Dabbling in Non-fiction

I’m driving down the road on my way to the orthodontist with my fourteen-year-old. The book is lying between us and she picks it up. Mind you, I’ve started reading it, but am only 1-2 chapters in. She starts reading from the beginning. I steal it back while she has her braces adjusted, and then she reads it on the way home. And after we get home. And through the entire afternoon and late into the night when I make her close it so she can wake up for driver’s ed the next day. She finished it by lunchtime. And then I got my chance.

I’m addicted to fiction. When there are ten fabulous novels waiting for me to read them, it’s difficult to stray into the realm of non-fiction. But this post documents a departure from my norm.

Heaven Is For Real by Todd Burpo. Before I read the book, I already believed it. I’ve studied many Biblical references to heaven and I can’t actually remember a time I wasn’t certain I’m going there after I die (or possibly before, but that’s a whole other blog post). This book gave me chills. Made it even more real.

The story is engaging. Fascinating. And it makes you think about everything you ever knew about Heaven. It’s not that it changed my view, but it confirmed several things I thought would probably be true, but didn’t have scripture to back me up.  It also confirmed several things that are in scripture. What’s cool about that, is this  four-year-old boy would not have heard what’s in scripture on those topics. And he couldn’t even read at that time in his life. He told his story to his parents piecemeal, and things he said were exactly what scripture describes.

So I didn’t need proof of Heaven. But it’s way cool to receive confirmation. It’s like making up my own recipe for something and my family loves it. Then, I read in a magazine a similar recipe created by a professional chef. I knew it was good, but when I see it printed in a magazine, I know other people know it’s good.

I highly recommend Heaven Is For Real. There are delightful surprises within. Plus, you get to know a wonderful family and a little boy with a remarkable experience. Don’t avoid it because it’s popular. This one’s popular for a reason. It strikes a chord, and that’s a good thing.

Have you read it? Do you avoid non-fiction? What will induce you to pick up a non-fiction book?

Do you know what a pimpernel is?

It’s a wild flower, in the primrose family. I’m sad to admit I only just learned it this summer. Of course, you must know, I can now say I’ve read the Scarlet Pimpernel.

Were you forced to read it for school? Have you seen the stage play? Have you (like me, before this summer) heard about it your whole life and always wondered what in the world a pimpernel is but didn’t wonder enough to pick up the book and read it?

It’s short. It’s swashbuckling. And it’s good! If you’ve been thinking you should read some classics to feed your brain, but when it comes to actually picking one up, you yearn for something more modern, I beseech you (the language kinda gets stuck in your head J) read this one!

The story takes place during the French Revolution when the lower classes ousted the aristocracy via Madame Guillotine, watching the proceedings like sport. The author was herself, a baroness from Hungry who was forced to flee her country, losing all the family lands.

The politics from the French Revolution written from an author sympathetic to the aristocracy in France is a fascinating read in light of our current political climate. I will not opine here, but suffice it to say, there was much food for thought.

More than that, the story clips along at a good pace, the hero and heroine are wonderfully opposed to each other at the beginning and though it is a romance, the intrigue, mystery, and general adventure held my interest all the way through.

Baroness Orczy may not have been a professional writer when she wrote it, but she knew the life of an ex-pat in England and she knew how to swashbuckle. (Sorry, I just had to use that word twice – it’s so much fun to say!) Give it a whirl. You’ll find out why the pimpernel matters. And you’ll sound really smart at dinner parties when this book is mentioned and you know all about it. (FYI: you might have to be the one that brings it up. But you’ll still sound smart. J)

Have you read any great classics this summer? Do you have any classics on your "to be read" list?

Lorna Landvik writes a great cupcake!

Reading Lorna Landvik is a true delight! I read Oh My Stars! at the beach a couple weeks ago and rediscovered my love for this author of wonderfully quirky characters and stories.  

The heroine in Oh My Stars is Violet. She is so unique, so complex, she’s like a cool breeze that finds you on a sultry, cooker of a day. The characters are not mere eccentrics pasted into a story, begging to be noticed. No, the characters are slowly built, carefully crafted, revealed in the reader's peripheral vision.

I laughed out loud and I also hid some tears behind my sunglasses over the course of this wonderful story. I have to come back to that first word I used to describe it: Delight. It’s not so much an easy, light read, but the emotional surprises are what evoke that delight. Lorna Landvik has a way of writing about meaty topics in a way that is both humorous and lighthearted, but at the same time serious and pointed.

There is a cupcake shop near my home who makes very tasty treats. Last time I was in the shop I saw a sign on the wall: Icing Shots, $1. I can only imagine how good that would taste on the way down, but how spiky the sugar-headache would feel afterward. No, I prefer my icing atop a delicious piece of cake. It’s richer. The flavor is much more balanced and just . . . right.

Lorna Landvik writes like a good cupcake. It’s not mere fluff. Not like an icing shot. The story is deep and rich and balanced. 

When was the last time you closed a book and said to yourself, “Well, that was delightful!”? Read Oh My Stars! and I think you just might.

By the way, also try Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik. And especially you Minnesotans up there, try Patty Jane’s House of Curl.

The Saga, Part II

So, we’re talking sagas again. The long story of heroic achievement. What if Luke Skywalker found some droids, learned to use the force, and then beat Darth Vader with his light saber?  Short, sweet, to the point, and good beats evil, end of story. Why does that story fall flat with us?

I think it’s the struggle. Conflict is one thing, but a long term struggle is another. Most sagas depict a war between good and evil, right and wrong, love and love lost, etc . . . What makes a saga resonate is the series of battles, one after another. Just when we think the hero will triumph, something else stands in his way. In fact, it seems the entire world is standing in his way.

Think about someone you know who has faced a difficulty and then gone on to inspire you. If you told me about that person’s journey, I might be interested and tell you it’s a good story. But if I knew that person well, watched him grow up, knew how his personality traits affect his reactions to various situations, it would be a different story. The tragedies and triumphs become much more graphic and magnified for me, knowing what this man is like and how these events would have affected him emotionally, socially, professionally, as well as physically.

I think that’s the benefit of the saga. It takes you deeper. Sometimes way deeper. My dad used to love reading James Michener. I remember one particular book called The Source (and I’m speaking from second-hand knowledge only here, I haven't read it). My dad told me the book went all the way back to the beginning of the people of Israel, and traced them through hundreds of generations to the modern day. Now, that might be an extreme case of “backstory,” but then again, everyone I’ve spoken to who read the book has loved it.

As a writer, the challenge is to write a story with enough detail to make it rich, but not so much the story gets dragged into the depths of dull. 

Do you prefer the deep, richly detailed tale, or a "Just the facts, ma'am" approach? Why? What's your favorite example?

The lovely, long story.

Star Wars. Lord of the Rings. Little House on the Praire. They all have something in common. Something I love and can’t get enough of. They are all part of a SAGA. Does the word strike fear in your heart or send you running to the bookstore for the latest and greatest? 

The dictionary defines "saga" as a long story of heroic achievement. I’d like to take a look at each of the above sagas (and maybe a few more sprinkled in) and talk about why we love (or hate) them. This type of story really does tend to elicit a strong emotion one way or another. And yes, I realize Star Wars began as a movie, but we’re talking about a story experience, not merely in book form only.

I have a friend who rarely reads fiction and when she does, it’s usually something light and short. She just doesn’t enjoy delving deep into the lives of characters for an extended period of time. And a saga will require some time. It goes with the territory. If the characters are likeable, I want to spend as much time as I can with them, but the author has to keep things moving along. No two-page descriptions of a single flower, please!

Usually, when written in book form, a saga will be published in multiple volumes. While I like to stay up with current literary releases, if it’s a continuing saga, I prefer to wait until the end has been published before I invest myself. I don’t want to forget any details from the early books when I read the later volumes.

A few years ago, I read a children’s series by Rick Riordan: Percy Jackson and the Olympians. I made the mistake of beginning the series when only four of the books had been released. My kids and I burned through every available word published and then were forced to wait almost six months for the conclusion. Adding insult to injury, my children wrested the book from my hands the instant we purchased it and I was forced to wait for THREE of them to read it before me. Well, let’s be honest, I actually forbade the third kid to take the book to school with him so I could at least have it during the day. Pathetic, I know.

What sagas have you read and loved? Hated? Are there any sagas in your “to be read pile?” We’ll talk about specific sagas next time.

The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley

Just finished reading this delightful novel and as I turned to the “virtual” back cover, I released a pleasant sigh. This is why I read.

So I want to use this book to look at what comes together to produce that satisfied sigh at the end of a book. Several things, I think.

1.     1. We read to feel. To cry with the widow, to sneak around the corner, hiding from the leering, evil gardener, to rejoice in the beauty of young love, and to yearn for someone across an ocean. These emotions swept me up in this novel.

2.     2. We read to escape to another world. To leave the world of rainy, humid spring and travel to exotic locations where snow and ice and a biting wind off the North Sea batter the walls of the castle—this is a great way to gain a new appreciation for the world I actually inhabit.

3.     3. We read to learn. The Winter Sea is about an author who is writing an historical novel. We see how she researches, but we also travel back in time and learn about the Brittish-Scottish Union and the failed attempt of King James to return to Scotland and claim his throne. Real historical figures play major roles in the fiction—it’s fascinating!

4.     4. Lastly, I think we read to get to the last page so we can savor all the moments the author led us through in order to reach a vantage point where we could look back and say, that was exactly right. So much in this world is a mess. Reading an ordered story that ties up loose ends while leaving a few of the right ones hanging, gives us hope that in real life, there’s a chance at bringing things right.

My favorite image is the character with eyes like The Winter Sea. Eyes like that are beautiful to imagine, and since almost the whole story takes place in view of the winter sea, it’s especially poignant.

As a writer, I loved that the protagonist is a writer. I wish I had an agent like hers in the story. I wish I could just go rent a cottage near the setting of my story and write there, alone, until it’s finished. Well, I don’t really want to do that, but the idea is highly romantic, though completely unrealistic for me. But it’s fun to “live” that dream, even if I don’t truly want the reality (ie, months away from my family).

For an escape, read The Winter Sea. It’s beautiful, punctuated with some lovely surprises, and will sweep you to another world . . . plus, there’s a castle. And I'm fairly certain you'll close the book and without even thinking about it, you'll sigh because you're satisfied.

What is it about England?

Is it just me, or is a novel set in 19^th century England like the pied piper? I can’t stay away. I love, love, love stories set in this time and place. Of course I’m a Jane Austen fan, but how many countless other stories start with a giant stone manor house, a garden to get lost in, and a thunderstorm to end all storms?

Why do we love them? Is it the “other-worldliness”? Is it a longing for a simpler, yet more opulent time? I don’t even like tea, but I find myself longing for a cup served in one-hundred-year-old bone china, while wearing a gown I’ve just put on for the express purpose of taking my tea…in the drawing room, of course.

And why is it a game of cat and mouse played in a dark, two-hundred-year-old garden is more enthralling than the same chase scene in a US mall?

Honestly, I think is because I’ve lived (vicariously) so many wonderful stories in that time and place, it seems to me the best parts of the old stories are carried (by me) into the new stories and though they strip me of all objectivity, they sink me even deeper into the storyworld than a single author could take me.

If I walk into a Calculus class for the first time with no previous math instruction, the teacher may be able to explain limits to me after several weeks of blood, sweat, and tears. But if I walk into the same class having already learned the terms and basic background necessary, I can hit the ground running and begin to understand new concepts immediately.

So it is with literature. Having read several novels taking place in the 19^th century, in a stone country house on the moors of England, I already know what life was like. I have a general feel for what the moors look like, and I know how the people lived, both the servants and land owners. So when I take up a new novel, the fresh details ring wonderfully true when they dovetail with details from other books, painting an even richer portrait.

I can’t help it. Victorian and Romantic English Literature inspires me. The stories suck me in and I cannot stop reading them. Lure me in with a castle and a mysterious key and I’ll be rapt until the last chapter. Do you feel the same? Is there another genre you cannot stop reading?