Recent reads

My friend Amanda just posted on her blog reviews of books she's recently read, and I liked the idea so much I decided to copy it. Here are a few of the books I've enjoyed recently.


Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
I don't even remember why I picked this book up. I saw it at the library and when I judged the book by its cover, it looked like an Oprah-type story of obsessive love. (I'm not a fan of Oprah books. Too depressing!) But I read the synopsis on the cover and it sounded interesting, so I took it home. I'm so glad I did! The book is about a young woman reminiscing about growing up at a boarding school, but there's a mystery. There's something different about the children at this school, something that even the children themselves don't fully understand. The mystery is revealed little by little throughout the book.

I loved the writing. I'm not the type of person who will only read literary novels with high-quality writing. In fact, I usually avoid novels that have won any sort of high-brow literary award because they're hard to read! So when I say I loved the writing, I mean it was easy to read as well as evocative and mysterious. The writing just flowed. I read the book compulsively but slowly, savoring it until it was done.



Mary Pipher's book The Middle Of Everywhere gave me a different perspective on immigrants and especially refugees. Mary Pipher lives in a large Midwestern town which has recently been overrun by refugees from several countries all over the world. Pipher is a therapist, and one of her jobs is to help these refugees adjust to their new lives in the United States. I can only imagine how overwhelming this culture would be to someone who has never seen a television or a highway! She tries to teach them how to filter the good things from the bad things in our culture. Refugees are given a television set because watching TV is a good way to learn English. So the TV is on 24/7, and the people are learning English, but they're also being bombarded with commercials for all kinds of junk they don't need. TV also constantly exposes these people to a fake American culture and values which most of us wouldn't claim as our own. Pipher has to help the refugees learn that in a capitalistic environment, most people are out to sell them something. One woman was delighted to be invited to a "Candle Party," and Pipher had to explain to her that she would probably be expected to buy something.

The parents struggle to hold their families together as the children assimilate American values rather than the family's traditional cultural values. The children usually learn English faster than the parents, which puts them in the position of translating for their parents. Pipher gave one example of a child who told his parents he was required to have a fancy leather jacket and expensive jeans in order to go school, so the father took a second job in order to buy his son those things. She talked about a father from Latvia being upset when his kindergarten-aged child brought home an art project made of dried beans glued on paper. The father said, "My family members are starving to death in our old country, and you are wasting food!" I loved the stories of the different immigrants, and their perspective was very eye-opening.



And the third book is Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen. I've read books by this author before and enjoyed them, but I consider them "airplane reads," books that don't require much thought. Garden Spells was in the same vein, but I liked the story. It's magical realism, suggestive of Alice Hoffman's earlier books. The Waverly family has lived in their small North Carolina town for generations, and they each have a particular magical talent. Claire has a special talent for adding edible plants to her cooking which will cause certain emotions in the person eating the food. Her sister Sydney, who left the town years earlier, returns to the family home to escape an abusive husband. She brings her small daughter Bay, who has a gift for seeing how things fit and setting things right. There's also a magical garden and a tree that throws apples at people. It's a feel-good book with a Southern flavor.