Category Archives: book club

My Favorite Books: Ten Books That Make Me Think

July 30, 2009book club, books, nostalgiaKirsetin

The books speak to me. As I look up from the table at the library, where I’m spending most of my day today, I glance up at this shelf of teen books, and I hear them. They tell myriad stories: some sad, some adventurous, some scary, and some very, very funny. We read them, and they challenge us. If we’re lucky, sometimes they even change us.

One of the reasons I enjoy belonging to a book club, is that it forces me to read books I may not choose otherwise. I’ve never been a big fan of biographies, for example, but a few years ago we read John Adams, by David McCullough. It surprised me—I liked it!—and it remains one of my favorite books. David MuCullough brought their world to life for me in a way that no history class ever did. As a mother and wife, I empathized with Abigail Adams and realized that she was made of much tougher stuff than I am. I’m still amazed by her story, as much as his.

But it’s not just serious stories that capture me. I’ve loved reading for as long as I can remember. As a child, I spent hours in libraries – in every town we called home, and in my grandmother’s town, too, which we visited several times a year. In those early days, I enjoyed a good mystery and I was especially fond of Nancy Drew. I admired her courage and her wisdom. I liked her friends, Bess and George; I thought having a boyfriend like Ned Nickerson was pretty cool, too. But most of all, I loved their adventures. They took me along with them, to discover the Secret of the Old Clock and solve the Password to Larkspur Lane. When I read these books, I wasn’t a 10-year old girl reading a story. The words of Carolyn Keene transported me, as I solved the mysteries right along with Nancy, Bess, and George. Those stories changed me, as books would continue to right up to today, as I questioned and pondered and discovered new ideas. Books open worlds we may never contemplate without them. Don’t you agree?

If you’re in the mood for a good read—although not necessarily an uplifting one—here are a few others I count among my favorites. This list is by no means exhaustive—there are many, many books I’ve enjoyed over the years. However, these remain among my top picks because no matter how many times I read them, they always make me think. They challenge me, and they change me. I hope you’ll discover their magic, too.

· Lord of the Flies, William Golding

· The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

· Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh

· The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck

· A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry

· The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls

· Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson

· The Life of Pi, Yann Martel

· Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain

· The Red Tent, Anita Diamant

Are any of these among your favorites? Are there books you love that I didn’t include? Please leave me a comment and let me know. I’m always up for a new read.

Footnote:

On one particular visit to my aforementioned grandmother’s library, I noticed a few Nancy Drew books I’d already read, that had different covers from the ones I owned. As a frequent re-reader, I checked them out and was surprised to find that it wasn’t only the cover that was different. The words were different, too! The books in the Nancy Drew series have been updated throughout the years, and I’d stumbled onto a few earlier versions. When I offered to replace the older books with new ones, the librarian agreed. I couldn’t believe my luck. I still have those books, and even though I haven’t read them in years, I won’t be parting with them anytime soon.

I’m Cheering for You Nic Sheff.

April 16, 2009book club, books, celebrities, illness, Parenting, perspective, tweens and teensKirsetin

Nic,

I don’t even know you and you’re breaking my heart. I’m not your mother, or your friend, or your mother’s friend. I don’t live in the same town or the same state; I didn’t go to the same schools; I don’t have any experience with drug addiction. We’re not even close in age – you weren’t born until the year I started high school. There’s really no reason for me to feel connected to you, other than the fact that I have sons. But I do. I do feel connected. And my heart is breaking, all over again.

– Me

About a year ago, I read David Sheff’s book, beautiful boy. In it, he describes the joy he and his wife felt at having their son.

“We are among the first generation of self-conscious parents. Before us, people had kids. We parent. We seek out the best for our children – the best stroller and car seat recommended by Consumer Reports – and fret over every decision about their toys, diapers, clothes, meals, medicine, teething rings, inoculations, and just about everything else.”

He goes on to describe Nic as a toddler:

“Nic is a natural architect and builder, constructing sprawling block, Duplo, and Lego Lilliputs…He scoots around the house on a big-wheeled tricycle and, on the red-brick front patio, in a plastic sky-blue convertible, a gift from my parents, which he powers like a Flintstones car with high-top sneakered feet.”

David Sheff describes reading books to his son over and over again – so often that he memorizes them. He describes a trip to Yosemite and playing board games, and all of the other parent-child interactions we fit into our lives, all of those things, big and little, that we do to help our children grow up into strong and secure adults.

Except Nic didn’t.

David Sheff continues:

“I tried everything I could to prevent my son’s fall into meth addiction. It would have been no easier to have seen him strung out on heroin or cocaine, but as every parent of a meth addict comes to learn, this drug has a unique, horrific quality…Nic claimed that he was searching for meth his entire life. ‘When I tried it for the first time,’ he said, ‘that was that’.”

As you can imagine, I am sobbing before I get through Chapter 1. Sheff does a beautiful job of describing his beautiful boy, and in his description, I see not only Nic, but all boys. I break down in a river of tears, thinking of all of the life and energy and love I have poured into my own three boys. I am reading the now blurry words and wondering if this could happen to one of my sweet babies, too.

Nic Sheff got clean, for awhile, and also wrote a book, in which he tells the story from his point of view. I read Tweak shortly after I finished beautiful boy. In Tweak, Nic describes a childhood spent careening towards addiction, starting with this incident when he was a year younger than my oldest son.

“When I was eleven my family went snowboarding up in Tahoe, and a friend and I snuck into the liquor cabinet after dinner. We poured a little bit from each bottle into a glass, filling it almost three-quarters of the way with the different-colored, sweet-smelling liquid. I was curious to know what it felt like to get good and proper drunk. The taste was awful. My friend drank a little bit and stopped, unable to take anymore. The thing was, I couldn’t stop.

I drank some and then I just had to drink more until the whole glass was drained empty. I’m not sure why. Something was driving me that I couldn’t identify and still don’t comprehend.”

He goes on to vividly describe his fall into the dark underbelly of San Francisco, a city I love like no other. Listening to him struggle, listening to him describe the pain, and ecstasy, of his experience—his life—with such raw emotion, made me weep all over again.

Long after I turned their final pages, these books have stayed with me, haunted me, almost. I have thought about David and Nic and their lives and their struggles; I’ve thought about the whys and the hows and the what ifs; I’ve thought about choices and genetics and fate; I’ve wondered if he’ll ever really be clean.

And today I read this. Nic relapsed last May, and again in December. These are not, by far, his first two, or his worst two, relapses. But the news is discouraging and disheartening. Still. Still relapsing. The whys re-emerge, they grab me and force me to look at my boys with fresh eyes. I am vigilant, fighting for my boys, watching and praying and hoping that they remain unscathed by this horrific mess called meth.

And I’m still cheering for you Nic. Still cheering.

Three Cups of Tea and A Fine Balance: Worth Being "Weird" For

July 14, 2008book club, booksKirsetin

I’ve been in the same book club for a little over five years now, which in itself isn’t that surprising. Lots of women are in book clubs. Even Oprah has a book club. But the biggest difference I’ve ascertained is that in my book club we actually discuss the books. (Not saying Oprah doesn’t; we all know she does!) That my group discusses the books shouldn’t be surprising, either, because that’s the idea behind a book club. Read, gather, discuss. But, by far, the most frequent complaint I hear from other friends in other book clubs is, “We never get around to the book. We all sit around drinking wine and socializing all night. I didn’t even bother to read the book for this month!”

Occasionally, there will be one or two members of our book club who haven’t finished the book for the month, but hardly ever without good reason. Tough deadlines, heavy travel, illness. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard someone say, “Well, I just didn’t get around to it.” Our group comprises two professors, several business owners, working moms, single women, and stay-at-home moms. Our ages range from oh, I don’t know, probably mid-thirties to mid-sixties, which creates wonderfully diverse discussions. Because we are in many different stages of life and have such different vocations, we don’t get mired down in naptime and diaper discussions, which is easy to do when you gather with same-stage-of-life friends. We’re not anti-social, of course. We show up, we pour the wine, we laugh for a bit, and usually within half an hour one of us says, “Hey, should we get started?” And the thing is, we do. Everyone wants to. We love books, and we’re there to share what we think, and to learn what everyone else thinks, about the book we just read.

We choose our books thoughtfully, usually twice a year. Because we live in West Michigan, with snowy winters that encourage lots of reading by the fireplace, and sunny, bright, summers that don’t, we choose one long book for the summer and don’t meet during June, July, and August. In May, we all bring some suggestions—books that have been recommended to us, books our mothers loved, books we saw at the library, or books we heard reviewed—and we sort through them, toss out ideas, and choose enough books to get us through Christmastime. Then, at the December meeting, we do it all over again and choose the books for the rest of the year. This May, however, we had so many great books to choose from, and such enthusiasm, that we actually chose books for the entire year. A definite first! We’re all looking forward to relaxing by the fire with spiced wine or cider while we enjoy a little more time dissecting November’s book choice.

We are deliberate about the books we choose, and try to read an amalgam of fiction, non-fiction, business, biography, and the rest. Although I’m sure that most of us pick up some beachy-reads in the summer, our summer book club selection isn’t one. A few years ago we picked two for the summer, and each read one or the other (a couple very ambitious members read both): John Adams, by David McCullough and Theodore Rex, by Edmund Morris. I can confirm that if you take a very large, hardcover, John Adams to the pool, you will be relegated to the “very weird” category by all of the other women there with their Janet Evanovich!

One of the books we read this year, Three Cups of Tea, is Greg Mortenson’s story about how failing to climb a Himalayan peak called K2 changed the course of his life. The book is about his promise to a Pakistani village to return and build a school, for girls, in their remote, isolated village. It’s about his decision, his trials, his perseverance, his wife. He succeeded in building that first school (don’t worry, that doesn’t ruin the book for you; read it anyway), and has gone on to build 73 more with the help of his Central Asia Institute. Nicholas Kristof wroten an article in the NY Times last Sunday, It Takes a School, Not Missles, which admittedly has a political slant, but nonetheless sums up Greg Mortenson’s accomplishments quite nicely.

Three Cups of Tea probably isn’t a book I would’ve picked up on my own. Nor is A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry which has become one of my all-time favorites, or Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, which everyone else loved but was one of the few books, in all these years, that I didn’t connect with. Exposure to books that are off my radar, hearing opinions and ideas that rub the edges of mine, and the joy of knowing these women and sharing these books with them is worth the sleep I miss when I’m still finishing a book at 1:00 AM the night before book club. Or being put in the “very weird” category when I’m reading at the pool. Definitely worth it.