Station Eleven

According to Emily St. John Mandel's website, Karen Valby in Entertainment Weekly said, Station Eleven is "A novel that miraculously reads like equal parts page-turner and poem. One of her great feats is that the story feels spun..."

I love that. Mandel's story is spun so beautifully--it's like a carpet of a book! An expensive Iranian carpet that might just be 100 years old but could be brand new and you really don't know which is true. There's something so magical about this book. Maybe it's the intricacy of the characters and timeline, where past melds with present for the reader so the two seem linked in a way I may never have felt before reading a book. Considering how strangely bleak the post-apocalyptic world in the future (or is it present?) is, it's amazing how strongly connected we feel to it as well as to the characters' previous lives.

The use of present tense must be partially what bridges the past and future, as it makes the various time frames feel equally poignant and devastating. The character development is more evocative than most science fiction I've read--although I must admit that's not terribly much. The Road by McCarthy might be the most similar book to this I've ever read although I don't know if it's really all that similar at all.

FIVE stars. Really. It's that good. 2014 was the most awesome year for books. Now I have to go read the book that actually won the National Book Award last year (Station Eleven and All the Light were finalists). My expectations are now soaring in the heavens.

Fire Cakes

I got very interested in Revolutionary war-era cooking when I was researching for my HF book (set in the same time period--obviously.) When I read that the soldiers ate mostly fire cakes, I thought, "Wow, that sounds quite good. Cake made over an open fire. It must taste a little sweet, a little smoky. Yum!"

But no, naive girl, it is not tasty actually. I looked for the recipe and found that fire cakes are exactly this:

flour
water
salt if you're luckier than most

Cook this over an open fire. Ever had pancakes that were so hard and disgusting not even the dog would eat them? Yep, that's fire cakes!

Amazing what we take for granted. First of all, salt. Then, sugar. Then, a real stove, not an open flame. Can you imagine how badly they'd stick, if nothing else?!

A Splash of the World

We went scuba diving over spring break. My daughter took the training course. I'd been before but I wasn't a very confident diver. Somehow seeing my eleven year old dive without a speck of fear made me want to get better at it. If she could point out a turtle with the appropriate hand gesture on her very first dive in the warm Indian Ocean, I could stop coarsely breathing into my regulator like it was a ventilator and I was about to die. She was inspiring.

We dove while the little one snorkeled up top with Grandma. It was a memorable vacation, and I'd recommend Gili Air Island to anyone.  Blue Marine Dive shop was awesome. Stop at Chill Out restaurant on the beach--one of the best restaurants on the island. A full moon over dinner didn't hurt!

All the Light We Cannot See

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Highly recommend! You won't forget this book for a long time. This is the literary version of a modern Rembrandt. His style is poetic yet sparse; the tension keeps you turning the pages even while he lingers on characters, even minor ones. Some of the tension lies in the character building, which is just so brilliant. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this book!

I had never read anything by Doerr but now I want to read everything. This book really stimulated my desire to read more about WWII. I thought I'd read lots, but maybe not enough. Can there ever be enough understanding about the Holocaust? No wonder so many people write about it--it's an unending source of anguish and heartache, and no matter how much you read you can never really fathom that something like that could happen even though you read and read and try and try.

The two viewpoints of this book: blind girl and young German orphan boy were absolutely fascinating. I love unique perspectives on the same story. And I loved the idea of a mystical stone that one of Hitler's men is obsessed with--it added an "Indiana Jones" flair and just a touch of fantasy without losing the integrity and importance of the story. I hadn't read anything about the Nazis' collection of riches, besides seeing the movie The Monuments Men (which I didn't care for, despite loving the leading actors), but that was probably quite an important element of WWII: Nazis collecting the treasures of Europe. In the end, doesn't greed fuel half of everything horrible in the world?

A+. No doubt, a must read.

(When finished, read Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel's book about his experience in a concentration camp: Night--shockingly honest yet elegant.)

Resolutions: Just Say No

I'm not the type of person to make New Year resolutions.

For some reason they grate against me--as if somehow I've allowed the universe to coerce me into doing something that everyone does, just for the sake of pretending I will actually do it, because "everyone does it" and somehow it will "be an improvement" on my current habits. My current habits are fine, thank you very much.

I'm not a saint or terribly good at committing to exercising, or getting to bed by 10, but frankly, if I want to exercise I will. If I don't want to I won't. I don't need a note written on January 1st where I commit to exercising for 30 days to start doing it!

Actually, I'm so stubborn a note like that sometimes makes me NOT exercise because I want to be contrary!

Oh brother. I guess I really am crazy, or just Scrooge-like (forgive me, please).

So there will be no 2015 resolutions, no 30-day commitments, no 365 days to a new me. I'll take the old me, thank you very much.

But something interesting that I did run across...was a blog where someone said they were picking a WORD for the year. Yes, a WORD, like

hoopla

joy

manifestations

And a bell went off in my head. A word! A word I can do.

So, I'm going to go for it. I'm going to pick a word, something that will help me when I'm going a little crazy with my writing drafts or life begins to feel overwhelming, with juggling writing, family, full-time teaching...

I think it's going to be old-fashioned and probably very 1997, this word, but who cares.

My word is...

CHILL.

Just chill and enjoy life. Chill and enjoy writing. Enjoy my kids. Enjoy my amazing students. Even enjoy the tropical heat! Enjoy American Idol for goodness sake! Just enjoy all of it, because the next time it will all be different. The chapter, the students, the age of my kids.

I'm going to enjoy the moment....the sun on the horizon, the laughter in my chest, the smile on my daughter's face...because this exact moment won't ever come again.