I Remember November

 Since this post is a little late, it's going to have that hurried feel. Once I recall my reading adventures in November, then it'll be time to recount December's reads, then do a look back at 2024. I set my goal at 63, and I'm just barely going to make it to that number. I know exactly why, and I'll fix it in 2025.

Nonfiction November was fun, and here are the four books I read:

World of Glass: The Art of Dale Chihuly - Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan. Nonfiction. One of the most enjoyable parts of my trip to Seattle in 2019 was a visit to Chihuly's museum. This book, from the juvenile shelf, traces Dale Chihuly's life and career as a glassblower. Stunning photographs and great interviews with Chihuly and his co-creators. In the picture above, my son is standing against the leg of what I think of as a big red bug.

A King's Ransom - Sharon Kay Penman. Novel.  Audiobook. The final book in Penman's Plantagenet series. This covers Richard the Lionheart's final years, from his departure from The Holy Land, to his capture and imprisonment in Germany, and his last years in France, trying to protect his vast territory from the French king, I'm reading this series all out of order. Next up is book #3, The Devil's Brood, and then I'll wrap things up with #4, Lionheart. While Penman's storytelling is riveting and unmatched, just as entertaining are the afterwards to her books, in which she scrupulously explains what she found in research and what she was compelled to invent. She writes with such rigor, like an accountant looking for a penny, or like the lawyer she once was, preparing a brief. 2024 brought me a lot of reading riches, and at the top of the list is Sharon Kay Penman.

A Woman's View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women 1930-1960 - Jeanine Basinger. Nonfiction,  In this 1993 volume of movie history, Basinger looks at "Women's Pictures", which are films featuring a strong female character who can be good, selfless and noble or bad, selfish, and nasty. Basinger critically appraises how the films are put together and how the script always seem to have a message or moral for the female audience. For example, a successful career woman can't seem to have it all, meaning love and marriage. No, she must give up everything for love, or she's a failure. Things like that. When Basinger finds an exception to the rule, she gleefully pounces on it. I got a lot of ideas for classic movies to watch this winter.

The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum - Temple Grandin. Nonfiction, Audiobook. When Temple Grandin as a very young child was diagnosed as autistic in the late 1940s, knowledge about the condition was in its infancy, and fated to go through some serious missteps, like the belief that autism is psychological, and that it was the "fault" of cold, uncaring parents, particularly mothers. In the decades since, researchers have come to realize that it's more about the brain. As technology has also advanced, Grandin, a scientist, has gamely and cheerfully taken part in several brain scans, measuring them against so-called "normal" brains. In a huge paradigm shift for the field, she cites a researcher in Quebec who challenged other researchers to not frame differences as deficits, but instead assets. Grandin ends the book by challenging parents to study their autistic child from early on to determine where their strengths lie, and prepare them for a career that fits these strengths, instead of letting them drift along defined solely by the label of autistic. Grandin is an admirable blend of idealistic and common sense. She's my new favorite author, and I'm already halfway through her book Animals Make Us Human.

In book group land:  For December, our topic is Willa Cather. I'm going to re-read Paul's Case, one of her short stories, watch the 1980 PBS version starring Eric Roberts as Paul, and read One of Ours.

October's Tiny List

The list is tiny, but two of these three were chunky tomes.

 1. What is the Story of Smokey the Bear? -Steve Korte-  Nonfiction. A laborious look at a long-lived American icon.

2. Time and Chance -Sharon Kay Penman- Novel. The second installment in the Plantagenet series covers the early days of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine's marriage as well as his bromance then fractured relationship with Thomas Becket as Becket moved from being Lord Chancellor to, at Henry's urging, Archbishop of Canterbury. The job switch backfired on Henry because instead of having a yes man in the church, Becket had a conversion and began to take his religious role seriously. Again, impeccable research combined with spellbinding storytelling. It's a huge cast of characters and Penman brings them all to life. Next up: The Devil's Brood, which covers the lives of Henry and Eleanor's children as well as Eleanor and Henry's growing disillusionment with one another.

3. Leave Her to Heaven -Ben Ames Williams- Novel. A bloated and overlong soapy novel from 1944 about a writer who marries a woman with severe issues concerning boundaries. Hollywood improved on the material a couple of years later with a movie of the same name. Watch that instead. It's a noir in Technicolor!  Gene Tierney is beautiful and icy and merciless, stealing the whole film from the rest of the cast until Vincent Price enters and steals it from Tierney, picking splinters of the scenery he's chewed from his teeth as he strides away.

In other news:

Still loving my book group. At the last meeting, we reported on historical fiction we had read. I talked up Sharon Kay Penman's Plantagenet series. Other books mentioned were Quiet Dell by Jayne Anne Phillips, Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker, and Sipsworth by Simon van Booy. I promptly put all of them on my TBR. For the next meeting, November 15, we will be discussing nonfiction we have been reading, and thinking up new names for the book group for a fresh reset after declaring independence from the original library program.

I'm really glad that the topic is nonfiction, because I'm doing a Nonfiction November. Here's what's on my nonfiction stack:

1. A Woman's View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women, 1930-1960. Jeanine Basinger.

2. The Noble Hustle. Colson Whitehead.

3. The Farm. Richard Rhodes.

4. Supercomminicators. Charles Duhigg.

5. Fire Lover. Joseph Wambaugh.

And finally...

Dreaming in Literature: The Weird Philip Roth Dream: 

Philip Roth came back to life and wrote a new novel. My first reaction was anxiety, because in dream-logic, I was compelled to read his book, like it or not. After picking it up and paging through, I felt better because the protagonist was female and the book was stream-of-consciousness like Ducks, Newburyport, and the main character constantly had earworms. At that point, I honestly wanted to read Roth's novel and remember feeling very tender and indulgent towards him.

September, 2024: In The Books!

 

Ten books in September! I can hardly believe it. I may make my goal of 63 books this year after all.

1. Dear Miss Kopp - Amy Stewart. Novel. This wasn't my favorite of the Kopp Sisters series, but I was glad to see unsung-but-just-as-intrepid sister Norma solving a case in World War I France. Pleased with myself for finally finishing the series. I introduced Constance, Norma and Fleurette to my new book group, and they seemed intrigued.

2. Dear Hanna - Zoje Stage. Novel. Darkly hilarious thriller. The follow-up to Stage's debut, Baby Teeth. So satisfying. I couldn't wait to read it. Now I wish I'd saved it to savor as an October read.

3. Loving Sylvia Plath: A Reclamation - Emily Van Duyne. Nonfiction. Plath scholar Van Duyne uses the latest information from letters Sylvia Plath wrote to her psychiatrist in the last months of her life, in which she confides that she had been the victim of domestic violence. Van Duyne convincingly builds the case that Ted Hughes destroyed Sylvia Plath in all ways, then, as the executor of her literary estate, set out to make her over in the image that suited him best, (which was a creepy sad-girl mythology that was meant to take the focus off of his own horribleness) while also destroying or losing her two unpublished novels and the last volume of her journals. The woman he left Plath for, Assia Wevill, also killed herself and her 4 year old daughter by Hughes, and he silenced her story, burying their ashes in an unmarked grave and forbidding anyone in his circle as well as Plath biographers from talking about her. He mythologizes Wevill as well as the dark temptress who took him from his happy home. "Hating Ted Hughes" would have been an apt title for this book as well. I know I did.

4. The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love - Oscar Hijuelos. Novel. Audiobook. I enjoyed the pulsating, jazzy rhythms of the prose, but for a book chock-full of sex, it wasn't that sexy. I watched the movie version as well. It looked great, the music was hot and so was Antonio Banderas, but it just didn't add up.

5. Who Is Billie Jean King? - Sarah Fabiny, Nonfiction. Billie Jean King was the first athlete I remember admiring. I enjoyed reading this for nostalgic reasons.

6. Who Is Lin-Manuel Miranda? - Elijah Rey-David Matos. Nonfiction. Many of the new books in the Who Was...? series seem to be getting more and more workmanlike, stolid and plodding. Lin-Manuel Miranda gave the world Hamilton. He deserves a better biography, and so do the readers.

7. American Isis: The Life and Art of Sylvia Plath - Carl Rollyson. Nonfiction. In the late 1950s, Sylvia Plath had a dream that she met Marilyn Monroe and Monroe became a confidant of sorts, offering advice and giving Sylvia a great manicure. While recounting Plath's life, Rollyson uses the dream as a springboard to constantly compare the two women, and by extension, their husbands, Ted Hughes and Arthur Miller. Rollyson has a fluid, efficient style that I enjoyed reading, but the Monroe comparisons jarred the narrative.

8. Sociopath: A Memoir - Patric Gagne, Ph.D. Nonfiction. I really didn't like this book at all. The nuanced conversations about sociopathy were too many and too long. In other places, the book was irritatingly vague. The writing style was thin, unsubstantial and belabored. It often felt like it was padded to make the book a conventional volume length. Maybe it's unreasonable, but I had expectations that a memoir called "Sociopath" would be somewhat more piercing.

9. Who Is Travis Kelce? -Ellen Labrecque. Nonfiction. What's not to like? He's a Kansas City Chief. He's Taylor's boyfriend. I may try the podcast that he does with his brother Jason.

10. Lady Oracle - Margaret Atwood. Novel. Audiobook. 1970s Atwood, pre-dystopian. Sharply comic.

BOOK GROUP UPDATE:

I love my new group. This is the format I have been craving. We had such a great time talking about historical fiction in September, that we're going to continue talking about it at the October meeting. I got lots of inspiration for my infinite TBR.

...And August, 2024

 Here's what I read in August:

1. Miss Kopp Investigates (novel) -Amy Stewart. The Great War is over, and the sisters are back home. The Miss Kopp in this book is Fleurette. She is recovering from a lengthy illness, and can't go back onstage. She finds work posing as "the other woman" in divorce cases. (Back then, there was no such thing as no-fault divorce. Someone had to accuse somebody of something, usually adultery or mental cruelty.) During such a case, Fleurette happens onto a fraud scheme and proves every bit as capable of detective work as her older sisters. Great ending to the Kopp Sisters series, if  it is indeed the end. I never stop hoping that Amy Stewart just hit pause.

2. Random Family (nonfiction) -Adrian Nicole LeBlanc. This book has been on my radar for years, and recently came to my attention again when The New York Times put it on their 100 Best Books this century. It's an ethnography. LeBlanc followed two young Puerto Rican women, Jessica and Coco, as well as their extended family, including their partners, George and Cesar, who are in prison for drugs and murder. I admire LeBlanc's ability to portray her subjects without judgement, and the scrupulous way she completely wrote herself out of the narrative. This is often hard to read, but it's worth it. A good choice by NYT.

3. Mornings on Horseback (biography) -David McCullough. Teddy Roosevelt is an iconic figure and a colorful personality that is recognizable to this day. But what and who made Theodore Roosevelt into that person? David McCullough explores Roosevelt and his siblings' early lives as well as providing fully realized portraits of his mother and father. One of the best biographies I've ever read. Highly recommended.

4. Kopp Sisters on the March (novel) -Amy Stewart. In the early  days of WWI, Constance, Norma and Fleurette are at an army camp for women. At first, the camp is a weak and tepid excuse for preparing women to participate in the war effort. Constance's background as a "lady deputy" stands her in good stead when she has to step in and serve as matron of the camp. Meanwhile, Norma is trying to get her carrier pigeon program off the ground, so to speak, and Fleurette is arranging for entertainment to keep up everyone's morale. They are also all puzzling over one of their bunkmates, "Roxy", who isn't exactly what she seems to be. Her story is told in alternate chapters, based on an actual person and case.

5. Bibliophile (nonfiction) -Jane Mount. Everything your little bookworm heart could desire is in this exquisite book: Book lists, thoughtfully divided up by genre and sometimes subgenre, lists of beautiful bookstores and stunning libraries, fun facts about authors, and it's all illustrated in gorgeous color! I must have a copy of Bibliophile for my home library. A lot of hard work and heart went into the making of this book and it shows. And glows.

Book Group News:

My new book group, The Three R's, broke off from the library program and are now meeting independently, although still at the library. A quick explanation: When the group was part of the library program, they were required to meet in the Storytime room, which ironically, has terrible acoustics. The members asked if they could move to the conference room. The program director said they couldn't, but that if they declared independence, they could reserve the conference room for meetings. So that's what happened. 

I couldn't make the last meeting, in which the topic was to read a book in which a character goes to a foreign country to live. For this month's meeting on September 20, the topic is to read an example of historical fiction. I'm going to introduce the members to the Kopp Sisters.

I wanted to tell you about my strange Philip Roth dream, but I'm going to quit while I'm ahead. I've already lost this post once, and AI has offered twice to show me how to write properly. No doubt that you can imagine what I said in reply.

July's Reading Adventure

I was almost done with this post, and I lost it. The UNDO button was unsympathetic to my plight the third time my post disappeared. I guess it's because I kept ignoring AI's offers to "help [me] write".

In the interest of getting this done ahead of the sword of Damocles that all of a sudden lurks in this computer, I'm going to just hit the high notes.

New book group: Loved it. Love the format. This is my tribe. They seem to be in some sort of transition, though. Stay tuned.

Books read this month: 3. A meager number. I'm going to have to keep a daily reading diary to see what I'm actually doing.

1. Such a Fun Age -Kiley Reid. Novel. Audiobook.

2. Who Is Michael Phelps? - Micah Hecht. Nonfiction.

3. The Overstory - Richard Powers. Novel. Audiobook.

OK. I'm going to hit Publish now, so we've at least covered this much.

I Can't Help Myself: The Book Group Chronicles

Yeah, yeah. I know what I said. Words like "no more book group". Words like "free to read what I like into eternity". 

Mmmm, words. So delicious. I'm eating them now.

Because: Guess what? I found another book group and I'm going to give it a whirl.

This time, it could work, it could really, really work. (Why do I suddenly feel like Elizabeth Taylor embarking on another marriage?)

Here's how the book group is set up: First, someone (I don't know who! The Powers That Be? The Book Gods? Nancy Pearl?) chooses an author or a genre. Then, the gentle reader/scruffy bookworm goes in search of a book that fits the parameters. Finally, a month later, GR/SB shows up to book group, and each individual presents the book they chose.

Example: This month is "Edith Wharton (Again)". (Presumably, someone in this group has a hell of a girl crush on Edith Wharton, if it's "again".  Can't wait to find out who.) But anyway! Edith Wharton! I'm a fan. Which book should I choose? Should I just go with something I've already read or strike out and read something fresh, something new to me? I can't go wrong; Wharton is always satisfactory. A little depressing, yes, but nobody does it better, to quote Carly Simon.

As you can see, I'm already in love with this book group format. No more turning pages with one hand and holding my nose with the other. Even better: Since the group meets around lunchtime, we can bring our lunches! In my previous book group, NO FOOD OR DRINK ALLOWED. I always thought it was a shame; I'm not one of those wispy, ethereal bookworms. Sometimes in books, characters eat, and when they eat, I get damned hungry. So yeah: Lunch!

This all takes place July 19. Stay tuned.

*

In other news, the bookgroupless me read 7 books in June:

 1. It Ended Badly: 13 of the Worst Breakups in History -Jennifer Wright- Nonfiction. If you're suffering from a bad breakup, or you know someone who has just had one, or if you've ever had one, you need to read this book. Jennifer Wright, covering ground from Nero to Norman Mailer will put it all in perspective for you. Your rotten ex-partner couldn't possibly be worse than Henry VIII (killing two wives) or Norman Mailer (attempted murder, laughed off). There is also a great rebound story: Effie Gray's husband, John Ruskin, was horrified by her naked and completely normal form and refused to have sex with her. She rebounded years later with a painter friend of Ruskin's and the happy couple went on to have several children. Edith Wharton's in here, too. After an unhappy and mostly unintimate marriage, she finally found a journalist who made her toes curl. Unfortunately, he was a jerk. Speaking of jerks, Lord Byron was of that variety, but his lover, Lady Caroline Lamb, stalked him unmercifully and even sent a bloody tuft of pubic hair in one of her many, many, many letters. And there was poor Oscar Wilde, going to jail because of his affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, only to have Alfred abandon him, then write self-serving crap about everything. Read it, and you'll either say, yeah, I don't have it so bad, or you'll have someone historical to compare your scummy ex-lover to, and your friends will be impressed.

2. Come and Get It - Kiley Reid - Novel. Audiobook. Agatha, a well-known author of nonfiction books signs on for a year as an author-in-residence at the University of Arkansas. Millie is a senior and a Resident Advisor at one of the dorms. Agatha starts out interviewing students about how they feel about weddings for her new book, but suddenly her focus shifts to how these same young women talk about money. After accidentally overhearing a conversation, Agatha compromises Millie's position as an RA  and her own as writer-in-residence by paying Millie to let her sit in Millie's room and eavesdrop with a tape recorder running. This novel is long on character, seemingly short on plot, but rich in awkward situations. I liked Come and Get It well enough to seek out Reid's debut novel Such A Fun Age. Nicole Lewis narrates both audiobooks and her gift for voices and accents is superb.

3. Rx -Rachel Lindsay- Graphic Memoir. Rachel was diagnosed as bipolar as a young adult, and she must stay on medication to stabilize her condition. That means that her jobs must include health insurance. She gets a good job in advertising, but finds herself developing ads for an antidepressant drug. As she becomes both the target audience and the targeter, she starts to destabilize and soon requires hospitalization. As soon as she's "better", she's expected to hop right back into this twisted cycle again, and that's when she takes a step back and scrutinizes the situation. Read this, it's good.

.IV. The Road to Oz - Kathleen Krull - Biography, picture book. L. Frank Baum was an imaginative, daydreaming child who retained those same qualities as an adult. He failed at business repeatedly, but never ran out of ideas for his next creative endeavor. Author Kathleen Krull follows Baum through his checkered careers, showing the various inspirations for what finally catapulted him into literary legend. She did a great job of bringing Baum's quirky personality to life on the page, but she would also insert these parenthetical asides that seemed to be the equivalent of eye-rolling, and that was so jarring and annoying.

V. When Christ and His Saints Slept - Sharon Kay Penman - Novel. Book 1 of 5 in Penman's Plantagenant saga. In this volume, Stephen and Maude battle for England's throne. Stephen seems to be a weak king, but the English aren't about to accept a woman ruler. Historical fiction that feels so fresh and alive. I'm working on the second book in the series now, which follows the fortunes of Maude's son Henry II and his queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine. 

6. Lost Boy -Jane Yolen- Biography, picture book. This biography of J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan was exquisite. Jane Yolen related anecdotes about Barrie's life and tied in quotes from his work.

7. Who Gets the Drumstick? -Helen Beardsley - Memoir. This memoir has an alternate title, Yours, Mine, and Ours. Two movies under that name were based on Beardsley's experience of suddenly becoming a widow with eight children and almost as suddenly, meeting and falling in love with a widower with ten children, marrying him, then having two more children. It's a charming little book with a quirky story sincerely told, but the first part gave me weird vibes. Beardsley's first husband, a Navy pilot was killed when the plane he was flying crashed. At the time, she was six months pregnant with their eighth child. After the child is born, a well-meaning nurse and her own sister seem hell-bent on pushing Helen to forget her former life and make a new one with the children, and her sister pushes her into moving from Washington to California, then immediately into dating. One of these dates leads to the father of ten, Frank Beardsley, also a Navy man. He and Helen get married fairly quickly. Here's the timeline: The first husband dies in July of 1960. Frank and Helen get married in September of 1961. There are light and humorous anecdotes throughout the book and no one could deny the strong human-interest appeal, but it feels as if there is more conceal than reveal. Everything's a little too good to be true. In spite of my reservations, I did enjoy this book.

May, 2024: Quit Book Group. Don't Care.

o

Bookworms work in mysterious ways, and one day last month, I woke up and decided that I didn't want to be in book group anymore. I didn't like that itchy feeling of having to read a book that I really didn't want to read. A book in which I didn't even want to crack the cover, not even the teeniest bit, and I damn well didn't want to sit and talk about it, nor did I want to answer inane questions about (cardboard) character motivation.

Regrets? Sadness? None so far. Instead, I have a feeling of buoyancy. I can read anything I want FOREVER.

 If I were to return to book groupdom, I would want to be in one of those new silent book clubs in which people sit around reading to themselves, then at the end of the meeting, they go around and share brief details and impressions of what they've been reading. If I liked the look of their book, I could quickly borrow it and make a note of the title, author, and some keywords that led to my attraction. So yes, I've had some pleasantly hazy reveries about this sort of book grouping, but I can't figure out why I am picturing all of us in semi-formal clothing!

...

In other news, I decided that I wanted to belong to all the libraries in the area, so I started patronizing the university library ten miles down the road. Wandering around in the stacks which seem to stretch for miles is both relaxing and exhilarating. Even better, it's free! I don't have to pay a fee to check out materials. Contrast this with an earlier attempt to join a community college library in a nearby town: 

1. No, you can't join. You don't live in our preferred counties.

2. No, you can't pay a fee to join. We just don't want your other-county ass.

3. Even if you were eligible, you still couldn't have access to all the available materials, because you aren't a student.

I know, of course, that this library has its reasons, rules, and regulations, but this Fuck You gift-wrapped in a Fuck Off stung a bit. I felt ashamed and unwashed. I felt like a bumpkin; how dare I inquire, how dare I try to walk my stinky feet through its shining portal? I slunk away, but regained my equanimity within a day: I'm not the bumpkin! They're the bumpkins! 

Everything is fine now. I joined the university library, and it's free and they sent me an email welcoming me, and you know what else? They could fit all of Bumpkin Library on one of their many floors! So there.

...

Finally, I'm going to talk about my May reading:

1. What Were the Shark Attacks of 1916? -Nico Medina. Nonfiction. These attacks are what the bestseller Jaws was based on. It seems so strange that just barely a century ago, people and even scientists knew so little about sharks.

2. What Was  the Great Molasses Flood of 1919? -Kirsten Anderson. Nonfiction. My jaw dropped so many times reading about this preventable disaster. I know that companies can be inept and unscrupulous, but this was really blatant.

3. Emma -Jane Austen. Novel. Back last century, when I took that Jane Austen class and read six novels in six weeks, I had the sense in my bruised brain at the end that Emma was my favorite of the novels. I've been going back and rereading, and so far, I'm not wrong. There's only Mansfield Park left, and that was the one I ranked at the bottom. I'm not in a tearing hurry to read it. But Emma! What a treat! Audiobook.

IV. (for some reason, the numeral four isn't working on this keyboard) The Sunne In Splendour -Sharon Kay Penman. Novel. Rich and rewarding historical fiction about Richard III and The Wars of the Roses. I've got a stack of Penman novels that should take me to the end of the year.

V. (hmm, this is interesting.) One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest -Ken Kesey. Novel. While I appreciated the novel, this is one of those cases in which the movie was better. McMurphy as a Christ-figure was too heavy-handed. Audiobook.

6. Cocktails with George and Martha: Movies, Marriage, and the Making of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? -Philip Gefter. This book seemed like one of those long New Yorker articles padded into book-length. Although it was repetitive, I enjoyed the backstage drama involved with the making of the movie, and at the end, Gefter's look at other movies about marriage that were influenced in one way or another by Who's Afraid...? I followed up this read with my own viewing of the 1966 movie, and relished it more armed with the insider knowledge and trivia Gefter's book provided.

...

Other stuff.

What I'm working on now: 

It Ended Badly: 13 of the Worst Breakups in History - Jennifer Wright. Nonfiction.

When Christ and His Saints Slept (Book 1 of the Plantagenet Saga) -Sharon Kay Penman. Novel.

Come and Get It -Kiley Reid. Novel. Audiobook.

Wishlist: The Alienist -Caleb Carr. Novel.