tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26091404895793845542024-03-13T22:51:33.234-07:00Read This Now!New rating system.
Stellar. * Excellent * Very good * Good * Decent * So-so * Bad * Truly awful
Let's see how those work.eve beckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09190329868679256057noreply@blogger.comBlogger81125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609140489579384554.post-21233891496823393142017-03-28T18:43:00.002-07:002017-07-31T05:43:40.752-07:00Coming soonMini-reviews of<br />
<i>Beyond the Sky and the Earth</i> by Jamie Zeppa<br />
<i>The Sellout</i> by Paul Beatty<br />
<i>The Refugees</i> by Viet Thanh Nguyen<br />
<i>The Underground Railroad</i> by Colson Whitehead<br />
<br />
But if anyone is on here, rather than waiting for me to not update my reading blog, go get <i>The Refugees</i> and <i>The Underground Railroad</i>--both excellent reads.<br />
<br />
Falling off wagon. Also read:<br />
<i>The Sacred and Profane Love Machine</i> by Iris Murdoch<br />
<i>Here I Am</i> by Jonathan Safran FoerEvehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14442058896738179985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609140489579384554.post-30517111641243389192016-12-31T09:09:00.000-08:002017-01-01T08:21:14.557-08:00A SPORT AND A PASTIME by James SalterWhen you don't like a book by an acclaimed "writer's writer" (NYT), you wonder if you're missing something. Salter writes beautiful sentences and controls the rhythm of his prose masterfully. But I'm sorry to report that I disliked <i>A Sport and a Pastime</i>. The romantic lead is a spoiled, shiftless, wealthy narcissist Yale dropout at loose in the French countryside, and the narrator (who describes/imagines his friend's affair with a young French girl) is a milktoast who fancies himself a photographer and also doesn't work. The car the romantic lead drives is more fully characterized than the object of his desire; women in this world are just there to fuck (or marry). And Blacks are there to be exoticized. Both are described in stereotypical terms--her ass like two halves of an apple, the white teeth of the Black American soldier in a French nightclub. Isn't 1965--when this book was written--too late in the game even for an old (now dead) white man to be unapologetically trotting out those images? (And I must say, Salter is far too good a stylist to rely on tired language.) The bulk of the story follows (through the narrator's imaginings) the young couple as they go from one town to another and one hotel to another and have sex... and I do mean to another and another and another. It's boring. It's predictable. Nothing happens. The sex scenes are tame. Oh, mon dieu, they have anal sex! Dis donc, alors! The descriptions of France in a certain era are quite lovely and evocative, but I found this novel to be a poor cross between Fitzgerald and Hemingway (and I confess that last time I read <i>The Great Gatsby</i>, I didn't like it, either.)Evehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14442058896738179985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609140489579384554.post-46279706742149750472016-12-31T08:33:00.001-08:002017-01-01T08:49:29.496-08:00BARBARIAN DAYS; THE SYMPATHIZER; CITIZEN; A MANUAL FOR CLEANING WOMEN<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #cccccc;">Neglected blog. Summary post for my records.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #cccccc;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: #cccccc; color: #333333;">Books read last summer:</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #cccccc;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>The Betrayers</i> by David Bezmozgis</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>A Manual for Cleaning Women</i> by Lucia Berlin</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>The Sympathizer</i> by Viet Thanh Nguyen</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life </i>by William Finnegan</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>The Tsar of Love and Techno</i> by Anthony Marra</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Citizen: An American Lyric </i>by Claudia Rankine</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian</i> by Sherman Alexie</span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i style="background-color: #cccccc;">Night at the Fiestas</i><span style="background-color: #cccccc;"> by Kirstin Valdez Quade</span><span style="background-color: #cccccc; color: #333333;"> </span></span></li>
<li><span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">a couple of other titles, but I can't remember what</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #cccccc;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: #cccccc;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: #cccccc;">There wasn't a dud in the bunch, but standouts included <i>Citizen; A Manual for Cleaning Women; The Sympathizer </i>and <i>Barbarian Days.</i> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #cccccc; color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: #cccccc;">I read <i>Citizen</i> twice... Rankine's prose-poems form a polemic on being Black in white America... poignant content in a compelling, unusual form.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #cccccc; color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: #cccccc;"><i>Barbarian Days</i>, New Yorker writer Finnegan's surf memoir was a quintessential summer read for me, as someone who loves the ocean, traveling and stellar writing.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #cccccc; color: #333333;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: #cccccc;">And <i>The Sympathizer</i> was my favorite book of the year, about a Vietnamese double-agent at the end of the Vietnam War, who has to flee to the States--part spy thriller, part history, part great American immigrant novel, all beautifully written and constructed, and a page turner, to boot.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><br /></span></span>
Evehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14442058896738179985noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609140489579384554.post-74787474028968351082016-01-04T19:01:00.001-08:002016-01-04T19:01:33.482-08:00UNSPEAKABLE and Other Subjects of Discussion by Meghan DaumSo-so.<br />
<br />
Kick-ass first essay about her relationship with her mother, followed by more mundane offerings, ending with two strong ones--one a paean to Los Angeles, and one about nearly dying. Some great writing, but too much that doesn't rise above the me-me-me of the personal essay.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609140489579384554.post-87286924209267944722015-12-25T19:11:00.000-08:002015-12-25T19:22:55.682-08:00A BRIEF HISTORY OF SEVEN KILLINGS by Marlon James<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Excellent!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br />I tend to be a skipper. Somewhere midway through or so, I start paging forward, skimming large
chunks of a book, then slow down to preview a part I’m not up to yet, then go
back to where I left off and read forward. Or I page back and reread, when I
think I missed the full impact. I read some passages deeply, noting style and
texture, but read other passages for plot. Sometimes I skip words and sentences
altogether, to cut to the chase.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">But I read every word of all 686 pages of this epic novel. Why? The language. It doesn’t hurt that the story’s good—based on the assassination attempt on Bob Marley in 1976, and the political and gang intrigue in Jamaica surrounding and following it. Told from the points of view of a dozen or so characters, what got me and kept me was James’ ear for dialect--Jamaican, American, British, Latin-American, upper crust, street… and how he uses it to reveal the interior lives of his characters.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It’s a fantastic read. But be warned—it’s violent, and
though one of the most compelling characters is female, the overall tenor is so
male that three-quarters of the way through, I went out and bought four books
by women writers to stack up by my bed like talismans (or taliswomans).<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609140489579384554.post-62569565392067183682015-10-18T10:46:00.000-07:002015-10-18T11:02:24.700-07:00BETWEEN YOU & ME: Confessions of a Comma Queen by Mary Norris<br />
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Instead of a rating, I give this book a <b>white privilege alert</b>. Reader, beware.<br />
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Norris, a copyediting diva for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New Yorker</i>, has written a memoir that offers the kind of a
fine-tooth comb examination of everyday grammar and punctuation that is fascinating to an English teacher like moi. And she's sassy and she gives you a behind the scenes at <i>The New Yorker</i>. But she lost me on page 2.
Describing a long ago job at the Cleveland Costume Company, she writes: “On my first
day, a young black woman, Yvonne, was setting Santa beards in rollers so that
they would be curly by Christmas. An older black woman worked in the kitchen…
and said things like ‘My dogs is killin’ me.’ “ Is there a reason for
describing the first two characters we meet by their race? Well, on page three,
the young Norris has a Halloween party where “One of the guests came as a penis;
another as a Ku Klux Klansman. Initially, I was sorry that Yvonne declined my
invitation, but not anymore.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh. I see.
Yvonne and the colorful older woman are there for a hahahaha-I-grew-up-such-a-redneck moment. The older woman doesn’t figure in the story again, but isn’t
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Funny? Perhaps I missed the joke. There’s nothing funny
about a writer who thinks that a friend dressing up as a Klansman makes for a humorous
opening anecdote to her book. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are you
surprised to hear that the rest of the characters introduced in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Between You and Me</i> are white by default?
And this from someone who is one of the gatekeepers of what’s fit to print. How
could her editors at Norton have let this through? How could the long list of
people she acknowledged (including a few I know) not have bristled?</div>
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I read the rest of the book—and enjoyed it as only a grammar
geek could—but I never really got past those initial pages. Once she set herself up that way, Norris’ voice—arch
yet pithy—just annoyed me, rather than making me laugh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m the queen of the red pen in my 8<sup>th</sup>
grade English classroom, but some things are more important than punctuation.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609140489579384554.post-4121041641574824992015-09-24T19:27:00.001-07:002015-09-26T10:50:03.867-07:00BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME by Ta-Nehisi CoatesVery good<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Coates is possibly the most important writer on race in this
country today. I read everything he publishes in The Atlantic, and find him
keenly insightful and illuminating, as well as eloquent. <i>Between the World and Me</i> delivers in some ways, but not in others.
I’m going to say it’s a must read… for its ideas. But Coates is an essayist,
and this—written as a letter to his son—is a kind of memoir, a form that
demands rich storytelling. In this aspect, I found the book to fall a tad short. Coates tells far more than he
shows, and his prose—so elegant in his essays—occasionally veers into the
purple, and can be somewhat pedantic and repetitive. He establishes his thesis
early on—that the White Dream is deadly to the Black body—and he goes on to
replicate it in a kind of theme and variations. <i>Between the World and Me</i> is an
homage to Richard Wright—whose very words and language he borrows from
liberally*—and James Baldwin, whose “Letter to my Nephew” was the inspiration
for this work. Wright tells a better story, imho, and Baldwin’s prose is
simpler and clearer—and just as outraged and powerful. Criticisms
notwithstanding, the ideas and
emotions are absolutely vital to our national discussion. Read it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">*(For instance, Wright, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Black
Boy</i>: “There was the hint of cosmic cruelty that I felt when I saw the
curved timbers of a wooden shack that had been warped in the summer sun.”
Coates, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Between the World and Me</i>:
“And I felt in this a cosmic injustice, a profound cruelty, which infused an
abiding, irrepressible desire to unshackle my body and achieve the velocity of
escape.”)</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609140489579384554.post-73178715852215975562015-09-06T15:14:00.000-07:002015-09-06T15:21:39.500-07:00ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE by Anthony Doerr, BATTLEBORN by Claire Vaye Watkins; STATION ELEVEN by Emily St. John Mandel; LOVING DAY by Mat Johnson<div class="MsoNormal">
ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE by Anthony Doerr<o:p></o:p></div>
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Very Good<o:p></o:p></div>
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It’s hard to put down this tender, suspenseful, nicely
crafted novel, set in WWII Europe. On the other hand, Pulitzer Prize winner?
There’s the brave, clever blind girl, who’s part of the French resistance; the
oversized German killer who loves classical music and has a streak of goodness; and so on. They’ll pull at your heartstrings, yes, but they verge on
caricature. The sentence-by-sentence writing is lovely, the plot compelling…
but I’m not sure it rises above a better-than-average, page-turning, heartfelt
summer read.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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BATTLEBORN by Claire Vaye Watkins<o:p></o:p></div>
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Very Good<o:p></o:p></div>
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Hard-edged, smart, well-written stories set in the Nevada
dessert. One reviewer described the author as an Annie Proulx for the Wild
West, for her evocative way with the places in which her stories are set. Not sure about that, but this collection nevertheless warrants a read. The book gained
cult status, partially because Watkins is the daughter of Charles Mansion
Family Member Paul Watkins, a fact that figures heavily in the first story, and
is reflected in some of the others.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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STATION ELEVEN by Emily St. John Mandel<o:p></o:p></div>
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Excellent<o:p></o:p></div>
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A traveling band of actors in a post-apocalyptic world.
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about, good writing, and a gripping plot. Highly recommended.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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LOVING DAY by Mat Johnson<o:p></o:p></div>
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Decent<o:p></o:p></div>
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The first couple of chapters are absolutely stellar. Johnson
writes about being Black—and White—in this country with honesty, irreverence, guffaw
aloud humor, smarts… and a refreshing fearlessness of the muzzle of a mass-market strain of political correctness that silences productive,
respectful dialogue around critical issues of race and identity. But after
those first chapters, the novel degenerates into a silly romp with characters, relationships
and situations that require far too big a leap of faith. Still. Read the
beginning.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609140489579384554.post-13011477708986394682015-07-11T11:46:00.002-07:002015-07-11T18:25:05.038-07:00GO SET A WATCHMAN by Harper Lee, Chapter One<style>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XvjTrBXR1Fw/VaFtuoI_fhI/AAAAAAAACmg/BDxw_Br6hhY/s1600/watchman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XvjTrBXR1Fw/VaFtuoI_fhI/AAAAAAAACmg/BDxw_Br6hhY/s320/watchman.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I didn’t want to do it to her… but I did it. I read Chapter One
of Nelle Harper Lee's new/old book. The chapter was released a few days ago by the Wall Street
Journal, which is owned by News Corp, also the parent company of the book’s
publisher, HarperCollins. I mean, whuddidyouthink? Sometimes a manuscript, in
the hand of one man, is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of another.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I couldn’t help myself. On moral grounds, I didn’t preorder.
Why not let our Lady of Letters go out in a more dignified fashion? But having
taught TKAM many times, and not being able to count self-control among my
virtues, I capitulated and read the first chapter. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And yes, it reads like the sophomoric fan fiction version of
her more mature—and well edited—classic. It’s full of tired, easy phrases, stock portrayals and awkward tense construction—signs of a writing newby. But a sentence here and there hint
at the sharp, brilliant writing in TKAM. And like seeing the hidden paint
layers of a famous canvas, it’s fascinating. As for Atticus the racist—the
fodder for much discussion on social media, largely by people who don’t seem to
have read the book yet—that hasn’t come up in Chapter One. Perhaps it will
offer a more unvarnished look at attitudes about race in the Jim Crow South
among ‘progressive’ whites, than Atticus the hero. Lord knows we need more honest discussion.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve been brought to tears by the poignancy and beauty of certain passages in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">To Kill a Mockingbird</i> virtually every time
I read them aloud to 8<sup>th</sup> graders, or they read them aloud to me.
I’ve been stopped in my tracks over and over by a sentence, a paragraph, a
description, a shift in point of view, thinking “How does she do that?” And
yeah, each time I teach the book, I grapple afresh with how to tackle the
sprinkling of anachronistic and offensive passages about race and gender and
some problematic characterizations, without tamping down the deeply important
message or the joy of the read. Harper Lee had a lot of it right, but she was a
product of her time and place.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Watchman</i>,
everyone needs a good editor. Everyone needs time to develop as a writer. Our
literary elders should be cared for, and their accomplishments honored and protected.
Shame, shame, News Corp. Will I read the rest of it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It might be a little like shootin’ a
mockingbird.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609140489579384554.post-25949621945548540252015-07-07T05:37:00.000-07:002015-07-07T05:37:50.634-07:00HOTEL DU LAC by Anita Brookner
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Stellar</div>
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<br /></div>
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What was contemporary fiction like before we packed everyone
off to MFA factories to practice literary pyrotechnics?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The cottage I’m in this month has the best library of any of
the scores of vacation houses I’ve rented in my life. I arrived with my usual
crate of summer reads, and found I didn’t need any of them. (Hard-gotten--four
titles by trading in seven entire crates of old books at The Strand, two via a
half-price Groupon from Book Culture, and the rest purchased on my educator’s
discount at the big bad B & N—why not take them home, save them for later,
and read what’s here?)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Brookner was one of those writers I’d known about forever
and never read. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hotel du Lac</i>, which
won the Booker Prize in 1986, is about an unassuming writer of romance novels who is packed
off to a discreet Swiss hotel—yup, by a lake—retreat fashion, after committing
some sort of indiscretion, which we’ll find out about in due time. I mean… who
can resist that? Certainly not this former YA romance writer, currently in the
summer 2015 middle-of-nowhere hideaway.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Raise your hand if you’re tired of showy
sentences—impressive though they may be—that scream “Look at me,” and are
written by writing school insiders with pretty faces, alluring authors’ bios
and good jacket photos. Brookner was a pro before all that. Her prose is as
understated as the heroine of this novel, but fiercely clever—funny, acerbic,
and with just the right verb or adjective, just the right detail noted. And
she’s a wonderful storyteller.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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This is a great summer read!</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609140489579384554.post-75195338585288248432015-07-05T16:10:00.001-07:002015-07-05T16:10:30.255-07:00THE NEW JIM CROW by Michelle Alexander; QUIET by Susan Cain; A CONSTELLATION OF VITAL PHENOMENA by Anthony Marra; THE DUKE OF DECEPTION by Geoffrey Wolfe; DEPLOYMENT by Phil Klay; Lonely Planet Cambodia
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Oh, dear. I haven’t updated my reading blog since January.
Can’t remember what I was reading six months ago; going to have to chalk up a
few lost titles. Last five I remember (plus LP Cambodia with the hopes that
it’s the next adventure) are:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
THE NEW JIM CROW by Michelle Alexander</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Excellent</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A must read for anyone who cares about racial equity. Not so
much for the sentences, though her writing is clear and cogent, but for the ideas
and information. Do not miss.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
QUIET: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop
Talking by Susan Cain</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Good. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Again, this one is for the ideas and information, not the
sentences. I read it to better understand the bf, a classic introvert, but
wound up contemplating how to gauge the different ways people roll (not limited
to introvert or extrovert), and how to give them what they need. As an educator
and as someone who struggles with a big EQ learning curve, a deeply valuable
read.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A CONSTELLATION OF VITAL PHENOMENA by Anthony Marra</div>
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Excellent. </div>
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Absolutely beautifully written and constructed. I admit that
the combination of not knowing much about Chechnya, plus the nonlinear
structure made me feel lost and made the book hard work at first. But
perseverance paid off. This is a gorgeous novel.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
THE DUKE OF DECEPTION by Geoffrey Wolfe</div>
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Excellent. </div>
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I’ve been selling his brother Tobias’ memoir, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">This Boy’s Life</i>, to my friends and
students for years. This one is just as good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When the Wolfe brothers’ parents split up, Tobias went with mom and
Geoffrey went with Dad. Tobias writes about life with her, Geoffrey life with
him. Fascinating, funny, insightful.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
DEPLOYMENT by Phil Klay</div>
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Good. </div>
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Being touted as this generation’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Things They Carried </i>(one of my all-time favorites). <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Deployment</i> is worth reading, but Klay is
no Tim O’Brien. (I mean, who is?)</div>
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<br /></div>
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LP Cambodia. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Hit me up if you’ve been there and have suggestions.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609140489579384554.post-40462057220545370932015-01-04T08:01:00.000-08:002015-01-04T19:13:15.245-08:00WE NEED NEW NAMES by NoViolet Bulawayo, US by David Nicholls, BAD FEMINIST by Roxane Gay<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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WE NEED NEW NAMES by NoViolet Bulawayo<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Excellent<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Is there a handy moniker for the American immigrant coming
of age novel? Maybe just the New American Novel. This one, which begins in
Zimbabwe and ends in Michigan, is gorgeous. Rich, loose, nimble language; a
spot-on portrait of what it feels like to be a kid—anywhere; and a keen look at
what is lost and what is gained by signing up for the American Dream.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
US by David Nicholls<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So-so<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The uncoupling of a marriage meets the European romp. Frothy,
fun, some good laugh lines, wants to be poignant, but pretty superficial. Not
as good as his <i>One Day</i>.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
BAD FEMINIST by Roxane Gay<br />
So-so<br />
Awww... I wanted to love this collection. Gay is personable, and I'm with her in the opinion department. I'd like to have coffee with her and shoot the breeze. But I didn't find much that was new or revelatory in these essays, and the writing was ordinary. I'm sorry.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609140489579384554.post-4355289210268852302014-12-26T18:05:00.001-08:002015-01-04T07:59:26.949-08:00Lost a few months. Harback, Wainaina, and AlarcónFall semester. Lost months. Can't remember what I've read. I see my copies of three recent ones lying around, so I'll attempt a few words about them, for my own record:<br />
<br />
<i>At Night We Walk in Circles</i> by Daniel Alarcón<br />
Excellent<br />
Beautifully crafted, interestingly structured, masterful storytelling about a young actor in a three-person traveling theater troupe in a post-war Peru-like country. But the ending? What up with that?<br />
<br />
<i>The Art of Fielding</i> by Chad Harbach<br />
Decent.<br />
Smoothly told, easy-down page-turner about a college baseball player. Compelling characters... though the women perhaps a bit less so. Well crafted.<br />
<br />
<i>One Day I Will Write About This Place</i> by Binyavanga Wainaina<br />
So-so<br />
Lush, loose, rich language, but somehow--despite the turbulence of the time and place--this memoir of growing up in Kenya somehow kept me at a remove... it felt like nothing much was happening... even though it was. Maybe it was that the writing was so opulent that the forest got lost for the trees.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609140489579384554.post-23541723490855516992014-08-04T11:20:00.000-07:002014-08-04T11:20:07.021-07:00AMERICANAH by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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Decent</div>
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Best when she’s writing about race and culture. But the love
story—the bulk of this novel—is ordinary and slo-o-o-ow. The protagonist, a
Nigerian woman who moves to the U.S. and then back home, writes a social
commentary blog (and makes a living at it; nice work if you can get it). The
blog posts are the snappiest, freshest parts of the novel, but get weighed down
in a nearly 600-page version of girl meets boy, girl loses boy, girl gets boy
again. I’m not giving anything away. You know what’s coming. Adichie’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Half a Yellow Sun</i> was better. This is
getting more attention, imho, because it hits certain PC high notes in its
frank and on target discussion of being Black in America.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609140489579384554.post-55348390015468043352014-08-04T11:19:00.002-07:002014-08-04T11:19:26.727-07:00THE AWAKENING by Kate Chopin
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Very good</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">I subsist largely on a diet
of contemporary literature. I don’t think much about it, until I read something
else. Chopin’s slender, poignant novel about a woman in a unhappy marriage was
written in 1899. It expresses emotions that are just as valid today, yet with a
formal quality and language that mark it as not of this time. The ying-yang of
the crisp, cultivated writing with the universal feelings worked on me like an
elegant meal.</span>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609140489579384554.post-59497306211161691332014-08-04T11:18:00.001-07:002014-08-04T11:18:28.815-07:00BREATHE by Kelly Kittel
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">♥</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;">My friend Kelly has written
a frank, raw, brave memoir about losing two children, and embracing life with
passion and vigor in the wake of soul-crushing tragedy.</span>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609140489579384554.post-75395845679783766502014-07-16T11:55:00.000-07:002014-07-16T11:56:36.437-07:00ONE DAY by David Nicholls Very Good!
<br />
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<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Delightful, tender, funny, smart. His life/her
life on one particular day each year. </span>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609140489579384554.post-43457694787737748122014-07-16T11:52:00.001-07:002014-07-16T11:52:11.448-07:00THE DEPT. OF SPECULATION by Jenny OffillExcellent!<br />
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<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Nothing really happens—a woman’s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>husband of many years has an affair. They get
over it. But nothing really needs to happen. The writing is
magnificent—compact, outside the box, poetic, compelling, insightful. I read it
in one sitting.</span>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609140489579384554.post-9733526619827403202014-07-16T11:47:00.000-07:002014-07-18T05:03:18.190-07:00New new rating system.Pencils very cute. But x out of five not working for me. If I reserve five pencils for Richard Wright or Ursula LeGuin or William Faulkner, give four pencils to the books I've loved and would recommend, that means three pencils for the very good ones--maybe not "Oh, you *have to* read this," but "Oh, this was good; I think you might like it." Three pencils isn't enough for that. And what about good (but not fabulous)? Now we're down to two pencils, and that just isn't right.<br />
<br />
So I tried to do it with simple words. <br />
<br />
Truly awful.
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</style><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Bad. So-so. Decent. Good. Very good. Excellent.
Truly stellar.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Okay. That's better. But that's eight pencils. Too much. So for the moment, I'll just use those words and see if it's working. And I'm going to add a ♥ icon if the book was written by someone I know. So I don't have to stick it with a rating, and can just enjoy my friends' accomplishments.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">(This is why I hate putting a grade on student work. Among other reasons.) </span>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609140489579384554.post-55235276334863000522014-06-22T21:11:00.001-07:002014-06-22T21:19:30.638-07:00THE INTERESTINGS by Meg Wolitzer✎✎<style>
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Not. Despite some stellar reviews by big names. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Starts out breezy and fun, but somewhere in there it turns
whiney and… not very interesting. Poor Jules. Her BFFs are… rich!! And she is…
poor??? She has a full-time, private therapy practice in NYC. Gimme a break. Okay,
so her hubby is Mr. Mom and doesn’t work. Her apartment is small. (Dude, this
is NY.) Wouldja stop bitching? Newsflash, Meg Wolitzer: Your heroine is in the
top 10% on the planet. Her problems are the dull, ordinary middle class ones we
read to escape from. Somewhere around page 400, I realized how annoyed I was.
But judge for yourselves: “Over time, the two couples continued to live their
lives, sometimes separately, sometimes not, but always differently from each
other. One couple traveled the world. The other couple unpacked the rest of
their boxes and hammered the same old posters up on the walls, and placed the
same lightweight silverware in a drawer.” I should have closed the book at the
word ‘lightweight,’ but I didn’t. I finished the last 150 or so pages anyway.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609140489579384554.post-63351270635461028752014-06-22T21:10:00.001-07:002014-06-22T21:10:12.327-07:00THE SNOW QUEEN by Michael Cunningham✎✎✎
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I loved <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Hours</i>
enough to buy Cunningham’s latest in hardcover. The characters and setting of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Snow Queen</i>—a group of proto-hipsters
making their way in a pre-gentrified Bushwick—enticed me. But the book didn’t
deliver vigorously on the promise. I enjoyed it, but wasn’t blown away. It’s
overwritten in places, and never fully takes off. Granted, I expect a lot from Cunningham.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609140489579384554.post-76610633511648200752014-06-22T21:07:00.000-07:002014-06-22T21:12:42.451-07:00AMY FALLS DOWN by Jincy Willett ✎✎✎½<style>
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</style> <span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I love Willett.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Amy Falls Down</i> continues
Willett’s dark, sharp, comic take on writers, writing, writing class… the whole
industry. While the first half of the book is stronger than the second, this is
a smart, funny, thoroughly entertaining read. And if you haven’t read Willett’s
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jenny and the Jaws of Life</i>, do.</span>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609140489579384554.post-88525509040977376802014-04-30T17:39:00.001-07:002014-04-30T17:40:13.380-07:00DRY by Augusten Burroughs ✎✎✎✎✎Yes, I rated it a half a pencil higher than a book that just won the Pulitzer. I'm not sure I like the five-pencil system. <i>The Goldfinch</i> was excellent, but not on my year's best list. So. Four pencils, right? And I simply enjoyed this one more. It made me laugh. And it was wonderfully crafted and written. So. Five? Well, not exactly. If five is the top mark, then I need to reserve it for my all-time favorites--the ones up there with <i>Geek Love</i> and <i>Black Boy</i> and <i>To Kill a Mockingbird</i>. Well, how about a ten-pencil system? Offers a more accurate rating, perhaps, but gets a zero in the visual literacy department. ✎✎✎✎✎✎✎✎✎✎? Not. Switch to letter grades? (<b>A-</b> for the Pulitzer book, <b>A</b> for <i>Dry</i>, <b>A+</b> for <i>Black Boy</i>.) Damn, this blog is 'posed ta be teacher's time off. Besides, I'm partial to the little pencil icons. And no matter what rating system, a four or a B+ or a 'Very Good' could indicate so many different things about the strengths and weaknesses of a book. This is why I didn't rate the books on this blog from the get-go. I hate grades. As a teacher, and as a blogger. Yet somehow, they offer up a handy road sign.<br />
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As for <i>Dry</i>, Burroughs' memoir of getting clean, he manages to make a harrowing story breezy and seriously funny, while in no way diminishing its potency. His writing is terrific, and the story is put together beautifully.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609140489579384554.post-23402003126239764172014-04-30T17:03:00.000-07:002014-04-30T17:03:02.396-07:00THE GOLDFINCH by Donna Tartt ✎✎✎✎ out of five (maybe four-and-a-little-bit)Wrote down all the books I read in February and early March on a little sheet of paper that I can't find. For the record, those titles are missing here.<br />
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But how could I forget all 800-something pages of <i>The Goldfinch</i>? Many people whose reading tastes I respect immensely have called it their top book of the year. And, hey, it just won a Pulitzer. And while I liked it a lot, I'm not in that camp. Eight-and-a-half stars out of ten? Four pencils out of five? (Et voilà! I've added a rating system to my blog.)<br />
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I love the protagonist. Beautifully drawn. When we first meet him, Theo is 13, the survivor of a terrorist bomb at the Metropolitan Museum, that kills his beloved mother. He walks away with a valuable painting... and the story is launched. The plot is full of compelling twists and turns. And there's so much really great sentence-by-sentence writing. But. It's just too long. And it's not because I'm becoming an intellectual lightweight in my mid-middle age (though that may, in fact, be true). The book is flabby. It needs an editor. It would be better--a tighter read--if half as long.<br />
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I felt this way about <i>Middlesex</i>, too. Excellent book. Needed an editor.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609140489579384554.post-38212879976054487662014-01-20T19:57:00.000-08:002014-01-20T19:59:09.713-08:00THE GOOD LORD BIRD; ARE YOU MY MOTHER?; THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF NATHANIEL P.; MY EDUCATIONThree highly acclaimed ones for the discard pile, one keeper.<br />
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THE GOOD LORD BIRD by James McBride<br />
THE COLOR OF WATER is one of my favorite books. The intertwined stories of McBride and his mother are compelling and beautifully woven, and his jazz musicianship is apparent in the cadences of his language. But I put his recent novel down after four or five chapters. I wanted to love it. McBride does John Brown and abolition with humor. But there's something about the voice. Not exactly inaccurate, but... not fully McBride's. And a lot of blubber that passes for action. Is there a danger in moving from fresh, vital memoir to... the conventions of storytelling? I'm thinking of how I love Dave Eggar's nonfiction, but both his recent novels have left me cold.<br />
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ARE YOU MY MOTHER? by Alison Bechdel<br />
Oh, dear. Both McBride and Bechdel were classmates at Oberlin. And I love both their breakthrough books. Bechdel's graphic memoir, FUN HOME, is a great read/look, about her father. This one, about her mother, is okay-ish... but an exhaustive description of one's psychotherapy is better left on the couch.<br />
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MY EDUCATION by Susan Choi<br />
At least with this one, I don't have to feel guilty about not liking a college classmate's book. Choi writes to massive accolades from the literati in this novel about a grad student obsessed with a professor. But little old moi found this novel so overwritten and self-conscious that I stopped at around page 30. Tell me if I'm wrong:<br />
"[He] drove a very old, very damaged Volvo sedan the color of calamine lotion where it wasn't afflicted by rust. The car was so barely distinguishable from the countless other aged, rusted, neutral-toned Volvo sedans living out their last days in that town it might have been part of a utopian experiment of ubiquitous, ownerless cars, as with bicycles in some parts of Europe and indeed even here, in the seventies, when the university had apparently paid for a fleet of bicycles for public use on the campus, all of which had wound up within just a few days abandoned at the bast of the hill."<br />
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THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF NATHANIEL P.<br />
All the juicy story material of a good chic lit novel, with the insight and dry humor of a British comedy of manners. Nathaniel P., on the verge of literary success in hipster Brooklyn, dates and writes and comments. Nothing about world peace or big ideas... just extremely well-crafted, beautifully written entertainment. Recommended. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0