kapachino

Category: books & reading

  • Ten On Tuesday

    rr10tuesdayMy friend Chelsea (I can totally call her my friend now because we had dinner together once!) has started a weekly feature called “Ten On Tuesday” where she comes up with ten random questions and answers them. I haven’t had the time to participate for the last two weeks, but today I made it a point to because the questions are always interesting.

    1. What are you going to be for Halloween?
    In all likelihood, I won’t dress up at all. I work that day, as well as the day before and after, so I don’t plan to be going anywhere. I think I may have only dressed up for Halloween twice in my entire life. Boring, I know.

    2. Have you ever been on television?
    Racking my brain, and no, I don’t believe I have. Not even on the local channel for high school sports.

    3. Do you have a toilet paper preference?
    Yes. I always buy Quilted Northern double rolls. I think it’s because that’s what my parents always bought. Also, the paper needs to go over the top of the roll, not down the back.

    4. When you’re pregnant, will you find out the sex of the baby? Why or why not?
    Yes, I think so. I’m a planner and I think I’ll need some time to adjust.

    5. What are three items that every kitchen must have?
    Other than large appliances, I’d say a saucepan, a baking dish, and some basic utensils. You could make a lot of meals with those three things, I think. (What I’d like to know: what are your favorite kitchen gadgets? Christmas is coming up and I NEED TO KNOW!)

    6. Do you enjoy Christmas shopping?
    Yes, I do. I love the holidays and when I’m in the mood I like going out into the bustling crowds. I like having specific things in mind to shop for, and I feel accomplished when I find them. Also, ever since 9th grade my dad and I have taken a whole day and shopped together, just the two of us. It’s become very special to us, and something I look forward to every year.

    7. What is your go-to recipe? (The thing you cook more than anything else because it’s easy and mindless.) Please share the recipe.
    I think this is one of, if not THE first thing I learned to cook, and was the first meal I cooked for David when we were dating. So good.

    Enchilada Casserole
    1 pound lean ground beef
    1 cup chopped onion
    2 cloves garlic, minced
    2 (10 oz) cans enchilada sauce
    2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
    10 (6 in) tortillas
    1 (16 oz) can refried beans

    1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
    2. Cook beef, onion, garlic until beef is browned; drain.
    3. Stir in beans and enchilada sauce. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and cook 5-6 minutes.
    4. Layer tortillas, beef/bean mixture, and cheese in a 13×9 dish.
    5. Bake, covered, for 20 minutes.
    6. Remove cover; bake 5 minutes.

    8. Do you sleep on your back, belly, or side?
    Never ever on my belly. I usually lie on my back to decompress, turn to my side to fall asleep, and then I wake up on my back again.

    9. How do you feel about Tom Cruise?
    Well, I think he’s kind of crazy. Definitely lost and misguided. But I do like a lot of his movies.

    10. What books are in your “books to read” stack?
    I’m trying to read all of the books I own but haven’t read yet. You can see my list here (as well as other books I’ve read), or I’ll list them for you:

    • The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood by David Simon (Got this one as a gift from my best friend years ago, because she did voluntary service in a similar neighborhood for a year)
    • Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (Supposed to read with a friend, but don’t know if that’s going to happen)
    • Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (I have the complete works)
    • Emma by Jane Austen
    • Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
    • Lady Susan by Jane Austen
    • The Professor by Charlotte Bronte (I also have the complete works of the Bronte sisters)
    • Villette by Charlotte Bronte
    • The Merlin Trilogy by Mary Stewart
    • The Host by Stephenie Meyer (actually on loan from Maggie, she says I will like it)
    • Inferno by Dante Alighieri
    • Magical Thinking: True Stories by Augusten Burroughs (bought really cheap because I heard it was the best of his books)
    • Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
    • The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld
    • Moby Dick by Herman Melville (I’m big on reading classics if you can’t tell)
    • The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl (loved The Dante Club by the same author and this one seems similar)
    • Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
    • The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler

    Okay…that is a lot of books! I need to get on that, especially since I’m trying to finish them all (plus some others) for my 101 goals.

  • Rainy Day

    Today has looked like this:

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    Hard to capture in a photo how grey and rainy it is, but it is.

    So I took off my running shoes and spent the morning reading blogs. Then I made some Christmas cards:

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    And when I finished with that I unabashedly read for a few hours, switching off chapters between these two books:

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    And spent some time cuddling with these girls:

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    And that’s about all the day was good for, which is okay by me.

    Tonight David and I are going over to Scott & Vanessa’s house (David’s brother and his wife) for the first of our dinner exchanges. We decided to formalize these since we had pretty much been doing it anyway. On Thursday they will come over and I’ll cook for the four of us.

    How was your Monday?

  • Book Club: Midwives by Chris Bohjalian

    200px-ChrisBohjalian_MidwivesMidwives is told from the point of view of Connie, the 14-year-old daughter of Sybil, a lay midwife in northern Vermont in the early 1980’s. Sybil is an experienced and respected midwife, a hippie who is passionate about what she does. One terrible night she finds herself at a home birth that goes terribly wrong, and she is unable to transport the mother to the hospital due to a storm. Sybil makes the decision to do a C-section on the mother, who she believes is dead, in order to save the baby, which she does. Later, her assistant and the father of the baby second-guess her and claim that the mother was not, in fact, dead. This book is the story of that incident, Sybil’s subsequent trial, and the impact of the event on her family.

    First of all, the story is extremely well-written. It doesn’t feel at all like your typical courtroom drama. Overall I found it was primarily a story about Connie and her family during this tumultuous time. The author included many small anecdotes along the way which weren’t necessarily important to the plot, but developed the characters and served to help the reader get an accurate feeling of what their family life was like. For example, near the end of the trial when things are the most stressful (page 249 my version), Connie tells us about how her father has three dozen roses with intricate cards he made himself waiting for her mother when they get home. She tells us how her mother is still talking about it later that night, and how she brags about her father to her friends. I love that. I love how it shows the strength of their marriage despite all the obvious threats to it.

    Giving away the ending now, I was actually very surprised that Sybil was acquitted. Although I’m not the type of person who tries to figure things out ahead of time (maybe that’s why I loved The Complete Sherlock Holmes so much, because the endings had me going “aha!” every time), I thought that there was heavy foreshadowing that she would be convicted. (But maybe I’m just dense.) Although I believe that the mother probably was technically alive when the C-section was done (especially based on Sybil’s final journal entry in which it is revealed she saw the body “flinch”), I agree that she shouldn’t have been convicted because of reasonable doubt. She didn’t do anything out of malicious intent, and ended up giving up her practice anyway.

    On the whole I liked all of the main characters. I found the attorney Stephen Hastings extremely likeable. I got mad at the father of the baby and Sybil’s assistant Ann for turning on her, even though they were the ones that gave her the knife, and did nothing to stop her. Sybil’s husband was so sweet, a man that you would want by your side during an ordeal such as this one.

    When a book is written in first person, I find that if I like the narrator it makes a huge difference. I liked Connie. She spoke looking back on the incident, from her 30’s, having gone to medical school to become an OB/GYN. I felt that she had a good understanding of her own bias, but the story itself represented both sides of the issue fairly equally. I could see how someone would finish this book being completely sympathetic to midwives and love the idea of a home birth, but on the other hand I know that someone could read it and be totally turned off to the whole thing, thinking it is irresponsible. I have, in fact, heard both reactions.

    The idea of home births and midwives is controversial. I can’t help but thinking about the Gilmore Girls episode where Sookie (Lorelai’s best friend) uses a midwife. This explains it pretty well:

    Jackson: So I got the plastic sheet on the bed, it fits perfectly.
    Sookie: Excellent!
    Lorelai: What’s that for?
    J: She doesn’t know?
    L: Know about what?
    S: You ready? This is big. It’s really good and I want you to just slowly drink it in, no big gulps.
    L: I’m ready to take a sip.
    S: We’re skipping the hospital and having the baby here!
    L: Here in your house?
    S: In our bed!
    L: Hence the sheet.
    J: Got a honey of a sheet, it’s the top of the line. Little thing’ll come out and carry him right into the catcher’s arms.
    L: While we all yell, “Hey batter batter batter”?
    S: He means the midwife. Got the best one on the eastern seaboard!
    J: You look mystified.
    L: No! It’s just that…you guys have done lots of research on this, right?
    S: Millions of babies have been born this way!
    J: It’s a great tradition.
    S: And hospitals are so cold, you know, so full of infections.
    J: And dead people.
    S: And sometimes the dead people have infections.
    J: And if they’re not dead yet, they die.
    L: All true.
    J: But the best thing about having little Davey or Colgate here: zero chance of bringing home the wrong baby. What comes out of her here, stays here!

    Lots of things about home birth appeal to me, other than making sure I get the right baby. Actually, the only thing I really have any objection to at all is using a lay midwife. I understand that experience counts for a whole lot, but I also think that there is a reason people are trained for years in medicine or nursing. If I were to have a home birth, I would use a medically trained midwife. I am obviously very comfortable in a hospital though, so I’ll probably just end up having my future babies there, if God chooses to grant me any. But, alas, that decision does not need to be made now.

    I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. Anyone out there read it? What are your thoughts?

     

    Next month’s book is Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. This year’s Pullitzer Prize winner!

  • Book Club: The Time Traveler’s Wife

    travelers Seems like everyone’s been reading this book lately, even though it was published back in 2003. A movie will do that for a book. That’s why I decided to read it, anyway: I was interested in seeing the movie, had heard the book was good, and thought now was as good a time as any to read it.

    For those of you who haven’t read it yet, or if you’re a guy and aren’t planning to read it (which is probably a good choice on your part), here’s a quick synopsis. There is this guy named Henry, and he’s a time traveler. It’s a genetic defect. He can’t really control where or when he goes, but he tends to frequent familiar, big events in his life. He ends up marrying a girl named Clare, and after they meet in the present he goes back to visit her when she was growing up a lot. This is their story.

    First of all, let’s just get the whole “time travel” thing out of the way. Humans seem to be obsessed with it. (See: time travel films and fiction.) I’m not immune to the fascination of the concept; I’ve read A Brief History of Time. I’ve had deep discussions with my physicist friend about it. I loved the time travel aspect in The Prisoner of Azkaban. I guess we all have such a hard time living in the present that we want to go back and change the past or see what’s coming in our future. But anyway, that’s neither here nor there because we are discussing this book, not contemplating the meaning of life. As far as this book goes, you have to let the time travel issue go. If you try to figure it out, you just may go crazy, because it doesn’t make sense.

    Case in point: there is one scene where Henry travels back in time and he is with his younger self in his bedroom. His father catches the two Henrys doing something…less than appropriate with each other (and may I just say now: SICK! Sick sick sick.) and the younger Henry gets mad at the older Henry for not preventing it. Older Henry basically says, “Just wait. You’ll do the same thing.” That got me thinking: so the younger Henry will grow up and do the same thing, then he’ll tell the younger Henry HE visits that HE’LL do the same thing, and on and on and on, and basically Henry will be perpetually alive. I just had to forget about figuring that one out.

    This is not really science fiction; it’s a love story and a pretty good one. Unfortunately, it had really been talked up to me, so all in all it didn’t quite meet my expectations. I think the reason that I merely liked this book a lot instead of LOVING it was because I didn’t fully relate to the main characters. They are somewhat privileged,  off on their own in Chicago and into the punk scene as well as things like art and opera. They like to party and swear and have sex pretty much all the time. That’s cool and all, but it’s not something that strikes a chord with me.

    But the thing that DID resonate was that Henry and Clare were utterly in love with each other, like I am utterly in love with my husband. That’s why, when I read the end of the book while on the bus, I had to physically hold my face to keep from crying. I didn’t want to be the weird girl weeping in front of a bunch of strangers. If you want to make me cry, just make me read a book or watch a movie where a husband dies young. And then make his wife find a love letter for to read “upon his death.” Guaranteed tears every single time.

    Who was your favorite character?

    I guess my favorite character would have to be…Clare. Lame, but she was the only one I could kind of identify with, being the wife. I also enjoyed the scenes with Kimy in them. She was very lovable.

    What would you have liked to read more about?

    I think my favorite parts were when Henry went back in time and met with Clare in the Meadow. He was on his best behavior, and she was young and innocent. From reading those scenes I had one image of Henry in my mind, and THAT Henry was a lot more attractive to me than the person he ended up being.

    Overall rating?

    I give it 3 out of 5 stars. It was a solid love story with a very interesting element added. Never boring, emotional at the end, and therefore I would recommend it.

     

    And what about the movie?

    I saw the movie a few days after finishing the book, which I thought would be a good idea but I don’t think it really was. It was kind of overkill on the story for me. But the movie actually turned out to be a nice surprise because Henry and Clare were much more like normal people and I could relate to them a lot better. It wasn’t hard for me to follow the time travel escapades, but that’s probably because I knew the story. I don’t know if it would have been confusing for someone who didn’t. Again, I was trying extremely hard not to cry, but the tears just spilled over; they couldn’t be helped.

    Now it’s your turn to tell me what you thought of the book (or movie)! Comment away.

    Next month’s book: It’s another girly one, sorry boys. We’re reading Midwives by Chris Bohjalian and I’ll be writing my review sometime the week of October 4-10. Join me!

  • Book Club: America America by Ethan Canin

    america-america_lIt’s time to discuss last month’s book club book, America America by Ethan Canin. Which means that it’s time for me to write my first coherent book review. I am daunted by this task, but I will attempt it.

    Let’s start with a basic summary for those of you who haven’t yet read it. America America is the story of Corey Sifter, a teenage boy growing up in smallish town in upstate New York in the early 1970’s. Corey somehow finds himself working as a yard boy for the wealthy, powerful, and beneficent Metarey family, the family that founded the town and made it what it was. The Metareys take him under their wing, and before long he finds himself working on the campaign for Henry Bonwiller, a senator in the running for the Democratic nomination for president. Corey becomes involved with the Metarey daughters as well, and his experiences at this time of his life, during which he is involved in events that are publicized across the nation, end up shaping his entire future.

    Whew. It’s hard to summarize a 460 page book in just a paragraph. Glad that part’s out of the way. Now comes the part where I talk to you about what I thought of the book, the part where I will probably end up rambling, and yes, there will be spoilers.

    The first thing that came to my mind when I started reading this book was how much it reminded me of one of my all-time favorite books, A Prayer For Owen Meany by John Irving. They are both written from a male point of view, both are set in multiple time periods in New England, and both involve politics to some extent. I personally think the writing style in both books is similar, and in both I found myself studying every detail wondering if it would be important later. And what I love about this is that no words are wasted; everything means something.

    There are so many great themes in America America: truth, the greater good, the struggle of the working class, the relationships of parents and their children, and American politics to name a few. But Canin doesn’t hit you over the head with what he wants to say; he subtly illustrates his points perfectly through stories, and he avoids overt partisanship in a highly political book. He has a way of saying things that provides new insight into ideas or thoughts that I have felt on some level but haven’t been able to articulate.

    I really liked this book. I actually would like to read it again at some point (which is saying a LOT for me because I hardly ever re-read) because I know there’s a lot that I missed. I loved the way that it was written in different time periods, so that I learned about Corey’s life on the Metarey estate, his life at college, and his life as a grown man all at once. It made me anticipate what was coming next. I always felt that there was something just beyond my reach, and I just had to keep reading to find out what it was.

    I don’t feel like answering any of the truly “literary” questions that I found, because it makes me feel like I’m in school again. So here are some simple questions I came up with that I’d love to know your answers to if you’ve read the book.

    1. Who was your favorite character?

    Almost all of the characters were likable and relatable, to some extent, which I appreciated. Corey himself was an honest, hardworking, and humble person who made a great narrator. But in my opinion the whole story really hangs around Liam Metarey, and he was my favorite character. I’m pretty sure that was what Canin was going for, and if so I totally fell for it. Simply stated, I felt like I could trust him with my life. That I could count on him for anything. He got himself involved in this questionable political campaign, but he was doing it because of his ideals and what he truly believed in and lived out. I was shocked at his tragic accident and almost didn’t want to finish the book afterwards because I felt a loss of hope.

    2. What do you wish Canin would have written more about?

    I’m a total girl, because I really wanted to read more about Corey and Clara’s relationship and how they ended up married. I also wish we could have learned exactly what happened to JoEllen Charney, but I know that the point was that we can’t always know the truth, and that what people consider the “truth” ends up changing over time.

    3. What do you rate the book and why?

    I give it 4 out of 5 stars. It was a little slow to begin with, but the history of Saline is definitely important later on. Otherwise excellent.

    That’s all I’ve got for now! Hopefully someone out there who has actually read the book appreciates this review. If you have, please comment below and join in the discussion!

    Now the big question that I’m sure you’re dying to know the answer to: what are we reading next month? Well, like everyone else in America, apparently, we are going to be reading The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Of course we want to read it before watching the movie like the true book lovers we are. We’ll be meeting on AUGUST 30 to discuss the book and watch the movie together, so you can expect a review sometime the first week of September.

    Who’s in??