Summer Book Club
I have put together a list of ten books that I plan to read this summer. Five of the books are what I call classics, all of which I have never gotten around to reading, and the other five are beach books, less thought required, but still fun! I will alternate between the two groups of books, starting with Animal Farm. I hope you will read along with me.
Update: Not surprisingly, I have gone a bit astray on my summer reading plan. Going off track when it comes to reading is sometimes just the ticket, however, so I'm not the least bit upset. This summer has led me to a wide variety of reading material from scholarly to trashy and hilarious to throwbacks from my young adult age. I try to make it a point to stop reading any book that does not interest me, so I will only regale you with texts that I find at least half-way decent.
Summer Reads:
Gideon: abandoned; beautiful, but didn't hold my interest
Bless Your Heart, Tramp and Other Southern Endearments: in progress
My juvenile proclivity for teen angst television has finally paid off in the literary department. I was once a huge fan of One Tree Hill, however the show has lost its luster since Chad Michael Murray and especially Hilarie Burton, aka Lucas and Peyton, have left the show, so I have taken to following the moves of Ms. Burton in her other endeavors. I have already started watching White Collar (see the Watch/Listen section), because Hilarie is guest starring on it and I have also been following her production company Southern Gothic Productions on their blog. It is on the SoGo Pro blog, with one of Hilarie's vlogs (video blog; I love that), that I heard about the author Celia Rivenbark. After hearing Hilarie read aloud from one of Rivenbark's other books, You Can't Drink All Day if You Don't Start in the Morning, I was hooked thanks to Celia's hilarious words and Burton's charming southern twang. I am not quite half way through Bless Your Heart, but I'm loving this collection of silly anecdotes about marriage, child rearing, beauty, and home improvement. Here is a little tidbit: "Keep in mind this is the very same flu that I had a couple of weeks ago. Symptoms included nausea, fever, chills, and Linda Tripp hair. When it hit, I explained to our toddler that Mommy was under the weather and needed to take things easy, which she misunderstood to mean that she should paint the cat's ears with nail polish and eat an entire tube of ChapStick...This happened on three other occasions, leading me to believe that house painters are disproportionately singled out for alien abductions. There is simply no other logical explanation." I have already gone out and ordered Rivenbark's other books, because I am now fairly addicted to her light, but extremely witty and insightful writing.
This summer I have spent a lot of time in my childhood home going through many of my old things, because my parents are moving to Turkey for at least a year leaving me a 20-something orphan. I come from a very literarily inclined family, so my parents' house is filled to the brim with books of all kinds. A couple of days ago, I stumbled upon a box of my old young-adult novels and I became instantly hooked. As a young girl, I read typical girlie books: stories about friendships, adorable orphans, and tame little ghosts. I had a great discussion with another English teacher about a seminar she went to that stressed the significance of the young-adult novel in the high school classroom and I agree that Y.A. novels are a lot more complex and relevant than most people think. However, during my summer plunge into the readings of my youth I have decided to take a break from delving into deeper meanings and just enjoy them. Here is a list of some of my favorite titles:
The Dollhouse Murders
The Nancy Drew series (by Carolyn Keene)
Mandy (by the lovely Julie Andrews)
Just as Long as We're Together
Leave it to Lexie
Happy Birthday Lexie
Homecoming
Dicey's Song
Number the Stars
The Anastasia series (by Lois Lowery)
A Summer to Die
The Veronica series (by Nancy K. Robinson)
The Babysitters Club series by Ann M. Martin
The Sweet Valley High series by Francine Pascal
Are You There God it's me Margaret
Overall, I enjoyed this book. Elizabeth Gilbert used a witty, sometimes self-deprecating, and introspective voice that kept me reading even though there is not much of a story line. I understand that Eat Pray Love is more of memoir than a novel, but at times in the narrative, I felt it needed some more plot. I found the middle section of the book, "Pray", the most difficult to get through, because it lacked the mouth watering food descriptions of "Eat" and the anecdotal stories and characters of "Love". I won't be so bold as to say that I don't believe in the kind of spiritual transcendence that Gilbert describes in "Pray", but I was not able to relate very well to the experiences described in this section. I liked Eat Pray Love, but not the kind of like that makes me want to go out and read all of the author's books, including her latest effort, Committed, about her life with her new husband who was introduced in Eat Pray Love. On the other hand, I am very much looking forward to seeing the film version of Eat Pray Love, but I'm a sucker for Julia Roberts and I am interested to see how such a talky and introspective book will be turned into a film with a necessary plot line.
I have just started reading Animal Farm and I already understand why it's a much loved classic and a staple of English classrooms around the world. George Orwell had very strong beliefs and his novel certainly has a social message, however this message is given subtly to the reader. Most people, especially young people, are familiar with fables or fairy tale stories with morals, so Animal Farm is approachable because it comes in a form that many are aware of. Orwell draws his audience in by presenting a pretty simple scenario: oppressed peoples, in this case a group of farm animals, plan and execute a plot to overthrow their leaders. With a little research and reading between the lines, a reader can understand Orwell's message that any society, no matter how it is governed, has its problems, because people or animals are extremely complex. Orwell was a vocal anti-capitalist, however he was also disillusioned by and critical of communism as well. Both of his most famous novels, Animal Farm and 1984, are criticisms of totalitarian communism. The idea of totalitarian communism sounds complicated, but the beauty of Animal Farm is that this term is never used. What Orwell presents in the novel is a situation that a lot of people can relate to: the rule of one or a few disguised as the unity and equality. Anyone who has been on a team and heard "there's no I in team", while all the time knowing that it's the hotshot player/captain who is calling all the shots knows what Orwell is writing about. Orwell also asks his readers to consider some pretty tough questions, but again in a digestible form- can there be equality without chaos? Some of you might be wondering if I'm still talking about a book about animals, I am. Haven't you ever wondered what animals are thinking and feeling? Orwell's novel has definitely got me thinking and I'm not even half way through it yet. I do know that any novel that can get people thinking and questioning the world around them without falling into analytical abyss is a good one.
This is a link to the full animated movie.
Update/Ending Reaction: I thoroughly enjoyed Animal Farm for a number of reasons. I read the novel in preparation for teaching it to my summer school students, so I first of all appreciate it because I know it's something I'll be able to sell to them. When I began teaching I didn't realize that I was actually going into retail, but that is exactly what it is like. Teaching a text to high school students is about making it look attractive, interesting, and relatable to their lives, so that they'll buy it. Animal Farm has a couple of important things going for it from the teenage perspective, for one, it is a very quick read. Second and I think more importantly, the story is simple and yet compelling. What teenager hasn't dreamed of overthrowing the oppressive reign of their parents or teachers? The animals in text do what many have dreamed, but with considerable consequences. Andre Gide said: "To know how to free oneself is nothing, the more arduous thing is to know what to do with that freedom" and Stephen R. Covey said: "While we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions." Both authors speak to the situation in Animal farm and bring me to the reason why I liked it from start to finish: it makes the reader think. I will also admit that I found the ending of this text extremely scary and upsetting, if you don't know what I'm talking about you'll have to read the 97 pages to find out! I am equally intrigued and disturbed by the notion that given the right circumstances, the oppressed can easily become the oppressor and even worse that subjugated people can be easily manipulated into aiding in their own persecution. I can say unequivocally that I am excited to teach this novel!
