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Reading
Scene from the Movie GIANT by Tino VillanuevaMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is a really interesting poetry collection. It's one long meditation on a single, racist scene at the end of a movie that the poet watched as a child and the way that scene disturbed him and called him to activism.
I really like the poems that describe what is happening in the movie. I like the poems where the author is reflecting on the movie less.
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In the Gathering of Silence by Levi RomeroMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This bilingual book of poetry captures a particular moment in time and place; Albuquerque is almost another character in the poems.
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Sorrow by Claribel AlegrÃaMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This collection of poems was written after the loss of the poet's husband; they attempt to make sense of her grief and her despair that we cannot know if a reunion after death is possible (the poems lean on the side of no).
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Revenge of the Apple: Venganza de La Manzana by Alicia PartnoyMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Centered around the metaphor of the apple, this collection of poetry is largely written during and about the time in which Partnoy was a political prisoner in Argentina. It's powerful and difficult reading.
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Strong Box Heart by Sheila Sanchez HatchMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This poetry collection didn't grab me. I liked isolated lines here and there, but on the whole, it didn't move me.
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Thunderweavers/ Tejedoras de rayos by Juan Felipe HerreraMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I really enjoyed this volume of poetry about the 1997 massacre of Mayan villagers in Chiapas. It's told from the perspective of three generations of women from one family (granddaughter, mother, grandmother), and it's heartbreaking and difficult to read but powerful.
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Clean Slate: New and Selected Poems by Daisy ZamoraMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I really enjoyed this book of poetry written by a poet involved in the revolution in Nicaragua. The themes of war, exile, and loss are powerful and disturbing and resonate strongly these many decades after the poems were written.
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The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude SteinMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I absolutely adore this book. It's so narcissistic and funny. Stein spends so much time praising herself in the guise of Toklas and saying what she really thinks about everyone (for good or ill) in guise of Toklas, but then in the last lines of the book, she gives up the masquerade and owns up to what she's doing. It's very funny.
It's also breathtaking the mass of important creative people just hanging out together.
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Running with Scissors by Augusten BurroughsMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I have this book because it was part of the reading list for a memoir class I took in grad school. I reread it as part of my reread and clear my shelves project.
Burroughs reminds me a lot of David Sedaris but without that ineffable quality that makes Sedaris's writing endearing for me. Burroughs is funny, and he's undeniably a good writer; this book deals with a lot of the same themes that Sedaris's writing deals with (mental illness, unpleasant people behaving unpleasantly, gross bodily functions), and IDK why Sedaris's writing works for me, and Burroughs's largely doesn't, but it doesn't. I think maybe it's because nothing is real in Burroughs's novel; no one truly cares for anyone else. All the relationships are manipulative or abusive or unhealthy in some way with no genuine love underlying them.
Off it goes!
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Still Mad: American Women Writers and the Feminist Imagination by Sandra M. GilbertMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
G&G still got it!
I love this tour through 20th and early 21st century feminism via the biographies of creative women: writers, singers, activists.
As always, their writing is very accessible and interesting with a clear sense of authorial voice; none of that pretending to be an objective, disembodied, academic robot.
Highly recommended.
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My Autobiography of Carson McCullers by Jenn ShaplandMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I didn't know anything about Carson McCullers until I read this book. I think the only McCullers I'd read is The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and that in elementary school, so I have almost no memory of it.
Shapland is a researcher who becomes convinced that relationships with other women were more significant to McCullers than any of her biographers allow; this book is her quest to prove that theory, and it intersects her research endeavors with her own coming out story.
I really enjoyed this as a biography of McCullers, as commentary on research and academia, and as Shapland's memoir. Very much recommended.
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Good Form: The Ethical Experience of the Victorian Novel by Jesse RosenthalMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is an interesting look at the way in which Victorians (and we as their inheritors) approach reading a narrative--what makes a story feel complete and satisfying. The latter chapters seemed to drift away from that thesis, but the opening chapters on Dickens were the strongest and the most compelling.
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The Tacky South by Katharine BurnettMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Excellent collection of scholarly essays that attempts to define tacky, to trace the concept back to its origins and to explore the way it has evolved over time. All the essays are well written and worth a read; some of them are funny and entertaining to boot. This is a worthy edition to the field of southern studies that also holds appeal for mainstream readers.
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And the rest:
Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning by Susan D. BlumMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I am convinced by the evidence that grading causes problems (it's not objective, it demotivates students, it doesn't truly measure learning--it doesn't account for the student who comes into the course writing A material and learns nothing or for the student who comes into the course writing F material and improves to a D, and a whole host of other issues).
I am not necessarily convinced that dispensing with grades solves those problems.
This book certainly gives me a great deal to think about and some good idea for how to adjust self- and peer-assessment exercises; I am all about the metacognition in my classes.
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The Massarenes by OuidaMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is such a fantastic book; I reread it for a conference presentation I'm giving this week, and I had forgotten how witty and funny it is. I think I will teach this book next time I teach an upper division level course; unlike many of her other books, it has very little French and other languages mixed in which makes reading easier for the students. The plot is also riveting--the nouveau riche Massarenes attempting to break into upper class society with the help of the scheming Lady Kenilworth--and truly suspenseful. It's perfect for a discussion of 19th-century class issues.
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Songbroken by Heather OsborneMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I don't think I can recommend this highly enough.
I don't want to spoil any of the plot, so I'll say very little about that here; instead I'll just note that the character work and the world building is so well done and interesting. I would happily read a billion stories set in this universe.
This novel also hits me right in all the feels. I spent most of it really emotionally moved at the depictions of people who are frustrated at their inability to live as their authentic selves.
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