Summer Reading, and Requests

I did a post on summer reading last year, and it was so good at giving me something to blog about much fun that I decided to make it an annual tradition. As I mentioned the last time I did this, the summer version of Seasonal Affective Disorder always strikes me in July - that is, the total lack of motivation to do anything besides be outside, read (preferably outside) and swim (preferably while also reading, and definitely outside.) Which means that blogging about reading is at least in the right ballpark, and I can usually do it outside on my porch. So it's a win-win.

But THIS YEAR, I need your help, too. You'll have to keep reading to find out why (see how I did that? Oh yeah. I'm a pro at hooks...)

Here's what I've been reading so far:

The Lowland, by Jhumpa Lahiri

This is not my typical summer read. It's slow, lyrical, and utterly heartbreaking - not exactly what I'd call good beach material. But I was so drawn in by the characters and the simple yet masterful writing that I couldn't put it down, and that is what I call good beach material. It also offers a fascinating insight into the history of India and Bangladesh, and the Communist insurgencies there in the 1960s. A topic which, I confess, I knew absolutely nothing about until I picked up this book. Once I got over feeling humiliatingly ignorant, I loved the insight into the particular time and place in the country's past. Highly recommended.


The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd

I know, I know, I am way overdue on reading this book. It was everyone's favorite book like 15 years ago (or 12, whatever,) and yet I never read it. I kept meaning to, and kept meaning to, but I somehow never actually got to it. I didn't think much of it until I realized just how long I'd been putting it off, at which point I was so embarrassed that I moved it to the top of my list. I'm reading it right now, actually, so I can't write a real review of it yet, but so far, I love it. It's engaging, funny, and heart-wrenching (because apparently I am incapable of reading lighthearted books,) and I'm very glad I decided to finally pick it up.


Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel

Look! I'm not too far off on this one! This has been one of the most talked-about books this year (at least in my very limited circles,) and I'm reading it this year!!! Or at least, I'm intending to. It's next on my list after The Secret Life of Bees. I don't have much to say about it, except that I'm really excited to read it, because everyone I know who read it absolutely loved it.






Now is where you come in, because this is IT for my summer reading list, and I need more suggestions! So please, pile 'em up. What are you reading this summer? What's on your list? What should I read after Station Eleven?

The Lost List: Books We Should Have Read

Every once in a while, I like to veer away from the usual theme of this blog (whatever that is; if you know it, please do tell me) and write a post about reading books.

Those words deserve italics, because I love books. Like many of you, I am a committed and admitted bibliophile. This of course causes many of the problems we all struggle with: overstuffed shelves, precarious stacks of books on the nightstand, 'libraries' so big on e-readers that it would be impossible to read it all in one lifetime, and marital discord ("I don't WANT to throw any of these away! They're my FRIENDS!") But, it also brings great joy, transports us to different lands, and provides fodder for blog posts.

In the past, I've blogged about the books that made me a writer, as well as my favorite childhood books, and I've vaguely promised to blog about Books That Got Me Through Puberty Without Committing Heinous Bodily Harm To Myself or Others, as well as Books That Changed The Way I Write. I will post about those some day, but not today.

Today, I want to post a different sort of list, one that feels appropriate to the discussions about diversity that are (thankfully) all over the place these days: Books I Wish Someone Had Told Me To Read, But No One Ever Did. I have to state first that no one told me to read them mostly because they are by and about marginalized and/or minority populations (at least in the U.S.), but also because I am white and American and grew up in a white and American suburb. I'd be interested to know if people who grew up in the States, but from other backgrounds, did have a more diverse list of Books To Read - but I'd bet, unfortunately, that the answer is no.

Most of these are fairly well-known, critically acclaimed books - although there are a few exceptions - and I know I'm not listing anything shocking or unheard of. There aren't a lot of unknown gems here. But this is my real list, a list of books I loved, that changed me, moved me, widened my world-view - and they are all books I found on my own, only recently.

So without further adieu, here are the Books I Wish Someone Had Told Me To Read, But No One Ever Did:

• Midnight's Children, by Salman Rushdie: I know Rushdie is on a lot of people's lists, but he never made it onto any of my assigned or even recommended reading lists until a few years ago. I loved this book. It's vibrant and funny and infuriating, rich with details about the best and worst parts of India's history. It's also a brilliant work of magical realism, which is one of my favorite underwritten genres.
• What Looks Like Crazy On an Ordinary Day, by Pearl Cleage: I'm embarrassed to admit this, but for the sake of this list, I have to say that this was the first book I'd read by a modern black female author not named Toni Morrison. When I first read it, at least 15 years ago, I fell in love with it for its humor and wisdom and craft, but also because I could so easily relate to it. The book is about the black community in Atlanta and in the MC's small town in Michigan, but it's alive with human fears, failures, and hopes. I loved the main character, and identified with her, and if that's not essential in our world of divisions and misunderstandings, I don't know what is. 
• In The City of Shy Hunters, by Tom Spanbauer: I'm not going to lie - this is a very strange book. The plot wanders and meanders, and sometimes falls down shifting rabbit holes of drug-induced insanity. The ending is unconventional, to say the least. But, it's also heart-wrenching and hilarious, gritty, real, and sometimes down and frighteningly dirty. It paints a crystal-clear picture of New York City during the AIDS epidemic, and another, equally clear (and devastating) picture of what it was like to grow up gay in 1960s-70s middle America. 
• Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Ok, I'm cheating, here. No one told me to read this book because it just came out last year, so no one really had a chance to - BUT I loved it so much that I don't care if I'm cheating. It should be required reading on any list of modern American literature. For those who would argue that it's about Nigeria, I would say it's also first and foremost about being an immigrant in America, and there is nothing more American than that. It's also a frank, unflinching look at race and racism in the States. 
• The House of Spirits, by Isabel Allende: Yes, I love magical realism, if you can't tell. And while everyone told me to read Gabriel Garcia Marquez, nobody mentioned I might also want to try Isabel Allende. This is a fantastic, sweeping, epic book, at times ridiculous; at others, hideous; at still others, tender; and also violent, romantic, magical, political, and wonderful. It'll take a while to read, but it's worth every minute. 
• Orlando, or Mrs. Dalloway, or To The Lighthouse, or The Waves by Virginia Woolf: During my high school and college years, I felt like most teachers and students talked about Virginia Woolf the way that people talk about tax reform: everyone agrees it's important, and no one wants to touch it. So there was a lot of talk about how great Woolf was, and very little in the way of actual reading. These four titles are my favorites of hers, listed here in what I consider their order of readability, from easiest to hardest. They are each brilliant and experimental and wonderful, but The Waves might be the most challenging - and rewarding - book I've ever read.
• The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, by Louise Erdrich: To be fair and honest, I have to admit two things. First, a teacher did tell me to read Erdrich in college, albeit a different, more well-known book; and second, my aunt recommended this book to me. But then, my aunt is gay and Jewish and not remotely mainstream, so I think this book still deserves to be on this list. Here's the teaser from the Amazon page: "For more than a half century, Father Damien Modeste has served his beloved people, the Ojibwe, on the remote reservation of Little No Horse. Now, nearing the end of his life, Father Damien dreads the discovery of his physical identity, for he is a woman who has lived as a man." 'Nuff said, I think. Oh, and, it's a great book.

What about you? What books would make it on your list? What did I miss - and what should I read?

Visiting Old Friends

I'm not going to write about the weather today. Really, I'm not. Except to mention, just off-hand, briefly, you know, all nonchalant and stuff, that it is currently 50 DEGREES OUTSIDE. What is that sound? That drip drip drip drip drip? Oh right - THE SNOW IS MELTING! THE SNOW IS MELTING!!! HALLELUJAH!!

Ding dong the winter's dead! What's all dead? The winter's dead! Ding dong the wicked winter's dead!

(Man, I must be losing it; that's my second Wizard of Oz reference in the last few weeks.)

In celebration, I shall write about something besides snow. Amazing, I know.

So, during this nasty, insane, ludicrous winter I had a large amount of time to spend holed up in my house, waiting out the storms. Add to that the fact that it was utterly miserable outside for long weeks at a time, and you have a perfect recipe for escapism. Not one to be deterred by cliches, I dove right into an old, beloved fantasy series: Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea Cycle. 

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I've read these books before, and adored them, but it's been years since I last picked them up (well, except for The Tombs of Atuan; I read that one on an annual basis.) And this time through, reading them as an adult and not a teenager or college student, one of my favorite things happened: I read the familiar, much-loved stories and characters, and it was an entirely new experience. There was the memory of how I felt reading them years ago, and then there were all of the new, unexpected, and very different feelings reading them again.

I love when this happens. It's the mark of well-written, thoughtful books: the ability to reach different readers on different levels at different times. I'd even venture to say it's one of the things that fantasy does so well, because everything in fantasy is cloaked and wrapped in metaphor. Sometimes, at some points in our lives, we see its disguise, and then at others, we see beneath that costume to its true nature. Metaphor, myth, fantasy; these things are primal; felt but not always understood; they reach down into the dark corners of our minds and touch something there, in the deepest level, our collective unconscious.

I won't give away anything, or spoil anything, but there were things I'd disliked about these books when I was younger, that I found had now become some of my favorite parts - because I understood them so differently. The fourth book, Tehanu, used to be one of my least favorite, and this time, I loved it. I also learned, incidentally, that Le Guin wrote it nearly twenty years after the third book - and you can see that change and growth in every word. Or at least, I could see it now, fifteen years after the first time I read it.

What about you? What books do you return to, and find new meaning in, over and over again?

Summer Reading

Since everyone around me (under the age of 21, anyway) is wading through vast lists of required books, tackling their summer reading assignments as best they can, I thought I'd do a little post on my own summer reading. The subject of today's post may or may not have anything to do with the fact that the problems I discussed in last week's post are still unfortunately relevant, or with the fact that I seem to be suffering from an alarming lack of motivation this season, and am having difficulty making myself do much of anything besides reading.

(Is it just me, or is everyone suffering from the same issue right now? It's like the summer version of SAD - working, writing, and any other activity not involving playing outside or reading make me depressed. No? Just me? Oh. Moving on, then.)

It's a possibility that these things are affecting my posts right now. Perhaps.

At any rate, I've gotten a ton of reading done this summer. Here's what I've been tackling myself:

The One and Only Ivan, by Katherine Applegate

Gasp, what's this??? I'm reading MG?? I KNOW, it's amazing! I think all of my blogging buddies are finally wearing off on me. (Ok, and my partner is a teacher, and made me read this.) I admit I was a little hesitant at first, but I loved it. It's the story of a gorilla named Ivan, and a baby elephant named Ruby, and it is smart, funny, sad, and extremely well done. My one complaint is that it starts off very slow - I wish I could edit the first fifty or so pages - but once it gets into the main action, it's so wonderful and heart-strings-pulling that the slow start doesn't matter. I may, in fact, have cried at the end. Maybe.

Kissing the Witch, by Emma Donoghue

This was described to me by a client as 'gay fairy tales', which is only half-true, and that's if I'm being generous. These are fairy tales, but they're about as gay as the originals (i.e. a few hints, but not much else). What they are, in fact, are Donoghue's retelling of the classics. They are funny, desperate, and terribly sad; they are imaginatively wrought and gorgeously written; and each one is brief and lovely and engaging, so that you can read one tale in a few minutes, or delve into the whole world for a few thoughtful, wonderful hours. Oh, and as for the gay part - there are tiny mentions of same-sex relationships in two of the thirteen stories, so if that sort of thing offends you...oh, read it anyway. It's very brief, not remotely graphic, and quite lovely.

Truth and Beauty, by Ann Patchett

I am becoming a huge Ann Patchett fan in my old age; I also read her collection of essays recently, but as I already talked about that, I'll leave them out for now (but go read them. Seriously.) This one is another piece of non-fiction: it's about the late writer Lucy Grealy, and Ann's friendship with her. Like everything Patchett writes, this is engaging and very funny, with gems of hidden beauty and truth (yes, I may have done that on purpose), and also heartbreaking. I lost my dearest friend, also a writer, years ago, and this book was in some ways like reading our story, too.

Atonement, by Ian McEwan

Ok, confession time. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but in the spirit of honesty that I try to maintain on this blog, here goes: I know this is an award-winning book, and is considered a masterpiece by many; but I cannot get through it. Yes, the writing is wonderful, and the characters are so clearly drawn that they spring off of the page; yes, it's literary and character-driven, and therefore a bit slow; but I still can't get through it. I like slow, literary books sometimes, but this one is so slow that I feel like I'm suffering from the same heatstroke as the characters. Plus, when things do start to happen, they're so awful and so frustrating and unfair that I want to bury my head in the sand and pretend they're not happening. Which is what I've actually been doing, since I stopped reading it and have yet to pick it back up. Not without a good bit of shame, I should add.


I've also been revisiting The Dragonriders of Pern series for my annual dose of nostalgic childhood reading, and it's providing the wonderful, engaging escape that I hoped it would. I have realized, though, that my summer reading list is made up of Western white people. How did that happen??? I need to diversify, and I'll gladly take suggestions!

What are you reading this summer? Any recommendations? Should I keep reading Atonement, or give up completely?

Refilling the Tank

I'm on a small hiatus this week. I took myself off to the Kripalu center in Western MA to celebrate finishing my edited draft of Cloudland (yes, I really am DONE. It's a miracle), but also to rest, recharge, and refill my tank - and, I hope, to work some more on my new book. Refilling our - well, for lack of a better term, even though this one makes me cringe a little - wells of creativity ok no I really can't say it. Refilling our tanks is essential for everyone, not just writers, and it's something we all tend to forget to do. We work and work and give and then we wonder why we cry at TV commercials and feel like swearing at the poor kid at the movie theatre who asks for our ticket, because why is one more person asking me for something?? Not that this is what happens to me. Ahem.

So, I've gone off to avoid yelling at people, and to refill. And so this post really will be brief. No seriously, Melissa, it will. I swear.

I once posted about the books that changed my life, and turned me into a writer. Like most highly organized, mildly neurotic people, though, I really really like lists, and so I have a lot of other "favorite book" lists. Here's another one for you: my Favorite Childhood Books. Some of these my parents read to me, and some I read on my own. (Yes, there's crossover from my first list. What can I say? These books just rock.)

• The Anne of Green Gables series, by L.M. Montgomery
• A Little House on the Prairie, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis 
• The Lost Prince and A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett 
• The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
• A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L'Engle
• The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster

It's funny; when I was coming up with this list, I thought of a lot of books that I really liked - I may or may not have been one of those be-spectacled kids who got nicknamed 'bookworm' when I was little - but they didn't make the cut, because while I liked them, they weren't my favorites. The ones on the list are the ones that I read so much that the covers fell off, and the pages all curled up at the edges, and the paper took on that warm, woody smell of all well-loved books. They're also all still on my bookshelf, barely held together with scotch tape, with the exception of the last two. I don't know how that happened, but I need to buy new copies. 

And that's it for today, folks. I'm off to read, hike, yoga (yes I made it into a verb), rest, and refill. 

If I don't get to your blog this week, I'll be there next week, I promise. In the meantime, all you commenters, what books do you love when you were a kid?

The Reasons I'm A Writer

Y'know... it occurs to me that I should stop making promises about what I'm going to write about on this blog the next week. Because in the moment that I make that promise, it sounds like a super idea, and I'm all pumped and jazzed about it, and then by the time the next week rolls around all I can think is, "Why the hell did I say I was going to write about that? That's BORING." Which is maybe a sign of some idea-commitment problems (the ideas and I are in couples therapy, don't worry), or my constant tendency to interrupt myself (hence the love affair with parentheses. Is anyone else losing track of the subject of this paragraph?) Either way, all I'm doing is making promises and breaking them, which isn't really a great pattern either in writing or in life, so I'm going to stop doing that.

I promise.

Anyway, clearly I'm not going to talk about fleshing the plot skeleton today, no matter what I said last week (although, that is a great title for a future post.) Nope, instead, I'm going to talk about books. As in, other people's books.

Now, I know this may seem odd, because this blog is about getting a look into the process of writing a novel, but believe it or not, reading other people's books is a huge part of this process. In fact, most writers and teachers of writers and books for writers and writers on writers and all-people-even-remotely-writerly will tell you (over and over again, in fact) that you must read if you want to write. For essential lessons, experience, inspiration, and so on.

Well, luckily for me, I'm a huge nerd. I'm not sure if this is because of some inherent genetic make-up, or because my parents fed me books before they gave me solid food, but whatever the reason, I've been a big bookworm my whole life. Which means that I've read a lot of books, of course, but it also means that I've read a lot of books more than once. And I've been spending a lot of time this week thinking about those books. You know, the ones you can't put down; the ones that changed your life; the ones that you revisit, year after year, like old friends. The ones that somehow shaped who you are. I think it's fair to say that I wouldn't be the writer I am, and maybe wouldn't have written Cloudland at all, if I hadn't read these books.

By the way, this isn't my only list of favorite books. I also have lists of Favorite Childhood Books, Books That Got Me Through Puberty Without Committing Heinous Bodily Harm To Myself or Others, Books That Changed The Way I Write, and so on. There's crossover from list to list, of course. But this particular list is of My All-Time Favorite Books, which you might also call The Reasons I'm A Writer.

At any rate, here's my list, in no particular order:

• The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis (I like the whole series, but for this list, specifically The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader)
• Animal Dreams and Prodigal Summer, both by Barbara Kingsolver
• The Hours, by Michael Cunningham
• Written on the Body and Gut Symmetries, both by Jeanette Winterson 
• The Tombs of Atuan, by Ursula Le Guin (I think the whole Earthsea series is wonderful, but this is the book I keep rereading, the one that touches something in me)
• The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman
• The Lost Prince and A Little Princess, by Frances Hodgson Burnett 
• Angels in America, by Tony Kushner (yes, not technically a book, but so wholly life-changing for me that I can't leave it off of this list)

So, yep, there are quite a few Young Adult books in there, and there's a whole lot of sci-fi and fantasy on that list. And I will never apologize for that, although there's a large faction of people in the writing world (let's call them big old snobs) who look down on so-called genre books. Of course, if you just happen to not like these genres, I have no problem with that (my wife, sadly, doesn't like them, and clearly I still think she's OK.) We all have personal preferences. It's the people who sneer at them as being not real literature who I have issues with.

In fact, although I mostly write what I would call literary fiction (with smaller or larger dollops touches of magical realism, depending on the piece), I would say that science fiction and fantasy might be my favorite genres to read (I did say that I'm a huge nerd.) When they're really well done, they illuminate something for us about what it means to be human on this planet - which really is what good art does, in general. But I think that sci-fi and fantasy can often do it more clearly, with more painful accuracy, because they don't take place on this planet. They're removed enough that they allow us to read the painful truth, or look at the awful reality, without denying it or turning away from it, or collapsing under the weight of it. They give us mental and emotional space. Or at least, they do for me.

I don't always specifically invite comments, 'cause, well, what if no one comments?! Then I'll feel like the kid who threw a big birthday party that no one came to. But this time, I'm going for it. I'm taking the plunge: what are your all-time favorite books? Which ones do you either reread many times, or find yourself often thinking about?