Summer Reading Review #1
Hello, hello. I hope everyone is enjoying the lovely early-June weather. Massachusetts has seen days in the high 80's (yesterday) and the mid-60's (today...gotta love New England!). My summer class is progressing, not without some hiccups, all on my end as I knew what I needed to do for my graduation portfolio and proceeded to do basically the entire opposite. However, as I am taking ONLY this one class, and ONLY have to write this one chapter (rewrite this one chapter...) I have plenty of time to read! I am balancing it with watching Red Sox games and devoted some time to the Stanley Cup playoffs, but even with those distractions I have managed to take a huge bite out of my Summer Reading List. I have gotten through Imagining Characters, Seduction and Betrayal, Trial By Ice (an absolute comedy of errors that was doomed to fail before the expedition even set sail. Sadly, someone had to die for that to be realized), Torture Mom (HORRIFYING), Becoming the Villainess ( a wonderful collection of poetry, on par with Amanda Lovelace's work), The Odyssey of KP2, How to Suppress Women's Writing, The Thunder of Giants, House of Dreams: the Life of L. M. Montgomery (very informative as well as sad--who knew that she suffered from bipolar disorder? Her surviving family believe she died of a self-induced drug overdose), The Heroine's Bookshelf: Life Lessons, from Jane Austen to Laura Ingalls Wilder, Fragment of the Head of a Queen (more poetry), Weedmonkey (a disappointing presentation: the bones of the story are strong, but this memoir cold have been presented so much better), The Story of Life in 25 Fossils (prehistoric manatees looked like giant OTTERS?!?), Invincible Microbe (eye-opening and SCARY), and The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer. 15 of 28 are completed, actually I should say 26: The Poppet and the Lune by Madeline Claire Franklin and Letters of Medieval Women by Anne Crawford are not available through my library system. I looked them up on Amazon, and both are out of print and retailing at over $100.00 a piece. In fact, a used copy of The Poppet and the Lune is priced at $943.01. Now I REALLY want to read it, but not at that price. (Most are in the $150 range, but still...) So, those two have been removed from this year's list, and a lesson has been learned: check for availability BEFORE posting the official list.
Imagining Characters and How to Suppress Women's Writing have been the most difficult to get through. How To Suppress Women's Writing is more of an assigned-reading type of work, though I found it insightful and educational. Imagining Characters is of a similar type, but it is written as discussions between A. S. Byatt and Ignes Sodre, so it's a bit more lively. I definitely appreciated reading the opinions of an author I admire (Byatt) on other writers I enjoy and admire (Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, Willa Cather, and Toni Morrison) The Heroine's Bookshelf could very loosely be compared to Imagining Characters as well. It is far less scholarly, but Erin Blakemore discusses and analyzes works that held meaning to her as a young reader and continue to do so today. I actually enjoyed that book very much, and may purchase a copy. I also want to purchase a copy of Seduction and Betrayal: Women and Literature. Elizabeth Hardwick explores a number of works and genres including plays, to give a well-rounded review of the ways women have been portrayed in literature, including their own works. She invites readers to really look at characters as well as authors, and we see that what is on the surface doesn't always reflect what the authors actually intended to portray. Many might find this dull, but as I am familiar with all of the works that Hardwick analyzed in this volume, I enjoyed it very much. In Becoming the Villainess, Jeannine Hall Gailey takes faerie-tale roles to new dimensions. If you enjoy the work of Amanda Lovelace and Nikita Gill, you will appreciate this collection. As much as I am enjoying all of the "new" poetry I have been reading (i.e., written in the last 10 to 15 years, rather that 150 years ago) I could not get into Fragment of the Head of a Queen. Maybe it was too abstract, maybe I just could not identify with the author's intent as much as I could with Rupi Kaur and Amanda Lovelace. Don't take my comments too seriously though; this book has outstanding reviews on Goodreads. On the whole, I am enjoying this summer's collection very much. I have quite a bit more fiction that I normally do, and not all in the genre I normally read. The Thunder of Giants was a good read, though I probably won't read it again. I'm working on The Doll Funeral by Kate Hamer now, and it's dark and fantastical, an excellent almost-urban fantasy. I'm also reading Empty Bottles Full of Stories by R.H. Sin and Robert M. Drake, but that's not officially on the list--it just looked interesting when I was at Target!
Anyway, that is a brief, rather rushed rundown of the current reading situation. If anyone is reading any of the books on this year's list I'd love to know your thoughts. Leave a comment and let me know!
Imagining Characters and How to Suppress Women's Writing have been the most difficult to get through. How To Suppress Women's Writing is more of an assigned-reading type of work, though I found it insightful and educational. Imagining Characters is of a similar type, but it is written as discussions between A. S. Byatt and Ignes Sodre, so it's a bit more lively. I definitely appreciated reading the opinions of an author I admire (Byatt) on other writers I enjoy and admire (Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, Willa Cather, and Toni Morrison) The Heroine's Bookshelf could very loosely be compared to Imagining Characters as well. It is far less scholarly, but Erin Blakemore discusses and analyzes works that held meaning to her as a young reader and continue to do so today. I actually enjoyed that book very much, and may purchase a copy. I also want to purchase a copy of Seduction and Betrayal: Women and Literature. Elizabeth Hardwick explores a number of works and genres including plays, to give a well-rounded review of the ways women have been portrayed in literature, including their own works. She invites readers to really look at characters as well as authors, and we see that what is on the surface doesn't always reflect what the authors actually intended to portray. Many might find this dull, but as I am familiar with all of the works that Hardwick analyzed in this volume, I enjoyed it very much. In Becoming the Villainess, Jeannine Hall Gailey takes faerie-tale roles to new dimensions. If you enjoy the work of Amanda Lovelace and Nikita Gill, you will appreciate this collection. As much as I am enjoying all of the "new" poetry I have been reading (i.e., written in the last 10 to 15 years, rather that 150 years ago) I could not get into Fragment of the Head of a Queen. Maybe it was too abstract, maybe I just could not identify with the author's intent as much as I could with Rupi Kaur and Amanda Lovelace. Don't take my comments too seriously though; this book has outstanding reviews on Goodreads. On the whole, I am enjoying this summer's collection very much. I have quite a bit more fiction that I normally do, and not all in the genre I normally read. The Thunder of Giants was a good read, though I probably won't read it again. I'm working on The Doll Funeral by Kate Hamer now, and it's dark and fantastical, an excellent almost-urban fantasy. I'm also reading Empty Bottles Full of Stories by R.H. Sin and Robert M. Drake, but that's not officially on the list--it just looked interesting when I was at Target!
Anyway, that is a brief, rather rushed rundown of the current reading situation. If anyone is reading any of the books on this year's list I'd love to know your thoughts. Leave a comment and let me know!
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