Wonderstruck

I started and finished Brian Selznick's Wonderstruck the other day. I thought I was going to put it down and go to sleep but I just kept reading until it was over. It makes you feel so cool to read a 600-plus page book in a day, nevermind that 75% of the book is pictures. For those not familiar with Selznick's work, he is an illustrator who won the Caldecott Medal for his novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which I just learned is being turned into a movie. His books use illustrations to help tell the story in a way that I don't think had quite been done before, at least not blended with text like he does. His books are very cinematic. What's cool about Wonderstuck is two stories are being told simultaneously, one with pictures, the other with words and the stories later become intertwined. Selznick was just in town and my son and two of my friends were lucky enough to get to see him. It sounds like it was a great experience. It had been so long since I'd read The Invention of Hugo Cabret that I didn't break a commitment I'd made, but after reading Wonderstruck wish I would've. I'm officially jealous.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

I feel very lucky that my oldest still lets me read to him. It doesn't happen every night, but we take the time when we can to sit together on the couch and I read aloud from some book that we both agreed on, often him grudgingly. Last night we finished Grace Lin's Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. It's a beautiful, magical, uplifting book about one girl's quest to change her family's fortune. The novel is about storytelling and I was delighted when all the stories came together at the end. It is a Rebecca Caudill nominee, which is an award in Illinois where the children vote for the winner. There is a list that comes out in May or June and voting is sometime in early spring. The last couple years my son and I have tried to read as many of the nominees as we could. This year so far the only other nominee we've read so far is Kekla Magoon's The Rock and the River. (A magnificent book!) Last night I asked my son which he would say was better or that he liked more. It was a tough pick for him, but eventually chose Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, which is funny because he admitted he never would have read it on his own... which is why it's so great we still read together. He is exposed to great books he loves that he'd never read on his own.

About a Boy

A bit of a switch here from Zadie Smith, but I absolutely *love* Nick Hornby's writing. I've read this 7 or 8 times and it still never gets old. It's so easy to read and you feel a bit better afterward, possibly from all the laughing. If you saw the movie, but didn't read the book, do yourself a favor and push the movie from your mind and read it. They set the movie in the present, but this is set in the early 90s and so, so much better. It's the story of a self-absorbed man who learns the world isn't just about him and the kid that makes that possible. It's a story about connections and what happens when we reach out to someone. It was this novel that received the following description from the NY Times: "Hornby is a writer who dares to be witty, intelligent and emotionally generous all at once." So well said.

On Beauty

One of my all-time favorite books is On Beauty by Zadie Smith. I've read it 3 or 4 times now and it's one of those books that is just as enjoyable to read repeatedly as it is the first time. I love the portrait of this family and marriage and love the way that Smith artfully weaves in political and social issues-- the recipe for my kind of novel. I like how the novel is very readable, yet is still literary and deals with not only relationships, but bigger issues and ideas. (She briefly tackles the tragic history of Haiti in a way that gives me chills.) Not to mention one of my all-time favorite fictional characters ever is Levi and if he was to walk out of the novel, I wouldn't be able to stop myself from running over and giving him a big hug. My husband read this novel over the summer because of my incessant prodding and while he enjoyed it, didn't love it. I can understand how someone may not fall into this book the way I have, but it still hits me on so many levels that I can't help putting it in my top five list of greatest books ever.

So Many Books, So Little Time...

...that could almost be my life's mantra. I'm feeling it a lot more now than I have in the past now that I'm finding less and less time to read. When my boys were smaller, it was so easy. There were days I started and finished a novel in a single day. While I was breastfeeding, while they napped on me, while they played in the grass, there I was, reading as if my life depended on it. The funny thing is I thought I wasn't reading nearly enough and longed for the time when they'd be older and I'd have more time to read. Ha! It's so much more difficult to justify the luxury of the lazy afternoon on the couch with Ann Patchett or Jonathan Franzen than it was when I had the classic excuse of a toddler who liked to use my chest as his pillow as he napped. My list of books I want to read keeps growing and the pace in which I can get through a book is slowing, so my first few posts will look at my favorite books while I catch up on my reading. These will be books I've reread or plan to because even though there are so many books and so little time, some are too good to only read once.