Well it's a symphony of coughs around here these days, with the entire family sick with a pack of viruses clearly sent by Kleenex to boost this quarter's profits.  I honestly don't know what we've done to the universe but April has continued 2012's trend towards becoming The Year of Shit To Deal With.  Blurgh.  I am putting my order in for a May of Health and Happy Happenings.  We are owed a good month.

So while the kids are basking in copious amounts of TV, I thought I'd reluctantly pull myself away from Pinterest for a few minutes to maybe write something here?  What an idea.  Before I get to writing about anything else, though, I really need to write a few book responses, because I am behind and starting to forget things, a sentence which applies to my life as a whole.  I have decided though that if Colleen can get away with a book review this brief (love it), then I can cut myself a bit of slack and practice some brevity.  

Here we go...three book responses coming at you at lightning speed!

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman, which was recommended to me by my friend Shaggy, is the first book in the author's His Dark Materials trilogy.  It is a fantasy novel about a young English orphan named Lyra who discovers that children are being kidnapped for use in experiments, and joins an expedition to rescue them, unaware of a prophecy linking her own destiny to a coming war. 

There were three things that frustrated me about this book.

With new revelations like "Oh, of course, witches can do this" and "As everyone knows, bears never do this" I felt like the game kept changing.  A sense of wonder and discovery when reading a book is generally a good thing, but I find that when I can't get a handle on how the world works it keeps me on the outside looking in.  But I have very little experience with fantasy fiction, so maybe that's part of the problem. 

I was also frustrated that so much of the action was stuff happening to Lyra rather than action she was taking herself.  The parts I liked best were the times when she made a move to change something or take control.  Now, I suspect that this is just a part of what the story's about, that Lyra goes from inconsequential street urchin to become a powerful force in shaping her world's future, so I'm a little more patient with this one.  I think I would probably enjoy the next two parts of the trilogy much more (and do plan to read them some time).

I felt, too, like there were BIG THEMES and COMMENTS ON OUR OWN WORLD that I was totally not getting.  I'm sure that there were things being said about religion and science and politics but I have neither the energy nor the brain cells to work hard when I read, at least not anymore.  Most of the time I can just focus on the story and not get so worried about it, but the book seemed pretty theme-heavy and that too kept me outside of it.  

Big illusory themes were not a problem with my next book, I'll Walk Alone by Mary Higgins Clark.  I picked out this book specifically because I wanted something easy on my brain to take on a weekend getaway, and just about nothing is easier than a Mary Higgins Clark mystery.  Her books are certainly formulaic (pretty young urban professional woman, love interest, character set up to look like the obvious suspect, not-so-surprise twist), but I like them just the same.  The mysteries are pretty well constructed and I'm always amazed at how many characters and storylines she manages to weave together and keep clear.

What I have found funny when I've read the last few of her novels, though, is her idea of who a young urban woman is.  The protagonist in this one, a New York City interior designer, wears slacks and sweaters with fur-trimmed collars and pearl earrings and I wish I had the book in front of me to remind me of some of the more behavioural characteristics.  I don't know if the author is accurately portraying some upper-class young women, or if she just thinks that this is what young women are like, but as a reader who, granted, is decidedly not upper-class or urban or even all that young anymore, I found it a little hard to relate to the protagonist.  But this book was chosen to be a light, easy read and it was, so I can't complain too much.  

I spotted The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna on the library shelf and was like "Hey!  A Finnish author!  I'll get in touch with my heritage!"  I was also intrigued by the premise: a man leaves behind his job and marriage to wander in the wilderness, an injured hare his only companion.  

The novel wasn't really what I expected.   I thought it would be more about the relationship between the protagonist, Vatanen, and the hare, and their struggles to survive in the wilderness, but instead the plot follows the pair through a series of seemingly incongruous experiences, including encounters with bears, bureaucrats, and border officials (oh my!) which kept them still very much connected with the society Vatanen had proposed to abandon.  I had trouble connecting with the main character, and I could tell that there was a lot about Finnish politics and culture that was flying right over my head.  It may be that something was simply lost in translation as well.  Again, there were big themes at play that, to my exhausted brain trying to manage a few paragraphs before falling asleep, were just too much to be dealt with.  All in all, disappointing, but I would be keen to try another of his books some time when I have the energy and time to read more than a few pages at a time.  Oh, so that will be never, ever again.

BAM!  Done!  And if you actually read all of that you win a prize.  Hmmm, let's see what I've got around here...how about my eternal affection?  Sound good?  

Provided there are no swarms of locusts or plagues or anything, I'll try to write again this week, hopefully with much more interesting fare.

It seems that it has been over two weeks since I last posted.  Sorry about that.  I've been sick, so you haven't missed much.  Any posts I might have written would have come out as COUGH SNOT BLURGH so I think we can all agree that the hiatus was for the best.

But I'm trying to get back into the swing of things here, and first things first, I need to write about Bit of a Blur by Alex James, because I read it back in January and frankly my memories of it are true to the title.

What I can say is, it's a great read!  For those who may not be familiar with Alex James, he is the bassist for the band Blur, and this memoir recounts the band's rise to fame in the 90s.  My husband asked for the book for Christmas and after he flew through it in record time and spoke its praises, he recommended it to me.

Before reading the book, I didn't know very much about Blur.  I know their big hits - Country House and Park Life and the like - and I enjoy them.  I have seen Alex James on a few British panel shows and thought him to be quite smart and funny and, let's just say it, rather cute.  Well, smart, funny, cute, British and guitarist happen to be the five top things I look for in a man, so the book was not a hard sell.

It turns out, he can write too (here be swooning).  Bit of a Blur is a really excellent read, a very interesting and intimate telling of the story of Blur and specifically James' experience with creating music and enjoying the celebrity lifestyle the band's success afforded him.  I love trivia and learning "little known" facts, particularly about pop culture, and the book offered a lot of interesting tidbits, such as this:

"Our most popular song was written in fifteen minutes while we were waiting for a piece of gear to turn up.  We just thrashed it out.  I hadn't been to bed.  None of us took it very seriously; it wasn't long enough to be a single and the only words you could hear were 'Woo-hoo'."

I love learning stuff like that.  But you do not have to know anything about Blur or Britpop to enjoy the book.  While James' humour and insights, and his no-holds-barred approach, make his personal story fascinating, what is on offer in the larger picture is a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the world of popular music and what it is like to be a rock star.  I think everyone has wondered what that would be like.  And his personal striving to learn and better himself is, I think, something we can all relate to as well. 

Beyond that, Alex James is simply a great writer.  There's no in-depth literary analysis needed here:  he's just funny and insightful and curious, and he comes across as being a really nice guy who is at once both proud and humble, self-aware enough to see the absurdity in celebrity while at the same time making no apologies for enjoying it.  He seems like someone who it would be great to have a conversation with in a pub.  On a date perhaps.  In my next life perhaps.

A most excellent and highly recommended read!

After finally finishing Lamb, I dove head first into something completely different, a historical novel called Bride of New France by Suzanne Desrochers, which had been recommended to me by my equally bibliophilic friend Jen.  Set in the late 17th century, it tells the story of Laure Beausejour, a fille du roi sent from France to Canada to become a soldier's wife and help populate New France.

I enjoy historical fiction so this was right up my alley.  Although I'm familiar with the filles du roi, I didn't really know very much about that period in history and the experience of those girls, so the subject was very interesting.  The main character, Laure, is a fiesty young woman who, torn from her family as an infant, has grown up inside the walls of the Salpêtrière Hospital, which at that time was used as a prison for prostitutes, the mentally ill, orphans, the poor and any other of French society's undesireables.  From one prison she is sent to another of sorts: by royal decree, young women are rounded up and sent overseas to New France, Laure among them. 

The story is very well written and the plot develops at a steady pace.  The characters are well drawn and interesting.  In particular, I found the description of her life at the Salpêtrière, and her relationships with two of the other orphaned girls, compelling and carefully nurtured.  Laure was instantly likeable and engaging and I became invested in her very quickly.  I think that the creation of such a character is no small feat for an author, and I wish I had the book in front of me to have a closer look at how it was accomplished.  In any case, I was pulled into the story and wanted to see what would happen next for Laure.

For me, though, things started to break down around the time that Laure learns that she is being exported, as it were.  I couldn't believe that she would go to Canada so willingly, given that she had a pretty good understanding of the life that awaited her.  I thought she would put up more of a fight.  I don't have half the confidence of the character of Laure, but even I would have had a few unpleasant words to say about the matter.  I expected there to be more of a struggle, an attempt to run away, more bargaining and pleading, the seeking out of other options as futile as it may have been.  She was upset, sure, and expressed her distress about the decision, but her overall complacency did not feel to me to be in line with the character. 

Or perhaps the fatalistic nature of such a decision wasn't made clear.  Perhaps there was just no escape and that was a well known fact and coming to terms with it was all there was to be done.  I don't know.  I would think that even still, in the face of a harrowing journey across the ocean, never to see your homeland again, to go marry some brute you've never met and live in an untamed land, I would think one might consider running away to Spain or something.  It's right there.  (Disclaimer: I know nothing about late 17th century Spain...perhaps it was not the awesome vacation destination I am imagining).

Once Laure reached Canada, the plot seemed to speed up, with jumps in time that took the story to its end much too quickly.  Having invested in the character of Laure, I wanted to know more about her life in the woods, how she coped with learning all she needed to know to survive, and her feelings about the whole thing.  These seemed to be brushed over rather quickly.  She develops a relationship with a native man, a promising plot development with an unsatisfying end.  I've read other reviews that say that this relationship plays out realistically, and that may be the case, but this is historical fiction for a reason.  Fiction requires drama and tension and the genre of historical fiction is so great because it allows for playing within the history.  I wasn't looking for a happy ending by any means, but when the sexual and dramatic tension is building for pages and then fizzles in a paragraph or two, that's disappointing, at least to this reader. 

What would redeem the ending is a sequel.  It's screaming for a sequel as there are a lot of loose ends which need picking up, and in addition to continuing Laure's story, there is an obvious choice for a second protagonist.  I just had a look online to see if there's any word about a sequel and all I can find are other people saying that they too would like to see one.

Faults aside (and what do I know really?), Bride of New France was a good read and I would recommend it.  And if you do read it, I'd love to know what you think, and if you agree with my criticisms or if you think I'm crazy (the two are not mutually exclusive I suppose).  And please keep the recommendations coming!

When I put out the call for book recommendations, my friend Colleen suggested I read Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore.  I got it from the library back in September and started reading, but then someone put it on reserve so I had to return it before I finished.  I didn't get it back until November, so my reading was a bit broken up, and it's been awhile since I've finished it, but let's see what I can remember.

Lamb is a highly, highly fictionalized account of Jesus' life from his childhood to his crucifixion, told from the point of view of his best friend Biff.  Jesus is trying to understand exactly what he's meant to do as the Messiah and so he sets out, with his friend in tow, to find the three wise men. 

The story is funny and quite blasphemous.  The Jesus in this telling swears and drinks, and while he doesn't fornicate he's pretty curious about what he's missing; his best friend Biff, without the burden of being the Son of God, is happy to experiment on his (His?) behalf. 

Not being Christian, none of this really bothered me.  In fact, if anything, I thought the story made Jesus very likeable, in no small part because it humanized him; in the story he is special, yes, chosen but he also has human worries and curiosities and doubts.  I rather like that in a religious figure.  I suspect that, not having read the Bible, I also missed out on a lot of in-the-know Christianity references (although I did catch the joke in a quick passage about some guys from Turin with a cloth).  But the funny thing is, I found that this satirical imagining of Jesus' life made me kind of interested in learning more about his real one, not so much from a religious point of view as an historical one.

I'd be curious to know what Christian readers think of this book.  Of course, opinions would differ amongst members of the Christian community, I'm sure, but I'd be particularly interested to know, setting aside the plot, if Christopher Moore's characterization of Jesus is that far removed from the popular view (if there is one particular popular view) of Christ, who he was as a man and, I guess, what it would have been like to hang out with him, other than awesome of course.

In terms of learning something from this book to take into my own writing, Christopher Moore is daring, not only in his choice of subject, which is gutsy to say the least, but also in the approach he takes to his characters and plotlines.  In reading Lamb, I got the feeling that the author just let the story take him wherever it wanted to go without second guessing it.  "How about Jesus meets a yeti?  Fuck yeah!"  I imagine him thinking.  It was probably more thought out and structured than that, but the writing is just so playful and witty and creative that it comes across as easy.  And honestly, after reading Lamb, I feel empowered to just write the story as it comes, the dialogue as I hear it in my head, and let go and trust my own voice.  Because if Mr. Christopher Moore can write a bestseller with a drunken, swearing Jesus as a main character and get away with it, then what's holding me back?

All in all, a very entertaining read and I'm glad that Colleen recommended it because I'm not sure if I would have chosen it off the shelf otherwise, which is what these recommendations are all about!  I have two more recommended books to write up, both completely different than Lamb and each other, which is awesome.  And I'm looking forward to diving into a new book tonight.  So stay tuned, book lovers.  As for you book haters, I'll return to writing about other topics soon.  In the mean time, please return to your internets and TVs and...sudoku?  Dragonboat racing?  What do you do?  How do you not like books?!

Let's make that a very brief book response because I am tired and because I don't have too much to say. 

I picked up the novel Kalila by Rosemary Nixon from the library's "New Books" shelf early last month because it fit two criteria:  it had a pretty cover, and it was small enough for me to fit in my carry-on to Halifax.

Fortunately it turned out that it was also pretty good, at least in some respects.  Kalila tells the story of Maggie and Brodie, a married couple whose newborn daughter is very sick in the NICU.  Very depressing subject, agreed, but after reading the first few chapters I was like "Yay!  This is awesome!  Best writing ever!" because I was so enamoured with how the author uses metaphor.  I rather like when metaphors and descriptive prose pack as clear and powerful an image as possible into as few words as possible, and Nixon really excels at this.  Phrases like "snow crying to the ground", for me, really work and paint a strong image while also creating atmosphere.  I strive for similar metaphor in my own writing and I have to say that I think that reading Kalila reminded me of the beauty of that kind of metaphor, and influenced me to be more open-minded and creative with description in my most recent piece.

But here's the problem: beautiful, succinct description loses its effectiveness when it is heaped on by the bucket load with no plot or character development to drive the story and keep the reader interested.  The story was so painful and heavy and it almost seemed like the author was trying to see how many different ways the pain and heaviness could be expressed.  Lots of ways, it turns out, and many of them beautiful, but nothing really happened to move the story forward until about page 120 and even after that, plot and character development took a back seat to descriptive prose which started to become too too much.  I just think I would have cared a lot more about what the characters were going through if I knew more about them and their relationship. 

I came across this review of the book which is pretty spot on with how I felt too.  If you're someone who loves language and metaphor and inventive turns of phrase, especially if you're a writer too, I would recommend this book.  There's definitely a lot of good stuff in there.  But if you are someone who likes a lot of action, or doesn't want to read about dying babies before going to bed, you might want to steer clear.

There.  How's that for brief?

Okay, I'm going to keep this one short and sweet.  No, really.  I've already said quite a bit about the first two books in the Hunger Games trilogy and the third, Mockingjay, continues in the same vein. 

I enjoyed the story and felt that the third book lived up to the other two in terms of both the plot and the quality of the writing.  Action-packed but with poignant moments, excellent character development, intriguing plot twists, engaging writing all around.

There is an event that happens right at the end of chapter 24, not long before the end of the book (and if you have read it you know exactly what I'm talking about), that actually took my breath away.  I had to stop for a few moments because I could not believe what had just happened.  It was one of those situations where you're reading and you realize what is going to happen about two sentences before it does, and there's that feeling of dread, and then it happens (more discerning readers may have realized it was coming long before I did, but I for one was shocked).  I didn't want to turn the page because I didn't want it to be true.  I can't remember the last time that has happened to me when reading a novel, so huge props to the author on that one.

Really not much to complain about.  Except!  Except...the characters make a decision not long after that incident, and I could not believe that Katniss would make the decision she does.  Could not believe it.  It seemed completely out of character, despite the incident that influences her decision.  It was the only time I didn't like the character, and I don't think that's a great way to end the book.

Speaking of the ending...I won't spoil anything here; I'll just say that I was satisfied with it.  I think that it could have been elaborated upon, but it was satisfactory.

All in all, I definitely recommend the series.  And now, onwards, to Lamb by Christopher Moore, recommended by Colleen.  Oh, and perhaps I should actually write something for that contest I'm apparently entering in November.  Eek.

Okay.  Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay and The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto.  I need to get these books out of my life, and the guilt due to not writing about them yet off my conscience, so I can dive into the third Hunger Games book, Mockingjay, which finally came in for me at the library!  Just in time for the weekend.  The kids will find food somehow.  I'm sure there are at least 16 cheerios hidden in every room.  SO, two quick and dirty book responses.

Ysabel was recommended to me by my friend Jen.  The book's central character is a 15 year old Canadian boy named Ned, who is travelling in Provence with his famous photographer father and his father's three assistants.  One afternoon Ned wanders into a cathedral where he meets an American exchange student, Kate.  They in turn surprise an intruder who they realize is not of this world somehow.  This encounter draws them into (I'll let the book jacket do the work here) "a haunted tale, as mythic figures from conflicts long ago erupt into the present, changing and claiming lives."

It was an interesting and well-told story but I had a few problems with it.  At first, I had trouble getting a handle on the character of Ned, as he went from being rather sullen and sulky to totally keen on history which seemed a bit far-fetched to me.  But I suppose all teens are sullen and sulky by default, history nerd or no history nerd.  And I've never really understood teenage boys anyway.  Or boys of any age. 

The whole mythical aspect of the story drove me crazy, truth be told.  I think this may be because I don't have a base of knowledge about mythology, or Roman and Celtic history, or druids, so I felt a bit lost.  Now some of that history was explained, by way of the characters doing their own research to figure out what was going on, but I still felt like I was out of my depth.  The bigger problem I had was not understanding what the h-e-lindsay-lohan was going on with the trio of mythical figures.  And it wasn't for me about trying to figure out what their story was; it was about trying to figure out what they were in the first place.  I couldn't care about their story, their plight and this saga that they'd been playing out for centuries, because I had no understanding of who they themselves were.  And I never did as it was never made clear. 

At the end of Part One there is the book's major event, when Ned and Kate witness a ritual which includes these three figures, during the course of which (spoiler alert) one of the photographer's assistants is drawn into their world.  If this hadn't been one of the books recommended to me, and therefore something I was (self-)assigned to read, I would have stopped right there.  It was much too ridiculous.  But I soldiered on, and I'm glad that I did.  Despite my major confusion, and apathy, towards the mythical figures, the other characters were very well-written and intriguing, and the central story of them trying to rescue their friend was compelling. The relationships between the human characters were realistic and well-developed.  I would definitely read another of Guy Gavriel Kay's book, though I might have to keep wikipedia open as I do.

What I learned about writing from this book:  do not assume your readers know stuff.  Perhaps most people who read science fiction would have understood it, but it would behoove authors writing fiction to make sure their book can be enjoyed by anyone.  Another thing I learned:  I do not trust characters, or people, who excessively refer to someone else by their name in a conversation, as Ned's aunt does.  As in "Ned, blah blah blah.  Do you think so, Ned?  Oh really Ned.  Ned, I think..."  I don't know why I don't trust people like that, but I don't.  So all through the book I was thinking that the aunt was going to be a baddie.   And then she wasn't.  Not the author's fault that I have this assumption, but as a writer it would behoove me (this post is officially double-behooved) to learn about how different ways of speaking (word choice etc.) are perceived.

Moving on!

I picked up The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto because I'm a sucker for a cool name.  For example, my favourite English Premier League football player is Yakubu.  Just the best name ever.  I don't know anything about him other than his name, and I don't even know or care what team he plays for.  Still my favourite (second place goes to Lua Lua).  So how could I not read a book by someone named Banana?  Also, I had heard her name before and read on the book that she had written bestsellers, and I had nothing else to read, so I picked it up.

The Lake is about a young woman in Tokyo, a graphic artist who is grieving the death of her mother.  She begins a tentative romance with a man with a mysterious past, which is connected to two old friends of his who live beside a lake.  

At first I was like, I love this!  Her writing style is simple but compelling.  But then there was paragraph after paragraph of the central character trying to figure out her feelings for this young man and I just couldn't connect.  I wanted to but I couldn't.  I think my problem was that I didn't have a good feel for who she was, so I didn't really care all that much about what she was feeling.  I'm a heartless bitch, it seems (feel free to comment below).  There were definitely moments that were compelling, and particular pieces of prose that were lovely, but I wasn't as interested as I wanted to be.  Because the story could have been very interesting, I think, if there had been some dramatic tension.  I just didn't understand what was at stake for the characters.  So there's something I have learned...let there be stakes!

This is all very critical.  I'm not doing enough to say what I did like, and flipping back through the pages there really is some nice writing.  So again, I would read another one of this author's works.  I'd like to give her another chance.  Maybe I've just been in a bad mood and these poor authors are bearing the brunt of it. 

And who am I to criticize?  What have I written lately?  Not much of anything, however one thing I did gain from reading The Lake was an idea for the piece I am bullying myself into writing for this contest, in what very well may go down in history as the worst decision ever.  Totally different story, but it will also involve a lake.  The writing is coming to me in fits and starts, ideas popping up here and there as I'm doing the dishes or driving my car (while remaining fully attentive at all times), but I need to actually get pen to paper or fingers to keyboard soon because that deadline is quickly approaching.  And me-the-hardass-editor is being awfully strict about this with me-the-poor-newbie-writer.  But it's impossible!  Get to work!  Dramatic tension abounds.

But right now me, myself, and I need to get to bed.  Two book responses complete!  Huzzah!

The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss is admittedly an unusual choice for a stay-at-home mom.  I'm pretty sure that the only way I could reduce my workload to four hours a week would involve a litter box and troughs of some sort, and subsequent prison time.  I read this book because my husband was all fired up about it, and I try my best to feign interest in...ahem, I mean show genuine fascination with...the things he cares about (sidenote: Go Liverpool!).  

The book presents a method and way of thinking toward becoming one of the "New Rich", "those who abandon the deferred-life plan and create luxury lifestyles in the present using the currency of the New Rich: time and mobility."  By "deferred-life" Ferriss is referring to the concept of working and saving for retirement, and putting off your dreams until that time.  He offers instead an approach he calls Lifestyle Design, the aim of which is to create automatic income and flexible, mobile employment to allow for frequent "mini-retirements."  Sounds good to me.

Ferriss' ideas seem very pie in the sky at first, but he takes the reader through a surprisingly practical and realistic-sounding step-by-step process to (a) figure out what you actually want and (b) immediately put a plan into action towards achieving your goals within an accelerated time frame.  Now I have not, as of yet, followed the process myself, although some ideas are bumping around in my brain, but there are a few concepts that I found interesting.  I was surprised too at how many of his ideas I could apply to my own work as a stay-at-home mom.  

Most applicable to my life were Ferris' recommendations towards his first "ingredient" to Lifestyle Design, Elimination, which involves "cultivating selective ignorance, developing a low-information diet, and otherwise ignoring the unimportant" with the goal being to increase your per-hour results and gain time rather than manage it.  He talks about preventing work for work's sake, and the "minimum effective load", doing the minimum necessary for the maximum effect.  He refers to something called "Pareto's Law" or the "80/20 Principle."  Pareto's Law is summarized as "80% of the outputs result from 20% of the inputs", which Ferriss reframes as two questions: 

1) Which 20% of sources are causing 80% of my problems and unhappiness?

2) Which 20% of sources are resulting in 80% of my desired outcomes and happiness?

Essentially this about shortening your work time by limiting your tasks to only the most important.  Ferriss reviews how he used these questions to analyze his work life, and I'm finding it interesting to do the same, despite my "work life" being a fair bit different than the 9-to-5 office job which is his frame of reference.  No major revelations as of yet but I find I'm paying closer attention to what tasks, people, things, situations, environments etc. make me the happiest and which cause me the most problems and I'm starting to think about how I can focus my time and energy on the happy-making things, and decrease the time and energy I spend on the soul-sucking things.  Fairly straight-forward, but more analysis is certainly required.

He couples the 80/20 approach with Parkinson's Law, which dictates that "a task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for it's completion.  It is the magic of the imminent deadline."  So the challenge is to both limit tasks to the important to shorten work time, and shorten work time to limit tasks to the important.  Ferriss suggests identifying "the few critical tasks that contribute most to income and schedule them with very short and clear deadlines."

I think that this is a way of thinking I could use in how I approach getting things done around the house.  Not terribly exciting, not income-based as such (although if I can free up some time I could perhaps put it to use to some sort of income-producing end) but I find I'm starting to look at how I use my time and what will get me the most bang for my buck, in terms of either freeing up time or making me happier.  For the most part, this involves using my time to better organize my home and get rid of stuff we don't need, all towards the goal of making our days run more efficiently.  Less time looking for things, more time putting together systems that will make things easier to find, for example.  

Ferriss also makes a number of recommendations towards "cultivating selective ignorance", that is, learning to "ignore or redirect all information and interruptions that are irrelevant, unimportant, or unactionable.  Most are all three."  To this end he suggests developing a "low information diet" by cutting way down on all media and email that is not "immediate and important".  In terms of application to my life, I find that at home, despite how busy I am with the girls, it is too easy to spend time unnecessarily surfing around online to no productive end.  I catch myself doing it now, and give some thought to what purpose it is serving.  Which isn't to say that something can't be done unless it is productive - it can certainly be relaxing and entertaining to surf websites or flip through a magazine and that's fine - but I think I just need to be more conscious about it.

One of his suggestions I really like is to "practice the art of non-finishing".  He points out that "starting something doesn't automatically justify finishing it."  I'm definitely guilty of sticking with something that is completely unproductive and/or boring simply because I have some sense of commitment to it.  Even if it's a bad movie, I feel like I need to actually watch to the end.  Of course I don't.  My time is precious. 

If nothing else, this book has helped me get back in touch with that fact, that my time is worth something, and I find I am now turning a critical eye to everything vying for that time.  I don't work for money but I suppose the income I seek is time with my family and our happiness.  If a certain task won't give me one of the two, in the short or long term, then I don't need it.  And I ask myself a lot, "Is this worth the time I'm giving it?"  For example, I was hemming and hawing all summer about whether or not I should hold a yard sale, and I decided in the end that the money I might gain from it was not worth the time and energy I would have to put into organizing it.  Likewise, I usually trot myself all around town comparing prices on items to get the best bargain, and I'm starting to realize that the time I'm spending doing so is often worth more than the money I'm saving (not to mention that I'm using up gas travelling here and there, which might actually negate any savings).  These are not earth-shattering ideas by any means but I have found it empowering to recognize value, and even monetary value, in my own time and energy.

Ferriss goes on to talk in depth about how to create a business which generates automatic income with very little work, and how to up your productivity so you can work less and liberate yourself from the office so you can be mobile and pursue your own dreams.  As I said, I can't speak to the method's success myself, but Ferriss provides success stories from many varied people, and references his own work and lifestyle, running a multinational firm working only 4 hours a week, including checking email only once per week, which has allowed him to pursue such things as training to compete in the Tango World Championship, scuba diving in Panama, and motorcycle racing.  It is all rather inspiring and I can see why the book has become a bestseller.

From the point of view of content, I wish that he had written a little more about the experience of couples and families who have used his method.  I certainly don't fault him for writing it from his point of view, that being a single young man working in a fairly technology-driven job, because that's the perspective he's coming from, but I think it would be interesting to look at how things are complicated by attempting to follow the method when two or more people (with two or more sets of goals and ways of doing things and personalities) are at play, and also how such a method could be adapted for those who may not be able to make their job mobile (i.e. direct in-person customer/client care type work...nursing comes to mind).  There are some anecdotes from couples and families included, but I think that he could broaden his readership even more by taking that next step.

Although The 4-Hour Work Week is a very different kind of book than I have in mind to write, I can take away from it some ideas for successful writing all the same.  I like that Ferriss is unapologetically himself.  There's a definite feel that he has written exactly the way he speaks, and is not attempting to intellectualize anything, and I appreciated that as a reader and would like to be able to speak with the same directness and honesty both in my writing and in real life, frankly.  I think in a "how-to" advice-type book, as this is, it is important that the reader feel that the writer isn't trying to scam them, and is coming from a genuine place that is not far different from their own, and I think that his writing is so infused with his own personality and sense of humour that he puts the reader at ease.  He is, mind you, a tad glib at times but he is also very upfront about his own failures and that can't fail (ha ha) to win people over.  His writing is also to the point and clear; in fact, it seems he has really just taken his own advice, and cut out anything that is not immediate and important.  I like that.  I have things to do.

All in all, a good read and I would definitely recommend it.  Incidentally, he has also written a book called The 4-Hour Body; my husband has been following the diet and workout plan therein to great success, looking and feeling better than he has in ages.  If Ferriss could now just write The 4-Hour House we'd be all set.

Oh, and another thing I learned from this book: "workweek" is an actual compound word.  Who knew?

I finished Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins two weeks ago so I figure I'd best get this book response done while I still sort of remember what it was about.  I should also get the book back to the library because I know there's a reserve list as long as my arm of people waiting to read it.  And I don't blame them.

Catching Fire is the second in Collins' Hunger Games trilogy.  I read the first (The Hunger Games) in the spring and really got into it.  If you're not familiar with it, here's the blurb about the first book from the publisher's website:

Twenty-four are forced to enter. Only the winner survives.

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. Each year, the districts are forced by the Capitol to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the Hunger Games, a brutal and terrifying fight to the death – televised for all of Panem to see.

Survival is second nature for sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who struggles to feed her mother and younger sister by secretly hunting and gathering beyond the fences of District 12. When Katniss steps in to take the place of her sister in the Hunger Games, she knows it may be her death sentence. If she is to survive, she must weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

So it's teen science fiction.  Not generally my thing.  But it's the kind of science fiction I can enjoy because it involves human characters with human abilities and flaws, who happen to live in a different world, although Lisa Bonet rarely makes a cameo (see here, if you did not watch TV in the late '80s). 

I'm not so into alieny, robot-esque, unicornish, superhero-packed science fiction.  I think it's just too far removed from my own life, which is sadly lacking in unicorns these days.  My six year old self would be devastated. 

Which isn't to say that I have to participate in a "terrifying fight to the death" on a regular basis, although trying to get my kids dressed and out the door sometimes feels that way.  But the main character, Katniss, is very relatable and the story, while based in a world very different than my own, still focuses on the kind of inter- and intra-personal (look at me being fancy) interactions which are universal.  In any case, although it's a very different story, it kind of falls in the same category for me as Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, in a "this could possibly happen" kind of way.  Any scifi fans reading this blog post are likely going crazy by my inability to discuss the genre in any intelligent way.  You can feel free to help me by commenting below.

As for the "teen" part, well, a good story is a good story.  The trilogy centers on teenaged characters, which is I suppose why it is categorized as teen fiction, but I didn't feel in any way that the story and the relationships explored in either book depicted a strictly teenage culture or sensibility, or were otherwise only applicable to a teenage audience (I haven't read the third book yet but I imagine that this remains true).  The Hunger Games trilogy is certainly in good company with other child and teen fiction that crosses over well to an adult audience.  There's that book about the boy wizard, Henry something.  Moderately popular.  And Dusk or whatever?  I'm wondering if, from a publisher's point of view and particularly after the recent success of teen novel series, a work labelled "teen fiction" might be able to reach a wider audience than a strictly "adult fiction" novel, as readers might be more likely "read down" as it were rather than "reading up" (i.e. more adults may read The Hunger Games than teens may read The Help). 

I don't know.  But I'd like to know.  I have had in mind, for awhile now, a story that I would like to write that I had been thinking of as adult fiction, but the central character is a teen and the plot would not (I don't think) involve any topics that are overly adult in nature, so perhaps it's actually teen fic.  Or perhaps once I actually write the damn thing, I'll have a better idea.  But a little research into how publishers categorize works of fiction might be useful.  It might be a good idea to have a target audience in mind before I write. 

Anyways.  Catching Fire.  I'm not going to say much about the plot as I do not want to give anything away, because I do insist you read these books.  But I will say that after reading the first of the series, I was worried that the second wouldn't live up to it.  The first book left me wanting to read more, but only really because the central character Katniss was so interesting; the main event (the actual Hunger Games event) was over and there didn't seem to be any particularly riveting turn of plot to come in the follow up.  So I was pleasantly surprised by the second book. 

With both books, I think the author excels at keeping pace and writing "economically": avoiding over-description and trimming the action down to the essentials, without sacrificing plot or character development.  She makes it seem easy, but I'm not sure it is.  I might have to re-read the books at some point to more carefully dissect what she has done.  I think that it has to do with keeping things clean and defined. 

Very quickly in the beginning of the first book, she set up a world that has a clear way of operating, and a strong sense of atmosphere, as well as establishing fully fleshed-out characters, while leaving room for discovery and expansion of the reader's understanding of what this place and these people are about.  The chapters are short and the action moves quickly, with plot development following a fairly classic structure of slowly building to the climax with rising action and crises or secondary obstacles, however you want to put it, along the way.  I would describe it as a quietly intense-quietly intense-WHOA I DID NOT EXPECT THAT-quietly intense-quietly intense-MAN THAT'S EVEN CRAZIER-etc. kind of structure, but I ain't no English professor. 

But I think you can have the most interesting story concept in the world and follow all the best practices for constructing an exciting plot, and your novel will fall flat on its ass if the reader does not care about the main protagonist.  In reading The Hunger Games, I found I was immediately hooked on the central character Katniss Everdeen.  She's self-sufficient and resourceful, a provider for her family who does not shy from taking risks and getting the tough work done.  She is disinterested in image and frivolity, placing greater value on family and friendships, responsibility beyond herself and using her intelligence.  She is a strong woman.  And yet we also learn that she doesn't always feel very confident in her abilities, she's confused about boys (who isn't), and she's sometimes concerned about what others think of her.  For all her resilience and maturity, she is still human and still a teenager.  The character of Katniss is a pretty good encapsulation of the kind of young woman I hope my own daughters grow into and, frankly, the kind of woman I'd like to grow into. 

I have found it interesting too, in reading the two books, to see how the character develops.  She becomes more confident, more brazen, and at the same time more willing to trust and let her guard down with those she loves.  Katniss matures but her inherent personality and values remain constant, and Collins is consistent in her writing of the character.  I feel like Collins really knows the character she has created inside and out and could put her into any situation and have an immediate sense of how she would deal with it.  More importantly, as a reader, I feel like I have that same sense about Katniss, as Collins has so vividly painted the picture of who Katniss is.  That's no small potatoes.  I will be striving to do the same in my own work.

I think I'll leave it there with Catching Fire.  A fine read and I can't wait to get my hands on the last book of the trilogy, Mockingjay. 

Ooh!  I just checked my library account and there are only 7 people ahead of me on the reserve list for it!  Last I looked, I think I was 26th in line.  I suspect that everyone is reading it mighty quickly.  Yay!

So that's one more book response done.  I finished The 4-Hour Work Week a few days ago so I'll try to get that one written up this week too.  And blog posts about other things some time, how about?  Assignments!  With a girls' night tomorrow and hot yoga on Thursday (look at me having a life), I'm not sure when this will happen but I'll see what I can do.  If I can convince my 13-month-old to nap for more than half an hour a day, it might be possible.  Seriously, what is this kid's problem? 

Okay.  Ice cream.  TV.  Reading.  Bed.  Sleep.  New day. 

(Or how about Vincent Van Gogh-ful, if you prefer that pronunciation.) 

I finished reading a whole book!  One for grown-ups, devoid of small woodland creatures!  At one time, this would have been something I accomplished at least every two days or so.  But nowadays, with my own small creatures unceasingly demanding things like food and attention, I don't get much time to read.  I'm lucky if I manage a few paragraphs before succumbing to my bed's loving memory foam embrace. 

Unfortunately I have spent those few precious minutes recently on a book that turned out to be sub-par.  While I have tasked myself with writing a book response here for every book I read, I'll keep this short, because I'm not sure how interesting or useful a negative book review is to anyone.  I'm also not that comfortable being so critical, particularly publicly, and especially of a first-time novelist.  I'm hoping to be one of those one day.  And I'd like people to be kind to me.  I suppose though that I would also want the constructive criticism too, and I hope that is what this will be.  I'll try my best. 

I just finished "Sunflowers" by Sheramy Bundrick, a "historical fiction" novel about the final years of Vincent Van Gogh's life.  I generally like historical fiction.  It's my favourite of the fictions.  I feel like I'm learning a little about actual important stuff whilst enjoying the escapism of a novel.  But I like my historical fiction to be heavily grounded in history.  I don't care if it's also a hell of a lot of fiction, provided there are actual historic facts underpinning the story.  Sunflowers, however, appears to be based on the skimpiest of sources. 

The story is of Van Gogh's love affair with a young prostitute named Rachel.  In the "Author's Note" at the end of the novel, said author's first sentence reads, "Surviving historical sources reveal next to nothing of the real Rachel."  Indeed.  According to the author, an article mentions that Vincent gave the fragment of his ear to a prostitute named Rachel, but there are other sources that contradict this claim.  The author doesn't offer any evidence at all that Vincent had a love affair, let alone any relationship, with any prostitute. 

So fine.  Fine.  This doesn't preclude writing a good story.  But, two points.  One:  it should not be labelled "Historical Fiction".  Perhaps "Hearsay Fiction".  And two, the real problem is the story itself.   

First of all, I couldn't tell you what Rachel looks like.  No clue.  I imagine that there was a description at the beginning of the book, but I may have missed it.  To be fair, I was not at my most alert when reading.  However, I think that it is important that key details like a character's appearance (which is very important as an aid to the reader's imagination) be repeated often.  Intelligently, subtly, but often.  I think it has been said that in writing for children, it is important to repeat key information three times, for children to be able to recall it.  I think that goes with all writing full stop.  At least three times, because description is key. 

Now, this novel is written as a first-person narrative, from Rachel's point of view, which makes things a little trickier.  "He brushed his hand through my wavy brown hair" is not a particularly elegant example of exposition.  But there's got to be a way to do it.  I did not really care about Rachel and I can't help but think that is in part because I just couldn't picture her. 

Another reason is that I felt like I just didn't know much about her.  There are a few very brief paragraphs in the first chapter about her childhood, a thumbnail sketch if you will (to use some art terminology), and some anecdotes later on which are touching, but not enough to really make me connect with her or care about her.  And I'm pretty sure that the first lesson in Fiction Writing 101 would be to write characters your readers care about.  Without that, why bother?

And why did I bother?  I really wasn't into this book, but I had already abandoned another book mid-way.  I had been reading Mistress of the Sun by Sandra Gulland, because I really liked her Josephine B. trilogy, but I found that with only reading a few paragraphs a night, I couldn't keep up with the number of characters and what was happening.  I'm sure it is not terribly complex but in my exhausted state I just couldn't follow it.  The only other book on my night stand was Sunflowers, and with only a handful of characters, it was much easier to follow.  So there's a plus.

Also, I really wanted to like it.  I really really did.  But gah.  It didn't really get going until page 123, when Vincent cuts off his ear.  Before that, it was just all happiness and sunshine, a pleasant but not particularly riveting account of the beginnings of their love affair.  The big problem here is that there was no conflict.  I'm pretty sure that's the second lesson in Fiction Writing 101.  The characters weren't in conflict with each other, or with themselves, and no one was too bothered about them, despite the fact that there was huge potential for conflict in the fact that she was a prostitute.  There was sort of a conflict with Gauguin coming to live with Van Gogh for a time, but it was hardly page-turning stuff.  I certainly understand the "calm before the storm" approach to a story, but 123 pages is a heck of a lot of calm. 

To the author's credit, it picked up from then.  How could it not?  He had just cut off his ear for goodness sake.  The decline of his mental health was revealed nicely and at a good pace, and the addition of a conflict of interest for Rachel made the story, and the character of Rachel, interesting.  But it seemed that every few pages there was something that made me mad, like this exchange between Vincent and Rachel:

"Oh, when was your birthday?"

"A few days ago, March thirtieth."

At this point they had been in a relationship for I think over two years.  I get that birthdays may not have been the big deal in 19th Century France that they are in 21st Century North America, but I cannot believe that she didn't know his birthday. Especially because,

Vincent told me things about his past that I never knew - things I will never repeat to a living soul - and I told him secrets from deep inside my heart.

What secrets?  I may have said this out loud.  I may have shouted this out loud.  Because it made me rather irate.  Because this is the equivalent of what Chekhov said about playwriting:

One should not put a loaded rifle onto the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.  If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one, it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there.

Likewise, don't say that there are secrets if you don't plan on revealing them.  I understand that the author was trying to express the depth of the characters' love for each other and their connection, but I feel that this reveal was a misstep.  Because it sets up a Catch-22 of sorts:  either there are secrets you know about these real-life people, in which case why wouldn't you write about them because there's your character development, there's your drama?  Or, and this is really what's happening here, there are no secrets of course because these are fictional characters and if there were secrets they would be the story.  And now I'm pulled out of the story because this one simple sentence has effectively read as "HEY REMEMBER THAT THIS IS A STORY AND I CAN MAKE UP ANYTHING I WANT ABOUT THESE CHARACTERS BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT BASED ON HISTORICAL FACT." 

Gah.  I'm not being nearly as constructive as I want to be. 

But do you get what I'm saying here?  If someone told you they had secrets and then refused to tell you what they were, forever, would you not wonder why they had bothered telling you in the first place?  And would they not become the world's most annoying person? 

One more thing I disliked about this book.  Lazy exposition.  I understand the need to get important information in there somehow, and I know that exposition can be tricky, particularly when coming from the mouth of one of the characters.  I think that exposition through dialogue is a particularly risky, and rarely successful, choice, and one that needn't be made when there is room in the descriptive prose of the novel to explain what is necessary, without having something happen like this, when a Reverend who is travelling with Rachel to visit Vincent in the hospital decides to tell her the history of the hospital, out of the blue:

"It used to be a monastery before the Revolution, called Saint-Paul-de-Mausole because of a Roman ruin that stands nearby.  It became an asylum early this century, and today Dr. Theophile Peyron is the director..."

And on.  Okay, this is not terrible, but it is grating when it happens throughout the book.  I just think it could have been done more subtly.

What did I like about the book, you ask?  Yes, I feel I should try to balance this out somewhat.  Well listen, I read the whole thing.  There had to have been something that kept me interested.  I felt that the relationship between Vincent and Rachel felt genuine and I appreciated that it developed slowly and, despite the need for conflict, I liked that it wasn't overly melodramatic.  No, "I love him desperately...and now I'm in the depths of despair because he looked at me in an odd way...and now we are tearing each other's clothes off."  I like that they just had a connection, and I believed that connection.  And I don't think that's a small thing.

I think that the characters were consistent in their character.  What I mean is, Vincent had a particular manner of speaking, a particular manner of approaching things, and Rachel did as well and the author stayed true to the characters.  This indicates to me that the author had a very good understanding of who she thought her characters were, even if I didn't always grasp what they were all about from the writing. 

Without revealing much (in case, on some off chance, you want to read this book after my review), I like the choices that the author made for Rachel's future at the end of the book.  Again, it seemed consistent with who she was, and it was in keeping with what I wanted for the character, which is important too.  And the fact that I wanted something for her means that I did become invested to some level.  So there must have been more positive things at work in the writing than I was aware of.  From a writer's point of view, it would be nice if I could identify what those things were, but as a reader, I'm happy that whatever it was that worked on me, that led me to like and connect to the character, was subtle.  

Overall, in the grand scheme of things and despite my somewhat scathing remarks, as a first novel goes I don't presume that I would be able to do much better and I think that it was a great idea which maybe just needed a few more revisions to become a great book. 

Man, I hope that the author doesn't read this.  But if you do, I hereby grant you the right to write whatever the heck you want about my first novel (although you don't need my permission).  You will find my first novel in a book store near you some time in the next 50 years.  So there you go...you have a novel and I don't, so what do I know?

What happened to this being short?