Neverhome / Laird Hunt

   FIRST OFF: I need all of you to go out, get a copy of Neverhome, read it, and then talk about it with me, at length. I want to drink some sort of hot beverage and wave my hands around while I talk to/at/with someone about this book. After that I think I will stalk the shelves of the library for more by Mr Laird Hunt, and hopefully I'll want everyone to read those and then talk about them too. I wish I had a hard copy of this book that I could wave in your collective faces until you said "ALRIGHT ALREADY, I will read it, are you happy now?" But I wouldn't be happy until you finished it and spoke with me about it, and we exclaimed over that one thing and that part at the end and what a genius Laird Hunt must be.

   Do you love stoicism in the face of adversity?? I sure do, and Ash/Constance delivers it in SPADES. Our narrator is matter-of-fact and brusque and I love it. (Side note: I also just finished reading True Grit / Charles Portis and wow that book is grand and Mattie Ross kicks butt and takes names. STOICISM!)

   Ach this book is just so excellent and complex and I don`t know how to tell you about it without putting IDEAS into your head about the plot etc AND SO: here I am telling you to please read this book and then please talk to me about it. I have a strong desire to have a bookclub and to read this book and talk about it with a group of people who are excited about it and about reading in general. 



p.s. I am now reading The Shining and spooky scary October is WELL underway.

I Capture the Castle / Dodie Smith

   As it turns out, a person doesn't necessarily have to be rich to live in a castle, as we quickly learn from Cassandra Mortmain as she narrates her life. No sir, you need not be rich, and by all accounts you can live in abject poverty and still live in a castle, so long as you have a long-suffering and understanding landlord.

   So! Cassandra et al live in a castle - what is left of a castle - on the grounds of a grand old house, and who should come round the cucumber frame but Mr MacGregor and by that I mean: single American hunks move in next door. Rose, Cassandra's older sister, decides that poverty really isn't all it's cracked up to be and sets about catching herself a rich American. She isn't very good at it at first on account of reading too many Victorian romances, and there are some misunderstandings, hiccups, etc on the road to love and let's just say that I'm really not doing the book justice so far and it is quite delightful.

   Back to the story: Simon (older American bro) has an awful beard but he also has an inheritance and owns the grand house and the grounds and the castle, so Rose sets her cap at him. He also has a penchant for literature, which proves to be a bonus since Cassandra and Rose's father once wrote an avant-garde novel that Americans simply eat up and Simon practically worships the ground he walks on. Neil (younger American bro) loves ranches and being, in general, American. Cassandra is all about the love of words and books and writing, and records the shenanigans that take place surrounding Rose's quest for love and money.

   Cassandra, it turns out, is charming and charismatic, although sometimes she is very earnest about various things, but aren't we all sometimes? If you can't be earnest every once in awhile then what are you doing. All this jibber jabber aside, let's get to my favorite character: Topaz.

   Topaz! She is the best. She loves art and she loves keeping her family as warm and fed and comfortable as she can and she also "communes with nature" which means she's an occasional nudist. She poses for paintings! She makes Rose and Cassandra clothing! She encourages Mortmain (the father, her husband) as best she can! The best lines come out of her mouth! There's no way Topaz is her real name but she owns it and she's great.

   A more complete cast of characters:

• Cassandra, our narrator
• Rose, our marriage-plotter. I feel like I haven't done Rose justice here. She's brave and she sticks to her guns.
• Thomas, Cassandra and Rose's younger brother. He's very bright.
• Mortmain, their father
• Topaz, their step-mother (not evil, as Cassandra points out)
• Steven, the farm boy
• Simon, American bro
• Neil, American bro
• Mrs. Cotton, their mother. I didn't like her. 
• The Fox-Cottons, awful people in some ways, not awful in others. 
• The librarian whose name I forget but who is a lovely woman.
• The Vicar, who is also great.

   As stated above, it's a delightful number and I encourage y'all to read it and enjoy it. It gets several stars out of however many.

31-35

Can you guess them all?

52!

   This year I resolved to read at least 52 books; friends, yesterday I read my 53rd. High-fives all around!

Invasion of the Body Snatchers / Jack Finney

   If there is a vibe that I love in scary books, it is the "it doesn't seem like anything is wrong on the surface but if you look closely there is totally something off about this situation what is it oh my gosh" vibe. Enter Jack Finney's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, where the very thing that is the most sinister is that it is so difficult to tell who has been body-snatched and who hasn't. Miles, our narrator, is describing the town and says "there wasn't anything out-and-out strange or remarkable to see", and that is essentially the theme of the book.

   Written in 1955, the book sometimes posits some uncomfortable notions, but all in all it is quite enjoyable, and maintains a sinister feeling. However, I do have a complaint and I do think it is warranted. WTH is up with the plethora of deus ex machina endings in aliens-invading-mother-earth science fiction? "It was germs done killed 'em" "Earth has water and other planets don't, ergo: water = alien poison." OR "they decided that it just wasn't worth it."

   PLEASE.

   I was half expecting the ending to be "un/fortunately, Miles and Becky's struggle was unsuccessful so I guess we are all aliens now, and you didn't even know it. You're an alien, your mom's an alien, your aunts and uncles? Aliens. You dog too, probably, if you have a dog. Although why would you, since you are an emotionless husk carrying a parasitic alien life-form which will perpetuate itself throughout the earth until there aren't any non-alien entities left for it to take over, at which point it will revert back to spores and move on to ravage other planets. Well! Have a good sleep." 

   Wouldn't that have been a better ending?? I certainly think so. I guess I've sort of given this story away, but really: it was published in 1955. You've had some time to read it. Also: Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a part of our cultural psyche. You already know the story, or at least the ingredients.