Surprise!

       This weekend I finished Jodi Picoult's Leaving Time. In fact, I got up an extra half hour early to finish it... on a Saturday morning... when I had a 7 A.M. workshop to present at... it was that good.

       Around 30 or 40 pages from the end, I was a bit confused. Not terribly, but just experiencing a slight sense of disequilibrium. What is going on? I wondered.

        However, I soon understood--I was going around a major twisty-turn that Picoult had crafted like the talented pro that she is.

         Read Leaving Time. You won't be able to predict the ending until you get there (I almost guarantee it).

        And if you want to find out more about the elephant sanctuary in Tennessee, go here.

          What surprise have you been "gifted" with lately? (It could be a pleasant surprise--like, "Wow, Radar wasn't digging this time," or it could be not so pleasant, like "I'm amazed my arm can be pulled out of its socket several times a day when I walk the 73-pound puppy and I haven't experienced permanent damage yet.")

A Good Book is Hard to Find

        This the kind of book that makes you want to have a reason to spend a long time in the bathroom... the kind of novel that makes you not mind getting stuck at the tracks while a never-ending, slow-moving train clanks by... the kind of story you're going to miss when you read the last line on the last page.

        Okay, I admit it. I'm not finished with it yet. I'm somewhere between two-thirds and three-fourths of the way through it. However, only one of Picoult's novels was a disappointment to me, and I didn't like that one from close to the beginning, so I'm fairly confident this will be wonderful til the very end.

       It's part mystery (a mother has been missing for ten years) and part elephant journal. If you love elephants, if you hate circuses (because of the animal acts), if you'd like an insider's view into an elephant sanctuary, this is the book for you. Picoult did research at the Tennessee sanctuary (there's only one other in the U.S.--it's in California) and in the wild in Botswana. If you read it, you'll learn a lot about how elephants grieve...and what wonderful mothers elephant mamas are.

      Below is a link to a page that includes an interview with Jodi Picoult about the book. 

      And since I'll be finished with this book soon, what are some recommendations for my next one?

Between the Lines--A Fairy Tale Comes to Life

       What happens to the characters in a fairy tale when the book is closed? Does the prince just stand there stiff as a statue, or just hang there on the cliff with a dagger clenched in his teeth, waiting to "come to life" when the reader cracks open the book?

      Or, does the Queen have hobbies that keep her occupied when she's not delivering the same tired (to her) lines over and over? Is the prince getting weary of saving and then kissing the damsel in distress? (Granted, she is beautiful but she's also a bit of an airhead.)

      

photo by Thatgirlwhotakespictures

        That's the premise of Jodi Picoult and Samantha van Leer's novel Between the Lines. It turns out that fictional characters do have their own lives and when a disgruntled character and a reader become friends...well, that's when the fun (and the conflict) begins.

      Choose your favorite character. Assume they have interests and aggravations and dreams that have nothing to do with the lines they are forced to read every time the book is read.

       Who is the character and what is their life like?

The Last Line First

        Jodi Picoult spoke at a local library last night. (Shay, eat your heart out although granted, Picoult is not Emmylou...That I would not dare try to rub in your face ;)

        Because Picoult is one of my favorite authors, I was looking forward to it. Because she was touring with her daughter (they have co-authored a young adult novel, Between the Lines), I imagined there would be moments that would not especially enjoyable. I wanted it all Jodi for the brief time she would be there...I wanted to hear about SingYouHomeandHandleWithCareandTheNinthCircle, not this new book.

      I was pleasantly surprised.

photo by ALA--the American Library Association
Jodi Picoult (on the left) and her daughter, Sammy

      Picoult's daughter, Samantha Van Leer, is an incredible reader; her voice colored her words perfectly as she read an excerpt from the book. It was also fascinating hearing how they worked together for the past three summers on this book.

       Several interesting tidbits were launched our way during the book talk:

• Someone noted that many of Picoult's novels include a legal battle; they were curious why that was the case. The author explained that when she discovers a legal loophole, she is determined to include it in a book to "educate" the public. For example, she explained that she could not be forced to testify against her husband, but she could testify against her son or daughter. She jokingly admitted she would be much more likely to want to put away her husband than her kid.

• Her novel Sing You Home has a main character who is a music therapist. This character also happens to be a lesbian. Picoult shared that while she was writing the book, her son came out. Interestingly, that book has brought more hate mail than all her other books combined--and there have been some awful things happening in her other novels. 

• Someone in the audience complained how horrible the ending was in the movie version of Her Sister's Keeper. Picoult compared selling a book's movie rights to putting your child up for adoption. You hope they end up with loving parents, you hope they go to college and get married and have a family...but sometimes they grow up and become a hooker.

• Before they even began writing the story, Samantha told her mother, "I know what the last line in the book should be." Apparently Picoult agreed, because they typed that line first, and as they started composing the story, they just kept typing above that first (last) line.

         I was determined to not buy a book, because Barnes and Noble (the sponsoring book seller) required audience members to buy a copy of the new book if they wanted to get only one additional book signed. However, after hearing the two authors speak, I am considering buying Between the Lines. It is written from several perspectives--as many (all?) of Picoult's novesl are--and centers around Delilah--a reader who is smitten with the hot prince in a fairy tale book and Oliver--the prince who is desperate to escape the tired story he is trapped in. What happens in a story when the book is closed? Do the characters remain frozen, waiting for the book to be cracked open once again? Or, do the characters in a book have a life all their own that they live whenever the book is put aside?

       If you're not familiar with Picoult's novels, check one out. Handle With Care  is one of my favorites. I also love Sing You Home. (My son is a music therapist, so this was the reason why I was initially drawn to the book.) Last night, Jodi spoke about how she is always conscientious about putting in all sides of an issue--even if that means she has to create a character whose views are repugnant to her--because she said, "It's not fair for me to preach to you and expect you to listen to me if I'm not listening to the viewpoint of others." (The narrow-minded minister in Sing You Home was disgusting to Picoult, but a necessary character.) 

       And thanks, Lynn, for coming last night. I love to watch sad movies by myself but other than that, things are better when you do them with a friend...

  

Twists and Turns

photo by Mamluke

            I was a thief on Friday.

        I stole from O Henry...

        In my story for Book Blurb Friday, hosted by the dishonest Lisa Ricard Claro ,* I wrote a blurb that mirrored a short story O Henry wrote. ("The Last Leaf" is the title, if my memory is not in its normal swiss cheese form.) In this story, a woman is dying. She says she will last until the last leaf of ivy (growing on the building outside her window) falls off. All of them dry up and blow away except for one. That lone leaf lasts through all of fall and winter as well; the woman's health improves, and ultimately she recovers.

       It ends up that a painter friend who lived in her apartment building had painted the leaf onto the wall of the building.

      (Lisa called me on my plagarizing. She recognized the way my story mirrored O Henry's right away...)

       O Henry, author of the better known "The Gifts of the Magi" and (one of my favorites) "The Ransom of Red Chief," was known for the twists he put into his stories. They rarely ended as the reader expected them to.

       Jodi Picoult is also quite adept at slipping the unexpected into her novels. I have just started her book Salem Falls and eagerly await the point where I start to lose my balance, when the earth under me shifts, and I get completely flummoxed.

           What are some of your favorite authors who surprise you/give you the unexpected, and in what ways are you surprised?

* As the show "Mythbusters" has uncovered, the belief that Lisa Ricard Claro is a hardworking writer as well as  a parent of grown children has been debunked. She rents her kids (Rent-a-Rugrat) and sadly, her scheme has even spread...

Now Linda O'Connell has gotten on the kid rental bandwagon.  Since she is a teacher, she's too broke to pay the steep leasing fees. With no other option, she has turned to her little doll-of-a-granddaughter, Nicole.

(You don't believe me? Check out Linda's blog. Notice how many pictures there are of Nicole lately. Zero in on her tiny wrists...Clearly, there are marks, where the duct tape was attached, tethering this tot to Linda's computer. Focus on how large Nicole's eyes are...They are huge because only for these photos is Nicole allowed out in the light of day. The rest of the time she is hunched over a keyboard, as Linda dictates her stories.)   

        

Jodi Picoult's House Rules

photo by amazon.com

             I just finished House Rules by Jodi Picoult. Like all of her novels (at least all of the ones I've read so far), the story swirls around a family. And after she puts the characters and issues into her  magical tilt-a-whirl, the stance you might normally take gets blurry. And then Picoult is able to sit back and smirk in a self-satisfied way...

             At the center of the story is a young man with Asperger's who is accused of murdering his social skills tutor. Jacob's  daily "demands" on his family (a single mother and a younger brother) wear and tear at them; the murder trial is just added stress. 

          A child with Asperger's seems normal. They're intelligent---sometimes highly so.  But if you scratch the surface, you notice their inability to maintain eye contact or to feel empathy, their difficulty initiating a conversation, their strangle-hold on "habits" they've created...and you soon realize that this person is very different.

          Like all of Picoult's books, there is a twist at the end; it doesn't end up quite the way you think it will.  What starts out as black and white turns to many shards of gray...

          And after all, what about life is black or white?


          To finish this post, I'd like to welcome my newest follower.  Hedgewitch has two blogs. Please stop by and check out her blog.  Hedgewitch writes poetry that makes me think (and sometimes her poetry is beyond my thinking-ability). Thanks for following me.
    

         

My Life as a Reader

         A great blogger that I follow is Pat Hensley.  She frequently posts about marvelous teaching sites (which I'm so grateful for). This morning she shared a link to another blog that provides weekly topics to write about and wrote what her life as a reader has been like so far.

         All she had to do is mention going to the bookmobile, and it brought back a flood of memories...

         The bookmobile came to our neighborhood, and it was like going to church for me. Especially in the summer.  You'd walk up those few steps, open that heavy door, and the cool air would whoosh out and embrace you like an old friend.

          As a kid I went through phases and depending on what phase I was immersed in, I'd head for that particular section in the bookmobile.  The phases I went through were:

• mythology...I read every collection of Greek and Roman mythological stories. It was a marvelous escape.
• books about saints.  I can't figure out why I got hooked on reading about saints--I'm not Catholic--but I really fixated on Joan of Arc.  (I think a small part of it was her haircut.  I had a pixie haircut when I was a kid and was a tomboy.)
• Alfred Hitchcock Presents...These were collections of scary stories that kept you on the edge of your seat.
• The Three Investigators series...These books were about three boys who solved mysteries; their "office" was in the middle of one of the father's junkyard, and to get there, had built a tunnel through the junk.
• Nancy Drew mysteries...Nancy and her two female friends faced danger and solved mysteries, and they usually did not need any male assistance to do it.

         These days I read a variety of types of books.  I especially love memoirs.  Change Me into Zeus' Daughter.  All Over But the Shoutin'. Lit. Lucky.  I enjoy novels about other countries and different walks of life. The Kite Runner. A Thousand Splendid Suns. I love authors who can craft a novel that keeps me thrilled with their twisted and turned plots, even though they don't write "thrillers"---authors like Sandra Dallas and Jodi Picoult.

photo by finsbry

        Mostly I read on the couch. I usually have a book with me, because I read in the car (when my husband is driving) and we also live by a set of railroad tracks, and getting stuck waiting for a long train is very pleasant when you have a book with you. However, as I have gotten older, one of the most delicious things is taking time on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon to read and...nap.

    How about you?  What is your life as a reader like?