The Madwoman in the Volvo

The word Madwoman got my attention when I first saw the cover, but this was the selection for September for my book club-- a teachers' group here at The International School of Kuala Lumpur.

Madwoman in the Volvo: My Year of Raging Hormones by Sandra Tsing Loh is a fun yet introspective read. I've not personally experienced the "hormones" related to menopause, but I'm sure my time will come soon enough! (no clues here...my age is not for public disclosure. ha.) The humor and hard lessons, I could relate to in this book, and several passages had me laughing out loud on the plane as I floated above the city of Bangkok, as the pilot patiently waited for an airstrip to open.

I went to a conference in Bangkok last weekend, so late evenings in the hotel after a Thai dinner and massage proved the perfect backdrop to finishing this, at times sordid, tale.

{spoiler alert!} 
My one criticism would be that the first quarter of the book was almost too humorous. She took a very light-hearted look at the break-up of her first (very long) marriage and revealed very little of how devastated and miserable she must have been. The ending of a two-decades long marriage would result in some emotion, but it was as if a blanket lay over the experience and she wouldn't fully let us into it. The focus of the memoir later becomes the near-breakup of her second marriage, and this was treated with much more honesty and vulnerability, which was nicely juxtaposed with humor and self-deprecation. I appreciated how she didn't shy away from her flaws and faults although at times her honesty was nearly too much. {ie: are there no good people left in the world?!} 

I do wish one honest memoir would be published where the person presents themselves as noble and good, not selfish and reluctant. But maybe that makes for a boring story.

At least it's good to know when I hit that stage I can blame all of my horrible actions and feelings on my body. So 21st century.

Here's an interview with Sandra. Cool to hear her voice. It sounds like her writer's voice.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/08/books/review/sandra-tsing-lohs-madwoman-in-the-volvo.html

Culture of Reading

Sometimes I wish my kids weren't pulled so much into video games, youtube, movies, but when I look in their rooms it reassures me that we may have gotten something right.

A household culture of reading. Not the easiest thing to create, but so worthwhile!

Another Doerr Book

I was so thrilled with award-winning All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr that I found his earlier memoir, Four Seasons in Rome. It's no wonder this guy has won a sackful of prizes because he'd such an incredible writer, the style and flair is so breathtakingly honest, yet beautiful--not just raw and ugly emotion, but that side of us that is an awe that we even get to walk the planet Earth for a moment.

His Rome book centers on his time in Rome after he'd received a grant to write for a year, and it happened to be just months after his twins were born. He considers the ancient yet modernity of Rome in light of his insomnia and incredulity over raising twin boys.

Besides his poetic language, Doerr's book has a humming undercurrent of wisdom. One of my favorite lines from this book was: "Sleep is a horizon: the harder you row toward it, the faster it recedes."

Any parent knows the truth of that statement.

Rome. Children. Sleep. Beautiful Language. This book touches on all a true reader and parent would need and want in a book.

Top Ten Reasons to Write

#10 You get plenty of quiet alone time!

#9 You now have a good reason not to go running.

#8 You can't dance so at least you have something.

#7 You become better at a particular craft.

#6 You set a great example for your kids of working hard to achieve something.

#5 It may be finally fulfilling a lifelong dream.

#4 You can take what you've learned all these years about reading people and put it to good use.

#3 You may just get to see your name in print one day.

#2 It makes you a better person. You're accomplishing great things and learning so much.

#1 Because it feeds something you can't quite explain. Your soul, your spirit, your heart, your mind. All of them somehow.

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.