Category: Book Review

Season To Taste by Molly Birnbaum

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)24 Comments

Molly Birnbaum had a mission.  She wanted to be a chef.  Che spent her days working in Boston alongside a well-known chef, and her nights reading cookbooks ans studying food in preparation for her entrance to the Culinary Institute of America.

While taking a quick morning jog, all her dreams came to an end when she was hit by a car.  The accident broke her pelvis,  fractured her skull, tore her knee up, and destroyed her sense of taste and smell.

Her bones would heal in time… but her sense of smell and taste?  That was another story.  How could Molly become the chef she wanted to be if she did not have her sense of taste and smell?  Molly quickly sank into a depression.

Then Molly made a choice not to sit back and let this destroy her.  By researching and working with experts, Season To Taste is a story of triumph and overcoming enormous obstacles.

I read and reviewed this book as part of Weekend Cooking, found at Beth Fish Reads.

 

 

 

Molly Birnbaun: Recipient of the Politzer Traveling Fellowship In Arts and Culture from Columbia's Graduation School of Journalism. Her work also appeared in the New York Times and Art News Magazine.

 

I read a couple of reviews on this book a while back and loved the sound of it.  Being a foodie, and finding myself more and more fascinated with non fiction… I was sold on knowing more. 

Molly tells an amazing story of a dream to be a chef and how in the blink of an eye, that dream was shattered.  Most of us would probably have given up there and moved on to something more doable, but not Molly.  Molly instead works hard to find out why she has lost her sense of smell and taste and that is really what makes this book a page turner.

As Molly describes food attached to memory, even my mouth watered at her descriptions of dark chocolate and bean scents wafting from coffee shops, sweet pastry’s and good seasoned spaghetti.  I could not imagine putting these items into my mouth and sensing nothing but texture…

The research of smell and taste also intrigued me.  On page 89 it was discussed how if we are eating something and we become sick our brain is programmed to remember that, making that taste and smell associate with the sickness.  I can personally account for that.  As a teen, I loved coconut… all things coconut.  Then one eventing I remember clearly that I was babysitting and eating coconut right out of the bag (like you buy for baking).  I had a flu bug that night and wound up throwing up … well… coconut.  To this day – I can’t eat anything with coconut in it.

Molly’s journey from the accident to her strong desire to cook and bake causing her to learn all she can about scent and taste was an amazing one.  Not only did I learn through this book much about how our senses work… but also about food, food that made me long to try some of Molly’s specialties this coming week.

Molly had a way about talking about food (as I think all good chefs do) that make you long for what they are describing…. I soon found myself making mental notes to pick up asparagus and fresh Parisian, longing for baked sweet potatoes, and lightly sautéed chicken breasts with mushrooms and wine.

Foodies beware… this book will make you hungry.  You want to know about Molly Birnbaum?  Check her out at her popular food blog:  My Madeleine.

 

I purchased this book from Amazon

Bookies thoughts on Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff (and a picture of our very own Cleopatra!)

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)31 Comments

  • Hardcover: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; 1 edition (November 1, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0316001929
  • ISBN-13: 978-0316001922

Though her life spanned fewer than forty years, it reshaped the contours of the ancient world. She was married twice, each time to a brother. She waged a brutal civil war against the first when both were teenagers. She poisoned the second. Ultimately she dispensed with an ambitious sister as well; assassination was a family specialty. Cleopatra appears to have had been with only two men. They happen, however, to have been Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, among the most prominent Romans of the day. Both were married to other women. Cleopatra had a child with Caesar and–after his murder–three more with his protégé. Already she was the wealthiest ruler in the Mediterranean; the relationship with Antony confirmed her status as the most influential woman of the age. The two would together attempt to forge a new empire, in an alliance that spelled their ends.

This was our book club read while I was in Honduras.  I had the best of intentions to read it before I left, but life happenings, a very sick dog, and hard decisions made that… ummm… not happen.  Upon my return from Honduras I connected with a couple of the girls in the group and they shared not only their thoughts… but also pictures!!!

We were all surprised by the role of women in Egypt during this time.  They had so many rights and were held in such high esteem.  They were able to own land and many riches and sometimes the husbands were the ones left at home weaving by the loom.  We wondered what created the shift in our culture to relegate women as so far beneath men that we had to struggle in the last century to get some of our rights back.  One of the questions in the discussion guide asked if women could ever go backward in rights again and all of us believed it would not happen to us again. 

While we still do not know a lot about Cleopatra even after reading the book, what we did learn was fascinating.  She was very rich and slightly manipulative.  She was charming and even (look at the pictures in the book) kind of ugly. 

The Bookies advice to me.. dont bother reading it.   Most of the girls did not finish it, finding it hard to get into.  However I was also told it is not as long as it looks.. the last 60 pages are pictures. 

Overall with 8 Bookies in attendance, the book rating was way below average.

The food however – was fun:

A sampling of appetizers!
Fig Newtons because Cleopatra called for sweet figs on the day she committed suicide and also Greek yogurt because that is just fun. 🙂

and finally – Amy was our very own Cleopatra:

Amy - really gets into the book club book

Which leads me to burst with pride for our AWESOME book club!  As I sit here and write this review I am prompted to jot down a few (ok maybe more than a few) reasons I enjoy the Bookies so much:

1.  We go the extra mile to make the reviews interesting

2.  Special event months like our Summer Queen event, Classic Hat and Read month, and Christmas party

3.  Digging deep for bonus info on books and authors

4.  We value each others opinions

5.  We agree to occasionally disagree 😛

6.  Food that is prompted by the books we read

7.  An amazing and passionate group of girls that have turned from a group of book lovers to friends

8.  Stretched to read books and genres I may not have chosen but found out I enjoyed

9.  It’s ok to not read the book.  😯

10.  10+ years of Bookies, started in August 2001 with 3 girls and now 10 years later we have 14. 

The Sinking Of The Eastland by Jay Bonansinga

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)36 Comments

It was a morning to remember.  On July 24th, 1915 in downtown Chicago, over 2,000 Western Electric Employees and their families, dressed in their best and went to board the Eastland for the annual company picnic.  The Eastland was a breathtaking steamship and many came to watch as the ship loaded the excited and happy employees and families.

Then… the unthinkable happened.

The Eastland (as you will find out within the book, was never a very stable feeling ship) rolled over in the Chicago river, trapping many of those on board within its body.  The woman, who were dressed in high boots, jewelery, large skirts, and over coats, became human anchors.  Men were said to have trampled children, and shoved aside women in the panic to escape. 

In the end, after three days of rescue attempts… 844 men, women, and children died.

 

The interior of the Eastland changed suddenly, as if by the dark magic of a fun house mirror.  Floors became walls, port holes became skylights, and the gigantic influx of water turned the mahogany trimmed rooms into sealed chambers worthy of Harry Houdini’s worst nightmares.

Page 72

The entire Sinclair family - all eight of them perished on the Eastland

 

 

So Sheila, why the morbid fascination with tragedy?

 

Well… I don’t really know – but morbid fascination seems harsh… I would say more an interest in history, and what seems to me to be important history.

I am always surprised when I find out about something like this and realize if not for certain circumstances, I may have never heard of the Eastland and its tragic demise. 

Readers of Book Journey may remember that in June of this year I went with three of my good friends to Chicago for a long girls exploratory weekend.  The plan was… there was no plan.  We would land where we landed, stay where we stay – but our destination was Chicago.

On our second day there we hopped on a double-decker tour bus and enjoyed the sights of Chicago…. at one point our tour guide stopped and showed up where this large steamliner, The Eastland, had overturned in 1915 killing 844 people. 

I was stunned.  As I looked at the spot being pointed to, I did not understand.  The ship was docked – not moving.  In still waters.  Near the bridge where many people were watching.  How did they all die?  Why were they not saved?  How does something like this happen? 

I had to know more.

Upon returning home to Brainerd I was sharing my trip experience with Lloyd Anderson.  He was familiar with the sinking of the Eastland and I mentioned to him I had to know more about this tragedy.  A couple of weeks ago, Lloyd came into my office with this book that he had checked out of the library for me.  Life had moved on for me and I had forgotten my desire to research this ship…. Lloyd had not.

The Sinking Of The Eastland traveled with me to Honduras and back.  (Yes, Brainerd Library, the book is fine).  I devoured the information inside.

Well written, and powerfully intense, I read about entire families being taken by this disaster, I learned of the divers who sent rescue teams at first into the chilly waters… that later became recovery teams instead.   I read of every day public hero’s who dove in time and again to save people (and succeeded!) and I read of scoundrels who picked the pockets of the 800+ bodies lined up on the streets waiting to be identified. 

For most of the book, I wept.

Jay Bonansinga writes a story that is at once heart wrenching and painful – he reveals mistakes that could have been avoided, and a captain that abandoned his ship.  And while all this may be perceived as a hard HARD read… it is an important one.  And you know what?  Life is hard.  All stories can not end sugary sweet and leaving you with a warm fuzzy feeling inside. 

I for one am glad I spent time this past week with The Eastlander and its occupants.  I now have a new mark on my heart… it is ship shaped.

 

Amazon Rating

Goodreads Review

The 2011 WHERE Are You Reading map has been updated to include The Sinking Of The Eastland

 

Thank you to Lloyd Anderson who borrowed this

from the Brainerd library on my behalf.

One Perfect Day by Lauraine Snelling

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)22 Comments

It is almost Christmas.  The snow is falling deeply and beautifully outside.  Families all over are making plans, buying gifts, decorating trees and homes that smell of gingerbread.  The anticipation clings in the air as it seems the world has taken a united breath and held it… wondering, excitedly, what is next.

Nora Peterson once again feels like she is standing on her last nerve.  She digs the Christmas decorations out of storage wondering when her husband will be home from his latest business trip to participate in what should be a family event.  It looks like once again it will be her and her  17 year old twin children, Christi and Charlie who understand the importance of this tradition.   After all, it is almost Christmas and soon both Christie and Charlie will be off making their own lives.

During this same time, a stranger to the Peterson’s, Jenna Montgomery is trying to stay upbeat  as she makes homemade waffles and plasters a smile on her face for her daughter Heather.  Heather is twenty years old and has suffered almost all her life from a heart defect.  She has been on the donor waiting list for what feels like forever, and time is running out.  As Jenna looks across the room at her daughter, she wonders if this will be their last Christmas together…

At Nora’s home…. A doorbell rings that will change the dynamics of her life forever.   At Jenna’s home, the long anticipated phone call comes…

Will one family’s tragedy become another families answer to prayer? 

In parallel, alternating chapters, One Perfect Day follows the lives of these two women as their story unfolds.  When tragedy strikes the Peterson’s home, the family is left to make a hard decision about organ donation.  The story centers much around this decision being made in the core of intense grief, a decision that can very well save others lives.

Nora’s story is one of battling grief and loss, as well as struggling with the depression that can follow such tragic events.  As she questions everything, her family and her best friend try hard to wrap her in love.  How does one go on after something like this happens?   How does one get up in the morning?  Breath?  Forgive?  Heal?

Jenna’s story follows the miracle side of her daughters new heart.  Sure there are opportunities for heart rejection, but now that this big weight is lifted off their lives and the impending thoughts of “their last Christmas together” seems to disappear and as each day shows improvement and healing… it makes room for something else in Jenna’s life.  Something there was no room for in the fear of losing her daughter….

There is hope. 

The two families never meet and I think that is a brilliant choice by author Lauraine Snelling.  It would have been easy to pull them together in the end and let them see what they have done for each other… both healing in their own sense of the word.  The fact that this is not the case, adds a sense of imbalance as you wonder whether their paths will cross and the result is a good read, without the all too neat ribbon and bow packaging in the end.

I have to admit, I do not read many Christmas related stories due to the overall neatness that seems to be within the pages of such reads.  The overall sugary perfect effect leaves me with nothing to ponder on.  This was not the case in One Perfect Day.  This book left me not only with thoughts on families coping with tragedies the best they know how, but also on the importance of organ donation.

This book is a recommended read this winter as you curl up in a comfy chair and a hot cup of cocoa.  A small, quick read that packs a lot of punch within its pages.

Enjoy!

Lauraine Snelling is a Christian Fiction author who with this book, I have now read for the first time.  She has a wonderful way with character development.  Her story weaves and twists between the two families as smoothly as though she were figure skating. 

 

Amazon Rating

Good Reads

The 2011 WHERE Are You Reading map has been updated to include One Perfect Day

I purchased this book at Book World in Brainerd

Sleepers Run by Henry Mosquera

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)4 Comments

Eric Caine, a War On Terrorism veteran, finds himself in a hospital with no recollection of the car crash that put him there.  A missing persons report has been filed on him and that was 8 days ago!

Eric is feeling lost, confused, and alone when a chance encounter at a bar helps Eric gain a little perspective.  He relocates to Venezuela where he had spent his childhood and then things take a turn again as a catastrophic event threatens the stability of the country.  Eric now finds himself running for his life from a team of CIA assassins as he works to uncover a conspiracy that is nothings as it seems. 

I am not much of a terrorist/war/CIA/assassin/politics type reader.  Admittedly this book wasa bit of a genre stretch for me, yet I wanted to read and review it anyway.

Why?

Genre stretching is a good thing and I have found that sometimes a book out of my genre zone will grab me and if not for my willingness to stretch myself, I may have missed it. 

Take Sleepers Run for instance.  I did enjoy the action packed read and if ACTION is what you enjoy, Sleepers Run has it in spades.  There really is no release button as you follow Eric’s story from the beginning to the breathless end 345 pages later. 

Eric himself is a bit over the top as characters go…. picture MacGyver, Superman, Jason Bourne, Jackie Chan, and maybe a little Indiana Jones… all rolled into one character.  Yup.  Eric has moves.   While at times I found this almost humorous as I thought, “how will he get out of this one….”, it still kept me turning pages to see where it was all going.

Friend and foe alike are tossed in throughout this read and I honestly never felt connected to any of them, Eric included.  The book to me became more about the action and page turning then getting to know and care about any of the characters…. in the end, as I reflected on the read… I was not even sure that this was necessarily important.  Perhaps a different take than my normal reading style but not a bad one… just different. 

Fans of espionage type reads will probably get into this more than I did, but for this being a stretch for me… I was held enough to read through the book and enjoy it. 

Amazon Rating

I received a copy of this book from

Meryl L. Moss Media Relations, Inc.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)61 Comments

Step right up and don’t push… you will all get a chance to enter.  The Night Circus is a mysterious Circus that opens only at night.  It comes with no warning, and leaves the same way… but if you are lucky enough to catch it you are in for the time of your life.  It is called Le Cirque des Rêves.

While attendees rave about the never-ending tents filled with amazing sights to see, what they do not see is the underlining workings of the circus.  Celia, who has been raised with the circus since a child is running the Night Circus as a competition that even she does not quite understand… her opponent… could be anyone, friend or foe… she is unsure…. all Celia does know is that she must continue to work bigger and better in this mysterious game as she will soon find out – the stakes are quite high.

(push play above for a little review theme music)

The Night Circus first came to my attention at BEA this past May during a dinner with bloggers and publishers.  The conversation at my end of the table was centered around a book, this book, that I had never heard of.   “…as big as Harry Potter,” fell on my ears and that was enough of a sell for me.  After all, have I not spent hours and hours of reading and looking for a book, a series, that has touched my life as much as Harry Potter and come up empty?

I searched the Book Expo the next day but the word was out… and all advanced copies of Night Circus were gone.  I left with a promise from the publisher that they would send me a copy and yes, a couple of weeks after the expo, a lovely black and white striped circus wrapped book arrived in my mailbox.  I did not remove the wrapping for the next several months… savoring the anticipation.

I started the book in print… while reading heard about Jim Dale narrating the audio version (Jim Dale also narrated the Harry Potter books) and purchased the audio version from audible.com to finish out the book.

First off know this… Celia is not the main character.  Nor are the twins that are talked about frequently throughout the story – Widget and Poppet.  No.  The main character is indeed the circus itself.  If ever life was breathed into a place, an object… this is it.  The circus lives and breathes just as much as I do as I write this review. 

The beauty of this book that I think could align it with the Potter books is the immense detail… carousels do not only go round and round… but beyond.  Tea pots come to a boil on cue and tea is poured free hand from them.  Celia wears a dress that changes color to compliment whatever the person she is talking to is wearing…a particular visual I loved were the trees that have poems running down the trunks.

At times story lines may appear unrelated…. but just wait as this is the real magic of the novel…. when it does come together there is a bit of magic to it all for the reader… I referred to it as a party for my mind. 

While the book at first may appear to be all cotton candy and caramel apples…. you will quickly discover it is indeed a tightrope walk of event after event… each carefully placed to make the circus function as it does and one misstep…

could bring it all down.

Did it touch me as much as the Harry Potter books?  No… but I have a lot of history with Harry.  I have heard the buzz that the Movie rights have been purchased and that does excite me as I believe this read would make a visual feast.  I will certainly be in line early to get my ticket. 

 

Leslie from Under My Apple Tree has two copies of this book to give away!

Amazon Rating

Good Reads Review

The 2011 WHERE Are You Reading Map has been updated to include Night Circus

I received my print copy from the publisher

I purchased my audio copy from audible

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (A Bookies Review)

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)33 Comments

Mr. and Mrs. Bennett have a houseful.  Five children, all girls… well, women really, living in a home in Georgia England during the Regency period. 

Of the five, Jane is the oldest and the beautiful one, Elizabeth is the fast tongued smart one, Mary is bookish, Kitty is immature and Lydia… oh Lydia is the wild one.

Mr. Bennett is a pretty well put together man especially considering how over the top his wife, Mrs. Bennett can be.  Set firmly on doing all she can to help her daughters marry and marry well, Mrs. Bennett will stop short of nothing… even to the length of sending Jane by horse to visit Mr. Darcy during a rain storm in hopes that she would become ill and have to stay at his home until she is better. 

Her plan… works to that extent… but not all is she had hoped.  😉

Elizabeth is the one who comes to Jane’s rescue, appalled at her own mothers behavior she nurses Jane back to health,avoiding as much as she can the man who annoys her so much, Mr. Darcy himself. 

What follows is a story that is described as a comedy of sorts, of sisters and men in their lives, and really… Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy.

Maybe... I should watch the movie...

This is my first time reading Pride and Prejudice.  My book club started a tradition many years ago that every October we would read a classic.  Back then, I was not thrilled by the idea, now… I love it.  This gives us all a chance to experience one of the greats… we do not always like them, but they have always been pretty fun to review.

My personal thoughts on the read were I really enjoyed it.  While some in the group struggled with the language, I enjoyed figuring it out as I went.  The words are different than we use them, and it was fun to see words used differently in sentences and while they were a mouthful to read.. they made sense. 

As much as the Bookies loved Mr. Darcy, I was odd man out on this one.  I realized he changes throughout the book… but his snottiness (hoo yeah I said it!)in the beginning especially towards Elizabeth rubbed me wrong and I still wasn’t over it at the close of the read.  I know this is supposed to be one of the great love stories… and I agree it was a good read, I just didn’t really like Darcy.  Yes I know I am in the minority… but remember I do not read romance reads. 😀

I did however really enjoy the book and am so happy to now be able to say I have read Pride and Prejudice!  The Bookies had a good discussion over the book, the era, The Bennett’s, fun with the language, and overall it rated a 3.5 rating out of 5. 

We did dress up as we like to do for our Classic read – hats were requested, but you could go further with the look if you wanted to. 

I wanted to.  😀

Here are a few pics of our evening:

The Bookies in attendance
A little candid pencil shot while we were setting up for the pictures
Kaydi wore her grandmothers wedding dress!

The 2011 WHERE Are You Reading Map has been updated to include Pride and Prejudice

I purchased my copy of Pride and Prejudice at Barnes and Noble

Reclaiming Lily by Patti Lacy

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)4 Comments

Gloria Powell has wanted a child since she first said “I do” to the love of her life Andrew.  But ten years had passed and still no children.  When the Powell’s decide to adopt they pay the hefty fees as well as the travel expenses to go to China.  After much hoop jumping, they leave with a beautiful young girl who Gloria feels God told her was “her daughter” since she laid eyes on her.  They decide to call her Joy.  It seems so appropriate.

Then seven years later, a woman names Kai appears in the Powell’s life stating she is  Lily’s (joy’s birth name)  biological sister and comes to share medical records of their mother’s death, a disease it seems that Joy may have inherited as well. Gloria is already struggling in her relationship with the now teenage and rebellious Joy…. what will the entrance of a blood relative due to this relationship, let alone the chance of this disease being in Joy…

Will Kai be an answer to prayer?  Or will this blip now in the family dynamics cost Gloria more than she can possibly handle?

 

Having been to Honduras 8 times (my ninth coming up in just a few weeks here) I was drawn to this book by the topic of adoption.  When you travel to some of these countries and you see these darling children with nothing, you want to scoop them up and take them home…. 

Such as within this story of Gloria, wanting desperately to have a child of her own… and along comes Joy. 

I am not sure what I expected when I picked this book up to read… I know the ending result was so much more.

I am impressed by Patti Lacy’s ability to write a captivating, interesting story, that is not always light on the topics.  For a Christian fiction read I applaud Lacy’s ability to write strong, three-dimensional, flawed characters.  As I read on about what a tough teen Joy was… under my breath I was saying “yes!”  And even better?  Joy is not the only flawed character of the story…. nor does it seem that any topic is off limits – including Christianity itself.

Kai, was a pleasant addition to the read… you have to wonder her motive for entering into the Powell’s life… is she an answered prayer?  Or is she there to  try to pull Joy/Lily back to her roots… or is it a combo of both?

I was kept guessing until the very end … in fact – quite literally the very end… as even the last page reveals a surprise.

Reclaiming Lily is a wonderful read that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys reading about loss, healing, and the pursuit of hope against all odds.

Amazon Rating

Good Reads Review

The 2011 WHERE Are You Reading Map has been updated to include Reclaiming Lily

 

Please see the entire tour schedule for this book here

Thank you to Litfuse Group for allowing me a copy of this book to read and give an honest review

A Prayer For Owen Meany by John Irving

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)38 Comments

Johnny Wheelwright lives in New Hampshire with his mom who “chose to have me and to never explain a word about me or to her mother or to her sister”.  Johnny never knew who his dad was, and his mother seemed to like it that way and went about with her tranquil and modest nature the rest of her days.

Johnny was rather scrawny and wimpy so it was only natural for him to find a friend in Owen Meany.  Owen was small for his age – freakishly small due to a mysterious growth disorder.  he also has damage to his larynx which leaves his voice very squeaky and needless to say, the blunt of many jokes.  But – Owen is wise beyond his years and knows more about life at the age of ten than most people do well into their later adult years.

When a tragic accident happens at a baseball game involving Owen… Owen feels this was foreseen by God, therefore – Owen is an instrument of God.  The book goes on to play on this “instrument of God” piece (even to the point that Owen predicts his date of death) throughout the childhood of both boys – and into adulthood as well as Johnny continues the story.

 

 

 

A little history.  Last year this book was recommended to me for banned book week.  AND in typical Sheila style, I ran to my library and checked this out along with several other banned books.  AND in typical Sheila style… I had more books than I could read. It was returned… unread.

There are books out there that continue to call to me, for whatever reason they stay on my radar as “must reads” and this book was one of them. I checked the book out again this year, now not only for Banned Book Week, but I had also chosen it as the Wordshaker fall opener read to force my hand.  (I sometimes, have to trick – myself.)

I had seen the movie Simon Birch long before I knew of a book called A Prayer For Owen Meany.  I enjoyed the movie, finding it funny, and sad, and a mixture in between.  The book left me feeling much of the same emotions. 

In the early pages you are hit with the shocking plot starter that really kicks off the story.  Owen then takes on this role as instrument of God which at times is funny, but admittedly – at times, a bit disturbing as well.  For me, reading this book as the fictional story it is, made it enjoyable, and in the end, although not always the easiest book to follow (flash back and forwards tend to mess me up), I am thankful I had the opportunity to read it.  

John Irving and I have had a rocky relationship.  He has a knack for creating quirky characters and then writing stories around them.  In the early years of our book club we had read (under my suggestion) The Fourth Hand by him.  Lets just say that I never have really ever lived down the choosing of this book that as a group we all disliked very VERY much.

John Irving, in my eyes, redeems himself in this interesting and profound read that would make an incredible book group discussion read.

 

 

FYI:  Did you know the movie Simon Birch is based loosely on this book?

Simon Birch is a 1998 American comedy-drama film loosely based on A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. It was directed and written for the screen by Mark Steven Johnson. The film stars Ian Michael Smith, Joseph Mazzello, Ashley Judd, Oliver Platt, and Jim Carrey. It omitted much of the latter half of the novel and altered the ending. The movie does not share the book’s title at Irving’s request; he did not believe that this novel could successfully be made into a film. The name “Simon Birch” was suggested by him to replace that of Owen Meany. The main plot centers around 12-year old Joe Wenteworth and his best friend Simon Birch.

 


Why Was A Prayer For Owen Meany a Banned Book?

Banned and censored around the United States for its stance on religion and criticism of the US government regarding  the Vietnam War and Iran-Contra.

 

 

For those of you who joined me for the Wordshakers read a long of this book – as you are posting your reviews this week, please respond to one or two of these questions within your reviews.  When your review is up, please link here.

1.  What do you think of Johnny as the narrator of this read?  What is his motivation for writing this story?

2.  How does Owen develop as a character throughout the novel? 

3.  Why do you feel so such emphasis is put on Owen’s voice?

4.  Reverend Merrill always speaks of faith in tandem with doubt. Do you believe that one can exist without the other or that one strengthens the other?

5.  Owen Meany taught John that “Any good book is always in motion–from the general to the specific, from the particular to the whole and back again.” Do you think Irving followed his own recipe for a good book?

6.  Several reviews call A Prayer for Owen Meany “Dickensian,” and Irving himself incorporates scenes from Dickens in the story. In what ways does Irving’s writing remind you of Dickens? What other writers would you compare Irving to?

I will be answering my thoughts on these questions through commenting on your reviews.  Be sure to use the Wordshaker widget to connect your review as part of the Wordshaker Read-A-Long.

Link your Word Shaker read-a-long review here: (linky open through October 8)

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Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…

 

I borrowed this book from our local library

Beloved by Toni Morrison (Banned Book Week)

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)24 Comments

In the troubled years following the Civil War, the spirit of a murdered child haunts the Ohio home of a former slave. This angry, destructive ghost breaks mirrors, leaves its fingerprints in cake icing, and generally makes life difficult for Sethe and her family.  People will not visit the home at  124 Bluestone road for it is clearly haunted – things moving on their own accord, a heavy reddish light of sorrow in the doorway. While Sethe’s daughter Denver would like to move, to escape this every ever enduring life, Sethe herself finds the haunting oddly comforting for the spirit is that of her own dead baby, never named, thought of only as Beloved.

Beloved is also a movie starring Oprah Winfrey

Does the above synopsis sound like a Paranormal read of today?  It is not, instead it is a book released in 1997.

Beloved was my first book by Toni Morrision and I read this for banned book week. 

In the beginning of Beloved, the haunting is merely ghost like, a feeling, a movement…. knowing someone is there.  Soon in the book Paul D is introduced, a former friend of Sethe’s who is initially passing through the area, but upon making his way to Sethe’s door, finds that she was who he was searching for all along.  His presence disturbs the ghost and brings her to full manifestation, in the body of a young woman who immediately falls upon the sympathies of Sethe and Denver as a woman who has nowhere to go and winds up staying with them.

Its hard to write my thoughts on beloved… it was at times powerful, the writing smoothly flowing on each page to the next as I followed Sethe’s loss and pain..  And then at other times it was disturbing.  The entrance of Beloved and how she immediately wrapped herself into the family, only Paul D sensing that there was something about her that did not sit right…

As I closed the book (late at night) I had to sit with my thoughts for a bit, all jumbled and processing… was Beloved’s appearance into the home of Sethe a good thing?  On one hand it led to abuse – both physical betrayal, and sexual.  Her presence, being full accepted as it was creeped me out a bit. Yes on the other hand, Beloved’s arrival also forced Sethe, Denver, and Paul D to make the decsions they did…. to move on and beyond….

Perhaps even more so for me was the fact that Morrison based this book on actual events and the story of an escaped slave named Margaret Garner who had murdered her own child rather than see them all returned to slavery.

Overall Beloved is a disturbing read.  Not always, in a bad way.  This book made me think about the slavery in our history and the lengths people went to escape it.  Toni Morrison shows us here through her work in Beloved, that some ways of escapes…

are not escapes at all.

Why was Beloved banned?

Challenged at the St. Johns County Schools in St. Augustine, FL (1995). Retained on the Round Rock, TX Independent High School reading list (1996) after a challenge that the book was too violent. Challenged by a member of the Madawaska, ME School Committee (1997) because of the book’s language. The 1987 Pulitzer Prize winning novel has been required reading for the advanced placement English class for six years. Challenged in the Sarasota County, FL schools (1998) because of sexual material.  Retained on the Northwest Suburban High School District 214 reading listing in Arlington Heights, IL (2006), along with eight other challenged titles.  A board member, elected amid promises to bring her Christian beliefs into all board decision-making, raised the controversy based on excerpts from the books she’d found on the Internet.  Challenged in the Coeur d’Alene School District, ID (2007).  Some parents say the book, along with five others, should require parental permission for students to read them.  Pulled from the senior Advanced Placement (AP) English class at Eastern High School in Louisville, KY (2007) because two parents complained that the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about antebellum slavery depicted the inappropriate topics of bestiality, racism, and sex.  The principal ordered teachers to start over with The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne in preparation for upcoming AP exams.

The 2011 WHERE Are You Reading Map has been updated to include Beloved

I purchased this book from our Fall Library sale