Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Published in 2005. 288 pages.


I found Never Let Me Go to be a compelling read. Though it's actually quite slow moving, it is hard to put down. Ultimately it is an exploration of what makes us human.

At Library Queue, Tricia - who found the book "deliberate and thought-provoking" - asserts that the book should be read without knowing anything about it. Nymeth agrees but presents a quite detailed (yet relatively spoiler-free) review at Things Mean A Lot.

At the risk of creating a spoiler, I'm posting a quote from Ishiguro from the Reader's Guide at the back of the book:

There are things I am more interested in than the clone thing. How are they trying to find their place in the world and make sense of their lives? To what extent can they transcend their fate? ... Most of the things that concern them concern us all, but with them it is concertinaed into this relatively short period of time. These are things that really interest me and, having come to the realization that I probably have limited opportunities to explore these things, that's what I want to concentrate on." [Interview with Nicholas Wroe, The Guardian, February 2, 2005.]

A movie version of Never Let Me Go was released in 2010. I haven't seen it, but I'm curious. Have you seen it?

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Library Loot - September 1

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Marg and Claire to encourage bloggers to share what they’ve checked out from the library.



I am reading a faster pace than I was earlier this year, but is it fast enough to justify getting seven new books this week? I guess we'll see!


11 Birthdays by Wendy Mass
(This one was a Cybils finalist last year,
and it's a now a Beehive award nominee.)

Carter Finally Gets It by Brent Crawford
(This one was a Cybils finalist last year.
It's also the first in a series, with the third installment
on The Contemps list for release next summer.)

Dead Man Walking by Helen Prejean
(I saw the film version of this one a week or so ago
and am interested in reading the book.)

Deception by Jonathan Kellerman
(This is the latest installment - the 25th! - in the Alex Delaware series.)

My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares
(This one was on the "new releases" shelf,
and I couldn't resist picking it up.)

Behind You by Jacqueline Woodson
(This is the sequel to If You Come Softly - which I still have checked out from the library from a previous visit. Hopefully I will get to them both shortly!)

Austenland by Shannon Hale
(I have never read any of Jane Austen's books. But I've recently seen both a play and a film version of Pride and Prejudice, and hearing that Shannon Hale is currently working on a sequel to Austenland, I decided that it was time for me to read it.)

The Weight of Water by Anita Shreve

Published in 1997. 279 pages.


When I posted my original list for the 2nds Challenge, I asked for suggestions for an Anita Shreve novel for the list. Unfortunately, I didn't get a lot of rave reviews, so I kept pushing back my decision. With the end of the challenge fast approaching, I read a review of Sea Glass that Trish had posted and considered that one. Trish also recommended The Weight of Water and for some reason that one appealed to me more than Sea Glass, so I picked it up at the library. I finally got to it on Tuesday night, and I finished it yesterday morning.

The Weight of Water was a quick read, and I really enjoyed the structure of the book. I also was intrigued by the title of the book - and I'm still contemplating the various meanings and symbolism it contains.

The plot centers around - and is told from the viewpoint of - a photographer named Jean who, with her husband, young daughter, and brother-in-law and his girlfriend, spends some time on a boat off the coast of Maine on an assignment related to the true events of the Smuttynose Island murders of 1873. Jean's thoughts and experiences are interjected with an account of the murders and events leading up to them, usually without any warning about the switch in storyline. In taking her photos, Jean becomes somewhat obsessed with the murders, and the biggest part of the book contains a (fictional) translation of the journal of the survivor of the murders, which Jean finds in a museum and "borrows."

I don't know that Anita Shreve will be a favorite author, but I'm glad I took the opportunity to read a second of her novels for this challenge.

By the way, The Weight of Water was apparently adapted into a movie starring Sean Penn, Elizabeth Hurley, Sarah Polley, and Catherine McCormack.

2007.75

The Hours by Michael Cunningham

Published in 1998. 226 pages.
Awarded both the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1999.



Brilliantly conceived and beautifully written, The Hours juxtaposes a few pieces of the life of writer Virginia Woolf with the lives of two other women. One is Clarissa Vaughan - nicknamed Mrs. Dalloway by her friend Richard after the character in Woolf's novel (first published in 1925); Clarrisa lives in Greenwich Village in the present day. The other woman, Laura Brown, who lives in California in 1949, is reading Mrs. Dalloway and struggling with her perception of her roles as wife and mother.

The 2002 film starred Meryl Streep as Clarissa Vaughan, Julianna Moore as Laura Brown, and Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf. Kidman won the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role.

Here are a few quotes about the book that put into words a lot of my own thoughts:

"[The Hours] is both a clever tribute to the life and work of Virginia Woolf, and a brilliant examination of the quietly desperate lives of three women." - Seattle Times

"Cunningham here undertakes perhaps one of the most daunting literary projects imaginable.... Cunningham's portrait of Woolf is heartbreaking.... With The Hours, Cunningham has done the impossible: he has taken a canonical work of literature and, in reworking it, made it his own." - Yale Book Review

"Brilliant... haunting - winding skeins of words that, as they unspool, render vividly the three heroines' complex interior lives." - St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The Hours was not on my original Book Awards Reading Challenge list, but because the Yahoo Book Awards group was reading it - and the Yahoo Classic Lit group was reading Mrs. Dalloway - I decided that I'd like to read them both. (I started with Mrs. Dalloway, but I got bogged down in Woolf's writing style, so I set it aside for The Hours. I'm committed to finishing Mrs. Dalloway before the end of the month though.) I'm also committed to watching the film version this coming week.

I can't say that The Hours is a "favorite" book - but I do think that it is noteworthy, and I'm glad that I read it.

2007.73

The Freedom Writers Diaryby The Freedom Writers with Erin Gruwell

Published in 1999. 292 pages.


I had heard good things about and planned to view the movie version of this book before I even knew that it was based on a book. It was when I discovered (through BookGal) the Book to Movie Challenge (hosted by Callista) that I learned about the book - and I definitely wanted to read the book and view the film for the challenge.

I am so glad I read this book! A compilation of anonymous diary entries, the book describes the successes newbie teacher Erin Gruwell had with a group of 150 students at Wilson High School in Long Beach, California, following the Los Angeles riots of 1992. More than anything, I think the book is a testament to the power of words - both those read, such as when Gruwell's students read The Diary of Anne Frank, and those written, as these young people's lives were changed through the keeping of diaries, by being able to tell their stories.

I liked the movie too. I generally enjoy Hilary Swank - Iron Jawed Angels is an all-time favorite - and I loved being given some names and faces for the "freedom writers." I wish the movie had told more of the story - it ended after the student's sophomore year - and a subplot about Gruwell's husband was completely unnecessary (and was not part of the book). (By the way, Patrick Dempsey played the husband, and he also played a love interest for Swank's character in Iron Jawed Angels, a superfluous subplot, not based on the historical account of Alice Paul's life.) But I still was moved by the film, a tribute to the ability of one teacher to change the lives of a group of children.

I plan to read Teach with Your Heart: Lessons I Learned from the Freedom Writers next year for the "In Their Shoes" Challenge.

You might be interested to know that BookGal did not like either the book or the movie, and you can read her thoughts here.

2007.62