What Are We Reading, Page 4

Looked like it was time to turn the page.
I finished Claire of the Sea Light and agree it is good. It's certainly not for anyone who wants to know the end of a story, but it didn't make me cringe the way some of her work has done. Even though it showes injustice in many forms, there is love.
Then I tried to go back to A Long Time Gone, nope still not happening. After you look at lives in Haiti, the whining of privileged people does not impress.

Fikustree, I loved State of Wonder. Now I'll have to try People In the Trees.

I started Their Eyes Were Watching God and am already blown away by the lush natural imagery.

>1 Citizenjoyce: Citizenjoyce
Glad you liked Claire of the sea light I do think you'd be into People in the trees although it's totally different from State of Wonder because it's more of a character study.

>3 sturlington: I loved that book when I read it. Such beautiful writing and characters that came alive.

I just put Hand to Mouth on hold at the library. I'm very excited to read it. As someone who grew up poor, I might even enjoy the anger.

I'm reading Inside the Dream Palace: The Life and Times of New York's Legendary Chelsea Hotel. I find that I am really skimming the first few chapters because of the incredible detail about the origin of the building. Not that it is not interesting, it is actually more fascinating than I thought, but an overview would have sufficed for my level of interest. I'm eager to get to the 1960s and 70s when so many familiar icons lived in or passed through the Chelsea Hotel.

I finished 3 5 star reads in the past week, Middlemarch, To Kill a Mockingbird and 1491 (a guy book). A pretty great week. I think Middlemarch is one of the greatest books ever written, and I'm even more excited now to read Harper Lee's first book.
Now in the car I'm listening to the third of the Mistress of the Art of Death series, Grave Goods. Nothing can compare to the first one, but I'm enjoying it.
On paper I'm about 1/3 of the way into Ghettoside and thinking of those people who tried to belittle people demonstrating against police brutality against blacks by saying that no one seemed to care about black on black violence. Right, the book says. Few people do care, which is one more example of racism and the fact that black lives don't matter.

I finished Wives of Los Alamos, another of the best of 2014 and an interesting look at the people involved with building the first A bomb and the people involved with them.
Just two pages into Honeydew, short stories by Edith Pearlman I'm thoroughly committed. I've been meaning to read this for a month but have been putting it off because short stories aren't a favorite of mine. But the writing. I have to know more about these people.
I'm almost finished with a guy book that has received lots of attention, The Narrow Road to the Deep North. It amazes me that a man can write about all the complex moral decisions revolving around being a prisoner of war or having complete power over a prisoner of war in ways that open up the reader to the full character of men yet treat women like arm chairs. I haven't read anything else by Richard Flanagan. I wonder if this is his usual treatment of life.

I started listening to Landline this morning, and, so far, am finding it rather thin gruel. This is my first book by Rainbow Rowell, and was not recommended to me, but the reviews were good, and the audiobook that I ordered from the library had not yet come in. When it does come in, I will make the decision about continuing on with Landline.

>10 vwinsloe: vwinsloe
I was disappointed by Landline just because the reviews were so great, I was expecting more.

I'm trudging through Woke Up Lonely I feel like it will never be over.

I'm reading Karen Armstrong's The Spiral Staircase which is quite powerful, although I wish a couple of the themes had been flagged on the back of the book - should read more reviews, I suppose!

>12 LyzzyBee: i'm curious which themes you mean?

just read rubyfruit jungle for the second time, for book group. i am really, really not a fan of rita mae brown, which is disappointing to discover each time i try to read her. (i like almost everything she has to say, i just think she's a pretty terrible writer.)

>13 overlycriticalelisa: I too used to be a Rita Mae Brown self deceiver until I finally realized that it isn't going to get better and absolved myself from reading any more of her books. However, I remember really liking Rubyfruit Jungle when I read it years ago. It's her southern chauvinism that does me in, and perhaps it's grown over the years.

I liked Rita Mae Brown's In Her Day, about a May-December romance. The love story is emblematic of generational differences and different responses to feminism and lesbianism.

I think I read The Rubyfruit Jungle years ago, but don't remember it.

It's always been my intention to read High Hearts.

What's up with all her cat books?? Yeesh.

>14 Citizenjoyce:

i might consider myself absolved. thank you.

>13 overlycriticalelisa:, >14 Citizenjoyce:, >15 nohrt4me2:. I admit that Rita Mae Brown became so prolific that her writings devolved into formulaic pablum. I don't read her any more. BUT there are a few things that she wrote that will always stand out in my memory. Southern Discomfort was way, way ahead of its time. Bingo and Six of One made me laugh out loud like no other books since. And High Hearts was delightful. Her memoirs Rita Will and Animal Magnetism: My Life with Creatures Great and Small were both worth reading, as was Dolley, her fictionalized biography of Dolley Madison.

Unfortunately, more people have read and eagerly collected her Mrs. Murphy and Sister Jane mystery series than any of her earlier books. They're crap. But obviously they keep the bills paid.

The first few Mrs. Murphy mysteries were obviously commercial, but had a charm for those of us who find talking animals totally believable. :) Then they devolved and I found errors (like plot chronology) that I could not excuse. Sad me.

Bingo and Six of One were great, and her memoir about writing, Starting from Scratch, was delightful too.

>17 vwinsloe:

i've tried both bingo and six of one and didn't like those either. or venus envy. it's something about her writing style - i have a similar "problem" with fannie flagg - that i just can't get past.

>19 overlycriticalelisa:. Well, I think that Venus Envy was pretty atrocious, both in style and content. But I can see where you are coming from about her writing style. It is quite simple and sometimes choppy. I guess what I liked about her was that she was so approachable to the everyday reader, and when she started writing, she was sort of a lesbian "good will ambassador."

Of course, she is a lifelong equestrian, as I am, and I suppose that I may like her more as a person than as a writer. If that makes any sense.

>13 overlycriticalelisa: Happy to share - there's a lot about eating disorders in there which I could have done with being flagged up - and some stuff about horrible psychiatrists in hospitals not believing her - I can understand the latter being more of a personal trigger but I think the ED stuff could have been mentioned because it's at least as major and discussed as other points that are mentioned on the back cover. I don't want to get into a big thing about trigger warnings here, and perhaps it's common knowledge that I'd just missed, but I would prefer to have been warned.

>19 overlycriticalelisa: I enjoyed Fried Green Tomatoes, so I tried reading Fannie Flagg's newest novel... I got about 10 pages in and just decided that life's too short to read books I don't like.

>22 lemontwist:. I have Can't Wait to Get to Heaven sitting in my TBR pile; it was lent to me by a friend. Is that the newest Fannie Flagg? I've listened to a couple of others of hers in addition to reading Fried Green Tomatoes and found them to be overly sweet and predictable, but not unpleasant.

I'm reading Orphan Train which was fairly high on the LT best reads list of 2014.

>23 vwinsloe: As far as I know it's The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion. I think it's just too sweet and predictable for me. And maybe it's my Yankee bias, but I can't handle too much of the Southern obsession with the Civil War. It ended 150 years ago. The confederacy lost.

>20 vwinsloe:

yes, definitely she's accessible. it's not just simplicity that i don't like in her style, but other than to say that he dialogue isn't realistic, i can't say what it is that rubs me so wrong. maybe it's just that i really do like her ideas so much so it galls me all the more that they're presented the way they are.

I suppose that I may like her more as a person than as a writer. - this surprises me because i've only heard negative things about her personally.

>21 LyzzyBee: LyzzyBee:

not commonly known to me, anyway. thanks for this.

>23 vwinsloe: vwinsloe:

i think you've described every fannie flagg i've ever read: found them to be overly sweet and predictable, but not unpleasant. rita mae brown is much more annoying to me, but i really don't find too much in either of them...

>24 lemontwist:. Thanks. I will probably give the one I've got a try. I'm from Boston, myself, and don't mind reading southern, but I certainly couldn't live there.

>20 vwinsloe:. I guess I've never read or heard anything about RMB. I've read two of her memoirs and liked her after reading them. If you ever try one of her books again, consider Southern Discomfort. It as been a long time since I read it, and it may be dated now, but I think that it is her best.

I just finished reading Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult. I am not a big Picoult fan at all; I usually listen to the books and yell at the car disc player when she writes something particularly annoying. But this one was very different, for example, no big courtroom scene, which was a break. The setting and description of elephant behavior was fascinating, and the story -- I am rarely totally surprised by a plot twist -- and this one caught me completely off guard. So, I find myself in the odd place of recommending a Jodi Picoult book. Who would have thought.

>28 vwinsloe:

i might actually like her memoirs better than her fiction, but no promises about reading them any time in the near future. =)

I finished Roxane Gay's Bad Feminist and have to say once again I'm surprised at how white I am. There is nothing I could do or think that would make her see me as authentic, which is disappointing. But her take on rape culture, reproductive rights and all other things feminism are right in line with mine. Surprisingly, she is much like my daughter in that she loves the Sweet Valley High series and watches all the reality TV shows. I guess the only thing we can agree with as far as movies or books go is that we both think Tyler Perry is a disappointment. Also, not being a watcher of Law and Order SVU, I'm not sure how she denigrates TV for using rape as a spectical yet writes rapes in her books. I'm sure, as a survivor of rape herself, she writes it the right way, but I don't know what the right way is. I think Alice Siebold and Charlaine Harris, since they both survived rape, get it right, but, for instance the rape on Downton Abbey - did it occur during sweeps week? Would that mean they got it wrong? And if she is so disappointed with the way TV portrays rape, why does she watch every episode of SVU, many episodes more than once? I guess I'll just say I found her confusing.
Today I started Mary Doria Russell's follow-up to Doc, Epitaph: A Novel of the O.K. Corral. this is the first time since Harry Potter that I've started a book the day it was released.

>31 Citizenjoyce: Gay's book has been off my radar. Is it just a big litmus test for whether you're a "real" feminist. I don't have any more patience with that than I do with the fundie-gelical anti-feminists who have litmus tests for who's a "real" woman.

Why do women want to separate themselves into "right" and "wrong" groups so much?

>32 nohrt4me2: It's really not about who's a "real" feminist. In fact, her first essay is all about how if there's a test for "real" feminists, then she's a bad one, hence the title of her book.

I liked most of her essays, especially the one about female protagonists in literature and how making them nice and likable takes away from their depth of character. Some of the essays I skimmed... but that's par for course for most books of essays.

I'll admit, that when I read Gay's book I did not get the sense that there was a right and wrong way to be a feminist--just the opposite. I found myself impressed, even though the only kind of popular culture she and I connect on is a love of Scrabble. I found her defense of Jessica in Sweet Valley High sort of amusing, her take down on the way rape is handled in the media pretty brilliant, and her account of her struggles with burnout familiar and moving.

Reading her did not make me feel "white" or "inauthentic" but it did give me good insight into how someone who was "not me" would look at the things I looked at. Which is the point, in the end. Oddly enough, reading the book reminded me of an account James Baldwin wrote about seeing the movie The Defiant Ones -- first in a white theater with a white audience, and then in a black theater, with a mostly black audience. And how differently the two groups viewed the movie.

>32 nohrt4me2: Agreed, Gay certainly isn't about the "right" way to be a fenminist. I suppose, to me, it seemed about the right way to be a human. I find the notion that I will never understand what it is to be black both entirely possible and infinitely depressing.
>34 southernbooklady: That Baldwin discussion about The Defiant Ones would be interesting. I'm not sure that I've ever seen the movie, in spite of reading so much about it.

"The Defiant Ones" is a great movie.

I was just asking if Gay's book was a prescriptive treatise on feminism. Glad to hear it is not.

Just finished Penelope Lively's Booker-winner, Moon Tiger. 4½**** My first by her.

ETA: >34 southernbooklady: >35 Citizenjoyce: Forthcoming (Oct 2015) from the Library of America, Baldwin's later novels.

And I just downloaded The Girl on the Train to Kindle (only $6.49). I think I might get started later tonight.

reading my first pd james - cover her face for mystery book group. it's very british, very very good so far (almost half in, i think).

>35 Citizenjoyce:, >36 nohrt4me2:, >37 CurrerBell:

I don't want to derail the discussion but here's a quick bit from Baldwin's take on The Defiant Ones, in particular the scene at the end where Sydney Poitier jumps off the train to rescue Tony Curtis:

I saw it twice, deliberately, in New York. I saw it Downtown with a white liberal audience. There was a great sigh of relief and clapping, they felt this was a very noble gesture on the part of a very noble black man...
...then I saw it Uptown. When Sydney jumped off the train, there was a tremendous roar of fury from the audience, with which, I must say, I agreed. They told Sidney to "Get back on the train, you fool." In any case, why in the world should he go back to the chain gang, when they were obviously going to be separated again: it's still a Jim Crow chain gain.

What was the movie supposed to prove? What the movie is designed to prove, really, to white people, is that Negroes are going to forgive them for their crimes, and that somehow they are going to escape scot-free.

And to bring it back around to Roxane Gay, it was that anecdote--Baldwin's vivid description of the completely different responses in the black and the white audiences, that kept surfacing in my mind when I was reading her unflinching take down of 12 Years a Slave.

In fact Baldwin's account has made me sort of hyper-sensitive to stories ostensibly about black people that are really designed to make white people feel better.

>39 southernbooklady: In fact Baldwin's account has made me sort of hyper-sensitive to stories ostensibly about black people that are really designed to make white people feel better. Which is the reason for my discomfort with Atticus Finch, the Great White Hope standin' up fer Truth, Justice, and all dem po' darkies.

>39 southernbooklady:, >40 CurrerBell: And that's my problem with Gay's problem with the same thing. At the time To Kill A Mockingbird was set what was the chance that a black lawyer would take on the case? At the time The Help was set, what was the chance that one of the black maids could have got a book published delineating the wrongs of racism in a little Jim Crow town? In each case, there could have been such a person, but that book wasn't written. What is the movie? I think it's They Call Me Mr. Tibbs. A black main character takes the lead and solves the problem. Agreed there should be more of those, but is it so terrible for a white person to help a black person?
As for the black character going back to a southern jail to help a white person - wow. Was he dying? If not, it seems like a crazy thing to do.

>41 Citizenjoyce: et al. Compare and contrast The Invention of Wings and even to some extent The Pecan Man. Books in which some white people help (as historically some few did) but in which the black characters are not helpless, passive victims (Mockingbirds?), but who have their own agency and their own anger.

>40 CurrerBell: Which is the reason for my discomfort with Atticus Finch, the Great White Hope standin' up fer Truth, Justice, and all dem po' darkies.

There is one scene in that book that rescues it in my mind from the criticism of paternalism that is often laid on it: the scene at the jail, where Atticus is blocking the mob from going in to lynch Tom and it is clear they are going to force their way in. Until Scout shows up. Suddenly the men who felt justified in their retribution were forced to see themselves as something shameful, because a little girl calls them by name, in effect showing them what they are.

In that sense I'd say To Kill a Mockingbird is not about black people at all; it's about white people having to recognize what they are -- it's not a pretty picture.

>41 Citizenjoyce: is it so terrible for a white person to help a black person?

To my mind it's not about who gets to play lead so much, or who gets to help who, but more about being honest with ourselves. We may value the nobility of Poitier's character but we never question if he should give it, or if we deserve it.

If the end result of such a movie is that the black person helps the white one be a better white person, then it has failed as an honest story. It's just another story of servitude and slavery. (Think, in a gender context, of that awful movie Pretty Woman, where the whole point is for the prostitute to make the billionaire into a real man)

Ultimately, if I -- white -- don't walk away from such a story with an awareness, even a sense of culpability, of how much I expect and take for granted in such a value system, then the story is dishonest. Possibly a fantasy. It means the message in the story is that black people can be just like me -- in effect, they can be "white." What the story should be showing is that black people are people. My expectations are irrelevant. And all those cultural values and assumptions I make by growing up in privileged white America are not default. Not even necessarily worth valuing.

>43 southernbooklady:. You reminded me of an essay that was written by Bernestine Singley, a former colleague of mine, shortly after the publication of The Help.

http://exittheapple.com/sniffing-dirty-laundry-a-true-story-from-%e2%80%9cthe-he...

What I see as so terrible about such books is that they reinforce stereotypes as well as gloss over the true evil and repugnant nature of racism and the depths of its lasting effects.

>40 CurrerBell: I don't think Atticus sees himself as a Great White Savior, and I don't think Lee portrays him as such. I think all Atticus is trying to save is his own soul. And he doesn't actually save Tom. He can't, not in the world that Lee depicts, which was--and still is, in many ways--an accurate depiction of America. Atticus's struggle is one that we all as human individuals struggle with, which is to actually live by what we profess are our ideals. Most people fail at this, which is why the inequalities Lee portrays so well persist. She is not just talking about racism, but also about the inequalities of class, of gender, of disability.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's essay on To Kill a Mockingbird is well worth reading: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jul/10/kill-mockingbird-harper-lee

>45 sturlington: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's essay on To Kill a Mockingbird is well worth reading: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jul/10/kill-mockingbird-harper-lee

Thanks for that. Next time I try to stutter out my feelings about TKAM I'll just point people there.

>39 southernbooklady: Thanks for the Baldwin excerpt.

My interpretation of "The Defiant Ones" is more allegorical than Baldwin's. The two protagonists are chained together, as black and white Americans were in 1958 (and still are in many ways), yet are separated by mutual suspicion and preconceived notions, as black and white Americans were.

Neither Cullen nor Joker can evolve into whole human beings until they figure out a way to work together and recognize common bonds of humanity.

The ending is less about black people forgiving white people than it is about both men saving each other from the racial divide that separates them.

>40 CurrerBell: >43 southernbooklady: >45 sturlington: etc My problem when I reread To Kill a Mockingbird a few years ago was not that Atticus was white (because he couldn't have been black at the time of the story), but that the black people in focus in the story were too exceptional -- the housekeeper could read, the man accused of rape helped white people with their chores even though he was busy with his own work and his own chores. (That of course was the problem with the Sidney Poitier character in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" too.) But I think the novel brilliantly captured how foreign the black people were to even the "liberal" white people, as well as their opinions about poor white people.

>44 vwinsloe: Thank you for the link to that excellent article. While I did enjoy reading The Help, I do understand its weaknesses in portraying the truth of Jim Crow. As far as To Kill a Mockingbird goes, it has been so long since I read it that I should read it again.

Before I left on a trip, finished the wonderfully written and perceptive Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai, and while I was away I read the intriguing and thought-provoking Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller, and I've finally found time to review them.

Amy Tan's The Valley of Amazement. I think others have read it. As always, I find Tan irresistible, even when my inner critic is telling me that parts of this are not working.

>51 nohrt4me2: My thoughts too. While I did read the whole, long, book, when my book club suggested it as a group read I told them not to bother. Too much potential, not enough actualization.
I've finished so many good women's books lately:
The Book of Unknown Americans about Hispanic immigrants from many countries living in an apartment building in Delaware. It's another of the best books of 2014 and worth the honor. Henriquez writes mainly of legal immigrants, the various reasons they come here and what they face.
Bridge of Scarlet Leaves for my RL book club about WWII and Japanese internment in the US. The writing is annoyingly simplistic, but she did her research and I learned quite a lot.
Dust Tracks On A Road helped me understand Their Eyes Were Watching God a bit better. Hurston was so complex she easily manages to say three different things about the same situation and believe all of them. The unbelievable part is that this woman with such talent, intelligence, success and friendships managed to end her life in poverty.
All Over Creation - I can't resist a book by Ruth Ozeki. This one's about GMOs, factory farming and propaganda and has a female character who gets less and less sympathetic as the book progresses. I have to hand it to Ozeki. I don't know if anyone else could have made me like a book with such a character.
H Is For Hawk a fascinating book about falconry, T. H. White, sadism, commitment and grief. What a mind that combine such ideas and make a great read of them. Much as I love animals, I did learn that I would never, never want to devote the time necessary to training a hawk.
And The Girl On The Train - full of twists and turns and unlikeable female characters you can't ignore. Admitely I am not a mystery fan and I never know what's going to happen, but I think this book is better than most at whipping the reader this way and that.
Now I've started The Hemingses of Monticello and, since it's 31 CDs, I think I'll be listening for a long time.

Finished Emma Donoghue's The Sealed Letter. Pretty straightforward novelization of a 19th century divorce scandal. However, I did like the re-occurring idea in the book that our perceptions of ourselves and how other people see/feel about us is never a really straightforward matter. Interesting ending.

just started no horizon is so far about 2 women trekking across antarctica.

>52 Citizenjoyce: I gave The Girl on the Train 3½*** — good, but I ID'd the perp about two-thirds of the way through and I'm not usually even that good at "solving" mysteries.

>55 CurrerBell: One of the reviewers said they solved it half way through. Well, I guess not having a deductive sort of brain I didn't identify anyone until I was told.

I just finished reading 2 murder mysteries: Death in a Dacron Sail by N. A. Granger and Invisible by Lorena McCourtney. They were both fun, but I liked the first one better. However I do know the author in that case, although I don't think I am biased. ;-)

I stumbled upon The Adults by Alison Espach in my library on audiobook and thought it sounded interesting. I ended up hating it; very self-absorbed, selfish people who don't gain an iota of perspective at any point. Next up on audio is The Round House by Louise Erdrich. Looking forward to this one; I had taken it out of the library last month (or even the one before?) but then had to return it before I got a chance to start it, due to another patron requesting it.

In print, I'm about half way through Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro, which I'm enjoying but haven't had a lot of quiet time to sit down with so far.

I've just started Wild Life. I loved Molly Gloss's book The Hearts of Horses when I read it a couple of years ago, and I had no idea that she also wrote speculative fiction. I just started this one, but I like the voice already. I may have to track down the rest of her books. I know that she has a new one that is also equestrian themed, and, of course, that will be a must read for me.

I've mostly been reading nonfiction guy books lately, but I did sneak in Anne Rice's second werewolf book The Wolves of Midwinter. Although better than the first, she seems to be writing a bit on autopilot now. I seem to recall that Alice Borchardt wrote werewolf novels many years ago. I never read them but I can't help but wonder how Anne's book differ from her sister's.

I haven't returned the audiobook of Landline to the library yet. I guess I will finish it. I keep hoping that it will go somewhere interesting in the end.

>59 vwinsloe: I too love Molly Gloss. I loved The Hearts of Horses so much that I had to give a copy to my daughter, but I couldn't remember reading Wild Life even though I saw I'd given the book 4 stars. So I read one of those reviews that I usually hate, the ones that give every detail of the book, and I was glad I did it because now I remember what so drew me in. So now I just had to buy a Kindle copy of The Jump Off Creek because I wanted more of her.

>60 Citizenjoyce:. Good to know that you liked both books. I have The Jump Off Creek in my TBR pile, and I am on the lookout for The Dazzle of Day which is another speculative fiction.

About halfway through The Reef by Edith Wharton, and I feel another Wharton jag coming on.

One of the lures of Evil Amazon is that you can get "the entire works of ..." an author whose work is in the public domain for under $2. For us po' folks, this is just too seductive to resist.

I finished Wild Life and jumped right into Tell the Wolves I'm Home yesterday.

Almost done with The Girl on the Train and I'm pretty sure I know what happened... It's not my usual kind of book, but I'm finding it hard to put down. I like how real the characters are.

>63 vwinsloe: I read Tell the Wolves I'm Home. What did you think? Didn't really grab me one way or another, though one of the book group people really liked the story of the siblings.

Just finished Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym today. Much better than Less Than Angels in my opinion. More humor. Lighter but somehow more depth.

I finished The Hemingses of Monticello and have to say Thomas Jefferson really enjoyed owning slaves. The Hemmings family, who would have been in in laws if such a thing were lawfully possible, seemed to fill much of his requirement for personal contact, business management, sexual contact and child rearing. He had such an active mind and was always planning, and his in law slaves were reliable company for his discussions. He thought he treated them very well. He allowed many of the males to pursue their own interests and money making opporftunities and to keep all the money they earned. Their only obligation to him was to be available for his use whenever he wanted them. Sally, after leaving Paris, was kept at Monticello, bore and raised his children and kept him personally comfortable. For that she, and her female relatives essentially had no noisome assigned tasks, in fact overseerers were not allowed to assign them work. They were just to keep house the way any other woman would have been expected to do. Sounded fine to him. Of course, they weren't free, but he seemed to think that a minor detail. He did free his children informally - allowed them to run away and pass as white and even gave his daughter $50 (I think) to start her new life. After his death Sally and youngest child were kind of informally freed. Many of his in laws got to stay in their family groups, but he was terrible with money, died in debt, and some were sold away from their families to get needed cash. Thomas Jefferson - "All Men Are Created Equal" - but it was just so nice to be able to own some.
Now I'm almost finished with Diana Norman's last book, which was finished by her daughter after her death, The Siege Winter. It's her usual excellent, engaging historical fiction about England in the 12th century Stephen, Empress Matilda and Maud, mercenaries and a girl passing for a boy.
I also just started reading Lady Astronaut of Mars How can you resist a book about a 63 year old astronaut living on Mars and her doctor, named Dorothy, who had lived on a farm in Kansas with her Uncle Henry and Auntie Em?
Slowly, slowly, I'm also listening to Cranford which is clever and humorous

starting forgive me if i've told you this before by a local author i'm pretty excited about. it's labeled "ya" but i'm not sure that's really accurate, although it's a coming of age tale. we'll see.

>67 Citizenjoyce: I finished The Hemingses of Monticello and have to say Thomas Jefferson really enjoyed owning slaves.

I found it really interesting to read The Hemingses of Monticello, and then A Slave in the White House -- two examples of the realities of slave life under the purview of the men who were responsible for much of what we think of as our "inalienable rights" as citizens of the US. Ron Chernow's book on Washington, also, despite it's faults, is really good in the way it covers Washington's own relationship with his slaves, and the weird disconnect between his regard for their humanity and his insistence on his rights as their owner. Washington, by the way, freed all his slaves on his death, (with the caveat that they would only become free after his wife died as well--something that put Martha in an untenable position). I think he was the only one of our "founding fathers" who even made the attempt to free his slaves.

>69 southernbooklady: What is the term for being able to think two opposite things at the same time? I keep hitting on dialectical materialism, but I don't think that's right. The founding fathers, with their emphasis on human rights and dignity had a very hard time giving up the personal comfort of slavery.

Cognitive dissonance?

>70 Citizenjoyce:, Like >71 rockinrhombus:, I think the phrase you are looking for is "cognitive dissonance." But I'm not sure it applies even to Jefferson, who was the most egregious case. All of them were well aware of the dilemma posed by the institution of slavery, all were cognizant that it had to be dealt with. And all of them "passed the buck," so to speak to future generations. For all their political genius, Jefferson, Madison, Washington, et al showed a failure of political imagination when it came to dealing with the institution of slavery. But I think they were aware of their failure. And aware of the mockery their positions as slave holders made of their ideals.

>71 rockinrhombus: That's what I was looking for.
>72 southernbooklady: a failure of political imagination. Hm. they did seem to have difficulty imagining Africans as fully human, at least imagining them that way philosophically even though they related to them personally as human - at least Jefferson did. I don't know about Washington and Madison's personal relations.

>73 Citizenjoyce: they did seem to have difficulty imagining Africans as fully human

and an utter failure at conceiving of an interracial society where blacks and whites could co-exist as social equals. The closest Jefferson could get was to envision all the black people leaving to settle their own country or something. But racial equality was as ludicrous as women voting.

Gordon-Reed did a good job of showing how his stereotypical dismissive view of the humanity of Africans equated to his same stereotypical view of females. Each group had its place and he considered it natural that such restrictions existed. People don't think of Jefferson's having a limited philosophical vision, but he certainly did as far as race and sex were concerned.

>63 vwinsloe: As it happend Wild Life has been on my TBR pile for a while, and various comments on here about Molly Gloss has encouraged me to start it.

finished forgive me if i've told you this before and although i don't feel like the title works all that well, the book is a very good one. and i wouldn't say it's ya, although i know the lines for that are blurring anyway.

now i'm reading a memoir called ambulance girl which is pretty good. nothing great but i spent over 10 years as an emt, part of that at a fire department, so am finding some of her stories to be maybe more fun than the average reader would.

Finally getting around to The Woman Upstairs (not grabbing me so far). Up next: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

>65 nohrt4me2:. I have mixed feelings about Tell the Wolves I'm Home. I just finished it yesterday, and am still thinking about it, so I guess it largely succeeded in being a good book for me. Better than average, I think, and, if so, it is because the feelings expressed and evoked seemed completely genuine. There were a few things that failed miserably for me, not the least of which was the heavy handed extended wolf metaphor. I also don't think that it was historically accurate regarding AIDS in the mid-1980s, nor did it deal honestly with the character of the older sister, who was clearly a juvenile alcoholic. But despite all of those rather large misgivings, I still liked it, so it must have struck a cord somehow.

>76 SChant:. Enjoy. Wild Life is a bit choppy because of its "scrapbook" format. But Gloss is a remarkable writer and the themes in this book were similar to many that we have enjoyed and discussed in this group.

I just finished The Good Girl which was recommended based on my appreciation of Gone Girl and Girl On a Train. I'm kinda iffy on this one. Twists and turns, yes, but a screed about how a raped woman who got an abortion would regret it for the rest of her life. I just read one of those anti-choice sites praising the courage of a 12 year old girl who was impregnated by rape and said that keeping the baby was the best thing she ever did, blah, blah blah. While I think it was a bad decision, still it was her decision (or rather her parents), so OK for her. Her choice. What I had a problem with was the citation of "research" that shows that over 90% of raped women choose to keep their babies and that something like 95% of raped women who get abortions regret it. Mary Kubica must have been reading one of those pamphlets.
Now I'm reading Glory O'Brien's History of the Future and liking it very much. I'd read it was one of the must read YA books of 2014 and am agreeing so far.

just started fat girls and lawn chairs which is a compilation of a lot of very short (a few-to-a-handful of pages each) essays about the author's life. so far it's very well written and awfully funny.

Oh, haven't been here for a while (moved house, which rather took the wind out of my reading sails).

I did read (during the move), Fly By Night by Frances Hardinge, which was seriously delightful. Recommended to those who like big words in their YA fiction, and a brilliant heroine (and her goose).

Just finished Hades by Candice Fox, a rather nasty crime thriller. Not recommended, only stuck with it as it was a bookgroup choice. We agreed to read it because the review we read suggested it was a feminist crime novel, but by halfway through and we were still stuck with the one impossibly beautiful, smart, talented and unattainable main female character, I reckon that reviewer must have been reading a different book. (To its credit, the second named female character was pretty gutsy, although again over-the-top beautiful. And she fell into bed with our creepy nasty narrator in a matter of pages, so ick.) It's going to be a fun bitch fest about this book on Thursday evening. :)

Now reading The City, by Stella Gemmell. The fun thing about moving is that all my books have been shuffled so I'm finding all sorts of forgotten books as I unpack. The worst bit about packing was every time I whinged on Facebook, I got a chorus of "get a kindle" comments. :P

I'm more infuriated by books that have only one really exceptional woman than in those that have none. At least your book had two - beautiful exceptional women. If only the beautiful and exceptional can lead interesting lives a book really doesn't speak for much of humanity.

I've just started The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman. It had a very interesting review in last week's (March 29) NYT Sunday Book Review. The "imaginary language" it's written in doesn't really seem all that difficult – no more so than Mark Twain or Zora Neale Hurston and easier than I remember Riddley Walker (which I really have to reread one of these years) to have been.

>84 CurrerBell: CB, I saw that review and put it on my "maybe" list. Please check in and let us know what you think!

>81 overlycriticalelisa:

finished fat girls and lawn chairs and after the first handful of stories/essays i felt like the quality really dropped off. i was a little more distracted when reading, so it could have been me, but they didn't seem to be as well written or as funny, or as well wrapped up. there are definitely some fun ones in here, but overall it wasn't as good as it seemed it was going to be at the start.

later today i'll start gut symmetries by jeanette winterson.

(edited to fix touchstone)

I've just been asked to write a profile of Mary Daly, so I've dug out all my books of hers I picked up when I was her student back in the 80s. It's fascinating to re-read them and see all the things I underlined and scribbled in the margins! Like stepping into a time machine!

>87 southernbooklady:. Did you go to Boston College? I was a student there when she was teaching, but her classes were in the late afternoon and I could never fit one into my schedule. I read her books anyway.

>88 vwinsloe: Did you go to Boston College?

From '84 - '88.

>87 southernbooklady: a student of Mary Daly. Wow! I would have loved that.

>87 southernbooklady:

too fun. post/link to your profile when you write it!

>89 southernbooklady:. I was a bit before your time. I graduated in 1975. I guess Professor Daly was there for 30 odd years, even though the administration always seemed to be making things difficult for her.

>92 vwinsloe: She often returned the favor. :)

>93 southernbooklady:. I look forward to reading your profile of her if you post it.

Finished Wild Life by Molly Gloss - which I really enjoyed more for the vivid sense of place rather than the story. The evocation of the muddy little logging camps, sad burnt-out areas on the edges of the great forest, and the wet, lumber-choked canyons completely drew me in.

Finished The Woman Upstairs. Better than The Emperor's Children, and there were some really insightful passages about unreciprocated love, love that the narrator, Nora, did not reciprocate and love that was not reciprocated to Nora's satisfaction. However, Nora seemed somewhat determined to be jealous and unhappy, and it was hard for me to feel sorry for someone so young and relatively healthy (physically, anyway), who mourned the ebb of her life at age 37. Chickie Pea, wait'll you're 60.

Just finished I'll give you the Sun really loved the first part but it all got a little too fairy tale perfect by the end.

> 89 southernbooklady: Daly... brilliant, impossible. I knew her personally, although not anywhere near as well as my friend Nancy, who was very close to her for decades. Unfortunately, Nancy passed away suddenly last summer, so I can't put you in touch. Please post a link when you finish your profile! Who are you writing it for?

Finished The Lost Life of Eva Braun (the phrase "banality of evil" chanting in my head the entire read) last week. Almost done with The Locusts have No King, which is a welcome, fun change of pace, even given the period misogyny. Living With a Wild God is on order. Anyone read it?

>99 sweetiegherkin: What did you think of The Lost Life of Eva Braun? Any good?

Currently reading Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang, and enjoying it very much.

>98 7sistersapphist: Have been tempted by Living With a Wild God, and I really appreciate the reflection and occasional rage in Bright-Sided.

But I'm hinky about this one. Reviews and her interviews seem to indicate that she has deftly described her experience, but she's already made up her mind about the god part (i.e., there isn't one).

Still, I'm intrigued by the notion of an atheist mystic! I think I'll read it, too, and maybe we can compare notes?

anyone here read don't move? i just finished it and need to tease some things out...

I've finished and had a chance to review the delightful Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen by Mary Norris, the disturbing Thus Were Their Faces, a collection of short fiction by Silvina Ocampo.

>99 sweetiegherkin: sweetiegherkin: I think The Lost Life of Eva Braun was worth reading, but then, I'm no expert on WWII or Nazi Germany. At first, I was a little frustrated by not getting a firm grasp on Braun's personality, but as I continued, I began to think its overall lack was the point. She seemed little more than a vessel to be shaped and filled-- and in this case, monstrously.

>101 nohrt4me2: nohrt4me: You're on! Got my copy this weekend. Do you have one yet?

>104 7sistersapphist: Great! I will download it on my Kindle tomorrow; I should get to it by the weekend, after I finish The House of the Seven Gables. (One of the books on my bucket list, which is mostly reading assignments I fudged decades ago in college because I found something else I wanted to read more. I'm hoping I kick that bucket before I get to Spenser's The Faerie Queen. I keep moving it to the bottom of the list ...)

I'll put up a thread for "Wild God" in case anybody else wants to read and discuss.

After a couple of very light reads: The Lady and Can't Wait to Get to Heaven, I've started I Am Nujood.

Just finished I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can. Pretty good. I didn't realize when I started that it was written in 1979. Hopefully mental health care has improved significantly since then. I had trouble with the beginning and the end but the middle was very real and meaningful.

Just downloade Sarah Dunant's In the Company of the Courtesan audiobook from the library.

reading cavedweller by dorothy allison. the woman can write.

>85 nohrt4me2: I just finished The Country of Ice Cream Star and posted a short 4**** review (which would have been 5***** except that I don't like the way the ending seems to be leading up to a sequel, genre-lit style). This is definitely going to be a "maybe" for you, though, because it's a love-it-or-hate-it book, and I think the best suggestion is that if you're turned off by A Clockwork Orange then The Country of Ice Cream Star might not be the book for you.

>110 CurrerBell:. Thanks for mentioning that book. For some reason, it has not previously come across my radar screen, and it looks like something that I definitely would read.

I finished The City and thought it was a great, chunky fantasy novel. Lots of interesting characters, lots of bloody battles, and a great character in The City itself.

Now, for a completely different style of book, I'm reading Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932 and really enjoying it as well.

I'm reading a fantasy as well, called The Gracekeepers that I just got from Early Reviewers. This one grabbed me right away at the prologue, but I am now the third chapter in and my interest is waning somewhat. If I doesn't end up to be a romance, I'll be happy.

finished cavedweller and am impressed with dorothy allison, although i didn't like this one as well as bastard out of carolina, which i'll reread soon.

now reading this is not it and am wondering if anyone else has read lynne tillman at all? i think i'm missing something.

I read and reviewed the disappointing The Man Who Loved Books too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett. The title was better than the book, which as confused, padded, and too filled with the author's thoughts and actions.

finished and didn't like this is not it, although it's an interesting format where she pairs her stories with art, and i did like that. also read the short volume of poetry by mary diane hausman - a born-again wife's first lesbian kiss which i wasn't too impressed with either.

about to start rereading the color purple for book group. (yay!)

>115 rebeccanyc:. I had exactly the same thought on The Man Who Loved Books Too Much. The title was misleading as the book thief wasn't even a reader!

I finished The Gracekeepers and enjoyed it quite a bit. I think that many others here might like it, too. My short review is posted at the book page.

>116 overlycriticalelisa: : Is A Born-Again Wife's First Lesbian Kiss a self pub? Looked it up, but can't find much information about it or any excerpts. Is it bad enough to add to my Godawful Lesbian Self-Pub collection? (100 items and growing like toxic mold!)

it's not that bad; i've definitely read a lot that's worse and just rated it below average (although i'm not a very good judge of poetry, so maybe others would think it is that bad).

here's what the book says about the publisher, relief press:
relief press
po box 4033
south hackensack, nj 07606
produced at the print center, inc 225 varick st, ny, ny 10014, a non-profit facility for literary and arts-related publications

it was published in 1995, probably a lot less self publishing going on then?

not sure if this helps...

>110 CurrerBell:, I loved A Clockwork Orange, so maybe will try "Icecream Star" after all.

Finished Living with a Wild God (see separate discussion on this group).

An Etiquette Guide to the End Times, which had a great premise, but needed more than a hundred pages to flesh out.

Almost done with The Testament of Jessie Lamb. Again, a great premise which raises interesting questions, but aspects of life in a society in which pregnancy triggers a disease that causes dementia and rapid death are not really delineated or explained. Title character seems almost personality-less. And the book is buggy with YA elements (first sexual experience, defiance of parental authority, etc. etc.).

Will be moving to Joyce Carol Oates' The Accursed.

>120 nohrt4me2: Aw nuts, I just bought The Testament of Jessie Lamb as a bargain book for Kindle. But I am so not wanting to read any more YA dystopias. I had the impression it was more of an adult book, maybe because it was up for an award of some kind. Racking brain, but cannot remember how it got on my wishlist. Anyway, maybe I'll let it rest a few months before trying it.

I just finished Herland, which I found very amusing, but utopias are always fantasies, particularly all-female ones. Currently reading The City, Not Long After, which is another dystopia, but this one has some unexpected magical realism elements. Enjoying, so far.

I was pleased to discover two never-before-published Octavia Butler stories for the Kindle called Unexpected Stories. The price is right. Will be reading that next, no doubt.

>120 nohrt4me2: and >121 sturlington:. The Testament of Jessie Lamb has been on my wishlist for a while. I think that it may have been an Amazon Best-Book-Of-The-Month or something. I notice that after that the book seemed to vanish into obscurity, and I note that its reader rating here on Library Thing is just a hair over 3 stars.

>121 sturlington:, >122 vwinsloe: Maybe others will weigh in on The Testament of Jessie Lamb. While I think some YA dystopians have been quite good (The Giver, the first installment and of The Hunger Games), this one isn't grabbing me.

>121 sturlington:, Ah Herland. Read it last year. Fun to read, but the racism and eugenics dated it and put me off a bit, though seems that I read that Gilman herself was quite alive to these issues.

I did a big wodge of comfort reading during my recent nasty bout of flu - picture here: https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2015/04/30/book-reviews-a-big-wodge-of-comfo... - just noticed they're all by women!

>124 LyzzyBee: that's some nice reading! Glad that the flu at least let you read, although it did sound like a dreadful flu.

I finished Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932 and thought it was very good.

Now reading The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf, a YA dystopia (ahem), but one written by an Australian aboriginal woman (from the Palyaku people of the Pilbara region of Western Australia), so I'm expecting a different feel, a least. So far, so good.

>125 wookiebender: Wookie, I hope it's better than The Testament of Jessie Lamb. Finished that last night, and it was a big disappointment.

SPOILER PARAGRAPH!!For all the interesting issues it raised about biological ethics, research, and particularly the effects of same on women, the title character was largely a pasteboard construction who succumbed to a highly romanticized notion of sacrificial motherhood.

Several have mentioned enjoying the "Chameleon Club," which I had on my wish list for awhile, then took off. Maybe I should put it back on there?

> 125 it was a dreadful flu, my husband can't recall me being that ill since the great Gastric Flu, Tenerife, 2002 (our first holiday together). I did have a day when I could not read, which shows how bad it got.

I finished the thought-provoking and subtle The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm.

I just finished Lily King's Euphoria, which I enjoyed very much although the ending is telegraphed with dreaded inevitability. But the book is thoughtful and wise for all of its sadness, and beautifully written. It felt like a kind of antidote to your standard "Heart of Darkness" story line. And as a fictionalized account of a real person (Margaret Mead), I think it is one of the better attempts I've read. The actual language is gorgeous, even when the subject is the horror of violence.

My profile of Mary Daly is with the editor now, but writing it had me digging out all my old feminist books from the eighties, so now I'm reading Audre Lorde's Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (and wondering what happened to my old copy of Sister Outsider. Daly and Lorde had a famous split in the aftermath of the publication of Gyn/Ecology, (Lorde accused Daly of racism), which doesn't come into what I was writing about, but the research did make me want to revisit Lorde's work and re-familiarize myself with her perspective.

Finished reading Case Histories by Kate Atkinson, which I very much enjoyed. A slightly higher brow mystery that brought together several different threads and focused more on characters than plot (not to say that the plot wasn't interesting as well).

Now I'm on to Wise Children by Angela Carter. I'm not very far into it - still seems to be the introductory phase where all the many characters enter and are described - but I like the tone so far.

>130 sweetiegherkin:. This is the second mention of Angela Carter that I have heard recently. The first was a comparison made to her in a blurb about the ER book I just read. I had never heard of her before. Have you? I think that she is someone who I should read. Any recommendations?

>131 vwinsloe:

it's the perfect time. she's the author for the monthly reads this month: https://www.librarything.com/topic/190226

>132 overlycriticalelisa:. Great. Thank you!

>126 nohrt4me2: I'd put Lovers at the Chameleon Club back on your wishlist. It's not earth shatteringly brilliant (maybe it was oversold to me though), but it is set in a time and milieu that I don't think I've ever read about before. (I've done 1930s Berlin, but never 1930s Paris.)

And I'm really enjoying The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf, I thought I knew where it was going, but she pulled the rug out from under me. I like it when authors do that. :) It's not brilliant (her world building stretches my credulity to breaking point) but the main character - Ashala Wolf - is a great tough heroine, and I'm wishing I was at home reading those last few pages right now. (Silly real life getting in the way of reading.) I'm going to request the sequel from the library, too (although they have this very annoying limit of only 10 books on hold at a time, which is wreaking havoc with my wishlist!).

I just finished the wonderful Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer and was extra happy to see an interview with the author:

https://medium.com/galleys/jon-krakauer-if-you-re-not-a-feminist-then-you-re-a-p...

Probably you shouldn't read it unless you've finished the book or know what happened. I must have been living under a rock because I hadn't heard about the whole "Missoula is the rape capital of America" thing. When I was in college (in the days of the dinosaurs) Boulder, Colorado had that distinction. This is one of my favorite types of books, one that takes complex ideas and makes them understandable. Non-stranger rape, in these days of "real" rape and "honest" rape is a concept that is hard for people to understand. The studies cited really are as surprising as Montana politics.

>135 Citizenjoyce: "Missoula is the rape capital of America" thing. Yeah, that's what Missoulians and officials of the U of M are afraid will be the take away, even though Krakauer himself says in the book that the rapes per capita are similar or even lower than other college towns. It's just that in Missoula, rape has a dismally low level of being charged and prosecuted with problems with both the police and the DA's office, and as he said, the townspeople taking the side of football players no matter what the evidence, up to and including confession.

I feel the book is pretty well balanced

Thanks for posting the interview link. He's a very thoughtful guy. I had no idea he had grown up in the area.

I'm thinking about going to Krakauer's talk in Missoula tomorrow. My fear is that it will be so overcrowded it will be a total waste of town to drive down there.

>135 Citizenjoyce:, 136: The NYT review by Emily Bazelon wasn't too complimentary about the Krakauer book: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/books/review/jon-krakauers-missoula-about-rape...

>137 nohrt4me2: what a strange review. It seems to me that everything Brazelon accuses Krakauer of not doing he does do, and what she accuses him of doing he doesn't do. She seems to think he makes the female prosecutor-defense attorney into a mouseache twirling villain. He does not. She does get it right that he blames the adversarial system of the courts for bad decisions, which he rightfully does. She says the jury deliberated about what was or was not said. Well, isn't that the crux of non-stranger rape? The boy says she wanted it, the girl tries to show all the ways she said no and people are very biased toward believing the poor innocent boy's version.
Brazelon says Krakauer doesn't humanize the woman, but I sure saw their humanity. I also saw the humanity of the rapists. I was especially impressed by the "virgin" rapist. I could see my grandson in the situation of the friendly, athletic boy who runs wild once he gets to college, has no idea how to relate to women so just lives his fantasy. The kids now have lessons about consent in health class. How I hope he keeps those lessons in mind when he's away from the very strict guidance of his parents.

I finally received the audiobook H is for Hawk from the library, and started listening to it today. So far, it is surpassing my rather high expectations. It is read by the author, something that I usually try to avoid, but Helen MacDonald is a wonderful reader, and she really adds to the experience.

I returned Bossypants half listened to. You would think that Tina Fey would have a great delivery and a wonderful sense of comedic timing, but I found the opposite to be true. She speaks much too quickly and her flat intonation makes everything blend together. To be fair, I am really unfamiliar with her television work, so there was not much that I found of interest anyway.

I received Circling the Sun from Early Reviewers today, as well. I am in a good place to rest another book that I am reading, so I will start it right away.

>138 Citizenjoyce: Joyce, I found it troubling that Bazelon said that Krakauer seems not to have spoken to the accused or victims, or to cops or prosecutors. Which leaves me feeling that either the book is a seriously flawed piece of journalism or the review is.

I think one of the best depictions of non-consensual sex on campus was Tom Wolfe's novel, I am Charlotte Simmons, 2004.

>140 nohrt4me2: The best part of the book is his quoting David Lisak's studies about non-stranger rape. People try to go easy on these poor boys who just made a mistake, but then he shows the boys then go on to continue making the same "mistake", raping other women and being involved in other kinds of abuse against women and children. Lots of what he says is counter intuitive and just fascinating. So rather than this being the story of the women who are raped or the men who raped them, it's an analysis of exactly what rape is, what its effects are, and how it is or isn't prosecuted - which is very needed especially now that the US is trying to tell women what male conservatives will deign to dignify with the classification of "real rape."

I did read I Am Charlotte Simmons years ago, I think, and liked it.

ETA: If you don't want to read the book, here's a bit of the research:
http://www.usfk.mil/usfk/Uploads/SAPR/SAPRMod17_UndetectedRapist.pdf?AspxAutoDet...
and here's a page of his various research:
http://www.davidlisak.com/resources/

>140 nohrt4me2: I think that the link that Citizenjoyce provided in >135 Citizenjoyce: to the roundtable discussion with Krakauer clearly addresses whom he interviewed and why. In my opinion, the only ones that have a kick about not being interviewed would be the Missoula County District Attotrney's office, who end up coming off quite poorly at every level. Krakauer said that he preferred to let their public and trial records stand without comment.

I think there is some pushback because a popular (male) NNF writer is the one to bring light to this subject while other, more scholarly studies have not ignited the public.

>139 vwinsloe: I've definitely got H is for Hawk on my wishlist radar. It's nice to see another positive review of it.

I'm currently reading and enjoying The Last Report on the Miracle at Little No Horse.. Erdrich has been on my to-read list for quite a while

I really liked H is for Hawk, although the TH White parts are both integral to the story and very hard to read.

Oh, I must find a copy of H is for Hawk, I adored The Goshawk as a young child. (I begged my mum to allow me to train a bird of prey, but she sensibly said no. Sigh. :)

I finished The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf and enjoyed it very much, even if it did feel rather clunky at times.

Now reading Ancillary Justice and enjoying it, even if it is rather challenging trying to work out what on earth is going on. :)

>144 southernbooklady: Why are the TH White parts hard to read? Just curious given that I've had a ratty copy of "The Once and Future King" next to my bed for 40 years, and I open it and read bits at random like some people read the Bible. Would a familiarity with White make "Hawk" easier to read?

>146 nohrt4me2: Helen MacDonald shows that White was a sadist who fought against those tendencies. His attempts to train his goshawk are very sad, as it appears, was much of his life.

>146 nohrt4me2: Why are the TH White parts hard to read?

I don't want to give any spoilers, but MacDonald is an experienced falconer, and her interaction with White in reading his own account of learning to train his falcon, Gos, is a kind of counter point to her building relationship with her goshawk, Mabel. White apparently does a lot of things wrong, which ends up being unintentionally cruel to his bird. For weeks while I was reading H is for Hawk, I'd call my mother to talk to her about the book and how hard it was to read about the suffering of the bird under White's misunderstood handling. But the thing is, you can't skip over it, even when it makes you cringe, because the emotional resonance MacDonald brings to her reading of White is phenomenal:

The Goshawk is a book of a young man. It was written before White's better-known works, and before he was famous. It 'would be about the efforts of a second-rate philosopher', he explained sadly, 'who lived alone in a wood, being tired of most humans in any case, to train a person who was not human, but a bird'. I saw more in it than bad falconry. I understood why people considered it a masterpiece. For White made falconry a metaphysical battle. Like Moby-Dick or The Old Man and the Sea, The Goshawk was a literary encounter between animal and man that reached back to Puritan traditions of spiritual contest: salvation as a stake to be won in a contest against God. That older, wiser me decided that White's admissions of ignorance were braver rather than stupid. But I was still angry with him. First, because his hawk suffered terribly as he tried to train it. And second, because his portrayal of falconry as a pitched battle between man and bird had hugely influenced our notions of what goshawks are and falconry is. Frankly, I hated what he had made of them.

MacDonald is fantastic at talking about that weird place we often find ourselves in-- where we simultaneously admire and hate a thing that is both brilliant and wrong, that makes us conscious of its genius, and yet makes us profoundly angry at the same time.

ETA: I think I wish I had read White's Goshawk before I read this. Because now when I read it, I'm going to have a really hard time of it.

Thanks for the explanations re T.H. White, though can't quite tell if he was sadistic or misguided and unable to empathize with the animal. (But no need for details, please.) I understand he struggled with many demons in his personal life. Still doesn't take away the basic humanity that comes through in his Arthurian cycle.

Sometimes authors can be remarkable fakers, can't they? SOBs in real life, but capable of producing works of tenderness and beauty.

If memory serves, John Donne observed that he wrote his best poetry at times when he the most un-metaphysical and even irreligious.

I am still listening to H is for Hawk and finding it an amazing book about the training of and mastery over animals, but also of ourselves, our emotions and of death itself. T.H. White, it seems, after an abusive childhood and attempts to repress his homosexuality, longed for control over himself, for which the mishandled training of his hawk was apparently an allegory.

I'm still moving through The Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates. Interesting narrative voice. Don't quite know what the story is yet or where it's going. I fear it might be full of "in" jokes for those with Ivy League educations, and I'll just be left by the side of my Midwestern road scratching my hayseed head and wondering what alla them 600+ pages was for.

But I always like Oates in Gothic mode, so will press on.

>151 nohrt4me2: I've got The Accursed in a TBR pile somewhere, but I'm wondering. It seems to be the fifth in a Gothic Saga series. Is it advisable first to read the others in order? I don't think I have any of those earlier four around anywhere.

>152 CurrerBell: I hadn't even realized The Accursed was part of a series and read it as a stand alone book. It's very Freudian and quite informative. Now whenever I read about Woodrow Wilson I can't help but think of his portrayal here.

>152 CurrerBell:, >153 Citizenjoyce: I read The accursed last year and really enjoyed it. As far as I can tell the so-called Gothic saga books are unrelated to each other; from the reviews and descriptions I've seen they don't seem to have any elements besides their Gothic style in common. (I haven't read any of the others as they are extremely hard to find in the UK.)

The Accursed works fine as a stand-alone, though maybe reading the others would make it even better.

Now that I'm used to the general structure and shifting tone, I'm really enjoying it.

There isn't a plot so much as recurring themes and images all swirling around the vortex of an upcoming society marriage. (Marriage is also one of the recurring themes.) Or the vortex may be a lynching that occurred in 1905, which is when the book is set. (Racial tensions are another theme of the book.)

Stephen King, in the NYT review, wrote:

Joyce Carol Oates has written what may be the world’s first postmodern Gothic novel: E. L. Doctorow’s ‘Ragtime’ set in Dracula’s castle. It’s dense, challenging, problematic, horrifying, funny, prolix and full of crazy people. You should read it. I wish I could tell you more.

That alone made me want to read it. And so far he's on target.

Anyone interested in the rest of King's review can find it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/books/review/the-accursed-by-joyce-carol-oates...

>153 Citizenjoyce: Yeah. Woodrow Wilson. Creepy. Gore Vidal's depiction of him in Hollywood wasn't quite as weird, but was certainly quirky!

Edited for updates.

Has anyone read Secret Smile by Nicci French? I've read and liked other psychological mysteries by her, but this ultimate stalker tale is so creepy it's hard for me to continue. I'm not even half way through, and I want to finish and have everything turn out just fine, but it's hard to keep going.

>131 vwinsloe:, >132 overlycriticalelisa: I hadn't really heard much about Angela Carter until she was voted the monthly author read. I had found Wise Children for dirt cheap at a library book sale a little bit before that and it seemed interesting so I got it. I'm about half way through it now and I like it, despite it being sort of difficult to explain why I do. I haven't read anything else by her (and am not sure yet that I will seek out anything else), but this seems to be one of her more popular works anyway.

I just finished the creepy and infuriating stalker novel Secret Smile by Nicci French. I can't think of the last time a book upset me so much or the last time I was yelling at a character to STOP. French is quickly becoming a favorite author.

>158 Citizenjoyce:

oh! in a good way! you surprised me at the end there, especially after your post from the other day. now i'm intrigued.

Last Sunday night, I finished another book by Janet Malcolm, Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession, a fascinating portrait of Freudian psychoanalysis at the end of its heyday, but I've had such a busy, crazy week I didn't have a chance to review it until now.

For H Is For Hawk fans. The flight is amazingly steady when the bird is gliding:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/watch-eagle-soar-worlds-tallest-building/sto...

>161 Citizenjoyce:. Amazing. Thanks!

Not sure I get the allure of the hawk book, but the video was pretty cool! I wish they'd shown more about how the eagle adjusts for its landing.

I've had to put Ancillary Justice to one side so I can "quickly" re-read Cold Comfort Farm for bookgroup. Unfortunately, a stupidly busy weekend got in the way, so I'm only about halfway through that (but I've read it before, so I'm not worried about spoilers). Must plan my reading better. :P

I'm also half-reading the Nancy Drew books with Miss Boo, who stumbled across a reference to them somewhere, then we saw a nice edition of the first book while birthday shopping last weekend, and she just finished the second book a mere two days after I bought it for her on Thursday. I've bought the next two now as well, hopefully that'll keep her until this weekend. And it's nice to know that she plans her reading time more efficiently than her mother. :P

And yay for Nancy Drew!! My sister and I had a good reminisce about our favourite childhood books yesterday, and they were pretty close to the top of the list (although the bits I do read with Boo, I don't recognise at all! I guess my childhood is further away than I remember).

I read about 1/3 of The Dream Lover and put it aside because I found I just didn't care about the people. Maybe if I'd got to the part with Chopin it could have generated some interest. Women who love their sons but not their daughters don't do much for me.
I just finished Jane Smiley's latest, Early Warning. The first book, Some Luck, started with a couple who had five children. By the time of this book the children have grown and the character list expanded exponentially. It's mighty hard to keep everyone straight, but eventually I could and loved this one as much as Some Luck.
I'm very surprised by The Secret History of Wonder Woman. I don't know what I was expecting but it wasn't a history of women in the early twentieth century. Very interesting, even though men who extol the virtues of women whilst keeping a foot on their necks aren't really my type of guy. I can't help thinking of "Sister Wives" and their central egoist Kody.
I'm about 2/3 of the way through The Nightingale which is a combination Suite Francais, The Girl In The Blue Beret, and Sarah's Key. It's very well researched and interesting with emphasis both on the heroic woman and her more confused and compliant "normal" sister.

Thanks for the info about the Jane Smileys, Citizenjoyce - looks like a return to form after that horrible Decameron one I didn't bother with.

>165 Citizenjoyce: Are you talking about The Dream Lover: A Novel that just came out? I put that on my wish list--it sounds really good. Or are you talking about the Lawrence Sanders novel that you linked?

>165 Citizenjoyce: I love some books by Jane Smiley and felt ambivalent about some others, so am glad to hear that these are good.

>167 vwinsloe: oops, thanks. Yes, I'm talking about the Elizabeth Berg novel. First of all, she manages to make George Sand boring, secondly it's one of those novels that takes controversial decisions made by the protagonist and whitewashes them into sweetness and love and mild ambition. It was a big disappointment to me.

>169 Citizenjoyce:. Bummer. Thanks.

>169 Citizenjoyce: It's a shame the new Elizabeth Berg isn't very good. There was a novel The Romances of George Sand that I won last year on Early Review, and I gave it ½* (generously, considering my review of it, but a zero wouldn't have counted in the ratings). I saw The Dream Lover on a shelf at B&N and was thinking of buying it, but now....

We need to hear from someone else about The Dream Lover. Maybe no one else found it boring. Maybe it was just my mood at the time.

I just finished Afterimage by Helen Humphreys, and it's difficult to know what to think about it. As a purely made up novel, it's very interesting about an orphaned girl who becomes house maid to a childless Lady photographer and her husband who longs to travel. The Lady is obsessed with taking the maid's photograph in various identities. The description of the photographic process is very interesting as are the posing and ideas behind the images. Lady Isabelle's relationship with her husband and with the servants is also interesting. Isabelle is based on the famous photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, great niece of Virginia Woolfe. And here is where the problem arises. The book describes real photographs but uses a very fictional story line about Julia Cameron and her house maid Mary Hillier. Why take real people and completely rearrange their lives turning everything inside out and upside down. So, a good book but strange.

I'm reading Wild Horse Annie and the Last of the Mustangs: The Life of Velma Johnston which was co-authored by Alison Griffiths, although the touchstone doesn't give her credit. Before reading this book, I was unaware of the details of the systematic slaughter of the wild horses in the American west in the early twentieth century. Velma Johnston was an early eco-terrorist and activist, and more people should know about her work. I suppose that if her actions took place today, she'd have her own reality show like "Whale Wars."

I've just started reading Adult onset, the new novel by Ann-Marie MacDonald. I loved The way the crow flies so am looking forward to this.

I swore off YA fiction a while ago, but nevertheless I started listening to Code Name Verity today. I just started but I can see why it was so well liked on LT in 2013.

>176 vwinsloe:
i didn't realize that was ya.

will soon (maybe in a few days) be starting the chronology of water and am super excited about it. i'll spend the next few days tempering that excitement so i don't immediately hate the book for not living up to my expectations.

Just read Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald. 5***** read in a single sitting, really a novella rather than a novel. I've got it in the three-fer Everyman edition along with Human Voices and The Beginning of Spring and I want to do a good thorough reading of Fitzgerald before I get started on that new biography by Hermione Lee.

>178 CurrerBell:. I enjoyed Offshore, too, but I think Fitzgerald might be one of those authors like Muriel Spark, several of whose works you have to read in order to get in her "groove."

Just finished The Accursed. I can't say it wasn't literary, mythic, breathtaking in its scope and breadth, with interesting historical themes that reverb today. I can't say I didn't enjoy it a lot. But, boy, I'm not sure it was worth the time commitment. So dense and long it took me most of May to read it. Feeling sort of glutted. Like being at a buffet where someone keeps urging you to eat just another bite past the point of gluttony.

Interesting homage to Angela Carter in today's NYT book section by Kelly Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/24/books/review/subversive-pleasure.html

I just started The Bees which I picked up from a library cart this afternoon while heading to the commuter rail. I rarely start a newly acquired book right away, but I remember that Citizenjoyce liked this one, and I have been looking for it for a while.

Well, I finished Cold Comfort Farm, and it was a delight (again). And then also finished Ancillary Justice which was excellent, but you did have to keep your wits about you. Then a short break for an excellent book by a bloke (Clade by James Bradley) which I read in 2 days (OMG, my reading mojo is back!) and now onto the stack of Bailey Prize shortlisted books I snaffled from the library. Starting with The Paying Guests as it's due back earliest, although I've heard the least good things about this one.

>181 wookiebender: I wish I could like Sarah Waters but I can't get more than a few pages into her books. I don't know why, as everybody seems to love her books so much.

>181 wookiebender: Cold Comfort Farm is one of my (sorry!) comfort reads! I've read it probably four times over the years.

>182 lemontwist:

i don't like her either! i've found a few others who don't, but we certainly seem to be in the minority.

>181 wookiebender:, 183

alright, alright, i can take a hint. this book has come up a few times recently for me so i guess that means i should read it.

Count me among those who doesn't much care for Sarah Waters and is puzzled about it. Her books have all the elements I like, but for some reason they don't gel into anything I care about.

I can add my voice to the Sarah Waters thing. And I really want to like her, too!

I just read Penelope Fitzgerald's Human Voices in pretty much a straight-through reading (aside from the first couple chapters, which I'd already started). I had quite a bit of time – some 7½ hours – this afternoon/evening waiting at the auto dealership for a whole lot of work on my car and I also got a good bit read of a Kindle anthology of Harlan Ellison stories.

The bad news. $810 for the auto work. The good news. The earlier estimate had been $1150, but the mechanic decided that I really didn't need new spark plugs. That leaves me $340 for books?

ETA: 5***** to Human Voices. A (perhaps generous) 1* to the Ellison anthology.

Just started Burning the Ice by Laura J Mixon - one of my favourite SF authors - she always writes good female characters.

Moving on with The Word Exchange, which is so far rather uneven. Kind of dystopian chick lit mystery with a rather muddled plot and shifting points of view. Disappointing given that this is a dystopian story for grown ups, with an interesting premise. Will see how it pans out. (I don't follow Nancy Pearl's rule about ditching a book if, 50 pages in, it fails to delight; I'm probably less happy for doing so, but I always think maybe there'll be an unexpected payoff.)

Good to see I've got company in disliking Sarah Waters. Her popularity is such a mystery.

Finished listening-- thank you, LibriVox!-- to Edith Wharton's Summer. I enjoyed it right up to the last chapter, which was horrifying. The only other Wharton I've read was Ethan Frome, long ago, so maybe you folks can tell me... does she always punish her characters who step out of line? Gah!

Speaking of Ethan Frome, anyone seen this series?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJCmZkXQokU

>190 7sistersapphist:. I hadn't watched the Ethan Frome ThugNotes, but I do love me some Sparky Sweets, PhD. I only "got" Things Fall Apart at all because of his synopsis.

I finished up The Bees which was truly memorable. I was even dreaming about bees while I was reading it.

I just started A Tale for the Time Being which I have been looking forward to for a while. I am planning to see a Hosukai exhibit later this summer at the Museaum of Fine Arts here in Boston and this will tie in nicely.

>191 vwinsloe: I just finished A Tale for the Time Being and loved it.

>190 7sistersapphist: I also just finished the audiobook of The Age of Innocence, which redeemed Wharton for me. Previously I had only read her in college. I thought this was just an amazing book.

>191 vwinsloe:, >192 sturlington: I read A Tale for the Time Being a while ago and loved it so was very happy when it was chosen as my RL book club read last month. I loved it again, as did the librarian leader of the group. Everyone else hated it so much no one finished it. I don't think anyone got beyond page 60. What a complete shock.
>191 vwinsloe: I'm glad you liked The Bees. The book really is a total immersion into bee life.
I finished The Heretic's Daughter and can't figure out why it took me so long to get to it. I've had it sitting around for at least a year. What an excellent example of the disadvantages of a theocracy using the background of the Salem witch trials. In a way I can understand the the fundamentalist obsession with the inherant evil nature of human kind. That we could perpetuate such horrors against those who are perceived as different or more accomplished or luckier than their neighbors doesn't speak well for our species.
Now I'm listening to lighter fare, Nightbird. Alice Hoffman is in her Practical Magic vein with public fear, again, of those who are different but in a YA, not so overwhelmingly depressing tone.
I'm also listening to Inside the O'Briens in which Lisa Genova does the same personal exemplification of Huntington's Disease that she did for Alzheimers in Still Alice.
Lastly, I've just started Living With a Wild God so don't know what to think of it yet.
Oh, on the Sarah Waters popularity pole, put me in the love her, love her camp. The Night Watch was my first exposure to her, and she made me understand what living in England during WWII was like. I think I've read and loved everything else she's written aside from The Little Stranger. That one didn't quite hit the mark for me.

>193 Citizenjoyce: Joyce, I hope you'll offer some thoughts about "Wild God" over on the separate discussion thread. I am still thinking about this book. I'd like to see more food for thought over there.

>194 nohrt4me2: will do. It's certainly different from anything else I've read by her.

I'll add my two cents over there.

If anyone would like my copy of Living With a Wild God, let me know. Hardcover, ex-library.

I've got Living With a Wild God on my never ending list of books to read... trying to actually finish *some* of the books I currently have before going to the library and coming home with dozens more. My goal is to get my TBR pile down to about 20...

I've been plowing through a lot of YA fiction. It's just been hitting the spot for me lately. Nothing really to write home about though.

Oh, put me in the loving Sarah Waters camp, too! Although I think that The Little Stranger missed the mark, and (sadly) so did The Paying Guests. But her Victorian pastiches were just brilliant, IMO.

The Paying Guests was a bit of a disappointment (and not worthy of its Bailey's Prize shortlist spot, IMO). It all seemed a bit melodramatic and tawdry, and a disappointingly ordinary storyline for Sarah Waters. But, considering she does reference a book on women's fiction of the 1920's - 1930's, maybe that was the point. And the heroine is too self righteous to like (which is okay in literature, but this felt like it missed the literature mark, so she was just annoying). On the plus side, it was a very quick read (for all its size), and there were some very good minor moments, not to mention a wonderful recreation of London on the early 1920's, with unrest from returned servicemen and a city and society left badly damaged by war. From another author, I would have rather liked it, but from Sarah Waters, it was disappointing.

Then (continuing my way through the Bailey's Prize shortlist; they all turned up from the library at the same time!), I read How To Be Both by Ali Smith, which was much more what I expect from a novel shortlisted for a prestigious prize. It would have been much easier to read with some quotation marks (considering the main character is such a grammar pedant, I was a bit disappointed she wasn't a punctuation pedant too). But it's a great slow reveal of a nicely twisty story, not everything is resolved, and the second half was completely unexpected. And the main character is great, I obviously approve of grammar pedants over upper middle class spinsters. :) Sadly, I think the writing style (lack of quote marks, plus the second half is pretty stream of consciousness) threw me out of the story a bit too much, so I wasn't as involved in the story as I would really have liked to be.

(Note: Another Reader pointed out that there were two editions for How To Be Both, where the first half and second half are in a different order. Interesting, although I'm not entirely sure I like the idea - what if I got the dud edition??)

Now starting A God in Every Stone. Which also seems to not have quotation marks, sigh. (But at least there's a hyphen at the start of any paragraph that is dialogue. So that's something, I guess.)

>199 wookiebender: It really annoys me when an author chooses not to use quotation marks. I guess this is a trend now for literary fiction, but I think it gets in the way of engagement with the book and thus works against the author.

I continued onto another thread here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/191943