The Havana Treatment
Title: The Havana Treatment
Author: Peter Devine
My first Peter Devine book was True to the Code, a series of short stories that were as much historically educational as philosophically motivating. As much as I enjoyed my first taste of Devine’s prose, Havana Treatment was infinitely more riveting.
Peter Devine has an uncanny ability to put you in the middle of a character’s big moment only to take you right back out again. Each short story in Havana Treatment introduces you to a whole person in a just a few moments or hours, leaving you with a solid understanding of who they are, but wanting more of the story. Described as an exploration of the shelf life of a romance, Havana Treatment doesn’t disappoint, and each story is as compelling and oxymoronically uniquely typical as the next.
The human race is completely infatuated with the idea of love, and after spending time with Devine’s characters, it is easy to see why. A moment with someone can become a lifetime of dedication. A person’s soul can be boiled down to one momentous story that could have seemed so unimportant at the time, but because the encounter was so genuine it shapes someone forever.
Devine has such a strong grasp on these realities. His experience and all the people he has met in his life shape the wisdom in his tales; but in all his travels and worldliness, Devine still captures Americana and our ideas of romance like no other.
Peace Like a River
Title: Peace Like a River
Author: Leif Enger
Genre: Fiction/ Literature
One of the few tragedies of working in a bookstore is seeing the popularity aftermath of a book. When there are fifty copies of something for $1 we clerks get in the mindset (if we haven’t read the book yet) that the title was a fad. Not just a fad, but it was clearly a book not worth keeping or re-reading.
Note to shoppers: just because a lot of people don’t keep their books and just because a book isn’t something people jump to re-read, does not mean it’s not worth reading in the first place.
For this very reason, it has taken me years to getting around to reading Peace Like a River. Not just that, but I was tentative and checked the book out – I didn’t even purchase it!
Next time I see a beautiful hardback, I will.
Peace Like a River is all soul filled and gorgeous with running themes concerning miracles, family, God, and consequence. It’s not what I would call a happy book, but it’s not a sad one either. I think it is one of the few in this world written truthfully about human experience, religious families, and the nature of people who function within the knowledge of an ever present God. People without the faith of Jeremiah Lands just don’t live lives like Jeremiah Lands. Some might think that would be a blessing – to go through life without such scruples. I mean, look where it got him. The fictional character finds himself in the precarious position of being a good and godly father to a fugitive, his other son – though revived from death at birth by a miracle – is a severe asthmatic. His daughter is an insanely intelligent poet, but becomes a target in their war with existence.
How exhausting.
But Jeremiah Lands, even in pneumonia and illness, never seems exhausted. The guy is a far cry from energetic, but he is steady. He is solid. He is the kind of father I think many hope for, despite his oldest son’s resistance to him. That sort of resistance is natural, I think, when it comes to family and God. It happens. And it happens very much just like that. Davy is a good person with scruples of his own, he was raised right and chooses I think what many of us would choose in certain situations. But the consequences of his choices make faith hard, and the lack of faith makes each choice harder than the next.
I needed this book this year. And if you see a copy in a bookstore for a dollar, snatch it up quick.
October Birthday Books for a 5 Year Old
Kiddo just turned five. With that come some serious growing up perks – like, for instance, a public library card of her very own. She now can check out up to 30 books each time we visit and she is over the moon with excitement. She even wore her fancy new party dress to the library this morning to sign up for her card.
But before we went to the library and checked out new books on her new card, which we will write all about next week – I bought her books at Barnes & Noble that we are pretty thrilled about. (It was a big deal to buy them from B&N because we’re such used book and library fiends.)
Snatchabook
Of course, because the main theme regards the characters’ love of books, this is a great story to share with little ones to get them excited about stories; or, in our case, to celebrate our existing passion.
We adore the illustrations, which always affect our purchasing habits, and look forward to finding more stories from Dochertys.
Julia’s House fo
r Lost Creatures
The story is about generosity and expectations, community and the need for chores, but within the fantastical fun of monsters, ghouls, mermaids, trolls, and more.
No child should go another Halloween without it.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Title: The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Author: Neil Gaiman
Review by Guest Blogger Elis
abeth K. Simmons
There’s no right way to love a book. For me, there are books I am in love with because of their story and there are books I am in love with because of the figurative and literal places in my life I ended up reading them. The Ocean At The End Of The Lane is brain-fluff wrapped up in too many truths about growing up. Because of that paradox, and the fact that I’m currently ignoring that I am technically an adult, I fell in love with it immediately.
The week I found it was one of the longest weeks of my new adult life. I worked 30 hours in closing shifts at work in six consecutive nights on top of going to school four days in a row and all the homework that comes with it. I was in no way looking for something to occupy my time. There was none to spare.
In between class and work, I walked into Book People in Austin just a couple blocks down from my campus. This two-story bookstore has become my new happy place in between responsibilities since it is large enough to wander and contains hundreds of books to leaf through. Usually I pick a book at random, read a couple chapters and put it back on the shelf when I leave. I haven’t wasted my time and a book gets to feel loved.
On my second day of work, I wanted something easy. I didn’t want to wander, I just wanted to hide. In this particular bookstore, Neil Gaiman’s works have their own shelf and almost every book, its own personal review by the booksellers. Without pausing to even read the synopsis of The Ocean At The End Of The Lane, I grabbed it and rushed to hide in the chair resting up against the classics section with a cup of coffee.
And I disappeared.
Gaiman has this magical simplicity to his writing where a 19-year-old college student can cancel out the constant foot traffic of a busy bookstore and be emotionally invested in the life of a 7-year-old boy who grew up suddenly and quickly after he met the strange Lettie Hempstock at the end of the lane with her ocean. The story is told in a flashback of a middle-aged man who you can tell never quite felt young. Innocent maybe, but he didn’t know that until he no longer was.
When I came back to reality an hour later, I decided this book was what I needed that week. I couldn’t have even told you why, but there wasn’t any way I could’ve left without it.
I didn’t pick it up again for several days. Work and school got the better of me and I might have gone insane a few times over the course of the weekend. Sunday night was night 6 of 6 of closing and after serving angry people their coffee, I had an insane craving for diner food. I wanted coffee and waffles and the kind of food coma that comes shortly after. And I wanted a place to read my magically simple book and not worry about having to leave.
So Magnolia’s it was. A 24 hour diner in the middle of Austin with omelets and giant pancakes sounded wonderful at 9 pm on a Sunday. Little did I know that the last day of the Austin City Limits music festival was just letting out.
As I pulled into the parking lot, I looked behind me and saw the multitudes waiting to cross the street and wait for hours for the same pancakes and omelets. My mission then changed from finding diner food to racing the masses for a table. They had won Magnolia’s, but there was the 24 Diner off of 6th Street that they wouldn’t have time to walk to. I raced to the heart of downtown Austin and beat the majority of the masses.
After saying it was just me, the hostess smiled at me and said there were several spots open on the bar if I wanted to eat immediately. I had beaten the swarm people. I had my spot. And I was not moving. Busy people behind the bar gave me menus and I told the waitress I just wanted a cup of black coffee and a waffle. 10 minutes later, I had a giant waffle in front of my face and the ACL crowd had begun to take over, yelling drink orders over my shoulder and squeezing in the 6 inches of air available at the bar. I did not care. I had my spot. I was not moving.
I opened my book and disappeared again. I met the villainous Ursula Monkton and her twisted desires and methods of making everyone happy. She was a Dolores Umbridge-like character that you hated simply because there are too many controlling, manipulative, and oppressive people like her in real life. I got to know the Hempstocks better and found out they were the family everyone wishes they had as friends growing up. The kind that just took care of things and knew enough to make you think they knew everything.
I was vaguely aware people being replaced with more people on my left and on my right, but I couldn’t tell you how many. The bartenders ignored me entirely, leaving my sticky plate as a marker that I deserved to sit there, only interrupting me to ask if I wanted more coffee. I looked up and it was 11:15. Neil Gaiman had done the impossible and canceled out a swarm of ACL attenders.
The next day, I had no brain function. I went to class and stumbled through the day just waiting for when I could disappear again. I made it to Mozart’s on Lake Austin and fought my way through the line of fellow Austinites to buy a bottomless cup of coffee and made my plan to disappear.
I discovered that oceans can be put in buckets, if you ask nicely enough, and that there are some people whose hearts just need more time to grow back. Different people remember events in different ways and some things are best forgotten.
And then it ended.
I felt like I had gotten pulled out of a dream by having a bucket of ice water dumped on my head. I had not planned on it ending and now that it had I was a little lost. The only thing I could think to do was write a thank you note to Neil Gaiman and share it with everyone. Whether he will ever see it is anyone’s guess, but anyone who can make a week like mine slightly less defeating deserves some recognition.
Moby Dick
We’ve all read Moby Dick – I think – unless you’re a very small child, like my child. As a classical homeschool Mom, I like to expose my kiddo to classic literature early, even before she’s redy to read it for herself. So, finds like Eric A. Kimmel’s picture book Moby Dick with paintings by artist Andrew Glass are gems.
My four year old had a lot to take in – the enormity of the whale, the importance of Ahab’s obsession, and why anyone would kill a sperm whale anyway. This picture book has a neat educational page in the back regarding Melville and the ship Essex and how that true event played a role in the cultivation of the original novel.
The illustrations are gorgeous… we love paint work, 
as the kiddo considers herself a painter and has been mastering her technique since she was 15 months old. (I vote to always give kids real paints and actual canvases, if you can. It’s helped her to be much more adventurous in her artistic pursuits.
We can’t wait to read this one again and again, and hopefully, by the time she reads the novel, she’ll have these beautiful images so ingrained she’ll fall in love with Melville – despite the fact that it takes forever to even get to the whale.
September
September, when you’re a stay at home mom, is an easy going month. It’s when the weather cools to the point that you spend every waking moment outdoors soaking up sunshine in a relaxed state. It’s when you read and collect your thoughts and make plans for your “school year” while all the other moms are scrambling. It’s always my favorite part.
But I’m not a stay at home mom for September this year. So I’m scrambling with the rest of y’all. Instead of basking in the stay at home mom/professional writer glory that I’ve enjoyed (don’t get me wrong, it’s work, but it’s my favorite kind of work… so I’m saving that discussion for another post), I’m back in the store full time AND keeping up my professional writer work AND homeschooling my kiddo. But at least homeschooling a preschooler involves mountainous amounts of play time and audio books. So while she buries herself in legos, I’m taking advantage of one last chance to make our family debt free and figure out our lives…
Of course, that simply means I’ve been posting less, not that I haven’t been reading. So here’s to September, all in one post.
It’s Abo
ut Time – Liz Evers
This is a fun history of clocks and time keeping. I enjoyed it quite a bit, after checking it out from the library, and read it fairly quickly. It’s a good one to add to the homeschooling reference books for a middle grade student, I think. Evers writes on the level of Dava Sobel in both content and vocabulary. Worth owning if you have kids.
The Secrets of Droon – Abbott
Between what we can find
in audio at the library and me filling in with my vocal performances where the library is lacking, we have been binge reading The Secrets of Droon. It’s fun adventure like the Magic Tree House series without the educational twist. Me? I’m partial to the educational twist. Kiddo? She’s digging reading a fantasy story where someone isn’t sneaking a lesson in on her. I think magic carpet rides void of research material on Mummies is refreshing after all the information she gets plugged with. As much as we moms love to douse our kids with education, it’s good to remember that sometimes they just want some brain candy, and that’s ok.
Better With You Here – Zepeda
This is not my typical reading cup of tea. But I read it because it had tea cups on the front cover. Ha! The marketing gives you a sense that the book will be a cozy one about friends partaking of scones and quiche while they solve their problems over southern tea – but the reality is that it’s about some pretty real and raw struggles of single moms in the ghetto of Dallas who can’t take time for tea if their life depended on it. Despite the conflict between the marketing and the story, I had a hard time putting the book down. Zepeda nailed my old neighborhood (which I didn’t know I’d be reading about until a chapter or so in, it was not included on the back jacket and had no bearing on me picking up the book in the first place). Oak Cliff, when I lived there, was exactly how she described it – and she did a lovely job of describing it by describing the people rather than the streets and buildings. Although I’m on the fence as to whether I should keep this book or donate it to the library, I am not on the fence about whether or not to read more of the author’s work in the future – I’d definitely read something by her again.
Rain – Kirsty Guns
This is a short novel that I read in a series of lunch breaks at work. It’s one of those pieces you’re not sure whether it’s meant to be for teens or grown ups until you read the first chapter and then you’re sure – it’s for people. I will always house Gunn in the adult literature section, if I have a say, but I would certainly hand her work to high school students as well. She reminds me of Frascoise Sagan in the Bonjour Tristesse sense, except there’s far more true sadness in Rain than Sagan ever touched on.
Sackett – Louis L’amour
I’ve officially begun a kick. I want to write at least one western under the name of one of my characters from my Bookshop Hotel series, but to do that I decided I must actually read a few. I grew up watching westerns with my dad, most of which were based on books, but I hadn’t actually picked up a western to read until I read The Quick and the Dead last month. I have to say, I’m kind of in love and hope to read at least one western a month till the day I die. They’re so calming and quick, and I find the men that star in them familiar and pleasant to be around.
Transcendental Wild Oats – Louisa May Alcott
Anyone who loves Louisa May Alcott or the transcendentalist movement, will find this an interesting read. It was originally published in 1873 as a bit of satire to illustrate Bronson Alcott’s utopian dream commune (that quickly failed). I can’t help but snicker at descriptions like the one for Miss Jane Gage who “was a stout lady of mature years, sentimental, amiable, and lazy. She wrote verses copiously, and had vague yearnings and grasping after the unknown, which led her to believe herself fitted for a higher sphere than any she had yet adorned.” How many times have you found yourself face to face with a Jane Gage in your life? Daily! Haha. Daily.
The Quick and the Dead
Title: The Quick and the Dead
Author: Louis Lamour
Genre: Western
The phrase “the quick and the dead” is an old one. Ancient. Biblical. It even inspires a line in the Apostle’s Creed, made easy to memorize by an popular Rich Mullins song:
I believe in God the Father almighty
Maker of Heaven and Maker of Earth
And in Jesus Christ
His only begotten Son, our Lord
He was conceived by the Holy Spirit
Born of the virgin Mary
Suffered under Pontius Pilate
He was crucified and dead and buriedCHORUS:
And I believe what I believe
Is what makes me what I am
I did not make it, no it is making me
It is the very truth of God and not
The invention of any manI believe that He who suffered
Was crucified, buried, and dead
He descended into hell and
On the third day, rose again
He ascended into Heaven where
He sits at God’s mighty right hand
I believe that He’s returning to
Judge the quick and the dead
Of the sons of men
Despite my religious background, I first knew this phrase from watching the western with my dad. I think it was the Sam Elliot one, if I recall. (Not to be confused with the unrelated story starring Sharon Stone that came out in the 90’s.)
Sadly, however, I’d never read the book. I grew up on westerns. I’ve seen every John Wayne movie a dozen times over. A running joke growing up was when the song The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence came on and my dad would snicker and say “John Wayne, he did it.” By the way, that’s my favorite Jimmy Stewart movie… not It’s a Wonderful Life. Not Shop Around the Corner. But the western where John Wayne swoops in and delivers all his token John Wayne lines. (Maybe it’s my second favorite Jimmy Stewart movie, actually. I really love Shenandoah.)
Despite all this western movie culture that was instilled in the very fiber of my being – I’d never read a western until this week. Historical fiction, sure. But not an actual serial western. Which is even odder when you take into consideration how I enjoy taking the western paperbacks under my wing at work, running them most Saturdays until you couldn’t squeeze another title on the shelf even if you tried. I love the old men that shop there. Some are wonderfully sweet. Some are highly inappropriate and should probably never go out in public. But I love them all, and I love helping them find their Comptons and Cottons, Keltons and Grey, and above all – Louis L’amour.
The realization that I have made a point to read a title from every section in the store yearly but never tackled westerns came slow and tickled at the corners of my brain for quite awhile. I wanted to try the Sacketts first, but the first one wasn’t in stock that day. So I grabbed the first familiar title I knew.
It’s such a marvelous book. It was such a relaxing and easy read, despite the suspense of it all. I have half a mind to read the whole dang section now.
In time. I will, in time.
Until then, I think I feel a movie night coming on…
What’s your favorite western (book or movie)?
Wild
I wrote this review for work months ago
, and it was posted on our website for a time, I think. I suppose it’s about time I share it with my own audience.
Title: Wild
Author: Cheryl Strayed
Wild, by Cheryl Strayed. It is what it sounds like: a memoir about an out of control woman who strays. It could very easily be placed in the same category of Eat, Pray, Love, by my Christian counterparts especially, but somehow I can’t lump the two together. As a writer, Cheryl has more Bill Bryson (author of A Walk in the Woods) qualities than Elizabeth Gilbert ones.
Cheryl is lost, inappropriate, cheats on her wonderful husband, divorces, does heroine, has almost a complete disregard for herself while simultaneously worshipping her own wants. It should not make for a good read. But somehow it does.
Cheryl doesn’t relish in these moments. She doesn’t glorify them or justify them, she just tells her life how it was, and how she discovered that being comfortable in your own skin, alone, in the wilderness, can be just the provision a lost soul needs. She doesn’t abandon a marriage for a grand tour and love affair with an air of flippant disregard- instead she tells a story of how when you have a huge hole in your heart you drown yourself and everyone around you.
Though the Pacific Crest Trail is long and grueling, Cheryl’s book about her trek is not. She is down to earth, shockingly honest, clever and witty about her past ignorances, and leaves you feeling a sense of hope for not just yourself, but for everyone who struggle.
Paper Towns
Title: Paper Towns
Author: John Green
Genre: Young Adult/ Teen Fiction
I loved it. It seems silly to enjoy teen fiction so much, right now, in my thirties. It feels like I should be chalking it up to a pre-mid life crisis of sorts – but I have an old soul, I already had my mid-life crisis, I think. If I didn’t, I’m screwed when the real one comes around. I’m not sure my brain can handle all that drama.
But it’s not a mid-life crisis. It’s just that despite the fact that people will roll their eyes at John Green because he seems like he’s probably that typical sappy teen coming of age crap that everyone is writing – there’s a reason he’s so popular and everyone else just isn’t.
John Green is an excellent writer.
He doesn’t just write snark – he embodies snark. He has the snark on lock-down. And though people think he only writes super confident teens that we all wish we had been, he doesn’t do that either. The main character of Paper Towns is not confident. He’s nerdy and very un-self assured. He’s in love with the self assured one, and you discover that no one is as self assured as they’d like to pretend to be.
I loved how Green pulled in Walt Whitman’s themes from Leaves of Grass. So much so, that I long to make a pile of Leaves of Grass paperbacks to display next to our piles of Paper Towns at the bookstore. But I haven’t. It’s not my job to do that anymore and I’m trying desperately to only do *my* job and not be the over achiever type A that I naturally am and work my ass off outside my pay grade. I’m not used to be a “regular” employee anymore. Between my previous management experience and writing a character who owns her own bookstore, my brain wants to run things and instead I’m just running the books. Which is definitely relaxing, until I have to keep my perfectionism in check – and then it’s stressful.
Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar makes a sneak appearance as well. I’m always down for a good book that recommends other good books. Margo, though I disagree with half her sentiments, appeals to me. I understand her. I’ve been her. I’m just not her anymore. Though, often, I feel pieces of her tugging at my personality from time to time. Ultimately, I chose to be more like Q. People probably see me more like Q. Although, at that age, I don’t think people really saw me at all.
So now I’m re-reading Leaves of Grass. I couldn’t leave it lingering in my brain that way without tackling it again. I haven’t perused it since high school and it’s long overdue.
Have you read John Green? Do you find him oddly relatable?
And finally, do you plan to or have you seen the movie? I have not, yet.
Good Books That Were Simply Too Easy to Put Down
Some books are great, the kind of books that you can’t live without and can’t understand how you ever lived without them. We’ve all read them, the books that leave you forgetting to eat and avoiding the restroom – or bathing – for as long as it takes to finish the book. You simply can’t tear away. And when a moment arrives that you have to set it down, you moan, weep, you begin to go through withdrawals and ache until the moment you can pick it up again.
And then, there are books that are really good, but you don’t feel that way about them. At all. Like that dude in college you friend zoned. Like that pie you ate, because after all it IS pie, but it doesn’t taste like your Grandma’s. Like that pretty song you’ll hum, but you won’t go out of your way to learn the lyrics or play on repeat…
So here’s to the good books I’ve read recently that I genuinely thought were good, but still found far too easy to put down.
Storm Front by Jim Butcher
Fun paranormal fantasy noir fiction – however, Dresden finds every female he encounters attractive. Either this guy is the most appreciative wizard ever, or he just doesn’t get out much. Felt like I was reading a sixteen year old living in his mama’s basement dream hero, which is all well and good and entertaining, but in between readings, I wasn’t exactly itching to get back to the story. Still read the book in a few days, but it’s the genre and length of something I’d usually devour in one sitting and… I just didn’t.
A Reunion of Ghosts by Judith Claire Mitchell
I checked this out from the library. Absolutely adored the first few chapters, but set it down for some reason or another and never felt compelled to get back to it. Due date came and I turned it in. One day I’ll finish, but it doesn’t seem like a pressing matter.
Which brings me to my next review…
Title: The Pharaoh’s Cat
Author: Maria Luisa Lang
Genre: Fiction
Length: 178 pages
I got this book from the author in exchange for an honest review. It’s cute. I was actually pretty excited about it. It seemed like a fun cozy for an ancient Egypt nerd like myself. But, I discovered as I read that being narrated by the Cat isn’t as cute as I thought. Instead, it’s highly distracting and I find it hard to get caught up in the story because the cat brain is awkward.
Lang’s writing is good. The setting is fun, I always enjoy a good bit of ancient Egypt; and I love that the author considers herself an amateur Egyptologist, it shows in her writing. I’d even go so far as to say that I might read The Pharaoh’s Cat again some day – with my daughter, perhaps. But I wasn’t riveted and the character of the cat didn’t move me, like it moved the Pharaoh, I did not feel the bond that was formed throughout the novel. I didn’t really laugh…
Read a more glowing review of Lang’s novel here: http://ebookreviewgal.com/review-of-the-pharaohs-cat-by-maria-luisa-lang/
Anakalian Whims 