Walking the Wall

51+ Total 

December 2007

1. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

November 2007

1. The Silmarillian by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare
3. Call me by my True Names by Thich Nhat Hanh

October 2007

1. The House of Gaian by Anne Bishop. Finished .
2. The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia McKillip. Review.
3. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer.
4. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer.
5. Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer.
6. Midsummer’s Night Dream by William Shakespeare.

September 2007

1. Dispatches from the Edge by Anderson Cooper. Finished 9/3. I don’t tend to read autobiographies, and I especially don’t tend to read things written by journalists. However, this book reminded me of The Zanzibar Chest by Aiden Hartley which was a very powerful book. I was still skeptical of reading this, but I had a good recommendation (thanks Liz) and I ended up finding it a very powerful book. It has a raw simplicity about it that is just the right tone–some might see it as almost emotionless, but I felt it was more strong emotion being contained. The subject matter is so rough, that it would be easy to stray into sentimentality, but Cooper doesn’t.
2. Widdershins by Charles de Lint. Finished 9/13. I was excited to see that another book of his was available, especially one that followed up on Jilly who is in many of his books, but especially given the ending of The Onion Girl. I won’t give anything away, but it is another excellent book by one of my favorite authors.
3. The Pillars of the World by Anne Bishop. Finished 9/15. After reading Bishops Black Jewels trilogy, I had to go back and reread this trilogy. A great read, very different than her Jewels book, but great in its own right.
4. The King of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord Dunsany. Finished 9/23. I read this as part of my independent study class on the development of the fantasy genre in the Twentieth century. I wrote a review on that blog.
5. Shadows and Light by Anne Bishop. Finished 9/28.

August 2007

1. Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop. Finished 8/4.
2. Heir to the Shadows by Anne Bishop. Finished 8/6.
3. Queen of the Darkness by Anne Bishop. Finished 8/7. Review of the trilogy coming soon. Obviously the books grabbed me and I didn’t accomplish much other than read for a few days. While I would be very cautious in recommending them due to disturbing content and a good deal of violence–they are certainly incredibly well written and follow some powerful themes in thorough and interesting ways.
4. Dreams Made Flesh by Anne Bishop. Finished 8/7. Finishing the trilogy this morning, I ran right out and got this book of 4 novellas set in various times of the timeline.
5. Sunshine by Robin McKinley. Finished 8/12. Another re-read for me and really the best vampire book I’ve ever read. Neil Gaiman writes on the cover, “Pretty much perfect,” and that about sums it up.
6. The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham. Finished 8/22. Review.

July 2007 Coming soon, I was bad keeping track, now I have to dig them up and note them down.

1. First King of Shannara by Terry Brooks. Finished ?. The Shannara series was one of the first fantasy series I remember reading (after Tolkien) so I was interested to read a book that went back before the Elfstone series began. He has recently put out two books that go back even further that should be very interesting.
2. Stardust by Neil Gaiman. Finished ?. I re-read this one in anticipation of the movie, it’s not (in my opinion) the same caliber of American Gods or Anansai Boys or even Neverwhere–but it is a good old-style fairy tale and I’m looking forward to the movie. Gaiman is a very visual writer and I imagine it will translate quite well onto the screen.
3. The Places That Scare You by Pema Chodron.
4. Unknown
5. Unknown

June 2007

1. Finder by Emma Bull. Finished 6/7. I picked this up at a book sale because I was curious if she was comparable to Charles de Lint in the urban myth genre. The concept is that the Borderlands between the faery and human world have physically manifested and created a literal borderland between the two where things are mixed up. While I enjoyed the story and became invested in the characters–I don’t think it was quite de Lint quality, though I couldn’t put my finger on what was missing. Actually, as I write it, I think that what was missing was the old mythologies of both the Celtic and the Native American cultures blending in with de Lint’s writing that gives it a deeper layer. Don’t get me wrong, it was “really good” (as Neil Gaiman notes on the cover), I think it just suffered in comparison. I will definitely be reading her War for the Oaks book that has gotten so much acclaim. One thing she really did well was address the “us” versus “them” mentality, blurring the lines and calling out for tolerance.
2. Days of Cain by J.R. Dunn. Finished 6/17. I had read this book awhile ago but I pulled it out again because I thought it might be a good next book for my summer book club on issues of violence and humanity. Partway into it I realized it would be perfect for that, but then I noticed that it isn’t readily available to buy off Amazon.com or bn.com–frustrating! The premise of the book is “if you had the power, would you eradicate the past’s greatest evil–even if it meant destroying the continuity of history”–would you? It delves into different ways people deal with violence–and the difference between “knowing about” something and “living through” that same something (like the Holocaust). It also addresses what having horrible periods like the Holocaust does in setting images of what it looks like when humanity descends into horrifying cruelty–and those images become stoppers that help prevent society from going back to those depths. It’s a book that raises more questions than it answers, but they are important questions.
3. Eyes of Crow by Jeri Smith-Ready. Finished 6/24. Review coming.
4. Mapping the Edge by Sarah Dunant. Finished 6/30.

May 2007

1. Spellbinder by Melanie Rawn. Finished 5/8. I picked this book up because a) I’ve been a bit brain dead starting a new part time job, b) I needed some fluff after reading a long way gone, and c) I love Rawn’s dragon series. It’s more of an urban witch book than a fantasy and not, in my opinion, up to par with her past series–but still an enjoyable romance/magic/mystery novel. It accomplished what I needed it to; it was a quick, easy read that I didn’t need to chew on too much. The book is a great deal about connections and there is an interesting passage around p. 323 about really seeing people, and even more importantly how many people we can allow ourselves to be really seen by. Misc. quotes: “We come closest to Deity when we create–whether it’s a work of art, a friendship, a baby, a marriage, a satisfying meal, laughter, the smile on the face of a child…Don’t most of us venerate, in one form or another, the Creator of All? Something results from a creative act” (337). “Can there be only one path? Life is a journey toward knowledge–of self, of the world, of Deity–and if we don’t challenge ourselves to seek and to know, doesn’t that betray what we’re meant to be? Isn’t the journey the important thing” (380)? Compared to big city living, in rural areas we find “people who don’t live as fast, because they’re not afraid of not living enough” (392).
2. The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. Finished ?. This is a re-read for me in preparation for a book club I’m doing this summer. I enjoyed it as much the second time around as the first. I think The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong is still my favorite of the stories because it is a re-telling of the concepts in The Heart of Darkness but it stretches the issues of violence and cruelty to being a human concept and not a gender concept.
3. If I Die in a Combat Zone: Box Me Up and Ship Me Home by Tim O’Brien. Finished 5/29. A really good follow up to The Things They Carried, I would recommend reading the short stories first, and then this autobiography because it illuminates many of the stories in a fascinating way. Flying home to Minnesota he writes: “You fly into an empty, unkowing, uncaring, purified, permanent stillness. Down below, there are some roads. In return for all your terror, the prairies stretch out, arrogantly unchanged” (208).

April 2007

1. A Taste of Magic by Andre Norton and Jean Rabe. Finished 4/7. I picked this up at the library as a quick, no think book after doing some heavy/detailed reading for school. Pretty much was a no think book, not all that great, but something to set in the bathroom for quick snatches of reading.
2. Talyn by Holly Lisle. Finished 4/9. I picked this up and started it awhile ago, then forgot about it until I found it under my bed. This is a fantasy book, but Robin Hobb writes on the back: “An unflinching examination of relationships amidst a cash of societies. This is not your average fat fantasy book.” Indeed it is not, this is a very well written book about what it means to be human, what it means to be ethnocentric, what it means to try and find common ground with people who are different than ourselves rather than simply decide they are less than we are. While it is a book on a grand scale about societies, it is also a book on a personal level about responsibility: “All men had such tasks, Gair realized–to each human born, the gods gave a destiny, and free will either to fulfill it or turn away. No man could live another man’s life–or at least, could not live it as it was meant to be lived. No man could embrace another man’s destiny. Each man could only take up the burden of his own, and seek it with all his courage and hope” (544). I would highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys fantasy at its best–with one warning, its graphic in a couple of different ways (trying to avoid being spammed so avoiding specific words).
3. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. Finished 4/26. “Remember, he tells her, the padlock wants to pen. All you have to do is let it do what it wants. It sits there in her hand, cold and inert and heavy. And then, suddenly, she understands, and, somewhere in her heart, she lets it be what it wants to be. There is a loud click, and the padlock opens” (216). I read this book a few years ago and this was a quick re-read to see if it fits into where I want my independent study to go in the fall–I didn’t take any notes or anything other than my typical bending the bottom page corner. I think Gaiman is brilliant at what he does, although one of my favorite things he does is the comic book Marvel 1602 where he writes the X-man as if they were born in the 16th Century–fantastic!
4. a long way gone: Memoires of a Boy Soldier by Ismael Beah. Finished 4/29. We are going to be reading this in a book club I’m hosting over the summer, but I wanted to pre-read it as I like to read a book through first before reading it deeper for themes and connections. This is a powerful and disturbing book that I think everyone should read to remind ourselves of the depths and heights that humanity can sink to and also attain. Longer review here.

March 2007

1. Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh. Finished 3/4. “It is often said that the Buddha’s teaching is only a raft to help you cross the river, a finger pointing to the moon. Don’t mistake the finger for the moon. The raft is not the shore. If we cling to the raft, if we cling to the finger, we miss everything” (91). Beautiful book with a beautiful message of peace.
2. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. FInished 3/5. This was a lot of fun to read, it was a satire on the Gothic novel which was contemporary to Jane Austen and the book really highlighted how incredibly funny Austen is–she has a sharp wit and I laughed out loud more than once.
3. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. Finished 3/7. I thought this was a really great book, it’s funny because I didn’t really particularly like any of the characters, but I was interested in what made them tick, what conclusions they jumped to–the million and one ways that people, even people in love, can be communicating on such different levels that there is a complete disconnect. Alfred Hitchcock made a movie from this book that won him his only Oscar for best picture–lucky for me, Netflix has it so it’ll be fun to watch what he does with it.
4. Winter Rose by Patricia McKillip. Finished 3/14. I’m nearly certain I’ve read this sometime in the past, but it was well worth another read, and McKillip is one of the couple authors that I simple intend to own everything she writes because she writes incredibly lyrical pieces. I’m using her Solstice Wood (which I read last year) in a paper I’m writing about perception and the modern use of fairy tales–Winter Rose is a pre-quel, but not in the truest sense, you can read Solstice Wood without ever reading Winter Rose. Anyway, before re-reading Solstice Wood I decided I’d best read (or re-read) Winter Rose, and I’m glad I did.
5. Solstice Wood by Patricia McKillip. Finished 3/26. This is a reread for a paper I’m writing (see above) and I enjoyed it and found a great deal of substance for my paper. I’ll write a longer review later.
6. Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Kenziburo Oe. Finished 3/27. We voted on a non-western novel for my lit class and this is what we ended up reading. As remarkably powerful as it is disturbing.

February 2007

1. The Witch of Cologne by Tobsha Learner. Finished 2/25. I bought this on the complete basis of the back of the book comparing it to the Red Tent which I enjoyed tremendously–false advertising. The book started out promising and then lead into an atypical “romance” novel without even a great story line to pull it together. Not my best impulse buy.
2. Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier. Finished 2/27. I picked up du Maurier’s Rebecca at a library sale, which I haven’t read yet, but when I was moving my friend and was telling her about grabbing it she insisted I had to read her copy of Jamaica Inn and I’m glad I did. It was a great “dark and stormy night” type of novel. Two of du Maurier’s works were made into movies by Alfred Hitchcock–Rebecca and her short story The Birds. Rebecca won an Oscar. Anyway, great fun, suspense, and intrigue–moving on to Rebecca!

January 2007

1. Children of Men by P.D. James. Finished 1/2. Some thoughts. I picked this up because of the movie coming out with Clive Owens and Julianne Moore. The movie trailer looked very interesting and I always like to read the book before watching a book adaptation movie. While it seems, at least from the trailer, that the movie doesn’t stay close to the book, I enjoyed the book a great deal.
2. Incantation by Alice Hoffman. Finished 1/6. Some thoughts. I found this book at the library and pretty much gulped it up on the power of it’s very first page. Beautifully and poetically written, it resonates with our horror at the depths humanity can sink to and our awe at the heights of hope humanity can inspire. “I thought I knew the world,” Estrella writes in 1500 Spain, “I thought I knew myself. I thought I knew my dearest friend. But I knew nothing at all.”
3. The Assassin King by Elizabeth Haddon. 1/10. I was so excited to see the next book in this series had come out, but I have to say I was disappointed. This is a for pure fun series that I loved the first two books and they have slowly gotten less intriguing. I will keep reading them as I have to know what happens to the original three characters who were so wonderful, but, for me, the books have lost their original flair.
4. Green Angel by Alice Hoffman. 1/14. I was disappointed at how small a book this was when it came in from Amazon, but size is certainly not always a indication of worth. This book evokes a lot of adjectives: haunting, aching, lonely, sad, painful–but in the end, it also says hope and rebirth and renewal. Quotes: “I understood wanting to forget. Things that made you remember cut like pieces of glass. A song, a memory, a blade of grass, a white dress, a dream, all of it as painful as the deepest wound” (50). “She was so busy forgetting, she couldn’t take a single step into the future” (97). “I saw then that the ink was green [not black]. It was the ink of a sister, a woman with long, dark hair, a man who was strong. It was the ink of a witness, of a girl of sixteen who had no idea what the future might bring. Green as the world we once knew” (115).
5. Loose Canon’s by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Finished 1/17. I read this for my literature Senior Seminar class in order to open the discussion of multiculturalism and the question of the traditional canon and how to change it, modify it, throw it out in order to make it reflective of minorities (both ethnic and gender). I agreed with most of his points, though I’m not sure that sub dividing and specializing into groups such as Women’s Studies and African American Literature is the real answer–in some ways I think it simply draws everything further apart and says “this is classic literature, this is African American literature, this is literature by women” that seems to only accentuate the “otherness” that we are trying to dispel and keeps there from being a conversation between literary sub genres. I’m not sure, still chewing over it all.
6. Ahab’s Wife or, The Star-Gazer by Sena Jeter Naslund. Finished 1/30. Some thoughts. Beautifully written, if a bit utopian, I think the short sum of the book is about hope. Quote: “He [Ahab] believed the moral powers–demonic and heaven-generated–are separate things, must be separate to be themselves; eternal. But I see them as all nested and layered together, sometimes with no clear seam between, but a gradation; transient” (18).