The Help

The Help
by Kathryn Stockett
444 pages

*** About the Book ***

In Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960s, white people and black people don’t mix. There are strict rules about contact between races and breaking those rules results in big trouble for everyone. Despite that, despite the danger it could place them all in, three women come together to tell the truth.

Skeeter, a wealthy, white, college graduate, is disappointing her family by not being engaged already. She wants to be a journalist and is on the outs with her society friends. She’s also desperately missing her beloved maid, Constantine, who left under mysterious circumstances while she was away at school.

Aibileen, a single black woman, has spent almost her entire life working as a maid to a series of white families. She recently lost her only son to a work-related accident. Her new goal is to instill self-respect and an attitude of color-blindness in the little white girl whose family she currently works for.

Minny, a married black woman with several children, has also worked as a maid her entire life. She’s lost many jobs because has a tendency to talk back to her white employers, and she’s made an enemy of the most powerful white woman in town.

These three very different women, along with several others, work together in secret to write a book about the maid’s perspective on the relationship between white families and their “help” – a topic that is simply not talked about in Jackson in polite society.


*** Why I Read It ***

Two ladies in my book club nominated it for this month’s book and I couldn’t have been happier. I’ve had this one on my shelf for MONTHS, ever since all hearing all the buzz when it first came out. Finally, an excuse to pick it up!


*** My Thoughts ***

Can I say how much I truly loved this book? I mean, I expected it to be good, but I really, really loved it. The world of the South in the 1960s couldn’t be farther outside of my experience but I felt like I understood the characters motivations and could almost feel the weight of the society’s rules pressing in on me.

The story is told from three points of view, Aibileen’s, Minny’s, and Skeeter’s. Each character had a distinct voice; it was easy to tell who was narrating at any given point. Aibileen’s voice was the strongest in my opinion and Skeeter’s was the weakest. Not to say that I didn’t like Skeeter, but her character wasn’t nearly as developed or powerful as Aibileen’s or even as Minny’s.

My book club is getting together to discuss this on March 20. I’m really looking forward to hearing everyone’s opinions – I think it will be a great meeting!


*** A Tangent ***

My mom is a great storyteller and is always sharing stories about her growing-up years. When I told her about THE HELP, it immediately reminded her of a story that she’d told me before. It’s a quick one so I’ll share it with you here.

My mom was a teenager in Brooklyn, New York in the 1960s. Her school was mostly African-American, with a mix of many other ethnicities. As a white girl, she was definitely in the minority. She remembers hearing about the civil rights workers who were killed in Mississippi in 1964. Two of them were from New York, and she remembers being completely shocked when the report came on the news. It was like another world down South compared to her life in New York. One year her family drove to Florida to visit her grandmother. Somewhere along the Southern portion of the drive, she had to go to the bathroom desperately. Her family finally stopped at a restaurant and she was directed to go around the back to find the bathrooms. She said that she could barely hold it anymore and went running around the building as quickly as she could. When she came to the bathroom she stopped dead in her tracks. A big sign hung on the wall saying “Whites Only”. She was literally in shock and couldn’t move. She doesn’t remember going into the bathroom at all, although she knows she must have. All she remembers is thinking “What if I was black? What would I do? What if I was black? What if I was black?!” over and over. She was fourteen at the time and still remembers this like it was yesterday.


*** Interview ***

I found this interview fascinating, but don't watch it if you haven't read the book yet as there are minor spoilers. It's about an hour long so you may want to put it on and listen while you're doing other things (like sorting through your Google Reader?!). [If you are reading this through another site you'll have to click through to my blog to view the video.]


Watch CBS News Videos Online


*** Your Thoughts ***

It seems like everyone and their mother has already read this book but I know that there are still some people who have not. If you'd like more opinions on this book before giving it a shot, here are some other reviews you should check out.

• The Bluestocking Society - this is the review where I first heard of this book and added it to my TBR list
  
• Good Books and Good Wine
• S. Krishna's Books
• Muse
• Maw Books Blog
• Fizzy Thoughts
• Subliminal Intervention
• You've GOTTA Read This!
• Audiobook DJ
• Historical Tapestry
• Devourer of Books
  

The Wives of Henry Oades (giveaway)

The Wives of Henry Oades

by Johanna Moran
384 pages

*** About the Book ***

In the mid-1800s in New Zealand, Englishman Henry Oades arrives home to find that his wife and four children have been abducted by a local tribe and his home had been burned. After months of fruitless searching, he comes to the conclusion that his family is all dead. Unable to bear the memories, he moves to California to begin a new, solitary life. After 6 years he meets a young, pregnant widow. The two bond over their shared circumstances and decide to marry. Just a few short months into their new life together Henry’s first family shows up on his doorstep. They survived 6 years in captivity and have been trying to contact him for months. Now Henry is faced with a decision – should he keep one wife and put the other aside? Or is there another solution? The town is in an uproar, convinced that Henry and his unusual family are polygamists, and they bring all three people - Henry and his two wives - to trial.


*** Why I Read It ***

The fact that this book is based on a true story captured my imagination and attention. I read it for the TLC Book Tour.



*** My Thoughts ***

I really enjoyed this book, mostly because the story is so unusual and yet it is based on truth. I kept imagining what it would be like to be in either of the wives positions, or even in Henry’s. This was one of those books where I had to summarize it to my husband at various points and get his input. We had some great discussions about it but, of course, didn’t come to any conclusions. I would imagine that this would be a great book club book. The fact that this actually happened (the basic story at least) – there is simply so much to discuss!

It is a quick read and that is always a bonus. I breezed through it in three days and never felt bogged down.

There is one thing that really bothers me about this book, but it didn’t appear until the Readers Guide at the end so I can’t say that it is a problem with the book itself. In the Readers Guide there is mention made of the original case summary published in a California newspaper. (As a side note, I’d have loved for that abstract to be included in the book!) The note goes on to say that some people suspect that this case was all a hoax to illustrate a loophole in the law. What?! All along I’d been treating this as a story based on actual fact. If all there is to the story is a newspaper article that may or may not be true, that changes my opinion of the book in a big way. I wasn’t able to find any more details during a quick internet search, so if anyone knows more than I do about this please let me know.


*** Your Thoughts ***

Does this book sound like one you’d enjoy? Did my issue with the Readers Guide affect your opinion either way?

Here are some other reviews you might want to check out:

• It's All About Books gave it an A+
• The 3 R's agrees that it would be great for a book club
• Devourer of Books wanted more details but still really enjoyed it
  

*** Giveaway ***

Thanks to the publisher I have a copy of this book for one lucky blog reader in the US or Canada. Here's how to enter:

• Leave a comment telling me why this book appeals to you.
• Be sure to leave your email address or have it easily accessible through your profile.
• You must have a US or Canadian mailing address to win (sorry, this is the publisher's requirement).
• If you win you must reply to my email notification within 24 hours or I will choose another winner.
• The winner will be drawn on Sunday (03/14/10) so don't delay, enter now!
  

Feedback for the Really Old Classics Challenge

If you took part in the Really Old Classics Challenge, or if you'd like to give suggestions for next time, please take a minute to answer the seven questions below. Thanks!

Non-Fiction Five Challenge - My List

Trish is again hosting this Non-Fiction Five Challenge. Details and sign-ups can be found at this post. The goal is to read 5 non-fiction titles between May and September. I'm a big fan of this genre so I love doing this challenge.

Here are the books I'm thinking about reading:

• The Kings of New York, by Michael Weinreb
• Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum, by Richard Fortey
• Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival, by Norman Ollestad
• The Last Gentleman Adventurer: Coming of Age in the Arctic, by Edward Beauclerk Maurice
• Time Bandit, by the Hillstrand Brothers
• The Greatest Generation Speaks: Letters and Reflections, by Tom Brokaw
• A History of Celibacy, by Elizabeth Abbott
• Mistress of the Vatican, by Eleanor Herman
• A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson
• Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft, by Thor Heyerdahl

I know I won't get to them all, but these are books that are sitting on my shelf as I write this so I'd like to get to as many of them as possible.

Videos of Kiddo

I've been wanting to share some of these Kiddo videos with you so I've just stuck them all into one post. Enjoy!


This first video is Kiddo's Wolf Den singing at their Blue & Gold Banquet in February. Kiddo is the 2nd from the left, the only one without a hat (because he forgot it at the last meeting). He's also the one with the deep singing voice. :)




Here Kiddo was interviewed by his school news team about the Caps game when he was invited to the owners box. This was part of the school's morning news program which all the classes watch on tv from their rooms.




Kiddo's Wolf Den did reports on endangered species; Kiddo chose to talk about whale sharks.




And here is one of Kiddo's hockey team playing against the Naval Academy. Kiddo is in the white #10 jersey, and he scores in the first few seconds of the video.





I hope you've enjoyed seeing what Kiddo's been up to lately!

Friday Finds 03/05/10

It has been months since I’ve done a Friday Finds post but my TBR list hasn’t suffered too greatly in that time. For that, I am immensely grateful. Here are the six books I’ve discovered since late January:


The Passage, by Justin Cronin – found at The Book Case – This book “was inspired by his 9-year-old daughter—she asked him to write a novel about a girl who saved the world. Four years later, Cronin, known for his quiet literary works, had completed a 700-page manuscript that was the talk of the 2007 Frankfurt Book Fair and sold for $3 million. Layered and complex, The Passage is the type of vividly imagined book that really draws readers in. Cronin is able to make characters who only appear on 10 pages as alive as his main characters, and in the novel’s first 100 pages he has set the stage for what promises to be an epic saga: a young girl is abandoned; a scientific team on an expedition in South America discovers a mysterious, deadly virus; a death row inmate is released and transported to a secret location by a military operative for experimentation.”


The Curse of the Pharaohs, by Elizabeth Peters – found at Historical Tapestry – I’ve been wanting to try out the Amelia Peabody series (this is book 2) - I really must get to it soon! “When Lady Baskerville’s husband Sir Henry dies after discovering what may have been an undisturbed royal tomb in Luxor, she appeals to eminent archaeologist Radcliffe Emerson and his wife Amelia to take over the excavation. Amid rumors of a curse haunting all those involved with the dig, the intrepid couple proceeds to Egypt, where they begin to suspect that Sir Henry did not die a natural death, and they are confident that the accidents that plague the dig are caused by a sinister human element, not a pharaoh’s curse.”


Dreamers of the Day, by Mary Doria Russell – recommended to me by Dreamybee – I’m a huge fan of this author and I think it is her only book I have yet to read. “A forty-year-old schoolteacher from Ohio still reeling from the tragedies of the Great War and the influenza epidemic, Agnes has come into a modest inheritance that allows her to take the trip of a lifetime to Egypt and the Holy Land. Arriving at the Semiramis Hotel just as the Peace Conference convenes, Agnes, with her plainspoken American opinions–and a small, noisy dachshund named Rosie–enters into the company of the historic luminaries who will, in the space of a few days at a hotel in Cairo, invent the nations of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan.”



A Darker Place, by Laurie R. King – profiled on the author’s site – I’m already a fan of her Mary Russell series, but this book sounds very intriguing as well. It has a combination of religion, science, and illegality that sounds like it could be really good!



Frozen In Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition, by Owen Beattie & John Geiger – found at Naked Without Books – I love polar stories, and I’m somewhat familiar with the Franklin expedition so this book is right up my alley. “In 1845, Sir John Franklin set out to find the Northwest Passage with his two ships the Erebus and the Terror and a crew of 129 men. (With ship names like that, wouldn't you have been tempted to turn back?) When no one had heard or seen them by 1848, search parties were organized. The ships were never found, but there was evidence the whole party had perished. […] Fast-forward to the early 1980s. Forensic anthropologist Owen Beattie took a team back to the Arctic and dug up and examined 3 of the victims, who were perfectly preserved in ice.”



The Italian Slow Cooker, by Michele Scicolone - found at Wordsmithonia – I am NOT a chef, nor do I particularly like to cook, so crock pot meals are a wonderful thing in my world. And this book seems to have some tasty and unique recipes that I’d love to try.


That's what I've got this week - what did YOU find? Be sure to drop by Should Be Reading to check out more other amazing books.

Did you catch me on "That's How I Blog"?

I was a guest on the Blog Talk Radio show That's How I Blog on Feb. 9 - did you happen to catch the show? If not, never fear. If you missed the show, or just want to hear it again (?!), I've got a recording for you!



I had a great time talking to Nicole about books and blogging. Highlights of our chat include ...

• our reading "peeves" - Nicole's hatred of human-like creatures in fantasy and my hatred of talking animals in general
• my disappointment with the James Dean movie version of East of Eden
• the resource site Bookclub-in-a-Box that I've used for my own book club preparation
• my tips for new bloggers
• why I wrote a comment policy for my blog and how I handle comments in general
• the fact that my car has a cassette player and not a cd player
• surviving the East Coast's Snowpocalypse - 30 inches of snow and counting
  
• how I keep track of the books I plan to read
• hoarding vs. giving books away
• the books in my permanent collection, including one with a dried rose inside
• my love of being surprised and how I never ever skip ahead in a book, but how I don't like being surprised in other situations
  
• when I admit to being a big chicken when it comes to horror books and movies
• the lack of cooking in our house, at least as done by me
• why Weight Watchers worked for me
• how I still need a roommate for BEA/BBC in May (Interested? Email me!)
  
• the panels that I'm organizing at the Baltimore Book Festival in September
• how I'd love to redesign my blog but am afraid to do it myself and need recommendations on reputable blog design sites
  

During the 20-Minute Book Club portion Nicole & I discussed Robert Jordan's THE EYE OF THE WORLD with my real-life-friend Kelly and Suey from It's All About Books. I had so much fun doing this - thank you to Kelly and Suey for calling in and Nicole for hosting!

I still need to send Nicole Chris's recipe for Turkey Chili with Lime. Hopefully I'll get to that this week. I'll have to have him make it first though, since he doesn't actually USE a recipe.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed getting to hear me. And now I'd love to hear from YOU - let me know what you thought about the show, and thanks for listening!

Really Old Classics Recap, and Request

I volunteered to co-host this challenge with Rebecca because I truly think that there are some wonderful, OLD books out there that not enough people are reading. The challenge went from November '09 through February '10 and had almost 50 people sign up.

There were different levels of participation but the real point was to read at least one Really Old Classic. I intended to read 4 plus a retelling but that didn't happen. Here's a recap of what I did read:

• Medea, by Euripides - This is a short but rather brutal play about the wrath of a woman scorned. I'm glad I read it.
  
• Volsungasaga, ancient Norse epic - This was my first experience with Norse legends; I found them to be different in many ways than the stories I was more familiar with.
  
• The Golden Ass (or Metamorphosis), by Lucius Apulius "Africanus" - Due to a very old-fashioned translation, I simply couldn't make it through this book. I want to try it again with a better translation though.

I'd love to co-host this challenge again next year but I need some help. Rebecca plans to put more effort into the wonderful Classics Circuit she started recently so she is bowing out of hosting the Really Old Classics Challenge. If you would like to co-host with me next year, please let me know!

February '10 Recap

February, oh February. Every month I say “maybe next month will be better” and every month it SO isn’t. This month … well, let’s just say it was crazier than ever and leave it at that. :) Regardless of the drama I was still able to read and listen to a reasonable amount, so YAY!


Books - 3 (1,107 pages)

• Ace of Cakes, by Duff & Willie Goldman – If you are a fan of the show Ace of Cakes on Food TV then you will love this book. I certainly did!
• Alias Grace, by Margaret Atwood – This is a beautifully written story that really makes you think. I loved it.
• The Titan’s Curse, by Rick Riordan – Finally a Mother & Son Book Club book!

Audio Books - 4 (55 hours)

• The Eye of the World, by Robert Jordan – Revisiting an old favorite.
• The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway – My first Hemingway and I’m now in love with his writing.
• The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood – A creepy look at a possible future that I’m glad I read but didn’t really like that much.
• On The Road, by Jack Keruac – This one was a complete waste of time IMO.

DNF (Did Not Finish) - 1

• The Golden Ass, by Lucius “Africanus” Apulieus – I really want to try this one again with a different translation.

Other Stats

• I was absent from the blogosphere quite a bit of this month. First there was the Snowpocalypse, then Hubby ended up in the hospital with a staph infection (he’s home and doing MUCH better now), then my cousin was in from Georgia for a few days. I was getting overwhelmed so I stepped back from the computer for a while. Life is getting back to “normal” now … I think.
• The Really Old Classics Challenge that I was co-hosting ended this month. I'm hoping to have a recap of it soon.
  
• I’m co-hosting a read-a-long of THE SPARROW that is going until March 30. I’d love to have more people join in so please check out the details. This is a book that is well worth reading and discussing!
• And the best news of all is that I’m going to BEA/BBC in New York City in May and I am SO EXCITED!!! I’m still looking for a roommate or two so please let me know if you are interested.

That was my month - hope you had a great one!

On The Road

On The Road
by Jack Kerouac
audiobook: 11.25 hours
first published in 1951

*** About the Book ***

This semi-autobiographical novel tells the story of Sal Paradise and his friend Dean Moriarty as the travel the US in the post-World War II years. They two men are in search of “it”, whatever “it” turns out to be. They hitchhike and borrow their way from coast to coast over and over again, meeting people and having adventures along the way. The book provides stereotypical examples of the beat generation.


*** Why I Read It ***

(Ok, so I "listened" to it ... whatever.)

This book was mentioned on the TV show LOST, so it works for the LOST Books Challenge. It is also on the 1,001-books-to-read-before-you-die list, so it works for the 1% Well Read Challenge.


*** My Thoughts ***

I did NOT like this book AT ALL. I still don’t know what the point of it all was. I didn’t like any of the main characters (in fact, I wanted to smack them most of the time). I didn’t agree with any of their decisions. I thought they were irresponsible and ridiculous. As I listened to the story I kept thinking that while these guys were screwing around avoiding responsibility (and Dean kept abandoning his new babies), my grandmother was trying to come to the US to marry my grandfather, then they were struggling to make a new life together and support their children. It was a rather stark contrast in my mind.

A while back I got into a discussion with a commenter about whether me not liking the characters in a book makes the book less valuable in some way. I wouldn’t say that is true; obviously this book is a classic and many people find it important. The writing itself was entertaining and evocative (and the narration by Alexander Adams was fantastic). I just didn’t find anything to like about this book at all, and therefore it isn’t getting a positive review here on my blog.


*** Relation to LOST ***

The point of this book, in my mind, is that avoiding responsibility and living always “in the moment” can give you a fulfilling life. Not sure if that was what the author was intending to say but that’s what I got out of it. And, of course, I totally disagree with that. Because of my animosity toward this book I didn’t give much thought to the LOST connection. Instead I relied on the internet to tell me what makes this book special to the show.

Here’s what LOSTpedia had to say: “When Ben checks into the hotel in [the episode] The Shape of Things to Come, he uses Dean Moriarty as a pseudonym. Moriarty is a principal character in Kerouac's famous work.”

Seriously?! THAT is why this book is related to LOST?! Ugh. That’s what I get for not looking at LOSTpedia before making my book list …


*** Your Thoughts ***

If you’ve read this book please share your thoughts in the comments. I’d especially like to hear from anyone who likes this book – please let me what makes it so great! [UPDATE: Oh look, I found someone who liked it!]

I couldn’t find any reviews of this book so if you have one post a link and I’ll add it here. I really do want to know what other people think of this book.