Lost in a Walker Percy Cosmos, Part 2

Oct27

I forgot to mention, in Part 1 of this series of posts on the Walker Percy conference at Loyola University in New Orleans, that Eldest Daughter was presenting a paper at the conference. I will not tell you which paper she presented, but it was good and it had nothing to do with French medieval poetry, the ostensible subject of her dissertation that she is supposed to be writing. Walker Percy is simply more compelling right now than French medieval poetry, a truth universally acknowledged, is it not?

For those of you who, like me, have never attended an academic conference, the format is quite simple. The presenters, mostly professors of something or another at some university or another, get up in groups of three or four and they read their papers. That’s right, they read to the audience, just as librarians read picture books to first graders in story time, except mostly there are no pictures, and then they take questions. Some of these academics are better storytellers and readers than others, but I will say that I learned something from almost every paper I heard read, except when I got lost in the cosmos of academia and erudition. (I heard and made lots of “lost” jokes at this conference.)

Here are some really, truly, actual sample titles of papers from Still Lost in the Cosmos: Walker Percy & the 21st Century:

Alienation, Dislocation and Restoration: Percy’s Semiotic Psychology
The Semiotics of Shame and the Christian Meta-narrative in Percy’s Lost in the Cosmos (I can’t tell you about these first two because I refused to attend session or panel in which one of the papers to be presented used the word “semiotics” or meta-narrative”. I have my limits. See Part 1 of this series.)
Falling into Transcendence: Walker Percy’s Demoniac Self, the Erotic and the Lust for God
Walker Percy’s Semiotics of Self: A Case Study: C.S. Peirce and the Problem of Reentry (Two colons! But pardon my ignorance, who is C.S. Peirce, and does he really place the “e” before the “i” in his last name?)
Deceit, Desire, and the Self-Help Book: Rereading Lost in the Cosmos as a novel in light of Rene Girard’s Mimetic Theory (Ditto Rene Girard?)
The Mishmash Theory of Man
Where are the Hittites? Tracing Walker Percy’s Theology of the Jews
A Moveable Piece: Stefan Zweig and Walker Percy’s Problem of Artist-Writer Reentry (And who is Stefan Zweig? I’m starting to feel like a low-information conference attendee.)
Revealing the Transcendent Third: Walker’s Percy’s Trinitarian Imagination
Starting Over: Amnesia, Escape, and Redemption in Lost in the Cosmos and in Percy’s Novels
Lost in the Cosmos and Gulliver’s Travels: Christian Satire in the Anglo-American Tradition
Walker Percy, Herman Melville, and Moby Dick, the (Second-to) Last Self-Help Book: An Intertextual Study of the Self (Ah, at last, Melville, Moby Dick, and Gulliver I know. I went to these two presentations, wanting to feel as if I had at least something in my brain besides mush, the mishmash theory of me.)
The Dialectic of Belief: Participation and Uncertainty in Walker Percy’s Lost in the Cosmos

To begin with, I learned from just reading these titles that an academic conference requires colons. Without colons, the professors would find it impossible to give titles to their papers. However, my favorite title of a paper presented at the conference had no colons at all. It was a joke. Really, the paper was titled: “I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, ‘Where’s the self-help section?’ She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.” It may have been my favorite, or at least second favorite, part of the entire conference.

So, the presenting of papers began on Friday afternoon in various conference rooms in the library at Loyola. I like libraries, and it was a very nice library. As we entered, to our left, was a statue of St. Ignatius of Loyola. He was wearing a purple T-shirt.

“Outside the front steps of the Monroe Library stands a life-size bronze statute of St. Ignatius de Loyola, a diminutive ex-soldier, courtier, and our patron saint.
Our students have named the statue Iggy, and occasionally loan him hats and T-shirts to promote various campus events and or decorate him with Mardi Gras beads during carnival season.”

I don’t think the purple shirt had anything to do with Walker Percy, but he might have appreciated the local color. The first panel I attended was transcendence, amnesia, and the paper with the joke title. I took notes. However, my notes may or may not have been recognizable as related to the topics being discussed. In my mind, My Self, the notes I took make perfect sense and are semiotically and integrally related to the papers that I heard. However, an impartial judge, if such a judge were to exist, might beg to differ. Perhaps St. Ignatius in his purple t-shirt will deign to judge in Part 3 of this series, Digression, Catastrophe, and Narcotic Refuge: Are the Existentialists Really Epicurians?

Lost in a Walker Percy Cosmos, Part 1

Oct26

A couple of months ago Eldest Daughter asked if I would like to accompany her to an academic conference in New Orleans in October. New Orleans in October with Eldest Daughter who is one of my favorite persons? Of course, I would love to go. Then, she told me the subject of the conference, “Still Lost in the Cosmos: Walker Percy & the 21st Century.”

Now I am not a fan, really, of Mr. Percy’s fiction. I say that, having read one, maybe two, books by Percy, The Moviegoer and another book long ago that I think was The Thanatos Syndrome. I remember people in trees(?) or sitting on flagpoles and something about poisoning the water supply and a priest and a doctor. It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, and unfortunately that’s all I remember of the novel. The Moviegoer I read more recently, and according to Eldest Daughter herself, who is a fan, I just didn’t get it. I concur: I didn’t get it. The main character, Binx Bolling, was the kind of person who, if I were to meet him, I would feel strongly impelled to shake until he spits, as my mother would say. Existentialists (Percy had a thing for Kierkegaard) affect me that way, oddly enough.

Still I am a fan of Eldest Daughter and of a trip to New Orleans, and I like to feel as if I know what people are talking about when I listen to them speak. So in preparation for the conference I began reading Mr. Percy’s book, Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book. Lost in the Cosmos is not a novel, but rather a parody of the myriad of self-help books that tell us that we can categorize our angst and work it out in six easy steps or by repeating one mantra or by listening to the author who will tell us who we really are. The first part of the book is really quite clever as Percy gets the reader first to admit that “it [is] possible to learn more in ten minutes about the Crab Nebula in Taurus, which is 6,000 light-years away, than you presently know about yourself, even though you’ve been stuck with yourself all your life.” Then, through a series of “thought experiments”, Percy leads his readers to recognize the existential lostness that afflicts each of us: we are indeed lost in the cosmos.

So far, so clever. In the middle of the book, however, Percy stops for an extended tour of the science of semiotics, a word I had to look up in my handy, dandy dictionary. Semiotics is “the study of signs and symbols, and their use or interpretation.” (Clear as mud? No? You obviously need to undertake a serious study of semiotics.) This part of the book is called “A Semiotic Primer on the Self.” The print becomes much smaller, and the text much, much more dense. Diagrams are inserted, and footnotes abound. Percy himself writes, “The following section, an intermezzo of some forty pages, can be skipped without fatal consequences.” I skipped. Not only did I skip, I also skipped out and never managed to finish Lost in the Cosmos before the conference in New Orleans. The consequences were not fatal, but perhaps were an inhibition to my understanding of the presenters at the conference.

So, there you have a synopsis of my preparation for the Walker Percy conference at Loyola University in New Orleans. My preliminary studies were inadequate at best. However, I went with the expectation that I would be enriched and challenged by the conference speakers and satiated and enlivened by the food and sights of New Orleans. And Eldest Daughter is still one of my favorite people, even if she does understand Walker Percy when I do not.

Tomorrow, read part 2, Amnesia, Moby Dick, Gulliver’s Travels, and the Shadow of Catastrophe, or How to Title an Academic Paper on Walker Percy.

Saturday Review of Books: October 26, 2013

Oct25

“Not every book is a Damascus Road experience, but some are. Most books are road experiences of some sort, whether the road is a pleasant country drive or an interstate highway easing the passage from one place in life to the next.” ~Ben House

Welcome to the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon. Hereâ€™s how it usually works. Find a book review on your blog posted sometime during the previous week. The review doesnâ€™t have to be a formal sort of thing. You can link to your thoughts on a particular book, a few ideas inspired by reading the book, your evaluation, quotations, whatever.

Then on Friday night/Saturday, you post a link here at Semicolon in Mr. Linky to the specific post where youâ€™ve written your book review. Donâ€™t link to your main blog page because this kind of link makes it hard to find the book review, especially when people drop in later after youâ€™ve added new content to your blog. In parentheses after your name, add the title of the book youâ€™re reviewing. This addition will help people to find the reviews theyâ€™re most interested in reading.

After linking to your own reviews, you can spend as long as you want reading the reviews of other bloggers for the week and adding to your wishlist of books to read. That’s how my own TBR list has become completely unmanageable and the reason I can’t join any reading challenges. I have my own personal challenge that never ends.

1. Hope (Dandelion Cottage)
2. the Ink Slinger (Beowulf: A New Verse Rendering)
3. Becky (Return to Me by Lynn Austin
4. Becky (Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator)
5. Becky (I’m A Frog; Not A Good Idea)
6. Becky (Charlotte and Leopold)
7. Becky (Unknown Ajax)
8. Becky (Prince of Foxes)
9. Becky (Civil Contract)
10. Becky (All’s Well That Ends Well, Shakespeare)
11. Camille (Duke of Midnight)
12. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (Oct. Nightstand)
13. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (Christmas Cat GIVEAWAY)
14. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (Oct. Read Aloud Thursday)
15. SuziQoregon @ Whimpulsive (Boxers and Saints)

16. Victory over Fear
17. Beth@Weavings (We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea)
18. Janet (Framley Parsonage)
19. Barbara H. (From Cannibalism to Christianity)
20. Barbara H. (One Candle to Burn)
21. Barbara H. (Two books about J. O. Fraser)
22. Barbara H. (Climbing)
23. Barbara H. (William Carey, Father of Modern Missions))
24. Barbara H. (The Cambridge Seven)
25. Glynn (Weak Devotions)
26. Glynn (Rain: Poems)
27. Glynn (Aimless Love)
28. Becky (Drood)
29. Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies (Longbourn)
30. Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies (How To Be A Good Wife)

31. Sally @ Classic Children’s Books (Where The Wild Things Are)
32. Book Nut (Pi in the Sky)
33. Faith (The Fiddler)
34. Spencer Cummins (Boot Camp)
35. Jessica (Rooted: the Apostles’ Creed)
36. Jessica (Sewing Church Linens)
37. Beckie @ ByTheBook (The Journey of Josephine Cain)
38. Beckie @ ByTheBook (Fear No Evil)
39. Beckie @ ByTheBook (I Saul)
40. Beckie @ ByTheBook (For Every Season)
41. Beckie @ ByTheBook (Martyr’s Fire)
42. Sophie @ Paper Breathers (Libriomancer)
43. Harvee @ Book Dilettante (Incurable Insanity)
44. Anna @ Diary of an Eccentric (This Heart of Mine)
45. Anna @ Diary of an Eccentric (The Revolution of Every Day)

Lincoln’s Grave Robbers by Steve Sheinkin

Oct22

Well, this episode in history was news to me. At the same time, actually on election night, that Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was in a neck-in-neck election race with Democrat Samuel Tilden, a group of counterfeiters became would-be grave robbers. Their plan was to steal the body of America’s favorite and perhaps most revered president, Abraham Lincoln, and hold it for ransom.

Although the grave robbers come across in the book as incompetent at best, criminally idiotic at worst, the plot was real, as were the guns the criminals carried to Lincoln’s tomb on that election night in 1876. They were serious, and the Secret Service agents who were determined to catch them red-handed were just as deadly serious. Not only does the reader get to read about a little known historical crime, but also we get a vocabulary lesson in criminal and counterfeiting jargon of the late nineteenth century. How many of the following words can you define? (There’s a glossary in the back of the book to help those of us who are unfamiliar with criminal underworld vocabulary.)

Boodle game or boodle carrier
Coney or coney man
Shover
Cracksman
Hanging bee
Resurrectionist
Roper
Ghouls
To pipe (someone)
Bone orchard

And what would you think of reading the following sentence in your local newspaper about a group of escaped criminals?

“If human ingenuity can track them it will be done. It is earnestly hoped that the double-distilled perpetrators of this attempted robbery of the remains of America’s most loved President will soon be brought to justice.” ~reporter John English in The Chicago Tribune

Double-distilled perpetrators? My, how writing styles have changed!

I enjoyed Lincoln’s Grave Robbers mostly as look into history and the almost comical antics of both criminals and police in the post-Civil War time period. The politicians and journalists were somewhat hapless and disorganized as well. On the other hand, I hope that counterfeiters nowadays are not as successful as they back in the late 1800’s. Sheinkin notes that “by 1864 an astounding 50 percent of the paper money in circulation was fake.” And “the one and only task of the Secret Service was to stop the counterfeiters.”

What does all this fake money have to do with stealing poor Mr. Lincoln’s bones? Well, there’s a connection, and it’s rather surprising–and ridiculous. I don’t know how the grave robbers thought they were going to get away with such a plot. But try they did, and you can read all about it in Lincoln’s Grave Robbers.

Lincoln’s Grave Robbers by Steve Sheinkin has been nominated for the Cybils Award in the category of Young Adult Nonfiction. The thoughts in this review are my own and do not reflect the thoughts or evaluations of the Cybils panel or of any other Cybils judge.

KidLitCon in Austin, Texas!!!

Oct22

Emancipation Proclamation: Lincoln and the Dawn of Liberty by Tonya Boldenn

Oct22

Award-winning children’s and young adult author Tonya Bolden “offers readers a unique look at an often misunderstood American document.” It is unique. Part 1 of this nonfiction book about the proclamation that “freed the slaves” begins with a quotation from Frederick Douglass, recounting the the atmosphere on Thursday, January 1, 1863 as about three thousand people waited at Tremont Temple in Boston for word from Washington, D.C. that the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed:

“We were waiting and listening as for a bolt from the sky . . . we were watching,as it were, by the dim light of the stars, for the dawn of a new day; we were longing for the answer to the agonizing prayers of centuries.”

Part 1 continues on in third person plural as if both author and reader were there, waiting, too. “We waited for all America to repent.” “We abhorred the compromise of 1850’s Fugitive Slave Law.” “Many of us put great faith in the fledgling Republican party.” Since I wasn’t there and since I’m not a “person of color”, I found the continued use of “we” and “us” to be off-putting, at best, confusing, at worst.

Then comes Part II which is written as straight third person history. The author tries to get behind the history and unravel the enigma of Lincoln’s thoughts and motivations, but like most other authors who’ve tired, she meets with limited success. Lincoln was “moody, prone to brooding,”; he “truly loathed slavery.” Yet, Lincoln told abolitionist Charles Edward Lester in regard to freeing the slaves, “We must wait until every other means has been exhausted. This thunderbolt will keep.” And so, throughout Part II of this narrative history, Lincoln is is pushed and pulled back and forth by the events of the Civil War and the politics of maintaining what there was left of the Union, and he proposes or considers first one solution and then another for the slaves: partial emancipation of some slaves, compensation to slaveholders, banning slavery in the territories, gradual emancipation, allowing escaped slavs (contraband) to enter the Union Army, confiscation of Confederate property including slaves, deportation of freed slaves and free black persons to Africa or South America.

Part III returns to the disconcerting “we” for a couple of pages (p. 75-76) and then, inexplicably, back to third person narrative voice. I compared the entire book to the old classic children’s history of the same vent that I have on my shelves, The Great Proclamation by Henry Steele Commager, published in 1960. Other than the fact, dissonant to modern ears, that Mr. Commager calls African Americans “Negroes”, the book differs from Ms. Bolden’s account of the same events in other ways. Commager paints Lincoln as an unadorned hero, bravely attempting in every way possible to free the slaves as quickly as practicable. Commager does not quote Lincoln’s famous statement in a letter to Horace Greeley in 1862:

“If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.”

That statement of intent should be a part of any discussion of Lincoln and his attitude about emancipation, and Ms. Bolden includes it prominently in her book. Ms.Bolden’s book also has the great advantage of 21st century illustration techniques, layout and design. Mr. Commager’s text in a layout similar to that of Ms. Bolden’s book would be a great improvement. However, what Mr. Commager does well is tell the story of the “great proclamation” straight, without the confusing changes in point of view. So, in the end I think I would either go with Commager’s book or find something else that would be less poetic and and more attuned to current historical perspectives than either of these books. There seem to be several to choose from.

Other books for children on the Emancipation Proclamation (found on Amazon):
Lincoln, Slavery, and the Emancipation Proclamation by Carin T. Ford.
The Emancipation Proclamation by Karen Price Hossell.
The Emancipation Proclamation (Cornerstones of Freedom) by Brendan January and R. Conrad Stein.
The Emancipation Proclamation: Ending Slavery in America by Adam Woog.

Emancipation Proclamation: Lincoln and the Dawn of Liberty by Tonya Bolden has been nominated for the Cybils Award in the category of Young Adult Nonfiction. The thoughts in this review are my own and do not reflect the thoughts or evaluations of the Cybils panel or of any other Cybils judge.

Too Many Stories, Too Much Drama

Oct20

Dear Teen Me: Authors Write Letters to Their Teen Selves edited by E. Kristin Anderson and Miranda Kenneally.

Bullying Under Attack: True Stories Written by Teen Victims, Bullies & Bystanders by Stephanie Meyer, John Meyer, Emily Sperber, and Heather Alexander.

These are two similar collections of teen angst. In the first book, Dear Teen Me, YA authors write letters to themselves as they were when they were teens and in the process they tell some of their own back-story and give advice they wish they had taken when they were teens. It would have helped me to know how old the author who was writing any given letter is now. I would have been able to evaluate the advice in the letters better had I known the length of time elapsed since the events occurred. On the other hand, most of the advice was of the “hang-in-there” and watch out for hairstyles that you will later regret variety, so I guess it was all valid as far as it goes.

The second book, Bullying Under Attack, is a collection of stories of contemporary teens who have experienced bullying in some way. Some of the teens who contributed essays, poems, and photographs to the book were harassed and tormented by bullies, others were themselves the bullies, and others recount stories of standing by and being called upon to help. Again, the advice is fairly standard. Hang in there. Survive. Stand up for yourself. Show compassion for the bully. Change schools. It’s all good advice, if perhaps a bit inadequate in some situations. Generally, the adults are fairly useless in most of the teens’ experiences, which may sadly be the the way it really is on the ground in our schools and families and on the internet (some of the stories involved cyber-bullying).

Maybe my compassion fatigue while reading these two collections of teen drama shows a lack in me, but I must be honest. After a while the stories in these two books and the advice given by the authors and the teen victims and the teen bullies and the teen bystanders all started to blur together and convert itself into one big cliche. I wanted to feel for the kids who told horrendous stories of abuse, tragedy, cruelty, and bad hair-dos, but it was all too, too much. First of all, I shouldn’t have read both books back-to-back. In addition, I would even suggest to anyone who is interested in reading either book that they take it in a little at a time, perhaps one story per night. Although since Dear Teen Me has letters from seventy different YA authors, including Lauren Oliver, Ellen Hopkins, Sara Zarr, and Tom Angleberger, to name the ones I recognize most readily, reading one story per day would stretch the book out over two or three months. That’s a lot of angst in daily doses.

Then, one could move on to Bullying Under Attack, but that’s a lot more sadness, and I’m just not sure it would accomplish the stated goal of the latter book, which is to end bullying and the culture of bullying. To end bullying, kids (and adults) need a change of heart, and I’m not sure that reading a book about the sources and effects of bullying will really make anyone stop being a cruel, abusive person or will help anyone to escape the bullies. But maybe I’m wrong.

From Amazon’s book description: “Stories of regret, promises, and encouragement that will help readers find solace during their teen years and show them howâ€”as adultsâ€”their words and actions can provide strength and reassurance to others experiencing all aspects of bullying. Ultimately, they will learn to find their voices in order to break the cycle for good.”

Many of the reviewers at Amazon say that the bullying book in particular should be “required reading.” I think a more radical prescription is called for: conversion to the ethic of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit for bullies and for their victims.

As for adults who are wondering what their role should be in regard to bullying, this piece and others like it by Dr. James Dobson speak directly to the point and instruct adults who are too often “bystanders” in the face of teen bullying. My weariness in reading these books does not mean that I believe that bullying is OK or not a real problem or that adults should become weary in confronting and stopping it when it happens.

Andew Jenks: My Adventures as a Young Filmmaker by Andrew Jenks

Oct19

Before reading this book I had never heard of Andrew Jenks, and now I’m something of a fan, albeit a fan who has never seen an episode of his MTV series, World of Jenks. I’ve also not seen either of the two documentaries that jump-started his filmmaking career, Andrew Jenks, Room 335 and The Zen of Bobby V. So I classify myself as a fan on the basis of the book and the video series I watched on YouTube called It’s About a Girl. (I recommend the video series. It’s sweet.)

The book grabbed me. From his childhood as a geek who carried around a video camera everywhere he went, to his first documentary in which he arranged to live in a nursing home for a few weeks, to his next project which took him to Japan and Japanese baseball, to his debut on MTV, I followed Andrew Jenks as he followed other people and made films out of the stories of ordinary, and extraordinary, people. And I started feeling all motherly toward. I hoped he wouldn’t get himself into trouble when he filmed a former criminal, turned rap producer, and a “houseless” young woman on the streets San Francisco. I wanted to give him some advice about slowing down and savoring the moment and being careful not to let his success go to his head. (I’m not sure he needs my advice, but I wanted to give it anyway.)

I guess you could say I was invested in the book and the young man who wrote it and who had all of the adventures. I know three twenty-something young men who want to make movies. One of them is my nephew, and two others go to my church. I think they would enjoy reading through Andrew Jenks’s adventures. It’s inspiring to read about or watch someone who is living his passion. In a way, it wouldn’t matter that Mr. Jenks has been so successful as a filmmaker at such a young age (except that it takes money to make movies so most of the adventures in filmmaking wouldn’t have happened without the initial success); I would just enjoy reading about someone who is doing what he wants to do and having so much fun and working so hard at it.

“The reward for all this work isn’t fame. . . No, the reward for working hard is getting to do more work. And better work. . . For me putting the world down on film is living. Giving people a voice.”

I like that, and I wish Mr. Jenks all the best in his filmmaking endeavors. Even if he is an Obama fan.

Andrew Jenks: My Adventures as a Young Filmmaker has been nominated for the Cybils Award in the category of Young Adult Nonfiction. The thoughts in this review are my own and do not reflect the thoughts or evaluations of the Cybils panel or of any other Cybils judge.

Saturday Review of Books: October 19, 2013

Oct18

“Reading is an art form, and every man can be an artist” ~Edwin Louis Cole

1. Reading World (Mortal Arts)
2. Reading World (Nikolai Gogol-The Collected Stories)
3. Guiltless Reading – The Bride Wore Size 12 by Meg Cabot
4. Guiltless Reading – An Incurable Insanity by Simi K. Rao
5. Guiltless Reading – The Round House by Louise Erdrich
6. Guiltless Reading (with Giveaway!) Grounded by Angela Correll
7. Guiltless Reading (with Giveaway!) Marcel Proust in Taos by Jon Foyt
8. Harvee @ Book Dilettante (I Am Venus)
9. Barbara H. (Eric Liddell)
10. Barbara H. (Spirit of the Rainforest)
11. Barbara H. (In the Presence of My Enemies)
12. Barbara H. (To the Golden Shore)
13. Hope (Tenant of Wildfell Hall by BrontÃ«)
14. Lazygal (Pure)
15. Lazygal (Jack Glass)
16. Lazygal (What We Lost in the Dark)
17. Lazygal (Clever Girl)
18. Lazygal (Sweet Thunder)
19. Lazygal (The Impossible Knife of Memory)
20. Becky (A Wreath of Snow)
21. Becky (When Comes The Spring)

22. Becky (Call To Spiritual Formation)
23. Becky (To Live Is Christ To Die Is Gain)
24. Becky (Fantastic Family Whipple)
25. Becky (Noah Barleywater Runs Away)
26. Becky (Venetia by Georgette Heyer)
27. Becky (Insurgent)
28. Becky (Great Tales From English History vol. 3)
29. Becky (Sophies Squash (Cybils NOminee))
30. Becky (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)
31. Sophie @ Paper Breathers (Conjured)
32. Sophie @ Paper Breathers (Infinity)
33. SuziQoregon @ Whimpulsive (Fables vol. 6: Homelands)
34. SuziQoregon @ Whimpulsive (‘Salem’s Lot: The Illustrated Edition)
35. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (Year of Billy Miiller)
36. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (Armchair Cybils)
37. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (Navigating Early)
38. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (3 Cybils picture books)
39. Seth@Collateral Bloggage (Longitude)
40. the Ink Slinger (Back on Murder)
41. Susanne (The Man Who Quit Money)
42. Janet (Pinocchio)

43. jama (My Milk Toof 2)
44. Glynn (Poems of R.S. Thomas)
45. Glynn (Poems of Devotion)
46. Beckie @ ByTheBook (Glittering Promises)
47. Beckie @ ByTheBook (To Die For)
48. Beckie @ ByTheBook (The Stones Cry Out)
49. Beckie @ ByTheBook (The Reichenbach Problem)
50. Bluestocking(All Is Fair)
51. Girl Detective (Behind the Beautiful Forevers)
52. Brenda (Hero’s in Training & Wednesdays in the Tower)
53. RAnn (Miracle Road)
54. Becky (Gospel Transformation Bible)
55. Colleen @books in the city(Lucia, L
56. Colleen at Books in the City (the Girl You Left Behind)
57. Col (Their Eyes Were Watching God)
58. Anna @ Diary of an Eccentric (Shadows in a Brilliant Life)
59. Anna @ Diary of an Eccentric (Mr. Darcy’s Promise)
60. Sally @ Classic Children’s Books (The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe)
61. Annie kate (Reading with Purpose)
62. Annie Kate (Splitting Harriet)
63. Amber Stults (Sunshine)

The Edge of Nowhere by Elizabeth George

Oct18

Elizabeth George, author of seventeen mysteries about Scotland Yard Inspector Thomas Lynley, has placed her first young adult novel on an island, Whidbey Island, near Seattle, Washington. The island setting gives the novel a claustrophobic feel, while the main character’s ability to hear “whispers” of other people’s thoughts makes it eerie and somewhat Hitchcockian in another way.

Becca King and her mom are on the run from Becca’s stepfather who used Becca’s special “mind-reading” abilities to enrich himself. However, now that both Becca and her mom know that the stepfather is a murderer as well as a thief, their lives are in danger. So mom leaves Becca with a friend on Whidbey Island, while she goes on to Canada to make a place for the two of them.

The story was compelling, but there were issues. Maybe because this book is the beginning of a series(?) about Becca and her mom and Whidbey Island, there were lots of unanswered questions and plot and character developments that felt unfinished and just weird somehow. Yet, I’m not sure I care enough about Becca and her new island friends to find the next book in the series and read it.

The “whispers” that Becca hears are chaotic fragments of thought that also give the book a weird vibe. I couldn’t figure out half the time who was thinking or what they were thinking about, and I didn’t see how Becca could make much sense of her sixth sense, either. The ability to hear thought whispers certainly doesn’t give Becca much insight into the people she meets on the island, nor does her ability help her to figure out who injured her new friend, Derric, and put him into a coma. Or was it an accident?

I prefer Ms. George’s Inspector Lynley mysteries, and I found the fragmented whispers of thought in this book annoying and unnecessary.