What I'm Reading: 'The Souls of Black Folk' by W.E.B. Du Bois

Nothing about this book was easy. It was written in a very different era, and if my aborted attempts at reading Feminist literature have taught me anything, it's that there is nothing more difficult than reading dated social science. That being said, The Souls of Black Folk is still and probably always will be a hallmark of American Civil Rights literature, and I'm glad I struggled through it.

I was motivated by the Library of Congress' 'Books That Shaped America' list; I'm not necessarily interested in reading every book on the list ( I feel no need to read anything by Ralph Nader, for example), but there is a lot of important American literature and non-fiction on the list that I feel a sense of obligation to read. Plus, after Uncle Tom's Cabin, everything feels like a breeze.

Many folks are thinking about writers of color and the #WeNeedDiverseBooks movement; I've seen so many literary blogs resolving to bring greater diversity to their reading habits this year and while that's not officially one of my reading resolutions this year, it's certainly on my mind, and I'm happy to say that there are much more contemporary and relevant books on Civil Rights that I'll be posting about in the coming weeks.

What I'm Reading: 'Mary Queen of Scots' by Antonia Fraser

My obsession with the CW tv show 'Reign' knows no bounds, apparently, because during the Christmas hiatus I decided to make up for the lack of teenaged Mary Stuart in my life by reading an 800 page biography of her. For those who feel they are too good for the CW --first of all, you are wrong; their programming has never been better -- 'Reign' is a sexy period drama about the young adulthood of Mary Stuart, a bit like 'The O.C.' mixed with 'The Tudors.' All of the costumes are adapted Free People items, so that should give you a pretty good flavor of it.

Needless to say, it shares very, very little in common with this tremendously great biography by Antonia Fraser, whose talents I have already espoused. I have been disappointed but not exactly surprised by how historically inaccurate the tv show has turned out to be, but that doesn't mean I'm not enjoying the book immensely. Sometimes nothing quite satisfies like a long, meaty biography, and I've read enough Antonia Fraser at this point to feel almost like I'm slipping into a very elaborate fictional universe of her creation. She has written about this period in British history pretty extensively, so each new volume I consume is just adding another layer of richness. And every time I come across a fact that appears in the show, I become very proud of and happy for the producers and their very minor success in transitioning fact into fiction.

What I'm Reading: 'Breath, Eyes, Memory' by Edwidge Danticate

This lovely wisp of a novel came to me at just the right time -- I had just finished Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson, and although Breath, Eyes, Memory is not a memoir, it is particularly autobiographical fiction and is narrated by a young woman who experiences a dramatic relocation as an integral part of her coming of age. In this case, Sophie Caco moves from her native Haiti to New York City.

I love books about relocations like this because when I was sixteen my family moved from small-town Alaska to southeast Michigan, which was an enormous cultural shift for me. In some ways it feels very insignificant because at sixteen, I felt very fully-formed and mature, and only two years later I went away to college, so in a way it just feels like one elongated, natural transition from adolescence to adulthood. But in other ways it feels like a major and formative turning point in my life because it probably dramatically changed the outcome of that transitional period.

I certainly wouldn't assert that I share much in common with either Edwidge Danticat or Jacqueline Woodson's experiences, but I really enjoy reading about something I experienced through so many different perspectives.

What I'm Reading: 'God'll Cut You Down' by John Safran

This book was on my radar in late 2014 and just by chance my reserved copy from the library came along at just the right time, so it's officially my first deviation from #ReadWomen2014. I have nothing profound to say about the difference between books by men and books by women; I read many great books in 2014, and I expect I will read many more in 2015, regardless of the gender of the author. What I will say is that this one reminded me of how pleasurable it can be to browse and select a random book, your long to-be-read list be damned.

This book is far from perfect -- John Safran comes across a bit as the Australian equivalent of Michael Moore, and if I had known anything about his television career, I probably wouldn't have picked this up. It is a heavy-handed as a true crime book can be, with Safran very self-consciously thinking about his role in the pantheon of true crime writers like Truman Capote. Granted, he does this with self-effacing charm, but there is a decided cuteness to the whole thing, and if you dislike Safran's personality, you'll truly hate the book because he is as large a character as anyone else.

One other complaint -- I had a hard time stomaching comments on race in America (the true crime in question is the murder of a White Supremacist in Mississippi) coming from an Australian. It's very easy to be cynical and sarcastic about race in the Deep South, which is obviously ridiculous, but I found his outsider perspective to be unwelcome. It felt like a big piece of the puzzle was missing because of Safran's inability to understand or contextualize something so deeply rooted in our national psyche, although he certainly tried. 

This sounds like I haven't enjoyed the book, which is definitely not the case. I swallowed it down in a few sittings and I couldn't really read it fast enough. I find that the characters have really stuck with me more than I ever could have anticipated, and I was surprised by how much it made me laugh. 

What I'm Reading: 'Men Explain Things to Me' by Rebecca Solnit

I've never read anything by Rebecca Solnit before now, aside from the occasional essay or article, and now that I've spent a few days with her, I fully intend to read her other books. I'm especially intrigued by Wanderlust, about the notion of walking and wandering, since I got around to seeing the movie 'Wild' this weekend and the idea of getting outside has been very top of mind.

Men Explain Things to Me is a short collection of recent essays, with a decided feminist slant, and the titular essay is one many of you have likely already encountered online. Solnit did not coin the term 'mansplaining,' but it seems likely that her essay inspired it. If you haven't taken a moment in #ReadWomen2014 to dive into a feminist text, I highly recommend this one for its timeliness, brevity, and relevance to the current state of feminism. I struggled with several feminist "classics" this year, and it was such a relief to set those aside and read something that I could understand and relate to.

What I'm Reading: 'The Shipping News' by Annie Proulx

My streak of Eastern Canadian literature continues this week with The Shipping News. Annie Proulx is technically an American author but this is certainly one of the best known fictional depictions of Nova Scotia, so it counts. When I picked up Who Will Run the Frog Hospital I didn't even realize what a strong French-Canadian connection it had, so this year has been highlighted with two really wonderful trips to Ontario and Quebec and tons of accompanying Canadian literature to support it, and most of it accidental.

What is there to say about a novel that won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award? It is objectively "good" in every sense of the word, although her prose style is so different from what I expected. I suppose I was anticipating a kind of spare, bleak, post-Hemingway prose style (where did this idea come from? Was it because of the 'Brokeback Mountain' dialogue?) but instead it feels more reminiscent of her American contemporaries like Philip Roth, Thomas Pynchon (no shade), and maybe even a bit of Vonnegut.

I've been thinking a lot lately about masculine vs. feminine writing styles, and wondering if anyone can tell the difference. This is mostly inspired by the Elena Ferrante situation -- a reclusive and very talented Italian woman author who many think is secretly a man, presumably because her writing is so excellent). Can anyone really tell the gender of the author by their prose? I think Annie Proulx is proof that gender assignment to writing style is complete baloney; her writing shares more stylistically with her male contemporaries, and if I had read it without knowing the author, I would have guessed the gender wrong.

Which I suppose is the point of an exercise like #ReadWomen2014 -- readers should make every effort to enjoy books written by men and women, and good literature should be good literature, not "good literature...for a woman." To get back to Annie Proulx then, and her many prizes, it seems likely that The Shipping News would have to be perceived to be such a literary accomplishment as to surpass those of Proulx's male contemporaries, whose work is often given attention, praise and prizes such much more readily. And for me, it has lived up to every bit of that hype and probably deserves a bit more.

What I'm Reading: 'Broken Monsters' by Lauren Beukes

I don't usually read anything in the suspense/thriller/crime genre; I am mostly repulsed by people's fascination with serial killer pop culture, and while I'll occasionally dive into something like 'Top of the Lake,' it's rare and one indulgence is enough to last at least six months.

I picked up Broken Monsters because Beukes first novel The Shining Girls was very well-reviewed, plus this one takes place in Detroit, so...you know. But now that I'm a few chapters in I can't decide if I really love reading a murder mystery about my hometown or if I hate it. Beukes is South African, so naturally there's a very loud voice in my head, reminding me that she is a total outsider and for her, Detroit functions as a kind of shorthand for all that is gritty and mysterious and abandoned. On the other hand, she gets a lot of it right (except for the serial killer part. We don't really have those around here. Bigger fish to fry and all that).

Despite all these reservations, I'm still reading it at breakneck speed, because a good suspense novel is nothing if not readable.

What I'm Reading: 'Brown Girl Dreaming' by Jacqueline Woodson

Yes, technically this is considered to be a YA book, largely because Woodson is one of the most acclaimed/celebrated/decorated authors of books for young people. And if I had a pre/teen, I would insist they read this, along with all her other terrific novels. I would go so far as to argue that in light of the recent events in Ferguson and Staten Island, Brown Girl Dreaming might just be the perfect and essential text for discussing civil rights with younger adults. But that doesn't mean it isn't beautifully written and fully enjoyable for a grown-ass person either, because it is certainly one of my favorite books published this year.

Brown Girl Dreaming is a semi-autobiographical prose-poem account of Jacqueline Woodson's childhood in the South during the Civil Rights movement. Although it's an era in history with its fair share of excellent literature, nothing about Brown Girl Dreaming reads like cliche and Woodson's perspective and memories feel so fresh and alive.

What I'm Reading: 'Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?' by Lorrie Moore

Here is a pearl of reading wisdom for you: when trying to get into a new author, read their shortest book first. This will often give you an idea of whether or not you enjoy their work in the most efficient way possible. This method saved me probably months of struggle with Thomas Pynchon, because I had the wisdom to read The Crying of Lot 49 (maybe 100 pages total), instead of one of his doorstop books. I realized I hated Thomas Pynchon, and had only wasted an hour of my life.

This principle guided my decision to read Who Will Run the Frog Hospital, although in all honesty I very much expect to enjoy Lorrie Moore and read more of her books. There is something very satisfying though, about discovering and experiencing a new writer in the course of an afternoon. She is another author on my #ReadWomen2014 list, someone whose work I hoped to become familiar with over the course of the year, so it's also helpful to have a very slim novel to read in these final weeks of 2014.

What I'm Reading: 'Bring Up the Bodies' by Hilary Mantel

As much as I eventually enjoyed Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, I initially struggled to get into it, and so I didn't want to wait too long after finishing it before starting in with the sequel Bring Up the Bodies. In many ways I've found it easier and more enjoyable, likely because I've already put the work into the first volume; it's also a slimmer novel and so much of the world has already been "built," so it's very easy to immediately immerse yourself in the unfolding story.  The fact that I already know everything that's going to happen in no way impedes the drama  of it, and I'll use this opportunity yet again to encourage everyone to persevere through this series, which is so rich and rewarding.

What I'm Reading: 'Teaching a Stone to Talk' by Annie Dillard

Full disclosure: I'm reading Teaching a Stone to Talk for something like the tenth time. It is simultaneously one of the shortest and most complex books I've ever read, which is why I dust it off at least once a year. It started in high school with one of the most frustratingly amusing and difficult reading assignments of all time, which ended with our entire class yelling over each other about weasels and ghosts and Annie Dillard's incomprehensible imagery. Needless to say, this is not, in my opinion, an ideal title for inspiring interest in non-fiction among 17-year-olds.

But that isn't to say I didn't learn to love it eventually, and I enjoy and anticipate the experience of revisiting it every year.

What I'm Reading: 'The Lover' by Marguerite Duras

Everything I had heard about this book suggested that it would be racy but it was pretty tame, and I think that speaks more to the style of the prose than the actual content. Duras' descriptions are so aloof and although the narrator is looking back on her youth and coming of age, there is no sense of nostalgia or sentimentality. 

I wish I had read The Lover back when I was reading Graham Green's The Quiet American, a book I absolutely loved, and which is possibly my favorite Graham Greene novel, which is saying something. The make the perfect pairing, two sides to the same colonial Vietnamese coin. Both are also really slim and concise and could be read back-to-back in a matter of days.

What I'm Reading: 'A Thousand Acres' by Jane Smiley

A Thousand Acres has been on my radar since high school when an English teacher recommended it as a companion to King Lear, as it's loosely based on the play.  I saw a really terrific production of Lear this summer at the Stratford Festival, which reminded me to check it out, so finally, over ten years later, I've gotten around to reading it.

Jane Smiley is head of the Iowa Writer's Workshop (arguably the best writing MFA program in the country) and it will probably surprise no one that most of her fiction takes place in the Great Plains. A Thousand Acres is a re-imagining of Lear in a mid-twentieth century farming community, with the family patriarch dividing his very profitable land among his three daughters at the start of the novel. The stand-in for Goneril serves as our narrator, though she is significantly more sympathetic than her literary ancestor. I'm really enjoying it so far, and the Lear connection is obvious enough but doesn't bog things down. Regardless of its source material, it is a very well-constructed novel (and a Pulitzer Prize winner).

If you've made it this far in life without having read Lear, cross that off your list first, and then dive in to A Thousand Acres, which provides a much slower, subtler, feminine perspective on the same story.

What I'm Reading: 'Changing My Mind' by Zadie Smith

I've said it before -- I prefer Zadie Smith's essays and non-fiction to her novels. The fact that anyone even needs to make the distinction is pretty significant. In other words, she is such an incredibly talented writer that she produces both fiction and non-fiction that is very much worth your time. And if I had to recommend only one Zadie Smith book to someone, it would still be White Teeth, a novel everyone should read.

Part of what attracts me to her non-fiction though, is that Zadie Smith is one of the coolest women in the literary world today. She's friends with Lena Dunham and profiles celebrities like Jay-Z, and her non-fiction reflects the reality of being a mother and an English professor in New York City so much more than her fiction does. It seems like her fiction is largely preoccupied with the world of her younger self. Zadie Smith as an adult today would never be the type of character to appear in a Zadie Smith novel, so in a way I guess I'm responding positively to her more than to her work. Either way, I'm really enjoying ambling through this book of her essays.

What I'm Reading: 'Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?' by Roz Chast

You knew I was going to read this eventually, given my big graphic novel kick and the number of awards this thing has been up for this year. Plus there's my New Yorker addiction...Roz Chast is a very funny and talented writer and cartoonist and you've almost certainly seen her work before. She recently published a one-volume graphic memoir about the death of her parents called Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? and its being long/short-listed for all the prizes.

I would call it tragicomic except that the tone can often be uncomfortably ambiguous, which is exactly what Chast wants. Her relationship with her parents was fraught with anxieties and baggage, and their slow physical and mental deterioration complicated an already tense situation. Chast is able to write about it with such grace and honesty, and her unflinching willingness to share her entire experience is really admirable.

What I'm Reading: 'Play it as it Lays' by Joan Didion

My summer of Joan Didion has turned into my autumn of Joan Didion as I tucked into Play it as it Lays, the first work of fiction of hers I've read to date. I was able to get through it in one or two sittings, which is something I really love about all her writing. The prose is sparse and the page count low, but that does not in any way diminish its impact; if anything its economy only enhances the emotional impact, especially in this case.

Play it as it Lays gave me visions of the most recent season of 'Mad Men,' with so many characters out in Los Angeles, and the action of the novel and the series are only separated by about six years. Maria is an aging-at-30 actress, a mild sociopath and a barbiturates addict, who seems to powerlessly drift from one unfortunate sexual encounter to another. Her love for her hospitalized 4-year old Kate seems to be her only purpose in life, and yet is never enough to force her to act in her own best interest, and we learn from the first page that Maria is in a neuropsychiactric hospital

I read this book immediately following a tense and disappointing visit with my own doctor, which sounds like a terrible idea, but I found it oddly cathartic. 

What I'm Reading: 'The Group' by Mary McCarthy

I am not at all embarrassed to admit that I started reading The Group because I read a Vanity Fair article on the book and its subsequent film adaptation starring Jessica Walter (Lucille Bluth of 'Arrested Development') and Candice Bergen (Murphy Brown of 'Murphy Brown' and one of my spirit animals). The sexual content was considered to be at least titillating and at most revolutionary, and even as a very jaded 21-century woman who had seen every episode of 'Sex and the City' before college, I still manage to find it entertaining, though certainly more funny than romantic.

The titular "group" is a clique of Vassar graduates coming of age in early 1930s Manhattan. They experience love, sex, marriage, babies, jobs, money troubles, and death. A highlight for me has definitely been the incredibly detailed descriptions of their contraceptive efforts, as well as their dabbling in psychoanalysis. 

Its cultural impact in 1963 can't be overstated, especially given how little of an impact it seems to have today, when most young women have never heard of The Group or Mary McCarthy, which is a shame. I think it probably suffered from being so sex-centric, and was thus seen as being kind of trashy, along the lines of other popular novels like Valley of the Dolls. There is a reference to The Group in an episode of 'Mad Men,' which is not surprising as it remained on the bestseller list for two years and would have been viewed as significant book for someone like Betty Draper, who would easily fit right in with The Group ladies. I've really been enjoying it so far, and I can't wait to finish it off so I can dive into the movie, which I have a feeling is going to be right up my alley.

What I'm Reading: 'Outlander' by Diana Gabaldon

I thought that this would be the best week to talk about Outlander since the series wrapped up its first half of season one on Saturday evening. If any of you are as swept up in the world as I am, it was a tragic day indeed. But! While you suffer until it comes back on Starz in April, you can satiate your love for the Scottish Highlands with the novels upon which the series is based (all eight of them!). 

I started the book a few weeks ago and then set it aside in favor of other things, until the series reached an impending big moment (I won't spoil it, but those of you who watch the series know what I'm talking about), which motivated me to pick the book back up again, and then I managed to voraciously consume it in a manner of weeks. It is, at its core, a book about time travel, so naturally things get a bit crazy, but Gabaldon does such an excellent job of transcending any genre that it could possibly exist in (fantasy,  historical fiction, romance, adventure). I would liken it to the Game of Thrones series in that way; i.e., it is ideal for people who never read historical fiction or romance or fantasy, myself included; unlike GoT, however, the Outlander books have been written for a female audience. so you can read them without feeling guilty and recommend them without apology. If I had a teenage daughter I would definitely try to get her hooked on them as a passive way of teaching essential feminine/ist values and sex ed.

What I'm Reading: 'Agnes Grey' by Anne Bronte

Anne Bronte is the least famous of the three literary sisters, and I would never claim that she has written anything that comes close to Jane Eyre. But that said, if Jane Eyre is your cup of tea, then Anne Bronte should be on your radar, because it is more of the same. Agnes Grey shares not only its family of authorship, but also its plot following the sober and austere trials of a poor governess. I will admit, Agnes can become tiresome. She insists on being a governess to help her family, even though they consistently remind her that it isn't necessary, so I had many moments of eye-rolling at her trials.  She's a bit preachy too, as so many heroines of her era are wont to be, but she isn't able to strike that important Jane Austen heroine balance of wit and morality. I prefer heroines who intend to do the right thing, and sometimes fail, but Agnes just keeps doing the right thing, over and over, and funnily enough, to her own detriment. I have a strong feeling she's going to marry a vicar in the end, but we'll see.

Also, yes, I've used that photo before. I recommended the Bronte sisters back in August and now I"m taking my own advice and I didn't feel the need to take a new photo of the same old book.

What I'm Reading: 'Code Name Verity' by Elizabeth Wein

Every time I write about a YA book, I begin with the caveat that I don't often read YA. Generally speaking, I still think this is true, because in the grand scheme of all my reading material, YA probably makes up less than 5%. However, I feel the need to write disproportionately about YA books for the blog because its a genre that sees far more female success than literary fiction, and I suspect that Bookhive readers, like myself, don't read much YA fiction, and thus would appreciate thoughtful recommendations from the genre.

Thus, Code Name Verity, a YA novel that greatly benefits from its context in WWII, because it avoids one of my greatest YA pet peeves, which is an inundation of pop culture references that say more about the author than about the characters (Rainbow Rowell, I'm talking to you). The novel is told through a really tightly structured narrative of written confessions by 'Verity' a British spy captured by the Nazis in France. To describe it in more detail would be to give away far too much, because it is a serious page-turner with plenty of unexpected twists and turns. This is one of those examples of a YA book seeming like more of a marketing choice than anything else, because the characters are young, but more like young adults than teens; with the strong female-driven action adventure elements though, I can see why a publisher would see it as a natural inheritor of all that Hunger Games enthusiasm, and the fact that it's historically grounded rather than dystopian makes it a refreshing addition to a blockbuster genre of the moment. I read it fully expecting to dislike it, because the premise seemed so implausible and contrived, but I was really quickly disarmed by it.

There really is something enchanting about girls  in this context, subverting all the gender expectations they were raised with, because of a national crisis. It operates in the same space as Rosie the Riveter or Agent Peggy Carter or the truly delightful Manhattan TV series, which I cannot recommend enough.