3m's Progress (1morechapter.com)

I hadn't updated my progress for a loooong time. Here it is, with links to reviews where available.


26/85 for 31% so far


2010 - Tinkers
2009 - Olive Kitteridge

2008 - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
2007 - The Road
2006 - March
2005 - Gilead 
2004 - The Known World
2003 - Middlesex

2002 - Empire Falls

2000 - Interpreter of Maladies
1999 - The Hours
1995 - The Stone Diaries
1994 - The Shipping News

1989 - Breathing Lessons

1988 - Beloved
1987 - Summons to Memphis

1983 - The Color Purple
1973 - The Optimist's Daughter 
1972 - Angle of Repose
1961 - To Kill a Mockingbird
1958 - A Death in the Family
1953 - The Old Man and the Sea
1940 - The Grapes of Wrath 
1932 - The Good Earth
1928 - The Bridge of San Luis Rey
1921 - The Age of Innocence

3M's Progress and Goals for 2009

After reading 12 Pulitzers in 2007, I only read one (Beloved) in 2008! [edit: I actually read two because I read the 2009 winner, Olive Kitteridge] I'm not happy with that result at all, so I'd like to commit to reading at least 6 titles in 2009. These are the leading contenders (bolded were read in 2009):

• 2008 - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
• 2002 - Empire Falls (Russo)
• 2001 - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (Chabon)
• 2000 - Interpreter of Maladies (Lahiri)
• 1992 - A Thousand Acres (Smiley)
• 1989 - Breathing Lessons (Tyler)
• 1987 - A Summons to Memphis (Taylor)
• 1981 - A Confederacy of Dunces (Toole)
• 1973 - The Optimist’s Daughter (Welty)
• 1937 - Gone with the Wind (Mitchell)
• 1936 - Honey in the Horn (Davis)
• 1935 - Now in November (Johnson)
• 1932 - The Good Earth (Buck)
• 1926 - Arrowsmith (Lewis)
• 1925 - So Big (Ferber)
• 1921 - The Age of Innocence (Wharton)

Progress so far:
2008 - Olive Kitteridge

2008 - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
2007 - The Road
2006 - March
2005 - Gilead (read in 2006)
2004 - The Known World
2003 - Middlesex
1999 - The Hours
1998 - Beloved
1995 - The Stone Diaries
1994 - The Shipping News
1983 - The Color Purple
1972 - Angle of Repose
1961 - To Kill a Mockingbird
1958 - A Death in the Family
1953 - The Old Man and the Sea (read in 2002)
1940 - The Grapes of Wrath (read in 1985)
1928 - The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Beloved - 3M's Review

I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.

Very uncomfortable reading for me. Disturbing and (literally) haunting. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and written by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, Beloved tells the story of a family’s life before and after their escape from slavery. Sethe and her daughter Denver live in isolation at 124 in the countryside near Cincinnati. Also ‘present’ in the house is the ghost of Sethe’s other daughter, nicknamed Beloved, who died when she was two. Sethe fled to Ohio from Kentucky many years before after escaping from her owners at ‘Sweet Home.’ Also at Sweet Home was Paul D., who has now come to Ohio to look for Sethe. Soon after Paul D.’s arrival at 124, he drives the baby ghost out; however it’s not long before a strange young woman is found near the house and who calls herself Beloved.

I had a very difficult time following the story at first, and I’d probably understand it much better if I re-read it at some point. The storyline unravels as it goes along, and we see bit by bit the horrors that Sethe escaped from. Her actions are also called into question. Her mental state is dubious. But whose wouldn’t be after undergoing the ordeals she has gone through?

Other people went crazy, why couldn’t she?

I didn’t enjoy this book, but I don’t think readers are supposed to. The subject matter is difficult, and I don’t like hearing the horror stories of Beloved or Maus. At the same time, I realize they are necessary and I’ll continue to force myself to read them.

1987, 275 pp.
Rating: 4/5

3M's list of books read

2007 - The Road
2006 - March
2005 - Gilead (read in 2006)
2004 - The Known World
2003 - Middlesex
1999 - The Hours
1998 - Beloved
1995 - The Stone Diaries
1994 - The Shipping News
1983 - The Color Purple
1972 - Angle of Repose
1961 - To Kill a Mockingbird
1958 - A Death in the Family
1953 - The Old Man and the Sea (read in 2002)
1940 - The Grapes of Wrath (read in 1985)
1928 - The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Only 66 to go! :-)

The Hours - 3M's Review

I originally did a "twin" review of this on my blog. I had seen both of these movies before I read the books, and I recently re-watched The Hours because it was available for online viewing through Netflix. I'd like to watch Mrs. Dalloway again as well. The movie of the The Hours follows the book very closely-there are a few minor changes. Nicole Kidman does an outstanding job in this film. I was most interested in the Virginia Woolf storyline, so I was happy she was so well portrayed. It's funny that Meryl Streep ended up playing Clarissa when she (Meryl Streep) is actually talked about in The Hours (the book). I don't remember the movie Mrs. Dalloway much at all, hence the reason I wish to re-view it.

Well, on to the books. The Hours won the Pulitzer in 1999. It's a cleverly told story that intersects the 3 women's lives very well. However, it does change the story of Mrs. Dalloway into homos*xual relationships. It was interesting to see the twist in the storyline, particularly if you know the real one, but I couldn't help thinking, "Doesn't Clarissa (in The Hours) know that her life is too coincidental with the characters' names from Mrs. Dalloway?" To me, it would have been a better story if Cunningham had left out all the references to the actual book itself. The reader knows that's what it's about, so why keep referring to it? It makes The Hours too unbelievable. It's an interesting book, and I'm glad I read it, but I can't help having mixed feelings about it.

Mrs. Dalloway. I must be too dense in the literary sense, because I just don't get this book at all. I had to stop reading it every half hour because it was just too much otherwise. I felt a similar way this year when I read Inheritance of Loss. I just don't enjoy a book when I have to read it that way. I don't get into planning parties or the minute details of such. In fact, I avoid that like the plague. I'm not into social scenes, either. In this book, everyone loves Clarissa, but isn't she the most shallow character in it? I don't get it. I would like to re-read it again in a few years to see if I feel any differently. At least I feel more enlightened that I have finally read Woolf. I'd actually like to read more about her than by her.

For The Hours:
1998, 226 pp.
Rating: 3.5
Pulitzer, 1999

For Mrs. Dalloway:
1925, 194 pp.
Rating: 3

The Shipping News - 3M's Review

I started out not liking the writing style of this book at all. This is the first Proulx book I've read, but if her other books are written in the same style, she is the queen of both the sentence fragment and the comma splice. I get that some of the sentences were supposed to be news headlines, and I found that to be clever. However, not all of them were and it truly was like fingers on a chalkboard to me. After a few chapters, though, I found the storyline very compelling. The characters were well drawn, and I was sympathetic to their life situations. I discovered that I wanted to keep reading so I could learn what happened to them.

Quoyle and his family go from the States back to Newfoundland, which is where his father was originally from. Everyone there knows about the Quoyles and it isn't all good. Quoyle is a kind man, but a bit of a bumbler, or so he thinks. He has a job at the local newspaper writing about car wrecks and the shipping news. (I could have done without the detailed newspaper reports of the s*x abu se cases.) He takes care of his little girls, Bunny and Sunshine, as well as his aunt. Or is his aunt taking care of him? (I was fascinated by her character, especially the certain incident with the outhouse!) All in all, it's an engaging domestic drama taking place in a freezing, unforgiving climate.

In the end, I still didn't like the writing style, but I did enjoy reading about this family and Newfoundland. I'm now looking forward to viewing the movie adaptation.

1993, 337 pp.
Rating: 3.5

Winner, Pulitzer Prize
Winner, National Book Award

The Known World - 3M's Review

The Known World by Edward P. Jones has not only won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, but also the NBCC Award and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

Jones really knows how to write his characters. Each one was very clearly defined. I won't give away too much of the story here but will write a brief overview.

Henry and Caldonia Townsend are slave owners who are black themselves. Henry's father had freed himself and his wife, and then later Henry. While Henry was still a slave under William Robbins, he became somewhat of a favorite, and was later instructed by Robbins on how to be a proper slave owner. Henry builds up quite a plantation but then dies unexpectedly. How Caldonia, along with her overseer Moses, runs the plantation afterward forms the rest of the novel.

Several issues are presented in the book. Whites' attitudes towards blacks, both slave and free; the function of "the law;" men's attitudes towards women (and vice versa); and the question of how and why blacks could own slaves themselves.

This is a very well-written book, and I struggled on whether to rate it a 4 or 4.5. There is some content in the book that downgrades it slightly for me. Consider it a very high 4.

2003, 388 pp.

Pulitzer Prize, NBCC Award, IMPAC Award

Rating: 4

A Death in the Family - 3M's Review

A Death in the Family by James Agee

1957, 310 pp.

1958 Pulitzer

Rating: 4.5

Jay Follett, a dutiful husband and father, travels to his parents' home because his father is dying. On his way back to his wife and children, he is killed in a car accident. The reaction to this tragedy by his family is told with heartbreaking prose. I was especially moved by the thoughts, feelings, and actions of his son, Rufus. This novel was largely autobiographical for Agee as his father died in a car accident when he was six years old. Sadly, Agee himself died of a heart attack at the age of 45, leaving behind young children of his own.

This novel profoundly touched me as my own father died of heart complications at the age of 44. The death of someone so young affects a family very deeply for many years. It is a tragedy I hope few people have to experience.

1983 The Color Purple - 3M's Review

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

1982, 289 pp.

1983 Pulitzer Prize/1983 NBA

Rating: 3.5


I read this for the Banned Book Challenge, and I can definitely see why people would be against it. Some of the themes include incest, rape, lesbianism, language, and drug and alcohol use. I'm not saying it should be banned--just that if I had a teenage daughter, for instance, I would want to read and discuss it with her.

All of the above (and more) happen to Celie, the main character in the book. By contrast, Celie tries to protect her sister Nettie, and Nettie ends up going with a missionary family to Africa. We see Celie and Nettie both grow in different ways through what happens to them. They are separated for 30 years but do keep in contact through letters. It is appalling, really, what men can do to women. This type of novel is always hard for me to read, but sometimes I do think it is necessary for me to venture out of my protected little world into the very unprotected world of other women. If only to appreciate and thank God for what I do have and to pray for and help other women whenever I can.

1995 The Stone Diaries - 3M's Review

The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

1993, 361 pp.

1995 Pulitzer/1994 NBCC Award

Rating: 4.5


I loved this book. I loved the writing. It isn't a heartwarming book, but it is a thoughtful one. These "diaries" chronicle Daisy Goodwill's life from her birth in 1905 to her death in 199? (we aren't told the exact year). Each chapter of her life is told from her point of view, although in the book (and sometimes even in a single sentence) she switches back and forth between 1st and 3rd person. We learn of her childhood, her marriages and children, loves and losses, work and leisure, and finally her old age and death. The "chapters" made me think of my own life stages so far and the ones that are to come. All of us have a similar beginning and ending, but it's the middle that makes life interesting.

There were many, many beautiful passages in this book. I'll leave you with one as an example of the excellence of Shields' writing:

Something has occurred to her--something transparently simple, something she's always known, it seems, but never articulated. Which is that the moment of death occurs while we're still alive. Life marches right up to the wall of that final darkness, one extreme state of being butting against the other. Not even a breath separates them. Not even a blink of the eye. A person can go on and on tuned in to the daily music of food and work and weather and speech right up to the last minute, so that not a single thing gets lost.

Carol Shields died of cancer in 2003. She was a gifted writer, and I definitely plan on reading more of her works.

2006 - March - 3M's Review

March
by Geraldine Brooks

2005, 273 pp.

2006 Pulitzer Prize

Rating: 3.5


I really wanted to love this book, but I ended up only liking most of it and despising parts of it.

March tells the story of Mr. March. You know, the father in Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. We didn't know much about him from Little Women, and really, maybe we were better off that way than reading Brooks' reimagined version. I did not like her "version" of Marmee, either.

Some of this book is extremely well done. The civil war scenes and the descriptions of the plight of the slaves were excellent. The characters of Mr. and Mrs. March were not. Although they both do have their admirable moments, their "reputation" is severely tarnished in this book and neither is very likable at all. Their "conflicts" felt like they were from a soap opera. I am not one who cares for soap operas and certainly do not wish to feel like I'm "reading" one in a Pulitzer Prize winning book.

I recommend it solely to those who like to read "prize winners" or to those who are Little Women enthusiasts. But be warned: you may wish you did not have these new visions of the Marches competing with the original.

1961 To Kill a Mockingbird - 3M's Review

Wow! What a fantastic book. I don't know why I've never read this before. I really thought I already knew what it was about--a girl's father defending a black man for r*ping a white woman. It is about so much more than that, although of course that plays an important part.

Scout and her family live in Maycomb, Alabama. In the beginning of the book, Scout is going into the 1st grade and her brother Jem is going into 5th. Her father is an attorney, her mother died when she was 2, and her caregiver is a sweet, smart black woman named Calpurnia. The family relationship among all members is strong--very strong. Scout and Jem play together at home (but not in school--Jem insists). Scout and her father always read together in the evenings. This is a point of contention with Scout's teacher Miss Caroline. Some of my favorite passages come from this section and they are hilarious to me as a former teacher who now homeschools.

The teacher asks if anyone knows what the alphabet is, and then. . .

...as I read the alphabet a faint line appeared between her eyebrows, and after making me read most of My First Reader and the stock-market quotations from the Mobile Register aloud, she discovered that I was literate and looked at me with more than faint distaste. Miss Caroline told me to tell my father not to teach me any more, it would interfere with my reading. [...] "Now you tell your father not to teach you any more. It's best to begin reading with a fresh mind. You tell him I'll take over from here and try to undo the damage--"

The Dewey Decimal System consisted, in part, of Miss Caroline waving cards at us on which were printed "the," "cat," "rat," "man," and "you." No comment seemed to be expected of us, and the class received these impressionistic revelations in silence. I was bored, so I began a letter to Dill. Miss Caroline caught me writing and told me to tell my father to stop teaching me. "Besides, she said. "We don't write in the first grade, we print. You won't learn to write until you're in the third grade."

...as I inched sluggishly along the treadmill of the Maycomb County school system, I could not help receiving the impression that I was being cheated out of something. Out of what I knew not, yet I did not believe that twelve years of unrelieved boredom was exactly what the state had in mind for me.

I don't want to give away too much of the story, so from here I'll be brief. Scout, Jem, and their friend Dill (said to have been inspired by Lee's childhood friend Truman Capote) spend a lot of time together in the summer trying to see Boo Radley, a neighbor who is a recluse. In fact, they are obsessed with this endeavor. Atticus Finch, Scout's father, takes on the r*pe case. The fallout from the case is felt by the Finches from the community as well as from their extended family. The book ends well, though, with a very satisfying conclusion.

To Kill a Mockingbird won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961 and was made into an Academy Award winning film starring Gregory Peck. It is the only novel Harper Lee ever published.

I listened to parts of this book on Audio CD read by Sissy Spacek. Highly recommended.

Caution: There are a few curse words and adult themes in the book. I would recommend this book for high school level and up.

1960, 281 pp.
Pulitzer Prize 1961

Rating: 5

1972 - Angle of Repose - 3M's Review

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972. It is a story about family, marriage, and even American history. Susan Burling Ward, an artist from the East, goes West with her Western mining engineer husband to "begin a new civilization". Their struggles with each other, with outsiders, and the land itself are chronicled by Lyman Ward, their grandson who is a retired history professor. As Lyman ends their story, he realizes certain parallel struggles in his own story and wonders how he will overcome them.

I enjoyed Stegner's writing very much. I thought his portrayal of Susan was very convincing. I enjoyed his grandparents' story a little more than his own just because there was some s*xual dialogue used that I don't care for. These were few and far between though, and I do plan on reading more from this author.
1971, 569 pp.
Pulitzer - 1972

Rating: 4/5