9 Books in 9 Months--Unveiled!

I wrote a few weeks ago about my "Rediscovering the Classics" class, which is beginning its third year this September. In fact, this weekend we had our first meeting where we talked about what the year may bring and I unveiled the list of books we will be reading. The list is (I hope) a mix of well-known favorites and lost treasures ready to be unearthed again.

Anybody who knows me knows that I have strong opinions about how the classics are taught in school. One of my criticisms is that students are thrown into books whose vocabulary, terms and language--although it may still be English--are so antiquated that the students are intimidated and even feel that the story has no relevance to their lives anymore. Nothing could be further from the truth! These books are classics because the language is often hauntingly beautiful and because the stories themselves deal with timeless themes. But sometimes students need to ease gradually into these older works of literature, so that the language and vocabulary is not such a shock. So you may notice that (with one or two exceptions) we read the books in backwards chronological order based on the date of publication.

And now, without further ado, here is the list. I hope you will enjoy it, and maybe even read along with us. I would love to hear your comments!

I Sit Down for a Conversation with Stephen King...

...and Neil Gaiman, and Christopher Moore, and Alexander McCall Smith, and Stephanie Meyer, and...

No, I don't have some secret "in" with all my favorite writers--oh how I wish I did!--my conversations with these authors (and many others) are all compliments of Borders media "Borders Presents"; a collection of short interviews with authors you love, authors you like, and some authors you don't even know.

So, thanks to Borders online I got to spend a lazy Sunday drinking coffee and watching interviews with some of my favorite authors; it was sheer delight! I always love hearing or reading interviews with authors because the topics of conversation are the subjects that are closest to my heart, and which I rarely get to discuss: writing techniques, where ideas come from, whether or not it's possible to write fiction that is not at least in some way autobiographical, truth in fiction, the elusive muse, etc., etc., etc.

Book Review: Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie

I have a great love and respect for many authors, living and dead; but as far as still living, still writing authors go, Kamila Shamsie is probably my favorite. Her book Kartography is one that I have read a number of times, raved about to everybody I know, and even assigned it as one of the "classics by a still living author" for my Rediscovering the Classics class. And she's not a one-hit wonder; her other three books delighted me with their language, swept me up in their stories, and made me fall in love with their characters. So you can imagine how excited I was when her fifth book, Burnt Shadows, finally came out in the U.S.

What I found was that Burnt Shadows is unlike any other Shamsie book. I hate to admit that I didn't enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed all the others. Oh it still has prose so beautiful it's like reading poetry, and it still has characters intelligent and flawed enough to rival any Greek hero; but it... was... epic. Too epic, I thought.

The story begins in Nagasaki just before the second bomb is dropped, ends in the United States after the destruction of the World Trade Center towers, and is told in three very separate and unique parts. This is a departure for Shamsie, whose other books, although they may sometimes have a tendency to go back and forth in time through memories, at their hearts are still focused on the story of their one or two main characters in the here and now.

The first part is Hiroko's, the story of a woman who watches in the worst way imaginable while her home and her fiancé are destroyed by the atomic bomb. Hiroko runs from the effects of the bomb to the home of her dead fiancé's sister in Delhi. This first part of the story ends when Hiroko marries her (almost) brother-in-law's Indian law clerk against the advice of her friends.

When the second part of the story begins 20 years have passed. This episode tells the story of Hiroko's son Raza coming of age in Karachi. A natural with languages, part Indian and part Japanese, but with an English-German extended family, poor Raza doesn't fit in anywhere, and his search for some kind of home and community ends in tragedy; thus ending the second episode.

The third episode begins still 20 years later. This time Raza's American pseudo-cousin Kim is our main character. It is just after 9/11 and world politics are land mines. Kim and Raza both make mistakes, suffer losses, and run away... only to find that they can't escape what's out there in the world and in the past.

I think I understand what Shamsie was trying to do in this book, but her method just did not appeal to me. The scope of the story was too sweeping, and the different segments too far apart.
Just as I really got into one segment it would end, and I would have trouble moving on to the next part. It was an epic story told in small bites, and the method didn't cohere very well.

And then there was the matter of politics. I had a hard time enjoying the story with all the political overtones. This is not Shamsie's fault in the least; I am still just too disillusioned by politics--especially with the gross misuse of the tragedy of 9/11 by some for political gain--to be able to stomach any political commentary; even commentary I may agree with.

I usually burn through Shamsie's books like someone is going to take it away from me if I set it down, but this one took me a good 3 weeks to read. I found that when I finished one segment I couldn't move right into the next. I needed a break and some time with another book before I could move on. The result was that the book simply did not feel like the tight, coherent stories I've learned to expect from Kamila Shamsie. It was still beautifully written (as all of her books are) and I enjoyed that part of it very much, but the story just did not resonate with me as much as Kartography or Broken Verses did.

9 Books in 9 Months

It's that time of year again... August is halfway over. Summer is coming to an end. It's almost time to put away the bathing suits, pick out the first-day-of-school clothes, shine the shoes, and get new school supplies. And it's not just kids who get this feeling that something new is about to begin. After spending 12+ years in school, most adults still get a little thrill of excitement--and the nebulous feeling that a new adventure is approaching--every time September rolls around.

I, for one, hope that each September really does bring a new adventure. For the past 2 years September has brought me the new year of my Rediscovering the Classics class; complete with a new list of books, new members, new ideas and discussion.

The thought of reading the classics as a busy parent or adult can be daunting; but somehow it doesn't seem so bad if you're reading just one novel each month in the company of other engaged and interested adults. And that is exactly what we do in our class. We (re)discover 9 classic novels over the course of 9 months. It's a great opportunity to learn about active reading, discuss story, language, and timeless themes, and share questions and opinions with others. But beyond that (and most importantly), it's fun!

This is our third year of Rediscovering the Classics and the class consists of people from all walks of life--teachers, parents, life-long book lovers, and those who are picking up a classic for the first time ever. Many of our participants continue year after year.

We read one book a month, and meet twice a month to discuss each book. If you're in the Conejo Valley area of Southern California we'd love to have you join us. Just contact me (Jenni) via e-mail, or comment on this post for more information. If you aren't in the area I'd still love to have you join us from afar. I'll be posting the syllabus online after our first class on August 29th; I hope you'll read along with us and share your thoughts here.

In the meantime, enjoy the last days of summer and freedom, and happy reading!

In Praise of the Perfect Reading Partner

As summer ends and I begin to come out of my hermit cave, I'm finally in a mood to talk about all the books I've been voraciously devouring over the past few months. This desire, and the ensuing discussions (or sometimes lack thereof), has led me to a greater appreciation of my reading buddies and the extent to which they enrich my reading experience.

Susan Wise-Bauer mentions in her book The Well Educated Mind that reading is about dialogue and persuasion; the book persuading the reader, and the reader engaging in an internal dialogue with the ideas in the book. When a reader engages in active reading the dialogue is more than just internal--the reader communicates his thoughts outwardly. The outward communication can take the form of journaling, but the best communication happens when you have a third party: a reading partner.

A reading partner is someone who provides motivation and accountability when you're reading a challenging book, but they are much more than that. A good reading partner will enrich your reading experience. Wise-Bauer writes that "a reading partner forces you to use words precisely to define your terms." But most importantly, "when you are looking back through the book for answers to questions about the writer's ideas, your reading partner can talk to you about those ideas."

The thing about reading is that most of the time it is a solitary experience. Now don't get me wrong, that solitary nature is a huge part of its charm. I think many die-hard readers are encouraged in their passion because they can read alone. Some of us actually enjoy being alone. That said, humans are at their core social animals, there's no escaping it. And sometimes we want to share this amazing passion with others.

But as any avid reader will tell you, more often than not, sharing that passion with others can lead to disappointment. Having your reading partner not like a book you absolutely loved is not at all the worst response one can get. The worst response one can get to sharing a reading experience with another is for that other person to give a lukewarm "Oh yeah, that book was okay."

Excuse me? That's the best response you can come up with? I'm a passionate reader and I want a passionate response! I want a nice "Oh yeah, I loved that book!" Even a "What?? That book was terrible!" would be preferable to a mere lukewarm acknowledgment. And even if you did only think it was "okay" (because let's be honest, some books do only inspire a lukewarm response) it would be nice to have a little more thought in your answer; "Oh, I only thought that book was okay because..." or "that book just didn't draw me in, what I really wanted was for the author to..."

I guess that's what I look for in a reading partner, and what I appreciate so much about the reading buddies I do have: passion and depth, a concrete opinion. So this post is for my reading buddies out there--thank you for everything you bring to my reading experience, and to my life. You are what make the reading life extraordinary.