Maybe it seems funny, reading a jungle thriller during the holidays. I actually was reading Michael Crichton's Congo mostly during November though.
At the time I was participating in Portland Storyteller Theater's workshop of Urban Tellers. I was encouraged to do it by a couple of friends thanks to some animated stories I've told. But it was much harder than I thought it'd be. I ended up telling a story that I do like, but that feels a little "fluff." But that may be only because it is a story from twenty years ago. It's about a hike I took in Papua Guinea during my honeymoon, trying to find a waterfall I'd seen from the little bush plane. You can find it on youtube under my name or by clicking here. Although I was more challenged than I expected by storytelling, I did enjoy it and would do it again. It's such a unique art form. Oral stories are a little different every time they are told.
I had seen the movie version of Congo several years ago (years!) when it came out in theaters. It was interesting how dated the technology in the story was, yet how cutting edge it still felt. To me, my story about the waterfall was so similar to this one, which seems strange to say. But the similiarity was in the failure of both missions. I never made it to the waterfall; the team didn't get the diamonds. Yet the lessons from the journey proved to be the value of the undertaking.
Okay, it's a stretch.
And I didn't keep any quotes. The power was in the suspense, not the lovely use of language. :-)
Monday, December 29, 2014
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
The Gravedigger's Daughter
Joyce Carol Oates writes dense, rich characters and tense yet satisfying scenes. I've loved her books in the past, and I loved The Gravedigger's Daughter. I kept only two quotes from this long novel. It's shows where my headspace is.
Page 46: The danger in motherhood. You relive your early self, through the eyes of your own mother. (So true!)
Page 303: She was lying awake in the dark, hands clasped behind her head. Thinking of her life strung out behind her like beads of myriad shapes, in memory crowded, confusing as in life each had been singular, and had defined itself with the slowness of the sun's trajectory across the sky. You knew the sun was moving yet you never saw it move.
I'm gripped.
Page 46: The danger in motherhood. You relive your early self, through the eyes of your own mother. (So true!)
Page 303: She was lying awake in the dark, hands clasped behind her head. Thinking of her life strung out behind her like beads of myriad shapes, in memory crowded, confusing as in life each had been singular, and had defined itself with the slowness of the sun's trajectory across the sky. You knew the sun was moving yet you never saw it move.
I'm gripped.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
July books 2014: Wildflower Hill, Sick Puppy, A Simple Murder
This month flew. Three books; no quotes.
Wildflower Hill by Kimberley Freeman. I really loved this story. It took me two tries to get into it, but the second time it struck me right and I couldn't put it down. The characters moved me.
Then there was Sick Puppy, by Carl Hiaasen. I read one of his books before and had a lot of fun with it. He does unpredictable sassy plot twists with complex and imperfect characters. I couldn't decide who was the sickest puppy.
Eleanor Kuhns' A Simple Murder was light for a murder mystery. Crafted well enough, it kept my attention. I was entertained.
Quotes will return.
Wildflower Hill by Kimberley Freeman. I really loved this story. It took me two tries to get into it, but the second time it struck me right and I couldn't put it down. The characters moved me.
Then there was Sick Puppy, by Carl Hiaasen. I read one of his books before and had a lot of fun with it. He does unpredictable sassy plot twists with complex and imperfect characters. I couldn't decide who was the sickest puppy.
Eleanor Kuhns' A Simple Murder was light for a murder mystery. Crafted well enough, it kept my attention. I was entertained.
Quotes will return.
Thursday, June 19, 2014
The Turnaround
George Pelecanos wrote an excellent novel called The Turnaround. I didn't save any quotes, probably because it was written so cleanly and directly, nothing fancy, just good story telling. It reminded me some of Bonfire of the Vanities, with the gritty happenstance of life and those moments that mark turning points.
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Saving Fish from Drowning
I love this novel! Amy Tan had me completely enraptured from the "note to the reader" before the book even started. And it turned out completely different than I expected. I highly recommend that everyone/anyone read Saving Fish from Drowning.
And I didn't keep a single quote! I think that's because I was too busy reading.
And I didn't keep a single quote! I think that's because I was too busy reading.
Monday, May 5, 2014
The Best American Short Stories 2011
Geraldine Brooks (who is my MIL's favorite author) edited the 2011 edition of The Best American Short Stories series. I did love her book, People of the Book. What an interesting collection. I didn't collect quotes from every story and although I enjoyed them all, the number of quotes doesn't indicate how much I liked the story. I noticed that several of the stories with no quotes at all were some of my favorites, such as Out of Body, Free Fruit for Young Widows and Escape from Spiderhead.
Cieling by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Page 5: Her worldview was a set of conventional options that she mulled over while he did not even consider any of those option; the questions he asked of life were entirely different from hers.
Housewifely Arts by Megan Mayhew Bergman
Page 16: You can just see the innocence falling off a child's face -- every day.
Page 19: It's hard being a single mom, but it's easier than being a miserable wife.
A Bridge Under Water by Tom Bissell
Page 35: Two once-unimaginable objects, the first incubating in her stomach and the second closed around her ring finger, made her, she realized, unable to remember what being nineteen or twenty had felt like.
Page 49: It was uncanny: every paragraph was filled with information vague enough to be uninteresting and precise enough to be soporific.
Out of Body by Jennifer Egan
Free Fruit for Young Widows by Nathan Englander
La Vita Nuova by Allegra Goodman
Gurov in Manhattan by Ehud Havazelet
Page 101: Sokolov, old world conqueror, who had held the gae of every woman in his novels class, who had wooed dozens just by a line from Herzen or a pose struck thoughtfully looking out a window, who had slept with half the humanities faculty at Lehman, knew all at once age, irrelevance, invisibility.
Page 102: And since, he had returned daily to verify the sensation, rage, and concede and quietly wonder at the many ways we pass into insubstantiality. An old fool in love.
The Sleep by Caitlin Horrocks
Soldier of Fortune by Bret Anthony Johnston
Foster by Claire Keegan
Page 137: I am used to it, this way men have of not talking: they like to kick a divot out of the grass with a boot heel, to slap the roof of a car before it takes off, to sit with their legs wide apart, as though they do not care.
Page 142-3: Neither of of us talks, the way people sometimes don't, when they are happy. As soon as I have this thought, I realize that the opposite is also true.
Page 143: I want to say that I am afraid but am too afraid to say so.
Page 154: "Many's the man lost much just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing."
The Dungeon Master by Sam Lipstyle
Peter Torrelli, Falling Apart by Rebecca Makkai
Page 192: Or maybe he'd slouched all the way down Adams, his parka blurring him into the frozen crowd, the crowd sweeping him onto the train, the train shooting him up north and off the face of my earth.
Property by Elizabeth McKracken
Page 196: The weight of the bag was like the stones in a suicide's pocket.
Phantoms by Steven Milhauser
Dog Bites by Ricardo Nuila
ID by Joyce Carol Oates
To the Measures Fall by Richard Powers
Page 270: You still read for pleasure: all kinds of things. The hunger remains, but, as with sex, the costumes must grow ever more elaborate to produce the same transport.
Page 273: Overnight, the World Wide Web weaves tightly around you. A novelty at first, then invaluable, then life support, then heroin.
The Call for Blood by Jess Row
Escape from Spiderhead by George Saunders
The Hare's Mask by Mark Slouka
Page 325: Who knows what somber ancestor had passed on to me this talent, this precocious ear for loss? For a while, because of it, I misheard almost everything.
Cieling by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Page 5: Her worldview was a set of conventional options that she mulled over while he did not even consider any of those option; the questions he asked of life were entirely different from hers.
Housewifely Arts by Megan Mayhew Bergman
Page 16: You can just see the innocence falling off a child's face -- every day.
Page 19: It's hard being a single mom, but it's easier than being a miserable wife.
A Bridge Under Water by Tom Bissell
Page 35: Two once-unimaginable objects, the first incubating in her stomach and the second closed around her ring finger, made her, she realized, unable to remember what being nineteen or twenty had felt like.
Page 49: It was uncanny: every paragraph was filled with information vague enough to be uninteresting and precise enough to be soporific.
Out of Body by Jennifer Egan
Free Fruit for Young Widows by Nathan Englander
La Vita Nuova by Allegra Goodman
Gurov in Manhattan by Ehud Havazelet
Page 101: Sokolov, old world conqueror, who had held the gae of every woman in his novels class, who had wooed dozens just by a line from Herzen or a pose struck thoughtfully looking out a window, who had slept with half the humanities faculty at Lehman, knew all at once age, irrelevance, invisibility.
Page 102: And since, he had returned daily to verify the sensation, rage, and concede and quietly wonder at the many ways we pass into insubstantiality. An old fool in love.
The Sleep by Caitlin Horrocks
Soldier of Fortune by Bret Anthony Johnston
Foster by Claire Keegan
Page 137: I am used to it, this way men have of not talking: they like to kick a divot out of the grass with a boot heel, to slap the roof of a car before it takes off, to sit with their legs wide apart, as though they do not care.
Page 142-3: Neither of of us talks, the way people sometimes don't, when they are happy. As soon as I have this thought, I realize that the opposite is also true.
Page 143: I want to say that I am afraid but am too afraid to say so.
Page 154: "Many's the man lost much just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing."
The Dungeon Master by Sam Lipstyle
Peter Torrelli, Falling Apart by Rebecca Makkai
Page 192: Or maybe he'd slouched all the way down Adams, his parka blurring him into the frozen crowd, the crowd sweeping him onto the train, the train shooting him up north and off the face of my earth.
Property by Elizabeth McKracken
Page 196: The weight of the bag was like the stones in a suicide's pocket.
Phantoms by Steven Milhauser
Dog Bites by Ricardo Nuila
ID by Joyce Carol Oates
To the Measures Fall by Richard Powers
Page 270: You still read for pleasure: all kinds of things. The hunger remains, but, as with sex, the costumes must grow ever more elaborate to produce the same transport.
Page 273: Overnight, the World Wide Web weaves tightly around you. A novelty at first, then invaluable, then life support, then heroin.
The Call for Blood by Jess Row
Escape from Spiderhead by George Saunders
The Hare's Mask by Mark Slouka
Page 325: Who knows what somber ancestor had passed on to me this talent, this precocious ear for loss? For a while, because of it, I misheard almost everything.
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
The Cupcake Queen
My daughter told me to read this one. My expectations were not too high for The Cupcake Queen by Heather Hepler, but I found it to be a surprisingly well crafted, well written and entertaining young adult novel.
Page 28: I kept speeding up and then slowing down during the walk to school. I didn't want to be late, but I really didn't want to be too early, standing around and staring at my shoes while everyone else talks to one another and pretends not to see the new girl staring at her shoes.
Page 28: I kept speeding up and then slowing down during the walk to school. I didn't want to be late, but I really didn't want to be too early, standing around and staring at my shoes while everyone else talks to one another and pretends not to see the new girl staring at her shoes.
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