Marvelous Muddle

Precocious Victorian children grew up and came of age in a time of war. A.S. Byatt examines this age in The Children's Book. Centered around the family of Olive Wellwood, the novel follows would be potters, writers, and suffragists as they embrace and discard the burgeoning social movements of the day.

After her husband leaves the banking industry, Olive supports the family by writing scary stories for children. She leaves the upbringing (and sometimes even bearing) of her own children to her spinster sister. For each of her children, Olive has written a personalized storybook with an ongoing tale. But closest to her heart is the story she creates for her eldest, Tom. Without consulting Tom, Olive takes Tom's story public as a play. Her collaborator on the play just happens to be a fantastical German puppeteer and the father of one of her daughters.

Questionable paternity appears often in this tale. Into the muddle of an extensive cast of characters (and bedfellows) goes pages from Olive's stories, an excerpt from a randy novelist advocating free love, letters from boarding school, poetry from the tranches, and entreaties by world leaders. Out of the muddle comes an ending which ties up nicely. Quite satisfying, really.

When a Drowning Isn't the Worst Thing

Every Last One by Anna Quindlen

Mary Beth is a landscaper and mother of three. She worries about what to throw together for dinner, whether her son is depressed, and if she should be having more sex. She has best friends who call her for parenting advice and old friends that don't speak to her anymore. She fights with her daughter. She calls her mother occasionally. Then, she wakes up in the hospital.

Despite the tragedy that upends the whole thing, I fell into this life. One adage I took especially to heart (along with the recipe for chicken tetrazzini): "small children, small problems, big children, big problems."

So after reemerging from that life into my own, I hugged my son, made a cake for my husband, and read my daughter a bedtime story. One with a happy ending.

Are we there yet?

Perhaps Labor Day Weekend has you taking one last road trip with the family. If that family includes anyone between the ages of four and four hundred, be sure to pack the audio book collection of The Magic Tree House by Mary Pope Osborne.

The Magic Tree House books travel with a brother/sister team (Jack and Annie) as they visit famous historical events in their time-machine tree house. Hardly rosy, the pictures Osborne paints are tremulously vivid. You'll slip with the slanting of the Titanic as it sinks, taste the grit of the San Francisco earthquake's aftermath, and smell the blood of the wounded Civil War soldiers. And you'll feel immensely relieved as they escape each adventure unharmed but not untouched.

And who knows? With these CDs on play, "Are we there yet?" may also be history.

One Night Stand (or the other)

Apart from The Bookman's Promise by John Dunning, my night stand looks pretty bare this week. The other side of the bed is a different story. My husband always has a plethora of interesting reads.

Two I'm browsing this week when I grow tired of the whole crime scene-scene:

Supercharge Your Memory by Corinne Gediman and Francis Crinella
Do you remember Highlights for Kids? This is sort of like Highlights for grown-ups. Graphically pleasing, this book offers a smorgasbord of activities from recalling olfactory memories (remember that rotten carrot your mother put in your kindergarten lunchbag?) to redrawing abstract designs (was the squiggle above or below the circle thingamajig?). You'll have fun, fun, fun, till your Daddy takes your T-bird away.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell
A fan of Mitchell (especially Black Swan Green), I swoon over everything he's written. Thousand Autumns is no exception. At almost 500 pages, this epic travels to Nagasaki Harbor and immerses us (sometimes too intimately) in the sights, sounds, and sighs of the colorful cast and crew that work for and about the Dutch East Indies Company. If this weren't novel enough, the story ventures further inland when the love-interest of the title character becomes enshrined in a remote convent. You'll be itching to find out how the last samurais face the impending interests of the British Empire.

Just Beachy

Only one more week of guilt-free beach reads. I've got a stack on my nightstand to get through.

Booked to Die by John Dunning
I read about this book in The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett. A closet Grisham fan, I couldn't resist seeking out a detective novel about a book collector-cop turned bookseller-detective. And happy day. It's a series!

Confections of a Closet Master Baker by Gesine Bullock-Prado
This one came recommended via the "customers who bought this" list on Amazon. The teaser on the cover tells you all you need to know about this tell-all of sorts: "One woman's sweet journey from unhappy Hollywood executive to contented country baker." It was only after a few pages that I realized that the title was "Confections" not "Confessions" as she includes scrumptious sounding recipes gleaned from her childhood in Germany.

The Blue Bistro by Elin Hilderbrand
I browsed this one on the buy-me table at a local retailer. Luckily the library had it in stock as well. A quintessential summer read: girl arrives on Nantucket, girl finds job at magical restaurant on the beach, girl falls in love with...well, you'll just have to wait til I finish it.

A Ticket to the Circus by Norris Church Mailer
This was a find (or rather found) on the library new releases shelf. Its cheerful white stripes and whimsical title should have clued me in that this would be one of those dark and dysfunctional memoirs. Delve into the musings of the woman married to Norman Mailer for thirty-three years if you are ready for summer to be over.

I laughed til I cried

The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Barrows and Annie Shaffer is romantic, funny, and heartbreaking. Read it.

Who's your daddy?

Fathers these days teach a lot of essential skills. They teach their children how to tie shoes, ride bikes, make the perfect Sunday morning waffle, and drive a stick shift. Fathers of long ago perhaps had a more daunting agenda. They were in charge of teaching their offspring how to shoot an arrow for protection and the midday meal, ride a horse, and savor the finer bouquets of monster blood.

Fire by Kristin Cashore features a cast of fathers ranging from game wardens to battle commanders to kings. And monsters. As the story unfolds, many of the characters discover their fathers are not what or even who they thought them to be.

Fire is raised by her birth father, the monster Cansrel, and in his absences, a former royal commander named Brocker. Fire, like her father, possesses mind manipulating powers. She struggles to emulate her father in honing her powers but also to follow the guidance of Brocker in respecting those under her power.

Her struggle is put to the test when Prince Brigan arrives. His brother, King Nash, is working to reverse the unjust practices of his father. He and the royal siblings need her help in uncovering the plots of traitorous lords in the north and south.

As the plot and battle unfolds, the pages turn swiftly through encounters with raptors, sure-shot archers, salacious spies, and a distastefully devious boy with two different colored eyes. Cashore deftly balances the blood and fury with quieter scenes that examine regret, honor, and responsibility. For this, maybe we have her father to thank for teaching her the importance of including both rage and reflection.