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 eight 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.

And That Was April, Twenty Twenty Four

Only three books read in April:

1. Crazy Rich Asians - Kevin Kwan. Novel. Audiobook. So much satire and so much fun. Alamak!

2. Who is Taylor Swift? -Kirsten Anderson. Nonfiction. OK...so this book goes from Taylor's birth in 1989 and alllll the way through 2023 and mentions almost all of her hit songs and her boyfriends. Somehow, Travis Kelce doesn't show up at all. Not even a shadowy drawing of a football player wearing a red jersey with 87 on the back. Interesting!

3. Knife -Salman Rushdie. Memoir. Rushdie writes about the 2022 knife attack in which he was stabbed 15 times and lost an eye. The book follows his recovery and reactions to the attack, including a long, imaginary dialogue with his 24-year-old assailant, who seems to have gotten the half-baked idea from watching a few YouTube videos. A year after the assault, Rushdie defiantly returns to the venue and does the reading he had prepared when calamity struck. This gives the book a nice shape, but I'm sure he is still getting over this horrific event. I admire his toughness and resolve.

 

My completed reading seems scant, but behind the scenes, I've been working on two books:

The Sunne in Splendour - Sharon Kay Penman. 1982 historical fiction about The Wars ofu the Roses, and particularly about Richard III. It's very long and just as compelling. I wonder if George R.R. Martin read it before he started the Game of Thrones series. I'm often reminded of GoT as I'm reading. After finishing The Sunne in Splendour, I plan to tackle Penman's five-book series about Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry II and their sons.

Emma - Jane Austen. Novel. I read this back in college, but I didn't really "get" Austen until many years later. I'm familiar with the "mystery" in the novel, so it's fun to search out the clues Jane Austen sprinkles in. Emma is my favorite of all her books. I still have Mansfield Park left to read, but don't know if I'm feeling that brave yet.

March Madness

Yes, it's true. I could not come up with a more clever title. There were no basketballs, polished gym floors, hoops, or three-point shots involved in the making of this post. 

Six books for the third month in a row. A respectable number.

 So much for my thinking that I could go a whole year reading nothing but nonfiction. It's just not so. I need novels. Novels need me?

 1. Lilac Girls - Martha Hall Kelly. Historical novel. Audiobook. I was almost halfway through this novel before I realized that several of these characters were actual people. Up to that point, I was quite engaged in the book, but that revelation had me sitting straight up for the rest. Caroline Ferriday is a rich New York socialite who devotes endless days to helping French refugees at the dawn of WWII. During the war, she raises funds for care packages for French orphanages. After the war, she spearheads a campaign to help women who were in German concentration camps get surgery to repair injuries inflicted on them by Nazi doctors at the camp who were bent on ghoulish experimentation. Kasia is a young Polish political prisoner. Herta is one of the Nazi doctors. Eventually, their stories intertwine. I'm really mad at myself for sidestepping this book for at least three years. It was so well done. The audiobook is incredible. Three different actors portray these women, and the one who narrated Kasia's part had me teary-eyed more than once. I admired Caroline, and despised Herta with the heat of a thousand suns. 

 2. Akin - Emma Donoghue. Novel. There are two stories here, and one gets completely overshadowed by the other. Not my favorite Donoghue novel, although when she seems to falter, she's still really good. I read this for book group.

 3. Class - Stephanie Land. Memoir. Land starts Class where her previous memoir, Maid left off, and concentrates on Land's senior year at the University of Montana, where she is pursuing a BA in Creative Writing, and is hoping to be accepted to the MFA program there. She's also still working cleaning houses and raising her kindergarten-age daughter as a single mother living below the poverty level. As graduation draws near, her life is further complicated by an unplanned pregnancy. She gets more than her share of raised eyebrows and well-meaning  but judgmental advice from classmates and faculty. And, as always, she does ongoing battle with a social services system that borders on Kafkaesque. Stephanie Land's writing is intense. One of her professors said "relentless", and I agree, but only in the best sense. What I like best about both her memoirs is that she's not afraid to portray herself as complex and contradictory. Looking forward to a third memoir.

 4. The Vaster Wilds - Lauren Groff. Historical novel. A young girl, a servant to a minister and his wife is on the run in the 1630s from the diseased and failing settlement of Jamestown. The reader is made to understand that the girl has committed some sort of crime. Her life in the wild is brutal, but through flashbacks, we see that her whole life has been difficult, and seems to have prepared her. given her the mental toughness needed for this latest hardship.

 5. The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen Age 83 1/4 - "Hendrik Groen". Novel. Audiobook. Set in The Netherlands, Hendrik and his friends, old-age pensioners in a retirement home, get tired of the tedium of the place and start the Old-But-Not-Dead Club in which each member arranges an outing per month for all of them. Hendrik also buys a motorized scooter and explores the area around the home. He is an avid reader of the news, especially when it pertains to senior citizens. His observations are concise, witty, and sometimes pretty savage. His diary follows a whole year, one of great change as he and his friends face up to their physical limitations and still have good times. Derek Jacobi as narrator was an inspired choice, although I sometimes had problems with his vocal dynamics. When Hendrik shouts, he shouts, he lets it all out, but when he was saying witty, caustic things half under his breath, I would often not catch it. When the book ended, I found myself missing these characters.

 6. The Guest - Emma Cline. Novel. After inviting her to spend the summer with him at his house in the Hamptons, Alex's much-older, rich boyfriend suddenly cuts her loose right before Labor Day, having his assistant get her a ticket back to New York City. But Alex has burned all of her bridges back in the city, and has grown accustomed to life among the rich, so she decides that no, she just won't return to NYC. Her plan is to hang around then show up at Simon's (the boyfriend) Labor Day party. By then, she hopes he will reconsider and they'll have a lovely reunion. During the five days Alex is adrift, she taps into her considerable grifting skills, then immediately embraces her genius for the bad decision. I was horrified by Alex, but enjoyed The Guest so much. Really loved the Patricia Highsmith feel of it. And OH MY GOD THAT ENDING! What happened? I went back over the last chapter a few times, looking for clues and developing theories. I'm glad I don't know for sure. I admire Emma Cline for making readers figure it out.

It Was 20 Years Ago Today: Happy Birthday, Blob!

 20 years old! Surely this is forever in blog years. 1,184 posts. 

Here's that first blog entry dated March 11, 2004. Strangely, I remembered it as being a lot more interesting:

***

I'm a sucker for a good first line, but suddenly, I've got an attack of shyness and don't know where to begin. Earlier this week on the BBC website, there was a quiz on first lines in books. I got 6 out of the 10 -- blew an easy question by over thinking it. After the quiz, people were invited to write their own first line. I'll post mine here:

"Reminiscences just aren't for me. Over the years, I've found that looking back only aggravates my whiplash."

Actually, that's true and not true. When it comes to books, I'll reminisce till the cows come home. The book is the hook that throws my past into sharp relief for me. Recite a title and I can tell you when I read it, where I lived, what was going on in my life and other increasingly useless minutiae.

I'm crazy (not an understatement) about reading, but I like any kind of interaction with books. I'm really involved with bookcrossing.com right now, and have been "releasing" my books" into the wilds" of Central Missouri.

I recently applied for a part time job at a local bookstore, but didn't get the job. After many years, the manager is probably adept at recognizing unrestrained book lust. During the interview, when she asked if (!) I liked(!) to read, my response tone was somewhat similar to the Cookie Monster's. When asked about customer service, the fervor dissipated and I was once again mild-mannered Bybee, maybe a little vague: "Oh yes, customers. Well, they're uh, important, I guess." Naturally, this translated to: I'll wait on them if I'm not in the middle of a good chapter.
But never mind the bookstore. There's also the local library. And there's my own library, which would be an impressive start to any bookstore.

***

What the what?! I talked about loving books but didn't mention a single one! I talked about Bookcrossing??????? Good God, y'all. However, that was right on about enjoying any sort of interaction with books.

If I rewrote that first entry right now, I'd cut that first part about the book quiz and writing my own first line, and start with: "The book is the hook". AND THERE WOULD BE TITLES AND AUTHORS! AND CHARACTERS!!! I would also call the blog "The Book Is The Hook".

I do remember the sting and burn of not getting that local bookstore job. Good reflection and self-awareness in recognizing where I went sideways at the interview. 

Egad, that last bit about "never mind the bookstore". Way to trail off and fade out of my first blog post.

I do hope the second post was better, but now I'm afraid to look. Instead, I'm going to catapult 20 years into the future and talk about what I read in February, 2024:

1. Friends, Lovers, and the Big, Terrible Thing (memoir) -Matthew Perry. Reading this memoir after Matthew Perry's death was an eerie experience. For those who read it before he died, it probably landed as a rueful survivor's tale, cautiously feel-good. On the other side, it reads as a stark warning, along the lines of Sir Gawain's "I know that I will not live a fortnight".

2. What Is The Story of Romeo and Juliet? (nonfiction) -Max Bisantz. Give me a break. How does a person write a 108 page book about the most famous star-crossed lovers in the world, detailing all their incarnations back to the beginning, and never once mention Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 film version? Even the 1936 version with ancient Leslie Howard and geriatric Norma Shearer playing the ill-fated teenagers got a mention. Boggles the mind. Still shaking my head. 

3.  Granny Smith Was Not An Apple (nonfiction) -Sarah Glenn Fortson. And that's right. She was Maria Ann Smith, an immigrant from England to Australia during the 19th century, who worked as an apple orchardist in both countries. She discovered an apple in Australia that was green and never turned red and was quite tart. She got to grafting, and finally produced an apple that was green but tart and sweet and perfect for pies. I thought of my book blogging friend Care while I was reading this informative and entertaining children's book.

4.  Eligible (novel) - Curtis Sittenfeld. A fun and frothy retelling of Pride and Prejudice, updated to the twenty-teens, and set in Cincinnati. I went into this one with some trepidation, but ended up liking it very much. The audiobook version read by Cassandra Clare adds to its sparkle.

5. Where the Crawdads Sing (novel) - Delia Owens. Read this one for book group. The nature writing in the novel is lovely, but the rest of it doesn't rise to that level. Skip the book and just watch the movie version, which is a bit more palatable.

6. I Must Be Dreaming (graphic novel) - Roz Chast. Since I've been keeping a dream journal off and on almost as long as I've been doing this blog,* I actively sought out Roz Chast's latest book about her dreams. To my surprise, we have a lot of the same dreams, like "Old and Pregnant", "I'm suddenly in charge of an infant", and "I can't find my hotel". In her book, she details dreams about Danny DeVito, Elizabeth Taylor and Henry Kissinger. At the end, she recommends some books about dreams and dreaming, including The Mind at Night by Andrea Rock, which has been on my TBR for about a year. Like Chast, I think it's cool that our brains generate these strange, kooky things while we sleep, and a graphic novel with dreams? So so cool. 

*In keeping with the theme of my blog, I have a series of intermittent posts labeled "Dreaming in Literature". 

Oh, Jan

 I read six books in January. I was on the verge of the verge of finishing two more books, but then I fell asleep and the calendar page fluttered to February. They will do that, won't they?

1. The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion - Fannie Flagg. Novel. Audiobook. I read this for book group. I went in, fully prepared to dislike it, but this tribute to the WASPS and their gutsy contributions during WWII absolutely charmed me, and filled me with the deepest respect. 

2. Being Henry: The Fonz and Beyond - Henry Winkler. Memoir. Winkler's memoir is a good one to read in conjunction with Ron and Clint Howard's The Boys. Winkler is quite a bit more introspective, though.

3. Bonnie and Clyde: The Making of a Legend - Karen Blumenthal. Nonfiction. Audiobook. Written for the Young Adult set, but the author didn't write down to her audience. Every bit as good as Go Down Together, the quintessential book about the pair.

4. Who Was Salvador Dali? - Paula Manzanero. Nonfiction. I think it's really difficult to capture the full flavor of the enjoyable weirdness that was Dali, but I loved the anecdote about Dali walking an anteater in the Paris Metro.

5. The Witches of Worm - Zilpha Keatley Snyder. Novel. I do wish I'd saved this novel for October. Troubled latchkey child Jessica adopts a newborn kitten she names Worm who seemingly talks to her and tells her to act out in school and at home. Excellent dark, moody atmosphere, although Worm scared me a lot less than Jessica's feckless mother and the mother's douche boyfriend.

6. Child Star - Shirley Temple. Autobiography. So very glad to be done with this book! I've been wrestling with it since July. July 13, to be precise. Child Star covers Temple's life from birth to approximately her late twenties. Her life was fascinating, her research was impeccable, but her writing is stodgy. She wrote the book long after she had entered political life, and it definitely shows.

2023 DNF

 

This was a book group selection, and although I started out well, I was out by the 100-page mark. There was a scene involving rats on the attack, and I could not, would not continue. Call me squeamy.  I'd DNF this a thousand times if it were possible.