I guess my mother figured out that if I could wring any damaging sexual content out of The Mayor of Casterbridge, or if I still wanted to procreate after stomaching the gloom of The Mill on the Floss, there was nothing she could do. Harpoonists sweating half-naked over oars? Lusty puritans cavorting in the northern woods? Extracted heart throbbing in the baseboards? Forget it. American lit was off the table, even the stuff from 100 years ago. It was tough getting those lousy hardbacks to stay in my waistband all the way up the tree, but I managed to stick it out through George Eliot, most of Dickens, Ivanhoe, and the Brontes. In Pennsylvania, in the summer, we lived on this isolated old family farm, and I read the only material my mother deemed appropriate for humans: 19th century British literature. In Detroit, we lived in a condo, we went to the library, and I read material the library deemed appropriate for children: Judy Blume, Marguerite Henry, Madeleine L'Engle, Susan Cooper. Raised by two school teachers with jobs in Detroit, I only had access to my reading tree during summer vacations.
I often scuffed my knees on the climb up, book shoved into my waistband, fingernails dirty with the sap I absently picked at while I read. My favorite reading spot was 20 feet above the ground, in a natural seat formed by the branches of an enormous pine tree. Caley Andersonīooks to Read in Trees: An Exclusive Essay from Lydia Netzer These are real people making real choices about their lives-even if those lives are different from everyone else’s. Lydia Netzer has created a cast of characters so unique and surprising, you want to follow their story long after it ends.
Everything about Shine, Shine, Shine is charmingly odd, full of feeling, and beautifully written. When Sunny’s wig falls off during a car accident, exposing her bare head to her neighbors for the first time, she starts to realize that this "normal" life she has built is actually a huge problem. Amazon Best Books of the Month, July 2012: What is a "normal" life? For Sunny, it means wearing a blond wig (she’s been bald since birth), medicating her autistic son (who wears a helmet because he bangs his head against walls), and teaching her brilliant but socially clueless husband, Maxon, how to interact with other humans (they whiteboard equations so he knows how to respond to compliments).
0 kommentar(er)
