A
very long time ago I found a “summer reading” type of book challenge where you
had a book category for each letter of the alphabet. That list lingered in my
files until I finally decided to do something about it. What caught my eye was
the categories were different than any other I’d seen.
A
– Apocalyptical theme Earth
Abides (1949) George R. Stewart
The
book takes place in the 1940s in Berkeley, California. Isherwood (Ish) Williams
isolates himself in a cabin in the mountains while working on his thesis in
geology. He becomes ill and almost dies, but gradually recovers. When he goes
back to his home town, he discovers a plague has taken most of the population
of the world. The few survivors have no idea how to cope. Ish travels across
country to scavenge food and fuel. He returns home and decides to start his own
civilization. He marries and has children and tries to instill the basics of
education and ecology. Other survivors join their group. As the years go by,
fewer and fewer of his children and others in the world take any interest in
learning anything except how to survive from the land. Typhoid sweeps through
the area and more people die. By the time Ish is old and almost senile, he has
moments of clarity and knows the former civilization is completely gone. Man
has gone back to a primitive life. A well written book, but pretty depressing.
One
Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962) Ken Kesey
I
think most people have seen the movie. Almost everyone knows about Nurse
Ratched. I read the book for a class in high school and preferred it to the
movie. And I found this book depressing as well.
C
– Cat on the cover The Cat
and Mrs. Cary (1962) Doris Gates
Mrs.
Cary is a retired middle-aged widow who lives a very quiet life. She discovers
that a large cat has been coming through the neighborhood and eating the fish
in her little pond. She tries many ways to thwart the cat, but he tells her it
won’t work. She is shocked to hear a cat speak to her, but gets used to it. And
of course, she is the only one who can understand him. They make a deal where
she will feed him well each day and he will stay out of her fish pond. When her
nephew needs someplace quiet to convalesce after an illness, Mrs. Cary agrees
to take him in, even though she knows nothing about children. The boy and Cat
take a great liking to each other, even though the boy can’t understand Cat
when he talks. There is a nice little mystery included in the plot, and at the
end, Cat decides that even though he can’t really “talk” to the boy, he chooses
to leave with him when the boy goes home. Mrs. Cary takes in the three kittens
that she suspects Cat fathered, and hopes at least one of them will be able to
talk to her.
I
Capture the Castle (1948) Dodie Smith
OK.
This is not truly a diary, but it is written in diary form, so I’m going with
it. Because I have that power…
Cassandra
Mortmain is a teenage girl in the 1930s living in the ruins of a castle with
her very eccentric family in the English countryside. They have little money
and frequently not enough to eat. But they struggle through. Cassandra wants to
become a write and starts a diary to try and “capture” the life and the people
around her. This is such a fabulous book and the characters truly come to life.
I could “see” them clearly as their life went on. There was a lot of humor in
it. It was made into a movie in 2003 and I would very much like to find it on
DVD.
E
– Element in the title By the
Shores of Silver Lake
(1939) Laura Ingalls Wilder
I’ve
read and loved ALL the Wilder books. Can’t say the same for Sarah or Lia,
unfortunately. Different generations, I guess. I did watch some of the “Little
House on the Prairie” TV episodes, but much preferred the books. I’m not going
to say much about this specific book, which is 5th in the series.
You really need to read the books in order, I think. They are such NICE books.
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