The Bookhive List: 'Moby Dick' by Herman Melville

This post was meant to happen a few weeks ago to coincide with my What I'm Reading post on Billy Budd, but somehow I got my wires crossed...I do have a life and a job outside this blog so it's going to happen sometimes. 

I have a very different appreciation of Moby Dick than your average Melville fan -- my husband and I spent our honeymoon in Nantucket which inspired me to read the book, about half before the trip and half afterward. The historical and cultural context you gain from visiting the island really enhances the book itself, particularly the chapters most people struggle with, regarding the history of whaling (shout-out to the Whaling Museum, which is WAY more awesome than it sounds).

But as a result, I also really strongly associate the novel with one of the happiest times in my life and one of the best vacations I've ever taken, so I just have warm feelings and beautiful memories associated with the novel. Besides that, it is one of the best, most intense reading experiences I've ever had. It's incredible the way a thousand-page book can manage to be so suspenseful and exciting. Everyone needs to read it in their lifetimes, and preferably read it a few times.

The Bookhive List is a weekly recommendation of my all-time favorite, must-read books

Books I Can't: 'The Story of My Life' by Helen Keller

Yikes. I wish I could explain why I read this book. Maybe because subconsciously I knew Rory Gilmore read it? Maybe because it was in my audiobook app's queue, even though I don't remember adding it? Maybe because even after it started and I realized how much I hated it, I noticed I was already halfway through, and I might as well finish it?

If you, too, are  a child of the 80s and grew up on Helen Keller jokes, skip this book. I'm not defending them, but it just makes it too difficult to take her seriously as a narrator because the book was at times so dull that old Helen Keller jokes were all I could think about. I was immensely disappointed by how uninteresting the book was, given how interesting I expected her life to be. So many of the gritty details of her learning to sign and speak and read are quickly brushed over, but she dedicated an entire chapter to a time when she accidentally plagiarized a story as a child; she writes as though it were the worst thing that ever happened to her, even worse than, oh...I don't know...GOING BLIND?! And the boringness aside, she is not a likable narrator; she sets the stage for her life story with a description of her family's Southern plantation and her constant torture of her black childhood companion who could be a character in a Harriet Beecher Stowe novel.

Books I Can't Even (apologies for the use of Internet cliches) is a recurring post on books I absolutely could not finish, usually after several attempts.

What I'm Reading: 'The Ballad of the Sad Cafe' by Carson McCullers

Summer is almost here, and for me that means reading really strange, macabre, depressing Southern Gothic literature, and The Ballad of the Sad Cafe really delivers on that premise. Carson McCullers is a very reliable writer in that way-- everyone in this novella is lonely and odd and (spoiler alert, but not really) everyone ends pretty much as sad as they began. In keeping with my reading habits lately, this has been another very satisfying, very short book.

The Better Father's Day Gift Guide

Don't waste a day of celebrating your father with garbage books like Erik Larson and Doris Kearns Goodwin. That is perhaps unnecessarily harsh -- both are great writers -- but show a little creativity this Father's Day. Every other Father's Day gift guide I've seen lists the same old sports and non-fiction stuff, which is fine and predictable and lame. Here are the superior choices to celebrate your dad:

Missoula by Jon Krakauer -- This one is actually a trick because Krakauer is totally in the realm of Erik Larson and Doris Kearns Goodwin in terms of non-fiction bestsellers, but hey, dad's love Krakauer. Plus, this one has a bit of sports and a heaping dose of feminism, so it's the perfect thing.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood -- In my own dad's words "It's one of the best books I've read...AND it's by a woman!"

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald -- I've got a longer review of this coming up, but it's a really terrific book about grief and falconry, and is totally something your dad would like, if your dad is awesome.

The White Album by Joan Didion -- Baby-boomer dad's like books about their cultural "moment" which is why every list of dad books includes some kind of rock bio, but give your dad this instead. Didion's counter-culture essays are smarter and more nuanced than anything else out there.

Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace -- Another book of essays, although these are a lot more contemporary. Dads love books upon which movies are based (Seabiscuit, Unbreakable, all the Lincoln  biographies), so buy your dad this funny, touching book and remind him about 'End of the Tour.'

The Son by Philipp Meyer -- If your dad is like my dad, or my father-in-law, he likes Westerns, even if he doesn't know it. More likely he just finds himself watching whatever is on AMC on a Saturday afternoon, and thus a lot of 'Lonesome Dove' type stuff. The Son is a really recent, really great novel, although I will admit the brutal violence was too much for me. 

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel -- If your dad dabbles in PBS programming, he probably caught at least an hour or two of the miniseries, so get him hooked on the original, which is better and less confusing; also, if he's like my grandpa, he can't figure out how to watch the rest of the episodes, so he needs to get caught up anyway.

Books About Dads...

Happy early Father's Day. I didn't bother doing a Mother's Day post this year, because aren't all books about mothers, in the end? But books about dads are harder to come by, so here is a round-up of some dad books (Note: these are books about fatherhood, but not necessarily for fathers}.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee -- Duh. But Harper Lee has really been on my mind and in the news a lot lately, so it might be time for a revisit of this one, featuring small-town lawyer/civil rights advocate dad Atticus Finch.

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman -- Featuring two dads, equally terrible: weirdly Lyra's relationship with her actual father is much better when she believes he's her uncle, and by the time she figures it out, he's abandoned her to go destroy his own (metaphorical) father, God, who is not so great either. Daddy/patriarchal issues run amok all over this series. Also, moms don't fare so well either.

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel -- Recent Tony-award winner for Best Musical and a really terrific/depressing graphic memoir about Bechdel's relationship with her father, a closeted-gay man married to a woman, who may or may not have committed suicide. 

Hard Times by Charles Dickens -- A Victorian novel in which a dad tells his kids what to do and basically ruins everything, their lives and his, and then regrets it bitterly. A real big-time bummer in the dad department.

The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx -- The story focuses on Quoyle's evolving identity as he moves to his ancestral home in Newfoundland, but I found his relationship with his two daughters to be the highlight of the book, especially because their names are Bunny and Sunshine.

Absalom, Absalom!  by William Faulkner -- In which weird, incestuous patriarchal issues abound! 

I'm noticing that these are mostlybooks about terrible fathers, which is odd because my dad is really wonderful. If you can think of any books about good dads, feel free to suggest them in the comments section.

The Bookhive List: 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn' by Betty Smith

I first read this book in late high school, as I was preparing to attend the Honors College at the University of Michigan. When I initially picked it up, I had no idea it would end with Francie moving to Ann Arbor and starting a new life as a wife and university student there, but needless to say I was delighted and it forged an immediate connection. I also credit the novel with my love for HBO's 'Boardwalk Empire,' which. while focused on Prohibition-era gangs, somehow manages to explore many of the same themes, and through the same historical context, i.e., Irish immigrants trying to make it in America during the first half of the twentieth century.

A lot of folks write it off as a young adult novel, and it's definitely something I would put into the hands of any cool adolescent girl I knew, but I've really enjoyed revisiting it as an adult. There is lyrical evidence that Jay-Z is a fan of the novel, so another ringing endorsement.

The Bookhive List is a weekly recommendation of my all-time favorite, must-read books

What I'm Reading: 'Sula' by Toni Morrison

I think this might be my favorite Toni Morrison novel now; what am I even saying? Is that crazy? The Bluest Eye is and has been and always will be really special to me, and is made all the more remarkable for being Morrison's FIRST novel (that is still shocking). But I love, love, love Sula. Female friendship has been a major theme that Morrison has explored in all of her fiction (at least all that I've read), but Sula is very squarely focused on it. Good books about female friendships are slowly coming to dominate my reading appetite (thank you, Elena Ferrante), and this has been so deliciously satisfying.

A brief word of encouragement to my male readers, of which I know there are at least three: just because a book is about female friendships doesn't mean that you won't enjoy it, and I strongly encourage everyone to read some Toni Morrison and Elena Ferrante. 

What I'm Reading: 'Billy Budd' by Herman Melville

As you'll find out later this week, Moby Dick is one of my favorite novels, and I keep trying and failing to replicate the experience with other stories by Herman Melville; it seems my time would be better spent just re-reading Moby Dick. Billy Budd is not a bad approximation in the loosest possible sense -- it is, after all, a book about sailors. But it lacks all of the metaphor and moral punch of Moby Dick, and although I love Melville's prose, it also lacks the total weirdness of Moby Dick, which is an incredibly idiosyncratic novel.

The Bookhive List: 'The Virgin Suicides' by Jeffrey Eugenides

The Virgin Suicides is extra special to me, even among the other titles on The Bookhive List. I remember really distinctly reading it on an 8th grade trip to Washington D.C., which is so completely random, but it was the best possible escape during loud bus rides. The novel came into my life when I was a very angsty teen, and that was enough of a reason to love it, but as an adult I moved to Grosse Pointe, where it takes place (although I'll clarify even though no one cares -- I live in the cooler, WASPier part of GP, not the part where Catholic girls gets sad and kill themselves and everything is a metaphor for white flight and mid-60s suburban culture and lost innocence). Now when the weather turns warm and the fish flies descend on every possible surface I start listening to the band Air again in the car and I usually pull out The Virgin Suicides for a little revisit. I never get tired of reading about my hometown, especially when the prose is so beautiful and the novel so incredibly structured. Obviously the best place to read it is poolside at the Little Club with a Bloody Mary in hand, but if that isn't possible it's acceptable to read it in a very green suburban park or in the rumpus room of a split-level ranch built in the 1950s.

The Bookhive List is a weekly recommendation of my all-time favorite, must-read books

Summer Reading...

"Summer reading" isn't really a thing for me because I read all year long and don't make much of a distinction between seasons -- I just read what I'm in the mood to read. But I will happily acknowledge that there are definitely certain books that are just more pleasurable to read at certain times of year, and I have a well-documented history of reading more Southern and L.A.-oriented authors when it's hot outside. I have no specific titles in mind this summer, but I am looking forward to reading some Faulkner this year, and he is both a Southern writer and a man (something I was not allowed to read last summer). Here are some of my recommendations for your summer reading, if you're into that kind of thing:

-The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides: There is a Bookhive List post on this forthcoming, but it's good enough to warrant multiple mentions. An especially relevant novel if your summer will involve any proximity to fish flies or dying trees.

-Anything by Joan Didion (except A Year of Magical Thinking): Her essays on the American West and late 20th century counterculture are spare, essential and sizzling. I recommend her constantly for every occasion and will continue to do so, unapologetically.

-Any of the major contemporary women writers who are writing excellent literary fiction that is often mis-characterized as women's/genre fiction: Megan Abbott, Meg Wolitzer, Sarah Waters, and Tana French, for a start.

-Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee: Not because it will be good, but because it will be the literary event of the year.

-Re:Jane by Patricia Park; I have Roxane Gay's recommendation to thank for this, but Park's debut novel is a contemporary retelling of Jane Eyre, with the protagonist as a Korean-American woman. I already got a copy of this, so expect a longer review soon.

-The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins; I haven't read this yet but it's definitely on my list, as it was recently endorsed by NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, which has never steered me wrong. It's been described as Gone Girl-esque, and it has already made a big splash this year.

-Missoula by Jon Krakauer; I love to read Krakauer in the summer, because it's very intelligent non-fiction that is actually quite easy and quick to read. Granted, this one is about rape at colleges, so not exactly light, but I also read his book on murder in the Mormon community during the summer, perched in a patio chair, so take that as you will...

-Loving Day by Mat Johnson; This was one of 2015 most anticipated works of literary fiction, and while I haven't read any of Mat Johnson's novels yet, I religiously follow him on Twitter and I try to read his essays and nonfiction online whenever I can. He is smart and funny and works issues of race and identity into his writing so seamlessly and effectively.

What I'm Reading: 'The Round House' by Louise Erdrich

I was not fully prepared for the emotional punch of the first two chapters of this novel. I knew going into it that it was the story of a Native American family dealing with the tragedy of an attack on their mother, but I wasn't really ready for the violence and trauma that ensued. That isn't to say I didn't enjoy it or that it doesn't deserve the praise heaped upon it, but many women are tired of reading/watching/hearing rape narratives, so consider yourself warned.

The story is told through the narration of the son of the woman who was attacked, which mostly functions as a brilliant storytelling method, but I couldn't shake this feeling of wanting more at times. As a reader, we never venture inside the mind of the woman who was attacked, and as a character, she gets very little development, in part because after her attack she largely shuts herself off to her husband and son. It made me feel like a piece of the story was missing, as strong as the narrative was otherwise.

This is my first experience with Erdrich, and I'm looking forward to reading her other novels. Have any of you read her books yet?

The Bookhive List: 'Sentimental Education' by Gustave Flaubert

If you love 'Les Miserables' and feel a lot of genuine emotion when you watch it, then Sentimental Education is not for you. I don't want to say it makes the French Revolution funny, exactly, but it certainly finds the humor in 19th-century France. This is the novel, after all, that brought us the fictitious painting of a train begin driven by Jesus Christ through a virgin forest, an image that has never left my mind since I first encountered the novel in an art history seminar in college. If you are even remotely interested in 19th-century French art (Monet, Manet, Degas, Cezanne, etc etc etc), then Sentimental Education is the best segue into that cultural milieu, along with the poetry of Baudelaire. On a very basic level, it's a coming-of-age novel about Frederic and his fellow would-be lawyers living in Paris; Frederic lusts after an older, married woman, and when he finally decides to do something about it, his walk to her house is interrupted by a revolution in the streets. The satire of French politics is so rich and multi-layered and the whole thing is just brilliant.

The Bookhive List is a weekly recommendation of my all-time favorite, must-read books

Big Fat Book: 'War and Peace' Week ?

I finally found myself getting back into War and Peace this past week, and I don't just mean I finally picked it up -- I mean I genuinely enjoyed what I was reading, and even got caught up in it a bit. I'm in the final stretch of 400 pages (ha), so many of the storylines are creeping toward their eventual conclusions, which is what all novels are expected to do, but in this particular case that seems like a revelation and is hugely rewarding. Princess Marya and Rostov had a "meet-cute" when he liberated her from her estate peasants, who had decided it wasn't fair for her to flee Napoleon's army while they stuck around, and I think they had a point there...but more importantly, Rostov and Marya immediately fell in (kind of) love. This was a totally unexpected turn -- I've been very distracted by the more central characters and frankly these two are my least favorite. But the fact that the sub-plots are resolving themselves gives me the momentum I need, which I appreciate.

May's Attempt at Poetry: Walt Whitman

April's poetry attempt, Emily Dickinson, fell by the wayside as I was very distracted by warm weather and gardening in May and couldn't get myself into the right mood for her angsty poetry. So instead I went with Walt Whitman, whose Leaves of Grass I had to read in school, but whose work I have never attempted as an adult. I'd still like to find the time to re-read Leaves of Grass, but this month I focused on Song of Myself and some later poems. I still don't feel like I have much of a grasp on him as an author because he was a novelist, essayist, and journalist, as well as a poet. Even if my exploration of his work is comparatively shallow, I did really enjoy what I read this month, possibly more than any other volume of poetry I've read so far this year...

What I'm Reading: 'The Brothers' by Masha Gessen

Masha Gessen is woefully underrated and is one of the most important journalists working today. And if Russia's track-record with journalists critical of the Putin regime are any indication, she is an incredibly brave woman who risks her life in order to report. She is uniquely positioned, as a Russian American journalist who built her career on coverage of the war in Chechnya, to write about the Tsarnaev brothers and the historical-cultural context that lead to the events of the Boston Bombing.

I consumed this book very quickly. When the Boston Bombing manhunt was playing out on television, I was at a conference for work, and my colleagues and I spent all our free time in the hotel bar, glued to the television. Once the manhunt (and the conference) were over, it was very easy to transition back to normal life and forget about the narrative we had been given. Reading The Brothers was an important reminder of the incredibly frustrating number of mistakes made by the American media in the immediate aftermath. Gessen's research serves as a much-needed reminder that there are two sides to every story, and while her sympathy for the Tsarnaevs (especially Dzhokhar) occasionally comes on too strong, her willingness to carefully examine and question the events surrounding the bombing is admirable.

I picked up her book hoping to find thoughtful answers to the many unanswered questions that remain -- including the motive for the crime, which has been short-handed as "radicalization" in a way that feels really insufficient. Instead I walked away from this book with more questions than answers, which is a frustrating experience, but it's also, at least in this case, the mark of good journalism. 

The Bookhive List: 'The Poisonwood Bible' by Barbara Kingsolver

I have already espoused my love of Barbara Kingsolver, and I have also already related the story of my 12th grade dramatic interpretation of The Poisonwood Bible, in which I played a mute girl with a limp for a class presentation. It's pretty rare that I would ever pat my younger self on the back for a good decision, but reading and loving The Poisonwood Bible is one of those instances that makes me appreciate my younger, stupider self. It's like 17-year old me gave 28-year old me a gift in the form of a well-worn, dog-earred, much beloved book that has filled a decade of my life with Barbara Kingsolver's incredible prose. The women in the novel feel so real to me, and I've read it so many times that I almost feel like another sister in their family, silently observing the unraveling.

The Bookhive List is a weekly recommendation of my all-time favorite, must-read books

Books I Can't: 'The Awakening' by Kate Chopin

As a feminist, I am supposed to appreciate The Awakening, a novella about protagonist Edna Pontellier's earnest desire for a life independent of her husband and children and the responsibilities and social constrictions associated with being a wife and mother. But I do not.

I love reading about women who completely defy societal expectations, but I absolutely hate reading about women who conform and then change their minds after they've gotten married and given birth. It is shitty to abandon your children and ignore your responsibility to them -- this applies to both mothers and fathers in equal measure. Edna does not have to be a likable character in order to be a compelling heroine, but I don't even find her mildly interesting. Her inner life seems utterly preoccupied by very minute, almost petty concerns that for her (or more likely Kate Chopin, her creator), symbolize some greater struggle against her husband and societal expectations; but for me, these fall completely flat. I'm also immensely disappointed that she makes almost no serious attempt to improve her situation -- she has some emotional and physical affairs that are ultimately not fulfilling, and she comes to the realization that there are only two roles for women in society -- wife and mother or hermit -- and decides the only thing left to do is commit suicide, which in her case feels so utterly cowardly. And from a literary standpoint, the book ends when it could just be getting started.

It's considered an early and essential feminist text and it's incredibly short, so I guess just read it and get it over with and move on with your life, preferably with help from Virginia Woolf, my author of choice for books about women who feel isolated and struggle with identity issues.

Books I Can't Even (apologies for the use of Internet cliches) is a recurring post on books I absolutely could not finish, usually after several attempts.

What I'm Reading: 'Spinster' by Kate Bolick

At no point has this book met my expectations; when the title first came across my radar (full title, Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own ), I thought it sounded like a pseudo-feminist book about solitude and was therefore right up my alley, much in the vein of a Rebecca Solnit book. Then I saw and was horrified by the cover, which led me to believe it was some kind of humorous self-help book. I truly cannot understand what they intended with that cover -- this is not an apt comparison because a man would never write a book about being single, but if he did, there certainly wouldn't be a picture of him on the cover. And if there was a picture of him on the cover, he wouldn't be drinking tea (?) but dressed for cocktails and generally looking sassy. At this point, I decided against reading it.

But then my friend Marie (my best "girl bachelor" friend) recommended it enthusiastically, so I decided to give it a chance; I was pleased to find that it was not at all as vapid as the cover indicates it will be, but I was still a little let down in the end. As confused as I was about what this book is, the book itself seems equally confused about what it wants to be. Bolick's style is so, so writerly, and every sentence carries the weight of years of journalism and MFA training. The resulting prose is stilted and heavy. The book is actually structured around five particular single women/writers who had a profound influence on Bolick's life, and yet these five women are not in any way acknowledged until you really dig in to the text. Bolick has an infuriating habit of assuming the reader knows enough about the women (such as Edna St. Vincent Millay) so she can skip over a lot of the broad strokes biographical stuff, but the result is minute details and constant diversions from her own life to theirs and yet I found myself absorbing absolutely nothing about these women or their writing. The whole experience was so uneven and I desperately wished she would've focused on either herself or a more universal concept of spinsterhood instead of trying to bring it all together.