My Year in Books

Lists and Books—Two of My Favorite Things

This is the time of year for lists and top tens and resolutions, so here are mine, in regards to books.

In 2013, I set a goal to read 50 books.  Within that goal, I promised myself I would branch out a little in my reading—add some variety and try something new.  I also pledged to read some books about writing.

I am proud to say that I accomplished my goals.  I read 52 books this year, including 6 books about writing, 7 poetry books, and 1 biography.  I joined a second book club, providing myself with even more opportunity to read outside of my comfort zone, and I reviewed over 15 books on Goodreads, always trying to be both honest and kind, remembering that it might someday be my own work getting rated on that site.

The Last 12 Books I Read in 2013:

(Click here to connect to my Goodreads page and find out more about each of these titles.)

41.  Living with Jackie Chan, by Jo Knowles

This one was not a favorite.  You can check out my review on Goodreads for the details.

42.  The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green

“I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.” 

This simple, yet beautiful sentence from John Green’s love story about two teenagers with cancer aptly describes how I fell for the characters in the book.  As many times as I’ve tried to write down my feelings about their story, I can’t get them right.  It’s a collection of words that you just have to read for yourself.  I will say this though:  I read the entire book in less than twenty-four hours, and I did the bulk of that reading in a closet in the middle of the night.  (The reason isn’t really important now—there was a sick cat, there was a terrible thunderstorm—it all made sense at the time.) 

When I got to page 114, I scribbled this note on a post-it:  “This may be the only review of this book you get from me.  Whether my beloved cat dies this week or not*, whether Hazel or Augustus dies at the end of this book or not, whether rain fills up our sagging lake or not, I know that I love this book, and I’ll always remember the circumstances in which I read the first 114 pages.  It’s already been worth it regardless of what happens next.” Then I paper-clipped the last few pages of the book to the end paper so that I wouldn’t accidentally see how it ended before I was ready.

* Spoiler alert:  My cat did not die.

For me, The Fault in Our Stars  was worth every page.  Read it before it’s made into a movie.

43.  I Could Pee On This And Other Poems By Cats, by Francesco Marciuliano

This book was a birthday gift from my mother-in-law.  The very first poem made me laugh out loud because it reminded me of my parents’ cat, Little Grey, who seems to have short term memory issues.

Sometimes when I lie on your warm chest

And hear your every happy sigh

I gaze into your two kind eyes

And wonder, “Who is that?”

Unfortunately, they were not all gems like this one.

44.  Joyland, by Stephen King

This was a pretty good book.  However, after I read it I gave it to my mom, and she found a glaring error in the plot that neither I nor (apparently) Mr. King’s editors noticed.  Did anyone else find it?  Let me know.  We’ll discuss.

45.  Horseradish:  Bitter Truths You Can’t Avoid, by Lemony Snicket

This was not my favorite Lemony Snicket book, but still think that man is hilarious.  For a few more comments on this book, click here.

46.  Newspaper Blackout, by Austin Kleon

Like a sculptor chiseling away a block of stone to reveal the form inside, Austin Kleon uses a permanent marker to black out newspaper articles, revealing the poems that hide within their stories.  You have to see his found poetry to get the full effect of his creativity.  Check out his website here.

47.  Haroun and the Sea of Stories, by Salman Rushdie

I didn’t love this book of magical realism and mystical creatures as much as my friends thought I would, but it is growing on me in hindsight.  I think I need to put off reviewing it until it’s had a little longer to simmer. 

48.  Vampires in the Lemon Grove, by Karen Russell

This is a great book, well-written and truly original.  Each short story in this collection was more unexpected than the one before it.  The title story— “Vampires in the Lemon Grove”—was probably my favorite, but I also loved the amusing and strangely touching “Barn at the End of Our Term” and the haunting “Proving Up”.  And “Douglas Shackleton’s Rules for Antarctic Tailgating” made for a great road-trip read-aloud.  If you’re into weird literary tales, you should read this.

49.  2013 Texas Poetry Calendar, edited by Scott Wiggerman and Cindy Huyser

The Texas Poetry Calendar, published by Austin’s own Dos Gatos Press, is never a disappointment.  This desk calendar is filled with beautiful poems for anyone, but especially those who love the landscape and culture of Texas.  I am proud to say that both the 2013 and the 2014 calendars include haiku poems by me. If you would like a 2014 calendar, there are still a few for sale.  Go to the Dos Gatos Press website for details about how to order.

My poem from the 2013 Texas Poetry Calendar:

Calm, moon-glazed pumpkin

rests peacefully on the porch,

awaiting the knife.

     -- Carie Juettner

50.  The Book Thief, by Marcus Zusak

This was my second reading of The Book Thief.  I read it for the first time in 2007, sobbing my way through the end at two o’clock in the morning on a work night, not caring that I’d be puffy-eyed and exhausted when I faced my students six hours later.  When I heard the movie was coming out, I decided to read it again, so that they story would be fresh on my mind when I saw the film.  (As much as I loved the book that first time through, the story itself did not stay with me.  It was the language that lasted.  Years later, I could remember exact lines of text and the feelings I had when I was reading, but not which characters lived and died.)  So I opened it again.

A third of the way through the book, I knew without a doubt that I would not see the movie.  There is no way that they can capture on the screen what Marcus Zusak achieves in words in this masterpiece.  And, at the risk of offending some people, I’ll also say this:  Do not read this book on your phone.  Don’t read it on your Kindle or your Nook or you iPad.  This is a book about pages and hard covers and deep secrets.  When you read about Liesel carrying a burning book against her ribcage and feeling her scorched skin beneath her clothes, you need to have paper in your hands.

I loved this book even more the second time.  I cried my way through the ending again, this time in the light of day.  (The sobbing began on page 499, right on cue—I can point to the exact sentence.)    And this time, I feel like both the story and the language are etched in my mind.  I cannot imagine that I will forget them.  Though, if you see me watching the movie, then I guess that means I have.

51.  The Flag of Childhood: Poems from the Middle East, selected by Naomi Shihab Nye

There were only a few poems that stood out to me in this anthology, but the ones that did weighed heavily on me for days.  Here’s one:

White Jacket

-- Yehudit Kafri

Translated by Lami

The white-wool knit jacket

With a decorative pin

Which my grandpa and grandma sent me from Kovel

When I was two

And it was sent to the communal storeroom

And I never wore it, not even once,

My God

Grandma and Grandpa were murdered there

A whole Jewry destroyed

And I searched throughout my life

For a white-wool knit jacket

Which my grandma knit for me and decorated

With a pin

And went to the post office and sent it

In a package which my grandpa had packed lovingly

A small white hand-knitted jacket

For a little girl of two

All my life

And cannot find it.

52. Prodigal Summer, by Barbara Kingsolver

I’ve only finished this book today and need more time to arrange my thoughts before I write about it.  It was beautifully written and opened my eyes to the ways in which the natural world is both simple and impossibly complex.

Best Books of 2013: 

The best book I read this year was The Book Thief, hands down.  However, since that was technically a re-read, my second two favorites were The Fault in Our Stars and The Little Leftover Witch. 

Both of these books surprised me.  I was surprised by The Fault in Our Stars because everyone told me how amazing it was for over a year before I read it.  I didn’t think it was possible for the book to live up to the hype, but it did.  The Little Leftover Witch surprised me because, when I ordered it online from Amazon to add to my witchy collection, I thought I was getting a picture book.  It turned out to be a 100-page chapter book, and (even more surprising) it was one of the most touching children’s stories I have ever read.  Check out my review of it here and then find a copy of your own.  This 1960 paperback still has a lot to offer to children and families today.

What’s In Store For 2014?

I’m renewing my goals for another year.  I want to read 50 books in 2014.  I want to read at least 5 poetry books and at least 3 books on writing.  I want to read some things that challenge me, and I want to make time for some old favorites as well. 

Here are just a few of the titles on my to-read list:

* Bellman & Black, by Diane Setterfield

* The Valley of Amazement, by Amy Tan

* The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson

* Vegetables and Other Relationships, by Scott Wiggerman

* Where I’m Calling From, by Raymond Carver

Happy New Year, everyone!  Happy reading in 2014!

Got a book you think I need to add to my 2014 reading list? 

Tell me in the comments!

Duped Again: The Next Ten Books of 2013

I love getting lost in a good book.  But sometimes I get a little too lost.  More than once I have read an entire book only to find out after the fact that I was wrong about something big.  I don’t mean like who the killer was or how to pronounce Hermione.  I mean something BIG.  Like whether it was fiction or nonfiction.  And each time it happens I feel so betrayed.

The books I’ve read so far in 2013 have been particularly sneaky.  Jan Reid, the author of Let the People In: The Life and Time of Ann Richards, confused me because I thought he was a woman, so I read most of the book via a female voice in my head.  (Luckily, I figured out my mistake before I met him at my book club meeting, though I do think I would have been able to stop myself from saying, “Dude, I totally thought you were a woman.”)  Pat Barker, author of Regeneration, did the same thing to me.  Pat is a she.  However, I listened to the audio version of the novel, and it was read by a man, so it was not until I finished the book and looked up her other work when I realized my mistake.  Put your photo on your book jackets, people!

Regeneration duped me twice though, because it also falls into the category of books I have read whose characters are based off of real people.  Real people who I (sadly) knew nothing about.  Other books in that category include The Chaperone (about Louise Brooks) and Homer and Langley (about the real Homer and Langley, two men in New York City famous for their crazy eccentricity).  In Regeneration, I knew that Sassoon was a real person (though I knew nothing about him) but did not realize until after the fact that Graves and Rivers and Owen and others were also historical figures.

However, none of these book betrayals can compare to the humiliation I felt after reading Amy Tan’s Saving Fish From Drowning back in 2007.  The book is about eleven American tourists who mysteriously disappear in Burma after sailing off on a cruise, and it is told from the first person perspective of the tour leader who dies at the beginning of the book but continues to watch over the eleven tourists in spirit form, and I thought it was true.

Let me back up. 

I did not believe the story was actually written by a ghost.  I didn’t believe that the story itself was true.  After all (spoiler alert here) the tourists never make it back.  So how are we to know their story?  But I believed that the event—the disappearance of these American tourists in Burma—was real.  I believed Amy Tan had taken a nonfiction event and spun a fictional story about what might have happened to them. 

After I finished the book (which I loved) I started Googling, hoping to find out more about the real-life people and what happened to them.  And, strangely enough, every website that popped up linked me right back to this book.  This novel by Amy Tan.

I gotta tell you, it took me a long time to get over that one.

Despite the fact that books continue to deceive me, I continue to read them, and love them, and let myself be deceived.  So with that in mind, here’s what I’ve been reading lately.

What I’ve Been Reading:  Books #31-40 of 2013

(Books are rated using the Goodreads method, out of 5 stars.)

  

31. You Are Here: A Memoir of Arrival, by Wesley Gibson – * *

This is a strange book.  I didn’t love it, but I couldn’t put it down.  There were beautiful and powerful passages, but overall, much of it seemed directionless.  For my full review on Goodreads, click here. 

32. The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White - * * *

I don’t know if I’m alone here or not, but I thought this classic book about grammar and writing style was hilarious.  It was helpful at times and extremely unhelpful at others, but it made me grin all the way through.  Whether you agree with the strict rules of Strunk and White or not, you’ve got to admire them for their passion.  To read my full review of this book, click here. 

Entry from Elements of Style.  

33. And the Mountains Echoed, by Khaled Hosseini -  * *

I have already posted my review of this book.  It was not a favorite.  I thought my opinions about it might soften over time, but so far they have not.  Here’s a link to the full review, but beware—it gives away the ending. 

34. Call and Response: New Poems, by Margie McCreless Roe - * * * 

My review of this book is of a personal nature, and I want to share the whole thing here:

I met Margie McCreless Roe at BookPeople in Austin, Texas, in December of 2008. We were both there to read our poems from the 2009 Texas Poetry Calendar. My poem, an eight-line rhyme called "Harvest Moon", was my first published poem ever, and I was a bundle of nerves and excitement the entire evening. About twenty poets read that night, and though I tried to take it all in and remember everything, that proved impossible. In the end, a few people stood out, and one of them one Ms. Roe.

One of the reasons her poem "South Texas, Fall" caught my attention was because it shared the same page with my little poem, an honor for me. But I am certain that this poet would have remained in my memory even without that coincidence. I loved hearing her read her work aloud, and when she read her poem "God Eats Cafe" about a diner with an unfortunate misspelling on its sign, I knew I wanted to read more of her work. My parents gave me her book, Call and Response for Christmas a couple of weeks later.

You may wonder why it took me four and a half years to read it.

This is what I do with poetry books. I buy them (or receive them as gifts-- there is no better gift than poetry) and flip through them, reading a poem here and there, too excited about the volume as a whole to sit down and be still and read it properly. Then it sits on my bookshelf for a while (sometimes a long while) and I admire its spine and pull it out now and then to read another random poem. And then, one day, out of the blue, I decide it's time. I pick it up, I start on page one, and I read the whole thing through. This can still take quite a bit of time, even for a short collection. Poetry cannot be digested in large bites; it has to be nibbled on.

I have finally nibbled all the way through Call and Response, and it was a pleasure. Ms. Roe's poems combine the simple everyday of life with the infinite. They dip in and out of nature and religion and childhood and old age, like a bird swooping for insects. Not all of these poems were my taste, but I wouldn't expect them all to be. I rarely find a poetry collection that satisfies completely, and I doubt that one exists that could quench every appetite. But there were many in this book that made me pause or smile or blink back a tear. After reading it, I am more honored than ever that my first published poem shared a page with this poet.

I will leave you with my favorite poem from Call and Response by Margie McCreless Roe.

The Box

I have found a box for you.

A big one.

Sturdy.

It will hold a good number of things

from the drawer in your room.

In the night after you were born

I dreamed of a small box

where I could put you

to keep you warm and safe.

A brave thing I do today--

handing you a perfect, empty box

and my blessing.

35. Anything But Typical, by Nora Raleigh Baskin - * * * *

I really enjoyed this young adult book told from the perspective of a boy with autism.  I recommend it for parents and children alike.  Here is my full review. 

36. Let the People In: The Life and Times of Ann Richards, by Jan Reid - *** 

This book (which is written by a man) is about a  very interesting and very influential Texas woman, former Governor Ann Richards.  I rarely read biographies, especially those of a political nature, so this book took me out of my comfort zone, but I learned a lot about Texas politics and the people who shaped the great city of Austin, and ended up really enjoying the lesson.  It was also a pleasure meeting the author, who spoke to my book club about writing this book about a woman who he knew personally. 

37. My Own True Name: New and Selected Poems for Young Adults, by Pat Mora - * * *

 A lovely book of poems.  Pat Mora captures the diversity of her background in her work and succeeds in showing us both the struggles and the beauty that come from belonging to two worlds.  To see my full review of her book, click here. 

38. The Secret Keeper, by Kate Morton - * * * *

One point for Carie!  I figured out the twist to this story early on, allowing me to experience a rare and much-appreciated victory over these books that are always trying to trick me.  To see my review of The Secret Keeper, click here.

 

39. Regeneration, by Pat Barker - * * * *

The back cover of my copy of Regeneration says, “It is a war saga in which not a shot is fired.”  I think that’s what I enjoyed about this book.  It is a beautifully-written account of the horrors of WWI, but it plants those horrors in the readers’ hearts while still keeping them, for the most part, out of the trenches.  The book mostly takes place in the Craiglockhart War Hospital, where Sassoon (a famous poet and war hero) is sent for being “mentally unsound” after he publicly protests the war.

I also want to point out that this is the first book I have ever read via audio book.  I listened to it for eight hours in the car to and from Dallas, and it passed the time quite well.  It was interesting to note, while discussing the novel at book club, how the inflection given to certain passages can change the mood between characters dramatically.  There were certain parts of the book that seemed defensive and defiant to other readers, but which came off to me (via the voice of Peter Firth in my car speakers) as passive and nonchalant.

40. Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott - * * *

I liked Bird by Bird, but even giving it three stars seems blasphemous, because I was told by so many people that I would love it.  While there was a lot of good writing advice within its pages and some inspirational passages, I did not feel as motivated or as eager to get back to the keyboard as I did when I read Stephen King’s On Writing or Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing.  To see my full review of Bird By Bird, click here. 

Counting Down…

Eighty-one days left in 2013 and ten more books to finish to reach my goal.  I think I can do it.  I’ll see you again in December for my final book blog of the year, but I’ll be posting reviews along the way.  Happy reading!

We, the Poets

One year ago this weekend, I participated in the Texas Poetry Calendar reading at the Georgetown Poetry Festival, held in the beautiful Georgetown Public Library.  Just before the reading began, I was in the restroom, washing my hands and trying to calm my nerves.  (Reading my poems aloud in public still gives me a tinge of fear and excitement, and I am grateful for that.)  The restroom was crowded, and somehow I got into a conversation at the sink with a woman in her sixties.  I asked if she was going to the poetry reading and she said no, she didn’t know about it, and I told her where it was and what it was for.  She wished me luck and then turned to go.

Almost to the door, she stopped, turned and said, “It really caught me off guard when my mother died…” (pause) “…and I found some poetry that she wrote.”  Then she told me the story.  She never knew her mother wrote poetry; she’d never shared it with anyone.  But after her mother’s death, she found a beautiful poem her mom had written about her life.  She said, “We had it read at her funeral.  But it needed an ending and I tried and tried to think of what it should be.  Then one night at 2 a.m. God gave me the ending and I had to get up right then and write it down so I wouldn’t forget it.”

I heard a lot of beautiful poetry that day, but nothing as beautiful as the story I heard from a stranger in the restroom.

This picture of the Georgetown library
does not do justice to how gorgeous it is inside.

Today, I was back at the Georgetown Public Library for this year’s Texas Poetry Calendar reading, and I found myself thinking about the woman I met last year and her mother.

I don’t know anymore what people think of when they picture poets.  I’m fairly certain that the idea of berets and snapping fingers has started to fade by now, but I can’t be sure.   Now that I have joined ranks with the poet world, I no longer even remember what I used to imagine when I heard that word.  Poet.  All I know is that, whatever it was, I was wrong. 

If any specific and clear-cut image comes to mind when you picture poets, then you can be sure that you’re wrong too, at least a little bit.   Because the only one-word description that aptly fits the poet community is people.  Poets are people.  They are everyone.

When I typed "poet" into Google,
this is the first image that popped up.

Today, I listened to over twenty poets read their work.  They were young; they were not-so-young.  They were grandmothers; they were single men.  They wore shorts and t-shirts; they wore dresses and had tattoos.  They read poems about cancer and teen suicide; they read poems about mermaids and cold showers.  They read poems in Spanish and poems about Indian monsoons and poems about cows in tiny Texas towns.  Halfway through the reading, Mike Gullickson, who organizes the Georgetown Poetry Festival with his wife Joyce, stepped up to the microphone and brought the audience’s attention to the tables that had been brought into the room for the luncheon following the reading.  He pointed out how they had been delivered in such silence that no one even noticed their arrival.  He said, “I thanked the guy who brought them for being so careful and quiet, and he said, ‘It was too beautiful to interrupt.’”  Mike’s voice choked with emotion when he spoke.

I don’t know what you think of when you picture poets.  But I’m here to tell you that you might be surprised to find out who we really are.  That woman I met in the restroom last year certainly was.