I know you wrote that you loved this book, I did not. It fell so far short of my expectations. It is of course beautifully written. She is a graceful and fairly descriptive writer. But this was called a memoir of a friendship and i saw very little of that in the book. It was all about her, a little bit about their friendship, and almost not at all about Caroline Knapp. I barely got a sense of their friendship apart from their walking their dogs and rowing. And I could not get over how self-absorbed the author was. Wow, I was really disappointed. I wanted to love this book, I wanted to cry, I wanted to rail against the universe for the loss and grief that people so intimately connected endure when they lose each other. But I wasn't allowed to care. I found myself wishing badly to know what Caroline was like. I think I would have liked her. But I do not think I would like Gail. Elizabeth Berg wrote a much more devastating, honest, complex story of a friendship and a death in her NOVEL Talk Before Sleep. Now that was a heartbreaker.

Ok, it may seem as though I am avoiding Anna Karenina. I'm not, it's just that I started so many books in January that I am trying to finish a few in between reading AK. This was a beautiful slim book by Amos Oz, who is probably the best known novelist in Israel. Called Rhyming Life & Death, it is the first thing I have ever read by Oz. I honestly picked it because of the look and the feel of the book. I do this every once in awhile. I roam the stacks and I pull out book by book to read the backs and explore. This novella takes place during the span of one night. The narrator is referred to as the "author." The author is in Tel Aviv for a reading at a local community center. He arrives early and goes to a nearby cafe to pass the time. He is not looking forward to the evening, the same questions he is asked over and over again i.e. why do your write, do you write with pen or computer, do you draw from imagination more than real life, how much do you earn, how do you handle criticism, etc. As he sits in the cafe he starts making up stories about some of the people in the cafe, the waitress, the two men sitting at a nearby table. He goes to the reading and continues to do this, makes up stories about the man who introduces him, the woman who reads his work, the heckler, the young hopeful poet, etc. The rest of the night switches between his reality and the made up realities of the characters. It is beautifully written but the stories he makes up are almost all ugly, almost brutal in their telling - this man is in the hospital with a catheter no one empties, this man lives with his mom and has to change her sheets, this woman lives trapped in the memory of an affair she had twenty years ago, etc. But there are a few passage that are so beautiful they take your breath away. It is a mix of ugly and beautiful, pure and profane. It is indeed a rhyming of life and death. I really took a lot away from it. And am definitely going to read more by this author.

I read this book in two nights. Sort of a break from Anna Karenina even though I am really enjoying it. I loved it. The premise is: a boy in high school receives a package on his doorstep from a girl who committed suicide two weeks before. She says that there are 13 reasons why she killed herself and that each person who receives the tapes is one of those reasons. In listening to the tapes he hears her story. And he takes his walkman and a map she provides and walks around his town one night with her narration of her experience as a backdrop. It was sad and honest and I really liked it. I think it is an important book for high school kids to read. Because it really demonstrates the impact you can have on someone without even realizing it. Especially in high school at that age when everything feels bigger and harder and more lonely because you don't have the skills yet to negotiate everything that can be thrown at you. Also it is important that the book shows that there was a point where she could have reached out for help but in the end she chose not to and she knew she was choosing not to. So it was of course in the end a choice she did not have to make.

beginning of book review

so, after a month of beginning books and not finishing them, i have rested upon reading Anna Karenina with my friend Jamie. I have only read 56 pages but so far i am more interested in the writing deviation of tolstoy than the actual plot itself. I never read War and Peace or the Demons or the Ivan Il... something or other book. the only other thing i ever read was notes from underground which was a heady character study of a man who feels so ignored by the world that a stranger bumping into him and not saying excuse me sends him into a spiral that leads him to plot the man's death. so sitting down to a novel of society and propriety and general austen-like depictions of the social lives of a group of russian elites is just weird to me. kinda like a tolstoyan version of Emma. but it is extremely well-written and is starting to pull me in. i am hoping the context of the setting will also teach me a bit about russian society during that time. which is something about which i know nothing.

becoming enlightened by the dalai lama

it took me forever to get through this book.
and i although i absorbed some of the text, i certainly don't feel that i walked
away enlightened.

and i have questions about enlightenment, and different thoughts about it.
we make it sound like it's a place to reach, the ultimate goal - when in fact, being here, now, is all we have and all we should focus on. maybe.

the mind of clover: essays in zen buddhist ethics by robert aitken

this is my book list for the precepts course that i'm taking - it's deep, detailed, and really tough to describe, so here:

"...In The Mind of Clover he addresses the world beyond the zazen cushions, illuminating issues of appropriate personal and social action through an exploration of the philosophical complexities of Zen ethics."

as you can see, just your average saturday night read.

Ah Christmas. With all of its imperfections. I as an adult (ick) rarely ponder the many teens out in the world who are having less than magical holidays - unless they are homeless or truly hurting (I ponder those). Dash and Lily's Book of Dares was a pretty decent read. Dash is having a bit of a loner Christmas, having convinced each parent that he is staying with the other. Lily's family is away for the holidays and hers is a usually idyllic holiday experience. Her brother, sensing she needs some excitement, puts a red notebook in The Strand in New York next to Franny and Zooey, her favorite book, with the beginning of a sort of scavenger hunt where lily and dash trade back and forth the notebook, going all over New York and writing in it to each other without meeting. I loved the concept. And I loved that the two authors each wrote one character's paragraphs. But one of the authors was just better than the other. And then when the characters finally met it was disappointing. It ended fairly satisfactorily, but the one character was just weak to me.