Loretta Mason Potts

I got this because I was curious about Mary Chase, the author of the wonderful "Harvey."  It's ok but it could have been better.  Loretta's brother Colin finds out that he has an older sister he never knew about.  She moves in and she's spunky.  I wanted to find out more about her.  I wanted there to be adventures with Colin and Loretta.  Instead, it brought in a fantasy world that I didn't really care about.  I liked the first part of the book so much more.

The Yellow Sofa

A husband comes home and finds his wife in the arms of a colleague.  The protagonist does contemplate fighting a duel.  After all, he is angry.  Gradually though he forgives them.  This novella is the second work that I've read from the Portuguese writer.  The first was The Crime of Father Amaro.  That was more original and I rated it higher on Goodreads. Yet this piece has less of an agenda.  Also, this doesn't have the after taste of The Crime of Father Amaro.

The Liars' Asylum

I'm so busy reading short stories from the 1950's and 1960's I rarely look at what is written nowadays.  I picked this up and am glad I did.  The first story "Bait and Switch" was the best.  It's about an aunt who wants her niece to help her pick up a man.  The girl gets a job helping the guy adding details to plants.  It's kind of strange.  I liked the last story "The Liar's Asylum" mainly because it didn't end in the usual predictable manner or even a twist ending. I'm going to read another book by Appel soon.  I thought it was an interesting book, kind of eccentric.  

Life is a Dream

This is an interesting piece from Spain's Golden Age of Drama.  It's about Segismundo who has been imprisoned his whole life.  The king decides to give him a chance.  He releases him.  Only his son turns out to be the tyrant that was foreseen.  Thus they try to convince him that everything he just saw was imagined.  The play makes you think of the difference between dream and reality and how thin that can get. The theatre class I took at BYU Idaho is ending.  However, I liked reading plays.  During the class, I took notes on what other plays I should read.  I now have an extensive list that will take me a while. 

The Golden Compass

I was raised in an active Mormon household.  I have to admit that when I first heard about the book as an atheist Narnia I wasn't thrilled.  I watched the movie and that didn't help.  It was so bad. However, the HBO show "His Dark Materials" looks interesting and people say it does the books justice.  I've seen ads across the internet.  So I decided to investigate it.  Is it going to change me going to church?  Do I think it as highly as Entertainment Weekly who put it on the best book list of all time? The answer to both is no.   Despite this, I think it's well written and it maintained my interest throughout. The plot is about a girl named Lyra who finds out that her world is being destroyed by gobblers who steal children away. In her world, people have a daemon a lifelong animal who stays with them. Something called dust stops the daemon from changing their animal appearance as the children grow up. I'm going to try the sequel.  

The Farce of Master Pierre Patelin

The character also goes by the name Pierre Pathelin.  This was an anonymous medieval farce discussing honesty, a characteristic that the people of this play lack. The plot concerns a lawyer who figures out a way to get fabric for free.  The draper, who sells low-quality merchandise, wants justice for the fabric.  He was also robbed previously by a shepherd. At the trial, the draper tries to explain both dilemmas at the trial only the judge gets confused.  The lawyer though gets what's coming to him. It was short but funny.

Everyman

Everyman is a medieval play.  I had to read it for my theatre history class and I enjoyed it.  Everyman sets on his journey to meet God in the afterlife.  His strength and beauty leave him. Other companions desert him as well. The only thing that he has left with him are his good deeds.  The play is short but it gets to the point.  I wonder why it was left as anonymous.  If I wrote it I would watch my name attached to it.  It's a nice moral play.  

Young Torless

This book was disturbing.  I read it at 19 and it stayed with me.  I didn't read it again until recently.  It's about a boarding school where a gang of boys mentally and physically abuse one of their classmates.  At the beginning, Torless is just like them but then he gradually gains a conscience.  The book also explores philosophical thought and mathematics.  The author was later to seek exile in Switzerland because of World War II.  This isn't his biggest achievement.  It's a massive book called The Man without Qualities which someday I will read.  I also need to rewatch the movie which made it into the Criterion collection.  

Medea

I liked Euripides tale of a strong female character destined to get revenge.  None of the characters are likable but the plot is riveting enough to get your attention the whole way through.  Jason abandons Medea for a richer woman.  Medea decides to destroy her husband in the worst possible way, by killing their children and his new wife.  This is compelling theatre at its best.  It was first performed at 431 BC but it is still a timeless play. I've got to read more Greek plays.

Memoirs of a Midget

This was a unique book by Walter de la Mare.  It's about a midget and her friendship with a beautiful girl named Fanny who calls her Midgetina.  Fanny is cold though and brings about the downfall of a man who idolizes her Mr. Crimble.  Then there is Mrs. Monnerie who treats her like she is a doll for display.  Eventually, Midgetina has a love interest with an angry dwarf Mr. Anon.  The book is around 500 pages but I don't really mind the length of a book anymore as long as there's something to capture my interest.  There's a whimsical quaintness about this book. I read it fourteen years ago and it was still pretty good.  I've got to read the short story book I've owned for a while by Walter de la Mare some time.  With writers like Angela Carter giving their recommendations to the book, well you know you are in for something special.   

The Saracen Lamp

So far this is my least favorite Ruth M. Arthur book but it's all right.  It's about a lamp that is passed down to three different women.  The one that was the most interesting to me was Perdita who lived in modern times.  She's a crippled girl who takes it upon herself to walk again.  There's an evil doll that Perdita talks to that doesn't encourage her healing.  This follows Ruth M. Arthur's usual obsessions such as ancestors, the supernatural, and evil dolls.  (See her masterpiece https://bethsbookoftheweek.blogspot.com/2019/02/a-candle-in-her-room.html) Arthur has a formula but she does it well.  Not only that when you read a book of Ruth M. Arthur's you know it's hers.  Too many authors don't add anything unique that is generally theirs.  You can't say this with Ruth M. Arthur.  I've never paid for a book of Arthur's.  The prices are high.  It's called interlibrary loan.  

The Book of Sand and Shakespeare's Memory

This combines two works that Borges did in 1975 and 1983.  I've been reading a bit of Borges lately mostly because I read a fascinating autobiography on him.  The stories I liked the most were "The Other" and "August 25, 1983".  Both of those stories have the same concept.  An older version of Jorge meets a younger one.  I wonder sometimes what I would have to say to a younger version of myself.  Would I warn myself of trials ahead?  (But then I would probably be a coward to accept the trials or be horrified.)  What kind of advice would I give?  They are stories that make you think.  I was disappointed in "Blue Tigers."  The first thing I read by him was "The Book of Imaginary Beings" and he had an interesting section on blue tigers.  The story starts out about blue tigers but then becomes a story about stones.  That's not what I wanted.  Someone should write a short story on them. 

The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place

This book shows that Julie Berry is a very diverse author. I read The Passion of Dolssa recently.  It was historical fiction.  If the author's name wasn't on the cover I would take it for two authors. This is a black comedy.  It's a young adult book about a headmistress and her brother being killed.  The girls in the school want to stay together so they cover it up.  But how long can they successfully do it?  Not only that the murderer is still loose.  This book was cute.    

Kindred

I'm a fan of Octavia E. Butler.  I've read a number of her works but this is still her best.  It's about a woman who is transported back in time to keep helping this white boy named Rufus who is an ancestor of hers.  Initially, she thinks that he must have some important purpose.  She tries to make a difference in the boy's life, hoping that she can have an impression on him.  However, he starts turning into his dad selling slaves and the like.  The book ends up with a bang.  You feel for the character as she has to degrade herself to fit into the slavery times.  Yet she is an extraordinary bright woman.  This is great literature.  This is the type of book that should be in Modern Library.  

The Passion of Dolssa

Too many young adult books have annoying characters.  I've read a number recently and even good ones seem to have that fault.  This book differs from the genre in that it doesn't take place in high school.  In fact, it takes place in the 1200's.  It deals with Dolssa, a healer who is taken to be a heretic.  Botille and her sisters hide her from a persistent man Friar Lucien who is hunting her.  Soon she is healing again and the hunt for her becomes easy.  I welcomed this historical fiction book.  It was certainly different than the other young adult books I've read.  I applaud the change.  Young adult publishers need to get more books like this in print. This is a book about characters who don't even know prom is.  It's refreshing.  

The Blacker the Berry

This was another book from the Harlem Renaissance.  I didn't care for the main character Emma Lou as I found her snooty.  I was involved though with the book and finished it in a short time.  It's about Emma Lou's struggle to find a place where she belongs.  Her skin is too dark for the African Americans around her and the Caucasians. She goes to college for a few years.  Then she goes to Harlem where she falls for a loser player called Alva.  He even has the gall to tell her she is imagining the discrimination.  However, you as a reader see it happening everywhere around her.  The reader is frustrated by some of her actions like her quitting college and going back to Alva.  However, the ending left me satisfied.  

Borges: A Life

It's kind of weird that I chose to read this whereas I've never read one of his books of short stories.  Nevertheless, I picked it up on the shelf and read it.  It's cool that a high school dropout was able to become one of South America's best writers.  However, Borges comes across as very smart and determined.  He sent his work to millions of places, not over that he started many literary magazines himself.  This book also goes over all of the trials in his life: his blindness, his hatred of the Perons, and his several unrequited crushes.  The most frustrating of which was the writer Norah Lange.  She was a woman clearly in love with another man.  Whenever the man dumped her she went right back to Jorge only to go back if the man showed the slightest interest.  I felt like telling Jorge she's not into you.  This book made me read The Aleph which I reviewed earlier. 

The Clean House

This play is about a doctor Lane and her maid.  Lane's sister Virginia loves cleaning and secretly takes over the maid's duties.  The maid has dreams about making it as a stand-up comedian.  Lane's world falls apart as her husband announces that he has found his soul mate in an older woman.  I found this play amusing and it was funny at times.  I don't know the concept that someone would love cleaning was funny to me. The play was pretty original.  

The Aleph and other stories

I've been reading Edwin Williamson's "Borges a Life."  I've found it fascinating.  I've only read The Book of Imaginary Creatures which I loved.  It's kind of weird that I picked a biography of a guy I haven't really read.  I knew it was time I read more.  So I picked up some of his short stories to read.  He writes in a detached sort of way.  He has his own style and it took me a while but then I liked it.    He's not an author to skim.  The story I liked the most was "The Other Death" about a soldier who was a coward but God manages to change almost everyone's memories, that is except the narrator who remembers the truth. I found the concept of God doing that interesting.

The School for Scandal

This is the story of two brothers Charles and Joseph.  Charles is a gambler and considered a bad guy.  However, the real truth is that Charles has some integrity while Joseph, the truly evil one just knows how to put on an act.  A wealthy uncle shows up and pretends to be someone else.  He finds out the truth about the brothers.  This play written in the 1700s is still relevant to his day as gossip has always been considered entertainment.  The play is quick to show its destructible nature.  I like the discussion also of people being deceiving in their appearances.  This is a comedy and there are some funny moments particularly when the uncle pretends to be a poorer person around Charles.  Do not let the fact that it was written a few centuries ago scare you off as it is a simple play to read.  I enjoyed it.  Except for the occasional Shakespeare play I haven't really read that many plays from before the 1800s so The School for Scandal was a revelation to me.  I need to read more "old" plays.   

Sapphira and the Slave Girl

This is the fourth book I've read from Willa Cather.  It's also the weakest.  This was one of her last novels.  Still, it had some good points about it.  It deals with the jealousy between the wife Sapphira and the beautiful African American girl Nancy.  A nephew Martin arrives that lusts after the slave.  Sapphira's daughter Rachel plans a getaway for Nancy.  I was more involved when Martin came into the mix.   The four books I've read from Willa Cather shows that she had a lot of range.  It doesn't seem like it's the same author from Death comes from the Archbishop.  That's good.  A lot of authors repeat themselves. 3/5

Not without Laughter

In my American Literature class, we had to read some poetry from Langston Hughes.  I'm not the best at understanding poetry but Hughes was easy to read and very good.  When I found out he wrote novels too I had to read one.  This is his first.  It's a coming of age story about a boy named Sandy, probably semi-autobiographical.  It's about a boy whose father is a drifter and his grandmother who mostly takes care of him. The grandmother wants him to become a somebody like Booker T. Washington.  She has a lot of aspirations for this boy.  His aunt Harriet takes a shady road but ends up becoming a successful singer.  Along the way, the boy gets a job at a hotel and as a shoeshine boy.    I've been reading books from the Harlem Renaissance lately.  Why didn't I read books like this in high school?  Why wasn't I introduced to the movement till college?  But then I did go to a lackluster school so that might have something to do with it. 3.5/5   

Native Son

Richard Wright got this published in 1940.  It seems ahead of its time.  It's about a chauffeur Bigger Thomas who accidentally kills his employer's daughter.  He panics and chops her up into the furnace.  He tries to pin it on a communist but is eventually found out. The other half of the book deals with him on the run.  One of the reasons Bigger didn't like the employer's daughter was that she respected him and treated him like a human being.  It confused him too much.  He gets accused of rape also although that didn't happen. The book drags a bit by the end since it preaches too much.  But you get the point the media displayed in the book wants to paint this man as a monster.    It's an interesting view on how race was treated in the day and not only the paranoia of communism at that time as well.   I've got to read Richard Wright's autobiographical "Black Boy."

The Autumn People

This follows the formula that two other Ruth M. Arthur books I've read dealt with a previous ancestor that influences a person currently living.  Both girls are named Romilly although the earlier one went by the name of Millie.  Millie was in love with a good boy named Jocelyn, but an evil warlock Rodger, unfortunately, gets her interest more.  He could be casting a spell on her?  Rodger also bugs the current Romilly as he starts following her around as a fox. One reviewer on Goodreads pointed out that the nature of evil wasn't really discussed enough here.  Arthur did a more thorough job on that in A Candle in her room.

Uzumaki

When I was 18 I went a whole year with just reading comic books.  Then I missed regular books and never went back.  I'm trying to get back into them now.  Frankly, movies based on comic books are some of the best movies around.  They're family-friendly.  Most of them aren't rated R.  I read this comic when I was a teenager and remembered liking it.  It's about a town being infested with spirals.  People turn into spirals.  People become snails after all the shape is spiral.  Soon the people of the town are homeless and desperate for shelter.  Japanese comic books are books that you have to read backward so that just added to the dizzy effect.  Frankly, some of this book freaked me out.   I bought some more comic books from this author.  I hope they're good.  It was made into a movie which I haven't watched yet.  I'll probably get around to it in a couple of months.  This collects all the comics in the Uzumaki series.  

Tartuffe

Shakespeare's plays can be hard to read.  Tartuffe was written in the 1600s.  I was worried it was going to be a difficult read but it wasn't hard at all.  It's a comedy about religious hypocrisy.  Orgon thinks the world of Tartuffe, he paints him out to be a saint.  Everyone except Orgon's mother tells him that Tartuffe's putting up an act that he is really a horrible man.  It isn't until Orgon witnesses Tartuffe hitting on his wife that the truth comes out.  Only Tartuffe won't end with that.  I watched a silent movie of this play years ago.  It was a drama and had a modern plot added to it as well.  I was surprised to learn this was a comedy as the movie definitely didn't paint it that way.  It was a pretty good read.  

The Fountain Overflows

I love New York Review Book classics (NYRB).  They really know to collect the best literature of the last century.  I read this just based on the label.  It's about a family of musicians.  The talented twins are learning piano from their mother.  Their father is a gambler.  The daughter Cordelia is a violinist but she isn't very good.  She has a teacher who doesn't know any better and has her do concerts.  This book also has a touch of the supernatural. The book is around 400 pages.  I think it could have been edited a bit.  Still, I was impressed.  There were sequels.  I'll get around to them this year and next.  Rebecca West also wrote a nonfiction book I'm curious about Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. 3.5/5  

The Crying of Lot 49

When I was in my early 20's I read a bit of postmodern literature.  I read some John Barth and I read this.  I read The Crying of Lot 49 because it was short.  Back in the days, I used to avoid books that were over 300 pages.  I found them too much of a challenge. My attention would wander. Now I don't have that problem at all.  I remember liking it so I read it fifteen years later.  I still enjoyed it.  It's kind of like a postmodern Alice in Wonderland.  A woman finds out about a secret postal service and it leads her down a rabbit hole.  I enjoyed the band obviously a parody of The Beatles.  I like The Beatles too.  One of these days now that long books don't overwhelm me anymore I got to read Gravity's Rainbow.  I bought it and put it on the bookshelf.  It's just waiting for the read.

The Blind Assassin

People seem to treat The Handmaid's Tale as the only thing that Margaret Atwood ever wrote.  But I liked this and Alias Grace just as much.  This book has a billion stories going on at once.  This is about two sisters Iris and Laura.  After their father's button factory business collapses Iris has to marry a villain Richard.  Before her suicide, Laura wrote a science fiction novel.  At the beginning of The Blind Assassin Iris is picking up an award given to her sister.  Excerpts of that novel are put into this book as well.  One of the reasons for Laura's suicide was her love for a radical named Alex.  Throughout the book many revelations are made about Iris and Laura.  Most of them are involved with Richard who turns out to be even a bigger jerk than the reader initially thought.  This won the Booker Prize. 

The Wild Duck

The Wild Duck is an interesting Ibsen play.  This one is all about the background story.  The main villain of the piece is Werle.  He once had an affair with his employee Gina.  Another employee Ekdal goes to prison while Werle is acquitted.  Feeling bad about it he pays off his son Hjalmar, who marries Gina, with photography lessons.  Then Werle's idealistic son Gregers has this idea that if he tells the truth that everything will be for the better, only setting things in a downward spiral.  Nazimova played Hedvig Gina's daughter in a production.  I would have liked to see that as I'm a fan.  This is one of Ibsen's better plays.  

Death of a Salesman

I read this play in high school.  It’s different now since I’m in my 30’s.  I know people who have drifted through life like Biff and Happy, who used to be hot shots once upon a time.  Still you feel for the character Biff. There are reasons why he never rose successfully to the challenge of adulthood. Willy Loman is one of the stage’s most famous characters.  He’s a salesman who is growing old and not doing sales like he used to.  His big dream is that he will have a huge funeral like the salesman of a man he attended.  Willy is not an admirable man.  He berates his devoted sympathetic wife.  His sons are visiting and he keeps getting in fights with his son Biff.  Willy wonders why his son doesn’t like him and can’t make out where he went wrong.  Then the realization brings his downward spiral.  The version with Dustin Hoffman is the one to watch.  The actors in that presentation really did a good job

Emil in the Soup Tureen

I remember when I was eight I was bullied for liking Pippi Longstocking.  I loved the badly dubbed movies as well.  I picked this book as a reintroduction to Astrid Lindgren.  This was charming.  It's about a boy who gets his head stuck in a soup tureen, eats all of the sausages in food storage, and has other mischievous adventures.  There's no moral at all.  It is simply just having fun.  The Swedish Astrid Lindgren proves that there are more children's authors to read than just American and British ones.   

A Raisin in the Sun

It's sad to see that this talented playwright died at the age of 34.  At least she wrote one masterpiece.  Lorraine was the first successful African American female playwright.  The characters in this play are so likable but real.  All of the family is driven by ambition.  The daughter wants to become a doctor.  Walter wants out of his chauffeur job into something better.  The religious mama wants a better house for them especially with a baby coming.  All of their dreams can come true with the father's money coming in.  But just how responsible is Walter?  This is one of the best plays I've read dealing with how family life is like. Sidney Poitier starred in the movie version.  

Oedipus the King

I had to read this a second time for school.  I didn't mind it because this is a classic.  Sophocles' play has hardly dated at all.  Oedipus is stubborn to admit an oracle's truth.  Who can blame him as it mentions incest and also says he killed his father?  He alone is the cause of Thebes' plague. Oedipus goes on a quest to find the truth.  The whole time the events are happening right in his face and he remains oblivious.  It all ends rather tragically of course.   I've got to read more of Sophocles' plays.  Actually, this is my first Greek play which means I need to catch up on this genre.

The Complete Stories Zora Neale Hurston

In my American Literature class, we had to read "The Gilded Six-Bits" and I loved it.  It was a wonderful story about adultery and forgiveness.  So I just had to read more of her short stories.  This is the first book I've read by Zora.  Some of the "stories" are just excerpts from her novels which I don't think count as a story.  However after reading the excerpts of "Moses: Man of the Mountain" it is definitely on top of my reading list.  I liked how a few of the stories had biblical themes.  There's also interesting themes of hoodoo which I see is prevalent in some of her work.  In other words, this is just a beginning for me of Hurston.

Going Solo

As a kid, I put off Roald Dahl's autobiographies.  I kept saying to myself I'll read it eventually.  Here I am in my 30's finally reading them.  This is an entertaining book about Dahl's experiences in World War II.  The second half of the book deals with his experiences as a pilot.  I liked the first half of the book more.  There were amusing stories about deadly snakes and a lion that almost eats a woman.  I thought the interaction between the character Mdisho and him was pretty funny.  Roald Dahl was an extremely versatile writer.  He could write children's books and adult books.  Not many people in America are aware of his abilities as an adult writer as his fame has been eclipsed by such books as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.   Really though you should read his short stories for adults as they are clever and entertaining. 

Sanctuary

This book follows the character Temple Drake.  The book is about sex slavery, rape, and murder.  In many ways, it is more of a book covering topics of today instead of the 30’s.  William Faulkner isn’t the easiest author to read.  I gave up The Sound and the Fury.  None of the characters are redeemable in this book but I kept reading anyway.  There was a movie with Miriam Hopkins called The Story of Temple Drake.  Leonard Maltin gave it a high rating.  For some reason, it’s not available.  Neither is the Lee Remick version called Sanctuary.  I wish these were available.  When you read a book you usually want to see the movie of it and this wasn’t possible for me concerning both movies.

The Darkest Child

This was a pretty impressive debut, the only book by Delores Phillips although she was in the works of writing a sequel before she died.  This book is about Tangy Mae, a brilliant African American girl who wants to get out of the family and town that entrap her.  Tangy's mother is pretty messed up, having no problems with pimping Tangy out.  Tangy gets the offer of going to a white school but her mother is set against it.  Tangy is the only one in her family who is capable of getting a high school diploma.  Tangy also experiences other problems like her crush on her sister Martha Jean's husband.  The edition I got was around 387 pages but it went by pretty quickly.  

I'll give you the sun

I'm just starting to get into young adult fiction.  I used to be snobby about not calling it literature.  Then I read John Green and realized I was wrong.  It took me a while to get into the book but when I did it was a page-turner.  It's about twins, a girl and a boy called Jude and Noah.  They've drifted apart.  Both are artists and enrolling at an arts high school called CSA.  Noah is gay and has a crush on a boy named Brian.  The sister tries to get an established artist to help her with sculpturing.  The plot jumps from the current time and three years ago.  Eventually, everything even discovering more about their dead mother, collide. It was a fast read and won a few deserved awards.

Kierkegaard A Single Life

This was a good biography by Stephen Backhouse.  I used to read a bit of philosophy when I was a teenager but what I most enjoyed was reading biographies about them.  These philosophers were usually eccentrics.  I haven't read anything on philosophy for more than ten years.  However watching the first two seasons of "The Good Place" made me want to pick them up again so I got this.  Kierkegaard was a Christian philosopher.  More than twenty pages of the book goes into details on each of his specific works.  You get to read about the love of his life Regine, who he shafted.  (The book says incompatibility but I think Kierkegaard being scared had something to do with it.)  I also learned about how Kierkegaard criticized many thinkers of his day, most later forgotten.  I didn't know this side of him so I learned something.

Firefly Hollow

This book didn't rock my world but it was cute.  It's about a vole, cricket, and a firefly.  The cricket wants to be a catcher for baseball.  The firefly wants to fly to the moon.  The cricket and the firefly become friends with a human boy who is currently dealing with his friend's death.  They are amazed to become friends with the boy despite the misconceptions about the "giant" creatures.  They are able to somewhat fulfill their dreams.  The boy is able to move on with his life.  It's a good book for kids to read because it teaches about the value of friendship.  

Extraordinary Adventures

I picked this up randomly at the library.  It said it was done by the author of “Big Fish” and that was a movie done by Tim Burton in recent years that I thought was ok.  A man in his 30’s gets a phone call about a free vacation.  The catch is you have to watch a timeshare presentation.  Only the operator makes it mandatory that he bring a companion with him. The character Edsel has never been in a relationship so this sounds hard for him.  Only within the next few weeks, he manages to get three women interested in him.  They are an older woman from his apartment complex Coco, an eccentric woman from work Sheila, and a sassy policewoman.  There are two subplots about a drug-dealing neighbor and his mother who is losing it.  This book didn’t change my world but it was cute.  I was happy with who he ended up with.