Everything I Never Told You, Celeste Ng

Deng Ming-Dao, Being Chinese American Series 2011: What We Expect of Women

(January 20) This was recommended by Nicole Chung at The Toast last fall (September 2, 2015), and was in hot demand at the library, so off I went.

I really liked it… it was fun to read “real fiction” again for some reason… I guess I've been reading so much nonfiction lately: Kate Hepburn’s biography, how-to books, and spiritual books (and Alexander McCall Smith, who’s so stylized in some ways as not to be “normal” fiction).

This mystery reminded me of Gone Girl or John Green’s books, but so much gentler. Good suspense, though, nonetheless.

The story is so touching in a racial-tension way, anyway, to begin with... at first you feel it’s “one of those aching stories about which the reader knows so much more than any of the characters,” which is fine in itself, but which makes what you actually are going to get so unexpected... the story becomes so much more complicated than you've been led to suspect, turning an apparently plausible narrative slowly over onto its head so that it means completely the opposite of what it first appeared to… there is very clever back-and-forth-ing in time, creating new and profound layers of meaning so that each scene is all the more wince-making when you re-encounter it … it's not heavy-handed, either… it doesn't wrench the story around… each new point of view is just a subtle shift … (it’s not like Rashomon or something).

Yeah -- I liked it… but I guess I did not lurve it… it took me till the library's drop-dead return date to finish it.

“Drop dead,” heh.

The Novel Habits of Happiness, Alexander McCall Smith

Francis Cadell, Iona, Looking North, ?1912-30

(December 28) Loved it, as always with Alexander McCall Smith… I love the way Isabel thinks.

This one was about open-mindedness often, explored in a variety of ways.

Really interesting: the rehabilitation of one of Isabel’s enemies (conributes to the open-mindedness theme, obvi)

As usual: an ambiguous problem “solved” ambiguously (= not solved)

Interesting: Cat is going to marry Jamie’s doppelgänger??? (McCall Smith is surprising and creative)

I want to spend all my time reading about what Isabel and Jamie do during a routine day... how they prepare their meals and open their bottles of New Zealand wines and bathe their adorable son, sit in their back garden and later sing a few “old” songs to each other at the piano… so peaceful and civilized… ::big sigh::

Why Not Me?, Mindy Kaling

Raja Ravi Varma, The Goddess Saraswathi, 1896

(December 17, 2015) I loved this book as much as or more than her first one… just so great.

I laughed out loud so much.

Pages 47-48: laughed out loud then choked up within the space of a half-page:

One very gratifying compliment I sometimes hear is that women want to be my best friend. This endlessly amuses my actual best friend, Jocelyn, because in her estimation I’m “a good friend, but not that great” 

... And all that stuff I do to “appear” better has actually made me a better person. I wish I had always acted like I was a little bit famous.

P. 116:

The Emmy announcements take place at 5:30 a.m., Pacific Standard Time, because when we are finding out the top six contenders for best miniseries, movie, or dramatic special, it’s important that the whole nation watch as one.

So many lines like that throughout … this is her comedic specialty.

It was interesting that on p. 123 she alluded to Catcher in the Rye, because she does sound exactly like Holden Caulfield sometimes … and she is making fun of her own pretentiousness … but, in fact, she does have the kind of wisdom you find in literary works.

Love Style Life, Garance Doré

Réné Gruau, La Cigarette, 1983

(December 11) I liked this quite a bit and am surprised by that!

First, I was surprised that this book was so popular… I was always kind of “meh” on Garance Doré's blog… I liked her aesthetic but didn’t register how well done the writing was… now that I've read a whole book of it at once, I've fallen for the charm and can see the appeal… but initially it surprised me that the library already had copies circulating when I looked it up, whereas Alyson Walsh’s Style Forever and Lisa Eldridge’s Face Paint hadn’t been ordered yet. So Garance Doré is incredibly popular. So I lined up for the library copy.

Charming: even though I read a lot of these blogs and these kinds of books, this book had a few great little tips I’d never heard before and am glad to have,* and I learned a few more details about different fashion-related things, like the names of the various Ray Ban sunglasses, e.g. I knew “Aviator” and I knew “Wayfarer”... but I never knew “Clubmaster.”

I like Garance Doré's take on “being French” or dressing like a Parisian, which is such a hot topic right now: she doesn’t exalt either the French or the Americans but she does find both funny and she identifies the points of view that are completely opposite -- useful to know.

But mostly I fell in love with her voice and her perspective, which had never impressed me that much before from the blog. She’s kind of wise. She pays lip service to fashion and beauty, but mostly she wants to talk about manners, etiquette, social elegance, strength of character… good topics for real human beings.

I love the way she draws… I always liked that about her… the clean, spare sexiness of her lines… but I eventually realized it’s a style she stole a bit from Réné Gruau.

* I no longer have these, three years later when I actually post the review.

Style Forever, Alyson Walsh

Dean Marsh, Camila Batmanghelidjh, 2008

(November 18) I keep reading these style guides looking for the Holy Grail nugget of advice that will make me stylish or at least make old-age dressing interesting …. but hmm.

I have followed Alyson Walsh’s blog for a while and quite enjoy her aesthetic… this book offers a little more detail about her aesthetic ...and I notice with all these style "guides" that, really, you’re being offered the details of one individual aesthetic… even though the premise of these guides is to find the reader's style. So -- ::shrug::

This book had a few proofing and copy-editing errors, and was printed in teeny-tiny type. There were no photos, just illustrations (beautiful, but impressionistic).

It was very British, too…. references, language, media, “style icons”....

Odd, a bit formulaic (a few pages of notes on a topic then an interview with a “style icon,” repeat), but likable, like Alyson Walsh herself.

She Always Knew How: Mae West, A Personal Biography, Charlotte Chandler

(October 15) This was good biography in that it was almost all direct quotes from Mae West herself …. or those who knew her (maybe 10 per cent the latter). She was very smart and a feminist, and the creation of her signature persona was interesting.

The Knockoff, Lucy Sykes and Jo Piazza

Yiying Lu, Anna Wintour with a QR Code Top, 2011

(September 16) I really didn’t think much of this novel from early on, and was disappointed since it was touted by Nick Wooster and a few other fashion bloggers / experts I follow… but now I realize they probably know the two authors personally and wanted to use their powers to help their friends.

And everyone is always hoping for another The Devil Wears Prada, which made such a good movie (I haven’t read the book).

But it was kind of cheesy and predictable on the one hand, and implausible and tacky on the other. 

Here's a sample sentence: “A band, one that was fairly well known among hipster yuppies in gentrifying Brooklyn, was setting up on the stage.” (p. 314)

I have to agree with the 1- and 2-star reviews on Amazon:

The characters were over the top, but not in a fun, whimsical way like in Bergorf Blondes, which I enjoyed. A 42-year-old who has been on a brief medical sabbatical reacts to this brave new world like a caveman being unfrozen from a glacier, befuddled by the concept of internet traffic and bemoaning the demise of the floppy disk. A graduate of Harvard business school who lands a prestigious position at an important fashion magazine tweets that she is “bringin da pinky swear back. Booya!” Because that's how adult women talk in 2015. Nailed it.

More at this link.

No One Understands You: And What to Do About It, Heidi Grant Halvorson

(August 18) This book was recommended by Jezebel's Tracy Moore, whose teasers made it seem like the book would teach you that when you say “x,” people hear “y,” so say “z” instead to make sure you're understood.

There was a little bit of that, but the whole perspective of the book was from the other direction: it was about the lenses perceivers wear, and how to identify and offset these. This will help you avoid making a bad first impression or reduce any misperception you struggle against (mostly in the workplace it seems), plus show you how to reverse such situations.

So some of that is what most people do in life -- you figure out people around you and engineer your comments and intentions to work with them. But this is a much more in-depth version of that, helping you with people you have no way of interpreting otherwise.

Tracy Moore does offer a good summary.

Betsy-Tacy, Betsy and the Great World, and Betsy's Wedding, Maud Hart Lovelace

Émile Vernon, Best of Friends, 1917

(July 14, July 25, August 3) Got Betsy-Tacy out of the library because Mallory Ortberg was rhapsodizing about Betsy and the Great World and I realized I had read those books as a kid.... had read them and really loved them, because I can remember naming paper dolls and other “people” we had “Tacy” and “Tib”... and I just remember being really fond of the stories and nodding in approval whenever I saw societies and reading groups devoted to them.

Re-reading Betsy-Tacy was a bit of a shock -- I had to wonder how drab my life was at the time that I loved those stories so much: they are the plainest vanilla stories ever... sweet, but too young for anyone who can read for herself. The Bobbsey Twins books were way more inventive and absorbing it seems to me even now.

However, the grown-up Betsy books redeemed Maud Hart Lovelace for me. They are totally enjoyable. The two later books are not profound, and the plot lines are a little predictable… but Lovelace always puts a little twist into things that keeps them interesting.

They're sweet, like Anne of Green Gables books without literary pretensions, and they have that travel-to-a-different-time effect that I like…. full of strange daily activities and customs taken for granted then (early 1900s), completely forgotten now.

I’m missing them now…. wishing I had the outcome of a little luncheon party or a letter to Somebody Significant or such like to look forward to reading.

You Can Heal Your Life and Heal Your Body, Louise Hay

Bill Morrison (art director), "Godfellas" episode of Futurama, 2002

(July 6) You Can Heal Your Life contains Heal Your Body, as probably do most of Louise Hay’s books, which I didn’t realize till I bought both. :} But I don’t mind investing in a guru.

This does not contradict Abraham-Hicks thinking -- but it seems to offer different routes to finding feelings of happiness which are perfectly in keeping with A-H, yet different. More general, and more “your mind controls everything anyway”... A-H is more about reducing resistance (although they do recommend fantasizing everything into place)... well, whatever… they are different, but mutually inclusive.

I think Hay even kind of answers the question of why there is the resistance… something that has always nagged at me and is still not perfectly clear as a context, even with Hay’s explanations of early deep-seated grudges. Why do we go for grudge-bearing?

It’s like A-H, her thinking, but it’s a little more woo-woo somehow. It’s definitely complementary, though. It’s like: A-H tells you to get rid of resistance, but Hay knows exactly what your resistance is and gives you a way to get rid of it permanently.

She has definitely focused on physical health more than anything and I thought at first she was appealing a little more directly to the victim point of view… but I realize from reading her that I do have a victim point of view, to my surprise.

How did I come to this book? I saw the movie enthusiastically recommended by a trusted blogger and got it out of the library (had to wait a long while since it was in heavy demand). The movie made me want to read her books, and I bought them, I was in such a hurry.

[The episode of Futurama illustrated above contained a godhead figure who was the wisest, most benevolent godhead figure you could ever imagine.]

No One Belongs Here More Than You, Miranda July

Tina Mammoser, Intertidal, 2014

(June 22) Funny -- I heh-heh’d aloud throughout as I did through the novel (The First Bad Man).

So interesting -- many of the same themes as TFBM -- love, female identity, language jokes: “the dynamic had moved down the block and was serving others” is one of many, many, funny little metaphors… I could quote every page.

The First Bad Man, Miranda July

Miranda July, from Kids Activity Pages for Apartamento Magazine, 2011

(April 20) I loved this book. I laughed helplessly on every page.

It’s all crazy and improbable stuff but it’s, like, that never matters, fundamentally.

Trying Not to Try: The Art and Science of Spontaneity, Edward Slingerland

Woman Playing Polo, 8th C. CE

(April 3) Really liked this subject, wu-wei and de -- basically, Taoism (Daoism?) compared and contrasted with other ancient Eastern philosophies.

It is styled to be about the modern desire to "get in the groove," an angle that feels like it was foisted on Slingerland by his editors so that this otherwise scholarly / academic study would appeal to a lay public (I always resent it that these topics are not considered interesting enough their own, and resent it almost as much that the imposed "hook" never gets full shrift either).

Got the title from the Utne Reader e-newsletter .

I was interested because all I had ever heard about Eastern thought beyond the clichés of Chinese aphorisms was in those Xena episodes where she falls in love with Lao Tze's wife, who was the real author of the Tao texts (lol). Loved those episodes and always swore I'd read more about this mystical power the Tao texts seemed to have for Xena.

Despite this interest, the book's briefness and Slingerland's very readable style, I took forever to get through this -- had to renew it twice (the maximum at the time).

The A-H index: sometimes it supported Abraham-Hicks thinking; sometimes it didn't.

Hot and cold cognition were fascinating concepts at the time, but now, lo, these two years later, I can't remember a thing about them.

Paper Towns, John Green

Eoin, Endlessly Slipping, 2013

(February 19) I wanted to read Paper Towns because I enjoyed The Fault in Our Stars so much. This seemed slow at first, perhaps because TFiOS was so great and started off so grippingly right from the beginning, and I was maybe worried that this was going to fall A LOT short if it didn't get right down to business.

I also gave it a little side-eye at first because it felt like Green was doing a Manic Pixie Dream Girl story, but then it got very good with a well-done plot point and the story became quite suspenseful. At that point it seemed superior to TFiOS.

It features many, many interesting literary allusions and tropes and many profound insights into how we see and don't see ourselves and each other, and I enjoyed all this very much. Like TFiOS, Paper Towns somehow interweaves literary / philosophical references with down-in-the-dirt teenage crudeness, creating a nice combo of comic lows and lofty, intellectual highs.

The resolution, though? :/ I thought it kind of undermined the suspense that was so beautifully built… and it got too mushy right at the end -- this causes it to lose some power.

So I'm reading along like this… just loving Paper Towns and thinking I'm going to give it 3.5 stars… and then I read some online reviews, to see if anyone else was disappointed like I was by the ending… and I get lost in the vortex of the_whittler’s trenchant observations… and I begin to hate John Green and both his books…

Never experienced such a 180 about a book in my life.

The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself, Michael A. Singer

J.M.W. Turner, The Morning After the Deluge, ca. 1843

(January 31) I am untethered re The Untethered Soul -- I read it 22 months ago and cannot remember a thing about it, and when I read my notes on it they spark nothing.

I read it because Jennifer Scott, the Madame Chic author who captured a bit of my fancy back in 2015, scheduled it as a “virtual book club” read. I hadn’t heard of it before but I always like to sample "spiritual books" to see if they jive with or contradict Abraham-Hicks stuff. And so off I went. I may even have purchased this one.

It definitely jived with Abraham-Hicks and maybe promises even more than A-H does.But none of it has stuck with me.

The Handsome Man's De Luxe Café, Alexander McCall Smith

Peter Clarke, Fish and Wine, late 20th C.

(December 21) Interesting and likable as always… it’s the first of this series imho that could pass easily for an Isabel Dalhousie set of situations… that is, the stories are not mysteries so much as peeks into troubled lives, some of which get sorted out. Mma Potokwane is a substantial deus ex machina in this one.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns), Mindy Kaling

Aurora Starita, Mindy Kaling, 2012

(December 18)

Dear Mindy Kaling,

I love your book and I wish to ask you for its hand in marriage.

Sincerely, Susan W.

The Lost Art of Dress: The Women Who Once Made America Stylish, Linda Przybyszewski

(December 4) Read this because it was mentioned on Erin McKean’s A Dress a Day and sounded interesting.

McKean described it thusly:

"The Lost Art of Dress is a history of (and paean to) the women who invented the field of home economics, and who taught hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of women how to dress beautifully, healthfully, economically, and practically during most of the twentieth century, only falling out of favor during the youthquake movement of the 1960s. Przybyszewski calls them the 'Dress Doctors' and outlines how they used principles from art to guide women’s dress choices.

"It’s a fascinating read, and whether or not you agree with the premise of the book (that women today are largely not stylish because they have abandoned these classic principles of color harmony, symmetry, and graceful line) it’s certain that you’ll enjoy the vast amount of largely forgotten and entirely charming advice the Dress Doctors gave their 'patients.' For instance, women were advised that, when traveling, they should remain efficient and anonymous by choosing 'no emotional colors, no revelatory designs, or fabrics, no temperamental hats or shoes.'" 

This description is what made me want to read the book, but I didn’t find the premise of the book to be about stylishness -- I found The Lost Art of Dress to be a feminist tract and I floved it for that reason.

This statement on page 148 is the whole story in a nutshell:

“The sewing demonstrations and clothing clubs organized by extension work made a difference in women’s lives.”

It’s a great read if you don’t mind getting angry all over again about the marginalizing of women through every means available throughout all of history.

In fact, it was so incensing it made me wonder: Was Przybyszewski hyping the feminist angle or was it undeniable?

And then all that righteous indignation is offset by outfit judginess, which is always fun to read for its own sake, but a totally different philosophical register. Near the end is a section of advice for dressing as an older lady.

To sum up: surprising and sometimes strange, but very interesting.

Mentioned and made me want to read Art in Everyday Life by Harriet and Vetta Goldstein.

Landline, Rainbow Rowell

Levon Avagyan, Girl with a Phone, 2014

(November 4) Loved it -- she is so funny -- such good one-liners, in a TV-sitcom way.

There’s always one technology-related linchpin in a Rainbow Rowell novel -- Walkmans, laptops, e-mail, fanfic environments, etc. -- and now cell phones vs. landlines.

There’s a kind of cute magic-realism flavour to this one, too, unlike any of the others, with the old-fashioned landline phone serving as a time-travel device in an interesting way.

I enjoy Rowell’s writing. My only problem now is that I’ve read four of her books, and they’re all love stories. And none of those love stories will ever be as epic as Eleanor and Park. Sigh.

Quotes:

Georgie's mother had spectacular cleavage. Tan, freckled, ten miles deep.

"Genetics," her mom said when she caught Georgie looking.

Heather shoved a bowl of green beans into Georgie's arm. "Were you just staring at Mom's breasts?"

"I think so," Georgie said. "I'm really tired--and she's kinda begging for it in that shirt."

"Oh, sure," Heather said. "Blame the victim.”

“Right.” Neal nodded. “The network guy. I thought he was giving you the cold shoulder.” “We thought he was giving us the cold shoulder,” Georgie said. “Apparently he just has cold shoulders.”

And why was she only attracted to guys who were sleeping with somebody else?

If Georgie were a wild animal, she'd be a genetic dead end. 

What if Georgie could give Neal the chance to start over? What would he do?

Would he join the Peace Corps? Would he go back to Omaha? Marry Dawn? Marry someone even better than Dawn?

Would he be happy?

Would he come home from work every night, smiling? Would Dawn or Better-Than-Dawn already have dinner on the table?

I Feel Bad About My Neck, and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman, Nora Ephron

Gustav Klimt, Judith and Holofernes, 1901-02

(October 6) Really, really liked this -- in addition to frequently laughing out loud while reading, I really related to what Ephron says and how she thinks. I see old-ladyhood the same way.

The FastDiet: Lose Weight, Stay Healthy, and Live Longer with the Simple Secret of Intermittent Fasting, Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer

Mary Pratt, Sun Slanting Over Breakfast, 2005

(August 31, 2014) Heard of this through Imogen Lamport's Inside Out Style blog: she had lost a lot of weight by way of a fasting diet featured in a BBC documentary... I watched the whole thing, intrigued by Michael Mosley's real quest, which was to find ways to increase longevity.

According to this research, a little bit of fasting, even the minor amount you do through Mosley's 5:2 diet -- is apparently enough to unleash all kinds of health benefits: so many studies show fasting increases longevity, reduces levels of a hormone called IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor 1) which burns you out young, "switches on" gene-repair processes, improves insulin resistance, improves metabolism, reduces blood glucose levels, mitigates against cancer, reduces bad cholesterol, etc., etc., etc.

By the time I was done the book, I felt like I couldn't NOT fast.

Attachments, Rainbow Rowell

Nick Gentry, Lander, 2010

(July 27) At least 3 stars, because I really liked it and really looked forward to getting back to it in between readings (unlike some other recent books that I shall leave nameless).

But I found with this book -- and with other Rowell books -- and maybe with all books????? -- that the premise starts out at a leisurely pace with lots of detail and complication, and then the problem(s) get(s) solved lickety-split and without the tender care that the set-up got. Or, at least in this book, the climax did not seem as special as the storylines leading up to it.

I really like in all her books how there is some kind of cultural anchor to real time… and usually a technological one, too… this one had the Y2K issue, which is hilarious, kind of. Fangirl had Harry Potter fandom and the ubiquity of laptops; Eleanor and Park had punk and Walkmans; this one has late '90s romcoms and Y2K.

But she is a wizard when it comes to hilarious dialogue.

p. 84: When Lincoln realized he was rewriting the theme song to Cheers, he decided to stop thinking and just play.

p. 94: I don’t even go to the adult Gap anymore. Once you’re an imaginary mother, it’s hard to take time for yourself. 

The premise was so, so good, but Rowell didn't want to make the ejected boyfriend unlikable (I guess), because he does nothing unlikable and yet none of the characters in the novel like him. He’s too cute, too immature, too much a musician? See, these are all reasons to like a fella. And he’s totally unrealistic for telling Beth straight out that he was never going to marry her, especially since he wasn’t under any pressure to set that record straight. A guy like him (immature and maybe irresponsible??) would not want to rock his happily sailing boat, I would think… would lie about his intentions… would try to keep the girlfriend hoping.

I don’t enjoy Rowell’s making-out scenes so much. Her style with these worked with Eleanor and Park, but doesn't seem quite right with late-20s people.

The label “enjoyable light read” was made for this book.

Eleanor & Park, Rainbow Rowell

Gun Legler, Redhead, 2012

(June 26)  I really liked it; have been liking all her books since Fangirl; this has a sweet love story and a kind of looming tension that is the unusual twist in the love story format. Ending is a bit strange, mebbe.

Finding the Dragon Lady: The Mystery of Vietnam's Madame Nhu, Monique Brinson Demery

Milton Caniff, The Dragon Lady from Terry and the Pirates (1937-48)

(August 5) This took me ages to read. Only 225 pages, but it took months.

 I put a library request in for it when I saw the author interviewed on The Daily Show. The story sounded fascinating!

But I quickly moved into this reviewer’s camp: “Promising in the beginning, the narrative is frustratingly repetitive and shallow. It's the story of an author’s frustration at being led on, told by leading the reader on. There's a compelling, fascinating, dramatic story to be told, it's unfortunate that Ms. Demery is unable to tell it.”

Many positive reviews say that they were pleased to learn more about the Vietnam War, and I did learn more about the Vietnam War, but that is kind of going to happen by default with this topic, I would think; and I thought Demery was repetitive even with the war information. The same coup was described at least three different times, with expanded detail each time, and each time as if we hadn’t covered that incident yet.

It all just felt so padded.

Fangirl, Rainbow Rowell

Elizabeth Jaeger, BFF, 2009

(April 18) Teen books are the best books!

Sigh! I quite enjoyed this book for the witty dialogue, and that's what makes you want to read, to “hang out” with these people, more than a driving plot or any such thing.

The “plot” is a coming-of-age, as usual for teen books, but this time it’s a young woman coming to terms with a mother rather than a young man with a father, and it’s a refreshing twist.

Goofiest naming choice ever… “Cather” and “Wren” ::wa-wa:: ::rimshot::

And the fandom thing is well done. 

Loved: page 397: Well done, English language! 

Can’t remember where I got this -- I’m sure it was one of my blogs, possibly Lainey, but can't confirm. 

Want to read more Rowell, especially Eleanor and Park.

The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds, Alexander McCall Smith

Amelia Fais Harnas, Self-Portrait as Saint Pompette, No. 2, 2012 

(March 22) I was quite enjoying this -- there were some nice complicated problems lining themselves up for Isabel to solve, and so many interesting little questions:

- the stew decision at the pot luck dinner
- the unused china gift
- the woman with the port wine stain
- the no-cucumber-sandwiches visit
- the untrustworthiness of Duncan Marlowe (Isabel quite likes him, but he gets angry too easily and too often; it would be all too typical for Isabel to like him and then watch him turn out to be out a crook, because, as we know, Isabel is almost always dead wrong -- but I was so looking forward to the thwarting of the trust!)

And then, BANG, the book was suddenly over with a note to all the suspects claiming the mystery has been solved....

***
I wrote the above right after I read the book, followed by about another thousand words of high dudgeon berating Alexander McCall Smith and enumerating all my grievous disappointments in this book, along the lines of this review http://www.amazon.com/The-Uncommon-Appeal-Clouds-Dalhousie/product-reviews/0307949230?pageNumber=2 and many like it on Amazon.

Now, a year later, writing this up, I feel more forgiving and nostalgic about the book and about Alexander McCall Smith in general -- he is so entertaining, he has given me so many hours of entertainment... I am grateful for his every word.

The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon, Alexander McCall Smith

Thama Kase (Thamae Kaashe), Different Snakes, 2013

(March 8) I never tire of these.

Throughout this one, I began to think “Violet Sephotho is getting a bit cartoony”... but I was wrong to think that… I should have trusted AMS. In fact, I fell into the very trap all the characters in this book plunge into -- jumping to a conclusion.

Great two-sentence scene: “The silence continued. One or two of the men shifted uncomfortably in their seats; others remained quite still, as one stays still in the presence of great danger, hoping that the source of the danger will not notice one.”

Lovely image: “They sat together on the verandah, watching the sun sink beneath the canopy of acacia that made the horizon. The sun was copper-red, a great ball, and it floated down so gently, as if to nudge us into the night, to let us take the garments of the dark about us slowly and deliberately, without haste and without fear.”

The love of Africa in these books always makes tears stream down my cheeks.

Did notice that the book ended rather abruptly after fairly leisurely build-ups to the climaxes in the various “mysteries.” The characters usually get to relish the confrontation scenes, but… well, maybe that’s why they’re being dialled back: we’ve seen that.

Forever Chic: Frenchwomen's Secrets for Timeless Beauty, Style, and Substance, Tish Jett, and Lessons from Madame Chic: 20 Stylish Secrets I Learned While Living in Paris, Jennifer L. Scott

(February 8, February 19) I read Tish Jett's book because it was mentioned on the "That's Not My Age" blog… and was quite taken with it… read it in three days flat… not that it was that hard a read… 240 pages and it was mostly beauty and fashion advice, which I am consuming pretty much constantly, like a slow I.V. drip, from a variety of sources, anyway… but this was unusually engaging… I guess because of the "French" part… there was just something so inspiring & cleansing & no-nonsense-yet-highly-indulgent about it… I felt like I wanted to move to France, or at least live forever like I was already in France.

I was so hungry for more that I started reading "The Daily Connoisseur," a blog by Jennifer Scott, and put her book on hold at the library (apparently there is a whole industry of books touting Frenchwomen as role models… one of the Amazon reviews of Forever Chic said: "Even if you own Helena Frith Powell, Debra Ollivier, Anne Barone, Mireille Guiliano, Jennifer Scott and Marie-Anne LeCoeur you will not be disappointed in this new book.")

Scott ended up being similar and yet completely different… she's younger (like, much younger) than Jett, but also duller and less engaging, and more "do this-do that," and more "I'm in the blogging for the money."

Nonetheless, what she has observed about French women came shining through and that was all I wanted from her.

Scott gets very philosophical -- her book becomes a lecture on a spiritual path, really, and this increases as she goes on.

At the same time, I was mystified by how profoundly Scott could recognize a Good Thing in the Famille Chic and the Famille Bohemienne but then how banally she would apply it to her own life. Strangely, she pits the fine taste and love of life she saw in French women against holes in the back of the tights or yoga pants of two different American ladies she has seen.

It's true, people should not wear tight-fitting lower-body clothing with holes in the rear, but surely we don't need to look to the chic of the French to get that. Surely we get more subtle wisdom from them?

Tish Jett was less odd that way ...more enlightened about what could be learned from another culture… and everything she said just seemed so valuable… and doable… and correct and rewarding (somehow!). I copied out many of her lists and bullet points.

The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy With Autism, Naoki Higashida

Emelisa Mudle, Joy to the World

(December 28) Saw this featured on the Jon Stewart show and was interested, particularly because this year I have read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and Still Alice.

I was really interested to see whether  this account would jive with Curious Incident, since that author was trying to create the state of mind of an autistic person based on observing them, rather than on knowing how they are from the inside, like Higashida.

And reading this, I kept reminding myself that autistic people are probably all different from one another like non-autistic people are, even though Higashida spoke of "us" and how "we" are as though they are all the same.

So -- autistic people are not flat and affect-free the way Curious Incident author paints them, based on Higashida's narrative... in fact, Higashida makes them seem as if they are the most passionate and emotional people ever... their outbursts are frustration-based, according to him, because they wish to be understood and to do the right thing but can't because of problems with memory and with control over their own motor functions.

This was the most striking thing about the book -- how deeply Higashida felt things and how greatly he worried about hurting other people by actions he couldn't control, while pleading for patience and understanding.

Very sweet book. Higashida really loves nature and this becomes so charming, and he movingly explains why repetition and simple things are so comforting to autistic people. Their humanity is compromised by a faulty OS.

Curious Incident guy would make you think autistic people are not very human at all, and have some private logic for how they behave. But no. According to Higashida, they don't want to do the crazy things they do and they can't rationalize these activities.

The History of Love, Nicole Krauss

Michal Ivan, Old Man Figure Drawing, 2013

(December 30) Read this because a favourite new blog mentioned it as the blogger's favourite book. When I looked it up, I discovered it was a New York Times bestseller and highly touted elsewhere… so off I went.

I liked it a lot but would not give it more than a 3 out of 5. I liked its style and voice quite often, but there was a lot in it that was just so -- "sigh... everyone’s done this before a million times." And by "this" I mean: captured the charming sarcasm of New Yorkers of the 1930s to '60s (mostly Jewish ones); looked at the lifetime of horror inflicted on Jews by Nazism by way of the small individual life of one or two refugees; written a book about a fictional book that turns out to be the book you are reading (well, this one doesn’t do that exactly, but it’s very close).

It reminded me a lot of The Book Thief, in fact, although the plot is quite different. There is the humorous Jewish sarcasm and a lot about writing and being a writer.

In fact, I'm a little tired of writers writing about writing at this point. Sometimes it feels like the only activity anyone is interested in reading about is the process of creating something to read.

This book, though, is more multi-layered than the usual book about a fictional book, because the fictional book in question is claimed by a number of different authors, and this is, kind of, the tension that has to be resolved.

But there's a trip-up: before we get to sample it, the fictional book is characterized as "amazing" and "life-changing" by some of the characters who have read it, and it is plagiarized by wannabe writers, and it is immediately published by publishers who receive manuscripts of it. Our expectations are high. When we finally do get to sample some of the chapters, we find out it's not that remarkable a book. I mean, I just didn't find it that great -- the excerpts are kind of silly and jejune. I can't imagine a whole book of the kinds of passages offered in the excerpts would be life-changing.

Perhaps more to the point, in terms of my own reaction to the book: I was not interested enough in unravelling all the layers of who was writing what and who was who to go back and figure it out when I got confused. I would just think: "I will go look it up on the net when I’m done," and, now that I am done, I don't think I'll even go and do that.

Yes, lives could potentially cross and criss-cross in extremely complicated ways unknown to the people living them, but in a book I want that all to work out to a conclusion that is insightful, not just "wow, weird coincidence."

Also significant: young people don't have any idea at all of what it feels like to be 60 or 40 or even 20 years older than they are. When you are in your 70s or 80s, you are not acting like a teenager no matter what weird thing life is throwing at you. You can be "immature" in old age, but it's a different version of immature, imo. So Krauss's elderly people are not convincing to me.

I'm dwelling on things I didn't like here, but I didn't hate this book at all. I liked it fine. But I can't understand why it was a bestseller or anyone's favourite.

The Meaning of Sunglasses; and a Guide to Almost All Things Fashionable, Hadley Freeman

Alexsandro Palombo, Marge Simpson Loves Coco Chanel, 2012

 (November 5)  Simon Doonan says, “I shrieked my way through this book” and, while I didn’t shriek my way through this book or shriek at all, girl is a clever writer.

Sample:

Prada styles itself as the label that's okay for intellectual feminists to like. You have to wonder how precarious a woman's self-image must be to be damaged by showing an interest in fashion, and it is on this kind of knife-edge, poised between careful cerebralism and mocking artificiality, that Prada balances.

Prada's reputation as the acceptably intellectual label stems primarily from the designer Miuccia Prada. Rare is the profile of Mrs. Prada, as she is known, despite Prada actually being her maiden name, that does not make reference to her university degree and youthful dalliance with communism, as if they were proof of her unique cerebralism. As for the former, this carries the not inaccurate suggestion that everyone else in fashion is an uneducated cave dweller who thinks Chekhov is a pattern. In regard to the latter, some might question whether a move from communism to fashion design is more suggestive of fluid personal values rather than a show of deep intellect, but that belief seems to belong to the minority, judging from the tones of awe in which this biographical tidbit is constantly repeated. 

And she says many profound things about fashion and feminism… and did well at being both British and American.

Snark level? Very high.

Mirror, Mirror Off the Wall: How I Learned to Love My Body by Not Looking at It for a Year, Kjerstin Gruys

Art Babbitt, Queen Grimhilde, 1937

(September 12) I read this because I saw Gruys interviewed on The Colberrrr Reporrr, and it sounded like a cool concept.

Strangely, however, I found it a dull read and struggled to finish. This in itself was interesting, because I could tell that if I had read the equivalent text as blog posts over the course of a year, I would have probably enjoyed it… in the way one enjoys blogs, I guess… as a little lighter weight than books.

And so I have concluded that what is entertaining detail in a 700-word blog post twice a week is tedious detail in a book. Often while reading Mirror I wondered about the detailed scene-settings offered when some of the principals discussed a vague aspect of the “project.” I kept hoping these details would eventually prove to be important to Gruys's experience of a mirrorless year, but they never were.

There was one kind of nice moment when Gruys has a dramatic epiphany about her mother-in-law, and that was well served by the reams of banal details about the MIL that had come before, but there’s no real sort of book going on here. There is no organization, no foreshadowing, no thesis presented, no shape at all. It is like a blog, but without the “benefits” of a blog, which include the live relationship between the author and readers, and the slow, authentic timing.

And, then, more seriously, I don’t think Gruys went very deeply into her topic. She was quite vague about her reasons for wanting to go mirrorless… she just talked about “living for her values” and such platitudes. She didn’t offer a detailed analysis of her mirror use prior to starting. Did she think she used mirrors a normal amount or too much? What would those amounts be? She seemed to think that everybody would get how weird it would be to avoid looking in mirrors for a year, like we’re all the same in our devotion to mirrors. What exactly is wrong with looking in mirrors?

I wanted the set-up: I wanted to know how Gruys used mirrors. Did she look at herself every 10 minutes to check something or did she spend hours on end practicing speaking and facial expressions to use in public or did she just stand around adoring herself? We don’t know.

Affects the whole story.

 Even more disturbing: once the project starts (and even well before the start) the word “makeup” comes up every other sentence. It’s not clear why that is her biggest concern… I mean, she says vaguely that she’s “vain,” but there are so many things to be vain about concerning one’s appearance, and she doesn’t worry about 98 per cent of those at all. I would be all worried about getting earrings on... and about whether I would be allowed to use a mirror to look for an eyelash or a piece of grit stuck in my eye or to examine the areas between teeth… and I think I’d be more worried about my hair not looking like a rat’s nest than makeup… or about my beard and mustache… yet none of these issues ever came up. It was makeup, makeup, makeup… planning a way to wear makeup without a mirror, going into a big theory and testing method to prepare for applying makeup without a mirror, on and on… was she covering up some real problems or was she afraid to look blah and tired the way everyone who stops wearing makeup looks? We don’t know.

And this is her doctoral dissertation topic!

Random peeves:

• Gruys seems to think that wanting to do girly things is the same as wanting to look in a mirror.
• Feminism is linked to using mirrors for vague reasons. 
• p. 16 -- a long passage about how she piled some new books she bought. Why so much detail about this? It's too much even for a blog post. 
• The "tradition" of “taking a good long look at yourself in a mirror on your wedding day” is a "tradition" I’d never heard of until this book. 
• p. 147: “How annoyingly self-involved I’d been” BEEN?? As I say -- there's no moment of truth, so it's hard to know what change she sees. 
• The fact that Gruys did this just before getting married seems to up the ante: so the stakes were maybe how lovely her wedding pictures would look? They turned out lovely -- but could they have been better?? I think only someone of her demographic -- age group, income level, fashion experience -- and a fellow Bridezilla -- would get the drama of this. 
•  I didn’t get the mascara epiphany on p. 152. 
•  She seemed to see herself in mirrors every other day despite this conscious undertaking. 
•  She didn’t seem to love her body in the end, which she often mentioned as a personal failing related to mirror-gazing. 

Colbert Report, I can’t trust your book recs.

Still Alice, Lisa Genova

Candice Bohannon Reyes, Dementia, 2009 (?)

(August 15)  Quite liked it. Read it because, when I mentioned to Andrea that The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time made me wonder if I had Asperger's Syndrome, it reminded her of Still Alice, which made her think she might have Alzheimer Disease. Like Curious Incident, this is written from the point of view of the person with the condition... which is such an interesting challenge in both books: since neither author actually has the condition they present from the protagonist's point of view they can't claim complete authenticity, but they know enough about the condition to try for near-authenticity (Haddon had worked with people with autism and Genova is a doctor who has treated people with Alzheimer).

Basically, it's interesting to see what narrative techniques get used to convey disassociation, obsession, superstitiousness, etc. (Curious), or memory lapses, cognitive confusion, disintegration, etc. (Alice).

And I really enjoyed what Lisa Genova tries here. It's a clinical case (but totally fictionalized) so there is no big dramatic arc -- Alice just finds out she's got early-onset Alzheimer's and tries to cope with it as it progresses. And yet the story is as compelling as any proper “heroic” drama. You want to know what happens next as this disease develops. The tension mounts: at only halfway through the novel, it seems Alice has already lost so much... how much worse would it get? you wonder. And Alice early on tries to provide herself with an escape hatch, something I think I would try to do myself; it was gripping to watch that play out.

So Genova successfully persuaded me that the early stages of dementia would be as she presents them.

And, yes, it did make me feel I might have early symptoms of Alzheimer's in real life. Did Andrea and I get this impression because we all do have some symptoms of dementia by a certain age, or because Genova wants us to see how easy it is to deny the symptoms?

Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, Sheryl Sandberg

J. Howard Miller, We Can Do It!, 1942

(August 13) I didn't have any expectations about this at all… why did I read it? I have in my notes “because short and trendy.” It is well known and I kept seeing it recommended, but I don't remember whose recommendation tipped the scale… maybe Michele Landsberg's?

And then it was much more interesting than I thought it would be! I had this bias against people with MBAs: I have found them usually to be formulaic, best-practices-oriented, and phobic about originality or quirkiness, and since Sheryl Sandberg had worked for Facebook and Google, I assumed Lean In would be a business mogul's how-I-got-here story, offering a few tips and tricks to her fellow women, along formulaic lines.

But it was not that. Sandberg has taken a long, hard look at what holds women back from both the outside and the inside, and she offers solutions that are not easy-breezy and have to be grudgingly accepted. No "tips" or "tricks."

Sad but true: people, both men and women, don’t like to see women succeed in business. They criticize women for failings they would never even notice in a man. There is so much wanting to pull women down. So Sandberg says women must be nice, must jump through hoops successful men don't have to, must accommodate that negative attitude, until we get enough women in place that they don't have to do those things anymore. It's maddening, but she's right. The point is to get more women into positions of power.

Every fibre of my feminist being resents that women have to do anything different from men to get … anything! And it is so sad to accept that many people blame the victim.

But Sandberg is right.

So this is a practical approach to feminism from a practical MBA / manager type of person. Her theory on pregnancy / maternity leave: “don’t withdraw: work like a dog” was different and interesting, and no doubt absolutely correct.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon

Victor Borisov-Musatov, Boy With a Dog, 1895

(June 14) I was surprised to find this so compelling: because it’s a novelty narrator, you feel like the focus might be on the verisimilitude and not on the bare plot... but I found I wanted to know what was going to happen to Christopher and was sorry to see the book end. This is part of the surprise -- that Christopher is so endearing -- given that he’s autistic spectrum condition and is without affect. At least one reviewer on Amazon said it was hard to like Christopher because he was so lacking in empathy for his fellow human beings... but I found him likable -- he is so scrupulously honest, consistent and curious... and you certainly can’t hold the lack of empathy against him.

 Whether this is really how autistic people think, it’s a compelling story.

 Another Amazon review said: “Although Christopher cannot grasp subtlety and nuances, the reader can, and that's where the true force of this exceptional novel lies.”

I noticed that, too -- being made to see how important it is to be able to interpret behaviour. There are these compliments to the reader.

But I wonder if I’m partially autistic, because I thought Christopher’s reactions to certain situations -- particularly to the “incident of the dog” -- are better, more admirable, than the behaviours of the so-called “normal” people.

 I wonder too about the consistency of the portrayal or whether autistic people themselves think they are something they are not. Christopher says he believes only in what is real, but he also has dreams and imagination -- about space if nothing else, but about his A levels and so on.

The Fault in Our Stars, John Green

Crystal Cook, Whispers and Trust, 2012

(June 8) Funny and sad at the same time, but in such an interesting and unusual way. “Funny and sad” is not a new combination and you are warned that this book is “that” well before you read it... but it is truly done in a lovely way in this book.

It was hard to find an image for it... I liked this first off, because of simply the broken girl, but the further you go the more you realize the broken boy is important, too, as well as the broken love. But it’s not at all sentimental... which rules out something like this or this,which are otherwise obvious (because of the evanescence... and the separation... and the way they suggest the eerie light of radiation! lol).

I settled on the image above because it suggests a couple of true things about the book -- the boy and girl are very much in love, and they also have to comfort each other quite a bit. These two aspects are well captured above. But it doesn’t capture the humour, which is also a huge part of the book. Alas, there is no artwork that would capture that.

They are such likable people and they are in such a sad situation.

Noted while reading: John Green must have felt weird when Newtown and the Boston marathon happened. O_O

Many resonances for me: “we all have the same culture, man!” Prufrock, Magritte, Gatsby, "The Red Wheelbarrow," Nothing Gold Can Stay... it is odd that this generation (16-year-olds in 2012) has the very same cultural touchstones as my generation. Like, no.

But who doesn’t love to see all their own touchstones anyway!

Also, BiPAPs! (and other nasal gear!)

Very enjoyable -- but, again, it’s weird to be saying something so sad is enjoyable.

Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier

John R. Chapin, In the Trenches at Cold Harbor, 1890

(October 2) I found this a very powerful book -- very hard to read, actually -- I had to steel myself to it every time I read it, as much as I loved it, and I spoke to more than one person who found it too hard to finish. Pat said it was “too violent” which is true, but it’s not always man vs. man violence -- in fact, it’s much more just the regular violence of nature and what it’s like to live in the mountains in the 1860s in the middle of a war. Frazier is a graphic, vivid describer and can be heartless with the details. He plays hard ball. It makes the stakes high. I especially had to steel myself to read the ending, for you had no idea whether he would spare Inman and Ada.

It’s kind of picaresque, but there is this overarching form of Inman returning to Ada, a quest whose significance increases and becomes ever more gripping even though the two are apart for so long. It’s a clever device. The more time we spend with Ada and Inman, the more we get of their memories, which at the beginning don’t hint at the depth of the relationship. It’s definitely Odysseus returning to Penelope and his kingdom, but here the relationship is so much more the driving passion.

The vivid details of mid-19th-century life in the southern U.S. are amazing, totally engrossing. I feel like Frazier got the habits of speech right, too. There are oddnesses of expression and vocabulary that you see in letters and newspapers of the time.

Was surprised by some of the Penthouse scenes at the end. LOL

Had a great writing style in general… very rich. Anything Inman thinks or says is interesting (“a sermon of Monroe’s, dense to the point of clotting”) and on and on.

The love story -- so moving -- so excruciating -- like a Jane Austen parlour.

Gripping, bracing, all those words that convey high-tension wire binding you thrillingly to a dangerous ride.

A passage I found very profound: “And then she thought that you went on living one day after another, and in time you were somebody else, your previous self only like a close relative, a sister or brother, with whom you shared a past. But a different person, a separate life. Certainly neither she nor Inman were the people they had been the last time they were together. And she believed maybe she liked them both better now.”

The most treacherous, perfidious, soul-wrenching sentence I have ever read in a book: “Even after all this time and three children together, Ada still found them clasping each other at the oddest moments.” It was the first sentence of the epilogue, titled “October of 1874.”

Empress of Fashion: A Life of Diana Vreeland, Amanda Mackenzie Stuart

Andy Warhol, Diana Vreeland Rampant, 1984

(June 1) Was previously interested in Diana Vreeland, but was astonished by the level of interesting she actually was. I loved Vogue in the '70s when it was high-art wacky, and never realized this was just specifically because of Diana Vreeland. It was her crazy, and her crazy only.

This was a good biography, because the biographer is a responsible scholar who is also aware of what is interesting to read, and she can furthermore write beautifully.

Despite this goodness, you feel like you have gotten only the slightest taste of Diana, because you just want to hear a steady stream of her riffing off of things she liked, not just tidbits of it in between biographical facts.

Dark Places, Gillian Flynn

Edward Gorey, from The Gashlycrumb Tinies, 1963

(July 19) An unofficial motto can be found on p. 145: “life was grim.”

For the first three-quarters or so of this book, I was like -- yecchh -- this is just one long gross-out -- but I did want to read to the end to see how Flynn wrapped it up. Dark Places definitely has that grabs-your-interest thing going, like her others -- it just seems even more obsessed with the disgusting, sordid, gross details of daily life than the other two, and they were pretty bad. It’s almost like Flynn is an adolescent boy. She overdoes the ew factor.

In terms of “world-making,” though Flynn acknowledges advice from agricultural experts in the Acknowledgements, it’s clear she doesn’t know how a farm is run, and this bugged me.

And, she equates poverty with smelly laundry and unwashed clothes in general -- such items get described in full at every opportunity. It’s like people with income problems wouldn’t be so pathetic if they just washed their clothes a little more. ::eye roll::

These things give the book an amateurish feel, which only makes sense since it was a first novel.

A lot of the Amazon reviewers who awarded Dark Places only one star say the same as I do -- “loved Gone Girl, read this because of that, but this is so depressing and revolting I almost didn’t finish it.”

So, at the three-quarter mark, I was thinking I’d be giving this book less than 3 stars -- even though I was kind of hooked on the story. At that point I thought I would pretty much be constantly on the verge of vomiting through the last 70 or 80 pages just to reach the denouement.

BUT THEN

At roughly the three-quarters mark, the plot got so unbelievably interesting. I mean, my curiosity was already piqued or I would have stopped reading, but -- pow. All of a sudden a lot of unexpected resolutions to the main mystery start to make some weird kind of sense. And there is a scene with the narrator and a niece that is a horror-movie classic and yet is done with words on the page.... pretty amazing.

This made the whole book suddenly seem way more clever and well-crafted. Maybe a reader gets played by the book like this, with the icky but neutral story line going on for so long. Lulled by the ick.

So. 3 stars. Or even 3.5.

Sharp Objects, Gillian Flynn

Alphonse Mucha, Medea, 1898

(January 1) Got this (Flynn's first novel) because I liked Gone Girl so much. This was a little harder to love.

It seems to me from both books that Flynn's not sure if she wants to be a horror writer or a mystery writer -- there's a lot of random monstrousness from the get-go, with hints that the randomness is maybe not so.

Even though gross, this book's first part is engrossing... heh heh heh... but, halfway or two-thirds through, the pacing suddenly changes and the whole thing ends very abruptly. To me, it felt like the classic author-just-wanting-to-get-this-done rush (there’s a little of this in Gone Girl, too, actually: there's initial enthusiasm for the great idea, but the momentum dies away).

I was also lukewarm on the Southern Gothic elements. Macabre Southernness is so popular: why?

Third strike for me: Sharp Objects tries to be triple-x-rated sexy, which is weird when mixed in with the grotesque elements of the story.

And yet: overall not so terrible that I didn't want to finish it!

The Age of Persuasion, Terry O'Reilly and Mike Tennant

(December 20) Really enjoyed this -- really like the topic already, but Terry O’Reilly provides a lot of added value. Interesting insights and big-picturing. Inspired me to look up old TV commercials I saw as a kid and had forgotten... couldn’t believe how weird they now seem, e.g., "Sold American."

Book was also cool for its layout and editing. There were no real graphics, only whatever you could do with sidebars... which was a great deal with these people. And they were all worked in so beautifully... was all very creative while at the same time respectful of the reader (unlike some books that throw in six pages of plates and illustrations in the middle of a sentence, this layout did not cause you to lose the flow of the reading). Great book, but I really admired the editing.