And . . . Scene

Hey, bookish friends. I've decided to let my Bookish blog die out.

Fear not--I do still know how to read and AM still reading. The problem is this: I am way, way, WAY behind on posting my reviews. I have a backlog that's pretty ridiculous. And after finishing the previous few books, I'd think, "Crap. Now I have to review it."

Which is not a way I want to deal with books.

So, the blog was fun while it lasted, but life is busy and I need to pick and choose where I dump my time and efforts. Reading? Yes. Blogging about reading? Letting it go.

However, should I just HAVE TO blog about a book, there's still my main blog at hofmannlife.BlogSpot.com. So, I have options.

Thanks for reading along with me---it's been fun!

A Day at the Beach

A Day at the Beach
By Helen Schulman (224 pages)
Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Bookish rating: 4

This novel takes place on 9/11, following a NYC-based, trendy and artsy couple as the day turns to shit and the underlying strengths and weaknesses of their strange, flawed marriage bubble up. Gerhard is German-born and quite the arse, a well-known choreographer and artistic director. Suzannah, much younger, is his former muse--a great dancer-turned-mother. Which he sort of resents her for.

Their apartment is across the street from the World Trade Center, so you can imagine how the morning unfolds. They flee to the Hamptons (as you do), attempting to process and make sense of the attacks, what they've seen, what they fear, and their own reactions to it all.

Gerhard in particular is unlikable, sure, but he's interesting. Self-centered, craving art, bothered by mundane yet unpredictable nature of a difficult toddler. Suzannah tolerates too much of Gerhard's artsy diva-ness, but surely she saw it coming, right? And yet. Both are interesting to read.

Schulman explores many themes, intelligently: art, dance, marriage, love, parenthood, fear, good vs. evil, paradoxes (the German marries the Jew--did Gerhard do this to be purposefully paradoxical, he wonders?)---lots is jammed in here, and it makes for very good reading. On the whole, Schulman dodges 9/11 melodrama---she keeps the attacks raw and believable and (I hesitate to even type this) non-cheesy. But, now and then, she slips in a predictably 9/11-ish phrase or sentiment that reads a tad saccharine.

A very good post-9/11 literary read. Recommended.

Children's Literature: Catching Their Fancy

I remember being read to as a child, snuggled against my mom. Hours and hours and hours she read to us throughout our childhood. Even when I was old enough to read myself, she still would read aloud, often with me cuddled up on one side of her, my brother cuddled up on the other. It was in this way that my brother heard many, many Babysitters Club books and all of the Laura Ingalls books.

And of course, the picture books. Some would strike our fancy for different reasons, and we'd want them read to us over and over and over again.

It's no surprise that I want to mimic this for my girls. I'm certain that my mom patiently reading to us so, so often played a huge part in instilling in me a deep, genuine love of stories and books. Although my brother will declare his favorite books are under 100 pages and contain pictures, something stuck. After all, he's a better writer than most (and I deal with a LOT of writers)--a fact that stunned me when I edited his half-assed college papers. You have to have a lot of exposure to language and sentence structure to pull that off so effortlessly.

Although reading to Charlotte and Lorelei is a no brainer, I had become disenchanted with the drivel Charlotte was selecting. In short, one of the Disney princesses was the main character in practically everything. If I was lucky, maybe Peppa Pig or Strawberry Shortcake. But I really wanted to create worlds for my girl, through books, that were not variations of shit she was watching on TV.

So, we started making extra trips to the local library. She can pick whatever she wants to check out, but I select a few extra books as well. A much larger library is near my work, but connected to the same county system, so sometimes on my lunch hour I go peruse its children's section, which is WAY bigger than the one in our wee town. And I check out a few extra books.

I unveil the books after dinner, removing them from my work bag. Charlotte, surprised and giddy, wants to read them ALL that very night, so she hustles into jammies and we settle on the couch.

We haven't read a princess book in a LONG time, praise the reading gods.

I thought I'd share three fabulous books that have caught Charlotte's fancy.

The first is Grimm's Rumpelstiltskin, retold and illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky. This book is large, illustrated in a renaissance-like fashion, and the tale is told without sugarcoating: The miller's daughter must spin the straw to gold, or the king will kill her.

Oh, we have read this so many times---and each time, Charlotte is tense, eyes wide, even though she knows how it ends. I was also DELIGHTED that when the king marries the girl after she successfully spins the third room of straw to gold, Charlotte said, "He's only marrying her because she makes gold. That's not a very good reason to get married." Truth, baby girl. TRUTH.

She also added, "The king is not a nice man! She's NOT lucky that she has to marry him, even if she gets to be queen."

Sniff sniff. So. Freaking. Proud.

(Although we both agreed that her wedding dress was quite pretty.)

A second book that has brought Charlotte and me much, much reading joy is The Snow Globe Family. Alas, this book is out of print, which is a pity because I'd love to buy it. We've renewed the one from the library several times. Written by the same Jane O'Connor of Fancy Nancy fame (I love Fancy Nancy books, too), this snowy book is fabulous. It depicts a sweet little Victorian family hoping for a snowstorm as the dad reads stories aloud in the parlor. In that same room, a snow globe on the mantle contains a teeny tiny family that mimics the actions of the "big" family, and they too are hoping for a snow storm--but nobody really remembers to shake the snow globe. Finally, the big family gets their blizzard, and the baby knocks over the snow globe, sending the little family joyfully flying and creating a great hill for sledding.

Charlotte has been utterly delighted with this tale, especially during all the snow we've gotten during the past month. It's such a cozy, charming read, and exquisitely illustrated. We've read it many, many times.

Finally, Charlotte has successfully read her very first book from beginning to end: Dr. Seuss's Hop on Pop. She worked on it at school, and at the library she begged to be able to check out a copy to read at home. Of course I said yes. She proudly read it to Chris, Lorelei, and me, several times, and when I was putting together a pile of books to return to the library, I held that one up. "Can Hop on Pop be returned?" I asked.

Charlotte's eyes widened. "No, no, no, no, no! Not yet!" I had never seen her have such a visceral reaction to the idea of losing a book.

I decided then and there that Charlotte Marie should have her very own copy of the first book she ever learned to read by herself. (My first, around her age, was One Fish, Two Fish.) I bought her a hardback of Hop on Pop. When I gave it to her, she clutched it to her chest. "It's mine? I can keep it FOREVER?" Yes, yes. Your very own, sweetie. We're so proud of how hard you've been working on learning to read.

She bolted to go show it to Daddy.

Hop on Pop is the perfect first reading book for a preschooler. Simple, repetitive words, whimsical illustrations, LOTS of pages that engender a big fat sense of accomplishment. In a way, I feel bad--if I had known how precious this book was to Charlotte, I'd have bought her a copy much sooner.

Tell me, what books have caught the fancy of your little ones? 

Being Mortal

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
By Atul Gawande (282 pages)
Published by Metropolitan
Bookish rating: 4

Despite being the bookish sort who loves herself a good fairy tale, I am weirdly interested in medicine. On the one hand, I hate it---I'm incredibly uncomfortable in hospitals, I dread visits to physicians, and I'm not a big fan of pain (but who is?). On the flip side, I'm fascinated by the inner-workings of health care (good thing, because my job involves publishing on behalf of HEALTH) and how decisions get made---and what those who are deciding actually think and feel.

Which is why I picked up Gawande's recently published book.

Gawande, a surgeon, examines aging, the process of approaching death (which may occur when you're young), and medicine's current trend to extend life while obliterating its quality. Gawande argues that part of this is due to doctors not being super upfront with patients about their prognosis. And as long as there's a chance, most people want to undergo treatments, no matter the side effects. Which is understandable. Death is scary.

The more interesting aspect of the book, though, is Gawande's exploration of aging---quite the important topic, as the "gray tsunami" of the retiring baby boomers threatens to ruin our economy (I kid, I kid---sort of.) At first, I feared this would be another judgy-judgy "we cast aside our elders" take, the sort that skewers modern Americans for not taking in every single aging person in their family. Oh, the selfishness! But Gawande points out that historically, even in collectivist societies, people living to really old age and actually NEEDING younger folk to care for them was quite rare. But now people live WAY longer. Moving in with the kids might be a decent option for some, but the stress of trying to raise a young family, take Ma or Pa to all their appointments, work, deal with the grouch who no longer is king of his own castle, the constant too-loud blaring of the news on TV--all of which gets exponentially worse as health fades---well, this is not a viable option for a lot of people.

Chris and I joke that we'd be screwed if we were expected to take in aging parents. Our folks span two generations. "Our house would be a nursing home for 40 years straight!"

However, Gawande exposes the flaws of the current assisted living facilities and nursing homes, and he does this very well. The loss of autonomy--not having a lock on your door, being subject to the facility's schedule, lack of children and animals to play with--these are not small things. Gawande describes different models of living arrangements that have been very successful in increasing quality of life, decreasing illnesses and medication use, AND saving money as a result. One hopes they become the norm.

I too was blinded by the pretty, upscale look of modern assisted living facilities. Where my grandmother lives outside Seattle, her place looks like a hotel. Big stone fireplaces, pretty earth tones, tinkling piano music. When she said she hated it, I blew her off as being her typical crankball self. I thought, it's so NICE! But Gawande points out that these places are marketed toward the younger folk who are helping an aging parent find a place to live. They walk in and think, it's so pretty! What a lovely place to live!

But people--young or old--need to be able to set their own schedules, socialize on their own terms, care for pets, have meaningful things to do (not silly time-fillers), and continue involvement in their communities (churches, clubs, etc.) BEYOND the care facility. A pretty lobby and around-the-clock falls prevention that circumscribes life even further does not make for a joyful existence.

I think young people need to read this book. Assisted living is a relatively new concept, and despite a good effort by our parents' generation, I think we need to make sure we revamp it for OUR aging parents. For example, I know my mom pretty well. There best be a dog wherever she ages.

Next, aging in place. The vast majority of people want to stay in their own homes as they age. A lot can be done to extend the time they live at home, promoting higher quality of life, and Gawande could've discussed this a bit more. I'm only 34 and whatnot and I'm decades out from figuring out how I'll live my last years, but I know even now that I'll want to live at HOME for as long as humanly possible. Most people do, and this is a desire that should be honored. Gawande describes a neighborhood or town whose older adults pay sort of small fee, and a handyman visits all their houses periodically to go up on ladders to change light bulbs or air filters, or fix this or that. I think housekeepers come and do things like mopping. This was organized at the community level and was so popular, it ballooned into hundreds of participants. Accessible homes and grab bars are nice and a good start, but quality of life, independence, and autonomy are crucial. SURELY we can find ways to keep people living in their own homes longer, if that is their desire.

Huh. This post turned out preachier than I intended. Anyway, read the book. Highly recommended.

In the Kingdom of Ice

In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette
By Hampton Sides (454 pages)
Published by Doubleday
Bookish rating: 4

As I've said before, I have a weird love of survival stories. I love the extremes, the testing of the human spirit, the power of nature. The drama.

This book covers--extensively--the American polar voyage of the the Jeannette in the late 1800s. So far, this was unexplored territory, and it caught the fancy not just explorers (armchair explorers or otherwise) but also the general public. Alas, the crew of the Jeannette based their voyage on a soon-to-be-debunked theory that the North Pole was a warm, freshwater bowl of water, surrounded by ice. It was just a matter of finding the right way in.

So, the Jeannette heads north. She gets stuck in ice and stays put for TWO YEARS. Then sinks. And the 33-person crew must travel over jagged, dangerous ice, aiming for Siberia. And oh, it makes for dramatic reading.

Do not, do not, do NOT google the voyage. I almost did about a dozen times, because I wanted to know would happen to everyone and I couldn't get through the 454 pages fast enough. But I didn't google it and was raptly reading, waaaaaay too late into the night. (The sign of a very good book, methinks.) What would happen to them?

Yes, this is nonfiction that reads like fiction, as good survival stories do. My one criticism is that it took FOREVER for the Jeannette to finally get to sea. I get that such a voyage requires a lot of prep---securing funding, figuring out routes, finding and renovating a ship, accumulating provisions, and so on. But at one point I snapped at my open Kindle, "Set sail already!" Sheesh.

But never you mind about that. This is good, absorbing nonfiction reading. Highly recommended.

Acedia & Me

Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life
By Kathleen Norris (334 pages)
Published by Riverhead
Bookish rating: 4

I loooooved Kathleen Norris's Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, so I excitedly checked out this book from the library.

There's something about Norris's way of processing feeling and information, her insight, her self-awareness, her use of language, her honesty---they simply resonate with me. In this book, she tackles the ancient idea of acedia, known as the "noonday demon"---that sense of who cares, I don't want to, it doesn't matter, everything is futile that can sometimes get mixed up or conflated with depression. She traces acedia through its various conceptualizations as she also cares for her husband, who is seriously ill, and continues to write write write. (Or not, depending on acedia.)

Predictably, the book is beautifully written, with lots and lots to glean. However, it does meander and lacks structure. Perhaps this is meant to mimic the way our lives actually function, but I know that Norris had been storing away this book inside her for a long time, so there's a sense of it being cobbled together a bit. I do think the text could've been edited and shortened, and more structure wouldn't have hurt. But these are minor complaints, when the bulk of the book is such good, meaty reading. Recommended.

The Good Daughters

The Good Daughters
By Joyce Maynard (278 pages)
Published by William Marrow & Company
Bookish rating: 3

Maynard is not a bad writer. In fact, she has some interesting turns of phrase, gets at the heart of farming, and covers a lot of ground in a pretty readable way.

Oh, but I have some quibbles. For starters, the Big Fat Secret is so freaking obvious that it gets tiresome waiting 278 pages for the characters to figure it out themselves. And it's SO anticlimactic when they do.

Premise: Two "birthday sisters" are born on the same day in the same hospital in rural New Hampshire and their lives get strangely (or, um, not) linked thereafter. Exactly. Now YOU know what the Big Fat Secret is, don't you?

And so we cross about 60 painful, long years. And 278 pages.

Quibble #2: The story is told in the alternating viewpoints of the girls, Ruth and Dana. I found the constant switching jarring, probably because the author was clearly more interested in Ruth's story than Dana's. And I was, too. I think this affected the plotting, which seemed rushed, direction-less, and never ending, all at once.

Perhaps in an effort to make Dana "interesting," Dana is a lesbian. In one of my big pet peeves of current lit depicting same-sex relationships, Maynard has Dana fall gloriously in love with the very first lesbian she finds, and their relationship IS PERFECT for the rest of the novel. No fights, no tension, sheer love, they feed each other blueberries and clutch each other during storms and have the very best sex all the freaking time. Yawn. Idealized, one dimensional, uninteresting. Because lesbians are PEOPLE, I'm pretty sure they have disagreements, somebody neglects to pick up her socks from the floor, they don't spend allllllll day making out.

Finally, there's a sense that this story is over told. Like, a few sentence go on a bit too long, a point is made less subtly than I wanted. Not overwritten, per se, but over explained. There's really zero trust in the reader not being an idiot.

Now, this is not a BAD book. It just didn't have enough steam to hold my interest.

The Snow Queen

The Snow Queen
By Michael Cunningham (258 pages)
Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Bookish rating: 4.25

One goes in with high expectations for a novel when its author has won the Pulitzer, especially when that novel was The Hours. And you know what? This novel met my expectations.

The Snow Queen is NOT about Elsa (har har). This is a fantastically complex, multi-layered tale of two brothers, Barrett and Tyler. Barrett, getting over yet another break up, lives with his brother, Tyler, and his wife. One night, Barrett witnesses an inexplicable light that seems godlike. Meanwhile, Tyler toils to write a non-shitty song for his super ill wife.

So, what is the novel ABOUT? Hard to say. I think a lot of readers would zoom in on certain parts more than other. I mean, yeah it's annoyingly hip and inevitably set in New York and there are inevitably no children to distract the characters from their super duper Deep Thoughts, but glib it's-so-hipster aside, Cunningham delivers a character-driven, compelling novel that explores artistic ambition, caregiving, identity, death, and God--and other stuff, too. I read it slowly and thoroughly, deeply enjoyed it. The joy of language and story and character. Loved it. Definitely recommended.

The Painted Girls

The Painted Girls
By Cathy Marie Buchanan (357 pages)
Published by Riverhead
Bookish rating: 4

A satisfying historical read set in Paris in 1878. The van Goethem sisters find themselves nearly penniless after their father's death, and their mother spends what little they have on absinthe. Marie is sent to the Paris Opera to make a bit of money getting trained for its ballet company while her sister toils, works in the theater, and falls for a less-than-stellar guy.

As Marie works her way through the classes, she catches the eye of Degas, eventually becoming a model for him. She's none too thrilled with his depictions of dancers in their less pretty, less idealized states, but hey, he pays well. Finally, she becomes the subject for his famous statuette, Little Dancer, which I had the joy of seeing in person once, at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. I believe it's temporarily at the National Gallery now, and the Kennedy Center has staged a musical of the stautette, starring New York City Ballet's beloved Tiler Peck. I was DYING to see the musical, but you know. KIDS.

I loved reading about the inner-workings of the historical ballet company, and the slummy side of 19th-century Paris is very realistically rendered. I also liked the accidental coincidence of reading of Marie's ballet class as I sat in the waiting area of at Charlotte's ballet academy, listening to plunking piano music for the advanced class's barre. A tad trippy, but fun.

My only criticism is that Buchanan devotes waaaaaaay too much story to an actual criminal case that occurred in Paris at this time. I didn't care much about it, and I felt it slowed Marie and her sister's stories down far too much and was overall a distraction.

Still, this is a book worth reading for those who love their historical fiction.

Lottery

Lottery 
By Patricia Wood (320 pages)
Published by Putnam
Bookish rating: 3.25

Set in working-class Everett (Washington State, y'all), Perry--a man with some sort of developmental delay or intellectual disability--wins the lottery. Suddenly, his indifferent family moves in to capitalize on his sudden fortune.

Overall, the book is not bad. All the elements are there, I suppose. And it was reviewed oh so very highly. But I dunno. The voice of Perry is very distinct, which is good, but he has a Forrest Gump-ish quality that reminds me of literature's tendency to idealize a marginalized set of people. Sort of how the early writings of gay and lesbian lit portrayed hyper-romanticized ideals, when same-sex relationships still involve PEOPLE and are therefore also prey to, like, PROBLEMS.

Which is a long-winded way of me saying that I'd rather see a character with an intellectual disability who also has some traits that are BAD. The innocence of children? Well, maybe, but children can also be little shits. Let's see more of that.

The writing registered a tad bland for me, and I was ready for the book to end. Were there aspects I liked? Yes. Exploring the effed up nature of money from the perspective of someone who doesn't give much of a hoot about it is interesting. Lots of well-developed characters . . . but I was just sort of bored. Not really recommended.

Dakota: A Spiritual Geography

Dakota: A Spiritual Geography
By Kathleen Norris (256 pages)
Published by Mariner
Bookish rating: 5

Prepare to love this book. I was so taken in by Norris's language, her ability to GET the weirdness of Dakota AND the excruciatingly small town, the vastness of its prairie, theological-slash-spiritual acumen, her portrayal of the depth and hospitality of the small (super duper small) church, the process of writing---oh yes, this book hit on a ton of relevant areas for me.

Quasi-memoir, quasi-meditation, quasi anthropological essay, this book is unique. I enjoyed it so thoroughly that I deliberately slowed myself down in reading it, stretching it out for eight months. Fortunately, Norris has published other stuff. So, even though this book is done, I'll survive.

Highly, HIGHLY recommended for anyone interested in the Dakotas, the writing process, monks (no, really), parallels between modern and ancient practices of Christianity, small towns, and . . . well, just good writing.

The Rebellion of Jane Clarke

The Rebellion of Jane Clarke
By Sally Gunning (270 pages)
Published by William Morrow/HarperCollins
Bookish rating: 3.5

I was in the mood for some historical fiction, and I'm particularly fond of the colonial era of our fair country. So, The Rebellion of Jane Clarke, set on the eve of the American Revolution in Cape Code and then Boston, held some promise.

Refusing to marry the guy her father has selected for her, Jane is sent away to Boston to care for an elderly aunt. There, she hangs out with such folks as John Adams and also happens to witness the Boston Massacre. The first half of the story read better for me, as it was more Jane's story. As politics and historical events took center stage in the second half, though, it felt as though Gunning was struggling to integrate them into the STORY. And the STORY is what I cared about, not the trial (oh, the pages and pages of the trial!), especially because I already knew how the trial of the British soldiers would end. Because, like, it's history and stuff.

So, the reading became tiresome.

To Gunning's credit, I did get surprised by one big twist, and I liked the character of Jane. Historical details, descriptions of the cape, and the sprinkling in of some 18th-century literature, particularly the new concept of a novel (yay for novels!) was a fun addition. At least for nerds.

Mostly recommended.

May B.

May B.
By Caroline Starr Rose (240 pages)
Published by Schwartz and Wade
Bookish rating: 3.75

My friend Lauren recommended May B. to me, even though she wasn't much of a fan. See, she knows I have a penchant for stories taking place in sod houses. No, really.

I liked it more than Lauren did. Written in verse, and aimed at a younger audience, I tested it on an actual younger audience. Reading the novel to Charlotte, it kept her attention . . .  for a bit. But I found myself adding extra words here and there, reading aloud more as prose to help connect the story for my young listener. Though I was pleased that we got through about 75 pages or so together, especially because it exposed her to a different rhythm of story and no pictures helped her along, eventually Charlotte moaned when I picked up the book and suggested reading a chapter or two. It didn't hold her attention.

It did, however, hold mine. I liked the verse aspect, but as Lauren (far more articulately) argued, prose might have better served the story. On one level, the verse felt gimmicky; on another, it reduces the story down to the survival mentality May must take on.

Oh, the premise? Right. Set in the 1870s on the Kansas prairie, May is sent by her parents to a young couple to help them. Her folks need the money. She fosters a believable amount of resentment for this, but this dies out and never adequately resurfaces. Eventually, circumstances leave her stranded and alone in the soddy, with winter approaching and no way to get home. A wolf sniffs at her door. A blizzard brews. This is good stuff.

Oh, and May has dyslexia. Naturally. Actually, snark aside, I kind of liked the watching the process of her struggling to read, and this was an area I thought the verse worked well. Granted, I'm watching my firstborn learn to read, so perhaps I'm over-identifying with the painstaking process. It's so damn hard!

Overall, I enjoyed May B. Is it perfect? No. Is it a worthwhile read? Yes, I think so.

Slow Church

 

Slow Church: Cultivating Community in the Patient Way of Jesus 

By C. Christopher Smith and John Pattison (274 pages)

Published by IVP Books

Bookish rating: 3.5

Slow Church is about . .  . wait for it . .  Slow. Church. In an era of church-going that is so, SO focused on growth, growth, growth,  and attracting people and saving them souls, Slow Church is a crucial, corrective approach that resonated with me. Really, I found it quite revolutionary, the more I thought about it.

Although aspects of this book annoyed me—the authors apply their approach to church to the entire global economy, for example, and everything big or capitalistic is BAD—the overarching message is, in my opinion, one that churches need to hear.

What IS slow church? It’s being nestled in your community, addressing needs of the community, and cultivating depth as people spiritually grow, not Growth In Membership. Cultivating community within a particular church allows greater diversity in ages, mindsets, experience, socioeconomic classes, ethnicities, and so on. Bonds are tighter, grace more easily exhibited, hospitality more sincere, growth more organic (egads, that was an awful final phrase).

In our current, small town, I feel more at home than I ever have in a place. I truly didn’t understand what COMMUNITY was until we moved here. I love our town. Then, joining a wee little church dug those roots down further. I’ve never been part of a church that was ALSO where I lived. A half mile away (if that) and we’re there. Our neighbors LITERALLY attend there, too. The church is part of the town, and the town is part of the church. Totally tangled together, but in a good way.

Growing up in a conservatively evangelical church, big programing and ATTRACTING was The Most Important Thing. Like I said, we had to save them souls. We had to drive 30 minutes to get there. Not ideal. Also? A smidge too much like-mindedness across the congregation.

Whatever. I can’t say I regret my parents’ choice, because some of my best friends in the world are from that place. And many amazing people I’m thrilled to have known. But I wanted something different as an adult, something different for my girls.

Like, treating females as something other than current or future baby producers, for starters. And, like, complete beings, not some dude’s gently “complementing” asset.

But I digress.

When I discussed this book with the good pastor of our wee church, he pointed out the danger of seeing things as too binary—that our way (small, quaint, etc.) as The Right Way and everything else = bad McDonaldization of church and icky (and you KNOW they have contemporary praise songs on Sunday mornings, amirite?). I think he’s right. It’s a pompous way of thinking and good for no one.

Slow Church, while not a perfect book and a bit on the repetitive side, gives a lot to consider. Recommended.

Lydia's Party

Lydia's Party
By Margaret Hawkins (304 pages)
Published by Viking
Bookish rating: 3.5

If nothing else, this book has a pretty cover design, right?

Honestly, after I checked this book out from the library, I almost returned it without reading it. The description sounded a tad sappy on second read, and how many books depicting "women's friendships" can you read before they start to seem . . .  the same?

I decided to read it, and I'm glad I did. I do think the novel has value. Plot: Lydia throws a "bleak midwinter" party each year after Christmas. This year, she has her big announcement that she has cancer and it's terminal.

Hawkins actually dodges sappiness here. Which was a relief.

The dynamics among the women vary in their amount of interest and originality. The point of view of the artist friend is the strongest and best defined, and here is where the novel is raised a level. Blending art and creation of art amidst death? Well, yes. A good move.

A strange "spirit" of Lydia in the final chapters doesn't come through as believable to me, and I think it could've been omitted. I mean, that's the tragedy of someone's death, right? Their sheer absence? Also? WAY too many characters with not enough to distinguish them. Several morphed together for me.

Overall, not amazing, but not crappy. To use my friend Lauren's phrase, quasi-recommended.

Dancing Through It

Dancing Through It: My Journey in the Ballet
By Jenifer Ringer (257 pages)
Published by Viking
Bookish rating: 4

I love dance autobiographies. I always have. And lo and behold, newly retired Jenifer Ringer, former principal dancer with the New York City Ballet, produced a book I hoped would give insight into the more current, post-Balanchine NYCB inner-workings and dynamics.

Ringer doesn't disappoint. Now, this book has been crucified by reader reviews, because she pretty much blindsides the reader with a declaration of her uber Christian faith, followed by lots of Christian-ese sprinkled throughout. I get the outcry. You think you're picking up a book about the dark underside of the dance world and instead you get a soliloquy about a personal lord and savior.

However.

As someone who has studied autobiography pretty intensely, I tend to let a LOT slide when reading autobiography. The reason is that the author is deliberately making choices as to what to include, what to omit, and the way in which she presents it. To boot, a reader audience is constantly lurking, and this soooooo shapes the writing. Therefore, I find most writing decisions, both lovely and cringe-worthy, at least interesting.

So, then. Ringer's faith is central to her story: her raising, her struggles, her healing--her overall narrative. Why not include it? Yes, I cringed at the choice of language. As someone raised in a conservative, evangelical tradition, I deeply dislike its lingo. So, yes. I got uncomfortable reading so many "Daughter of the Lord" or "Child of God" phrases, complete the excessive capitalization such lingo generates. I just don't care for it. But my, it tells us much about Ringer, yes? And therefore, I'd argue it's an appropriate inclusion in her autobiography.

In many cases, the writing was a tad bland, even through the "darkness" of her disordered eating. And the story of her courtship with fellow NYCB dancer was like something out my childhood church's youth group's "Sex and Dating" series (which can pretty much be summed up as no sex, if you must date). But hey, it's how she rolls, and she's happily married and she and her husband appear to be intelligently and thoughtfully raising two children.

There's a purity in Ringer's writing: her love of ballet, a bit of innocence. In a strange way, it was sort of refreshing.

Where Ringer shined most was in her descriptions of various ballets, particularly Jerome Robbins's Dances at a Gathering, which serves as something of a symbol for her story in dance. Ringer describes choreography beautifully, making it very fun reading. You can see dances performed as you read. Also, Ringer's genuine love of ballet and performance shine through her writing. Her book is not a brag-fest, as dance autobiographies often are. I very much got the sense that Ringer was sharing a story.

Finally, she ends the book with a short chapter titled "The Mirror," which details a lovely, touching scene with her joyfully naked 4-year-old daughter, herself, and a mirror. I'll let readers discover it for themselves, but the scene ended the book perfectly, summing up her new role as mom and responsibility she feels to raise her daughter with a strong sense of self.

So, ignore the reviews that bitch about the Christianity part. This is a good dance autobiography. Recommended.

Housekeeping

Housekeeping
By Marilynne Robinson (219 pages)
Published by Picador
Bookish rating: 4.5

Housekeeping is something of a bildungsroman, a novel of a girl coming of age. Also author of the oh so good Gilead, Robinson is a mind-blowingly gifted writer. Her words and images contain so, so many layers, and all the while she keeps moving the novel forward, almost with the sense of water lapping at a shore--a tide, perhaps.

Which is appropriate, because water is a big 'ole symbol in Housekeeping, as Ruth and her sister Lucille dwell near an enormous lake, complete with a bridge. And trains.

After Ruth's mother dies, she's raised by her grandmother and finally her aunt, Sylvie, who is distant and weird but kind. Housekeeping toys with the idea of impermanence, the body or the home as the tangible shell of what holds before you cease to exist, time, God, and death. And, well, life, really.

Highly, highly recommended.

Dear Committee Members

Dear Committee Members
By Julie Schumacher (180 pages)
Published by Doubleday
Bookish rating: 4

First, let me say that this book reinforces my view that academics are the WHINIEST bunch of folks in the world, after toddlers. I mean, I get their disillusionment to a point: they toil and study and get degrees and become experts, harboring a vision of striding across a Cambridge-esque campus, revered as the scholars they view themselves as.

Of course, colleges and universities paying little and hiring too many adjuncts, not to mention the unpreparedness of millions of students who can barely formulate sentences, let alone original thoughts---well, it's small wonder academics feel a bit pissed.

This epistolary novel, written in letters by a ticked off lit ad creative writing professor, Jason Fitger, is snark perfected. He's insanely jealous of the Economics department, feeling obsolete and failure-like, and prickly. Prickly, prickly, prickly. The novel is hilarious. Brilliantly so. But it also contains an undercurrent of Jason actually giving a hoot about his students.

Oh, academia. I shall never manage to really pity those who have made careers in fields they adore, or have professed to adore. Oh, sure, it must be soul-killing to have a doctorate in English only to teach remedial writing 101 on the basics of what makes a thesis statement, or why a complete sentence requires both a subject AND a verb. But what redeems Jason Fitger is that he actually does care. Very much, despite claiming WTF and alienating himself from everyone in his effort to be an asshole. Recommended.

The Lifeboat

The Lifeboat
By Charlotte Rogan (274 pages)
Published by Little, Brown
Bookish rating: 4

I love survivor stories, fiction or nonfiction. Remember the Andes plane crash survivors in Alive? Riveting.

In The Lifeboat, Rogan brilliantly merges high drama and psychological and moral complexity with spectacular writing. Usually, you get one or the other with survivor stories. Rogan gives us both.

Set in 1914, an explosion sinks a Titanic-esque ship. Grace, our narrator, makes it onto an over-filled lifeboat. Some will have to die, especially as hope of rescue fades.

Oh, yes. HIGH DRAMA. The story is utterly absorbing, pushing the reader, like all survivor stories do, to wonder, What would I do?

The novel opens with Grace being prosecuted for murder, so it's no secret that not everybody lives. My only quibble with the story is that trial-related scenes can't hold up to the immediate drama of the lifeboat scenes. I can't think of a way to avoid this except to shove the trial to the end of the book instead of sprinkling scenes throughout, but of course doing so would've undermined Rogan's exploration of memory, psychology, and morality.

On a note unrelated to the actual story, my Charlotte spotted her name on the cover of this book. So, I flipped to the inside flap of the back cover and showed her the author's photo, where her name appeared again. "When I grow up, I want to be like that Charlotte," she said.

"You want to go to Princeton and write books?" I asked.

"Yep!" she said, blissfully unaware of what either requires. Of course, seeing the name "Charlotte" on the cover in a lovely serif type bizarrely pleased me. My, Charlotte has a beautiful, beautiful name.

My Bright Abyss

My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer
By Christian Wiman (178 pages)
Published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Bookish rating: 5

Despite only 178 pages in length, this book takes considerable time to get through--the writing is dense, poetic (literally---but can "poetic" BE literal? a question for another day), and theologically and philosophical and literarily packed. Speeding through is a waste of time. One must absorb this book slowly.

In the face of death, as Wiman dealt with a severe and weird and unpredictable cancer, Wiman's meditations explore the holes of faith, the edge of meaning, the terror of nothingness. He is unsentimental as he does this task; no feel-good fluff here, which I found liberating and interesting. He uses poetry--his own and others'--to make particular points about faith (or lack thereof), and I absolutely adored this marriage of literary art and theology--or, philosophy. Or . . . whatever. You get my point.

Very much aware of the body, ill as he is, Wiman brilliantly toys with the physicality of reality, arguing that Christ "speaks the language of reality--speaks in terms of the physical world--because he is reality's culmination and key" (p. 90). Chew on THAT for a bit!

A good 100 pages in or so, I was pondering Wiman's writings and expounding on his brilliance to Chris, who politely listened as he tossed a frozen pizza into the oven. "The focus on the physical aspect of faith--it's genius and, I think, accurate. But you know what?"

"What?" Chris asked.

"Since forever, women have always been associated with the body, with the physical--and that has been deemed LOWER than the mind, than God. Like, since people could think or make art or tell stories."

"Uh huh."

"And does Wiman make that connection? NO. No, he does not, because HE'S A DUDE."

I should have read further. I was utterly schooled on page 153. There, Wiman secured his genius status, which, admittedly, he had probably already obtained when Farrar, Straus & Giroux decided to publish him. FSG doesn't publish idiots. Anyway, page 153. Wiman writes:

"...if this consciousness I'm describing is gendered (and I think it is), it is clearly feminine. The single most damaging and distorting thing that religion has done to faith involves overlooking, undervaluing, and even outright suppressing this interior, ulterior kind of consciousness . . . In neglecting the voices of women, who are more attuned to the immanent nature of divinity, who feel that eruption in their very bodies, theology has silenced a powerful--perhaps the most powerful--side of God."

Read that paragraph again. Let it sink in. I'll wait.

Obviously, that passage floored me. BECAUSE IT'S ENTIRELY TRUE and brilliantly written.

Beyond my inner feminist jumping up and down in delight, I loved Wiman's exploration of meaning. He's a poet, so he articulates the limiting nature of language and symbol in a poignant, topsy-turvy way that pushes language and words and grammar to their very limit, mimicking the mind's inevitable circumscription--it can only go so far, understand so much.

Finally? Let's end on this little nugget: "Faith is the word 'faith' decaying into pure meaning" (p. 139).

Artistically, intellectually, and spiritually satisfying--wholeheartedly recommended.

The Winter People

The Winter People
By Jennifer McMahon (336 pages)
Published by Doubleday
Bookish rating: 4

This is a satisfying read. Set in current day and in the very early 1900s in Vermont. A literary ghost story, with diaries, mysteries, and heartbreakingly too-strong bonds of parental love . . . oh, and death. Because it's a ghost story.

McMahon's novel is absorbing, escapist, not TOO spooky yet still adequately haunting-esque. Characters, particularly the historical Sara, who gives us some first-person narrative via diary, have depth and voice. Mysteries abound.

But really? I can't write too much that wouldn't undermine the joy of reading the story, so just go read this wintry ghost story already.

Recommended.