I'm bumping this up because all participants of the New Classic Book Challenge are supposed to write a wrap-up post, including which of six books that they read is their favorite. Someone from the challenge is going to get a prize...and I love prizes! :)
The books that I read: The Liars Club, Nickel and Dimed, The House on Mango Street,The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Angela's Ashes and The Stone Diaries.
Of the six, I really enjoyed The Liar's Club, Nickel and Dimed, Oscar Wao and the Stone Diaries. Angela's Ashes, though I enjoyed it, was just so sad that it's tough to call it "enjoyment." And I didn't like The House on Mango Street at all, it was just tough to follow and I didn't like the style.
A favorite?? Well, I got an extra kick out of Oscar Wao since I speak Spanish. I LOVED the author's style, with the footnotes and the Dominican history, and I really felt the character of Oscar. So I think that this one was definitely my favorite!
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I did it, I stuck it through and finished the New Classics Book Challenge! The rule was that you had to read six books from Entertainment Weekly's List of New Classics by January 31st. I didn't think I'd make it in time but I did, and even a little early!
Book #6 is "The Stone Diaries" by Carol Shields. It took me a little while to get into it, but there was a point where it got really interesting! It's about the life of Daisy Goodwill, who loses her mother during her birth, and all about her life from then on. It starts in the year 1905 in rural Canada, where her mother dies during her birth. Then the neighbor leaves her husband and takes Baby Daisy with her to move in with her son in Ottawa. The neighbor ("Aunt" Clarentine) is struck and killed by a bicyclist when Daisy is eleven, and Clarentine's son Barker makes arrangements for Daisy to return to her father's care, but he never forgets her in a romantic sense and sort of pines for her. (Which is a little tapped, since she's eleven!) Her father, a mason, has now moved to Bloomington, Indiana, and the part that sucked me into finishing the book was about Daisy's first marriage in 1927 ending with her husband's death on their honeymoon in Paris. (I won't give anything else away.) Daisy's life was ordinarily extraordinary, and I enjoyed the story. In fact, I would've thought that Daisy was a real person judging by the photos in the center of the book, until I read the disclaimer at the beginning of the book. ("This is a work of fiction...blahblahblah)
I've enjoyed this challenge. While I may not have agreed with the choices of the "100 best books of the past 25 years" it exposed me to new authors and different genres. Usually my choices tend to navigate towards fiction, mostly chick-lit. I definitely would join another challenge again, to force myself out of my reading comfort zone.
Showing posts with label New Classics Book Challenge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Classics Book Challenge. Show all posts
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Friday, November 21, 2008
New Classics Book Challenge: "Angela's Ashes"
My fifth choice for the New Classics Book Challenge was Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt.
What a sad story!! I could not believe the things that Mr. McCourt has lived through. An alcoholic father, extreme poverty, three siblings dying from hunger and disease...it was very sad. I rooted for him when he took the ship to America at nineteen. I saw that there was a sequel called 'Tis, I might read it later on to see how life panned out in America and if his family followed him there later on.
This took me a while to read, I had to renew it twice at the library and that's not like me! I have one book left to complete The Challenge by January 31st, I haven't yet picked one out. I've checked to see if my library has a couple of them, but they don't!! So stay tuned.
What a sad story!! I could not believe the things that Mr. McCourt has lived through. An alcoholic father, extreme poverty, three siblings dying from hunger and disease...it was very sad. I rooted for him when he took the ship to America at nineteen. I saw that there was a sequel called 'Tis, I might read it later on to see how life panned out in America and if his family followed him there later on.
This took me a while to read, I had to renew it twice at the library and that's not like me! I have one book left to complete The Challenge by January 31st, I haven't yet picked one out. I've checked to see if my library has a couple of them, but they don't!! So stay tuned.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Book #4--The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
I'm done with my fourth book in The New Classics Book Challenge. This one was "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz.
I found the story of Oscar and his challenges and his family fascinating. Judging by the title, I expected the sad ending, but didn't realize how bad I would feel for him or his family.
This book is NOT a quick read by any means. I liked the author's style of writing, I've never read a book quite like it. He goes a lot into Dominican history in his footnotes to describe why something is the way it is with his characters. I am not sure if it is based on a true story or fiction.
I think that it really helps to have a working knowledge of the Spanish language. I speak Spanish (albeit not fluently, but enough to get by) and if you don't speak or understand the language, you are going to miss a lot in this book. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the story.
I found the story of Oscar and his challenges and his family fascinating. Judging by the title, I expected the sad ending, but didn't realize how bad I would feel for him or his family.
This book is NOT a quick read by any means. I liked the author's style of writing, I've never read a book quite like it. He goes a lot into Dominican history in his footnotes to describe why something is the way it is with his characters. I am not sure if it is based on a true story or fiction.
I think that it really helps to have a working knowledge of the Spanish language. I speak Spanish (albeit not fluently, but enough to get by) and if you don't speak or understand the language, you are going to miss a lot in this book. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the story.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Book #3--The House on Mango Street
I finished this book in a flash, because it is very short. It's a well-written short story about a girl that's living in a neighborhood that she doesn't feel is her own, and how she wants to escape it one day and be something bigger. It held my interest, though I didn't care much for the author's style of writing. The entire book is broken down into "short stories" that follow the above theme. Some of these sections are as short as a paragraph or two. If these "chapters" had been woven together, it might have been easier to follow.
I am not sure what my next book is going to be on The New Classics Challenge. I am having some trouble getting my other three choices at the library, and I am trying really hard to not buy any books in order to save money. When you love books like I do, the money starts to add up and so does the clutter in your house!
I am not sure what my next book is going to be on The New Classics Challenge. I am having some trouble getting my other three choices at the library, and I am trying really hard to not buy any books in order to save money. When you love books like I do, the money starts to add up and so does the clutter in your house!
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Book #2, The New Classics Challenge
Nickel and Dimed, On (not) Getting By in America, by Barbara Enrenreich....
Boy, this was a fast read! That's the quickest I've finished a book in a very long time.
This one is about a journalist that has an experiment: she works minimum-wage jobs and tries to secure housing and live only on the money that she earns. She does this "experiment" for about a month at a time in three different states: she is a waitress in Florida, a housemaid in Maine and a Wal-Mart employee in Minnesota. There were some rules that she set, for example, she always had a car, and she wouldn't be willing to live in a shelter or the car. She attacks each job with vigor, believing "If you're going to do something, do it well!" In the end, she concludes that she doesn't know how people do it, living on the salary of a minimum-wage job. She learns that, in fact, most people have at least two of these types of jobs, if not more, to make ends meet.
This "experiment" was done in 1998-1999. The assignment is meant to be a real eye-opener for the reader. I, however, wasn't surprised or shocked by a lot of it, because at the time of this experiment I was living this experiment. I had three roommates (one was my fiancee) and we split the rent four ways. We also had to pay for all of the utilites in our central New Hampshire home, including oil heat. While the other three roommates were in the Navy (which is not high paying) I was a civilian and worked two low-wage jobs: I worked at a credit union in Electronic Banking during the day for $9.00/hour, and I worked at the Customer Service Desk at the local mall on evenings and weekends for $7.00/hour. These were truly the best jobs I could find in the area pay-wise, and they were easily 40 minutes from my home! Similar to the author, I applied to every job I could find and easily sent out twenty copies of my resume. For the first six weeks of living there, I was unemployed. That's when I took the job at the mall, dispatching security, selling gift cards, renting strollers and basically trying to avoid the wrath of Management! I also had no health insurance and an old Toyota with its share of sorrows. I was sick so often, that my fiancee and I joked about getting married early, in secret, so I could have Navy benefits such as health insurance.
Luckily though, I knew that my time in New Hampshire was limited to about a year, when my fiancee's Naval contract was up and we were getting married and moving out of the area. But I met plenty of people who were in this kind of life for the long haul, with similar stories that the author discovered. I've seen a lot of the "beating down" from Management to the Employee as Ms. Ehrenreich discusses, though not to the degree of Walmart! I can honestly say that it is not a part of my life that I would like to repeat, that it's very tough to live that way. But when you don't have a choice, you do what you have to do.
One final note: it would be interesting to see what this kind of experiment would be like today, with the economy what it is. I imagine that the results would be more severe, especially with the cost of housing.
Next Book: "The House on Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros. The only copy I was able to locate in the local library system was in Spanish. I'm adventurous and always looking to improve my Spanish, but it would be a lot easier with an English copy to fall back on! So I ordered it from Half.com for $.75!
Boy, this was a fast read! That's the quickest I've finished a book in a very long time.
This one is about a journalist that has an experiment: she works minimum-wage jobs and tries to secure housing and live only on the money that she earns. She does this "experiment" for about a month at a time in three different states: she is a waitress in Florida, a housemaid in Maine and a Wal-Mart employee in Minnesota. There were some rules that she set, for example, she always had a car, and she wouldn't be willing to live in a shelter or the car. She attacks each job with vigor, believing "If you're going to do something, do it well!" In the end, she concludes that she doesn't know how people do it, living on the salary of a minimum-wage job. She learns that, in fact, most people have at least two of these types of jobs, if not more, to make ends meet.
This "experiment" was done in 1998-1999. The assignment is meant to be a real eye-opener for the reader. I, however, wasn't surprised or shocked by a lot of it, because at the time of this experiment I was living this experiment. I had three roommates (one was my fiancee) and we split the rent four ways. We also had to pay for all of the utilites in our central New Hampshire home, including oil heat. While the other three roommates were in the Navy (which is not high paying) I was a civilian and worked two low-wage jobs: I worked at a credit union in Electronic Banking during the day for $9.00/hour, and I worked at the Customer Service Desk at the local mall on evenings and weekends for $7.00/hour. These were truly the best jobs I could find in the area pay-wise, and they were easily 40 minutes from my home! Similar to the author, I applied to every job I could find and easily sent out twenty copies of my resume. For the first six weeks of living there, I was unemployed. That's when I took the job at the mall, dispatching security, selling gift cards, renting strollers and basically trying to avoid the wrath of Management! I also had no health insurance and an old Toyota with its share of sorrows. I was sick so often, that my fiancee and I joked about getting married early, in secret, so I could have Navy benefits such as health insurance.
Luckily though, I knew that my time in New Hampshire was limited to about a year, when my fiancee's Naval contract was up and we were getting married and moving out of the area. But I met plenty of people who were in this kind of life for the long haul, with similar stories that the author discovered. I've seen a lot of the "beating down" from Management to the Employee as Ms. Ehrenreich discusses, though not to the degree of Walmart! I can honestly say that it is not a part of my life that I would like to repeat, that it's very tough to live that way. But when you don't have a choice, you do what you have to do.
One final note: it would be interesting to see what this kind of experiment would be like today, with the economy what it is. I imagine that the results would be more severe, especially with the cost of housing.
Next Book: "The House on Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros. The only copy I was able to locate in the local library system was in Spanish. I'm adventurous and always looking to improve my Spanish, but it would be a lot easier with an English copy to fall back on! So I ordered it from Half.com for $.75!
Sunday, August 17, 2008
First Book--New Classics Book Challenge
One Down, five to go!
My first book for the New Classics Book Challenge is The Liar's Club by Mary Karr. It is a memoir, mostly of the author's tumultous childhood. It is an incredibly strong tale, for Ms. Karr and her sister have been through a lot. Set mostly in the early sixties, the two sisters are struggling to make it through childhood with two alcoholic parents, their dying, crazy grandmother, being the toughest kids in the neighborhood and their Mother's "nervous" condition. It's the kind of book that makes you thankful for your own "normal" upbringing! Through all of the problems in their lives, Mary and her sister Lecia truly love their parents and are very close. It's a beautifully written book, with a large secret entwined with the passing of the pages.
Next up: "Nickel and Dimed: on (not) getting by in America" by Barbara Enrenreich.
My first book for the New Classics Book Challenge is The Liar's Club by Mary Karr. It is a memoir, mostly of the author's tumultous childhood. It is an incredibly strong tale, for Ms. Karr and her sister have been through a lot. Set mostly in the early sixties, the two sisters are struggling to make it through childhood with two alcoholic parents, their dying, crazy grandmother, being the toughest kids in the neighborhood and their Mother's "nervous" condition. It's the kind of book that makes you thankful for your own "normal" upbringing! Through all of the problems in their lives, Mary and her sister Lecia truly love their parents and are very close. It's a beautifully written book, with a large secret entwined with the passing of the pages.
Next up: "Nickel and Dimed: on (not) getting by in America" by Barbara Enrenreich.
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