Good to Great by Jim Collins *** / One for the Money by Janet Evanovich **

These are on my blog just because, between the two, I didn't have time to read anything else this week. Good to Great was for work. Incredibly well-researched, I found it educational and informative. Not a page-turner for everyone, I understand. But I enjoyed it for what it is: an analysis for companies who want to transition (or who must transition) from one to the other.

One for the Money was for a book club and chosen by a friend who is going through a divorce and wanted to read something light and distracting that would make her laugh. I did laugh. Once. And I gasped another time at an unexpected (spoiler) car bomb. But in between those glimpses of plot development, I was regaled with every shower, every meal, every outfit and hairstyle, every food pellet she gave her hamster over the 10 day course of the story. I like a little detail to feel connected to the character, but her methods seemed too frivolous. While I'm not in the mood for it now, at least I know where to go when I am.

So that's this week. Next week: Eat, Pray, Love.

The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson ****

I just barely finished reading this book in time to post tonight. What a ride! I continue to be intrigued by the original name of the first book, Men Who Hate Women. Lisbeth Salander, the main character of this one, is described as "the woman who hates men who hate women." And it's a spot-on label. This time, the obvious ways men hate women were apparent - the domineering, scheming husband at the beginning, the sex trade scandal. But there were also more subtle ways. The police detective Faste is a perfect example of a misogynist pig. The female detective, Modig is kicked off the case at one point (even though she's on the right track) when one of the higher ups gets his ego bruised by her findings. But then asked to work unofficially on it because it wouldn't look right to have her back on in light of everything. Typical. In many ways I think it shows that the way men demean women continues daily in very subtle ways.

Now, I'm a feminist in the sense that I believe women should have "the vote" and should be able to be educated and all that. I'm all for equal pay for equal work. So, yes, in that sense I am a feminist. I don't find myself worked up to the point that I feel I need to become politically active over the issue or anything. But, in many ways I feel like the feminist movement is obsolete. In so many ways women have reached equality to men. And in other ways I think it's okay for men to have things that they tend to be better at and women have things that they tend to be better at. But then there are times when I encounter an old boy's club, or someone makes a comment, and I realize that it's not over. We're not done. I still don't get paid as well as a man would in my position. I have a loving husband who is supportive, kind, and genuinely wants me to seek out fulfillment and happiness that both involve him, and are independent of him. I know not all men hate women. I just can't understand how anyone can just lump an entire gender into a category labeled "worthless." It doesn't make me angry. It just makes me confused. It seems so outdated and ludicrous.

Enough of my ramblings. The book was another really fast read, and I found the plot moved much more quickly than the first. Spoiler: the ending is such a cliffhanger, I'm counting the weeks until I'll be able to read the last one.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald ****

I know everyone reads this in high school, but since my husband is a high school English teacher, I've started to see the reasoning behind the books they used to assign us. I'm attempting to re-read the "Great American Classics" in an effort to better understand them (a little bit at a time, of course).

The Great Gatsby is a great novel. What fascinated me the most was the color scheme - it was so limited, that it begs attention. The main colors are gray, gold, white, and green. Now, other colors appear (smatterings of blue, pink and brown), but these colors appeared obsessively. I feel like Fitzgerald uses them to embody the main themes of the book.

Gold (or yellow) / White = very literally, the gold standard (ie, the American Dream). The people who come to Gatsby's parties, those whom he's trying to impress with his wealth, are almost always dressed in white. Gold-colored champagne flows, even the car he drives is a light yellow - almost a combination of these two colors..

Gray = the inability to attain this dream. The "valley of ashes" that they pass through to get to the city is inhabited by a man who will eventually lose everything of his and be the end of Gatsby. His person, his shop, the scenery that surrounds him is such a chalky gray that you have to stifle a sneeze just when reading those pages.

Green = also the American dream, but in this case, something very specific: Gatsby's object of affection and obsession, Daisy. After years of trying to make himself worthy of her approval, he earns the money that puts him right across the sound from her home. At night, he watches the green light attached to her dock the way some people watch a candle that's been lit in a vigil. At the very end of the book, Gatsby summons the ghosts of the first Americans who came searching for their dream - a green swath of land they could claim as their own. Green is definitely the color of hope and new life. Just make sure you secure a patch that's free of gray if at all possible.

I finished reading this book a few days ago and it's still sticking with me. I can't accept the idea that the American dream is not real, though we see it crumbling around us as the foreclosure rate goes up everyday. Ever out of reach ... seems like such a cruel trick. I guess what they don't tell you is that the American Dream is a coin with two sides. In order to rise to something great, you have to come from something humble. If you overestimate your greatness, you'll be returned to humble circumstances again. Maybe the Romans had it right with their wheel of fortune after all.

THE great American novel? I don't know about that. But it is definitely a great American novel - no doubt about it.

One Day by David Nicholls ****

I can best share my opinion by comparing it to the quotes on the front. First, Nick Hornby: "Big, absorbing, smart, fantastically readable." I agree with all of this except "big," and with that I disagree heartily. It's small ... quite small. It's the lives of two people observed through a pin-hole view of one day each year of their lives for twenty years. But it's fleshed out in such detail that it sucks you right through until you're fast-forwarded through to the next chapter. Sometimes things change just a little, sometimes they change a lot. Other times not at all. In this way it's fascinating and, yes, "absorbing".

The other quote is from PEOPLE magazine: "One of the most hilarious and emotionally riveting love stories you'll ever encounter." Since PEOPLE is ALWAYS about the drama in the same way a teenage girl thinks celebrities are SO intriguing, typical rule of thumb is to dial it back about 2 notches, and you have a pretty good picture of reality.

While my "Dex" and I have only been in each other's lives for a mere 15 years, I feel hesitant to compare our relationship to theirs. But it was a needed reminder at how someone can expand your life by their very presence ... and, the scary flipside, diminish it in their absence.

Our Town by Thornton Wilder ****

This is a classic for the stage, and having acted for eight years, I feel remiss that it's taken me THIS LONG to finally read this play. Especially when you consider that I was actually in one of Wilder's lesser known plays in the same pastoral vein, called "Happy Journey to Camden and Trenton." I was in the play in college, and only understood it when my director asked us all to close our eyes and imagine we were in a calm field. One of the characters was a tree, another a butterfly, another a stream that ran through the countryside, and another the sun that bathed everything in a warm, cleansing light. I know this seems out there for those who haven't read any Wilder, but after finally reading Our Town I FINALLY GET IT.

It's the simple things.

When all is said and done, at the end of your life, you may wish to return to the big moments in your life (births, weddings, etc.), but you will CRAVE the normal, everyday interactions that didn't mean anything at the time, but mean EVERYTHING in the end.

This play seemed particularly poignant as a dear friend of mine called with news that she and her husband were separating. After talking with her on the phone for an hour, I picked up the play to calm my nerves before falling asleep, and this line made me weep: "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?" I still get choked up.

So, read it. It's a short read, and it doesn't seem like you're reading anything for a while. But it will stick with you, I believe, until the end of your life. We all have so much to be grateful for, and so many moments every single day that are precious and sweet and fleeting.