Finished: The Handmaid's Tale (Atwood). Oh my, that was an interesting book! It kept me on the edge of my seat, so to speak. I didn't want it to quite end when it did....I mean, I wanted a clearer answer at the end. I was very happy to read the "Historical Notes". Though...they didn't really answer my main questions. They did give me a little more room to hope that Offred survived, hopefully with Nick. What a very interesting (and scary to think of actually happening) book!

Finished: The Red Badge of Courage (Crane). Intense, detailed, harrowing few days in the life of a Civil War soldier. I swear I can smell the smoke from the muskets. It's that intense. I hate, loathe, despise and abominate the precious price of war.

Finished: Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkein). Great book! Finally I read it! I thought I had read one of the LOTR  books years ago, but I had only read The Hobbit. I've seen all the movies and my son has held countless LOTR  marathons at our house over the years, so I feel like I can picture each of the characters and the brilliant locations as I read the words. I love the closeness of the Fellowship, the wisdom of Gandalf, the loyalty of Sam to Frodo, the nimbleness (and gorgeousness) of Legolas, and the ever so manly leadership of Aragorn! Soon I shall have to read the next two books in the series. :-)

Finished: All My Sons (Miller). Great play! Saw it in New York a few years ago, and I'm so glad to have finally read it. :-) Not lighthearted, like I was looking for, but so good. I had the good fortune to see John Lithgow, Diane Wiest, Patrick Wilson and Katie Holmes in the play. They were all phenomenal. John Lithgow and Diane Wiest just blew me away, though, and as I read the play tonight I kept picturing them saying the words again. I'm thinking I might like to read some more Arthur Miller.

Finished: Absalom, Absalom! (Faulkner). Another long, hard Faulkner read, but worth it in the end. I think I'm done with Faulkner for a while though. Some day I might still want to read As I Lay Dying, but oh my gosh, he is so hard to read, with so many points of view that jump around in time! I read this one because I really grew to love the tragic character of Quentin Compson in The Sound and the Fury, and Quentin was one of the narrators of this story. Anyway...another tale of the tragic, misguided, complicated, ignorant, noble south.

I think the only chuckle I got in the book was the description of this mother who was so anxious to plan her daughter's wedding before the betrothed had even proposed:

"Ellen at the absolute halcyon of her butterfly's summer and now with the added charm of gracious and graceful voluntary surrendering of youth to her blood's and sex's successor, that concurrent attitude and behavior with the engagement's span with which mothers who want to can almost make themselves the brides of their daughters' weddings."

On to something lighter, I think. :-)

Finished: The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck). I was deeply moved by this book! I can see why it's considered one of the top pieces of literature. It moved me the way The Help did when I read it, only more so. The writing is so brilliant that you live this tragic time with these people. It's not just the Joad family in the book...it's that this truly happened to thousands of people for real. I feel a profound sadness for those desperate, uprooted "migrants". I don't think I'll ever waste food again. I don't know what else to say right now.

I do love this description of the very strong mother:

"Her hazel eyes seemed to have experienced all possible tragedy and to have mounted pain and suffering like steps into a high calm and superhuman understanding. She seemed to know, to accept, to welcome her position, the citadel of the family, the strong place that could not be taken. And since old Tom and the children could not know hurt or fear unless she acknowledged hurt and fear, she had practiced denying them in herself. And, since when a joyful thing happened, they looked to see whether joy was on her, it was her habit to build up laughter out of inadequate materials. But better than joy was calm. Imperturbability could be depended upon. And from her great and humble position in the family she had taken dignity and a clean calm beauty. From her position as healer, her hands had grown sure and cool and quiet; from her position as arbiter she had become as remote and faultless in judgment as a goddess. She seemed to know that if she swayed the family shook, and if she ever really deeply wavered or despaired the family would fall, the family will to function would be gone."

Finished: Measure for Measure (Shakespeare). Not my favorite Shakespeare, but a sentimental favorite. I liked the plot well enough, but for some reason the writing in this one was more laborious than other Shakespeare books have been for me. However, this is the last play my brother acted in before he died. Having just received his Masters in Acting at Villanova, he portrayed the Duke in their production of Measure for Measure. It took me a long time to read this book, but when I did, I actually opened and read the book that belonged to my brother. :-) Needless to say, I hung on every word of the Duke's. I was a bit surprised that Lucio wasn't really on to the Duke's disguise, and therefore was off to prison in the end. Anyway....a few of my favorite quotes:

"Our doubts are traitors,
And makes us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt."

"Well, heaven forgive him; and forgive us all.
Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall."

"The very mercy of the law cries out
Most audible, even from his proper tongue:
'An Angelo for Claudio; death for death.
Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure;
Like doth quit like, and Measure still for Measure.' "

Finished: One Hundred Years of Solitude (Marquez). Well, hmm. Another book I couldn't put down, but about which I have conflicted feelings. Truly, if there was a book that gives life to the quote "A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. A man who never reads lives only once."....this would be such a book. The vivid imagery and spellbound way the reader is pulled into the generations of the Buendia family is undeniable. I was totally immersed in the town of Macondo. Are there any characters to be loved and cherished? Not by me. Most of them were flawed beyond repair by their predestined, I suppose, self-centeredness, and never rose above those usually fatal flaws. Perhaps just the original matriarch, Ursula, could be spared that description, but all of the male characters and most of the females evoked no enlightened loyalty from me that most great books inspire. Perhaps that's what kept me reading 'til the end...that hope that, finally, one of the newest generation would rise above the mistakes of past family members and actually be an unselfish, genuine person.

It truly was lovely writing, and I'm sure I'll be mulling over my feelings for awhile on it. I just really wanted to love at least one character! My favorite passage is very near the end of the book. If you're planning to read the book, then don't read the passage below. :-)

"Aureliano...skipped again to anticipate the predictions and ascertain the date and circumstances of his death. Before reaching the final line, however, he had already understood that he would never leave that room, for it was foreseen that the city of mirrors would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men at the precise moment when Aureliano Babilonia would finish deciphering the parchments, and that everything written on them was unrepeateable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportuniy on earth."

Well, for the first time, I took a book off my favorites list. I reread The Taming of the Shrew and I decided I don't like at all how Kate ends up submitting to Petruchio because of his mind games! Hmmpphh! It's like she loses all her wit and fire, which I liked about her. I still think the writing itself is typical, amazing Shakespeare, but the overall feel of the book just doesn't do it for me anymore. I loved yesterday's The Comedy of Errors, so it has now moved onto the list. :-)

Finished: The Catcher in the Rye (Salinger). A book I couldn't put down. My heart broke for Holden Caulfield with the beyond-his-years running dialogue in his head. Sometimes stream of conscious writing is so hard for me to follow, but I followed this one so clearly. Maybe I have an adolescent mind? Maybe I related to the loss of his brother. The minute I read about Allie, I thought, therein lies all the turmoil, whether he knows it or not. I always wondered why I'd never read this book, and I realize, it was probably banned in the 70's when I was in high school! It is, though, now a book that will stick with me for a long, long time.