Smrt Lernins

I finally wrapped up March’s non-fiction themed Four Books a Month. Due to travel and illness and a general disinterest in one of the books I’d picked to read (which I ended up discarding in favor of something else), it was a bit of a tight squeeze. I sneaked a little fiction in there during the month, but that doesn’t count towards my four books!

This month, I read:

Letter to My Daughter by Maya Angelou. Less a book, more a collection of vaguely related essays (and the relationship strained at times). The essays offered a look into Angelou’s history, her perspectives on several issues, and an assortment of advice/lessons for her “daughters,” her female readers. I particularly enjoyed the essay on her changing attitudes about the South. She captured my feelings very well. If I can find a copy of that essay online, I’ll link it here later. A quick, easy, enjoyable read.

Birth Matters by Ina May Gaskin. This is the birth-related book I’ve been waiting for. The ideas Ina May shares in this book aren’t new, but that’s kind of the point. The “birth options as a feminist issue” idea is one that we in the birth advocacy community have been kicking around for year, but it really takes someone like Ina May Gaskin to bring the idea to the forefront. The writing in more in line w/ her Guide to Childbirth — no “rushes,” nobody feeling groovy. It’s a great introduction to the idea that the US obstetrical system is not a woman-centered system. I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone with the slightest interest in women’s rights, whether or not you plan to ever have (more or any) children.

Primal Mothering by Hygeia Halfmoon (who is, suffice it to say, a whackadoodle). I feel a little guilty mentioning this book, because I really do NOT want anyone to buy it and ever more, I want to make sure nobody uses this book as a source of advice. While there is plenty of good information in this book (normal unhindered birth, breastfeed, babywear, keep your babies/kids close), all of that good information is available from far better, saner sources. Mixed in with this, is advice to eschew eating anything other than fruit (including most vegetables), that all illness (from colds to cancers) are caused by “toxins” that must be fasted out of the body, and to “fast your babies” (ie. withhold food fromt hem) when they are sick, to get the toxins out, donchaknow. Whack.a.doodle. The book is also peppered with suggestions to buy her other books if you want more information — the whole thing read like a giant ad for her various whackadoo-library. I initially bought this book to include in raffles at one of our upcoming red tent events, but realized there is no way I could give this book to a new mother. Get a book by Ina May Gaskin. Get a book by Dr. Sarah Buckley. Get a book from the Sears library of books. Don’t waste your money on this nonsense.

Shakespeare: A brief insight by Germaine Greer. This wasn’t exactly what I expected. I thought the book was a biography of Shakespeare, but it turned out to be more of a literary criticism overview of Shakespeare’s works. I still enjoyed it, but it didn’t offer any great insights into Shakepeare’s life that I hadn’t already gotten from my college courses. I did appreciate Greer’s take on the themes in Shakespeare’s plays, with a nice emphasis on women’s roles(Greer is a noted feminist). Not light reading, but worthwhile.

Ok, now to start April’s FBAM theme: translations!

[Quick note: I've signed up to do Amazon's affiliate program, just because any teensy amount of money coming in is helpful, but I really don't want to clutter my blog or spam my readers with links. If you click on the above links and buy any of the books, I'll get a small percentage for having linked you. However, if you don't feel like doing that, I won't be too fussed, either. I always said I'd be 100% on the level with reviews, ads, solicitations, etc.]

I wrapped up my second month of Four Books a Month. February was my month of young adult literature. March is my month of non-fiction. I’m considering translations as my April theme.

This month I read:

The Last Dragon, by Silvana de Mari (translated from Italian by Shaun Whiteside). I really enjoyed this story. The translation was very well done, maintaining the meter of the original Italian. The imagery in the book was beautiful, the humor was mature enough to not be condescending, but not so mature that a child wouldn’t get it. The allegory was a little heavy handed, but I think that’s because I’m an adult reader, not a young adult reader. For a reader under 14, I think the elves as Nazi-era Jews and Daligar as a fascist state probably wouldn’t leap right out at them. This was given to Captain Science as a gift; I’m so glad it was! I definitely recommend this book to others.

The Hunger Games series, by Suzanne Collins: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay. If I start going on and on about this series, I will not stop. It was better written, with a deeper plot, better social commentary, and a better story than any adult fiction I’ve read in…I don’t even know how long. The imagery is sparse, but precise. Katniss Everdeen isn’t exactly a lovable antagonist, but she’s certainly a compelling one. I actually reread The Hunger Games and Catching Fire this month, I enjoyed the series so much — Mockingjay is still out on loan to my grandmother, so I can’t reread it yet! I powered through these books in about two days a piece, then passed them to my mom, who then passed them to my grandmother. We would randomly call or text or email each other through the day and say things like, “OMG! Peeta!” or “I am having a heart attack over here!” Opinions on the last book seem to be pretty polarized: you either love how it ends or you don’t. I’m in the “loves” category, at least in as much as I love how Collins wrote it. The ending is absolutely inevitable. It couldn’t go any other way. Just go read these books, ok, because I can’t talk about them without ruining them for you. Just get them! Now! Go, go, go!

I wanted to set a reading challenge for myself this year. I had fallen into something of a reading rut, doing a lot of rereading favorite books, and wanted to make myself read some new things. While I’m a fast reader, I wasn’t sure I was up to the challenge of 52 books in 52 weeks, because I do have other hobbies and interests outside of reading. Instead, I decided I’d shoot for four books a month, so that I’d have an extra couple of days of leeway if life got too busy for me to sit and read for any length of time.

ETA: I am soliciting recommendations for future FBAM reads!

In January, I read the following books:

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver was exactly what I needed to start the year. Barbara Kingsolver is one of my favorite contemporary writers, and she did not disappoint me this time. Politics, history, an (incredibly appropriate) undertone of magical realism, with a partial setting in Asheville, NC? Color me sold. I learned a lot about pre-WWII-era communism, Trotsky, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, and about the McCarthyist senate hearings and blacklist. The format, journals and letters of the protagonist assembled posthumously by his secretary, creates interesting gaps in the timeline and provides limited insight into certain areas of his life, but detailed looks into others. I noted some uncomfortable similarities between political events in the book and some current goings-on. Definitely worth reading!

My Name is Memory by Ann Brashares wasn’t nearly as fluffy as I’d anticipated. I enjoyed Brashares’s other work, the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, but it wasn’t the most substantive read. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Brashares devoted as much energy to crafting the setting and backstory in My Name is Memory (an area that I found significantly lacking in the Pants books) as she did to character development. Brashares’s take on reincarnation was interesting from both a literary and philosophical perspective, and I enjoyed the short glimpses into all the different cultures throughout history. Not the best book I’ve ever read, but a solid and enjoyable book nonetheless. We’ll call this one Deep Lite.

Julie and Julia by Julie Powell was also not the fluff I had anticipated. I was anticipating a self-congratulatory Pioneer Woman-esque story of lookit-me-I’m-so-awesome! I didn’t know anything about Julie Powell’s life or history, but learning where she was working at the time gave me a different understanding of why she started the Julie/Julia project. I enjoyed the blogging aspect, especially since blogging wasn’t anywhere near as popular when Julie started her project. The cooking managed to sound alternately (sometimes either simultaneously) delicious and disgusting, the people were all funny and (since they’re actual people, at least in theory) sometimes behaved unpredictably, and the project itself was inspiring. I loved that final stick of butter. Thoroughly enjoyable book.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss was good as far as fantasy goes. It’s hard to impress me in that area, because I’ve read so much fantasy. I’m underwhelmed by the protagonist, Kvothe, because I find little to relate to with a character who is good (usually the best) at everything, all the time. The “I’m so gifted, everything comes to me naturally” trope is one of the most common in sci-fi/fantasy that it’s easy to predict the character’s personal arc: S/he’s the youngest ever to [do suchandsuch], s/he will lose or be separated from his/her parenst through a traumatic event, s/he is doubted until s/he makes a display of his/her talent that is both impressive and tricksy, his/her fatal flaw is pride in his/her amazing abilities and that leads to a loss of something s/he really wanted and will spend the rest of the book trying to craftily win back, all the while interacting with an unattainable love interest (which of course, we know is ultimately doomed — the question is only whether the love interest will die, turn out to be a bad guy, or be stolen/seduced by the bad guy). That’s almost every fantasy book, ever. It’s hard to sympathize with the ill treatment Kvothe receives from others as a response to his success, because it’s just so predictable. That antagonist (the jealous fellow student) isn’t well developed; he’s every jealous student/fellow mage/whatever in every fantasy book, with no good points. On the plus side, the larger story arc (the one that is obviously intended to go across the whole series) is much stronger; the world is richly developed, the magical system is quite good (based on thermodynamics, in part), and the writer’s use of language is enjoyable. I thought I would be more impressed by this than I was, because I’ve had it so highly recommended, but I think my standards for fantasy are higher than average. Perhaps that’s a result of being raised on Tolkien? I fully intend to read the other book(s) in the series, because now I’m invested in the story and want to see what happens, so I guess that’s a mark that this book was good enough.