Fiction Review: The Grapes of Wrath

Every summer, I choose one classic for my #BigBookSummer Challenge (in addition to all my more modern big books), and this year that classic was The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Technically, this was a reread because I read it in high school in tenth grade (and liked it), but I didn't remember much more than the basic plot--and high school was 40 years ago--so this was like reading it for the first time. I absolutely loved this gripping novel that was suspenseful, moving, heartbreaking, and funny.

In the 1930's, Tom Joad has just been released from prison, after serving his sentence for killing a man in a bar fight. He's hitchhiking and walking back to his family's farm in Oklahoma. Along the way, he meets up with Jim Casy, who used to be the preacher in his community but has given up his profession and spent a lot of time thinking about life and humanity. The two men travel together through drought-dried land back to the Joad farm, to find the small house empty and pushed off its foundation. Jim explains that this has been happening all over the area: hardworking sharecropping families have been forced off the land they've worked for years by the land owners, who have decided they can make more money with high-volume farming with machines. Jim and Tom find the rest of the Joad family, staying temporarily at Tom's uncle's house. They've decided to pack up what they can and head west to California. They've seen flyers and heard rumors that there is plenty of farm work in California, which is verdant and lush with all kinds of fruit and vegetable farms. The entire family (plus Jim)--12 people in all--pile into a homemade truck, along with cookware, mattresses, and some food, and head west on Route 66. They soon see that they are not alone; tens of thousands of other families are making the same journey, with heavy traffic westbound, and the eastbound lane mostly empty. They encounter all kinds of challenges and losses on their long trip, and once they finally arrive, they discover that California is not the Utopia they'd been led to believe. In fact, the locals make it clear they don't want the "Okies" there at all. The Joad family struggles to make a life for themselves and earn enough money to at least feed the family, but it's an ongoing challenge.

This novel blew me away--Dust Bowl pun intended! Obviously, this is a classic, so I'm not the first to notice how outstanding it is, but it greatly exceeded my expectations. Steinbeck writes so cleverly, interspersing chapters about the Joad family with chapters about all of the migrants, as an entire population, what they were experiencing, and what factors were affecting them. In this way, he's provided a very intimate, poignant story of one family--that the reader gets to know very well and care about--alongside the larger picture of what was happening in the western United States, making such drastic changes in economy and culture. He zeroes in on the path of a turtle across the dusty land of Oklahoma, focuses on the Joad family and how they made their decision to leave, and pulls out further to describe how all of the sharecropping families were forced off their land. And all of it is written in an engrossing, compelling way that completely immerses you in theses places and times. Parts of the novel are heartbreaking, but he's also woven plenty of humor into the story, too, so that the book echoes real life: the highs and lows, the challenges, and the victories and defeats. I can see why this moving, thought-provoking book is such a renowned classic, and I am still thinking about it, after finishing it last week. I only wish I could discuss it again with my high school English class and my wonderful 10th grade teacher! My husband plans to read it next.

455 pages, Penguin Classics

This book fits in the following 2023 Reading Challenges:

 

Mount TBR Challenge

Classics Challenge - a 20th century classic

Literary Escapes Challenge - Oklahoma

Big Book Summer Challenge

 

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible.

 

Or get this audiobook from Libro.fm and support local bookstores.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

Fiction Review: Their Eyes Were Watching God

I recently read Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston for the first time, a perfect choice for Black History Month. I never read anything by Hurston in school. Now that I think about it, I don't think we read any books by Black authors in high school! That was the 70's/80's; I know my sons' literature curriculum was much more diverse, thank goodness. This classic novel, published in 1937, was an absolute delight, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

As the novel opens, a woman named Janie walks through a town at sunset. Because of the time of day, everyone is out on their porches and watches as she walks by, gossiping about where she's been and what she's done. Jamie has been gone for a year and a half, and from the gossipers, we know that she left town in a fancy blue dress with a younger man in a car, and she is returning alone in muddy overalls and a ratty shirt, barefoot. As Janie reaches her own home, her best friend, Pheoby, greets her with a dish of food. Janie gratefully gulps down the dinner, starving, and then tells Pheoby her story: not just the story of the last year and a half, but her whole life story. She begins with her earliest days as a child, brought up by her grandmother without a mother or father, and continues through to this evening and how she came to be returning to town in such a bedraggled condition. The rest of the novel is her story.

That's the framework of the novel, Janie telling Pheoby her story. I don't want to disclose any more of Janie's story here because it is riveting to read as it slowly unwinds. That was one of the surprises I encountered in this book: just how gripping the plot was. A lot happens to Janie, and she lives a full life, with plenty of ups and downs between her grandmother's home and returning to her own front porch this evening. The other surprise was the language and the writing itself. The dialogue is all written in the Black dialect of Florida in the 1930's, and I had heard it was difficult to read. It did take a little getting used to, but I soon adjusted to the rhythm and cadence of their speech, sort of hearing it in my mind as I read. The surprise was how much fun Hurston has with the language, especially with the unique similes and metaphors the characters use, like "Speakin' of winds, he's de wind, and we'se de grass. We bend whichever way he blows." Characters' mutual teasing on the front porch of the general store is clever and often laugh-out-loud funny. Many beautifully written passages are also very thoughtful:

"The spirit of marriage left the bedroom and took to living in the parlor. It was there to shake hands whenever company came to visit, but it never went back inside the bedroom again."

This novel was unique at the time--and for many decades after--for describing ordinary Black lives. Its focus is not on slavery or discrimination (though some of that is along the edges of the story) but just people living and loving, with joys and sorrows. In fact, much of it takes place in an entirely Black town in Florida, the first of its kind and a real place. I finished this book almost three weeks ago, but I still find myself thinking about it. I'll add it to our shelves of classics, and I have no doubt I will read this moving, delightful novel again.

193 pages, Amistad

This book fits in the following 2023 Reading Challenges:

 

Mount TBR

My own Classics Challenge (the one I usually do stopped this year) - a classic by a BIPOC author

Alphabet Soup - T

Diversity Challenge

Literary Escapes - Florida

 

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here, beautiful read by actress Ruby Dee, and/or download it from Audible.  The sample is from the beginning of the book, as Janie walks back into town, and her neighbors gossip. It sounds wonderful on audio!

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

 

 

Or you can order Their Eyes Were Watching God from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Nonfiction Review: Walden

This spring, I read Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau by Ben Shattuck, a beautifully-written memoir about the author taking six walks (really, five walks and one canoe trip) that Thoreau described in his books and journals. The memoir included excerpts of Thoreau's writing, and that inspired me to finally read Thoreau for myself. Walden by Henry David Thoreau was my first book read for Nonfiction November, and while it was a bit of a rocky start, I ended up enjoying this chronicle of his time spent in an isolated cabin he built himself, on the shores of Walden Pond in Massachusetts.

Walden begins with a 73-page chapter titled Economy, in which he explains why he wrote the book. Unfortunately, he goes on to complain, criticize, and ... well, rant about the "modern" ways of living in general and how people wouldn't need to spend their lives earning money if they would just stop buying so much unnecessary stuff (my husband's new favorite word is frippery). He's got a point, but I was relieved when that very long chapter finally ended, and he moved onto his time actually living in the cabin at Walden. As I had hoped, he beautifully describes how he immersed himself in the natural world. He talks about how he spent his time, what it was like to live in the small, rustic cabin (he lived there for two years but condensed the narrative into a single year), and his detailed observations of nature. He portrays every aspect of the natural world: the trees and plants, the pond itself, and birds, animals, and insects living around and with him. His narrative moves through each season of a year, sharing how this small ecosystem around him changed and the varying beauty in the different seasons. In one chapter, his very apt descriptions of the bizarre way a squirrel moves had me laughing out loud and reading the section to my husband.

As I mentioned, in that first section--and occasionally in later chapters--Thoreau gets wrapped up in criticizing the way others live. He comes across as arrogant and privileged in those parts (clearly, he himself has never actually been poor or had any real responsibilities). Thankfully, the rest of the book, about three-quarters of it, were as I had hoped, with beautiful nature writing and in-depth observations of the natural world. I love the outdoors and have myself experienced many times the sense of peace and joy that come from being immersed in nature, so I could relate to his experiences living at Walden. In fact, I read part of this book while camping, sitting outside with my book in the woods, overlooking a small lake; I highly recommend reading this outdoors if you can. I loved his descriptions of the seasonal changes, the sights and sounds of nature, and his experience of solitude. My book is filled with dog-eared pages of beautiful passages I wanted to come back to. His writing--about nature and about simple living--often touched me and made me think. I loved this description of the changing colors in fall:

"Already, by the first of September, I had seen two or three small maples turned scarlet across the pond, beneath where the white stems of three aspens diverged, at the point of a promontory, next the water. Ah, many a tale their color told! And gradually from week to week the character of each tree came out, and it admired itself reflected in the smooth mirror of the lake. Each morning the manager of this gallery substituted some new picture, distinguished by more brilliant or harmonious coloring, for the old upon the walls."

I read another short passage about fall in one of my Friday Reads videos, if you want to listen. It's a dense book that took me two weeks to read, but I thoroughly enjoyed most of it and am glad to have finally experienced Thoreau for myself. If you'd like a taste of his writing in a much shorter book that is delightful on its own, I recommend Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau by Ben Shattuck. Or just skip over the ranty bits in Walden and immerse yourself in the beauty of Thoreau's Walden Pond.

384 pages, Clydesdale Classics

This book fits in the following 2022 Reading Challenges:

 

Mount TBR Challenge

Back to the Classics - Classic set in a place you'd like to visit

Nonfiction Reader Challenge

Fall Into Reading Challenge - Classic

 

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here, from the beginning of the books as he described why he wrote it, and/or download it from Audible.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

     

 

 

Or you can order Walden from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

 

Fiction Review: The Count of Monte Cristo

Every summer, for my annual #BigBookSummer Challenge, I choose one classic book among my stack of Big Books to read during the summer (note that you don't need a stack; you can participate in the challenge with just one Big Book). In recent years, I read Gone with the Wind, David Copperfield, and last summer, Anna Karenina. This year, my Big Book Summer classic was The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas, a novel my husband and many friends have told me was a great read. I'm glad I finally listened to them! I enjoyed this super-twisty, surprising story of the ultimate revenge.

Edmond Dantes sails into his home port of Marseilles on February 24, 1815, after a long voyage on the merchant ship that employs him. The captain died on this journey, so Dantes, as First Mate, took over leadership of the ship. He reports this to Monsieur Morrel, the owner of the ship, who confides to Dantes  that he is very happy with his performance and will officially make him captain when the chip leaves on its next trip in three months. Dantes is overjoyed, as he loves the ship and his job. One person who is not happy, though, is Monsieur Danglers, the ship's purser who feels that he should be made captain due to his seniority. Once onshore, Dantes heads home to see his beloved father and tell him the good news. Once they are reunited, Dantes' next stop is to his girlfriend, Mercedes. The two young people are in love and decide to be married the next day, now that Dantes is home safely. Once again, there is one man unhappy with the good news: Fernand, Mercedes' cousin who has proclaimed his love--and proposed marriage--many times, only to be turned down. The next morning at their betrothal breakfast, surrounded by family and friends, the couple's joyful celebration is interrupted by police, who arrest Dantes. He is brought before a magistrate, Monsieur Villefort, who explains to Dantes that he has been accused, in an anonymous letter, of being a follower of Napoleon, at a time when the former Emperor has been exiled to Elba and it is a crime to support him. Dantes denies the accusations, and Villefort assures him he will be acquitted. However, a short time later, with no explanation, Dantes is taken to prison. It's not just any prison but Chateau D'Or, an infamous fortress set by itself on a rocky island offshore. It's known to be the place for the worst criminals and impossible to escape from. Dantes' bitterness grows as he is held there without reason or explanation ... and that is all that can be said of this novel to avoid spoilers.

All of that happens in the very first chapters of the book. To avoid any and all spoilers, I will simply add that this is one of the greatest revenge stories of all time! Most of this 500+ page novel is a twisty, suspenseful labyrinth, with the action ranging from Rome to Paris. It's a suspenseful and surprising tale, peopled by French nobility amid great wealth. Characters are in-depth, though there are a lot of them, and many of them are related, so I sometimes had to flip back to remind myself who someone was. While I was initially disappointed to learn this was a story of revenge (not really my thing), it turned out to be an intricate and engrossing novel that easily kept my interest right to the very last pages.

 1276 pages, Penguin Classics

(note that my copy--no longer in print--was only 511 pages, so I'm guessing this version includes some front matter, essays, discussion, etc.)

Naxos Audiobooks

This book fits in the following 2022 Reading Challenges:

Mount TBR Challenge

Back to the Classics - 19th century classic

Travel the World in Books - France

Big Book Summer Challenge

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

   

 

Or you can order The Count of Monte Cristo from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

 

My Big Book Summer Plans 2022

I have just announced the 10th year of my annual reading challenge, Big Book Summer Challenge, so I guess I should be the first to sign up!

I always enjoy tackling some big books in the summer, and I'm looking forward to doing it again and finally reading some of these bricks that have been collecting dust on my shelf (for this challenge, a Big Book is any book with 400 pages or more).

NOTE: Don't let my stack below intimidate you! You only need to read ONE Big Book over the next three months to join in the fun and participate in the challenge. This is just the way I like to do it, but you do you!

I definitely won't get through all of these, but I like to have some options to choose from. These are all currently on my shelves, waiting patiently to be read (along with many others!):

 

From the bottom of the stack:

• Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (476 pages)
• Dark Sacred Night by Michael Connelly (433 pages)
• Sycamore Row by John Grisham (447 pages)
• Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King (522 pages) - one of the books we inherited from my dad!
• Lucky Turtle by Bill Roorbach (404 pages)
• Voyager by Diana Gabaldon (870 pages) - book 3 of the Outlander series.
  
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (511 pages)
• The Overstory by Richard Powers (502 pages) - left over from Big Book Summer 2021!

I know that looks like a huge stack--and it is!--but as you can see, many of my choices are in the 400-500 page range and several are fast-paced reads. Voyager will be my biggest chunkster of the summer (and those are big pages packed with dense text!), but I know I will enjoy it.

All of these also qualify for my Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2022. My shelves are overflowing, so this is good! One  of them will also count for my Back to the Classics 2022 Challenge.

I also devote my summer to listening to Big Audio Books. I have been pulling together a folder from my large audio backlog, checking online to see which print editions are 400+ pages. I just started my first Big Book of 2022 on audio, A Lite Too Bright by Samuel Miller (480 pages), first released in 2018, and so far, it is excellent.

Check out my 2022 Big Book Summer Challenge Video for more on what I plan to read this summer, plus some great suggestions that I enjoyed in past summers. You can also find more great Big Book recommendations on my Big Books! list on Bookshop. I have read and enjoyed every single book on that list, and it includes a wide variety of book types and genres--something for everyone!

 How about you? Are you up for tackling a Big Book (or two or three) this summer?  Join me and sign up for the 2022 Big Book Summer Challenge! The rules, details, and link-ups are on that page.

NOTE: You don't need a blog to participate--you can either leave a comment on the Challenge page or sign up in the 2022 Big Book Summer Goodreads group. Either way, first read the details on the Challenge page.

Join me in some bookish summer fun!

Fiction Review: The Lost World

Looking for a classic among my huge audio book backlog, I was quite surprised to find The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle. I was surprised because this novel, published in 1912, is not about Sherlock Holmes. In fact, it's not even a mystery; it's science fiction. I had no idea that Doyle ever wrote science fiction, but apparently, this book was the start of his Professor Challenger series. The intriguing premise, action, and suspense of this unique novel kept me rapt.

The book is narrated by Ned, a journalist who wants to impress the woman he loves by embarking on some sort of rugged adventure. Just that kind of opportunity presents itself when he attends a scientific conference and hears Professor Challenger talk about his astounding discoveries. While on an expedition to a remote region of the Amazon basin in South America, Professor Challenger claims to have seen prehistoric animals--including dinosaurs--still living and thriving on a huge, isolated plateau. When his scientific colleagues laugh at his claims during the talk and don't believe him, he proposes another expedition, including another scientist (one of his detractors). Ned jumps at the chance to accompany them as a journalist, to document their findings ... and impress his beloved. The small group sets out and once in the region, hires a group of men to accompany them and help them on their journey through the rugged terrain. Following Professor Challenger's instructions and memories, they do indeed find the plateau, populated by strange and wondrous--and very dangerous--creatures unlike any that exist in modern times elsewhere. Their story is told through Ned's writings and drawings that he sends back home with native messengers, as they encounter strange beasts and even an entirely new kind of human.

This story was suspenseful and compelling on audio, as the team encounters one challenge after another and Ned documents their astounding findings. There is plenty of action and adventure in the novel, and it's easy to see how this story--originally serialized in a magazine--captured and held the attention of its 1912 audience. It's also interesting from a historical perspective, since the prehistoric creatures they encountered were based on the paleontological findings of that time. My one complaint was the racism throughout the narrative, that was, of course, a product of its time but is cringe-worthy nonetheless. The hired helpers on the expedition were referred to as "swarthy half-breeds" and described in unflattering terms, while the one African man hired to help was constantly described as "huge and ever-loyal," more positive terms, perhaps, but no less stereotyped and cringey. Despite these flaws (which many classics carry), I was engrossed in the action-packed and suspenseful narrative and fascinated by the descriptions of the creatures they encountered.

230 pages, Seawolf Press

FNH Audio

NOTE: While I listened to the audio book and normally recommend using Bookshop, which supports indie bookstores, for book purchases (links to both below), in this case, I recommend the 100th Anniversary edition from Seawolf Press, available from Amazon, which includes 50 original drawings that accompanied the book's original publication in magazines. From the "Look Inside" feature at that link, the drawings look detailed and gorgeous.

This book fits in the following 2022 Reading Challenges:

Monthly Motif - April - a book adapted into a TV series or movie (but, wow, this one looks so bad, complete with cheesy special effects and a busty, semi-clad woman--there's no woman on the expedition in the book.)

Back to the Classics Challenge - 20th century classic

2022 Alphabet Soup - L

Travel the World in Books Challenge - Brazil

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

 

Or you can order The Lost World from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

 

Memoir Review: Black Boy

When I decided to focus my February reading on Black History Month, I searched through my huge backlog of audio books and found the perfect fit. Black Boy by Richard Wright is a memoir that was originally published in 1945, about a boy's difficult childhood and adolescence in rural Mississippi and his early adulthood in Chicago, all in the first part of the 20th century. It's an engrossing, fascinating (and at times, horrifying) account of a young life that was defined by constant struggle and the author's striving for more for himself, his family, and other Blacks.

Richard begins the memoir with his earliest memories, as a four-year-old boy in Natchez, Mississippi, living with his parents and brother. His father soon leaves, which starts an endless struggle for his mother to try to care for her young sons while also supporting the family financially. Richard is an early reader and an eager student, but he begins trying to earn money to help his family as soon as he is able, first running errands and doing odd jobs, even hanging around the local bar to earn a penny or nickel from patrons (and having his first alcohol when he was much too young). He drops out of school after eighth grade so he can help to support his family. They move around the area, as they struggle to make ends meet, sometimes having to move in with family or living in ever-smaller, shabbier apartments. Richard's grandmother has a decent house, and they live there for while, but she is a religious fundamentalist with extremely rigid ideas about how Richard should behave, and life there is intolerable for both Richard and his mother (though they have to tolerate it for a while). As he gets older and begins reading more and becoming more aware of the world around him, Richard begins to notice the horrible inequities in the South between Blacks and whites. As an intelligent and increasingly well-read young man, he can't understand why things are this way or why his people put up with such abhorrent treatment. Eventually, Richard escapes north to Chicago and is later able to move his mother and brother up there with him, though life isn't much easier. Richard is stunned to meet white people (often Jews or other immigrants who are outsiders themselves) who treat him kindly and fairly, though much of society is still stacked against people of color, even in the exalted North. He is attracted to the Communist Party for its rhetoric on equality and the presence of other well-read Blacks, but he is soon disillusioned by their in-fighting and other issues.

Richard's life story is a compelling one, both as an intriguing coming-of-age story and as a fascinating glimpse into the Jim Crow South and the challenges faced by Blacks in the early 1900's. I found it all the more powerful listening to the first-person narration on audio. Having been published first in 1945, the narrator is of course not the author, but Peter Francis James does a wonderful job of completely inhabiting the voice of the boy and man so that you feel like he is telling his story directly to you (audio sample here). While much of the discrimination and outright abuse faced by Richard and his family are greatly disturbing, there are moments of humor woven in, too, as Richard recalls his naivete as a child. The first half of the book, in Mississippi, was a little more interesting to me than the later sections, where Richard gets involved in Communism, but I was still riveted by his powerful, engaging story from beginning to end.

Vintage Classics

HarperAudio

This book fits in the following 2022 Reading Challenges:

Back to the Classics Challenge: a nonfiction classic

Nonfiction Challenge (#3) - in category of Social History

Diversity Challenge

Literary Escapes Challenge - Mississippi

Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in return for an honest review. My review is my own opinion and is not influenced by my relationship with the publisher or author.

 

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here, from the beginning of the memoir when Richard is a very young boy, read beautifully by Peter Francis James, and/or download it from Audible.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

     
  

Or you can order Black Boy from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Fiction Review: The Illustrated Man

At the end of January, I decided to read another book on my over-crowded TBR bookcase and get a good start on my 2022 Back to the Classics Challenge, since I didn't do so well last year! I picked up The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury, a book my husband gave me for my birthday last year. Ray and I go way back. When I was a teenager, I read every single book of his on the shelves of my public library! That was a long time ago, so in recent years, I have been rediscovering why I loved his books so much (see my review of The Martian Chronicles from 2018). This loosely-linked collection of short stories did not disappoint; it was engrossing, clever, and thought-provoking.

The illustrated man of the title is described in the prologue and forms the basis for the rest of the collection. He's a large man covered with tattoos that come to life at night. Each one tells a story with sound and moving pictures, like a tiny movie playing on his skin. The illustrated man is traveling in rural Wisconsin and meets up with another man on the road. The two decide to camp together for the night, and the other man stays awake all night, enthralled, watching the illustrated man's tattoos tell their stories. The rest of the book is those stories, each entirely unique. They are all science fiction stories, though as is typical with Bradbury, they are mostly about human nature. Many of them take place in the future, in space, and/or on other planets. In The Other Foot, a community of Black humans is living peacefully on Mars when a rocket arrives that disrupts their quiet society. As with many Bradbury stories, the twist here is incredibly clever and filled with irony. The Long Rain features a military group from Earth that has a very difficult time adjusting to life on Venus. In The Rocket Man, a typical family on Earth struggles with the father's job as an astronaut, which takes him away for long periods of time, as he struggles to adjust to normal life when he is at home on leave. Missionaries from Earth meet a whole new life form on Mars (familiar if you read The Martian Chronicles) in The Fire Balloons that resists their efforts to introduce Christianity and maybe teaches the priests something. The Last Night of the World presents a very simple concept with mind-boggling implications that will leave you thinking. My favorite story was The Exiles, which is so clever that to describe it would ruin the fun of the surprise but that has an important message.

Those are just a few brief examples of the 18 stories in this collection, but every single one is imaginative, twisty, and thoughtful. This book was published in 1948, and it is mind-boggling to realize that he wrote most of these stories in the 40's (and perhaps earlier) because their ingenious meanings are still so very relevant today. While a lot of science fiction from back then seems dated now (like the "instant messaging" using pneumatic tubes in homes in one story here!), Bradbury writes about racism, classism, the way people treat others, the dangers of censorship, and more in ways that are just as applicable and important today. Perhaps that's a bit depressing that we haven't progressed more as a human race, but Bradbury has so much fun in each of these stories that we go along for the ride and then have the pleasure of recognizing a truism hidden inside the entertainment. I thoroughly enjoyed every one of these stories that left me thinking, and I look forward to my next foray into Bradbury's backlist.

281 pages, Simon & Schuster

Tantor Audio

This book fit in the following Reading Challenges:

Mount TBR Challenge

Back to the Classics Challenge 2022 - Short Story Collection

I in the 2022 Alphabet Soup Challenge

Diversity Challenge

Travel the World in Books Challenge - Do Mars and Venus count??

 

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible. The sample features an introduction by Ray Bradbury (that was not included in my paperback copy), explaining why and how he wrote some of these intriguing stories.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

 
  

Or you can order The Illustrated Man from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

 

Fiction Review: Anna Karenina

With two days to spare, I finished my biggest book of the #BigBookSummer Challenge! It took me a month, but I finished reading Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Believe it or not, this was my first-ever classic Russian novel! We didn't read any in school. I enjoyed it!

 

The novel is set in 19th-century Russia and the title refers to Anna, a charismatic woman of the aristocratic class who is married and has a son. While visiting her brother in Moscow, she meets Count Vronsky, and the two are instantly attracted to each other and eventually begin to have an affair, making Anna's life very difficult. Divorce is almost impossible (and her husband won’t grant it without taking their son from her), so Anna is stuck in a sort of limbo. It's interesting that the title features Anna's name because there are a lot of characters, and the story follows others, too, completely apart from Anna (though they all know each other and are interrelated in many ways). My favorite characters were Levin and Kitty. Levin is a gentleman farmer who loves the land, nature, and is passionate about farming. He has some rather revolutionary ideas about how to work with the peasants who work his land so is often at odds with others of his class. The narrative moves back and forth between the stories of many different characters, though Anna and Levin are the primary ones. There is plenty of detail of life in 19^th century Russia for the aristocratic class and discussions of the politics, economics, and culture of the times.

 

I was pleasantly surprised to find it easy to read with short chapters, no archaic language, and a lot going on. Some of the political and philosophical passages ran a bit long—it seems aristocrats enjoyed having long, convoluted intellectual discussions—but it was actually a pretty fast read considering its size. There were a lot of plot lines and characters, which kept the novel fresh and interesting. The Russian names can get to be a bit much, with each person often having three names, plus a title and a nickname! So, on the first page, we meet Prince Stepan Arkadyevitch Oblonsky who is often called Stiva (Anna’s brother), but I mostly got used to that and usually knew who the author was referring to! It was fascinating to read what life was like in that time and place. It's basically a Russian soap opera, following births, deaths, marriages, and affairs, though with plenty of thoughtful and insightful passages woven in. I enjoyed it and am glad to have finally read it.

 

864 pages, Penguin Classics

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