Tenth Muse Books

The day after Labor Day…the streets have cleared, the beach is left to locals (can you hear the howl of the surfers?), many shops will remain closed today, and we will all begin holding tighter to our pennies.  Yes, the day after Labor Day and Seaside, Oregon is officially a ghost town.  So, either this is a time of celebration (time for reading, faithful blogging, house cleaning, and a bit more reading) or I can go into a state of mourning (empty pockets, no new faces, and the promise of rain…for months). Joy and sorrow.  Laughter and a tear…holy cats, I am segueing into Gihlil Gibran!! Regardless, I am going for celebration with just the right splash of darkness.  Carl over at http://www.stainlesssteeldroppings.com/ is offering the perfect advent to autumn: the R.I.P. IV Challenge…”It was a dark and stormy night….” The goal is to celebrate gothic literature: mystery, suspense, thriller, dark fantasy, gothic, horror, and supernatural. I am choosing Peril the First; I will be reading at least four books of any length, from any subgenre of scary stories that I choose.

This is my list, thus far:

Sandman Graphic Novel series from Neil Gaiman

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

Girl with Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Dracula by Bram Stoker

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

Yes, I have five, actually a few more if I read the complete Sandman series, but I am leaving myself a bit of moving room and also being rather optimistic about how much time I will have to actually read. 

What’s the biggest book you’ve read recently?

(Feel free to think “big” as size, or as popularity, or in any other way you care to interpret.)

Big book (brick sized book):    

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.  My G-Ma recently reread it and she wanted me to do the same.  So I did; it is still amazing and large…

Big in popularity:

The Sandman Preludes & Noctures by Neil Gaiman.  I love, yes love, Neil Gaiman.  This series has been around for awhile and though I have read all of his novels, I just finally read the first of this series.  Today I received the second, The Doll’s House.  Whoop whoop!

Big in scope:   

Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine. It has it all: life and death, love and loss, family history and individual journeys, legends and fables, good guys and bad guys…and a few kick-ass women! BIG, BIG BOOK.   I will go so far as to say it may be my favorite book of the year. 

The Rock Band book club met this week at Erica’s (thank you and sorry for the mess) to discuss Paulo Coelho’s Eleven Minutes.  Let me state at the beginning, I didn’t like this book. At all.  I wanted to.  But then I also wanted to like The Alchemist…I know, numerous of you are now deleting my blog.  Blasphemy! Who doesn’t like The Alchemist?  Me.  Really.  Sorry.  Sort of. Okay, not real sorry.  And truly reading Eleven Minutes has killed my sentences; I do not enjoy Coelho’s writing style either.  Yes, this is a negative review…but give me a minute, I might come around.

I’m not a touchy-feely, find your inner depth, and search your soul reader; I don’t like self-help books, especially those disguised as fiction.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m certain I could use the help but really it just leaves me stressed out, wondering if I’m not a completely vapid puddle of pond scum because for the life of me I can find nothing even remotely close to “oh, I get it now as I never got it before. I am enlightened!” Contrary, most of the time I just want to say, “duh.”

Eleven Minutes, a fairytale about prostitution—duh!  Perhaps it is Coelho’s writing style; it’s flat and leaves me cold.  Maybe it is his heroine, Marie, which, at best, I can merely muster apathy towards, at worst, a strong dose of irritation.  I must say the other characters were of more interest to me even though Coelho only offered bits and pieces of them.  As to Marie’s diary—this is where I felt self-help being shoved down my throat by a character I felt was nothing more than an egotistical, cliché-spouting twit.  As to the subject of sexual liberation for women and the idea of sacred sex, I can only say if this book had been written fifty years ago I might better appreciate its relevance. Okay—enough, you get it…I wasn’t thrilled…I would, in fact, rather watch Pretty Woman.   

However, get the Rock Band Book Club together and maybe a fairytale of prostitution is a bit interesting. But then again, get a room full of women together, drinking wine, and the conversation eventually turns to sex, does it not?  Coelho allowed us to jump right in—head first. While the Rock Band was evenly divided between those who like and those who dislike the book, once discussion started all became enthusiastic.  Maybe it was Simone’s reading but even I had to concede, while still maintaining Coelho depends on too many clichés, that the major themes are still relevant in our world.  Loneliness, dreams, sexual awakens, and the many dimensions of love…we discussed them all, some in earnest and some with giggles. So while Eleven Minutes will never rank high on my reading recommendation list, in the hands of the Rock Band Book Club there was a pulse of energy.

May’s Rock Band book choice is Beautiful Boy by David Sheff and only two chapters in…I am thoroughly enjoying his writing style! Also…reading My Booky Wook…is there anything sexier than Russell Brand?  No.

Eleven Minutes Rates 2 out 5 stars