I Read It In A Book

I haven't written anything about any books lately, and I'm sure you all are just sitting on the edges of your seats waiting for me to tell about my reading plan for 2011, so here it is.

I've mentioned before my penchant for reading award winning books, so this year I decided to knock a few more off the lists and read a Pulitzer and Newbery winner each month.

This might get a little tricky because I am down to the really thick ones on the Pulitzer list, but I think I'm up for the challenge.

Speaking of thick novels, my Pulitzer winner for January was The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk.

I put off reading this one for a long time because the story never appealed to me.

It is about Captain Queeg and his crew on an dilapidated mine sweeper during WWII. The captain is rather neurotic, full of unreasonable demands, and constantly making questionable decisions. One day in the midst of a typhoon, one of the officers named Maryk decides to relieve Queeg of his command claiming he (Captain Queeg) is paranoid/insane and not fit to captain the ship any longer.

Of course a court-martial ensues which leads to a rather interesting ending.

Along with the action on the sea is the story of one of the officers on the ship named Willie Keith, a privileged Princeton grad from New York City, and his complicated love affair with a nightclub singer named May Wynn.

I definitely recommend this one. I didn't think I would like it, but I did. And even though it is around 550 pages, it moves along quickly.

The Newbery winner I read is by Rachel Field and is titled Hitty: Her First Hundred Years. This one I didn't like so much.

It is the story of a little wooden doll, carved out of a piece of mountain ash wood around 1829. At the beginning of the story she is sitting in an antique store 100 years later waiting to be sold. While waiting, she decides to write her memoirs. The book is what she writes, and goodness knows she had an eventful life.

It just seemed like this one went on and on. She would get lost and then found. Loved and then discarded. Over and over and over again.

I think the purpose of the book is to teach young people a bit of a history lesson, since Hitty travels to many places and "meets" many people over the course of 100 years. I would just rather not learn history from a doll's perspective.

Even though I didn't really like it, if you do decide to read this one, make sure you get the original as it was rewritten a few years ago to be made more politically correct.

So, there you have it. One good one and one bad for January. What will February hold?