2015 Reading Challenge -- Book with Antonyms in the Title

Up the Down Staircase
This is the story of an English teacher in her first job in an inner city school. It is an epistolary novel (I confess I didn't know the meaning of that word, but it means "a novel written in a series of documents") -- in this case that means notes she exchanges with one of her fellow teachers, letters she writes to a good friend, memos from the administration at the school, and notes from her students. This school is hopelessly under-supplied, the administration issues directives that can't possibly be fulfilled, and the students have situations at home that break your heart. But it is a story about hope and determination and in the end -- who learns more -- the teacher or the students? 

I happen to live in an area where the schools are very well-funded and so I don't know anything about some of the challenges faced by these characters but I'm willing to bet some of the nonsensical bureaucracy that is described would be familiar to any teacher who happens to read this book. I kind of wish I had read this when my kids were still in school -- I would have been much more sympathetic to what the teachers were facing every day. In fact, I'll bet most teachers would love to make this required reading for all parents enrolling their students in public school.

2015 Reading Challenge -- Finished in a Day

84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
This delightful little treasure of a book consists of the correspondence between an American free-lance writer and the manager of a used book store in England. Their correspondence and friendship spans 20 years. These letters reveal not only the flamboyant personality of the writer as it contrasts with the natural reticence of her bookstore friend, but also a sense of life in 1950s and 60s New York and London. Highly recommend.

2015 Reading Challenge -- Memoir

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch

This book was not what I expected it to be. The author, Randy Pausch, was a professor at Carnegie Mellon who was one of the driving forces behind virtual reality. He was diagnosed with terminal cancer and had only a few months left to live. He wrote this in an effort to leave a little of himself behind for his family, and specifically his three small children, two of whom were too young to have any real memories of him. He freely admits that he is a highly analytical sort. That much is obvious. I found his writing to be strangely (to me anyway) emotionally detached.

The book is a series of little life lessons. For instance, one chapter is titled "Treat the Disease, Not the Symptoms". This chapter tells the tale of a woman he dated who had a large debt that was causing her stress. She attended a yoga class once a week to alleviate this stress. He advised her to take a part time job instead of attending the class and use the money she made to pay off the debt, thereby alleviating the stress by addressing the problem, not the symptoms. Well, duh. Not exactly mind-blowing stuff. 

 The chapters all have a life lesson -- be prepared, work together. Some of the lessons go a little deeper than that -- enjoy the moment, inject some magic in to the mundane. So I would say it might be useful for someone at the beginning of their adult life but to be honest I found it a little superficial for someone facing the end of their life.

2015 Reading Challenge -- Book Published This Year

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

First, let me say that I love a good who-done-it. And I also enjoy books in which the narrative point of view shifts from character to character because I enjoy learning how one character's memory or impression of events varies from another character -- even when they may be in the same room at the same time. And I enjoy flawed but sympathetic characters, because as we all know, in real life no one is all good or all bad.

This book has all of the above, and is what I call a real page-turner. There's a difference, of course, between great or even good writing and good story-telling. This book is an example of good story-telling. If I had had the time I could have and would have read this book from cover to cover in one sitting. Is it great writing? No. But it is a compelling story with lots of suspense, and more than a few surprising twists and turns. A nice debut for Ms. Hawkins. It will be interesting to see if her next effort is as enjoyable.

2015 Reading Challenge -- A Book Published in the Year You Were Born

Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis

A retelling of the Cupid and Psyche myth from the point of view of Psyche's sister Orual. The original myth tells the tale of Psyche, a mortal woman whose beauty rivaled that of Aphrodite. Aphrodite is jealous and sends her son, Cupid, to curse Psyche but he falls in love with her. However, he tells her that she must never light the lamp and look upon his face when they are together. In the original myth Psyche's two sisters are jealous and convince her to disobey Cupid. She is then cast into the wilderness and given impossible tasks to complete. Each time Psyche is given help with the tasks and eventually Cupid and Psyche are reunited,

In this retelling, Orual is the narrator, She is extremely unattractive, and is jealous of Psyche. But she is also obsessed with her sister and wants to keep her for her own. In the retelling, Orual's obsessive love for Psyche is what motivates her to convince Psyche to disobey Cupid, resulting in Psyche's banishment into the wilderness. For most of the rest of Orual's life she mourns and regrets her selfish actions. However, by the end, the gods intervene and at the end of Orual's life she and Psyche are reunited. As in, they are united. As in, they become one and the same person.

I am not familiar with C.S. Lewis' writing (except for The Lion, The Witch and Wardrobe) and I am certainly not familiar with Greek and Roman mythology. So I don't really understand why Lewis felt he needed to rewrite this myth. So the truth is, I filled the "Published in the Year You Were Born" category, but I wish I had picked something else.