Let's Bust a Recap : Watership Down

Watership Down was the last book I read in 2022, and it was a fun one to end the year. It wasn't on my 2022 book list, but I was determined to read it after seeing Sheree's post over at Keeping Up With the Penguins which informed me it would be turning 50. My copy had been sitting on my shelf for a couple years, but hadn't made it onto my book lists so I loosely slated it for November (which is the month it was originally published in 1972) and ended up reading it in December. (I also made this my choice for my book club, but I think I was the only one who read it. Holidays are a hard time to be reading a book for book club. I get it.)

Watership Down came from a story that English author Richard Adams made up on a road trip to entertain his daughters. After complaining about a particularly poor book he was reading aloud to them and emphatically stating he could do better, his daughter laid down the gauntlet saying, "Well, I only wish you would, Daddy, instead of keeping on talking about it." Challenge accepted. After a somewhat rocky road to get published, Watership Down rocketed to success and has become a rather popular enduring work. A modern classic I'd say.

And I thoroughly enjoyed it.

In the story, we follow along with rabbit brothers Hazel and Fiver as they decide they must leave their warren because of some unknown impending danger (Fiver's got the second sight, it seems), and undertake a journey to find a new safe place to start their own warren. Naturally, they try to warn their Chief Rabbit, but he's having none of it and only a few other rabbits decide to take the risk with them and leave. What follows is one close call after another as these bunnies set off to make a new home for themselves. It turns out, shortly after they left their warren, it was razed by evil humans and only two rabbits escaped with their lives. When they finally find a place to build their new warren, they realize if its ever going to be a success, they're going to need to find some female rabbits to do what bunnies do and keep their warren alive and well, so they set off on yet another dangerous mission to find them some honeys. 

Despite seemingly every reader's attempt to cull a deeper meaning out of Watership Down, Adams has insisted that he never meant for it to be some sort of allegory or parable. In his words, "it is simply the story about rabbits made up and told in the car." How Mark Twain-ish of him. This (anti)defense of his hit novel is in an introduction written by him in one of my editions of the book. So having read that, I took Adams at his word and just read it as an adventure story, and I loved it. Interestingly, both my parents remember being assigned this book in school at which time it would have been a brand new release, and listening to their teachers go on ad nauseam about all the themes and symbolism and what-not. Personally, my main takeaway is that it's cruel and unusual to keep rabbits as pets. 

However you decide to approach it, I'd say Watership Down is one worth giving a read at some point in your life. (And if you do read it: don't miss the Lapine Glossary in the back of the book to interpret the unfamiliar rabbit words!) It was exciting and entertaining, and it kept me turning the pages (despite taking nearly the entire month of December to read because World Cup and then Christmas). I could see myself picking it up again one day, and as far as I'm concerned: that's a good book.

Have you read Watership Down?

Let's Bust a Recap : Polk

Well, we're still trudging along on this journey to read a biography of each American president. And I'm in what is arguably the black hole of the office: the stretch between #7 Andrew Jackson and #16 Abraham Lincoln. Those eight presidents are largely regarded as some of the worst and most ineffective presidents we've had. Except for #11, Mr. James K. Polk. Though his name has fallen into obscurity, he was not only the most effective out of that group of eight, he's also one of our greatest presidents of all time. And that's not just me talking: historians consistently rank him at #8 or #9 overall.

James Knox Polk was born in 1795 in North Carolina, the first of ten children in a family of farmers. By the time he was 10 years old, his family had moved to Tennessee where James grew up. He attended UNC and after graduating with honors in 1818, he returned to Nashville to study law under his mentor Felix Grundy. He had a short career in law before becoming more heavily involved in state politics. He served in the Tennessee state legislature before being elected to represent his state in Congress in the House of Representatives where he served seven terms, including two terms as Speaker of the House. He then returned home to Tennessee to serve as the state governor where he led a largely ineffectual term. He then fell out of the political limelight, losing the following two elections for governor. 

So how did he ever end up as president? As it turns out, one of Polk's closest friends and mentors was Andrew Jackson, the ever popular 7th president of the United States. At the Democratic Convention of 1844, Martin van Buren was back as the front runner for the Democratic nomination after having lost the last election to William Henry Harrison. However, the question of annexing Texas was the hot topic of the day and Martin van Buren came down on the other side of the question as Jackson: namely, he was against annexing Texas, and Jackson was for it. Polk showed up at the convention ready to throw in his hat for the vice presidential nomination, and ended up walking away the Democratic candidate for the top job in the country instead. After barely eking out a narrow victory over three-time loser Henry Clay, James K. Polk was sworn in as the United States' 11th president. 

Polk set out with four objectives in mind: resolve the joint occupation of Oregon, acquire California, reduce the tariff, and establish an independent treasury. He accomplished all four of these objectives within his four-year term and then resolutely refused to run for president again, a promise he had made when he received the nomination. He was the first president that chose of his own will not to run again, and he seemed relieved to leave the presidency behind. He was a workaholic and a micromanager and he threw his entire life into his work. Unfortunately, it took a harsh toll and he died a mere 103 days after leaving office. 

As for his personal life, it seems that not very much is really known. He suffered from ill health pretty much his entire life, starting when he was a teenager. He actually had to have an unmedicated surgery to have urinary stones removed when he was just 16 which likely caused his sterility later in life. He married Sarah Childress on January 1, 1824 and they were rarely separated during the course of their marriage. They seemed to truly love one another, and after her husband died at the age of 53, Sarah remained a widow the rest of her 42 years. 

This biography of Polk's life by Walter R. Borneman was published in 2008, and I thought it was a pretty good one. Borneman does a great job of setting Polk's life in context with his contemporaries, and I felt that while Polk was the main subject of this biography, I was getting little mini-biographies of a lot of his political contemporaries. Sometimes, that information seemed like Borneman was trying to fill out his book, but ultimately it helped me as the reader understand Polk's life and decisions. It was interesting to me as I build toward the Civil War to see names like Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and P.G.T. Beauregard dropped into a presidential biography for the first time as all these young men served in Polk's somewhat controversial Mexican-American War. I didn't care for Borneman's tendency to use nicknames for most of the men he was writing about, but that's just a personal preference, I guess. I also wish he would have spent a little more time on Sarah who seemed to be an interesting character in her own right and is considered the greatest First Lady between Dolley Madison and Edith Wilson. 

All things considered, I went into this biography of Polk not really knowing what to expect (remember, he kindof fell out of politics for a minute there), and I've walked away from it now placing Polk in my top three presidents so far alongside Jackson and Washington. He did what he set out to do, and he loved his wife. He practically doubled the size of our country, and he extended the reach of America from sea to shining sea. He was a man who stuck to his guns, and I admire the heck out of that. I even sort of admire his tendency to micromanage and throw his all into his work. That's the kind of dedication I want to see serving our country, especially in that highest political office. If you, like I was, are unfamiliar with James K. Polk, I'd recommend reading this biography on him. He was an exceptional politician. 

Let's Bust a Recap : Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Well, we've kicked off our 2023 reading strong...by finishing up the two books in progress I started last year. Ha! The first one was Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by French author Jules Verne. Cody and I started this one together back in September, and although we started well, our reading aloud time took a backseat when the holidays hit, and we were only reading a chapter or two (of the 47 chapter book) per week. 

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea was originally published in French in 1871. Like many novels being written around that time period, it was first serialized between 1869 and 1870. It was translated into English a couple of years later by Reverend Lewis Page Mercier. Even though it's pretty widely recognized that Mercier's translation isn't very good, it is somehow still the standard English translation with later translations recycling a lot of Mercier's mistakes. Since the 1960s, there have been several new and complete translations published, but the basic English copy you'd find in most bookstores is going to be some form of Mercier's translation which is what we have. (You gotta love those gorgeous Barnes & Noble special editions though, right?)

In Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, the year is 1866 and ships from many different countries are sighting what they believe to be some incredible sea monster all over the oceans. The United States government puts together an expedition to find and destroy this monster, and Professor Pierre Aronnax, a French marine biologist, is invited to go along. He is the narrator of our story which is written in the style of his personal journal and account of their ensuing adventures. His faithful assistant Conseil, and a Canadian harpooner named Ned Land are our other two principal characters. When the expedition finds the monster and attacks it, these three find themselves hurled off the ship and save themselves by climbing onto the monster itself which they are surprised to discover is no monster, but a futuristic submarine. They are eventually taken aboard and meet the inventor and commander of the vessel, the mysterious Captain Nemo who informs them that to maintain the all-important secrecy of his watercraft, they will remain as permanent inmates on the Nautilus. 

What follows is a detailed account of their time on board and the many adventures they encounter. While Verne has a dry sense of humor that had me laughing out loud at times, and the actual adventures are thrilling, the in-between bits were just boring. There were chapters where all Aronnax was doing was describing the various sea life, explaining the mechanics of the Nautilus, or chronicling their travel from place to place. There was a lot of math and a lot of scientific names that I twisted my tongue trying to pronounce as I read this aloud to Cody, and frankly, I'm more of a lit/history lover than a maths and sciences nerd. But overall, I'd say the exciting parts outweighed the boring parts making this classic one worth reading. However, my enthusiasm for our other Jules Verne books has been tempered accordingly. (We also have Around the World in Eighty Days and Journey to the Center of the Earth.) Being that I don't speak French, I'm not sure what all was lost in translation, but Cody and I both enjoyed the humor in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and every so often, I'd come across a simple line that stopped me in my tracks and I'd look up at Cody and say, "What a great line!"

So do Aronnax, Conseil, and Ned Land ever escape the Nautilus? For that, you'll have to read this one for yourself. 

2023 Book List

Happy New Year!

And we're off on another trip around the sun. You know how they say the days are slow but the years are fast? Over here it all just feels fast. I was looking forward to a slow Christmas this year, but it seems like I blinked and it was over. *sigh* A brand new year means a fresh new book list though, and that's always exciting. The possibilities are endless, and 2023 is boasting the most ambitious book list I've ever made for myself. 

Forty titles. Ever since I made my first book list in 2015 and totally bombed, I've tried to keep my lists pretty small. I usually aim for around twenty-four books on the official list. But this year, as I pulled books off my shelf, I figured I'd try to keep it under thirty. When I finally counted up what I'd pulled and realized I was well on my way to fifty titles, I decided I couldn't possibly narrow it down to any fewer than forty so that's where we landed. On last year's list of twenty-eight books, there were four I didn't get to. So trying to stick to the forty on this year's list ought to be real interesting. I'm already halfway through my biography of Polk, and Cody and I are over halfway through our read aloud of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. The four books I didn't get to from my 2022 list carried over onto this year's list, and I am resolutely determined to read David Copperfield this year (this is the fourth time I've put it on my book list for the year). Having said all that, here's my book list for 2023.

Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency : Walter R. Borneman

Zachary Taylor : John S.D. Eisenhower

Millard Fillmore : Robert J. Rayback

Franklin Pierce : Michael F. Holt

The Devil in the White City : Erik Larson

Keep A Quiet Heart : Elisabeth Elliot

A Woman After God's Own Heart : Elizabeth George

It's Not Supposed To Be This Way : Lysa Terkeurst

The Case for a Creator : Lee Strobel

A Praying Life : Paul E. Miller

Miracles : C.S. Lewis

The Tempest : William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet : William Shakespeare

David Copperfield : Charles Dickens

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea : Jules Verne

The Scarlet Pimpernel : Baroness Orczy

As I Lay Dying : William Faulkner

A Gentleman in Moscow : Amor Towles

Housekeeping : Marilynne Robinson

Cold Sassy Tree : Olive Ann Burns

Carry On, Jeeves : P.G. Wodehouse

The Chosen : Chaim Potok

The Starless Sea : Erin Morgenstern

If You Want To Make God Laugh : Bianca Marais

What Alice Forgot : Liane Moriarty

The Secret History : Donna Tartt

Skating Shoes : Noel Streatfeild

Emily of New Moon : L.M. Montgomery

Emily Climbs : L.M. Montgomery

Emily's Quest : L.M. Montgomery

On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness : Andrew Peterson

North! Or Be Eaten : Andrew Peterson

The Monster in the Hollows : Andrew Peterson

The Warden and the Wolf King : Andrew Peterson

James and the Giant Peach : Roald Dahl

The BFG : Roald Dahl

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd : Agatha Christie

Messenger of Truth : Jacqueline Winspear

A Red Herring Without Mustard : Alan Bradley

The Mysterious Benedict Society : Trenton Lee Stewart

Phew! We'll see how it goes. As you can see, I put four presidential biographies on this year's list. I mentioned I'm already about halfway through the Polk biography and the biographies I have for Taylor and Pierce are small so I feel confident that I may be able to finish all four. I'm still plugging away at Maisie Dobbs and Flavia de Luce, and I'm going to start The Mysterious Benedict Society this year so I'll have a lot of fun mysteries to solve. 

All in all, I'm really excited to get into my book list this year. I've been wanting to read The Starless Sea since its release, and I'm looking forward to my next Bianca Marais and Liane Moriarty books. Cody wants us to read The Wingfeather Saga aloud together so we'll get into that as soon as we finish up Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. It's going to be a great reading year!

Do you make yourself a book list each year? How about New Years resolutions? I'd love to hear about it in those comments, and I hope 2023 is our best year yet.