A Big Year, for bird watchers, is when one tries to see as many different breeds of birds as possible. Obmascik takes us into this world, trailing three making the attempt and giving the background necessary to have it make sense. On one hand, the prose is uninspiring — too cute, too hyperbolized — but the book carries the reader along and gets into theis weird, weird world.
I finished these two books on the same day, so here we go:
Bad Faith by Carmen Callil
Callil starts with the death of a friend, then goes back to the nefrious lives of her parents: her father was a French anti-semite deeply involved in the French Holocaust, while her mother was an alcoholic Australian who abandoned her child. Amazing history of the French Holocaust but with a human edge.
The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
A crazy family memoir. Very effective, although not as well written as one might hope: a bit too much cliche and not enough objectivity, perhaps. Still, an interesting read about people who live way too close to the edge, and maybe a bit over it.
Franklin, American patriot and international celebrity, goes to France to convince the court of Louis XVI to help the Americans with their fight for independence. Interesting, funny, detailed, well-written. A good popular history should change the way the reader sees history and his or her relationship to it: this book did that for me.
Rikhardinkatu library, British collection reading room
Daunt Books, Marylebone High Street, London
In the 1950s, a man arrives in a northern Finnish village and takes over the mill. Because of some oddities he runs afoul of the powers of the village and ends up committed and a fugitive. Classic Paasilinna anti-hero satire, classic Paasilinna weird ending. I enjoyed it, but not as much as The Year of the Hare.
Off the library shelf. Follows a navy officer through volunteering to a mutiny against a mentally unstable captain. I’ve seen the movie, and the book had the same sense of tension and action to it. Lame romantic subplot. It is also incredibly dated, especially in reference to racial attitudes and pop-psychology. Basically good fun, but hard to believe it won the Pulitzer.
Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, April 2008 Conference
Some are lost because they are different. They feel as though they don’t belong. Perhaps because they are different, they find themselves slipping away from the flock. They may look, act, think, and speak differently than those around them and that sometimes causes them to assume they don’t fit in. They conclude that they are not needed.
Tied to this misconception is the erroneous belief that all members of the Church should look, talk, and be alike. The Lord did not people the earth with a vibrant orchestra of personalities only to value the piccolos of the world. Every instrument is precious and adds to the complex beauty of the symphony. All of Heavenly Father’s children are different in some degree, yet each has his own beautiful sound that adds depth and richness to the whole.
This variety of creation itself is a testament of how the Lord values all His children. He does not esteem one flesh above another, but He “inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; . . . all are alike unto God.”3
…
Brothers and sisters, if only we had more compassion for those who are different from us, it would lighten many of the problems and sorrows in the world today. It would certainly make our families and the Church a more hallowed and heavenly place.
The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thorton Wilder
Wilder tells the stories of five people who died when a bridge in Peru broke. He creates this reality for them and tells stories full of warmth and truth about the human condition in all of its beauty and terror. The mythical nature of it reminded me of other novels set in South America. A great little book.