how is september halfway done?
Sep. 15th, 2022 01:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lunabee341. Josh turned 44. We had a house full of people. Josh's cousin and his wife who currently live in DC came to visit, his sister came to visit, Emma came for the weekend, and our Atlanta friends (D & J & kids) came, too. It was wonderful!
His cousin's wife has worked for NPR off-and-on for twenty years, and I very much enjoyed all the name dropping and peeks behind the curtain.
Josh's favorite gift was a personalized video message from the announcer of BattleBots. Emma and D conspired on this one. A+++ work
2.
Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002 by David Sedaris
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Sedaris's diary entries are much more candid about the violence, homophobia, racism, and sexism in which he is constantly immersed in his twenties-thirties than the short story collections (which makes sense). I feel a real kinship with him when he describes how disgusted and uncomfortable he is with that racism and sexism despite having few positive models to encourage those feelings. He's also much more candid about his drug and alcohol use; it's a wonder he survived his twenties.
Sedaris is always funny; I laughed out loud more times than I can remember while reading this book. He also tugs wonderfully on the heartstrings.
Highly recommend this one.
View all my reviews
Two-Headed Poems by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Beautifully crafted poems about love and motherhood among other topics. I always walk away from reading anything Atwood has written with intense feelings of satisfaction and wonder and jealousy (wish I could write like that).
I've been reading a lot of poetry lately, and what I appreciate about Atwood's poetry is that while her poems are interesting on the sonic level, she never sacrifices meaning for sound. I also appreciate that everything she writes is narrative and that I am able to follow that narrative.
View all my reviews
Train Whistle Guitar by Albert Murray
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I read this in grad school for a class I took on literature inspired by the blues, but I have absolutely no memory of reading it (though I clearly did; there's the marginalia to prove it LOL), so reading it now was like reading it for the first time.
I don't think I can say enough positive things about about this novel. It is so evocative of time and place, and the way the novel is crafted with the conventions of the blues (the call and response, the repetition) grounds it even further in the African American culture of the Deep South following World War I when Jim Crow is king and Prohibition casts a dangerous pall over so many communities.
This is a coming of age story, a boy's story, and it's absolutely lovely. Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
Fellow Feelings: Poems by Richard Howard
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
How have I never heard of this poet before? Wow and wow!
The entire collection is wonderful, but two of my favorites are "Decades for Hart Crane" (about the poet's responses to Hart Crane over the years) and "Discarded" (in which he finds a discarded library book with a page that was restored on his birthday).
I will be seeking more Howard.
View all my reviews
My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales by Kate Bernheimer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I thoroughly love reworkings of fairy tales, and many of these stories are delightful. However, some of them become incomprehensible to me in their attempts to subvert the original fairytale; the handful that try too hard to be avant garde or transmute the original story into a different setting or a different trope were not good reads. On the whole, though, I enjoyed this collection.
I also wanted to make note of this quote from the intro (xviii): "The fairy tale belongs to the poor. I know of no fairy tale which upholds the tyrant, or takes the part of the strong against the weak. A facist fairy tale is an absurdity."
View all my reviews
Selected Poems by Gwendolyn Brooks
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a phenomenal collection of poetry. I suspect most of the people reading this blog are familiar with "The Mother," Brooks's poem on abortion, but other favorites of mine include "the preacher: ruminates behind the sermon" and "The Sundays of Satin-Legs Smith."
Brooks's formal, classically inspired poems leave me cold, but her poems about African American culture that are written more colloquially resonate with me strongly.
View all my reviews
His cousin's wife has worked for NPR off-and-on for twenty years, and I very much enjoyed all the name dropping and peeks behind the curtain.
Josh's favorite gift was a personalized video message from the announcer of BattleBots. Emma and D conspired on this one. A+++ work
2.
Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002 by David SedarisMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Sedaris's diary entries are much more candid about the violence, homophobia, racism, and sexism in which he is constantly immersed in his twenties-thirties than the short story collections (which makes sense). I feel a real kinship with him when he describes how disgusted and uncomfortable he is with that racism and sexism despite having few positive models to encourage those feelings. He's also much more candid about his drug and alcohol use; it's a wonder he survived his twenties.
Sedaris is always funny; I laughed out loud more times than I can remember while reading this book. He also tugs wonderfully on the heartstrings.
Highly recommend this one.
View all my reviews
Two-Headed Poems by Margaret AtwoodMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Beautifully crafted poems about love and motherhood among other topics. I always walk away from reading anything Atwood has written with intense feelings of satisfaction and wonder and jealousy (wish I could write like that).
I've been reading a lot of poetry lately, and what I appreciate about Atwood's poetry is that while her poems are interesting on the sonic level, she never sacrifices meaning for sound. I also appreciate that everything she writes is narrative and that I am able to follow that narrative.
View all my reviews
Train Whistle Guitar by Albert MurrayMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I read this in grad school for a class I took on literature inspired by the blues, but I have absolutely no memory of reading it (though I clearly did; there's the marginalia to prove it LOL), so reading it now was like reading it for the first time.
I don't think I can say enough positive things about about this novel. It is so evocative of time and place, and the way the novel is crafted with the conventions of the blues (the call and response, the repetition) grounds it even further in the African American culture of the Deep South following World War I when Jim Crow is king and Prohibition casts a dangerous pall over so many communities.
This is a coming of age story, a boy's story, and it's absolutely lovely. Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
Fellow Feelings: Poems by Richard HowardMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
How have I never heard of this poet before? Wow and wow!
The entire collection is wonderful, but two of my favorites are "Decades for Hart Crane" (about the poet's responses to Hart Crane over the years) and "Discarded" (in which he finds a discarded library book with a page that was restored on his birthday).
I will be seeking more Howard.
View all my reviews
My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me: Forty New Fairy Tales by Kate BernheimerMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I thoroughly love reworkings of fairy tales, and many of these stories are delightful. However, some of them become incomprehensible to me in their attempts to subvert the original fairytale; the handful that try too hard to be avant garde or transmute the original story into a different setting or a different trope were not good reads. On the whole, though, I enjoyed this collection.
I also wanted to make note of this quote from the intro (xviii): "The fairy tale belongs to the poor. I know of no fairy tale which upholds the tyrant, or takes the part of the strong against the weak. A facist fairy tale is an absurdity."
View all my reviews
Selected Poems by Gwendolyn BrooksMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a phenomenal collection of poetry. I suspect most of the people reading this blog are familiar with "The Mother," Brooks's poem on abortion, but other favorites of mine include "the preacher: ruminates behind the sermon" and "The Sundays of Satin-Legs Smith."
Brooks's formal, classically inspired poems leave me cold, but her poems about African American culture that are written more colloquially resonate with me strongly.
View all my reviews
no subject
Date: 2022-09-15 05:55 pm (UTC)I love your book reviews so much.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-17 10:01 am (UTC)Thank you.
It really was. It was so good to see family that we haven't seen in years. We haven't had a full house in far too long.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-15 06:00 pm (UTC)Ooh, interesting. Was Sherman Alexie's Reservation Blues on the syllabus?
no subject
Date: 2022-09-17 10:14 am (UTC)He wrote this book that was really well received about the blues (I guess it was probably his dissertation), and he was a musician who played the blues, and he made a big deal about how he lived the blues life on the streets playing with Mister Satan (there's a wikipedia article about them called Satan and Adam). Reading that now and the wikipedia article about him, I can see that he's got the musical bonafides, but he came across at the time as this white guy from a wealthy background who dropped out of Princeton to play act at having a gritty street life. He has an incredibly grating personality, or at least he did at the time. LOL
no subject
Date: 2022-09-15 07:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-17 10:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-15 07:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-17 10:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-15 07:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-17 10:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-15 07:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-17 10:15 am (UTC)It really was. Emma outdid herself.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-15 08:32 pm (UTC)Gwendolyn Brooks was one of the poets who got me through high school. I think one of the reasons I loved her was because she went back and forth across the supposed borders of classical vs vernacular, a region where I was looking for my own balance.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-17 10:17 am (UTC)*nods nods*
That makes so much sense. I really struggle to appreciate poetry that is highly formal; I can appreciate it on a technical level, but the conversational always resonantes with me more.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-17 11:26 pm (UTC)It's really funny -- I'm the opposite. I love rhyme and meter in poetry. I wonder if it's because of the hymns. Childhood indoctrination. laugh
no subject
Date: 2022-09-18 10:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-18 06:10 pm (UTC)(Also ahahhaaha I am sorry the Catholics didn't put enough flavor in their music I am a terrible person)
no subject
Date: 2022-09-20 10:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-15 11:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-17 10:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-16 12:19 pm (UTC)-I've asked my library to retrieve the Murray from storage. It might also be good for Kid 1, who is reading some adult lit now.
- Last year I read a different collection of Bernheimer's fairy tales and oof. I didn't understand any of them.
- Gwendolyn Brooks has been on my to read list for a long time. Must move her up!
no subject
Date: 2022-09-17 10:19 am (UTC)In this collection, each fairy tale is by a different author (all of them famous, like Kelly Link and so on); she's just the editor.
Brooks is amazing, truly amazing.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-16 12:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-17 10:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-16 01:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-17 10:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-16 05:58 pm (UTC)I love the comment about fairy tales: so true.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-17 10:20 am (UTC)I loved that comment, too; I'd never thought about it before, but it is so true.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-18 06:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-18 10:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-09-19 01:55 am (UTC)(And ooh, that David Sedaris one sounds excellent...)
no subject
Date: 2022-09-19 10:16 am (UTC)It was really interesting reading his diary entries not turned into stories. I mean they're edited and cleaned up for sure but not made into narratives. Very neat to see the stories lurking behind the entries.