Julia
The short story: DO NOT read this book if you don't want to feel horrifically guilty about eating animals. DO read this book if you want to understand why a celebrity author death match between JSF and Michael Pollan would be epic in the way that would blow UFC title matches out of the water.
The longer story: The three stars are for the book itself (which I thought was good, but not remarkably well-written), not the book's effect on me (it's more of a five-star book in that regard). Anyway, ::obligatory and self-indulgent whining about how grad school really interferes with reading for fun::, so at some point, I put this book down when I felt like Safran Foer was being really preachy (although lord knows he can do no sin when writing novels!), and then didn't return to it for a month or two. I'm not sure whether to attribute my hiatus to needing something lighter to read, or to JSF needing to get to the goddamn point. Either way, once he got there, he convinced me not to eat chicken again, and to contemplate total vegetarianism as well. That's not the hugest leap for me, given that I stopped eating red meat & pork in the third or fourth grade, but it's a leap nonetheless. Every liberal-minded person I know knows that factory farming is an abomination, but very few people I know have actually changed their eating behaviors based on that knowledge, and I'm tired of not being one of the very few (although hopefully not “very few” forever, or even for very long). I guess it's kind of nice when reading inspires change. And props to my roommate for setting an excellent example in both the reading of this book and her switch to vegetarianism.
A favorite quote: “It shouldn't be the consumer's responsibility to figure out what's cruel and what's kind, what's environmentally destructive and what's sustainable. Cruel and destructive food products should be made illegal. We don't need the option of buying children's toys made with lead paint, or aerosols with chlorofluorocarbons, or medicines with unlabelled side effects. And we don't need the option of buying factory-farmed animals.”
I definitely originally read this book on a beach trip with a friend while a teenager, so this had the glow of nostalgia for me, calling my name from the cart outside a used bookstore. It's certainly very readable (took me less than a day), and has a few things going for it: I think the third-person narration of multiple characters could have felt choppy, but was more successful than I would have anticipated. I also find the pearl-clutching in goodreads reviews about how the sexuality of teenage girls is portrayed pretty funny - I think Blume is particularly gifted at capturing the hormonal cyclone (for both genders!) of adolescence, and there were many parts of the intensity of teenage crushes and unfocused-yet-persistent drumbeat of sexual energy that rang exquisitely true to my own experience. There's also some compelling observations about typically unspoken socioeconomic differences that I definitely missed as a teenaged reader. What didn't feel particularly enjoyable overall, however, is that although the characters all make complicated and interesting moral choices, Blume doesn't really provide them adequate interiority for the reader to see how each of the characters grapple with and/or avoid feelings related to those choices. This is particularly true because there's no narration for one of the two “summer sisters” (the one who isn't the protagonist), so she (and arguably the other characters as well, although to slightly lesser degrees) flattens further and further as a character as they move into adulthood. I'd summarize it in saying this is one of those 3-star reviews that feels like a 3-star when you're reading it, but doesn't leave a memorable aftertaste, so slides down into 2-star territory.
What can I say. I fell into a Lucy Maud Montgomery hole this summer. Anne of the Island will always be my favorite, but this one has a lot of funny character observations about Anne's neighbors I'd forgotten about.
Yowza! Five stars based on heat alone - I loved the chemistry between Daisy & Matthew. Their vibe was “Pride and Prejudice” without being too overtly derivative. Plus, some strong female friendships as nice adjunctive plots. Definitely made me want to read more from Kleypas.
If I think too hard about the fact that this is the first work of fiction I've finished since January, I'll get really sad. Grad school, BAH.
So instead I'll sing Marilynne Robinson's praises. I read “Gilead” in 2007, and some of the same characters from the town of Gilead reappear here, in this retelling of the story of the prodigal son. Robinson has a real knack for writing about faith without being either cheesy or preachy, and gives a simultaneously delicate yet incisive voice to family dynamics–present, past, and our memories of both, even as the present unfolds and the past is dredged up. She is one of those novelists who I will always want to read what she has thought fit to write.
I always feel silly writing a review for something that won a major award (like, you know, a Pulitzer). This novel is fantastic, obviously. I think it speaks eloquently, bravely, and humorously to the messiness of moral injury in the course and aftermath of war and geopolitics, while managing to steer clear of moralizing. The narrator is one of my favorites in literature, I think; if it weren't enabling his alcoholism, I'd want to have a drink with him.
I picked this up at a lending library kind of surprised I've never read it before it turned out that Ephron's vinaigrette recipe from this little book still has power over people. Caveat to this is that parts have aged POORLY (along with many, many, many other things that have aged poorly): for example, I don't think I realized that Ephron was privileged enough that her life included multiple domestic workers, etc. Obviously, it's very, very funny. Ephron's zest for life, even when things are going very poorly, is omnipresent, and her humor is multipurpose in a really excellent way: at times totally avoidant and at times instead deepening the pathos of whatever she is joking about. Finally, Carl Bernstein is an idiot. Maybe he and Ephron shouldn't have stayed married, but GEEZ was he an emotional fuckwit to her.
I read the Wallflowers series out of order, so it's hard to know for sure, but I think this might have been my favorite had I not read “Scandal in Spring” first. It's at least pretty close. Definitely 5/5 stars for the sex scenes! I also appreciated that both the protagonist and her love interest have considerable character growth/development, and a subplot involving an inherited gambling house created some sustained non-sexy interest. I'm sure there's some folks who can't forgive Sebastian St. Vincent his crimes from “It Happened One Autumn,” but I must have been in a redemptive mood. Overall, I'm glad I found this series! The plots have a predictable structure for each book, so that felt a little tired by the end, but I appreciate Kleypas' creation of genuine female friendships sustained across the series.
This was...fine. Except the hero is obnoxiously domineering for the first half of the book. 2.5 stars might be more accurate, because there are some romance novels I've picked up and then been completely turned off to reading anymore by that author, but I wouldn't write the other 2 in this series off my list. I just don't know that I'd go seek them out.
I like Ehrenreich. She can seem cynical, but I really think she's not a killjoy at heart. She's an optimist of the best kind, who thinks that things can get better, but aren't going to on their own, so we might as well take a good, hard look at what's going wrong. So, if you're curious to find out what pastors of megachurches, the inane author of “The Secret,” positive psychologists, and Wall Street have in common (or if you're just in the mood for a well-written, timely, and not-too-long work of non-fiction), definitely check this out. Ehrenreich is mordant and sly at her best, which is often, but only when people deserve it (ahem, Martin Seligman).
OMG, this was several orders of magnitude better than my last venture in old romance novels from the Pacific Beach, WA lending library! I learned about pagan sheela na gigs (worth the Wikipedia read), the relationship was pleasantly egalitarian despite the Regency time period, and the protagonist and her beloved had both hot sex and witty repartee. Exactly what you want in a beach read!
Best novel I've read in a while; the kind of book I was sad to stop reading. It's been on my mental “to read” list since The New Yorker profile a bit ago on Mantel (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/10/15/121015fa_fact_macfarquhar), and I found that the actual novel exceeded my expectations. Simply enthralling.
It wasn't until the end that I realized that part of my great affinity to Mantel's prose is probably due to its Durrell-ian quality (although her style is in no way derivative). It struck me in particular in this quote:
“It's the living that turn and chase the dead. The long bones and skulls are tumbled from their shrouds, and words like stones are thrust into their rattling mouths: we edit their writings, we rewrite their lives.” (p. 602)
I doubt that I can say anything about this book that hasn't already been said better by others. Basically, I think this is non-fiction at its very best: a book that, in telling a story long-hidden and very much needing to be told, serves the pursuit of social justice.
Poppy Hathaway is the smartest Kleypas heroine yet, even more so than Daisy Bowman, so she's my new fave. She might also be the funniest, although I can see her younger sister Beatrix swooping in for a win in The Hathaways, #5. So I loved this one, with a hero is sort of “reformed rake” but not as stereotypically so as St. Vincent (not that I don't also love St. Vincent), and some of Kleypas' best embedded commentary on patriarchy and what it really means to respect someone's autonomy.
Holy shit. I can't, in all honesty, give this book 5 stars yet, because I feel like I've got at least two other re-readings ahead before the full force of Carson's work starts to really sink in. For now, though, all I can say is that I was slightly stunned...by the eloquence of her prose-poem form, the unpacking & reimagining & evolving of Greek myth that puts Eugenides to shame, and by her remarkable ability to surprise. Much gratitude to the friend who insisted I read it :)
Read this in its entirety on the two flights from Baton Rouge to Salt Lake City. My memory of reading Bel Canto quite a few years back is somewhat hazy, but I think it's safe to say that Patchett is a master of fantastical plots just short of magical realism. My quibble here is that the plot lines get all tied up (and you want them to–hence my reading speed), but the relationships between characters are left sort of frustratingly unresolved. Not in the sense that I want the characters to make amends and love one another, but we see the protagonist's feelings about the complex cast of others evolve only in fits and spurts throughout, and in no way that comes close to keeping pace with the Amazonian adventures. Still, certainly an enjoyable read.
Fun fact about the author: Lisa is a faculty member in my department, and in addition to being a ridiculously prolific researcher, she is an outstanding baker. (At high altitudes, no less!). This includes everything from whatever her grad students request as their special birthday treat to transgender ginger people before winter break.
Back to the book: fantastic. The moral of the story is that for decades, researchers treated a large segment of women as “noise” in their sexuality work: the women who identified as bisexual, the women who changed their self-identified orientation, the women who identified in a way that didn't match their behavior, etc. They didn't fit in neat boxes. Lisa, through a 10-year+ study of 100 such women, argues that these women don't fit in neat boxes because our boxes are a combination of male-centered theories about sexuality, and reductive notions about what orientation really means. In fact, the better and more sensitive research shows that such women are actually far more “normal” than we ever anticipated, and that female sexuality is quite nuanced, and still not well-understood.
One of the things that I think she handles most deftly is the inconvenient fact that more complicated understandings of sexuality generally do not lend themselves to easy advocacy for same-sex civil rights in this intolerant cultural climate. Acknowledging that sexual orientation, especially for women, involves a very complex interplay of genetic and environmental factors that span the entirety of women's lives means we can't necessarily continue to argue with statements like “Lesbians were born that way.” But Lisa points out, I think quite rightly so, that failing to do the necessary research to better understand how women develop their sexual identities is, in the end, far worse.
Her research is impeccable, and it's a real treat to get to hear the stories of many of the women she has followed, and is continuing to follow. Read if you're in the mood for something equally educational & fascinating.
The three stars are because I experience a distinctly unpleasant tension associated with feeling uncertain as to whether the author will kill off one of the main protagonists by the time all is said and done. (I know, I know–it's YA. Still, Suzanne Collins is a harsh literary mistress). Less pleasant, but no less urgent, is my current need to KNOW HOW IT ALL ENDS. I'm mostly through “Mockingjay,” so I suppose tension of any sort will soon be relieved. Small comfort, I suppose :P
Brisk and sexy! I have stuff to say about the series thus far that I'll add to the review of Wallflowers #2 I'm about to write, but this book has its specific charms. Probably at the top of the list is that because it's the start of the quartet, it's got the most about the development of the female friendships, which I like. There's an entrapment subplot that doesn't feel totally consistent with the heroine Annabelle's character, but then again, she looks with pretty clear eyes at the reality of being a English woman in her social class at this point in history. Also, as my goodreads makes clear, I've been reading lots of romance, and Kleypas writes the best sex scenes of any I've read. Carry on!
Yalom came into my life just as I started serving as the sole therapist for two groups of child sex offenders. To put it mildly, some sage advice on being a group therapist was sorely needed. This volume is a must-read (yes, all bajillion pages of it) for anyone doing group work, which is the majority of folks in doctoral psychology programs. Yalom's tone is approachable, his sense of humor much appreciated, and his clinical wisdom boundless. I tend to think of books this hefty as in need of good editing, but in this case, there's just a lot to be said on an endlessly interesting subject.
For me, rating and describing this book are both silly endeavors (as Machado De Oliveira might say, I can see my own cuteness and patheticness in any urge to do so), especially given how clearly she explicates how thoroughly modernity's “wording the world” impacts our ontology and epistemology, forestalling our ability to imagine other ways of being, let alone solutions to our current issues. Machado De Oliveira's work is invaluable, necessary (but I think she would be the first to argue also insufficient), and searing. I finished this yesterday, have already re-read some, and am sure I will continue to do so. I would recommend sitting and struggling with this book (while also being bedazzled by it!) for anyone wondering what the future might hold, and what part(s) we may or may not play in that future.
The only reason I'm not giving this book more stars is that straight-up evolutionary theory is not, in my opinion, the most scintillating thing to read ever. That said, Wrangham has written an excellent and provocative book. Basically, his (apparently radical, although I don't know enough mainstream evolutionary theory to know) theory is that learning to cook, thereby getting more nutritional value out of food for a lowered digestive cost, is what spurred the evolutionary churning that made humans out of apes. He employs tons of evidence, all fascinating. There are a lot of interesting side stories to this: how raw food diets are bullshit, because the energy costs of digesting that stuff alone are so high, how nutritional science doesn't actually give us accurate calorie counts because of how complicated our digestive processes are, and finally (I think most importantly), how cooking caused patriarchy:
“The idea that cooking led to our pair-bonds suggests a worldwide irony. Cooking brought huge nutritional benefits. But for women, the adoption of cooking has also led to a major increase in their vulnerability to male authority. Men were the greater beneficiaries. Cooking freed women's time and fed their children, but it also trapped women into a newly subservient role enforced by male-dominated culture. Cooking created and perpetuated a novel system of male cultural superiority. It is not a pretty picture.”
No kidding. Fuck that noise!
You may or may not know this about me: I adore the national park system. Have been to many of them. Love nature, love hiking, love that we preserve nature for hiking, etc. And that is why I love Edward Abbey. The American west is a strange place. Southern Utah, in particular, looks almost martian in many regards. It is beautiful and hostile in equal parts, and to capture the sublimity of the desert in writing is, I think, an astonishing gift. This book is often straight from Abbey's diaries during his time as a renegade park ranger at Arches, when Arches was just a national monument instead of the park it is today, and HOT DAMN, does he do the area justice. He also mixes in a fair bit of anarchist get-the-fuck-out-of-your-godforsaken-cars-and-walk ranting that really resonates with me. It's sometimes a relief to know that things he strongly advocated for (disallowing camping in Arches, because of how easily sandstone erodes) have come to pass, and sometimes disheartening that other things have gotten worse (I've been stuck in a bona fide traffic jam in Yellowstone, for example). Regardless, southern Utah couldn't have asked for a more eloquent spokesperson. If you haven't seen any scenery so beautiful it stuns you silent, fly out here, I will drive your ass to Moab, and buy you your very own copy of this book.
I'm a long-time fan of Casey's extremely funny and incisive writing and cultural commentary (her “She's a Beast” newsletter is a genuine treasure that I highly recommend), and I used Liftoff as a starting point to resume weightlifting. I'm in somewhat unique circumstances: rural area with no gym closer than 45 minutes, and currently in a 31' travel trailer with no room for a barbell. But! Casey's encouraging focus on the well-established basics of how to get stronger and ability to hilariously lambaste diet culture/hustle culture/capitalism/patriarchy bullshit made me feel confident enough to adapt her program for my purposes with an adjustable kettlebell. Unsurprisingly, I'm stronger again! And happy about it! I actually need to get a second kettlebell, yeehaw. Liftoff would be great for someone totally new to lifting, someone who wants a refreshing refresher of the basics, and everyone in between.