fannyprice's 2011 reading

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fannyprice's 2011 reading

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1fannyprice
Editado: Dez 29, 2010, 6:44 pm

So I just decided to copy my introduction from the introductions thread because I'm too lazy and uncreative to come up with something more original.

I'm Kris, aka "fannyprice" at LT, aka "F.P. Crawford" at Belletrista, our own avaland's web magazine celebrating women's literature from around the world, where I am a sometimes reviewer and blogger for the site's blog, If Written By a Woman. Not married but in a long-term relationship, no kids, two kitties - Martin and Mischa - who make everything funnier and fuzzier.

I read and write about the Middle East for a living; I don't tend to track strictly work-related reading here but you'll probably see some fiction, history, and politics from that region. I spent my adolescence as an aspiring Kremlinologist, so I've got a special interest in history and literature from Russia and the former Eastern bloc countries. Other random obsessions include language and linguistics, polar exploration, WW1, social histories, dystopias/speculative fiction, and basically anything having to do with England. Also, I collect children's books and am especially fond of the New York Review of Books Children's Collection.

I'm a bit of a dilettante - I love to learn new things and every book I read spurs in me the desire to read a whole different subset of (possibly unrelated) books. I'm a great planner but I often get distracted, which means I've got more unfulfilled reading commitments than I like to acknowledge and entire shelves of books I haven't read.

I would like to devote more time to reading in 2011, while still avoiding a competitive, numbers-based approach. I don't know if I have or will make any other reading-based goals, though I am doing Orange January (and probably July) this year.

My Orange January

2fannyprice
Dez 29, 2010, 11:57 am

I'm posting my top reads of 2010 here as well. It's a decent summary of what I am like as a reader, I guess, though it lacks all the trashy urban fantasy I read in 2010. Obviously none of those were very stand-out.

It's been a rather meager year for me, in terms of numbers, but I did have a few items worth noting. Unsurprisingly, I had more standout non-fiction than fiction because it is easier for me to be drawn to books aboutthings, I guess.

Fiction

Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth - I recently his and am still processing, trying to figure out exactly what I though about it, but I know it was one of my top reads this year.

Donna Tartt's The Secret History - There was something inexplicably gripping about this book about a cultish group of students learning ancient Greek. I wanted to live in it.

White is For Witching by Helen Oyeyemi - Creepy old house, creepy twins, very atmospheric. Probably the only book with which I found no faults at all. When I was done, I immediately clicked (Kindle) back to the beginning and started re-reading it.

Kate Morton's The House at Riverton - a comfort read but a great one. I love these books about old houses, strange families, and long-buried secrets. Such a cliche, but when done well, such fun.

Suzanne Collins’s Mockingjay (The Final Book of The Hunger Games) - Yes, I picked a young adult book as one of my best reads of the year. And I’m not ashamed to say that I bawled like a baby at a number of points during this book.

Non-Fiction

At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson - This book was basically like spending an extended amount of time with an incredibly well-read but rather distractable friend who loves to entertain with random anecdotes. He intends to make a larger point with all these facts and sometimes he succeeds, but even when he doesn't it's entertaining as hell and there's no way you're asking him to stop regaling you with stories.

Katie Roiphe's Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Portraits of Married Life in London Literary Circles 1910-1939 - fantastic, silly gossip about literary and aristocratic types.

Nicholas Blanford’s Killing Mr. Lebanon: The Assassination of Rafik Hariri and its impact on the Middle East - A gripping, novel-like account of Lebanon’s recent history. The best resource I’ve found on Syria-Lebanon relations since 2000.

A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918 - G.J. Meyer’s great one volume history of World War One is like a gateway drug. The book intersperses military history with side chapters focusing on diplomatic, cultural, political, intellectual, and technical history and made me want to read everything I could about the this period in world history.

Robert O. Paxton’s The Anatomy of Fascism - A relatively short, one-volume intellectual and political history of fascist movements mostly in Europe, trying to tease out the phases that fascism moves through as it evolves from a narrow, particularist ideology to a broad-based governing philosophy.

If I can finish Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain in time, that one will also make the list.

3juliette07
Dez 29, 2010, 5:02 pm

Hi fannyprice - having read your review of A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918 by G.J. Meyer I have added the book to my list and your good self to my starred threads here. Thank you for the recommendation. As an avid reader of much about this period along with the role of women at this time I am looking forward to this book. Do you, or have you, read many other works dealing with this period?

4fannyprice
Dez 29, 2010, 6:23 pm

>Hi Juliette! I am new to reading about the first world war, though I have "read around" it for a while in a rather round-about way. I read David Fromkin's A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East and a Gertrude Bell biography as tangents to my MA studies and got hints of the war itself here and there.

I came to the European aspects of ww1 through Rebecca West's The Return of the Soldier and reading about shellshock in Elaine Showalter's The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English culture, 1830-1980. But I'm a bit of a dilettante so it took me a long time to get back to the actual war part of ww1.

Right now I'm working my way slowly through three ww1-related books: Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August, which I'm reading in conjunction with A Military Atlas of the First World War because I have a really hard time visualizing the descriptions of battles without some sort of graphical aid, and The Perfect Summer: England 1911, Just Before the Storm, Juliet Nicolson's social history of England in 1911. In 2011, I will finish these and read Tuchman's The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914.

I am always looking for recommendations for more ww1 books of any stripe (fiction, history, memoir, even poetry possibly since I know that ww1 produced a lot of that). I am especially interested in social history. Now I'm off to find your thread and check out your library!

6rebeccanyc
Dez 29, 2010, 8:17 pm

I'm a big fan of both The Guns of August and The Proud Tower, so hope you enjoy them too. I find Tuchman so informative and so readable. And lots of interesting books in your holiday list (Marcella Hazan is one of my favorites, but I was really disappointed in Wigs on the Green (in fact, it made my clunkers of 2010 list0.

7wandering_star
Dez 29, 2010, 9:23 pm

So glad you are enjoying Proust And The Squid!

On the subject of WWI and women, one of the books I am planning to read soon is Singled Out: How Two Million Women Survived Without Men After the First World War, so I will be able to report back on that.

Adding Killing Mr Lebanon to my wishlist.

8fannyprice
Dez 29, 2010, 10:28 pm

>7 wandering_star:, I'll be waiting for your thoughts! I'm watching a great documentary series on ww1 and it's just expanding my list of topics I need to learn more about related to that period in history. Anyone able to recommend a good book on the civilian experience of German occupation in Belgium and France? :D



9stretch
Dez 30, 2010, 8:28 pm

I found The Stuff of Legend to be a really excellent graphic novel last year, and have been eagerly awaiting the second book.

10amandameale
Dez 31, 2010, 7:41 am

#2 I, too, found The Secret History "inexplicably gripping." It's not the type of novel I would normally choose but I could barely put it down.

11katiekrug
Dez 31, 2010, 9:18 am

>2 fannyprice: & 10: I just bought a copy of The Secret History at a used bookstore so I could re-read it. I read it years ago when I was 14 or 15 and liked it but I *know* I missed a lot of what was going on!

12fannyprice
Dez 31, 2010, 4:14 pm

So, of course, I woke up this morning with a terrible migraine/sinus headache and an invasion of the mucuses... So instead of spending my day reading, I'm watching a marathon of the Next Food Network Star, which is actually kind of amazing, and catching up on every unread Club Read 2010 thread (and some from 2009). If I'm lucky, things will clear up and I'll be able to get reading.

13juliette07
Dez 31, 2010, 4:53 pm

~8 Dear fannyprice - hope you feel better very soon. Symathy for the migraine - from a fellow sufferer.

With reference to your post I have posted on your new thread but I would seriously consider The Deepening Stream by Dorothy Canfield. It was one of my favourite WW1 reads and is set in France. Coincidentally - my beautiful copy is in France - otherwise I would send it you - to borrow!

PS I have ordered a copy of A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918 by G.J. Meyer. Thank you for the recommendation!

14fannyprice
Dez 31, 2010, 4:59 pm

>13 juliette07:, Julie, thanks for the many recommendations! I am quite excited to investigate them.

Re the GJ Meyer, I am not a member of Le Salon, but I lurk in certain threads over there and have discovered that the group is planning on doing a group read of that book starting on 15 February, if you're interested.

15juliette07
Dez 31, 2010, 5:03 pm

Oh thank you Kris - that is tempting. I have got a sample on my Kindle so maybe I will 'go for it'! Interestingly I have also just got (ie clicked on Amazon!) my Orange book for January .... er tomorrow! The Siege sounds just up my street as well.

16fannyprice
Jan 1, 2011, 4:40 pm

I'm reading We Need to Talk About Kevin for my first Orange January, and it's killing me. I both love it and hate it; I had thought that - based on the "ripped from the headlines" premise, a school shooting - it would be kind of a saccharine, Jodi Picoult-like book....(I know it doesn't make sense to expect a book about a school shooting to be "light reading.") It's not.

I probably shouldn't admit this, because I think Eva - the shooter's mother through whose eyes we see in this story (which is told in a series of letters from Eva to her estranged husband, Franklin) - is kind of a sociopath herself, but I am having trouble not identifying with her. Obviously, the letters are only Eva's perspective on events and she is crafting the narrative in such a way as to evoke some amount of empathy, but it is hard not to feel for her.

I have passed through phases with Eva, first trusting her recounting of events implicitly, then dismissing her as the classic unreliable narrator - I mean really, can a seven-week old baby be malevolent? - and now after seeing her perspective reflected in others' reactions to her son, I am in full rapport with Eva once again. Perhaps things will change as more of the story is revealed - I think I am about 1/3 of the way through (reading on iphone, so hard to tell). But right now I feel like Eva is Rosemary in a non-supernatural version of Rosemary's Baby, with a "bad seed" son and a husband who is both blind and uncaring.

This is also an incredibly hard book to read as I get to the age where many of my friends are having children and I have to confront the question of whether I want them myself. How in the world does anyone know whether they want kids absent an overwhelming desire? How does anyone know whether they would even be decent at parenthood?

17Talbin
Jan 1, 2011, 5:05 pm

Hi, Kris!

A few WWI poetry suggestions from my husband, who loves the war poets: Sigfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg, Ivor Gurney,

18janemarieprice
Jan 1, 2011, 9:43 pm

16 - I've hear a lot of similar sentiments about WNTTAK, to the point where I'm not sure I could handle it.

19GCPLreader
Jan 2, 2011, 12:47 am

oh Fanny, I love your comments on the Shriver novel! It was my hands down favorite read of 2009 and I remember having all those same thoughts. get right back to it now, you hear?! --Jenny

20fannyprice
Jan 2, 2011, 1:02 am

Oh dear God, I've just now finished. I feel rather hollowed out inside. What a pick for my first read of 2011. Now I'm going to go do something stupid for a while.

21dukedom_enough
Jan 2, 2011, 10:17 am

Avaland was quite impressed by the Shriver - very horrifying story.

22dukedom_enough
Editado: Jan 2, 2011, 10:17 am

(Sorry, duplicate post.)

23fannyprice
Jan 2, 2011, 1:34 pm



We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver
Why Now: Orange January read, plus about a million people told me last year I had to read it; I finally saw it available on Kindle

This is a book that probably demands a re-read, however, it was such an emotionally draining and unpleasant experience to read, I don't know when I would ever feel like subjecting myself to that again. I don't want to imply that this was a bad book or a book that I wish I hadn't read; quite the contrary, I thought this book was extremely well-written and thought-provoking. It just sucked all the air out of my life for the three or so days I had it in progress; I felt like someone was sitting on my chest, making it hard to breathe.

Most people probably know this as a book about a teenager (Kevin) who plans and executes a massacre at his high school, however, I wouldn't really call this a book about a school shooting. Certainly, that event happens, but at its core, this is a book about families - marriage, motherhood, and fatherhood. Probably more specifically motherhood, since the book is told through a series of letters written by the shooter's mother, Eva, to her estranged husband Franklin.

As I've said before, I struggled with Eva continuously throughout the book, wondering how much to trust her perspective on events. From her son's first breath, she is so quick to attribute to him not only intentionality but malice. From Eva's perspective, Kevin's childish antics are deliberately calculated to spite her and to erase her very personality. And as ridiculous as this sounds, Shriver has written Eva's point of view so compellingly that one trusts her implicitly at first. Who knows a child better than its mother? And Eva is so seemingly honest about her own shortcomings as a mother and as a person that it seems inconceivable that she would intentionally distort facts about her son. Other character's experiences of Kevin - again, however, as related by Eva - mirror his mother's, which adds weight to her perceptions. Except for the glaring exception of his father Franklin who sees Kevin as a completely normal boy and often cruelly dismisses Eva's feelings. Which raises the obvious question - is Eva delusional or is Franklin oblivious? Or is the truth somewhere in the middle? Perhaps neither really knows who their son is...

This book takes an unflinching look at some very uncomfortable truths about families and motherhood. I can see how many people responded negatively to Eva, who describes herself as "just the sort of woman who had the capacity, however ghastly, to rue even so unretractable a matter as another person," and struggles desperately to love her son, something that we think of as natural and automatic in all parents 'who aren't monsters'. But as a childless early thirty-something in a long-term relationship and utterly lacking in any overwhelming urge to have a kid of my own, I really related to Eva's feeling of having been cheated because she had never felt an overriding urge to reproduce. Perhaps that feeling of identification with young Eva compelled me to stick with her version of the story through most of the book. I should make it clear, though, that I realize she's an unreliable narrator who is looking back on the past in light of specific events that have happened and perhaps unconsciously imposing a pattern or mood on her life, and I didn't always trust her.

I felt that I was supposed to wonder whether Eva could be blamed for Kevin's ultimate actions, and this question struck me as strange and then angered me. Again, probably for personal background reasons, I firmly believe that parents can do everything right and still see their children make terrible, life-altering decisions. I felt strongly inclined to defend Eva, but also to wonder why no one asked whether Franklin could be blamed for Kevin's actions, as he certainly played an equally significant role in molding his son. This strikes me as one of those uncomfortable truths about motherhood - that we presume that the mother's role is so critical that she must have done something to ruin her child, while the father gets off scot-free. Of course, there are possibly other reasons that Franklin escapes blame....

The aspect of the book which I found the most devastating and which probably made this book so hard to read was the gradual dissolution of Eva and Franklin's marriage. Although their radically different perceptions of Kevin and his actions in the fifteen years leading up to the shooting clearly feed into the breakdown of their marriage, I couldn't help but feel that Franklin stopped being on Eva's team the minute Kevin was conceived. From the minute he orders pregnant Eva to stop dancing out of fear for the fetus, it seemed to me that he had stopped thinking of her as a person and their relationship as an end in itself and was thinking of her as a vessel to bring forth what was now the purpose of their relationship. And again, I know all of these events are filtered through Eva's perceptions of her familial relationships as fundamentally adversarial, but I couldn't help but hate Franklin. It made me remember an article that was written a few years ago that provoked so much controversy in which a woman essentially declared that she loved her husband more than her kids because her marriage was a relationship of choice and her children were an 'accident of biology.' I think Eva felt that way but Franklin never did.

Lionel Shriver has said in interviews that she didn't want this book to be any sort of broad sociological look at the school shooting phenomena, but rather a a study of relationships in one particular family. So it isn't some cheesy novel where we learn that video game violence or bullying is the key to unlocking the mind of the school shooter. And - possibly a disappointment to readers - we never unlock the secret of why Kevin did what he did. Which I was cool with - this is ultimately a book that continue past the last page into the reader's own mind and provides questions and possibilities rather than answers.

Am I glad I read this? Yes, terribly. Am I glad to be done reading it? Yes, terribly. It is a hard read that forces one to confront some really uncomfortable myths about the 'naturalness' of familial relationships and will probably make you into a slightly unpleasant person to be around for a few days, especially if you over-identify with Eva, as I certainly did. I feel worn out and worn down, but I would recommend it to others.

Now for something completely different. I hope. I have a tendency to accidentally stumble into a series of depressing books.

24Fourpawz2
Jan 2, 2011, 2:15 pm

First rate review, FP. This book is sitting in the homeless books box at work and I think I may rescue it.

25kidzdoc
Editado: Jan 2, 2011, 3:01 pm

Excellent review, Kris! I'll definitely get this soon.

26Talbin
Jan 2, 2011, 2:44 pm

Great review, Kris.

Browsing through your "to be read in 2011" collection, I would recommend The Golden Compass or The Secret Garden as one of your next reads. Whatever you do, don't read A Clockwork Orange next!

27citygirl
Editado: Jan 2, 2011, 3:07 pm

Great review of one of the most disturbing books I've ever read. I understand completely when you wrote (in the earlier post) that you both hated it and loved it.

I also understand, jane, about not being sure whether you can handle it. I certainly felt that way while and after I read it, but I'm better now ;-)

After reading it I realized that I didn't blame Eva. For one thing, the way that Kevin carried out his various crimes spoke, to me, of an innate cruelty, one that had never been visited on him (maternal ambivalence is not the same thing as cruelty, especially as Eva attempted to compensate for her feelings by her actions). No matter her shortcomings, Kevin's actions were so extreme that they belonged to him, not her.

I hated Franklin. What a fool!

28janemarieprice
Jan 2, 2011, 5:50 pm

23 - Excellent review. It brings up a couple of issues for me. First, I'm in a similar position to you (just a bit younger), where as each year passes I have less and less desire to have children and the desire was never that strong - more something I felt was inevitable. Second, is about the nature of feelings. I liked what you said about Eva feeling like Franklin was never on her team. So maybe Franklin never actually felt that way, but does that make Eva's feelings any less valid? I wonder this often about some of my own neurotic feelings. Intellectually, I realize some of them are ridiculous, but does that necessarily negate them? Interesting questions both.

29charbutton
Jan 2, 2011, 6:30 pm

Another comment to say this is a great review!

30janeajones
Jan 2, 2011, 6:33 pm

Something you probably DON'T want to read right now, but which also examines the oddity/cruelty of a sociopath child is Doris Lessing's The Fifth Child -- at least this mother had four normal children first.

31avatiakh
Jan 2, 2011, 6:46 pm

I'll second the recommendation for The Fifth Child. I haven't read your review of WNTTAK, only because I avoid all reviews of some books before I get to them and this is one.
You were asking me about Hereville on another thread which I've answered over there but have just come across a great review of it by Betsy Bird, a NY children's librarian, on her Fuse#8 blog and she says it all so much better than me. Also a quote from the Washington Post review: “What do you get when you cross “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and Isaac Bashevis Singer?”

32katiekrug
Jan 2, 2011, 6:55 pm

>23 fannyprice: Great review. I just purchased WNTTAK after reading some of the discussions about it here on LT. I am a little hesitant to read it, but will probably get to it sometime this year.

33avaland
Jan 2, 2011, 7:57 pm

>22 dukedom_enough: great comments! I think you have articled the experience many of us had with the book.

Kevin is a sociopath, but the question—or one of the many questions—is the whole nature/nurture thing. And yes, did Eva's reluctance to become a mother play a role. And, as you note, I think Shriver was bringing the whole "mommy myth" up for discussion.

It's interesting to note a cultural trend that followed this book (I'm not saying it is because of the book, just that it has come about after) - the 'bad parenting' confessional memoirs that have been coming out. Here's a slate.com article about it.

PS: You will recover, but it takes a while to get your wind back.

34fannyprice
Jan 2, 2011, 8:37 pm

Thanks all for your comments on my review. Feeling somewhat affirmed that I'm not a sociopath myself, lol.

>31 avatiakh:, avatiakh, I love that description of Hereville - I read a couple pages of preview online and I'll definitely be picking it up at some point.

>33 avaland:, avaland, thanks for the link - it was totally Ayelet Waldman that I was thinking of. That article is interesting, particularly because of the differences between Eva and these "bad mommies." While the "bad mommies" transgress, it seems they do so in very socially acceptable ways - a glass of wine too many, a house excessively messy; I can't imagine the response should a real mother admit to her friends or to the general public that she struggled to feel any affection at all for her child, as Eva does. She would be considered pathological.

I am still struggling with whether Kevin actually was a sociopath, which I realize sounds kind of stupid, since it seems obvious that there was something wrong with a person that would do what Kevin did. It just seems that so much of his clearly 'evil' (a lame word, I know, I lack a better substitute at the moment) behavior throughout his life prior to the shooting is filtered through Eva, who often did not witness the behavior in question and was predisposed to see all Kevin's actions as malicious. I don't know what the alternative explanation for his actions might be, but I still wonder about him.

35arubabookwoman
Editado: Jan 3, 2011, 1:31 am

That was a wonderful--and heartfelt review. As a parent, I can't imagine anything worse than having a child commit murders, other than the death of the child. That's one reason I was so struck by Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton, with the alternating stories of one father whose son murdered, and another father whose son was murdered. If you haven't read that book, I highly recommend it.

Another excellent book with similar themes (which I read years ago) is Before and After by Rosellen Brown. I also recommend it. (It was later made into a mediocre movie with Meryl Streep, but don't let that discourage you.)

Of course, after just having experienced Kevin, you probably want to take a break from such issues for a while!

ETA--I'm one who thinks that Kevin was a sociopath. I've known families who as far as any outsider can know, have loving, caring parents, whose other children are well-adjusted, "normal" kids, but who have one kid like Ben in The Fifth Child, although not, perhaps, as extreme.

36Rebeki
Jan 3, 2011, 2:59 am

Hi Kris, thanks for your welcome on the Introductions thread. Yes, Nothing To Envy is highly recommended. I usually get to books ages after they've been published, but in this case I'm really glad I got round to reading it sooner.

Of course, it's not necessarily a book to follow WNTTAK with! As others have said, great review!

I read it a few years ago and couldn't put it down, but was completely drained afterwards. I, too, sympathised with Eva and felt angry with Franklin.

Btw, I think I must be of a similar age to you and, while I'm sure that I want children (and was relatively so when reading WNTTAK), if ever there's a book to put you off parenthood it's this one! Happily, it's now faded in my memory!

37bonniebooks
Jan 3, 2011, 12:30 pm

Great discussion about the "...Kevin" book. I thought some of the descriptions of Kevin as a child seemed a little unreal, but then I thought she is writing the story after Kevin has done all that he did, and wouldn't that color your memories? I thought she portrayed Kevin as a little too evil as a child. I don't believe in "evilness" in the religious sense, but of course there are sociopaths from childhood on due to brain dysfunction. The book made me interested in reading more about what sociopaths look like as children, and if we can help/shape them, and or control their behavior before they become adults. A question: I predicted the ending from the very beginning. Did you and did that impact your feelings about the story for you?

38fannyprice
Jan 3, 2011, 1:15 pm

>37 bonniebooks:, bonnie, not sure what you mean by "the ending". I'm PM-ing you to avoid putting too many spoilers out there.

39juliette07
Jan 3, 2011, 2:05 pm

~35 I completely agree about Cry The Beloved Country- read it when I was young and it has stayed with me for a looong time!

40fannyprice
Editado: Jan 4, 2011, 2:47 pm

Wow, I'm kind of excited. My review of We Need to Talk About Kevin is "hot." I don't think I've ever had one of those before. Thanks guys! (blushes...)

Anyway, I'm slowly recovering and moving on with my life. Finished up a holdover from 2010.



The Perfect Summer: England 1911, Just Before The Storm - Juliet Nicolson

A social history of pre-ww1 England, focusing on the summer of 1911, the particularly hot and somewhat tumultuous summer of George V's coronation. I expected that I would love this book, but there was something very aimless and listless about not, not unlike the languor that characterized the lives of England's idle elite, Nicolson's primary focus. Nicolson - herself the granddaughter of the writer Vita Sackville-West and the diplomat/writer Harold Nicolson - proceeds in strictly chronological fashion, marching month by month through 1911, relating the seemingly best pieces of gossip culled from a selection of society diaries and memoirs and dwelling on how bored England's best people were. She detours briefly to discuss labor unrest, suffragettes, and servants, which gives some sense of the social change percolating (and perked me up because I'm such a pinko at heart), but overall this book just seemed rather haphazard and unthoughtful. There was very little reflection on the meaning or context of much of the information presented; it was hard to get a sense of why people were important or even if they were important. I think the author's intent was to paint a picture of a world that would be destroyed by the war, but I often felt I lacked knowledge of the future that would help me understand the significance of the world Nicolson portrayed. Perhaps not a book for a beginner student of this era, as it has been positively reviewed elsewhere. Despite my lukewarm response to this book, I do plan to read her follow-up The Great Silence: 1980-1920 Living in the Shadow of the Great War.

41fannyprice
Jan 4, 2011, 3:33 pm



And something light since I'm home sick today...

How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less - Sarah Glidden

A gorgeously-illustrated memoir of the author's Birthright Israel* trip to Israel, taken as a cynical, leftist twenty-something. Before going into the story itself, I just need to say again how seriously nice-looking this book is. Glidden's drawing technique is fairly simple, but the entire book is rendered in pretty colors, with different light and tone depending on the setting (northern Israel is lush green with blue skies, while the sand and sky of the southern deserts are sunbleached), and each chapter opens with a beautifully-done watercolor-esque map of a portion of Israel. No black and white chicken scratch here.

Glidden's story is fairly simple, yet compelling. Secular, liberal-lefty Jewish girl from New York decides to take advantage of a free trip to Israel to "discover the truth behind this whole mess once and for all" - the mess being, obviously, the Israel-Palestinian-other Arabs situation. Confident that she knows it all, and more than a little bit smug in her prejudices about Americans, Israelis, and Arabs, the main character (also called Sarah) steels herself against what she assumes will be Brithright's pro-Israel propaganda, grabs an ambivalent friend, and hops a flight to Ben Gurion. In the course of her time in Israel, she - of course - learns that "the truth" is more complicated than she thought, "the mess" is messier than she thought, and Israel is different - better in some ways but with internal problems she'd never known of - than she'd imagined it would be. She also reconnects with her Jewishness and learns that one doesn't have to be a blind supporter of Israel to be connected to it. It is somewhat cheesy as a political philosophy, but as a personal memoir of a physical and somewhat spiritual journey, I think it works fairly well.

It also helps that there is a tremendous amount of humor, both textual and visual, in this work. The character Sarah is continually imagining herself in the midst of stories about the past and the author illustrates these in full detail. We see the protagonist in an imaginary courtroom presenting both sides and presiding over the case of "Birthright is Trying to Brainwash Me vs. Birthright is Actually Pretty Reasonable," dinosaurs fighting in the Golan Heights during the 1967 war, and the ghost of David Ben Gurion. Also, there are just the amusing/irritating things that anyone who's ever been to Israel will immediately identify with: the intensive security, the constant smoking, the very loose definition of a line.

Possible best line of the book: "Basically, Masada is what happens when a paranoid schizophrenic rules a troubled kingdom." - in reference to King Herod's construction of Masada as an impenetrable fortress in which to wait out a possible revolt against him.

*Birthright Israel, for those unfamiliar with the organization, is an organization that provides free trips to Israel to teen and twenty-something Jews from the Diaspora to encourage them to learn about and feel connected to Israel. This is the most neutral way I can describe it. Others may disagree and feel more or less like "Sarah" did before taking the trip.

42GCPLreader
Jan 4, 2011, 5:25 pm

congrats on your hot review!!-- well deserved!

43kidzdoc
Jan 5, 2011, 9:15 am

44fannyprice
Editado: Jan 8, 2011, 11:30 am

After a rather busy start to the year, I find myself at an impasse. I really want to read something light and silly-ish right now, so I am grasping around for books. Tried a Kindle sample of Connie Willis' Blackout, read about a third of Phillip Pullman's The Golden Compass, thought about going sci-fi...I'm sure I'll find something eventually, just complaining on a Friday. Yay, Friday!

Edited to correct a typo. Unless I really did have a "busty" start to the new year...

45urania1
Jan 7, 2011, 7:14 pm

Have you read Good Omens. It is quite funny. I liked it so much I read it twice.

46urania1
Jan 7, 2011, 7:20 pm

Or . . . and this one is on Kindle: The Gates by John Connolly. Here's a description from Amazon:

n this frothy fantasy thriller from bestseller Connolly (The Book of Lost Things), 11-year-old Samuel Johnson witnesses an inadvertent intersection of science and the supernatural while trick-or-treating at the Abernathy household in Biddlecombe, England. Something nasty reaches through an atomically engineered portal to Hades and possesses four suburban sorcerers. From that point on, Samuel finds himself battling hordes of invading demons and desperately trying to convince disbelieving adults that the impending end of the world is not a fancy of his overactive imagination. Connolly plays this potentially spooky scenario strictly for laughs, larding the narrative with droll jokes, humorous asides and the slapstick pratfalls of Nurd, an amusingly incompetent subdemon whom Samuel ultimately befriends. Though billed as an adult book for children, this light fantasy will strike even adult readers as divertingly whimsical. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. -

47fannyprice
Jan 8, 2011, 9:56 am

>46 urania1:, Oooh, why didn't I think of John Connolly. I ended up going sci-fi and downloading Hull Zero Three, which is totally outside of my usual reading taste. It's about a man on some sort of interstellar colony ship who wakes up prematurely with no memory of who he is or what anything is to discover that something has gone wrong with the ship. So far I am actually not really enjoying it - something about the way it's written is really tedious, but I feel like there is an intriguing mystery, if only the author didn't spend so much time describing everything.

48fannyprice
Jan 8, 2011, 10:40 am

I am in the middle of too many books. My goal this weekend is to finish some of these, because I don't like having this many in progress at the same time. Especially this many short fiction collections.

Beirut 39: New Writing from the Arab World, There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby: Scary Fairy Tales, Joyce Carol Oates' High Lonesome: New and Selected Stories 1966-2006, Mary Gaitskill's Don't Cry: Stories, and E.M. Forster's The Celestial Omnibus

49fannyprice
Jan 8, 2011, 11:14 am

Some cross-posting with the interesting links thread, but I am reflecting a bit more on the place of my non-book reading here.

Constitutional Whitewash

About the Constitution, how it gets amended, and what that actually means for the text of the original. There is currently a mini-scandal of sorts in the US because the Republican-controlled House of Representatives opened their session with a reading of the full Constitution. They came under fire for omitting language about how slaves constitute 3/5 of a person and other things; public figures claimed they were whitewashing US history. Before reading this article, I had thought that was sort of a silly claim because these aspects of the original constitution have been amended and surely are not part of the living Constitution of 2011. Reading this article, however, I learned that there is actually no consolidated document that represents the Constitution as amended throughout history and that there is not really a standard sense of how the original language is changed by the amendments.

I am generally ignorant of - and tend to be uninterested in - American history (though I do love sociology-type books about the US). Perhaps this is the privilege of being an American citizen by birth - and probably to some extent the privilege of being a white American citizen - who has not been required to learn much more than was imparted to me in required public school classes. I have always been much more interested in what's going on in other countries or with other continents' histories. Even when the US has an angle on that (like our minor participation in WW1, for instance), I am generally less intrigued by it than by any other aspect of a story....

I make half-hearted stabs at remedying this every once in a while and have generally enjoyed books that examine American myths about our history - like James W. Lowen's wonderful if somewhat sensationalistically-titled Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, but I don't really have too much interest in reading about the founding fathers. I've been toying with the idea of joining the Federalist Papers group read group in order to become a less ignorant American....

Ok, confessional over. Commence stoning.

50katiekrug
Editado: Jan 8, 2011, 2:45 pm

>48 fannyprice: I'll look forward to your thoughts on There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbors Baby: Scary Fairy Tales. It's been on my wish list for a while now...

ETA: balky touchstone

51fannyprice
Jan 8, 2011, 2:48 pm

....And, I'm pretty disgusted to be an American at this moment:

Arizona Dem Killed At Public Event

It's still unclear who the shooter was or what his beef was, but this is not supposed to be how we express dissent in our society. Between this and the recent rash of people sending incendiary devices through the mail in the DMV area to express their discontent with billboards...
we are now on par with Pakistan, apparently


I'll be in bed, with my head under the covers.

52juliette07
Editado: Jan 8, 2011, 3:01 pm

Yikes Kris - I heard this earlier on the BBC as a breaking news flash but it was not then known that there was a death. How awful. Pardon my ignorance but 'DMV' is short for ....

There is an LT group in which you may be interested - it is a forum for discussing the federalist papers in a philosophical, political, and historical context. Apparently you don't need to be a specialist to join. I think it is simply called The Federalist Papers.

53katiekrug
Jan 8, 2011, 3:00 pm

>51 fannyprice: It's horrible, but I just heard she was not killed and is in surgery. Though apparently others were killed and a child is in critical condition. So sad and senseless.

54fannyprice
Editado: Jan 8, 2011, 3:59 pm

>52 juliette07:, Hey Julie - Sorry, DMV is a cheeky acronym for Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia. The DC metro area, essentially.

ETA: (Sorry, just remembered you're a Brit - do you have the other DMV over there?) DMV also stands for the Department of Motor Vehicles, which is a terrible place to go. I like to think that the use of this acronym as a term for the DC metro area is an attempt to equate the frustrations of living in the area with the irritating experience of having to visit the other DMV. However, I have no idea if this is the intent.

55urania1
Jan 8, 2011, 3:22 pm

>52 juliette07:,

We've got all kinds in The Federalist Papers. I know nada about them, but it didn't stop me from starting the group. I am learning a lot.

56arubabookwoman
Jan 8, 2011, 11:44 pm

Fanny--I left a note over on Reading Globally about the How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less book. My son took a birthright trip to Israel a few years ago (about two weeks after the fighting in Gaza flared up again). I don't know how he got accepted, because I am not Jewish, although his dad is, and he was raised in an agnostic household. He also went to Israel with a "lefty" viewpoint. I don't think his attitude has changed, but he found that most of the people he met and spent time with were reasonable, well-informed and open-minded. He was very impressed.

57fannyprice
Jan 9, 2011, 10:22 am

>56 arubabookwoman:, That's interesting. I don't know what Birthright's screening process is, but it doesn't necessarily surprise me that they would be interested in reaching out to people who are not religious. I'm glad your son had a good time; there are some really amazing things in and about Israel, even if one disagrees with the majority of the government's political decisions. :D

58fannyprice
Jan 9, 2011, 4:07 pm



Still mopping up from last year... Finished Ludmilla Petrushevskaya’s short story collection There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby, which I've been working on since August. Favorite pieces were “Hygeine,” a dystopian and utterly macabre tale about a family desperate to escape from an unidentified pandemic, and the aptly named “Revenge,” which is probably the story from which the collection takes it name. I had originally thought, based on the associations I have with the term "fairy tales," that these would have a less contemporary setting than a lot of them did. The surprise actually made me like them more. As with most short story collection, I have a hard time thinking of what to say, since it generally takes me so long to read them. I liked it, glad I read it.

59fannyprice
Editado: Jan 9, 2011, 4:22 pm



Hull Zero Three - Greg Bear - A sci-fi/horror kind of novel, in which a man on some sort of interstellar colony ship who wakes up prematurely with no memory of who he is or what anything is to discover that something has gone wrong with the ship. Lots of strange monsters, even the ship itself seems to be trying to kill him. He meets up with other vaguely human inhabitants of the ship, and they struggle to survive and to figure out who they are, what their goal is, and what has caused everything to go wrong.

There's an intriguing mystery here, but honestly I have no idea what this book was about in the end. The writing was fairly tedious, managing to be both overly descriptive and completely nondescript, if that makes any sense; there was way too much mystical mumbo-jumbo, and I constantly felt like I had failed to understand some big reveal that had just occurred to the characters. This book was completely out of my usual realm of reading, and I was unable to even hazard a guess as to what was going to happen next. It was interesting to be in foreign territory and unaware of the conventions that might have been obvious to someone who has read more of these books. I have gleaned, from reading Amazon reviews of this book, that the whole storyline is somewhat of a standard trope in sci-fi.

One of my sort-of reading resolutions for 2011 is to read a couple of books that are wholly unlike what I would normally read. This probably means certain genres: sci-fi, high fantasy, probably crime and detective novels. So I'll try to pick some that look to be standouts in their respective categories. Although this book got a few good mentions and was sufficiently intriguing, I don't think it's a winner. I feel odd giving it any star rating because I'm really unsure how it compares to other books of its kind.

60janemarieprice
Jan 9, 2011, 4:26 pm

44 - What did you think of The Golden Compass? I liked the whole series but felt like it took a while to get going.

61fannyprice
Jan 9, 2011, 4:33 pm

>60 janemarieprice:, jane, maybe that's my problem. I read about 1/3 of it and just wasn't loving it like I had expected to. I think it's the problem of waiting too long to read an acclaimed book/see a movie that everyone loves/etc. - the expectations are just so high. I don't dislike it, but I am not compelled by it right now. I imagine I will go back to it soon though because it's on my unofficial "you WILL read this in 2011" pile, and I don't want to pick it up again six months from now with no memory of what's going on.

62janemarieprice
Jan 9, 2011, 5:31 pm

61 - My main problem was I found Lyra insufferable so until the action really got going it was dragging for me. Also, once you get to the second book and another main character is introduced I really enjoyed it. Word of warning though, both of the first books have big cliffhangers so I read them back to back.

63bonniebooks
Jan 9, 2011, 5:41 pm

I don't read much from those genres either, and when I do, they tend to not be typical for their category (e.g. To Say Nothing of the Dog). It would be interesting to create a list of great reads for those people who don't normally like those genres--though I suppose this has already been done.

64urania1
Jan 9, 2011, 5:45 pm

The Golden Compass et al. are among my favorite YA books. Pullman clearly knows his Milton and his Blake. There are also touches of gnosticism in the trilogy. Sections of the book reduced me to tears, and the end of the entire set is fabulous. I think it is worth giving it a second try. It is not really like any YA book I have read.

65dukedom_enough
Jan 9, 2011, 5:46 pm

Greg Bear is uneven, sometimes very good and sometimes not, in my experience. You might try the much older Blood Music or his novella "Hardfought" for his better work.

If you're looking for a more recent science fiction novel, I suggest Peter Watts' Blindsight. Very grim, but smart, with a different emphasis than a lot of current SF. Still free, although also available as a physical book. There's a sort of trailer for it on Watts' site.

66fannyprice
Jan 9, 2011, 6:46 pm

>63 bonniebooks:, Bonnie, I actually considered reading The Doomsday Book, which I believe is in the same universe as To Say Nothing of the Dog, because I'd heard better things about that than about the more recent Blackout. I still might because I love time travellers, even though they give me a headache.

>64 urania1:, urania, my better half really loved them too. I bought them for him as an Xmas gift years ago after we first started living together. I'll give them another chance, don't fear!

>65 dukedom_enough:, dukedom, thanks for your suggestions! I have heard that Blood Music is really good and Blindsight also sounds intriguing. Have you read any John Scalzi? The better half (again) is a big fan of his blog and has been reading some of his books recently.

67urania1
Jan 9, 2011, 6:50 pm

>Ms Price,

Time travel is supposed to give you a headache. That's how you know it's time travel.

68bonniebooks
Jan 9, 2011, 7:16 pm

Those are both good books, though To Say Nothing of... is much lighter and funnier. Have you read Kindred? It has time-travel in it. It's a story of a black woman who gets pulled back into the past--unfortunately into the South before the Civil War.

69cabegley
Jan 9, 2011, 9:19 pm

>66 fannyprice: Kris, I loved The Doomsday Book--I preferred it to To Say Nothing of the Dog, although bonniebooks is right in that it's a much darker read.

70bragan
Jan 9, 2011, 11:42 pm

>59 fannyprice:: For what it's worth, I read a lot of science fiction and have a very good familiarity with the genre, and I tend to have exactly the same kind of reaction to Greg Bear's stuff as you did to this one. (Although I haven't actually read it, so I can't offer an opinion on it specifically.) I keep picking up his books, for some reason -- probably because the premises seem really interesting -- and keep finding them various levels of disappointing, tedious, and/or hard to make sense of. Blood Music, which I see someone recommended above, is the best of them, or at least of what I've read of his books, but even it requires a massive suspension-of-disbelief effort.

Anyway, yeah, I would not recommend Bear as an intro to the SF genre. I do second the recommendation of Doomsday Book, though. It's a bit slow, as I recall, but it really pays emotionally off at the end.

71urania1
Jan 10, 2011, 1:41 am

>70 bragan: Yes, the conclusion of the Doomsday Book is awesome. I cried a lot (and that's not a spoiler).

72bragan
Jan 10, 2011, 1:43 am

So did I. Which was a bit problematic, as I was reading it at work.

73urania1
Jan 10, 2011, 1:55 am

>72 bragan: Too funny. What excuse did you event? As I recall, "My "pick the relative of your choice" died" usually works well on such occasions. To give your excuse the right air of verisimilitude, attend a stranger's funeral, bring the funeral program back and cry some more, point out something particularly poignant and break down again. Then sneak off and read another book. You should be covered for a few days. My apologies and condolences to anyone who has had a relative die recently.

74wandering_star
Jan 10, 2011, 2:19 am

Goodness. That's much better than the old 'wisdom teeth' excuse.

75bragan
Jan 10, 2011, 3:48 am

>73 urania1:: Fortunately, nobody noticed. But I will definitely keep that strategy in mind for next time!

76amandameale
Jan 10, 2011, 7:07 am

Gosh, 2011 is off to an interesting start.
When I read We Need to Talk About Kevin I was completely sucked in by the story and overall I loved the book. Like you, my feelings about Eva were ambivalent and when I finished the book I realised why. I thought to myself: this writer (completely unknown to me at the time) has never had children. Eva completey lacked the fascination one has with a child. Go back and read it again and you'll find nothing of this in the novel. And I was right.

77dukedom_enough
Jan 10, 2011, 7:13 am

fannyprice@66,

About Scalzi: I've read The Android's Dream. Light, fast-paced and funny. A bit adolescently gross in places. Haven't read anything else.

78RidgewayGirl
Jan 10, 2011, 2:35 pm

We Need to Talk About Kevin is a book that lingers for years. I remember wondering throughout the book whether Shriver had children herself; some of her passages were so in tune with parenthood and others weren't. It fit perfectly to later hear (in a BBC discussion of the book) that she was a passionate aunt and that she believed that she would have been irresponsible to write that book had she had children.

79fannyprice
Jan 11, 2011, 8:00 pm

You know, it's funny. Had I not just read We Need to Talk About Kevin, I don't think it would have ever occurred to me to extend my compassion to the family of the alleged Tuscon, AZ gunman. I can't help but feel for them as well now.

80timjones
Jan 18, 2011, 6:05 am

>58 fannyprice:, fannyprice: Your comment about having been reading the Petrushevskaya collection since August made me think that I read short story collections in two quite different ways: when I'm reviewing them, I read the stories one after the other, within a short period, and when I'm not, I read them over a long period, and often not in order.

I've noticed that reviewers of short story collections in New Zealand seem to have a strong preference for collections of linked stories, and I think this may be because of the slightly "forced" way in which reviewers have to read short story collections: connections between stories make the experience more like reading a novel.

81fannyprice
Jan 18, 2011, 9:19 pm

>80 timjones:, That's so true, Tim. I too have two different ways of reading short stories. My preferred way makes it nearly impossible to review them. :(

82solla
Jan 24, 2011, 3:01 pm

Just read your review in #23. I am currently reading the book, and your description is very good and your response included a lot of my own.

83avaland
Jan 26, 2011, 6:02 pm

>80 timjones: Interesting observations about short story collections, Tim. I have been actually pushing myself to read collections cover to cover; it's not my natural inclination. Or at least I want to finish them within a reasonable amount of time. And yes, I'm inclined to skip around.

They are easy to set down and leave for a while (as fanny has discovered!)

84Nickelini
Jan 26, 2011, 6:37 pm

Wow, I've really been missing out on some interesting conversations. Well, I found you now.

85fannyprice
Jan 26, 2011, 7:44 pm

>84 Nickelini:, Hi Joyce!

86fannyprice
Jan 26, 2011, 8:35 pm

Oy, after a strong start to the year, I've been swamped at work, exhausted at home, and floundering to find something appealing to read. I did finish Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, which was wonderful and horrible and so devastatingly sad. I'll review it - I hope - at some point.

We're having our first actual snowstorm with massive amounts of accumulation over a very short period of time today and into tomorrow potentially. Nothing compared to what the actual northeast has been getting, but DC is a mess. Early release today, maybe (fingers crossed) no work tomorrow. Flickering lights...hope we don't lose power!

I'm cozying up with some delicious new teas, trying to ignore the hideous sounds of cars stuck in the snow outside, and reading Seth Mnookin's The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear, about the vaccine-autism "link," the corresponding decline in immunization rates and the resulting rise in once-eradicated diseases. It seems like there is also a theme running through the book about the rise of an anti-science mentality and the ease with which people believe in false things despite evidence, which are two issues that very much interest me. I'm very excited for this book.

87Nickelini
Jan 26, 2011, 10:59 pm

Both the books you mention in #86 are on my wishlist, so I'm looking forward to your comments.

88fannyprice
Jan 28, 2011, 8:48 pm

Work is kind of insane. Finished The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear, which actually ended up being also of a critique of the poor state of science journalism. Mnookin was very compassionate about the things suffered by families of autistic children but unflinching in his examination of the total fraud that is the assertion that vaccines cause autism. Good read, not great, but timely and important. Now reading Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things. I've always been curious about the psychology of hoarding. This book also seems compassionate and not just an excuse to gawk at human misery, unlike the television shows about hoarding.

89fannyprice
Fev 2, 2011, 9:31 pm

This week ended up being total rubbish. I had a massive, random panic attack at work that basically cycled for three days until I could get a doctor's appointment. Things are looking up now and hopefully will continue to look up.

Despite all that, I managed to finish reading Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things, which was also interesting but nothing amazing. Caught up in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series with volumes 4 - Something Rotten and volume 5 - First Among Sequels. Damn the ineffective touchstones!

Here's hoping that more of the Middle East doesn't end up in flames and I can have a relaxing weekend.

90ncgraham
Fev 3, 2011, 3:34 pm

Just found you! Will have to catch up at some point.

91juliette07
Fev 3, 2011, 4:50 pm

Oh Kris - a *three* day panic attack.... does that happen often .... do you know what triggered it? So glad to hear you are feeling better.

92fannyprice
Fev 3, 2011, 7:29 pm

>91 juliette07:, Julie, has NEVER happened. I've never even had a small panic attack. It was NOT fun, but things are looking up!

93Nickelini
Fev 3, 2011, 7:33 pm

Kris - My goodness! As someone who used to suffer from panic attacks, I feel for you! Did you know what was happening? Do you have a good support network? If you want to talk privately, please PM me.

94avaland
Fev 4, 2011, 7:58 am

Glad you are beyond a bad patch. I suspect the Middle East will not be calming down anytime soon.

95fannyprice
Editado: Fev 5, 2011, 8:37 am

I've decided to start monthly reading goals. I can't plan out my reading in advance - I will rebel against a "to-do" list for books, but I do have underlying reading aims (I hate to call them goals) that I'd like to be working toward.

February Goals
--No new purchases - only off-the-shelf reading
--One ER book
--Finish The Guns of August and The Celestial Omnibus

ETA: Disclaimer - My birthday is this month. If someone gives me a book, that doesn't count!

96janemarieprice
Fev 6, 2011, 11:19 am

Yikes. Hope you're feeling better now.

97janeajones
Fev 6, 2011, 12:06 pm

Fingers crossed for birthday books!

98dchaikin
Fev 6, 2011, 12:54 pm

Ms. Price - Birthdays are for breaking plans and doing what you want...but, still, good luck. Would like to read your thoughts on Guns of August. Hope you're over that patch, or at least doing better.

99fannyprice
Fev 12, 2011, 11:11 am

>95 fannyprice:, It is amazing how resistant to rules-even self-imposed rules-I am. Since making my resolutions for February-which are not even THAT restrictive!-I have read nothing and have found all thoughts of reading to be very unpleasant. I have read samples of about 5 different Kindle books before telling myself I'm not allowed to buy anything and have found reading The Guns of August to be almost impossible. I don't know if I'm just cranky, but I find that-contrary to what most people say about her work-Tuchman just makes ww1 uninteresting. I don't know how that's even possible. The Guns of August is very battle-focused, which is fine, but I find that she fails to connect all the little details back to any larger point or to draw any meaning out of them. I might be moving this one to the back-burner or reserving it for a time when my knowledge of ww1 is greater, so that I can fit all this minutiae into a grander scheme on my own.

100juliette07
Fev 12, 2011, 4:55 pm

Oh Kris - poor you. What can we do to help? Hate it when I am 'bookless' ...

101fannyprice
Fev 13, 2011, 9:28 pm

Round-up, I'm so behind:



Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea - This came highly recommended by many readers on LT whose opinions I respect and did not disappoint. Barbara Demick was the LA Times correspondent in Seoul for seven years, during which time she interviewed a number of North Korean defectors, six of whom form the backbone of this book. I was a little worried about how this book would treat North Koreans, especially after reading Pyongyang, Guy Delisle's graphic novel about North Korea in which he kind of ridiculed North Koreans for not knowing anything other than what they were allowed to know. But Demick's book is thoroughly humane, documenting the indoctrination and isolation that North Koreans experience from childhood and demonstrating the emotional and psychological impact thereof.

Demick's book was frankly devastating. Her decision to focus on just six people rather than dwelling on statistics about the millions of North Koreans who died of famine or in forced-labor camps enhanced the sense of horror I felt while reading this book. It sounds stupid and naive, but I really had no idea just how horrible North Korea is.



The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear - Seth Mnookin (touchstone FAIL)

Ostensibly about the impact of the tenuous (i.e. non-existent) link between autism and vaccination, this book was also a study in cognitive biases and a lament about the poor state of science journalism. Although the author never apologies for criticizing those who perpetuate the false connection between autism and vaccinations, he is very compassionate about the suffering that families of autistic children undergo. I'd recommend this to anyone interested in public health and/or social commentary; also recommended for those who (like me) thought "well, there MUST be some kind of scientific debate about this, or people wouldn't be giving all this attention to the vaccine-autism link, even if it seems really bizarre." There just ISN'T.



Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things - Written by a psychologist who has extensive experience with hoarders. This book was interesting at the time, but totally unmemorable.



Something Rotten (Thursday Next Novels) and First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde - wrapped up a lot of old plotlines and introduced some new things. First Among Sequels was really different than all the previous books and much easier to read, for some reason. Made me excited to read these books again.

Caught up. Yay. Also, finally saw the new Sherlock series. Holmes seems much more like a sociopath than in the books, but I enjoyed it and am looking forward to the second series.

102fannyprice
Fev 13, 2011, 9:47 pm

Jesus, I'm buying a book! Just found out that my dear boyfriend's mother is coming down for a long, unannounced weekend without even asking us if it would be ok (we found out when she cc'd us on her travel reservations!). I am seriously re-evaluating my plan to take extra leave to make the weekend even longer. Someone please help me. :P

103janeajones
Fev 13, 2011, 11:09 pm

We all have family.............

104RidgewayGirl
Fev 14, 2011, 10:30 am

Maybe you could have some plans of your own? With a heartfelt apology that you couldn't spend more time with her this visit because of the timing?

And you can, of course, buy yourself a few, wee books for your birthday. Happy birthday!

105janemarieprice
Fev 16, 2011, 9:58 pm

101 - Lots of good stuff there. Nothing to Envy sounds particularly interesting and I added it to the wishlist. I want to pick up the rest of the Thursday Next series soon if I can find a good bulk lot.

106kidzdoc
Editado: Fev 16, 2011, 10:17 pm

I received Nothing to Envy as a Christmas present, and I'll probably read it in the next month or two. I'm currently reading Autism's False Prophets by Paul Offit, an infectious disease physician at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia who designed the current vaccine for rotavirus, which seems to cover the same territory as The Panic Virus.

107amandameale
Fev 19, 2011, 7:23 am

#102 Take a day off the day after she leaves. Darryl is a doctor. He'll give you a medical certificate.
Interesting reviews.

108arubabookwoman
Editado: Fev 22, 2011, 4:54 pm

I'm glad you liked Nothing to Envy and the other books you've reviewed above, despite the book funk. I intend to read Nothing to Envy soon; I've heard nothing but good things about it.

109fannyprice
Mar 13, 2011, 6:38 pm

Once again, I have gotten totally behind. February was all about the drama for me - didn't end up having visitors, but DID end up getting horrible stomach flu for like a week. Then, I went to Paris, which was lovely. Otherwise, been working like a dog and not doing much reading.



Don't Cry: Stories - Mary Gaitskill

Finally finished. Despite seeming right up my alley when I originally purchased and started reading this eons ago, I never got into the majority of these stories and none of them stuck with me.



The Tudors: The Complete Story of England's Most Notorious Dynasty - G.J. Meyer

I was drawn to this book because I loved Meyer's one-volume history of WW1 A World Undone and wanted to see if he would handle the Tudors in an equally engrossing way.

This book was somewhat different in that Meyer seems to have a pretty specific political agenda - which he freely confesses - in writing this book, which is to synthesize scholarship and new historical records to restore the images of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I from what he sees as the crust of mythology and near-hagiography that has built up around the two respectively.

I wasn't incredibly aware of the existing image of Elizabeth I, so I think some of the revisionist nature of Meyer's work was a bit lost on me, but I found it a very engaging work that followed the model used in A World Undone of intermingling straight chronological chapters with thematic interludes, which I loved in both.

Unfortunately, I think this book poisoned the well a little bit for me, because I immediately started trying to read Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens and I was completely disgusted at the saintly picture of Elizabeth that the author painted. I certainly will go back to Jane Dunn's book because I definitely want to get different perspectives on the period and the people, but I think I need a bit of time for the extremely, extremely negative portrait of Elizabeth I in Meyer's book to fade a bit.



Finally finished Cherie Priest's steampunk/zombie/civil war alternate history novel Boneshaker only because there was one plot question that I was really curious to see an answer to - in nearly all respects, this book was not worth reading for me. I started it like two weeks ago on a plane and read half of it because I had nothing else to read. Fun premise - alternate history Civil War era Seattle is overrun with zombies after a mining accident unleashes a gas that turns its victims into rotting flesh-hungry shamblers - marred by extremely poor pacing and a lot of predictable plot points.

110baswood
Mar 13, 2011, 8:09 pm

The Tudors, G.J. Meyer This looks interesting and I will definitely read this at some time

111fannyprice
Mar 21, 2011, 6:40 pm

I haven't read anything in so long. Work is exploding. The only thing of note I have accomplished is finally getting around to watching the highly enjoyable "Downton Abbey." I can't wait for series two, but I fear everyone will die or have a horrible time, as it is set during ww1.

112avatiakh
Mar 21, 2011, 10:04 pm

I didn't enjoy Boneshaker either, can't understand all the hype.

113amandameale
Mar 22, 2011, 8:09 am

Enjoying your thread but sorry to hear you've been ill.

114juliette07
Mar 29, 2011, 2:06 am

I sympathise with being ill - me too! I was interested in the G J Meyer take on the Tudors - thanks!

115dchaikin
Mar 29, 2011, 10:23 am

fanny - catching up, wishing you a break.

116avaland
Mar 30, 2011, 4:19 pm

>111 fannyprice: We figure William is the red shirt and will die, Thomas will wreak his revenge on his former bosses, the chauffeur might get injured but will live to be a leader for a new era... Downton will be used to house military personnel...(next week I'll have a different scenario).

117fannyprice
Abr 7, 2011, 9:33 pm

>116 avaland:, I think that scenario sounds pretty accurate, avaland. Did I see there is a remake of Upstairs, Downstairs on PBS soon?

118fannyprice
Abr 7, 2011, 9:43 pm

I haven't gotten much reading time lately, what with work being so hectic. I had hoped--oddly--to be furloughed if the USG shuts down after Congress fails at the last minute to pass a budget, just in the hopes of getting a bit of a break, but apparently I am "essential," which is far less of a compliment than it seems.

I've read a few trashy young adult urban fantasy type novels, finishing up a couple of series that I had gotten into a while ago, nothing really worth noting.

Read a great young adult dystopia called Incarceron about a young boy trapped inside a sentient prison and the prison warden's daughter's efforts to escape an arranged marriage in her faux-medieval world. Very strange combination of dystopia and fantasy that I highly recommend - halfway through it I was on Amazon buying the sequel, Sapphique. A heroine even more complex and feisty than that found in The Hunger Games, but absolutely no hint of the horrible "which boy should I choose?" plotline that has become stock in all these books, sadly. This book earned an extra half star just for that.



Also am very much in the mood to re-read at least the first three books in Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series.

119ncgraham
Abr 7, 2011, 9:55 pm

I may have to read that. I loved aspects of The Hunger Games (especially in the first book), but the love triangle basically ruined that series for me.

120bragan
Abr 8, 2011, 10:07 am

Oh, I'm glad to hear you thought Incarceron was good! I've had that one on the TBR pile for a while and keep meaning to get to it. (Mind you, I actually didn't think the love triangle plot in The Hunger Games was anywhere near as annoying as I usually find that sort of thing. But it's probably just as well if I don't push my luck hoping to find two of those that work for me in a row.)

121janeajones
Abr 8, 2011, 12:08 pm

117> There was an interview with Jean Marsh on NPR this morning about the Upstairs-Downstairs sequel. It starts this Sunday.

122Jargoneer
Abr 8, 2011, 12:15 pm

And there will be new series of both Dontown Abbey and Upstairs, Downstairs, although I'm hoping that they combine them, Upstairs at Dontown, Downstairs at the Abbey.

123fannyprice
Abr 8, 2011, 7:40 pm

Watching Jon Stewart's "tribute" to the end of Glenn Beck's show. Hilarious.

124avaland
Editado: Abr 10, 2011, 7:05 am

>123 fannyprice: I'm sorry to have missed that! Thanks for the nudge, we went over to Hulu and watched it!

125fannyprice
Abr 16, 2011, 5:23 pm



Finished Sapphique, the sequel to Incarceron. Happy to report that the second book, though not quite what I had hoped for, was as good as the first and had a distinctively satisfying ending, unlike so many of these books.



Then, Daniel Drezner's Theories of International Politics and Zombies. You'll think this book a a joke - you might be right - but it was a pretty decent use of zombie-related media to illustrate some IR theory - realism, liberalism, neoconservatism, theories of bureaucratic politics. Often hilarious, possibly a gateway drug into political theory, as I now find myself compelled to read serious books about these schools of thought. More fun than anything, but there was a bit of learning involved.

126bragan
Abr 17, 2011, 11:45 am

Oh, dear, I think I may have to add that zombie book to my wishlist. It sounds like a good way to actually learn something about political theory without my eyes glazing over!

127fannyprice
Abr 17, 2011, 1:42 pm

>126 bragan:, It was fairly hilarious in parts:

"Zombies crave human flesh, not carrots or sticks."

(After discussing the wide range of zombie origin theories in film and literature:) "A truly preemptive doctrine would require a comprehensive and draconian list of policy measures. It is unlikely that any government would be both willing and able to block all relevant research efforts into biological, nuclear, and computer technology, monitor and prevent any religious interference that could stir up the undead, and ward off the evil of the Thriller."

"To paraphrase Thucydides, the realpolitik of zombies is that the strong will do what they can, and the weak must suffer devouring by ravenous, reanimated corpses."

128bonniebooks
Abr 17, 2011, 1:49 pm

"possibly a gateway drug into political theory"

Hilarious!

129bragan
Abr 17, 2011, 4:51 pm

Ha! Those quotes are terrific. I really must read this, I think...

130janemarieprice
Abr 22, 2011, 4:28 pm

125/127 - Awesome.

131fannyprice
Abr 23, 2011, 3:30 pm

Reading The Tragedy of Great Power Politics by John Mearsheimer - realist political theory - and A Clash of Kings, the second book in George RR Martin's Game of Thrones series. I read the first as a sop to the bf, who loved it, and was surprised to find that I really enjoyed it. It is a bit of an investment for light reading, but I am engrossed now.

132fannyprice
Jun 26, 2011, 3:21 pm

Oy, its been over two months since I've updated? I have been reading, I swear, and some of it is even decent, but I've been working too much to play here. Lately I've trended towards my usual comfort reading, young adult urban fastasy/dystopia-type novels that I can read in an hour.

The Tragedy of Great Power Politics - John Mearsheimer



Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings - George R.R. Martin

(boring covers, not bothering to post an image) I am of mixed feelings about these and it takes me forever to get through them, because I need to take like two-week breaks and then when I come back, I forget what's going on and who everyone is. The man needs an editor, but I am interested enough to-probably-continue.

Two pretty children's books featuring cats - Cat and Fish and Picasso and Minou



To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 - Adam Hochschild - fantastic, engrossing social history of conscientious objectors and anti-war activists in WW1-era Britain. Lots of interesting stuff in here about Ireland and the Irish independence movement that I wasn't familiar with.



Vile Bodies - Evelyn Waugh



The Crows of Pearblossom - Aldous Huxley

A deliciously morbid and probably inappropriate--by today's standards--children's book by Aldous Huxley about two crows who fight a snake determined to eat all their eggs, with wonderful new illustrations.



All three books of Scott Westerfeld's Midnighters trilogy about teenagers in a town where the world stops at midnight, revealing a kind of separate world populated by nasties. But, the teens have superpowers in this world, which lasts for one hour. I loved his Uglies series, and thought this was fun too.



...And books one and two of the Hex Hall series, about a boarding school for witches and other oddities. Fun, and I really like the focus on the friendship between the main female characters. Plus, I love books set in boarding schools!

133dchaikin
Set 22, 2011, 1:53 pm

It's very quiet here.

134fannyprice
Set 25, 2011, 11:50 am

Hi Dan - Thanks for checking in! I'm doing fine, still reading, but given the demands of my job right now (stupid Arab Spring), most of my off-hours reading has been given over to pure escapism and easy reads that I can finish in a day or two - young adult dystopias, embarrassing vampire novels, etc. I just updated my cataloging since August, so if you take a look, you'll see the (generally low-brow) quality of my reads, lol. The vast majority of these are not even worth mentioning in an actual thread.

Despite the crimps that in Libya-Tunisia-Egypt-Syria-Bahrain, etc have imposed on my non-work life, it is certainly a fascinating time to be looking at the region, especially after years and years of stagnating domestic politics in the Middle East. I wouldn't trade the experience for anything, but it does mean I am rather brain-dead once I leave the office. :)

135avaland
Set 30, 2011, 4:26 pm

We are glad to know you are still among the living, fannyp. And we enjoy whatever tidbits you throw to us!

136fannyprice
Out 1, 2011, 6:43 pm

Reading Dan Simmons The Terror, a fictionalized account of sir John franklin's doomed arctic expedition to find the northwest passage. I just finished George, Nicholas, and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I, which was slow-going at first but picked up the closer the book got to the actual war.

I also read three great children's graphic novels that would be appropriate for feline aficionados of all ages, binky the space cat, binky under pressure, and binky to the rescue. And I'm struggling to sustain interest in lord of the flies, which I never read at the appropriate age.

Apologies for the poor capitalization and lack of formatting/pretty covers. I've given up the laptop for an iPad, and some of the more jazzy things are just too much of a pain.

137dchaikin
Out 2, 2011, 2:37 pm

Ms. Price - I've just requested all the cat books in #131 & #136...partially motivated by our 4-month-old kitten (my first cat, ever). Glad you posted them. Also, I'm another one whose happy to see your still here on occasion.

138fannyprice
Out 2, 2011, 3:56 pm

>137 dchaikin:, Dan, congrats on the kitten! They are so fun.

139avatiakh
Out 2, 2011, 4:08 pm

I've also succumbed to the charm of a cat book and requested the first one from the library. My cat is 16 going on 17.

140dchaikin
Out 2, 2011, 10:47 pm

he's insane! and painful...and irritating. Cute and fun too, though, and cuddly when he wants to be.

141wandering_star
Out 6, 2011, 5:14 am

#134 - jealous of your day job! what a fascinating time to be looking at the region...

142fannyprice
Out 12, 2011, 10:09 pm

Finished The Terror, Dan Simmons' fictionalized account of an arctic expedition gone horribly wrong. I really enjoyed the more straightforward exploration/survival parts, but I hated the way the supernatural element - especially the massive data dump explanation at the end - felt tacked on and unconnected. Ultimately a disappointment.

Then read The Magician King, Lev Grossman's follow up to The Magicians, which was a bigger disappointment, probably because I did like the first book and because everything I'd read and heard about the sequel was that it was even better. This book was just too mopey and ugly and snarkily referential, with a billion pop culture refs thrown in randomly like the book was just screaming "look how ironic and hipster I am! And you're kewl too if you get me!" I probably missed the point of this book, because I think the point is to turn fantasy tropes on their heads and show how "happily ever after" and getting everything you ever wanted isn't all that, but I was just tired of how whiny and word-weary the main character was.

Also reading Paris 1919, about the post-ww1 Paris peace conference.