2011 : My Life In Books

 Which book should I read for 2011?

I'll Be There by Holly Goldberg Sloan

OR

The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht

OR

The Little Women Letters by Gabrielle Donnelly

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Let's Bust a Recap : Fervent

I was reading this book a solid year ago (from March to May), but we're finally getting this recap done because I finally re-watched War Room which I wanted to do before posting this. 

Fervent by Priscilla Shirer came out in the summer of 2015 just a month or two before War Room which is a faith-based film that Shirer had the starring role in. I'm pretty sure I went and saw War Room in the theater with my BFF Christina and we ended up buddy reading Fervent last year together too. 

I was aware at the time War Room came out that Fervent had recently been published as a sort of unofficial companion book to the movie, but I didn't have a copy and didn't make a point to get a copy either. However, in 2024 two of my other BFFs, Amy and Lyndsey (Christina was supposed to come too but got sick), drove up to meet me in Alpharetta, Georgia for a Living Proof Live event. As girlfriends do, we went shopping together at a massive Goodwill and I came across a copy of Fervent for a measly $2. I think Amy ended up buying a copy as well. Christina and I talked about buddy reading it that fall, but life being what it is, we ended up pushing it to after the new year. I'm glad we got to it because I needed this book. Honestly, I need all the books on prayer I can get. I'm putting Fervent and A Praying Life by Paul Miller into the regular rotation of my reading life. 

Shirer's emphasis in Fervent is making a prayer battle plan so that we are equipped to fight in the ongoing spiritual warfare that is happening all around us—whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. Something Shirer confronted right out of the gate is putting our enemy in his proper place. She says:

Whenever the conversation of demonic activity comes up in a book like this, most people scatter to one of two extremes. Either they overestimate Satan's influence and power, living with an inflated, erroneous perspective of his abilities. Or they underestimate him. They don't assign him any credit at all for the difficulties he's stirring up beneath the surface of their lives. One extreme leaves you saddled with undue fear and anxiety; the other just makes you stupid...unaware and completely open to every single attack. 

Full transparency: I tend to fall in the second category. As Shirer goes on to point out, God already defeated Satan once and for all and He didn't break a sweat to do it. The devil didn't and doesn't stand a chance against the Almighty God of the universe. But as Peter, inspired by the Holy Spirit, clearly warns us, the devil would still love to devour me if I let my guard down. The Scripture is clear about spiritual warfare: it's real and we have to take up arms.

So in Fervent, Shirer targets ten areas in our lives the devil is prone to attack and lays out strategies for the reader to pray about each one. And she's practical. She designed the book with prayer cards for the reader to tear out and fill in with their own prayers to post on the walls of their closets. She includes many Scripture references at the end of each chapter which was my favorite part. My copy is already well-highlighted and will continue to be for years to come. I've always appreciated Priscilla's no-holds-barred approach. She's not afraid to tell you the truth and to tell it to you plain. This book is a kick in the pants, get off your butt and on your knees, call to action, and we could all use a little more of that in our lives. 

As for the movie War Room, I'll also tell it to you straight: a movie star Priscilla Shirer is not. Bless her. The star of that film is little Miss Alena Pitts who is Shirer's second cousin in real life and who plays her daughter in the film. As a lot of faith-based films tend to be, the acting comes across a little cheesy, but the content is so powerful, I still found myself with tears running down my face as I sat on my couch watching it last week. 

I highly, highly recommend Fervent and if you can watch War Room afterwards, so much the better. 

2010 : My Life In Books

 Which book should I read for 2010?

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

OR

Once We Were Brothers by Ronald H. Balson

OR

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom

OR

Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

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Let's Bust a Recap : Merry Wives of Windsor

And we're back with some more Shakespeare, and look at me go, posting my recap within a month of reading the play! Merry Wives of Windsor has been my favorite play by the Bard in many a year. It was a true comedy, and even though a lot of critics say it's Shakespeare's worst play, I loved it. What can I say? I'm a simple girl, and I like what I like. The Merry Wives had me grinning from ear to ear. It's full of scheming, trickery, and women getting the best of a bunch of silly men, and I was here for every word of it.

We open on a bunch of men talking about a bunch of stuff and, boiling it all down to what's actually important, we learn that 1) Page has a daughter named Anne whom he's ready to marry off to a guy named Slender, and 2) that there's some guy named Falstaff running around who's a lowdown, good-for-nothing. 

Then we meet a Welsh parson who is determined to help Slender woo and win Anne. And let me just tell you, everyone else seems to care more about Slender marrying Anne than Slender himself cares. At one point, when he's supposed to be wooing her, Anne straight up asks him if he even likes her, and he's just like, "Yeah, you're as good as any other woman, I guess." And when she presses him on if he even wants to marry her, he continues with, "I actually don't really care, but your dad and my uncle think it's a good idea so why not?" He's hilariously unconcerned about his future marital bliss. 

But back to the Welsh parson. We find out that Anne has another suitor, a one Doctor Caius, and he is not happy that the parson is trying to help Slender court his ladylove and he's ready to fight him over it. So he challenges him to a duel. 

The parson! Not Slender, who is his actual rival for Anne's hand in marriage. This is basically just Shakespeare's device to get these two guys with funny accents on the stage together for more comedy. (The doctor is French.) We also learn that Doctor Caius is Anne's mother's choice for a husband for her daughter. 

Are you confused yet? Anne's dad wants her to marry Slender (who couldn't care less what woman he ends up with), her mom wants her to marry the French doctor (who very passionately wants to marry Anne), and Anne herself wants to marry some guy named Fenton (who blew through a fortune so neither of the parents like him which, honestly, seems justified). 

While all this is going on, the lowdown, good-for-nothing Falstaff arrives in town, broke as a joke, and ready to seduce the titular merry wives, Mistress Page and Mistress Ford, to get his filthy paws on their husbands' money. So he decides to send them pretty much identical love letters to try to get in their pants. He then tells a couple of his underlings to go deliver the letters but they're all, "We're not your do-boys, loser" even though, as far as I can tell, that's exactly what they've been up to this point. I guess they're sick of Falstaff though so they go and tell Page and Ford exactly what Falstaff is up to. 

Page laughs it off, but Ford gets insanely jealous and comes up with a whole big plan to disguise himself and befriend Falstaff so he can keep tabs on the whole situation. Oh and this plan involves him paying Falstaff to seduce his wife so that then Ford himself will be able to seduce her too?? It's Shakespeare, guys, what did you expect?

Little does Falstaff know, Mrs. Page and Mrs. Ford are besties so, of course, they immediately show each other these outrageous letters and, after they get over the audacity of this clown to send them the same letter, they realize they are going to have a lot of fun messing with Falstaff. 

So Mrs. Ford sends Falstaff a letter telling him to come to her house while her husband is away and we're off to the races. 

Falstaff brags to Ford (who he thinks is some guy named "Brook") how easy it was to seduce Mrs. Ford and tells him he's about to go to her house right now. Ford, naturally, is in a total rage over this and gives Falstaff a short head start but then heads for home himself to catch his wife in the act. 

They're all playing right into the merry wives' hands. 

So Falstaff shows up at the Fords' home but before he can really get anywhere with Mrs. Ford, Mrs. Page runs in yelling, "Your husband is coming, your husband is coming!" The women stuff Falstaff into the dirty laundry and have the servants carry him out right under Ford's nose and dump him in the river where he nearly drowns. 

Chalk one up for the merry wives. 

The wives at this point realize that their husbands are obviously wise to Falstaff's intentions and decide to have even more fun with this. 

Falstaff, humiliated, swears off Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page, but a quick letter with some sweet nothings that the wives' cooked up has him right back in the game and he's immediately bragging to Brook (aka Ford) that he was just about to get it on with Mrs. Ford when her husband showed up and he escaped in the laundry basket. To which Ford is fuming over his wife's deceitfulness and loudly castigating Page for being such a naive idiot for not suspecting his wife of questionable behavior since women plainly can't be trusted. 

The second time Falstaff trots off to the Fords' house, the merry wives dress him up as a fat old lady that Ford hates and has forbidden to come in his house so that when Ford shows up to once again catch his wife cheating, he beats Falstaff black and blue thinking he's the fat witch that was banned from the house.  

Brilliant. Chalk another one up for the merry wives. 

At this point, they let their husbands in on the joke. Page gets a good laugh, and Ford is properly cowed, apologizes to his wife, and proclaims his unflinching faith in her from then on. Then they all, along with various other characters that I haven't given much attention to in this recap, come up with one final plan to humiliate Falstaff. 

Mrs. Ford writes him one last letter asking him to dress up as Herne the hunter with big antlers growing out of his head and meet her by a tree at midnight. Then they dress up all the kids in town as fairies and instruct them to pinch Falstaff and burn him with torches when he shows up. 

Diabolical.

Meanwhile, Page has instructed Slender to steal away with Anne (who will be dressed in white) during all the confusion and marry her. But Mrs. Page has also instructed the French doctor to do the same thing (but she says Anne will be dressed in green). And Anne and Fenton have made their own plan to run away during the frenzy and elope. (I'm not sure what color Anne actually wore and that bothers me a little.)

So after the plan has been carried out and the mayhem dies down, Slender shows back up saying he ended up with some boy dressed in white and the doctor says the same thing about a boy dressed in green, and then Anne and Fenton arrive all glowing and triumphant. Everyone has a good laugh, the Pages' congratulate their daughter for marrying the man she actually loves, and even Falstaff takes the joke on the chin and they all go off to have a meal together. 

I mean, is that not funny? As far as I'm concerned, that's a good time at the theater, and I would go to a live production of Merry Wives of Windsor any day of the week. The critics can say whatever they want; I thought this play was hysterical. 

2009 : My Life In Books

 Which book should I read for 2009?

The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

OR

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

OR

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

OR

Notes from the Dog by Gary Paulsen

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Let's Bust a Recap : As I Lay Dying

A few weeks ago, I recapped my first Hemingway and now I've also tackled my first Faulkner, and you guys, I have to say: I haven't been particularly impressed with the Jazz Age bunch.  

Way back in 2018, I read The Great Gatsby for the first time and I remember thinking, "Really? This is the book we're all lauding as one of the best offerings of the 20th century? Really??" And then I found Hemingway painful. And now Faulkner who by the end of the novel I just kept thinking, "What a pretentious prig." 

(Why am I even comparing these three authors? They were contemporaries being born in 1896, 1897, and 1899, respectively, and they are all three often lauded as some of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Faulkner and Hemingway both won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and Fitzgerald was nominated for it twice.)

But getting back to the pretentious prig. Faulkner himself bragged that he wrote As I Lay Dying "in six weeks, without changing a word" (not true) and that he "set out deliberately to write a tour-de-force." He claimed: "Before I ever put pen to paper and set down the first words, I knew what the last word would be...Before I began I said, I am going to write a book by which, at a pinch, I can stand or fall if I never touch ink again." Oh brother. If having a total disregard for punctuation and not finishing sentences is what it takes to make a great writer, then why do we even care about education? Honestly, why? 

But I digress. All my ranting aside, I liked Faulkner the best, and As I Lay Dying is one of the most unique pieces of literature I've ever read. (But hear me loud and clear: I am not equating uniqueness with inherent goodness. Different doesn't automatically mean better.) Stream-of-consciousness is not my favorite writing technique and Faulkner was one of the pioneers of it. 

As I Lay Dying—originally published in 1930, in case I haven't mentioned it—is basically the story of Addie Bundren's death and her rural family's subsequent quest to carry her body to its final resting place in her hometown of Jefferson, Mississippi, a request she made of them before she died. The book is written from multiple points of view—no less than fifteen!—and each "chapter" (if you can even call them chapters) are narrated by different people, including a couple by Addie herself after her demise. The main characters are the Bundrens, obviously: Addie's husband Anse, and her five children, Cash, Darl, Jewel, Dewey Dell, and Vardaman. Darl probably has the most of the 59 "chapters". It's a chaotic, dark, sometimes funny, a lot of times disturbing novel. Vardaman thinks his mom is a fish. Dewey Dell is stressing over an unwanted pregnancy and trying to obtain an abortion. Addie's body isn't embalmed so the stench the Bundrens take with them everywhere is a constant topic. Anse steals from his children. Cash's leg gets broken and they try to make a cast for it out of concrete. Darl starts a fire and gets taken away to an insane asylum. I cannot over-emphasize what a strange, tragic book this is. 

How do I wrap up a review like this? I will never read As I Lay Dying again. And I wouldn't really recommend it either. But I haven't stopped thinking about it. I'll definitely read more Faulkner. But it will be a few years before I pick him up again. 

How do you feel about stream-of-consciousness writing? Do you like Faulkner, Hemingway, or Fitzgerald? And which one do you like best?

2008 : My Life In Books

 Which book should I read for 2008?

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

OR

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

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