Insomnia by Stephen King

This week, I'm reading Stephan King's Insomnia. I avoided Stephen King for many years because of movies like It and Carrie--But then I read some excerpts of King's non-fiction On Writing, and decided that, if he could write this well about writing, then his fiction was definitely worth giving a try.

While I'm not finished with it yet, I am definitely enjoying Insomnia and it's worth a read if you're into supernatural fiction. It focuses on Ralph, a recent widower who gradually wakes up earlier and earlier every morning--to the point where he only regularly gets one to two hours of sleep a night. As he wakes earlier and earlier, he begins to see stranger and stranger things. And while he'd like to blame it on the lack of sleep, his heightened sense of reality has too many connections to the "real" world to be ignored.

While the story itself is good--really good--I enjoy reading King for his descriptions. (this is going to sound way too much like an English major, but...) King's descriptive writing is best when he pulls out one of his many similes. Of course I can't find one when I want to point it out, but they are as unexpected as chili pepper in chocolate and maybe a little more delicious.

Perhaps one of the reasons I'm enjoying King so much is that he understands books. From Hearts in Atlantis (not worth the time it took to read, in my opinion):
'Come to a book as you would to an unexplored land.Come without a map.Explore it and draw your own map.'
'But what if I don't like it?'
Ted shrugged. 'Then don't finish it. A book is like a pump. It gives nothing unless you give to it. You prime a pump with your own water, you work the handle with your own strength. You do this because you expect to get back more than you give...eventually.' <--(these are the similes I was talking about!)

August Reading

So August was a slow month. I got bogged down in Harry Potter--I know I'm always "free to stop" with any book, but I knew that I'd be happy I finished. In my devotional reading, I've been working my way through Knowing God, by J.I. Packer--and I'll definitely write on that once I've finished (it's taking me a lot longer than the average book, but it seems like every page is worth really absorbing rather than skimming).
Professionally, I've been reading The Book Whisperer by Donna Miller, a quick read--but I have SO craved fiction that I haven't yet finished this wonderful book that screams the importance of reading (the irony is not lost on me).
I've been on a vampire kick, so I'm currently finishing up Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles--really worth reading if you want a "real" vampire story. Once I'm finished with that, I'm really excited to pick up Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. I started it on vacation, but wasn't quite ready to leave the fantasy world when I finished Harry Potter (it's something I ease out of). So here's the sad little list of finished books in August:
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Readicide by Kelly Gallagher

“You don’t have to burn books to destroy culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”

Ray Bradbury

 As an ardent reader, I find it difficult to imagine a life in which books are regulated to school and work only—where reading for pleasure is unfathomable. However, it’s a hard truth in our schools and outside with adults as well. In his book, Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It, Kelly Gallagher speaks to this truth as he paints a bleak but accurate portrait of the decline of reading within schools and the destructive results our nation is seeing as an outcome. With tongue in cheek, Gallagher even coined a term for the detrimental position many educators, administrators and politicians have taken toward reading:

                Read-i-cide n.: The systematic killing of the love of reading, often exacerbated by the inane, mind-numbing practices found in schools (2).

                Even if you aren’t an educator, this is a book well worth your time. Set against a rising tide of standardized testing and canned curriculum, Gallagher presents a compelling and concise argument that, rather than teaching to pass a test, educators should be concerned with encouraging reading habits that make life-long readers—an essential component in forming successful and active participants within society. In addition, Gallagher presents proof after proof that reading is the door to success in all other subjects.

                Gallagher outlines the ways that standardized testing has led to a nation that does not read. In preparation for high stakes testing, many schools have abandoned deep learning for broad and shallow teaching in order to cover state standards. In the same spirit, many schools have abandoned choice reading—or even reading whole novels—in an attempt to cover more material. But this is a story most of us have heard before. Gallagher also looks at the ways reading and novels are currently taught that does no service to reading: 

Over-teaching. For example, chopping up a good book with so many breaks that a student can’t even get into the “reading flow” (60) that readers aspire to—where an afternoon will disappear into the pages of a good book, or cramming so much extra teaching into one novel that the impact of the story itself is lost.

Under-teaching, on the other hand, usually involves throwing students into a complex text with little or no guidance from the teacher.

But what I love about this book is that Gallagher doesn’t just leave it at that—he provides a simple but challenging solution: let students read more. He suggests that educators create a “book flood” (32) for their students—bringing good books into the classroom and lots of good books. Also, he asserts that it is imperative to give students time for reading—that the best readers read a lot. Students should be presented with material that is interesting and relevant to them—that the reading done in class should connect back to the lives of the students in the classroom. To end readicide, Gallagher states that the focus of teachers should be on making students lifelong readers—informed and active members of society—rather than temporary test-takers.  

July reading

July's list will be pretty boring--I always re-visit Harry Potter this time of year. However, here are the month's books:

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone--By J.K. Rowling

H.P. & the Chamber of Secrets

H.P. & the Prisoner of Azkaban

H.P. & the Goblet of Fire
(Each of these are highly recommended, although 3&4 are particular favorites)

A Lineage of Grace--by Francine Rivers 
Christian Fiction. Told in five novellas, Rivers relays the stories of the five women mentioned in the lineage of Christ. While I didn't think the writing itself was Rivers' best (to use teacher language, it was telling, not showing), the stories are well-imagined, highlighted several interesting parallels and placed these women within the context of their cultures and customs in a way that could be enlightening for modern readers. Each story is accompanied by a short Bible study and group questions.

. Readicide--by Kelly Gallagher
My focus review for the month

See you next month!

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Read this before you die.
Seriously.
It's that good.

The Help is set in Jacksonville Mississippi, in the early 1960s. it reveals the tenuous and murkey relationship that often existed between white women and the black women who were hired as their help.

Told from the perspective of three women, Stockett effectively draws the reader into the loves, worries, fears and hopes of each. Each woman is unique in her voice, personality and outlook on the life that they lead. Skeeter, fresh home from college with a shiny degree in journalism, is ready to write her way to fame.
Abileen tells us right off that she's raised seventeen white children--however, ever since her own son, Treelore, was killed in an accident several years ago, a seed of bitterness has begun to grow in her. Minny has a tongue that has gotten her fired from more jobs than she can count. The two women are close friends and when Skeeter asks to interview them about their work lives, they each react in fear, disbelief, and finally--in a need to tell their stories. Through the process of writing the book, Skeeter and Abileen grow closer together; Skeeter begins to see the blaring inconsistencies between her own life and the life of the colored women living alongside her--this new awareness is not lost on Skeeter's friends.

In Miss Hilly, Stockett creates a woman you love to hate. President of the Jr. League, and Skeeter's best friend since childhood, her active racism manifests itself in a seemingly silly initiative, the "Home Sanitation Initiative" but is revealed more and more to Skeeter as the stories of Abileen and Minny unravel and as Skeeter finds herself more and more disturbed by the unchallenged and blatant racism rampant in her hometown.

Tied firmly together through her leading characters and the  many and strange kinds of relationships women hold between each other, The Help looks at how those relationships are affected by love, by hate, and can either be shaped by or re-shape the society that surrounds them.

The Book of Lost Things--John Connolly

This is a book I love. It's eerie, magical, familiar, wonderful, woodsy, lyrically beautiful, full of language that sounds familiar but is completely new--you know, a book to gush over. While it's been two years since I read this wonderful fairy tale, and I'd have to read it again to do it justice, I want you to know about it. Set in England durring World War I, the story centers around a young boy, David. He knows that stories are special--alive even. His mother, who taught him to love stories, dies early in his story and, in many ways, David blames himself. His father marries quickly, and while David's new step mother is good to him, in David's child mind, it sets him up for his own fairy tale.

When a fighter plane crashes into his backyard, David finds himself catapulted into a very real and very dangerous fairy-tale world where the souls of lost children manifest themselves as flowers that bear the faces of children, the woodsman of Red Riding Hood is the fierce protector of the forest, and the wolf is the leader of the wolves-who-would-be-men.

As David struggles to survive in his new surroundings, he discovers that he must go forward on a quest of his own before he can leave this strange land. He quickly discovers that this world of fairy tales is no friend to children. Time and again, he must flee from those who would trick him, hunt him, eat him--while the huntress terrified me to no end, no one is more set on David than the Crooked Man--the Trickster who so cleverly found his way into David's own world. In the Crooked Man, Connolly creates a terrifying incarnation of Rumpelstiltskin, as he tries time and again to trick, tempt, and terrify David into revealing the name of his baby brother.

In this twisted tale, Connolly creates a savage world based on folk tales and fairy tales that have become tame over years of telling. He calls to mind the darker side of these tales--the terror a child might have felt to actually be in the situation of Hansel and Gretel or Snow White. Connolly also adds an explanation/glossary for many of the myths, folk and fairy tales he uses in his story--his thoughts here and the history he adds to each story here is fascinating and adds much to his own tale. While I love this story though, I cannot recommend it without cautioning that it is definitely for mature readers. Adult content comes in the form of a lot of violence and elements of sexuality.

While the world Connolly's created is one I'd never ever want to get to--even in my dreams--I love the window he opened for the curious to peek into.

Note about the lists on the side

The lists on the side are all books I have read and for the most part recommend them. It may have been several years since I read them--and my memory tends to remember only the parts I really like, or the parts I really hate. I won't ever put up a book I absolutely would not recommend--however, I can't guarantee that they are all to everyone's taste. Myself, I lean toward fantasy-or at least a magical element, modern fiction, and a woodsy setting for this reason, you won't find Louis L'Amour on my lists anywhere (although he is on my list of books I need to read before I die). But I am seriously digressing. My point is that, if you're looking for a good book and you know what direction you want to go, these are some I would probably recommend to you if we were talking about it. If you would like a more in-depth review about one, let me know! I'm going to try reviewing the best of the lists, but that might be a while.