What I Read in June: Mini Reviews

Though it started out a little slow, my June reading finished with some big winners.

The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit. I love non-traditional memoirs like this one with big themes and a narrative that wanders between stories, reflections, and big ideas. This book is about how we use stories to make meaning in our lives--very cool idea. However, sadly, I thought that Solnit's academic, super-elevated style did not work well in relating her emotional, personal experience.  The style and content seem to cancel each other out and make the final product hard to appreciate. In Give Me Everything You Have: On Being Stalked (a memoir I read last year and loved), James Lasdun uses academic language to analyze his experiences but a more relatable, informal style for the majority of the narrative. The two styles merge together quite naturally. I wish Solnit had also varied her style for more balance.

Conclusive Feelings: Some great ideas, but ultimately unsatisfying.

Our Great Big American God: A Short History of our Ever-Growing Diety by
Matthew Paul Turner. I'm not the right reader for this book. I love Mormon history, and when I found this reader's copy I thought a book about mainstream American Christianity might push me out of my comfort zone in a good way. About halfway through, though, I realized I just really wasn't interested. I muscled my way to the end because I have a problem and can't leave any book partly read.

Conclusive Feelings: I just wasn't in to the subject matter.

Living Hell: The Dark Side of the Civil War by Michael C.C. Adams. This book skips the political and gets right to the dirty details (aka the disturbing details, aka the good stuff.) Through first-hand accounts like journals and letters, Adams follows young Union and Rebel soldiers through the unbearable hunger, heat, mutiny, violence, madness and decay on the battlefields of the Civil War. I found the writing super accessible and and the subject matter super interesting.

Conclusive Feelings: Appealing to my morbid sense of curiosity.

Someone's Daughter by Silvia Pettem. This is a true crime book about a girl that was murdered and dumped by Boulder Creek in the 1950s. While I love love loved the details about 1950s era Boulder, there truly was TOO much detail in this book, most of it tangential and just not that interesting. I also found out after I finished that Pettem's conclusion about the identity of this girl was wrong! A few months after the book was published they finally matched the girl's DNA, and it was a girl Pettem never mentioned in the book. Rather disappointing. Also, this picture of the casket on the cover weirded me out.

Conclusive Feelings: Too much detail, disappointing ending.

The Lover by Marguerite Duras. A short novella about a  French girl in 1920's era Vietnam who has an affair with a rich Chinese man. Of course this colonial tale such as this hits on many familiar themes - sexual coming of age, money, class, privilege, culture class, maturity, despair. And all the in the tad over-the-top, slightly old fashioned French writing style that has its own appeal. The mood and setting couldn't help by remind me of Indochine, one of my favorite movies and featuring the ever-sexy French actor Vincent Perez.  The novel is based on Duras' childhood and was originally published in French in 1984. I guess it won the prix Goncourt, too, but I'm not sure how much I feel about this award anymore.

Conclusive Feelings: Short, fun, great sense of place and a strong mood.

The Wild Truth by Carine McCandless. This memoir is so good that I truly think it rivals Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer's famous book about Carine's brother Chris McCandless, even though I didn't even really like that book. Chris' story and personally really captured me, though, as it has millions of other people. Carine describes what life was like for her and Chris growing up in abusive family, why she thought Chris left, and what happened after his death. Carine is clearly just as intelligent and sensitive as Chris was, but I think her point of view also balances the over-the-top bravado of Krakauer's portrayal, and wasn't NEARLY as cheesy and forced. (I'm clearly not a Krakauer fan.) I admit I was one of those people who thought that Chris McCandless was reckless and immature, but Carine's potrayal rounds him out a bit and makes his decisions easier to sympathize with.  It was fun to read about her involvement with the movie adaptation too, which I've seen many times.

Conclusive Feelings: Better than I expected.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons From the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty. Doughty has a very strange and delightful sense of humor that makes this book absolutely worth reading, even if you don't think you're interested in the subject matter (--dead bodies and death. Obviously, I'm there.)  By the end, Doughty will convince you to care the American way of death, death rituals and grieving in a way that is surprisingly uplifting. I loved this book so much I wrote a whole post about it, but I'm going to try to post it closer to the publication date!

Conclusive Feelings: Extremely fun and interesting, by far the best read of the month!

The Patrick Melrose Novels by Edward St. Aubyn. Sometime earlier this month I heard St. Aubyn talking to Terry Gross on NPR about his new book, and I couldn't get over his ultra-snooty, upper-class English accent. Something about the interview convinced me to look into his autobiographical Patrick Melrose novels, which were recently published together in one volume. A strange mix of American Psycho and Downtown Abbey, these novels/novellas are disturbing and funny. I liked how each novel covered a different stage of Patrick Melrose's life and they all felt quite different. St. Aubyn's dry, dinstinctly British humor contrasts with the violence, despair, and trauma Patrick experiences beginning when he is raped by his father and continues as he copes by using drugs and drinking excessive amounts of alcohol throughout his life. By the end, the novels left me with a surprising sympathy for the ultra-privileged English upper class.

Conclusive Feelings: Funny, entertaining, loved it.

See you next month!

What I Read in May: Mini Reviews

Ugggggh. You guys. It was stupidly hard to make myself finish this post and publish it. It took me weeks! But I DID IT. I DID IT FOR YOU.

Anyway, I read some great books in May and a few blech-y ones and here they are.

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay. Whoa, I read this book a whole month and 1/2 ago?! I can hardly remember it now! Just kidding ... kinda. Anyway, I love Roxane Gay, please read her new novel that just came out called An Untamed State (see: What I Read in April.) The idea behind this collection is that feminism and feminists is/are complicated, multilayered, and contradictory. "I embrace the label of bad feminist because I am human. I am messy." Love it.

Conclusive feelings: Some good essays, a few duds, generally glad I read it and would most likely recommend. (Especially to people who like Cheryl Strayed.)

Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit. Oh hi, another feminist essay collection. Send me your feminist essay collection, I will read it. The title essay was hilarious, and I absolutely swooned over the essay about Virginia Woolf! That essay alone made the entire book worth it. A few of the essays on feminism, though, just felt like reiterations of things I've heard a thousand times and weren't all that interesting.

Conclusive feelings: VIRGINIA WOOLF.

China Dolls by Lisa See. Yeeah, didn't like this one. I read a few of Lisa See's books years ago and loved them, especially Peony in Love. This one, not so much. It's about a Japanese girl and two Chinese girls who dance in clubs in Chinatown in San Francisco during World War II. As you can imagine, tensions ensue. Ultimately the characters were BLAH and I didn't care about the story at all. It was bland.

Conclusive feelings: Blech.


Inside Madeleine by Paula Bomer A collection of semi-related short stories about characters that are the same person but different, which was rather interesting, I guess. The giant "M" on the cover that looks like it was smeared in blood freaks me out a bit.

Conclusive feelings: I mostly remember was there were lots sex toys. Otherwise, not very memorable.

Cheri & The Last of Cheri by Colette. Aww yeah. Loved this one, obviously. It completely captures that mood of Belle Epoque/post-WWI Paris that I crave sometimes. Colette somehow manages to portray the affair between a young man and a woman old enough to be his grandmother in a way that is melancholy and beautiful. Also, there's nothing like reading about fancy rich Parisians and their problems to make you want put on a silk robe and smell something flavored "peach blossom".  

Conclusive feelings: Adoration.

Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast OMG I loved this book so much! It's a graphic memoir that reads like one very long, very funny yet also very serious and lovely New Yorker cartoon about Roz Chast's aging parents and it will make you cry. It is a beautiful tribute to complicated family relationships. I loved it dearly and so will you.

Conclusive feelings: Funny/heartwarming.

Paris at the End of the World by John Baxter. This is a book about Paris during WWI. The narrative wanders through empty streets, crowded trains, battlefields and hospitals as Baxter re-imagines his grandfather's experience fighting in France 100 years ago. It's very readable but also has plenty of weird facts and information. I'm pretty sure it's here that I would give you an example of that but my copy of the book is in the other room.

Conclusive feelings: Delightful/interesting.

The Bishop's Wife by Mette Ivie Harrison. This is a sort of thriller, but also a sort of book club-ish book. Let's call it a "soft thriller." I'm not huge into thrillers, but I absolutely adored the narrator - a middle-aged wife of a Mormon bishop who is faithful but also has her own doubts, questions, issues, etc. I am absolutely thrilled that there is finally a book out there that gives voice to this experience. Mo-fem sisters, this is on point for us! The story turned out to be pretty good too. There is no sex and one "d-word" so I hope lots and lots and lots of Mormon women read this in their book clubs and have lots of good discussions.

Conclusive feelings: Fun/important.

Americanah by Chimamandah Ngozi Adichie. My wonderful, hyper-creative and beautiful friend Nicole recommended this book to me ages ago and I hate myself for not reading it sooner. It was on the NYTimes best 10 books of 2013 list and it is ~excellent~. Also, race, well done, and all that.

Conclusive feelings: Long but worth it.


If I Can't Have You by Gregg Olsen and Rebecca Morris. My reading of THIS book was inspired by my reading of The Bishop's Wife, which is loosely based on this case. I did not like this book at all. I don't like the idea of books like this generally. It's basically voyeurism in the form of a book and doesn't have much new information - just a lot of sappy interpretative content about "innocence" and "pure evil." No thanks.

Conclusive feelings: No.

The Hundred-Year House by Rebecca Makkai. I saved the best for last! This book reminded me of Possession by A.S. Byatt, one of my faves. It is about an old house in the midwest that was an artist's colony until the 50s. It begins in 1999, then goes to the 50's, then the 20's, and the year 1900 when the house was built. Each decade about a different group of people who lived in the house during that era. Each story fills in gaps and adds depth to the previous story, and let me tell you, it is E X C I T I N G. This is a book you should ABSOLUTELY buy in hardcover and read immediately.

Conclusive feelings: [heart eyes emoji] x 1000000

What I Read in April: Mini Reviews

So here's a new thing I'm going to try to do. This is a collection of thoughts on every single book I read this month, be it an overly critical rant (likely), obsessive blabber (quite likely), or a few neutral thoughts (all in which I'm most likely to overuse the word "really," which is a problem I have.) I'll post something like this most months, maybe, if I feel like it. And also, technically I read these books between March 28th and April 25th, but for simplicity's sake let's pretend I read these all in the month of April.

The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair by Joel Dicker. I hated this book. Marketed as a literary thriller, the English translation will be released next Tuesday and is supposed to be a big deal as it is supposedly "the publishing phenomena topping bestseller lists around the world."

In reality, this book is just a thinly-strung-together series of caricatural characters who do truly incomprehensibly stupid things, as well as loads of unnecessary repetition in the form of "extracts" and dialogue, with a few unpredictable narrative "twists" as its selling point. It's not that I don't usually read books of this genre - it's really just bad. (In fact, I do occasionally like crime stuff - here's a great interview with French author Emmanuel Carrère, who wrote a true crime book that I recently read and loved called The Adversary.)

The fact that this book has received so much praise, including the Grand Prix du Roman from the Académie Française leaves me (figuratively-ha) speechless. I have no earthly idea how such a terribly written book could win this and two other French literary prizes, unless they are judged purely on how well the contenders conform to recycled plot lines and genre tropes, which I doubt.

Here's my theory about this book - while it takes place in America and is about Americans, it was originally written for a European readership by a European. Thus, it has a distinctly European flavor to its humor, which I vaguely recognize but don't fully understand, and also don't find funny at all, nor, I suspect, will most American readers. I suppose we will find out soon enough.


Conclusive feelings: terrible, hated it.

City of Thieves by David Benioff. Derik and I listened to this audiobook driving back from visiting my family for Easter. I've been meaning to pick this one up since Tom, the sales rep from Penguin, enthusiastically declared it his favorite book from the last few years. The plot moves super fast, and somehow Benioff develops super interesting, complicated characters at the same time. Probably because he is a screenwriter and is used to writing characters this way, maybe? Just a guess. I don't really know what I'm talking about.

Conclusive feelings: excellent plot, thorough enjoyment was had (haha.)

An Untamed State by Roxane Gay. This is definitely going to be one of my top favorites of the year. In her narrative Gay somehow addresses the complicated-ness of gender, race,  trauma, privilege, and relationships, especially when they all overlap with each other in problematic ways. I'm actually in the middle of reading an essay collection by Gay called Bad Feminist, which includes an excellent essay called "I'm Not Here to Make Friends" (which I had previously read online in full or in part, can't remember, but I loved it then too.) In this essay she addresses the problem of "likeability" and the way we often use it to critique female characters in literature and pop culture. The main character in this book is an excellent example of a woman who doesn't follow social norms/expectations and so isn't necessarily "likeable" and thus - according to Gay, and also me, much more interesting.

Conclusive feelings: impressed, in awe, disturbed, many thoughts were provoked (haha)

Monkey Mind: A Memoir of Anxiety by Daniel B. Smith. Stunned by the insight, wisdom, and humor in this book. It definitely isn't self-help, doesn't include any "tips" (I'm so over "tips") and is a thoroughly realistic, fascinating, and quite often funny representation of one man's experience with anxiety--a state of mind many of us know and love. :)

Conclusive feelings: funny, liked it.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered by Nina Sankovitch. This new semi-memoir about letter writing is definitely a step up from Sankovitch's last semi-memoir about reading one book a day for a year called Tolstoy and the Purple Chair. (Any memoir about doing-one-specific-activity-every-day-for-one-year I automatically hate.) She does have some good insights about what makes letters, as texts, interesting and different, but I would have liked her to go on even more about the voyeuristic nature of reading a letter as a third party, which I don't think she ever even mentions. It seems like some of her insights were tamped down in favor of anecdotes and examples of famous letter-writers, presumably to be more palatable to general readership, which is too bad.

Conclusive feelings: Short, fun, some insight, not incredible. Liked it.

Servants by Lucy Leatherbridge. I got into this one because my interest in Downton Abbey went through a recent revival when I was at home sick last month. I don't care very much about the Grantham's and their issues, but I always found myself strangely emotionally attached to the servants and their lives/problems. Though, I do admit I went on the LDS church's family search website to find out if I'm related to any "imporant" people through my British line of ancestry ... after an hour or so I found a few Earls of Warwick that lived in the 15th century(yeah baby). Anyway, I'm especially fascinated by the class system in Britian and how that all works, as it's very foreign to me and I can't quite imagine what that master/servant relationship would look and feel like. This book had a lot of cool information that was generally well presented, and not too much at length to make it boring, yet definitely needed some explanatory footnotes in some places.

Conclusive feelings: Interesting info dump but nothing amazing. For something similar yet better check out At Home: A History of Private Life by Bill Bryson.

Light Years by James Salter

I don't have much to say about this one. I really love James Salter, he's an excellent stylist and generally writes about complicated relationships which I like, but I didn't connect with the story as much as I have with his others.

Conclusive feelings: Good writing, otherwise meh.

The Pure and the Impure by Colette

Love Colette, I don't feel like going on much about this one other than to say it's my favorite I've read of hers so far (her journalism seems a bit more visionary and accessible to a contemporary readership than her novels, from what I've read so far.) Gender and sexuality in early 20th century France = obviously I'm interested.

Conclusive feelings: Thoroughly enjoyed.

American Crucifixion by Alex Beam

Alright I'm burning out here. I love me some good Mormon history, so I was excited to see a new book about Joseph Smith. The premise is basically this: what was it about Joseph Smith that made people want to kill him, and how did that go down? It wasn't groundbreaking, honestly there wasn't much in here I didn't already know (if not in detail), but I did appreciate the section of Joseph Smith's polygamy (which needs more scholarship/is fascinating to me/judging by this supposed picture maybe I would have married him?/what am I saying.)


Conclusive feelings: Interesting, good part about polygamy, not groundbreaking.

That's it, thanks for reading. Have you read or heard of any of these books? Which would you read (please don't read the first one)? What are your thoughts? Please share. Which words did I overuse? Please give me feedback of any sort. Bye now. 

Review: MFA vs. NYC: The Two Cultures of American Fiction ed. Chad Harbach

lovely cover

<< This is a picture of MFA vs. NYC: The Two Cultures of American Fiction. My good friend, coworker and future publisher-of-books, Ashanti, recommended this book to me with enthusiasm. It is a collection of essays on the two main cultures of contemporary American Fiction: MFA Creative Writing programs and the publishing scene in New York City.

I agreed most with the essays that were skeptical of MFA programs and lamented the decline of traditional humanities and literature programs (like the essay from David Foster Wallace, which was also, not surprisingly, the most entertaining.) Most of the professors in the department where I got my BA were pretty traditional in their approach to literary studies, and because I had a great experience there, most of my opinions about contemporary literature/where it's going etc. stem from that.

However, I can't say I didn't enjoy literally all of the other essays. Every one has a distinct point of view, and except for a few dense academic essays near the end all have a creative and compelling narrative, which was quite fun and also not all that surprising due to the fact that many of the contributors are proud/troubled/regretful holders of MFAs. I especially loved the essay from NYC based literary agent Jim Rutman, which included the backstory about how he sold the recently released, super controversial novel Tampa told from the perspective of a teacher who seduces her teenaged students. (I read that book and didn't like it. [Ashanti liked it.])

While it doesn't actually focus on either MFA or NYC, another standout essay was "Reality Publishing" by Darryl Lorenzo Wellington. This essay compares Amazon's Breakthough Novel contest for unpublished authors to reality TV shows like American Idol and Survivor.  The way the first contest worked is that 5,000 authors submitted manuscripts to Amazon, which were then read, rated, and reviewed by Amazon top reviewers and members National Books Critics Circle. The eventual winner had his book published by Penguin and then sold and promoted on Amazon. The runners-up won vacation packages and home entertainment centers (weird.) Eventually Penguin and NBCC stepped out, but Amazon continues to run the contest every year.

I'm fascinated by reality TV and the way it is produced and edited to convey "reality" to a specific audience, the raw footage broken down and reconstructed to their desires and expectations. Basically, reality TV preys on a specific moldable, fame-seeking personality to create a successful TV show. Wellington argues that, similarly, the Breakthrough contest preyed upon the desire of desperate unpublished authors to "get their work out there", and instead of actually publishing quality books that sell (they didn't, at least not very well), Amazon used the contest to draw interest and customers to their site. "For the time being, the Amazon Breakthrough Novel seems less a promotion for the entrants than for the corporate sponsor, and the winner each year, no matter who wins the contest, is Amazon.com."

All of the essays in this collection was super interesting and fun to read right from the start, which is exactly what Ashanti told me when last week she showed me her copy that had about every one of the first 30 pages dog-eared. Unfortunately she's a slower reader than I am and hasn't finished yet ... hurry up, Ashanti or I'm going to beat you to writing the store rec! Just kidding *scared*.

Not sure yet how or if I'm going to make a rating system for this blog but MFA vs. NYC gets an .... A+/Five Stars/Thumbs Up/Yes. 

Hello, & favorite books from 2013

Here's a picture of a book I found. (via)

Hi. I made this blog mainly to have a place to post about books, since I read quite a few and tend to have thoughts about them that I'd like to put out into the world. I used to write book reviews at The Blue Bookcase, but after awhile the system we had there felt constricting and now I just want to venture out on my own. I suck at coming up with cool/funny blog names, and I refuse to use any sort of alliteration or pun so we're just going to go with a bland one for now.

To start, here's a quick list of my favorite books I read in 2013. I work at an independent bookstore and read a lot of new releases, mostly literary fiction. I read 73 total books in 2013, which honestly was not up to my usual standards and thus a little disappointing. I'd say though that the percentage of books I absolutely adored was much higher in 2013 than in 2012, so that's good I guess.

Dirty Love by Andre Dubus III
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsid Hamin
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
The Best American Essays 2013 ed. Cheryl Strayed
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish by David Rakoff
Tales of Burning Love by Louise Erdrich
Taipei by Tao Lin
The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner
The Life of Objects by Susanna Moore
Shrapnel by William Wharton
How the French Invented Love by Marilyn Yalom
This is How by Augusten Burroughs
How to Create the Perfect Wife by Wendy Moore
All That Is by James Salter
Give Me Everything You Have: On Being Stalked by James Lasdun
Elders by Ryan McIlvain
Mad Girl's Love Song by Andrew Wilson
Artful by Ali Smith
Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham

I'm not going to link to Amazon, sorry. Support your local independent bookstore. Also, I would suggest googling the title if you want to learn more about any of the books I mention here. There are a plethora of bright, thoughtful book bloggers out there who have blogged about all of these books. There's some really crappy book blogs too, obviously, but they are easy to sort through. It's fun and cool when you find a blogger you like whose tastes you share. Book bloggers bring personality and character to the reading community, and there is lots of fun to be had on their sites.

I've been meaning to go back to book blogging for awhile, but honestly what's held me back is the fact that I'm not super confident in my writing. I think that blogging regularly will give me a chance to improve.

I hope you'll keep up with me and comment on my posts. Recommending and talking about books is one of my favorite things to do, and I hope we can have lots of fun discussions together. Here's a link to my goodreads, twitter, and I'm also on edelweiss.

See you soon!