A Bell for Adano by John Hersey

Of all the books I've read this year, I think this one is the most satisfying.  Partly because I really enjoyed reading it, but mostly because this is one of the books that has been on my shelves, unread, for the longest.  I know where I bought it, though not exactly when.  However, I can tell you that this book has been packed and unpacked at least ten times.  It's been in three different houses in Florida, three in Texas, one in Nebraska, an apartment in Chicago, and in storage with the rest of our household goods while we were stationed overseas in Japan.  Does that give you an idea of how long I've owned this book?

I am delighted to report, also, that it was a really good book.  A Bell for Adano is a Pulitzer Prize winner, which doesn't necessarily guarantee I'll like it, but I think that's the reason I never chucked it into the donation bin during any of my moves.  I finally started it the other day when I was looking for a good audiobook and realized that the library owned it -- I could listen to it on my commute to work, which would speed things along.  But after a few minutes, I really didn't like the narrator, so I picked up my own print copy and gave it a try.

Happily, I was rewarded for all my tenacity.  This book is really a charming story.  Major Victor Joppolo, the American child of Italian immigrant parents, is put in charge of an Italian town called Adano after the Italian surrender during WWII.   Major Joppolo has to deal with military bureaucracy, cultural differences, and the looming threat of the Germans as he tries to get the town running smoothly again after years of wartime shortages, fascism, and corruption.  One of his goals is to replace the town's treasured bell, a 700-year-old relic that had been taken by the Fascists and melted down for bullets.  

Honestly, I don't know why I put off reading it for so long.  It's not a very long book, and it's not a difficult read.  I'm not a huge fan of war stories, though I do enjoy reading about how everyday people deal with wartime on the home front.  A Bell For Adano isn't exactly a war story, since the war is mostly over when it starts, so in essence it is about the war at home for the Italians.  Parts of it did remind me a little of Catch-22, because it does poke fun somewhat at military bureaucracy.  It's not making of fun of the military per se, though it does satirize all the ego-massaging that has to go on in a big organization, which I'm sure isn't exclusive to the military.  

I did really like the characters and the story, though I did find the ending a little abrupt -- it really left me wishing I knew what happened to all the people.  Parts of it are very funny, and parts were sad and made me tear up.  I did end up reading most of it in one day because I got so engrossed in it.  It was quite uplifting after some of the terribly depressing books I've read recently.  

I am thankful for Roofbeam Reader's TBR Pile Challenge for inspiring me to finally get around to reading this book -- it was one of a dozen books I promised myself I'd read this year, and I've now completed eight of them -- one a month, right on schedule.   It's really inspired me to keep reading the books from my own shelves, and I've already started my list for the 2013 TBR Challenge.

A Blogging Dilemma

I could not decide on an appropriate image for this post.
Hopefully I'm not violating any copyrights with this one. 

I've been a bit behind on book reviews lately -- had a long stretch of work (7 days); and on Friday morning, an unpleasant discovery.   A friend emailed that she had found a blogger who was lifting exact copies of my blog posts and publishing them on Blogger under a different name.  Word for word, images and all.

Well, I was dumbstruck, then furious.  Seriously, who'd want to copy my blog?  I don't have that many followers or that much traffic.  I'm not particularly witty or insightful.  I don't make money off my blog, and I sincerely doubt I'll ever get a book deal.  I don't post a lot of personal stuff.    But I do put effort into my posts.  I know some bloggers can just sit down and type something interesting right off the top of their heads.  I am not one of those.  I start writing thoughts and then I have to edit -- a lot.

So who is this blogger?  Well, I don't even think I want to dignify this person by mentioning specifics -- why should I increase traffic on her blog?  All I know is that she's on Blogger and that since February, she has posted every single one of my postings going back to 2010, and she has about FIFTY other blogs -- I'm pretty sure she's stealing all her content for those from other bloggers as well.  A google search of her name showed she's been stealing from blogs all around the country, personal stuff as well as book reviews.  I wonder if she even reads what she's copying -- how could a person have 50 simultaneous blogs and write about 50 different places at once?

My one consolation is that the only comments on her blog are from me, telling her to cease and desist.  She's in a foreign country (if I am to believe what she posts about herself on the internet -- I don't know what to believe) -- and hopefully few of her countrymen care enough to read it.  And I'm not alone -- other bloggers have complained about her, but no results so far.

I'm trying to think of ways to prevent blog plagiarism, but I honestly don't know if it's possible.  I've heard you can insert code into the blog settings to prevent cut and pasting, but I don't know if that would work.  I could cut off my RSS feed, but why should I cut off all my legitimate followers?  And now I'm also wondering if I've technically plagiarized anyone else myself -- not my writing, but I have lifted the occasional image from the internet.  Mostly it's book covers or images from film and TV adaptations of books, but once in awhile I use a graphic or image without attribution.  If I've stolen anything from anyone, I apologize profusely -- please let me know and I'll take it down or give credit immediately.

It's making me think seriously about giving up blogging altogether.  What's the point if some jerk is just going to copy my stuff and pass it off as her own?  It's very discouraging.

I wonder if she's going to steal this post as well.

Classics Club Meme: My Favorite Classic Novel

For the first meme of the Classics Club, we've been given a question to answer:  What is your favorite classic novel.  Seriously, how does one pick?  The one I've read the most times?  If so, I'd have to choose this:

Beloved by many, Pride and Prejudice started my obsession with all things Jane Austen.  I'm now a life member of the Jane Austen Society of North America and I'm already planning my third trip their Annual General Meeting (this year it's in New York City!) 

Or how about the one I've loved the longest?   Which would be this one:

Jane Eyre, the first classic I read in college, which started my love affair with Victorian literature.  It's definitely a candidate. 

Or, depending on your definition of a classic, it could be this one: 

I loved this story after watching at PBS Mystery! adaptation when I was in the eighth grade.  I've read the novel many times, listened to the audio, and watched pretty much every adaptation since.  But is it really a classic?  Most people wouldn't consider it literature, but it has endured.  

If that's your definition of a classic, then I'd also have to consider this one:

I read this for the first time in the sixth grade.  I think it was about the same time the movie aired on television, I can't remember if I saw the movie first.  Probably.  Of course a lot of it went right over my head but I still loved it.  I think I finished it in two days.  (I'm a fast reader). 

Again, many people don't consider it a classic because it doesn't have any metaphors and it isn't really taught in schools.  

And I can't forget another candidate:

This is the book that started my love affair with the works of Charles Dickens.  He's definitely over the top sometimes, but this novel has everything -- romance, mystery, satire, social commentary, and so many enduring characters.  If I had to choose only one book to take into exile, it would probably be this one.  

Which is my favorite?  I have to say all of them -- it just depends on the day and my mood.  It's like choosing a favorite food or a favorite child.  I love them all, plus a whole lot more -- I haven't even included anything by Maugham or Trollope or Steinbeck or Edith Wharton. . . . I could go on for days.   Well, that's why I started blogging!  

What do you think, bloggers?  Do you have ONE favorite classic novel, or are you like me and refuse to make that decision?  Which are your favorites?

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Wow.  

East of Eden is one of the books I've had on my to-read list the longest, ever since I started on my quest to read more classics back in 2005.  Somehow, I managed to graduate from high school and college without reading a single word of Steinbeck.  When I started to read classics as an adult, I knew I'd finally have to read his books, and at first I was very apprehensive -- Grapes of Wrath sounded so dire.  But I joined an online classics group and one of the first books I read with the group was Travels with Charley, which I absolutely loved, so I became a Steinbeck convert.

I bought my copy of East of Eden at a library sale about four years ago, and I've packed and unpacked it in three different houses.  For about three years now, it's been the book I most wanted to read off my TBR shelves.  It was my daughter's assigned summer reading for her high school English class next year, so I decided to read it along with her.  And it was really worth it.  Why did I wait so long??  Was I saving the best Steinbeck for last?   

It's kind of hard to describe this book.  It's long and sprawling, and spans about 50 years, from just after the Civil War to World War I, and the story is covers American coast to coast  from New England to California.  Inspired by the Genesis stories of Cain and Abel and Adam and Eve, it's the story of the Trask family, about sibling rivalry and fathers and sons.  It also contains some of Steinbeck's best characters, including what is probably one of the most evil characters in American literature.  

Though it's Steinbeck's longest work at 600 pages long, I raced through it in just a few days.  The plot and the characters are really compelling.  It starts out with two half-brothers in New England, Adam and Charles Trask, who are competing for their father's love, living on a farm after the Civil War.  Just like Cain and Abel, their father favors one son over the other, and the less-beloved son takes his jealousy out on his brother.  

In this story, there are two sets of brothers, and love for a woman also fuels the rivalry.  I don't want to give too much away, but Steinbeck weaves together Biblical allusions and California history in a masterful way.  He also incorporates characters based on his own ancestors.  Adam Trask moves out to the Salinas Valley, where Steinbeck grew up.  There's a lot of local color with a delightful Irish family, the Hamiltons, and a faithful family servant, Mr. Lee, who starts out as a cook but becomes much more to the family, a tutor, nanny, and he's basically the one holding the family together after things start to fall apart.

I loved this book although I did find some flaws in it.  Steinbeck is pretty heavy-handed with the Biblical allusions -- not only are there two sets of brothers (with initials beginning with C and A) Steinbeck spends paragraphs with characters philosophizing about the Bible and Cain and Abel, just in case the reader didn't get it.  Also, Lee is sort of an amazing wise Oriental sage, spouting wisdom -- he's just too good to be true. But there is so much great stuff in the novel that I can overlook the parts that bothered me.  

After finishing it, I really wanted to discuss it with someone else who was reading it with me -- my daughter is plodding along with it, but there's so much in it that I don't think she'll understand; in fact, I'm not even sure why this was assigned to high school sophomores!  I really wish I had chosen this instead of Tortilla Flat for my library's book group -- it's longer, but there's so much more in it and it's so much better!  It's more than twice as long but it's a far superior novel.  If you're interested in Steinbeck at all, do yourself a favor and don't bother with the shorter works.  East of Eden and The Grapes of Wrath are absolute masterpieces and everyone should read them at least once.  

A Victorian Celebration: Looking Back

First, I want to thank Allie from A Literary Odyssey for hosting this blogging event.  I've had so much fun and read so many great books the past couple of months. Here's what I finished during The Victorian Celebration. 

I posted nine reviews:  

• Our Mutual Friend, my eleventh novel by Charles Dickens, and now one of my favorites; 
• Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte, which has been on my TBR shelves for about five years; 
• Diary of a Pilgrimage by Jerome K. Jerome, author of one of my favorite books;
• Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson, on my TBR shelves for two years;
• The Odd Women by George Gissing, a Victorian author I'd never read before;
• The Story of the Treasure Seekers by E. Nesbit, a delightful Victorian children's book and one of my favorite reads this year; 
• Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham, a neo-Victorian which I first read more than 20 years ago; 
• The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles; a neo-Victorian on my TBR Challenge list; 
• L'Assommoir by Emile Zola, a French novel written during the same period (my sixth novel by Zola and my fifth in the Rougon-Macquart series.

I also hosted two giveaways.  I'm really happy with all the books I finished in the last two months -- I'm only sorry that I wasn't able to read more.  I still have a giant stack of books by Anthony Trollope unread!

How about you, bloggers?  Did you get a lot of Victorians read this summer?  Which were your favorites?  

The Odd Women by George Gissing

Before the Victorian Celebration, I wanted to read at least one book by an author that was new to me.   I had two novels by George Gissing on the TBR shelf, and they weren't too long, so I thought one of them would be a good choice.  I chose The Odd Women because it was the shorter of the two, and because I'd seen some interesting reviews on the blogosphere in the last few months.

From the title, I thought it was about strange or unconventional women, but then I thought it was going to be about Victorian spinsters -- i.e., odd as in unattached, unpaired.   The beginning of the book seems this way, with six sisters who are suddenly placed in genteel poverty.  The book then focuses on three of them, Alice, Virginia, and Monica.  Alice and Virginia, the eldest, are eking out an existence working as a paid companion and a teacher; the youngest, Monica, starts working as a drapers shop at 15.  Then the action jumps forward several years when Alice and Virginia get a letter from an old friend, Rhoda Nunn, who is living in London.  She's employed at a business school for young women that teaches them typing and office skills.  She urges the women to invest in a typewriter and try to make a better living for themselves, and to get Monica away from the exhausting hours she's working as a shopgirl.

In the beginning, it seemed that this book was going to be about Alice and Virginia and their desperate lives as Victorian spinsters with few job prospects, but then the focus of the book changed.  The story is really mostly about two different women:  Rhoda Nunn, who's intelligent and unconventional; and the youngest sister Monica, who is tempted by a very traditional (though loveless) Victorian marriage for her security.  Things don't work out exactly as planned for either woman.  

What really surprised me about this book was how unabashedly feminist it was, especially for a book written by a Victorian man in 1893.  Gissing creates some very forceful arguments about the plight of women and marriage during that time.  Some of his characters must have been extremely revolutionary for this time, and I'm sure it was pretty shocking.  

I really liked this book.  The characters end up being quite interesting and I got really invested in how this was going to turn out -- not how I expected at all!  Other than the complete shift in focus, the only minor criticism I have about it was that a few sections got kind of preachy and started to drag.  A couple of the characters really lecturing each other about feminism and women's roles and while I understood the point, it did come off as rather didactic and really slowed the book down for me.

The writing style was also extremely readable -- a lot of the Victorians tend to be slow reading, but this one was actually pretty speedy compared to Dickens and Eliot.  George Gissing doesn't get much attention among Victorian writers but I'm very glad I discovered this book.  I also have another of his books, New Grub Street so I'm looking forward to reading that one too.

Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck

Since I run my library's book discussion group and I have all the power, I chose Tortilla Flat for our July read, because it's on my Classics Club list.  ( If nobody else suggests any titles, then I feel completely justified in being mercenary and picking books I want to read.) It's one of Steinbeck's early works, and it's fairly short, and we hadn't read any classics yet this year, so I thought it would be an interesting choice.  Plus, there were plenty of copies in the library catalog, so I thought it was perfect.

Well, maybe not.  We had a good turnout for the group, but I'm not sure the discussion went very well -- I think this was the most heated debate that I've ever seen in a book group!  Basically, one person hated them book and thought it was a complete waste of time.  The conversation ended up digressing into a debate about what people should or shouldn't read for pleasure.

But I'm digressing.  Here's the setup:  After World War I, a young slacker named Danny comes home to find that his grandfather has died and left him some property with two ramshackle houses in Tortilla Flat, an area in the hills around Monterey.  (Danny's no war hero; he spent the war breaking mules in Oklahoma.)  Danny moves into one house and lets his ne'er-do-well friends move into the other.  Told as series of vignettes, this is the story of Danny and his friends Pilon, Pablo, Jesus Maria, and Pirate, and how they spend their days basically drunk on red wine.  According to the introduction, it's loosely based on Arthurian legend; these guys are supposed to represent the Knights of the Round Table, but I didn't see much chivalrous behavior.  They drink and argue and spend most of their days trying to figure out how to get food and more wine without having to do any more work than is necessary.

Parts of it were pretty funny, but I didn't get particularly attached to any of the characters until about midway through the book.  In fact, it was pretty much the same story over and over until that point in the book.  I was wondering how I was going to get through it and it's only about 200 or so pages long, one of Steinbeck's shorter works.

Eventually there was one episode that actually got me invested in one of the characters, so I began to enjoy it more and even laughed out loud a few times.  Frankly, for me, a bunch of guys sitting around drinking just isn't that entertaining, and I didn't much see the point of the book.  A few years ago I read Cannery Row, not long after I discovered Steinbeck, and it seemed to have a similar premise, about the lives of ordinary people in California, but I found that one much more interesting and entertaining -- from what I remember, at least the characters did something -- there's one episode about some guys frog hunting for a scientist which is absolutely hilarious.  (Apparently it's some kind of war metaphor, but even if you don't get that part it's still funny).

I'm no literary expert, but I get the definite impression that Steinbeck is kind of uneven -- some of his stuff is great, like The Grapes of Wrath, and some if it is just meh.  I really like his travel writing, like Travels with Charley and A Russian Journal, but I'm really unimpressed with the shorter stuff so far.  I thought Of Mice and Men and The Pearl were both unbelievably depressing, and I couldn't even get through The Red Pony.  I'm probably the only person in America who got through high school without reading any of those.

Tortilla Flat was okay.  I suppose if I knew anything about Arthurian legend I would have gotten more out of it.  I'm just glad it wasn't any longer.  My oldest daughter was assigned East of Eden for her summer reading, so I'm reading it along with her, and already I can tell it's much better.

Anyone else a Steinbeck fan?  Who's read Tortilla Flat?  Is it really a mediocre Steinbeck or am I just missing the point of the book entirely?

Historical Fiction Challenge

Danger, Will Robinson!! Danger!!  I've found another challenge!!

While reading some blog postings the other day, I found this Historical Fiction Challenge at Historical Tapestry.  I have absolutely no business signing up for another challenge, but I've nearly finished three of the four challenges I originally signed up for this year, so why not??  I do love historicals and between my book groups and my TBR shelves, I easily found more than ten historicals that would fit the challenge (not to mention historicals on my to-read list for book groups at the library). I've signed up for the third level, Struggling the Addiction, which is ten books.

Here's a what I have hanging around the house at the moment that would qualify for the challenge:

It might be a bit blurry, so here's what's on the pile:

1. I, Claudius by Robert Graves
2. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
3. The Crimson Petal and the White by Michael Faber
4. Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres
5. Sapphira and the Slave Girl by Willa Cather
6. Shadows on the Rock by Willa Cather
7. The Living Reed by Pearl S. Buck
8. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

And then there's this stack:  

1. Alas, Poor Lady by Rachel Ferguson
2. The Mysterious Death of Miss Austen by Lindsay Ashford
3. The Post-Office Girl by Stefan Zweig
4. Summer Will Show by Sylvia Townsend Warner
5. A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr
6. The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard
7. Marking Time by Elizabeth Jane Howard
8. The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer
9. Lark Rise to Candleford by Elizabeth Jane Howard

And then I found a few more. . . . 

1. Sorcery and Cecelia by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer
2. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters by Ben H. Winters
3. Empress Orchid by Anchee Min
4. A Conspiracy of Paper by David Liss
5. The Twelfth Enchantment by David Liss
6. The Children's Book by A. S. Byatt

I'm only sorry that I didn't see this challenge earlier -- I looked back at my Goodreads list of 2012 reads so far, and I've already read at least eight historical books this year that would have fit the challenge.  Anyway -- what do you think, bloggers?  Which ones should I read first?  Any that should go on the donation pile immediately?  And am I absolutely insane for even thinking about another challenge?

Zola Giveaway Winner

And the winner of my Zola Giveaway is. . . . .

Jane GS from 

Reading, Writing, Working, Playing!!!  

Congratulations to Jane, who selected Germinal as the Zola novel she would most like to win.   I'm very happy because that's one of my favorite novels of all time.

Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway.  My blogoversary is coming up in September, and I'll be giving another book away then.  Happy reading to all!

The Story of the Treasure Seekers by E. Nesbit

After my recent intense experience reading Zola, a children's classic was just the thing, especially since I'm still obsessed about the Victorian Celebration.  Originally, I'd planned on reading either The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley or At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald.  Neither of them really grabbed me, but then I realized that The Story of the Treasure Seekers by E. Nesbit qualified as a Victorian!  One of Nesbit's earliest children's books, it was published in 1899, and so it still made the cutoff date.  And I just loved it.

I'd never heard of E. Nesbit when I was a child -- of course this was years before blogging and online library catalogs, and though my public library was pretty good, it's nowhere near what libraries are today.  After I started library school, I'd read a couple of Nesbit's fantasy stories and liked them well enough, but something about The Treasure Seekers just spoke to me -- I found it delightfully charming and really funny -- I kept reading bits out loud to my eleven-year-old daughter, and finally I just started reading her entire chapters.  

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Told from the point of view of one of the children, this is the story of the six Bastable children:  Dora, Oswald, Dicky, the twins, Alice and Noel, and the youngest, Horation Octavius, also known as H. O.  Their mother has died fairly recently, and after her death, their father also fell ill and lost most of his wealth (it's unclear, but it sounds like his business partner made off with most of it)  This once genteel family is now scraping by; they've given up school and summer holidays and all the silver plate has been "sent off to get the dents removed, but never sent back" -- probably pawned or sold.  So, the children are full of plans to restore the family fortunes.  They brainstorm all sorts of ideas, such as digging for treasure, writing poetry for money, becoming bandits, and saving elderly people from danger, who will then reward them.  The book was originally published in serial form, and each chapter details a different adventure as the children try various schemes, (some of them definitely hare-brained) so it's easy to read in small snatches.  

I thought Nesbit did a fantastic job creating the characters of these six children -- they all had personalities, and what's best about them is that they're definitely flawed -- they argue and bicker amongst themselves, like real siblings, and they have flaws.  Some of their schemes are morally and legally questionable, and they usually learn their lessons from their bad behavior, but it's not at all preachy.  The adults were good too.  The children often wind up needing grownups to help them out, including "Albert-next-door's uncle" who never gets an actual name, but seems like a real hoot -- he's a writer, and if he'd been real, I'm sure he would have gotten a lot of good material from the Bastable children.  (Could this be E. Nesbit herself in disguise?)  

I also loved the wry humor -- here's one of my favorite bits:

I have often thought that if people who write books for children knew a little more, it would be better.  I shall not tell you anything about us except what I should like to know about if I was reading this story and you were writing it.  Albert's uncle says I ought to have put this in the preface, but I never read prefaces, and it is not much good writing things just for people to skip.  I wonder other authors have never thought of this.  

There are lots of funny little comments like this throughout the book.  The plot's pretty good, and I found the ending particularly satisfying.  I'll say no more since I never want to give anything away.  

I was also happy to read this one because I had an unread copy on the shelves -- I bought it last year at Books of Wonder, the celebrated children's bookstore in New York.  I only wish they'd had a hardcover copy -- it was the recent paperback copy pictured above, but it was on sale for only $5 so I couldn't pass it up.  Of course now I'll have to track down the two sequels, The Wouldbegoods and The Story of the New Treasure Seekers, neither of which are available at my library.  So I'll probably end up adding two more books to my shelves!  Has anyone read either of them?  Are they as good as the first one?