Heart of Darkness (1899)

"Droll thing life is--that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself--that comes too late--a crop of unextinguishable regrets. "

It took me a while to reread Joseph Conrad's book because I found that so often I would stop and read over a particular sentence twice or three times over because of the fascinating was he uses language. The excerpt quoted above is an example. Of course, the more times I read this, the more depressed and desperate I felt. Not exactly an upbeat book.

Read this book slowly (it's not very long anyway) and fix each image in your mind and feel each emotion in your heart to get the full effect.

After you have read this book, rent the movie Apocalypse Now (1979) starring Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, Laurence Fishburne, Harrison Ford, and Dennis Hopper. It is based on Heart of Darkness but takes place in Viet Nam. You may have heard the tag line, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning."

I read this book via DailyLit. Somehow I managed to have a window on my iGoogle page with one installment a day and also receive four installments each day on the Google reader. It is fun to get a piece of a book each day but my eyes still get strained reading on a computer screen, especially when I read something over and over again. I think I'll stick with books.

DailyLit - update

I have stopped reading the incredibly dated children's stories. It's amazing that children actually grew up and eventually wrote better stories than these! Then again, maybe they were also disgusted by these stories and had the incentive to write better ones. I have changed to a another story I have read before, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. It's only 46 episodes long, but packed with amazing language and action.

The narrator speaks of his boyhood fascination with the empty white areas of unexplored continents and speaks about a map of Africa. "It had ceased to be a blank space of delightful mystery--a white patch for a boy to dream gloriously over. It had become a place of darkness. But there was in it one river especially, a mighty big river, that you could see on the map, resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land."

It is amazing that Conrad wrote his books in English, his second language (Polish being his first).
I still think DailyLit is a fun website and they are adding new titles every day. Recently they added Sherlock Holmes stories. Recently written books are also available, many with a nominal fee. Cory Doctorow's book, Little Brother, is available for free.

To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)

Harper Lee only wrote this one book and won the Pulitzer Prize for it. This is not the first time I've read this book and I'm sure I'll read it again since it is one of my all time favorite books.

Scout is another precocious girl (like Ilana in Davita's Harp) who lives in a small town in Alabama in the 1930s. She tells the story of how her father defended a black man who was charged with the rape of a white woman. One of the things that makes this book so special is her ability to absorb information gleaned from adult conversations and using the delicious tidbits only Southern people are capable of creating. The other amazing feature of this book is the insight into the Southern way of labeling each person according to their family name or race. There is no way that one can escape a reputation for drink, violence or any other fault shown by a relative generations before his own. And Scout's town is full of people who can trace their (and everyone else's) heritage back to when the white Europeans first moved into the area.

"You know something, Scout? I've got it all figured out, now. I've thought about it a lot lately and I've got it figured out. There's four kinds of folks in the world. There's the ordinary kind like us and the neighbors, there's the kind like the Cunninghams out in the woods, the kind like the Ewells down at the dump, and the Negroes."
"What about the Chinese, and the Cajuns down yonder in Baldwin County?"
"I mean in Maycomb County. The thing about it is, our kind of folks don't like the Cunninghams, the Cunninghams don't like the Ewells, and the Ewells hate and despise the colored folks."

Scout has the most wonderful sense of humor which is demonstrated when she describes people.

"Mr. Merriweather, a faithful Methodist under duress, apparently saw nothing personal in singing, 'Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wetch like me...'"

"Had I ever harbored the mystical notions about mountains that seem to obsess lawyers and judges, Aunt Alexandra would have been analogous to Mount Everest: throughout my early life, she was cold and there."

Harper Lee had a cousin, a well known author and remarkable character, Truman Capote. He was the model for Scout's friend, Dill, a boy who visited his aunt during the summer vacations. The trio of Scout, Dill, and Scout's brother, Jem, watch how the town behaves during and after the trial.

In addition to this being a Pulitzer Prize winning novel, the movie starring Gregory Peck, is also a winner having received three Oscars. The scene where Atticus walks out of the courtroom is one of the most powerful scenes I've ever seen.

This book is a must read for everyone.
My rating for this book: +++++ (plus one more for extraordinary).

Davita's Harp (1984)

Grownups very often do not realize how much their concerns and worries affect their young children. In this book by Chaim Potok, Ilana Davita Chandal is the daughter of Communist party members in New York in the 1930s. They fervently speak and write about the growing threat of Facism in Europe, specifically Spain. Surrounded by such passionate dedicated adults, it's no wonder that Ilana Davita focuses on two permanent items that follow her family through frequent moves; a door harp and a photograph of horses on a beach. The door harp (I have to have one of these!!!) sounds tones on stretched wires when the front door is opened.

As she grows, and the situation in Europe becomes more and more deadly, she becomes attracted to the rituals of the Jewish religions and the peace people find in them. She is obviously very bright and her parents are the type that never talk down to children and always answer their questions, even the really hard ones.

"My mother had tried to explain it to me, but I could not grasp it. Rebels agains Reds, Fascists against Communits, aristocrats and middle class agains workers, landowners against peasants. A brutally divided world. It seemed as if an ocean of blood had rolled across that land. None of my classmates talked about the war; few even knew about it. But somewhere in Spain was my father amidst bombs and shells and burned-out villages and fields littered with dead horses and human corpses. I was able to understand many of the words that I read in his articles, but I could not imagine a ruined village or a field of dead hroses and men. After a while I stopped reading my father's stories when I was alone at home at night."

Her mother was a Jewish immigrant and her father a New England Protestant but neither practiced their religions (being good Communists). She continued to be interested in Judaism, even learning Hebrew on her own, and attended a Hebrew school. No gentle molding of a young woman here. She was formed by world events of epic proportion.

I highly recommend this book to anyone tired of books about who's dating whom and individual's problems with drugs, alcohol, gangs, etc. This will open their eyes to the possibility that there is more out there affecting them and they need to lift their eyes and focus on the bigger picture.
My rating for this book: +++++

This Full House (2009)

I've been waiting for quite a while for the third book in the Make Lemonade trilogy by Virginia Euwer Wolff and I was not disappointed. When I put a mylar cover on the dust cover I discovered a surprise about the art which is not apparent in the face-on view you see here. When the cover is completely open it is apparent that both girls are pregnant!
Anyway, LaVaughn is still attending school, pushed and supported by her single mother, and babysitting Jolly's two darling children, Jilly and Jeremy. Jolly is a very young single mother trying to make a good life for her children by getting her GED.
LaVaughn is now a senior in high school and the goal of attending college is so close she can almost taste it. She is accepted into a program called WIMS.

"Every girl here is from a poor school
and this doctor walks in
as if we're the best roomful of students ever.
She puts the binder on the lecture stand
and smiles at every one of us,
a startling smile,
I can feel it like a beam
when it comes to me and moves along.
'WIMS.
Women in Medical Science.
These four words can connect you
with the rest of your lives, girls.' Her voice.
Like a deep bell, promise, expectation.
She looks across the whole room and back again.
'Note that this is not a large group.
Fourty-five, to be exact.
You are preparing to give your lives to medicine.
And what is medicine,
what do we devote ourselves to here?
Preservation of life,
restitution of health. That is our mission.'
The lump in my throat comes and goes.
I think it is because
I might fail this thing."

So speaks Dr. Moore, a dedicated neurosurgeon who has organized a medical school primer for high school girls to entice them and give them a boost into the field of medicine. LaVaughn is riveted to every word but something starts to creep into her mind, something about the doctor that reminds her of someone, mannerisms that she has seen before. Could she be Jolly's mother? To add to her many fields of focus, one of her best friends is pregnant.
Wolff has given us another novel in verse about her protaganist who has her goal in reach and still has time for her friends and mother. I have no doubt that LaVaughn will continue through college and achieve a position in the medical field. I would love to be at her graduation.
My rating for this book: +++++

Fly on the Wall (2006)

After a trilogy of books with magicians and monsters, I thought I would come back to reality. Well, almost.
E. Lockhart's book takes place in the Manhattan School for Arts and Music and we meet Gretchen Yee, a half-Chinese girl whose parents announce they are getting a divorce then leave her alone for a week (Dad has business in Hong Kong and Mom goes on a trip to the Caribbean).
They always warn you that you get what you wish for but Gretchen makes an offhand wish to her friend, Katya, anyway.
"Just tell me," sighs Katya. "What do you wish?"
"I wish I was fly on the wall of the boys' locker room," I say.
The next morning finds Gretchen clinging to the wall of the boys' locker room with four more legs than she went to bed with and a set of compound eyes and wings! I will leave it to you to imagine what she observed there over a span of several days, and what she learned about the boys from her school gives her a whole new perspective of their lives and her place in the high school.
There is a lot of humor in this book (as you can well imagine) but it has its moments when Gretchen learns harsh truths about the boys and their private lives.
I recommend this fast reading book with a warning about the frank discussion of boys' bodies.
My rating for this book: ++++

Ptolemy's Gate (The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Book 3) (2006)

By far the best of the three books, Jonathan Stroud finishes the trilogy in a final confrontation between the magicians, commoners, and assorted magical beings. In each book we have learned more about the relationships between the three classes through history and here we learn more about the relationship between Ptolemy and Bartimaeus.
Nathaniel, at the age of 17, is the youngest magician at his rank in the government, thanks to the excellent work of his djinni, Bartimaeus. England is fighting a war in America and it is his job to write pamphlets to recruit commoners to fight, a harder and harder job as recruits quickly become casualties. (Those Americans) He tries to convince the government that Gladstone's staff could be used to bring the war to a quick end but it seems that someone up high has different plans for it.
The trio of Nathaniel, Bartimaeus, and Kitty save England in a final battle that is not to be believed (I don't want to give anything away here).
I highly recommend this whole trilogy through to the end! Fantasy and magic fans will love it!
My rating for this book: +++++

The Golem's Eye (The Bartimaeus Trilogy Book Two) (2004)

Jonathon Stroud continues to give us an intriguing world and story in this second book of The Bartimaeus Trilogy. Now Nathaniel is given his magician name of John Mandrake (but Bartimaeus and readers still know him as Nathaniel) and is assigned to a new master, Ms. Whitwell. They are assigned to find out who or what is causing major damage to parts of London. Nathaniel calls on Bartimaeus, his djinni, to find out who the culprit is. Suspected are a group of commons called rebels since they are stealing magic items to use against the magicians.
One of these rebels is Kitty, a young lady we met in the first book. Now the chapters are from the vantage point of three different characters. We learn why Kitty hates magicians so much and learn how she became part of a gang that is instructed how to break into Westminster Abbey and pillage the tomb of one of England's magical heroes, Gladstone, for magical items buried with him.
We meet new creatures and follow Nathaniel and Bartimaeus on their quest to solve London's latest mystery. Along the way, we see how a ruling class continues to keep others at bay by using (or abusing) their "powers" and, as history proves, the ruled classes find ways to work their way out of subjugation. I'm on to the third book to see if revolution is in the wind and how Nathaniel, Bartimaeus, and Kitty make out.
My rating for this book: ++++

DailyLit

"DailyLit: Sparking your mind and imagination with great books and ideas in under 5 minutes a day."
This is the perfect solution for those of us who say we don't have time to read a book. Visit DailyLit and browse their title lists, many of which are free. You can choose a title and select how often you wish to receive your literary doses and they will an installment to your email, RSS feed, or even you iPhone or Blackberry. On those days when one installment isn't enough or you're in a really good place in the story, you can request more on the spot.
Not all of the titles are old classics, Cory Doctorow's book, Little Brother, is one of the selections (free!) as is Wikipedia Tour: The Grand Tour. Some books are short (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button has only 11 installments where the Wikipedia book has 618).
You're in luck if you are a romance reader. There are over 300 Harlequin Romance titles. There are not very many YA titles but hopefully that will change. They encourage companies to sponsor books so that we can read them for free. None of the books are over $10. That's cheaper than a paper back! I think I will try one of the free titles through my RSS feed on my iGoogle page. It is recommended that you use an RSS feed instead of email so installations aren't blocked by spam filters.
I think I will try "Famous Stories Every Child Should Know" since I seem to have been a very ignorant child never having read any of the stories. 116 installments - check back with me in about 4 months.

The Amulet of Samarkand (The Bartimaeus Trilogy Book One) (2003)

Someone once said that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Indeed I have seen many people who think they know a lot about a topic and they just don't realize how much they don't know. In Jonathan Stroud's book, Nathaniel is handed over to a magician at the tender age of five to be an apprentice. The story takes place in London and, like Harry Potter, a major magic culture exists in the middle of non-magic people. A mean and ambitious magician named Lovelace, humiliates the boy when he is eleven, after only six years of training. Nathaniel studies advanced books behind his mentor's back until he feels he is able to summon a djinni. He calls forth Bartimaeus, a powerful djinni, thousands of years old. He commands the djinni to steal a certain artifact, the amulet of Samarkand, from Lovelace and the action really begins.
The story is told from the viewpoint of Bartimaeus in some chapters, peppered with footnotes. The first book I read with footnotes I found very tedious but in this book it works. As the djinni explains (in a footnote, of course), "By and large, humans can only manage one conscious level, with a couple of more or less unconscious ones muddling along underneath. Think of it this way: I could read a book with four different stories typed one on top of the other, and take them all in with the same sweep of my eyes. The best I can do for you is footnotes." The other chapters are written from Nathaniel's point of view but since he is a simple human, there are no footnotes.
There are imps and magic spells and ancient languages which all make this a fun and diverting book. I will try the next book in the series to see if the fun continues. Harry Potter and all fantasy fans would get a kick out of this book.
My rating for this book: ++++