What Books by Women are You Reading Now? December 2008

I'm in between books at the moment but hovering over a women-authored mystery and two women-authored poetry collections (older ones). Stay tuned!

What are you reading? Any good?

I'm reading The Queen of the Tambourine by the always-excellent Jane Gardam. Surprisingly, I love it! :)

I'm also slowly reading through a biography of Vanessa Bell.

Beloved by Toni Morrison.

Nightingale Wood by Stella Gibbons.

I am reading man books at the moment for my Reading Globally Challenge but shall be reading some Isabel Allende soon.

Amended for spelling mistake.

>2 christiguc: - is it good? Spalding's bio of Stevie Smith was very well done, esp given the lack of source material.

I'm reading The Old Man And Me by Elaine Dundy (she of The Dud Avocado) and it's better than I thought it would be (it's also a Virago Modern Classic and a BookCrossing copy so will be available to travel soon...!)

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley.

The stilted language bugged me up to about page 150.

The ax-grinding against the superstitions and narrow-mindedness of the Roman Church gets to be a bit much.

Saxon Catholicism was certainly a force for social unity and general improvement of life, and most of the Saxon Church leaders were pragmatic and fairly good at synthesizing pagan elements into the new religion. It's why we have Christmas at Yule and why Easter is named after the Saxon goddess Eostre.

So, if nothing else, my curiosity about the pre-Saxon Church and its personality is piqued.

All in all, about 300 pages in I have to say that it's pretty well researched and synthesized, but it's not much more than a fairly high-class historical romance.

I expected more, but, having revisesed those expectations downwards, I hope to enjoy the rest of the book.

My current audiobook is Villette by Charlotte Bronte - 13 hours down, 9 to go! ;-) The narrator is Davina Porter, one of my favorites, so that has probably helped it not to seem SOOO LOOOONG - but honestly, I think it's excellent and I've enjoyed it very much so far.

I'm also reading my ER book, Soldier's Heart by Elizabeth Samet, and there are several places where the author mentions her experiences as a woman teaching at West Point, and shares her perspective about the other small groups of women there - female cadets, other staff, and "Army spouses" (with the greatest percentage being wives of male soldiers). I'm only about halfway through, but I'm liking it.

I'm trying to get into Picnic at Hanging Rock (late for an Aussie theme read elsewhere at LT), and there's nothing wrong with the writing, but it's such a grotty old little mass market paperback. The pages and font are ugly, and it doesn't feel nice. The whole aesthetic and tactile experience is ruining the book for me!

Rosewater and Soda Bread by Marsha Mehran. I just read her first book and it was such a lovely, nice, gentle book - so different from the book Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow which I have just finished as well.

I wanted something light and airy for awhile.

Alexandra

Yesterday I started and finished Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively.

WOW. I loved it! The narrator, Claudia, looks back at her life as death approaches. As she explains, events and evidence are open to different interpretations and her life is presented from various viewpoints. However, as she is the narrator, I think that these viewpoints are actually Claudia's interpretations of how other people reacted to events.

This book contains one of my favourite quotes: "One resents being axed from the narrative, apart from anything else. I'd have liked to know the outcome."

Without wanting to be too morbid on a Wednesday morning, this sums up how I feel about my own death. I feel frustrated that I won't find out what happens next (and which of the sci-fi writers actually got it right!).

on a related note, I seem to have created a whole new record for the edition of this book I own when I wrote a review for it. Does anyone know how to link this edition to other editions of the work? Or do I need to ask an LT peron to do it? They seemed to be linked before I wrote the review, but not when I saved it.

Char, go check it now. It should be ok, as I just combined it.
:-))

Thank you - you're a star!

WOW! That is some compliment!
:-))

Just started Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende - good so far.

>11 charbutton:--I just found Moon Tiger at a thrift store and am looking forward to reading it now from your thoughts!

Right now I'm reading Emma. I remember trying to read it ages ago and not being interested enough to continue, but this time I'm really enjoying it. It's only my fourth Austen; eventually I'll get around to the others.

I snagged a November Early Reviewer book, Peripheral Vision by Patricia Ferguson, which I just finished. It's a very English novel of manners that bounces back and forth from the 1950s to the 1990s. I quite liked it. If you like Austen or Margaret Drabble, you'd probably like this one too.

>16 spinsterrevival:: celiafrances, I'm reading Persuasion! It's my 5th Austen and I hope to read Mansfield Park soon. I'm really enjoying Persuasion. Austen is delightful. This is her birthday month, too, so why not celebrate?

Right now I'm reading In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez.

It is November 25, 1960, and the bodies of three beautiful, convent-educated sisters have been found near their wrecked Jeep at the bottom of a 150-foot cliff on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. El Caribe, the official newspaper, reports their deaths as an accident. It does not mention that a fourth sister lives. Nor does it explain that the sisters were among the leading opponents of Gen. Raphael Leonidas Trujillo's dictatorship. It doesn't have to. Everyone knows of Las Mariposas - "The Butterflies." Now, three decades later, Julia Alvarez, also a daughter of the Dominican Republic and long haunted by these sisters, immerses us in a tangled and dangerous moment in Hispanic Caribbean history to tell their story in the only way it can truly be understood - through fiction.

With a synopsis like that, I knew I had to read it!

In addition to reading Beloved, I've just begun The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism by Megan Marshall. It's wonderful.

I'm reading Tenderness a collection of poetry from Joyce Carol Oates.

>19 weener:: wow, that's quite a synopsis! Do let us know if it lives up to it.

>23 weener:
I sure will. It is excellent so far and I believe that it should!

>18 lauralkeet:: lindsacl, I loved Persuasion! I've never taken one of those "which Jane Austen character are you" quizzes, but I'm pretty sure that I'd be Anne Elliot.

Ooh, I should celebrate if it's her birthday month! Maybe Northanger Abbey next since I was just watching the Masterpiece Theatre version of it the other night. :)

Edited because I spelled Elliot wrong, and that's not cool.

I just finished rereading Cluny Brown. I was in need of a good comfort read.

I'm in the middle of The Wanderground by Sally Miller Gearhart.

It's a dystopian novel. At some point, women's rights were removed and a group of women escaped from a city to live in the hills. The process of removing rights is similar to that described in The Handmaid's Tale - I'd be interested to know if Margaret Atwood had read this book before she started that work.

I think I'm enjoying The Wanderground. The women communicate with each other and the natural world through telepathy and are able to fly, for example, through what seems to be a very strong version of yoga. This is all a bit unreal for me, so I'm having to constantly suspend my disbelief and just go with it.

I think the book is representative of its time - 1979. There's a lot about shared history, shared memories of rape and oppression. There is discussion about whether the hill women should condemn the women left in the city who are acting out male fantasies of female behaviour - do they also share a history with these women? I wasn't there during the second wave, but I can see that Gearhart is working through some of the debates that arose from 1970s feminism.

80 pages to go, and I think it's working up to an attack by men from the city. I'll let you know if anything exciting happens!

Read Daughter of Fortune and its sequel Portrait in Sepia by Isabel Allende - great storyteller. Set in 19th Century Chile and California. Lots of historical background and unforgettable characters.

I just finished Nightingale Wood by Stella Gibbons (yes, I am a painfully slow reader). I thoroughly enjoyed the book, the subtle irony, the excellent depiction of the characters, which covered almost the whole range of types: the greedy, the dreamer, the materialist, the shallow etc.
After having read this, I feel compelled to go hunt for my copy of Cold Comfort Farm and to go look for (and if I am lucky find) other of her works.

I finished Persuasion and really, really enjoyed it! My current book is not "by and/or about women," but I can't stay away long -- I'll be back in a day or two!

26> charbutton -- I read Wanderground decades ago when I was an ardent feminist (I still am) -- I think I still have a pb on my shelves -- I remember being really intrigued, but not much else -- must go hunt it up again.

I plan to travel this week so I'm taking a paperback edition of Doris Lessing's novel The Summer Before the Dark. I haven't read Lessing before (or can't remember reading) so I look forward to a good read on the flights.

I just finished Burning Marguerite by Elizabeth Inness-Brown. It was a really great read!

Started Of Love and Shadows by Isabel Allende - by the description I am in for an exciting read.

Read Tales of Beedle the Bard yesterday and enjoyed it. I'm also still reading People of the Book, which I've been reading for a little while. I really do like the book, it's just the kind of book I need to put down and go back to.

Also just finished Tales of Beedle the Bard and sorry to say I thought it was just dreadful--sketchy, predictable and flat--hardly the charmer one expects from JKR.

Only good thing is that part of my purchase went to charity and helps support Scholastic.

Still slogging through The Mists of Avalon, which I'm giving the "Moby Dick Treatment," which is to skim the boring parts. That helps, but I have other TBR's that look more alluring at this point.

I just started Unbowed, a memoir by Nobel peace prize winner Wangari Maathai. Only one chapter in, but it looks like it will be interesting.

I'm finishing up Delirium by Laura Restrepo. I had set it down earlier in the year for no particular reason.

I am currently reading The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong - it is utterly engrossing.

Finished Of Love and Shadows by Isabel Allende - story of a journalist and photographer in Chile under Pinochet's regime. Quite exciting but IMO not as good as some of her other novels. However I did enjoy reading it for its insights into living (and dying) under this military regime.

Have just begun Life and Death of Harriet Frean by May Sinclair.

I just started Gods Behaving Badly, by Marie Phillips.

I'm a couple of chapters into Evening Is the Whole Day by Preeta Samarasan -- so far we have a servant dismissed from the Big House and a 5 year old communing with the ghosts of her grandmother and another young girl.

I'm reading A Cargo of Women by Babette Smith which is about Susannah Watson and the convicts of the Princess Royal ship, who came to Australia in 1829. It was first published 20 years ago.

Its an intriguing read, historical - just got to the part where they have left England for the long voyage out. Some of the 'crimes' these women were sentenced to - 14 years for stealing a table cloth in order to feed their children... incomprehensible nowadays.

Will let you know how I get on.

Alexandra

I'm reading Disquiet by Julia Leigh. Creepy and disturbing with a touch of melancholy. Absolutely fantastic (especially following all the quaintness of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society).

I am reading The Dark Bride by Laura Restrepo - a journalist re-telling the story of a legendary prostitute in a small Colombian oil town.

Currently reading Finding Your Own North Star and still reading People of the Book from time to time. I do want to finish it, I just am in no hurry. Also almost finished with a young adult novel, The Dead and the Gone, which is just amazing.

The Shortest Way to Hades, a mystery by Sarah Caudwell.

I'm reading the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer (blushes...) Its totally a guilty pleasure. Not at all high-brow.

Just finished The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and now I'm on to Sense and Sensibility. It's my third attempt to read it this year, and I hope I don't get interrupted this time. I think it will make a nice holiday read.

Just finished Evening Is the Whole Day by Preeta Samarasan -- it's beautifully written, but one of the saddest books I've read in a long time.

This month I finished The Little Madeleine by Mrs. Robert Henrey and The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall.

I just finished Madame de Stael: The First Modern Woman by Francine du Plessix Gray. As biographies go, I found it average. I wouldn't advise anyone to rush out and buy it now. Check it out from the library; wait for the paperback version; or, better yet, read a better biography about Madame de Stael.

I'm about to start Eva Luna by Isabel Allende. My first Allende - hope it's good!

I have just started The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. Has anyone else here read it and did you enjoy it?

#55 I very much enjoyed The Blind Assassin. I found it slow reading, (or maybe I just read it slowly-I remember it as a good summer read!) but very engrossing. I'd read Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale for a class and very much enjoyed that too. Right now I'm half way through Doris Lessing's The Summer Before Dark and it's not my cup of tea, but I'll finish it. It reminds me of Mrs. Dalloway with its interior conversation and out of body or should I say out of bodies POV. I like my characters to move around and develop at a bit faster pace. More action and more dialogue. I was prompted to read Lessing because of the sticker on the book proclaiming her a Nobel Prize in Literature Winner. Just a sucker for a "merit badge" I guess!

#55 I loved The Blind Assassin too.

After a run of man books, I'm reading a book I can put in this thread - All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West. I really can't believe I haven't read this, or anything else by her. It's such a fast read (no doubt helped by the enormous margin at the bottom of each page!) and the characters are unfolding beautifully.

#54 akeela, I have Eva Luna but haven't read it yet, or anything else by her. Let us know what you think!

>57 cushlareads:: cmt, I read All Passion Spent earlier this year. Like you, I felt a bit sheepish for not having read it before. I loved it.

And I really like Isabel Allende, athough I haven't read Eva Luna yet. I really liked House of the Spirits and Daughter of Fortune.

Isabel Allende's Zorro is a bit of a departure for her, but a really fun read. Who says women can't write exciting adventure books!

I have Eva Luna and The Stories of Eva Luna to read. Looks like Zorro will go on my wishlist.

Today I started Sarah Waters' Fingersmith. Quite enjoyable so far.

I read the Well of Loneliness in college and really loved it.

I've just picked up Lady Murasaki's Diary translated by by Richard Bowring -- I think the introduction is longer than the Diary itself.

I just started The Sybil in Her Grave by Sarah Caudwell after finishing The Shortest Way to Hades. What a writer! Too she only wrote four books......:-(

Paola,

Tell me more about Sarah Caudwell. She is a writer with whom I am not familiar.

Mary, Sarah Caudwell was British, a barrister by profession, and wrote only four mysteries (alas!) because she died too soon.
Here is a brief biography from Wikipedia.

Sarah Caudwell (1939-2000) was a barrister and writer of detective stories, born Sarah Cockburn in Cheltenham, UK.
She is best known for a series of four murder stories written between 1980 and 1999, centred around the lives of a group of young barristers practicing in Lincoln’s Inn and narrated by a Hilary Tamar, a Professor of Medieval Law (gender unknown), who also acts as detective.

Life
Sarah Cockburn was the daughter of Claud Cockburn, left wing journalist, and second wife Jean Ross, who was part model for Christopher Isherwood's Sally Bowles of Cabaret fame. She graduated in Classics from Aberdeen University and went on to read law at St. Anne's College, Oxford. On leaving Oxford she lectured in Law at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. Having been called to the Bar, she practiced as a barrister for several year’s in Lincoln’s Inn and later specialised in international tax planning at Lloyds Bank. It was at this time that she started to write. Caudwell has three half-brothers, Alexander Cockburn, Andrew Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn, who are also journalists; was the half-sister-in-law of Leslie Cockburn and of Michael Flanders. Journalists Laura Flanders and Stephanie Flanders, and actress Olivia Wilde are her half-nieces.

She was one of the first two female students to join the Oxford Union, having, legend has it, dressed up in men's clothes as a protest as its male-only membership policy. She was thus one of the first female students to speak in the Oxford Union's Debating Chamber.

She was a lifelong pipe-smoker, and for many years lived in Barnes, London with her mother and aunt.

She died of cancer in January 2000.

The Hilary Tamar Series
This series of four books, described as "legal whodunits", were written over a period of twenty years. Their primary setting is the top floor of 62 New Square at Lincoln's Inn, where four young barristers have their chambers: Michael Cantrip, Desmond Ragwort, Selena Jardine and Timothy Shepherd. While the last named only appears sporadically, taxes barrister Julia Larwood, who works in the adjacent premises, is a regular visitor and is in effect the fourth member of the group. These characters are in some ways thinly drawn, never communicating in anything other than in an ironic tone, so that even when they are in deadly danger the atmosphere remains uniformly light-hearted. Even though the characters are sexually active, their cheerful friendship is sometimes reminiscent of the chummy gangs encountered in juvenile fiction.

Acting as a kind of parent to the group is the first-person narrator, Professor Hilary Tamar. Professor Tamar, a former tutor to the barristers, also acts as the main detective, although other characters make contributions to the eventual solutions. Professor Tamar is frequently physically removed from the action and is kept informed by a series of improbably long letters and telexes. This distancing is amplified by Caudwell’s strategy of not specifying Tamar's sex and never specifying the reason for the strong bond which the character enjoys with the young advocates, notwithstanding the lack of any point of contact in terms of age, temperament, occupation or enthusiasms.

The books have a self-consciously literary style, including many references to the classics and other subjects of higher learning. One running joke is the narrator's absurd elitism, with lower orders such as Solicitors, Accountants, Tax Inspectors and Cambridge graduates being frequent targets of barbed comments; one character is disparaged as it is suspected he had to work in order to earn a first-class degree.

The plots are intricate, carefully realised, and strongly tied to the locations chosen, these being Venice, Corfu, Sark and an English village. The author’s expertise in tax law is frequently brought into play, inheritance law being relevant to financial motives for murder.

I will only add that, although I can't explain why, I think Hilary Tamar is a man.

I usually resist mysteries, but these I think I must have.

You will not be disappointed, Mary!

I am currently reading The Gentleman's Daughter, Amanda Vickery's award winning social history of upper-class women's lives in the 18th century. I have also just started Evening is the Whole Day by Malayasian novelist Preeta Samarasan

>cmt Isabel Allende is amazing! Do read Eva Luna. I just finished it, and found Allende's storytelling ability to be superb!

I'm Saving Fish from Drowning on a tour of Buddhist art in China and Burma led by Amy Tan's (dead) narrator, Bibi Chen -- things are falling apart since Bibi can no longer make herself heard on the tour she carefully constructed for her travellers.

I've started Tamarind Mem by Anita Rau Badami.

Just finished Carolyn Chute's The Beans of Egypt, Maine and I've got Letourneau's Used Auto Parts on order from Amazon.

#72 I liked Tamarind Mem, but I loved Anita Rau Badami's The Hero's Walk.

I finished Fingersmith last night, and it was wonderful. Now I'm reading a Virago Modern Classic: The Lost Traveller, by Antonia White.

>74 urania1: That's good to know, Urania! I have a copy of The Hero's Walk. I'll have to unearth it and move it up the TBR pile. Thanks.

Alas, I seem to be messing around with books by male authors lately. I shall expect to mend my ways before the new year.

>74 urania1:, 76 ditto on Hero's Walk here! I have her latest Can You Hear the Night Bird Call? in the TBR pile. I had to buy the hardcover out of Canada, as it hasn't been published in the US. I suppose publishers think a story about Canada and India will not interest readers in the US. . .

I finally had a chance to finish Sense and Sensiblity, which of course was lovely. Now I'm starting Helen of Troy by Margaret George. This is a bit of a holiday treat read. Now is a good time to read it because I studied Helen this past term and read a lot of academic and classical material on her. It'll be fun to read something about her that is a little more entertaining.

I finished Northanger Abbey over the weekend, and I found it enjoyable to read but so different than what I expected from Austen. It's not as if I quite have an expectation of Austen necessarily as I haven't even read them all, but it was such a different tale with the satire (not sure if that's the right word to use) of the gothic romance.

To round out December (also read Emma this month), I'm rereading Sense and Sensibility since it's been about ten years since I've read it.

I've been reading the Claire Ferguson and Russ Van Alstyne Mysteries by Julia Spencer-Fleming which are incredibly addictive.

Now I have just received the new(ish?) book from Julia Glass from the library, so that's up next for me. I really enjoyed her previous two books, so I am looking forward to it.

I'm dallying through a poetry collection called A Pilgrim's Guide to Chaos in the Heartland by Jessica Goodfellow.

Since I am in need of 'light' reading, I started Arabella by the wonderful Georgette Heyer.

Isn't a "light" read great once in a while? I've got two going right now. We definitely need some mind-candy once in a while.

#70 akeela, I've pulled Eva Luna off the shelf (along with about 10 others).

I'm halfway through The Madonnas of Leningrad and am really enjoying it, but both strands of the story are very sad. The Alzheimer's details remind me of my grandmother and I know it's just going to get worse in the second half of the book.

#83> Oh yes! It is mind-candy alright, and of the best quality too!!!!

>79 spinsterrevival: celiafrances, I had similar feelings about Northanger Abbey being quite different from other Austen works. Although I enjoyed all of her books, that one is my least favorite.

I started Bricks and Mortar this morning and I bet I finish it tomorrow! It's wonderful!

I listened to my first audiobook this afternoon - Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice . Beautiful and such a relaxing way to read!

#88--Hi englishrose60. Whose reading of P&P did you hear?

Hello theaelizabet, my audiobook of P & P was read by Joanna David.

Thanks. My daughter and I often listen to audiobooks on our treks to get her to and from various activities. We last listened to Jane Eyre. P&P might be a good next choice.