NAPOLEON’S PRIVATES

A picked Napoleon’s Privates: 2,500 Years of History Unzipped off a bookstore shelf as a gift for his uncle last Christmas, and when he brought it home, I noticed that it was by Tony Perrottet, whose publicist I interned for back in college. The agency wasn’t actively working with him at the time, but I got a free copy of his book of travel essays, Off the Deep End, which I remember enjoying, so it was goodwill/nostalgia plus the promise of naughty historical factoids that prompted me to check this out of the library. And it was a fun read, intermittently fascinating (the titular organ, if it is in fact authentic, currently resides in a suitcase under a bed in New Jersey) and forgettable (I knew some of the stuff already; the assortment of topics was uneven and seemed random at times). It’s worth a browse—the easy-reference charts, such as “Where Are They Now? Celebrity Body Parts” and “How Wretched Were the Impressionists?”, were particularly amusing—and will correct those misguided souls who think history is boring, but anyone who’s already up on their offbeat anecdotes might get impatient reading it all the way through.

A WRINKLE IN TIME

Still awesome, of course. I’ve read Madeleine L’Engle’s four main Murry books over and over again throughout my life, but I never managed to get all the way through the whole sequence of related Austin and O’Keefe books, so that is my new unofficial project. Year(s) of L’Engle, ahoy!

ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS/ZIA

Ah, the book that taught me the word “abalone”! I’ve read Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins a dozen times over the years and still love it as much as ever, but in a totally different way than when I was a kid. Back then, I was all about the cozy Little Houseish survival porn, yearning for my very own island, a pet wolf-dog, a skirt made of cormorant feathers, and a fence made of whale ribs. And…OK, I still covet those things, but this time, reading it for my book club, I was struck by how very poignant this story is. Karana’s mother is dead, her father and most of the other men in her tribe are murdered by Aleuts, and she stays behind on the island for her little brother (in real life, probably her son) who promptly gets killed by wild dogs, leaving her all alone for 18 years before being rescued and taken to the mainland, where she finds that her people have scattered, no one speaks her language, and she dies within weeks. And I was jealous of her tame sea otter?

I think I glossed over a lot of the sadness back then because (A) I took the matter-of-factness of Karana’s voice at face value, though that same stoicism only amps up the emotion for me as an adult; I get goosebumps every time I read the chilling simplicity with which she mourns her faithful dog: “‘Rontu!’ I cried. ‘Oh, Rontu!’ I buried him on the headland.” SOB! (B) The descriptions of the landscape and animals and Karana’s love for the island are so very lovely that I still want to go to there; I was a nature-loving kid, but it’s extra-cool now that I live in the very area where the book takes place. This was the first time I’d reread the book since moving here—I don’t think I even realized it was set in California when I was younger—and this time around, having visited one of the Channel Islands, an elephant seal (“sea elephant” in the book) rookery, and the Santa Barbara Mission (where a plaque acknowledges the unknown gravesite of the real-life “Karana”), I could envision everything so vividly.

For extra credit, I figured I’d better check out Zia, the sequel to Blue Dolphins, which covers Karana’s brief post-rescue life through the eyes of her niece, Zia. O’Dell does a good job of conveying the complex, often chaotic interactions between the native peoples, padres, soldiers, and ranchers of Southern California during this era, and the Karana-related bits—still poignant as hell—do a nice job of wrapping up the loose ends of her story (dog lovers will be glad to know that Zia and Rontu-Aru befriend each other at the end), but overall it falls flat in comparison, maybe because Zia is powerless in her world, whereas Karana’s is such an epic tale of self-sufficiency and (a certain kind of) freedom.

HER FEARFUL SYMMETRY

Audrey Niffenegger’s latest novel is nowhere near as good as her debut, The Time Traveler’s Wife (which I lurved), mostly because the characters aren’t particularly likeable, but the combo of twins, ghosts, a kitten, and a London cemetery is still pretty compelling. Even though the story didn’t add up to much, the Victorianish, A.S. Byatt-y vibe kept me interested. I wouldn’t bother reading it again, but I’m glad I did it once.

THE UNTHINKABLE

I’m a worrier, particularly now that I have dependents (well, cats) and live far from most of my friends and family—in earthquake country, to boot. I try to heed post-9/11, post-Katrina, post-temblor, post-H1N1 advice to “be prepared” for a major disaster, but it’s hard to know exactly what situations to prepare for—forced to evacuate? Stuck at home with no electricity or water? Stranded at work, in my car, on the train, or elsewhere? I can’t carry a suitcase with me everywhere, and anyway, the long lists of items to stock in my emergency kit never answer my real questions: What does a disaster feel like, and how would I deal with it? Amanda Ripley’s The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes and Why, in which she interviews survivors of terrorist attacks, plane crashes, fires, and other disasters to illustrate human behavior in such situations, was very helpful. It doesn’t provide gimmicky tips about duct-taping your windows; it focuses on our psychological and physiological responses in times of crisis and how those can be helpful or hurtful (many of the modern disasters we face, like large-scale bombings, are so different from the dangers we evolved to cope with that our instincts may not always be correct). The stories are harrowing, but they’re also riveting (I had this as an audiobook, and it was a good one to keep me interested while commuting) and ultimately empowering. No one can stop all disasters from occurring or guarantee you’ll never experience them, but you can try to understand and control how you might react. Keeping an extra supply of bottled water is important, but so is training your brain to work quickly and clearly under stress. Somehow, I find this comforting.

MARCH READING NUBBINS

What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures, by Malcolm Gladwell: Fascinating essays.

Franny and Zooey, by J.D. Salinger: Meh. The Catcher in the Rye awakened grand plans in me to read all the Glass family stories, but this just didn’t grab me. It was well written, but not my bag.

Inexcusable, by Chris Lynch: For my book club, a contemporary YA novel written from the point of view of a seemingly nice boy who commits acquaintance rape. It’s not perfectly executed or particularly lovable, but it’s an interesting exercise in unreliable narration and a thought-provoking read for teens.

EMILY OF DEEP VALLEY

Loved. Of course Betsy is nearest to my heart, but strictly in terms of quality, this might be an even better book than any of the Betsy ones—and since it’s the most standalone and serious of all the Deep Valley books, it makes a good entry point for an adult reader. It also dispels any fear that Maud Hart Lovelace might be a one-trick pony, for Emily Webster is a completely different heroine than Betsy: an only child, an orphan, with no close friends and an uncertain future. Though a bright student who yearns to attend college like her peers, she can’t leave her grandfather, so she must “muster her wits” to build a life for herself in Deep Valley. Emily’s determined journey from timidity and alienation to self-actualization is an inspiring coming-of-age story, and there are fun cameos from Betsy and her friends along the way (Emily graduates from high school two years behind Betsy, so we get a glimpse of the Crowd in the “lost” years between Betsy and Joe and Betsy and the Great World).

WINONA’S PONY CART

In addition to the Betsy-Tacy series, Maud Hart Lovelace published three spinoff “Deep Valley” books, none of which I’d read before. (They’re currently out of print, but Harper Collins appears to be republishing them—hopefully, with the same sleek and sophisticated treatment it just gave to the later Betsy-Tacy books—in October, which I eagerly await because my library doesn’t have the one I most want to read, Carney’s House Party.) This one, set sometime between Betsy-Tacy and Tib and Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill, stars an 8-year-old Winona Root, with Betsy, Tacy, and Tib as supporting cast. The plot is simple (Winona has a birthday and wants a pony) but charming; sassy Winona makes a fun protagonist, and it’s interesting to see things from her point of view (as opposed to her semi-nemesis role in Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown).

BLACKOUT

Connie Willis’s latest is right up my alley: time travel, England in WWII, and a loose continuation of my faves “Fire Watch,” Doomsday Book, and To Say Nothing of the Dog. It’s a cliff-hanging two-parter (the second half, All Clear, comes out in October), so I can’t really give a final judgment yet, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

J.D. Salinger’s death inspired us to pick this for our YA book club. I’d read it once before, but in college (just on my own, not for a class), too late, I felt at the time, for it to have a genuine impact on me. Knowing the book had such an iconic status made it hard for it to live up to its reputation. I remember thinking it was well-written, but I just didn’t see how so many people could love it so much—and especially, how it could inspire someone to assassinate Lennon or Reagan. I was too caught up in the idea that I was supposed to identify with Holden Caulfield, and I didn’t. How could I, really? I was a 1990s suburban Midwestern girl with no real experience of getting expelled from boarding school, drinking, smoking, sex, true alienation, or wandering New York City alone. I had a hard time even sympathizing with Holden’s refusal to get good grades.

Rereading the book in my thirties, however, I was freed from a lot of the assumptions about how it was supposed to make me feel, and I really liked it. Two decades removed from Holden, I saw him as a typical smart, sensitive, posturing teenage boy, sometimes endearing, sometimes annoying as hell, trying to come to terms with one of the central revelations of growing up: that a lot of the adult world is bullshit. A lot of people just buy into the bullshit, and others (like me) recognize it and try to live with it as best they can without letting it touch them, but some people just can’t handle it, and it hurts them. Realizing that I could understand Holden without having to always like him was the key to the book for me. Even though I don’t really like picaresque plot structures like this one, I enjoyed it as a masterful character study (and not just of Holden—Phoebe is one of the most awesome little girls in classic literature). I’ll still roll my eyes at anyone who calls Holden their hero (a la Jake Gyllenhaal in The Good Girl), but I definitely won’t be all “Ho hum, The Catcher in the Rye, so cliché” anymore, which I’d fallen into the habit of before. I might not adore it or want to carry a copy around in my back pocket, but it’s a genuinely good book.