I Am the Messenger, read by raidergirl3

With all the love I read about Markus Zusak and The Book Thief, I decided to read one of his other books, I Am the Messenger, as recommended by Jill (mrsteme).

She said: I love this story because it shows that we are all capable of doing wonderful things. The main character receives cryptic playing cards with clues written on them, and he's charged to do good deeds to designated strangers - the catch is that he doesn't know exactly what he's supposed to do. So he must observe and be creative. And figure it out, or else...

Ed Kennedy is a twenty year old cab driver in Australia, with not much hope in his life. He plays cards with his equally hopeless mates, is in unrequited love his best friend Audrey, is on the outs with his family and lives with his very smelly dog. One day he witnesses a bank robbery, inadvertently gets involved, and then his life is never the same. He is given a playing card, with a very vague message on it. Ed takes up this challenge and has to help some people.

I loved Ed's acceptance of his role, his faith in people and especially himself, to know the right thing to do, without knowing why he was doing it. I found this a very uplifting story, seeing how small, seemingly insignificant events can be so important. Ed's bravery to confront people, especially his friends, is quite a message.

How many people get this chance?
And of those few, how many actually take it?

This is a book that will stay with me for a while. Thanks to jill(mrsteme) for recommending it.

Finally posting my TBR list....

I'm off to a slow start, but at least I'm not the only one! Here are my picks:

1. From Historia's list, 84 Charing Cross Road, because ages ago when I worked at the library Elaine told me I'd love it.

2. From Becky's list, These Happy Golden Years, even though I did read it a long time ago. This will be an excellent excuse to listen to Cherry Jones read the audio edition. Besides, this time I will read in the context of Beckiness. ;)

3. From Little Willow's list, The Neverending Story, because I've only seen the movie.

4. From Wendy's list, The Borrowers, because in anticipation of choice #5, I'm going to need a shortie, and it just seems like someone who sells children's books ought to be someone who has read The Borrowers.

5. And even though I know darn well I will live to regret this, my final pick is the very enormous A Short History of Nearly Everything from Raidergirl3's list, because I've had it on my shelf for at least two years now and I'm tired of feeling guilty every time I see it.

Plus, if I get really ambitious, I'll read Jane Eyre (Kathrin's list) because my Aunt Wanda gave me a copy at least ten years ago and I'm very embarrassed to admit that I Still. Haven't. Read. It. (But don't feel bad, Aunt Wanda -- Uncle Bob gave me The Hobbit when I was 13 and I didn't read it until after he died.)

Holly's lists

Life and summer intervened, but luckily all but one of my "something about me" books are on other lists (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Neverending Story, The Bell Jar, and Speak). My fifth pick:

Six Memos for the Next Millenium, by Italo Calvino
A collection of essays by one of the most creative, brilliant minds in the last century asking, what qualities of literature should survive into the next millenium? The qualities he proposes are lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, and multiplicity. The sixth, consistency, remained unwritten at the time of his death. This little book provided a window into the kind of writer I wanted to become and led me to his fiction. His little novel, Invisible Cities, about a visit to Kublai Khan by Marco Polo, remains my favorite book of all time. (Ok, so that was cheating, two in one.)

I plan to read:

• Oh My Goth, by Gena Showalter (from Stephanie's list)
• The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things, by Carolyn Mackler (from Julie's list)
• Dune, by Frank Herbert (from Karlene's list)
• Uglies, by Scott Westerfeld (from Faith's list)
• A Northern Light, by Jennifer Donnelly (from SheReads/Diane's list)

Gautami's Review of 'The Namesake'

Title: The Namesake
Author: Jhumpa Lahiri
ISBN: 0618485228
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company/2004
Pages: 291
Rating: **1/2



The Namesake takes the Ganguli family from their tradition-bound life in Calcutta through their fraught transformation into Americans. On the heels of their arranged wedding, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli settle together in Cambridge, Massachusetts. An engineer by training, Ashoke adapts far less warily than his wife, who resists all things American and pines for her family. When their son is born, the task of naming him betrays the vexed results of bringing old ways to the new world.

For More, Click here....


This is what Heidijane writes about this book:

"I found this book, about the clash of cultures between Bengali and American very funny, very entertaining and very moving. As a German-born half British girl now living in the UK, I could relate to some of the identity crises, although obviously the cultures from one European culture to another are not as different as cross-continental cultures."

Bonnie's review of The Memory Keeper's Daughter

1. Title, author, and date of book?
The Memory Keeper's Daughter, by Kim Edwards, 2005

2. Genre: fiction

3. What made you want to read it? Did it live up to your expectations?
Because several people had recommended it, I put it on the lists for two of my challenges: Something About Me and Saturday Review of Books. Yes, it was as good as I had expected.

4. Summarize the book without giving away the ending.
On a winter night in 1964, Dr. David Henry is forced by a blizzard to deliver his own twins. His son, born first, is perfectly healthy; his daughter has Down's Syndrome. Rationalizing it as a need to protect Norah, his wife, he makes a split-second decision that will alter all of their lives forever. He asks his nurse to take the infant to an institution and never to reveal the secret, then tells his wife their daughter was stillborn. Caroline, the nurse, cannot leave the baby at the institution and disappears into another city to raise the child herself. What happens when secrets are revealed? (Hmmm, I just realized that's TWO books about children with Down's I have reviewed here ... two out of two.)

5. What did you think of the main characters?
This book has three main characters. I cannot imagine lying to a spouse as David did. I do understand Norah's being more upset by her child's death than her husband had expected and Caroline's desire to raise the baby rather than consign her to a life in an institution.

6. Which character could you relate to best, and why?
Caroline, who raised the little girl and fought for her right to an education, even if she did have Down's.

7. Were there any other especially interesting characters?
I liked Albert (Al) Simpson, who helped Caroline when her car battery died during that night's blizzard, and Dorothy (Doro) March, who later became Caroline's friend. The twins were also interesting: Paul, who was smart and handsome, and Phoebe, who thrived in a loving household.

8. Did you think the characters and their problems were believable?
Most of the time, yes, but Dr. Henry's problems were self-inflicted and could have been solved if he had had the gumption to tell the truth. Of course, we wouldn't have had a story then, would we?

9. Share a quote from the book:
"He had tried to protect his son from the things he himself had suffered as a child: poverty and worry and grief. Yet his very efforts had created losses David had never anticipated" (p. 258).

10. Share a favorite scene from the book:
Paul, the son, sees himself as a "caretaker of the past" (p. 378). "His to choose, what to keep and what to discard. ... his deep sense of responsibility, how what he kept from this house of his childhood would become, in turn, what he passed down to his own children someday -- all they would ever know, in a tangible way, of what had shaped him" (p. 378).

11. What about the ending?
I could think of better ways for it to end, or at least as I would have wanted it to end. But the story works with the ending the author gave it.

12. What do you think will be your lasting impression of this book?
How secrets can tear a family apart or harm them in unexpected ways. Not everyone in my own family agrees with me, but I do believe in telling the truth and getting secrets out in the open so they don't poison relationships. I kept turning those pages, wanting to know what would happen, whether the wife would ever learn what really happened to her daughter.

13. How would you rate the book?
Rated 9/10, excellent!

14. How does this book tell me something about 3M, who selected it?
When 3M chose this book for one of her five, she wrote: "The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards has several 'something about me' qualities. It is set in Lexington, Ky, and I live less than an hour from there. The author is a UK professor and mentions the school and the Wildcats, and my husband got his undergraduate degree there and is a UK fanatic. Like Paul (the boy twin), when I was an adult I found out I had a sister that I never knew about. Like David (the husband and father), I felt like an 'imposter' in my (brief) professional life. He is a doctor in the story; I was an engineer. This was probably due to his poorer family background, which I can also relate to. Like Norah, I suffered from postpartum depression."

So I learned something about the area where 3M now lives, though she says (in choosing another book) that she is originally from Nebraska; I learned that she has a sister she knew nothing about until they were adults, that she wasn't entirely comfortable being an engineer, that she was a teacher (from her introduction of another book), that she relates to the fictional character's poorer family background, and that she has experienced postpartum depression. I think I know you a little better, 3M, but I would really like to hear what it felt like to learn you had a sister.

Oh My Goth

i picked this young adult novel, written by Gena Showalter, from Stephanie's list. this is what Stephanie said about it:

This is the story about a girl in high school (for me it was college) that is a nonconformist and who values individuality. She dresses "Goth", wears all black. Then one day her smart mouth gets her in trouble at school. (Hmmm...now THIS sounds like me!) She wakes up to find that whole world has gone Goth and she is no longer different....but POPULAR! I've been known to wear a LOT of black, even lipstick and nail polish. I always liked being different. Guess this one is really me!

i found this to be a fun, quick read. i don't think it is as well written as, say. Stargirl, my favorite high school nonconformist story. but reminiscent of the films 13 Going on 30 and Never Been Kissed, the moral of the story is a good one - although the kids that most need it are probably not the ones who are most likely to read the book (or get the message) - and i do like a happy ending!

thanks, Stephanie, for the recommendation!

The bell jar by Sylvia Plath

also posted on my blog HERE



I picked this book from Soleil's list for the "Something about me" challenge, because I had a vague notion of Sylvia Plath being a famous feminist poet of the "second wave", studied in universities courses and worshipped by many. I don't usually read poetry so I thought her only novel might be a good way to know her.I thought the story of her life might be inspirational. But her life have been so depressing that I had a hard time finishing the book. Every situation, setting, atmosphere, was so gloomy and unwelcoming. If that's how she perceived life, I understand why she took hers. I'm glad I finished it though. The most interesting part is the last one, when her "insanity" brings Esther/Sylvia in different asylums and shows us the way doctors used to deal with "madness" at that time. It was obvious to me that she wasn't in any sense mad. She was depressed, insecure, unhappy, living constantly under a bell jar, feeling trapped. But all they could do was giving her electroshocks and injections. Not one of the doctors tried to listen to her, or even understand her. That was irritating, discouraging and very disturbing.
I felt it was a necessary read to do, but I didn't enjoy it, and I'm happy I'm done with it.