What are you reading, May 2012

I just finished and reviewed Fade, Sag, Crumble: Ten Las Vegas Writers Confront Decay a collection of essays by Deborah Coonts and others. Actually, Coonts wrote one of my least favorite essays, but 2 other women Stacy Willis writing about confronting her own decay and Danielle Kelly comparing the beauty of decaying neon signs with the wonder over entropy were my favorites. One of the guys, Stephen Bates writing about the devastation done to higher education in the recession was pretty high on my appreciation list too.

I've started listening to Foreign Bodies and can't say I either love or hate it so far. I'm enjoying it. I imagine the tone will change, Bea has just got married. Today I will finally be able to start the highly recommended Salvage the Bones.

I've been reading The little Ottleys, an Edwardian novel about the lives and marriages of upper-middle-class Britons. It's very satirical and funny.

I love the Edwardians, so The Little Ottleys is going on my wishlist. I've never heard of it.

I'm listening to the audio book of Look at Me by Jennifer Egan. So far so good.

Loved "Look at Me." Loved "The Keep" even more.

Yes, thanks for the heads up on "The Little Ottleys."

Loved "Look at Me." Loved "The Keep" even more.

I really liked The Keep, so I have high expectations for this one too. So far I like the premise of Look at Me--I have to admit I know very little about it, so everything that happens will be a complete surprise.

I'm still reading The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For and Testament of Youth from April. I did pick up Behind the Beautiful Forevers yesterday but put it aside after the regulation 50 pages. (For me it was failing as fiction and as non-fiction.) Shame, I was hoping it'd be a good read.

And now I'm reading The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna for book group. A much more satisfying read!

OK, here's a question for anyone living under a monarchy. I'm reading a free book I got on Nook: The Stolen Crown: The Secret Marriage that Forever Changed the Fate of England by Susan Higginbotham. King Edward marries Bessie in 14whatever and makes her his queen. What I'm wondering is if the woman who marries a king always becomes the queen. I know Queen Elizabeth's husband is the Prince Consort. Is it that a man who marries a queen does not become a king because then he would have authority over her?

It's complicated. :) Queen Victoria wanted Prince Albert to receive the title of King Consort, but didn't get it--after all, he was a foreigner and not very well liked, and giving a foreigner the title of king, even if that was qualified by the consort bit, just didn't fly. So that precedent has been followed for Elizabeth and Phillip.

I wonder if the Duchess of Cornwall will receive the title of queen, since she hasn't been given that of Princess of Wales?

I wonder if the Duchess of Cornwall will receive the title of queen, since she hasn't been given that of Princess of Wales?

When they married, the word was that she wouldn't be queen; however, I think that may have been revised. It's all academic though--Queen Elizabeth is never going to die.

Camilla has said that she doesn't want to be Queen. She also didn't want the title of Princess of Wales, probably a wise thing to say given how closely Diana is still associated with that title. My mum thinks it would look odd if Camilla is not made Queen, but I don't. So perhaps public opinion on the matter is a generational thing - makes sense since so many of us can't remember anything other than the Queen and Prince Philip!

Just got hold of Nancy Goldstone's The Maid and the Queen. Just a few days ago I bought Juliet Barker's Conquest: The English Kingdom of France (in significant part because of her Brontëan scholarship), but it seems a bit heavy reading and I think I'll give Goldstone's book a reading first. I only just realized that this year is the sixth centennial of Joan of Arc's birth.

Thanks all you monarchists. I agree, Other Joyce. Queen Elizabeth is never going to die so we don't have to worry about future monarchs.

I just finished Foreign Bodies, and while I haven't read The Ambassadors I think it could only have benefited from the addition of Jewish WWII refugees. That was the most interesting part of a rather disjointed and very surprising book. Not one of my favorites, but very interesting and giving me much to contemplate. Now I've started a reread of my favorite Willa Cather, O Pioneers! for my RL reading group.

Finished The little Ottleys and absolutely loved it. Bruce Ottley is one of the most obnoxious, and fun to read about, characters I have ever come across.

Now I'm reading Period piece a memoir by artist/illustrator Gwen Raverat about her childhood in late 19th/early 20th century Cambridge (UK).

Somehow, I'm reading Widow for a Year. It's part of my revisiting or reading for the first time books on my own shelves, as Susan Hill did with Howards End Is on the Landing.

"Ottleys," I noticed when I ordered it online, was written by Ada Leverson. Wasn't she Oscar Wilde's "Sphinx"? That's going to be my first read in the batch I ordered!

>16 nohrt4me2:: Yes, she was. The introduction of my (Virago) edition talks a bit about that. I hope you enjoy it now I've recommended it so highly!

I'm about 2/3 of the way through The Stolen Crown: The Secret Marriage that Forever Changed the Fate of England and finally realize what it's about - Richard III - whom I wouldn't know at all except that I recently read The Daughter of Time in which Josephine Tey writes strongly about his being innocent of the murder of the wee princes in the Tower. Susan Higginbotham comes off strongly on the other side. In Foreign Bodies one of the characters decides she wants to study history because it deals only in facts, black and white, no speculation. Of course that book was set in the 1950's, maybe that's the way people thought about history at that time. It seems every character in The Stolen Crown has two or three sides to her or his character.

I read The Daughter of Time when I was a teenager, and it changed my whole perspective on history, so much so that it was one of my majors as an undergraduate. It's a really light read, but it's just such an enlightening one.

I just finished The Maid and the Queen and posted a three-and-a-half *** review. It's a good "quickie" introduction to the Hundred Years War, and especially good for the attention it focuses on Yolande of Aragon (the "queen" of the title), but I do plan to get on to Juliet Barker's two books, Agincourt and Conquest.

Eating Buddha's Dinner, by Bich Minh Nguyen, memoir of displaced Vietnamese family in Grand Rapids. Very quick and entertaining read.

At intervals, I am slogging through Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses on and off b/c I felt I "should." Probably the most engaging of the books I have read but didn't understand, which would include everything by Nabokov, and most of James Joyce.

Ada Leverson's Ottleys arrived today, and am anxious to get started on that.

I'm having a very busy couple of weeks, so have put aside the heavy reading that wasn't getting enough of my attention and have picked up a YA paranormal romance-y (I'm not proud) novel, City of Ashes. It's the second in a series that's good angsty-teenage fun, with werewolves, vampires, warlocks, fairies, etc, all running around New York. The first was better than I expected (some good snark from our heroine, some unexpected plot twists, a sympathetic gay character, etc) and the second is following in its footsteps nicely.

Last night I started The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble and so far it's very good. Still listening to the audiobook of Look at Me by Jennifer Egan.

I finished a slim little collection of Adrienne Rich's poems read by the author in The Voice of the Poet Adrienne Rich. Here she was writing a long career, and I was completely unaware. I'll quote just a little one:

Power

Living in the earth-deposits of our history

Today a backhoe divulged out of a crumbling flank of earth
one bottle amber perfect a hundred-year-old
cure for fever or melancholy a tonic
for living on this earth in the winters of this climate

Today I was reading about Marie Curie:
she must have known she suffered from radiation
sickness
her body bombarded for years by the element
she had purified
It seems she denied to the end
the source of the cataracts on her eyes
the cracked and suppurating skin of her finger-ends
till she could no longer hold a test-tube or a pencil

She died a famous woman denying
her wounds
denying
her wounds came from the same source as her
power

What a wonderful poem, Joyce! Thanks!

Tonight I heard a very interesting interview on NPR. I don't know who it was, I got in somewhere in the middle, but the man said his father immigrated to the US from Poland before WWI for very frivolous reasons. He met a woman he was attracted to and just decided to follow her to a new country. His family was scandalized, he knew he was not thinking rationally, but he just felt like doing what he wanted to do. When he got here of course, that relationship fell through, but he met a woman who had been sent here from somewhere in Europe, maybe Poland, to care for a sick relative The idea was that at some point she would get a job and save enough money to bring her family over. They married, worked hard and one by one brought her whole family out of Europe then decided to start on his. However by that time it was too late and no one was able to get Jews out of Poland. This frivolous man who just acted on a whim was the only survivor of his family, the rest of whom were rational, hard working and clear thinking. His son said he suffered severe survivor's guilt. It just didn't seem right to him. Again decisions. Frightening things.

ETA - oops. I posted this in the wrong place, but I'll leave it here because it impressed me so much.

I'm in the middle of Bogeywoman. Jury's still out.

#27 Have you read anything else by Jaimy Gordon? I'm definitely a fan of her writing, but Bogeywoman was a challenging book to read.

I'm a little more than 1/2 way through Three (Flashpoint Press) by our very own 7sistersapphist, Annemarie Monahan. Whew, what a book. There's a quotable line on almost every page An oppressed group cannot decide to move beyond their oppression. Only the oppressor gets to decide that. speaking of why a group of women wants to start a women's only society and move beyond the oppression of men
Speaking of some elite women: They don't look like they belong on some old postcard of peasants stomping grapes. They're born to sip the wine.
when the colony is established For the first time in our lives, we sleep with both eyes shut, thirty women breathing, snoring, stirring. There's nothing to fear in the dark. We don't watch for the predator, the hunter looming in the night
and a description that grabbed me Carla loved me like a mason loves a level stone too perfect

a long passage from the speech about establishing the colony:
There are those who say that separating from men is hatred. There are those who say, 'Oh, not all women are good. I know terrible women. Women are just as bad as men.' As bad as men? Tell me, if women act the same as men, where are the bodies piled? Where are the masses of men murdered every single day by women? In what other oppression do we equate nastiness or selfishness or just plain anger with murder? Of course not all women are good! But are women honor-killing men? Are women abducting 6 year-old boys for rape? Have women built international, multi-billion dollar industry selling films where women gag men with their genitals, ram fists up their asses until they prolapse, shit on their bodies?..."Is separation hatred, or self-defense? Why is it hatred to face facts? Yes, some men recognize our struggle. They are our allies. And as our allies, they know not to follow us when we're on our way home." (Reference maybe to the "innocent" man who accosted a woman alone in an elevator at 3 am because he just wanted to tell her how much he appreciated her.)
Well, I don't want to quote the whole book, but I will recommend it.

> 28 Nope, it's my first Jaimy Gordon. I'm having a lot of fun with Ursie-- I love a strong, quirky voice-- but I'm a little nervous about how Gordon will present her relationship with Dr. Zuk.

I just started Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots by Deborah Feldman. Excellent so far and it fits perfectly with my two latest reads: Three (Flashpoint Press) and We. This quote pretty much sums up the attitude of all three books: Zeidy tells me that the rebbe wants us to be more "erlich", more devout, (by forcing the women to shave their heads) than any Jew ever was. He says that if we go to extreme lengths to make God proud of us, he'll never hurt us again, like he did in the war. These Hasidic Jews, the one world order communists in We and the female separatists in Three (Flashpoint Press) start out with an idea to help people and end up becoming more and more radical, forcing their followers to sacrifice more and more, all the while labeling their misery as purification that will lead to glory. Isn't it strange how an idea in one book seems to stretch across all the books you happen to be reading?

Just finished the audiobook of Look at Me by Jennifer Egan. I highly recommend it. I also really enjoyed her book The Keep.

edited to add: here is the link to my full comments if you're interested: http://www.librarything.com/topic/135898#3394636

Enjoying "The Little Ottleys." Like P.G. Wodehouse in spots, except not everybody is dumb.

Reading Doc by Mary Doria Russell. Love it, and getting a bit of a literary crush on Doc.

I just finished The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble. I liked it more than most other people on LT did (my review here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/135898#3397751).

Then I read 84, Charing Cross Road, by Helene Hanff, which I loved about as much as most other LTers did (review to come later today).

Rolling Stone just came today, and I was surprised to see a featurette about Jennifer Egan (their literary coverage is usually dreadful). She has a new (to me, anyway) novel, A Visit from the Goon Squad. Anybody read it?

Rolling Stone just came today, and I was surprised to see a featurette about Jennifer Egan (their literary coverage is usually dreadful). She has a new (to me, anyway) novel, A Visit from the Goon Squad. Anybody read it?

I believe you when you say their literary coverage is dreadful, or late, anyway--A Visit from the Goon Squad won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize and the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award. I guess Rolling Stone is commenting on it because there's a movie coming out, and also because it's about the music industry. I haven't read it, but it's on my wish list.

I finished and reviewed Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots by Deborah Feldman, another very interesting chronicle of a woman's escape from yet another misogynist religious sect.

Finished The Little Ottleys and enjoyed it, so thanks to whomever recommended it (I forget now). At some point, you realize that Leverson has embedded a very grim story underneath the wit and charm of a seemingly conventional comedy of manners. But Leverson's wit isn't mordant or bitter. She wants you to see how it was without rubbing your nose in it. The worst things are merely implied or turned away from just in time. And she doesn't want your pity. Brava, Sphinx!

>39 nohrt4me2:: It was me! I'm glad you enjoyed it; I think it will become one of my favourites.

I'm nearing the end of Period Piece, which has been a wonderful read. Raverat manages to be affectionate, dry and witty all at once, and gives a detailed and highly personal picture of a world and time gone by. She has also illustrated the book, which adds to the delight.

Wit has finally emerged at the top of the pile. Ooh, goody. I love John Donne.

Wit is just a miracle of a play. Enjoy.
I finished Mary Roach's somewhat nauseating and fascinating Packing for Mars and have started a beautifully written little book by Kate Horsley entitled Confessions of a Pagan Nun which is supposedly a translation of a diary kept in 500 CE by a nun in the convent of St. Brigit in Kildare Ireland. She also refers to the goddess Brigit because she is a converted pagan. I've never read anything by Horsley who teaches in New Mexico, and, I gather, writes mostly westerns. I wonder if they're as beautiful.

#36 I am a big fan of A Visit from the Goon Squad, which actually came out a couple of years ago, as Joyce notes.

#37 It is only sort of "about" the music industry -- it is really about the passage of time and how people connect or fail to connect with each other.

I can't remember where I got the first Little Ottleys recommendation from. Just posting to say, parts one and three are available for Kindle - for some reason, not part two.

I'm just finishing, today probably, Confessions of a Pagan Nun by Kate Horsley. I have to say Patrick and his Irish church are not coming off well. I'd have to throw my hat in with the Druids. I've also started an audiobook of The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright, shortlisted for this years Orange Prize, and am liking it very much. The narration by Heather O'Neill is a joy. Also, after reading Anne Patchett's glowing introduction to Binocular Vision by Edith Pearlman I couldn't resist reading the story she talked so much about, Self-Reliance. Boy would I like to know that woman. So, the rest of the short story collection will be my next read.

I just found this on another site. The digitalized version of Queen Victoria's Journals has been released: http://www.queenvictoriasjournals.org/home.do

I am reading a delightful book of letters by Diana Athill, Instead Of A Book. She manages to make even letters complaining about dental work or having building work done on the house engaging.

>46 Citizenjoyce: Oooooooh!

I just finished The Forgotten Waltz and absolutely loved it. All the characters are perfectly believable. Unlike most Orange Prize nominated books there's no war, poverty or violence; but there is a very accurate description of a woman engaged in an adulterous affair, the economic downturn, mothers and daughters, fathers and daughters, a young girl ascending into adolescence, the reaction of parents to their child's health problems, the attempt to woo the child of a lover. I believed in these people and their reactions and their acceptance of life's being less than they had expected. This was a nomination well deserved.