Like Shaking Hands With God

My life has been in a state of flux for about nine months now. I have lived in three (soon to be four) different houses in that time and at some point called each one home. My most recent move has brought me to a new jungle, The City. I really love countryside and natural landscapes so vast you feel at once tiny and gigantic. The City doesn't inspire that dual feeling in me. I've never found cities to be beautiful. However, the great thing about The City is being out of The Bubble of Smalltown, America. Well, yesterday my Mom made a point of reminding me how nice it is to be out of The Bubble by taking me to an indie bookstore. There were a couple used bookstore type places where I used to live, but the area wasn't large enough to support indie booksellers. Well, if you'd care to read about my adventures, I've posted about it on my personal blog, but I am actually here to post a review of a book we purchased yesterday.

I couldn't sleep yesterday, so I took a bath and read Like Shaking Hands With God. It's a little book, only eighty pages, but I loved it. It's two conversations between Kurt Vonnegut and Lee Stringer about writing and their books. Mom is the one who got the book, she read Slaughterhouse-Five recently and this caught her eye, but I couldn't keep my hand off a book about writing. I read a little bit of Slaughterhouse-Five to Mom on a trip while she was reading it, and I loved what I read, but I have yet to read a Vonnegut book. Still, writing is writing.

There was lots of things both writers said that I really loved which resonated with me, but it's such a slim volume that I say "Go read it yourself" if you're interested at all. It's well worth the read. Okay, one thing which really stood out was when Mr. Vonnegut talked about how the act of reading is an impossible feat. He says something along the lines of writers are asking people to look at a bunch of slanting lines and recreate the  Battle of Waterloo in their mind, and it's like expecting a large group of people to be able to play French Horn. It's a specialized skill and it's ludicrous that people can do it at all. It gave me a new sense of wonder about an ability I take for granted all too often.

Five out of five, and bygolly go read this book! It took me an hour. Go. Do it.

I'm not sure what book I'll be reviewing next. I'm reading Isherwood on Writing, Northanger Abbey, Mossflower, (I forgot I had smuggled it to The City with me in the dust jacket of another book. It's my FAVORITE Redwall book, and it's a hardcover. My copy of Martin the Warrior is a musty smelling paperback. Hardcover wins.) a book of literary essays, and a book about a young Sherlock Holmes, called Death Cloud. I read Death Cloud aloud to my cousins last night, and they both enjoyed it, so I foresee more reading aloud in my future.

That reminds me, my eleven year old cousin (secret codename: Ellie) has asked me to compile a reading list for her. Any suggestions for a precocious eleven year old? I have about twenty on the list, but I like to offer up some variety. I can't wait for her to get a couple years older so I can get her hooked on Lois Lowry and Tamora Pierce. Those women were my heroes at her age.

Until next time,
Emily

The Boy Book: A Study of Habits and Behaviors, Plus Techniques for Taming Them

I first stumbled across the work of E. Lockhart during my first reading challenge when I read The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks. I forget how I discovered Frankie, but I'm very glad I did discover it; it's an amazing book. I quickly read The Boyfriend List, which is book one in the Ruby Oliver quartet. I'm finally now getting around to reading the rest of the quartet, starting with The Boy Book: A Study of Habits and Behaviors, Plus Techniques for Taming Them. (Warning: spoilers for book one in the next paragraph.)

Ruby Oliver has issues. There's no way around it really. When it comes to relationships, she's a mess. In The Boyfriend List she lost her boyfriend to her best friend. Ruby started having panic attacks and had to attend therapy. One of the therapy exercises was to write a list of boys in her life, which her best friend distributed throughout the whole school when Ruby tried to get back with her ex.

The Boy Book finds Ruby working to put her social life back together. Throughout the book, Ruby navigates old and new friendships, old and new relationships, and explores several rules and guidelines via The Boy Book, a diary she wrote with her best friends before the boyfriend list debacle.

I love the wit of these books, and Ruby is painfully relatable and freaking lovable. If you've never made a blunder like Ruby, then you know someone who has. There are amazing footnotes (one of my favorite features) and the entries from The Boy Book are hilarious.

I give this a 4 out of 5 and definitely recommend the Ruby Oliver quartet.

I thought I'd mention that I also read The Beauty and the Beast by Marie Le Prince de Beaumont. I'm not counting it as a book because it's quite short, but it came up on my Kindle recommendations, and I couldn't help but read it. Beauty and the Beast is my favorite of the Disney princess movies. I mean come on, Belle is an archetypal nerd-girl. Of course there are differences between the book and Disney (when isn't there?) but for being a little morals story, it was absolutely adorable.

Right now, I'm in the middle of reading a few different books. I had an uptick in my writing, which created a downturn in my reading, but I'm getting back into it. I'm very bad, do forgive me. Right now I'm reading Isherwood on Writing by Christopher Isherwood and Martin the Warrior by Brian Jacques. I'm hoping to finish MtW quickly, but I anticipate Isherwood being a book I digest more than read.

As you may or may not be aware, Brian Jacques died almost a week ago. He was a great writer and meant a great deal to me. I wrote a eulogy over on my personal blog which you can read here.

Later,
~Emily~