Collected Stories - Wallace Stegner

From the author's foreward- "Any reasonably long life, looked back upon, irresistibly suggests a journey. I see these stories, inventions on a base of experience, as rest stops, pauses while I tried to understand something or digest some action or clarify some response."

This book contains 31 Stegner short stories written in the early career of the writer- 1920s-1950s. The tales are driven by emotions and characters. They take us back in time to a simple, but often harsh, life when living was more basic. The character's relationships to each other and often their environment is chronicled magnificiently in these stories.

To me, these are what short stories should be- they place the reader in the middle a life, a place, a dilemma unique from our daily lives. Stegner is masterful at describing the emotions and thoughts of his characters- from women awaiting overseas letters from soldiers to a farm boy experiencing his first butchering of a pig. The stories will allow readers to remember distinct moments in time that our parents and grandparents lived.

I have many favorites in this collection, particularly ones depicting lives in rural and remote areas in the west.

The Bookshop - Penelope Fitzgerald

I have remained true to my deepest convictions, I mean to the courage of those who are born to be defeated, the weaknesses of the strong, and the tragedy of misunderstandings and missed opportunities, which I have done my best to treat as comedy, for otherwise how can we manage to bear it?

Those convictions describe the foundations of this charming short novel. The lead character (some describe as the author) is witty, naive, corageous, and determined in her quest to open a small bookshop in a tiny seaside town in England. The characters and the town are very British while not unlike a Keillor tale from Lake Wobegon. Fitzgerald has a great ability to write in a slow relaxing style while making filling each page with passages which move her story forward.

A beautiful book for a rainy afternoon with a cup of tea.

The right-hand wall she kept for paperbacks. At 1s. 6d. each, cheerfully coloured, brightly democratic, they crowded the shelves in well-disciplined ranks. She could remember a world where only foreigners had been content to have their books bound in paper.
"Hasn't it occured to you that a building of such historical interest could be put to better use"
"Old age is not the same thing as historical interest," he said. "Otherwise we should both of us be more interesting than we are."

Hot Chocolate at Hanselmann's - Rosetta Loy

Even with the luxury of carved out time for reading each day on the bus, I couldn't justify reading past page 100 in this book. I don't know if it is the writer or the translator who make this book less than enjoyable. There are far too many sentence fragments and poor grammar which don't lend themselves to a coherent style. The book cover touts the literary awards of the author and reviewers praise the translator. Yes, I know I shouldn't trust in the veracity of book covers.

The book covers anti-semitism in Italy during and following WWII. It may be "a work of understated elegance and cumulative power", but I failed to finish reading it after passages like these which start two paragraphs:

A morning that ends in glory among the candy favors opened one after another, smooth outside and hard inside, the squeal of a jeep taking a curve.

But while Marta was still grouping around for her bowl of milk, Lorenza wanted the streets and the trees, the others.

Family Pictures - Sue Miller

A masterfully written exploration of a family's movement through the 1960's and 1970's. Sue Miller presents chapters that portray a picture in time of a family and its struggles. A central focus is an autistic child and how the other family members react and mature with this added stress. The chapters are also like pictures in that they convey emotions and personal insight more than develop a plot. Reading this book is like pausing in front of a great photo that impacts one emotionally and touches you deeply.

This book will change the way you view a family. The lessons it teaches are subtle and moving. Miller does an amazing job of involving us in the lives of several members of the family and understading their unique development. After reading this book, you will resist quickly judging others without understanding their experiences.

For a while I pushed everything idly around the table--the photographs, the postcards. I began thinking of them as elements in a kind of Rock-Scissors-Paper game, which contained the mystery of my childhood. Which had the most power?...For weeks, for months, the pictures stayed there. Eventually, I stopped seeing them, except occasionally when I would suddenly think of something that had happened while I was in Chicago; or something from my childhood. Then I'd go and stand in front of them again, staring stupidly at one and then another image, as though if I looked hard enough, long enough, their meaning would become clear.