Heavy Light Reading and Light Light Reading

While venturing across the country, I picked up and read several small books from other people's bookshelves, all of which are recommended for somebody and the last of which, The Good Women of China, you should all take note of.

The Mother of the Mister is a retired school librarian and maintains an intriguing collection of children's* and Young Adult books. I read Ann Martin's A Corner of the Universe and Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff. Both are good. Like so many YA books, both are deceptively light and are actually filled with angst. Both made me cry. A Corner of the Universe felt a bit too light-hearted for the subject matter, but that light-heartedness made it readable as a pleasure novel. Pictures of Hollis Woods made me want to go out and become a foster parent.

From my mother's bookshelf, I picked up a few genuinely light books. I read the last two of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series (first mentioned by me here) by Alexander McCall Smith: The Kalahari Typing School for Men and The Full Cupboard of Life. Correction, I read the fourth and fifth book in the series; it turns out there are now eleven and the series is still growing. The "mysteries" become even less mysterious in these books, but the charming sense of Botswanan pride is still there and the personal entanglements become all the more interesting.

I also grabbed Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters, partially because it had previously been owned by my grandfather. While the mystery itself felt more like a Scooby-Doo episode than a whodoneit (their was a mummy to unmask, after all), I enjoyed the book far more than most of the few modern murder mysteries I've read, mostly because I'm really not into crime scene investigation or murders, and I am into delightful characters. Like Mma Ramostwe of the No. 1 Ladies', Amelia Peabody is an opinionated and sometimes obnoxious joy to spend some time with (Nymeth's review discusses some of the interesting attributes of the contradictory Victorian early feminist narrator). In Crocodile on the Sandbank, Miss Peabody leaves England for Egypt, without male companionship, at the off-the-market old age of thirty-two. C on the S is a great summer read in the classic sit on the beach sense (not that I have ever sat on a beach reading, but I think I could), and while I am not in a hurry to read further installments, I think it is likely that I will.

From my Mother's bookshelf, I also borrowed The Good Women of China by Xinran and translated by Esther Tyldesley. It turns out my mother has not yet read this book; otherwise I'm sure she would have warned me. This is a devastating book. The Good Women of China is similar to YA books in that it is short and uses simple language and then takes on heavy subjects that make one bawl**. Except that this is not fiction and nothing about it feels sensationalized or manipulative. The journalistic tone makes reading the true stories of "normal" women's experiences in China all the more traumatic. I'm reasonably aware of the Cultural Revolution and its effects (I've read Life and Death in Shanghai and Wild Swans and a few other memoirs), but, wow, I wasn't prepared for The Good Women of China. The editing of the stories is excellent. I never noticed the writing, which means it completely serves it purpose for the book. Everyone should read this book. It is so much more than stories of rape, suicide, abuse, denigration and unfulfilled longing. I'm not sure if anyone will want to. It is, in fact, stories of rape, suicide, abuse, denigration and unfulfilled longing. Read it anyway, but read it on a day when you don't need to be cheerful in the evening.

*I also picked up Eats, Shoots & Leaves, the punctuation book by Lynne Truss, off of my father's nightstand. Truss has a special affection for apostrophes and her voice is making me particularly paranoid that whatever spellcheck is on blogger won't accept "children's literature".

**I'm not alone with this. Many of the Amazon reviewers mention their tears and their hopes that these stories weren't really true.