What are you reading in September?

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What are you reading in September?

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1Citizenjoyce
Sep 5, 2012, 9:42 pm

Looks like we're late getting around to this. I finished The Anatomist's Apprentice by Tessa Harris which is good when it talks about anatomy, the mystery is good enough, but the damsel in distress component is a bore. Now I've started Radio Iris which I heard about somewhere, PBS maybe. I don't know what it's about yet besides a 24 year old secretary, but I'm liking the style.

2Eliminado
Sep 6, 2012, 11:35 am

Cry of the Daughter by Kit Reed. Not sure where this book is going. Southern family during WWI. Mother is a nut job, obsessed with her brother who's a wastrel. Another variation on "Delta Dawn" so far. Here's Bette Midler's version. Don't get any better than Bette: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt-hFrYRKgY

3Nickelini
Sep 6, 2012, 12:06 pm

My current book for this category is Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner. If I view Brookner as writing about an alternative universe, I really enjoy it. But no one I've ever heard of acts or talks like these people.

4SaraHope
Sep 6, 2012, 4:01 pm

Trying Laura Lippman for the first time, with What the Dead Know.

Was reflecting recently that I don't go out of my way to read women crime writers for the sake of reading books by women, but I seem to go after female-written crime/mystery disproportionately -- Erin Hart, Gillian Flynn, Cornelia Read, Louise Penny, Kate Atkinson (I really need to read her regular fiction too), Jacqueline Winspear . . . I could go on. Not that I don't like some male crime writers, but the women dominate that genre for me.

5Eliminado
Sep 6, 2012, 7:04 pm

SaraHope, do you read Patricia Highsmith? Just excellent.

6wookiebender
Sep 7, 2012, 1:09 am

I actually think that crime fiction does have a disproportionately higher number of female writers, in comparison with other genres. (Well, romance might be pretty much completely female dominated. :) I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere.

Anyhoo, I've read a couple of fantasy novels by women writers this month: City of Glass by Cassandra Clare (a great YA paranormal romance romp with a good sense of humour and far too much teenage angst, but I can deal with that at times); and Fire by Kristin Cashore which isn't as good as her first (Graceling), this one seemed a bit patchy in terms of pacing. That is, there were boring bits. :) But the non-boring bits were good, and I'll read the next in the series at some stage.

Now reading a bloke book (but still in the fantasy genre, I'm not planning on challenging myself much this month :).

7Citizenjoyce
Sep 8, 2012, 11:52 pm

I finished and reviewed Radio Iris which is either a very boring book, or I'm just intellectually stunted. I can't see myself reading any more of Anne-Marie Kinney. Now I'm reading Elizabeth Cady Stanton's The Woman's Bible and so wish the misogyny in it were outdated nearly 120 years later.

8Eliminado
Sep 9, 2012, 10:07 am

I got a Kindle for my birthday (I'm in the 21st century now, yay me), and am downloading as much free Henry James, Edith Wharton, Mrs. Gaskell, and Anthony Trollope as I can, and am offloading the physical books taking up shelf-space on Amazon or Bookmooch.

Reading Mary Barton now. Not sure if others of a certain age have found the format distracting at first. I did not feel fully immersed in the story because I was holding something unfamiliar in my hands. This sensation is beginning to lift a bit.

Am a little disappointed in the text-to-speech function, which is fairly "robotic," but it's good enough to allow me to knit while I listen for short periods.

Also, have not yet figured out a way to download much other than Amazon-generated content to the thing (though I have moved some of my digital knitting patterns to the document function). I should be able to transfer mp3 Librevox recordings to the damn thing, but can't quite figure that out. I'm putting my 16-year-old on it later today.

9CurrerBell
Sep 9, 2012, 2:39 pm

8>> Consider paying just a little bit of money for "Complete Works of..." in Delphi Classics. They're beautifully formatted with very comprehensive hyperlinked tables of contents (linking to each individual work in the collection and then, when appropriate, to each chapter within an individual work). On some rare occasions a "Complete Works of..." might not really be complete -- for example, D.H. Lawrence -- only because some works are not yet public domain, but they make this very clear on each individual product page.

But you might want to beware not just Delphi but any e-book of authors like Shakespeare. You'll find that verse and drama often don't format well to Kindle, which is best for straight prose.

I'll be curious as to your reading experience of Mary Barton. I'm not sure that's such a good one to read on Kindle because Gaskell footnotes a lot of Yorkshire dialect and footnotes don't show up well on Kindle unless the e-book's got an extremely conscientious editor.

10SaraHope
Sep 10, 2012, 9:25 am

I'm a couple years behind, but yesterday I started Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. I woke up on Sunday morning and it seemed so bright and quiet outside, a true beginning of Fall day. Having finished a book the day before, I had to choose a new one to crack open and it seemed like this book would be just the ticket. I wasn't sure I'd like it, as I normally don't gravitate toward books that do not follow the same main characters all the way through (I don't care for short stories at all, and wasn't sure if I'd find linked stories much of an improvement), but I'm really loving it.

11amandameale
Sep 10, 2012, 9:30 am

#11 I liked that one very much.

Reading Children in Reindeer Woods by Kristin Omarsdottir and enjoying it.

12Eliminado
Sep 10, 2012, 9:34 am

SaraHope, I envy anybody reading Olive Kitteridge on a lovely fall day. it's a wonderful book, and I hope to read more Strout soon!

CurrerBell, I'm seeing the footnotes just fine on the Kindle version of Mary Barton. They appear in odd places b/c I have the type size jacked up, but generally, I don't find this a problem.

You are right: verse is more difficult to read on a Kindle.

Thanks for the tip about the Delphi editions. The "Barsetshire Chronicles" I downloaded had all the novels with hyperlinks to each in the ToC, thought I tend to read stuff like that straight through so I don't forget the characters. That's what I did with the Palliser novels.

13sweetiegherkin
Sep 10, 2012, 12:10 pm

I recently finished up The Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath, part of my year-long kick of reading Plath. I also just finished Murder at Mansfield, a re-working of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park as a murder mystery. Even though I expected it to be somewhat fluffy, I had high hopes for this one to be entertaining but I found it only so-so.

Now I'm on to Washington Square, which, yes, I recognize is written by a man but its focus is on a young woman character. Also, I'm about to pick up Playing with Matches by Carolyn Wall. Admittedly, I don't know a whole lot about this one, and it seems to have gotten mixed reviews here on LibraryThing, so we'll see how it goes.

14Citizenjoyce
Sep 10, 2012, 3:11 pm

I'm on my way to the library right now to pick up my requested audiobook of The Virgin Blue. I've liked everything I've read my Chevalier, so I have high hopes for this one.

15Nickelini
Sep 10, 2012, 4:43 pm

OtherJoyce - yes, I like Chevalier a lot too. I haven't read Virgin Blue, but I have Falling Angels high on my TBR.

16rebeccanyc
Sep 14, 2012, 10:24 am

I just finished and reviewed the wonderfully complex Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga about a girl struggling with questions of colonialism and autonomy in 1960s Rhodesia (not yet Zimbabwe).

17sweetiegherkin
Sep 14, 2012, 8:31 pm

Finished Washington Square, about which I only felt "eh." Moving on to re-reading a tried and true classic, A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

18wookiebender
Sep 15, 2012, 12:37 am

I'm having a bit of a "crime spree" in my reading at the moment, but have only just picked up a female author. It's Donna Leon's Death in a Strange Country, and I'm enjoying being back with Brunetti in Venice.

19Citizenjoyce
Editado: Sep 15, 2012, 2:52 am

I'm just about to start Lark and Termite. I don't know what to expect except that it's about a brother and sister.

Oh, I forgot to add that I finished Virgin Blue. Not my favorite Tracy Chevalier. The historical part about the French religious wars between Catholics and Huguenots, who were French protestants - I didn't now that- was very interesting, but the modern day interconnected story didn't have the same allure. For once though, a novel presents abortion as a reasonable option, which was a big plus.

20Citizenjoyce
Sep 15, 2012, 11:56 pm

It's international book week. The rules: Grab the closest book to you, turn to page 52, post the 5th sentence as your status. Don't mention the title. Copy the rules as part of your post.
Here's mine:

A kneeling wife at this era of civilization is proof that the degradation of woman continues from the time of Bath-sheba to that of Alexandria.

21Nickelini
Editado: Sep 16, 2012, 1:57 am

OtherJoyce -

#20 - t's international book week. The rules: Grab the closest book to you, turn to page 52, post the 5th sentence as your status. Don't mention the title. Copy the rules as part of your post.

Here's mine: "Editors of electronic journals should seek to preserve the historical context by maintaining, in connection with each article, information that might affect interpretation if its contents or its selection for publication."

I've played this for so many years, and have yet to be able to quote anything at all Shakespearean, or even remotely literary. This is from the Chicago Manual of Style. I know you're not supposed to include that info, but frankly, this game is no fun without it.

#19 - After loving the Girl with the Pearl Earring and Remarkable Creatures, and being very favorably surprised by The Lady and the Unicorn. why am I still tentative about reading Tracy Chevalier? Like she's going to slip into some Phillapa Gregory kak or something.....? No, that's not going to happen. I have another of hers high on my TBR, and I must bring it out sooner rather than later (the Edwardian one--title slips my mind at the moment). And I'm adding Virgin Blue to my wishlist! Thanks for the comments.

22rebeccanyc
Sep 16, 2012, 7:46 am

I've finished, reviewed, and had mixed feelings about Battleborn, a collection of stories, largely about the vast and bleak expanses of the west, by Claire Vaye Watkins.

#20 It's international book week. The rules: Grab the closest book to you, turn to page 52, post the 5th sentence as your status. Don't mention the title. Copy the rules as part of your post.

"Everyone except Lena, who waves and says, Nice to meet you, Brad."

23Eliminado
Sep 16, 2012, 8:58 am

20 Book closest to hand is one someone else left lying around; I'd have better off with Lena and Brad in #22.

"For a person's basic attitude and orientation, form of life, lifestyle, and way of life, can be described both comprehensively and concretely in terms of Jesus Christ--with the same justification, as we saw."

24shearon
Sep 16, 2012, 10:56 am

20: "He was making a display, people were looking at us, it was ridiculous"

25CDVicarage
Sep 16, 2012, 12:44 pm

20 'Illicit?' The adjective seemed a strange one to use.

26Penske
Sep 17, 2012, 9:08 pm

20 "Good lady's-maids like Clara may be hard to find, but surely downstairs maids are as plentiful as rats?"

N.B. This is fun!

27Her_Royal_Orangeness
Editado: Sep 17, 2012, 10:50 pm

Hi everybody......this is my first post. (I couldn't find an intro thread so I just thought I'd pop in here.) I've had this group come up on my "recommended groups" list but couldn't figure out why LT was suggesting I'd enjoy a group about chick lit. Today, I decided to investigate. Ooooh, surprise! It's not what I thought it was AT ALL. I recognize so many of your names from other groups, and the books you're discussing are all exactly what I read and/or am interested in.

I can't share what I'm currently reading, though, because it's by a MAN. (Ew, boys, icky.) It's weird that I happen to be reading a book by a male author, because only about 10% of my reading is penned by the masculine gender. So, just wait, because soon I'll have much to say! :)

28Citizenjoyce
Sep 17, 2012, 10:58 pm

I think most of us have been kind of turned off by the name of the group. I'm glad you braved the specter of chick-lit to join us because we certainly fit in with your love of Oranges.

29wookiebender
Sep 18, 2012, 6:31 am

Ew, boys, icky.

Oh, I cracked up.

The name of this group does do it a disservice.

(Not currently reading a book by a woman. Will do so soonish, I'm sure.)

30Eliminado
Sep 18, 2012, 9:55 am

I like the name. You have to take it ironically.

And we do talk about books by boys sometimes.

31sweetiegherkin
Sep 18, 2012, 11:52 am

> 30 I like the name. You have to take it ironically.

I feel the same way, but do have to admit that it isn't particularly helpful in terms of explaining the group. But it's intriguing enough for many of us to click on it and end up here! :) Also, now we have a much better group picture, which helps, I think.

32Yells
Sep 18, 2012, 7:45 pm

Until it has been read, a book is, at worst, a jumble of signs on the page, at best a vague, perhaps false image, arising from what one has heard about it.

Fitting isn't it?

337sistersapphist
Sep 18, 2012, 10:39 pm

My current read is by a man, too. No sign of cooties, though.

Welcome HRO.

34Elaine-L
Sep 18, 2012, 11:29 pm

I'm currently reading Triangle by Katherine Weber, but that's not the book closest to me right now. Page 52:

'"Jesus!" Madame Matilde spat out.'

35Booksloth
Sep 19, 2012, 5:22 am

Enjoying The Vanishing Act by Mette Jakobsen

36sweetiegherkin
Sep 19, 2012, 10:00 am

> 32 Yes, very fitting! And quite beautiful.

37Eliminado
Sep 20, 2012, 9:23 am

Continuing on my Mrs. Gaskell jag with Ruth having completed Mary Barton. I like Gaskell's novels about labor and class clashes in the north, particularly since my own family got kicked out of the weaving trade in Northern Ireland by the Industrial Revolution, and hasn't drawn a sober breath since they came Over Here to start anew.

Mary Barton is perhaps the first of many Victorian stories about working class women presumed upon by upper class men. If you've read Adam Bede or Tess of the D'urbervilles, the story may seem a little tired, but this was one of the first books by a noted author to revolve sympathetically around a "fallen woman," so I'm enjoying it from that perspective.

38Citizenjoyce
Sep 20, 2012, 5:22 pm

Maybe I should try Mary Barton, but I just finished a short story by Elizabeth Gaskell and there was so much description of the scenery that I almost tore my hair out. I don't think I could take a whole book of that.
I just finished 2 works by women and had kind of the same reaction to each. First was a review in The New Yorker by Ariel Levy called The Space In Between about Naomi Wolf's Vagina: A New Biography. I don't think I've read anything by Wolf, one of the new "sexy" feminists, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to make it through her book. I like sex, I think it's both good and good for you, but, no, I don't think with my vagina nor do all my emotions arise from there. Probably as I get older I get less and less oriented toward the mystical. It just seems like a bunch of hogwash to me. Which leads to Lark and Termite by Anne Phillips. It was nominated for a National Book Award, I think, and has lots of very intelligent, creative people to praise it, but I'm not so eager to join in. The style is disjointed, and the people are all damaged and determined to continue the cycle. A mother gives her 9 year old abandoned daughter a handicapped baby to look after the rest of her life, thus doing her best to insure that she will stay trapped in the caregiver role or eventually rage against it as she did. And the girl buys it wholeheartedly. Isn't the saying, "Life is a veil of tears"? Well, everyone in this book makes sure that veil doesn't get lifted too far. The more I think about it, the more crushing it seems. Again, I guess I'm just not mystical enough to see the virtue in a child's leaving school at the age of 12 so that she can sporadically take a secretarial course that will allow her to support herself and her ward - all the while trailing sniffing men behind her. Feel free to tell me just how wrong I got it.
Now I'm about to start on The Awakening by Kate Chopin.

39CurrerBell
Sep 20, 2012, 7:32 pm

38>> I don't know what Gaskell story it was that disappointed you, but I'd strongly recommend that everyone read The Grey Woman. It's a bit longish, over 23,000 words, but give it a try and see what you think. I don't want to give anything away because there's an interesting twist that you might not expect from Gaskell (and that appears in Cranford as well, though as less of a twist and in a slightly different way).

40Citizenjoyce
Sep 20, 2012, 10:51 pm

Last month I read: Curious, if True and The Doom of the Griffiths by Elizabeth Gaskell. Both of them had good story lines, but as I complained, lots of extraneous description. I saw the BBC production of Cranford and loved it. That's what made me think I might like to read Gaskell, but the writing of that time is pretty wordy for me. I'll think of taking your suggestion to try The Grey Woman, CurrerBell.

41CurrerBell
Editado: Sep 20, 2012, 11:09 pm

40>> The BBC "Cranford" isn't really Cranford. It's actually an amalgamation of Cranford, My Lady Ludlow, and Mr. Harrison's Confessions. Great acting (particularly Eileen Atkins), but I think the injection of the youthful romance (that's Mr. Harrison's Confessions) distracted from the centrality of the older women.

Also, My Lady Ludlow involves the death of a friend's son during the Reign of Terror, in Lady Ludlow's youth, and the death occurred because a young working-class boy improperly read a private letter. This explains Lady Ludlow's antipathy toward working-class literacy, and she's actually a rather attractive character in Gaskell's story, overcoming her prejudices at the end. The BBC production tended to make the Francesca Annis character a bit of a villainess, which distracted from the very unpleasant traits in the domineering character of Deborah Jenkyns.

ETA: And Cranford's one of my favorite books. I jokingly call Gaskell "the honorary Bronte."

42Eliminado
Sep 21, 2012, 9:39 am

Cranford is both touching and hilarious. I understand about the scenery in Gaskell generally, but usually there is some connection with it to the theme of the book. Snow drops appear frequently in Mary Barton.

Oh, God(dess), save me from Vagina: A New Biography.

Wolf's impetus for writing the book seems to be that her orgasms are less intense. Well, duh, she's 49. Wait until she's 60.

Many of us (though not by all means all) find that desire and intensity do start to slack off with age, and, while I'm all for keeping that fire stoked as long as possible, your partner may not have the ability or inclination to keep up with you.

The overall implication of Wolf's book is that you're not really a woman unless your mojo's working like it was when you were 22 and you need to flog it back to life by any means necessary.

I found that obliquely age-ist. You lose and gain things as you grow up and grow old. A preoccupation with full-body orgasms strikes me as immature and sad.

Toni Bentley has a scathingly hilarious review of "Vagina" in the NYT. When I got to the "thump at the dump," I laughed so hard I had to take my breathing meds.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/books/review/vagina-a-new-biography-by-naomi-w...

43SaraHope
Sep 26, 2012, 4:34 pm

For book club read Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres, a harrowing read.

#42 I thought a woman's mojo was supposed to peak during her 30s? I'm 27 and have been so looking forward to that, lol, though my mojo now is just fine.

44Citizenjoyce
Sep 27, 2012, 3:17 am

>42 nohrt4me2: Thanks for the review, nohrt4me2. I'm even more sure I won't be reading the vagina book. I guess there are people she writes for, but I don't think I'm part of that group.

I just finished The Awakening, and I know it's supposed to be about the woman's sexual awakening and her awakening to the fact that, as a good wife and mother she's expected to subsume herself in the happiness of her family and she refuses to do such a thing. I was a little disappointed, though, that the only way she could think of expressing herself and asserting her individuality was through romance which I find to be many a woman's downfall and far from the meaning of life.

I also just finished a book by a guy, Zach Wahls, but about his mothers and their marriage and the way they raised him. - My Two Moms: Everything I Needed to Know About Gay Marriage I Learned in Boy Scouts. Strangely the title on my book was changed to My Two Moms: Lessons of Love, Strength, and What Makes a Family. Wahls divides the book into chapters that relate directly to the boy scout code, and he even says at the end of the book that he continues to honor the scouts in spite of their homophobia, but maybe he's revising that opinion? Anyway, for the first half of the book you'd think it was written by one of Romney's sons - he is the perfect conservative, capitalist, overachieving child; but when he gets on to the topic of marriage equality he's just as expressive, very reasonable and demonstrates his debating skills to perfection. It's hard to see how anyone could could criticize the parenting in his family. His mothers emphasized morality and every month there would be a virtue of the month that they would discuss over the dinner table. Their determination to be good parents is pretty overwhelming. I don't see how anyone could argue with quality of his family.

45LyzzyBee
Sep 27, 2012, 3:59 am

I'm into Georgette Heyer's Arabella at the moment - lovely comfort reading!

46Sakerfalcon
Sep 27, 2012, 5:40 am

>44 Citizenjoyce:: I had the same reaction to The awakening as you, and found it a very disappointing novel. Chopin's short stories are terrific though.

>45 LyzzyBee:: Arabella is one of my favourite Heyer novels!

47wookiebender
Sep 27, 2012, 6:04 am

Just started a comfort read for me too, but it's Amelia Peabody in The Hippopotamus Pool.

48Eliminado
Sep 27, 2012, 7:54 pm

Finished Mrs. Gaskell's Ruth. I think I might stick with her for awhile, since just about every book she ever wrote is free on Kindle, and there's something about the pacing of a Victorian novel, however lugubrious that is better than Valium.

49Citizenjoyce
Editado: Sep 28, 2012, 3:13 am

I just started a feminist science fiction book, Carnival by Elizabeth Bear. It seems there was an apocalypse on earth and the humans who remained are mostly Muslim or Catholic. This leads to a culture that fully supports and encourages reproduction (and seems to have made homosexuality a capital crime); however with a big input from "radical" environmentalists they also realize that a population out of control can't be allowed to devastate earth. So they also promote infanticide and the "culling" of assessed members of the population. Space travel is a big part of the book, and there's a planet called New Amazonia governed by women who marry each other but keep stud males for reproduction - unlike earth they don't condone any form of artificial reproduction. There's also a population of "gentle" males - homosexuals - who are in service professions. I'm liking it more the more I read.

50Eliminado
Sep 28, 2012, 10:28 am

I wonder if Elizabeth Bear knows any real Catholics or Muslims ...?

51Citizenjoyce
Sep 28, 2012, 7:39 pm

Well, in science fiction things get changed a bit. In this case, almost everyone is also non-Caucasian and all the alliance folk are also vegan and recoil in nausea at the idea of people owning pets.

52rebeccanyc
Sep 29, 2012, 11:05 am

I've read, reviewed, and been disappointed by The Forgetting River: A Modern Tale of Survival, Identity, and the Inquisition by Doreen Carvajal, the story of a journalist's search (sort of) for her family's Jewish roots.

537sistersapphist
Sep 29, 2012, 5:31 pm

Reading Are You Somebody, thanks to nohrt4me's generosity. On the home stretch now.

54Citizenjoyce
Sep 29, 2012, 8:05 pm

I think I forgot to mention that I'm reading Jana Bibi's Excellent Fortunes by Betsy Woodman about a Scottish woman who is an Indian citizen and lives in a small village in India. The people are well written, and so far it's a joy to read.
I also started The Baby Thief by L. J. Sellers. I'm not much in to mysteries, but I do like her stuff. This one is about assisted reproductive technology, and, since I'm concentrating my reading on childbirth in October, it fits right in.

55CurrerBell
Sep 29, 2012, 10:49 pm

I just finished Joyce Carol Oates's new novella Patricide ("An accidental death is always a surprise. At least, to the one who dies by accident.") as a Kindle Single. Quite funny first-person narration by a daughter -- a dean at a small college -- obsessed with her Nobelist father.

56Eliminado
Sep 30, 2012, 4:47 pm

Lizzie Leigh by Elizabeth Gaskell (short story/novella). Real stinker!

57Booksloth
Oct 1, 2012, 6:00 am

I'm reading and enjoying Keri Hulme's The Bone People. It took me a while to get into it but I'm really wallowing now.

58Citizenjoyce
Editado: Oct 1, 2012, 4:44 pm

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