The Nerdy, Wordy, Reading Life
The Rabbit books are depressing me. They evoke a working-class malaise that is familiar and oppressive. Also the obsession with sex is just difficult to read. Unpacking this is a bit hard for me. I’m not a prude. I’m not uptight. But I often feel that if I object to sex in a book that [...]
I decided that I needed to get started on Rabbit Angstrom just so the longest book on my list was out of the way. One day and one seventh of my way in, I’m not thrilled but not horrified. I enjoyed Updike’s Henry Bech and found the stories interesting and varied. So far Angstrom intriguingly [...]
Ok, so I’m not really happy with the results of yesterday’s contest. So instead, ladies, tell my what your favorite book by a male author is and why and gentlemen your favorite book by a female author and why. Contest closes Thursday night. Huck Finn is finished and I now realize that I had never [...]
I don’t feel like I have much to say today so it’s book giveaway day instead. It seems to me that the majority of my readers are women. So today we are having a gender-discrimanatory contest. For the women, I have a “manly” book. Written by John Muir, the autobiographical My First Summer in the [...]
Does anyone but me ever make themselves sound a little better than they are? No? Just me then. I go to a local coffeehouse Saturday mornings (because my husband is awesomely sweet and helpful) and there is an older (70-ish) gentleman that is there every Saturday at the same time I am. He has spoken [...]
I finished The Dain Curse and started The Glass Key. I’m so over hardboiled crime. Chandler was a bit more powerful stylistically but both Chandler and Hammett are apparently completely indifferent to human life. Body after body piles up and, well, blech! I wonder if modern mystery stories have this high a body count though [...]
Finished To the Lighthouse. Started The Dain Curse, The Glass Key and Selected Stories by Dashiell Hammet and finished the stories. I feel as though I’m making progress and that is good. Still not a Virginia Woolf fan. The woman had style but really, what did she say that was important? Meaningful? Not to dismiss [...]
I fell asleep at about 8:30 last night. Ridiculous I know but my eyes were so heavy, I simply couldn’t help it. I do feel rested this morning, which is odd, but not, I think, worth it. I miss my husband since normally the two hours between the boys’ bedtime and our mutual unconsciousness is [...]
“The Asses found themselves once so intolerably oppressed with cruel masters and heavy burdens, that they sent their ambassadors to Jupiter, with a petition for redress. Jupiter found the request unreasonable, and so gave them this answer, that humane society could not be preserved without carrying burdens some way of other: so that if they [...]
Don’t you just hate it when all your inspiration comes after you’re in bed ready to fall asleep? Yeah, me too. I was up writing until midnight. I know that is not late to you young things; I too used to be up until 2, 3 or 5 for homework, for “hanging out” or just [...]