Tag: books

A Completely Subjective Book List

Marissa

Sometimes I like reading posts titled things like “Books Every Family Should Have In Their Library,” “Best YA Books of All Time,” and “Top 100 Fantasy Books Ever.” While I’ll occasionally get an idea for a new book to read, I usually end up checking to see if they’ve “rightly” included any books I like or “wrongly” included books I hate. One thing that always amuses me, at least slightly, is how all these lists propose to be good for every family or include all the best books even though it’s clear all such lists are completely subjective.

For this list, I’m not even going to try to be objective or include all the best books. This is an unabashed list of my favorite books, which I irrationally think everyone should read and enjoy just as much as I do. They aren’t even organized alphabetically — just whichever popped into my head first.

My “Must Read” Books

Mara: Daughter of the Nile

My mother gave me Mara, by Eloise Jarvis McGraw, when studying ancient Egypt in elementary school and I’ve read it pretty much every year since. It has everything a book needs — strong characters, good writing, and intriguing plot. On top of the admirable writing is danger, mystery, and romance. Spies! Double agents! Political intrigue! It also features the most romantic (possibly the only romantic) attempted murder in literary history. If I’m forced to choose just one favorite book, this is the one I pick.

Ender’s Game

Moving from one of my oldest favorites to one of the newest. I first read Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card at the end of last year. It’s brilliant. I’ve written about it before, so I won’t spend much more time telling you how wonderful this book is, especially the characters. I cried buckets of tears in the last chapter.

The Blue Sword

Written by Robin McKinley, this may very well be my favorite fantasy book. Like Mara, The Blue Sword features a strong female protagonist and an irresistible hero (let me just say Corlath is the only person who I wouldn’t mind being abducted by [this statement will make sense if you read the book]). McKinley’s world building, characters, and story are excellent. My only quibble with this story is that, like many of her books, it doesn’t really end. It’s as if the author wasn’t sure how to end the story, so she slapped an epilog on and called it the last chapter. Perhaps I should just say that is part of the book’s irresistible charm.

Pride and Prejudice

I know it’s a terribly predictable title to include — couldn’t I have at least chosen one of Jane Austen’s lesser-known works? But I’ve read all six of Austen’s major novels at least once (some two or three times), and Pride and Prejudice remains my favorite. Maybe it’s the fact that people type Lizzie Bennet as an INFJ (which I’m not entirely convinced of, but it would explain why I identify with her so much). Perhaps it’s because Mr. Darcy is my favorite of Austen’s men. Whatever it is, Pride and Prejudice is firmly on my recommended reading list.

Fairy Tales

Not a single book, but it would take to long to list them all separately. I recommend Jack Zipes’ translation of The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, augmented liberally with Hans Christian Anderson and Charles Perrault. The reasons for this have been explored at length in my posts Fairy Tales and Dark Fairy Tales, so I’ll not devote any more time here on describing their merits.

A Gown Of Spanish Lace

Roses for Mama

I read Christian fiction on an irregular basis, usually because I want a easy-to-read book that doesn’t require much thought to digest and might supply some spiritual encouragement (yes, I know that sounds terrible). In spite of my generally low expectations, two books by Janette Oke have made it to my favorites list. A Gown of Spanish Lace has outlaws.  Roses for Mama is simply charming.

Dinotopia

If I was offered the chance to move to any fictional place I wanted, I’d pack up right this minute and relocate to James Gurney’s Dinotopia. Who wouldn’t want to live in world filled with dinosaurs and without any worries about money? Specifically, I want to visit Waterfall City and the coastal towns along Warmwater Bay where you can swim with cryptoclidus. Once you’ve read Gurney’s first book Dinotopia: A Land Apart From Time, I advise moving on to Dinotopia Lost by Alan Dean Foster. I’ve read that one at least four times.

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Slightly Bad Leah

Marissa

As I mentioned last week, I recently finished reading Liz Curtis Higgs’ Bad Girls of the Bible series. Slightly Bad Girls, the last book, is a slightly different format than the first two. Higgs only covered five women’s stories — Sarah, Hagar, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah — which allowed her to spend more time with their stories.  The fictional accounts span at least two chapters for each character, which allows a longer story-arch for each woman than in the two previous books.

Leah

Leah’s  story was the one I found most interesting. There is so much we don’t know about her. For example, we know Jacob was livid when he woke to find Leah in his bed instead of Rachel (Gen. 29:21-24), but we have no idea how Leah reacted to her father switching brides (or what Rachel’s opinion was for that matter).

I wonder what Leah was thinking. Was she so scared of her father that she didn’t dare disobey when he “brought her to Jacob” (Gen 29:23)? Did she want to get out of her father’s house so much she would have married anyone? Was she trying to steal Rachel’s husband? Perhaps she was in love with Jacob and hoped he would return that love once they were married (I don’t have much experience with relationships, but I’m pretty sure impersonating your unrequited-crush’s bride on their wedding night is not the best way to make him fall in love with you).

God’s Love

One of the most interesting verses in Leah’s story is this:

When the Lord saw that Leah was unloved … (Gen. 29:31)

Setting aside for the moment how terrible it was for Leah to be unloved, let’s think about how incredible God’s compassion was for her. He saw her and He  “listened to” her prayers (Gen.30:17). Isn’t it comforting to know that even when people who should love you don’t, God sees everything and cares deeply for our pain? It makes me think of my favorite Psalm.

O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. (Ps. 139:1-3)

We serve a God who is powerful enough to do anything, and He chooses to let His attention and His compassion rest on us. For Leah, God’s care took the form of blessing her with children.

Leah’s Children

I hadn’t thought about it before, but Higgs points out that what Leah says when each of her sons was born reveal that she had a deeper faith in the God than we often give her credit for.

So Leah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Reuben; for she said, “The Lord has surely looked on my affliction. Now therefore, my husband will love me.” Then she conceived again and bore a son, and said, “Because the Lord has heard that I am unloved, He has therefore given me this son also.” And she called his name Simeon. She conceived again and bore a son, and said, “Now this time my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.” Therefore his name was called Levi. And she conceived again and bore a son, and said, “Now I will praise the Lord.” Therefore she called his name Judah. Then she stopped bearing. (Gen. 29:32-35)

Leah recognized that her sons were a gift from God, given to comfort her when He saw Jacob did not love her. She realized that she was heard and loved by God, and by the time she named her fourth child, Judah, she was able to offer praise to the Lord without even mentioning her hope that Jacob would learn to love her. (As an interesting side note, this is the first time the word “praise” appears in the King James translation.) I doubt Leah moved past her desire for her husband’s love, but perhaps she reached a point where her relationship with God gave her the peace needed to accept her life.

Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. (Phil. 4:11-13)

Bad Girls of the Bible

Marissa

I’ve been reading a series of three books by Liz Curtis Higgs titled Bad Girls of the Bible, Really Bad Girls of the Bible, and Slightly Bad Girls of the Bible. The first book was decided upon for a book club at church, and once I’d finished it I tracked down the other two from the library. Higgs’ writing style is a little more informal than I usually like (I found myself skipping some of her “Lizzie style” commentary), but I like the short fictionalized stories that begin each chapter and bring the woman’s story into a modern setting. I also appreciate spending an entire chapter discussing the Biblical accounts verse-by-verse, and sometimes even word-by-word, since I don’t always take the time I should to really think about the people in the Bible. I’ll talk about the first two books in the series now, but I have enough to say about Slightly Bad Girls that I think I’ll save it for another post.

Bad

Higgs’ reason for studying less-than-perfect women is that they can “show us how not to handle the challenges of life.” They can also be more relatable than women who seem perfect, and studying the weaknesses we share with women who stumbled can help us avoid pitfalls in our own lives.

The women discussed in this book are Eve, Potiphar’s Wife, Lot’s Wife, The Woman at the Well, Delilah, Sapphira, Rahab, Jezebel, Michal, and The Sinful Woman. I was really impressed with the fiction in this book. Eve becomes a sheltered rich girl, Delilah is a hairdresser, and Lot’s Wife a woman who refuses to leave her home near Mount Saint Helens. The fiction story for the Woman at the Well isn’t quite as well done, but it’s hard to come up with a modern fictionalized character to stand-in for Jesus so I think we’ll cut the author some slack.

Really Bad

I read these books slightly out of order, so this is the one I just finished. The title is a little misleading — it’s more like additional bad girls, rather than girls who are worse than those in the last book. Higgs describes the difference between the two books like this:

If the first Bad Girls of the Bible was all about grace, this second one is all about the sovereignty of God, the unstoppable power of God to accomplish his perfect will, no matter how much we mess up.

This book covers the Medium of En Dor, Jael, The Adulteress, Athaliah, Bathsheba, Herodias, Tamar, and The Bleeding Woman. What struck me most about this book was the Bleeding Woman’s story (from Matt. 9:20-22; Mark 5:25-34; Luke 8:43-48). This woman was bleeding for twelve years — that’s 4,380 days, plus a few extra for leap years. According to Levitical law, she was ceremonially unclean the entire time (Lev. 15:19-27). She couldn’t touch anyone, and probably had to live alone because everything she came in contact with became unclean. Can you imagine people not even wanting to be in the same house as you for twelve years? I like solitude as much as the next introvert, but that’s way too much alone-time.

When Jesus healed her, He took away not only her physical infirmity, but also her separation from other people. And He talked to her in public — not something teachers normally did with women, especially women who were still ceremonially unclean (Lev. 15:28-30). She is also the only woman in the Gospels who Jesus calls “daughter.” What an incredible story!

Tall Ships

Marissa
The Unicorn, Tall Ships Festival
The Unicorn

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to attend the Tall Ships Festival. I have loved ships for as long as I can remember. As a child, my mother and sister and I toured a reproduction of the Santa Maria, but since then the closest I’d been to tall ships has been seafaring stories, films, and paintings.

I love a good pirate story, or pretty much anything set on a ship in the 17th or 18th Centuries. Raphael Sabantini’s novels (which I highly recommend). James Fenimore Cooper’s Red Rover. Linda Chaikin’s Buccaneers series. Myriads of teen novels. Errol Flynn films. Pirates of the Caribbean (I suppose the setting more than anything else is why I’ve seen all four).

Though I rarely paint anymore, ships have been a reoccurring motif in my art for some time. Ships in the sky, on the ocean, surrounded by hostas, worked in relief on clay, and sailing through a psychological self-portrait. Strangely, I’ve never written a story with ships. Perhaps that will change now that I’ve been on board a ship.

There were eight ships at the festival, and we toured three: the Denis Sullivan, The Niagara, and The Unicorn. We didn’t leave the dock or see them under sail (that cost a lot more than we were prepared to spend), but it was so cool to be on the deck of a sailing ship and, in The Niagara’s case, below deck. I was surprised how short the space below deck was — I’m only 5′ 6″ and I had to bend over to walk around down there.

The Niagara, Tall Ships Festival
The Niagara

The Niagara  is a training ship used to preserve “the skills of square-rig seamanship.” You can pay to become a trainee on board the ship, learning the art of sailing hands-on for a minimum of three weeks. It costs a little more than I can afford while looking for a car (mine died about a month ago), but part of me wonders if putting up with the authentic/spartan living conditions would be worth it for the chance to go to “sea” (on the Great Lakes).

The Windy, Tall Ships Festival
The Windy

I’m not sure what make tall ships so appealing to me. Perhaps it is the romance of the sea and idea of adventure. Maybe its my obsession with water. Part of it could be the way the ships look, like so many old things they are elegant and beautiful as well as useful. Whatever the reason, I’m glad I had the chance to tour these ships and hope someday I’ll be able to actually sail on one.

Writing Heroines

Marissa

Last week, I wrote a post about the eight hero archetypes listed in The Complete Writer’s Guide to Heroes and Heroines: Sixteen Master Archetypes.  I’ve used this book extensively since I discovered it in the library, and I’ve found it a great help in crafting dynamic characters. Characters I wrote before reading it even fit in the archetypes, which I’m taking as a sign that I was on the right track with character development. For these characters, the descriptions have helped me edit them to be stronger and more consistent.

If you’re a writer and you can find a copy of the book, I highly recommend using it. If not, here’s a brief overview of each description for the eight female archetypes. All the quotes below are from the descriptions in the book.

Heroine Archetypes

Heroine ArchetypesThe Boss

This is a strong, tough character who wants to win at all costs. Typically, such a character always got her own way growing up and wants that to continue. “She will shade the truth in order to gain her objective and she is not above manipulating circumstances to make things go her way.”

The Seductress

Assertive, strong, and clever, this type of character learned at a young age she could charm people into doing what she wanted. She is cynical, driven, manipulative. “Her true desires and motives are carefully concealed behind a sensual smile. Knowledge is power, so she makes sure no one knows her” and instinctively distrusts people.

The Spunky Kid

This is the “heroine underdog.” She has a sense of humor and is reliable, supportive, unassuming, and skeptical. Sometimes, she “hides behind her sarcastic wit, and her lack of confidence may make her play down her best attributes, but she is spirited, cheerful and the most loyal of friends.”

The Free Spirit

Sincere, upbeat, and imaginative, this type of character can also be impulsive, meddling, and undisciplined. They have a strong sense of individuality and never plan anything, but always seem to land on their feet.  She is a natural entertainer, and “may be a handful for anyone who has to deal with her, but she makes the experience worthwhile in her zany, high-spirited way.”

The Waif

This character is trusting, easily influenced, kind, and insecure. She inspires others to want to save her, and is generally content to let herself be rescued. “Her delicate fragility makes her an easy target … [and] she adapts to any situation she falls into without complaint.” You’re far less likely to see her in fiction of today than the other archetypes, but that does not mean she should be avoided.

There is something refreshing about a heroine who does not talk back or fight every battle, but rather, allows a man to be a man and believes that if left well enough alone, situations will resolve themselves.

The Librarian

This type of character likes to organize everything. She is efficient, serious, dependable, rigid, repressed, and a perfectionist. She assumes she has all the answers and, “more often than not, she is right, but she can be a bit stubborn about considering other opinions.” She is also portrayed as having a passionate side when she “lets her hair down.”

The Crusader

“This is a heroine in the truest sense — deeds of valor are right up her alley.” She is courageous, resolute, and persuasive. Her flaws include obstinacy, rashness, and being outspokenly opinionated. She wants to set the word straight and “has no faith in the intrinsic merit of human nature; no belief that all will end well if left alone.”

The Nurturer

A character of this type needs to be needed. She is optimistic, capable, idealistic, self-sacrificing, and willing to compromise so she won’t hurt anyone’s feelings. Before thinking of herself, “she makes sure that all her loved ones are happy and content … Her serene, capable and patient manner invariably soothes troubled souls or hurting hearts.”

Writing Characters

There are three approaches to using these archetypes to create characters. A character could be a “core archetype,” fitting into a singe archetype and remaining consistent through the course of the story. Characters can also evolve, changing from one archetype to another because of the events of the story. Layered characters have elements of two archetypes, which may take turns being dominant but will not change over the course of the story.

An example of evolving archetypes is the Beast in Beauty and the Beast, who changes from a Lost Soul into a Chief as a result of Belle’s nurturing character. Layered characters include MacGyver (Warrior and Professor), Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady (Waif and Spunky Kid), and Princess Leia (Boss and Crusader).

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about these character types, and that it sparks an idea for your own writing (or at least provided some interesting reading while procrastinating from writing 😉 ).

Living With Style, Class, and Grace

Marissa

Book cover: How to Be a Hepburn in a Hilton World: The Art of Living with Style, Class, and GraceI recently finished a delightful little book called How to Be a Hepburn in a Hilton World: The Art of Living with Style, Class, and Grass. It is written by a publicist for Warner Bros. Records named Jordan Christy. The basic idea behind the book is that in the years since Audrey Hepburn graced the silver screen, our culture has come to uphold standards of behavior that are simply unacceptable for smart girls to follow. This book sets out to show “modern ladies how they can be beautiful, intelligent, and fun while retaining values and morals.”

One of the most welcome things about this book is that it is not a Christian guide to modesty. I’m not saying those types of books can’t be helpful, but it was refreshing to find a book written for women who want to (or have to) work in a business setting instead of on an idylic homestead. It tells girls you can be modern as well as feminine, that you don’t have to wear ankle-length skirts to be modest, and that acting like a lady can be fun instead of restrictive. I think it would be a great book to give girls who feel like the commonly presented Christian ideals of womanhood are shutting them out (for the record, this does not include me, but does describe some of my close friends).

Just to be fair, there were some things I did not like about the book. In an effort (I assume) to keep the text relevant to modern readers, Christy uses many examples of actresses, characters, and reality shows. There were enough to become excessive (and I didn’t recognize most of them). Her writing style might also seem blunt and off-putting to some readers.

Best Quotes

Chapter 1: Keep Your Chin Up and Your Skirt Down

“If we want [guys’] undivided attention for a bout 2.4 seconds, we should keep wearing our glittery minis and doing the bend-and-snap. But if we want a real relationship with a real gentleman, we should just keep being our smart, classy, fabulous selves.” Or, for those who’ve never worn a mini skirt in their lives, don’t be tempted to compromise.

Chapter 2: Words, Words, Words

This chapter advised reading and increasing our vocabularies so we can become better conversationalists. She also covers knowing when to speak and when to keep silent, quoting George Eliot: “Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.”

Chapter 3: Use Some Elbow Grease

“Unfortunately, that hard-work-doesn’t-hurt mentality appears to be in short supply these days. Why? It’s become painfully clear that our society just doesn’t support a sincere work ethic anymore.” Be that as it may, if you want to be a classy, respectable young woman, you have to be willing to work.

Chapter 4: Choose Your Friends Wisely

We need to find friends “who will help us kick our own vices, not just drag us down in the mire with them and theirs. If we’re struggling with self-image and potential eating-disorder thoughts … we need to find ourselves some normal, curvy friends who will take us to counseling and won’t care if we’re a size 2 or a 10.”

Chapter 5: Let Him Come Calling

“Regardless of the guy’s current status, bank account, background, or beliefs, if he’s interested, he will do the pursuing. There’s no need to interfere with the ways of nature! Doing so will only scare him off.” This is one chapter I had a little disagreement with. She doesn’t allow for anything in between completely-ignore-the-guy and obnoxiously-pester-him-with-text-messages-every-few-hours. If you’re already friends, shouldn’t you be allowed to Facebook or e-mail him once in a while to keep in touch?

Chapter 6: Dress to Impress

Two quotes this time: “While it may seem frivolous to some, our personal style does more talking than we ever could about ourselves — and we want to make sure it’s saying nice things!” “While it can be tempting to want to keep up with the current inseam trends, the respect we’ll receive from not exposing our chest region and upper thighs is worth so much more than the five-seconds stares we’d get from a bunch of ogling buffoons.”

Chapter 7: Less Is More

“Our society is undoubtedly of the flashier/louder/faster/stronger mentality, and for some reason makeup tends to fall into the same category, but it really should be placed indefinitely in the less-is-more category. … We need to realize makeup is a simply something to enhance certain features — not a daily necessity that needs to be applied from sunup to sundown.”

Chapter 8: Have Your Cake and Eat It Too

“You can healthfully and happily maintain your weight without taking any weird voodoo pills or sprinting a marathon on the treadmill every week. You simply need to find a steady balance between those leafy greens and that Sprinkles cupcake. Let’s become the new poster children for happy, healthy young women.”