BOOK: The Art of Mending by Elizabeth Berg

The Art of Mending by Elizabeth Berg,229 pages

celebrate the author; women unbound challenge

As a family plans its annual reunion, centered around a Minnesota country fair, one sister, Caroline wants to discuss what happened to her while growing up. Her brother, Steve, and sister, Laura, had very different experiences and have some difficulty dealing with this new reality.

The story was very realistic, with the interactions and personalities of generations of families trying to get along. At one point, Laura wonders if she would like Caroline if she met her, as opposed to having to get along with her since they were sisters.

This was my first Elizabeth Berg book, and I enjoyed it. The writing and characters drew me in, nobody was perfect, they were just dealing with each other the best way they knew how.


Elizabeth Berg was born December 2, 1948 and is my choice for December author for Celebrate the Author. Becky hosted this challenge here. She is planning a new edition for 2010 for anyone interested. This book completes this challenge for me.

The books and authors I read are:

January:

Shannon Hale Book of a Thousand Days

February:

Jerry Spinelli Stargirl, The Library Card

March:

Penelope Lively Moon Tiger

April:

Barbara Kingsolver Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Beverly Cleary Dear Mr Henshaw
Anne Michaels Fugitive Pieces

May:

Jodi Picoult Nineteen Minutes

Joshua Ferris Then We Came to the End

June:
Sarah Dessen Keeping the Moon

July:
Alice Munro - The View From Castle Rock

August:
Sarah Dunant - In the Company of the Courtesan
Robertson Davies - Fifth Business

September:
Andrea Camilleri - Patience of the Spider

October:
Marish Pessl - Special Topics in Calamity Physics

November:
Charlaine Harris - Dead Until Dark

December:

Elizabeth Berg - The Art of Mending

BOOK: Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris, 292 pages

Celebrate the Author; Vampire Challenge

my preambling rambling:
Much like suziqoregon, I would have preferred to get the book with the cover from before this Southern Vampire Series was made into a television series, but this was the one I found. I haven't watched any of the HBO series True Blood based on the book, but I am intrigued. I loved Harris' Shakespeare mystery series, and have been planning to read this vampire series for quite a while. I actually started reading this book a year ago, and couldn't get into it at all, but wanted to give it another try.

the plot outline:
Sookie Stackhouse has a disability - she can read minds. Because of the problems this causes her, she hasn't dated much at all. When Vampire Bill moves to her town, she discovers she cannot hear his thoughts at all and thus finds it so relaxing to be around him. Vampires have recently had laws enacted which makes it easier for them to live in mainstream society - the invention of synthetic blood allows them to survive without feasting on humans. When one of Sookie's coworker waitresses is murdered, suspicion falls on Bill.

my thoughts:
I'm not sure I completely get the vampire intrigue, or all the rules that surround them. However, this book at least provided a rationale for liking a vampire and allowing them to live in the human world. Dead Until Dark was very fun, combining the supernatural elements within the Southern sensibilities of Louisiana. Harris writes great mysteries with well developed characters that I want to read more about. Sookie, Bill, and Sam make an interesting trio and I look forward to more of them.

This is my November book for celebrate the author as Charlaine Harris was born November 25, 1951. I also highly recommend her Shakespeare mystery series, set in Shakespeare, Arkansas. It's quite dark, but only 5 books long, so it's an easy series to read.

BOOK: Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl

Title and Author of Book?
Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl, 514 pages

Fiction or non-fiction? Genre?

fiction

What led you to pick up this book?
I heard of this book over two years ago when the title caught my fancy. For the non-physics fans out there, there is no physics in the book. It was one of the NY Times Notable Books in 2006.

More recently, I picked it because it was on my TBR Lite Challenge list, and Marisha Pessl was born in October, making it a perfect book for Celebrate the Author.

Summarize the plot, but don't give away the ending!
Blue van Meer, college student, is writing a book about her last year in high school. Her childhood has been spent all over America as her political/philosophical Professor father moves from college to college. She makes friends with a pretentious group of students and an unbalanced and sketchy teacher at her newest school.

What did you like most about the book?
The final 100 pages made up for a slow middle section. I liked the way the plot evolved in the end and all the events and references from earlier were explained.
The literature references were fun, and the final exam at the end was a very unique way to tie up the book and give some perspective on events and characters in the book.
The writing was smart and chockful of information, historical, factual, and literature.

What did you like least?
I lost interest in the middle of the book as the mystery was still far off.
The continual allusions and references got a bit tiring after a while.
Blue's dependence and admiration of her father were a bit creepy.

Have you read any other books by this author? What did you think of those books?
This is her only book published.

What did you think of the main character?
Blue was a unique voice, very educated. At times she seemed conflicted between her tremendous intellect and understanding of characters, with her obvious lack of ability to interact with people. She never knew what to do or say, but she could think and analyse everybody.

Any other particularly interesting characters?
Everyone was interesting, from Hannah the teacher, to the Bluebloods, Blue's friends.

Share a quote from the book:
Love or, more accurately, infatuation ("Take as much care with words expressing your sentiments as you will crafting your doctoral dissertation," Dad said.) was one of those no-good drifter emotions. (page 390)

The girl…nervously bared her long and pointy teeth (see ‘Venus Flytrap,’ North American Flora, Starnes, 1989).

What about the ending?

The ending was very good. I was ready for it about 150 earlier, but the payoff was very good.

Which of your readers are most likely to enjoy this book? Why?

It's a NY Times Notable Book, so people who like listed books would like it. It's a coming of age story as well, and lots of literature references.




Marisha Pessl was born October 26, 1977.

BOOK: Patience of the Spider by Andrea Camilleri

The Patience of the Spider by Andrea Camilleri, 244 pages
Book number 8 in the Inspector Montalbano Mystery series

Celebrate the Author Challenge

Continuing Series Review Questions:

Give a brief summary of the book:
Inspector Salvo Montalbano is recovering from the shoulder gunshot injury suffered at the end of the last book, but is called in to help coordinate the investigation into the kidnapping of a college girl. Livia is living with him during his convalescence.

Likes?
The food descriptions as usual make me hungry; the end notes that translator Stephen Sartarelli includes to explain phrases or customs or Italian cultural references are a fun part of the book; Sargent Catarella who would do anything for Montalbano and continually mangles the language is a great supporting comedic character.

Dislikes?
The mystery was pretty obvious this time, or at least I had a pretty good idea what had happened. Of course I didn't have all the details figured out, so I still enjoyed reading to discover how I was right or wrong.

Additional Thoughts on the Series:
This was book number eight in the series. Only 9 and 10 have already been translated into English, but they are written up to 14 in Italian. Translator Stephen Sartorelli does a wonderful job. I read an interview he did where he explained some of his process and why he enjoys Camilleri's work and words.



Andrea Camilleri was born September 6, 1925. I wrote a profile for Weekly Geeks about Camilleri as the author I chose.

BOOK: Fifth Business by Robertson Davies

Fifth Business by Robertson Davies, 238 pages

Celebrate the Author; 1% Well-Read; 3rd Canadian Book Challenge

An epic-type story of the twentieth century. Three men from the same small town in Ontario grow up to various levels of fame, with intersecting lives. The narrator, Dunstan Ramsey, is a private school history teacher with an interest in saints, contrary to his Presbyterian upbringing. He maintains a close friendship with the boy-wonder, Boy Staunton, master of industry, but they share an event from their childhood that forever affected Dunstan. Paul Dempster ran away to join the circus, and then there is a mysterious death at the end when they all meet up again....

(I feel like I could write this summary and make it sound like a Sidney Sheldon novel, but the book only slightly felt that way. It has much larger literary asperations and feel, but I could completely go that way if I wanted.)

I was a little disappointed with the book, because I had very high hopes and instead it felt like those books I read in the 1980s, like Bloodlines or Lace. It never got as tawdry or elaborate, but it was headed in that direction. It just felt a little dated to me, and not just because of the cover of my edition. There was a John Irving feel, like Garp, in some ways. The connection between the characters, the power and money that was evident, the single event from childhood forever linking the characters. Since this was published in 1970, it may have been the originator of this type of story. It's like watching Casablanca for the first time and knowing all the lines anyway - you know you've read all this before, but it's not cliche because it started it all.

This is the first of the Deptford trilogy but I'm not running out to find them. Maybe in a few weeks or months the story will still be with me and I'll be wanting to find out what happened with Boy and Dunstan and that mysterious death at the end. If so, I'll look up the next book, but I think I'd rather reread an old Sidney Sheldon.

other reviews, from some real fans of Davies:
court at Once Upon a bookshelf;
bybee at Naked Without Books

BOOK: The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro

The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro, 350 pages

celebrate the author; what's in a name: building; 3rd Canadian Book Challenge

My first Alice Munro book. I liked the way the short stories were connected, much like in Olive Kitteridge, with recurring characters. Munro has crafted a partially fact, partially fiction history of her family. She takes the past, beginning in Ettridge Valley, Scotland, and builds a possible story of the Laidlaws coming to America. The stories are based on legend, and her imagination. The second half of the book is ficitonalized memoir of Alice Munro's life, and her family. She states in the introduction that the stories are not true - "And the part of this book that might be called family history has expanded into fiction, but always within the outline of a true narrative."

Very readable, a version of one family's Canadian history, but with general family relationships.


Alice Munro, born July 10, 1931 was awarded the Man Booker International Prize in 2009 for her body of written work. "Generally regarded to be one of the world's foremost writers of fiction, her stories focus on the human condition and relationships through the lens of daily life."

BOOK: Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen

Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen, 228 pages

celebrate the author; southern reading challenge

Colie gets sent to stay with her aunt in North Carolina for the summer as her weight-loss guru mother takes a tour of Europe. Colie and her mother have both lost a lot of weight, but as Oprah fans know, losing weight doesn't make everything better, you have to make the inside feel better too. This is the lesson that Colie has to learn over the summer as she develops a friendship with Morgan and Isabelle, her fellow waitresses at the Last Chance Bar and Grill.

Nice, light and breezy young adult novel to kick off the summer. The setting was summery and the tone of the book was light. Self confidence comes from within, and you can't let other people decide your happiness.

Sarah Dessen's birthday is in June, like my own, so this is my book for the Celebrate the Author challenge. Most of her books are set in North Carolina, and many of her books have characters who appeared in other novels making guest appearances. I haven't read enough of her books yet to see this, but I always like that effect.

BOOK: Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult, 455 pages

celebrate the author

Good compelling story about a school shooting. So it's yucky in many ways. At the staff meeting yesterday, we were reminded to get the tape on the floor of our classrooms to mark off the safe area in case of a lock down. In some ways, this was a difficult read. What can I do? What's happened to that kid in his/her life before I've met them? Scary stuff to be thinking about.

The story itself? Well done, very suspenseful as Picoult writes in two simultaneous stories - the before and after the shooting. I liked this back and forth in time, seeing what happened to lead to this point. We see Peter, the shooter and his battles to fit in and deal with the bullying; Josie, his childhood friend, who breaks the barrier and becomes part of the popular crowd; Alex, Josie's mom, a judge and distant mother. We see the other students and Peter's parents - a midwife and an economics professor. Sometimes Picoult seems to be trying to cover too much stuff - bullying, gun control, social strata in schools, the economics of happiness, homosexuality, family dynamics, the trial, an abusive boyfriend. Maybe this is to put the shooting in some context, as it doesn't appear out of nowhere.

I wasn't a fan of Alex and Josie and thought they were much more dysfunctional than Peter and his family. So why did Peter and not Josie react the way he did? I thought the behaviour of the 'cool crowd' was over the top for a high school. The story was good, but predictable, and provides a balanced look into many aspects and issues that could be involved in a school shooting. I prefer the other two books I've read on this subject, but I would include it as a trilogy on this topic:

1. Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland B.R. ( before reviewing, but it was one of my favorite books in 2007)
2, We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shiver
3. Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult (here's a review by caribousmom)


This book is my read for May to celebrate the author, as Jodi Picoult has a birthday May 19, 1966.

BOOK: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, 352 pages

Celebrate the Author; Herding Cats; Dewey Books

Barbara Kingsolver, author of The Poisonwood Bible, and her family decide to spend a year eating only food from their area, mostly on the farm they move to. This book is the chronicle of their journey, and was a real family affair - daughter Camille adds recipes and short essays to the end of chapters and husband Steven Hopp adds some more technical and fact-driven sections. I was worried that this book would make me feel guilty for every banana that I eat, or every package of granola bars I buy. And while I certainly will think twice about the food that comes into my house, Kingsolver keeps the story low-key and simply her families journey. She doesn't preach and the book is a gradual awareness of the fuel necessary to bring me watermelon in April and lemons whenever I want them.

I think more people are aware and tend to eat local that live in more rural areas. If I lived in the city, there would be less options for me to get my food, but the rural area I live in, and the suburban lot I live on, provides me with access to local and fresh food. And in some ways, we do eat by the season, when we can. We gorge ourselves on strawberries when they are ripe here, and freeze bags for later in the season. We plant a garden and live on our tomatoes and green beans and peas in the summer. My inlaws plant a sustaining garden, and always have, and provide as many vegetables and apples and raspberries as we, and their neighbours want. So I spent much of the book thinking - I try to do a lot of this, just on a very small scale.

The plight of the local farmer has been a topical issue in my province, and a farmer group has opened up a small store with local products, including a meat market. It's mostly root vegetables this time of year that are local, and they bring in some vegetables, but lots of meat and cheese and dried herbs and beans. I won't be growing turkeys and gathering eggs from chickens anytime soon, but buying most of my meat from these 'neighbour farmers' is the best I'll be able to do in this regard.

Kingsolver and her family tried an extreme situation for a year, and she doesn't advocate that everyone do this. They prepared for several years to be able to live on their land, and it wasn't an impulsive decision. Her point was to see how much they relied on food that had travelled far distances. Awareness and thinking about the food we eat is the first step. Great book, with some neat looking recipes to try.

BOOK: Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively

Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively, 208 pages

Celebrate the Author; Booker Prize Winner; Orbis Terrarum: Egypt

Penelope Lively was born in Egypt on March 17, 1933 and spent her childhood there before moving to England. She uses some of her experiences for this book, a Man Booker winner from 1987, which covers the life of Claudia Hampton as she remembers her life from her hospital bed.

Claudia was a war reporter stationed in Egypt during the second world war. It's hard to recap her life because Claudia herself tells her story in a nonlinear fashion, as important parts come to her. I liked how Lively did this, and the jumping around in time, and perspective, should be more confusing than it was, but I found it enjoyable. The major theme of the book is that history is all about perspective and point of view. This gets extended to the story and some scenes are told from different characters perspective a very effective technique.

I really liked seeing the scene from different perspectives.
Seeing the scenes from different perspectives gives the reader insights into the characters.

Claudia has a daughter but leaves her with the grandmothers to raise as she hasn't a maternal bone in her body. There are two great loves in Claudia's life and they really shape her future life. I believed this love story like I didn't in Love in the Time of Cholera, even though both are unfulfilled love in some sense. I liked the relationship with her brother, the closeness some siblings must feel. And I shouldn't have liked Claudia, because she is independent, rude, and abrupt, but I loved her rude abrupt behavior at a time when women weren't rewarded for that sort of behavior or expected to be that way.

Writing a book as a character's memoir seems to be a common type of book, allowing an author to have their character look back over a lifetime of history and to comment on how they perceived events, leading to the idea of an unreliable narrator and leaving the reader to judge whether what is being told is true or if it has been misremembered. It doesn't always work for me (Gilead) but I liked seeing Claudia's life, or the parts she let us see.

BOOK: Stargirl/The Library Card by Jerry Spinelli

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

celebrate the author; young adult challenge

Stargirl teaches everyone a lesson on conformity and being yourself. Being a teenager is tough and learning how to fit it with the crowd while still staying true to yourself is difficult. Whose heart is broken more: Leo's after he realizes he tried to change Stargirl, and then she's not the same girl, or Stargirl's, who changes for Leo because he wants her to but it doesn't change anything?

My son liked this so much he made me get the sequel, Love, Stargirl right after he finished this one.

The Library Card by Jerry Spinelli, 154 pages (ages 8-14)

celebrate the author

One magical library card changes the life of four different 11 year olds. The card brings each of them what they need at that point of their life. The four short stories are not connected at all, other than the library card, and there is something for every reader to relate to: the almost juvenile delinquent being pulled by a friend, the television addict, the lonely child moved to a new community, and the child longing for someone to remember his childhood with him. Eleven year olds make the best characters - they are mature enough to be on their own, they are beginning to think about themselves and their place in the world, but still young enough to believe in magic.

I brought this home from the library after my son and I read Maniac Magee. He was having none of it; looked at the cover and said no. Two months later he starts telling me about this great book he was reading at school. Yep, you guessed it: The Library Card. Spinelli is one of my son's favorite authors.

BOOK: Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale

Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale, 306 pages


celebrate the author; genre: fantasy; young adult


Hale continues her marvelous fairy tales with this retelling of Maid Maleen. Her winning tradition includes picking a lesser known fairy tale and then reworks it after creating her own world, full of language, tradition, and folklore. I've enjoyed The Goose Girl and Princess Academy.


Dashti, lady's maid to Saren, gets locked into a tower with Saren for seven years after Saren defied her father and refused to marry Khasar, a Lord and leader from a nearby realm. Dashti keeps a diary of their days as they try to survive. Dashti is a Mucker from the Steppes with a deep tradition of singing and belief in their gods and goddesses. There is another guy around, Khan Tegus from another realm, and he tries to save Saren from the tower. So we have all the characteristics of a great fairy tale: evil man, good man, adventure, true love, animals, different classes, even werewolves! I particularly liked Dashti's folklore of singing and her way with animals and the fact that this was set in ancient Mongolia. I remember seeing a documentary on life in Mongolia and the ghers, the portable houses the Mongol nomads live in and carry.


I read this for the Celebrate the Author challenge. Shannon Hale's birthday is January 26th.

Her afterward mentions a group at http://www.heifer.org/ where you can donate an animal to a family in need, an animal which can make a huge difference in their life.

CHALLENGE: Celebrate the Author

Becky is hosting a Celebrate the Author challenge. The plan is to read 12 books, one per month, by an author who has a birthday in that month. There are links to find who was born when at places like:

Author birthdays by date (pdf),

author birthdays by name (pdf),

kidsreads.com, teenreads.com,

author birthday directory

or Google will probably work. I know we aren't allowed to read ahead, but we can catch up if we fall behind. I'll come back to this post and update as books are read.

Here's a list of potentials:

January:

Shannon Hale Book of a Thousand Days

February:

Jerry Spinelli Stargirl, The Library Card

March:

Penelope Lively Moon Tiger

April:

Barbara Kingsolver Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Beverly Cleary Dear Mr Henshaw
Anne Michaels Fugitive Pieces

May:

Jodi Picoult Nineteen Minutes

Joshua Ferris Then We Came to the End

June:
Sarah Dessen Keeping the Moon

July:
Alice Munro - The View From Castle Rock

August:
Sarah Dunant - In the Company of the Courtesan
Robertson Davies - Fifth Business

September:
Andrea Camilleri - Patience of the Spider

October:
Marish Pessl - Special Topics in Calamity Physics

November:
Charlaine Harris - Dead Until Dark

December:

Elizabeth Berg - The Art of Mending