Non-Fiction

Behind On Book Blogging

2012, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Fiction, Non-Fiction, Women /

Ouch. I’ve fallen way behind on book blogging. How did that happen?

Let’s see…

Last night I finished Letters to Kurt. Oy. That was depressing. Not that I expected it to not be depressing. Writing letters about suicide and the aftermath to your, errr, friend who committed suicide – particularly when you’re Eric Erlandson – makes for depressing business.

Before that, I read Always Coca-Cola. Interesting. Translated from the original, (Lebanese? Arabic? I’ve forgotten.), I liked it. I liked the three women featured. I liked the contrast between them. I liked the cynical look at branding and identity.

And before that, a book that doesn’t really fit with the other two but hey, I’ve fallen behind and I’ve got to get caught up somehow.  A Street Through Time – children’s nonfiction. I have no idea how this ended up in our library bag. I probably snagged it from the featured non-fiction in the new release area, I do that a lot. Interesting but not quite as interesting as I’d hoped. I don’t know why it didn’t catch me as much as I thought it would. Elly must not have loved it either since she didn’t say anything about it at all when she put it back on the shelf.  Kind of ho-hum.

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Diary of a Submissive

2012, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction /

When I heard the BlogHer Bookclub would be reading Diary of a Submissive, I chuckled and then didn’t think about it again because I don’t generally read along with the bookclub. Oops. Turns out I did read along after all. And I’m darn glad I didn’t read 50 Shades of Grey last week like I’d originally planned. A girl can only read so much BDSM before it makes her a little frazzled. OK THIS girl can only read so much BDSM before it makes her frazzled. And Diary of a Submissive packs a really strong BDSM punch (no pun intended.)

Sophie Morgan is a good writer. Maybe too good. It was, at points, a little too well written. A little too polished. A little too sterile. Subject matter this emotional, particularly when framed as “Diary of…” should have brought a little of the author’s emotion along with it. The journalist in her came through loud and clear, the real woman part — maybe not so much. Telling, considering just how much of Morgan’s life she did share.

I’ve read a good bit of erotica. And a good bit of it has been BDSM. I don’t think I’ve ever read one quite so… painful. Physically painful. The D/s relationship becomes overshadowed by the sadomasochism. It was tough to read, in places. A lot of places. And, I hated the way the cover felt so I found myself just wanting to get to the end so I could put it down and never think of it again.

I probably will think of it again, though. It left a mark. Words will do that and so will paddles.

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The Notorious Benedict Arnold

2012, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Non-Fiction /

I like non-fiction books about the American Revolution – you can blame my father for that. I’m also a huge fan of Benedict Arnold, which you can also blame on my father. So, I was pretty sure I was going to enjoy The Notorious Benedict Arnold and I did. I really did. Poor guy. I mean I know, I know but really. The guy did some really great things in battle and without him, it’s hard to say for sure that we would have defeated the British at all. Gates was USELESS (or close to it) without Arnold, well, let’s not even think about what would have happened.

Also, how many guys decide to invade Canada and then DO IT? Not nearly enough, that’s how many (sorry Sassymonkey and the rest of you nice Canadians, but it was true. Very true.)

Too bad it turned out the way it did, for Arnold. It’s just a darn shame.

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Two Cybils Non-fiction

2012, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Non-Fiction /

I love all of the Cybils books but I think I really love the non-fiction short lists. The books selected are always so darn good.  Here’s two examples:

The Many Faces of George Washington: Remaking a Presidential Icon  was super interesting. Learning how (and why) three realistic life sized models of Washington, at three different times of his life, were made – when we don’t REALLY know what Washington looked like.  Technology is amazing. It just is.

Speaking of technology, Into the Unknown: How Great Explorers Found Their Way By Land, Sea and Air.  What I liked best is that this book features explorers kids don’t always hear about. Pytheas, Zheng He, Mary Kingsley, and the Piccards are included along with the typical favorites like Marco Polo, Columbus, Cook, and Livingstone.  The pull-outs are excellent.

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Two More Books – One Fun, One Not Fun At All (#readathon)

2 Comments / 2012, Books in Bed, Cybil Challenge, Dewey's Readathon, Non-Fiction, Poetry, Young Adult /

First  – A little book I noticed on the library shelf and thought it might be fun to read and interesting for the kids to flip through, The End: 50 Apocalyptic Visions from Pop Culture That You Should Know About… before it’s too late.

I’ve read/watched/heard most of the stuff featured here and it was fun to think about old movies and old books – One I haven’t read but am going to have to check out one of these days is The Scarlet Plague.  And now I have the urge to watch Tank Girl again. Or Mad Max. Or even Waterworld. Heh.

Now the not fun at all book, from the Cybils Shortliste – Requiem Poems of the Terezin Ghetto.  Nothing fun about Holocaust poetry. Nothing at all. I’m glad I read it, though.

(Readathon page count: 1,032)

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The Soiling of Old Glory

2012, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction /

I should probably have skipped reading The Soiling of Old Glory during the RNC – politics all day and then a book about busing, race and class made for a pretty depressing week. The book was good, it was just really bad timing. I should have read it a month ago, before the ugly election politics really got going.

Read it but wait til next year, unless you need to get fired up about race and class issues. Then this would probably help you right along.

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Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

2012, Adoption Reading Challenge, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction, Queer /

I love Jeanette Winterson and that’s pretty much all I knew when I grabbed Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? From the library shelf. It was obviously non-fiction, with a picture of a child who had to be a young Winterson – so I figured it was a memoir. Or maybe not a memoir but something about coming out . Whatever. It didn’t matter. Winterson wrote it, I was going to read it.

And I did. Not quite straight through, because I started it very late one night, but pretty darn close.

Winterson writes in true Winterson fashion about her adoption and early childhood with Mrs (and Mr) Winterson – it wasn’t pretty, to say the least. Mrs Winterson had some big, big problems and Mr Winterson had a few of his own, (war related, poverty related, his own childhood related, and of course – Mrs Winterson related.)  Then, she jumps ahead 25 years – to her nervous breakdown and the realization that she needed to look for her birth mother.

At that point, I was left wishing I knew a little bit more than I did about the missing 25 years.

Let me spoil it for you… Winterson finds her mom, an aunt, a half brother, more family members. They don’t mind her queerness, they want her to be part of their family but… it’s hard. Of course. Adoption is hard. Finding your birth family is hard. Figuring out what happens next is very hard. And when you throw in the childhood, the rough 25 years, the celebrity, the breakdown, the very thing that is Jeanette Winterson… it’s all going to be hard.

I’m fascinated by the Amazon reviews/comments. The people who thought it would be a self-help book. The people who find Winterson unlikeable. The people who find her treatment of her birth family untenable. The people who don’t recognize Winterson’s mentions and quotes from her novels as important to this story, to understanding what led her to be the person she was. Fascinating. This is a book for those who are thoughtful – It’s not self-help and Winterson doesn’t want you to like her. She tells you that here. She’s been telling you that in every novel she’s ever written. She doesn’t want you to like her because… she does not deserve it. Mrs Winterson (and the circumstances of her adoption) taught her to believe that…

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Three More Cybils — All Non-Fiction

2012, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Non-Fiction, Young Adult /

Let’s see… what did I read?

Unraveling Freedom. This was interesting because I don’t read a lot of books about WW1, fiction or non-fiction. Nice change from the overwhelming amount of WW2 books I usually read. It was also a nice change to read about WW1 and the US – not WW1 in Europe.

Next, I read Amelia Lost. This took me a long time to get through and I’m not sure why. Maybe because I was reading it while Diana Nyad was attempting to swim from Cuba to Florida and following a living, awesome woman was more interesting than reading stuff about Amelia Earhart that caused me to not like her quite so much. (I had no idea the US government paid to build the airfield on Howland Island JUST for Earhart to land on. Sheesh. We/She would have been better off if she’d just had Roosevelt arrange for inflight fueling at Midway…)

Last, but not least, How They Croaked. This was fun. All of the interesting facts about how famous people died. Nice illustrations (cartoon-like.) It would be a fun book to have on the shelf for kids to pull down and flip through for fun.

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How to Hepburn

2012, Books in Bed, Favorites, Non-Fiction, Women /

My mom sent me the link to How to Hepburn when it’s price was reduced on Kindle. I didn’t buy it but I did immediately reserve it because I am a Katharine Hepburn fan. Possibly because I am kind of like her, lol. Don’t wallow, just get on with it. Marriage – bah. Etc. etc. etc.  Err the Spencer Tracy thing… not so much. But, I’m not judging her. We all have our fucked up baggage to deal with. Also, it kind of worked well for her (see that no marriage thing…)

Fun book. I liked it a lot.  There’s nothing new in here, nothing surprising if you know anything about Katharine Hepburn – still, I almost wish I’d bought it after all.

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Elf Girl

2012, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction, Women /

Reverend Jen is… hard to describe. She kind of scares me. I would love to go visit the Troll Museum, have wanted to visit the Troll Museum since Suzanne Reisman wrote about it in her book Off the Beaten Subway Track, but Rev Jen scares me.

I thought I could convince TW to try it, after reading Elf Girl but then I made the mistake of watching some of Rev Jen’s videos. I think she’s just a little too out there for us. Maybe if we took Michelle with us?

Heh.

I did like the book. Quite a lot. I also agree with her that wearing elf ears is no weirder than some of the other socially accepted stuff people do to themselves.

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