Library Living, the Gift That Keeps Giving . . .

. . . even though I don't like libraries (too smelly).  But I love what they represent.  That is, books.  And in this world, there are few things more comforting than books about books and the people who love them.  Because I'm one of those people too.  So, The Bookish Life of Nina Hill was on my short list of must reads.  If the title sounds a little like The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, then 1) congrats, you've been listening! and 2) that's because it's in that league.  Like A.J., Nina is all about stories.  And knowledge.  And sharing those stories and that knowledge with fellow bookworms who appreciate them.

Here are some things about Nina:

She's twenty-nine, lives in Los Angeles, and works in an independent bookstore.  She's the captain of a pub trivia team called Book 'Em, Danno.  She has an absentee, award-winning photojournalist mother and a father she's never met.  She's witty and arch, sometimes silent, sometimes outspoken.  Order is very important to her, and she enjoys spending time alone.  Also, she's anxious.  And like many anxious people, she's ruled by a mix of imagination and restraint.  I liked her immediately.      

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill is somehow both light and heavy, like ambrosia or non-diet canned pears.  Like its heroine, this novel is organized and moves nimbly from point A to point B.  Yet despite its sound structure, it falls firmly into the camp of books that are about thoughts as opposed to actions.  If it were a movie (and I hope that someday it will be!), then it'd be an indie film instead of a big budget blockbuster.  To me, that's the fiction hall of fame sweet spot.  Quirky and cute and just a little bit sad and played out in the life of the mind.  But instead of nattering on and giving away the ending, I'll share three of the quotes that made me fold the pages.  By the way, I used to think that page folding was blasphemy.  But I've since accepted it as one of the best parts of being a bibliophile.  Not to mention a good reason to say neigh to the Kindle.

A quote that's Nina in a nutshell:

"Nina worried she liked being alone too much; it was the only time she ever fully relaxed.  People were . . . exhausting.  They made her anxious.  Leaving her apartment every morning was the turning over of a giant hourglass, the mental energy she'd stored up overnight eroding grain by grain.  She refueled during the day by grabbing moments of solitude and sometimes felt her life was a long-distance swim between islands of silence.  She enjoyed people -- she really did -- she just needed to take them in homeopathic doses; a little of the poison was the cure." (17).

A quote that's lyrical and mentions makeup:

"As the light dwindled, palm trees and distant buildings would become black silhouettes against an impossibly rosy backdrop.  Sunsets are beautiful in California, the cornflower blue of the sky diluting as the light fades into a teenage girl's pastel palette of nail colors." (96) 

A quote that's a little bit serious and a little bit funny:

"It (The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran) contained Nina's favorite saying: You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.  She wanted to wear it on a T-shirt, embroider it on a pillow, or maybe tattoo it on her wrist.  But the trouble with wordy tattoos was that people start reading them, then you have to stand still while they finish, and then they look up at you and frown and you have to explain yourself . . . Way too much human interaction, plus also the needles, the pain, the fear of the needles and pain.  So, no tattoo, but an embroidery wasn't out of the question." (183)

In the way of novels, things happen to Nina.  These things, of course, involve other people, presenting her with the challenge of expanding her comfort zone while remaining true to herself.  So yeah, she's like A.J. and Sara and Susan and Eleanor and countless other outsider characters.  Which is to say, human.  And, despite her issues, perhaps not so odd after all.

So, here's to word nerds everywhere and living one's best life by -- and not by -- the book.

Sounds like an epic tattoo -- er, embroidery -- to me.

Oliphant in the Room . . .

. . . is a pun I can't take credit for (or, for you grammar sticklers, a pun for which I can't take credit).  That's because Eleanor Oliphant said it.  Eleanor is like Susan Green on steroids.  She's particular.  She's an introvert.  She's extremely blunt and judgmental.  She's from the U.K. (albeit Scotland instead of England.)  And she tells us all about it in Gail Honeyman's award-winning Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine.  (Full disclosure: this too is a Reese's Book Club pick, and I heard about it on The Cactus's cover.)  But this is the thing (although, if you have a sense of irony, you've probably already figured it out).  Eleanor is not completely fine.  Not even close.  Because beneath her sometimes endearing, sometimes cringeworthy armor of social awkwardness is a world of pain and a deep, dark secret.  She's afraid to rock the boat of her life because the boat she used to be on was burning.  And it isn't until she meets Raymond, the also awkward but confident IT guy at work, that she begins to get better.

Now, I'm not going to say a whole lot about the plot of this book.  Because that would spoil it.  But I will say that Eleanor and Raymond forge a slow, strange friendship.  It defies convention and depends, in part, upon Raymond's patience and good humor.  But it's something that Eleanor desperately needs, even if she can't admit it.  For her, the loner life has become a fortress against growth.  It's a safe space that's starting to suffocate her, even as she clings to it.     

"Some people, weak people, fear solitude.  What they fail to understand is that there's something very liberating about it; once you realize that you don't need anyone, you can take care of yourself.  You can't protect other people, however hard you try."  (134)

Eleanor knows that she can't play the game, and that this is part of why she's alone.  Yet in letting Raymond into her life, she's forced to interact with other people.  And this makes her realize that she needs to bend, however slightly.

"I wasn't good at pretending, that was the thing.  . . . I could see no point in being anything other than truthful with the world.  I had, literally, nothing left to lose.  But, by careful observation from the sidelines, I'd worked out that social success is often built on pretending just a little." (198)

So, Eleanor opens herself up to new experiences.  And she stumbles and learns.  Yet she still holds fast to what makes her, well, her.  Which is a sign of strength and bravery, especially after all she's been through.

"Although it's good to try new things and to keep an open mind, it's also extremely important to stay true to who you really are.  I read that in a magazine at the hairdressers."  (174)

Masterful and moving, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is about finding your best self without losing yourself.  I'm not going to lie; it's sometimes hard to read.  But it's also funny and sad and satisfying and all the best things that you (okay, I) want from a novel.

Moving on.

Here are some vintage brooches that I embellished.  The first one is hard to make out - just like our heroine -- but it's an elephant.  And the second one is, of course, a sailboat.  I think that they go well with this post, being old and tired and then shiny and new but still old in a good way.  Even if Eleanor is no champion of crafters, describing one of her colleagues as making hideous jewelry for hideous people.  Or something.

But I won't hold that against her.  I know it's not her fault.  And that she prefers doing crosswords.  

Calling All Cacti: Late Bloom Baby Boom, Drink it In

Cactus cardigan: Collectif X, Modcloth
Cacti blouse: Amazon
Floral surplice top: Flying Tomato, Marshalls

 Arid Elegance Necklaces

Fabulous Felt Yellow Cactus Barrette, Fabulous Felt Pink Cactus Barrette 

Susan Green is a cool customer. She wears only black and gray, she likes rules, she collects cacti, and she never lets anything get in her way -- or, to use Mindy Kaling's parlance, she's a very busy woman who never has time for fun.  So, she's a classic rom com heroine.  And Sarah Haywood's The Cactus, which is a selection of Reese Witherspoon's book club, is the story of how this chick gets, well, lit.  Metaphorically.  Although there is a fair bit of wine drinking.

Forty-five-year-old Susan informs us, in her no-frills, straightforward way, that her mother has just passed away and that she's facing an unplanned pregnancy.  The father is a like-minded, no-nonsense professional with whom she had an "arrangement."   So, a boyfriend without the hassle -- or romance. She also has a ne'er do well younger brother who seems intent on ruining her life by swindling her out of her inheritance.  But he also happens to have this friend . . .

Ah yes, the friend.  The male friend who's appealing and funny and kind despite being a borderline ne'er do well too.  In this instance, he's Rob, the professional gardener, and his oat sowing days are behind him.  Now he's ready to put down roots, becoming a constant if held-at-arms-length fixture in Susan's life.  I know what you're thinking: we've seen this before!  Susan's the prickly, tough-skinned succulent, and Rob is the loosey-goosey horticulturist with the patience to penetrate her guarded layers.  Which makes this book sound like a bodice ripper and/or a Hallmark mush fest, but it's neither.  For one thing, there is zero sex, not even a kiss.  And the tiny bit of emotion that eventually does eke out is hard-won and all the sweeter for it.  

The thing about Susan is, she's the opposite of America's sweetheart (and not just because she's British) and of what the world expects women to be.  Instead of being warm and selfless, she's self-contained and standoffish, like one of those HBO antiheroes that it's hard to like.  That said, her inner sanctum can be an uncomfortable place.  She's so rigid that she sometimes seems inhuman, and her lack of self awareness can be as annoying as it is gently funny.  Here are a couple of glimpses into her head:

"It could simply be, however, that I was aware from an early age that a close relationship with a boy or man -- or indeed anyone -- would undermine my freedom, dilute my individualism, take up precious time and cause the unnecessary expenditure of emotional energy.  Looked at logically like that, it's astonishing that any rational person would want to engage in intimate relationships." (195-196)

"As you're aware, I've always been the author of my own destiny.  We can choose how to define ourselves, and I define myself as an autonomous and resourceful woman.  What I lack in terms of family and other close personal relationships is more than compensated for by my rich inner life, which is infinitely more constant and dependable." (205)

From Susan's point of view, she's protecting herself.  Why throw caution to the wind in an unstable world when you can craft your own custom, temperature-controlled solarium full of indestructible, botanical wonders?  Yet despite all this, or maybe because of it, I can't help but like her.  Especially when she shares some story from her past that's so sad you want to be that one kid she can turn to when she's alone on the playground.  And that's what keeps the reader -- and, I imagine Rob -- interested.  Speaking of which, this is what he has to say:

"He picked up each of the containers in turn, remarking that several of the plants were pot-bound and would soon cease to thrive if they weren't repotted.  And light, too, he said -- they would benefit from being in a position with more direct sunlight, at least six hours a day.  I must say, although I may have been impressed by his expertise in plant cultivation, I was more than a little disgruntled.  I've managed to nurture some very impressive specimens without anyone else's interference.  Admittedly, none of them has ever bloomed, but that's a detail." (217)

Rob is saying that Susan's doing a mostly fine job with her cacti -- but that they'd be better off with some changes.  Predictably, Susan bristles, going as far as to say so what if her plants have never bloomed?  But she knows, deep down, that Rob's right.  Because although green (and indeed Green) can symbolize a tough as nails cactus, it can also mean inexperience and vulnerability.  As accomplished as Susan is in the rest of her life, she's awkward when it comes to people.  Which is mostly fine; we don't all have to be social butterflies!  Still, in (tentatively) accepting Rob's friendship and, yes, in having a baby, she discovers that sometimes -- even for a cactus -- companionship can be nice.

The Cactus is a lovely story, a kind of middle-aged coming-of-age.  Also, it's refreshing to read about a suitor who's not, even once, the proverbial prick.

Cactus humor, you never let me d(r)own.