Kindred by Octavia Butler

The ease. Us, the children … I never realized how easily people could be trained to accept slavery.

Dana had just moved to a new apartment with her husband, Kevin, and was helping him set up his bookshelf, when she started feeling very dizzy. The sensation was immediate and unexpected, and when she opened her eyes, she found herself in a strange place. The apartment and the books had vanished; Kevin was also nowhere near her. Instead she found herself at a riverside, staring at someone struggling in the river. Keeping her worries and questions aside, she jumped into the river and carried the nearly drowning boy to the shore. A woman came to her, wailing that her son was dead. Dana simply kept her cool, yelled at the woman to be quiet, gave the boy CPR and announced to the mother that the boy will live. The woman's husband arrived on the scene with a gun pointed at Dana's face. Terrified for her life, Dana felt the same dizziness overwhelm her and within seconds, she had arrived back at her apartment floor, muddy and not at all calm.

It took Dana one more such incident to realize that not only was she space-traveling, but she was also time-traveling - to the slavery-ridden South of the 1800s in Baltimore.

I know Kindred is a very popular book in the book blogging community. I must have seen it double-digit times, ever since I started blogging but historical fiction isn't something I enjoy reading by default. It takes a lot more for me to start reading a book shelved in that section. Still, when I saw Kindred on sale in Amazon, and having just bought my new Kindle, I bought it. I did plan to read it eventually. On the plane ride to Miami, I picked up Kindred to kick off the vacation.

I loved this book from the first page. It was very readable, very engrossing and the plot is very interesting. Dana is a black woman used to the luxuries and the liberties of the 1970s. Her husband Kevin is white. The south of the 1800s is however, not a safe place for Dana. A black woman walking about is in plenty of danger, so Dana has to keep her wits around her as she navigated the treacherous terrain of the south. Initially, it is a mystery how she can ever get back but later she discovers the displeasing trigger.

All her time travels seem to be when a particular white boy and later man, Rufus, is in life-threatening danger. Rufus happens to be one of her ancestors and Dana understands the importance of keeping him alive. But there are several unexplained mysteries, such as why the time travel is even happening, how is she able to travel in time and space, how does it affect her aging seeing as she could have spend days and months in the past and not more than a few hours have passed in the present.

There is so much to like in Kindred and not enough space in this blog to talk about. Butler's writing is very engaging. It's descriptive, thoughtful and lyrical. I liked how Butler kept the plot focused on the story itself and not on the mechanics of the time travel. I love reading time travel for its hows and whys and whens, but for Kindred, it made perfect sense not to delve into all that. The ending also doesn't tie up all the loose ends - we are just like Dana, we see what she sees, we hear what she hears. But at the end, we are just as stymied as she is - why did all this happen? What happened to some of the people she bonded with. In the end, Kindred isn't about what happened to whom. It is about slavery itself and how it was never good for anyone. How it left you a changed person, and we do find out in the end that slavery did leave a very physical mark on Dana.

Kindred also gives a great insight into life as a slave, and what better way to see it than through the eyes of someone coming from the future. Even though she knew enough about how her ancestors lived, experiencing it first hand calls for more than just knowledge - when she gets beaten, she needed to stop herself from fighting. When Rufus' mother takes great pleasure in verbally abusing her, she had to rein back in all the vehement retorts piling at the tip of her tongue.

I wish I had read Kindred in time for Aarti's A More Diverse Universe, but better late than never. If you haven't given this book a chance yet, you absolutely should. I know I wanted to gush more about this book and share a lot more thoughts that I bookmarked in my head but right now, I can only think that this book was super amazing and I wish I was just going to read it again for the first time. Dana's time travel would have really come in handy now.

I borrowed this book from the good old library.

The Sunday Salon: The waiting-for-holidays edition

Good morning, Sunday Saloners! I've been back from the holidays/vacation to Miami/Key West for a few days now, but I'm still in a holiday mood. At this rate, the Christmas holidays cannot come soon enough. Even though we did a lot of things and were mostly outside during the holidays, I felt very refreshed by the time I got back home, which is strange for me because I'm usually in for quiet vacations.

I did visit Ernest Hemmingway's house in Key West while we were there, and boy, you would be amazed by the number of cats in the house. Snuggling in every corner, a few coming up to be petted, but most keeping to themselves and not really enjoying the tourist's intrusions. There was one that wanted to be petted but threw a hell of a peacock's arrogant attitude while getting a massage. There was another one snuggling inside a shelf in a bookstore. Adorable, really. Though, being a dog person, part of me wondered what a ruckus there wound have been if they were dogs not cats. But then, the dogs wouldn't stay in a house, would they?

Courtesy my husband's brother, we also got to lunch on a cruise ship. This was my first time on one, and I haven't been able to get the idea of a cruise ship out of my head. They even have a library on board - who would have ever thought that? Interestingly, they had a roller coaster as well on the top deck. I cannot imagine what it would be like roller coasting in the middle of an ocean. Seasickness plus dizziness would be a crazy mix.

I haven't been reading much lately. I read a chunk during the last three months for a challenge, and had to put aside tons of other things like knitting, interior decorating, reading the New Yorker, etc. I have a feeling I will be doing very little of reading this month. Which is fine by me. I have a ton of books to review and I cannot wait to post them. I've been knitting all day yesterday and plan to do more today. I started making a cowl for my dog but it turned out to be too tiny for her neck in the end. I swear her neck just thickened after I measured it. Oh well. The husband and I are also planning to do some work around the house this month though we haven't really thought much about it.

When I am reading, I am hoping to close the year with a few of the 2013 releases that I missed. So far, the books that I really want to read are The Interestings, Hard Luck, The Goldfinch, The Circle, The Encyclopedia of Early Earth, The Golem and the Jinni, Boxers and Saints, Wedding Night, Life After Life, and The Preservationist. I know I am missing many other titles in there - and I'm hoping you would have a few suggestions for me to add to the list.

Off for a week!

Happy Thanksgiving and Hanukkah to all who celebrate it!

I will be away from the blog until next Wednesday as we are heading down to Miami and Key West this weekend. It will be interesting to step into the plane from 30 F weather and step out into 70 F weather. Not that I am looking forward to it. I love winter any day!

Still, it's a vacation, a break from work for 6 days, a chance to relax, enjoy Cuban cuisine, and read some books. These are what I've packed into my bag/kindle and cannot wait to dig into!

As usual, I am taking more books than I usually finish even in a month but who's to say I shouldn't be optimistic? Or overly optimistic. I may well read Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, simply because I've heard way too much about it and it's due back at the library soon. Which one would you choose to read?

What's Reading this Week! (Nov 25, 2013)

This week and reading, not so much. I've been watching some TV but mostly spending lots of meaningless hours on my iPad. I only just discovered the iTunes University and decided to sign up for courses I've always wanted to take (Literature-related) but never could fit into my major (Computer Engineering). One of the courses I started was Fiction for Young Adults and another one which I'm hoping to get started on is Creative Writing.

The other thing I've been doing on my iPad is playing Clumsy Ninja. Seriously, this is one of the best graphics I've seen in games, because you can tickle this ninja of yours, lift him by the leg, give him high five, throw him through a basketball hoop. Man, I got a nice laugh out of it all.

On the book front, I finished only one book since the last update - Tina's Mouth, which I reviewed this week. I'm still listening to Life of Pi in the car (please, don't ever listen to this one as an audiobook - some descriptions have made me want to pull over and puke). Other than that, I started Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl this weekend. Fangirl may well be my favorite Rowell book and it's made me want to start writing fiction of my own.

Next in the list
I went and borrowed the last two books of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. I somehow missed news of their release but I'm now looking forward to a rollicking time with them.

Posted
My thoughts on the Oyster app (the Netflix for books)
Tina's Mouth: An Existential Comic Diary by Keshni Kashyap (Lovely graphics)
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (Such a clever book!)
Some of my knitting projects or what I've been doing when I'm not reading
Allegiant by Veronica Roth (Meh!)


Review Backlog
1. The Walking Dead Compendium 1 by Robert Kirkman
2. The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
3. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
4. Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness
5. Quarantine by Rahul Mehta
6. MetaMaus by Art Speigelman
7. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
8. Maus by Art Speigelman
9. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
10. Can you Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella
11. Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick
12. In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson
13. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

The Sunday Salon: An Oyster review (What it's like to have a Netflix for books!)

Good morning, Sunday Saloners! It's crazy cold out here this am and it feels awesome to be in my PJs, curled up over a book or browsing the web. We don't have any major plans for the day but we are planning to visit Miami and Key West over the Thanksgiving holidays. I am so looking forward to the break - I feel like it's been forever since I went on vacation anywhere. The husband's brother stays in Miami so it will be wonderful to have some extended family time. I still haven't figured out what books I'm going to take. If the husband's hints are any indication, then it doesn't sound like I'm going to get any reading time while there. So the flights are going to be the only times I'll get to read something. Still, I may pack any number of books into my Kindle - always good to be prepared! The weather in Miami/Key West is expected to be in the 70s, so different from the sub-40s temperature here. I guess I should wait until later to pack up the summer wardrobe.

One thing I would have liked to have on my vacation is the Oyster app. Usually when I travel, I pack quite a few books in my travel bag and then when I plan to start reading something, I find that none of those books are quite calling me - maybe the airport setting calls for a different kind of book than what I have or I'm looking to laugh but all I have are tearjerkers or somber reads. With a Netflix for books, it's almost like carrying a whole library with you and being able to choose any book from there. Of course, carrying an ereader gives the same feeling, except you need to have a big enough ebook library already, which I don't have. Still being a very paper reader, ebooks haven't quite managed to steal me over.

When Oyster started showing up in the news, a few months ago, I began to get very excited about it. I didn't however give it a try until last month. I figured I could join the trial membership, see what books they had, if any caught my fancy, spend a month reading off of Oyster, and then deciding if the membership was worth keeping or not. During my browsing over the next few weeks, I found a few things I liked about it and a few that I didn't. After a month of browsing around, I figured I'll share my thoughts on the app with you.

Oyster Home Screen

The most important thing - Content
The very first thing I did as soon as I was done with the membership process was to check out the titles they had on their home page. First glance - I was a little disappointed that they didn't seem to have too many popular books. Scratch that. I was disappointed they didn't have too many books calling my name at that instant. Sure they had a ton of titles, but they weren't exactly something I may read, unless they were sitting on my coffee table. They didn't have many (any?) recent titles. And that was expected - Netflix worked pretty much the same way. I spent some more time looking through their collection and had to come around saying that they did have a lot of popular titles (Water for Elephants, a few of Ken Follett's books, The Hobbit and LOTR, Mudbound, A Reliable Wife, Michael Chabon's few works, Life of Pi, Fast Food Nation and several others). I could see that with time, Oyster will have a rich collection - already when I checked a couple of weeks later, I found that they had added a lot of good books to the list (I saw The Secret Daughter among them).

Oyster Home Screen

Eye Candy - The Looks
Oyster is a very beautiful app. I'm thrilled to bits that they decided UI was as important as the books itself. I have very little patience for clunky and ugly but useful things. Their home page is split into sections much like Netflix's homepage. Some of their sections include a Popular section, Recently Added, This Week is History (History buffs will love this!), Award Winners, Cliffhangers, Similar to <a book you recently read> and several genre books. One of my favorite sections is the Spotlight section, where they have some custom collections or themed books. One collection is called Writers in Writing, where you would see books like Virginia Woolf's A Writer's Diary and David Foster Wallace's The Last Interview. Another wonderful collection I saw was called Trivia Bootcamp with books like The Professor and the Madman, Now I Know and The Intellectual Devotional.

Navigating and Browsing
I did find the app a little clunky to navigate, to start with. But they had changed a few things within a couple of weeks, so I can only imagine that they are improving their app daily. I found that I didn't use their Search feature all that much. With apps like Netflix and Oyster, I like to be surprised. Sometimes, I know what I'm looking for, and more often than not, what I want isn't in their libraries. So, most of the time, I just browse around looking at what they had. Serendipity is a wonderful goddess!

Browsing through Oyster's collection by genre

You can browse their collection by genre. Here's where another favorite feature of mine is: They have a Recommended for You section, which I believe starts off with a default list but adjusts itself based on your ratings. When I navigated to the Literary Fiction genre, which is what I mostly read, I found titles like Blindness and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (both on my wislist), The Color Purple and The Things They Carried (both I loved). Really, most of the books I wanted to read are right here. I could spend all day trying to choose one to read out of countless options.

The Other Important Thing - Reading
After a little digging around, I chose The Reluctant Fundamentalist for my first read. There is a reason I chose that one, other than for the obvious fact that I wanted to read it. The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a quick short read. I wanted to start with a small read because I wanted to be sure that I will finish it, no matter what. Also, if I didn't like the experience of reading on the app, I didn't have to stay with it for too long.

Choosing a read

Now here's where I had two troubles. For starters I didn't like the swipe action required to turn pages. In pretty much all reading apps, swiping left to right or right to left turns pages. In Oyster, you had to swipe top to bottom and vice versa. This may seem like a small thing, but it is one of those small thought-out things that take your reading experience one step further. Believe me - I develop UI as my day job and there are times I hear about the smallest things from people that break their enjoyment of something. Really, Oyster should remove their top/bottom swiping and stay with the convention. This is one area where being the same as the rest of the world makes total sense.

The other trouble I had was much more major and a deal-breaker. The ending of every chapter was missing! I would reach the last line on a page and swipe over to find that I am staring at a new chapter. Then I would go back, thinking that maybe I had double-swiped but nope, I'm back to the previous page with the unfinished sentence. I found a roundabout way to access the missing pages though. I had to shut down the app a few times, restart it and now, viola, the missing pages reappeared. I thought this may be the book's fault. So I tried another book to see the same thing happen there. Imagine if you had 20 chapters - you would be doing that 20 times. 40 chapters? 40 times!

That more than anything is the reason I figured Oyster wasn't ready for me.

The Mother of all Dealbreakers- Cost
At almost $10 a month, Oyster isn't cheap. For the voracious reader, Oyster is a great idea. They would be able to get through a ton of books for just 10 bucks a month. But for someone like me, who reads 8 books on the rare good month but mostly averages between 4 and 6, Oyster is expensive. And besides, my book sources wouldn't be limited to one app. There are the new book releases which I usually get from the library or my hard-earned money, the galleys, either print or ebook, and some books I chose to read for any reason but which aren't there in Oyster yet. I only read one book this month on Oyster. I am pretty sure that I will be more willing to try it if there was an Android app - I find the need for a quick fix when I am at work, during breaks. Right now, Oyster supports only iPads and iPhones.

Almost $10 a month

I wondered if tiered plans would be a good thing for Oyster, keeping readers like me in mind. But the whole selling point of Netflix and Oyster is to be able to read any number of books at a time. Limiting that count wouldn't work well for that business model. Bringing the cost down by a couple of bucks could make a lot more difference, so I'll be looking forward to seeing if they do get cheaper. The other thing I would be curious to see is if I would have access to their collections, to see what titles they have, without a membership. Based on that, I may be willing to take membership on a month-to-month basis.

Have you given Oyster a try yet? If you have an iPhone or iPad, you probably should. They give a free trial month that you can use to browse and sample around. If you have tried it, I would be curious to know what you think of it.