The Sunday Salon/1% Well-Read Challenge: Breakfast at Tiffany's

Good morning, fellow Saloners! This is the first time in a LONG time that I've actually been able to sit down, write a TSS post, and get some reading done on a Sunday. Right now, I'm working my way through The Once and Future King (I read it at school, during the required 20-minute "Sustained Silent Reading" period), The Last Temptation of Christ, by Nikolas Kazantzakis, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz (both of those are for challenges I'm woefully behind on).

I've managed to read a TON of books; unfortunately, they're mostly YA drivel (Fear Street, I'm looking in your direction). At last count, I've read over 100 books this year, but the majority of them really only count as half a book because they're so short and don't require much thought.

1% Well-Read Challenge: Breakfast at Tiffany's

Title: Breakfast at Tiffany's
Author: Truman Capote
Genre: Fiction
Published: 1958
Pages: 192
Rating: 9 / 10

This week, I read (in addition to a plethora of the aforementioned Fear Street) Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote for the 1% Well-Read Challenge. This novella is amazing! It wasn't originally on my list, but Play's With Needles' wonderful review piqued my interest, and then I found a copy for TWENTY-FIVE CENTS at the library book sale, so it seemed like someone was telling me to read it. Plus, I LOVE the movie - I was obsessed with Audrey growing up.

You probably know the story: the narrator (called "Fred" by Holly, because he reminds her of her brother) moves to NYC and becomes enamored of his neighbor, Holly Golightly. She is an intriguing character: selfish and irresponsible, yet you can't help but love her. You would think her naivete and stream-of-conscious ramblings would be grating, but I found her completely charming. The fact that I was picturing her as Audrey Hepburn (although in the book, she's a blonde) probably added to this.

It's a very short, very fast read (which was good for me, as I'm behind in my challenges and needed a quick way to catch up). There were two passages that I particularly liked, because I thought they really highlighted Holly's independence:

She was still hugging the cat. "Poor slob," she said, tickling his head, "poor slob without a name. It's a little inconvenient, his not having a name. But I haven't got any right to give him one: he'll have to wait until he belongs to somebody. We just sort of took up by the river one day, we don't belong to each other: he's an independent, and so am I. I don't want to own anything until I know I've found the place where me and things belong together. I'm not quite sure where that is just yet."

The tragedy is, (*spoiler alert*) she gets rid of the cat when she leaves New York, and then realizes that she really does care about it and wants to keep it around. By then, of course, the cat has disappeared.
My other favorite passage:

"Never love a wild thing, Mr. Bell," Holly advised him. "That was Doc's mistake. He was always lugging home wild things. A hawk with a hurt wing. One time it was a full-grown bobcat with a broken leg. But you can't give your heart to a wild thing; the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they're strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree. Then a taller tree. Then the sky. That's how you'll end up, Mr. Bell. If you let yourself love a wild thing. You'll end up looking at the sky."

She's talking about herself, too, here; "Doc" is her older husband, the one she abandoned when she left for L.A. and then New York. I like this passage for personal reasons, I'll admit. My dad wrote an editorial about me using the "wild animal" metaphor once, so seeing it here really spoke to me.

All in all, it's a wonderful little book. If anything, I wish it were longer. And now I really want to dig out my copy of the movie...

Up next: The Last Temptation of Christ

Other reviews: Plays With Needles

If you've reviewed it as well, leave a comment and I'll link to it.

The Sunday Salon - 10 August 2008

School starts tomorrow, and I think it's pretty safe to say I'm nervous. We had pre-planning all this week, and I've vacillated between excitedly hopeful and panicky nervousness. I feel completely unprepared for the first day, and it's driving my crazy. The veterans have all told me not to worry; the first day is usually a breeze, because you have to spend so much time with introductions, passing out books, and going over the handbook/syllabus that there's not time for anything else. That, and the students are all so tired after their two month vacation they tend to just zombie out on you. So, we'll see how it goes.

I did manage to get some reading done this week, which was nice:

I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You, by Ally Carter - When I did my student teaching at the middle school last year, one of my 7th graders LOVED this book. It's about a girl named Cammie who goes to school at the Gallagher Academy, which looks like a typical private school, but is actually an elite superspy training facility. The ending was surprisingly harsh, but in a good way - it was nice to have a unpredictable, anti-fairy-tale conclusion. I can't wait to pick up the sequel, Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy.

Side note: what's up with Powell's search feature? I couldn't find either of those books by title, author, or publisher - I had to go to Amazon, get the ISBN, and search for them that way. Weird.

Anyway, I also read ttyl, by Lauren Myracle (which is also impossible to find on the Powell's site, which is making me regret linking the books at all). The neat thing about this series is that it's written entirely in chatspeak. It's a series of IM conversations between three best friends. The best part (for me) is that it takes place in Atlanta, so anytime they mentioned a street or business (Junkman's Daughter, Churchill Grounds), I got excited and knew exactly what they were talking about. There is a downside to this, though. One of the subplots involves a bunch of teen drivers protesting the speed limit on I-285. According to the book, it's 65 mph. I wish! It's actually 55 mph, which makes it even more ridiculous. But that was my only major quibble with the book. I don't know if I'll read the others in the series, because the IM style and constant (true to life) errors gave me a headache, but it was pretty good and definitely different.

I'm currently reading:

Peeps, by Scott Westerfield - because Breaking Dawn just wasn't teen-vampire-angsty enough for me.

The Last Temptation of Christ, by Nikos Kazantzakis - for the 1% Well-Read Challenge.

The Hours, by Michael Cunningham - for the Book Award Winners II Challenge.

Some fun book links:

Locus Online and Tor both have coverage of the Hugo Award winners - YAY for Neil Gaiman, Michael Chabon, and Dr. Who!

Kafka apparently collected a bunch of porn. Not exactly what we learned about him when I was in school, but okay.

Livejournal user absinthetic has created this amazing Wonderland expedition kit for his girlfriend. I have no words.

Happy reading!

1% Well-Read Challenge: Less Than Zer0

Title: Less Than Zer0
Author: Brett Easton Ellis
Genre: Fiction
Published: 1985
Pages: 208
Rating: 6 / 10

Hoo, boy. Where do I start?

This is Ellis' first novel. He wrote it when he was 19, which I find amazing. Our narrator is Clay, an east coast college student visiting his friends and family in Los Angeles during winter break. Basically, all these characters do is take drugs and have sex with one another. Seriously. This book has pretty much every sin and depravity you could think of: male prostitution, pre-teens doing coke, a snuff film, etc. There were a few funny moments toward the beginning, but after a while the stream-of-consciousness writing and complete amorality really wore on me. I had to stop every once in a while and read a Baby-sitter's Club book just to keep my spirits up.

I marked a few passages that I found interesting, but I don't think I'll quote them here because I don't want to offend or upset anybody. But please don't let that turn you off the book. It has an oddly hopeful ending, despite all the nihilism along the way.

While doing research for this post (read: Wikipedia), I discovered that Less Than Zer0 was made into a movie in the 80's - starring Robert Downey Jr. - and now I want to see it. According to the article, it deviates greatly from the book, but still. For some reason, all of the books that I'm reading for this challenge have been made into movies.

Up Next: The Last Temptation of Christ

The Sunday Salon - High School Novel Unit

The new school year will be starting up soon, and I'm getting my lesson plans ready. One unit I'm really struggling with is my novel unit. I have a list of suggested reading for my 10th grade English students (the majority of whom will be remedial or inclusion), and I have to say, none of them interest me that much - Rebecca sounds boring, and my 7th graders read Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, so no. I have SOME leeway with my lessons and reading choices; I'm getting a technology grant, which gives me a little more freedom, and my principal is really encouraging and open to new ideas. One book I've been thinking about for the unit is Cory Doctorow's Little Brother. I just picked up a copy today, and will probably be putting everything else aside to read it. It sounds promising enough - a high school hacker gets in trouble with the Department of Homeland Security and has to fight the man to save the world - so I'm looking forward to it. I'm really just trying to find a book that my students will enjoy and actually WANT to read.

Those of you who have read this/know someone who has - what do you think? Do you have any suggestions for other books jaded, bibliophobic 16-year-olds might like?

In other news...today was my last day at the grocery store, which means from now on I'll actually have my weekends free to read! And crochet, scrapbook, knit, cook foods I would actually eat, clean my apartment...

This week, I read:
The Baby-sitter's Club #55: Jessi's Gold Medal, Ann M. Martin
The Baby-sitter's Club Super Special #5: California Girls!, Ann M. Martin
The Baby-sitter's Club Super Special #6: New York, New York!, Ann M. Martin
Y: The Last Man #10: Whys and Wherefores, Brian K. Vaughn

Notice a pattern? I blame Bryce.

I'm currently reading:
Less Than Zero, Brett Easton Ellis - for the 1% Well-Read Challenge. This may also explain all the BSC books - I need something light and fluffy to counteract the nihilism. Whew.
Stitch 'N Bitch, Debbie Stoller - I'm learning how to knit! It's slow going (I've restarted the same scarf four times - I'm ready to call it a potholder and move on to something else), but a lot of fun!
The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Michael Chabon - my goal is to finish it this week.

TBR:
Too many to list, but Little Brother is at the top.

Weekly Geeks #9: Challenges

This is actually my first WG post! It's a good thing Dewey gave us two weeks for it, because it took me a while to get organized.

This week’s theme is Challenges.

1. If you participate in any challenges, get organized! Update your lists, post about any you haven’t mentioned, add links of reviews to your lists if you do that, go to the challenge blog if there is one and post there, etc.

2. If you don’t participate in any challenges, then join one! There’s a good selection of possibilities over on my right hand sidebar (scroll down) where I list those I participate in. There’s also A Novel Challenge, a blog that keeps track of all sorts of reading challenges.

3. Towards the end of the week, write a wrap-up post about getting your challenges organized OR if you’re joining your first challenge, post about that any time during the week. Once you have your post up, come back and sign Mr Linky with the link to the specific post, not just to your blog.

Here are the challenges I am currently participating in:

1% Well-Read Challenge - I finished my second book for this challenge (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) on the last day of June; the review is here.
Book Awards II Challenge - This one doesn't actually start until August, but I got a head start by updating my list; I found a bunch of books I wanted to read for the challenge at a library book sale.

A Midsummer Night's Challenge - This one ended last month. I finished both the books I read for it (Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Pratchett's Lords and Ladies) and wrote reviews for them (posted here). It feels really good to have one challenge completed and out of the way!

July Book Blowout - This challenge is a bit of a catch-all for the month of July. I like it because the goal is just to read books; you don't actually have to post a review. I've already finished three YA novels (Just Ella and two BSC books), and I'm currently reading Stitch 'N Bitch and The Yiddish Policemen's Union.

Life Books Challenge - I just joined this challenge this week! I've already chosen and posted about my Life Books; now I just need to visit other participants and choose two books to read for the challenge.

For all of these, I linked the books I'm using either to BookCrossing or Powell's Books. I also made a sort of "challenge template" so that all of my challenge main pages look pretty much the same - after I read a book, I strike it out and post a link to the review of it, along with the date I completed it (except for the JBB Challenge - I'm not reviewing all of those, although I may change my mind and do it later, or on the BookCrossing page for the book).

Happy reading!

1% Well-Read Challenge: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Title: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Author: Philip K. Dick
Genre: Science Fiction
Published: 1968
Pages: 210
Rating: 8 / 10

I know I said I was going to read Life of Pi next, but I'm still waiting on my copy from the BookCrossing bookray I joined. In the meantime, I read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the book that was the inspiration for the movie Bladerunner (which I've never seen, but will probably rent sometime in the near future). Here's the story:

The year is 2021 (in my copy; in older editions the setting is 1992). A world war (referred to only as "World War Terminus") has left Earth completely destroyed. The fallout from the radiation has caused genetic mutations in some of the humans who are left behind; these people are referred to as "specials" or "chickenheads"*. Animals are endangered (or extinct); owning and caring for a pet is now considered a civic duty and a point of pride. Artificial animals have been engineered for people who can't afford the real thing, but don't want to be looked down on by their neighbors. Androids have also been created, and are given to humans who choose to live off-world to use as slaves. "Andys" are not allowed on Earth, because they are considered dangerous. Our protagonist, Rick Deckard, is a bounty hunter whose job is to locate rogue andys and "retire" (read: kill/destroy) them. The best way to tell an andy from a human is empathy - androids are unable to feel for anyone but themselves.

Empathy, [Deckard] once had decided, must be limited to herbivores or anyhow carnivores who could depart from a meat diet. Because, ultimately, the empathic gift blurred the boundaries between hunter and victim, between the successful and the defeated. As in the fusion with Mercer [a religious figure, similar to Sisyphus], everyone ascended together or, when the cycle had come to an end, fell together into the trough of the tomb world. Oddly, it resembled a sort of biological insurance, but double-edged. As long as some creature experienced joy, then the condition for all other creatures included a fragment of joy. However, if any living creature suffered, then for all the rest the shadow could not be entirely cast off. A herd animal such as man would acquire a higher survival factor through this; an owl or a cobra would be destroyed.

Evidently the humanoid robot constituted a solitary predator.

There's a bunch of other stuff going on, too, but the great thing about PKD is that he didn't explain everything as it happened; a lot of stuff I had to guess at or figure out later. It made the book very engrossing.

The characters were great, too. My favorite was John R. Isidore, one of the aforementioned specials. I felt so bad so him; everyone he met ridiculed him and looked down on him for being "stupid." When the narrative was from his point of view, he lamented the fact that he was slowly losing his cognitive faculties. He KNEW he was getting dumber, but there was nothing he could do about it. He also tried hard to please the people around him, even if they didn't appreciate it. I don't why I liked him so much more than Deckard, but I did. I didn't feel sympathy for Deckard - at one point, I was even convinced he was actually an android himself. I was a little disappointed in him, actually, because it seemed like he had this big, life-changing epiphany that was going to completely change him and make him a better person. And then it didn't happen. Or rather, he changed his mind about changing his mind. Oh, well.

At any rate, this was an excellent sci-fi novel. This was my first PKD book, but I'm looking forward to reading more.

Up next: Less Than Zero, by Bret Easton Ellis

* A term that gave me some pause the first time I saw it in the book; that's not how I normally hear it used. I'm not going to link to the definition at Urban Dictionary, but you can look it up yourself if you're curious. Just don't do it at work, or around small children. One of the perks of living in Atlanta is that I got to learn all sorts of interesting slang.

1% Well-Read Challenge: Memoirs of a Geisha

Title: Memoirs of a Geisha
Author: Arthur Golden
Genre: Historical Fiction
Published: 23 September 1997
Pages: 448
Rating: 9 / 10

This was the first book I chose to read for the 1% Well-Read Challenge. I have wanted to read this book for YEARS - I can remember being in college and seeing a copy at the bookstore, and I have no idea why I didn't pick it up then. I got my current copy in a BookCrossing trade a few weeks ago, but I had to finish another book first (actually, a few books: the literary crack known as The Twilight Series and The Host), and by the time that I finished I had discovered the 1% WRC and decided to use Memoirs as part of that. So it all turned out pretty serendipitously.

Alright, plot: Memoirs of a Geisha is a novel about a young girl named Chiyo who is sold by her father to the Nitta okiya, a geisha house in Gion. Her biggest obstacle to becoming a geisha is Hatsumomo, the Nitta's only profitable geisha and Chiyo's first rival. Hatsumomo antagonizes Chiyo and apparently ruins her chances of ever becoming a geisha, but then (spoiler alert!) some other stuff happens, fate intervenes, and Chiyo is able to renew her training and eventually becomes pretty successful. It's an interesting story, and although the ending was a bit too Chairman ex machina, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

To be honest, I found the novel a bit daunting at first - the print (at least on my copy) is really tiny, and it seemed like it would take forever to get through. But the chapters were really short, and once I got into the story it was hard to put it down. The premise is that the novel was dictated to an interpreter by a real geisha, and I found it very believable - not that I'm a geisha expert or anything. But the characters are incredible! Chiyo's voice is very realistic, and Golden's writing style is lyrical. I'm a little sad it's his only novel. According to my post-reading researching (Google + Wikipedia), he interviewed several geisha for background information, and was sued for breach of contract and defamation of character by one (Mineko Iwasaki) because he named her as a source in his acknowledgements. She then went on to write a completely different account of life as a geisha (called, appropriately enough, Geisha, A Life), which is about to go on my Amazon wishlist.

Next up: Life of Pi, by Yann Martel

Other Reviews:
Kim L

1% Well-Read Challenge

Click here for the main page
Rules:
*Read 10 books in 10 months from the book 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die
*May change your list and may cross-post with other challenges
*Runs May 1, 2008 - February 28, 2009

My list:
1. Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden 21 May 2008
2. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick 30 June 2008
3. Less Than Zero, Bret Easton Ellis 31 July 2008
4. Breakfast at Tiffany's, Truman Capote 21 September 2008
5. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
6. The Last Temptation of Christ – Nikos Kazantzákis
7. American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis
8. Thank You, Jeeves – P.G. Wodehouse
9. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
10. Trainspotting – Irvine Welsh

4 down, 6 to go