Throwback Thursday: Danielle Steel

In which I share vague recollections of books I read long ago that have stuck with me.

I was thinking about Danielle Steel recently when I was writing Tuesday's post, because I read ALL of her books when I was in high school. I think many of us consider her books to be romance, but they're not considered part of that genre. There are usually romances in them, but the books can be quite tragic and the romance isn't necessarily the central part of the plot. They tend to be family sagas and I loved the stories that spanned decades and followed people from their early lives through their careers and relationships and all of their dramatic ups and downs.

I lived in a small town in a poor rural area, and the lives I read about in Steel's books might as well have been science fiction. Glamorous women worked at jobs in high-rise buildings in cities and drank champagne on yachts with attractive men who jet-setted around the world. They had torrid love affairs and shopped at very expensive boutiques and ate at fancy restaurants - none of which I had experienced and all of which I ate up with a spoon. I couldn't get enough of these books.

They were totally unrealistic in many ways of course, but they taught me that those things existed. I didn't yet realize that the American Dream wasn't real, that you can't just work really hard and expect to become wealthy, but it was a glimpse into a culture that does exist and that I wouldn't have known about otherwise. Plus, they were just wonderful fun to read for hours in a bubble bath. I would bring my boom box into the bathroom and listen to all those 80s hair bands in the background while reading and refilling the tub with hot water to make it last longer.

Danielle Steel is still going strong and I keep thinking I should try her again, but I just don't hear much about her. She has a total of 6 books coming out in 2016, which makes me wonder if she's farming out the work the way James Patterson does. Has anyone read her recently? Are any of her newer books good?

Throwback Thursday: Pride and Prejudice

In which I share vague recollections of books I read long ago that have stuck with me.

This is hardly a throwback really, because I feel like Pride and Prejudice is always with me. I watch the BBC adaptation regularly and, occasionally when I don't have 5 hours to devote to it, the more recent version with Keira Knightley. I've read Bridget Jones's Diary multiple times and, more recently, a retelling by Curtis Sittenfeld called Eligible (post coming soon!)

But it's been longer than I realized since I read the source material, because it's not even listed on my Goodreads, which I started using in 2008. Clearly it's time for a re-read. I might listen to the audio this time, because a coworker just did so and really liked it. I read it in print the first time, and only after watching the BBC movie a few times already. If you're not familiar with the story, it's about a family with five unmarried daughters whose estate is entailed away from their line so they are not in great financial shape. The mother, Mrs. Bennet, is obsessed with finding rich husbands for her daughters and is beside herself with excitement with a rich man named Mr. Bingley moves into the neighborhood. He brings his friend Mr. Darcy who is even richer, but also very proud and unfriendly. Lots of romance, drama, and hilarity ensues. (I basically want to live in this story, except that things really weren't great for women. But still.)

I am judging you. Sexily.

Because my first experience of Pride and Prejudice was the BBC adaption, I will always and forever picture Mr. Darcy as Colin Firth. It is not to be helped, nor do I wish it to. I will also admit right here for all the world to see that I liked the movie better than the book. There, I said it. Don't get me wrong - it's a good book. But it was really brought to life for me by the actors, who I think improved upon the humor and the Lizzie/Darcy chemistry. That is not to say that the Keira Knightley version isn't worth watching. I'll admit that I was skeptical, but honestly it's also a pretty good adaption. If you don't have time to watch the other version (though I highly recommend you make the time), it is still satisfying.

Have you read Pride and Prejudice? Seen an adaption? Read retelling or other sort of spin-off that you can recommend? Please share below in the comments!

Throwback Thursday: The Amityville Horror

In which I share vague recollections of books I read long ago that have stuck with me.

One of the books I read over and over again in high school was Jay Anson's allegedly-true ghost story, The Amityville Horror. This cover on the left is the edition that I read, complete with flies. In fact, there were illustrations of flies throughout the book at the beginning of each chapter. It was thrilling and disgusting at the same time.

In late 1974, a guy murdered six members of his family in a house in Amityville, and about a year later another family moved in. After about a month the family left, claiming they were terrorized by paranormal phenomena. They did meet with Jay Anson, but although he wrote this whole book about the experience, none of it was ever substantiated. (Libraries in my network have it shelved in 133 with paranormal phenomena, except for one brazen library that has it in the fiction section.)

Whether true or not, it was terrifying to read and I savored every bit of it as the Lutz family encountered strange sounds and smells and had nightmares and experienced all sorts of increasingly creepy phenomena. I don't remember whether or not I actually believed that it was true, but I'm sure that I wanted to believe it. I cannot explain why, but when I was a kid I really wanted things like ghosts and haunted houses to be real. It is also true that I had nightmares and frequently woke up in the middle of the night and had to walk around the house in the dark to check and make sure that everything was ok and it wasn't on fire or anything. So really, I just tortured myself for reasons that elude me now.

Years later my mother's house, the very old house that I grew up in, became mysteriously infested with flies. All year round, just like the Amityville house. It was pretty gross to be sure, but man, having read The Amityville Horror so many times, it was also downright creepy.

Throwback Thursday: Off Season

In which I share vague recollections of books I read long ago that have stuck with me.

Last night a teenage girl came into the library looking for books with lots of graphic violence in them, specifically with psycho killers if possible. This request made me think about some of the books I read when I was in high school and primarily read horror.

One that has never quite left me is Off Season by Jack Ketchum, a book I'm pretty sure I read more than once. First published in 1980, it's about a family of cannibals in Maine who feed on tourists. Of course. I only remember that it was incredibly graphic on the killing and eating details, which was quite thrilling to me at the time.

Apparently it was quite controversial and shocking at the time, although the publisher made Ketchum remove some parts, but it was re-released in the late 1990s in an unedited version. So I guess the edition I read in the 80s was the edited version, though I recall it being quite graphic. I suppose I could hunt down the more recent version to read, but...I'll probably pass. I still like horror, but my days of enjoying gratuitous violence just for the shock value are over.

Throwback Thursday: He, She and It

In which I share vague recollections of books I read long ago that have stuck with me.

Back in my early or mid twenties, I started running out of Margaret Atwood books to read and a friend suggested Marge Piercy. It turned out to be a great suggestion and I happily read my way through many of Piercy's books. Like Atwood, many of her novels have science fiction elements.

He, She and It (which really needs an Oxford comma) is a novel of a dystopian future centered around a woman named Shira who has lost her family and left her corporate-controlled area to live in a Jewish free town. Here she meets and falls in love with a cyborg man. That love story is what I most remember about the novel - the details are lost to me, but there are interesting ideas here about freedom, love, and what it means to be a person.

As I read about it now to refresh my memory, I get the distinct feeling that this novel would hold up now. Piercy's writing is strongly feminist and character-driven and I hope to someday go back and read her books again.

Throwback Thursday: Yargo

In which I share vague recollections of books I read long ago that have stuck with me.

The cover is the only part that's
exactly as I remember it.

I don't know how old I was when I read Yargo, but I have a feeling I may have only been in middle school. For some reason I think I may have gotten this book from my grandmother, which seems weird but not unlikely. It was published after Jacqueline Susann's death, and the only book of hers I've ever read, though she is most known for Valley of the Dolls.

All I remember is that it was a love story between a human woman and an alien man. In reality, it's about a woman who is accidentally kidnapped by aliens (accidentally as in they meant to kidnap someone else) and taken to a planet called Yargo. The people there do not have feelings or emotions, but she falls in love with one of them who, I gather, is not able to return her feelings.

What I remember about it is many intense feelings of love and romance and, oh, what a beautiful story about people from two different planets who fall deeply in love. I cannot reconcile my memories with what is apparently the reality of the story.

This is a great example of a book that I remember really loving, but that is actually terrible, so as much as I'm tempted to read it again I know that is very bad idea. I'd love to recapture what I felt when I first read it, but from the reviews I just read online I feel certain that wouldn't happen. In fact, it doesn't even sound like a love story from what I just read so I have to wonder how much of my experience was my imagination.

Did any of you ever read this book? What do you remember of it?

Throwback Thursday: The Vampire Chronicles

In which I share vague recollections of books I read long ago that have stuck with me.

Before Twilight, before True Blood, before all of the recent plague of vampires in pop culture, there was Anne Rice. There are six books in The Vampire Chronicles, but I think I read only the first 3: Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, and Queen of the Damned.

It seemed like everyone was reading these books when I was in high school, and I loved them. The story began with a boy interviewing a vampire (as the title suggests) and the bulk of the novel is the vampire's story. Louis is from New Orleans and in the late 1700s a vampire named Lestat turns him into a vampire as well and they continue to live together on Louis's plantation. They are joined by a 5-year-old girl named Claudia who, once she becomes a vampire, grows into a woman who is trapped in a child's body. That part of the story was always particularly horrifying to me. Louis and Lestat have many differences over the year and I think Louis ends up trying to kill him a number of times.

The second book, The Vampire Lestat, is obviously about Lestat. He becomes a rock star in the 1980s and to me at that time, there was nothing more thrilling than a sexy vampire rock star. I remember nothing of the third book, Queen of the Damned, but the title character is Akasha, the mother of all vampires. I recall liking the first two books the most.

The whole idea of characters who lived so long they lived in many different eras was very appealing to me, and I remember liking Louis's 1700s style and sensibilities, which were somehow very classy to me. Plus, it was all very sexy. I don't think that Louis and Lestat officially had a romantic relationship, but the process of turning someone into a vampire was pretty intimate, and they definitely had a close bond even though their relationship became quite stormy. Not so different from many romantic relationships.

Would I like these books if I read them now? I have no idea, and no plans to find out because I prefer to remember them as high school favorites.

Have you read them recently? How were they? Or do you remember them from decades ago as I do?

Throwback Thursday: Ada Blackjack

In which I share vague recollections of books I read long ago that have stuck with me.

In The Winter Rose, one of the characters is a budding explorer and even manages to talk his way onto an expedition with Ernest Shackleton. Although I don't read many books on the subject, I'm fascinated by harrowing journeys of exploration. This novel reminded me of one of the few true accounts I have read, Ada Blackjack: a true story of survival in the Arctic by Jennifer Niven.

I mentioned it briefly once before in this post after being led to it by a knitting book, of all things. It recounts a 1921 attempt by the British to colonize Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean. Ada Blackjack was an Inuit woman hired as a seamstress for the expedition, and she was the only member to survive. She didn't even want to go on the expedition; she did it because, as I recall, she needed the money. She wasn't an explorer, just a very practical-minded woman who managed to outlive every man on the expedition.

What I remember most about this story was when one of the men was dying of scurvy. It was described in such vivid detail, I became instantly thankful for the abundant supply of citrus fruit we are able to enjoy today. There was much more to the story, of course, much of which is taken first-hand from Blackjack's journals. After the expedition a great deal of controversy surrounded Ada and her role on the trip, and suspicions about why she was the only survivor. It's a fascinating story from beginning to end.

Throwback Thursday: The Time Traveler's Wife

In which I share vague recollections of books I read long ago that have stuck with me.

I read Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife years ago and loved it so much it instantly became a favorite. But it was also such an incredibly heartbreaking story that I can't bear to read it again.

It's a love story about Henry and Claire, who are star-crossed in the worst way. Henry is a time traveler and he has no control over his travels, nor does he even understand why it happens. So he meets Claire at many times during her life but they're not always age-appropriate for each other, and he doesn't necessarily get to stay for long. You can see how difficult this could make a relationship. I just felt so awful for Henry because, well, what a way to live. And I felt bad for Claire too, because she never knew when he'd be there and when he'd suddenly be ripped from her with no warning.

Don't watch the movie, by the way. I did, not on purpose, but because it happened to be on, and I wish I hadn't. It made me want to read the book again just to cleanse the badness from my head, but as I said I just can't read it again.

Audrey Niffenegger has published one other novel, Her Fearful Symmetry, which was only ok. But she has also published some illustrated novels which are quite good, my very favorite of which is The Night Bookmobile. 

I do hope that someday I will find it in myself to read this wonderful story again, but even if I don't I think it might just stick with me forever.

Throwback Thursday: Geek Love

In which I share vague recollections about books I read long ago that have stuck with me.

I've been watching American Horror Story: Freakshow and it reminds me so much of Geek Love by Katherine Dunn. I swore I had written about that book on my blog somewhere, but when I checked I only found it in my To Read list from 2007, and my list of what I read from 2008. (For the record, I've now read 27 of the 60 books on that To Read list.)

Geek Love is about a family of carnies who deliberately create birth defects in their offspring so they can use their human oddities as attractions for their show. Thanks to all the drugs the parents take, their troupe includes a set of conjoined twins, a boy who has flippers instead of limbs, and an albino hunchback, among others. You can imagine how dysfunctional this family must be. These people were so screwed up, and I don't just mean physically. When you're making sure your kids have severe disabilities just to make a profit, you really aren't in a family with healthy relationships. The story took place over a pretty long time period, and ends far after their performing days are over.

This novel was so dark and weird and sad, and I know it's not for everyone, but if you can take this sort of relentless horror with such realistically-crafted characters that it seems like it could well be real, you might be interested in this book. You're unlikely to ever forget it.

Throwback Thursday: Lace

In which I share vague recollections about books I read long ago that have stuck with me. 

Since I've read a couple of sex-heavy books recently, I'm going to stick with that theme here. I'm reaching waaaay back to a book that my friends all passed around in middle school until someone's mom got wind of it and snatched it away: Lace by Shirley Conran. I don't remember who first got hold of this book, but I am forever indebted to that person for an image that has been seared into my brain ever since then.

Now I don't recall a thing about the plot, and I don't recall if I even read the whole book or just the juicy parts. According to Goodreads, the novel is about four women in their forties who are called together by a young actress who wants to know which of them is her mother. The women have been sharing their secrets for decades and refuse to answer, so the young woman travels around the world trying to learn the truth herself. Also, everybody in this book is rich and glamorous, which I'm pretty sure was a requirement for books published in the 1980s.

Here is all that I remember about this book: there is a scene in which a man and a woman are getting it on, and he reaches into a goldfish bowl next to the bed, pulls out a fish, shoves it in her hooha, and then lays on top of her so she cannot move (she is understandably trying to struggle), after which she then enjoys the feeling of the fish fluttering around inside her. It was horrifying, and still is. Imagine reading such a thing when you are around 12 years old and are still formulating your ideas about what happens during sex.

Needless to say, it was unforgettable. By the way, Lace has a 3.78 star rating on Goodreads, which isn't too shabby, and there's also a sequel creatively called Lace 2. Both books, surprisingly, are available in my library system so I'm wondering if they are actually good since they've been kept in some libraries' collections for more than 30 years after publication. I'm unlikely to read them, but certainly let me know if you do.

Throwback Thursday: She's Not There

In which I share vague recollections about books I read long ago that have stuck with me. 

I've mentioned Jennifer Finney Boylan's memoir before, on my list Memoirs I Didn't Hate and more recently on Ten Books That Celebrate Diversity. But given how frequently I recommend it, I thought that She's Not There finally deserves its own post.

James Boylan was a professor of English at my alma mater, Colby College (I never had a class with him as I, shockingly, was not an English major.) The memoir is about his gender transition and how it affected relationships with friends and family. Boylan is notably BFFs with author Richard Russo, which was an interesting part of the story, but it was her relationships with her wife and kids that were the most affected. Of course, none of it was easy, especially back before the media's transgender enlightenment. And in Maine.

I've always felt pretty lukewarm about memoirs. It seems like the people who write them either have a good story or writing talent, but not usually both. She's Not There is one of the first memoirs I read that had both.

Significantly, it was also the first thing I read that described the transgender experience in a way that made sense to me. I probably won't ever understand it completely, the same way I won't completely understand being black or disabled or a fundamentalist Christian. We simply can't always put ourselves in someone else's shoes. But before reading this I had frustrating questions because transgender people were always the ones who played with the wrong toys as a kid or wore the wrong clothes, and that's not what gender is. Those things are social constructs, and I couldn't understand why you'd change your body so you could wear a dress. Boylan described it more like body dysmorphia which made SO MUCH more sense to me. Honestly, it was kind of a relief to read this book.

Boylan has also more recently written a memoir called Stuck in the Middle With You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders. It includes not only her own story, but interviews with many other people including Richard Russo, Augusten Burroughs, and Anna Quindlen and from what I hear is a pretty insightful examination about parenting and family. She also wrote a memoir called I'm Looking Through You, which is about growing up in a haunted house.

Have you read any of her books? What did you think?

Throwback Thursday: Bridget Jones's Diary

In which I share vague recollections about books I read long ago that have stuck with me.

I'm surprised that I've never written a post about Helen Fielding's chick lit book Bridget Jones's Diary, because it seems like just yesterday that I listened to the audiobook for the 4th or 5th time. As you are probably well aware, this book is about a British singleton looking for love, trying to lose weight, and obsessing over the BBC adaptation of Pride & Prejudice. Written in diary form, chapters begin with lists: weight, drinks consumed, calories consumed, cigarettes smoked. They then go on to recount her clumsy, madcap adventures at work and dating and with her colorful group of friends.

What makes this book (and the follow-up, Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason) so wonderful to me is the audiobook narrator, Barbara Rosenblatt. Ok, the book itself is great too - relatable and super hilarious! But the way this narrator reads it is just fantastic and her performance adds so much to it. The best part is how she reads Bridget's mother, a flighty and meddling middle-aged woman who doesn't understand how to use voicemail and who is constantly giving Bridget advice, insisting she get her colors done, and demanding to know why she's still single. The conversations they have are totally hysterical. Even after listening multiple times, it still makes me laugh.

I always think of this book around the holidays because it opens with an invitation from Bridget's mother to attend Una Alconbury's New Year's Day Turkey Curry Buffet. This is where Bridget first meets top London barrister Mark Darcy who is wearing a terrible sweater and who she immediately dislikes and then goes on to have a romance with. So if you're looking for a different sort of holiday book, perhaps this would be a good choice.

The movie doesn't at all compare to the book, though I'll admit some good casting for the two most important roles: Renee Zellweger as Bridget and Pride & Prejudice's own Colin Firth as Mark Darcy. I thought that Zellweger captured the character well, and there is really nobody else to play Mark Darcy but the actual Mr. Darcy. And Hugh Grant was also perfect for the role of Daniel Cleaver, Bridget's boss and love interest. Otherwise, it just couldn't capture what was so good about it, which really was the telling of the story in the form of the diary. Plus, Barbara Rosenblatt didn't play Bridget's mother.

Bridget Jones's Diary spurred my interest in chick lit, and I went on to extensively read Jane Green, Jennifer Weiner, Marian Keyes, Sophie Kinsella, and probably lots more that I'm forgetting. Such fun stuff!

Throwback Thursday: The Crimson Petal and the White

In which I share vague recollections about books I read long ago that have stuck with me.

Eons ago I read Michel Faber's book, The Crimson Petal and the White, which was super popular at the time and which I really, really loved. It's funny to read about it now, because there's so much negativity towards it that when I read about it in preparation for this post I began to doubt myself. I thought "Is it just me? Had I just not read very many books at the time and was confused about what a good book is?" But then I looked at reviews by my Goodreads friends and felt reassured, because both Lubkowski sisters rated it highly and they are not wanton with their praise. This is why I love Goodreads - reviews from literary critics can't compare with the opinions of the totally non-famous people in my social circle.

The Crimson Petal and the White follows a Victorian-era prostitute named Sugar as she tries to break free of prostitution, becoming involved with a wealthy businessman who has a mentally ill wife. A full cast of well-developed characters with complicated lives made this story rich and immersive with, as I remember, some interesting themes about the treatment of women of various classes during this era.

Since then, several other books have satisfied me in a similar way, so if you've also enjoyed The Crimson Petal and the White, these might be appealing to you. The one that first comes to mind is Slammerkin by Emma Donoghue, which is also about a prostitute trying to escape that life. The writing is maybe not as lush, but it's still a detailed and compelling reading experience that I didn't want to end (and what an ending!) And I would be remiss not to mention Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, which was almost Dickensian in its complexity and details of the period. Lesser-know is Kate Manning's My Notorious Life, a morally complex novel about an early provider of birth control and abortion. And if you like these kinds of novels, you might also like classic sensation novels like The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins.

What I would not recommend for read-alikes are Michel Faber's other books, at least the ones I've read (Under the Skin and Vanilla Bright Like Eminem) I'd recommend them in general, especially Under the Skin, but they are very different books from The Crimson Petal and the White.

Have you read this book? Do you think my readalike suggestions are good ones, or do you have some better recommendations? Please share your thoughts!

Throwback Thursday: The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

In which I chat about books I read long ago that have stuck with me, though my recollections might be vague.

As I've mentioned before, I've been reading Stephen King since I was a teenager (in Maine - I think it's required there.) Many years ago when I had a driving commute I began listening to audiobooks and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon was one of the first. In the story, a young girl gets lost in the woods with only her radio as a companion. She listens to baseball and thinks about her favorite player, Tom Gordon, while hoping for rescue. Meanwhile she feels like there may be something in the woods with her, something more dangerous than what is found in nature.

This isn't a horror novel, not really. Though Trisha is afraid there's something after her, it could so easily just be her own imagination. I don't even really remember that part of the story. What has stuck with me is Anne Heche's voice as narrator reading about this little girl in the woods being bitten by insects, clutching her radio and listening to baseball games. The story had such a lonely feel and somewhat desperate as Trisha suffered minor irritations like bug bites while knowing there was a real possibility she could die if she stayed lost for too long.

It has been close to 15 years since I listened to this audiobook, but I can still remember listening raptly while clutching my steering wheel and making my way through rush-hour traffic on the highway. It didn't matter how many cars were around me, I felt like I was alone in the scary woods, lost and waiting for rescue. Like much of Stephen King's work, this is very character-driven, creepy, and atmospheric story. If you like King, this is a must-read.

Throwback Thursday: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Welcome to my new blog feature in which I'll chat a bit about books I read long ago. There are so many memorable books I read before I started documenting them all here, and this will give me an opportunity to finally tell you about them. Maybe I'll even unearth old posts about books I wrote about in the early days of my blog that I want to remind you about.

This week I want to talk about The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, which I first read way back when I began reading YA books in library school. It's ridiculous that I've never written about it here because I own a copy of it and have read it four times. Four! So far.

The protagonist is Charlie, a high school boy who is recovering from a very rough time and trying to get himself off the sidelines and back into living his life. His English teacher keeps urging him to "participate" and he makes concentrated efforts to do so. He develops friendships with Patrick and Samantha (who he has a huge crush on) and they listen to the Smiths and go to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. As Charlie becomes more involved with his friends he is eventually forced to confront the difficult feelings he has been hiding from.

Structured as a series of letters to an anonymous friend, Charlie's voice is what makes this novel special. He is naive and awkward and earnest, and his best qualities are also his faults. For instance, he starts dating a perfectly nice girl but totally screws it up because he likes Sam more and can't help but be honest about that. Reading this book I felt like I really got to know Charlie, and when he talks about driving around with Sam and Patrick listening to music, and how in these moments he feels infinite, it is easy to completely understand what he means.

This is one of the first teen books I read that tackled serious issues without being an "issues" book, and it has really stuck with me. I read it in my 20s after a period in which I went to see Rocky Horror a lot myself, and used to hang out with people in the show, so that part of it was very familiar and relatable. I think anyone who remembers being a teenager and trying to fit in would find something in this book that resonates.

I've heard that the movie was really good, but I have been unable to watch it for fear that it will break the spell. Plus I saw the trailer and that is not how Patrick looked in my head and I cannot get past it. However, there is really no need to see the movie as the book will always be wonderful and I can just read my copy again.

What is the first YA book that really resonated with you? Are there books that you read over and over?