Kira Disapproves

Thanks to everyone who responded to my book post! You’ve provided me with a challenge and hopefully I can find some books that will surprise you and provide you with a night or two of flashlight-under-the-covers reading.

My first “Book Finder” response will be posted within the next week. Until then, I’d like to recommend a book that you can seek out while you wait. I’ll be interested to hear in the comments whether it’s a discovery, or whether you’ve read this book before.

The book is The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar by Roald Dahl.  Most people are probably familiar with Dahl from some of his more famous titles, especially the ones that have been made into movies. There’s Matilda, about a little girl whose untapped intelligence leads her to develop telekinesis and other magical powers. The Witches is about a boy who  stumbles upon the annual conference of a group of witches who hate children while on vacation with his Grandmother at a seaside resort. One of Dahl’s somewhat lesser-known titles, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, just received the silver-screen treatment in an animated movie with George Clooney.

The list of great books goes on and on, and hopefully you’ve read some of them. But if you’ve enjoyed Dahl before and you haven’t read Henry Sugar, to read it now will be like discovering an entire extra Dahl novel written just for you. While Henry Sugar is really a collection of both short stories and prose — including a short, autobiographical essay that was the first thing about his experiences in World War II that was the first thing Dahl ever wrote — the novella from which the book takes it name has all the scope, strangeness and pit-of-the-stomach joy of the best full-length Dahl novel.

The novel is a story-within-a-story (within-a-story) about a rich, callous young man named Henry Sugar who discovers the secret journal of another man who learns to see while blindfolded.The journal includes a kind of how-to manual on obtaining the seemingly magical ability, and Henry starts applying himself to something serious for the first time in his life when he sets out to gain the same ability. Of course, his motives are less spiritual than financial. He figures he can make a lot of money and gain a lot of power if he can, for example, see through walls.

There are obstacles along the way, and the closer Henry comes to mastering his new talent, the more trouble he encounters. I don’t really want to say anymore, because the interesting part of the story is more how its told than what exactly happens and I don’t want to give too much away. Henry’s character arc leads to some unexpected places, and I’m still surprised that no one has made a movie of this story. It has at least as much content as the short story that the movie “The Illusionist” was based on (I liked both the movie and the story, it just strikes me as a good comparison in terms of how much the story provides that could be elaborated on.)

Anyways, maybe the problem is that not enough people know about it. Now you do. Go read it. And check out the other short pieces in the book while you’re at it.

More book ideas to come…

The “other” bookshelf. This is a slightly old picture, so if you really paid attention to the new shelf, you may see some duplicate titles. Also, Lila put herself in this picture. She couldn’t figure out why the camera wasn’t pointed at her in the first place.

New Bookshelf. And that’s the Olympics on T.V.!

I strongly believe that everyone should have the experience of books that sneak up on them like magic. Loving books can feel lonely sometimes. Not every book is Harry Potter and not everyone understands when you need a week to recover after reading Ender’s Game for the fourth time or what it’s like after discovering Gone with the Wind at fourteen and feeling each of Scarlett’s losses like a physical blow.

One of the best ways to discover books is, of course, the library. I found The Secret Garden at a library and I felt like I was the first person to ever read it. I also spent several months when I was about seven re-typing it painstakingly into the computer, because I wanted to write something just as wonderful.

I got a new bookshelf this weekend because the built-ins were overflowing, and then my overflow bookshelf was overflowing, and then I had moved — seemingly all of the sudden — to a book-organizing system that involved piles of books stacked on my bedroom floor by subject. My roommate, Bonnie, and I purchased a flat screen digital T.V. last week so we could get the new digital T.V. signals and mounting it on the wall allowed us to get rid of the T.V. stand and put a bookshelf in its place.

Organizing the books (by color, as you may or may not have noticed in the picture) got me thinking about the problem of giving books away.

I can’t do it.

The only time I feel good about it is when the book is one I really love and I know the person receiving it will love it as well. For example, I no longer have my orange, hardcover copy of Ramona Quimby, Age 8 because I gave it away to one of the little kids who was in “Annie Get Your Gun” with me last Fall. She had cut her hair in a short, pixie cut for her role as an orphan in “Oliver” a few months earlier, and she looked exactly like Ramona.

I brought the book to rehearsal with me one night and showed it to her, and she stared for a few minutes at the line drawing of a pixie-ish little girl on the cover and said “Yeah, that does look like me!” I had intended to simply lend her the book, but she kept forgetting to bring it back and I told her not to worry. Go ahead and keep it. She gave me a big hug and ran off to be charmingly troublesome backstage, just like Ramona would have.

So. My new bookshelf has inspired me to do some virtual Ramona-type lending. I want to help you discover books that you haven’t read before, but that you will recognize, just like Katherine recognized herself in Ramona. In the comments, post a favorite book of yours. It doesn’t have to be children’s/Y.A. In return, I’ll do a blog post in the coming weeks that talks about a children’s or Y.A. book I think you might like to discover based on what you’ve already read (children’s/Y.A. because it’s my specialty and my favorite thing to read and to write.)

For the first three commenters, I’ll even mail you a copy of the book.

The obvious problem is that you may have already read what I recommend, but I’m hoping that I can get around that with some obscure choices and some pointed questions to commenters (all of whom I expect I will know.)

You may not love the book, but hopefully you’ll love the feeling of knowing that a book was chosen just for you. For readers, I think there’s something special about the books that find us, instead of the other way around.

Also. Today is Lila’s 2nd birthday.

…it shouldn’t be Christmas on here anymore. Let’s jump to the New Year and a rainy, Georgia February.

Tonight at Sunday dinner we talked about consistency and journals and the way we keep track of ourselves. I feel like I’m most myself and most in control when things are consistent. I like consistency, even if I can only have it in tiny ways. The same restaurants when I visit Eden in Chicago. The same mug every time I eat dinner at Cyd’s.

Last Christmas, Tracy gave me an awesome journal that has all the days of the year in it and five spaces for each day. You can go through and find a day and write on it five times, so five years in a row, you’ll know where you were on that day.

I’m not that great at remembering to use it. I’ve never been much of a journal-er, but I love the concept. Kind of like blogging. However, now that it’s been more than a year, I’m starting to see some patterns. Like, I went to IHOP with Maureen on the same weekend day last year and this year (the day of the Susan G. Komen Walk.) It made me start to wonder if my life is just one big loop of circles over and over again, but too wide to see. And then, when I decided to wonder about something that hurt my head less, I had occasion to wonder what I was doing this time last year.

It turns out that this weekend last year, I was hosting Pat and Joel and Nikki at my house for dinner. I made Theresa’s butternut squash risotto recipe and I also tried my hand at Speedy No-Knead Bread from Pam for what I think was the first time ever.

This year, Pat and Joel are on sabbatical in England. I miss them, and I miss the routine of going to visit them on weekends, but I know they’re having an awesome time.

Pat and Joel at Dinner. One of them seems to like my food more than the other.

The food in question…

Nikki at dinner. Ah, the pre-vegan days.

The bread.

The really weird part? I went out Friday night and I wore this one particular dress because I felt like I hadn’t worn it in forever. It just seemed like exactly the thing to wear. It’s red and black with…well, you could just go ahead and look at it in this picture from the corresponding Friday night last year…

Sometimes I scare me.