What Are We Reading, Page 3

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Thanks for the fresh start, >1 Citizenjoyce:.

It's a new month and a fresh start...as soon as I finish the two ER books I'm working on. They are both written by men and have very weak female characters, so they aren't worth mentioning here.

I like to read a print book and either an ebook or audiobook at the same time. The ebook (or audiobook) is for bedtime reading. I'm turning to audiobooks more and more because my eyes are too dry and tired to read much at night.

Next up is All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. I started it over a month ago but couldn't get interested. It's time to give it another go. My audiobook is The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.

I recently bought Alice Munro's new book of short stories, Family Furnishings. I'm anxious to read it but can't seem to work it in among the ERs, book club obligations, etc., so I'm going to find time to read at least one of the stories every week.

I just finished The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara and I was pretty blown away. Somehow this young Hawaiian woman is able to perfectly capture and write from the voice of a self-absorbed white misogynistic 1950's scientist as he adventures on a "primitive", exploits the native culture, and goes to jail for sexually molesting some of his adopted children from the island. It was very dark but fascinating.

Just started reading Yes Please by Amy Poehler.

>3 fikustree: Interesting, I added it to my wishlist.

I picked up Fine Just the Way It Is this morning. I hadn't read any Annie Proulx for a while, and right away the first story reminded me how much I love her writing.

I've added The People in the Trees and Fine Just the Way It Is to my wish list. I don't think I've read anything by Annie Proulx since Shipping News. I hope I'll get a chance to go to the bookstore this weekend.

>6 vwinsloe: Let us know how you like Fine Just The Way It Is. I loved Shipping News but as I read more of her, each book got increasingly depressive so that I couldn't take her any more. Let me know if a regular person could read it without wanting to slit her wrists.
I finished the second in the Dairy Queen trilogy, The Off Season and remain completely impressed by Murdock. This is the kind of book that would benefit teen age girls after we've thrown all the Twilight series into the sea.
Right now I'm reading The Girl of Fire and Thorns and I'm not sure why. I think it was recommended on another list by someone I respect. Fantasy and war strategy are not my bag, but at least you can hand it to this princess - she eats, drinks, sleeps and goes to the bathroom. Lots of YA heroines seem to miss a few of those steps.

(funny timing; i just posted about the shipping news on the other thread about books we didn't like, and then saw the above.)

just started a sort-of parenting book or maybe it's more a nonfiction book about parenting that came out early this year - all joy and no fun.

>8 Citizenjoyce:. Fine Just the Way It Is will take me a while. It's short stories, and I usually pick up and put down compilations of short stories, so it can take a long time for me to finish it. I have read the first couple of stories, and there is definitely nothing uplifting there. This is the third volume of Proulx's stories about Wyoming. Close Range, which contains the story "Brokeback Mountain", is the most well known. I have enjoyed just about all of her fiction.

And poor >9 overlycriticalelisa:. I know that I recommended The Crossing to you as well, and I gather that you despised it. It just goes to show that there is no accounting for taste (no one can dispute how beautifully both Proulx and McCarthy write.) I seem to like these bleak, depressing sorts of books in accordance with the principle that "Misery Loves Company." Not that I am miserable, but it is somehow comforting for me to have confirmed that life isn't always fair and that terrible things to happen to people who don't deserve it.

>10 vwinsloe: My husband also likes those kinds of stories, and he and I differ widely on the books that we can enjoy. His favorites are short stories by Lorrie Moore and Chilly Scenes of Winter, both of which left me feeling altogether bleak. I do like Cormac McCarthy a lot because he is an incredible writer, but I have had to swear off him at least for a while because his worldview leads me to drink (only kidding... a little).

I have only read The Shipping News by Proulx, which I thought was a beautifully written novel, but it definitely took much time to grow on me. I remember desperately hoping about 3/4's of the way through that she would not do anything bad to her characters, and then being surprised that I had become so deeply invested. Also, the party scene is hilarious.

Finally picked up Gone Girl if only to see why it is so widely hated by those on here.

Finished M.E. Braddon's The Doctor's Wife. Overwritten, but I made 23 notes of sidebar commentary in it that I thought was worthwhile or interesting.

Have Carolyn Chute's Treat Us Like Dogs and We Will Become Wolves and Stephen King's Revival to read over winter break.

I don't have any interest in reading Amy Poehler's memoir, and didn't read Tina Fey's either. Am I being unfair in expecting that these will be witty, superficial, and breezy in the way only rich, successful, pretty and youngish women can be in their attempts to relate to Every Woman?

>10 vwinsloe:

oh, i love depressing books! my (almost?) preference is to cry through a read most of the time. so that's definitely not why i didn't like the crossing or the shipping news. (and i did really like the other two in the border trilogy.) it's been so long since i read the proulx that i can't really remember why i didn't like it, except i know the language bothered me. i can't remember being made to care about the characters at all, either. that's all of hers i've read, though, and i will have to revisit it at some point, as well as read more by her. as for the crossing it bothered me to no end that i couldn't discern any motivation for anything that happened throughout. it all seemed mostly pointless. (which is a fine point to make, but do it quicker. unless i'm enjoying it, i guess, in which case take as long as you'd like.) ;)

anyway, all that to say that i usually really like the dark and depressing reads that make me sad for humanity or question that we can even call it that.

>10 vwinsloe: I do the same with short stories. I'm reading Alice Munro's Family Furnishings: Selected Stories, 1995-2014, and I'll be into next year finishing it.

>12 nohrt4me2: I got Gone Girl as a audiobook and I'm going to start it as soon as I finish The Goldfinch, which is an incredibly long book for.

>12 nohrt4me2: You are not unfair in your assumptions... I don't know why I'm always drawn to read celebrity memoirs because I generally end up disliking them for just the reasons you stated.

>13 overlycriticalelisa:. I sent you a message!

I just finished Roz Chast's wonderful graphic memoir Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant detailing the decline of her elderly parents with whom she has a relatively troubled relationship. If you liked Fun Home, read this. If you haven't read Fun Home, start with that.

>17 nancyewhite: It was listed as one of NPR's best books of 2014. I'm on the waiting list at the library.
>12 nohrt4me2: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are rich, powerful, berautiful, white and young. They're also examples of women who stood up to the old boy's comedy club and managed to make themselves great careers doing what they wanted to do. Spoke to the every woman in me.

>18 Citizenjoyce: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are rich, powerful, berautiful, white and young.

also smart and well spoken, which is what would make me interested in reading their books.

Having just finished Yes Please, I have to say that it was much better than other celebrity memoirs I've read. It makes me happy that we have people like Amy Poehler in the spotlight. I liked it a lot more than Bossypants, but then, while I appreciate Tina Fey, I am not a fan.

>18 Citizenjoyce: Glad you found the Poehler/Fey books inspiring. Maybe it's my age. I'm close to retirement and my son is grown up now. Being a "successful" woman involves things I doubt Poehler or Fey address in their tomes.

FWIW, I'm opening a thread on Gone Girl, which I just finished, and might explain why I'm in such a bad mood today!

I downloaded a book called Milked by Lisa Doyle, and I'm apparently the only person on LT who has it--with good reason. I tried the book because I was intrigued by the publisher, Simon & Fig. They are a small publisher that claims to have a strong interest in women's fiction, so it sounded like a good match for me. Fifty pages in I had to abandon the book. It's possibly the worst I've ever read. I didn't want to give up on the publisher entirely so I downloaded a couple of samples, but the other books hold no more promise than Milked. I'm glad I tried something new, but the experiment was a total failure.

Now I'm reading The Christmas Pearl by Dorothea Benton Frank. I'm only a few pages in, but I think this will be a comfortable little story for bedtime reading.

Recently took time to try to make a list of 10 books I've read more than twice in my life, or books I remember as favorites from way back.

One of them is Lois Lenski's Indian Captive, the story of Mary Jemison. Lenski seems to be largely forgotten, and that's sad. I remember gobbling these books in the fourth and fifth grades, when I was obsessed with Native American culture.

What is a pretty horrific story about a little girl kidnapped by the Seneca is written straightforwardly, sensitively, and with compassion.

What I also find refreshing at a time when authors seem to be fascinated by trauma and dysfunction, is that, while Jemison's trauma is central to the story, so is her healing. It is a testament to a young woman's resilience and strength.

I'm enjoying re-reading it.

My library system has Indian Captive, I'll have to check it out. I love reading about the women in Indian tribes. Ghost Warrior is about Lozen, 'the Apache Joan of Arc. Empire of the Summer Moon concentrates on Cynthia Ann Parker, a white girl who was captured by the Comanches and chose to stay with them. Her son Quanah Parker became a great warrior. Their lives are fascinating.

I just started to listening to Bonobo Handshake on Citizenjoyce's recommendation. I started enjoying it right from the beginning. Thanks, Citizenjoyce.

I'm so glad you like it. Bonobos rule, and Vanessa Woods is an inspiration.

>26 vwinsloe: >27 Citizenjoyce: Right onto the wishlist (and EReader IQ pricedrop notification list). Looks fantastic

I abandoned All the light we cannot see when I was about 200 pages in because I just didn't like it and couldn't find anything substantial to latch on to. I've found that there are times when my likes and dislikes are as much about my state of mind as the book, so I've picked it up again and I'm going to try to finish it over the coming week.

I just finished Treat us like DOGS and we will become WOLVES and I'm a bit (like 3½***) underwhelmed. I really started to get "into" it about two-and-a-thirds {ETA: Oops, should be two-thirds} of the way through — and considering that the book is nearly 700 pages, that does require some patience. I'm really not sure I would have continued through with this one (though I'm glad I did) if it weren't for my particular interest in Maine literature. It's only the second of Chute's books that I've read (the other, obviously, being The Beans of Egypt, Maine, which I've read in both its original and revised editions) and I do want to get on to the rest of her books.

A caution for those who are planning to read Treat us like DOGS: it may be triggering due to the main character's polygamous relationships, especially with fifteen-year-old Brianna, who's another main character.

>30 CurrerBell: I keep hearing that Chute's book is "overwritten" and "overly long," though I have a fair amount of stamina for long novels (I read The Historian, for pity's sake.) But really couldn't resist the overall themes and tensions. I plan to read it over winter break with Stephen King's Revival.

I'm reading Willa Cather's short stories at the moment - really, really good.

I'm onto Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes. I was impressed by The Shining Girls which I thought was an exciting, orginal take on the thriller. This one is probably that as well, but I'm finding it hard to follow at a little less than a quarter way through. I think it is just because each chapter focuses on a different character and the connections are just beginning to be made clear.

I'm almost done with boy, snow, bird, it's pretty interesting adding elements of 1950s racism into a Snow White story.

I started Good Kings Bad Kings which won the 2012 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. Not that I knew that prize even existed; I picked up the book on the recommendation of a friend.

I quickly read and finished Mean, Little, Deaf Queer by Terry Galloway. I especially enjoyed this memoir when she wrote of her childhood. The details were vivid and her internal and external experiences were clear and scrupulously honest. Conversely, her coming of age, career and adulthood felt rushed and nonspecific. She has a great snarky yet insightful writing style. It ends strongly with a compassionate and loving look at why she and we matter.

>36 nancyewhite: I thought I had ordered that book from my library system, but it looks like I didn't. Thanks for reminding me, I'll get on it now.

>36 nancyewhite: & >37 Citizenjoyce: I read that book a few years ago, and it's been so long that I don't remember why, but I didn't like it very much.

I'm reading Calling Me Home, a story about racial and gender oppression in tthe 1930's and 40's US told through the medium of an old white lady and her younger black friend on a road trip. Could have been good, but it's so SAPPY it's the kind of book that gives chick lit a bad name. Then this morning I started a guy book, You Better Not Cry by Augusten Burroughs and thought that if that were my little boy I'd pack up and leave home. Then it occurred to me, hmm, I may be in a bad mood. When I hate all the books I'm reading it usually says more about me than about the books. So, has anyone out there read Calling Me Home? Is it as sappy as it seems to me right now?

>39 Citizenjoyce: The title "Calling Me Home" (or any book with the word "home" in it) makes me want to heave, but I may be in a real bad mood, too.

>38 lemontwist: I can see how one wouldn't like the book. I thought she did a nice job with her childhood. I didn't mention this above, but I think books by and about disabled queers are rare. It was a pleasure to read this for those insights.

Well, I finished Calling Me Home and the last part was better than the first, but I had such problems with it. First of all, this 17 year old white girl is so deeply in love with a 19 year old black man that she has to marry him right now. The fact that this derails his college career is immaterial to her. The fact that the relationship could result in his death - in 1939 Tennessee in a little town with sundown laws- doesn't occur to her. The book goes on and on and on about how pure their love is. 1939 Tennessee, hello little white girl, find another place for your romantic fantasies. Second strike - Her black friend, when confronted in modern days with someone she loves having an abortion is horrified. Horrified, as if such a procedure is not to be contemplated for more than 10 seconds. Thirdly, these women are really, really nice. Fourthly, every time the black woman called the white woman "Miss Isabelle" I wanted to cringe.
As for You Better Not Cry, I Pearl ruled it.
On audio I'm listening to Lost Lake, also lots of really nice people. Maybe Sarah Addison Allen is too nice for me.
On the positive side, I've started The Antelope Wife by Louise Erdrich, a book of short stories that is showing promise. I believe I've liked everything of hers I've read.
I've also restarted a read of Oryx and Crake which I didn't like the first time around, but now that I've finished the trilogy, I think I'll like it much better.

>42 Citizenjoyce: That's what you get for reading books with the word "home" in the title ... :0

I just started reading Her: A Memoir which is written by a woman whose identical twin overdosed and died. It's a really heartbreaking book, but well-written and I'm enjoying it even though it's so sad at times. (I don't know if enjoy is the correct verb to use, I don't dislike the book but it's bittersweet so it's not like I'm grinning wildly to learn of the difficult lives the two sisters had.)

I forgot to mention that I read Sara Maitland's A Book of Silence and have now started her From the Forest.

>42 Citizenjoyce:. I should probably re-read Oryx and Crake as well. I listened to it on audio book the first time around, and I think that I missed a lot. Sometimes novels are better for reading that listening.

I am still enjoying Bonobo Handshake on audio book, and I just started reading The Book of Life.

>41 nancyewhite: (or anybody): Speaking of disabled queer memoirs: Any recommendations for Geri Jewell's bio I'm Walking as Straight as I Can? I sure loved her in the "Deadwood" series as Jewel. The character was beautifully written, and she played it beautifully. Keep meaning to pick it up, but have been burned by Hollywood memoirs written with ghost writers.

>47 nohrt4me2: I didn't even know Geri Jewell had one book, now I find she has two; though she describes the first one as a bunch of fluff. I also loved, loved her on Deadwood. My library system doesn't have I'm Walking As Straight As I Can, so now I have to decide if I want to spring for the money to buy it. After reading this interview - http://www.afterellen.com/people/86526-interview-with-geri-jewell
I think I might have to. But I know what you mean about Hollywood ghostwriters. You never know what you're going to get.

Having ranted to this group before about a horrible chapter book series aimed at girls (the Candy Apple books), I'm following up now with a really great series I stumbled upon in case any of you want to share with children, grandchildren, nieces, etc. (last minute gift idea, anyone?)

The series is called "Whatever After" and the first book is The Fairest of All. Having read only the first book, I can't vouch for the entire series but I was very impressed with that title.

The Fairest of All involves a tween girl named Abby getting inadvertently sucked into a fairy tale world alongside her younger brother, the 7-year-old Jonah. Before they realize what's going on, the siblings end up discouraging Snow White from eating the poisoned apple from her evil stepmother. At first they congratulate themselves on saving Snow's life but then they realize it means she will never meet Prince Charming and fall in love with him. The brother and sister decide they must right the story and give Snow her "happily ever after."

What I really appreciated about this book was how much of a feminist message it brought across while being entirely entertaining and not at all preachy. Abby is a great role model for young kids. When the book starts out in the real world, she is a bit out of sorts being the new kid in town but she's trying to make it work. She looks out for her younger brother and is determined to make sure he's safe, no matter what. Having two lawyers for parents, she knows enough about the practice of law that she's already decided she wants to be a judge when she's older. For Abby, fairness and justice are two of the most important things in life and her time in the fairy tale world is all about making sure Snow White gets a fair shake. She also likes to make plans with achievable goals to get herself out of sticky situations rather than just sitting around waiting for someone else to save the day.

Snow White herself is re-imagined rather differently here. At first she seems like the same rather vapid princess from the story tale lore, but she soon starts showing initiative, agency, and action. The trio of Snow, Abby, and Jonah quickly find that sitting around waiting for "my prince to come" is very dull and decide to take a series of actions to remedy the situation. By the end of the book, Snow storms the castle - with a little help from Abby, Jonah, and a law book - to wrest the monarchy away from her evil stepmother and rescue the prince from the dungeon.

While it does star a girl as the main character and narrator, I think the book has enough adventure and humor to engage young boys as well as girls, if they (and their parents) could get past the partially hot pink cover. I certainly found it a welcome change from all the super "girly girl" princess books with little to recommend them by way of decent role models and empowering themes.

>49 sweetiegherkin: That sounds so good I had to order it from the library.

>50 Citizenjoyce: Hope you like it then!

I am currently tearing through State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. So far, it has been excellent.

Well, I did it. I Pearl ruled a book that I'm half way through by an author I like. I found it harder and harder to get back to The Antelope Wife. There are all these books I want to read, but I keep telling myself I can't start until I finishErdrich's. The writing is convoluted, the characters are all related to each other in intricate ways over generations and do really stupid things because of love or infatuation or religious fear or just because. I can see how some people might really like it, but I'm not one. So instead, on to Mean Little deaf Queer on paper and Gay Pride and Prejudice on Kindle.

I started Secret Daughter. I have no expectations; it was passed along by a friend.

>53 Citizenjoyce: Went and bought Gay Pride and Prejudice on Kindle too. Just because it exists. Let me know what you think.

Funny, that's why I bought it.

I'm really enjoying The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert. A historical novel focused on botany didn't sound like something I'd enjoy, but it made a bunch of 'Best Of' lists and was available at the library. Who knew botany could be so lovely? A woman of science and intellect, Alma is a very compelling character.

>57 nancyewhite:. I'd be interested to see what you think of it. I read it after learning that Citizenjoyce enjoyed it. I liked reading it well enough, but felt somehow felt let down at the end. It could just be that Elizabeth Gilbert rubs me the wrong way.

>58 vwinsloe: I think Elizabeth Gilbert will have to write a lot of very good books to make up for Eat, Pray, Love. Hopefully, she'll make a go of it.

>59 nohrt4me2:. LOL. Amen!

>59 nohrt4me2: I couldn't bear to read Eat, Pray, Love and hope never to do so. Perhaps that will make me more positively disposed toward Gilbert. I'm about halfway through and still enjoying it.

vwinsloe, just finished The Interestings which I really enjoyed. I can't say I loved it, but it was one of those books that just flew by. I also liked that all the characters had their own flaws; I dislike books where the protagonist is always perfect.

Now I'm reading The Center of Winter, which, as far as I know, is the only work of fiction from Marya Hornbacher who has written a few memoirs. I haven't decided if I like it yet, but I suppose I don't have to.

Anybody else find that those books you read where you can't decide if you like them or not tend to be more memorable than the ones you love from the beginning? I guess they always make me think a lot, so they stay on my mind.

>62 lemontwist:. I felt the same way about The Interestings. It was a fascinating examination of character and of friendships over time. I think the fact that I am generally in the same age bracket as the characters enhanced my enjoyment since the author referenced so many events and so much popular culture of the times. The book also clearly commented on class, wealth, friendship, romantic attraction and talent. It was all so interesting to observe and think about. We all want to be special in some way! ;>)

In my opinion, it was not great literature, but it was a very good book. I find often in reading that the greater the effort required, the greater the reward. Some books that start out as 3 stars immediately after I read them turn out to be 4 stars after I think about them for a while. That's why I almost never quit on a book before the end. Some of my best reads have redeemed themselves in the last quarter!

>62 lemontwist:, >63 vwinsloe: Yes, I think the books that make us analyze why we think something is wrong with them can be very valuable. I just finished another book by Gabrielle Zevin , the author of The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry. The Fikry book almost made it for me, but not quite. I couldn't believe the stupid choices of some characters. In All These Things I've Done I found even more to like, but the main characters reliance on religion and her absolute premium on virginity grated on me. It's 2083 for heaven's sake, enough with the virginity stuff. That said, the story of a new kind of prohibition and the mafia that grows around it is well written, and this strong woman character is one I want to follow.

As for Eat, Pray, Love - I'm just going to ignore the fact that she ever wrote it, but find it surprising to find that it is her most popular book. At least it's the one that got the movie deal. I rather doubt that The Signature of All Things will ever be made into a movie, though it was, to me, far more the exceptional read. At least I think it was, not having read the other.

>65 Citizenjoyce: and others reading The Signature of All Things--I guess I put Gilbert and Erica Jong in the same package. I read Fear of Flying when I was 24 with high hopes that Jong would have captured something revolutionary about women's sexuality. But I found her character shallow, even repellent at times. Jong later wrote some inventive and interesting historical fiction, a retelling of Fanny Hill and Serenissima.

Well now I feel bad. I stopped at Fear of Flying. Guess I should check out her other work.

>67 Citizenjoyce: I read Fanny, but have not read Serenissima, which is a time-traveling story about Shylock's daughter, sort of. The way Jong writes about sex doesn't appeal to me, but I rather liked her plots, and I applaud the fact that she's taken on two rather difficult women in literature from a feminist POV.

one day i'll read eat, pray, love in spite of all the comments above! in the meantime, though, my last book for 2014 is no lease on life by lynne tillman which is quite strange and mildly interesting but really isn't working for me, even though i kind of like what she's saying.

>69 overlycriticalelisa: quite strange and mildly interesting but really isn't working for me It seems I get runs of that sort of book.
Right now I'm reading I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You which kind of fits into that category. In fact, I almost Pearl ruled it. I kept thinking it was too much of a guy book for me. It's told in first person by a guy who cheats on his wife and I kept wondering if this Courtney Maum must be a guy. Nope, she's a woman, and the book is getting better. It has lots to say about marriage and infidelity and, once again, stupid mistakes people make.

I finally finished All the Light We Cannot See. I didn't care for the book until the last 100 pages or so, so it took me forever to finish it. I also just finished The Goldfinch in audio format, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Now I'm taking up The Silkworm as a print book and Gone Girl on audio.

I haven't read any books that other members are reading now so I can't comment, but I see some interesting titles to look for. My titles are very common this week.

I started the new year highly amused by A Girl Named Zippy.

>72 vwinsloe:

that one always catches my eye. she has another with what i think is a great title: she got up off the couch and other heroic acts.

reading the price of salt as my first patricia highsmith and am very much liking her writing.

>73 overlycriticalelisa:. That is a great title. I'm adding it to my wishlist. Thanks.

Finished The Martian (great castaway adventure, with good female characters; passes the Bechdel test nicely).

On to The Bees.

Just read The Joy Luck Club which I borrowed from my mom's library. I thought it was excellent. It's one of those books with such a familiar name I think "oh I'll read it someday" and then never get around to. Glad I raided my mom's book stash.

Also bought a copy of The Goldfinch. I normally don't buy books but this one is going to take me a while to read and I don't want to have to worry about returning it every 3 weeks. I'm about a hundred or so pages in and it's really captivating, but I'm going to take my time with it.

>76 lemontwist:. Make sure that you check out our spoiler thread when you are done with The Goldfinch! https://www.librarything.com/topic/168395

I just finished Thirty Girls a double story about Ugandan girls captured by Kony's Lord's Resistance Army and the author who goes to Africa to write about them. At first I thought there was way too much about the author and her love life and not enough about the girls, but it rounds out nicely. Very well done. I'm always disappointed with religious explanations of why bad things happen. My little sister says that we have to have the bad or we wouldn't appreciate the good. I'd gladly do away with a little of my appreciation if it meant that children weren't being tortured. Susan Minot's book just says that dark and light exist, no reason, just reality. Tragedy and joy exist and sometimes intermingle.
I also finished and was surprised by Little Mean deaf Queer. I thought the title was interesting, but I had no idea the book would be so complex. Terry Galloway gradually during her childhood loses much of her sight and most of her hearing due to antibiotics given to her pregnant mother. Her loss of vision and hearing precipitate bouts of paranoid hallucinations. She was a pretty doggone mean little girl, wanted to be a handsome cowboy, grows up, falls in love with acting and starts acting troupes and workshops for the disabled while discovering why she should have a right to live.
Now I'm reading Euphoria a great historical fiction novel about Margaret Mead which leaves me pretty much wanting to wring the neck of her second husband. I feel kind of bad that I had to Google Mead to see how much of the story was true, so now I know how it ends, but the journey is fantastic.
In the car I'm listening to Nora Webster set in Ireland about a recently widowed woman and her four children. Good, but pales in comparison to the rest of my reads.
On e book I'm reading Gay Pride and Prejudice which is a hoot. Supercilious Mr. Bennet only married the beautiful and annoying Mrs. Bennet because he's gay and needed a beard for social purposes. He wants to get his favorite daughter Lizzie married because he thinks her deep friendship with Charlotte Lucas has become romantic and he doesn't want her to suffer the consequences. I'd thought that we'd also find that Darcy and Bingley had a thing going, but Bingley is all about the women. Probably it will turn out that Darcy had some kind of romantic fiasco with the charming Wickham which is the basis of his dislike.

I'm always disappointed with religious explanations of why bad things happen.

Yeah, you and me both, and I'm religious. I get sick of the "everything happens for a reason" schtick, too. Wondering why bad things happen is wasted energy. The only intelligent response is, "How can I make it better?"

Probably it will turn out that Darcy had some kind of romantic fiasco with the charming Wickham which is the basis of his dislike.

OK, now you've completely sold me on Gay Pride and Prejudice.

>77 vwinsloe: Thanks for the link!! I will definitely check that out once I finish the book.

While cooking for a big family dinner today I managed to get about half way through an audiobook of
Everything I Never Told You which is about a half Chinese American girl who goes missing. It covers the racism experienced by her Chinese-American father, siblings and self and the dashed scientific hopes of her Caucasian mother who grew up in the 1950s US and wanted to be a doctor but got her Mrs. degree instead, to her great regret.

I finished Everything I Never Told You, so many things, alas. Now on to Lila the third in the Giliad series. I'd forgotton what the first two were about, but thanks to Wikipedia I'm up to speed so ready to see Lila's view of life.

finished the price of salt and i love that the ending makes me call into question most of what i'd thought up until then. can't wait to discuss it in book group...

>83 overlycriticalelisa: I really loved that book, but it's been so long since I've read it that I can't remember any of the particulars.

Apparently Patricia Highsmith used to work in some such store, and sold a doll to a (probably attractive) woman, and that's what she used as her inspiration for the story.

>84 lemontwist:
there's an afterword by her in the edition i read where she tells the story and how it got her (all flushed and flustered and then) inspired to write the story. she said she outlined the entire thing that night in a couple of hours.

i really liked the book when reading it but think i'm going to like it even more as it sits with me for a while. the ending was just spectacular and so so so smart.

i was surprised to read that this was only her second book. she was a talent.

>85 overlycriticalelisa: I've never actually read anything else written by her, but I plan to read Mr. Ripley one of these days. I've read a couple biographies and she sounds like she was quite the character.

I almost never re-read books but I might just have to re-read that one one of these days...

I just finished Dept. Of Speculation by Jenny Offill, a short book about a troubled marriage. It's stream of consciousness, reading more like a long prose poem than a novel, but in a good way.

>83 overlycriticalelisa:, >84 lemontwist: OK I give. I had to get it from Amazon for $3.79 because the library system doesn't have it. I hope knowing the ending is surprising won't spoil the ending for me.
>87 sturlington: After I finish Euphoria Dept. of Speculation is up next. They're both on some best of 2014 lists.
In case anyone is interested, I'm all about the best reading of 2014 this month, and this is my list of lists:

LibraryThing http://www.librarything.com/topic/184987
Afterellen http://www.afterellen.com/books/406409-2014-year-lesbianbi-books
Buzzfeed best fiction: http://www.buzzfeed.com/isaacfitzgerald/books-we-loved-in-2014#.cwVDw7Oa0
Reading Room http://blog.thereadingroom.com/2014/12/2014-best-books-in-fiction.html
MS Magazine http://msmagazine.com/blog/2014/12/26/must-read-feminist-books-of-2014/
Brain Pickings http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/12/22/best-books-2014/
iTunes Best of 2014 (You'll have to look that one up)
Overdrive http://blogs.overdrive.com/front-page-library-news/2014/11/07/team-overdrives-be...
or OverDrive ALL THE BOOKS WE LOVED IN 2014
Book Riot http://bookriot.com/2014/12/02/riot-round-best-books-2014/
Mother Jones http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2014/12/best-food-books-2014-part-1
BookBub http://media.bookbub.com/blog/2014/12/16/best-nonfiction-books-2014/
NPR http://apps.npr.org/best-books-2014/
Kirkus https://www.kirkusreviews.com/issue/best-of-2014/section/fiction/?page=1
Slate http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2014/12/best_books_of_2014_slate_book_r...
Wall Street Journal http://graphics.wsj.com/best-books-2014/
LargeHearted Boy http://www.largeheartedboy.com/blog/archive/2014/12/favorite_novels_7.html
NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/books/review/100-notable-books-of-2014.html?pa...
Book Bub Ultimate List http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/23/best-books-2014_n_6358040.html?ir=Women...
Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/02/best-books-2014_n_6248016.html
River City Reading http://rivercityreading.com/2014/12/2014s-best-books-might-missed.html
Publisher's Weekly http://best-books.publishersweekly.com/pw/best-books/2014/top-10#book/book-1
Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-books-2014
Amazon http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_426357402_1?ie=UTF8&docId...
Barnes and Noble http://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/feature/the-best-books-of-2014/?adbid=1015283...
Library Journal http://reviews.libraryjournal.com/2014/10/best-of/library-journals-best-books-of...
Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/the-top-50-fiction-books-for-2...
Washington Post Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/50-notable-works-of-nonfiction...
Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/the-top-50-fiction-books-for-2...

I opened a Patricia Highsmith thread; I'm excited to see her getting good play on here and that her work is being "rediscovered."

Spoilers allowed over there.

I'm about a quarter of the way through Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. This is another one that made a lot of best of lists. So far it is an exceptionally good and mysterious dystopia.

>88 Citizenjoyce: Thank you so much for the list of lists. Fantastic

>89 nohrt4me2: I loved The Ripley books that I've read so far. I too went and bought the Kindle version of The Price of Salt. I think there are a couple of biographies of her that I'd like to read as well. I may own the one that her lover Marijane Meaker wrote. Meaker is a lesbian who wrote under a variety of nom de plumes including Vin Packer, Ann Aldrich and M.E. Kerr.

>90 nancyewhite: I mentioned a couple of the memoirs / biographies over on the other thread.

I finished Lila, and while I liked the characterization and storyline revolving around Lila herself I found the religiosity intrusive and uninteresting. This is a shame because she writes a very inclusive religion, which one doesn't expect of Calvanism, it's rather Universalist view. If I wanted to read about religion, this would be it, I just didn't much want to read about religion.
I'm about half way through Dept. of Speculation and wil finish it today, it's a tiny little book. Parts of it are good, the whole idea of you only wrote one book, when's the next one coming out? sounds familiar though I've not written even one. I guess it's the idea that you haven't lived up to all that wonderful potential people have preaised you for all your life. It's the difficulty of motherhood thing that I have a problem with since that was the one area of my life, at least in the very early years, that was no difficulty at all. I very fortunately did not have a colicky baby or, wuss that I am, I would have stopped with one.

>89 nohrt4me2:

i'll be right over there!

>88 Citizenjoyce:

i try not to say anything that would spoil a reading for anyone. it's not such a surprising ending or plot twist or anything, just made me think differently about what i'd read to that point, that's all. you're a fast reader, i look forward to hearing what you think soon!

>92 Citizenjoyce: Dept. of Speculation really clicked for me at about the halfway mark, although I really think it's worth a reread, now that I've become familiar with her style. Fortunately, it's short enough that a reread is actually a possibility in the not-too-distant future. I think she really nailed some of the contradictory feelings about motherhood.

I'm still reading The Bees which is starting to feel a little strained, like an exercise written for a master's class or something. A friend tells me the payoff is in the final pages.

I finished Dept. of Speculation and was not charmed overall. People are starving and dying and being terrorized in the real world, and this character just whines about her poor, unfortunate middle class white life. I know troubles come to all, and the world is not about a competition of sorrows, but it just seems this woman needs some direction so that she can feel the joy inherent in her life.
Then I finished Pen and Ink Tattoos and loved it. I don't have any tattoos but my daughter does and always wants more. Tattoos of famous and regular people are drawn along with the stories of what they mean and the circumstances under which they were inked.

>93 overlycriticalelisa: Alas, I am not at all a fast reader, I just listen to audio books while I'm doing anything that doesn't involve concentration, and read paper books for much of the day.

>96 Citizenjoyce:

well, i'm consistently impressed by how many books you go through, however you do it! i guess i envy you your time to read, then. =) i'm a slow reader, too. so sad. but like you said above, that just seems whiny in the face of real sadness.

I'm the biggest whiner of them all, I just tire of reading about whining. And my slow reading ability is one of the things I whine about often. One advantage of being old and retired is that I have the time to partially overcome my disability.

i do, too. i usually say that my slow reading is one of the biggest sadnesses in my life, which makes me lucky, but after you wrote that review above that seemed ... ill-advised. =)

>96 Citizenjoyce: I had a very different reaction than you to Dept. of Speculation. The book is about a woman who is deciding whether to end her marriage after discovering her husband has been unfaithful. I found the chaotic swirl of emotions and reactions to be very genuine and evocative of the upheaval she felt in her life. I never once felt that she was whining as she moved through her reactions to this personal crisis.

>98 Citizenjoyce: Wow, I cannot believe that you are really a slow reader. I listen to audiobooks also and I still don't get anywhere near close to the amount of books you read! In fact, I am always amazed/envious when reading this thread when it comes to the number of books I see you get through each week.

>101 sweetiegherkin:

i know, and those are just the ones written by women! i don't do audiobooks, but otherwise, my thoughts exactly. =)

>101 sweetiegherkin:, >102 overlycriticalelisa: Remember, the key word is retired.
>100 sturlington: Well, it was listed as one of the best books of 2014 so obviously, I just didn't get it. I have a difficult time with people who think that because their spouse is unfaithful their lives are forever altered. This was the same reaction I had to I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You. That wife wasn't whiny, but she did treat her straying husband as if she'd just discovered he'd been a guard at Auschwitz. Life is long, if we're lucky. Monogamy is difficult to impossible to maintain if you have much of a sex drive. If marriage is only about monogamy in my opinion it's not worth much.

I was hot and cold on Dept. of Speculation throughout, but ultimately settled on liking it. She is clearly a whiner, and yes, compared to the tragedies of the world, the day to day struggle of millions, she has little to complain about. But for her, today, in this life, she is struggling, and while I found her tone tiresome at times, I don't want to let that distract me too much from the suffering she is experiencing. And, sure, marital infidelity is (unfortunately) quite comonplace -- but not for her, not today, not in her marriage. Dept of Speculation does not try to be anything but an "all about me" book, and accepting that, I think it works.

>104 shearon: Ah, maybe that's what I didn't like it. A book that is all about me by a miserable person is, to me, worthless. That's what I disliked about Lena Dunham's memoir, her all about me-ness illuminated a person who was incapable of mutual interaction with others. Only her happiness counted, and she wasn't happy. That's a valuable lesson, but not one told in an interesting manner.
I'm about half way though another of the best of 2014, Astonish Me. You could say this is also an all about me story about a woman who loves ballet but falls just short of the greatness she desires. However this one, since it is a novel and not a memoir or memoir type novel, says something about other people and is illuminating both about ballet and about the type of person involved in the art.

>103 Citizenjoyce:. This:

Life is long, if we're lucky. Monogamy is difficult to impossible to maintain if you have much of a sex drive. If marriage is only about monogamy in my opinion it's not worth much.

..is fantastic and seldom spoken.

Just started Karen Joy Fowler's collection Black Glass

>106 nancyewhite: It seems reasonable to me. I know people aren't reasonable, but we have to try.
I've just finished the ballet novel Astonish Me and it gets my 5 stars. It's about ballet, striving for perfection, competition, dreams, growing up, marriage, reality, disappointment... Well, it's about everything seen in a new light, and I loved it.
Now on to two books for my two book clubs next week. I downloaded Frankenstein from Openculture.com which is a great source for literature and philosophy. On paper I've started my second Denise Mina, The End of Wasp Season. I listened to Still Midnight with all the Scottish accents, let's see if I like her as well on paper.

Just finished Ladies of Missalonghi by Colleen McCullough.

This was recommended by LT readers and, as suggested, it did remind me of
The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery and A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute -
two of my favorites.

Set in a small town in Australia, early 1900s.

I'm reading Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult. I've never read anything by her before, but I heard this one has lesbian content (and it does indeed), so I had to pick it up.

will be starting storyteller by leslie marmon silko later today. it looks so interesting - the back says that it "blends original short stories and poetry influenced by the traditional oral tales that Silko heard growing up on the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico with autobiographical passages, folktales, and family memories and photographs. As she mixes Western literary genres with the oral traditions of her heritage, Silko examines themes of memory, alienation, power, and identity; communicates Native American notions regarding time, nature, and spirituality; and explores how stories and storytelling shape persons and communities."

it was in the nonfiction section of the library but is a bit of a hybrid. i'm not so interested, usually, in more experimental literature but this seems like it's going to be right up my alley...

>110 lemontwist: Let us know what you think of the Picoult. I have mixed feelings about her "ripped from the headlines" novels. My Sister's Keeper took a very interesting family/legal dilemma (what rights do parents have to require one minor child to give up an organ to another minor child who is dying). However, the ending completely dodged the hard issues she'd been trying to address. It was as close to enraged by a book as I've ever been.

>108 Citizenjoyce: Now I'm going to have to read Astonish me, as you've enjoyed it so much. I liked Seating arrangements, which I think was Shipstead's first novel, and I'm excited to read her take on the ballet world.

I just started Life After Life which seems to have been well liked on LT.

I finished My Year of Meat which I'd been reluctant to read because I'd thought it might be some kind of memoir of working in a butcher shop. But I loved Ruth Ozeki's A Tale For the Time Being, so I gave it a try. This book was written earlier and at first I was quite put off by it because the men were so reprehensible. There's a limit to how much anti-misogyny propaganda even I can take. But, Ozeki doesn't disappoint, some men who do stupid things can change, some men can be complex and still be good people, and of course, some men are just pretty much hopeless. This is a great expose of factory farmed meat and a really good story of culture clash and personal growth.

Moving toward the latter half of Burial Rites. This very grim, and a bit like "Alias Grace Goes to Iceland" so far, but I'm enjoying it despite the slow pacing.

And, because I find Iceland endlessly fascinating, I downloaded The Little Book of the Icelanders by Alda Sigmundsottir. She's on Facebook (apparently along with 95 percent of the rest of Iceland). It is a hilarious and quick afternoon read. Her blog is here: http://icelandweatherreport.com/

I finished and reviewed Edith Pearlman's latest collection of short stories, Honeydew. Like her previous collection, which won the National Book Award a few years ago, this one shows deep psychological insight and deep compassion for the characters.

Just finished Black Ships by Jo Graham. I really enjoyed the depiction of women in this historical fantasy, which I thought were varied and well-rounded. I just figured out today that the author is someone I went to college with, and we were in a sf/fantasy club together. I didn't realize this before because she is using a pseudonym now.

>117 rebeccanyc: I saw the NYT book review section had a review of Pearlman's book that made me want to read it: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/books/review/edith-pearlman-honeydew-review.ht...

I finished Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult. Should't I know by now not to read anything else by her. After Handle With Care I vowed that was it, then I stupidly went on to Sing You Home so that I could again be disappointed, but this time I thought since it was about elephants maybe she'd get it right. And she did, partially. All the stuff about elephants was great, information I'd never known, ethnology at its entertainingly best. Then she had to get all hokey and ruin it. In fact, she really should do us all a favor and change her name to Hokey Jodi, then we wouldn't be tempted, no matter what the purported subject of the novel, not to give it a try.
Next up is The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, short stories by Hilary Mantel, another of the best books of 2014 (as was, inexplicably the Picoult book).

How could I forget, earlier today I also finished reading The End Of Wasp Season for my book club on Friday, What a great book. I don't even like police procedurals, but Denise Mina manages to examine class and gender from so many sides and in so many honest ways that she is an absolute treasure. I could do without the bloody corpses, but I just have to forgive her for her genre and enjoy the way she writes.

>120 Citizenjoyce: "Hokey Jodi" almost made me snort my tea with laughter. I will never see her name again without immediately translating it to Hokey Jodi.

>120 Citizenjoyce:

this is good to know because i keep feeling like i should read her; i keep hearing that she deals with really interesting issues, etc so now maybe i won't force it...

>123 overlycriticalelisa: I picked up My Sister's Keeper from our Little Free Library because of the same reason, but it just sat there on my TBR. I couldn't muster up the interest. I have a really terrible track record of liking authors or anything else that is insanely popular. I finally decided to put it back in the Little Free Library and not to read her just because everyone else seems to.

>122 nancyewhite: Well then, my work here is done.
The problem with Picoult is that she does deal with very interesting ideas, and you learn a lot about them. So either she does good research or she has a good research team. Then she completely screws up a good, informative book by overlaying it with melodrama and silliness. I like historical fiction so it's obvious that I like my facts tempered by a good story, but the emphasis is on good. The researching Picoult is an intelligent adult, the novel writer is still stuck in junior high school. Maybe she needs an exorcism, or maybe her researchers should write their own books and leave her out of it.

I finished Life After Life and find myself enjoying thinking about it more than I enjoyed reading most of the book. The sections about the London Blitz interspersed with nostalgia for a rural childhood home were incredibly poignant. I liked the book's complexity. It really captured the randomness of life's events as opposed to the unchanging nature of a person's character.

I'm about to start Alex & Me which came up here a while ago when we were discussing We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.

I cut Jodi Picoult a lot of slack because it's so hard to find good, adult fiction with lesbians as main characters. Well, maybe it's not hard to find, but maybe I've already read most all of it. I don't think I'd read anything else she's written, as her other stuff doesn't look terribly appealing to me.

>119 nohrt4me2: I jumped on it because I loved Binocular Vision and had never heard of Pearlman until she won the National Book Award for it.

Then she (Jodi Picolt) had to get all hokey and ruin it.

Pretty much it in a nutshell in my experience.

Wow, interesting to hear the all the thoughts on Jodi Picoult. I've never read any of her books, although a friend with similar reading tastes highly recommended them. Recently I did pick up her Nineteen Minutes as an audiobook from my local library used book sales because the price was right ($1) and I figured it would be good to have something handy in case I couldn't find a good next audiobook read at the library (it's happened before and then I've been saddled with either a really bad audiobook or the inanity of the radio). As I currently have 3 audiobooks out from the library, I don't think I'm getting to Picoult's any time soon.

Right now I'm reading Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine. It's beautifully written but I'm having a little trouble getting into it, as it feels like the first 20 pages or so have just been about introducing all the characters. I actually put it down for a little bit and a read a very short book instead before coming back to it. I'm hoping now that the introductions seem to be over, I will be able to be pulled more into it.

Finished Burial Rites, and it left me cold (no pun intended). What it says about poor and marginalized women in an unforgiving landscape and unforgiving time is interesting. But it lacks any real dramatic tension or "go," I think because the narrative style and devices are so detached. It's one thing to maintain distance and lack of sentimentality, it's another to lack any kind of emotional engagement at all.

I wanted to like it more.

>131 nohrt4me2:. Thanks, I own Burial Rites and lent it to someone before reading it. I will not pressure her to give it back. It's not like I have nothing to read!!

Oh, and I responded to your thread on Life After Life. I hope that others see it and weigh in. Surely Citizenjoyce must have read it.

>132 vwinsloe: When you do read it, I'd like to know how you (or any others) weighed in on Burial Rites. It was critically acclaimed, but I'm not sure why.

Thanks for the take on Life After Life. I'm not an Atkinson fan

>133 nohrt4me2:. I've never ready anything else by Kate Atkinson so I had no expectations. Interestingly, Life After Life has not prompted me to seek out anything else that she has written. I understand that some sort of sequel is in the works though, and I would definitely read that.

I will let you know when I get to Burial Rites; I am hoping at least for some good cultural & geographic descriptions of Iceland.

>132 vwinsloe: Well, shoot, spongyform brain syndrome in effect. I read Life After Life and remember that I liked it very much, even gave it 4 stars, but I didn't review it and don't remember what I liked so much.
I started Burial Rites but couldn't sustain any interest and left it early.
I'm about 1/3 of the way through Penelope Lively's Dancing Fish and Ammonites which I had thought would be a novel but is instead both a memoir and a commentary on aging. I can't actually say I'm enjoying it, but it is interesting.
In the car still listening to Good Kings, Bad Kings by the disability advocate Susan Nussbaum, and it is wonderful. People might think she is exagerating about the care of these disabled kids in a nursing home, but having worked in nursing homes in my younger years and having encountered all the cost cutting added to fragile self inflating egos, I have to say, it sounds pretty real to me.
On iPad I'm listening to Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932 which is a novel concocted by Francine Prose around a photograph taken by Brassai Lesbian Lovers at the Chameleon Club and the story of Violette Morris who was a French race car driver and Nazi sympathizer and spy. I'm afraid to read anything else about the real characters until I finish the book because I don't want the plot spoiled. The book is written in one of those disjointed flash back and forth techniques that can be confusing, so it took a while before I had any idea who anyone was, but it has certainly sucked me in now. I wish we could just stay the the wild Chameleon Club and never have to get to the Nazi sympathizer part.

>132 vwinsloe:. I read Good Kings, Bad Kings just a few books back. Quite an eyeopener.

reading don't let's go to the dogs tonight by alexandra fuller about a white woman who grew up in africa. she certainly isn't sugar coating the racism, especially of her mother...

>137 overlycriticalelisa:. I loved that book. She wrote a sequel, Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness, which went over much of the same ground, but seemed to have been written to appease her mother who she trashes in the book you are reading. For some reason, I love African memoirs as a genre in themselves.

Scott Simon had Fuller on NPR this morning re her new memoir, Before the Rains Come.
http://www.npr.org/2015/01/17/377507988/leaving-a-continent-and-a-marriage-befor...

>138 vwinsloe:

i'm finding it good but nothing spectacular, but would say that her mother certainly doesn't come off too well at all. (although she's made her at least partially sympathetic.) i was planning on reading that one but didn't realize it was mostly rehashed material, and hadn't heard about her new one >139 nohrt4me2:. i think i'll wait to decide on that one...

I started Alif the Unseen last night.

>133 nohrt4me2:, >134 vwinsloe: I did like Burial rites, perhaps because Iceland is a place that interests me. I thought it was well written, with prose that was a pleasure to read in its clarity, and I liked the way the relationships developed between the protagonist and the family who are reluctantly housing her. For me the emotional distance suited the harsh, cold setting and seemed appropriate for characters whose lives were pretty rigid. Vwinsloe, I thought the cultural and geographic descriptions were excellent, clearly showing how people's lives are tied to the land and the turning of the seasons. I do wonder how well it will stand up to a reread though; maybe the lack of emotion will bother me more a second time around.

I'm now somewhere much warmer - New Mexico - in The sleepwalker's guide to dancing.

>142 Sakerfalcon:. Thanks. Although nohrt4me2 compared it to Alias Grace, descriptions of Burial Rites remind me of The Weight of Water which I liked very much. I will definitely read it when it is returned to me by the person to whom I lent it.

142 Going to Iceland is on my bucket list (though I may have to make do with my cousin's photos), and I normally like Scandinavian literature. However, this is an Icelandic story written by the Australian Hannah Kent, who perhaps, for me anyway, gets the tone a little too distant to do justice to the story.

From Dancing Fish and Ammonites by Penelope Lively
What we have read makes us what we are - quite as much as what we have experienced and where we have been and who we have known. To read is to experience.
Again I have to say, I'm not really enjoying this book, it seems like disjointed ramblings, but it does have its moments.

Finally read The Color Purple. Soooooooo good. Why did I wait so long?

I'm listening to Elizabeth Is Missing right now. I have mo idea what to expect from this novel told from the first person perspective of a woman with Alzheimer's, but I'm enjoying it so far, even though I feel so worried about the woman and bad for her daughter caught between wanting to believe her mother but knowing about her deficits.
I finished Lovers at the Chameleon Club Paris, 1932 which was my first Francine Prose and offers much food for thought. An author character in the book states that in writing her biography of another character, Lou Villars, she wants to explore the nature and evolution of evil. The New York Times book review doesn't think she succeeds, but I think she does. Unfortunately what she shows is that it doesn't take gigantic, earth shattering events to turn a person toward the dark side. It just takes one betrayal after another. I add this book to Suite Francaise and Sarah's Key in helping me understand some of what went on in France during the German occupation.
Now I'm about to start another of the best of 2014 books, a graphic short story collection How To Be Happy.

I'm reading Monica Dickens' Joy and Josephine, an older book but wonderful characters so far.

I finished and reviewed the graphic short story collection How To Be Happy and just didn't get it unless Eleanor Davis is saying life is so bad happiness is impossible. Then I read a graphic memoir, Tomboy that was much better. Liz Prince examines her life as a girl who didn't like anything girlie including dresses, make up, dolls or menstruation. She describes her life from being bullied and ostracized to being accepted as a different kind of female who likes to draw comics. It's well written and well drawn and makes me want to read more by her.

>149 Citizenjoyce: I just read Tomboy myself. I really enjoyed it.

>144 nohrt4me2: I'd certainly like to see what an Icelandic author would do with this piece of history.

Yesterday I had a couple of long train journeys to make and I brought Station eleven with me to read. I managed to finish it, mainly because I just didn't want to stop reading. It's beautifully written and the way the non-linear story passes between seemingly unconnected characters drew me in and kept me reading until all the pieces fit together. I'd recommend it even if you normally wouldn't read a post-Apocalyptic story as this one focuses more on people's inner lives than on physical survival, and while there is the violence you'd expect in this setting it occurs off the page for the most part. A lot more time than I'd expected is spent in the book's past, before the disaster occurs, and at first I wondered how this would be relevant to the "present" day narrative, but it came together beautifully. My best read of the year so far (although the year is young ...)

I've started The Paris Wife which is not something that I would ordinarily be interested in, but it was given to me by a friend, and, so far, I like the voice and the historical framework.

I'm in the middle of Casebook by Mona Simpson and am enjoying it.

>152 vwinsloe: I thought I would like The Paris Wife ... instead I've been reading it for more than 2 years because I can't usually stand reading it for more than a few pages at a time.

>154 sweetiegherkin:. If you don't like the voice of the protagonist, I can see where it would be a slog. I'm about a third of the way in now, and am charmed by the appearance of Gertrude Stein & Alice Toklas and the other artistes of that time and place.

About halfway into Shirley Jackson's The Sundial. Very strange, very funny.

>156 nohrt4me2: That was my favorite read of 2014!

I just finished two good books. First The Queen of the Tearling a fantasy novel with a strong female main character. I'm glad she finds her power but somewhat saddened that she can access it only through anger. Maybe in follow up books, after owning her anger she will be able to find her power in other ways.
I also finished the wonderful Annie On My Mind which included an interview with the author Nancy Garden. The novel is a tender coming of age and coming to realization story that hasn't been banned as often as I would have thought it would be. I'm wondering if it's included in the school libraries of my conservative state.

I just got The Magician's Lie: A Novel by Greer Macallister and Rodin's Lover by Heather Webb last night and I'm planning on starting them on the commute home. Both look great - they both have women as the main characters and are set around the same time, the late 19th century, though in vastly different places.

>154 sweetiegherkin:

i finish everything i start so very much understand that that could be your answer here, but why continue to try reading it for years if you hate it that much?

>156 nohrt4me2:, >157 sturlington:

her the haunting of hill house was my favorite of 2014. could continue to talk about that one for ages, i think. am reading danse macabre right now (sorry girlybooks) and am actually in the part where he talks about hill house but has also just said a bit about the sundial.

>161 overlycriticalelisa: I read loved "The Haunting of Hill House." Think I read it over 40 years ago in middle-school. Have read it many times since. Good read!

I read Radio Iris yesterday... I'm really not sure if I liked it or not. I found it hard to motivate myself to pick it up at times, and I have no idea what the heck happened at the end. Sometimes books like that make me think a lot, which is good, this one just confused me. The main character was also so awkward that I found myself cringing several times while reading.

>163 lemontwist: I checked back to see what I had thought of Radio Iris, I don't remember a thing about it, and this was my review. Seems that we think about the same:
This book is reminiscent of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender but not nearly as good. Iris and her brother Neil are both alienated from life. Neil is too intense, Iris's heartbeat could barely register on a stethoscope. Iris wants to relate to Neil, Neil wants - what? Only to fly, I guess. In Lemon Cake the main character had taste as her only significant sense, Iris has hearing, particularly music, specifically - for a woman in her mid twenties - a love of Oldies. She loves dogs and dreams about her childhood pet nightly, but doesn't have a dog now - luckily for the canine species because Iris is so barely present in life that she could never remember for more than an hour or two to take care of another living creature. I think Anne-Marie Kinney worked hard on this little book. She must have a cadre of people who think she is talented, T. C. Boyle is her mentor; but her writing barely kept me awake. Yes there's an interesting surrealistic twist at the end, but by the time I got there, I just wanted the whole thing over.

Just finished Rilla of Ingleside for the "Reading Through Time" group's quarterly read on WW1. I'll give it 4**** though I personally was turned off by the rah-rah patriotism and on my own preference might score it a bit lower, but if that kind of patriotism doesn't both you then it's at least a 4**** read.

I think I'll be doing some catch-up on last year's WW1 reading on the VMC group given the "Reading Through Time" group's current WW1 time period during this first quarter of 2015.

Having unaccountably missed it as a child I'm now reading The Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O'Shea and finding it great fun.

Finished The Sundial, and enjoyed it. Quite enigmatic, and seems to me you can explain what's going on in a variety of ways. Some very funny social commentary that was also quite chilling.

On a Mark Haddon jag for now.

>168 evawallace:
see here and please respect this: http://www.librarything.com/about_authors.php

I finished Gay Pride and Prejudice and find myself missing these characters who have become surprisingly familiar to me. I've read Pride and Prejudice twice, once on my own and once in a tutored read. I saw the Colin Firth PBS series twice and the Keira Knightley movie once, read the related novel about the servants, Longbourn, then read a spin off, Death Comes to Pemberly and recently saw the movie made of it. I can't believe this novel just keeps going and going, and I keep going along for the ride.
I also finished Dear Committee Members about the sort of self absorbed, womanizing, academic misanthrope most of us have known and hopefully few of us have become entangled with. He's fun to read about, as long as you're not asking him for a letter of recommendation, but not so fun to let into your life.
Then I finished the surprising The Winter People and recommended it to my daughter. She likes horror novels, I don't, but since it was on a best of 2014 list I fortunately gave it a try. It's very well written and not at all what I thought it was going to be from the tags.
Lastly I finished Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant, also on several best of 2014 lists. This graphic memoir chronicles the last years of Roz Chast's parents, her anxious father and her overbearing mother. I can't imagine being truthful enough to write the way she does about her mother. Alison Bechdel has a blurb on the cover in which she mentions repeatedly how hilarious the book is. Wow. You need to be pretty thick skinned to find much of these memories hilarious, but having read Bechdel's memoirs, she has the skin for it. I almost didn't and found it made me quite uncomfortable. Discomfort is not a disqualifier, in fact, I wouldn't have even said it was a drawback had I been expecting something other than a humorous book about aging. So be warned, then you'll enjoy the book.

>170 Citizenjoyce: The Winter People is on my library list mostly because of the description but I know nothing about the book. Nice to see you recommending it.

>171 sturlington: Not a recommendation I ever thought I'd make for a horror story. Live and learn.

>171 sturlington: I gave The Winter People a 3*** review. It wasn't bad, but it's definitely not one of my favorite by her.

Anyway, I'm currently about halfway through Ursula LeGuin's Lavinia, her retelling of The Aeneid from the point of view of Aeneas's Italian wife. I'd currently rate it just about so-so, but I really can't fairly judge this one until I've completed it because here, at the halfway point, we come to the end of Virgil's story and I suspect that the rest of the book will be the married life (apparently short) of Aeneas and Lavinia. The plain-and-simple retelling of The Aeneid is alright but not particularly spectacular, so I'll have to see what happens here in the second half.

reading a book of poetry by kate gray titled another sunset we survive; she writes beautifully...

>155 vwinsloe: Yep, that's the problem. I don't care for Hadley (or rather, her voice as presented in the book) so I have difficulty getting into it.

>160 overlycriticalelisa: I also have the sickness of needing to finish everything I start. Also, I don't hate the book, I'm just finding it very difficult to get in to it. Because it doesn't suck me in, I usually only read a few pages before getting bored and moving on to something else. And then I eventually come back to it for a few more pages ... and so on ...

I am currently having problems continuing with An Untamed State. It's not just that the content is brutal, which it certainly is,but that I'm finding the writing to be surprisingly flat and unengaging. Can anyone who has read this comment on whether this is worth the trauma?

>175 sweetiegherkin:

i almost always read just one book at at time, which can be useful (push through to move on) or not (as it takes forever sometimes)

>176 sturlington: i'm pretty curious about what people have to say about this one as well...

>177 overlycriticalelisa: I'm usually reading at least two books at a time, as I'll have a print book going and an audio book going as well. Sometimes I'll have multiple print ones going as well if there's a good reason for it - i.e., one book is far too large to tote around so I'll have a smaller book to keep in my purse when on the go, or one is nonfiction and one is fiction, etc. But sometimes I do wonder if it would be more efficient to just stick with one until I'm done with it! :)

>178 sweetiegherkin: when i was growing up i had a book for each room of the house. it was probably when i went to college that that changed. i find it much easier to keep track of story and themes if i'm only reading one thing at a time, though. and i have a terrible, terrible memory, so keeping it to one at a time is especially important for me when there is nuance in the writing or the ideas or when the writer is referring back to subtle or minor things from earlier (like with tom robbins). i do get distracted by what's upcoming, though, which wouldn't happen if i could read multiple things at a time...

Now a days I usually have several books on the go at a time.
One in the car: Elizabeth Is Missing a first person account of dementia
One on iPad: The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help by Amanda Palmer whom I was completely unaware of. She's a street performer, a TED talk giver, a musician, a writer and the wife of Neil Gaiman. I feel bad that's she's really grating on my nerves. Everything she says seems sincere and profound, but I feel like she and I are not the same species. She's a rock star persona, like Lena Dunham and I'm more like the ant in the ant and the grasshopper.
On paper: Unspeakable: and other subjects of discussion by Meghan Daum. These first person essays are much more accessible, though it makes me sad to read of yet another intelligent woman who so disliked her mother (and her mother's mother).
and, as an extra added attraction, through openculture.com I'm listening to Middlemarch. I so loved it when I read it years ago, but the main character's asceticism is really getting to me this time. Does a "good" woman have to deny herself everything?

You shouldn't make the mistake of thinking Eliot intends us to agree with Dorothea, Joyce.

>181 lyzard: I know that's true just based on what I know of her life, but wow, it's strong characterization. There's a group read here on LT that I'll check out when I'm further into the book.

just starting nevada by imogen binnie. hard to believe that it might be my first novel with a trans main character, but i think that could be true...

>180 Citizenjoyce:. There is a book called The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books that lists the top 10 favorite books of 125 authors and then compiles the most mentioned into one list of ten favorite books. When I first saw it, I said, "Figures. No women." And then-

"10. Middlemarch by George Eliot"

I suppose I should read it. I just really didn't care for Silas Marner when we had to read it at school, and that put me off her.

>184 vwinsloe: The more I read, the better I like it. I remember when I was 15 (Dorothea is older, 19 or younger I think) I too was very ascetic and wanted to be better than good, threw out all my books that I thought were too worldly, was goody two shows to the max, so I guess I can relate to the character. I however, got the chance to change. I read the book years ago, but I don't think Dorothea goes in the same direction - going to college, leaving the church - I don't think that's in her future. There's so much sarcasm and so many astute observations, it's well worth the read.

ETA I've finished 10 chapters, so now I'm ready to dip into the group read that starts here:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/33908#

>185 Citizenjoyce: Dorothea is also living more than thirty years before the book was written, so her options were even more limited.

She's not meant to be a self-portrait. She and Eliot do have certain things in common but Eliot is also quite critical of some of Dorothea's "enthusiasms", which are subtly but definitely presented as self-indulgent and egotistical, in the sense of inward-looking; though her ultimate point is Dorothea's complete lack of guidance when she most needs it.

Yes, good ol' Uncle Brooks doesn't teach her because he thinks her soft little feminine mind she doesn't need to be guided, she needs to be sheltered and coddled. At this point she's hoping her beloved will be her teacher, if that doesn't take too much time and energy away from his "great work."

>185 Citizenjoyce:. Thanks for the link. I also added the book title to the "About" sidebar on the page so that it will show up in the Discussion Topics that are listed on the book's page. That way I'll be sure to find it whenever I get a copy of and read Middlemarch.

After discovering that those links exist, I went back to a few of our previous discussions and added the title of the book to the "About" section at the top right hand column of the discussion thread's page so that it will show up on the book's page for anyone who is interested. It seems that others may not know that this feature exists, so I am mentioning it here.

I don't understand the about section. Is it just a re-hash of touchstones?

>189 Citizenjoyce:. I thought that I didn't explain that well! If you look on this page in the upper right hand corner below the group, there is a place that you can enter what a thread is about. If you put in a book name, then a link to the discussion thread will show up on the book's page (where the touchstone will take you) in the section entitled "Conversations" just above the Member Reviews. Under Conversations, it will list the thread as a "Topic" rather than just a "Mention" (which I think links to touchstones.) I find that it is a handy place to look to see if there are any discussions that are dedicated to a book that I am reading.

Oh, I see. Pretty clever.

>191 Citizenjoyce:. I thought so, too. Well done, LT programmers!

>180 Citizenjoyce: I liked Unspeakable at first. I found the first essay in particular moving and honest. However, when I read the 'Honorary Dyke' essay, I hated it. I was offended and dismayed enough that it poisoned the entire book for me.

>193 nancyewhite: That one didn't bother me, maybe because I could relate to being culturally rather than biologically lesbian; but I was pretty horrified by the one in which she's a guardian and thinks of adopting a foster child because somehow she thinks that would be easier than having one of her own. She wouldn't expect so much of herself in relation to a child who had been repeatedly discarded.

>194 Citizenjoyce: Oh, right! I forgot about adopting the lost foster children in my rage about 'Honorary Dyke'.

For me, the honorary dyke essay felt offensive; like a gut punch. I love folks who fit into the lesbian (or better yet queer) mold but aren't primarily interested in sex with women. I say, "Hop in the pool and swim awhile. Let's hang out."

BUT. Just because your friends call you an 'Honorary Lesbian' does not give you the right to call yourself that while with anyone but them. Unless you have sex with women, you've had to come out or you've been afraid to be affectionate in certain places lest someone should make you pay for the privilege, you don't get to declare yourself a lesbian. Honorary or otherwise.

Can you imagine her writing the same essay but titled 'Honorary Person of Color'? Then proceeding to explain language, clothing, habits and nuances as if she was an expert?

For what it is worth, 'stone butch' is a complex, wonderful, fraught, sexy (at least to me), bold sort of masculine person who often, but not always, does not like to receive sexual attention to their body. Some, but not all, live at the edge of sex roles, gender, sexuality and queerness. They screw with the gender binary.

Stone Butches have a long important history in the lesbian/queer world. They took brave and terrifying risks to be themselves in a place and time where most people thought of them as freaks or worse. They were hassled by cops and sometimes arrested if they weren't wearing one article of women's clothing. They suffered violence and ridicule. They fought at Stonewall and paved the way for the genderqueer revolution.

'Stone Butch' does not mean, "the most masculine of them all." However, Daum feels confident enough in this simplistic, stupid definition that she includes it as an educational aside in her essay. Stone Butches have actually written some books of their own: Stone Butch Blues is the quintessential example. Butch is a Noun is more recent. The Persistent Desire is my favorite anthology and includes writings about butches and femmes. There are many others. For my money if you are going to read one book, though, it has to be Stone Butch Blues.

And, her definition of stone butch is just one of the things that pissed me off about this essay.



I get your point about another woman writing about a negative relationship with her mother. I have to say in that essay when she is describing clearing belongings from the sickroom while her mother was still alive and her fears of what the hospice person might think, I found her candor about the practical side of a parent dying quite moving. Then she ruined it. ::smile::

Good analysis. Here I was being rather relieved at reading The Unspeakable because Amanda Palmer's The Art of Asking is driving me crazy. First she sings a song about wanting to sing a song but not being able to sing (which she can't except for simple melodies. She can write, but has the chutzpah to be a singer). Then toward the end of the book she says she feels like a worthless fraud. Well, worthless - no, a fraud - yup, I think she's got that one right. So, when I get to Meghan Daum calling herself an honorary dyke I just didn't get the insult. I've thought of myself as an honorary dyke and an honorary Jew for so long I've forgotten how insulting that is. Thanks for the reorientation.
And yes, I did applaud Daum's honesty about all the conflicting emotions surrounding her mother's death, but I'm tired of reading about intelligent women who can't recognize the humanity of their mothers. It's bad enough that society in general tends to ignore our humanity, but it really hurts when our daughters don't. (Then here I am, not feeling Palmer's humanity).

Finished Station Eleven, one of the best in the post-apocalyptic genre I've read since Atwood's Year of the Flood. The narrative is interesting and engaging, and exploration of the function of art and literacy is one that is fresh despite the fact that this is ground that has been covered not only by Atwood, but by Stephen King, Octavia Butler, and Cormac McCarthy.

I was lukewarm about Sue Monk Kidd's previous books, but I picked up The Invention of Wings off a library cart some time ago anyway. It is #5 of people's favorite books for 2014 here on LT. I started it yesterday, and so far I am impressed.

I am always wary when a white person tries to write African American characters. Too many times the characters are stereotypes, and the plot ends up to be a self-congratulatory story of how some white person helped passive black victims without their own agency.

So far (50 pages in) this book seems not to do that. We'll see whether it avoids that syndrome all the way through. I'd like to see what some African American reviewers say, too.

>197 nohrt4me2: i was waiting for a third positive review of this book before adding it to my list and yours is it. thanks! i wasn't actually all that sure i'd like it, but your few sentences makes me think i will.

>198 vwinsloe: i have the same wariness (see: the help) but was impressed by how she handled the secret life of bees. (then again, maybe that's easy for me since i'm a white person.) still, i'm surprised that she's doing it again. i haven't read anything else by her and don't know if it's typical for her or not. but it's an interesting discussion; telling other people's stories is a huge responsibility and what gives anyone the right and the knowledge (and why should anyone restrain from having fully formed characters of every race, gender, and persuasion)... still, i really liked the secret life of bees and will eventually be reading the invention of wings...

>176sturlington

I really found few redeeming qualities in untamed state. The over the top brutality seemed unnecessary and in the aftermath I was so frustrated with the wife but especially the husband. It was one I wanted to throw the book across the room reading but it sure did land on a bunch of "best of 2014" lists.

I loved Station Eleven too, I read it months ago and have been thinking about it ever since.

I just struggled to finish jim henson: the biography and it might be the worst bio I've ever read. The author was painfully bad and repetitive, like a cross between a 7th grade report and a PR piece.

I'm also reading Long Division which I'm really enjoying, the best contemporary African-American characters I've read in a while.

This week I also finished Claire of the Sea Light which I was enjoying quite a bit but was so frustrated by the ending. Anyone have any thoughts about it?

Now I'm about to start Zoo City which sounds really interesting! Hoping it will be.

>200 fikustree: To which book are you referring?

>201sturlington sorry! fixed it.

>203 fikustree: Thanks, that's what I thought but I wanted to make sure.

>201 fikustree: You mention some good books I hadn't heard of before, all in my library system. Even though I'm 1/7 of the way through my current audiobook, A Long Time Gone every time I get back to it I think of stopping. One of the tags is southern literature. I hate southern literature, the women are both frail and vicious, the racism is so off hand, the chauvinism is nauseating, but this is a story of 3 generations of women, so I thought it might be good. Still not sure. Yes, the women are frail and angry, the racism is there, but so far she's skipping the chauvinism. Of all three books you mention 2 look great but the only one on audio is the Danticat. I need to have something to listen to in my car, but have had only sporadic luck with Danticat - frustration to outright throwing the book across the room anger, so I guess I'll stick with the southern fiction for now.

>205 Citizenjoyce: Citizenjoyce I've only ever read one other Danticat and didn't much care for it but I would definitely recommend Claire of the Sea Light every chapter was about a different person in their little Haitian village and you end up feeling like you know everyone in town and all their dark secrets. I think it should work really well on audio too.

I finished The Invention of Wings and I am pleased to report that it is about 180 degrees from The Help, which I despised. I don't think it is a great book, but it is a good one.

>206 fikustree: for some reason this description reminds me of praisesong for the widow, even though that's not what this book is about or how it's done. but since your description evoked that book for me, i thought i'd mention it. i was reading it this time last year and thought it was pretty fantastic.

>208 overlycriticalelisa: elisa.saphier

Thanks for mentioning it, it sounds right up my ally.

I finished Astray a collection by Emma Donoghue of short stories drawn from characters and situations in real life that highlight migration of all kinds - international, intranational and intersexual. This time she doesn't have the horror stories usually associated with her novels so it's a more comfortable and still engaging read.
I'm moving along with A Long Time Gone which won't end up being a favorite, but there's some interest in this book which has so far managed to refrain from the usual chauvinism of southern novels.
Middlemarch is still enchanting me.
I'm about half way through Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America by Linda Tirado which is an examination of poverty by someone who has spent most of her life there. This is one angry woman, but as they say, "If you're not angry, you don't understnd the situation." Plus, I'm sure she has some underlying emotional problems that, now that she has a best selling book, she might be able to afford to treat.
On iPad I've started another of the best books of 2014, The Miniaturist which so far seems to be about economics in 17th century Amsterdam, a new bride coming to an unwelcoming house and dollhouses. It gets better the more I read.
I'm also about to start Calling Dr. Laura: A Graphic Memoir by Nicole J. Georges because I need a little humor to counteract Tirado's poverty.

>156 nohrt4me2: >157 sturlington: I enjoyed The Sundial too. But I'm a big Shirley Jackson fan in general.

Joyce Carol Oates' The Corn Maiden. The "dread" in the subtitle of the collection pretty much says it. There's also an interesting exploration of what horror is. It can happen suddenly and violently. Or it can unfold slowly, over a lifetime.

>210 Citizenjoyce: I haven't read any Emma Donoghue yet but have some books on hold at the library I'm looking forward to reading. And I also really enjoyed Calling Dr. Laura.

This week I finished reading Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich, which I found a little slow to get into for the first 20-30 pages but ended up really enjoying it. Erdrich is a very talented writer with a poetic pacing to her prose and the characters were all interesting, even the ones who only showed up tangentially. I will definitely be reading some of her other books in the near future.

From there, I moved on to A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf, which is something I've been wanting to read for quite some time. It's short enough that it could easily be read in a single day but I haven't had a lot of downtime to sit with it yet. I'm hoping to finish it this weekend. At any rate, I'm already appreciating it and thinking about the topics Woolf presents.

Hi people!

I just finished Imperial Woman: The Last Empress of China by Pearl Buck a couple of days ago. She is a fabulous writer and the history of the time was fascinating. I am surprised it took me this long to begin reading Pearl Buck's work.

I am now reading The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness, a memoir that is well written and interesting.

k4k

I'm just starting In This House of Brede for the Reading Through Time group's February Religion theme

CurrerBell, you can't go wrong with Buck and Godden. I read "The Last Empress" last year and enjoyed it. You might also like Buck's Peony, about the western China Jewish community, a really interesting historical novel.

>215 krazy4katz: PBS had a series on mental illness which was the first time I encountered Elyn Saks. She was so impressive I immediately read her book and gave it 5 stars. What an articulate woman, and how fortunate for the rest of us to encounter someone who can talk first hand about the realities of schizophrenia.
I think this is it: http://www.mindsontheedge.org/about/panelist/9/
You just click on the watch portion at the top

I'm having a very non-girly time of it at the moment - I did read a Monica Dickens https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2015/02/06/book-reviews-129/ but I've finished the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and moved on to a biography of Harold Nicolson by James Lees-Milne via a volume of the Forsyte Saga! This might be the longest stretch of non-female-authored reading I've ever had, and is quite unintentional ...

>215 krazy4katz: & >218 Citizenjoyce: I also found The Center Cannot Hold to be very well written and fascinating.

After listening to 6 CDs, I've put A Long Time Gone aside. It's possible I'll get back to it later, I hate to stop a book after investing so much time in it; but there are 8 CDs left and I find the only character I have any positive feelings for is one of the men. I've started Claire of the Sea Light and am liking it much better. The people are people, not superficial stereotypes, but knowing Danticat I'm sure I'll be feeling a great deal of discomfort soon.

>217 nohrt4me2: I read Peony also and (being Jewish) I was amazed at how much insight she had into the stresses of being a minority – even in a country that accepts you – and the concerns about assimilation. She really had amazing empathy for the subjects of her novels despite being raised in a different culture/religion.

>218 Citizenjoyce: Thank you for the link! I am definitely interested in watching the video.

I just started The Love Wife. This was another book that was passed on by a friend, so I have no expectations. Sometimes that works out for the best.

I'm reading Crow Lake and really enjoying it so far.

I may be incommunicado for awhile. Just started The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. First chapter is a short obstetrical horror story. Second chapter was almost incoherent as we're plunged into a seemingly unrelated story. But that's Mitchell, always making you work for the eventual payoff.

Just cracked open Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay. Looking forward to it!

>225 nohrt4me2:. Ha! Yes, good-bye for now. For what it's worth, I enjoyed it although not so much as Cloud Atlas.

I finished Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America and Linda Tirado has some very insightful things to say about life among the poor. Unfortunately I think she's going to have to get better control over her anger if she's going to have much more success as a writer, but maybe that's just me. The book is so full of fucks and shits I think it might be hard for some people to take it seriously. On the other hand, she doesn't use the word tit when she means breast, so good for her. Her chapters on sex, on children, on the expenses of being poor are excellent. She has so much of importance to say that I hope she can find a better way to say it.
Then I read a great graphic memoir, El Deafo that explains what it's like for a deaf child to live in a hearing world. Great job.
Now I'm listening to The Blazing World a novel of art, gender fluidity, and feminism. I have to admit that after about 7 chapters I had to go all the way back to the beginning and start over because I'd found my mind wandering and the book is too good to miss all the connections.
And I am maybe the last person in America to be reading To Kill A Mockingbird. After having seen the movie a few times, I guess I just assumed I'd read the book. Fortunately it's the read for this month's book club and I'm finding out just how wonderful it is. I can kind of see why Harper Lee didn't try to publish anything else, it's so good. I wonder if her first novel will compare. Guess we'll know in a few months.

>228 Citizenjoyce: Joyce, how does Hand to Mouth stack up against Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed? I think you mentioned you'd read Ehrenreich's book ...?

>228 Citizenjoyce: Been waiting with Hand to Mouth on hold at the library for quite a while now... Looking forward to getting the copy at some point.

>229 nohrt4me2: Ehrenreich's book is more detailed and much less emotional, but her experience was short lived. Tirado didn't just try out a poor life, she's lived one. Her work is maybe more philosophical and political and covers questions people often have about poor people such as if they're short of money, why do they smoke? If they have limited funds, why do they have children? Why don't they engage in more long term planning? (Well, Ehrenreich discusses that one too.) The two books work well together.

>231 Citizenjoyce: Thanks! Sounds like a worthwhile book. I'd read an extended review of the review in a feature about Tirado, but it had fallen off my radar. I'll put it back on. As soon as Jacob de Zoet is done with me ...

finally reading another woman, starting later today. cara black's first in her series: murder in the marais, for mystery book group.

Just finished State of Wonder it was especially interesting since I'd recently read The People in the Trees both are about doctors researching tribes deep in the jungle that have superhuman abilities. Both doctors are white Westerners exploiting a native community to get what they want but the doc in State of Wonder is a woman and People of the trees it's a man. Both make so many immoral decisions but are so different. I recommend both books.

>234 fikustree: I loved State of Wonder and The People in the Trees is definitely on my radar.