Word travels...

Alright, everyone:  I know I just hit you with the Les Miserables book post, but I have yet another lit post that I HAVE to put up.  This is not a particularly exciting time of year, the long cold days after Christmas, grinding through January and hanging on by my fingernails to the hope of spring.  I read a lot.  Disappear into books, into worlds with no sagebrush or cows, travel vicariously, store beautiful or striking phrases in my "word bank". 

A couple days ago, FedEx dropped off a box of new books for delighted, hungry readers!

They look pretty imposing in size, but the book Angus is looking at is by Brian Selznick, so easily half of it is illustrations.  Gorgeous, detailed, fascinating illustrations...

The title of the book is Wonderstruck, and I cannot recommend this author and this book enough.

It will make you feel like a reading superhero, too, because you can finish a 650 page book in an hour if you're a fast reader. It will take you another hour, however, to process all the pictures which are intertwined with the written story.  

My fat book is the new Stephen King novel, 11/22/63, a gutsy read because it deals with a man who examines what the U.S. would be like now if JFK had survived.  The word I'm using to describe it is "dense".  I'm not a big Stephen King fan...in fact, I don't think I've ever made it all the way through one of his books, but this one intrigued me after a friend mentioned the premise.  One of my goals this year is to read fiction; specifically, 12 novels, one for each month.  I think perhaps I started too big, with this one.

Maggie is reading a book that has blown me away; The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyworld in a Ship of Her Own Making, by Catherynne M. Valente.  It's not very big, only 247 pages, 22 little chapters, but the writing is stunning.  Stunning.  I read very little fantasy, perhaps because I live in that world every day so it holds no allure.  This little story may change all that.

Here's the blurb on the inside of the dust jacket:

September is a girl who longs for adventure.  When she is invited to Fairyland by a Green Wind and a Leopard, well, of course she accepts. (Mightn't you?) But Fairyland is in turmoil, and it will take one twelve-year-old girl, a book-loving dragon, and a strange and almost human boy named Saturday to vanquish an evil Marquess and restore order.

Wow.

Oddly, I relate very much to September, enough so that sometimes when I'm reading with Maggie, I have to stop so I don't shed tears.  Isn't that silly?  It's a twelve year old character!  Perhaps we all have a twelve year old, hidden in ourselves...

Or maybe it's just me.

That's probably the case.

Here's an excerpt where September is talking with The Green Wind:

"When you solve a jigsaw puzzle," he said, "how do you do it, pumpkin-dear?"

September shuffled her cold foot on the smooth blue stone of the Thoroughfare. "Well...you start with the corners, and then you fill in the edges to make a frame, and then work inward until all the pieces fit."

"And, historically, how many winds are there?"

September thought back to her book of myths, which had been bright orange and therefore one of her favorite possessions.  "Four, I think."

The Green Wind grinned, his green lips curling under a green mustache.  "Quite so: Green, Red, Black, and Gold.  Of course, those are roughly family designations, like Smith or Gupta.  And actually there is also Silver and Blue, but they've made trouble off the coast of Tunisia and have had to go to bed without supper.  So the fact remains: Today, we are the corners."  He gestured at the placid Latitude and Longitude.  "They are the edges.  And you, September" ---he gently pulled a strand of September's hair free of her brooch---"are the middle pieces, all funny shaped and stubborn."

When I read that, it perfectly described how I feel I'm made up...all funny shaped and stubborn. But there's a need for funny shaped, stubborn puzzle pieces.  I have corner friends and edge friends...I've always wanted to be more of an edge person, with a smooth, straight, even side and a bumpy, interesting side. It seems so balanced.  But I'm not, and now it doesn't seem so bad to be a middle piece. 

One more excerpt, because I love the writing:

"When you are born," the golem said softly, "your courage is new and clean.  You are brave enough for anything: crawling off of staircases, saying your first words without fearing that someone will think you are foolish, putting strange things in your mouth.  But as you get older, your courage attracts gunk and crusty things and dirt and fear and knowing how bad things can get and what pain feels like.  By the time you're half-grown, your courage barely moves at all, it's so grunged up with living.  So every once in a while, you have to scrub it up and get the works going or else you'll never be brave again.  Unfortunately, there are not so many facilities in your world that provide the kind of services we do.  So most people go around with grimy machinery, when all it would take is a bit of spit and polish to make them paladins once more, bold knights and true."

And with that, I'll ask the question: what are YOU reading right now?  Anything great?  Or awful?