Nearly Halfway there!
22 / 50
(44.0%)
Per request, I'm putting most of this post behind an LJ-Cut.
The books you'll find within:
#13-#15 is actually an ominbus edition of all three books in the Wraeththu trilogy by Storm Constantine, and I'll review it as one book.
#16 was Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow by Elizabeth Lesser
#17 was Notes from an Incomplete Revolution: Real Life Since Feminism by Merideth Maran
#18 was Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings by Christopher Moore
#19 was Food and Feast in Tudor England by Alison Sim
#20 was The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
#21 was Folly by Laurie R. King
#22 was House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
From the Publisher:
Synopsis
In this powerful and elegant story set in a future Earth very different from our own, a new kind of human has evolved to challenge the dominion of Homo sapiens. This new breed is stronger, smarter, and far more beautiful than their parent race, and are endowed with psychic as well as physical gifts. They are destined to supplant humanity as we know it, but humanity won't die without a struggle.
Here at last in a single volume are all three of Constantine's Wraeththu trilogy: The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit, The Bewitchments of Love and Hate, and The Fulfilments of Fate and Desire.
My thoughts....
This book is an important one in my partner's life, so I thought it important to read. It's also one of the best works of science fiction I've ever read. Who doesn't like post-apocalyptic hermaphrodites?? Constantine's language is beautiful (though I hate her use of the word "disorientate) and the world she creates is vivid, alive, and alternately facsinating and terrifying. As a scholar of gender, I loved all the playing with gender and sex that Constantine gets up to in these stories. It takes a bit to suspend our cultural script of two (or three) sexes to embrace the idea of a totally new species of human, but once you get there, the story is compelling. This book is a brick, well over 1000 pages, but I tore through it in almost no time at all. The relationships she crafts are so multilayered and the characters so compelling that you want to know what happens, you care what happens to these people. I am excited to get into her Wraeththu histories and then move into her other writings. I'm also wondering, from the undeniable Pagan overtones, if I've met her under another name at a festival in the past :)
Wraeththu is definitely a commitment, and not for those faint of heart about genderf*ck type of stuff. But if you're interested in reading a great science fiction series that also has something to say about our current view of sex and gender, pick this one up. (Warning: It's big, so life with your knees.)
From the Publisher:
Synopsis
“If we can stay awake when our lives are changing, secrets will be revealed to us-secrets about ourselves, about the nature of life, and about the eternal source of happiness and peace that is always available, always renewable, already within us.”
-ELIZABETH LESSER
During times of transition, amid everyday stress, and even when we face seemingly insurmountable adversity, life offers us a choice: to turn away from change or to embrace it; to shut down or to be broken open and transformed. In the more than twenty-five years since she cofounded the Omega Institute-now the world’s largest personal-growth and spiritual retreat center-Elizabeth Lesser has been an intimate witness to the ways in which human beings deal with change, loss, and difficulty. She herself has struggled to submit to what she calls the “Phoenix Process”- allowing herself to be broken open in order to rise like the mythical bird from the ashes of past mistakes and suffering.
In this beautifully written, often funny, and always inspiring book, Lesser has gathered together true stories about ordinary people who by design or disaster decided to step boldly into a fuller life. Here are profoundly moving narratives of fears overcome and risks taken; of hard times and difficult passages; of betrayal, divorce, sickness, and death; and of the day-to-day challenges of raising children, earning a living, and growing older. By sharing her own most human traits, Lesser helps us feel less lonely in our own struggles, and more optimistic about the possibility of transformation. Broken Open also introduces us to some of the world’sgreatest spiritual teachers-both ancient and living-and imparts the wisdom of various traditions, from Buddhist meditation to Sufi dance, and from Christian prayer to contemporary psychotherapy. Eminently practical, Lesser provides tools to support us in our quest for a clearer sense of purpose and a new passion for life.
My thoughts...
I read this for my book club, and it's not something I might have picked up on my own. I tend to shy away from alot of the more new-agey self help books out there. They just tend to annoy me. And Lesser annoyed me at parts of this book, but I'm still glad I read it. As someone who has spent the last year going through her own dismantling and rebuilding, Lesser's concept of The Phoenix Process was very moving. It also gave me hope, especially since I read this book during a particularly difficult part of my own process.
This book is a little Chicken Soup for the Soul in parts, and I had to read past some of the saccharine sweetness and light to get to the meat. But it's also very honest, straightforward, and moving. I'm sure the people on mycommuter train wondered what I was silently crying about a few times while I read this book on my daily train ride :) There is something in this book for everyone who's gone through a rough period, even if at times you have to read past the platitudes and human-potential-movement BS to get to it.
From the Publisher:
Synopsis
Do women - whether they're twenty or forty or sixty - feel more in control of their lives? Has feminism made us more - or less - fulfilled in our relationships with men and with each other? With her keen eye for contradictions, Meredith Maran finds our new realities in surprising places: on a racquetball court facing an unyielding female opponent; before a classroom of high school students, openly discussing her bisexuality; in a courtroom during a sexual abuse trial. Through her singular experiences she illuminates the issues millions of women confront daily: her thorny relationship with her mother; the politics of flirting; the struggle to raise caring, responsible children in the face of racism and violence.
My thoughts...
It was interesting reading this book on the heels of Tales of the Lavender Menace and Broken Open, since Maran was in many of the same movements with the authors of those two books. Maran's tale of her involvement in the hippie subculture and her subsequent movement into the mainstream is honest, raw, and moving. She writes openly of the dissonance between her ideals and the way life has turned out for her, but also with a sense of humor and hope for a better world. I think her memoir provides a great counterpoint to some of the more idealistic memoirs of the feminist movement that are out there. I will definitely be using this book in classes on feminism, women's studies, and queer studies. It's a great read for anyone who wants to see how far we've come since feminism and how far we still have to go.
From the Publisher:
Synopsis
Just why do humpback whales sing? That's the question that has marine behavioral biologist Nate Quinn and his crew poking, charting, recording, and photographing very big, wet, gray marine mammals. Until the extraordinary day when a whale lifts its tail into the air to display a cryptic message spelled out in foot-high letters: Bite me.
Trouble is, Nate's beginning to wonder if he hasn't spent just a little too much time in the sun. 'Cause no one else on his team saw a thing -- not his longtime partner, Clay Demodocus; not their saucy young research assistant; not even the spliff-puffing white-boy Rastaman Kona (né Preston Applebaum). But later, when a roll of film returns from the lab missing the crucial tail shot -- and his research facility is trashed -- Nate realizes something very fishy indeed is going on.
By turns witty, irreverent, fascinating, puzzling, and surprising, Fluke is Christopher Moore at his outrageous best.
My thoughts...
Drop-dead, piss-yourself hilarious. There's no other way to say it. Sure, some of the jokes will only be funny to the science-geek crowd, but whatever. Moore creates characters that are three-dimensional and wonderful. (Kona, the New England kid turned surfer dude, is my favorite.) The situation is completely absurd, but Moore's storytelling is so good you go along for the ride. Absolutely the funniest thing I've read this year. It's not often I have to stop reading because I'm laughing too hard to breathe.
Whether you're a longtime Moore fan or new to him, get this book. It's a great antedote to a bad day.
From the Publisher:
Synopsis
Popular representations of the Tudors at table have caricatured them as loud, gross, and lacking any manners. This is actually far from the case, as food and dining were used as social display by the upwardly mobile. For those with money, meals became extravagantly sophisticated, with a staggering number of courses and breathtaking table displays. Even those lower down the social scale enjoyed some of the benefits of increasing prosperity and the new markets which England's merchants exploited, bringing new foodstuffs into the country and new ideas about eating. Alison Sim also explores Tudor ideas about healthy eating, as they were aware of the effects of various foods on the body and the health-giving properties of certain ingredients. Etiquette, too, was treated with great seriousness in this period, as those who wished to impress a potential patron or benefactor were keen to show off their good manners. What emerges from this evidence is a more balanced and certainly more attractive picture of the Tudors at table.
My thoughts....
I've been increasingly interested in Tudor life since reading the Philippa Gregory series about the Tudor women, so I jumped at the chance to read this. I'm also interested in the history and anthropology of food, so this book satisfied two of my interests. This is a wonderful introduction to the foodways of the period, a brief tour through the museum of Tudor foodstuffs, customs, tableware, and the like. It whetted my curiousity to do more research more than anything else -- Sim takes us on a very breezy and brief tour through the period rather than taking us into any one area in a very detailed fashion. Her research is clearly meticulous -- she has simply written the book to be accessible to a wide audience. I'm curious to read her The Tudor Housewife now as well, and will be doing more research into recipes and ingredients of the period. Reading this does give me more of a sense of the culinary ways of the time, which will no doubt enhance my readings of any future novels or nonfiction about the period. A good introductory text and one I'd use in a class on the anthropology of food, as she does discuss the way culture shapes what we eat and vice-versa.
From the Publisher:
Synopsis
Clear-eyed and spirited, Taylor Greer grew up poor in rural Kentucky with the goals of avoiding pregnancy and getting away. But when she heads west with high hopes and a barely functional car, she meets the human condition head-on. By the time Taylor arrives in Tucson, Arizona, she has acquired a completely unexpected child, a three-year-old American Indian girl named Turtle, and must somehow come to terms with both motherhood and the necessity for putting down roots. Hers is a story about love and friendship, abandonment and belonging, and the discovery of surprising resources in apparently empty places.
My thoughts....
I love Barbara Kingsolver, and while The Bean Trees is no The Poisonwood Bible or Prodigal Summer, it's still a fun, breezy, yet profound read. It's tone and heroine remind me a great deal of Rita Mae Brown's Rubyfruit Jungle, actually.
This is a straightforward and honest story told by a straightforward and honest heroine. But, like the heroine herself, the story is more complicated than it first appears. Taylor's voice is so real, it's like she is sitting in your living room talking to you. Kingsolver weaves a story full of characters and places that jump off the page, and she does so with simple language and with the magick of the things she leaves unsaid. There are passages that are laugh-out-loud funny and passages that are simply heartbreaking. In this way, Kingsolver (through Taylor) manages to capture the delicate dance that is life. There's also an intersting and subtle lesbian subplot, if you want to look for it. A good read, especially for those who want to look at some Kingsolver's earlier work.
From the Publisher:
Synopsis
An acclaimed master of suspense creates a heroine you will never forget in this superbly chilling novel of a woman who begins a desperate undertaking that may transform her life-or end it.
WHAT HAPPENS IF YOUR WORST FEARS AREN’T ALL IN YOUR MIND?
Rae Newborn is a woman on the edge: on the edge of sanity, on the edge of tragedy, and now on the edge of the world. She has moved to an island at the far reaches of the continent to restore the house of an equally haunted figure, her mysterious great-uncle; but as her life begins to rebuild itself along with the house, his story starts to wrap around hers. Powerful forces are stirring, but Rae cannot see where her reality leaves off and his fate begins.
Fifty-two years old, Rae must battle the feelings that have long tormented her-panic, melancholy, and a skin-crawling sense of watchers behind the trees. Before she came here, she believed that most of the things she feared existed only in her mind. And who can say, as disturbing incidents multiply, if any of the watchers on Folly Island might be real? Is Rae paranoid, as her family and the police believe, or is the threat real? Is the island alive with promise-or with dangers?
With Folly, award-winning author Laurie R. King once again powerfully redefines psychological suspense on a sophisticated and harrowing new level, and proves why legions of readers and reviewers have named her a master of the genre.
My thoughts...
I cannot say enough about how much I loved this book. It is gripping from the first, long before the central suspense and mystery plotlines get going. King's honest and raw treatment of mental illness is something to behold. Rae Newborn may be the best heroine I've read in years, partially because she is so fallable and weak. King makes no attempt to hide Rae's struggles with madness, but she humanizes them. The madness isn't just a plot device, it is the central plot point. Rae's struggles are so real, and so honest, and so brave...and that makes her jump off the page. You identify with her and root for her but are also incredibly frustrated with her as well. By the time the real mystery gets set up, you are so far into Rae's mind and heart that you are questioning whether there is anything in those woods or not, and at least I was hoping there was -- because you want to see Rae triumph over her madness, want to see her win against the darkness.
King's description of the scenery and the characters is rich, compelling, and true to life. I want to go to the San Juans now. She delicately interweaves layers of story into a tapestry that any reader can appreciate. Even if you don't normally read suspense or mystery, give this one a try.
From the Publisher:
In this riveting novel of almost unbearable suspense, three fragile yet determined people become dangerously entangled in a relentlessly escalating crisis. Colonel Behrani, once a wealthy man in Iran, is now a struggling immigrant willing to bet everything he has to restore his family's dignity. Kathy Nicolo is a troubled young woman whose house is all she has left, and who refuses to let her hard-won stability slip away from her. Sheriff Lester Burdon, a married man who finds himself falling in love with Kathy, becomes obsessed with helping her fight for justice.
Drawn by their competing desires to the same small house in the California hills and doomed by their tragic inability to understand one another, the three converge in an explosive collision course. Combining unadorned realism with profound empathy, House of Sand and Fog marks the arrival of a major new voice in American fiction.
My thoughts....
Move over, The Mermaid Chair. House of Sand and Fog just took your place as the asskicking of the year. This novel kept me up at night. It is clear from almost the first that there's no way for this story to end other than tragically, and yet the reader is drawn into the lives of the characters and further and further into the plot as it thickens and twists. I went from hating the Colonel and empathizing with Kathy to hating her and Lester and rooting for the Behranis, and then back again. This is an amazing story of a clash of cultures, what happens when a quest for justice turns into an obsession with revenge, and just where being a bigot can take us.
I can't say much more without spoiling the end, and I want to keep that suspense intact for anyone who wants to read this. Be prepared to be pissed, be prepared to be disgusted, and be prepared to stay up long past your bedtime reading this one.