Some Ideas for Those 2016 Reading Resolutions

New Year's Eve is around the corner, so I'm coming up with reading resolutions for 2016. My list of want-to-read books is based on reviews, past experience with an author, or just personal interest. For nonfiction, I'm looking back to some great 2015 books that I meant to read but somehow missed. Leading the list is the award-winning Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, an intelligent autobiographical and historical meditation, as told to his son, about racism in America. And from New York Times book critic Janet Maslin's 2015 recommendations, I'm picking up two more biographical histories: The Wright Brothers by David McCullough (on my book club's reading list, too) and The Ingenious Mr. Pyke: Inventor, Fugitive, Spy by Henry Hemmings about a British "mad scientist" working on World War II covert strategy, which has the unbeatable teaser: "Only now, following the release of previously classified documents by MI5, can this man's extraordinary story be told in full." When it comes to fiction, I'm looking forward, however, and my thanks to The Washington Post for recommending a bevy of new novels releasing in 2016. From a long list, I'm cherry-picking The Man Without a Shadow by best-selling Joyce Carol Oates, about a neuroscientist who falls in love with the famous amnesiac subject of her research, coming out in January. Because I loved Yann Martel's The Life of Pi, I'm looking forward to the February release of The High Mountains of Portugal, in which Martel weaves together three tales that are part quest, ghost story and contemporary fable of love and loss. I'm also a Jane Austen fan, so I'm curious to read Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld, a playful modern retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, when it comes out in April. You can't beat Stephen King for popular thriller fare, so if you've followed the saga of retired police detective Bill Hodges and his unlikely sleuthing allies through Mr. Mercedes and Finders Keepers, you'll want to snap up King's End of Watch, the "spectacular finale" of the trilogy in June. For advice on making reading resolutions that you can actually accomplish, I'll pass along tips from the Huffington Post article "How to Make Non-Intimidating Reading Resolutions for 2016" at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/non-intimidating-reading-resolutions_5682e8abe4b0b958f65a9b9c

'Bad' and 'Good' Mothers on Mother's Day

For Mother's Day, the nation will celebrate motherhood with floral bouquets and restaurants full of dutiful children honoring moms. Of course, in fiction, especially mystery writing, the "bad" mother is usually more significant to plot and character development. Start with Euripides' Medea, who punishes husband Jason's betrayal by murdering their children. Examples of other famous bad moms in literature range from Shakespeare's shallow sensualist Queen Gertrude in Hamlet to Philip Roth's overbearing Sophie Portnoy in Portnoy's Complaint, V.C. Andrews' cruel Corinne Dollanganger in Flowers in the Attic, Stephen King's fanatic Margaret White in Carrie, William Faulkner's rejecting Addie Bundren in As I Lay Dying, and Jane Austen's foolish Mrs. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice. Probably the most heinous crime in our culture is a mother's murder or torture of her own children. But most fictional bad mothers commit emotional crimes rather than physical violence. Their toxic mothering patterns have been helpfully categorized by Peg Streep, author of Mean Mothers: dismissive (ignoring and rejecting), controlling (micromanaging), unavailable (emotional withdrawal or actual abandonment), enmeshed ("stage" moms), combative (hypercritical and competitive), self-involved (superficial narcissists), unreliable (behavioral swings), and role-reversed (dependent moms, such as those with alcoholism or depression). No wonder bad moms are such good fodder for writers! But even if you see a mother's failings reflected in fiction's bad moms, my advice is to cut motherhood some slack this Mother's Day. Definitely don't expect mothers to live up to our culture's myths of the "good" mother, with her instinctive, unconditional and instant mother love! Maternal behavior is not instinctive; human behavior is more complex, individual and cultural than that. Maternal love is not unconditional and without preference; good parenting actually sets boundaries and recognizes differences. And maternal attachment is hardly instant; a mother-child relationship takes time and hard work. Just being a "good enough" mom is an achievement! For a good article about harmful motherhood myths, see https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/tech-support/201502/mothers-love-myths-misconceptions-and-truths

The Power of Those Famous First Words

The first line of a fiction novel is so important that the most famous are instantly recognized: "Call me Ishmael." (Moby-Dick by Herman Melville) "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." (A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens) "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. (Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy) "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." (Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen) My son and husband just love the new sci-fi hit The Martian by Andy Weir, about an astronaut stranded on Mars; it begins with "I'm pretty much f--d." Memorable first lines grab the reader's interest, introduce the style or voice of the novel, and create expectations that the author will satisfy or confound. Many stock opening words set the scene, but the best go way beyond "It was a dark and stormy night." Consider how George Orwell's initially standard start to his novel 1984 is disturbingly transformed by the last word: "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." Some first lines hook the reader immediately by jumping right into action, as in Toni Morrison's Paradise: "They shoot the white girl first." Other fiction openers present a thesis or opinion before moving forward, beginning with a statement that engages or challenges the reader's experience and that grows in impact by the novel's last words. Austen and Tolstoy succeeded in the examples above. First lines also can draw in readers with suspense--about what will be revealed about events (The Martian), or about the narrator as in Albert Camus' The Stranger ("Mother died today."), or about both as in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five ("All this happened, more or less.") Test yourself on how many first lines are etched in your memory with this quiz courtesy of The Christian Science Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/2014/0612/Famous-opening-lines-Take-our-literature-quiz/Question-110