Mabith's 2015 Reads Part III

Last thread was getting a bit long!

Books read November = December:

Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
Generation Why: Ms Marvel Vol 2 by G. Willow Wilson
Joan of Arc: A Life Transfigured by Kathryn Harrison
Crushed: Ms Marvel Vol 3 by G. Willow Wilson

Trumbo by Bruce Cook
Malcolm X by Manning Marable
Jack by Shannon Cate
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
Places of the Heart by Colin Ellard

The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon
Coventry by Helen Humphreys
El Deafo by Cece Bell
Unexpected Stories by Octavia Butler
A Russian Journal by John Steinbeck

Ravensbruck by Sarah Helm
Unruly Places by Alastair Bonnett
Freddy and Mr. Camphor by Walter R. Brooks
Collected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Edna St. Vincent Millay
The Last Bookaneer by Matthew Pearl

Moon at Nine by Deborah Ellis
Avenue of Spies by Alex Kershaw
Child of the Prophecy by Juliet Marillier
Dr. Mutter's Marvels by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
Lumberjanes Vol 2 by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis

Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink, Jeffrey Cranor
Wrapped in Rainbows by Valerie Boyd
Anne Thornton, Junior Guide by Lotta Rowe Anthony
Book of Ages by Jill Lepore
A Corner of White by Jaclyn Moriarty

Claudine at School by Colette
Letters from Rifka by Karen Hesse
Step Aside, Pops by Kate Beaton
The Second Empress by Michelle Moran
Honor Girl by Maggie Thrash

Moomin Volume 2 by Tove Jansson
Red Land, Black Land by Barbara Mertz
Hogfather by Terry Pratchett
I Have Lived a Thousand Years by Livia Bitton-Jackson
Silence by Shusaku Endo

The Chimes by Charles Dickens
Thirteen: The Apollo Flight that Failed by Henry Cooper
Freddy and the Popinjay by Walter R. Brooks
Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters
Freddy the Magician by Walter R. Brooks

Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing by Melissa Mohr

A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson

I really enjoyed this novel right up to the very very end where I feel Atkinson did something wholly unnecessary. While this is a companion piece to Life After Life, which involves a novel concept where the main character can do things over to get a different result, I don't think A God in Ruins needed to be anything other than good, solid historical fiction.

The book follows Teddy, an RAF pilot working in a bomber crew during the war. We go back and forth in time, and I forget now if the different threads were in order. As in a chapter on the beginning of his war, then the beginning of his marriage, etc... I felt the ordering of it worked perfectly though. We see who he is at various periods and then we see how he became that person, we see his grandchildren struggling and then see how their characters were formed.

It's a wonderfully written slice of this time period and these mindsets. It asks questions we've long struggled with, and reminds us that we cannot accurately put ourselves in any historical event because we already know the outcome. Since I wasn't expecting a similar format to Life After Life and knew it was a companion rather than a true sequel, I think that let me enjoy it on its own terms as a separate book.

Again, just that tiny bit at the very very end letting me down. I could happily re-read it though.

Ms. Marvel Volume 2: Generation Why by G. Willow Wilson

This is such a fun series, and one of the (seemingly) few Marvel/DC series actually appropriate for and marked to kids. The shift comics took over time, decided to keep marketing to the same generation and just grow up with them, is something I find distressing and annoying. Leaving kids behind is a large part of why issue comics were struggling for so long.

The writing is still great and the story interesting, though the first two issues in this volume were drawn by a new artist and then the last three were by the previous artist Adrian Alphona. Then in the third volume none of the stories are drawn by Alphona. This threw me a bit (for one thing, why?), as Alphona's art is part of why I was so drawn into the comics. It's a great style, perfect for these stories, and it's quite different than most mainstream superhero comic art. The other artists are much more traditionally mainstream and it loses so much character.

Joan of Arc: A Life Transfigured by Kathryn Harrison

I've never read much about Joan of Arc before, though I know the basic "what everybody knows" stuff. It's such an unusual bit of history, and something that still makes me go "Hold on, really?" I think that's a bit of a common reaction given all of the fiction devoted to her.

Harrison uses the fiction as well as the historical record, providing quotes from various plays and novels and how the authors of them changed or added to Joan's story. I'm still wondering whether or not that added much or just confused the issue, but obviously I didn't find it hugely bothersome.

Certainly an interesting read. Harrison seemed to get into it quite well and I think was good about bringing up the murkier or more unknown issues in Joan's story (though of course I'm not really equipped to judge that).

Generally recommended, and it was very readable.

Ms. Marvel Vol 3: Crushed by G. Willow Wilson

None of the issues in this volume were drawn by Alphona, unfortunately. It's not horrible art, just different (except for the last bit, which seems to be a guest appearance from the new S.H.I.E.L.D., just the most typical mainstream art and was constantly off-model for all the characters, which is something that really bothers me).

I was always a comics nerd, but never mainstream superhero comics (Asterix, Tintin, Pogo, Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck, various artists and series that were in Funny Times, etc...). This means I'm finding it really strange that in this universe the superheroes are real but also there are still comics about them? Comics which are strangely accurate apparently? I don't know. I know for Marvel and DC readers that's probably the least strange thing ever.

Apparently Alphona is back doing all the art in volume 4 and again I ask why all the changing? I'm not really used to issue comics like this though.

I got my daughter a copy of the first Ms Marvel, and while she said she enjoyed it, she hasn't asked for later volumes. She did, however, ask me for the second Lumberjanes graphic novel, which is the only indication I get that she liked something I chose for her.

Joan of Arc was fascinating and I would like a good biography of her. I'll keep this mind.

I'm hoping to get to A God in Ruins, although I'll probably do audio, which is how I'm currently reading Life After Life.

Trumbo by Bruce Cook

I got this as an audiobook ER win, as the book has been re-released to accompany the movie that's just come out recently (which looks great). Interestingly, to me, there don't seem to be any revisions to the book which was originally published in the 1970s.

Cook is forthcoming about his admiration for Trumbo, and tries to bring this up when it would appear to be coloring the book's content. He's open about his process and who he's spoken to, and what their relationship with Trumbo was/influences on their opinion.

I read Johnny Got His Gun in high school and it has certainly stayed with me over the years. However, I didn't know much else about Trumbo or the fact that he was blacklisted. Good biography, up-front, honest writing, recommended.

Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable

It's apparently my month for biographies! Joan of Arc, Dalton Trumbo, and Malcolm X would make an interesting dinner party...

This is a very thoughtful biography, which a figure like Malcolm X needs. I do feel Marable slightly ignored the fact that today Malcolm X is still perceived as a pure criminal by most of white America (and certainly those parts in charge of middle school and high school textbooks), while they pick and choose small pieces Martin Luther King Jr to focus on. In the book he basically states that this has changed already.

The word reinvention also makes the various shifts in Malcolm's life seem deliberate and calculated, whereas I saw it more as a natural cycle of maturation and learning. It's a worthwhile read, and one that I think is necessary to understanding the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

One does wonder how so many people ignored the fact that Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam from 1934-1975, was enriching himself to a huge degree. This is while all members needed to tithe a certain amount of their income to the group AND sell a certain number of copies of the group's magazine each month. This is particularly obnoxious as one of the main charges of the group was that middle and upper class blacks weren't doing anything to help those less well off. There was certainly a serious cult atmosphere around him, and of course in terms of orthodox Islam it would be (and was) considered a heretical sect. It's really a great shame that Malcolm X wasn't taken under the wing of a better person.

Jack by Shannon Cate

This is a self-published book that I became aware of through a list of YA LGBT reads. Set in the 1870s-1880s it follows Evelyn, her daughter Lucy, and Lucy's friend/admirer, Jack.

Jack reveals to Lucy that he was born a girl, but started dressing as a boy after escaping from an orphanage. In the book he's presented as pretty definitively trans, and I appreciated that. While I don't think it's good to speculate about real-life people and those labels, trans people have always existed and should be found in historical fiction as well as contemporary. Cate doesn't misgender Jack or let her other characters do that, nor does she present Lucy as a lesbian (Lucy is attracted to Jack as a boy/man, it is a heterosexual relationship). All of this endeared Cate to me (and she allows Jack to find other trans men to be friends with).

When Lucy is 13, Evelyn answers the ad of a man in Arizona who's looking for a gentile wife. Jack promises Lucy that they'll still be together someday. Predictably they are prevented from exchanging letters and each fear the other has forgotten them. Evelyn has always showed symptoms of depression and addiction, and Mr. Steel, her husband, is not a particularly kind man. The story is mostly a romance, semi-predictable but with some twists.

It's not the greatest book ever, but it's not badly written and it certainly sucked me in. I don't like reading on the computer, as I had to do with this e-book, but I read it all pretty much in one sitting. It has one semi-explicit sex scene between Jack and Lucy (when she's 16 or 17), which I feel was probably the weakest point in the writing. There are also a couple grisly deaths and a suicide attempt. I would still say it's suitable for middle school and up.

>4 mabith: RE: Joan of Arc It's such an unusual bit of history, and something that still makes me go "Hold on, really?" I think that's a bit of a common reaction given all of the fiction devoted to her.

Yeah, that's one strange story. I wonder what part of it actually happened? I was into reading about her 20 years ago and I still have some unread books from then in my TBR. Will get back to her one day.

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

This book! Written in 1921, a grandfather of 20th century dystopian fiction, the first work banned by the Soviet censorship bureau (according to Wikipedia), smuggled out to the west for publication in English in 1924 the first Russian edition wouldn't appear until 1952. I read the translation by Clarence Brown, published in 1993. I liked his thoughts on the translation effort in the forward. I think it's one of those books that you can basically talk about forever.

I'm going to copy and paste the synopsis:
"We is set in the future. D-503, a spacecraft engineer, lives in the One State, an urban nation constructed almost entirely of glass, which allows the secret police/spies to inform on and supervise the public more easily. The structure of the state is analogous to the prison design concept developed by Jeremy Bentham commonly referred to as the Panopticon. Furthermore, life is organized to promote maximum productive efficiency along the lines of the system advocated by the hugely influential F. W. Taylor. People march in step with each other and wear identical clothing. There is no way of referring to people save by their given numbers. The society is run strictly by logic or reason as the primary justification for the laws or the construct of the society. The individual's behaviour is based on logic by way of formulas and equations outlined by the One State."

One of the strengths is certainly the dark humor in it, and the twisting of aspects of our lives. D-503 notes that the primitive ancestors were drawn to dance because of the wish to all be uniform, with no one standing out or being unique.

This was mostly a great read for me, but the recurring racialized comments D-503 makes about I-330's other lover left a horrible taste in my mouth. Zamyatin didn't do enough to make me feel like that was another symptom of OneState's control (vs Zamyatin's own prejudices).

>9 mabith: I've been meaning to read the Manning Marable bio of Malcolm X: A Life of Reinventionl for a while; thanks for your review.

>12 mabith: Ditto for We.

>6 RidgewayGirl: I feel like superhero comics appeal to a more narrow range of people, especially within Marvel and DC's big names. I don't think I'm ever going to be much for them, even the really good ones.

>7 dchaikin: I'm not sure how Harrison's Joan bio stacks up against the other things available, but it was very readable. I found the audio reading of A God in Ruins to be very well done.

>11 Nickelini: Taking at time machine back to speak to Joan just before she runs off would certainly be interesting! It's very difficult to see her outside of modern mental illness terms.

>13 rebeccanyc: Both are definitely worth getting to!

Places of the Heart: The Psychogeography of Everyday Life by Colin Ellard

This book is generally about the psychology of place (referred to as psychogeography), though I feel Ellard strays in a few chapters that deal with technology. There are some interesting studies related here, both about how spaces affect us and how we're sometimes influenced by what we think we're supposed to like/want in a space (versus what makes us happy). A section on the use of paper maps vs lists of directions on phone or sat .nav. has me feeling vindicated about my championing of the importance of paper maps and map reading skills.

I do feel Ellard sometimes conflates an issue. Twice he talks about his children not being suitably impressed by a dinosaur bone but opting for the video of how the dinosaur looked when it was alive (also moon rocks) and this being an issue of devaluing of authenticity blah blah blah. Those are two totally separate things and I don't think you can compare them. If they didn't feel any difference looking at a real dino bone vs a plaster mold, then that's an issue to talk about. Just like I'd rather see the pictures and footage taken on the moon by the astronauts than look at a moon rock in a case (vs in a room full of rocks and minerals I will gravitate toward a moon rock).

Pretty interesting book generally well written, though I felt it strayed from the stated purpose too often.Not the best of the popular science genre, but not the worst either.

The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon

This is Graedon's first novel, and for a first novel I think it's a pretty good start. Her concept was interesting, technology taking over, doing too much for us and humans catching a virus from that somehow. I'm not a huge science fiction fan, especially with dystopian stuff (though this is more dystopia lite, I think), so bigger fans of the genre take this review with a grain of salt.

While the concept was interesting I think her pacing was off, and a bit all over the place. It made it harder to see what her real focus/climax was. Also two of the main characters seem ridiculously slow on the uptake when it comes to the disease, which is always something I find bothersome.

As I say, first novel, and a good effort for a first novel. If you find the concept interesting read it, but have it in your head that this is a novice novelist. The audio edition was pretty well done, and I think highlights the word flu issue better than print reading does.

Coventry by Helen Humphreys

I loved this short novel and sped through it. The vast majority of the book takes place over one day and night in Coventry, covering the first huge civilian bombing raid of the city during WWII (Nov. 14 1940).

I've always really enjoyed Humphreys writing, though found the plots (or lack of plot) in two of her earliest novels wanting (Afterimage and Leaving Earth), compared to her 2004 novel Wild Dogs. I loved her little vignettes in The Frozen Thames as well. This one has been on my list for a while and it was a joy to read.

She follows two women who had a brief encounter in 1914, how their lives got to their current points in 1940, and how they're drawn back together on the night of the bombing. It's more about character and reactions to the event than a firm plot, but it worked perfectly for me.

El Deafo by Cece Bell

I asked my library to order this last year, but apparently they didn't connect the order with my request as they never let me know it had come in!

This is a graphic memoir written for children. Bell lost her hearing around age four due to meningitis. Hearing aids allowed her to hear but the sounds were difficult to understand, requiring proficient lip reading and context guessing to understand people. A more powerful type of hearing aid was given to her to use for school (requiring the teacher to wear a microphone around her neck), but of course it made school life difficult and her fellow children weren't good about understanding her situation and she worried about people befriending her out of pity.

El Deafo refers to the superhero name she gave herself, partly born of the fact that teachers often forgot to turn the mic off, so she heard them in the house, the teacher's lounge, etc..., and thus knew things no one else did. I quite enjoyed her drawing style as well.

If you're getting this for a child (particularly a d/Deaf or hard of hearing child), be sure to read the afterword with them first, as it deals with the fact that this is one experience and covers the different ways people see themselves and how some are part of the Deaf Community and some are not (and don't want to be), some see it as a disability and some do not, etc...

The book is well done, and was a great read as an adult too (I'm a sucker for anything dealing with childhood). Definitely recommended.

Unexpected Stories by Octavia Butler

This was a book club pick. I loved Butler's Fledgling, but this isn't what I'd have picked as my second Butler read. It consists of just two short stories, at least one of which was completed long before her death. Now, stuff like that, I often think it's a mistake to publish it. Butler didn't continue shopping it around to anthologies and such, she set it aside and I think it should have stayed set aside (different when a writer finishes something just before they die or had been seeking publication already, etc...).

The stories are good, but not amazing, and not really worth publishing on their own in my opinion (though I believe this is only available as an ebook). Both of them feel like they should be part of a longer work or were meant to accompany longer works. The worlds are detailed and and fully crafted but the stories are two short to really give us a feel for them (particularly in the second story, Child Finder).

Something for the Butler completest, I guess.

>15 mabith: Places of the Heart sounds interesting. I will keep an eye out for it.

has me feeling vindicated about my championing of the importance of paper maps and map reading skills.

Hear, hear. (Or with maps, is it "here, here"?) Always been a huge map geek. A few years ago we drove from Vancouver to Los Angeles and back--a trip we've done many times before--and I decided that the nav system was good enough and so didn't take a real map. Big mistake! I never knew what places were just ahead (yes, I could figure it out but with a map you can see in a second). Not having a map made me nuts. Our next big trip was to England, and as I packed my oversized driving atlas, my husband said "we don't need that!" and I said "oh yes we do!" and I was so glad to have it.

No one in my family has had a sat. nav. but they do frequently just rely on their smart phones and it makes me nervous. It's a great bonus to have it on the phone but half the time it won't load fully. Plus how will kids on car trips with their parents learn all the weird and funny place names in the US? Maps are just neat anyway, but they're still 100% useful too.

>21 mabith: The nav systems in cars are great, especially for getting from point A to point B. I think they serve quite a different usefulness than maps. Both are wonderful inventions.

Oh they are helpful, I know, but very few people seem to really use both, they've just switched totally to one. The studies in the book are about brain health, and the very different brain reactions to simply hearing and following a list of instructions vs looking at a map, seeing the whole picture, and paying attention to the route as you go. I live in quite a small, easily navigable city but I've seen a lot of people (of all ages) who can't get anywhere in town without a sat. nav. They have no mental picture of the city streets and if the device doesn't take them to the right place they're lost (and then those who end up driving in the wrong direction for hours without once pausing to think about the fact that they were directed to southerly roads when they know their destination is north).

Interesting reading as usual, Meredith. I also enjoyed Coventry, and think it will wind up on my favorites list for the year.

>23 mabith: That's super interesting to me. I guess I need to get that book!

I've experienced that not everyone can read a map (or have a mental map in their head) equally. I'm much better than my husband and have been know to snatch maps out of his hand (which lead to one of our hugest fights ever when we were in Spain ;-) ) My eldest daughter is much better at this than the younger, and I think I've used the same training technique.

I once had a woman ask me where such-and-such a store was in a mall, and we were standing next to the map, and since I'd never heard of the store I brought her over to the map, found the store and showed her where it was on the map. She just blinked at me. I showed her where we were, traced the route, pointed in the direction . . . she still just blinked. I don't think she had any clue at all. It was a revelation to me.

Map geek here -- I can talk about them endlessly.

Maps! Love them. I think I have a pretty good sense of direction, but I do use a GPS in the car. Mine will redirect me around backups on my route, although I do ignore that if it looks like it's leading me astray. My husband, on the other hand, can't find his way out of a paper bag. :). I think old maps look fabulous framed on a wall.

>25 Nickelini: and all the previous posts Map geek here too! I started early being the navigator for road trips when I was a child and haven't looked back since. And I have a good sense of direction too (maybe not coincidentally).

Another huge map fan here of maps old and new. I used to be the navigator half of the pair in road rallies and loved it.

Not only do people differ in their abilities to read a map, they differ in how they read it. There are those who read it as it is printed, and those who have to turn it in the direction they are going to make sense of it. Apparently this distinction is being used in tests of cognitive abilities now.

I don't have GPS and don't see getting it. Many of the places I go that are new to me warn that such systems are unreliable where they are. I know that is the case in the rural area where I live, where dead ends on both sides of a river are counted as continuous roads. Google maps is also useless in many situations, as it always suggests directions definitely out of my way, in its efforts to get me to a highway, when going on back roads in the correct direction to that same highway is much quicker.

>25 Nickelini: These are the people who need visual cues. They need something along the lines of "Go down there to the grocery store beside the drugstore and the shoe store will be right across from it". Very frustrating.

If you do use navigation systems, you should still have maps when you're out of your area, for the inevitable loss of service times.

Places of the Heart sounds great to me as well and count me as another map lover. It is so essential to see the whole picture - unless you're just going A to B and no need for anything surrounding. I'm also a big proponent of getting lost though. :)

I see problems with the move to fully digital tools at work as well. Younger staff have a lot of trouble with bigger picture concepts as opposed to dealing with discreet tasks.

One of the best lessons I've ever had is when my father had me drive downtown and when we arrived told me to pull over in a parking lot. I then asked now what and he said, now take us home. At that point he placed a map in my hands and I had to, as he said, take us home. It was the best lesson in that I learned more than just the obvious how to read a map skill. I also learned how not to rely on just your passengers but that you really should really focus on where you are going while driving so that you don't enter a mindless driving state. With this you become a safer and more aware driver and can build a mental map of the area you're in. A huge skill I find is loss on kids learning how to drive now with the help of a smartphone only.

But I also have pride at knowing that I'm great with directions and people can rely on me when they're lost. Also, perhaps because of the stereotype that women are bad at directions, I did want to fight that and prove that that was not the case for me. Although, on that note, where does that come from? I've known more men who couldn't orient themselves out of their driveway let alone read a map.

>30 lilisin: Interesting. You didn't say how old you were. Teenage learning to drive years? This may be the info I need -- this was never an issue with my eldest, but my younger daughter needs to learn to drive starting in 4 months*, and this may be very useful. She just doesn't seem to get this concept as well as I think she needs to. Note taken, thanks!

* of course she doesn't "need" to learn to drive, but where we live, insurance rates are based on how many years of driving experience you have, starting when you get your learner's license (we have a graduated licensing system). This difference in insurance amounts to $1,000 - $2,000 a year (more if the young person has an at-fault accident). So it's beneficial to our family for them to start asap even if they end up not using it. My daughters' closest cousins are in their early to mid-20s and aren't making any progress, meaning they are looking at being well in to their 30s at the earliest before they qualify for "normal" insurance rates.

>31 Nickelini:
I'm glad you found something useful out of my post! It's definitely a lesson I'll use on my kids if I ever have any. On that note, I'm only 30 and started learning how to drive at 17.

A huge skill I find is loss on kids learning how to drive now with the help of a smartphone only.

This is what I learned from being a teacher as I'm not old enough to have kids who can have drive. It's also something I've noticed from friends who have switched over to only using their GPS while I still go on Google Maps to look up a new address and then either remember the directions, or, if they are more complicated, I write them down.

I'm glad there are so many map people commenting! Though I shouldn't be surprised on LT. The brain issues had to do with the hippocampus (in Alzheimer's disease, the hippocampus is one of the first bits to show damage, and chronic pain damages it as well). It's the only part of the brain that makes new neurons, so the health of that area is quite important.

I was shamed into paying very close attention while my parents drove, as during some car trip I'd asked what state we were in and everyone thought it was hilarious that I didn't know (I think I was eight, and to be fair I'd been lost in a book, but when you're the baby by a minimum of five years you get used to that stuff). We did a lot of road trips when I was a kid though and everyone had to be navigator at some point.

>29 janemarieprice: My sister was checking out a local elementary school for a possible move for my nephew and they were giving the 7-8 year olds tablets and spending almost no time working on handwriting skills. While I think it's good for kids to learn touch typing at any age, they don't get that on a tablet and there are so many studies about the benefits of printing and of learning cursive. I find it hard to get a good picture of that stuff though. I'm thirty and we did have some computers in our elementary school, so perhaps some parent saw a teacher show off one of the point and fill coloring book computer programs and thought we never drew or colored by hand. When really the computer time was something that happened once every couple months.

My mom had a really neat side job for a bit, which involved driving every single road in our city and some surrounding areas with a wifi/satellite something or other detector turned on. Finding accurate city maps was really difficult, and for the non-grid areas (which made up most of the word) you really needed a navigator, or had to stop every intersection to highlight what you'd already driven. It was such a joy to me to find routes that got us down every road without going over any area more than once. Not always possible, but such a feeling of satisfaction when it was.

Re: bad map reader reputations, I think I've known equal hopeless men and women, but in a patriarchal society obviously men are better at every single thing that they feel is important or think takes skill (regardless of what statistics tell us). The hopelessly lost men I've known are more likely to feel that because they've been somewhere once they can definitely find their way back to it without any reminder on directions and without looking at a map. I'll never forget endlessly driving around a strange city with my dad trying to find the location of my brother's rehearsal dinner before his wedding while he just refused to ask anyone for directions.

>16 mabith: For what it's worth, as a big fan of the SF genre, I think your review of The Word Exchange is spot on. Because "interesting concept, bad pacing, characters annoyingly slow on the uptake" is exactly what I thought of it, too.

>23 mabith: GPS navigation may perhaps mean that many people who would otherwise develop their own sense of the streets they frequently use never properly do, but, I'll tell ya, for those of us born with no sense of direction, who have great difficulty building up that kind of picture on our own even for places we visit pretty frequently, it can be a godsend.

>32 lilisin: I suspect kids learning to drive with GPS guidance is going to be a temporary state of affairs, anyway. Soon, it seems likely to me, they won't actually learn to drive at all, because we'll all be relying on self-driving cars. I'm sure many people will then lament the loss of driving skills, but personally, as someone who hates to drive (possibly in part because of that complete lack of a sense of direction, which always leaves me feeling stressed when driving somewhere I'm not intimately familiar with), I can't wait. I want to be able to sit in the backseat and read while my car chauffeurs me around on its own!

>33 mabith: I'm curious about these studies on the benefits of learning cursive. Do you know what they are? I'd pretty much come to the conclusion, myself, that it probably wasn't a particularly useful skill to keep around, for the general populace. (Even if I am a little dismayed by the thought that my own cursive hand is rapidly become "old lady writing." I'm not going to give it up entirely, though. I worked too damned hard to master it in elementary school.)

>34 bragan:

That is true. Being a fan of driving (funny now I'm on a train system so I have a train to chauffeur me around the city) I've been ignoring the self-driving cars but you're right, I'm sure I will lament kids not being able to drive cars. I mean, hey, I only know how to drive an automatic and not a stick shift so I'm already one of those damn kids who can't even drive a stick what's wrong with this world!?

>33 mabith:, >34 bragan:

I hated cursive as my handwriting was ugly and my print was pretty but even though I don't write it myself, I can still at least read it and thus read other people's handwriting. That in itself is a reason to learn cursive, I would believe. I do know this handwriting vs. cursive debate has been made many many times on LT and even within the Club Read group.

Living in a small city in SC, I had a road atlas in the car and that was perfectly adequate for when I wasn't sure where an address was (and people in small Southern cities are useless at giving directions to people who didn't grow up there. I was once told to turn left across from where the Bi-Lo used to be). But here in Munich, I'm so grateful to my gps, which lets me navigate a confusing and busy city without stress. They each have their place. And my smartphone allowed me to navigate the public transportation system (suburban rail (the Circunvesuviana), metro and bus) to get to the museum I wanted to see in Naples this weekend, despite having never been there before and speaking no Italian.

As for handwriting - I like writing by hand and in my teenage years wrote long letters to my friends. But having a son who has trouble both with pattern recognition and fine motor control, the laptop has been a boon to him, and being allowed to type his homework and tests has made his school life move from arduous to enjoyable. I think that different things suit different people and there shouldn't be a value judgement attached to preferring one method over another.

>36 RidgewayGirl: Isn't there a scene in Baby Boom with Diane Keaton of her getting lost in Vermont? And the locals keep telling her directions that are all based on local landmarks?

>37 lesmel: I asked directions to a service garage once in rural Vermont and was directed to turn at the red barn as the garage was round behind and would not have a sign. Did the person not realize that almost every barn in that part of Vermont, indeed most of Vermont, is red?!

I will have to look for the Diane Keaton version. Rural Vermont is one of those places where people tell you not to use navigation systems.

However, Vermont is wonderful and has some of the best second hand bookstores I have discovered. I can't wait to go back.

>34 bragan: I'm not surie why I lose confidence reviewing science-fiction books, in terms of spotting flaws. Maybe because I know more Super Fans of that genre than of, say, general history or something I read more of. It will be interesting to see if Graedon can improve or stays mired in that "interesting concept, mediocre/bad execution" land that lots of authors seem to stay in.

I think my concern with GPS navigation is more that we never stick with both things. The same with learning cursive. I want there to be lots of options for directions and communication because we're not all the same. Only instead of a choice of options one thing dominates and the other falls by the wayside. Particularly in schools, I want all children who can to learn cursive and want teachers to have the power to say "this child struggles with writing by hand due to whatever so I'm going to let them type instead."

I would totally welcome a self parking car. I used to be good at parallel parking, as I had to do it quite a lot where we lived when I learned to drive. Then with chronic pain and my truck dying I didn't drive at all for some years. Now that I drive again I've lost confidence with it.

Where will we get competent archivists if kids don't learn to write and read cursive?! Not to mention if they're snooping in an older relative's journal/papers!

>35 lilisin: Certain capital letters I never write in cursive for the exact reason of "I can't make them pretty!" I do still resent never being able to get an A in handwriting in third grade even though I was trying SO hard (plus those were the first Bs I got, really shouldn't have been a letter-graded lesson).

>36 RidgewayGirl: It's not a judgement on "people should do this" it's more about dropping an entire huge thing for everyone in favor of a method that doesn't seem to carry any added benefits (or even the same benefits). I absolutely want individual needs and requirements to be considered particularly in school and to have each child be able to learn and communicate that learning in the most effective way for them. We've already dropped so many important things from current curriculums (geography for one) in favor or short-term memorization for tests that I'm loathe to see cursive dropped (and being able to read it is certainly still important). They only did it with us for one year really (learned to write it in 3rd grade, but in 4th all writing had to be cursive) but that was enough that most of us can still read and write it if needed.

I find it really fascinating that handwriting seems to be somewhat hereditary, even when the people had almost no contact and the younger party certainly never saw the other's handwriting regularly. I was looking up my relative's draft registration cards for WWI and noticed that my dad's grandfather had the exact same print writing that my dad has. He died when my dad was 10 and he didn't see the man often.

Here are a couple articles on cursive benefits. It's mainly a very specific type of hand eye coordination (I've only skimmed these, can't remember which book I read about it in).

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/04/30/should-schools-require-children-...

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/memory-medic/201308/biological-and-psycholo...

A Russian Journal by John Steinbeck

Initially published in 1948, the book's purpose was strictly to document the lives of the Russian people. The lived reality, removed from the Whys of the life or the specific policies of the USSR. Of course they also talk about the restrictions in what they (he traveled with a photographer) could and couldn't photograph, and where they could and couldn't go, etc...

It's a really interesting time capsule, a valuable record, and a very good read.

Ravensbrück: Life and Death in Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women by Sarah Helm (also called If This is a Woman: Inside Ravensbruck)

Somewhere I saw this described as a biography of Ravensbrück, and it is that. 650 pages of in-depth investigation of the camp from the earliest inception to the final days and it's life after the war, including how it was treated by histories and in terms of commemorating the women who died, etc...

While Ravensbruck might be most famous for the medical experiments (involving sulphonamides and muscle and bone regeneration), it was somewhat unique in the camp system being the only camp solely for women. It was initially populated by 'asocials' (female criminals and prostitutes), communists, and members of resistance movements. There was never any pretense of rehabilitation, but rather one of 'cleansing' the German people of these elements (even though prostitution was legal in Germany at the time). In the beginning many of the work projects the women were forced to do were meaningless tasks, simply designed the break the women and use up their strength.

The book is important, but even as concentration camp books go it's hard going. Helm organizes the information well, going pretty much entirely in chronological order (something I really prefer), switching between different issues in the camp, different periods, and different key figures. The only other books I've read on the camp were Corrie ten Boom's The Hiding Place and Beyond Human Endurance, which focuses solely on the Polish women who were operated on (the 'rabbits'), so it was good to see the wider picture. I've also never been so angry at the Internation Committee of the Red Cross, who kept members from even publicizing the extermination killing and the medical experiments going on in concentration camps (let alone lifting a finger to try to stop it happening).

Any even nominal look at the concentration camps leaves one feeling largely baffled by the Nazi system of total neglect, prescribed extermination killing for many groups, and yet anal retentive attention to detail. For example, in Ravensbrück they didn't have enough doctors among the SS men and women to sign death certificates for the large numbers of women killed each day, so they forced prisoners who were licensed doctors to sign them off as well. Only if they were fully qualified doctors. Particularly later in the war, when they knew that outsiders were already aware of the death camps and were hell bent on killing the evidence, you just wonder why on earth those kinds of details would matter. It's totally insensible.

It's an important book, and I'm glad it's printed on wonderfully high quality paper. The paper will last 100 years or more, and this information needs to last.

I've managed to get totally sidetracked from reading by family genealogy research. It involves too much reading to listen to an audiobook at the same time. However, now we know my paternal grandfather was married a total of five times (vs the two we knew about). Also, thanks relatives for ignoring orders to write down your full name. Bunch of anarchists apparently.

Unruly Places: Lost Spaces, Secret Cities, and Other Inscrutable Geographies by Alastair Bonnett

This was an interesting and wide-ranging read. It uses the term psychogeography, though in another different sense from that used in Places of the Heart. Both deal with the important of place, and how ignoring or negating that experience is generally bad for humans.

Bonnett looks into some extreme and/or unusual living arrangements around the world as well as dealing with problems caused by our sense of place (as something important to hold onto). I'm sure I'm not the only one who, when driving past my childhood homes, gets a little upset that things have changed (who wouldn't be upset that people cut down two wonderful cherry trees though? Think of the pies that won't be made...).

Good read, recommended.

Freddy and Mr. Camphor by Walter R. Brooks

You'll be seeing a lot of Freddy for the next month. My library got rid of a few children's books I'd been waiting to read so I felt I'd better hurry up with the Freddy books they have that I've never read. I have read the later book in the series that involves Mr. Camphor (Freddy Goes Camping), which I loved. Camphor is fun and has an interesting relationship with his butter, Bannister, as they collect proverbs and test them.

In this volume Freddy takes a summer job as caretaker for Mr. Camphor's estate. He's largely enjoying himself, other than realizing Simon and his gang of rats are in the attic, chewing on Camphor's paintings. Before Freddy can worry much about them a familiar face appears – Mr. Winch, the villain who tried to cook and eat Henrietta and Charles, a hen and rooster, on their trip to Florida in the first Freddy book. The Winches make trouble and get Freddy fired in disgrace. There's also a victory garden related subplot where the insects of the district rally together and agree not to eat any of the vegetables in gardens in order to do their bit for the war effort (this was published in 1944).

Fun as usual, but definitely a weaker Freddy book in terms of plot and pacing.

Collected Poems: Edna St. Vincent Millay by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I've been slowly reading through this large volume (738 pages, I believe) for some time now. After putting it aside for a few months it was time to get it finished.

I love Millay and her poetry. I'm away from home at the moment, but when I'm back I'll post some of my favorites from the book. She's able to be both traditional and timeless, which is a hard path to walk.

Definitely pick up Millay sometime, particularly her sonnets. Wonderful stuff.

Found a poem I'd saved earlier. This is one of her earlier works.

In the spring of the year, in the spring of the year,
I walked the road beside my dear.
The trees were black where the bark was wet.
I see them yet, in the spring of the year.
He broke me a bough of the blossoming peach
That was out of the way and hard to reach.

In the fall of the year, in the fall of the year,
I walked the road beside my dear.
The rooks went up with a raucous trill.
I hear them still, in the fall of the year.
He laughed at all I dared to praise,
And broke my heart, in little ways.

Year be springing or year be falling,
The bark will drip and the birds be calling.
There's much that's fine to see and hear
In the spring of a year, in the fall of a year.
'Tis not love's going hurt my days.
But that it went in little ways.

The Last Bookaneer by Matthew Pearl

This wasn't a good read for me. I don't know why I kept at it when it wasn't holding my interest or being enjoyable. With audiobooks it's difficult for me to stop something halfway, and once I'm halfway I tend to feel like I might as well finish it.

The concept of this sounded like a lot of fun, but the execution wasn't exciting or even very interesting. Before enforced copyright laws there was a lot of publishing 'on demand,' as it were, whatever was proving popular. The bookaneer in question here goes to Samoa to track down Robert Louis Stevenson.

I think the pacing was poor, but also the story just wasn't that interesting. More fool me for listening to the whole thing when I could have been reading something more fun.

>46 mabith: loved the poem

>48 baswood: she's the poet I recommend for young folks who are feeling snooty about rhymed poetry.

Here are some more of Millay's poems.

The Plaid Dress
Strong sun, that bleach
The curtains of my room, can you not render
Colourless this dress I wear? –
This violent plaid
Of purple angers and red shames; the yellow stripe
Of thin but valid treacheries; the flashy green of kind deeds done
Through indolence, high judgments given in haste;
The recurring checker of the serious breach of taste?

No more uncoloured than unmade,
I fear, can be this garment that I may not doff;
Confession does not strip it off,
To send me homeward eased and bare;

All through the formal, unoffending evening, under the clean
Bright hair,
Lining the subtle gown … it is not seen,
But it is there.

Impression: Fog Off the Coast of Dorset
As day was born, as night was dying,
The seagulls woke me with their crying;
And from the reef the mooning horn
Spoke to the waker: Day is born
And night is dying, but still the fog
On dimly looming deck and spar
Is dewy, and on the vessel's log,
And cold the first-mate's fingers are,
And wet the pen wherewith they write
“Off Portland. Fog. No land in sight.”
--As night was dying, and glad to die,
And day, with dull and gloomy eye,
Lifting the sun, a smoky lamp,
Peered into fog, that swaddled sky
And wave alike: a shifty damp
Unwieldy province, loosely ruled,
Turned over to a prince unschooled,
That he must govern with sure hand
Straightway, not knowing sea from land.

Sonnet CLXXI
Read history: thus learn how small a space
You may inhabit, nor inhabit long
In crowding Cosmos—in that confined place
Work boldly; build your flimsy barriers strong;
Turn round and round, make warm your nest; among
The other hunting beasts, keep heart and face,--
Not to betray the doomed and splendid race
You are so proud of, to which you belong.
For trouble comes to all of us: the rat
Has courage, in adversity, to fight;
But what a shining animal is man,
Who knows, when pain subsides, that is not that,
For worse than that must follow—yet can write
Music; can laugh; play tennis; even plan.

Winter Night
Pile high the Hickory and the light
Log of chestnut struck by the blight,
Welcome-in the winter night.

The day has gone in hewing and felling,
Sawing and drawing wood to the dwelling
For the night of talk and stroy-telling.

These are the hours that give the edge
To the blunted axe and the bent wedge,
Straighten the saw and the lighten the sledge.

Here at question and reply,
And the fire reflected in the thinking eye.
So peace, and let the bob-cat cry.

I had a very short mini-trip to Myrtle Beach in South Caroline earlier this week, and managed to buy a few books. Two University press titles I was interested in were on a super sale last Friday as well, so I got those too. I rarely used to buy books I haven't read on a whim, I blame the influence of all of you here on LT!

......



The Mouse and His Child by Russell Hoban
Her Act and Deed: Women's Lives in a Rural Southern County, 1837-1873 by Angela Boswell
A Muslim Woman in Tito's Yugoslavia by Munevera Hadžišehović
The Pueblo Revolt: The Secret Rebellion that Drove the Spaniards Out of the Southwest by David Roberts
Reader's Digest Complete Guide to Needlework

I'm most familiar with Hoban through his Frances books, which are some of the most well done and sensible picture books out there. The Mouse and His Child is described as a "dark philosophical tale for older children," so we'll see how that goes.

The non-fiction books should all be pretty interesting, and who doesn't need a massive guide to needlework?

Moon at Nine by Deborah Ellis

For whatever reason I crave LGBT representation much more now than I did in high school (I'm bisexual and didn't realize that wasn't the norm until I was about 12, I was kind of oblivious). As this book is based on one woman's actual life, don't go in expecting a happy ending. It's a crushing book.

It's Iran in 1989, Farrin is in her last year or two of high school and has no friends. Her parents (more her mother) are supporters of the Shah and want Farrin to stay unnoticed in school to protect themselves. When she meets new student Sadira she's immediately drawn to her. Sadira is kind, earnest, and very hardworking. She helps Farrin break out of her somewhat selfish bubble and they fall in love.

If I hadn't been at the beach I probably would have finished this in one sitting. I do wish the writer were Iranian, just because there's so much that a writer will miss about a certain place and time if they come to it as an outsider. However, I think Ellis did a pretty good job and a fair job. There are a lot of shades of grey and I think she handled it well.

Recommended, but it is heartbreaking.

Avenue of Spies: A True Story of Terror, Espionage, and One American Family's Heroic Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Paris by Alex Kershaw

This book was just not very good. I was surprised to see that Kershaw has written a number of non-fiction books already as it felt like an author's early effort. A tiny portion of the book is dedicated to the family's resistance activities, and everything felt padded out. Kerhsaw also includes incorrect (or at the very least misleading) information about Ravensbruck. I trust Sarah Helm's extremely thorough book about the camp more than I trust Kerhsaw's side research about it.

Kershaw actually says in an interview that he just wanted to live in Paris for a bit, so he needed a subject based there to write about. Maybe that's more common in non-fiction than I'd like to believe, but it certainly didn't feel like a subject he was passionate about.

If you want a book about resistance work in France that focuses on individuals I'd recommend Sisters, Secrets, and Sacrifice instead.

Child of the Prophecy by Juliet Marillier

This is the third in Marillier's Sevenwaters trilogy (she went on to write three more books involving characters in Child of the Prophecy, which are more for the YA market and very separate from the original trilogy). These books are comfort reading for me, and Marillier writes her characters so well. They're not what you pick up for beautiful language, but for the characters.

This isn't my favorite of the trilogy, but it grows on me every time I read it. Fainne has been raised in isolation, learning the ways of a druid from her father Ciaran. They are outcasts from Sevenwaters, and Fianne's sorceress grandmother takes over Fainne's education, and sends her to Sevenwaters to use as a spy and pawn in her plans to destroy the family.

Fainne is a hard character to love, I think. She is spiky and unsure and refuses to put her trust in anyone. You just want to shake her. However, she's 15 in the books, and frankly I was just as wary and distrustful at that age. Perhaps that's why I didn't immediately love the book (also the one before this Son of the Shadows is my favorite Marillier work and has the exact love story scenario I'm a sucker for).

Dr. Mutter's Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

While I think the subtitle isn't particularly accurate, I did really enjoy this book. Dr. Mutter is a charming and intriguing person, even via words at the distance of years (his life speaks to incredible charisma). A bit of a popinjay, he was also an extremely good and caring doctor. I've been dealing with two chronic illnesses for the last ten years, and I've only seen two or three doctors who I'd class as good, caring people, so it was a little surreal to read of Dr. Mutter being such at a time when patient welfare wasn't much of a consideration.

The book wanders a bit, too much for some readers though most of it is still very much concerned with Mutter either by his difference from fellow doctors or how his students would carry on his legacy. It worked for me though. The title refers, I believe, both to his collection of medical 'oddities' and to the fact of his personality and care for patients.

Enjoyable, interesting, well-written.

Lumberjanes Volume 2: Friendship to the Max by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, and others

The adventures at a supernatural-activity-prone camp continue! I think I liked this one even more. Great series, and really glad to see something fun, creative, and also appropriate for children.

Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

I picked this up familiar with the general tone of the podcast, but not having listened to any of the episodes. I've seen a lot of quotes from it and tweets from the series Twitter account though and knew the kind of thing to expect. The novel was still enjoyable and interesting with podcast knowledge, though I'm not sure what I would have thought going in totally unknowing.

I love the humor present in the book and in the podcast (just started it), and while the plot elements progressed they weren't totally predictable. It's strange to feel old enough to be thinking about what a book's reputation will be in thirty years. I feel like this is the new Dada-type movement. It also made me think of Cards of Identity, a 'out there' book my dad loved in college and gave me to read when I was in high school (a satire on psychology, identity, and class theory, which I don't think I was quite old enough to appreciate).

The series will obviously be key to holding onto "cool aunt" status when my niece and nephew are older.

Laughing at myself so hard. I finally started listening to the Night Vale podcast, and I love it. I heard about it from friends when it was new in 2012, but wouldn't take the 20 minutes to listen to one episode for the millionth time I've reminded myself to do it since then, but I would take the 11 hours for an audiobook (granting I knew the kind of thing and humor, so it wasn't a blind risk).

I just need everything in book form, apparently.

>59 mabith: As a huge Night Vale fan may I say: welcome to the madness! :)

>59 mabith: I've listened to the first episode, but haven't gotten to the others yet, as I listen to far too many podcasts! And now that Serial has begun its second season, it'll be a little longer before I get to it.

>60 bragan: It is the best kind of madness.

>61 RidgewayGirl: I am a horrible person who has bemoaned the loss of radio culture a la the 30s and 40s but still never picked up podcasts. It's so weird, especially since I'm a huge audiobook person. I wish they'd come on the scene just five or so years earlier (at which point I could have funneled all my youthful ideas for radio programs into them, and now I just don't have the energy).

Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston by Valerie Boyd

I already loved Hurston, but this book made me love her more. She was an amazing woman, and ahead of her time in many ways. She struggled so much to support herself just by writing, something pretty much no other black writer of her time even attempted. She went through many trials, including disrespect from black intellectuals who felt novels needed to represent all black people, versus being about individual characters, and above all have a political message. She stressed the significance and worth of black folk expression. And she urged her people to go the way of Chaucer, "who saw the beauty of his own language in spite of the scorn in which it was held" by England's French speaking Norman conquerors.

She was the only southern woman in her circle during the Harlem Renaissance and after, got a degree in anthropology and did numerous rounds of field work collecting folktales and examining religious practices. She did not apologize for her accent, and was quick to criticize outsiders using southern dialects incorrectly in their writing, she lit up every room she was in, but she valued her solitude. She overcame many obstacles in order to love herself for herself, and yet found it hard to keep in mind that her childhood in a rural all-black town was not the norm anywhere in the US. Some of her stances on racist US policies seemed backward at the time but today look more far-reaching. She paved the way for Alice Walker and Toni Morrison.

The book is wonderful. Very readable, very thorough, and always interesting. A favorite bit is the quote she chose for a Howard yearbook. Her classmates picked things like "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again," and "where there's a will there's a way," Zora picked "I have a heart with room for every joy," (a quote from spasmodic poet Philip James Bailey).

Highly recommended.

>63 mabith: That biography goes immediately on my TBR list. I love Their Eyes Were Watching God, though I've never read any of her other books. Do you have any other favorites?

>64 japaul22: I'm afraid I've only read Their Eyes Were Watching God as well (loved it SO much). Some sources recommend going with her short stories before her other novels. I do think that biography is much better to pick up than Hurston's autobiography though, as it was published during WWII and the publisher's insisted on excising anything that was critical of the US.

Anne Thornton, Junior Guide by Lotta Rowe Anthony

Girls' camp/being a decent person series from the early 1920s. It appropriates the liberal attitudes of the time towards American Indian culture. It's very concerned with being a good citizen, following rules, and keeping up your own personal honor and the honor of any group you're part of.

It's a really ridiculous series, and not nearly as fun as the Dorothy Dixon or Ruth Darrow books (they're aviatrixes after all, and their fights against criminals see them wielding guns sometimes). This is book three in the series. I read book two as well (Anne Thornton, Wetamoo), which was much more amusing. It takes place at school whereas this one takes place at camp. I do like how the villain is the evil factory owner exploiting his poor, foreign work force.

There was supposed to be a fourth book, but I don't think it was ever actually published, as I can't find any reference to it. In terms of obscurity, only one other person on LibraryThing has this and the previous book in their library.

Not really recommended for anyone. If you're hard up in a rural retreat and have exhausted all other reading matter, then read it, but if not... There are so many better girls' books from the period. Even the totally-written-as-propaganda-for-the-film-industry Moving Picture Girls was better.

Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin by Jill Lepore

I've had this book on my to-read list for quite some time. I actually went into it with lowered expectations because The Secret History of Wonder Woman didn't blow me away. Perhaps as a result of that, I was really pleased with this book.

It was very interesting, and I found Jane Franklin to be a fascinating subject. It is, almost by default, also a glancing biography of Benjamin Franklin but more so of their family. Jane had a difficult life, and a lot of sorrows. Anything focusing on women's lives before the 20th century is probably going to be a winner in my book.

Recommended.

A Corner of White by Jaclyn Moriarty

I became devoted to Jaclyn Moriarty after her book Feeling Sorry for Celia, which is one of the funniest YA novels I've ever read, and very realistic in terms of characterizations (and the mother daughter relationship is super fabulous).

A Corner of White is a fantasy novel, though retaining the spirit found in Moriarty's other novels, and partially told in novels (most of her other YA novels are totally epistolary). Madeleine and her mother have recently moved to Cambridge, England and are living a rather poverty stricken life compared to their former life of ease and wealth with Madeleine's father. Her story alternates with that of Elliot, a boy in the Kingdom of Cello, a place much like our earth but with an inane royal family, and “color attacks.”

I think it's a very successful YA fantasy story. I was engaged all through it, and would happily read the second book in the (predicted) trilogy immediately, if I didn't have some other reading obligations. It retains Moriarty's slight zaniness, and I enjoyed it more than I expected to.

>63 mabith: Hurston was fascinated. I'm interested in that biography.

>67 mabith: If my library had Book of Ages on audio I would have tried it by now. (I might join audible.com - although it's a bit pricey compared to free from my library)

>67 mabith: I'm a big fan of Jill Lepore but I haven't read The Secret History of Wonder Woman yet.

Dan, I joined Audible some months ago, cutting out a different bit of free spending. It was a weird mental stretch to do it for just that reason - free books from the library! However, I think it's been worth it, especially in terms non-fiction that my library is never likely to get on audio. It's also been nice for books I love to re-read, since with Audible those files are available to you forever. I think the slight extra charge to have a monthly account vs paying for a year up front is worth it too, since I can always stop the subscription for a few months if I need to catch up on reading the books.

Rebecca, the Wonder Woman book wasn't bad or uninteresting, just didn't meet the hype for me, and I felt like a long essay would have sufficed for the information.

Claudine at School by Colette

I have been reading too many things published in the last five years so I was in need of something older. Everything that was easily accessed on audio seemed to be five days long, so I plumped for Colette's first novel.

It was... interesting. I keep seeing things like "assumed to be highly autobiographical" without explaining why that's the assumption (except perhaps that many men like to think that's what's going on in girls' schools). I highly doubt it's particularly autobiographical, except that Colette probably had a crush on a teacher at some point and quite possibly had her brightness at school dismissed by people saying it was natural and she didn't work hard at it so it didn't count. It was published in 1900, when Colette was 27, so I don't think the assumption is "well she was 18 and very early works are often autobiographical."

The whole thing certainly felt like it was written for the male gaze though somewhat sarcastically. The image in my head is Colette getting male feedback on a simpler less sex-focused novel of schoolgirl life and then sarcastically tarting it up to the point where she felt the joke would be obvious only to have the manuscript accepted after all.

Letters from Rifka by Karen Hesse RE-READ

I first read this in third grade, and I can't remember if it's one that our teacher read us or that I picked up on my own. She always said not to get the book from the library and read ahead, so of course that's what I did and why I can't remember if it was her pick or mine (sorry, Mrs. Perrine, but if you hadn't said that I never would have thought to read ahead).

The book is based on the story of Hesse's great-aunt Lucy and her family fleeing Russia in 1919. It's told in letters, though it's more like a diary as Rifka is writing in the margins of a book of Pushkin poetry that her cousin gave her before they left. Each entry is headed by a fragment of Pushkin which relates to the entry. The family pretty much all get thyphus in Poland and then Rifka gets ringworm and isn't allowed to sail with the rest of her family, but is hosted by a couple in Belgium until she's cured before dealing with trouble at Ellis Island.

I still really enjoyed re-reading this. It was one of the first historical fiction books I read and led me to Hesse's other wonderful books. For three or four years I read this (and all of Hesse's novels) pretty much every month. I always read new books too, but had a growing number of favorites that I insisted on checking out every month. I haven't read it for at least a decade though. It's a quick book and never underplays how hard life was for Jews in Russia. It brings up a lot of issues and does it well, usually without hitting the reader over the head, and it works over a wide age range. Hesse is a great writer in general for family relationships and a range of good female role models who are always a mix, never fitting into a single stereotype role or box.

Whenever I see her name it's usually paired with her novel in verse Out of the Dust, which will never cease to annoy me as it's one of her weakest novels in my opinion (the individual 'poems' don't really stand alone as poems, so doing it in that style seems pointless and slightly lazy, and I blame that novel for the being the beginning of that trend).

Step Aside, Pops by Kate Beaton

The second collection of Beaton's Hark! A Vagrant! comics. I think this one has more comics that aren't available on her website than the first one, but possibly not. If you love reading and/or love history, you'll probably enjoy her work. It's pretty much perfect to me, and I really love her drawing style.

Plus I was very happy to see her velocipedestrienne grace the cover.

The Second Empress by Michelle Moran

Historical fiction about Napoleon Bonaparte's second wife, Marie Louise, great-niece of Marie Antoinette. I like Moran's books and I think she's very good at hitting a balance of historical accuracy with largely minor changes in her more recent settings. I am happiest when she's writing about the ancient world though, because frankly there's so much scope and so little we know in some cases that there's lots of freedom for the novelist.

With this period of French history there's basically the opposite - HUGE amounts of primary source material, like a ridiculous amount. Since some of the people and events are also pretty ridiculous (or pretty awesome) you don't really need alterations to have a compelling story.

Good, recommended for the historical fiction fan. I still prefer her novels set in the ancient world, but that's just because I love ancient history vs a quality issue.

Honor Girl: A Graphic Memoir by Maggie Thrash

A memoir of Thrash's all-girl summer camp experience at age fifteen, centering around her realization that she's attracted to a counselor (who returns the affection). I found the writing and pacing to be very good, five stars for sure, but then there's the art...

I like a lot of styles of drawing, art doesn't have to be "pretty" or highly detailed but messier or simpler drawing styles aren't necessarily immature. Thrash's art is very immature, and it's just not good or enjoyable. I feel bad/odd about saying this, but I don't understand why a publisher would accept this without insisting on a separate artist. If the main audience were younger kids it might make more sense, but it's definitely YA (due to the counselor/camper disparity and the fact that it's not really addressed).

Worse than not being "good" (very subjective, obviously) or practiced, there were numerous times when the art took away from the story simply because Thrash is not able to draw a variety of facial expressions or draw them with any nuance. It made me think of the stick-figure comics my friends and I drew in middle school. My friend Heidi, a very good artist, was able to show emotions and facial expressions with more range and finesse than Thrash despite only working with very small stick figures.

This book could have been SO much more with a professional artist and I'm just kind of annoyed about that.

>76 mabith: Strange, I looked at some of the art via Google Images and it's unpublishable. There are comics/graphic novels/art I've seen that uses an immature style similar to this that work but it needs to feel purposeful where this just seems like she isn't particularly good.

Enjoyed catching up with your reading.

>77 janemarieprice: It's pretty ridiculous. Though it says something for her writing, pacing, etc... that I kept reading and eventually the art was much less noticeable.

>78 baswood: Now if I can just keep caught up with writing my reviews!

Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Book Two by Tove Jansson

For reasons best kept from we mere mortals, this is the only Tove Jansson book my library has. It's a big baffling, but oh well.

I've read one of the Moomin novels and I can see why it's a classic. They're great fun and I love that the Moomins are a ver bohemian family. These comics were initially made for the British market, and are just delightful in every way.

Though the character drawings and backgrounds are simple it's easy to see that Jansson is a seriously accomplished artist. There's so much ease and beauty in her linework, which makes it a pleasure to look at them. I'm ordering some of the other novels soon, but these volumes of comics (at least the ones Jansson wrote on her own) are something I'd love to have on my shelf.

Recommended.

Red Land, Black Land: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt by Barbara Mertz

I have a new favorite non-fiction writer and her name is Mertz. This was a brilliant book, funny and interesting as the day is long. I love Mertz' writing style and her jokes. I love that she got a PhD in Egyptology, wrote a few non-fiction books, and then wrote detective fiction.

There's not much to say on the book other than that it's wonderful. Mertz is informative and quick to tell you when something is subjective or lacks evidence, and reminds us that a lot of earlier European proclamations about ancient Egypt involve quite a bit of racism and quite a lot of dreamy speculation vs hard research.

One of the highlights of the year for me, both in my non-fiction reading and overall. Absolutely recommended, and the audiobook was very well done.

Hogfather by Terry Pratchett RE-READ

A special book both because I reread it every December and because it was my first Discworld read. I think it's a brilliant book to start with because there's a bit of everything in it, and most people are already familiar with Christmas traditions/jokes/stereotypes, etc... so you're not coming in at the deep end.

Still love this book so much no matter how many re-reads I go through.

Those all sound delightful. Love the covers.

I Have Lived a Thousand Years by Livia Bitton-Jackson

When the author was 13 she, her brother, their parents and aunt were taken to Auschwitz. They were living in Samorin, today in Slovakia, then in Czechoslovakia, and previously in the Austro-Hungarian empire. Bitton-Jackson and her family spoke Hungarian and considered themselves Hungarian. Because she looked older and spoke good German, and was lucky in some ways, she managed to stay with her mother pretty much the entire time. Both survived despite her mother getting a spinal injury and becoming partially paralyzed. Just surviving the revier at that point is fairly miraculous.

The book is very much written from a child's perspective, with a child's frantic emotions in the fore front. Bitton-Jackson isn't here to philosophize or tell the stories of others, but gives a straight forward account. Though she would have been quite young at the time, I think the book needed more time spent on their life pre-deportation and how the political situation in Czechoslovakia changed and developed through the 30s to the mid 40s.

The writing is perfectly appropriate for eleven year olds and up, in my opinion, and appropriate for younger ages at the parents' discretion. I read much more graphic books when I was eight or nine.

>83 avidmom: The year is definitely ending on a relatively high note, reading wise.

Silence by Shusaku Endo

This is a Japanese classic of historical fiction, focusing on Portuguese missionaries to Japan after Catholicism was banned in Japan and converts were forced to practice secretly (kakura Kirishitan - hidden Christians). In 1639 two Jesuits, Rodrigues and Garrpe are sent to discover whether a fellow Portuguese Jesuit is alive and if he has committed apostasy.

Much of the novel deals with the question of suffering and why God would send such trouble to the faithful. The idea of bravery and moral courage are also a large part of the book. Rodrigues frequently struggles with the fact that in peaceful times a man could be seen as a good, devoted Christian while never having to struggle for his faith.

I am not religious in any sense, and wasn't really raised with any religion, and perhaps because of that the tone of the book often felt like it was pointing out the folly of faith and religion in general rather than supporting it. It was an interesting read in many ways but at the same time I'm not really sure if I liked it or not.

Throughout I was thinking of the picture of religion and popular culture around religion that I see represented in anime and manga. There have been a number of titles with involve Catholic girls schools, which seem largely used as an outlet for the Japanese love of/admiration for France and vehicles for only-hinted-at lesbian relationships.

The Chimes by Charles Dickens

This Dickens novella was Audible's free book this year, and I've been in need of older books lately (I blame all of you for introducing me to so many recent books). The reader for this edition is Richard Armitage, who is one of the few actors I get a bit squishy over. I wasn't actually expecting him to be a great reader, probably because he inevitably plays broody, grim, monotone types (barring two special episodes of The Vicar of Dibley where he's allowed to be happy and smiling the whole time).

Turns out Armitage has a very very good range (in terms of pitch as well as accent) and was an excellent reader. I wouldn't have enjoyed this nearly as much in print. The book did have some horrifically amusing bits at the beginning with Alderman Cute, but as Dickens gets into his moral lessons it didn't hold my attention as well.

The book focuses solely on poverty really, and it's message is basically that giving in is wrong and you need to keep pushing and hoping to improve things. Also that you shouldn't let the wealthy tell you what to do, and the poor aren't inherently wicked.

Thirteen: The Apollo Flight that Failed by Henry Cooper

Written in the early 1970s, this book examines the disastrous events on the Apollo 13 flight. It really only covers what went wrong and what was done afterward to get them back home. It does not give us any extra historical background or personal background. That made it rather a different read than I'm used to in more recently popular science books, which often spend quite a few pages studying something only tangentially related to the title.

If you like NASA acronyms this is the book for you! It's handy to be able to look them up after I inevitably forget what they mean. It was interesting to see how the astronauts initial statements differed from those they later gave the press.

Recommended if you're interested in the subject. It's a concise, bare bones "this is what happened as it happened" book, and we could probably use more of those.

Freddy and the Popinjay by Walter R. Brooks

Another installment of the brilliant Freddy series, this one falling at not quite halfway through the series. Freddy helps a bird get and pay for glasses, introducing a town-wide trend of live birds as hats, and deals with the anti-social behavior of a neighbor boy.

It's a nice one, and I think a bit better than the last I read (Freddy and Mr. Camphor) in terms of more interesting plot points. It still pales a bit in comparison with the books that have a truly villainous character, or with the farm's recurring nemesis - Simon the rat and his gang.

>88 mabith: Ahh! BB on the Henry Cooper book. That sounds good.

>86 mabith: I had extremely mixed feelings about Silence; on the one hand I thought it was beautifully written while on the other I just don't understand the Christian penchant for proselytizing.

I recently got Silence, and Chimes read by Armitage too. I'll soon listen to Armitage : I don't watch series and have no prejudice but I loved his tone on the sample.

>90 Tara1Reads: Hope you'll like it!

>91 rebeccanyc: Rebecca, yes, that exactly! It wasn't my first choice of something to read by Endo, just the easiest to access. I'm still planning to read The Sea and Poison but I think I'll stay away from anything else about missionaries!

>92 h-mb: He really has fun with the different voices in The Chimes and it's absolutely wonderful.

>93 mabith: I was impressed by The Sea and Poison, but be forewarned that some of it is gruesome. I also enjoyed Scandal and When I Whistle.

Rebecca, I think maybe your review of The Sea and Poison is what alerted me to Endo in the first place.

The Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters

While the mystery aspect was pretty predictable, I loved this book. And really when you're dealing with a Victorian setting there are so many plot options closed off, especially since Peters manages to impart and very realistic Victorian tone rather than just sticking a modern character into the setting.

Amelia Peabody, a spinster in her early 30s now has the means and the freedom to travel, so she's off to Egypt to indulge her passion for Egyptology. Picking up a distressed Englishwoman, Evelyn, on the way to serve as her companion is the least adventurous thing that will happen to her. They meet a pair of brothers, the younger immediately taken with Evelyn, the older is cranky and dismissive of Amelia.

Reading this after reading the author's non-fiction work about Egypt (Elizabeth Peters is pseudonym of Barbara Mertz) really added something to this book. I could feel Mertz's own frustration with men in her profession and she fill the book with humor. Predictable or not it was such a fun read and I'm looking forward to the others in the series.

Side note, Mertz was extremely prolific, writing at least 70 books in 44 years.

Freddy the Magician by Walter R. Brooks

Another Freddy book down, two to go, and their library due date is creeping up. I checked out almost all that the library had, of the ones I don't own and had never read, out of fear they'd get rid of them all suddenly as they did with the Rescuers books.

Freddy has dealings with a nasty magician and his rabbit when the Boomschmidt's circus comes to town. Zingo the magician is fired, and Freddy is keen to pick up the art. However, Zingo is making trouble in town for the hotel owner by planting bugs in his food in order to get free meals. He and his rabbit Presto also ruin Freddy's magic debut show and basically steal money from him. The hotel owner hires Freddy to try to get Zingo to pay and in turn Zingo tries to frame Freddy for a variety of crimes.

I think the Freddy books work best if there's either a proper villain or a journey, as this was better than a couple I've read lately. They're always fun, but I like the note of danger, and I like that Freddy doesn't just always succeed first try.

Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing by Melissa Mohr

And now for something completely different... Mohr's history of swearing was readable and interesting, though I disagreed with her on some points (personal slurs and swearing are not the same animal at all in my book).

A lot of it is focused on the Bible and religious swearing and oath taking in general, and the dangers posed by those who resisted that, so don't expect it all to be f**k and c**t and etymology.

Good, interesting read. Made me want to watch the Peabody and Sherman episode where they meet Shakespeare and he says "ods bodskins!"

It was a pretty good reading though, I feel like last year was better, at least for children's lit.

Total ended up being 251, annoyingly. I'd thought it was 250, a nice round, pleasing number, but had left one off my master-list and noticed when I was double checking it against my calendar (2016 calendar with January showing the books I read in Jan 2015 etc...).

Being that one extra book I'd read a perfectly even number of men and women authors. And SO many recent books this year! My average publication year is usually in the 1970s but for 2015 it was 1991! 46% of the books I read were published between 2010 and 2015. 51% had been on my to-read list for more than three months.