books
A Russian Journal by John Steinbeck
Initially published in 1948, the book's purpose was strictly to document the lives of the Russian people. The lived reality, removed from the Whys of the life or the specific policies of the USSR. Of course they also talk about the restrictions in what they (he traveled with a photographer) could and couldn't photograph, and where they could and couldn't go, etc...
It's a really interesting time capsule, a valuable record, and a very good read.
Ravensbrück: Life and Death in Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women by Sarah Helm (also called If This is a Woman: Inside Ravensbruck)
Somewhere I saw this described as a biography of Ravensbrück, and it is that. 650 pages of in-depth investigation of the camp from the earliest inception to the final days and it's life after the war, including how it was treated by histories and in terms of commemorating the women who died, etc...
While Ravensbruck might be most famous for the medical experiments (involving sulphonamides and muscle and bone regeneration), it was somewhat unique in the camp system being the only camp solely for women. It was initially populated by 'asocials' (female criminals and prostitutes), communists, and members of resistance movements. There was never any pretense of rehabilitation, but rather one of 'cleansing' the German people of these elements (even though prostitution was legal in Germany at the time). In the beginning many of the work projects the women were forced to do were meaningless tasks, simply designed the break the women and use up their strength.
The book is important, but even as concentration camp books go it's hard going. Helm organizes the information well, going pretty much entirely in chronological order (something I really prefer), switching between different issues in the camp, different periods, and different key figures. The only other books I've read on the camp were Corrie ten Boom's The Hiding Place and Beyond Human Endurance, which focuses solely on the Polish women who were operated on (the 'rabbits'), so it was good to see the wider picture. I've also never been so angry at the Internation Committee of the Red Cross, who kept members from even publicizing the extermination killing and the medical experiments going on in concentration camps (let alone lifting a finger to try to stop it happening).
Any even nominal look at the concentration camps leaves one feeling largely baffled by the Nazi system of total neglect, prescribed extermination killing for many groups, and yet anal retentive attention to detail. For example, in Ravensbrück they didn't have enough doctors among the SS men and women to sign death certificates for the large numbers of women killed each day, so they forced prisoners who were licensed doctors to sign them off as well. Only if they were fully qualified doctors. Particularly later in the war, when they knew that outsiders were already aware of the death camps and were hell bent on killing the evidence, you just wonder why on earth those kinds of details would matter. It's totally insensible.
It's an important book, and I'm glad it's printed on wonderfully high quality paper. The paper will last 100 years or more, and this information needs to last.
Unruly Places: Lost Spaces, Secret Cities, and Other Inscrutable Geographies by Alastair Bonnett
This was an interesting and wide-ranging read. It uses the term psychogeography, though in another different sense from that used in Places of the Heart. Both deal with the important of place, and how ignoring or negating that experience is generally bad for humans.
Bonnett looks into some extreme and/or unusual living arrangements around the world as well as dealing with problems caused by our sense of place (as something important to hold onto). I'm sure I'm not the only one who, when driving past my childhood homes, gets a little upset that things have changed (who wouldn't be upset that people cut down two wonderful cherry trees though? Think of the pies that won't be made...).
Good read, recommended.
Freddy and Mr. Camphor by Walter R. Brooks
You'll be seeing a lot of Freddy for the next month. My library got rid of a few children's books I'd been waiting to read so I felt I'd better hurry up with the Freddy books they have that I've never read. I have read the later book in the series that involves Mr. Camphor (Freddy Goes Camping), which I loved. Camphor is fun and has an interesting relationship with his butter, Bannister, as they collect proverbs and test them.
In this volume Freddy takes a summer job as caretaker for Mr. Camphor's estate. He's largely enjoying himself, other than realizing Simon and his gang of rats are in the attic, chewing on Camphor's paintings. Before Freddy can worry much about them a familiar face appears - Mr. Winch, the villain who tried to cook and eat Henrietta and Charles, a hen and rooster, on their trip to Florida in the first Freddy book. The Winches make trouble and get Freddy fired in disgrace. There's also a victory garden related subplot where the insects of the district rally together and agree not to eat any of the vegetables in gardens in order to do their bit for the war effort (this was published in 1944).
Fun as usual, but definitely a weaker Freddy book in terms of plot and pacing.
Collected Poems: Edna St. Vincent Millay by Edna St. Vincent Millay
I've been slowly reading through this large volume (738 pages, I believe) for some time now. After putting it aside for a few months it was time to get it finished.
I love Millay and her poetry. I'm away from home at the moment, but when I'm back I'll post some of my favorites from the book. She's able to be both traditional and timeless, which is a hard path to walk.
Definitely pick up Millay sometime, particularly her sonnets. Wonderful stuff. Here are some favorites I marked.
In the spring of the year, in the spring of the year,
I walked the road beside my dear.
The trees were black where the bark was wet.
I see them yet, in the spring of the year.
He broke me a bough of the blossoming peach
That was out of the way and hard to reach.
In the fall of the year, in the fall of the year,
I walked the road beside my dear.
The rooks went up with a raucous trill.
I hear them still, in the fall of the year.
He laughed at all I dared to praise,
And broke my heart, in little ways.
Year be springing or year be falling,
The bark will drip and the birds be calling.
There's much that's fine to see and hear
In the spring of a year, in the fall of a year.
'Tis not love's going hurt my days.
But that it went in little ways.
The Plaid Dress
Strong sun, that bleach
The curtains of my room, can you not render
Colourless this dress I wear? -
This violent plaid
Of purple angers and red shames; the yellow stripe
Of thin but valid treacheries; the flashy green of kind deeds done
Through indolence, high judgments given in haste;
The recurring checker of the serious breach of taste?
No more uncoloured than unmade,
I fear, can be this garment that I may not doff;
Confession does not strip it off,
To send me homeward eased and bare;
All through the formal, unoffending evening, under the clean
Bright hair,
Lining the subtle gown … it is not seen,
But it is there.
Impression: Fog Off the Coast of Dorset
As day was born, as night was dying,
The seagulls woke me with their crying;
And from the reef the mooning horn
Spoke to the waker: Day is born
And night is dying, but still the fog
On dimly looming deck and spar
Is dewy, and on the vessel's log,
And cold the first-mate's fingers are,
And wet the pen wherewith they write
“Off Portland. Fog. No land in sight.”
--As night was dying, and glad to die,
And day, with dull and gloomy eye,
Lifting the sun, a smoky lamp,
Peered into fog, that swaddled sky
And wave alike: a shifty damp
Unwieldy province, loosely ruled,
Turned over to a prince unschooled,
That he must govern with sure hand
Straightway, not knowing sea from land.
Sonnet CLXXI
Read history: thus learn how small a space
You may inhabit, nor inhabit long
In crowding Cosmos-in that confined place
Work boldly; build your flimsy barriers strong;
Turn round and round, make warm your nest; among
The other hunting beasts, keep heart and face,--
Not to betray the doomed and splendid race
You are so proud of, to which you belong.
For trouble comes to all of us: the rat
Has courage, in adversity, to fight;
But what a shining animal is man,
Who knows, when pain subsides, that is not that,
For worse than that must follow-yet can write
Music; can laugh; play tennis; even plan.
Winter Night
Pile high the Hickory and the light
Log of chestnut struck by the blight,
Welcome-in the winter night.
The day has gone in hewing and felling,
Sawing and drawing wood to the dwelling
For the night of talk and stroy-telling.
These are the hours that give the edge
To the blunted axe and the bent wedge,
Straighten the saw and the lighten the sledge.
Here at question and reply,
And the fire reflected in the thinking eye.
So peace, and let the bob-cat cry.
The Last Bookaneer by Matthew Pearl
This wasn't a good read for me. I don't know why I kept at it when it wasn't holding my interest or being enjoyable. With audiobooks it's difficult for me to stop something halfway, and once I'm halfway I tend to feel like I might as well finish it.
The concept of this sounded like a lot of fun, but the execution wasn't exciting or even very interesting. Before enforced copyright laws there was a lot of publishing 'on demand,' as it were, whatever was proving popular. The bookaneer in question here goes to Samoa to track down Robert Louis Stevenson.
I think the pacing was poor, but also the story just wasn't that interesting. More fool me for listening to the whole thing when I could have been reading something more fun.
Moon at Nine by Deborah Ellis
For whatever reason I crave LGBT representation much more now than I did in high school (I'm bisexual and didn't realize that wasn't the norm until I was about 12, I was kind of oblivious). As this book is based on one woman's actual life, don't go in expecting a happy ending. It's a crushing book.
It's Iran in 1989, Farrin is in her last year or two of high school and has no friends. Her parents (more her mother) are supporters of the Shah and want Farrin to stay unnoticed in school to protect themselves. When she meets new student Sadira she's immediately drawn to her. Sadira is kind, earnest, and very hardworking. She helps Farrin break out of her somewhat selfish bubble and they fall in love.
If I hadn't been at the beach I probably would have finished this in one sitting. I do wish the writer were Iranian, just because there's so much that a writer will miss about a certain place and time if they come to it as an outsider. However, I think Ellis did a pretty good job and a fair job. There are a lot of shades of grey and I think she handled it well.
Recommended, but it is heartbreaking.
Avenue of Spies: A True Story of Terror, Espionage, and One American Family's Heroic Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Paris by Alex Kershaw
This book was just not very good. I was surprised to see that Kershaw has written a number of non-fiction books already as it felt like an author's early effort. A tiny portion of the book is dedicated to the family's resistance activities, and everything felt padded out. Kerhsaw also includes incorrect (or at the very least misleading) information about Ravensbruck. I trust Sarah Helm's extremely thorough book about the camp more than I trust Kerhsaw's side research about it.
Kershaw actually says in an interview that he just wanted to live in Paris for a bit, so he needed a subject based there to write about. Maybe that's more common in non-fiction than I'd like to believe, but it certainly didn't feel like a subject he was passionate about.
If you want a book about resistance work in France that focuses on individuals I'd recommend Sisters, Secrets, and Sacrifice instead.
Child of the Prophecy by Juliet Marillier RE-READ
This is the third in Marillier's Sevenwaters trilogy (she went on to write three more books involving characters in Child of the Prophecy, which are more for the YA market and very separate from the original trilogy). These books are comfort reading for me, and Marillier writes her characters so well. They're not what you pick up for beautiful language, but for the characters.
This isn't my favorite of the trilogy, but it grows on me every time I read it. Fainne has been raised in isolation, learning the ways of a druid from her father Ciaran. They are outcasts from Sevenwaters, and Fianne's sorceress grandmother takes over Fainne's education, and sends her to Sevenwaters to use as a spy and pawn in her plans to destroy the family.
Fainne is a hard character to love, I think. She is spiky and unsure and refuses to put her trust in anyone. You just want to shake her. However, she's 15 in the books, and frankly I was just as wary and distrustful at that age. Perhaps that's why I didn't immediately love the book (also the one before this Son of the Shadows is my favorite Marillier work and has the exact love story scenario I'm a sucker for).
Dr. Mutter's Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
While I think the subtitle isn't particularly accurate, I did really enjoy this book. Dr. Mutter is a charming and intriguing person, even via words at the distance of years (his life speaks to incredible charisma). A bit of a popinjay, he was also an extremely good and caring doctor. I've been dealing with two chronic illnesses for the last ten years, and I've only seen two or three doctors who I'd class as good, caring people, so it was a little surreal to read of Dr. Mutter being such at a time when patient welfare wasn't much of a consideration.
The book wanders a bit, too much for some readers though most of it is still very much concerned with Mutter either by his difference from fellow doctors or how his students would carry on his legacy. It worked for me though. The title refers, I believe, both to his collection of medical 'oddities' and to the fact of his personality and care for patients.
Enjoyable, interesting, well-written.
Lumberjanes Volume 2: Friendship to the Max by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, and others
The adventures at a supernatural-activity-prone camp continue! I think I liked this one even more. Great series, and really glad to see something fun, creative, and also appropriate for children.
Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor
I picked this up familiar with the general tone of the podcast, but not having listened to any of the episodes. I've seen a lot of quotes from it and tweets from the series Twitter account though and knew the kind of thing to expect. The novel was still enjoyable and interesting with podcast knowledge, though I'm not sure what I would have thought going in totally unknowing.
I love the humor present in the book and in the podcast (just started it), and while the plot elements progressed they weren't totally predictable. It's strange to feel old enough to be thinking about what a book's reputation will be in thirty years. I feel like this is the new Dada-type movement. It also made me think of Cards of Identity, a 'out there' book my dad loved in college and gave me to read when I was in high school (a satire on psychology, identity, and class theory, which I don't think I was quite old enough to appreciate).
The series will obviously be key to holding onto "cool aunt" status when my niece and nephew are older.
Initially published in 1948, the book's purpose was strictly to document the lives of the Russian people. The lived reality, removed from the Whys of the life or the specific policies of the USSR. Of course they also talk about the restrictions in what they (he traveled with a photographer) could and couldn't photograph, and where they could and couldn't go, etc...
It's a really interesting time capsule, a valuable record, and a very good read.
Ravensbrück: Life and Death in Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women by Sarah Helm (also called If This is a Woman: Inside Ravensbruck)
Somewhere I saw this described as a biography of Ravensbrück, and it is that. 650 pages of in-depth investigation of the camp from the earliest inception to the final days and it's life after the war, including how it was treated by histories and in terms of commemorating the women who died, etc...
While Ravensbruck might be most famous for the medical experiments (involving sulphonamides and muscle and bone regeneration), it was somewhat unique in the camp system being the only camp solely for women. It was initially populated by 'asocials' (female criminals and prostitutes), communists, and members of resistance movements. There was never any pretense of rehabilitation, but rather one of 'cleansing' the German people of these elements (even though prostitution was legal in Germany at the time). In the beginning many of the work projects the women were forced to do were meaningless tasks, simply designed the break the women and use up their strength.
The book is important, but even as concentration camp books go it's hard going. Helm organizes the information well, going pretty much entirely in chronological order (something I really prefer), switching between different issues in the camp, different periods, and different key figures. The only other books I've read on the camp were Corrie ten Boom's The Hiding Place and Beyond Human Endurance, which focuses solely on the Polish women who were operated on (the 'rabbits'), so it was good to see the wider picture. I've also never been so angry at the Internation Committee of the Red Cross, who kept members from even publicizing the extermination killing and the medical experiments going on in concentration camps (let alone lifting a finger to try to stop it happening).
Any even nominal look at the concentration camps leaves one feeling largely baffled by the Nazi system of total neglect, prescribed extermination killing for many groups, and yet anal retentive attention to detail. For example, in Ravensbrück they didn't have enough doctors among the SS men and women to sign death certificates for the large numbers of women killed each day, so they forced prisoners who were licensed doctors to sign them off as well. Only if they were fully qualified doctors. Particularly later in the war, when they knew that outsiders were already aware of the death camps and were hell bent on killing the evidence, you just wonder why on earth those kinds of details would matter. It's totally insensible.
It's an important book, and I'm glad it's printed on wonderfully high quality paper. The paper will last 100 years or more, and this information needs to last.
Unruly Places: Lost Spaces, Secret Cities, and Other Inscrutable Geographies by Alastair Bonnett
This was an interesting and wide-ranging read. It uses the term psychogeography, though in another different sense from that used in Places of the Heart. Both deal with the important of place, and how ignoring or negating that experience is generally bad for humans.
Bonnett looks into some extreme and/or unusual living arrangements around the world as well as dealing with problems caused by our sense of place (as something important to hold onto). I'm sure I'm not the only one who, when driving past my childhood homes, gets a little upset that things have changed (who wouldn't be upset that people cut down two wonderful cherry trees though? Think of the pies that won't be made...).
Good read, recommended.
Freddy and Mr. Camphor by Walter R. Brooks
You'll be seeing a lot of Freddy for the next month. My library got rid of a few children's books I'd been waiting to read so I felt I'd better hurry up with the Freddy books they have that I've never read. I have read the later book in the series that involves Mr. Camphor (Freddy Goes Camping), which I loved. Camphor is fun and has an interesting relationship with his butter, Bannister, as they collect proverbs and test them.
In this volume Freddy takes a summer job as caretaker for Mr. Camphor's estate. He's largely enjoying himself, other than realizing Simon and his gang of rats are in the attic, chewing on Camphor's paintings. Before Freddy can worry much about them a familiar face appears - Mr. Winch, the villain who tried to cook and eat Henrietta and Charles, a hen and rooster, on their trip to Florida in the first Freddy book. The Winches make trouble and get Freddy fired in disgrace. There's also a victory garden related subplot where the insects of the district rally together and agree not to eat any of the vegetables in gardens in order to do their bit for the war effort (this was published in 1944).
Fun as usual, but definitely a weaker Freddy book in terms of plot and pacing.
Collected Poems: Edna St. Vincent Millay by Edna St. Vincent Millay
I've been slowly reading through this large volume (738 pages, I believe) for some time now. After putting it aside for a few months it was time to get it finished.
I love Millay and her poetry. I'm away from home at the moment, but when I'm back I'll post some of my favorites from the book. She's able to be both traditional and timeless, which is a hard path to walk.
Definitely pick up Millay sometime, particularly her sonnets. Wonderful stuff. Here are some favorites I marked.
In the spring of the year, in the spring of the year,
I walked the road beside my dear.
The trees were black where the bark was wet.
I see them yet, in the spring of the year.
He broke me a bough of the blossoming peach
That was out of the way and hard to reach.
In the fall of the year, in the fall of the year,
I walked the road beside my dear.
The rooks went up with a raucous trill.
I hear them still, in the fall of the year.
He laughed at all I dared to praise,
And broke my heart, in little ways.
Year be springing or year be falling,
The bark will drip and the birds be calling.
There's much that's fine to see and hear
In the spring of a year, in the fall of a year.
'Tis not love's going hurt my days.
But that it went in little ways.
The Plaid Dress
Strong sun, that bleach
The curtains of my room, can you not render
Colourless this dress I wear? -
This violent plaid
Of purple angers and red shames; the yellow stripe
Of thin but valid treacheries; the flashy green of kind deeds done
Through indolence, high judgments given in haste;
The recurring checker of the serious breach of taste?
No more uncoloured than unmade,
I fear, can be this garment that I may not doff;
Confession does not strip it off,
To send me homeward eased and bare;
All through the formal, unoffending evening, under the clean
Bright hair,
Lining the subtle gown … it is not seen,
But it is there.
Impression: Fog Off the Coast of Dorset
As day was born, as night was dying,
The seagulls woke me with their crying;
And from the reef the mooning horn
Spoke to the waker: Day is born
And night is dying, but still the fog
On dimly looming deck and spar
Is dewy, and on the vessel's log,
And cold the first-mate's fingers are,
And wet the pen wherewith they write
“Off Portland. Fog. No land in sight.”
--As night was dying, and glad to die,
And day, with dull and gloomy eye,
Lifting the sun, a smoky lamp,
Peered into fog, that swaddled sky
And wave alike: a shifty damp
Unwieldy province, loosely ruled,
Turned over to a prince unschooled,
That he must govern with sure hand
Straightway, not knowing sea from land.
Sonnet CLXXI
Read history: thus learn how small a space
You may inhabit, nor inhabit long
In crowding Cosmos-in that confined place
Work boldly; build your flimsy barriers strong;
Turn round and round, make warm your nest; among
The other hunting beasts, keep heart and face,--
Not to betray the doomed and splendid race
You are so proud of, to which you belong.
For trouble comes to all of us: the rat
Has courage, in adversity, to fight;
But what a shining animal is man,
Who knows, when pain subsides, that is not that,
For worse than that must follow-yet can write
Music; can laugh; play tennis; even plan.
Winter Night
Pile high the Hickory and the light
Log of chestnut struck by the blight,
Welcome-in the winter night.
The day has gone in hewing and felling,
Sawing and drawing wood to the dwelling
For the night of talk and stroy-telling.
These are the hours that give the edge
To the blunted axe and the bent wedge,
Straighten the saw and the lighten the sledge.
Here at question and reply,
And the fire reflected in the thinking eye.
So peace, and let the bob-cat cry.
The Last Bookaneer by Matthew Pearl
This wasn't a good read for me. I don't know why I kept at it when it wasn't holding my interest or being enjoyable. With audiobooks it's difficult for me to stop something halfway, and once I'm halfway I tend to feel like I might as well finish it.
The concept of this sounded like a lot of fun, but the execution wasn't exciting or even very interesting. Before enforced copyright laws there was a lot of publishing 'on demand,' as it were, whatever was proving popular. The bookaneer in question here goes to Samoa to track down Robert Louis Stevenson.
I think the pacing was poor, but also the story just wasn't that interesting. More fool me for listening to the whole thing when I could have been reading something more fun.
Moon at Nine by Deborah Ellis
For whatever reason I crave LGBT representation much more now than I did in high school (I'm bisexual and didn't realize that wasn't the norm until I was about 12, I was kind of oblivious). As this book is based on one woman's actual life, don't go in expecting a happy ending. It's a crushing book.
It's Iran in 1989, Farrin is in her last year or two of high school and has no friends. Her parents (more her mother) are supporters of the Shah and want Farrin to stay unnoticed in school to protect themselves. When she meets new student Sadira she's immediately drawn to her. Sadira is kind, earnest, and very hardworking. She helps Farrin break out of her somewhat selfish bubble and they fall in love.
If I hadn't been at the beach I probably would have finished this in one sitting. I do wish the writer were Iranian, just because there's so much that a writer will miss about a certain place and time if they come to it as an outsider. However, I think Ellis did a pretty good job and a fair job. There are a lot of shades of grey and I think she handled it well.
Recommended, but it is heartbreaking.
Avenue of Spies: A True Story of Terror, Espionage, and One American Family's Heroic Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Paris by Alex Kershaw
This book was just not very good. I was surprised to see that Kershaw has written a number of non-fiction books already as it felt like an author's early effort. A tiny portion of the book is dedicated to the family's resistance activities, and everything felt padded out. Kerhsaw also includes incorrect (or at the very least misleading) information about Ravensbruck. I trust Sarah Helm's extremely thorough book about the camp more than I trust Kerhsaw's side research about it.
Kershaw actually says in an interview that he just wanted to live in Paris for a bit, so he needed a subject based there to write about. Maybe that's more common in non-fiction than I'd like to believe, but it certainly didn't feel like a subject he was passionate about.
If you want a book about resistance work in France that focuses on individuals I'd recommend Sisters, Secrets, and Sacrifice instead.
Child of the Prophecy by Juliet Marillier RE-READ
This is the third in Marillier's Sevenwaters trilogy (she went on to write three more books involving characters in Child of the Prophecy, which are more for the YA market and very separate from the original trilogy). These books are comfort reading for me, and Marillier writes her characters so well. They're not what you pick up for beautiful language, but for the characters.
This isn't my favorite of the trilogy, but it grows on me every time I read it. Fainne has been raised in isolation, learning the ways of a druid from her father Ciaran. They are outcasts from Sevenwaters, and Fianne's sorceress grandmother takes over Fainne's education, and sends her to Sevenwaters to use as a spy and pawn in her plans to destroy the family.
Fainne is a hard character to love, I think. She is spiky and unsure and refuses to put her trust in anyone. You just want to shake her. However, she's 15 in the books, and frankly I was just as wary and distrustful at that age. Perhaps that's why I didn't immediately love the book (also the one before this Son of the Shadows is my favorite Marillier work and has the exact love story scenario I'm a sucker for).
Dr. Mutter's Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
While I think the subtitle isn't particularly accurate, I did really enjoy this book. Dr. Mutter is a charming and intriguing person, even via words at the distance of years (his life speaks to incredible charisma). A bit of a popinjay, he was also an extremely good and caring doctor. I've been dealing with two chronic illnesses for the last ten years, and I've only seen two or three doctors who I'd class as good, caring people, so it was a little surreal to read of Dr. Mutter being such at a time when patient welfare wasn't much of a consideration.
The book wanders a bit, too much for some readers though most of it is still very much concerned with Mutter either by his difference from fellow doctors or how his students would carry on his legacy. It worked for me though. The title refers, I believe, both to his collection of medical 'oddities' and to the fact of his personality and care for patients.
Enjoyable, interesting, well-written.
Lumberjanes Volume 2: Friendship to the Max by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, and others
The adventures at a supernatural-activity-prone camp continue! I think I liked this one even more. Great series, and really glad to see something fun, creative, and also appropriate for children.
Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor
I picked this up familiar with the general tone of the podcast, but not having listened to any of the episodes. I've seen a lot of quotes from it and tweets from the series Twitter account though and knew the kind of thing to expect. The novel was still enjoyable and interesting with podcast knowledge, though I'm not sure what I would have thought going in totally unknowing.
I love the humor present in the book and in the podcast (just started it), and while the plot elements progressed they weren't totally predictable. It's strange to feel old enough to be thinking about what a book's reputation will be in thirty years. I feel like this is the new Dada-type movement. It also made me think of Cards of Identity, a 'out there' book my dad loved in college and gave me to read when I was in high school (a satire on psychology, identity, and class theory, which I don't think I was quite old enough to appreciate).
The series will obviously be key to holding onto "cool aunt" status when my niece and nephew are older.