What are we reading in March?

New month! We left February with a nice bunch of recommendations for Octavia Butler books. Continue the conversation here?

I'll start. I'm a little over halfway through The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt and greatly enjoying though it is long.

Just finished James Tiptree Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon and enjoyed it enormously. I can't help but wonder how her life would have been different had she been born 60-70 years later than she was. Maybe she would have felt freer to explore her lesbianism, gotten better psychological help and antidepressants? On the other hand maybe she wouldn't have found an outlet in writing.

I have a bunch of books on my pile to read next. The Property which was recommended by Alison Bechdel, which is pretty much all the recommendation I need to pick up a new graphic novel. Also The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas; and a couple books about depression written by women: Shoot the Damn Dog: A Memoir of Depression and Coming of Age on Zoloft. I'm hoping the latter two books will be helpful in managing my own.

I'm reading The Double Life of Jane Austen which is very good; a general readers' guide rather than a lit crit work but none the worst for that. Double girlybook points?

I just finished Margo Lanagan's Tender Morsels and loved it. It had a brutal beginning (I think some trigger warnings are probably required, I'll have to find the right wording for when I write my review) and was never an easy read, but was beautiful. And sad.

And now tossing up between Daughter of Smoke and Bone and The Inexplicables... Both WILL be read, it's just which one will I read first??

In audiobook I'm listening to my first Sarah Waters, Fingersmith. So far I'm enjoying it very much, and the woman who is reading is great! (lots of great voices for the different characters).

I'm reading One of ours by Willa Cather for the Virago group's WWI themed read this month. It's interesting to see how the events in Europe slowly enter the consciousness of the rural Nebraska community in the book.

And for fun I'm reading Lost Lake, Sarah Addison Allen's latest novel.

This morning started Jesmyn Ward's Salvage the Bones.

I started listening to I Am Malala on audiobook this morning.

7> "how the events in Europe slowly enter the consciousness of the rural Nebraska community"

That's an interesting way to look at it. I saw the novel as defective because of the switch between Nebraska and Europe midway through, but if I ever get around to rereading it, I'll have to try it through your perspective.

I've loved everything I've read by Willa Cather, I'll have to give One of Ours a try.
I've finished some great books recently.
Speaking of WWI, I just finished Stella Bain, a good look at women volunteers in WWI, women's rights at the time and PTSD. Very well done.
Loved Daughter of Smoke and Bone. I'm not sure what you disliked, Sakerfalcon, but the last 1/3 is the back story. You didn't like that? I did, very much. If the entire work had ended with the end of the book, I would have found it quite distressing, but it's a good lead in to a trilogy.
I read Linda Ronstadt's memoir Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir. If you want to know about her life, look somewhere else. There is very little personal information and no emotion surrounding it. She doesn't even mention Parkinson's, which she has elsewhere said is her reason for leaving her career, which was everything to her. However, if you want to know about establishing a career in music and the love of music in general, this is the place. This quote sums up the book:
Someone once asked me why people sing. I answered that they sing for many of the same reasons the birds sing. They sing for a mate, to claim their territory, or simply to give voice to the delight of being alive in the midst of a beautiful day. Perhaps more than the birds do, humans hold a grudge. They sing to complain of how grievously they have been wronged, and how to avoid it in the future. They sing to help themselves execute a job of work. They sing so the subsequent generations won't forget what the current generation endured or dreamed, or delighted in.
Long ago when I read A Fine Balance I said I would never read another completely depressing book about financial and political oppression in India, yet I just finished Behind the Beautiful Forevers which is every bit as depressing and every bit as wonderful. To make matters worse, Katherine Boo says the people and situations are all real. I can see why people think that oppressed groups aren't quite human, don't feel things as deeply as the rest of us do. We can't believe that we could ever continue to live in such situations. I don't see how she could stand the research.
I'm now reading a couple of science fiction: The Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy nominee The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, by Holly Black. Yes, I've read enough about vampires, but how can I pass up and Andre Norton Award nominee that just happens to be available at my library? So far, pretty good.
And also a Nebula Award nominee Ancillary Justice. I feel bad that I gave Hild so little time to set the stage before I gave up on it, while it took much longer, in my opinion, for the world building of Ancillary Justice to set in, but I gave it a chance.
And finally, I am the last person on earth to be reading Outlander. Again, it's taken a long time to settle in, but worth it. How could I resist 18th century medicine?
Oh, and last but not least, I'm gradually reading Sense and Sensibility for a planned tutured read later in the month.

>10 CurrerBell:: I haven't yet reached the switch to Europe. Maybe I'll feel the same way as you when I get to that point. At present, it's interesting for me to compare the book with Golden miles which I read last month for the same group read, which shows how WWI affects a small town in Australia.

>11 Citizenjoyce:: I thought the backstory was interesting and well thought out, but it was the romance that turned me off the book generally. Spoiler The "fated to be together yet star-crossed" lovers trope has never been one I'm keen on (and I loathe Romeo and Juliet too!)

>11 Citizenjoyce:, You are most assuredly NOT the last person on earth to be reading Outlander. I acquired a copy at a used book store a few months ago and it is in the middle of my TBR pile. It may stay there a while since it is rather heavy to schlep on the commuter rail. I wish that I had found a mass market paperback edition.

>12 Sakerfalcon: oh well, the romance always turns me off. Almost every non crime novel seem the need to include one, and I'm sure most of humanity gets through it's day without even thinking of it. A man and a woman, even worse, a boy and a girl meeting at the beginning of a novel are almost guaranteed to be lovers rather than friends by the end.
Speaking of which, I just finished Just Listen which I rated 4, not for literary merit but for well accomplished didacticism. The writing is very simple, I'd rate it at a 12 year old level, but the sexual content maybe tends it toward older teens. The way it treats communication and trust, though, is just perfect. I can see many girls benefitting from the story.

reading zazen by vanessa veselka. it's intense. not sure if it's trying to hard or completely naturally so far out there. i suspect it's a polarizing one, either love it or hate it kind of book...

Since I seem to be on a bit of a science fiction kick, I thought this article about writing it was perfect
http://io9.com/10-things-that-every-brand-new-creator-of-science-ficti-153792361...
Works for other fiction too.

I finished The Coldest Girl in Coldtown and highly recommend it to anyone who is not sick to death of vampires. It's a good take on the subject, both human and vampire characters are well written. I hadn't heard of Holly Black before, she also wrote the Spiderwick Chronicles and won an Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy (for which this book is also nominated) for Valiant.
Now I'm about to start another Nebula Award nominated book, Karen Joy Fowler's We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves which has something to do with chimpanzees.

17> Valiant is the second in a trilogy – Tithe, Valiant, and Ironside – but very independently readable and my own favorite of the three. (Valiant is more realistic in its story-line, while the other two are more fantasy/faerie.)

Another quite recent one by Black is Doll Bones, to which I gave a 4½**** review.

I haven't read The Coldest Girl in Coldtown but I have read (quite a while back) The Spiderwick Chronicles and might give them a reread one of these days.

Among my other 'non-girly' books, I'm making my way through Oh Dear Silvia by Dawn French and The God of the Hive in audio by Laurie R. King. I'm enjoying listening to the Laurie R. King's (I finished The Language of Bees last week but had only just realized that I'd jumped in part way through a series - I borrowed from the library and talking to one of the librarians yesterday to make sure that TGOTH was the next one as the story stopped so abruptly, she was surprised to find that there were earlier ones also. I'm liking the character of Mary Russell.

I think I'm missing something in my reading of Oh Dear Silvia as the person who gave it to me thought it was wonderful and it's described on its own cover as being 'side-splitting, darkly humorous' and 'hilarious, my top book' and while I've found a few amusing bits, my sides are not in danger of being split so far and I'm a little over half way through.

>19 Peace2:

i almost never find books nearly as funny as described. at most i'll chuckle for the "laugh out loud, side splitting" books that are supposedly hilarious.

but then i'm a curmudgeon. ;)

>20 overlycriticalelisa:

I shall join you in labelling myself a curmudgeon in that case and it will make me feel less lonely :D

Karen Joy Fowler is always worth a read. I enjoyed We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves; very thought-provoking.

I never tire of what authors can do with vampires if they move beyond the forbidden love crap a la "Twilight." But even in the bodice rippers, there's a sense that in all individual and social relations there's always some kind of virtual blood-sucking going on, no? And, let's face it, we don't always discourage that virtual bloodsucking, do we?

Last month I read Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson and didn't comment on it here when I finished. It was pretty funny, although a little over the top at times. The beginning addresses Lawson's unusual upbringing in a rural Texas town with a father who has a penchant for taxidermy. The rest of the book discussed more traditional stuff like marriage, motherhood, and work - but all with Lawson's rather colorful flair. Overall, I enjoyed it and most of the members of my book club did also - except the one guy in the group who felt it didn't appeal to men for whatever reason.

I recently finished Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood, which I rather enjoyed, if one can say they enjoyed a dark book about a world falling apart. I had expected this book to pick up exactly where Oryx and Crake ended, with the reader finding out who Jimmy/Snowman encountered on the beach at the end of that novel. Instead, it meandered its way to that scene by looking into the lives of three other survivors of Crake's plague. At first, I was a little put off by this because the very beginning of the novel hardly felt like the same world. Soon though, I started seeing how this book tied into that universe and I became very invested in the characters and situations presented. I liked hearing from Toby and Ren a lot; Adam One less so. I give Atwood credit for pitch perfect writing of a fanatically religious preacher but I spent enough time growing up hearing evangelical sermons that I found myself tuning out when Adam One started speaking. The audio book version did fantastic renderings of the Gardeners' songs with full orchestration that also sounded authentic to fundamentally religious ceremonies.

By the time The Year of the Flood came around to really connecting to Oryx and Crake (i.e., we see a young Glen visiting the Gardeners, Ren begins attending the same school as Jimmy, etc.), I was completely hooked into the story but was glad to see how it was coming full circle. One thing I do have to say though is that I felt like perhaps Atwood hadn't fully plotted out in advance what she wanted to do with this trilogy. Because for some reason inter-library loan was very, very slow with this one, I had a fairly long time to wait between finishing Oryx and Crake and getting The Year of the Flood in my hands, so perhaps this is a memory recall problem. But there just seemed to be many things that came up in this book that weren't really a thing in the first one. For instance, Ren talks about how Jimmy was her first love but I don't remember ever learning about her in Oryx and Crake. Obviously, the relationship meant different things to the two of them, but it felt strange to me that we wouldn't have at least heard her name when Jimmy thought back to that part of his life. Nevertheless, overall I very much liked this book, even more so than the first one in the trilogy - which I think puts me in the minority in this group! Up next is obviously Maddaddam and I'm definitely curious to see where this story will go next.

One final note: last weekend I visited a different branch of the library than the one I usually do. I noticed a display with some popular series in the children's section and saw a series called "Candy Apple" books. There's a young one in my family who's an advanced reader, and I thought these books might be up her alley. I decided to check them out first before making any such recommendation and I'm certainly glad I did! I borrowed the book Miss Popularity, which was an absolute travesty. The book is about a girl who moves cross-country and finds that her new schoolmates don't love her as much as her old ones do. Nevertheless, she resolves to remain true to her self and hopes to find some friends who will appreciate her for who she is. Sounds all good on face value, except that the main character's "true character" is someone who is obsessed with fashion and make-up. At least once every couple of paragraphs, there has to be a reference to hairspray, mascara, lip gloss, manicures/pedicures, designer-name clothing and shoes, etc. etc. The main character is in the sixth grade and since we know that children usually read about kids a little older than themselves, the target audience for this book is likely girls in the third and fourth grades. With that in mind, it was just disgusting to me to read passages like this one:

"Third period was gym class. Dreaded, hated, hideous, and horrible gym class. It's not that Cassie had any problems with sweating and running and being healthy and stuff. Of course not. Duh, being healthy, like, makes you live longer. (This was not yet a Life Rule, but she realized she needed to make it one soon. She just needed to work out the exact language.) And she loved her gym outfits. Today's featured two wristbands, left arm white, right arm blue, her Grid Propel Plus Sauconys with delicious blue laces, and her peal Danskin unitard with her midnight Cobweb Crop Tie-Front Sweater and matching skirt. And matching leg warmers, of course.
But here were the things, and there a lot:
1. Getting all sweaty.
2. Getting all sweaty with other people. Especially boys. They really get all sweaty.
3. The things you have to do! Like swinging a bat, or running in circles, of the worst: throwing a ball.
4. I mean, hair!!! What's a girl supposed to do with her hair when she has, like, ten minutes to de-sweat, re-glamor, and bejewel?
4. Feeling kind of clammy and sticking for the rest of the day. So not cute."

Early on in the book, I was hoping that maybe all this over-the-top glamorization was set up so that the main character might eventually learn that being herself didn't require changing everything about her physical appearance with costly products, but nope. The book continues in the same vein throughout. The only thing that ever changes is that the main character switches from using aerosol hair spray when she realizes it's bad for the environment, opting instead for a hair spray mist.

Since the Candy Apple series are apparently all written by different authors, I would hope this one is anomaly. But the book included the first chapters of two other titles in the series, and they both sound almost as bad as this one. I just wanted to throw this information out there in case anyone else here is ever looking for literature to share with young ones in their lives: Stay away from this series if you want anything even remotely empowering for young girls.

>23 sweetiegherkin:

the ren "love interest" thing stood out for me, as well, and i read all three books in succession. it was really the only thing that i thought was out of place but i thought that even though i'd just finished oryx and crake that maybe i hadn't remembered a passing mention of ren that jimmy had made. (because like you said, obviously the relationship, if there was one, meant more to her than to him.)

i think this was the first time i'd read a book that "followed" the first but that took place concurrently. interesting idea.

eta: also, thanks for the info on those kids books. yikes. i'm half looking forward and half dreading having to pre-read everything (or most things?) before approving them for the kids. i'm still a handful of years away to prepare myself...

Sweetie, I have just passed your warning about Candy Apple to a number of friends with granddaughters this age.

Thanks for the public service warning.

> 24 Thanks for that. I'm glad to know that it's not just a memory lapse thing on my part. Agreed, it was interesting to read a sequel that was taking place at the same time as the first book. I've seen it done with TV shows on occasion but I can't say I've ever read a book series like that. Pre-reading can be fun, but a lot of times I find I don't have enough advanced time to be able to do so. I'm glad I did with this one though since it was, as I mentioned, absolutely terrible.

> 25 You're welcome, glad to be of service. :)

>26 sweetiegherkin:

re: the pre-reading - i'm not sure how that'll play out for us. i'm also not sure that i'd want to restrict the kids' reading, but instead have a conversation about it along the way and afterwards. got to be prepared for what's coming, though. but yeah, time is definitely always going to be an issue...

Elisa, I never restricted my son's reading, but I always liked knowing what was out there so I could throw my two cents into the mix.

i guess it all starts with a home culture of communication in the first place. our son is only a little over 2 but we're trying to start to plant some seeds...

oh, also, i finished zazen (still not sure if i really liked it or not) and am now reading correcting the landscape. love the title but not so enamored with the book so far. (not bad, just not as good as i'd like.)

I've now finished The God of the Hive and Oh Dear Silvia. TGOTH was a good one overall - I'd not be averse to reading some more of Laurie R. King's work or listening to it given that I've listened to the two so far.

ODS was a disappointment, I won't be looking to read any more.

Next up on the 'Girlybook' front is Ghost Hunter by Michelle Paver - it's the final part of a YA series. I've got a little bored with the series, but have read a few reviews that suggest this one regains the power and interest of the first couple. I have fingers crossed that this is the case.

I finished and reviewed Helen Oyeyemi's new novel, Boy, Snow Bird, which explores ideas of identity and interweaves "reality" and fairy tale -- it didn't quite work for me.

Rebecca, how come? I have that on my wish list. She's done other work with fairy tales that sound interesting.

Well, in a nutshell, the "real" parts didn't seem real. And I had enjoyed Mr. Fox so I was looking forward to this one. You can read my review on the book page or here on my Club Read reading thread.

Thanks for the link to your review, Rebecca.

>32 rebeccanyc: and >33 nohrt4me2:. I wondered, too. Did either of you hear or read the NPR interview? http://www.npr.org/2014/03/07/282065410/the-professionally-haunted-life-of-helen...

Quite frankly, (>34 rebeccanyc:) it sounds as though the author's grasp of reality is sketchy. Or did the interviewer do her a disservice? Hard to tell.

I would like to get the opinion of a woman of color. It seems to me that may be her audience?

>36 vwinsloe: Interesting interview, and the exerpt looks good. Now I don't know whether to start with Mr. Fox or Boy, Snow, Bird, but I don't think I'll be looking for happy endings to either.
I finished Ancillary Justice which was interesting, but didn't thrill me. At the end of the novel was an interview with the author who said that it was the first of a soft trilogy. In a way I was glad to read that because there's soooo much world buyilding in AJ it would be a shame for it not to go anywhere else. However, I don't think I'm going to read the rest. I'm not really a hard science fiction fan, Ann Leckie is way more interested in ships and weapons than I will ever be, though she has a unique take on them. Perhaps she's built enough of the world now, she will be able to do more character interaction in the next books, and she won't need to rely on that schizophrenic plot that drove me crazy. So I won't say I'll never read the sequels, just not if there are better things around at the time.
I also finished We Are Completely Beside Ourselves, and I was completely drawn in. I think I've read all Karen Joy Fowler's novels, and they almost always transport me into their worlds. This one, especially coming on the heels of my watching Blackfish, was very powerful.
Now I've started listening to The Last Summer of the Camperdowns, and I'm not sure I'll finish. I do like novels about politics, but cutsey opinionated Southerns are not my thing.

>37 Citizenjoyce: Thanks for that link, vwinslowe. I have to run out to a meeting so I will listen to it later. I don't think her audience is "women of color" -- over the years, I have read many many books written by people of all racial backgrounds from all over the world and I resist the idea that books are written for limited audiences.

>37 Citizenjoyce: All I can say, without checking out the interview (which I'll do later) is that I liked Mr. Fox a lot and I was frustrated with Boy, Snow, Bird.

>38 rebeccanyc:. Oh, I didn't at all mean that Helen Oyeyemi was intending to write only for women of color, I meant that women of color might find that the book spoke to them in ways that wouldn't necessarily resonate with white readers.

just finished correcting the landscape and was sorely disappointed. real potential in the writing but not realized.

will start bodies of water for book club later today. and then i think it'll be on to men for a while.

Joyce, I read about Boy, Snow, Bird in the NYT Book Review section. Sounded interesting. Thanks for the link.

Just finished Northanger Abbey and this time around decided it was a book about reading. Lots of discussion about novels and the impressions they make. Decided that if they ever did an updated movie version a la "Clueless," Catherine Morland would have to be one of those teenagers reading vampire romances and half persuaded that General Tilney was one of the undead.

>36 vwinsloe: Well, I just read the interview and I thought it was interesting. Oyeyemi definitely seems to focus more on the fairy tales and magic than on the "real" parts, and maybe I just have a problem with "real" parts not seeming real, when she means them to be part of the fairy tale.

>42 rebeccanyc:. Yes, I think that Oyeyemi may see a very fine line between reality and fairy tale, if any line at all.

> 41 I love the idea of Catherine Morland being a Twihard and getting carried away with it ... spot on!

I just started Shadow of Night. I know that the reviews were not stellar, but I don't expect much from a middle book in a trilogy.

> 45

because you feel like it's more of a bridge book to hold a strong start and a strong ending together?

>46 overlycriticalelisa:, in my experience, yes. I have found that the middle books in trilogies are mostly expositional. They provide information and explanation underlying the plot and character development in the first book and set up the conclusion in the third. I've heard the phenomenon mentioned enough that I think that it may be commonly acknowledged?

>45 vwinsloe: Though here I was thinking of reading Valiant which is the middle of the Modern Tales of Faerie series and not reading the other two.
I'm trying to read Wide Sargasso Sea, but it doesn't grab me for some reason. I'll put a little more effort into it today.
I just finished a short graphic novel, Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan. Set in modern day Israel it follows Numi, a very masculine looking woman whom I thought at first was a man, as she convinces Koby, a taxi driver, to help her discover if her lover, Koby's father, was the unidentified victim in a recent suicide bombing. The more I think about it, the more interesting it becomes. Nothing is as you would expect it to be starting with the location of the killing. Everyone thinks it was in Haifa, the most recent disaster, and has to be reminded of the lesser one in Hadera just before. Numi is very rich and butch looking, her sister and mother are gorgeous and stylish. She has such sentimental feelings about Gabriel, the lost father whom Koby doesn't respect at all. Gabriel, the tender lover, seems to have been a total womanizer, and the women he conquers are the dejected ones no one else wants. You can see why no one wanted them, they're old, the most disposable of humans, and Numi, though young is so inappropriate in so many ways she was an easy target. It's a quick and surprisingly stimulating read.

>48 Citizenjoyce:. There are some exceptions, I suppose. I was pleasantly surprised when I read Catching Fire which I thought was the best of the trilogy. That's the only exception that comes readily to mind for me though.

>47 vwinsloe:

thanks for that. i don't read a lot of series or trilogies so was just curious. i'll be reading the border trilogy very soon though. since each of them stand alone (so i've heard) this probably won't apply, but is still interesting!

>50 overlycriticalelisa:. Dang, Elisa, you found another one! The Crossing is one of my favorite books of all time. But you're right, it is a very loose trilogy and the books do not share the same story arc.

I've finished up Michelle Paver's Ghost Hunter : Chronicles of Ancient Darkness which was the final part of this YA series. I'm glad I stuck with it, as although the middle of the series seemed to drag, this final part was stronger.

I've now started reading The Mammoth Book of Steampunk which is an anthology of short stories, some of which are written by women and some of which centre around a female character - this is my first foray into the steampunk genre and I've only read two stories so far, so it's too early to really say much, although the stories have been enough to keep me reading and not immediately deciding to return the borrowed book.

I'm also looking to start Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch in audio in the next few days and probably either Divergent by Veronica Roth or Lian Hearn's Across the Nightingale Floor - so female authors if not characters definitely abound. I've just got to make a decision as to which one first!

Hello, I'm new to the group so hope I'm posting right!

I'm currently reading The Broken Crown by Michelle west (warning for rape scene near the beginning if anyone decides to read it -not done in a disrespectful way but could be difficult to read)- this is the first book I've read of the series (its a fantasy series with quite a few books) and though I've only just started it seems like a complex/interesting plot and world - and west writes her female characters with respect for them. The emotions of the characters feel very real.

A turored read of Sense and Sensibility has just started here:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/171523
I really enjoyed the Pride and Prejudice tutored read so will try this one also. The book itself so far is no where near as enjoyable - though probably more realistic. There are no Mr Darcys, and the men available for romance are pretty far from desirable, in my opinion.

>51 vwinsloe:
one of your favorites of all time! i might tap you for some analysis as i get going then. (i've appreciated what you've wrote about mccarthy so far.

>53 blue_cat:
welcome to the group!

oh, also, i'm really, really (really) liking bodies of water so far, a little under 1/2 way through.

Other Joyce - thanks for the link. I'll join you over there. Totally agree about the book too . . . .

> 49 Interesting. Catching Fire was my least favorite book in the trilogy. I also seem to be in the minority for liking Mockingjay the best of all.

> 53 Welcome! Hope to hear more from you soon :)

> 54 Agreed, the male characters are all less than remarkable. Colonel Brandon seems like a consolation prize for Marianne (although of course, she's not always the most likable character herself), it's a mystery to everyone else in the novel and outside it why Elinor loves Edward Ferrars so much, and Willoughby and the other male characters are foolish at best and cads at worst. Still, Sense and Sensibility is one of my favorite Austen novels, probably in large part because I like Elinor so much more than any other of her heroines.

>54 Citizenjoyce:. I've never heard of a tutored read, let alone participated in one. It sounds interesting. I'll have to follow that one a bit. Thanks.

>55 overlycriticalelisa:. I'm sure that The Crossing is not everyone's cup of tea. But I'd be happy to share any insights that I may have.

>58 sweetiegherkin:. I can understand that. Catching Fire was expositional in that it tore away the facade of the hunger games and revealed the political backstory of that world. For me, that revelation came as a surprise, probably because I was not expecting it from a YA book. I liked Mockingjay but it felt a bit rushed and lacked detail or depth.

Back to >32 rebeccanyc: etc., Helen Oyeyemi is all over promoting Boy Snow Bird. Here she is on WNYC, my local NPR station and here she is in today's New York Times Book Review.

> 59 Hmm, I actually felt like Catching Fire focused too much on details like Katniss's wardrobe, to the point that it was hard to tell where it was taking high fashion to task and where it was simply enamored with the idea. The same with describing a second arena. Agreed that it did go into some things that were a little unexpected for YA lit. Mockingjay did feel rushed at times, but I felt like it was the one that most got to Collins's point - depicting the horrors of war so that young people think twice before rushing into one. Different strokes for different folks I guess ... and different interpretations also! :)

Ach, I finished Wide Sargasso Sea. It's like The Yellow Wallpaper but with fire. I'll never think of Mr. Rochester the same way again. Just a totally creepy book.
Next up is The Unit. I think it's about Alzheimers, but it can't be worse.

>62 Citizenjoyce:

well, to be fair, rochester is kind of a creepy guy. (how about that scene where he dresses up as the old fortune teller woman? creepster!) but wide sargasso sea didn't work for me at all when i most recently read it. i liked it more the first time, and in theory.

I've never been able to get into "The Wide Sargasso Sea," either. Something about the narrative voice put me off.

Re Katniss and her outfits: I felt that "The Hunger Games" set up a lot of potential for exploring so many interesting themes--appearance over reality, public relations spinning, reality TV, the political bread and circus phenomenon, violence as entertainment, etc. in the modern era. I thought it was ingenious that the fashion designer used his arts to make subversive statements.

But the trilogy, for me, petered out without really fulfilling its potential. I also thought the repetition of a game in every single book was a mistake and really detracted from the poin.

I have to say I think the movies have been very good. The toll that the games and political machinations have taken on Katniss physically and mentally come across really well. And, of course, it doesn't hurt that it's Jennifer Lawrence.

> 62. The Unit isn't about Alzheimer's... I don't want to give away too much but it's a dystopian novel about childless women. I found it a pretty good story but I didn't love it.

I thought "The Unit" was one of the most beautifully written books I've ever read; even in translation, the use of implication and symbol (the dog, the greenhouse), and the spare writing style, IMO, heightened the book's devastating plot.

It's also a book that ought to piss off and galvanize every woman over 50.

I've read only 20 pages and I'm already pretty pissed off. Men get to age 60 because...

Started Hild by Nicola Griffith this weekend. It got a bit of a pasting here a few weeks ago but I'm really enjoying it. The sense of place is very evocative for me - especially for sites such as Bamburgh and Yeavering Bell which are quite dramatic locations - and I've always found that period of history, which we only have sketchy information for, quite fascinating (devoured Rosemary Sutcliff as a kid). Plus political intrigue and plots!

The unit is on my enormous Tbr pile. I'm moving it higher up the list ...

Currently reading Vampires in the lemon grove, short stories by Karen Russell. I was very disappointed with her first collection but found this at the library and thought I'd give her another chance. The first 3 I've read are better than any of the earlier stories, which seemed to me to be quirky for the sake of it and left me feeling stupid because I'd obviously missed the point. I hope the rest of this collection continues to be stronger.

>64 nohrt4me2:. I found Suzanne Collins's juxtaposition of detailed descriptions of food and fashion, along with poverty, politics, and revolution to be pleasantly jarring. One reason, I guess is that food and fashion are traditionally feminine subjects, and it is unusual to have those subjects intertwined with more serious (some might say traditionally masculine) themes. I had to sit up and pay attention because although it was subtle, it was something that had not ever been done before in anything that I had previously read.

>65 lemontwist: & >66 nohrt4me2:. I hadn't heard of The Unit. It sounds like it might be right up my alley, so I'm putting it on my wish list. Thanks.

And, while we are on the subject of The Hunger Games, I saw this- http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/genderspecific-books-demean-all-our-...

An editor taking a stand against gender specific books! Yay!

>71 vwinsloe: That made my morning. Thanks for sharing it.

>71 vwinsloe: - good news! Let's hope that spreads further. Good quality stories are what's needed most and they will stand on their own merit - not on a cover or title that deems them worthy of being read by only one part of the population!

>66 nohrt4me2:

you've convinced me; now on my list of things to read. i'm behind enough that i might not get to it before i'm over 50 (i'm 37 now. i think.)

>71 vwinsloe:

awesome! (well, most of the article made me want to cry, but i love what she's doing.)

I'm not familiar with gender specific books (though if you add farts to her hypothetical Great Big Book of Snot for Boys I think it would be a best seller for both sexes.) Maybe because my kids are out of the princess stage (not that she was ever there) I'm just not confronted with them. They certainly can't be big hits like The Hunger Games or Harry Potter.

I'm about half way through Outlander and the blush is certainly off the rose. Gobs of romance and irrational jealousy spiced with sanctioned wife abuse and marital rape. I'll make it through this book, but I doubt I'll be reading any of the rest of the series. Too bad, because what isn't romance etc. is very interesting.
On the other hand The Unit just gets more and more wonderful - like Never Let Me Go but starting later and with much more social support. I love the comment by the librarian that people who read books tend to be dispensable.

I just finished The Unit because I couldn't stop reading. I think the book gave me asthma. I can hardly breathe. Wow.

>76 Citizenjoyce:. Good to know about Outlander. I own it, but I'm not encouraged to move it to the top of the pile. On the other hand, I'm putting an APB out on The Unit which I had never heard of until this thread. Thanks!

I read The Gods Themselves by Asimov on a long plane ride. It was quite interesting and a little different for him I thought. There was a fascinating alien society with very different gender definitions that felt very modern - decades ahead of its time.

Really glad The Unit is getting traction here, not only for the questions it raises about the marginalization of the aged, but particularly aging women.

echoing >78 vwinsloe:; i'm excited about the unit, which i'd never heard of either.

>79 Vanessa_Kittle:

i haven't read much of him at all but he wrote a strange introduction to a collection of hugo winners i read last year where he basically just talked about the authors in the book by how they could "get" women (if they were men) or how they looked (if they were women). it was disconcerting. he was going for cute or funny or something and i tried to take it as part of the time he wrote it (late 60's? early 70's, i forget) but it felt icky.

It's sad when I re read the old male science fiction writers I loved when I was young and now find them ridiculously and joyfully sexist. Joyful for them, not so much for me.

>79 Vanessa_Kittle: I read The Gods Themselves by Asimov on a long plane ride.

One of my favorites of his. Unlike the rambling Foundation series, the plot is succinct, the writing is tight--almost like his short stories--,the science is comprehensible, and the vision of the future is both familiar and fantastic. I liked the way he brought in the political tensions between the moon natives and the people from Earth.

I'm reading The Politics of Cruelty by Kate Millett this month and it is tough going.

>84 southernbooklady: I don't care for Asimov based on Foundation, but I've been thinking I should give him another go. It sounds like The Gods Themselves might be a good pick. I enjoy the classics of science fiction, but it is sometimes hard for me to read them from a 21st century perspective, what with all the cheerful sexism or simply ignoring the fact that women exist for purposes other than sex and typing letters. Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov, Niven, probably many more--all guilty of this. If I read too many in a row, I tend to burn out on them for a good long while.

There's nothing feminist about Asimov, even in The Gods Themselves. Like you, I had to read past "cheerful sexism" in his books. The same way I read past the gloomy sexism of my favorite noir literature. :)

Want noir without the sexism? I recommend Patricia Highsmith's Ripley series. It peters out a bit after the first two entries, but still good.

I don't recall a lot of sexism in Paul Auster's noir, either.

>87 nohrt4me2: I recommend Patricia Highsmith's Ripley series.

If you've never read it, The Animal Lover's Book of Beastly Murder -- where pets get back at their mean owners -- is awesome.

>88 southernbooklady: Thanks for that recommendation. It sounds great, and I've ordered the book. My daughter is a vet tech, so I'm sure she'll love it. I have the Ripley series sitting here but haven't yet read it. Maybe I should.

Joyce, I would get too sad reading about animal cruelty.

Hey, write me off-line to tell me how your daughter fares as a vet tech, would you? This is a line of work my son is interested in, and I'd like to pick your brain.

>88 southernbooklady:

this sounds great, i'm adding it to my list, too.

All this week's books were by men and so heading back into the territory of female writers for the week ahead, starting with Divergent by Veronica Roth (hoping this is a good one) and listening to The Cat Who Came To Breakfast by Lilian Jackson Braun about which I know absolutely nothing - no expectations whatsoever!

There's also Across the Nightingale Floor which is next on the TBR pile.

I'm currently reading Novel Without a Name by Dương Thu Hương.

> 64 Re Katniss and her outfits: I felt that "The Hunger Games" set up a lot of potential for exploring so many interesting themes--appearance over reality, public relations spinning, reality TV, the political bread and circus phenomenon, violence as entertainment, etc. in the modern era. I thought it was ingenious that the fashion designer used his arts to make subversive statements.

But the trilogy, for me, petered out without really fulfilling its potential. I also thought the repetition of a game in every single book was a mistake and really detracted from the poin.

I have to say I think the movies have been very good.

I agree that the books did explore a lot of interesting themes about appearance and reality, celebrity, wealth inequality, etc. I feel the first and third books did this better though. Like I said earlier, in the second book, it started to feel like the lines were getting blurred between Collins's commenting on/mocking the entertainment media obsession with fashion and her actually get sucked up in writing volumes about Katniss's new fashionable wardrobe post-winning. An important caveat though is that the second book is the only one I did as an audio book and I hated the reader ... so perhaps her reading of the text didn't help.

Perhaps it's just been a while but I don't recall there being another game/arena in the third book. Another reason I didn't like the second book was that I felt throwing Katniss and Peeta back into the games was redundant.

So far I've only seen the first movie and thought it was well done, although perhaps some of the exposition from the book that got cut would have been good to get in there some way.

My daughter and I saw Divergent tonight. We both thought it was well done though some essential relationships were diminished. What got to both of us though was the amount of make up both Ashley Judd and the Tris character wore. It certainly did highlight the beauty of Tris's eyes, but was ludicrous on the faces of Abnegation women who weren't even allowed to look into mirrors. All in all though worth seeing. The theater was full of girls.

I have had a borrowed copy of The Hunger Games sitting on a pile for about a year. I don't know what it is, but the more zeitgeist-y a book gets, the less I want to read it. I haven't seen the movies, and honestly, have no idea what the book is about or if I'll even like it.

>96 lemontwist:. I agree. But in this case try it. There are many layers of appreciation of The Hunger Games. Personally, I found it remarkable for the subtlety of its subversive ideas.

I am reading A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar. More math than I expected, but I am enjoying that part more than I expected. It puts the role of mathematicians and their seemingly theoretical endeavors in context during the 1940s and 50s (so far -- I am only ~20% of the way through the book).

>98 krazy4katz:
i felt like she did a nice job of contextualizing the theories and the ideas, but i wished she'd explained the actual math a little more.

>98 krazy4katz: , >99 overlycriticalelisa: I enjoyed the movie A Beautiful Mind, but haven't read the book. Does anyone have any idea of how the two compare?

I read the The Hunger Games, but did not go onward. There are some trophs - cruelty to children, kids killing kids - where I will not follow an author.

I'm currently reading Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking for the RL book club this week. It's much more interesting than I thought it would be. I can't say that I'm familiar with any of the 'Power of Personality' gurus she mentions, but I'm enjoying the section on quiet Rosa Parks. I'm an introvert, I like books and animals and having a really good friend or two. I didn't even know that there's a large section of the US that feels that would need to be fixed.

>100 streamsong:

i have a terrible memory and i read a beautiful mind long enough ago (2009) that i don't remember specifics. but what i remember is that the book focused quite a bit on the math and the context around it and the movie focused quite a bit on the schizophrenia and the social issues that come with mental illness (peripherally). i remember them being quite different and so enjoyable in much different ways.

>100 streamsong:, >101 overlycriticalelisa:

I haven't seen the movie version of A Beautiful Mind, but would be interested in seeing it after reading the book. Definitely Nash was an introvert, although he sometimes acted out in crazed and cruel ways probably to cover his discomfort with other people.

I didn't realize anyone thought that there should be fewer introverts. I sometimes wish that some of the people I work with were a bit more introverted (just sayin'…good thing I am somewhat anonymous here).

>102 krazy4katz:

i think us introverts are often misunderstood. misunderstanding often leads to wanting someone to be different or changing.

> 100, 101-103 I haven't read Quiet yet but I did read/watch several interviews of its author Susan Cain. The take-away I got was less that people want fewer introverts than it is that the world isn't set up for introverts to succeed ... or at least things that are considered successful (i.e., popularity, fame) aren't necessarily in line with how introverts act ... not to say, of course, that there aren't successful introverts despite it all. Not sure if any of that makes sense, I'm tired and not feeling well ...

For my real-life book club, I'm reading Orange is the New Black and enjoying it more than I expected. Only about one-third of the way through though.

I really liked Orange Is the New Black. I think she did an excellent job with the human story, neither wallowing in self-pity or white-washing the women she did time with.

I reviewed it here: http://thegrimreader.blogspot.com/2014/01/i-read-some-books-about-incarceration....

I should look into reading A Beautiful Mind... I just assumed it'd be similar to the movie, which I enjoyed, but I'm not a fan of Russell Crowe. On the other hand, I love math.

I tried reading Quiet, but books about "soft" scientists get on my nerves. I know it's my bias as an engineer with a PhD, but I can't let it go when I read. I got a few pages in and decided it wasn't worth my time to read something that I wasn't enjoying.

And Orange is the New Black was a great book. I liked it so much that I was terribly hesitant to watch the TV show on Netflix. But I LOVE the show. It's great to have a show to watch that passes the Bechdel Test with flying colors. The great majority of the characters are diverse women of all backgrounds, and while they're not all likable they're all great characters. I'm really looking forward to binge-watching the next season once it comes out (I think this summer).

Right now I'm wrapped up in reading The Bird's Nest by Shirley Jackson. It's very riveting and I'm having a hard time putting it down. I'm trying to read more women-authored fiction written in the mid 20th century.

>106 lemontwist: oh, another Shirley Jackson book I haven't heard of. please let us know what you think. I recently read Hangsaman, which was quite wonderfully weird, and I just picked up a new reissue of The Sundial, but haven't read it yet.

I haven't heard of The Bird's Nest either, although I'm a big Shirley Jackson fan. We Have Always Lived in the Castle is one of my all-time favorite books, and I really liked Hangsaman too. I wasn't as crazy about The Haunting of Hill House or her first novel, The Road through the Wall, but I really enjoyed a collection of her short stories, The Lottery and Other Stories, that I read a few years ago. Off to look for The Bird's Nest and The Sundial!

ETA I see there are new (2014) Penguin editions of both of these, so they are likely to show up in my favorite bookstore. I'll keep an eye out for both of them.

>106 lemontwist:

Speaking of television that passes the Bechdel test, have you seen Scott & Bailey?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_%26_Bailey

I get the feeling Orange is the new black might take itself more seriously as "quality" TV (I haven't seen it), but what I like about S&B is its fine nonchalance about the fact that it's a cop show created and produced by women, about two women cops, whose not one, or two, but three and four higher ups are women, and women show up in all kinds of roles (not just the usual victim-mother-girlfriend). Characterisation doesn't exactly compete with Dostoevsky, but just having a relationship like that on screen--two women who are excellent colleagues and devoted friends despite differences in age and temperament--is so rare and so wonderful I forgive all the faults.

And I just LOVE that the big bosses are all women! One of them, played by the great Amelia Bullmore, is divorced from another high-ranking police officer. At one point their son abandons his promising studies in order to join the police. Bullmore is shocked and disappointed, wonders about that decision, says she understands that he wanted to be like his father--and he interrupts saying, no, I wanted to be like you, mum.

I have never seen that on television or movies or in a book or anywhere else--the idea that a son might look up to the example of his mother.

Oh, and the dynamic between two big bosses, Bullmore's and the character played by Pippa Haywood--is to die for.

Everyone's very much the heterosexual, though. Perhaps too much, considering that police work attracts lesbians a bit more than the average.

>107 sturlington: & 108... I'm almost done and have had a hard time putting it down (started it yesterday afternoon). I think no matter how it resolves itself at this point, I can safely say that it's an excellent book. Sometimes predictable but always riveting. And wonderfully written. I love her writing style and am certainly going to look into her other books. Thanks for the recommendations!

>109 LolaWalser:... No I haven't but I will certainly look into it. Thanks for the heads up!

I just finished Maria Konnikova's Mastermind: How To Think Like Sherlock Holmes, which I wanted to like more than I did.

>110 lemontwist:

I hope you like it! The first three seasons are up on YouTube, and the fourth is in preparation.

For me it really took off midway in the second season or so.

Am a little over halfway through The Husband's Secret. I figured out the big "secret" about a third of the way in, but how the Big Moral Questions will be resolved will be interesting.

I'm not sure why Moriarty made these people Catholics, since none of them seem inclined to rely on their faith to help them wend their way through their various problems.

I enjoy the whole overarching theme about what we really might or might not know about other people, including family members. It's also interesting to see how the characters' views of themselves changes as they learn more about other characters. (Can't give away too much here).

But, looked at another way, the book is one big soaper.

> 105 I think she did an excellent job with the human story, neither wallowing in self-pity or white-washing the women she did time with.

That's what I'm finding so far. I went into thinking that she might get too "poor me" for me to really like it, but that's not the case.

> 106 Glad to hear the show is also good. I was thinking about checking it out once I finish with the book.

>114 sweetiegherkin:

don't expect the show to follow her life all that well. i've heard that once they established who everyone is, which is based mostly on truth, after the first few episodes, it goes off on its own, more or less.

but it is seriously so good. i don't watch hardly any tv and i could binge watch this over and over and over again. almost everyone on cast and crew is female. all body types. all colors. yes, it's too bad to get a cast of so many women of color that it has to be set in a prison, but the director specifically wants to focus on their stories once she got past having to tell piper's. sorry. i never gush about tv but this show freaking rocks my world.

>114 sweetiegherkin: The book is much more political, much more overtly about prison reform. The series is, as you say elisa, much more about personal stories. I've talked to people who saw the tv show first and so found the book too impersonal. I read the book first, so I love both of them.

>109 LolaWalser: Thanks to you, I spent all of yesterday bingewatching Scott and Bailey and agree with your assessment. A cop show in which the cops and not all of the victims are female is a treasure, with that tasty addition in season 3 making it almost Fort Knox.

>117 Citizenjoyce:

Oh, wow, how cool is that! Thanks for letting me know! :) And, that's exactly what happened to me--someone recommended the show, by chance I started with Season 3--thinking I'll just check out one ep--and I could hardly wait for the weekend so I could lock the doors, batten the hatches, and watch it all at once.

Finished The Husband's Secret and, while the denouement lasted a bit too long, I thought the book was quite worthwhile.

Best quote: "Marriage was a form of insanity; love hovering permanently on the edge of aggravation."

Liked that the book focused less on why people GET married than how and why they STAY married.

Spring break for me. I've set aside a couple of weeks to re-read Oscar Wilde, so will be offa here for awhile.

I just finished a wonderful book by Rutu Modan, The Property. This is the first graphic novel I've read that equals the quality of Alison Bechdel's Fun Home. This time the family involved is a woman and her grandmother who travel from their home in Israel to Poland to claim the grandmother's property which was lost to the family in WWII. Modan manages to combine stereotypes for Jews, Poles and old people with both romance and practicality to make a story that appeals to anyone trying to understand family dynamics, international politics and interpersonal relationships. Right from the opening scene in the airport you realize the grandmother is a pistol, and she's going to get what she came for no matter who tries to stop her. I'll be reading more of Modan, I'm sure.

>120 Citizenjoyce:, I just read that a few weeks ago and loved it. One of those books I picked up and didn't put down again until I finished it. There were so many little story lines weaving around in there that made it such a delightful read. And Modan's drawing style is superb.

I'm reading N. K. Jemisin's Dreamblood duology, The killing moon and The shadowed sun. This is fantasy set in a world inspired by Ancient Egypt and Jungian dream theory, where few of the usual genre tropes apply. The first book was good but the second is even better, with a broad array of female characters influencing the plot.

>120 Citizenjoyce:, >121 lemontwist:

this group is so dangerous for me. too many books to put on my list. this one goes on, too, thanks!

>123 overlycriticalelisa: Oh yes it is. I'm always getting new ideas here. I very much liked The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin, now I see I need to check out the Dreamblood dualogy.

>123 overlycriticalelisa: For me too! I'm lucky I have a great library to keep me from going broke!

yes, but: "If I finish a book a week, I will read only a few thousand books in my lifetime, about a tenth of a percent of the contents of the greatest libraries of our time." carl sagan in cosmos. and i already have over a thousand on my tbr list. besides that depressing math (as i read about that, or lately a little more), i generally add 3 books or so to my list for every one i read.

>126 overlycriticalelisa: i generally add 3 books or so to my list for every one i read

There are worse vices. You could collect plates painted with kittens.

>127 southernbooklady:

lol. my grandmother collected plates with scenes from movies. actually all kinds of painted things, but those are the ones that stand out. i'm sure she had some with kittens, too, now that i think about it, in her den.

no, as far as my vices and obsessions go, they're healthy (if vices and obsessions can be called that) and not too harmful. still, it's sad to know that there are a lot of books on that list that i'll never get to.

>124 Citizenjoyce:: I finished the second book of the duology yesterday and it really is excellent. I admired The killing moon, but loved The shadowed sun; it builds on and explores the consequences of the world/societal structures described in the first book. I also think it is better in its female characters - in particular, we see a strong friendship grow between two women who could easily have seen each other as rivals. I highly recommend it!

Now I am reading The road through the wall by Shirley Jackson - so good to be able to read her less-famous novels now they are back in print.

>129 Sakerfalcon: The Road through the Wall was my first book of the year, and of course Jackson's first novel. I'm glad I had read other books by her, because I wasn't wowed by it, but could see some of her ideas developing. And I was successful in finding The Bird's Nest and The Sundial in my local bookstore, as expected (>108 rebeccanyc:). I was interested to see that The Sundial has a foreword by Victor LaValle, a writer I find intriguing.

>130 rebeccanyc: I read that foreword online. It is what prompted me to buy the book.

I started The Keep by Jennifer Egan. I haven't had much luck reading her in the past so we'll see how this one goes.

Hope you like The Keep, sturlington. I've re-read it at least once, and enjoyed it a lot.

My loan on Inside the Dream Palace by Sherill Tippins ran out when I was midway through the book. I enjoyed learning about the early days of the Chelsea Hotel and how it was an intentional utopian concept building. I bogged down during the Burroughs/Warhol era. I think taking a break and getting back on the hold list will reinvigorate my desire to read this one.

I started Broken Harbor by Tana French on a long train ride Monday. As with the previous books in the series, I am loving it. Her writing, her insights about class, her characters, the mystery itself all please me a great deal.

I just finished a reread of Little Women using the Belknap-Harvard Little Women: An Annotated Edition, posted a 3½*** review (specific to that particular edition), and am currently reading the supplementary materials in the Little Women (Norton Critical Editions). I'm doing this reread for the March 2014 Reading Through Time theme of "education" and planning to carry over into Little Men and Jo's Boys (never read either of them) in my LoA Alcott.

I enjoyed The Keep but I really loved Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad.

Thanks, Rebecca. Emerald City got kind of mixed reviews, so "Goon" it is. When I get done with my Wilde jag.

>136 nohrt4me2:. I liked A Visit from the Goon Squad, too. I haven't read anything else by her.

>137 vwinsloe:

same here. i think it's an unfortunate title of a book, though. if it wasn't a book group choice i never would have picked it up because of it.

>138 overlycriticalelisa:. Good point, you have to wonder, don't you? But since the title was integral to the theme of the book, I suppose the editor couldn't completely change it. I'm sure that many people like myself did not read it until it won the Pulitzer.

>139 vwinsloe:

i've heard that authors don't always get to choose things like the title or the cover...

>140 overlycriticalelisa:. I have heard the same, and know personally of one instance. So I suppose the publisher/editor must have liked the title, no matter how unlikely it was to attract readers. But then again, the book had LOTS of readers, so what do I know. lol

>141 vwinsloe:

indeed! but i'm often surprised about what people pick up to read...

Just read the graphic novel Heads or Tails by Lilli Carré. I love her drawings, and the content is always fascinating. This one was filled with vignettes that I found to be captivating, if not always overtly likable.

On a related note, I just saw a small showcase of her work at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. It was tucked away in a small corner room. It was probably among the best art I saw that afternoon. The main exhibition was about four rooms in magnitude and was all from one (male) artist of whose work I can't say anything really good because I found it to be lackluster and uninspiring. One of the guys working at MoCA overhead my friends and I joking about the relatively crappy art, and he mentioned that it was one of the worst exhibits he'd ever seen, and the artist must certainly know the right people to get four rooms in a museum. He said "if the artist were a woman, there's no way the exhibit would be this large." Then I thought of Lilli Carré's much more spectacular art suffocating in what was essentially a closet...

Oh, haven't popped in for a while! I did read both Daughter of Smoke and Bone (great fun, even if a bit too heavy on the romance for my tastes) and The Inexplicables (still enjoying the series, but this installment needed more zombies).

More recently, I did read The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There which was filled with fabulous ideas (Aubergine, the night dodo who practices Quiet Physicks was my favourite, but I also really loved the concept of Questing Physicks), but felt over-written. A bit too "see how clever I am!".

Am currently reading Without a Summer, which I only picked up from the bookshop last night. Loving the combo of Regency England ("la!") and magic. This is the third in the series, and I did enjoy the first two as well.

I've just started The Secret Lives of Codebreakers: The Men and Women Who Cracked the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park by Sinclair McKay whom I assume is a man, but I love the fact that it's a book that includes both men and women in a world changing event. In fact the book opens on the arrival of two women to Bletchley Park. Aside from the movie about the capture of Bin Laden, Zero Dark Thirty you seldom hear about the women on teams who make major contributions to the war effort. (or to science, think poor Rosalind Franklin and dna).

>130 rebeccanyc: Finished The road through the wall last night and very much enjoyed it although, as you say, it is not as accomplished as her later books. I do think I'd have read more if this was the first of her books I'd found. Her ability to pick apart the facade and show the hypocrisies and cruelty, both casual and deliberate, of ordinary people is masterly and chilling. Now I need to order The bird's nest to complete my Penguin set of the novels!

Finished up Novel Without a Name (highly recommended for anyone interested in Vietnam) and starting There but For the, which is going along far more refreshingly than expected.

> 115, 116 That's what I gathered so far from people who both read the book and watch the show. I'm still working on reading the book and will check out the show some time afterward.

> 145 Speaking of books and related shows, your post reminds that I just heard today from people in my RL book club about a PBS show called "Bletchley Circle" about four female WWII code breakers adjusting to post-war life. Then I found this interesting article in which PBS execs talk about how their strategy for compelling and successful shows has been to focus on women's stories: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2014/03/28/pbs-is-beating-its-com...

I'm working on Iris Murdoch's book on Sartre - that's the most girly I'll be for a bit as I'm wading through the brilliant 33 Revolutions per minute by Dorian Lynskey and John Major's autobiography at the moment!

Just started The Bell Jar. I've never read it, so I figured it was about time.

>150 sturlington: I'd be interested to hear how you get on with The Bell Jar as that was a recent acquisition to my TBR pile.

>151 Peace2: I will try to remember to post a post-reading update!

On a related note, I did finish The Keep and I liked it, although I'm still trying to figure out what I actually thought about it. And I have written a review! I dug the gothic aspects of the story, and I also generally enjoy when an author tries to experiment with narrative structure, even if the experiment is not entirely successful.

Sturlington, yes, agree wholeheartedly! Sometimes it's those flawed books that grab us most. Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler was a revelation about reading and how what we read becomes part of our essential being. Reading it makes you feel that you're being given a most intimate gift from someone who understands what happens to you as a serious reader. One of the few books that made me burst into sobs when I read the final pages. But there are parts of it that are almost unintelligible, and I confess that as the thing charged toward the end, I almost gave it up.

I just started Nickeled and Dimed. I had read Scratch Beginnings not long ago because the author was a graduate of a local college, and some of the local high schools were reading and discussing it. Scratch Beginnings was inspired by, and in some ways is a response to Nickeled and Dimed. I wasn't interested in reading Nickeled and Dimed until it was mentioned several times here. There was some push back about the findings of the author of Scratch Beginnings in which the white, college educated young man started "from scratch" in a homeless shelter in NC with only $25 and a few items in a back pack. He found it not too difficult to get a job with a moving company and to reach his goal of a car, a furnished apartment and a bit of savings within a short time. His conclusions were criticized because he was young, white, English speaking, educated and not encumbered by children, health problems or a criminal record. The author did point to a co-worker of his who did have some of those encumbrances though, and who was getting ahead.

Although I have just started Nickeled and Dimed what strikes me is that, of course, Barbara Ehrenreich is a woman, and the unskilled jobs that are open to her are unlike the jobs that are available to men who are physically capable and are more highly paid. I am interested to see where else the comparison of these two books will take me.

>154 vwinsloe:, Great comments! Hope you'll report more about these two books in April. I love Ehrenreich's astringency even when I don't agree with her.

>154 vwinsloe: of course, Barbara Ehrenreich is a woman

One thing I remember her discussing in that book was the confidence that comes with being able to leave a situation...with having that kind of safety net, even if you don't use it. Something not usually available to the people she worked alongside.

She also chose to live alone for the duration of her experiment, I believe. Also an option not many minimum wage workers have or attempt. It's cheaper to have roomates to share expenses.

>150 sturlington: I really enjoyed The Bell Jar... it was one of those books that lived up to the hype.

>154 vwinsloe: I'm interested to see what you think of Nickel and Dimed, which I thought was an excellent read. Of course Ehrenreich has her privileges, but I found that even being white and female and well-educated, etc, it was still really hard for her to make ends meet.