The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating - Elisabeth Tova Bailey

I read about this book a while ago but couldn't bring myself to read it.  I will admit here that I'm a bit of a hypochondriac and I avoid reading about illness.  It's too much like real life and that's not why I read.  However, while waiting at a hospital, I finished the book I was reading on my Kindle (Eat and Run) and needed something else to read.  I was already at the hospital and freaking out, so I decided I'd start The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating.  I'm glad I did.

It was hard to read about the sudden and catastrophic illness, a mysterious virus, that felled, literally, the author.  It could happen to any of us.  She was confined to bed and had to have people come in daily to care for her.  She couldn't sit up or stand up, music was too disconcerting except for Gregorian chants played with the volume low.  However, she doesn't make this the focus of the book.

A friend dug up some wild violets, potted them up, included a wild woodland snail, and gave it to Ms. Bailey.  All she could do was lie in bed on her side and watch the snail.  The snail explored its new home but never strayed.  She watched it float up and down the pot and the plant, she watched it find cozy places to sleep.  It soothed her to watch if living its life.  She wanted to know more about the snail and its life, so she started to research snails.

I love the 19th century naturalists who observed insects and animals, people like Darwin and Jean-Henri Fabre, and, a surprise to me, Oliver Goldsmith.  I thought he only wrote The Vicar of Wakefield.  She quotes poets on snails.  Really?  Who knew there were so many poems about snails?

Because she her world was so restricted and she was in such close proximity to the snail, she watched it drink, either sipping with its many-toothed mouth (they have teeth that replace themselves, like sharks, I believe, a new set sliding forward when the old ones wear down) or absorbing water through its foot.  She discovers eggs it's laid, either previously fertilized or created hermaphroditically.

I made a lot of notes about snails while reading this, but I think you should read the book and find out for yourself.  They're amazing creatures.  They can mend their shells if they're damaged, they're nocturnal, they're the only land animal able to find calcium by smell, they're pretty much deaf and blind but have acute senses of smell, touch, and taste, they like to try new food but are crazy about mushrooms, although they're solitary creatures, they have been observed helping other snails.  They also have a very sensual courtship.

I am so glad I read this.  Not only is it a picture of a difficult illness and the remarkable woman who still managed to create in the midst of the chaos, it's a fascinating picture of the lives of snails.  It's not clear to me how much the author recovered, but she eventually went back to her Maine farmhouse.   She asks a friend to take the snail and its offspring back to the woods where the snail had lived so they could live the lives they were meant to live, as she wishes she could.  It was a kind and fitting end to this small book.

Eat and Run - Scott Jurek

Scott Jurek grew up in Minnesota in a fairly strict household.  His mother developed multiple sclerosis and Scott spend a lot of time caring for her.  He was a tall, skinny kid, not particularly popular because he so busy helping his mother and father at home.  In his late teens, he took up running, becoming a world champion ultra runner.

And he is a vegan.  A vegan athlete?  There are still people who, despite more and more vegan champion athletes (David Carter, Carl Lewis, Fiona Oakes, Laura Kline, Mike Tyson, Torre Washington, Steph Davis, there are plenty more to Google), think the term is an oxymoron.  Well, those people are just morons!

I'm a vegan and I used to be a runner, but I'm not even close to his league.  Ultra runners run distances equal to four or five marathons.  50 miles, 100 miles, 135 miles.  They run up and down mountains, in snow and ice, in deserts.  They push their bodies to the limit.  Okay, I agree, they're nuts.

I was fascinated by Scott's life story.  He's only 42, but he's set world records and done things no one else has done.  He's a physical therapist, a philosopher, and a vegan chef.  At the end of each chapter is a section about the philosophy or physiology of running and a recipe.

I bought a copy of this book to give to my doctor, who is a runner.  Before I give it to her, though, I plan to copy some of his recipes for healthy, energizing food.

The Light Years - Elizabeth Jane Howard

After reading different bloggers post about this series, The Cazalet Chronicles, I decided I wanted to read them, too.  Thank you to Harriet for her recent post, which reminded me that I shouldn't forget to try these books.  I splurged on all five books in the series, only spending about $20 for used copies.

The Light Years isn't a page turner, but it drew me in.  I wanted to spend time with the Cazalets at their country estate, with occasional trips to their London homes.

This volume begins in 1937 and ends in 1938.  War seems to be imminent.  But perhaps it's not.  We, of course, know what will happen.  Toward the end of the book, there is what I think is a very clear explanation for how and why Hitler came to power and managed to do what he did.

Most of the book is about the Brig and the Duchy, their three sons, Hugh, Edward, and Rupert, and their sons' families.  They're all spending the summer at the Cazalet country homes, Mill  Farm and Home Place, just down the road from each other.  The men go back and forth to London to run the family lumber business.  Except for Rupert, who is a teacher and an artist.

The dramas run the gamut from a lost cat, a child planning to run away, chicken pox, a clandestine affair, unwelcome guests, an unwelcome pregnancy, and the unexpectedly early and complicated birth of twins.  Parts made me smile, others made me sad.

It's not an exciting book, but it is an engrossing book.  I would love to have spent the summer with the Cazalets.  I plan to move right on into the next volume, Marking Time.

August Books

It's been so long since I posted anything that I've almost forgotten how to do it!  The day's not over, but here's my list of books finished in August.

Juggling  -  Barbara Trapido

The Judas Cat  -  Dorothy Salisbury Davis

A Chill Rain in January  -  L. R. Wright

Murder and Mendelssohn  -  Kerry Greenwood

Moranthology  -  Caitlin Moran

The Hidden Child  -  Camilla Lackberg

Heaven's Keep  -  William Kent Krueger

The Thai Amulet  -  Lyn Hamilton

There were some decently entertaining books in the group and several that didn't measure up.  As you can see, I was escaping into mysteries once again.  Those are my comfort reads.

I can't believe that summer's almost over.  This weekend is Labor Day which, to many of us, signals the end of summer.  It shouldn't for me since I'm all but retired.  It's hard to shake those old habits, though.  At this time of year, I'm always gripped by the urge to buy pencils and notebooks and other school supplies, even though I haven't seen the inside of a school for almost fifty years.

I will, however, be glad to see an end to the high heat and humidity that ruined the summer for me.  My body has never been able to deal with those things.  I melt into a moaning heap.  I long for some cool breezes and cloudy weather.  Our city house has no outdoor space to speak of.  I long for big trees and rustling leaves, shade, peace and quiet.

Juggling - Barbara Trapido

I am so grateful for being steered to Barbara Trapido by the blogger here.  I started with Brother of the More Famous Jack, which the blogger had posted about, and then went on to Temples of Delight.  I loved them both.  I got Juggling from the library and, as I started to read it, I realized it was a sequel to Temples of Delight.

Alice and Joe Angeletti have been married for over ten years.  Pam, the daughter of Alice's dead friend, Jem, is studious, pretty in a voluptuous Madonna and Child way, and perfect.  Christina is bright and pretty in an elfin way, but more frivolous and outspoken, always up for stirring up trouble.  They've been raised in American, but then are sent to boarding school in England, the one where Roland Dent, a previous boyfriend of Alice's, teaches.

While there, they meet two boys, Jago and Peter.  Peter is delicate and Jago is charismatic, bright, and handsome.  He has a posse of boys (and girls) who just want to be enveloped in his aura.  Christine falls for Jago, but until a traumatic event in the woods, he doesn't pay any attention to her.

There are so many interesting and odd characters in this book that it's hard to even start to tell you about them all.  I especially like Dulcie, tall, beautiful, edgy, foulmouthed, poor, in love with books of all kinds.  I think the 'juggling' of the title ultimately refers to the interchanging relationships of the characters.

This book, even more than Temples of Delight, is sort of like Alice in Wonderland meets real life.  It's magical without being fantastical, magical in the sense that I read on in awe as more and more secrets were uncovered and unreal things happened.

According to Wikipedia, Barbara Trapido lives in Oxford.  I wish I could tell her how much I admire her writing.

A Climate of Fear - Fred Vargas

Occasionally, I can't wait for a new book by a loved author to be published.  In this case, I ordered A Climate of Fear from The Book Depository so I could have it before it was released in the United States.

Suicides aren't always suicides.  At least Commissaire Adamsberg doesn't think so.  An elderly woman is found dead in her bathtub, her wrists slit.  But she's fully clothed and there's an odd sign written next to the tub.  She had recently mailed a letter to a young man and met with him to tell him about a trip she'd been on to Iceland ten years ago.  The group got fogged in for weeks and barely survived.  Two were murdered by a mad man in the group.  One was the young man's mother.

The police's investigation leads them to a horse farm in a small village and to a group of people who are totally immersed in the French Revolution, dressing up and re-enacting the speeches of the assembly.  Robespierre is unsettlingly authentic.  

Eventually, Adamsberg and two of his detectives go to the island in Iceland where the murders took place.  And they find something unsettling.

Some of his department think he's barking up the wrong tree, wasting time on murders for which the statute of limitations has run out.  They think they should be concentrating on the murders of members of the French Revolution group.  They should know better than to doubt Adamsberg, an odd man who free-thinks and dreams and comes to the correct conclusion.

Apart from the regular unusual characters in the series, I fell in love with Marc, who appears in chapter IX. 

The Drowning - Camilla Lackberg

A responsible family man disappears one morning before work.  The police haven't been able to find him.  Foul play?  Or did he intentionally disappear?  His body, frozen in the ice, is found by a dog.  The man has been stabbed several times.  Why?

Patrick Hedstrom is the police detective in charge and he and his team have come up with nothing.  His wife, Erica Falck, very pregnant with twins, has been working with a local author who's written a best seller.  She discovers that he's been receiving anonymous threatening letters.  He doesn't want to go to the police, but he was a friend of the murdered man and Erica feels there's a link.

Erica digs into the author's past and finds some horrifying information.  She has to hand it over to her husband to help him in his investigation.  They find that others have received letters, too.  All of them are friends.  They all swear that they have no idea who is sending them or why.  But that's not true.

The solution caught me by surprise, although I had started to suspect.  However, I had forgotten that Lackberg ends her books in this series with cliffhangers - and what a doozy this one is!  I want to leap to the next book in the series, but I'm in the middle of some other books and I also realized that I skipped book number 5.  This is a series that is best read in order.