I have very little patience for Jennifer Weiner. I have never read a novel by her; I have no plans to. Nothing about her books is appealing to me-- the covers (legs and shoes, mostly), the titles (“Good in Bed”? Blech!), the blurbs (“Allison Weiss got her happy ending—a handsome husband, an adorable little girl, a job she loves, and a big house in the suburbs. But when she’s in the pediatrician’s office with her daughter and a magazine flips open to a quiz about addiction, she starts to wonder whether her use of prescription pills is becoming a problem.” Yes, that is real), the genre (chick lit, “slumber party fiction”). But that said, I was perfectly content to leave her be; obviously someone buys her books, because she’s one of the best-selling authors in the English language, and you can’t visit an airport without seeing dozens of those leg-and-shoe covers staring back at you. It’s not for me, but I don’t mind if it exists.
Read moreBookhive Abroad: Stratford, Ontario
I just arrived back home from a really lovely and rewarding weekend in Stratford, Ontario, home of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. The company that puts on the festival every summer is known as being one of the absolute best, second only to the Royal Shakespeare Company, and they really delivered on that promise. Ever since I moved to Michigan I had been implored by people to go check it out, but didn't get around to it until this year, 11 years into my Michigander-hood, but I was compelled by the schedule this season, which included "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "King Lear." Two very different plays, and two very different interpretations, but both were excellent and made for a really enjoyable weekend. The beautiful sunny weather, the delicious poutine, and the lovely public gardens surrounding Lake Victoria rounded out an excellent trip, and the fact that it was a roadtrip with good friends only helped.
Obviously the highlights of the trip were the incredible performances, but what really made it special were the small, unexpected details, like our discovery of Canada's Balzac Cafe, a small chain of gorgeously-appointed cafes in Eastern Canada. Besides the obvious literary reference in their very name, they actually brew and sell a special Canadian blend called "Atwood Blend," named for Canada's literary treasure and my special obsession. Naturally I got it in au lait form, and took home a freshly ground bag as a souvenir. There is a great cartoon of Margaret Atwood along the side panel, which unfortunately did not photograph well, but the blend is heartily endorsed by the authoress, and proceeds from sales of it go towards Canadian birds and wildlife, hence the beautiful Audubon-esque packaging. The flavor is light and citrusy, and not at all what I would've imagined if I had tried to design a coffee inspired by Margaret Atwood.
Stratford will always hold a place in my heart now and forever because it has no fewer than THREE bookshops on one block, and I visited all of them. I was especially excited to find a pocket edition of "Notes on King Lear," which I bored everyone with over breakfast. I am already anxious to plan a return trip next year.
What I'm Reading: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Reading this novel has been an exhausting, draining experience. It very slowly sneaks up on you and then punches you in the stomach, metaphorically speaking. I found myself growing increasingly tense the longer I read, until I finally reached an important moment in the plot and burst into nervous, exhausted tears. That makes it sound like a really awful experience, but it was so beautiful and spare and lovely and heartbreaking, I couldn't recommend it highly enough.
Read moreThis Week in Books: David Sedaris,
David Sedaris got addicted to FitBit and wrote about it for the New Yorker. I'm not sure what more background information you need to want to read this...
Flavorwire gave a run-down of 2014's best fiction thus far. Some of their picks are surprising, as are some of the titles they left off, but I love them for their book coverage, and it's worth checking out as always.
The Atlantic has an excellent piece on Lydia Davis that includes her own commentary on some early stories. I love her work and I'm still trudging my way through the Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, and her recently published volume is very much on my radar. I'm also happy to report that I got my mom into Lydia Davis as well, so I'm doing my part.
#ReadWomen2014: Edith Wharton
I think Edith Wharton is one of the most under-rated female authors. Yes, she is a bit well-known and some of her novels appear on AP reading lists, but most people manage to get through high school and college without ever having read her work, and if The House of Mirth were a Henry James novel (which it kinda could be), it would be put up on a higher pedestal. I don't know what it is about Edith Wharton -- maybe because her novels are about the American upper classes, or maybe because she was herself an extraordinarily wealthy and independent woman, no one takes her as seriously as an author who struggled a bit more? Wharton was widely celebrated in her own time, but her work seems to have fallen out of favor over other American women writers of the same era who were more concerned with class struggle, racism, and the immigrant experience (Willa Cather, for example). If nothing else, she should be lauded as the proof of concept for Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own; as an independently wealthy woman with few domestic concerns, Wharton was a very productive and successful writer.
Read more#ReadWomen2014: Mid-Year Review
I am now six months in to my #ReadWomen2014 committment, and it seems only appropriate to take a moment to reflect on how my endeavor is progressing so far. I had a few goals in mind when I took up the task of exclusively reading books by women this year; I wanted to expose myself to far more books by women of color; I wanted to catch up on the contemporary literary fiction by women that I kept hearing about but hadn't read; and finally, I wanted to read some of the most noteworthy works of feminist literature/non-fiction, because it seemed in keeping with the spirit of the undertaking.
Read more#ReadWomen2014 Non-Fiction: 'The End of Men' by Hanna Rosin
This book gets a pretty sweet shout-out in the new season of 'Orange is the New Black,' which I enjoyed immensely (the new season and the Hanna Rosin shout-out). Not surprisingly, Mr. Healy's summary is woefully and hilariously inaccurate, but the joke does point out that the book has a very unnecessarily inflammatory headline, and in this day and age, it comes across as the book equivalent of click bait.
I urge you to look past the incredibly awful title and try to enjoy and appreciate Rosin's well-researched presentation of contemporary gender dynamics and her very insightful analysis. Each chapter includes both the kind of anecdotal/narrative evidence you should grow to expect from a talented journalist over at The Atlantic, as well as a clear and occasionally dry presentation of statistical data. The book is largely concerned with the disproportionate number of women obtaining college degrees and gainful employment, and I think it would be particularly interesting when read in tandem with Jimmy Carter's new book on women's issues A Call to Action. Rosin presents the reader with all the manifold ways in which women are higher achieving than their male counterparts, while Carter focuses on all the ways women continue to be oppressed, including the educated and employed first-world women Rosin is concerned with.
What I'm Reading: 'The Flamethrowers' by Rachel Kushner
I have a confession to make-- I'm not reading this right now. I finished a looong time ago, but I definitely forgot to write about it, and it is such a great summertime read, that I would be the worst book blogger if I neglected to mention it. The Flamethrowers garnered a considerable amount of hype last year when it was released, probably 80% of it deserved. It was hailed as some sort of watershed moment for young female authors, but in my opinion, anyone who forced that kind of symbolism and meaning on it hasn't been paying much attention to all the unbelievably talented young authoresses these days (Karen Russell, Tea Obrecht, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie {because I can't go a week without mentioning her name}, Nell Freudenberger, etc). But even so, it deserves a fair amount of hype for being a really superb novel.
Read moreThis Week in Books: Tartt vs. Art and Taiye Selasi
Where else to begin this week but with Vanity Fair's very splashy take-down of Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, "It's Tartt -- but is it Art?" Yeeesh. The author Evgenia Peretz ponders the popularity of Tartt's third novel which recently won the Pulitzer Prize amid some negative reviews by heavyweight literary critics like James Wood. I'm not really sure why this is of interest to anyone, because the reading public usually ignores critical reviews and once a book becomes sufficiently buzzworthy, it takes off. And everyone knows that sometimes awards are doled out as reparations for an author's better earlier work being ignored, which seems likely in this case. None of this changes my intention to read The Goldfinch and make my own assessment, nor does it change my love for Tartt's first novel The Secret History, which I will continue to wholeheartedly recommend.
A new blog debuted this week, which I really really adore. I have been a follower of The Terrier and Lobster page for a long time now, so I was delighted when its creator announced a new blog dedicated to books. In keeping with her style, the focus is largely on design and fashion, and is plenty whimsical.
Finally, the 2014 PEN Literary Awards shortlist has been announced, and includes one of my favorite novels of the year, Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi, as if further proof was needed of my un-erring wisdom in all things book-related.
#ReadWomen2014: Joan Didion
Joan Didion eluded me for a long time, because she, along with Joyce Carol Oates, is a hugely prolific writer in so many different genres. I'm still too scared to deal with the Oates canon, but I've finally dipped my toes in the Didion waters. I started with Slouching Towards Bethlehem, one of her collections of early essays, mostly focused on California in the 1960s. It was a nice book to pick up after finishing Against Interpretation, as it followed a very similar structure. As I mentioned in that post, I love essay collections because they allow me to dive in and out of a book so easily, and I gulped Slouching Towards Bethlehem down over the course of a long weekend.
Read moreReading List: 'The Marriage Plot' by Jeffrey Eugenides
I am a huge fan of reading lists, in all their many and varied forms. Last week's 'Books on Books' post was about one of my favorite recent novels, The Marriage Plot, which is at its core a novel about readership. Thus, the below list of titles read by protagonist Madeleine:
Read moreBooks for TV Lovers: Pretty Little Liars
Pretty Little Liars is one of the most literature allusion-laden shows on TV right now, and much like Lost before it, the references serve to enhance the show's central mystery plot line. There is no point in my trying to summarize what is going in in this show because its fifth season premiered last week and it is already so far down a ridiculous path that I wouldn't know where to begin, so I'll just say that it's the high school version of a "dead girl" show, and unlike its natural predecessors like Veronica Mars or Twin Peaks, it does not get bogged down by the central murder story in the slightest. It is extraordinarily campy, but also completely self-aware, and is just the best thing ever.
Read moreWhat I'm Reading: 'Half of a Yellow Sun' by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
I have such a crush on this book. Normally I hate it when people talk about a book's ability to grab them from the first sentence/paragraph/page/chapter, because it is so cliche and seems to miss the point of a truly excellent novel, which is the entire journey through the narrative. That said, Half of a Yellow Sun really did charm me from the very beginning through very deliberate and masterful character development. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is the type of author who makes writing seem so effortless, and a reader has to take constant pauses to marvel at her prose. And I feel I can wax poetic about Half of a Yellow Sun and it's ability to hook a reader early because I can already sense the very deliberate and effective pacing that progresses the rest of the story.
Read moreThis Week in Books: Hillary Clinton, Kindle Data, and Jane Eyre
It's Hillary Clinton week! I haven't finished her new memoir yet, but you can expect a full report when I do, and in the meantime, check out this NYTBR by Michiko Kakutani and then laugh aloud while you read the New Republic's non-sensical companion piece. I cannot tell if either of these people actually the book or not, so I'll be making up my own mind, thankyouverymuch.
I am not a Kindle user currently; I'm not against them, but I am both an avid book collector and a super library user, so I'm not sure yet how a Kindle would fit into my literary life BUT! that doesn't mean that I didn't find this really interesting/ mostly disheartening. Everyone needs to spend more time reading and/or highlighting modern novels, I guess.
The terrific Christy Childers, creator of Postcards to Authors (which you should be following) wrote a really nice blog post about her personal connections to Jane Eyre, as something of a response to Rebecca Mead's My Life in Middlemarch. I especially love this as someone who has also re-read Jane Eyre multiple times.
Finally, Mindy Kaling has announced her follow-up to the hugely successful Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) which I loved. Her announcement is surprisingly frank and detailed, and includes a strong hint that her feelings on the Elle cover controversy will be included.
#ReadWomen2014: Virginia Woolf
This week's #ReadWomen2014 author recommendation is going old school. Virginia Woolf is the O.G. advocate of women in literature-- she read plenty of women authors and was a notable appreciator of George Eliot before it was cool; she delivered a lecture on why there aren't more women writers historically, which was subsequently turned into the excellent little volume known as A Room of One's Own; perhaps most importantly, she was a critically-acclaimed novelist herself, which only served to legitimate her opinions even further.
Read moreA Few Thoughts on YA Literature...
Last week, Ruth Graham over at Slate wrote the ultimate literary click-bait article, complete with inflammatory headline, "Against YA: Read whatever you want. But you should feel embarrassed when what you're reading was written for children." Read it if you dare; I especially like the parts where she confuses children with teens (i.e. The Hunger Games Trilogy is decidedly not for children), and when she blames adult consumption of YA literature on millenials, because their young adulthood extends into the 30s. The timing was either deliberate or fortuitous, as the article dropped amid the week-long "Fault in Our Stars" movie premier hoopla. Naturally, bloggers and writers from NPR, NPR again, the Atlantic, the Hairpin, etc. etc responded mostly in the form of strong disagreement.
Read moreBooks on Books: 'The Marriage Plot' by Jeffrey Eugenides
On its surface, The Marriage Plot is a novel about romance and in particular a love triangle between protagonists Madeleine, Leonard and Mitchell. The marriage plot (see: most Victorian literature written by and for women) drives the action in a very literal and figurative sense, allowing Eugenides to play with the romantic tropes of literature that feel so second-nature to readers. I would argue that the real romance, however, is between Madeleine (who, let's face it, is the real protagonist, even though the men's perspectives are represented), and literature. Without spoiling anything, the romantic plotlines have their ups and down, but Madeleine's deep connection to fiction is constant. When her life lacks direction, Jane Austen gets her back on course, but not in the way one would expect.
Read more#ReadWomen2014 Non-Fiction: 'A Call to Action' by Jimmy Carter
Obviously, the message behind #ReadWomen2014 is that women authors have been largely neglected, which is why the hashtag is used exclusively in reference to female authors. Just this once, however, I’m going to advocate a book about women by a male author-- not just any male author, but former US president, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and prolific author Jimmy Carter. Yes, he is a man, but the sole focus of the book is on the deplorable conditions in which women are expected to live and operate around the world, with particular focus on the role world religions have played in this oppression. And really, male authors still only make up about 10% of the books I recommend, so I feel okay letting this one slide.
Is it completely terrible to admit that this book initially caught my eye (at Literati in Ann Arbor, Michigan, an all-time favorite book store of mine) because of its gorgeous, sumptuous blue cover? If you, like me, have a tendency to fetishize books as physical objects, this book’s aesthetic powers alone make it worth buying. When I read the title (in embossed gold!) I knew I had to have it. In some ways it reads like a long list of transgressions against women, so I had to pace myself through the chapters. I really appreciated the way global issues were seamlessly woven in with more national and local issues that have been getting a lot of media coverage lately, including the Stubenville rape case. I highly doubt that the book will turn out to be as influential as it should be, but at the very least I so appreciate a man with incredible reach and power aligning himself with women’s issues.
What I'm Reading: 'Against Interpretation' by Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag is a giantess of American letters and culture. I can't remember a specific moment when I became aware of her-- it feels like I've been peripherally aware of her my whole life. When I was a kid I definitely got Fran Lebowitz, Susan Sontag, Annie Liebovitz and Patti Smith confused. In my defense, they were/are stylish and avant garde tomboys and creatives, which was everything I aspired to, so they existed in an abstract intellectual feminine pantheon.
Read moreThis Week in Books: Aronofsky and Atwood, BEA 2014
HBO has been on a long adaptation rights tear, and the latest addition to their stable of literary source material is Margaret Atwood's Maddaddam trilogy. Unlike so many of their other exciting literary adaptation projects that are currently languishing in HBO purgatory, this one has a director attached: Darren Aronofsky.
The annual literary issue of the New Yorker is out, and includes some really stellar fiction, with contributions by the likes of Alison Bechdel, Rachel Kushner, Karen Russell, Miranda July, and Haruki Murakami, along with a great Talk of the Town piece on the #YesAllWomen movement by Rebecca Mead. Interestingly, it looks like the fiction this year is dominated by female contributors. There is also a long profile on John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars, for those of you who, like me, don't keep up on YA fiction.
Finally, BookExpo America was last week. The biggest news story to come out of the event was widespread criticism of the lack of diversity among panelists. For anyone interested in everything else that happened at BEA, here is a very nice round-up of summaries and blog posts, mostly written by librarians and book bloggers.