Howling Frog Books

How Not to Hate Your Husband After Kids , by Jancee Dunn As soon as I heard of this book, I had to have it.  Really, that has got to be one of the best parenting/family-advice book titles of all time.   I had to read it despite the fact that my kids are now teenagers and we have sort of passed the time of small children that this book mostly talks about (and anyway it was still full of good stuff). Dunn almost comes off as a project author: "I will do X for a year and write a book about it!"  Except, it's not so frivolous; she really did need to spend a year or so working on her marriage and figuring out how to re-negotiate their workloads.  He tended to withdraw and not live up to his part, while she was angry all the time and had a serious yelling problem. So Dunn tried various things: a marriage counselor who will brutally tell you what's up in one gruelling afternoon, hostage negotiation techniques, and some interesting stuff like that.  She talks...

Last week I told you that I was heading out of town to go to Cal Day, which is a big open house at UC Berkeley.  I did have a lot of fun wandering around campus!  I didn't really take pictures to share, but I visited the libraries (partly to see what they've done in remodeling the interior of the quite hideous Moffitt Library).  I went to a special Bancroft Library exhibit with some fantastic historical books: an 1811 Sense and Sensibility , a Wycliffe Bible with a stunning rare binding, and an elderly little Piers Plowman with marginalia from various readers, among many other treasures.   The best thing was that I went to a lecture on the Canterbury Tales given by my old Shakespeare professor, Steven Justice.  He was a favorite of mine, and now I realize why; he's a phenomenal lecturer!  Wow, I was just blown away.  I want to read the Canterbury Tales again, too.  (Pondering: can I justify buying a Riverside Chaucer, 20+ years after takin...

My paperback cover -- terrible, isn't it? Steppenwolf, by Hermann Hesse In my endeavor to appreciate Hesse, I've now read Siddhartha and Steppenwolf .  I'm working my way up to The Glass Bead Game .  Of course, this novel is indelibly and vaguely associated with 70s late-hippie music in my brain, as I'm sure it is for most people my age, but I never really knew what 'steppenwolf' was supposed to mean in English.  It turns out to be very simple: wolf of the steppes, or as we'd say, a lone wolf.  The title could be rendered as Lone Wolf and that would work.  (For some reason, Wikipedia claims that a wolf of the steppes is a coyote, but it isn't and that doesn't work at all.  My advice is not to try to think of this as Coyote .  No.) Harry Haller, mid-50s, thinks of himself as a double-natured being.  One side of him is an intellectual, high-culture sort of man, and the other is a wild and bloodthirsty lone wolf, always on the move and nev...

The Two Towers , by J. R. R. Tolkien Brona's LOTR readalong has been so very fun!  I haven't read these books in years and (as we all know) they are just so fantastic. And I have a little treat for all lovers of Middle-Earth; my mom sent me a link to this letter from Tolkien, describing various details of things.  It's good stuff: The Tolkien Letter That Every Lover of Middle-Earth Must Read. In The Two Towers , the Fellowship splits into two groups (well, three for most of it).  Tolkien does this funny thing; where most writers (especially now) would alternate chapters, keeping both storylines going at once, he does not.  He simply splits the book in half and tackles each story separately, which means we are consecutively immersed in each one.  It's quite a shock, halfway through, to suddenly leave Aragorn and company in order to find Frodo and Sam. Everybody knows the plot, so I don't know that I need to recap it.  Instead I'll just talk about some...

The Valley of Song , by Elizabeth Goudge Lory's Elizabeth Goudge event is now something I look forward to a lot.  This year, I splurged a little bit and bought two (used) books I've never read, but I am still saving those for later; I also got The Valley of Song through ILL.  It's a strange and charming story; a children's fairytale, but a long and complex one that makes me think of....oh , At the Back of the North Wind , maybe.  Goudge mixes her Christian imagery and older mythology with happy abandon, like Lewis does in Narnia, but it's a very different feel, and her story is set maybe 250 years ago, in the late 18th century, I think. My ILL cover -- charming Tabitha, age 11, would always rather be outdoors exploring, or visiting her little town's shipyard, than anything else.  She has discovered a magical place she calls the Valley of Song, and when she takes her friend Job to see it, he is transformed from an elderly woodcarver into the boy he on...

I've been quite pleased with my two-week streak of posting (with time off for Sunday).  And I still have more books to write about; there are six on my desk at this moment.  But I'm going away for the weekend, on my own little adventure all by myself!  I always love to go to Cal Day, when UC Berkeley opens up the campus and there are lots of fun events.  And this time I'll go to some things for adults!  I'm excited, so maybe I'll post a picture or two when I come home. Two years ago!

Where Nothing is Long Ago: Memories of a Mormon Childhood, by Virginia Sorensen This lovely childhood memoir by a Newbery-winning author evokes a subculture that is now as foreign and puzzling as almost any you can think of.  Virginia Sorensen writes about life in a Utah farming town with strong Danish roots, and it seems to cover approximately 1917-1924 or so.  And she really knows how to start a story... Virginia is about nine, playing in the hot summer weather, when Brother Tolsen comes running over, having just killed his neighbor during a dispute; the neighbor had twice blocked Tolsen's water in order to take it himself.  In the dry Utah climate, water for irrigation was of the first importance, and access to streams was carefully scheduled so that everyone would get a fair share.  Water-stealing was a terrible crime, and the entire community agreed that Brother Tolsen had acted in the defense of his family and livelihood.  They were relieved when the ...

All Natural: A Skeptic's Quest to Discover if the Natural Approach to Diet, Childbirth, Healing, and the Environment Really Keeps Us Healthier and Happier , by Nathanael Johnson Nathanael Johnson is a child of serious hippies, and grew up eating dirt and berries in the Northern California mountains, not too far from where I live now.  His dad didn't believe in diapers, and his mom didn't believe in sugar.*  Then he grew up and married a woman of the modern world, and pretty soon they were wondering: what really is the best way to have a baby?  Doula and water-birth, or epidural and hospital bed?  Thus a book was born as Johnson explored our ideas about so many topics from birth to how to take care of the environment, not to mention 'toxins' in our food and vaccines. I had quite a lot of fun reading all of this, and some of the topics he investigates are on the unusual side.  One whole section was devoted to the arguments over raw milk; another was about ve...

Storm in the Village Farther Afield , by Miss Read If you are feeling beset by the world and need a quiet refuge, Miss Read novels are hard to beat.  They're mid-century stories about a set of tiny English villages, narrated by 'Miss Read,' a teacher at the village school.  I read two a little while ago, and have two more waiting for the mood to strike one of these days. Storm in the Village is the third Fairacre novel, and the (somewhat) peaceful village's life is threatened to be turned upside down if the government forces a local farmer to sell his fields for building a large settlement for power plant workers.  It would be larger than the village, so would children go to the school, or would the school close?  Bring business in, or just an awful lot of traffic?  Mr. Miller vows he'll die before he gives up his best land, and meanwhile there's other drama: a neglected boy runs away from home, and a junior teacher is dead set on ruining her life by falli...

The First Wife: A Tale of Polygamy , by Paulina Chiziane I was intrigued as soon as I saw this novel.  It's the first published by a Mozambican woman, it's about polygamy, plus it's square, which is fun.  So here we go. Rami, the narrator, has been married for twenty years, and to a prominent man -- her husband Tony is the chief of police, so they should have plenty for their needs.  But Tony is not around all that much.  Rami finds out that he has another family; in fact he has four mistresses, and most of them have several children.  Rami alternates between rage and hurt, but as she gets to know the other women, they realize that together they might be able to make Tony live up to his obligations.  They maneuver Tony into a polygamous marriage and start to demand their rights, but it's not a straightforward business. Everything is told from Rami's point of view, and it's kind of stream-of-consciousness.  Rami has a tendency to discourse on t...

Jill the Reckless , by P. G. Wodehouse I was in the mood for a nice escape, so I picked up my tablet and opened up a Wodehouse novel I'd never heard of before in the Kindle app.  A lot of early Wodehouses are now available for free, being out of copyright.  Jill the Reckless was published in 1920 as a serial -- after Psmith and Blandings Castle, but before Bertie and Jeeves really got going. This cover is terrible.  Jill looks like a Gashlycrumb Tiny. Jill is one lucky girl, being lovely, wealthy, and engaged to the broodingly handsome MP Sir Derek.  A series of misfortunes renders her penniless and single, and she ends up in New York working as a chorus girl, having one adventure after another.  There is a parrot, of course, an overbearing mother, a grifter uncle, and an upper-class twit or two.  It is all great fun. Jill is a wonderful heroine and the story is gripping.  This has turned out to be one of my favorite Wodehouse novels! I jus...

Imago, by Octavia E. Butler I have now finished the Xenogenesis trilogy, and boy, it's a good read.  It's not hard SF, where you're mostly reading about future technologies and possibilities; this is the kind where a morality problem is set and explored from many sides. Jodahs is the narrator for this third book, and it is something new again.  It accidentally develops into an ooloi, the third Oankali sex, a specialist in genetic manipulation without which reproduction cannot occur.  The Oankali survive by collecting and using all sorts of DNA, always changing into something a bit different.  But they didn't mean to have a hybrid ooloi so soon in the program, and Jodahs may not be allowed to stay on Earth at all.  Jodahs is desperate to stay and starts wandering too far from home. There's a lot of really uncomfortable stuff in this book.  Lilith, in the first story, is fully human and embodies our viewpoint when faced with these aliens who do horri...

Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life , by William Deresiewicz Several years ago, William Deresiewicz published an online essay, The Disadvantages of an Elite Education, which garnered a lot of attention.  He then turned the essay into a book which I've been meaning to read for some time. Deresiewicz, a Yale professor, starts off critiquing the ever-more-strenuous race to get into the Ivy League (or even a highly-ranked public school, but mostly the Ivies), and then the conformity seen on campus.  Perfect Ivy candidates do not have time for eccentricity; they have to fit a mold.  I think this is the strongest part of the book, with some excellent points about why we have this system and how it serves the people who benefit, but nobody else. He then starts asking what college is actually for and what 'leadership' is really about.  There is some good stuff in there, but I did feel like it got kind of repetitive...

The Lottery: Adventures of the Demon Lover , by Shirley Jackson Somewhere I found an ancient, tattered paperback of Shirley Jackson stories.  I've read "The Lottery" before, but not the others, and I needed more Jackson in my life! Luckily, I happened to look at the final page before I read very many of the stories.  In the back, there is an excerpt from an old Scottish ballad called "James Harris, The Demon Lover," (Child 243), and so I looked it up.  James Harris, in the song, seduces a married woman away from her home and takes her on a voyage...to hell, of course.  If I hadn't happened to read that early on, I would probably not have noticed that James Harris is a recurring character in several of these short stories (sometimes only as a shadow, even).  Obviously that is the connecting link with the title, but I'm oblivious enough not to have spotted it on my own. The stories--nearly all domestic ones about mothers, wives, or single New York ga...

It's been a little while, but I'm still plugging away!  Book V is all about Justice, and the knight is Sir Artegall, whom we have already met from Britomart's point of view.  So far he is pretty rough justice, and it seems that he might need some refining.    Spenser explains that Astraea personifies pure, heavenly justice, and Artegall is only the flawed human imitation.  Astraea -- the constellation of Virgo -- raises Artegall and sends him out into the world, and gives him the companion Talus, an iron man with a flail.  Talus is an untiring punisher and sometimes chases down and beats offenders that Artegall can't catch.  He is, in fact, on the brutal side, considering that he's supposed to be given by pure justice! Coming up on an anniversary here.... Artegall's quest is to free Lady Girena (gift? peace?) from Grantorto, a general tyrant sort of fellow.  On his way, he meets a mourning Squire and a beheaded Lady.  The Squire exp...

Reflections: On the Magic of Writing , by Diana Wynne Jones During March Magics, I read a few extra things by DWJ, like Mixed Magics and The Magicians of Caprona, just to round out the experience.  Something Kristen said at the very beginning of the month prompted me to get Reflections out again -- I wanted to look up a particular quotation, and when I couldn't find it right away, I decided to just read the whole thing and enjoy it again. I did enjoy it, very much.  I think I got more out of some of the essays this time around.  Others are old friends I have read several times by now.  I was particularly impressed by the essay on "The Shape of the Narrative in The Lord of the Rings ," and since we're doing the readalong right now, I decided to read that one piecemeal, one bit after each volume.  I just read the part covering Two Towers and I love how she points out what Tolkien is doing. What I was looking for was a comment on the importance of imagina...

Life has certainly gotten away from me lately!  I've been busy and focused on lots of things, but not blogging.  That's OK, but I miss it and I have a large pile of books to talk about, some of which are official TBR books.  In other news, my youngest kid is now 14 and nobody can quite believe it, including her, but since she'll be going to her first dance on Saturday night, I guess it's real.  She's having a birthday hike with friends before that; maybe I'll post a picture or something.  It's lovely weather here at the moment; we've had a remarkably long and cool spring, with a good deal of rain, and everything is beautifully green.  The first spring blossoms (daffodils, tulip trees, and almond orchards) are over, and now we're on to the dogwoods, which I love.  Soon enough, it will get hot and everything will turn brown, so I've been really happy with all this cool green stuff. It's the first Mount TBR Checkpoint, and Bev has lots of...