What Are You Reading the Week of 7 February 2015?

Elaine Lobl Konigsburg (February 10, 1930 – April 19, 2013) was an American writer and illustrator of children's books and young adult fiction. She is one of six writers to win two Newbery Medals, the venerable American Library Association award for the year's "most distinguished contribution to American children's literature."

Konigsburg submitted her first two manuscripts to editor Jean Karl at Atheneum Publishers in 1966, and both were published in 1967: Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. They made her the only person to be Newbery Medal winner and one of the runners-up in one year. She won again for The View from Saturday in 1997, 29 years later, the longest span between two Newberys awarded to one author.
For her contribution as a children's writer Konigsburg was U.S. nominee in 2006 for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest international recognition available to creators of children's books.

Biography
Elaine Lobl was born in New York City on February 10, 1930, but grew up in small Pennsylvania towns, the second of three daughters. She was an avid reader, although reading was only "tolerated" in her family, "not sanctioned like dusting furniture or baking cookies". She was high school valedictorian in Farrell, Pennsylvania, where there was no guidance counseling and she never heard of scholarships. To earn money for college, she worked as a bookkeeper at a meat plant, where she met David Konigsburg, the brother of one of the owners.
Elaine entered Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh and majored in chemistry, with her "artistic side ... essentially dormant", because she was good at it and the purpose of college was "to become a something—a librarian, a teacher, a chemist, a something". She became the first person in her family to earn a degree. After graduating, Elaine married David, who was then a graduate student in psychology. She started graduate school in chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh (1952 to 1954) but they moved to Jacksonville, Florida after he attained his doctorate. She worked as a science teacher at Bartram School for Girls until 1955; became the mother of three children, Paul, Laurie, and Ross (1955 to 1959); began painting at adult education after two children; and planned for the time they would all be in school.

Konigsburg took the new direction after the family moved to Port Chester in Greater New York (1962), where she continued art lessons and joined the Art Students League. She began to write in the mornings when her third child started school. Her first-published story Jennifer, Hecate was inspired by Laurie's experience as a new girl in Port Chester. Mixed-Up Files was inspired by her children's complaints about a picnic with many amenities of home; she inferred that if they ever ran away "(t)hey would certainly never consider any place less elegant than the Metropolitan Museum of Art."
Konigsburg learned of those first two books' 1968 Newbery Award and honorable mention during her family's move back from Port Chester to Jacksonville. When she composed her autobiographical statement for The Book of Junior Authors (2000), she lived "on the beach in North Florida". The pieces of View From Saturday (1996) had come together when she "left my desk and took a walk along the beach".

Along with chapter books, some of which she has illustrated, Konigsburg is the writer and illustrator of three 1990s picture books "featuring her own grandchildren": Samuel Todd's Book of Great Colors, Samuel Todd's Book of Great Inventions, and Amy Elizabeth Explores Bloomingdale's.

As of 2002, she had five grandchildren, Samuel Todd and Amy Elizabeth being the eldest children of Laurie and Ross. Husband David Konigsburg died in 2001.

Konigsburg died in Falls Church, Virginia on April 19, 2013 from complications of a stroke that she had suffered a week prior. Konigsburg was 83.

Themes
Many of Konigsburg's stories feature childhood and adolescent struggles that are easy for school-age readers to understand. Often her characters are striving to find the answers to big questions that will help shape their identities. Many of them are based on her own experiences as a child, the observations she made of children while a teacher, and the experiences or observations of her children.
Especially her characters are "softly comfortable on the outside and solidly uncomfortable on the inside". Teaching at Bartram, she learned that supposed "spoiled young women who had it all (actually) had all the creature comforts of the world, but ... were just as uncomfortable inside as I was when I was growing up." Later she realized that her own children were middle-class suburban kids with comforts unlike her own. She has written about "their kind of growing up, something that addressed the problems that come about even though you don't have to worry if you wear out your shoes whether your parents can buy you a new pair, something that tackles the basic problems of who am I?"

She has told Scholastic Teachers, "The essential problems remain the same. ... the kids I write about are asking for the same things I wanted. They want two contradictory things. They want to be the same as everyone else, and they want to be different from everyone else.They want acceptance for both."

What are you reading this week?

I am trudging through What Maisie Knew for the AAC. I also started The Mosquito Coast as a balm for the terribleness of What Maisie Knew.

I am about 100 pages in to Night Watch by Sarah Waters. This is for Paul's British Author Challenge. I am not progressing very fast on it, but keep trying to find time to fit it into the day.

I'm approx. 50 pages from the end of The Name of the Wind. It's engaging. Also slowly reading A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet, Binocular Vision, Unruly Places, and Blue Horses.

I finished How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World by Steven Johnson and am continually amazed at the ability of people to take isolated facts and connect them into a view of the world. Johnson starts with the natural formation of glass on an Iranian plain and manages to get to intercontinental commuication and goes from the understanding of sound waves to the rise of Hitler.
I also finished Astray a collection by Emma Donoghue of short stories drawn from characters and situations in real life that highlight migration of all kinds - international, intranational and intersexual. This time she doesn't have the horror stories usually associated with her novels so it's a more comfortable and still engaging read.
I'm moving along with A Long Time Gone which won't end up being a favorite, but there's some interest in this book which has so far managed to refrain from the usual chauvinism of southern novels.
Middlemarch is still enchanting me.
I'm about half way through Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America by Linda Tirado which is an examination of poverty by someone who has spent most of her life there. This is one angry woman, but as they say, "If you're not angry, you don't understnd the situation." Plus, I'm sure she has some underlying emotional problems that, now that she has a best selling book, she might be able to afford to treat.
On iPad I've started another of the best books of 2014, The Miniaturist which so far seems to be about economics in 17th century Amsterdam, a new bride coming to an unwelcoming house and dollhouses. It gets better the more I read.
I'm also about to start Calling Dr. Laura: A Graphic Memoir by Nicole J. Georges because I need a little humor to counteract Tirado's poverty.

I'm in the middle of Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin, which is my book club's current selection. So far, I'm really enjoying the story and the author's writing style.

A youngster in our family recently shared a new children's book with me. I used to collect children's books and still have a great interest in them. I decided I needed a copy of this one -- Last Stop on Market Street - a story of a grandmother opening her grandson's eyes to the beauty all around him.

Alas, I'm reading the same books as last week, though I'm further along.

I've almost finished listening to Rough Crossings by Simon Schama, have finished Small Island by Andrea Levy, Beyond the Burning Lands by John Christopher and The Ultimates: Homeland Security by Mark Millar et al.

I'm still making good(ish) progress through The Sinner by Tess Gerritsen and have moved onto The Sword of the Spirits which is the final part of the John Christopher trilogy. I confess that I've read not a page more in the intervening week of The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood and I'm considering throwing it back onto the pile and moving on with a view to trying again later. Can anyone else advise me? Is it going to grip me if I read a few more pages? Right now, I can't even remember where I last hid it so that I could focus on one of the other reads (oops!).

In the car, I'm listening to The Secret History of the World as laid down by the Secret Societies by Jonathan Black and can't decide whether it's worth sticking with. I'm about four discs in and there are bits that make me go... ooh I'd like to know more about that.... and then there are other bits that make me cringe and go ....I can't believe he just said that. Fiction posing as non-fiction?? The reviews on LT seem decidedly extreme - love it or hate it and given the subject matter that doesn't surprise me I suppose.

I found Louise Penny's The Long Way Home to be a very long slog and am delighted to move on to Penelope Lively's Moon Tiger.

The perfect summer by Juliet Nicolson.

Still working my way through The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. It's wonderful narrative non-fiction but I didn't have much time for reading this week.

I am listening to How Green Was my Valley. This book is just packed with beautiful little passages. The language is beautiful. I am also reading Winter Siege by Ariana Franklin.

Just finished the rollicking Moll Flanders.

Next up for listening is The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards.

I finished Honor and Polygamy a debut novel by Omar Farhad which was an intriguing idea, badly written IMHO.

Slowly working my way through Elizabeth I: A novel by Margaret George. Only reading 2-4 chapters a day and it should be getting more interesting now the Earl of Easex will soon face execution.

And about to begin Tony Hillerman's Navajo detective series with The Blessing's Way.

Not quite in a reading slump but not reading as much as I usually do so still working on The Rose Rent by Ellis Peters and The Tyrant's Law by Daniel Abraham.

I finished my book club book so I'm back to reading Doctor Sleep by Stephen King. It feels so good to be reading an excellent story again.

>17 PaperbackPirate: Sounds like your book club book was a clunker? Doctor Sleep is a good one!

Currently I'm reading Dept of Speculation and I like it quite a bit.

>17 PaperbackPirate:, >18 Copperskye: My husband and I have just started Doctor Sleep as a read-aloud. We both read The Shining in about 1978 and have forgotten so much (although certain scenes do stand out). Do we need to reread it in order to get on with this sequel? Would it be enough of a catch-up to rewatch the movie?

>19 Meredy:
I know you didn't ask me, but I'll butt in anyway. It has been years since I read The Shining, and I have a mind like a steel sieve, but I had no trouble with Doctor Sleep. I don't think you need to reread the first in order to enjoy and get all you can out of the second.

I like Stephen King but some of his books work better for me than others. Doctor Sleep is one of my favorites.

I finished up The Ciano Diaries this week. Good, but not as good as The Goebbels Diaries. He does have some witty things to say at times. "The moment he tried to speak, the Fuhrer would interrupt him and deliver a long dissertation. (I believe that at heart Hitler is happy at being Hitler, since this permits him to talk all the time.)"

I've started The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu. I'm only about a quarter of the way through it, but I'm not finding it as good as other people have told me. Still, I'm always interested in reading science fiction from other cultures.

Currently reading Dept of Speculation and finding it a bit difficult. I admire it but just not getting engaged. That may change as I read on.

#21> And, coincidentally in an almost mind-bending way, today I started The Ciano Diaries 1939-43! I wouldn't expect it to be as dramatic as The Goebbels diaries, I guess, as Ciano (the Italian Foreign Minister during the years in question and Mussolini's son-in-law) was far less a dramatic figure than Goebbels. But the inner workings and international machinations of Mussolini's government are something I know next to nothing about, so I'm looking forward to filling in some holes in my knowledge of the time and place.

The Ciano book checks in at about 540 pages (I don't have it with me right now), which makes it short compared to the work I just finished, We, the Drowned by Carsten Jensen, which is a 690-pager! I found Jensen's 3-generation saga about a Danish maritime town and the experiences asea of its sailors in peacetime and war to be quite compelling and enjoyable, despite the occasional slow spots that you might expect from a book of this length. As usual, you can find my full review on the book's work page and on my 50-Book Challenge thread.

#23
Thanks for that review of We, The Drowned as I have had it on my TBR list for some years and hope to eventually read it.

>19 Meredy: I read The Shining around the same time you did and watched the movie again not too long ago. I considered rereading it before Dr Sleep but then I was afraid I'd never actually get to Dr Sleep if I did. I agree with >20 TooBusyReading:, I don't think The Shining needs to be reread unless you want to. Dr Sleep was a great read!

#24> I hope you do read it, Benita. It is a time commitment, but for me it was very much worth it. Athough, to be fair, I have heard from two other readers who didn't enjoy the book as much as I did.

>19 Meredy: I read that Epitaph: A Novel of the O.K. Corral, Mary Doria Russell's sequel to Doc will be coming out March 3. I'm debating whether to reread Doc or just go to Wikipedia and get the summary. I loved the first book but hate to think I'd tire myself out on the story so wouldn't fully be able to appreciate the new book. I did the Wikipedia refreshment before I read Dr. Sleep, it wasn't perfect but gave me enough info to understand what was going on.

I finished Farming of the Bones and it was just tough reading (due to subject matter), and Edwidge Danticat has sort of disquieting way of making severe violence poetic, and it just is this combination of understanding both the perpetrator and the victim ... but I don't know. It really leaves one with a hopeless kind of feeling. Well, I suppose that is good writing! But that said, it's hard reading (emotionally).

On to some wonderful new poetry, short fiction and essay(s) in "Tin House Magazine Winter Reading" (Volume 16, Number 2)

Finished The Rose Rent and started The Hermit of Eyton Forest.

>28 CarolynSchroeder: I'm reading An Untamed State by Roxane Gay which is similar to Farming of the Bones but without the perpetrator's point of view. It has a blurb by Danticat ("...you will not be able to put it down.") and is also very well written. I've just begun so I don't know if I'll be tempted to put it down.

After listening to 6 CDs, I've put A Long Time Gone aside. It's possible I'll get back to it later, I hate to stop a book after investing so much time in it; but there are 8 CDs left and I find the only character I have any positive feelings for is one of the men. I've started Claire of the Sea Light and am liking it much better. The people are people, not superficial stereotypes, but knowing Danticat I'm sure I'll be feeling a great deal of discomfort soon.

For class: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Emma.

For pleasure: The Land of Stories: A Grimm Warning - a reread, but a goodie.

Finished reading the very good Indiana by Georges Sand. The author's introductions were as fascinating, if not more so, than the novel.

Next up to read is Evelina by Frances Burney.

19 Meredy

The book and the movie actually have a lot of differences, but I think you could get by without a reread. I reread The Shining and I'm glad I did. There are little things I pick up on that I might noticed without it, but it hasn't added any understanding to major plot points.

Either way, I hope you like it as much as I have.

Finished The Name of the Wind Friday night - amazing. Took a couple of days to select a new fiction read, but finally settled into The Miniaturist yesterday afternoon. Promising, so far.

Also finished Mary Oliver's exquisite Blue Horses poetry collection. I fear whatever collection I start next will pale in comparison...unless I grab another of Oliver's from my library!

I'm reading Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy-awesome! Almost done.

Finished Faithful Place and The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. I am about to start Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen. I was at least halfway through Stephen King's Under the Dome when I had to return it the library. I borrowed it again because I have to know why that dome is there!

Agree, grkmwk - Hard to follow up Blue Horses with much! My other favorite ever poetry book is Reduced to Joy by Mark Nepo ... worth a gander for Oliver lovers. He is definitely his own poet, but they have a similar love of people, nature, spirituality ...

NarratorLady - Yes, do let me know what you think of An Untamed State.

I am in the middle of Touched by Fire by Pandit Rajmani Tigunait and really enjoying it, and learning about this kind, beautiful spiritual head of Himalayan Institute. Also, drifting in and out of the newest Tin House (Winter Reading); and picked up May We Be Forgiven by A.M. Homes, who, I must admit is one serious guilty pleasure to me. Her writing is drug-like and I lose entire days. So hoping I can pace myself with this one a bit better than I have, and still do my life stuff (work, school, etc.).

Finished my ER read which finally arrived after several months being MIA A Small Indiscretion, a thoroughly enjoyable book (although I think a misnomer of a title and with an unsympathetic main character). I must have enjoyed it because I devoured it in a day.

I am going to quit Travelling to Infinity unfortunately; while Jane Hawking's writing is good, it is just a matter of style that does not agree with me: too many unnecessary details bogging down the story. I would've edited down half of what I read and that was only 57 pages!

I've started Fangirl, the last of Rainbow Rowell's books that I haven't yet read.

I finished and absolutely loved The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Olympics.

Now I'm reading Wallace Stegner's Crossing to Safety.

I'm reading a book that I discovered on this thread a month or two ago, Mama's Bank Account. I'm finding it charmingly old fashioned and send thanks to whomever had been reading it and mentioned it!

>41 Copperskye: Oh yes I remember someone mentioning Mama's Bank Account on this thread too. Thanks to both of you for bringing it up. I have added it to my wish list.

I was introduced to Colum McCann via book club, and I loved Let the Great World Spin. I'm almost finished with Transatlantic, which I don't think is quite as good, but his writing is absolutely beautiful.

I just started The Invention of Wings for book club this month, which is pretty good so far.

I'm really enjoying Daniel Abraham's "The Dagger and Coin" series. Just finished the third book, The Tyrant's Law and started the fourth, The Widow's House.

Finished American Rust by Philipp Meyer.
Started Death at Snake Hill: Secrets from a War of 1812 Cemetery.
Still poking at essays in Ed Abbey's The Journey Home -- loved the one about mountain lions, especially where he described how to identify, disarm &/or destroy "getter"s (cyanide guns).
Lately, I must be reading more than a book a day on the net. It's an intense time of the year for me. I need audio books but can't get out of here. There won't be time for a lot of book reading for a while, although I'll probably try. I miss it and do not want to run out of time on my account.

I finished Stefan Zweig's remarkable The Post-Office Girl -- what a wonderful book.

I'm reading Edith Pearlman's new book of short stories, Honeydew, and today I hope to begin reading Van Gogh: A Power Seething by Julian Bell.

How to be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis
Library copy

Well, I've abandoned 2 more. Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot was on a best of 2014 list but wasn't grabbing my attention, so off with you. Also, I'm beginning to think Penelope Lively isn't my kind of gal. I started Moon Tiger but again couldn't find the interest. Maybe I'll get back to that one one day.
Instead, on iPad I've started The Blazing World a story of art, intellect, emotions and feminism that had me from the first. I'm also about to start a graphic memoir, El Deafo by a woman who was made deaf by meningitis when she was 4.

>41 Copperskye: & 42: if either if you are old movie fans, I Remember Mama starring Irene Dunne is a lovely film which includes the bank account story and, of course, it's also a book.

>41 Copperskye: & >42 Tara1Reads: I am the one who recently read Mama's Bank Account, charming book. The movie based on it is playing at a theater that I have a gift certificate for later this month. When I mentioned the book, people said the movie was quite good, I should really go see it.

I finished an LTER The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams. I knew next to nothing about him before reading this book. At various times, I thought this was going to be boring but it never was. Enjoyed the personal insights and also the description of places at that time. It does end as he is elected president so it is a focus on his education and not so much his accomplishments.

>49 NarratorLady: Thanks for the recommendation.

>50 MDGentleReader: I didn't know it was a movie too.

>49 NarratorLady: and >50 MDGentleReader: It seems like a lot of the books I have been reading lately have been turned into movies. I Capture the Castle, The Mosquito Coast, What Maisie Knew, Call the Midwife is a TV series, Gillian Flynn's books are being turned into movies. I used to want to read all the books before watching the movies/shows but now I am starting to feel like I would rather pass on most of the movies. They never live up to the book or they leave out a lot of scenes or characters.

I watched Riding in Cars with Boys tonight after recently realizing it was a memoir first. I think I will pass on the memoir though.

>52 Tara1Reads: The movie is called I Remember Mama, rottentomatoes.com info on I Remember Mama

I finished El Deafo which does a geat job illuminating the life of a deaf child in a hearing world.
I have to admit that after about 7 chapters of The Blazing World a novel of art, gender fluidity, and feminism, I had to go all the way back to the beginning and start over because I'd found my mind wandering and the book is too good to miss all the connections.
And I am maybe the last person in America to be reading To Kill A Mockingbird. After having seen the movie a few times, I guess I just assumed I'd read the book. Fortunately it's the read for this month's book club and I'm finding out just how wonderful it is. I can kind of see why Harper Lee didn't try to publish anything else, it's so good. I wonder if her first novel will compare. Guess we'll know in a few months.

I am busy reading Gravity and am just getting to the crisis part. I like it so far.

>40 brenzi:

Hope you are enjoying Crossing to Safety. It is one of my all time favorites.

>50 MDGentleReader: Thank you! The movie is good!

>42 Tara1Reads:, >49 NarratorLady: >50 MDGentleReader: What a charming little book Mama's Bank Account is! I've seen the movie, years ago, and I know my older siblings loved the TV show, but I never knew it was based on a book.

Currently, because I really needed to get caught up in another series, I'm reading The Cold Dish, the first book in the Longmire series

>57 Copperskye: There's a TV show show too? I can't keep up!

>58 Tara1Reads: Yes, but sadly, from the early 50s and mostly lost.

>59 Copperskye: Oh okay. That is unfortunate.

Finished Death at Snake Hill: Secrets from a War of 1812 Cemetery
by Paul Litt, Ronald F. Williamson, Joseph W.A. Whitehorne

Read some Ed Abbey

Started A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro

and listening to Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the International Hunt for His Assassin
by Hampton Sides.

I just finished Touched by Fire by Pandit Rajmani Tigunait and loved it ... and cannot wait to delve into some of his other writing(s).

Now for a bit of literary whiplash in May We Be Forgiven by A.M. Homes which is, as I knew it would be, addictive, strange, wonderful, hilarious and disturbing ... all rolled into one. I find no other author quite like her.

61-Fyrfly - Hellhound on his Trail is one of my favorite non fiction books of all times. I hope you like it. Hampton Sides is a great writer.

>38 CarolynSchroeder: Thanks, I'll look for his collection at my library!