Books for holiday giving

Books are always on my shopping list—and my wish list—this time of year. A gift of a book gives the receiver hours of enjoyment while reading it, and a lifetime of satisfaction remembering or returning to it. And there is a book for everyone.

I recall a student many years ago on our first trip to the library that semester. He claimed that he didn’t like to read. “OK,” I told him. “What do you like?”

“I like music, miss,” he said.                                                                                                                              

“OK,” I said. “Follow me.”

I took him to the stacks and found a copy of The Commitments (1989) by Roddy Doyle. The story is about a group of working class youth whose mission is to bring Soul music to Dublin. An added bonus is that the novel is heavy on realistic dialog with just enough narration to keep the story moving.

The student took the book because he was too polite not to. I could tell he was skeptical.

The following day in class, the student rushed up to me and said “I didn’t know there were books like this!”

Everyone is a reader when they have the right book.

So, here are some recommendations for holiday shopping.

History

I’ve read several books about the people, other than the soldiers on the front lines, that were instrumental in the Allies’ victory in WWII. One of the best of these is Code Girls (2017) by Liza Mundy.

The US Army and Navy operated parallel programs that relied heavily on women recruited from universities and small towns to learn and then use the meticulous skills necessary to break enemy codes. The work of these women and others saved countless lives and shortened the war by as much as two years.

Although Mundy’s book is carefully researched nonfiction, the books is as readable as any novel.

Literary Fiction

Although this title is not new, The Little Friend (2002) by Donna Tartt is a riveting and haunting tale of crime and punishment, innocence and evil. Although Tartt won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for The Goldfinch, I believe The Little Friend is a superior novel.

Twelve-year-old Harriet Dufresnes, whose family was destroyed by the murder of her 9-year-old brother when Harriet was just a baby, sets out to find the killer. She convinces herself that local redneck criminal Danny Ratliff is the killer and begins stalking him. The novel turns into a thriller as Harriet’s pursuit of Ratliff leads her into mortal danger.

Romance

The Giver of Stars (2019) by Jojo Moyes tells the based-on-real-people story of the packhorse librarians in rural, Depression-era Kentucky. The Pack Horse Library Project was a WPA program that served around 100,000 Kentuckians between 1935 and 1943.

The Giver of Stars tells not only the story of the librarians and their efforts to promote literacy in the poorest and most remote areas of the country, it also touches on issues of women’s rights and autonomy, censorship, racism, domestic abuse, and union busting. Oh, and there are some love stories in there, too.

Cookbooks

Cooking can seem like a chore to working people. Many turn to meal prepping on the weekend. Even that seems to me like a lot of planning work.

Cassy Joy Garcia’s newest cookbook Cook Once, Eat All Week (2019) solves these problems. For each week, Garcia provides a shopping list, which includes alternatives for those with food sensitivities, prepping instructions, and recipes.

I had always imagined meal prepping was cooking a bunch of food on Sunday, and then reheating different dishes the rest of the week. Not so with Garcia’s book. Prep day includes things like chopping or roasting vegetables, or searing meats. The work on each meal day is expedited by having the components ready. Another important feature of Garcia’s system is that there is no waste. If you need two chicken breasts for one meal, that recipe is paired with one that calls for the rest of the chicken.

Audiobooks

I recently listened to the e-audio version of Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen (2018) by Sarah Bird.

The title refers to a fictionalized version of an actual person, Cathy Williams, a freed slave who disguised herself as a man and served in the Buffalo Soldiers for two years after the Civil War.

The story is funny, heartbreaking, and inspiring. Narrator Bahni Turpin is brilliant. She brings to life dozens of characters, conveying the tragedy and the comedy of Bird’s story.

Everyone loves being read to, but Turpin’s portrayal of the characters in this book make it a special treat.

Dublin Murder Squad series begins

Although I twice vowed not to read another Tana French novel, I’ve read five of the Dublin Murder Squad series and plan to read the sixth one and her standalone crime novel, The Witch Elm (2018).

I can’t recall how I was introduced to In The Woods (2008), but if it was you that recommended it, and you’re reading this, thank you. Of course, I wasn’t grateful when I first finished the novel, but I am now.

French’s series is unique in that each book is narrated by a different detective. Each one works or has worked on the Murder Squad of the Dublin police, and they are all flawed. Also, in each novel, the detective-narrator has some personal connection to the victim, witness, or crime scene.

The books are full of twists that are impossible to see coming, unless you’re used to French’s unconventional protagonists and plots. There are no happy, satisfying endings. Just realistic ones. Sometimes justice is not done; sometimes the “good guys” do “bad things.” This is how French challenges our notions of right and wrong and human imperfection. And this is why I twice vowed not to read another French novel, but ended up doing so anyway four times.

The tone of her books has been compared to that of Swedish crime novels. Anyone who has read the Millennium series, beginning with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, or any of the Kurt Wallander books will note the similarity. However, French’s characters offer the reader more than excessive coffee drinking and ennui. They offer us a close, sometimes painful, examination of human failing and weakness, even in humans with the noblest intentions.

The television adaptation of the series began Sunday night on Starz and continues for the next seven Sunday nights. The sweeping grey landscapes and mossy, fog-shrouded woods certainly capture the mood of French’s books.

The first episode presents the crime from the first book, In The Woods. However, the crime from the second book, The Likeness, occurs in the second episode, and detectives Maddox and Reilly (Ryan in the book) solve the two crimes simultaneously. The primary complaint of the UK audiences who have already seen the entire season was how the screenwriter has melded the two novels.

Although viewers of any television or movie adaptation who know and love the books are not going to be happy about the changes made by the screenwriter or the director, changing from a print to a visual medium is going to require accommodations.

However, it is difficult to understand what necessitated combining the two plots. Both novels are long enough with enough complexity to fill an entire eight-episode season. Perhaps the screenwriter wanted to reduce the brooding-to-action ratios.

And brooding is the only way to describe Det. Reilly/Ryan. His is the most disturbing plot and the most complex character. His story sets the tone and expectations for the novels that follow. His story deserves a treatment without the distraction of another story interwoven with it.

Another complaint of the UK audiences was about the lack of resolution in the final episode. Some complained that the most intriguing mystery is never solved. In this regard, the television adaptation is true to the novel. But that is what makes French’s books so compelling and irresistible to her readers, even those that vow not to read another of her novels.

Multitude of resources increase reading enjoyment

By now it should be obvious that simply reading books is not enough for me. I have to also talk about books, share books, think about books, and write about books. Fortunately, there are many tools to help me fully realize a bookish life.

Texas Book Festival

The 2019 festival begins Saturday morning at the Capitol. This is a free event open to the public with speakers and activities for all ages. There will be over 300 authors, book signings, readings, presentations, panel discussions, demonstrations, and thousands of books for sale. If you’re a reader, this is the premier event for you. Check out their website to plan your trip.

Web tools and apps

There are at least a dozen websites and apps that allow you to list, categorize, and rate books you own, you’ve read, or you want to read. You can also connect with others who share your interests. Goodreads and LibraryThing are two of the most popular. I use LibraryThing simply because my librarian daughter recommended it to me.

Whenever someone recommends a book to me, I immediately enter it on my wish list on LibraryThing. I don’t have to worry about trying to remember the title or author, which I probably wouldn’t do anyway. When I want to recommend a book to someone, but I can’t remember the author, I simply search my catalog. Sometimes I can’t even remember the title. Fortunately, LibraryThing includes a thumbnail of the cover, so all I have to do is browse for what the book looks like.

Some other options are Shelfari, Booksr, and Libib. You can find many others. Just google “book cataloging.”

Book clubs

The Bastrop Public Library will launch the Director’s Book Club Jan. 16 at 2 p.m. in the Maynard Conference room. January’s title is The Library Book by Susan Orlean. The club is geared for adults, and the public is invited. The club will meet regularly on the third Thursday of the month.

“We’ll be reading a mix of fiction and non-fiction and contemporary and classic titles,” Library Director Becca Sexton said. “When it makes sense, I’ll be tying in books to things happening in our community.”

The Bastrop folks on Nextdoor.com also have a book club that meets on the third Saturday of each month at 1 p.m. at Casa Chapala (upstairs). The book for today’s meeting is She Said by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, the New York Times reporters who broke the Harvey Weinstein story. You can join Nextdoor.com to find more information and receive their emails.

“We usually have in attendance from four to nine individuals,” Nextdoor book club member Diana McNabb said. “We enjoy getting together to socialize, talk over chosen reads, and enjoy a meal with one another.”

The American-Statesman hosts an Austin 360 virtual book club. They read a book each month and discuss it via Facebook Live on the last Thursday of the month, which is great if what you’re looking for is to simply watch two people discuss a book. However, their Facebook page is a good place to connect with people who read and to get recommendations for titles.

KUT also has a book club. They focus on Texas and Austin authors and meet at Book People for a live discussion (as well as on Facebook Live) with the author. Not many books clubs get to discuss books with the folks who wrote them.

If none of these suit you, choose a book, invite some friends, and serve some snacks. Now you have a book club.

Retailers

Bargain hunters might be interested in websites like Bookbub, Ereaderiq or Kobo. On Bookbub’s website, you can browse titles that range in price from free to a few dollars. You can also set up your preferences and receive an email each day with the day’s deals. Ereaderiq lets you browse Amazon books by price (including free), genre, or length. Kobo allows users to search for discounted or free e-books and audiobooks.

I check my Bookbub email (most days). Several times I’ve found books that are on my wish list for just $1 to $2. They also send me recommendations based on my preferences. I can also sign up for an alert when a particular title is discounted.

For the ink-and-paper purists, Thriftbooks offers new and used books at deep discounts. You can search their website or browse categories. I’ve purchased several hard to find titles from them.

E-books and e-audiobooks

If you’re not interested in purchasing e-books or e-audiobooks, you can borrow them from the Bastrop Public Library. You just need a library card and internet access. You can read e-books or listen to e-audiobooks on any device and even switch it among devices. Two apps are available, Overdrive and Libby, which are free to download. There are also several websites that offer e-books for free, like SYNC, Project Gutenberg, and OpenLibrary.

Paper or plastic?

Paper or plastic. This is a question for me, not just when I’m buying groceries, but also when I’m buying—or borrowing—books. Do I buy the book printed on paper? If so, I have to either drive into Austin or order it online and wait. Do I buy the e-book? If I do, I can get the book instantly, which is good, because I usually put things off until the last minute. Even when I borrow reading material from the library, I sometimes have the same conundrum. Do I check out the paper edition or the e-edition?

I have some friends that live and die by the e-reader. In fact, I recently had to help a friend figure out why none of her new e-books would download on her device. Turns out, she had several hundred titles on her device and was out of memory. She’s a reader.

“E-books are easy to transport, easily fit into a purse, are lightweight, and I can read in the dark,” said library board president Mary Jo Jenkins. “It saves your place. You can also adjust print size, which is important for people of age or failing eyesight.”

On the other hand, Austinite Hannah Foeh never reads e-books, only those printed on paper.

“It’s nice to have the book in my hands, especially since lots of my books are second hand and they have that distinctive book smell, which I like,” Foeh said. “Also, I’m just not very good with technology so I’d rather go browse a bookstore on my own than worry about some algorithm just showing me what it thinks I’ll like.”

Research suggests that not only do we remember more of the books we read on paper, we also feel more emotionally connected to them. (The Guardian 2012).

I also enjoy highlighting parts of books that I especially like, whether it’s a particularly beautiful description or a hilarious anecdote. Yes, e-readers have a highlighting tool, but it’s just not the same. With paper, you can pick up a book, give it a quick flip, and see what you have marked.

I know many folks who read e-books out of necessity. Those who can’t easily get out of the house, or who read so much that they can’t make enough trips to the library or bookstore to feed their habit depend on e-books. In addition, e-books tend to be a bit cheaper than paper books. For those who buy 50 books or more a year, that can add up to real savings.

However, one of the joys of reading is sharing your books with others. Most e-books do not allow you to loan them to friends. Paper books can be loaned, traded, and given away an infinite number of times. Those who know me know that one of my missions in life is to increase 1000 fold the number of people who have read Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. I have multiple copies that I loan out as much as possible.

However, I’m not going to lie. In some cases I prefer the e-book. When a title runs more than 400 pages, I find it somewhat difficult to curl up with the massive tome. In those cases, I choose the lightweight e-reader edition.

I think the only reasonable conclusion to draw is to be grateful that we have both media available to us.

An update

Both Cherry and Inland (which I mentioned last month) were excellent reads. Karr’s fast pace and present tense in Cherry imbue the reader with a sense of urgency. The dialog and descriptions in Inland were especially impressive and apt. Obreht’s ear for language, her sense of place, and her compelling plot pull the reader fully into the story and keep her there until the heartbreaking conclusion.

Summer a time for reading indulgence

Summer is often thought of as a time to indulge oneself in activities that are not typically seen as “productive”: traveling, sleeping in, reading to excess. (I would argue that all of these are productive activities.) And many folks have their pile of books for “summer reading.” You know, the romances, the mysteries, the stories that we enjoy but rarely remember much of.

And part of the fun of summer reading is sharing with our friends the titles and summaries of what we’re reading. So, friends, here is some of my summer reading.

Last week’s read

Last week I finished Fauna and Family (1978) by Gerald Durrell. Those of you who enjoy Masterpiece on PBS will recognize the name from the series The Durrells in Corfu. Fauna and Family (originally published under the title The Garden of the Gods) is the final installment of the Corfu Trilogy, which recounts the Durrell family’s five years living on Corfu, a Greek island, before WWII.

Ten-year-old Gerald spends his days observing, studying, and collecting specimens of insects, birds, reptiles and mammals that he finds on the island. The book alternates between wonderfully lyrical passages describing the natural beauty of the island and the author’s fascination with the fauna around him, and the comical hijinks of his quirky mother and siblings.

A quick sample: That summer was a particularly rich one; it seemed as if the sun had drawn up a special bounty from the island, for never had we had such an abundance of fruit and flowers, never had the sea been so warm and filled with fish, never had so many birds reared their young, or butterflies and other insects hatched and shimmered across the countryside. (p 139)

If you like travel, nature, or laughing, you will enjoy this series. The first two books are My Family and Other Animals (1956), and Birds, Beasts, and Relatives (1969). The first book tends to focus more on Durrell’s study of nature than the other two, but there are some hilarious scenes also.

This week’s read

One of my all-time favorite books is a memoir by Mary Karr titled The Liar’s Club (1995) about her tumultuous childhood in East Texas in a dysfunctional family, focusing on that time her mother shot her father. It is both heartbreaking and funny. Karr’s style and the non-linear structure keep the reader on the edge of her seat. I read this book about 25 years ago on the recommendation of a friend.

I’ve been thinking about this book lately and went looking for it at a used book store so that I could reread it. I didn’t find it, but I did find another of Karr’s memoirs, Cherry (2001), which picks up where The Liar’s Club leaves off. In the prologue, we see 17-year-old Mary getting ready to leave home, and East Texas, for Los Angeles, and the author teases us with suggestions of the deaths, arrests, and overdoses that lead up to her escape from aptly named Leechfield. Karr’s poetic style keeps the reader engaged, and will evoke memories of childhood and adolescence (both the good and the bad) for those of us who grew up in the 60s and 70s.

Book club

Téa Obreht’s new book, Inland, was released Aug. 13. Inland is set in 19^th century Arizona Territory. My book club has selected it for our next meeting. One of the first books we read together was Obreht’s The Tigers Wife (2011), and it remains one of my favorites. If you’re not familiar with magical realism, it is a melding of the real and the fantastical, and Obreht’s books are an excellent place to explore the genre. The Tiger’s Wife won the 2011 Orange Prize for Fiction and was a finalist for the National Book Award. And Newsday listed Inland in its “Best Summer Books of 2019.” I am starting it now.