, Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter, the title character tries to adjust to life in California with her son’s family. While her son and his wife seem to have easily assimilated to suburban life in America, Mrs. Dutta can’t figure out the mechanics of the washing machine or the jokes on television. After all, she washed her clothes by hand in India!
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