who says you have to be crowded into the living room, kitchen, and/or dining room to hold a book club? we are ladies of the 21st century. we don’t need no stinkin’ couches. so pull up a blog and join in the conversation.

the members of the BOOK HUNGRY are (alphabetically): patty blount, kelly breakey, karla nellenbach, vanessa noble, alyson peterson, cynthia reese, elizabeth ryann, and myself. here’s the deal. we pick a book to read. we discuss via email. we post a review on our individual blogs on the same day (3rd thursday of the month). we link to each other. done. i know, genius. click on each one of their names (above) and it’ll take you to their review. browse. enjoy.

this month’s BOOK HUNGRY selection is: 

DIVERGENT by veronica roth

what it’s about from amazon: In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can’t have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she’s chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she’s kept hidden from everyone because she’s been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

my opinion: in a world (today, now, the present, america) where dystopian novels are abundant, this one rises to the top. well, not above THE HUNGER GAMES or THE GRACELING, but near them. the concept of this story is fascinating, but then again, that’s one of the things i like most about dyptopian novels — seeing how the author has broken down the US and built it back up again — but what i like most is roth’s execution of the concept.

the US she presents is stark and rigid and unforgiving, but the reasons for it to have evolved that way aren’t unbelievable. sure, this society is a bit creepy and a lot unrelenting, but the five different factions make sense. those are all positive qualities to find in a person, but the disturbing part comes in that each faction has to solely commit to the pursuit of one quality (bravery, intelligence, kindness, truthfulness, selflessness) and that’s at the root of the unrest. when a large quantity of people are pigeonholed into acting a certain way at the expense of creativity and individualism, tensions will rise and battles will be fought.

another strong feature is the romance. it’s one of the most natural, realistic, and well paced relationships in YA. the way tris and four interact is charming and awesome and very much on point. their interactions are gritty and honest and lovely and confusing, as they often are when you’re a teen, heck, when you’re an adult too.

a novel of this sort is usually very plot centric, and don’t get me wrong, this is too, but it’s also surprisingly character driven. tris and four are so dynamic and richly detailed and i think it’s a big reason why this book is so successful. it doesn’t rely on the action to move it forward, but rather the characters. that’s an impressive feat for a dystopian novel.

the only weakness (for me) in this book is the ending. it feels too rushed. the pacing of the training (aka, the rest of the book) is perfect, but then the end happens andbigmomentafterbigmomentafterbigmomentplusmoreaction and whew, too much happens in way too short of a time. i’m not usually a fan of major cliffhanger endings, but somehow, i think this book would have benefited from one. (and after a discussion with sister E, we decided DIVERGENT would have been stronger if it ended earlier, though the rest of the book hungry gals loved the book as is.)

but overall, this is a dynamo of a book and YOU should read it.

and next month, we’re picking up kelly’s choice of PARADISE by judith mcnaught.

i was walking down the sidewalk when i noticed a guy approaching along the same path i was. i shifted to the right to avoid running into him at the same time he shifted to the left.

we were still on a direct course for collision.

we both shifted the opposite way.

the space between us was narrowing.

i paused, made eye contact, and let him step in the direction he wanted. we didn’t exchange words, but the combination of my actions spoke volumes and that guy was reading the right one.

oh, the sidewalk tango (come on, we’ve all done it). fortunately this time, it didn’t end up as a sidewalk tangle as we passed by each other without physical harm.

(i can’t say the same for a week ago when i was walking down the hallway with adriana, but that’s another story for another day.)

“High and fine literature is wine, and mine is only water;

but everybody likes water.”

Mark Twain

(please excuse this interruption, but before i go any further, i must admit that i blatantly stole the image and the quote from Aidan Donnelley Rowley’s blog. go ahead, click on the image or the words and it’ll take you to her beautiful website.)

but back to my regularly scheduled post: when i read this quote by mark twain, it triggered a physical response.

i went and got a drink of water.

(ok, for serious now.)

his words eloquently and straightforwardedly (friday’s the day where you can make up new words) state something i’ve felt in varying degrees my whole life. if a stranger looked at my bookshelf, they might degree it full of “water” books and wonder why i’m not reading more “wine”. me and drinking wine are besties, so why don’t i read literature of the same sort? i say i love books and i say i read every day (i do!), so then why haven’t i or why don’t i read more serious literature more often?

probably because the main reason i read is for entertainment.

i want to be carted away from the doldrums of my life and placed in a world that’s shiny and silly and amazing and breathtaking and scary and vivid and different. high literature does have those things (and wine makes me feel those things), but it is too fancy. too convoluted. too proud. it feels like you have to walk on eggshells around big words and important political statements, and you know what? i’m not a big fan of reading delicately.

i like to gulp the words.

i want dive in and splash around in plot twists and sink underneath the surface and let the characters bubble up around me. i want to smash through realizations and bellow about relationships and make the wrong decisions and pick the right guy and figure out how the world around me works. i want to race through chapters so fast i can’t catch my breath and yet lay there quietly nodding in empathy. breathing and reading in and out. in and out. learning and growing and cheering and doing new things in fiction and real life (as a writer, a reader, and a human).

YA books do this for me. other books may do that for you and that’s why there are so many options out there in the world, so we can all be happy within the pages of a book.

so, while MY love goes out to books that may be considered more water than wine, it’s because these books make me laugh and grin and scream and shake my fist and wince and cry and learn and grow, but most importantly, they make me turn the page.

WHAT BOOKS DO THAT FOR YOU? OR IN OTHER QUESTIONS, DO YOU LIKE WATER? WINE? SOME OTHER BEVERAGE? WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO GET YOU TO COMMENT HERE. YES, YOU, ALL OF YOU!

p.s. the irony of the “underage” YA book being marked as water just hit me. even if it was high fa-luting literature, it probably shouldn’t ever be considered wine.

i grabbed my purchases and happily noted the lack of line. as i waited in the empty space, i pulled out my wallet and CVS card. ready now, i looked up, and saw a woman stepping towards the next available cash register. my eyes followed the path she just traveled and saw a massive line snaking down the card aisle.

me: “is this the line?”

woman in line: “it is.”

me: “i’ve never seen it go in this direction before.”

woman: “it is unusual.”

i reached the end and waited my turn.

awhile later at the grocery store (a few stores down from the CVS), i plunked my arugula onto the conveyer belt and settled in to wait in this line.

a voice piped up behind me. “now, the arugula. do you buy it for taste or nutritional value?”

an odd question, but i considered it. “both, i suppose.”

her: “it’s sort of bitter, right?”

me: “yeah, it’s peppery. i really like it.”

considering it was the only thing i was buying, my last statement was probably redundant.

i reached the head of the line where a new conversation started.

checkout lady: bag?

me: yes, please.

lady: paper or plastic?

me: plastic.

lady: game?

me: no.

lady: too many questions?

me: *laughs* no, i don’t mind.

lady: have a good night.

me: you too!

i had one last errand to run and yet another line to wait in. i’m not sure why there were so many people out on this particular evening, but wouldn’t you know when the guy behind me ordered the wheat tortilla, the question posed to me earlier crossed my mind. “do you buy it for taste or nutritional value?”

of course, that was the only thing it crossed. certainly not my lips.

okay, okay! i panicked. i guess i have a bit more to learn about talking to strangers. the mission continues.

exhibit A

my oldest niece, M (brother G’s daughter), is looks-wise the twin of sister E. it’s a little creepy sometimes how much they look alike because E and M are aunt and niece, not mother and daughter. and now, with M rocking longer hair (the above pic is two years old), the resemblance is striking.

it’s come to light that M mirrors another one of her aunts, specifically me, but also sisters E and J.

how does she resemble us? she’s a reader.

her mom reports: “the book fair was at their school this week. M announced she was so excited she couldn’t sleep that night.”

(is this not the cutest thing you’ve ever heard? a kid who’s so excited about the thought of buying books she can’t sleep. don’t i know that feeling.)

but then the report thickens: “BTW, M started a 4th grade girls book club. They meet once a month rotating hosts and who picks the next book. She went first last weekend. They read “BECAUSE OF WINN DIXIE.” She researched questions to ask, led the discussion, planned a craft (they made a journal) & made a snack (funfetti cookies). There are 8 girls.”

(1) this sounds like book club extraordinaire. reading + snacks + a craft?!?! AM I TOO OLD TO JOIN? (book hungry ladies, we should take notes.)

(2) she researched discussion questions?!? now there’s a leader.

(3) i hope her passion for reading never dies (side note: i’ve just made it my auntly mission to see that it never does) and i hope her thoughtfulness and enthusiasm continue to inspire those around her. heck, it’s inspiring me and i’m all the way across the country, so i can only imagine what those 7 other girls are feeling being in the same room with her.

(4) i’m so glad this portion of the mumford genes entered her DNA. (i’m not so glad that she’s already my height and she’s only 9. dang it! why didn’t i get the tall genes? or the math genes?)

(5) one of the most amazing things to me about my nieces and nephews is how much family history is in them. it’s in their features AND their personalities. it’s in their hair color, teeth size, tongue rolling ability, height, weight, and eyelashes. it’s in what makes them laugh and cry and run and jump and read (or not).

they make the family feel bigger and at the same time closer because they show us how we’re all intertwined even when we don’t live in the same neighborhood.

“that was some gust, huh?” said the woman with the inside out umbrella.

“mmm hmmm.” the wind stole my umbrella and any other words i might have said.

and since clearly neither of us had mary poppins’s luck with umbrellas, we each scurried on our way hoping to get ahead of the next gust or at least get to our destinations before our clothes were soaked through.

p.s. this made miss the umbrella i got when i was studying abroad in london. those british really know how to make an umbrella. it’s a darn shame someone in DC stole it a year ago because i’ve been through 4 umbrellas since. come on, america. learn how to make an indestructible umbrella.

you’re welcome.

Words are things; and a small drop of ink / Falling like dew upon a thought, produces / That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. Lord Byron, (1788-1824)

It is my belief that the writer, the free-lance author, should be and must be a critic of the society in which he lives. It is easy enough, and always profitable, to rail away at national enemies beyond the sea, at foreign powers beyond our borders who question the prevailing order. But the moral duty of the free writer is to begin his work at home; to be a critic of his own community, his own country, his own culture. If the writer is unwilling to fill this part, then the writer should abandon pretense and find another line of work: become a shoe repairman, a brain surgeon, a janitor, a cowboy, a nuclear physicist, a bus driver.
Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)

My stories run up and bite me in the leg — I respond by writing them down — everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.
Ray Bradbury, science-fiction writer (b. 1920)

A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.
William Faulkner, novelist (1897-1962)

A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket.
Charles Peguy, poet and essayist (1873-1914)

Most people think that shadows follow, precede, or surround beings or objects. The truth is that they also surround words, ideas, desires, deeds, impulses and memories.
Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel laureate (b. 1928)

Language is not an abstract construction of the learned, or of dictionary makers, but is something arising out of the work, needs, ties, joys, affections, tastes, of long generations of humanity, and has its bases broad and low, close to the ground.
Noah Webster, lexicographer (1758-1843)

This passage is a quotation from Henri Nouwen‘s book “Reflections on Theological Education”:

“Somehow I believed that writing was one way to let something of lasting value emerge from my little, quickly passing life….. Most students think writing means writing down ideas, insights, visions. They feel that they must first have something to say before they can put it down on paper. For them writing is little more than recording pre-existent thought. But with this approach true writing is impossible. Writing is a process in which we discover what lives in us. The writing itself reveals what is alive…. The deepest satisfaction is precisely that it opens up new spaces within us of which we were not aware before we started to write. To write is to embark on a journey whose final destination we do not know.”

In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: they must be fit for it; they must not do too much of it; and they must have a sense of success in it.
John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer (1819-1900)

i’m so grateful i have a grandfather whose research skills and internet know how are top notch (because mine aren’t) because i’m certain i never would have found these without his help. even though these authors’ works are unfamiliar  to me, their words above all seem familiar in their sentiment, which in turn, makes ME feel like a writer and not so much a “writer.” thank you for that, grandpa! and thank you charles peguy for saying what you said.

today’s topic: deadlines

all of my writing deadlines are self-imposed which makes them more fluid than firm. i’m not proud to admit this especially since procrastination isn’t something i’m prone to doing.

(when i was growing up, my main motivator was my super smart older siblings. their brains naturally gave way to straight A’s while i had to work a bit harder for my B+s. our career paths have taken us down different roads, so they’re no longer available as bench markers…)

… and so, one way for me to circumvent this is by making writing a team sport.

how do you do that, you ask. isn’t the keyboard crowded with more than one set of hands, you say. is this some sort of tag team thing, you wonder. let me set the record straight. when i say “team sport” i mean that i’ve taken to transporting myself and my laptop out in public and have other writer friends join me. there’s something about looking across the table and seeing someone else diligently working. it’s a great motivator.

speaking of sports, i also take part in something called writing sprints with bria and her writing crew. they’ve very kindly allowed me access to the secret room where we chat and sprint (aka write as fast as we can for 20 minutes) and report in on our progress and chat and rinse and repeat.

the hope is that by doing all that, i’ll get my habits in order so that when the real deadlines kick in, my discipline will be in full force.

it was the best type of sunday in that i had nothing on the agenda but relaxation. i had started a really good book (THE LOCK ARTIST by steve hamilton) and so i read and snacked and read and read and read.

deciding around 4pm that i needed some fresh air, i headed out to the grocery store. i had brought my cloth grocery bags, so the guy bagging my groceries turned to me when he reached an impasse: ground beef.

guy: you want the meat wrapped in plastic?

me: *giggles to self* please.

due to the aforementioned day of relaxation, i realized this was the first time i’d spoken all day. (it was sort of fitting considering the book i’d just finished contained a main character who doesn’t speak. he can, he just chooses not to.) i can, obviously, but that day, i chose not to. i was happy to know, though, that despite the lack of voice, i hadn’t lost my sense of humor.

guy: *hands me receipt* have a nice day.

me: you too.

and with that, i went back to my scheduled silence.

two weekends ago, i was fortunate enough to have a reason to travel some place completely new…

NEW ORLEANS!

i was there for a bachelorette party and oh me oh my was it fun. the food! the weather! the friends! the cab drivers! the drinks! the bartenders! the food! the music! the house we stayed in! the scenery! the drinks you can consume outside of a bar!

of course, i can’t tell you any specific stories because what happened in new orleans stayed in new orleans so instead i’ll leave you with a picture that encapsulates the weekend.

have YOU ever been to new orleans? is there any place you’d love to visit but haven’t yet? have you been to all 50 states of the US? what countries worldwide have you visited? do you have anything else to share?

TALK TO ME.