What I'm reading this week (9/30/19)

Last week I finished:

I love good narrative nonfiction, as you know, but engaging and interesting (i.e. non-boring) nonfiction is hard to come by. That's why I'm so excited when I stumble upon something great. The Romanov Sisters has been on my TBR for years, and I finally decided to try it on audio. Glad I did. This was one of the more engaging nonfiction titles I've read this year. Helen Rappaport, who has written a number of books about the Romanov family, paints a picture of the four Romanov sisters, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia, the daughters of the last Russian emperor, forced to abdicate in 1917. You no doubt know that things do not end well for family Romanov. I had feared that the intimate way in which the book was told would mean an intimacy with the girls' terrible end, but the "end" was handled swiftly and without grisly detail. There must exist an abundance of source material in the form of letters and diaries, because Rappaport was able to paint a full picture of the sisters, their parents and brother, and their lives in the palace and in exile. I do wish the author had gone more deeply into the Russian Revolution as this is a part of history I don't remember well from school--if I studied it at all. More context would have helped. Regardless, the book was well-written, interesting, with no slow spots, and apparently well researched. This was a surprise hit for me, and I recommend it to those who love history. My rating: 4.5 stars.

I love reading books about presidents and first ladies. I always end up learning something new. Some, of course, are better than others, and unfortunately, Lady in Red: An Intimate Portrait of Nancy Reagan falls into the latter category. My expectations weren't particularly high, as I've found Nancy Reagan, while an interesting person, is generally not interesting enough for a whole book. Author Sheila Tate was Mrs. Reagan's press secretary from 1981 to 1985, so she spent a great deal of time with her and has a number of stories about her. Tate was very fond of Mrs. Reagan, and the book is a gushing tribute to that fondness. It is not very well written, and at times it just seemed like it mirrored the chapters in Mrs. Reagan's memoir, covering the same ground, the same stories, the same media dust-ups, and the same grievances and high points. The nail in the coffin of this book for me, though, was the distinct whiff of self-serving. Tate didn't want to write a book about Nancy Reagan as much as she wanted to write a book about her brief years with Mrs. Reagan. She doesn't really say why she left after only one term, and she assures her readers that Mrs. Reagan would have wanted her to write this book, but since it offered no information Nancy's book didn't back in 1989, I really don't see the point other than to make money off of a recently passed first lady. She conducted interviews, but instead of using the anecdotes woven into the narrative, she just plunked them all down in a chapter and gave bland, off-hand introductions and the entirety of that staffer's reminiscence. Most of the stories were rather uninteresting and poorly told. Had it been written as Tate's memoir or had it been better written, I wouldn't have so many complaints. As it was, it left a bad taste in my mouth. My rating: 3 stars. (For a Reagan staffer book well worth your time, try Movie Nights with the Reagans. My review here.)

This is my second time through Michael Perry's Visiting Tom, and it was as good as I remember. I miss my late father most in September, and while I didn't plan to re-read this book for that reason, it was a nice coincidence that I would schedule a book for September that reminds me so much of him. This is Perry's memoir of rural life and also a biography of his neighbor, Tom, who is a man's man, someone who can fix anything for anybody, who builds things like cannons and portable sawmills, and who enjoys telling good stories and bad jokes. One of the threads running through the book is the building of the interstate through Tom's property in the 1960s and the recent changes made to the hill road Perry lives on, both creating issues unique to rural life. It's a book that's hard to pigeonhole. What is it about, really? I read it as a true story about rural men, men who can fix anything out of necessity or pride or both, men who deal with modernization and forced-upon-them "improvement" in their own practical ways, men who are sentimental for the past but forge a way into the future nonetheless. I love books about rural lives and the dichotomy of tradition vs. progress, and this one presents both themes. It's not a book for everyone as it may not interest a city dweller with no ties to country life, but to me it's the biography of a breed of man like my father and uncles. And I'll always be ready to pick it up when I miss him most. My rating: 4 stars.

(Read my first review of the book here.)

Shepherds Abiding is the eighth book in Jan Karon's Mitford series. Set in the months leading up to Christmastime, in this installment Father Tim takes on the task of refurbishing a large nativity set for Cynthia for Christmas; Hope, from the Happy Endings bookstore, must make a decision about her future; Lou Boyd has a hard time keeping his marriage a secret; the Mitford Grille closes its doors; Esther Bollig figures the price of baking one of her orange marmalade cakes (the recipe, at long last, is included); and there's a snowman building contest. It's a nice feel-good book, and I enjoyed it. This is a series best read in order, and the audios, narrated by John McDonough, are wonderful. I personally listen to the books because I love McDonough's voice so much, especially when he sings the hymns. My rating: 4 stars.

This week I'll be reading:

Really enjoying this one.

This week I'll finish:

Man, Marie Howe can write a poem. And man can Jenny Rosenstrach make me hungry for foods I wouldn't normally be hungry for. 

My audiobook:

About the last person on earth to read this, but if I like it, that's another series to add to my TBR.

What I'm reading this week (9/23/19)

Last week I finished:

I love a nice, long, quiet book, but they are really hard to find. Too many books, it seems, try to do too much with their plots, and they seldom are able to bring it all together. That's why I prefer something with a simple plot, something a little slower in pace and richer in character. Saints for All Occasions fit my reading preferences so well. This is the story of two Irish sisters who made their way to America in the late 1950s or so. One sister gets into trouble and the other sister saves her. They become estranged over this choice and one goes on to become a cloistered nun, the other a mother of four. A death in the family years later brings everyone and everything together. I enjoyed this book a great deal. I liked the plot, the characters, the pacing, and the writing. It reminded me very much of Alice McDermott's wonderful books The Ninth Hour, Someone, and Charming Billy, as the same Irish Catholic East Coast mid-century themes are present here. I really, really liked this book. It kept me reading as it unfolded, and I didn't even get frustrated with the "past secrets threaten to rip the family apart" trope that I normally avoid. I recommend this one for anyone looking for a slow, quiet book about the complications of average families. My rating: 5 stars.

I have basically been a grandma since I married 17 years ago. (If "stepgrandmother" is a word, I've never used it, and neither have my grandkids.) You know the old saying, "If I had it to do over again, I've have my grandkids first"? Well, I'm one of the lucky ones who got to have grandkids without really having my "own" kids. While there will always be a sliver of separation between stepparent and stepchild, that sliver can just disappear between stepgrandparent and stepgrandchild. Some of my happiest memories in life have been watching my youngest grandson grow up, and though he's 13 now and much too cool to spend much time with his grandparents, he still lights up and offers a hug when I stop by his house--even when he has friends over. In short, being a grandma (or nana or granny or bubby or whatever you are called) is pretty wonderful. Anna Quindlen, in her new Nanaville, agrees. Not being responsible for the daily care, training, discipline, entertainment, and worry of children leaves you free to have more fun with the child. You can slow down, you can indulge, you can delight more in shared discoveries. Being well rested alone gives nana an advantage! Quindlen also discusses the places it's easy to trip up while being a nana (mostly having to do with unsolicited advice). This was a wonderful book, as all of Quindlen's nonfiction is. I was charmed by it, and by her little grandson, Arthur. It's a short book, but it could have been twice as long as far as I'm concerned. My rating: 4 stars.

I've been trying to read a couple of classics each year, and I've found that audiobooks are an easy way to do it painlessly. I listened to Anne Bronte's Agnes Grey in an effort to read more of the Bronte sisters' work. It's a relatively short book, and it went fast on audio. The plot is simple: Agnes Grey's family has fallen on hard times, so she takes positions as a governess that show the stark differences between the "haves" and the "have nots" of Victorian England. The families she works for are cruel and shallow, and they make her even lonelier for home where she is loved, though without resources. There is a happy ending for Agnes, though, and it's worth the darkness of her working years to get there. It's a simple story, hardly a plot at all, really, but it's an enjoyable listen. My rating: 3.5 stars.

Years ago I read Barbara Ras's book of poems Bite Every Sorrow, and I've finally revisited it. The title of the book comes from a line from the first poem in it, "You Can't Have It All": You can have the purr of the cat and the soulful look / of the black dog, the look that says, If I could I would bite / every sorrow until it fled.... Isn't that a wonderful line? I've loved that line for almost 20 years now, and it comes to me periodically when I see a dog who seems to understand his loved one's emotions. Unfortunately, the book as a whole was not a fun reading experience for me. The poems are long in both line and overall, and all long poems go off the rails. It's one of the things I know for sure about poetry after reading and studying (and writing) it for years. Long poems just cannot be sustained. Reading long poems is like trying to recite a dictionary page without taking a breath. Torturous. Impossible. So, there's that. Also, due to the length of the poems, you lose your endurance after one or two. It's not a book you can read much of at a time, and though it's less than 100 pages, it took forever to finish. And when a book takes forever, I get kind of resentful. But the thing is, any one poem taken out of context and read by itself is wonderful. Put too many of them together, though, and it's way too much of a good thing. So, I liked the collection, but I did not enjoy reading it. My rating: 3 stars.

 

This week I'll be reading:

I'll finish this one this week. Full review next week.

My evening reads:

 

I'll need to finish these this week, and I feel way behind on all of them. Eek.

My current audiobook:

 

Too bad I put this off for so long. I'm really enjoying it.

What I'm reading this week (9/16/19)

This week I finished:

Let's just get right to it: The Sun Does Shine is one of the books this year that has affected me most. It had been on my radar since it came out (it was an Oprah pick), but I never really thought it would have such an impact on me. You can never know, and that is why it's so important to me to try all kinds of books. This is the memoir of a Anthony "Ray" Hinton who was convicted of killing two people in the 1980s, who spent 30 years (THIRTY YEARS) on Alabama's Death Row...and who was completely innocent. He had faith during all that time that his appeals would work, that someone would re-examine the facts of the case and fight for him. His trial had been a sham; he was seemingly convicted in the minds of the folks involved before it started. No character witnesses were called to testify on Hinton's behalf. No one asked how he could be checked into a secure work facility the nights of the crimes. Disturbingly, the ballistics expert who testified that the bullets found at the two crimes matched the gun found at Hinton's mother's home, was legally blind. Hinton says he was caught in a justice system that cares more about you if you're white and guilty than if you're black and innocent. But he never gave up. Though his faith in God wavered in his first few years in prison, he eventually picked his Bible back up, started a book group in prison, and did a kind of cell to cell mentoring to the other inmates on Death Row. Over his 30 years there, more than 50 men and women were ushered past his cell to their executions. Hinton's case turned around when Bryan Stevenson (yes, that Bryan Stevenson) took over his defense. Finally, in April of 2015, his conviction was overturned and he was released from prison. It's an amazing story of racism, justice, faith, forgiveness, and the strongest mother/son bond you've ever read about (my favorite quote from the book is Ray's mother's "God can do everything but fail."). If you read it, you'll never forget it. I plan to read Stevenson's book this fall. I want to know more. My rating: 5 stars.

Ray Hinton's story took place in Birmingham, Alabama, and that's where Condoleezza Rice's story starts, too. Known as the last bastion of full-out racism, Birmingham during Rice's younger years was still segregated under Jim Crow law. Her parents told her that even though she was not allowed to eat a hamburger at the Woolworth's lunch counter, it didn't mean she couldn't be the president some day. And, of course, she almost was. Condoleezza Rice was a concert pianist, competitive figure skater, and provost of Stanford University; she served on the National Security Council as the Soviet and Eastern Europe affairs advisor in the President George H. W. Bush administration where she had a hand in the dissolution of the Soviet Union and reunification of Germany; and she served as President George W. Bush's National Security Advisor and Secretary of State. If you ask me the three women I admire most, Rice is on the list. Her memoir, Extraordinary, Ordinary People, is not only the story of her life, but also a loving tribute to her parents, both educators (or "education evangelists" as her father put it) in predominantly southern black schools before moving west to Denver. Her father was a preacher and a teacher. Her mother taught in black high schools and emphasized music and performance. She talks honestly about growing up in a segregated south, about racism, which she calls "America's birth defect," and about being a black woman in the highest echelons of academia and government. It's a remarkably wise account, told with such dignity and purpose. This was my second time reading it, and it has stood the test of time. It's wonderful. My rating: 5 stars.

I live to be surprised by a book. It's truly one of my favorite things. Year of Yes surprised me. It started out as something I wasn't sure I'd finish, and it ended up being something I wanted to read again as soon as I finished. I'm late to this book, after all, it came out nearly four years ago; I don't know Shonda Rhimes from Adam, and I've never watched a single episode of the television shows she wrote, Grey's Anatomy, Scandal, and Private Practice. But I have a thing for "year of XYZ" books and books about women changing their lives for the better. I was expecting something fluffy and funny--and that's how it started out, it was annoyingly fluffy and funny--but it got deep quickly, and I ended up loving it. Rhimes and I don't agree on everything, but we do agree that your life is yours to change, and we don't have to be victim to saying "no" to opportunity. While I expected the things she says "yes" to to be tangible things like Hollywood engagements and risky behaviors with a little personal challenge thrown in (and there was a bit of that), what she ended up saying "yes" to were things like losing weight, staying single, and saying "no." In the early part of the book, she was light and bubbly and wise-cracking lame jokes that were too obvious to be funny. I thought to myself, this woman does not know who she is, and I'm not sure I can learn much from someone like that. As she got deeper into her project, though, she exhibited a self-awareness that was rather stunning. This ended up being one of the better "you go girl" books I've read, and I want to own a copy of it. Give it a try if you haven't; you might be surprised. I listened to the audio, read by the author, which was very good. My rating: 4 stars.

I work and live in an environment so liberal that I often feel stifled and silenced. I have to make a conscious effort to keep my beliefs to myself almost all of the time. It's a terrible feeling, so occasionally I'll read a book by an unabashed conservative just to feel a part of my tribe for a sustained period of time. With Judge Jeanine Pirro's new book just released, I decided to try her old book (from July 2018), Liars, Leakers, and Liberals on audio. I expected a way-slanted right, no holds barred, hard-hitting account of all that is wrong with liberals, the media, and the White House leakers who want to take down President Trump. And that's exactly what I got. There is zero nuance in this book. And frankly, I didn't like it at all. It was too full of conservative bias, too condemnatory, and just made me feel bad for being a part of it all. Here's a good rule of thumb in politics: if there is not one thing the other side is doing right, if you cannot say one thing about the other side or a member of the other side, you aren't being honest. If I don't like it when the left does it, why should I tolerate it from the right? I did not know that the judge is a good friend of the president's, going back decades. Several chapters near the end of the book dealt with her glowing opinions of the president's intentions and his wonderful family. While these read rather like a long campaign ad for President Trump, it was interesting to hear it from someone who's had a front-row seat to his life for years and years. If you're looking for a u-rah-rah for the right, you might like it. If you enjoy Judge Jeanine's take-no-prisoners approach to politics, you will like it. But if you're looking for a balance of thoughts and ideas, you won't find it here. I found this too partisan to enjoy. My rating: 3 stars.  

 

You all know I'll read anything by or about a Kennedy, so some time ago when I found out that the nannie to Caroline and John Kennedy Jr., Maud Shaw, had written a memoir in 1966 that Mrs. Kennedy read and approved, I had to get my hands on a copy. Little did I know until recently (how did I miss it?), our university library had a copy! How much do you want to bet I'm the first to have checked it out in decades? This is the gentle account of Miss Shaw's seven (or eight?) years with the Kennedy children, having been hired shortly after Caroline was born, and leaving a couple of years after the president's assassination. She has great esteem for the President and Mrs. Kennedy (you'll get no dirt, remember that Jackie read the manuscript before it was printed), and she talks with great fondness of shy, bookish, and bright Caroline, and naughty little John Jr. It's an honest account, though you can often tell there are things she isn't saying. I believe Christopher Andersen used this book as a primary source for his book Sweet Caroline, which I reviewed recently. In other accounts, I'd read that Miss Shaw was asked to leave the family because Mrs. Kennedy was uncomfortable with how close the children were getting to certain staff members and secret service agents. Miss Shaw indicates that she thought it was time to leave and return to England to care for her ailing siblings. I'm not sure I buy it, but who knows. It was a sweet book, full of practical hints for raising (someone else's) children (I liked her "sense of fair play" rule), charming stories of the Kennedy kids, her life at the White House and at Jackie's Fifth Ave. home, and her life prior to taking the Kennedy job. A must-read for the Kennedy-phile. My rating: 4 stars.

This week I'll finish:

I'm liking this one more than I expected.

My evening reads:

 

I'll finish the Anna Quindlen book this week, and hopefully the poetry book. I'm enjoying them all, but I don't feel like I'm making great progress, and the month is half gone.

This week I abandoned:

I'm deciding I just don't like travelogue books. Something about meeting tons of people who matter only in the moment makes my reading brain itchy. I got one CD in, and I just couldn't continue.

My next audiobook:

 

 

 

 

What I'm reading this week (9/9/19)

Last week, I finished:

You know there's nothing I like better than a good memoir, and I'm always on the lookout for one I haven't read. I especially like memoirs that deal with other cultures and have a strong element of finding one's identity. I thought Sherman Alexie's memoir, You Don't Have to Say You Love Me, would check all of my boxes. And in many ways it did. Alexie talks about growing up on an "Indian rez." Both are his words, not mine; I would be more apt to say an "American Indian reservation," as I was educated long ago it was not acceptable to refer to American Indians as simply Indians. Perhaps that has changed? At any rate, this is a book written about Alexie's difficult relationship with his mother, and to a lesser degree, with the rez itself. He had a tough childhood, full of violence, racism, and dishonesty. One can tell he has had a hard time developing his identity as an American Indian man, being the product of an alcoholic father who could not hold a job and a mean-spirited, lying mother whom he felt didn't always love him. The chapters are short, and there are dozens of poems throughout, which further the narrative. I loved reading those poems in context of the more traditional narrative. They were powerful. Several things, however, bothered me about this book. One was the amount of repetition in the book. At over 400 pages, this is a little on the long side for a memoir, and had you removed the repetitious parts, it would have been much shorter. He seems to defend, or at least acknowledge, his continuously repeating himself, and perhaps there is a cultural or personal significance for doing so. The story of our lives, after all, is often a repetition of our personal stories. Another memoir, or perhaps another memoir writer, could not have gotten away with the constant reprises, but Alexie is a very skilled writer and storyteller. The repetition was mildly annoying to me, and was more so when it came to simple facts being repeated over and over. My main issue with the book is how it deals with the racism of whites toward Indians as horrific, but the return racism of Indians toward whites as more acceptable, perhaps because the white folks "started it." If racism is bad, it's always bad, no matter what, no matter who. Alexie does not seem to like nor trust white persons, and that makes it hard for me to trust him or his narrative. Overall, the book made me think about how difficult it must be to go through life so attached to your identity that it comes first in every though, action, and interaction. To not be able to be simply "a man" or "a woman" but to always be "a white man" or "and Indian woman." How exhausting and soul-crushing it must be to need to define and defend at every turn. I was stuck at the end of the book how my perception of American Indians and their lifestyles changed. I'd always envisioned reservations as being dignified and well-governed places where the outside (white) world could not hold sway. I'd always assumed the "drunk Indian" stereotypes were, indeed, stereotypes. Alexie's book disavowed me of my estimations of reservations. Of course, I don't know how many reservations are like his and how many are more lawful and practical. I enjoyed this book, though parts were rough to read. I'd recommend it for anyone interested in American Indians and frank stories of cultural identity. My rating: 4 stars.

So, Tom Hanks is a writer now. I have to admit to being a bit skeptical, but often when a person is gifted in one area, he can be just as gifted in another. I was willing to put my cynicism aside and give Hanks' Uncommon Type: Some Stories a try. And I'm glad I did. I opted for the audio version, which is narrated by the actor-cum-author. It was a good choice. First off, I need to tell you, I am not, nor have ever been, a fan of the short story. I think there's more distance between the short story and the novel than between the novel and the graphic novel. We like to think short stories are "little books," but I just can't bring myself to feel that's true. Short stories are their own thing. I hate how disjointed a short story collection can be. It's like watching half of a movie about climbing Mount Everest, then moving quickly to watching half of a movie about shark attacks, and then moving on to watching half of a movie filmed on the Serengeti. It hurts my brain. But this short story collection had a much more cohesive approach. Several of the characters show up in other stories, and although I'd normally itch over so many styles, it worked here. There was room to rest your brain before moving on to the next adventure. What sold me on trying the book was reading several reviews that the stories were heartwarming. While I don't particularly like fluffy books, I am tired of heavy topics, too, so a nice humane, life affirming set of stories was right up my alley. And the book delivered. I was impressed by the writing, the characters, and the overall tone. You've probably heard others talk about the fact that all of the stories feature a typewriter, but I also noticed many references to space. Whether space appeared in every story, I'm unsure, but we do know Hanks is keen on space. Give this one a try, as I think it has wide appeal and offers a respite from the heaviness of the world. I'm eagerly awaiting more from Hanks. My rating: 4 stars.

This week, I'll finish:

This is re-read, and I adore it.

My evening reads:

 

Whew, that's a lot of books to read each night. I'm nearing the end of two of them, which will leave a much more manageable number. I just love starting books so much.

I'm enjoying all of these. Three are re-reads, and it's nice to be back in those books again.

My current audiobook:

 

I'm almost done with this one. Then, I'll move on to this:

 

 

 

 

September 2019 reading list

Back to school time always makes me want to set new goals and read better books. (Or at least read the books first that I want to read most!) I plan to re-read a lot this month, read some things off the top of my TBR, and try a few things that sound interesting. Here's what I plan to read, though I may add a book or two if possible.

Fiction

Memoirs & Biographies

Nonfiction

Poetry