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Thursday, March 22, 2012
Tournament of Books!
Update on the Tournament of Books... I saw my dad creating one of these... bracket things (?) for what I believe was recent basketball activity. I have only read two of the books in the tournament, but there are quite a few others I'm interested in (The Art of Fielding, The Sense of An Ending, and Swamplandia). The two books I have read happened to be against each other - The Marriage Plot vs. Green Girl - surely quite randomly as they have little to do with each other in basically any way. I thought Edith Zimmerman's judging was hilarious and the "Match Commentary" rather astute. Obviously The Marriage Plot comes out on top, but I do think it's a very odd pairing. Maybe that's how these bracket things (???) work for all I know.
Then I noticed Zimmerman interviewed Zambreno on The Hairpin. It was only partially awkward because Zimmerman like, straight-up said she didn't like the book, but then they managed to have a nice conversation.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
Friday, March 16, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Orange Prize Longlist
The Orange Prize Longlist has been announced and there are some great looking books on it. I find it to be a consistant indicator of excellent women writers.I've only read one book from the list - The Forgotten Waltz, by the inimitable Anne Enright. I've been hearing good things about The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and I've been meaning to read some Emma Donoghue. Looks like this list might be a good resource if you're looking for something to read!
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Monday, March 12, 2012
"Unspeakably irritating"
Apparently Jonathan Franzen critized Twitter by saying it was the "the ultimate irresponsible medium."
The full quote is:
#JonathanFranzenhates the moon.Its light is unspeakably dishonest + no more than a reflection
#jonathanfranzenhates Wordprocessors. *Real* writers etch their words onto the parchment through quills filled with their own blood & saliva
#jonathanfranzenhates Emoticons, because it takes 600 pages to accurately convey emotion.
The full quote is:
“It’s a free country. People can do whatever they want within the law, and even some things not within the law…I personally was on Facebook for two weeks as part of a piece of journalism I was writing — it seemed sort of dumb to me. Twitter is unspeakably irritating. Twitter stands for everything I oppose…it’s hard to cite facts or create an argument in 140 characters…it’s like if Kafka had decided to make a video semaphoring The Metamorphosis. Or it’s like writing a novel without the letter ‘P’…It’s the ultimate irresponsible medium.
In response, some folks on Twitter have been posting to #jonathanfranzenhates, mostly proving his point but there are some funny lines, like:
Monday, March 05, 2012
No Kids
I remember when Corinne Maier's book, No Kid: Quarante Raisons de ne pas Avoir d'Enfant, was published in France a few years ago, there was something of an outcry in the states, even though it was in French and wasn't even available here. I also remember thinking: I wish my French was a LOT better.
As someone who does not intend to have children, I found (the English translation of) No Kids: 40 Good Reasons not to have Children absolutely delightful. Maier is an instigator, and a lot of the time she's just digging for a fight, but, it's true that this world is made for rewarding people with kids, while families without kids are viewed as bizarre anomalies, something to be either pitied or looked at askance. If you don't believe me, I would be happy to regale you with hilarious stories of moronic things people have said to me over the years, viv as vis my childlessness. (I prefer childfree, and was mildly disappointed to see the same term in Maier's book - I thought I had invented the term! But, see, that's just how rare we, the childfree, are.)
Each short chapter expands on her good reasons not to have kids, like "You keep your friends" and "Kids are the death knell of the couple" and "Don't revert to childhood" and "Motherhood is a trap for Women." What's kind of interesting is that Maier actually HAS kids, so she offers a unique perspective on the topic - that rare person that's actually willing to admit that having kids is not as much fun as it's cracked up to be, and that she often actually regrets having kids (I've NEVER heard an American say that!) Shocking as it may be to hear someone disparage their own children in print, I think it's worth keeping a level head and remembering that while her thesis is meaningful, some of her methods are clearly satirical.
I love cultural tidbits, so one of my favorite parts was about the term "Merdeuf", a mash up of mère de famille, which means mother of the family. Of course, merdeuf sounds like "shit" and "egg" (merde and oeuf), so its slangily loose translation is "egg shitter"... a bit more bite than Soccer Mom, n'est-ce pas?
It's not entirely clear who Maier is writing this book for. Partly it seems to stick it to parents ("Having a child is the best possible way to avoid asking what the meaning of life is, as everything revolves around that child, who is a marvelous substitute for the existential quest.") Partly it's for people like me ("The famous glass ceiling stops women from getting the top jobs, and those jobs do have one great advantage: the higher you rise, the fewer idiots there are above you. It is not astonishing that biographies of successful women never fail to note the number of children they've had: those are the obstacles they've had to overcome in order to make something interesting out of their lives.") But, for the most part, I think she's really an anti-capitalist. What she returns to again and again is how children are a strain on resources, and are seemingly preconditioned to desire things. She writes about how much pressure there is on parents to buy endless cycles of plastic shit for their kids. Like me, she fears a world with increasing population, fewer and fewer natural resources, a fairly horrifying unemployment rate, and an increasingly grim outlook for the next generation.
I wouldn't really recommend this book to any one who already has kids, in my experience most people find it necessary to defend their choice to have children when others merely state their choice not to. They'd spend the whole book saying, "That's not true, I had fun just the other day!" If you don't intend to have kids, or are thinking about the subject, like me, you might be gratified to see some of your feelings expressed in print for once, and at the very least have a really good laugh.
As someone who does not intend to have children, I found (the English translation of) No Kids: 40 Good Reasons not to have Children absolutely delightful. Maier is an instigator, and a lot of the time she's just digging for a fight, but, it's true that this world is made for rewarding people with kids, while families without kids are viewed as bizarre anomalies, something to be either pitied or looked at askance. If you don't believe me, I would be happy to regale you with hilarious stories of moronic things people have said to me over the years, viv as vis my childlessness. (I prefer childfree, and was mildly disappointed to see the same term in Maier's book - I thought I had invented the term! But, see, that's just how rare we, the childfree, are.)Each short chapter expands on her good reasons not to have kids, like "You keep your friends" and "Kids are the death knell of the couple" and "Don't revert to childhood" and "Motherhood is a trap for Women." What's kind of interesting is that Maier actually HAS kids, so she offers a unique perspective on the topic - that rare person that's actually willing to admit that having kids is not as much fun as it's cracked up to be, and that she often actually regrets having kids (I've NEVER heard an American say that!) Shocking as it may be to hear someone disparage their own children in print, I think it's worth keeping a level head and remembering that while her thesis is meaningful, some of her methods are clearly satirical.
I love cultural tidbits, so one of my favorite parts was about the term "Merdeuf", a mash up of mère de famille, which means mother of the family. Of course, merdeuf sounds like "shit" and "egg" (merde and oeuf), so its slangily loose translation is "egg shitter"... a bit more bite than Soccer Mom, n'est-ce pas?It's not entirely clear who Maier is writing this book for. Partly it seems to stick it to parents ("Having a child is the best possible way to avoid asking what the meaning of life is, as everything revolves around that child, who is a marvelous substitute for the existential quest.") Partly it's for people like me ("The famous glass ceiling stops women from getting the top jobs, and those jobs do have one great advantage: the higher you rise, the fewer idiots there are above you. It is not astonishing that biographies of successful women never fail to note the number of children they've had: those are the obstacles they've had to overcome in order to make something interesting out of their lives.") But, for the most part, I think she's really an anti-capitalist. What she returns to again and again is how children are a strain on resources, and are seemingly preconditioned to desire things. She writes about how much pressure there is on parents to buy endless cycles of plastic shit for their kids. Like me, she fears a world with increasing population, fewer and fewer natural resources, a fairly horrifying unemployment rate, and an increasingly grim outlook for the next generation.
I wouldn't really recommend this book to any one who already has kids, in my experience most people find it necessary to defend their choice to have children when others merely state their choice not to. They'd spend the whole book saying, "That's not true, I had fun just the other day!" If you don't intend to have kids, or are thinking about the subject, like me, you might be gratified to see some of your feelings expressed in print for once, and at the very least have a really good laugh.
Friday, March 02, 2012
Ideal Bookshelf
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Thursday, March 01, 2012
Matched & Crossed
I listened to Matched "on tape" and recently read the second book in the trilogy, Crossed, on M's Kindle. I merely mention it because those are slightly non-conventional reading methods and did have an influence on how I perceived the books.
They're YA books by Allie Condy, about a young girl (15? 16?) in the not-so-distant future who lives in a very controlled world where The Society keeps a close eye on everyone, regulates what they eat, drink, even regulates dreams and decides when people die (on their 80th birthdays). They choose marriage partners, and Cassia gets "matched" with her friend, Xander. But then, like, somehow she's really matched with this other guy, Ky (to tell the truth I forget how that all worked... it's been a while) and, anyway, she sort of starts falling for Ky.
In the second book, Crossed, (Spoilers re: Matched here), Ky's been outcast to this other place so Cassia sort of outcasts herself to go find him. A lot of the book takes place in the wilderness, which is a major change for these folks who've been basically eating nothing but TV dinners their whole lives. The wilderness bits had an inevitable Hunger Games feel to them (which I rather liked) and I've been semi-developing a theory about young characters and the rejection of the structured environment. But more on that some other day.
As everyone knows, when one is reading a book like this, one is constantly comparing it to that Standard Bearer of all Dystopian Novels - you know what I'm talking about - The Handmaid's Tale, by the great Margaret Atwood. So, how does Condy compare to Atwood? Not too bad... She creates a really rich and engaging landscape for the characters. I also really like how she uses poetry as subversion - Dylan Thomas's Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night and a few things by Emily Dickinson that I'm too lazy to look up. The citizens of this place carry around pills that the society tells them to take at various points - that's very effective because they're a bit of a mystery, and the more Cassia questions the society, the more the reader questions those sneaky pills!
As far as YA books go, what I really loved about Crossed was how brave Cassia is. She's a great role model for young women: question authority, use your head, trust your instincts. Another nice aspect is that she's not getting saved by the male hero; she's a clear heroine in this story, not a helpless princess. Here's Ky thinking about Xander: "This isn't a game. He's not my opponent and Cassia's not a prize." Hell yeah she isn't! Eat it, Stephanie Meyer!
Sometimes Condy's prose goes a bit blue, but I have a very high tolerance for that sort of thing - this is the only bit of alliteration abundance (see what I did there?) that made me roll my eyes: "Seeing the wind wave the water and brush the branches reminds me that, before I returned to the Society, I crossed over rivers and canyons."
The third book comes out this fall, and I'm looking forward to finding out how it ends!
In the second book, Crossed, (Spoilers re: Matched here), Ky's been outcast to this other place so Cassia sort of outcasts herself to go find him. A lot of the book takes place in the wilderness, which is a major change for these folks who've been basically eating nothing but TV dinners their whole lives. The wilderness bits had an inevitable Hunger Games feel to them (which I rather liked) and I've been semi-developing a theory about young characters and the rejection of the structured environment. But more on that some other day.
As everyone knows, when one is reading a book like this, one is constantly comparing it to that Standard Bearer of all Dystopian Novels - you know what I'm talking about - The Handmaid's Tale, by the great Margaret Atwood. So, how does Condy compare to Atwood? Not too bad... She creates a really rich and engaging landscape for the characters. I also really like how she uses poetry as subversion - Dylan Thomas's Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night and a few things by Emily Dickinson that I'm too lazy to look up. The citizens of this place carry around pills that the society tells them to take at various points - that's very effective because they're a bit of a mystery, and the more Cassia questions the society, the more the reader questions those sneaky pills!
As far as YA books go, what I really loved about Crossed was how brave Cassia is. She's a great role model for young women: question authority, use your head, trust your instincts. Another nice aspect is that she's not getting saved by the male hero; she's a clear heroine in this story, not a helpless princess. Here's Ky thinking about Xander: "This isn't a game. He's not my opponent and Cassia's not a prize." Hell yeah she isn't! Eat it, Stephanie Meyer!
Sometimes Condy's prose goes a bit blue, but I have a very high tolerance for that sort of thing - this is the only bit of alliteration abundance (see what I did there?) that made me roll my eyes: "Seeing the wind wave the water and brush the branches reminds me that, before I returned to the Society, I crossed over rivers and canyons."
The third book comes out this fall, and I'm looking forward to finding out how it ends!
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
The Count!
An organization called VIDA: Women In Literary Arts has an amazing project where they count up articles in popular press written by and about women artists. They make some simple pie charts, like this one
that express their findings. Here's a spoiler: they all look like that, or have even less blue pie pieces than that one. I had heard some pretty damning numbers like those a few years ago, and, it's one of the reasons I almost exclusively review books by women for the weekly magazine I write for. Plus I just really like women writers. Check out the rest of their graphs - it's pretty shocking!
via
that express their findings. Here's a spoiler: they all look like that, or have even less blue pie pieces than that one. I had heard some pretty damning numbers like those a few years ago, and, it's one of the reasons I almost exclusively review books by women for the weekly magazine I write for. Plus I just really like women writers. Check out the rest of their graphs - it's pretty shocking!
via
Sunday, February 26, 2012
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
We read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, for book club. I'd heard of Alexie through Selected Shorts - a podcast I adore - they're big fans of his. It's a YA book about a young Spokane Indian boy who lives on a reservation in Washington State. Arnold Spirit describes himself as an awkward, pimply teenager, who gets beat up on a regular basis by other kids and even adults on the Reservation. A teacher encourages him to go to a school outside the reservation, at which point he starts to feel more hope for the future. He faces almost unbelievable challenges like lack of food, an alcoholic father, his disabilities (he was born with Hydrocephalus), lack of transportation (our book club was shocked that the character claimed to often walk 22 miles from school when his dad was too drunk to pick him up or there wasn't enough money for gas). He becomes a "part-time" Indian - at home, on the Reservation, he's a full-Indian - at school, he identifies with his most-white classmates - unable to completely fit in either world, he finds it necessary to navigate between these very different cultures and societal groups.Arnold loves to draw, and the book is illustrated with cartoons that he created (artwork is by Ellen Forney). The cartoonish drawings lend a graphic-novel aspect to the book, causing it at once to fly by quicker, but also to allow those interested in the images to linger over the little details.
What was most interesting was learning about life and culture on the Reservation - a little-known way of life for many Americans, despite the fact that it's such an important part of our collective histories. For me, this book was a little too boy-focused, and I got a bit bored in the more basketball-y parts - but I would highly recommend this book to any young reader (old enough to deal with the themes of death and alcoholism. Side note: this book is frequently challenged in schools and libraries apparently because of a masturbation reference!)
Overnight, I became a good player.What really emerged in our book club was how little we know about American Indians today, and what a shame it is that Indian history is not a part of our national dialogue - I think this book is a really valuable contribution to literature and society (no less!) for the insight it provides.
I suppose it had something to do with confidence. I mean, I'd always been the lowest Indian on the reservation tomtem pole - I wasn't expected to be good so I wasn't. But in Reardan, my coach and the other players wanted me to be good. They needed me to be good. They expected me to be good. And so I became good.
I wanted to live up to expectations.
I guess that's what it comes down to.
The power of expectations.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Phone booth library
cool project in NYC to convert old phone booths into lending libraries. Reminds me of the cool converted magazine box in Logan Square. Books for the people!
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Why We Broke Up
My interview with Daniel Handler and Maira Kalman is on Newcity! I really loved this book - it was so enjoyable and I fell in love with the characters. One regret I have is using the word "morality" in my question about sex - I should have just said "message". I have this occasional dumb habit of referring to out-of-wedlock-sex as an issue of "morality" even though I don't even BELIEVE that people who have unmarried sex are in any way immoral. But, I was raised in a very religious household/community where especially teen-sex was inextricably seen as a question of morals. It's dumb, but, for some reason it's stuck in my head that way. It's funny how, when you learn something as a child, it is very difficult to un-learn it. For example, my mom told us that if the car door opened while the car was in motion, the force of change in pressure would suck everyone out of the car where they would be smashed on the side of the road. To this day I COMPLETELY freak out if a car door cracks open when the car's moving. Anyway, it's just a lesson to me to think more carefully about my word choice and I wanted to put it out there that I do regret using that particular word.
They were fun to interview - it was nice talking about a book I really enjoyed with the author and illustrator, right after I finished reading it. I'm a big Daniel Handler fan - if you haven't read him, check out Adverbs or, better yet, Watch Your Mouth.
BTW, the book has an accompanying tumblr which is kind of amusing - you can read about breakups by people of all ages or add your own. I wish I had a good break-up story, but most of them were just like, I don't like you anymore. Oh, except for that one guy I dated in college who I found out was married. Then, I broke up with him.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
A new pile
Picked up a nice little pile of books at my local thrift store - look at these treasures!
Three Carol Shields books that I hadn't even HEARD of - OMG, I'm so excited to read those. That Guernsey Literary and Potato thing, two of those Clan of the Cave Bear books that I've been wanting to read ever since we saw those caves in France. And The Awakening, by Kate Chopin - apparently a Must Read in the history of feminist literature.
Right now I'm reading Great House by Nicole Krauss right now which is mildly challenging following the brain vacation I've been on recently.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Before I Fall
I got a nice handful of YA books from my Secret Santa (bro-in-law) at Xmas - Before I Fall (2010) by Lauren Oliver was the first one I read. It's about a mean girl, Sam and her mean friends who are in a car accident after a party and Sam gets killed. But, she wakes up and relives that day all over again. And again. And again.The premise is compelling, and even though I really didn't like Oliver's writing style very much, I could barely put Before I Fall down. I just wanted to find out what happened and what changed every time. What I also found interesting was how Oliver humanizes the bully. She doesn't pull any punches with Sam and her friends, who do some truly rotten things to the other students at their school. As Sam relives the day over and over, she becomes more cognizant of how her actions are effecting those around her, but she doesn't turn her back on the Queen Bee and her best pal, Lindsay.
Lindsay, with her angel's face and messy, dirty blond hair and chipped black nail polish and battered leather Dooney & Bourke bag that always has a film of tobacco and half-unwrapped Trident Original at the bottom. Lindsay, who hates being bored, always moving, always running. Lindsay, who once said -"it's the world against us, babes" - drunk and looping her arms around our shoulders when we were out in the arboretum and really meaning it. Lindsay, mean and funny and ferocious and loyal and mine. p.346Oliver explores elementary theory from a combination of Butterfly Effect, Schrodinger's Cat, and a wee bit of Quantum Physics, as any decent time-travel story naturally would. I'm obsessed with Quantum Mechanics so I enjoyed those bits:
It amazes me how easy it is for things to change, how easy it is to start off down the same road you always take and wind up somewhere new. Just one false step, one pause, one detour, and you end up with new friends or a bad reputation or a boyfriend or a breakup. It's never occurred to me before; I've never been able to see it. And it makes me field, weirdly, like maybe all of these different possibilities exist at the same time, like each moment we live has a thousand other moments layered underneath it that look different. (p. 285)I saw Young Adult recently - a movie about another Mean Girl played by Charlize Theron who happens to write YA fiction (unironically) about Mean Girls. That stood as an interesting comparison to this book, for me, largely because Theron's character doesn't really learn any Life Lessons and also because it brought full circle for me this rather new (am I right?) concept of the Mean, Popular Girl as fictional heroine. It's like, this girl is popular, smart, beautiful, witty, has a ton of fun, learns some Life Lessons (unusally) and comes out on top. In any event, I'm sure Before I Fall would be quite interesting to teen readers and any adult like me that likes reading YA fiction.
Saturday, January 07, 2012
The Goats
The Goats (1987) by Brock Cole had been popping up on my radar. It seems to be one of those YA books that has an effect on people who read it as children, like The Chocolate War. Like The Chocolate War, I somehow missed it when I was but a wee, moody, bookworm adolescent. I suspect they hid books like these to keep us from getting ideas. But it's just a suspicion.
In The Goats, two children are tricked by their summer-camp-mates into going to a small island, where they are briefly physically assaulted and then robbed of their clothing and left. (An aside: my sister and I were talking about someone being assaulted within earshot of her 4 year old. I thought he wasn't listening, but later on he spilled salt on the table, flicked it at us and said it was a' salted.) The general idea, by the camp bullies, is that the two clumsy, unlovable outcasts would find humiliating solace in each others arms in animalistic, goat-like behavior. The two children are, naturally, humiliated and escape the island by swimming away and hiding out, with the intention of never returning to camp. The girl calls her mother, who initially doesn't understand the urgency of the matter and refuses to come to the woods to pick her up.
What I found interesting as an adult reader was how Cole positions their youth and sexuality. The children are pretty specifically pre-adolescent - the girl is described as having "[...] no breasts, just two shriveled nipples. At the bottom of her belly was a little patch of hair, like a Hitler mustache. That meant she was more mature than he was. He didn't have hair yet." They spend about 3-4 days together hiding out and testing their capacity to live in the woods together. They don't have anything approaching a sexual relationship, but their relationship is certainly sexualized. "Covering" themselves, like Adam and Eve after The Fall, is first priority. Of course, it could be that it's merely my interpretation of the book as focusing on their pre-sexual interactions. The (adult?) reader is perhaps (more) aware of the children's ever-present consciousness of their sexual fragility.
The Goats really manages to tap into the no-one-understands-me
element of being an adolescent, and I can easily image how it could be
so impressionable on young readers. The fantasy of hiding out/running
away that's fairly appealing to young people is lived out. For me, that
book was From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (1967), in which two children run away and hide in the Met. In parts The Goats reminded me of Margaret Atwood's Surfacing (I need to re-read that!) in which the main character runs into the woods and tears off her clothes - if I remember correctly, she fantasizes that "fur" will grow, allowing to live in the woods without concern for frippery modern amenities like clothes.
Unlike The Hunger Games and Divergent, which I think are really engaging reads for older readers, this book is less likely to appeal to mature readers, aside from satisfying literary curiosity, like mine. But, I should think it would be a very fine book to read and discuss with a young person. Some parts are a bit dated... In one section, the children fall in with some kids from the city. These African American and Latino characters are caring and wise, and fall precariously near (or in) the "Magical Negro" stereotype. Also, I have a real pet peeve of white authors writing in the voice of exaggerated black voices. It's not really offensive, but it felt forced.
In The Goats, two children are tricked by their summer-camp-mates into going to a small island, where they are briefly physically assaulted and then robbed of their clothing and left. (An aside: my sister and I were talking about someone being assaulted within earshot of her 4 year old. I thought he wasn't listening, but later on he spilled salt on the table, flicked it at us and said it was a' salted.) The general idea, by the camp bullies, is that the two clumsy, unlovable outcasts would find humiliating solace in each others arms in animalistic, goat-like behavior. The two children are, naturally, humiliated and escape the island by swimming away and hiding out, with the intention of never returning to camp. The girl calls her mother, who initially doesn't understand the urgency of the matter and refuses to come to the woods to pick her up.What I found interesting as an adult reader was how Cole positions their youth and sexuality. The children are pretty specifically pre-adolescent - the girl is described as having "[...] no breasts, just two shriveled nipples. At the bottom of her belly was a little patch of hair, like a Hitler mustache. That meant she was more mature than he was. He didn't have hair yet." They spend about 3-4 days together hiding out and testing their capacity to live in the woods together. They don't have anything approaching a sexual relationship, but their relationship is certainly sexualized. "Covering" themselves, like Adam and Eve after The Fall, is first priority. Of course, it could be that it's merely my interpretation of the book as focusing on their pre-sexual interactions. The (adult?) reader is perhaps (more) aware of the children's ever-present consciousness of their sexual fragility.
The Goats really manages to tap into the no-one-understands-me
element of being an adolescent, and I can easily image how it could be
so impressionable on young readers. The fantasy of hiding out/running
away that's fairly appealing to young people is lived out. For me, that
book was From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (1967), in which two children run away and hide in the Met. In parts The Goats reminded me of Margaret Atwood's Surfacing (I need to re-read that!) in which the main character runs into the woods and tears off her clothes - if I remember correctly, she fantasizes that "fur" will grow, allowing to live in the woods without concern for frippery modern amenities like clothes.Unlike The Hunger Games and Divergent, which I think are really engaging reads for older readers, this book is less likely to appeal to mature readers, aside from satisfying literary curiosity, like mine. But, I should think it would be a very fine book to read and discuss with a young person. Some parts are a bit dated... In one section, the children fall in with some kids from the city. These African American and Latino characters are caring and wise, and fall precariously near (or in) the "Magical Negro" stereotype. Also, I have a real pet peeve of white authors writing in the voice of exaggerated black voices. It's not really offensive, but it felt forced.
Friday, January 06, 2012
Top Fives
Some of my Top Fives on Newcity Lit...
I was particularly proud of "Top 5 Book Titles We Have in Mind to Capitalize on the Success of “Go the F*ck To Sleep”
I was particularly proud of "Top 5 Book Titles We Have in Mind to Capitalize on the Success of “Go the F*ck To Sleep”
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
2011 Stats!
It's that time of year again, for tallying and list-making... Here's what I read (generally) in 2011:
35 fiction and 8 non-fiction books, a conscience effort to read more books by women than men. 2011 was the year I read Freedom (and did NOT fall in love with it) - I also read Super Sad True Love Story and A Visit from the Goon Squad - although those were published in 2010, they were my absolute favorites of 2011. Oh, I also quite enjoyed March by Geraldine Brooks. And did I mention Divergent? That was definitely my fave YA pick of the year! Plastic and Moonwalking with Einstein were by far the most influential non-fiction books I read in 2011, both of which had a pretty profound effect on my thoughts and actions (I've been trying to use a lot less plastic and I've put Foer's palaces to work).
I published about 20 reviews in NewCity Lit, which I'm fairly proud of - looking forward to doing some more reading for that in 2012!
I'd love to hear your favorite books of the past year - please leave a note in comments!
I published about 20 reviews in NewCity Lit, which I'm fairly proud of - looking forward to doing some more reading for that in 2012!
I'd love to hear your favorite books of the past year - please leave a note in comments!
The Skull Beneath the Skin
I lucked upon a PD James mystery at my local coffee shop - The Skull Beneath the Skin - and it was a a fabulous diversion. I'm becoming a real mystery-lover. I mean, like, I want to move to England, live in a cottage decorated only with tartans, and read mystery novels while sipping tea all. Day. Long.
But, who wouldn't? Amirite?
This is a classic mystery novel, in the footsteps of Agatha Cristie (if I'm not mistaken, there was even a quote from And Then There Were None although I'm too lazy to verify.) On a private island off the coast of Dorset, a man invites some folks to his castle and, well... I hate to ruin anything. James had me guessing until the very end (I'm talking like, last 30 out of 416 pages).
The Skull Beneath the Skin was published in 1982 and I think also takes place in the early 80s - it was a bit difficult to tell and frankly might have mentioned the year somewhere and I didn't pick it up. It really could have taken place in just about any time period as the location and the characters avoid most modern conveniences. To me, that's a telling quality in a mystery novel, because it's very boring to read them and think the whole time, "If they only had a cell phone!"
The protagonist is Cordelia Grey, the owner of a detective agency that seems to specialize in finding lost pets. She's very thoughtful and thorough. The pet-thing is very funny. Apparently she's also in An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, for which I'll be on the look-out. Her hero, Adam Dalgliesh, makes not so much an appearance but a quick reference or two, which will cause heart of the PD James' fans to trill a bit.
James uses the phrase "poison pen" (must be an British saying?) to describe a nasty letter writer - Dorothy Sayers also centers her Gaudy Night around this conceit, so I couldn't help but think of that great mystery novel frequently (also English, also with a lady detective).
By the way, I generally try to find the cover matching the one I read for my blog, out of some sense of continuity, but I couldn't find my exact one - and I thought these were both quite amusing.
If you're looking for a great mystery, I really don't think you can go wrong with this one - it's an engaging read!
But, who wouldn't? Amirite?
This is a classic mystery novel, in the footsteps of Agatha Cristie (if I'm not mistaken, there was even a quote from And Then There Were None although I'm too lazy to verify.) On a private island off the coast of Dorset, a man invites some folks to his castle and, well... I hate to ruin anything. James had me guessing until the very end (I'm talking like, last 30 out of 416 pages).
The Skull Beneath the Skin was published in 1982 and I think also takes place in the early 80s - it was a bit difficult to tell and frankly might have mentioned the year somewhere and I didn't pick it up. It really could have taken place in just about any time period as the location and the characters avoid most modern conveniences. To me, that's a telling quality in a mystery novel, because it's very boring to read them and think the whole time, "If they only had a cell phone!"
The protagonist is Cordelia Grey, the owner of a detective agency that seems to specialize in finding lost pets. She's very thoughtful and thorough. The pet-thing is very funny. Apparently she's also in An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, for which I'll be on the look-out. Her hero, Adam Dalgliesh, makes not so much an appearance but a quick reference or two, which will cause heart of the PD James' fans to trill a bit.
James uses the phrase "poison pen" (must be an British saying?) to describe a nasty letter writer - Dorothy Sayers also centers her Gaudy Night around this conceit, so I couldn't help but think of that great mystery novel frequently (also English, also with a lady detective).
If you're looking for a great mystery, I really don't think you can go wrong with this one - it's an engaging read!
Monday, December 05, 2011
The Forgotten Waltz
My review of The Forgotten Waltz on Newcity Lit!
I'm a big fan of Enright - here are my reviews of some of her other books:
What Are You Like?
The Wig My Father Wore
and
The Gathering (best place to start if you haven't read her before)
I'm a big fan of Enright - here are my reviews of some of her other books:
What Are You Like?
The Wig My Father Wore
and
The Gathering (best place to start if you haven't read her before)
Sunday, December 04, 2011
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Literature Map?
I found this website (via Flavorwire), called Literature Map in which
you type in an author, then it shows you a bunch of other authors who
people who like your author also like? Or something. I'm not really
sure but it's mildly amusing. I typed in my all-time favorite, Margaret
Atwood, naturally, and here's what I got:
Then I clicked on Zadie Smith and got this:
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Twilight belt
Found this awesome infograph on Goodreads re: who loves Twilight and who doesn't.
Interesting, no? I'm in Illinois, which, as a light blue, I can only
assume doesn't totally hate it. No surprise that it's read by 12x more
women than men. I don't really understand why Utah is singled out - 6th most readers? Who cares?
via
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Oh, the Humanities!
Last weekend, my friend MZ and I went to a couple of events in the Chicago Humanities Festival - we saw Jonathan Franzen (and Isabel Wilkerson) and Joshua Foer.
Franzen and Wilkerson were winning some kind of award - there was a HUGE crowd with what I figure must have been Chicago's most ardent readers. Also some of Chicago's most ardent queue-ers. These lunatics were trying to make this crazy-long line, and then when they opened the door, it all went to shit, and lots of people got very, very upset. I never saw so many old people get so distressed about line management. You'd have thought we were in a war-time bread line.
I really thought seeing Franzen was going to be the highlight of the day, but I most enjoyed Joshua Foer's chat - that probably shouldn't come as a surprise - I was completely obsessed with his book, Moonwalking with Einstein, ever since I read it earlier this year for Newcity. He was very charming, smart and funny - it's such an interesting topic (memory)... As in the book, the real challenge is actually supporting why it's even worth trying to develop the memory when there are some many external memory storage areas available (ie, smart phones, computers, etc. Remember when you were a kid and you knew all your best friends' phone numbers? Now I barely know my own husband's because it's stored in my phone.) He took another crack at answering that and came up with a pretty good answer - he think that as external memory devises become more and more prevalent, we may discover the impact on creation - he thinks that memories are the "raw data" that lead to creativity and innovation. Makes sense.
I also enjoyed listening to Wilkerson - I was only vaguely aware of her book, The Warmth of Other Suns, about the great migration - but, I bought a copy and look forward to reading it.
Franzen and Wilkerson were winning some kind of award - there was a HUGE crowd with what I figure must have been Chicago's most ardent readers. Also some of Chicago's most ardent queue-ers. These lunatics were trying to make this crazy-long line, and then when they opened the door, it all went to shit, and lots of people got very, very upset. I never saw so many old people get so distressed about line management. You'd have thought we were in a war-time bread line.
I really thought seeing Franzen was going to be the highlight of the day, but I most enjoyed Joshua Foer's chat - that probably shouldn't come as a surprise - I was completely obsessed with his book, Moonwalking with Einstein, ever since I read it earlier this year for Newcity. He was very charming, smart and funny - it's such an interesting topic (memory)... As in the book, the real challenge is actually supporting why it's even worth trying to develop the memory when there are some many external memory storage areas available (ie, smart phones, computers, etc. Remember when you were a kid and you knew all your best friends' phone numbers? Now I barely know my own husband's because it's stored in my phone.) He took another crack at answering that and came up with a pretty good answer - he think that as external memory devises become more and more prevalent, we may discover the impact on creation - he thinks that memories are the "raw data" that lead to creativity and innovation. Makes sense.
I also enjoyed listening to Wilkerson - I was only vaguely aware of her book, The Warmth of Other Suns, about the great migration - but, I bought a copy and look forward to reading it.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Sunday, October 09, 2011
19th Wife
Ebershoff tells parallel stories of two women who were (approximately) the 19th wives. One is based on the real-life figure of Ann Eliza Young, who was married to early Later Day Saints prophet Brigham Young; the other is (the fictitious) BeckyLyn, jailed and accused of murdering her polygamous husband in rural, present-day Utah.
 |
| Ann Eliza |
Although the Ann Eliza chapters are historically interesting, they're also a little boring, and I ended up skimming a lot of the ho-hum bits re: tilling the unforgiving soil of Utah etc. of which I could not give two shits.The modern tale is more interesting, told from the perspective of Jordan, a young man who was excommunicated, or forcibly expelled from his LDS household, as boys often are (to eliminate possible rivals from the marriage pool.) After years of struggle, Jordan has managed to get his footing, but gets pulled back into his former life when his mother is accused of murdering his father, and he begins investigating to find out what really happened. Jordan is a charming, loveable character with enough distance to guide the reader through what may be a first-time view into this very particular slice of Americana.
 | |
| Brigham Young |
The book is frequently cited as raising many "questions" about faith and religious practice. At least for me, as I have fairly established views on polygamy, Ebershoff's book did not cause me to raise any questions but rather helped solidify my opinions about polygamy, at least as practiced for religious purposes.
Ebershoff does some interesting things with switching narratives and including bits as if from Wikipedia, 19th c. newpapers, interviews, letters, a BYU thesis, ect. Typeface and even the odd illustration made the reading experience a bit richer. Personally I thought the book sort of walked a tight balance between the sort of salacious schlocky-ness of best-sellers to more thoughtful literature, but, at the end of the day, the truth is that I found it pretty hard to put down, and, aside from the skimming I might have done, an engrossing story.
I can't tell you what Kelly was thinking, but I was thinking, Look at this girl. LDS through and through. BYU rah rah rah. Rise, all loyal Cougars and hur your challenge to the foe. No coffee, no tea, no Diet Coke, never a drink or a smoke or a hit, temple garments as white as Wasatch snow, Relief Society chick, missionary missy [...] Here she was, Kelly Dee, of hearty Pioneer stock, always well loved, always loving, three years from marriage, four from motherhood, Sister Kelly, who probably plans for week in advance when it's her turn to stand up in church and bear witness, Sister Kelly, Who probably keeps a to-do list clipped to her fridge, who probably spends Sunday nights shampooing those waves of blond hair, so clean, so hardworking, a human honeybee, she of the Chosen people, of the desert kingdom, of the Saints. Yes, here she was, sitting in a crappy office chair helping kids like me. And not just helping, because there are people who are like, Oh, you poor thing, and cluck their tongues, and maybe give you a dollar, but they don't understand and don't want to understand. And then there are people who are like, Oh, you poor thing, now come and meet my God, He is the only way. But not Kelly - she wasn't just helping, assisting, offering a hand. No, she was researching, reading, learning, talking, understanding. Working hard to understand, wanting to understand, telling herself that's the most important thing she can do.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Bookin'
When M & I go on vacation, we really like going to bookstores. On our recent trip to the Northwest, we must have gone to at LEAST 10 bookstores, and I got a nice little pile of books. Lately I've been thinking about writing when and where I get my books, because I usually find them at interesting places, not just Amazon or the local big box store.
Our favorite bookstore in Seattle was probably the Elliott Bay Book Co, which is a gorgeous bookstore with a fabulous cafe and really nice places to sit and read and nice folks that bring in their dogs and let you pet them. This bookstore was really elegantly organized and I really liked how they arranged their recommended books. We also went to a small bookstore in Pike's Place that had mostly used mysteries and sci-fi and this totally bizarre owner who sang opera at us and, yes... scared us a little. He was partly mad-bookstore-genius and partly just wacky. Anyway, I do like a good mystery and found a PD James and he recommended this Donna Leon person, who I've never read before. God help me if I don't mind reading Patricia Cornwell every now and then...
Octavia Butler I haven't read before but she has some Seattle connection (maybe she's from there?) Anywho, I picked up Fledgling at another shop and look forward to reading that soon.
I think I got that What French Women Know at Elliott Bay. I'm hoping it's better than What French People Like and Why French Ladies Don't Get Fat or whatever it's called...
Zadie Smith I just love. I can't believe I haven't read that book of essays yet. I also got Blood Red Road out there but I finished it and gave it to my friend before we left. These all look like great books to read on vacation but unfortunately I didn't get to them all, only about half-way through the Cornwell and now I have other reading obligations that I must finish first. Ah, there's never enough time! Or, vacation time!
Octavia Butler I haven't read before but she has some Seattle connection (maybe she's from there?) Anywho, I picked up Fledgling at another shop and look forward to reading that soon.
I think I got that What French Women Know at Elliott Bay. I'm hoping it's better than What French People Like and Why French Ladies Don't Get Fat or whatever it's called...
Zadie Smith I just love. I can't believe I haven't read that book of essays yet. I also got Blood Red Road out there but I finished it and gave it to my friend before we left. These all look like great books to read on vacation but unfortunately I didn't get to them all, only about half-way through the Cornwell and now I have other reading obligations that I must finish first. Ah, there's never enough time! Or, vacation time!
Monday, September 12, 2011
Famous authors on zip lines
Ha! This is really funny. I Heart Conan O'Brien, but I do not Heart zip lines! I rode some once when I was on vacation in Costa Rica. It's really terrifying!
Monday, September 05, 2011
Sister
I read a compelling review for Sister in the NY Times book review section. It's written by British author Rosamund Lupton and was apparently quite popular in England last year.
It's a story of a woman who's sister is killed (not a spoiler, happens right away) so she goes to London to find out what happened. Told mostly in 2nd person, Sister is like a letter to the dead sister, a chronology of the events told by the living.
It's a good mystery novel and really wrapped me in - Lupton does some interesting things with the narrative and the POV and writes skillfully.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
The Postmistress and The Report
Moi's sister gave moi The Postmistress for moi's birthday. It is a lovely book about how to, basically, live your life when terrible things are happening in the world. Most of the characters in this book live in Cape Cod during WWII, and one character is an American journalist who works with Edward R. Murrow in London. To various extremes, the characters address this theme of what-to-do? Writer Sarah Blake's thesis is to be aware, which, generally, yes, is a good idea.
I found the actual postmistress, who is ostensibly the main character, at least judging by the title, an extremely strange protagonist, with whom I did not identify at all even though we are clearly meant to identify with her. Early on she discloses that there was a piece of mail which she did not deliver, a shocking revelation to people who believe in the US Postal Service but perhaps not to anyone who's ever dealt with the US Postal Service. She also has an oockie doctor's visit to prove she's a virgin and provide "proof" to her mister-friend, who will presumably be impressed by the information.
Descriptions of the London tube station shelters were of particular interest to me, mainly because I think that's ingenious and I also love LOVE LOVE Henry Miller's drawings of the same.
By coincidence, after I read The Postmistress I read a new book called The Report, a fiction book by Jessica Francis Kane based on the actual event of 173 dying in a London tube station during the blitz - not the result of bombing, but of a crush of human bodies. I only ended up reading about half of it because the middle part was a bit dull, with all the excitement of journalism performed 40 years after the event. And then, by another coincidence, I found a 2001 article in the New Yorker about this phenomenon of people getting crushed, which I never really could/can wrap my head around. I also find it difficult to finish this article because it's making me feel all claustrophobic.
Monday, August 08, 2011
Animal Dreams
The title of Animal Dreams refers to (and I don't think I'm ruining it for you by telling) one character's theory that animals dreams are not that complicated - that they most likely dreams about what they do all day. One of the themes of this book is that humans are like animals, we're motivated by sex and basic needs and mostly sex. I don't agree with that, but Barbara Kingsolver makes a good case for it.
The baby signed and stirred in his crib. At seven months, he was just the size of a big jackrabbit - the same amount of meat. The back of my scalp and neck prickled. It's an involuntary muscle contraction that causes that, setting the hair follicles on edge; if we had manes they would bristle exactly like a growling dog's. We're animals. We're born like every other mammal and we live our whole lives around disguised animal thoughts. There's no sense pretending. Tomorrow, I thought, or the next day, or the day after that, I would have sex with Loyd Peregrina.
In Animal Dreams, Codi returns to her hometown after a long absence to watch over her inattentive father. Kingsolver tells Codi's story really beautifully, letting details spill out over time, and even including an environmental twist without lecturing the reader (I thought this book had a lot in common with the great My Year of Meats and Annie Proulx's That Old Ace in the Hole). Codi starts dating her old high school boyfriend, an Apache, who takes her to see old ruins of American Indian sites - Kingsolver describes these marvelous places so vividly I wanted to take an immediate road trip to Arizona. (see: Kinishba!) I have a vague memory of reading something by Flannery O'Connor that made me feel the same way but I can't for the life of me remember the name.
While Animals Dreams is unbelievably beautifully written, it's depressing as hell. Among the hands-off parenting atrocities practiced by her widowed father was listening to his teen-aged daughter have a miscarriage in the bathroom and then bury the fetus in the yard without interfering. For example.
But then there's this:
I'd finished my shopping in a few minutes, and while I waited for Emelina to revision her troops for the week I stood looking helplessly at the cans of vegetables and soup that all carried some secret mission. The grocery shelves seemed to have been stocked for the people of Grace with the care of a family fallout shelter. I was an outsider to this nurturing. When the cashier asked, "Do you need anything else?" I almost cried. I wanted to say, "I need everything you have."
Tuesday, August 02, 2011
Stuff Parisians Like
Stuff White People Like started as a blog and then quickly made a book deal. Then, white people like me became less enamored with it when people started pointing out that it's kinda racist. (What, people of color don't like recycling?)
Stuff Parisians Like is obviously capitalizing on the 'Stuff fame and also started as a blog. Parisians, as you might imagine, are described as dull moderates that "like" feeling a sense of superiority in all things. I love cultural insider-info - so bits about how the last two digits on the license plate indicate the owner's home town (Paris is 75), that a three-day-"scruff" of unshaved beard is considered the height of sexiness, and that San Pelegrino is ordered as "San Pé" are the details I love.
But, like Stuff White People Like, it's problematic. Stuff Parisians Like is riddled with a rather off-putting masculinity that ridicules relationships, "Testosterone-Deprived Males", and claims all Parisian women are uptight prudes. The author writes, "...Parisian men get sick of begging their women for oral gratification" and "foreign girls are different. They can dance. They drink. They have fun." Ick.
The biggest offense Olivier Magney gave was not claiming that Parisians no longer drink enough wine (surprise: he's a sommelier) but that he used the word "retarded" to indicate that something was uncool.
Grow up, putain.
Stuff Parisians Like is obviously capitalizing on the 'Stuff fame and also started as a blog. Parisians, as you might imagine, are described as dull moderates that "like" feeling a sense of superiority in all things. I love cultural insider-info - so bits about how the last two digits on the license plate indicate the owner's home town (Paris is 75), that a three-day-"scruff" of unshaved beard is considered the height of sexiness, and that San Pelegrino is ordered as "San Pé" are the details I love.
But, like Stuff White People Like, it's problematic. Stuff Parisians Like is riddled with a rather off-putting masculinity that ridicules relationships, "Testosterone-Deprived Males", and claims all Parisian women are uptight prudes. The author writes, "...Parisian men get sick of begging their women for oral gratification" and "foreign girls are different. They can dance. They drink. They have fun." Ick.
The biggest offense Olivier Magney gave was not claiming that Parisians no longer drink enough wine (surprise: he's a sommelier) but that he used the word "retarded" to indicate that something was uncool.
Grow up, putain.
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