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Diving into genre today: science fiction, historical romance, mystery, food writing, criticism, nostalgia—All the greats. Let's dive in.
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070) Better Living Through Criticism: How to Think about Art, Pleasure, Beauty, and Truth by A. O. Scott, finished June 17
I heard about this book when it came out in 2016—on Fresh Air, maybe—and was intrigued so when it came up in a recent search for another book, I grabbed it.
I'm shocked I read the whole thing, to be honest. I read about half in one sitting, alone in an empty football stadium, waiting for a high-school graduation to begin. So that got me some momentum. I thought after that I might skim the rest, reading in full the Q&A portions only. But then last night I was on a long train ride and running out of things to read so I just kept going. And now it's finished.
It's astonishing how he manages to say the same things over and over again without ever repeating himself for 268 pages. His main rhetorical device is to contradict the last thing he said and then to argue that both both are true and neither. Honestly, it's kind of a drag. But he keeps finding new ways to say the same thing (and then to once again disagree with himself) and, somehow, sure enough: I read all 268 pages.
Who is this book for? That's a fabulous question. But I suppose we are an educated people and all of us are critics, so everybody? But really. Who finds criticism a vocation? But few of us. So I guess it's a number actually much closer to nobody.
And thus you see what he has done to me.
thirteen days
071) Alice, Let's Eat by Calvin Trillin, finished June 20
I first read this book in 2000 on the recommendation of my cousin the Spook. Lady Steed and I were living with him and his wife before we found our first apartment. It was an excellent recommendation. I've read Trillin since (mostly in The New Yorker but also here) but this is my first return to that first beloved taste.
(This is the edition I read this time, from 1979.)
Anyway, it's still utterly delightful. Good food and a good marriage. Really. What else could one possibly ask of life?
I should add this is the perfect keep-in-the-car book. Easy to dip into and out of as you wait for someone. Ideal.
some months
072) My Lovely Vigil Keeping by Carla Kelly, finished June 21
I've been hearing about Carla Kelly for some time, and this book in particular. When I finally purchased it, I accidentally sent it to my mother who read it and loved it. Then I got it back, then I kept losing it or letting library books interrupt it. It was never my "walking book" or my "bedside book" or one of those categories that get constant progress, but it was a patient book and its characters and situations are so clear and so real that it was never hard to pick up where I left off.
If you know but one thing about this book, it's probably the historical event it's inspired by. But that event doesn't occur until more than 400 pages into a 431-page novel. In other words, while I recommend reading the book, I do not recommend reading the back of the book before you begin. Live your life unknowing just as the people in the book do.
Our hero is Della, sort of a reverse orphan-who-is-secretly-a-princess. Which is to say she is the illegitimate daughter of a miner and a Greek woman (who would barely count as white at the time—if she did at all) who left her an orphan with embarrassingly curly hair. She is raised by rich relations and so the world thinks she is a child of privilege who does things like go to school and get a job our of some peculiar eccentricity, rather than desperate need.
Besides her economic needs, the cruel neglect causes her to run back to the mines, taking a job as a schoolteacher for miners' children need in the Utah mountains. This is a romance and options abound for Della, but only one man can help her excavate her buried shames in order to find her own wonderful self.
It's a lovely, fun, and funny book, and it had me teary-eyed for the entire finale. I now understand the book's lofty reputation and encourage you too to seek it out.
about a year, probably more
073) Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre, finished July 9
I picked this up on Ursula's recommendation and because I was intrigued by a character whose gender is never identified by the text. The lack of gendered pronouns is smoothly done and if she hadn't pointed it out, I doubt I would have noticed.
The novel is episodic in nature and occasionally drops in plot points only to abandon them and leave you feeling a bit wondering why they even showed up (the cat in the cave, for instance), but the story overall is enjoyable and exciting and Snake is an excellent protagonist. (In short, I agree with OSC.) The sex wasn't as wild and frequent as Ursula led me to expect. I've never quite adopted the opinion that it's theoretically possible to develop a culture with utterly casual attitudes toward sex (and although I can't find them now, I've read several articles recently about the attitude toward sex in Gen Z tending to agree), but it's still a valuable possibility for fiction to consider.
Anyway, it won the Nebula AND the Hugo AND the Locus and while that kind of surprises me and seems like a relic of his era, the book HAS aged well all the same and I enjoyed reading it. It's out of print though and largely gone from libraries almost fifty years on from its hardback release, so good luck finding one. Crazy no one's leapt on its publication rights.
more than two weeks
074) The Red House Mystery by A. A. Milne, finished July 11
I picked this up on Raymond Chandler's "recommendation" and am quite glad I did. The sleuth and his pal are cheery company (not for nothing does this edition quote Wodehouse saying, "I love his writing") and, while I too notched a couple of Chandler's complaints, my only real problem with the story (treating it as airy entertainment rather than literahtoor) was the penultimate chapter in which the culprit writes a lengthy confession. (Which reminds me: Chandler gives the whole thing away. Luckily, enough time passed before I read the novel myself that I had forgotten everything.)
The novel is such that the leaps made by the sleuth delight while the larger pieces of the puzzle fall into place without requiring his explaining them to us. It's that kind of mystery.
about three days
075) Best. Movie. Year. Ever. How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen by Brian Raftery, finished July 16
Another book I grabbed from the library intending to skim, reading about the movies that most interested me (you can see what he covers here), then returning mostly unread, but I started it postlibrary, sitting in the park while my daughter swung, and then I just kept going.
I should start by rolling my eyes at the let's-sell-books-with-controversy title. While I think Raferty believes the claim, he hardly proves it. Almost every reason he gives he contradicts elsewhere in the book or simply fails to hold up under consideration. The most persuasive version of his best-ever claim is in an interview he did with producer Brad Simpson: "I thought it was the beginning, but it was actually the peak." Granted, without all the other quotations and movie titles surrounding it, less persuasive. But yeah. Maybe it was. Who knows. As writer Richard Curtis said, " Madrigals were huge in the fifteenth century."
Both those quotations get to what's really great about this book though and that is the numerous and voluminous interviews Raftery did with people involved with every element of filmmaking. It's fabulous. As a series of oral histories of movies that were made in 1999, this book is truly excellent. But I guess Some Cool Movies from 1999 wasn't going to move as much copy.
Anyway, it's a terrific book. If it didn't waste the occasional work trying to justify it's title, I might not have any complaints at all. If you're into this stuff, consider Best. Movie. Year. Ever. highly recommended. Even with that title
almost exactly a week to the hour
PREVIOUSLY THIS YEAR
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2024 × 10 = Bette Davis being Bette Davis
001) Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke, finished January 1
002) The Complete Peanuts: 1977 – 1978 by Charles M. Schulz , finished January 6
003) The Sandman: The Kindly Ones by Neil Gaiman et al, finished January 10
004) Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke, finished January 17
005) Touched by Walter Mosley, finished January 19
006) Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever by Matt Singer, finished January 20
007) Evergreen Ape: The Story of Bigfoot by David Norman Lewis, finished January 24
008) What Falls Away by Karin Anderson, finished February 1
009) Peanuts Jubilee: My Life and Art with Charlie Brown and Others by Charles M. Schulz, finished February 3
010) Legends of Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke, finished February 3
011) Roaming by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki, finished February 3
012) The Return of Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke, February 9
013) Things in the Basement by Ben Hatke, February 10
014) A Charlie Brown Religion: Exploring the Spiritual Life and Work of Charles M. Schulz by Stephen J. Lind, finished February 10
015) 1st Nephi: A Brief Theological Introduction by Joseph M. Spencer, finished February 10
016) Dendo by Brittany Long Olsen, finished February 11
017) The Ten Winners of the 2023 Whiting Awards, finished February 12
018) The Peanuts Papers: Writers and Cartoonists on Charlie Brown, Snoopy & the Gang, and the Meaning of Life edited by Andrew Blaune, finished February 17
019) Do Not Disturb Any Further by John Callahan, finished February 17
020) Mighty Jack by Ben Hatke, finished circa February 19
021) 2nd Nephi: A Brief Theological Introduction by Terryl Givens, February 24
Let's start with the untimely deaths
022) The Life and Death of King John by William Shakespeare, finished February 28
022) Mighty Jack and the Goblin King by Ben Hatke, finished February 29
023) Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez, finished March 4
024) Millay by Edna St. Vincent Millay, finished March
025, 026) The Life and Death of King John by William Shakespeare, finished March 6, 8
027) Murder Book by Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell, finished March 11
028) A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
029) The Last Hero by Terry Pratchett and Paul Kidby, finished March 15
030) Karen's Roller Skates by Ann M. Martin and Katy Farina, finished March 18
Four comics could hardly be more different
031) The Sandman: The Wake by Neil Gaiman et al, finished March 18
032) The World of Edena by Mœbius, finished March 23
033) Three Rocks: The Story of Ernie Bushmiller, the Man Who Created Nancy by Bill Griffith, finished March 23
034) Mighty Jack and Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke, finished March 23
Jacob says be nice and read comics
035) Jacob: A Brief Theological Introduction by Deidre Nicole Green, finished March 24
036) Starter Villain by John Scalzi, finished March 27
037) Mister Invincible: Local Hero by Pascal Jousselin, finished March 30
038) The Toon Treasury of Classic Children's Comics, edited by Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly, finished March 30
039) Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass by Mariko Tamaki and Steve Pugh, finished April 1
040) The Super Hero's Journey by Patrick McDonnell, finished April 5
041) The Stranger Beside Me: Updated Twentieth Anniversary Edition by Ann Rule, finished April 9
042) Huda F Are You? by Huda Fahmy, finished April 13
043) Enos, Jarom, Omni: a brief theological introduction by Sharon J. Harris, finished April 25
044) The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson, finished April 27
045,046,049) The Mysteries by Bill Watterson and John Kascht, finished April 29, 30; May 3
047) The Children's Bach by Helen Garner, finished April 30
048) No. 1 with a Bullet by Sehman/Corona/Hickman/Wands, finished May 2
050) Over Seventy by P. G. Wodehouse, finished May 7
051) The Happy Shop by Brittany Long Olsen, finished May 16
052) Shades of Fear, finished May 21
053) Love Poems in Quarantine by Sarah Ruhl, finished May 21
And a vibrator makes it five dozen.....
054) The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt, finished May 25
055) Mosiah: A Brief Theological Introduction by James E. Faulconer, finished May 26
056) Lives of the Monster Dogs by Kirstin Bakis
057) 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater by Sarah Ruhl, finished June 1
058) Our Malady: Lessons in Liberty from a Hospital Diary by Timothy Snyder, finished June 4
059) Dead Man's Cell Phone by Sarah Ruhl, finished June 6
060) The Next Room, or the vibrator play by Sarah Ruhl, finished June 8
And with Ursula, 69
061) The Robber Bridegroom by Eudora Welty, finished June 10
062) Blood of the Virgin by Sammy Harkham, finished June 11
063) Mulysses by Øyvind Torseter, finished June 11
064) Between the River and the Bridge by Craig Ferguson, finished June 12
065) Cranky Chicken by Katherine Battersby, finished June 12
066) Mile End Kids Stories by Isabelle Arsenault, finished June 12
067) Tiny Titans: Field Trippin' by author, finished June 14
068) Brief Theological Introductions: Alma 1–29 by Kylie Nielson Turley, finished June 16
069) Words Are My Matter: Writings on Life and Books by Ursula K. Le Guin, finished June 16
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