The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kid was the FLICKS Book and Movie Club book of the month for May.  I admit that I was already a fan of Sue Monk Kidd and her novels The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid Chair.  I was able to attend a talk by her that the Milwaukee County Library hosted back in 2005 or so with a member of a book club I belonged to while I lived in Milwaukee.  It was interesting to listen to her talk and I did get her autograph.  I am terrible at chit chat with “famous” people and didn’t ask her any questions myself.  Picture me silent and smiling.

Even though I loved The Secret Life of Bees, I thought The Invention of Wings was even better.  Even more fascinating was discovering at the end of the novel that the characters and the major events of their lives were all true.  I could hardly believe it and wondered why I had not heard of them before.  I applaud Sue Monk Kidd for taking some little known important women in our history and telling their story.

Sarah Grimke is the daughter of an important judge in Charleston South Carolina.  On her eleventh birthday she is given a slave, Handful, as a present from her mother.  Sarah does not want a human being as a present and finds the entire process distasteful.  She tries to free Handful, but discovers that her beloved father that had always encouraged her abolitionist debates on the owning of slaves does not share her views and takes away what she values most to make her learn her place as a woman in the South.  When her sister, Angelina, is born, Sarah becomes her Godmother and also helps to shape her views towards slavery and being a woman in the South. Together the two will shape their own fates.

Handful has big dreams of a life outside of slavery, but her mother Charlotte does more than dream.  As accomplished seamstresses, they are among the most valuable slaves owned by the Grimkes.  Charlotte starts to venture out from the family home with a fake pass to take on extra work to make money to save towards their freedom.  Along the way she meets an exciting and dangerous man.  When fate takes away her mother, Handful continues to work for her dreams.

Handful and Sarah are linked together as Handful is Sarah’s slave through childhood until Sarah returns her ownership to her mother. Sarah thinks of Handful as at times, as her only friend, but as Handful reminds her, she is not emptying her chamber pot because of friendship.  Sarah promise Charlotte that someday she will free Handful, and it is a promise that plagues her throughout her life.  How can she make it happen?

I was riveted by this book and had a hard time putting it down, which wasn’t good as I was reading it during my busiest time of the semester.  I loved it.  I love historical fiction and was fascinated by the entire story and especially inspired when I discovered it was true.  I loved Sarah and Handful, they were both strong female characters living in a world where it was hard to be a woman, and even harder to be an African American woman.  I loved how each chapter switched back and forth between their viewpoints throughout their lives.  I loved Sarah’s journey from the South to the North, and I loved Handful’s journey through life in one Charleston home.  It is strange to think that you couldn’t even walk down the street without fearing for your life back then.

The book was a great book club pick as it brought about great discussion when we met.  It is overall hard to imagine a world where owning other people is considered to be okay.  It’s terrifying to realize that people still think this is okay in this day and age.  It’s also hard to imagine a world where as a woman you had no rights and no way to handle your affairs without a man.  It is also disturbing that although there really was a Handful, her story cannot be fully discovered because she was a black female living during the first half of the nineteenth century. It was a great book for thought.

Overall, The Invention of Wings is an excellent book and a must read.  It is one of the best historical fiction books I’ve ever read, and I’ve read a lot of historical fiction.   I’m still thinking about this book even though I finished it two weeks ago!

Book Source:  I purchased this book from Amazon.com.

Giveaway and Review: Say You’re One of Them by Uwem Akpan (Audiobook)

Say You’re One of Them is a book that lingers with you for some time well after the last page (or last CD) has been turned. Akpan writes very compelling stories about the lives and daily struggles of a variety of different types of families in Africa. The audiobook I listened to had unabridged story selections from the novel. I’m going to split up my review by story.

My Parent’s Bedroom (Read by Robin Miles)
My Parent’s Bedroom is narrated by a young girl in Rwanda. She relates her family’s history while trying to understand the rapidly changing world around them. I can’t say too much more without ruining the plot of this story. I can say that it has me sobbing like a baby by the end. It is an excellently written story of atrocities that have happened during the Rwandan genocide. It was very difficult to listen to, but I have been thinking about it ever since.

An Ex-mas Feast (Read by Dion Graham)
A street family in Nigeria plans an Ex-mas feast during this story. A young boy narrates and describes his love for his sister, who earns their feast as a young teenage prostitute. It is hard to imagine that people have to live in such conditions, but the people depicted in this story had the same hopes and dreams common to most people.

What Language is That? (Read by Robin Miles)
Two young girls in Ethiopia are best friends although one is Christian and the other is Muslim. Although their friendship is unlikely, they manage to make it work through hardship.

Overall the stories were striking tales of life, hardship, and struggles of humanity set in three distinct African nations. While they are at times difficult to listen to, they really made me think about what it means to be human, and to realize that the daily struggle of life is much different in a third world country.

I thought both Miles and Graham did a great job reading the stories. I also really liked the interview with Uwem Akpan at the end of the audiobook. This book was Oprah’s fall book selection, and I always like to check out her selections. I would love to learn more about Akpan, who is a Jesuit Priest. I hope I can find his interview on Oprah!

Audiobook Source: Review Copy from Hachette Book Group. Thanks Anna!

Giveaway Details:
Now for the details you are really looking for . . .Anna of the Hachette Book Group has been kind enough to offer three audiobook copies of Say You're One of Them for this giveaway. If you would like to enter this contest do any of the following:

1. Leave a comment on this post. You must include an email address. If I can't find a way to contact you I will draw another winner. (1 entry)

2. Blog about this giveaway or post about it on your sidebar. (1 entry)

3. Become a follower or leave a comment that you already are a follower of this blog. (1 entry)

There are three ways to enter, but you can put all three entries as one comment.

I will be using random.org to pick the winners from the comments.

This contest is only open to US and Canadian residents (Sorry!). No P.O. Boxes.

The deadline for entry is midnight, Friday December 11th. Good luck!

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (Audio)

Eat, Pray, Love was the June Lakeshore Moms' Book Club pick. I was really looking forward to reading it after hearing good things on Oprah and elsewhere about this book for the past few years. I was running short on time so I chose to listen to the audio version of this book as read by the author herself, Elizabeth Gilbert.

I wish I could say that I loved this book, but I instead found it to be extremely boring. I think the main problem was that I never connected with the author, Elizabeth Gilbert. Ms. Gilbert had the perfect live: nice house in the suburbs, husband, great job. Yet she finds herself sobbing in the bathroom from unhappiness. She leaves her husband, has an affair with a man named David, and then decides she wants to travel to Italy, India, and Indonesia. She gets a publisher to pay for the trip if she promises to write a book about the trip when she returns.

Off she goes on her trip. In Italy she eats a lot of tasty sounding food and learns to speak Italian. She laments often about David and strangely not her husband. She then goes to India where she talks a lot about her problems praying. This was VERY boring. In Indonesia she has a guru and falls in love with a hot brazilian.

I guess to me, Ms. Gilbert seemed like a rich woman with a different set of problems and values than I have . . .and it wasn't that interesting to read about. I didn't really learn much by reading about her mental problems and problems with praying. I didn't feel much sympathy at all . . . except for her poor husband that she left. Especially after she spends the entire book talking about David and how she wants him back and barely says anything about the man she had married.

At the end of the day, I was confused on why this book gets such glowing reviews and was a best seller. Did anyone enjoy this book more than I did? Sadly our book club was postponed until next month, I want to see what everyone else thought about this book.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

I had read many good reviews of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski and had been waiting for it from my local library for two months when Oprah picked it for her book club. I was glad I was able to get it at that time! If you get this novel, prepare to spend some time reading it. It was a good book, but took me almost two weeks to read. I'm a fast reader, but this 600 page novel is not a fast reading book.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is a tale of Hamlet set in the Wisconsin northwoods, somewhere near Ashland. Edgar is a mute boy who lives on a farm with his father Gar, and mother, Trudy. Together, the family continues on Edgar's grandfather's tradition of raising and training a unique breed of dog known as the Sawtelle dogs. Life is idyllic until Edgar's until Claude arrives back in town. Claude and Gar fight constantly and one day Gar mysteriously dies. Claude begins to insuinate himself into Trudy's affections and Edgar becomes crazed. Eventually after a desperate act, Edgar and three of his yearling dogs departs for a voyage through the Wisconsin northwoods toward Canada and freedom.

I found myself loving all of similarities to Hamlet until I neared the end and remembered how Hamlet ended. Also the book talks about The Jungle Book, which is one of my favorite books. I thought there were some similarities there. I thought this was a good book and I really would like to discuss it with someone. I hope one of my friends reads it soon. Why did I love it? I think the overall human nature story with themes of greed and jealousy was engaging, but being a dog lover I also loved the dogs and their almost human characteristics. I especially loved Almondine. The supernatural elements of the story and the on the run adventure were my favorite parts. I loved how Edgar had to fight for survival in the woods.

What didn't I like? The reason that Edgar had to go on the run was guessed by me early on. Also the ending. SPOILER ALERT. I know it's a tale of Hamlet set in the northwoods, but did the stage really have to be littered with corpses? Couldn't Edgar had survived? What do you think? I'm usually all about sad endings, but to have a 14-year old mute boy whom I'd grown to love over 600 pags bit it at the end, upset me. I did like the ambigious ending to the dogs. What will happen to them? It's fun to ponder.

Oprah's New Pick

I'm behind on my news, but last week Oprah picked A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. More information is located here. I usually read Oprah's books, but self-help books are not my forte. I don't think I'll read this book . . . unless someone can post a comment on why this is a good book to read. Convince me!

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

Argh. I wrote the review for this once, but it accidently got deleted. I'm sure it won't be quite as good the second time around, but here I go! I started writing this last week, so the dates are a bit off!

I just finished the nearly 1000 page opus The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett today after working at it for nearly two weeks. It was well worth the time and effort. I thought the book was excellent and another good selection by Oprah. It was rather a surprising selection though - this book is a true historical fiction novel, which is something I really like, but I haven't noticed Oprah picking very much historical fiction through the years. I had never heard of this book before and am glad Oprah picked it and put it in the spotlight so that I could learn about it and read it!

The Pillars of the Earth is a sweeping historical epic that is set in medival England and surrounds the building of a new cathedral in the fictional village of Kingsbridge. The novel also centers on the lives of the main people who have an influence on the cathedral such as Tom Builder, a master builder and architect, and his family as well as Prior Philip, the prior in charge of the monastery that commisions the building of the new cathedral after the old one burns. There are several very interesting colorful main characters that show up throughout the novel.

The novel is set during the era after King Henry I's death and the civil war that broke out between those that supported Henry's daughter Matilda and his nephew Stephen to be the next ruler of England. This civil war lasted for around two decades and is a fascinating era of history I've enjoyed reading about previously.

I was very interested in the politics in the novel that Prior Philip had to struggle with in order to get his cathedral built. With the changing tides of the civil war, the fortunes also changed at the building site. I know politics are involved with engineering and construction projects these days, but it was interesting to note that they were even more so 800 years ago!

I enjoyed the novel as it wove the stories of several peoples' lives through the uniting project of the cathedral construction. The stories were very intriguing and I especially liked how there were strong female characters. Even though this was a long novel, I found myself unable to put it down and wondering how the characters would be able to find their way through each trial!

I thought the "evil" characters were kind of cardboard characters. After awhile, I found myself wondering how evil these people could get!! There were slight additions to each evil character as you made your way through the novel that helped round them out. William Hamleigh's fear of hell for instance helped to round him out and explain some of his actions.

I also thought the last 1/3 or so of the book lost steam. It may be because I really liked the characters of Tom Builder and Prior Philip and they weren't central to the story at this point in the novel. Did anyone else feel this way?

If you are looking for a very interesting, well written book about the 12th century - I highly recommend this novel!

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Middlesex is Oprah's summer book club pick and was a Pulitzer Prize winner a few years ago. I had heard of the book previously, but it didn't sound that interesting to me. Since Oprah picked it and I usually like her books, I decided I should broaden my horizons and read something I wouldn't normally read.

Middlesex tells the story of Cal Stephanides. Born Callie, Cal discovers at age 14 that she is a hermaphodite with an XY Chromosone and starts living life as a man. This the zinger that gets people talking about the book, but the book is more complex then that. It tells the story of the Stephanides family and the "gene" that traveled through time and created Cal. The story starts in Turkey in the 1920's with the burning of Smyrna and the incestous relationship that unites a brother and sister in marriage. They immigrate to the U.S. and settle in Detroit during it's glory days. They have two children. Milton is Cal's father, a WWII vet, he marries his cousin Tessie. They survive the 1960's and Detroit riots and the story tells the tale of Cal's complicated youth and more than complicated teenage years.

It's hard for me to adequately describe this novel. The first half or so was some of the best writing I have read in a while. Mr. Eugenides has beautiful description and wonderful narrative describing the history of the family. I especially loved the description of Detroit. You can tell Eugenides is from D-town and has a love for it. The secondary story of the book is the story of Detroit - from the roaring 1920's (I was imaging what it most have been like for my Grandparents there!) through the 1970's busing, it was fantastic.

I felt that the last part of the book left something to be desired. SPOILER ALERT - I really disliked Milton's death off of the Ambassador Bridge. While the slow speed chase was funny, I thought that the sudden change in Father Mike's character was rather abrupt and strange. I thought it would have been far more profound story telling to have Milton meet Callie as Cal and either accept or reject him. I didn't like Cal's California trip - it seemed like a sidebar that took away from the real character of the story. I would have rather had more details about the doctor and more about how Cal is able to make the change when he gets back to his "normal" home in Grosse Pointe.

Overall, I liked this novel a lot, but was disappointed in the ending or last 1/3 of the book.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

I just finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Oprah's latest picks. I like Oprah's book club. She picks out books that I probably would have never found to read on my own, including this book. I keep reading tons of people saying bad things about the club and the people who read Oprah's books. Why say negative things about someone who gets people reading? And why say negative things about the people who read her books? I don't consider myself or most of the people I know to read her books to be uneducated and unable to comprehend them. Rather, quite the contrary.

The Road was a good, but disturbing book. It tells the story of a nameless man and his son as they head "south" in a postapocalyptic world. We don't know why the world ended, nuclear warfare, natural disaster like an asteroid? It seems to lean more toward nuclear warfare, but it's quite vague. There is no sun anymore, ashes are everywhere, and everything is dead except for a few survivors. The man and his son spend each day scavaging and trying to get to a warmer place as they won't survive another winter in the cold. Along the road, they meet some horrific sights. The "bad" people eat other people to survive, and no one would hesitate to kill another for a can of scavanged food. The story was stark, but yet there was a glimmer of hope at the end.

The prose of this novel was starkly beautiful. Some passages I had to read outloud because of the shear beauty of the words. It was a haunting, sad tale, but somehow, I couldn't put it down. It's a story that will be with me for awhile, and something it would be good to talk to other people about. It is definitely a good book club pick!

New Oprah Book Club Selection

Oprah's New Book Is Here!

Set against the ashes of a devastated America, The Road by Cormac McCarthy is a powerful story about a father and his young son on a journey of survival. "I really feel passionately about our new book club selection," Oprah says. "It's haunting and inspiring and I promise you you'll be thinking about it long after you finish the final page."

The Measure of Man by Sidney Poitier

I just finished Oprah's latest book club selection, The Measure of a Man, by Sidney Poitier. I must admit, I knew who Sidney Poitier was, a legend, but I have only seen one of his films, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. And I just watched that film for the first time this year while on maternity leave. One thing I like about Oprah's book club is that it introduces me to books I might not normally read.

This book is not a straight out biography. Mr. Poitier talks about his life in general and waxes philosphically on his thoughts about life, the universe, raising children, the duality of humans, etc. It was an interesting read. For Mr. Poitier and his father, the measure of a man is how well he takes care of his children - which is a good philosophy.

I think I would have liked the book better if I were a huge Sydney Poitier fan like Oprah. I would be happy if Oprah picked a classic book again for her next pick (as long as it's not Faulkner) and picked books at a quicker interval . . .

Has anyone else read this yet? If so - what did you think? Did you get more out of it then me?