Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

Okay, I'm on a roll! I've been reading tried and true authors' books recently and I need to keep doing this. Last week I finished Tracy Chevalier's latest novel The Last Runaway and I just finished Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behavior. Wow, what great books!

I really, really, really enjoyed Flight Behavior. This novel should be a must read for anyone wanting to learn about climate change / global warming. It teaches without preaching (at all) using facts and a fictionalized (but believable) story of the monarch butterfly moving its winter habitat from the mountains of Mexico to the mountains of Southern Tennessee.

The books centers around a poor young woman, Dellarobia Turnbow, who's a wife and mother and smarter than just about anyone else she knows in her rural Tennessee world. She's the one to see the monarchs on the mountain near her house, and with the monarchs, her world changes. 

If you've never read any of Barbara Kingsolver's books, you're in for a treat. This one is just as good as any of her other novels. She develops the characters so the reader knows them and cares about them. 

A couple of really good passages from Flight Behavior follow:

• "So she was what Hester called a 911 Christian:  in the event of an emergency, call the Lord. ... No wonder people chose Him as their number-one friend. But if the chemistry wasn't there, what could you do?"
• "He looked surprised. 'No college?' 'No college. Sorry.' She wondered if humiliation ever ran its natural course and peeled off, like sunburn, or just kept blazing."

I don't know about you, but I often get so involved in the characters in a book that I hope for certain outcomes. Reading this book brought out very strong opinions to me of what Dellarobia should do. And the ending was not a disappointment.

Book Read:  Flight Behavior
Author:  Barbara Kingsolver

Don't listen to me. What do I know? Unless I do know...

Well, Barbara Kingsolver won the Orange Prize for The Lacuna. You know, the book that just didn't flip my switch. But what do I know? Not much evidently!

I did start reading The Feast of Love though, which I do love! I'd read one other of Charles Baxter's books, First Light, many years ago, and it was so original in the format and well written to boot. I have had The Feast of Love sitting on my nightstand for a long time, have meant to read, have tried to read it, but I did it bassackwards:  I watched the movie first, which I totally love, instead of reading the book first.

And so, I got a wild hair the other night and looked up Mr. Baxter on the internet, which I usually do after I read a book but I felt like this was a special circumstance since I've seen the movie (many times) and know what's going to happen. So, as I was tooling around his Web site, I saw the "email the author" button and I did! And he emailed me back! And we've exchanged a couple of emails, while I'm reading his book. How cool is that? I'll tell you how cool. For a word nerd, wanna be author, it's the best.

The Lacuna a No Go

In case anyone gives a rip, I am not going to read The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver. I really really really think she is an excellent writer, but this one didn't do it for me, so it's in the book bag to go back to the Snotsdale Library when I go there next.

I picked up Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner (is that pronounced weener or whiner? I will have to check.) and I'm enjoying it. Go figure. I am shameful. But she's a very good writer too. She wrote the book In Her Shoes (I've seen the movie) and Good in Bed (I've read it) and others.

Okay, just checked. Here's how it's pronounced straight from the horse's mouth (that is, from Ms. Weiner's blog):

"...And finally I find it, and then phone rings with my backup emergency wake-up call.

"Miz Weener?"

Yeah. Great. Good morning to you, too. (You do know that it's Wyner, right? The infinitely less offensive pronunciation. Note to self: consider using married name while travelling.)"

Half Broke Horses, the winner by a head

Well, I did something I hardly ever do. I started reading one book then started another before finishing the first one. Shame. The first book? The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver.

I know! I love her books, usually. I'm having trouble loving this one though. I started it, liked it okay but never really got absorbed in the storyline. Those darned foreign settings. They trip me up nearly every time. This one is set in Mexico and the U.S. I don't know what it is. I guess I just can't relate.

Anyway, I saw Half Broke Horses on the New Books table at the Phoenix library when I was picking up some movies on the reserve shelf. I grabbed it! I loved The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. If you love memoirs (I do!) and you love larger than life tales (I do!), I think you'll love it. So, I figured I'd also like Half Broke Horses. I did.

The cover calls it "a true life novel," because it's based on Walls' maternal grandmother's life but she wrote it in first person and filled in the blanks, the details when she really didn't know exactly what was said or some of what happened. But this was as good as The Glass Castle, in my opinion. The book covers Lily Casey Smith's life from when she was about 10 years old till the 1950s. The woman was incredible. We have nothing to complain about.

I zipped through the book, then went to the Scottsdale library to pick up some movies (yes, I watch a lot of movies) and saw Cleaving, sitting on the New Non-fiction shelf, by that narcissistic whiner Julie Powell (Julie and Julia). So, I sat down to read a little to see if I could stomach it; it's about her new-found love--being a butcher. Yick. I hate cutting up meat, but I have to admit, I got sucked it. So, now I'm reading it. I must be in a memoir mood.

We'll see if in a few days when I finish Cleaving if The Lacuna opens up to me again.

Book Read:  Half Broke Horses
Author:  Jeannette Walls
ISBN: 978-0-670-02165-9