Links I love

 

Here are some from this week!  

• NH's DCYF director is moving on - what else is there to do?
• Tucker Carlson is out at Fox. So is Don Lemon at CNN.
• An interview with Boston based author Dennis Lehane.
• A  different take on Fatal Attraction, just as it gets rebooted.
• The Daily Telegraph's 1899 List of 100 books to read before you die
• Costuming and Rings Of Power
• A discussion (on YouTube) of resisting dystopia
• Disney sues Ron DeSantis, alleging retaliation
• The Pope allows women to vote at Bishops' meetings
• Women's short prize announced
• Edgar Winners that you should read - that first one is on my list!
• Why is Are You There God, It's Me Margaret is timeless
• Walking is the best kept secret.
• Top 13 most challenged books of 2022
• Lonely parrots and video chats - it's pretty impressive

REVIEW: Less by Andrew Sean Greer

 

This novel, surprisingly, won the Pulitzer in 2022 - I say surprising because it literally skewers the literary world. The main character is Arthur Less, a minor author who is newly and abruptly single after his much younger lover has left him and announced his engagement to someone else in a manner that may as well have been simultaneously with his break from Less. Also, this lover is the son of Less' archenemy - drama! In order to get away from it all, Less accepts a handful of literary engagements all over the world, including teaching a class in Germany. During Less' journey we see his self discovery, laugh and meet colorful characters from all over the world. 

I loved Greer's prose - it was simple and yet so elegant, it flowed like a calm, swift river. Greer made it seem effortless to write this and the book moved quickly as a result. The structure of the book appealed to me too - it is split into chapters based upon the places that Greer visits and there are lots of breaks within the chapter that allows the reader to leave and come back in the course of their own busy lives.  I found myself fond of Less, who is...quirky.  Having said all this, I think I would appreciated the novel more if I were more connected to the Literary genre because I feel like I was barely scraping the understanding of the satire related to the publishing industry.  

REVIEW: The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson

 This time, for the Southern Literature Reading Challenge, we travel to the hollers of Depression era Kentucky. 19 year old Cussy Mary (named after the region in France where her family hailed from) and her widowed father live in the isolated woods of Troublesome Creek, Kentucky. Cussy's father, Eli, is a miner and Cussy works for the WPA as a librarian with the Pack Horse Library Project to help make ends meet. They are also the last of the blue people of Kentucky (they really existed - their family is based upon the Fugate family) and are considered "colored," and as such, have to deal with the racism associated with that.  We follow Cussy on her journeys on the circuit, riding on Junia - her mule - and meeting the people that she meets. 

I loved Cussy - she's kind of a badass travelling through hard conditions to deliver books to her patrons. But she's a lot of other things besides: compassionate, giving, smart, thoughtful, determined, brave and a difference maker.  She helps the children that go to the school on her circuit and administers first aid, as well as companionship (her relationship with a nearly blind older woman is particularly touching). In addition to the books that she delivers from libraries, she creates her own scrapbooks with items that she thinks are interesting - poems, recipes, first aid ideas and a whole lot more - to distribute amongst her patrons in the hopes that it will make their lives a little bit easier. 

There were a number of different themes in this book that were important and hooked me.  Cussy experiences racism and we see the tragic impact of its action on her - everything from disease and abuse to arrests.  The impacts have other tragic ends as well. I also was hooked by the coal miner and labor struggles that were occurring at the time - Cussy's father was a labor organizer and occasionally talked about it to Cussy. Additionally, Cussy experienced some medical "treatment" and experimentation at the hands of the medical community that was very eye opening - it reminded me in some ways of Henrietta Lacks (in the sense that it wasn't voluntary or always knowing). We learn a lot about love, loss, poverty, and interracial relationships.  

Definitely recommended. 

Links I Love

 

Another week has gone by.  The kids are on break this week. There are big things going on in my life, one of which I don't necessarily feel comfortable sharing on this blog, but the other I do because it's a reading goal.  I've been listening to Italian podcasts for the last month or so in an effort to get better at listening comprehension. I grew up listening to grandparents speak to each other in a village dialect then took classes in high school. In college, I switched to Spanish for two years.  But now I'm back. Anyways, my goal is to read a book a month in Italian. I am starting with the Italian version of the first Harry Potter book, assisted by my trusty dictionary!  Wish me luck.

Here are some of the things I saw:

• The Fox defamation trial has been postponed. And they eventually settled.
• 5 best classic crime novels
• One line summations of books
• Chief Justice Roberts will be testifying about ethics.  I honestly am nerdily excited to see this.
• I love Judy Blume and now she's getting her own documentary.
• 8 True Crime podcasts to listen to.
• For you Fourth Amendment nerds: Orin Kerr on What an Originalist Fourth Amendment would require?
• The irony.
• Stop looking for the perfect person per Jay Shetty
• The Best five books about WWI
• Adrift -- you HAVE to read/watch this. It's about people attempting to migrate. It's an important and beautifully done piece.

REVIEW: Waco Rising by Kevin Cook

 

One of the podcasts I've been listening to regularly lately is American Scandal, hosted by Lindsey Graham (no, not the politician!). It covers, as you may have guessed, popular scandals in American history. They've done everything from like Watergate and the Exxon Valdez to the Lewinsky Scandal, Enron, the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, Lance Armstrong and the Attica Prison uprising.  At the end of each episode, he'll recommend a book to read about the topic they're covering. This one came out of the Waco standoff and since it's been thirty years (!!!!!) I wanted to read it.  Waco has also been such a force in a lot of our political rhetoric insofar as government overreach (Alex Jones and Timothy McVeigh among some of the most popularly known have cited this case as inspiration for their actions) that I wanted to read it to get a better understanding of what happened (I was only about 12 or 13 at the time and don't remember the nuances as much as I should!).

For those who don't remember or haven't heard, the Branch Davidians , led by David Koresh, were living in a compound outside of Waco, Texas. On February 28, 1993 the ATF raided the area after a local newspaper reported sexual abuse/pedophilia, stockpiling of weapons and bigamy occurring at the ranch. The Branch Davidians shot back and in the raid, there were deaths on both sides. This raid started a 51 day standoff that ended when the government shot in tear gas and then raided the compound with tanks,  in part causing that huge fire you see up there.  76 members of the Branch Davidians, including children, died. Kevin Cook, a journalist, takes a deep dive into what actually happened.

Kevin Cook did a masterful job here both in researching what happened, putting what happened into political and historical context and also telling us about the major players.  And the narrative he tells is absolutely chilling - I mean, we all know what's about to happen, but yet I think a part of us hopes that it would not.  The chapters are short and immensely readable. The book went by quickly.  Be forewarned, it can be graphic and there are times when he relays some of the off color humor that was rampant at the time surrounding this, but the book was so good.  I also really appreciated learning about what happened to the major players years on, as well as the survivors.  I learned something from reading this book - I feel like I have a better grasp now of why people look to this as a really seminal moment in our political discourse and development. 

This work is thoroughly engaging, enlightening and reminds us of the humanity behind the acts. A must read in our current political climate. 

REVIEW: How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith

 

This is also part of my Southern Reading Literature Challenge - I'm plugging away at it and will likely hit my goal of between 7 and 10!  This was also author Clint Smith's debut non-fiction work and it was really, really good. It covers a lot of ground, but man, it did so really well. The author looks at slavery and how its story is told by visiting a number of sites: Monticello, NYC, the Whitney Plantation, Angola (Louisiana State Pen), Blandford Cemetery, and New Orleans among them.  For me, this was a timely book in light of the discussions that are being had about the teaching of critical race theory in our schools. 

During the course of his travels, Smith consistently tells the stories not only of the places that he's visited but also describes his interactions with the people that he encounters there - tour guides, tourists, the people that are from the area - and their reactions to his questions as well as the information that he provides.  I'm a reader that finds it really hard to read about statistics - they're important to a degree but not very interesting - and he would weave that information into the narrative so well that I didn't find myself glossing over them as I would normally have done. I loved reading about the reactions of the people he encountered, some of whom were very self-aware and some of whom were not.  The amount of research into this book was very meticulous and the level of detail made me feel like I was actually experience what Smith was experiencing as he experienced it. He was also, obviously, a very sensitive interviewer who was able to put his subjects at ease in a manner that encouraged them to talk. And talk they did.  

He connects the past to the present articulately and not in a heavy handed manner.  For instance, I learned that the descendants of the slaves on the Whitney Plantation are still living in the immediate vicinity of the plantation.  In Charlottesville, less than a thirty minute drive from Monticello, a White Pride rally was held in 2018 that resulted in deaths of protestors and counter protestors. In Angola, white CO's regularly take out chain gangs of mostly black and brown people, with the CO riding on horse and wielding a shotgun, crating a picture that is evocative of a time when slavery was legal. 

This is an important work. Smith frames education as the way forward, with an eye toward thinking really critically about what we are taught and seeking out additional sources of information.  This is an important read. Highly recommended. 

Links I love

 And here's this week's edition!  If you have any suggestions, please send them my way.

• Book Depository is closing at the end of the month but no fear! Here are some alternatives.
• Academic v. pleasure reading and why the difference is important for kids.  It's important for adults too IMO.
• If you're like me and like mysteries, this list provides some great future reading ideas.
• An interesting blog on legal issues.  The most recent is on the federal abortion pill decisions.
• Tennessee governor calls for more stringent background checks for firearms purchases, including red flag laws.
• What the Marathon bombings taught people - this year, it's been ten years, which is surreal. Here, people talk about the everyday effects. I went to college at mile 13. 
• Elizabeth Holmes is staying in jail.
• Harry Potter is being adapted into a decades long tv show.
• Four tips for saying goodbye to someone you love.
• Upcoming dystopian fiction.
• Behind the scenes of the former President's reading lists. I sure hope he reads them.
• Best way to clean stained coffee mugs.
• This year I've been doing the Southern Reading Challenge and I've visited Alabama (twice in a year which I didn't think I would do) and I'm very curious about the area because I never travelled there much as a child, really only learned about it through the Civil War and know fewer people from there.  This article stood out for me therefore.
• Is Renfield the worst vampire movie ever?
• Are these two related?
• SpaceX launches another massive rocket. 

REVIEW: The Cloisters by Katy Hays

 

The Cloisters is an actual museum in NYC and plays a central role in Katy Hays' debut novel, as does tarot, mystery and intrigue. The main character is Ann Stillwell, a young woman that has just graduated from a local college in Washington State and is intrigued by the often overlooked edges of the Renaissance Period. She is dealing with the death of her father in a hit and run and has taken an internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY for the summer in the hopes that it will help her get into graduate programs. When she gets to NY, she realizes that her job at the Met has evaporated but she lucks out and gets placed in the Cloisters, a "jewel box" museum that is comprised of pieces of monastaries purchased from Europe and rebuilt in NY.

Ann doesn't seem to mind and falls in love with them. Ann's main colleague is Rachel, an Ivy League heiress whose parents are dead. Ann really looks up to Rachel but feels more emotionally attached to Leo, the irascible gardener who grows herbs among other seductive plants in the gardens at the Cloisters. Both Ann and Rachel report to Patrick, the curator who is working at finding tarot cards from the 15th century. 

The novel begins to become intriguing when Patrick suspects that Ann has located a deck of tarot cards he has long sought, causing him to become threatening and controlling.

I initially very much liked Ann. I empathized with her insecurities and her motivations in leaving her small town and coming to NY.  As the novel progressed, I began to dislike and disbelieve her - talk about a unreliable narrator.  I questioned why she really left her town in Washington, leaving a mother that was grieving and needed her. I also wondered if she was coming up with excuses related to fate that were simply a means to justify poor choices. I loved this about this book. I also loved how satisfying the ending was - it had the potential to be a cataclysmic and unrealistic ending, but that was not the case, by far. I enjoyed the exploration of ambition, particularly in young women and what it looked like.  

Definitely a wonderful book. 

Links I love

 This week has been a long one but I loved these links in the meantime:

• The Murdagh trial led to the exhumation of another body - I'm so obsessed with true crime and this one too!
• Books to read if you're going to Hawai'i
• 5 things to know about the charges against 45
• The View from this hotel in Tokyo is supposedly the best
• A reading list on female adventurers
• "Boston Strong" 10 years later
• Stop comparing your reading life to others. This one can really be translated to other areas too. 
• TT RPG's for a cause
• Judy Blume was one of my favs growing up.
• The Deepest swimming fish caught on camera. He's so cute.
• RFK Jr announces his run for President
• New ethical standards for the Supremes discussed after Thomas' acceptance of "gifts" comes to light.
• There's a backlash against Colleen Hoover

I hope that everyone that celebrated the holiday enjoyed themselves. 

REVIEW: Uncultured by Daniela Mestanyek Young

 

I read this book because one of the podcasts I listen to - Women and Crime (go listen!) - has a book club and this was this month's pick.  Boy, it was a heavy one. 

TRIGGER WARNING: Review will include mention of rape/sexual assault.

This is a brutally honest and open account of Young's time in the Children of God cult as a 5 year old child. It opens with her as a child standing in line to get spanked by an uncle - not a blood uncle, just one of the many adult men that she interacts with in the cult. The women are "Aunties." As the youngest, she's the last in line so she has the added cruelty of watching all the other children go first and anticipating her turn. She sees her mother, and runs to her, only to be coldly told to return to line or face additional punishment. SHe still gets additional punishment - 9 swats instead of 3 - and then forced to hug the man spanking her.  

The memoir itself is also replete with not only stories of what it was like to live on communes, but of abuse in Young's life at the hands of members of the community and her attempts to find alife both within and without the cult, including high school, the Army and marriage. She belonged to the Children of God (now called The Family International), a cult founded in the 60's, that focused on turning sexual modesty on its head. Quite frankly, it seemed to promote human trafficking and child sex abuse. Famous members included Rose McGowan and Joaquin and River Phoenix (whose family got out ASAP when they learned about what was going on). Ms. Young certainly doesn't shy away from the details of how she grew up, though I appreciated the tasteful way she handled describing the child sex abuse that she experienced growing up (because quite frankly - child sex abuse is horrific and not ever tasteful). She was raised to never reject the advances of men and she really struggled to break away from that behavior as an adult. 

Ms. Young writes masterfully well and her story is compelling and sometimes moved me to tears. It took me longer to read this book then normal not because I didn't enjoy it.  The book itself was amazing and offered me a peak into cult life as experienced by Ms. Young.  But there were periods of heaviness that warranted me putting it down for a bit and returning to it later on.  I'm so happy that I read this book and that Ms. Young wrote it - I sincerely hope that it was therapeutic for her and that it helps her along her path.  She is an inspiration - she perseveres, is brutally honest with herself and others, and is so, so brave.  

Highly recommended. 

REVIEW: The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

 

I've always  like Kristin Hannah - the first book I read by her was The Great Alone, which was fantastic. I've read other books by her since then, and then I picked up this one, which is her most recent release. 

We meet Elsa Wolcott, the protagonist of this novel, in the twenties. She's living in the Dust Bowl with a prosperous family, the oldest girl who hasn't been married yet and had a sickly childhood and got yolked with parents who really didn't love her all that much.  Having said that, she finally feels like she may have a fulfilling life, having met Rafe - the son of Italian immigrant farmers - and having found happiness in books (which she seems to prefer to people). Eventually, they have a family and tend to the land that his parents own, but then the Depression sets in and we see it play out in the Dust Bowl with Elsa and her family. 

While I thought Elsa resilient, I found her to be really frustrating and stubborn at times. SHe has to contend with many, many challenges including supporting her family, picking cotton, and abandonment, but she does so with a close mindedness and inflexibility that I found hard to relate to. The book itself seemed to ready made for a Hollywood production - as if the author was hoping to get a movie deal out of it (especially with the ending - you're going to have to read it to find out). I did really enjoy how Kristin Hannah puts us into the Dust Bowl and how we experience the depression from the perspective of people in Elsa's position. People were, perhaps unsurprisingly, cruel to the migrant workers and viewed them as interlopers who took already limited resources. I learned about how some of the farming issues experienced were as the result of manmade issues, as opposed to naturally occurring issues. 

This wasn't my favorite of Kristin Hannah's books but it's definitely worth the read.  

Links to be Loved

I read a lot of blogs and love it when other bloggers share their favorite links, so I would like to do that on this blog regularly - on Sundays in the future. If you have links you'd like to share, comment or send them to me and I will share them. 

Here are some from this week that I loved:

• The Art of Talking to Strangers
• Top ten women's classics - sadly I've only read Kindred but now I have more things to add to the never ending list.
• The Film Hugh Grant doesn't want in his resume!
• 70 Endangered whales seen near Cape Cod.
• LSU women win NCAA title with record triple digit score. An editorial on the Technical Foul called on the woman who is one of the best, if not the best, current player.

Have a good week.