October 2018 reading list

October. It really feels like September was October, so I'm nervous about what October might hold. The weather here was much colder than usual, and I've all but given up what we'll have a few more hot days before winter. The temps are dipping down to the 20s at night, and it won't be long before the leaves are down. This month, I've chosen a number of moody books--at least they feel that way to me. Once again, a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Lots of fiction and lots of memoirs.

Memoirs & Biographies

Fiction & Mysteries

 

Nonfiction

 

"Other"

 

Poetry (re-read)

 

 

September 2018 wrap-up

September was a good reading month, if crazy in every other way. I finished 15 books, many of which were wonderful. My favorites were Upstairs at the White House, Everything I Never Told You, and Pardonable Lies, but most were above average. One-word reviews below are linked to full reviews.

superb

5 stars

average

3 stars

fascinating

4.5 stars

pointed

4 stars

smart

4 stars

excellent

4 stars

well-presented

4 stars

moody

3.5 stars

charming

3 stars

enjoyable

4 stars

sentimental

3 stars

well-done

4.5 stars

unfussy

4 stars

intense

4 stars

 

dramatic

3.5 stars

 

What I'm reading this week (10/1/18)

Last week I finished:

If there's one thing I love to read about, at least in small doses, it's farming. I grew up on a farm, it's in my blood, and every book I read about living on a farm brings me back "home." Jane Smiley has written many wonderful books set on farms including Some Luck, part of a trilogy, and others. A Thousand Acres came out in 1991, won the Pulitzer Prize, and was adapted into a movie staring Michelle Pfeiffer and Jessica Lange in 1997. It's an adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear, in which a king descends into madness after giving away his kingdom to two of his daughters, leaving a third daughter out. In Smiley's book, a prosperous farmer with a thousand acres suddenly decides to give the farm to his two older daughters, Ginny and Rose (and, by connection, their spouses), leaving the younger, Caroline, out of the bequest. Slowly, things start to unravel. Tragedy is right! It all comes to a head after a court case to decide the farm's future. Marriages fail; adultery happens; infighting drives the family apart; there are deaths, suicides, an attempted murder, and a public scene at a church supper; and painful, long-buried abuses come to the surface. I just can't decide about this book. On the one hand, I loved the writing, the phrasing, the characters (even the unlikable characters were good). On the other hand, it was all wrong. The pacing was too quick for the amount of drama. There was too much ugliness and deception, and bitterness. Perhaps the book was written with such a high threshold of chaos and tragedy because it was modeling itself after King Lear. I don't know the play well enough to comment intelligently on that. I do remember seeing the movie when it came out and disliking it, and there's no way I'd see it again after reading the book. I don't need this one to come to life any better than it does in the book. I listened to this on audio, which was perfectly narrated. Do I recommend the book? I'm not sure. If you have a high tolerance for trauma and mayhem, go ahead, if not, try one of Smiley's other wonderful books. My rating: 3.5 stars.

When The Two-Family House came out in 2016, I remember vetting the book, but something made me decide against reading it. Since then, a blogger I respect has raved about the book. And very recently, in fact I think it's still on, it went on sale for Kindle, so I decided I'd take a $2.99 gamble. As is often the case, when I was looking for a new book to start on Kindle, I chose among the last I'd downloaded, and the book sucked me in immediately. It's simply written; it would never win an award for beautiful language or wonderful writing. I don't remember a single description or more than a short scene-setting. But sometimes books like this are great palate cleansers, because another part of the book gets to shine, or you get to engage in a book in a different way. This book is incredibly engaging. It's hard to give the plot without giving away the surprise (though you'll likely have a hunch as to the revelation very early on). It's about two brothers, Abe and Mort, their wives, Rose and Helen, and Mort and Rose's three daughters and Abe and Helen's four boys, who all share a two-family house in Brooklyn. It begins with the two sisters-in-law giving birth to babies on the same night in 1947 during a blizzard that has kept their husbands away. It takes the reader through several decades of the family and the deterioration of the once-close relationship between Helen and Rose. While the characters are sometimes flat, the book is one that is very difficult to put down. The story is told so simply, you want to keep reading. Although this isn't high literature, and I saw the twist coming, I really enjoyed the book. The simple domestic story is reminiscent of Alice McDermott's work like The Ninth Hour and Someone. I recommend this one. If you like domestic fiction, I think you'll like it. My rating: 4 stars.

Carry On, Warrior is a re-read for me. I'd always meant to read the paperback version when it came out, because it had new material. Several years later, I finally got around to it. It was nice to return to it, but in the middle of my re-read, I saw Glennon pop up in an anti-Brett Kavanaugh ad, so I went to her Twitter feed for more information on her stance, and what I found there was so disappointing, I'm not sure I'll ever read another book by her again. While her message used to be love for all, she has changed course, apparently. I wish her well, but I'm over and out regarding the hateful things she's written recently. It's the kind of thing she used to rally her readers against, and I'm heartbroken and disillusioned by her change. So, I don't really feel like reviewing this wonderful book right now. Read the book, not her Twitter feed. My rating: 4 stars.

 

This week I'll finish:

 

This one is even better than I anticipated. I'm love, love, loving it.

Last week I abandoned:

By page 70, I decided I couldn't stand another page of Lyndon's bullying or Lady Bird's enabling. Their marriage worked for them, but I had to bail.

My Kindle read:

I bought this on a Kindle sale last week and decided it would be a good one for my current mood. I'm only about 35% in, but it's quite good.

What I started last week:

 

 

Yay for books about books! And for pretty decorating book eye candy.

My audiobook:

Book two in the All Creatures Great and Small series by James Herriot. It's the perfect thing to listen to in right now--touching, funny, and so well-told. These are especially good on audio.

 

 

 

What I'm reading this week (9/24/18)

Last week I finished:

I've added Celeste Ng to my list of "automatic buys"--whenever the author come out with a new title, I'll buy it, no questions asked. Earlier this year I loved her Little Fires Everywhere, and after finishing it, I immediately bought a copy of her earlier novel, Everything I Never Told You. I wanted to put a number of months between them, but it was finally time this month to see if her first novel is as good as her second. And it was. Ng has a distinctive writing style; her books build and build and build, and they tell the story both in the present and in the past. This book opens with the disappearance of the middle child in the Lee family, Lydia. She seemed the perfect child, the perfect daughter, the perfect student. As more memories come to the surface of her family members' consciousness, though, we get a fuller picture of Lydia. I was fascinated by how the book shows the main character in absentia, through nothing but memory. I loved that it was both novel and mystery at once. While this book was a smidge less subtle than her second one, it was every bit as good. It did contain moments of adulterous sex, but I wouldn't avoid the book because of that alone. My rating: 4.5 stars.

Eve Chase's The Wildling Sisters was a good, moody book for the end of summer. A domestic mystery of Audrey Wild who went missing from Applecote Manor in the 1950s and was never found; four sisters--Audrey's cousins--piecing together what happened and keeping it a secret for decades; and the present owners of Applecote Manor, a young mother, father, daughter, and his teenage daughter from a previous marriage who are having trouble becoming a family. While I generally detest books that tell two stories, one in the past and one in the present, it didn't completely annoy me here. The writing and characters were good, and the mood and pacing were very good. While I did feel that the book ended two too many times, I enjoyed listening to the story unfold. I've added her earlier English mystery, Black Rabbit Hall, to my TBR now, too. My rating: 3.5 stars.

I hadn't planned on listening to another of Jan Karon's Mitford novels this year, but I was desperate to find something to listen to when my audio holds were taking forever to come in at the library, so I picked up the sixth book in the series, A Common Life. This book goes back in the series to tell the story of Father Kavanagh and Cynthia's wedding. Apparently fans were upset that Karon skipped over the wedding in the books, and this became Karon's favorite book in the series (at least at the time of the interview). My favorite part of the audio was that the last disc was an interview with Karon, who is even more wonderful and gracious and Southern than I'd hoped. The book was published in the early 2000s, and at the time of the interview Karon said it would be a seven-book series. Something changed along the way, because I believe there are 11 books now. I'm glad I'm only at the halfway mark. I kind of can't imagine my reading life without another Mitford novel to look forward to. Although this wasn't my favorite of the series by any means--it was a bit too flowery and sentimental--I'm glad to have it, because I, too, wondered why the wedding wasn't in the previous books. My rating: 3 stars. 

If you raise nine kids, then you have a whole lot of photos to share. I'd long wanted to get my hands on a copy of Rose Kennedy's Family Album, but it's been out of print for awhile. I finally ran across a copy at a used bookstore this summer, and I snapped it up faster than you can say "JFK." Showing hundreds of family photos from 1878 to 1946, you see each of the Kennedy children grow up. Included are essays of the various periods of their family history (I'm unsure who wrote them, although Caroline Kennedy wrote the introduction), and there are many letters written between Rose and Joe and the children over the years, reminiscences, and various essays and journal entries. There are tons of photos of the children all tanned and smiling on the beach. The book takes you only up until Jack Kennedy's Congressional run in 1946. I'd love to see a volume II with the presidential years, Jackie Kennedy, and the next generation of big-toothed Kennedy smiles, but I've never heard another volume was in the works. If you're a Kennedyphile, you'll want to go through this book some day--if you can find a copy. My rating: 4 stars. 

And lastly, more poetry. I grew as a poet seeing Linda Pastan in every poetry textbook and anthology I used. I've never really done a deep dive into her work, though. And A Dog Runs through It, isn't that either. I'd always assumed her work was similar to contemporaries Anne Sexton and Adrienne Rich, whose poetry I find a bit too fraught and feminist and difficult. But I think I probably have that all wrong. This is a book of her past poems (I don't think any are new) about dogs. Some just mention dogs in passing. It's a slim volume, just 59 pages, but it's fun. It includes a number of drawings of dogs, which is always a delight. While I didn't mark any poems here to return to, it spurred me to pick up a copy of Pastan's poetry in the future. My rating: 3 stars.

 

Next up:

Finally, finally, getting to this one.

My other reads:

 

Working my way to the end of The Two-Family House on Kindle. A wonderful read.

I'm also enjoying my re-read of Carry On, Warrior.

I'll finish both this week.

 

 

 

My audiobook:

I am loving this book. I'd forgotten just how good a writer Jane Smiley is.

What I'm reading this week (9/17/18)

Last week I finished:

I'm a huge fan of the George Bushes. And I'd pretty much like to be Laura Bush, so I'm glad to have finally gotten around to George and Laura by Christopher Andersen, who has written oodles of biographies of ultra-famous folks. Last month I read (listened to) his The Good Son, and I loved it, so I moved this book up to the top of my list. If you know much about the first couple, you know he was a perpetual frat boy, she's a quiet school librarian, and after suffering infertility and looking into adoption, they had twin girls, Jenna and Barbara (named for their grandmothers). You'll know about the loss of his little sister when he was a young boy, Laura's car accident that took the life of a teenage friend, his alcoholism, and the way they held this country together after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. This book explores all that, fleshes them out a bit more, and takes you up through the events of 9/11. Since the book was published in 2002, it doesn't deal a whole lot with President Bush's two terms. It's not really a political book, just a biography of each and of the couple. While it wasn't stellar, it wasn't boring, either. I enjoyed it, and I'm glad I finally got around to reading it. My rating: 4 stars.

This week I finished the third book in the Maisie Dobbs series, which I started in January. I read the first two, and I listened to the third. I'm not sure which I prefer. Since I have these in paperback, and the print is so tiny, I might prefer the audio, but there was something about the print books that made me feel immersed in the story in a way the audio didn't. Pardonable Lies may be my favorite of the three books, though I really did like them all. In this installment, set in the early 1930s, detective and psychologist Maisie Dobbs is asked to prove to a father that his son died in the war (World War I), to find what happened to a friend's brother in the war, and to prove a young girl didn't murder her stepfather. The cases were perhaps more interesting to me than the ones in book two, but with each book I like Maisie Dobbs and the series even more. I find it difficult to think of them as separate books, the series flows so well. They are so well written and serious, and though they're not flashy, they are just fantastic. I recommend them highly. My rating: 4 stars.

I'm always searching Amazon for new books of poetry by poets I know but don't know well. When I saw that Tony Hoagland had a new collection coming out, I was very excited to add it to my TBR list. Titled Priest Turned Therapist Treats Fear of God (great title, no?), the collection is full of good poems. I marked several to return to, and while I checked this out from the library, I think I might want my own copy. I did mention earlier that I was surprised to come upon the "c-word" which I sort of have a visceral reaction to, but other than that, it wasn't objectionable (well, there was a dig at Fox News Channel, but that's to be expected from all American poets these days, so predictable). The poetry is maybe "intermediate," not infinitely approachable, but not too pedantic, either. I'd recommend this one to anyone wanting to know what's being written by established poets these days. My rating: 4 stars.

Next up:

After reading Celeste Ng's Little First Everywhere earlier this year and loving it, I have been excited to read her first novel, Everything I Never Told You.

My evening reads:

 

I continue with Carry On, Warrior (very therapeutic), Rose Kennedy's Family Album, and I began A Dog Runs through It, a collection of Linda Pastan's dog poems.

 

My Kindle read:

I abandoned the biography of Billy Graham. I guess I'd say it's preaching to a different choir, so I moved on. I finally settled on The Two-Family House which was on sale for Kindle this week. It's a keeper. I'm enjoying it very much.

Last week I abandoned:

 

I got maybe one track into The Age of Innocence on CD before deciding my reading list is too long to listen to this. Maybe I'll try it another time when I have more patience with slow, wordy books.

My audiobook:

I had to wander the library a bit to find a new audiobook that would fit the weird reading mood I'm in, and I settled on The Wildling Sisters. It's atmospheric, mysterious, moody. Very good so far.