Quiet The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain

It has taken me a while to finish Quiet. Not because I wasn't interested, but as is my way, I'm reading several books at once.

The non-fiction titles tend to take a backseat.
Especially at the moment with the classics taking up so much of my reading, thinking and blogging space.

But on Friday night, I was feeling a little overwhelmed by my busy, stimulating week and in desperate need for some quiet time to recharge...and it seemed only logically to pull Quiet off the pile of half-read books by my bed.

Quiet confirms and reaffirms all the stuff about being an introvert that I had picked up and worked out for myself over the years.

It gave me research, statistics, case studies and anecdotes that reflected who I was and my experience of the world.

As I read Quiet, I recognised my husband, my stepsons, my family and many of my friends and colleagues.

Over the years I believed that my level of introversion had shifted closer to the middle ground. After reading Quiet I wonder if I'm still as introverted as I ever was, but have simply learnt better coping mechanisms.

I have also developed pseudo-extrovert skills to get by in our society that views Extroverts as the Ideal. But these skills come at a price.
After being in extrovert mode for work or at a social gathering I then have to factor in downtime to compensate and recharge my batteries. If I go too long without downtime, I become grumpy, irritable, moody, impatient, cold, distant, incredibly tired and eventually ill.

I'll let Susan Cain explain what an introvert looks like:

"reflective, cerebral, bookish, unassuming, sensitive, thoughtful, serious, contemplative, subtle, introspective, inner-directed, gentle, calm, modest, solitude-seeking, shy, risk-averse, thin-skinned. Quiet is also about this person's opposite...ebullient, expansive, sociable, gregarious, excitable, dominant, assertive, active, risk-taking, thick-skinned, outer-directed, lighthearted, bold and comfortable in the spotlight....Few individuals identify fully with one or the other."

Quiet has provided my husband and I many opportunities to discuss our personalities and how we juggle our need for quiet with our social obligations. My colleagues have also talked about how we can provide quiet time at work when one of us is feeling over-stimulated!

Blogging has become the perfect way for this particular introvert to be "out there" without exhausting my social reserves. I suspect I'm not the only one :-)

Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion

Harry the Dirty Dog was first published in 1956.

Since then so much has been said about it, so much love has been sent its way, and so many accolades and awards have been heaped upon it that I'm not really sure what I can add!

So I give you my own journey with this book.

Sadly, I never knew this book as a child.

I discovered Harry the Dirty Dog by accident when I began my teaching career.
My assistant kept putting it on our class library shelf; I kept packing it away. It looked too old fashioned and dated. Until one rainy day I overheard her reading the book aloud to a group of (mesmerised) children.

From then on I was a convert.

I read Harry to all my classes within the first month of a new school year. Most years it became a firm favourite with the class - which meant reading it over and over again to individuals, small groups and large throughout the rest of the year.

Twenty years later, Harry the Dirty Dog has not lost any of his appeal.
I still delight in reading it out loud to groups of children. And the children still love Harry. I love watching their faces light up as I hook yet another group of three & four year olds with Harry's charming antics. 

Over the years Harry has sparked all sorts of conversations about identity, running away from home, being naughty, cleanliness and the joys of getting muddy! 

The original black and white illustrations by Margaret Bloy Graham (Zion's wife from 1948 to 1968) also created lots of discussion as modern children tried to come to terms with 'old fashioned' drawing techniques and styles.

In 2002 Graham added splashes of colour to her original drawings which confounded the speculations I had had with my classes that the illustrator meant the pictures to be black & white as part of the artistic integrity of the story!!

Our love for Harry always led us onto No Roses For Harry. 

No Roses for Harry was published in 1958 and in some ways has dated a little more than the original. Maybe it's the Queen-like Grandma with her afternoon nap? 

However, the unwanted gift scenario always strikes a chord with young children and Harry's lucky way of solving his problem delights everyone - including Grandma!

Harry By the Sea (published in 1965) however, never quite worked for us. 

Over the years we would read all three books, but Harry By the Sea never became a class favourite. We would all chuckle at the scary sea-monster, but the resolution lacked the satisfying zing of the other two books.

After their divorce in 1968, Zion stopped writing and died in 1975. Margaret continued to illustrate books (winning two Caldecott medals during her career), remarried and as far as I can ascertain, is still living in Toronto.

It's hard to believe that Harry is now 56 years old.

Age has not wearied him; his personal dilemma's still speak to the children of today.

He regularly appears in Top 100 lists compiled by teachers, librarians and parents around the world.

Harry is not old - he is a classic!

2020 update:

Betty White reads Harry the Dirty Dog

Jane Eyre Laid Bare or The Things We Do For Friends

Just so you know that I'm not approaching this from a literary snob point of view, I read and enjoyed Pride and Prejudice and the Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith a few years ago. That is, I laughed at the absurdity of it for about half the book, then I got tired of the joke and skimmed through to the (gory) finish.

Even though P & P is one of my favourite books and I know it inside out, I wasn't offended or upset by the parody. I was able to let it be the piss-take Grahame-Smith intended it to be.

But Jane Eyre Laid Bare is another matter entirely.

Eve Sinclair has massacred Jane Eyre all for the sake of sexing it up.

I'm not a prude. I've read Fifty Shades of Grey.
The writing and plot line were ghastly - some of the most excrutiating dialogue and plot lines I've ever had the misfortune to read - but the sex!
The sex was hot (and controversial).

The sex in Jane Eyre Laid Bare tries to be hot and controverial - masturbation, young girls together in dorms, the butler and maid behind the grate, strip-jack charades in the drawing room - blah, blah, blah!

It was tedious, contrived and so forced to be something that it's not, that it was like watching a slow-motion car accident! You could see the disaster coming, but couldn't get out of the way in time.

The Grahame-Smith books worked because they weren't meant to be taken seriously. He was poking fun - we were all in on the joke.

There is nothing funny about Jane Eyre Laid Bare. It fails as a classic; it fails as erotic fiction; and it fails as a parody.

The only reason I bothered to spend a whole half hour of my lunch break reading this trash; and the only reason why I spent another half hour writing this post was because of a friend.
She asked me to review this honestly for her work. To her credit, the favour was asked before she'd had a chance to read it herself! Once she did read it she expressed very similar thoughts and withdrew the request...but by then I was all fired up.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Teenagers by Nigel Latta

You can probably guess something about the term we've just had by my latest choice of reading matter!

Teenagers! Hmmmm.

This book was recommended to us by our brother-in-law. It has been the perfect remedy.

Not so much for the advice (which was useful) or the information about teenage brains (which was enlightening), but for the humour.

Anyone with teenagers in the house will appreciate how important it is to find a reason to laugh.
Nigel Latta's approach to parenting had me laughing out loud as I recognised ourselves and chuckling with glee at some of his inventive solutions.

The case studies are also a good release valve as you realise that your kids are not as extreme as the ones in the book! The sense of fellowship is important but so is the reality check!

Nigel's approach to parenting is realistic, do-able and sensible.

If I had to summarise his approach in one sentence it would be "we need to give them (teenagers) a reason to be good...but we also need to give them a reason not to be bad."

Nigel also has a website (and several other parenting books) to help out with all the ages and stages.

Highly recommended for anyone who suddenly finds themselves living with a slothful grunter or neanderthal caveman.

The Dinner by Herman Koch

Please don't hold it against me, but I devoured this book in one weekend. I could barely put it down (except for the times when the horribleness got too much for me and I had to look away.)

For me it was the book equivalent of Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs. It was ugly, provocative and disturbing in the way it attempted to normalise truly ghastly behaviours.

At the same time it made me laugh and it kept me curious despite my best intentions to be shocked. Actually laugh is the wrong word - smug smirking would be a better description or perhaps wry humour. Somehow I felt amused and appalled at the same time.

The Dinner is told through the eyes of Paul.

Initially you feel empathy and affinity with Paul as he describes being outshone all his life by his bigger-than-life politician brother, Serge.
With his wife, Claire, Paul prepares to attend a dinner with Serge and his wife, Babette at a fancy-smancy restaurant.

So far just another happy-unhappy family scenario - sibling rivalry with a little Dutch political commentary and some amusing asides about fine dining.

But then we find out that the 15 year old sons of both couples have got themselves into some kind of trouble and the dinner is an attempt to sort it out.

Okay, 15 year old boys get themselves into trouble all the time. Maybe they cheated on an exam, took a car for a joyride, smoked some pot?

Oh no, no, no!

Here we leave normal far behind. And the farce begins.

Gradually the truth about the boys is revealed and the character flaws of all four parents are laid bare. Any sympathy or affinity for any of the players is left as collapsed as Serge's uneaten dame blanche!

At the end I was left bemused by my willingness to be entralled by this bitter little family fable.

I'm not sure I learnt anything new about human nature as the people in this book seem as far removed from human' understanding as it is possible to get.

My lifelong search to understand man's inhumanity to man was not enlightened by reading this. I already knew that intolerance, amorality and deceit existed but The Dinner gave me no real clues as to how this came about for these particular people and why it became so extreme.
(Except I was curious to know what the un-named psychological condition was that the author gave to Paul and his son. And what was really wrong with Claire during her extended stay in hospital?)

Yet despite all of this, or maybe because of all of this, I would actually recommend this book to those of you who enjoy a dark and twisted tale Tarantino style.

The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett

What a little gem of a book.

I picked it up purely on whim (as well as being enticed by the slimness of its pages!)

I wont give away any of the good bits except to say that in such a small book, Bennett manages to pack in a whole lot about the joys of reading as well as discussing the relevancy (or not) of the monachy.

A few quick quotes to tempt you...

"...reading purely for pleasure, not enlightenment, though part of the pleasure was the enlightenment."

"Books did not care who was reading them or whether one read them or not. All readers were equal, herself included."

"She'd never taken much interest in reading....It was a hobby and it was in the nature of her job that she didn't have hobbies....Hobbies involved preferences and preferences had to be avoided; preferences excluded people....Her job was to take an interest, not to be interested herself."

Full of subversive humour and gentle republicanism, Bennett is also not afraid to take a sly dig at authors themselves.

A book that trumpets the wonders of books & reading is the perfect choice for...

Thanks for your comments and thanks for the company!

Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner

Before I start telling you how and why I loved this book can I throw two words in your direction - 'introduction' and 'afterword'.

Classics, in particular, seem to abound in these two phenomena.

Do you read them before or after you've read the main text?
Do you read them at all?
Do they add or detract from the reading experience?

My lovely Modern Library 2002 edition of Crossing to Safety has both - an introduction by Terry Tempest Williams and an afterword by T.H. Watkins.

A quick glance at the Introduction told me that it contained spoilers, so I chose not to read it upfront.

I usually save the Introduction until I've finished reading. Although this depends on how much I loved the book (or not).
The more love I feel, the more likely I am to read all the extra bits.

Sometimes this backfires if the introduction or afterword is uninspiring or reveals some major character flaw on behalf of the author.

But there are times when it just makes you love the book and the author even more.

That happened for me with Crossing to Safety.

To learn in the Afterword about Stegner's harsh childhood and all he did to rise above it was truly inspiring. It added depth and meaning to the character and relationship details within the story. Reading about Stegner's "hunger for place" and his own devotion to "what was good and just" simply highlights what he was trying to achieve in Crossing to Safety.

The Introduction was a more academic treatment. These can be off-putting at times, but Williams hit the right note by focusing on the main theme of the book "what does it mean to love". He covers the types of love to be found with family and with friends, the push-me pull-me desire for security and risk, the universal and the personal and the "geography of hope".

In this case, reading about Stegner's life, beliefs, aims and hopes only added to the pleasure I found in reading his story.

Crossing to Safety is a novel to relish and savour. The language glides and meanders with sudden insights to light the way. The characters are sympathetically drawn, they are people we all know, their hopes and disappointments are ours.

This book just sneaks into my modern classic definition by being published in 1987. For such a modern book it has a wonderful old-world charm that makes you yearn for this time gone by. I wanted to read it thanks to the unanimous rave review it got on The First Tuesday Bookclub a few months ago.

I'm glad I have another Stegner on my Classics Club TBR list - one is definitely not enough!
 

Friday Brown by Vikki Wakefield

Having read (or partly read) so many ordinary teen and YA books in recent times, I have made a promise to myself.

From now on I only read stuff I like, am interested in or that moves me. If it's uninspiring, poorly written, ill-conceived or completely lacking in humour, intelligence and authenticity, then I will leave it where I found it (the TBR at work).


Writing reviews about books that leave me cold are torturous. I struggle to string my words together, I put off writing them.

Books that enrage me, upset me or disappoint me are another matter entirely - they have moved me to feel something. Books that are difficult to read with challenging characters and ideas, tough decisions and harsh conditions are good too - they push me outside my comfort zone. The force me to reconsider and reassess as I plough through the sadness and the bleakness.

Friday Brown is one of those books.

At one level it is bleak and harsh. Friday's life is full of change, chaos and grief. The street kids she befriends are desperately lost and confused. They become caught up in the crazy machinations of the enigmatic but dangerously selfish and manipulative Arden.

The first chapter of this book read like a Deep South gothic ghost story set amongst the cotton fields. I was hooked by the eerie, luscious use of language.

But then a couple of geographic terms threw me...are we in Australia? A quick google, and yes! Vikki Brown is Australian.
As I continued reading I saw that the story was, indeed, firmly rooted in the Australian landscape - both urban and rural.

Friday's story was disturbing and hard to read. My heart ached for their lack of choices, their lack of hope. I couldn't read huge chunks of it in one go. I kept laying it aside to have a break from their lives, even though I knew that street kids all around the world never had that luxury.

The thing that kept me going though was Friday. She was strong. Despite everything going against her she had hope and she was capable of making friends and feeling love. And ultimately she was able to make good choices because of this ability.

This is uncompromising YA fiction and I can't recommend it highly enough.
I, for one, will be searching out a copy of Wakefield's debut novel, from last year, All I Ever Wanted in the hope that it moves me just as much as Friday Brown.

Friday Brown is a September release by Text Publishing. 

Books for Sharing with 2-3 Year Olds

There is nothing more delightful than watching the face of a toddler light up with wonder as they discover the joys of a book for the first time.

They are often drawn in by bright, bold colours, rhyming, repetitive phrases and onomatopeia.

But the real secret for creating a lifelong love affair with books is you!

For this to work, you have to enjoy the books you read together too.

Selecting books that are well-written and appeal to your own sense of humour mean that you will be happy to re-read them as often as your toddler can say "again...more!"

Below is a list of some of my tried and true favourites. 

Many of these books will be read over and over again as the years go by. Your toddler will memorise large sections of them and expect you to use the same voice, the same sound effect every single time.

This is the very beginning of learning to read.

Jennifer Adams - Baby Lit Primer series
Janet and Allen Ahlberg - Each Peach Pear Plum
Jez Alborough - Where's My Teddy, Duck in the Truck
(A) Pamela Allen - Fancy That, Who Sank the Boat, Mr McGee books, A Lion in the Night

(A) Nick Bland - The Very Cranky Bear, The Runaway Hug
(A) Janeen Brian - I'm A Dirty Dinosaur
Sandra Boynton - Hippos Go Berserk
Margaret Wise Brown - Goodnight Moon

Eric Carle - The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Lucy Cousins - Hooray for Fish, Maisy, I'm the Best

(A) Lynley Dodd - Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy
Julia Donaldson - Monkey Puzzle, One Ted Falls Out of Bed

(A) Hazel Edwards - There's A Hippopotamus on the Roof Eating Cake

(A) Mem Fox - Where is the Green Sheep, Hattie and the Fox, Time For Bed

(A) Bob Graham - Has Anyone Here Seen William? Queenie the Bantam
Emily Gravett - Monkey and Me, Orange Pear Apple Bear

Oliver Jeffers - Stuck, Lost and Found, How To Catch A Star, Up and Down, The Way Back Home

Ruth Kraus - A Hole is To Dig

Judy Hindley - The Big Red Bus

Julie Merberg - The Art Masters board books

(A) Jan Ormerod - Sunshine, Moonlight, The Swap

Sherri Duskey Rinker - Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site
Michael Rosen - We're Going on a Bear Hunt

Maurice Sendak - Where the Wild Things Are
Dr Seuss - One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, Green Eggs and Ham, Are You My Mother, The Cat in the Hat

Traditional - The Little Red Hen, Henny Penny, The Gingerbread Man, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly

Martin Waddell - Owl Babies


Toddlers are also intrigued by novelty books.

There are many flap books and books with noise buttons for their amusement.

Rod Campbell - Dear Zoo

Edward Gibbs - I Spy books

Eric Hill - Where's Spot?

DK Noisy Peekaboo series

Jeannette Rowe's Whose Nose? Tail? Feet? series

Herve Tullet - Press Here

The Best and Worst of Ian McEwan

My first Ian McEwan novel was 'Enduring Love'.

I picked it up in the summer sales 1999 and started reading it whilst lying on Coogee Beach. It was love at first word!

The first few chapters of 'Enduring Love' just blew me away. The ballooning accident was the most engrossing, absorbing thing I had read for quite some time. I was so caught up in the drama of it, that I completely lost all sense of time and place.

When I finally caught my breath and looked up, I was totally discombobulated. I had forgotten that I was lying on a beach towel in the middle of January...I looked up expecting to see English countryside and a huddle of people in despair about a hot air balloon!

What followed was a psychological thriller that didn't quite live up to the expectations built by the initial chapters. It was disturbing, uncomfortable but (dare I say) a little long-winded.

A few years later, 'Atonement' appeared in the shops. Again I was on holidays, spotted a book sale, remembered the impact of the first chapters of 'Enduring Love' and impulse bought 'Atonement'.

This was more my thing. Historical fiction, family drama, perspective, memory, truth and lies. All the stuff that makes compelling reading for me. I loved 'Atonement' from start to finish.

The finish! OMG! The finish! What an ending.

A decade later I still remember the shock and the thrill of the deceit McEwan used to create the OMG moment. I loved it. McEwan was now my new favourite (living) author.

I had all sorts of good intentions to read his backlist, but I never did.

Then 'Saturday' came out. I read it with high expectations. The scene with the home invaders and the daughter was terrifying and gut-wrenching, but ultimately I was disappointed. And my memory can recall nothing else from the book.

'On Chesil Beach' failed to capture my imagination at all, except for the beach itself. I bought the book to read on the plane from Sydney to London. Beforehand I had researched where Chesil Beach was and realised, that with a small detour, it could be en route from London to Lyme Regis.

Chesil Beach is amazing (check out my earlier post). The pebbles, the inlet formed by the tides, the wind!
But the book left me colder than the southerly blowing across Chesil Beach they day we visited!

A friend has since suggested that it's a book I might appreciate more as I get older, so I wont give up on it entirely. But for now, it is my "worst" Ian McEwan. I have no recollection of anything about the book, other than the lovely cover. I left it behind in a B & B somewhere near Hadrian's Wall!

Then there was 'Solar'.
What can I say about 'Solar' that hasn't already been said?

Because of 'Atonement', I kept trying the new McEwan's.
But I didn't like 'Solar' at all. I read it from start to finish, thinking that somehow the character, Michael Beard, would redeem himself, find god, come a cropper or get what he deserved....or something!!

However, like real life, the obnoxious, selfish person never learnt from his mistakes. 

Beard blamed others, lied and cheated to get what he wanted at all costs as he bounced from one disaster to the next, unable to see his own role in the drama that was his life. After putting up with Beard's awful ways for the entire book McEwan then denied us the showdown!

Just as Beard was about the get his comeuppance, the book ended.

I was furious, but also secretly delighted to be so engaged/enraged by a book. I suspect that may have been McEwan's intentions all along.

Finally we come to 'Sweet Tooth'.

Even after all the disappointments, I still found myself excited by the sight of a new McEwan.

'Sweet Tooth' is not McEwan at his best...but it's not his worst either.

'Sweet Tooth's back cover prepares us for a spy story. Espionage, Cold War conspiracy and a hint of romance! But sadly none of these themes really take flight.

I didn't really care about the ethically dilemma that Serena found herself involved in. I didn't care whether the romance between Serena and Tom worked out or not. I didn't care that Tom was being 'used' by MI5 and that - surprise, surprise - book awards could be rigged, influenced and compromised by outside forces!

I'm not sure what the point of 'Sweet Tooth' was. McEwan's writing style is engaging enough, but as the years go by it seems that his characters are becoming less likeable and his plots less interesting. Over-rated is the word running through my mind right now.

The intensity and soul-searching of 'Enduring Love' & 'Atonement' is missing.
And I for one, miss it.

My 2016 review for Amsterdam is here.