about a book

jaclynday:

What I’ve Read: Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman by Sam Wasson

I remember the first time I re-watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s as youngster and finally realized, “OH. She’s a hooker.” From the screenplay to the casting to the ducking Hollywood censors for the sake of the story about a high-class call girl, this book provides some really interesting behind-the-scenes tidbits.

The book is broken down into short, 3-4 paragraph categories (i.e., “THE DRESS”) which I think was a genius way of organizing all the information Wasson amassed about the film. It makes for a quick, satisfying read, especially if you have seen the movie. If you haven’t seen the movie, this provides the perfect excuse to watch it. Ideally, you’d watch it once, read this book, then rewatch it. I attend to sit down for another viewing as soon as possible now after finishing the book. I want to see it while the behind-the-scenes details are still fresh in my mind!

The one thing I think Wasson slipped on was his insistence on providing some watershed moment to the entire thing and putting out a feminist, sex-in-films thesis (“dawn of the modern woman”) that he tried to circle back to every now and then. Unfortunately, he didn’t write a book that successfully or thoroughly proved his thesis. Instead of trying to mesh the entertainment portion with his theory, he should have chosen one route or another…or lengthened the book and discussed his theories in the context of other events happening in popular culture at the time.

Have you read this book? What did you think?

jaclynday:

What I’ve Read: Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America by Barbara Ehrenreich

I love Ehrenreich’s other books and went into this one expecting the same. I did love it, but found it more uneven (in content and in pace) than I was used to from her. Ehrenreich comes from an interesting place when discussing the “positivity movement” that has taken a front seat in American psychology over the past few decades. After a bout with breast cancer, Ehrenreich found the “cure yourself through positivity!” message prevalent in the community to be off-putting…even disgusting. After reading her points (some of which are surprisingly dense), I have to agree that there are limits to how far positivity can take a person before rational, common sense should take over.

I’ve noticed instances of the rampant positivity campaign in my personal life over the past few years too. It’s becoming less and less common for people to criticize or complain without feeling the need to qualify the statement with something more upbeat or to explain away the negative with a positive. (“I’m sure it’s just because I’m doing such a good job and he/she is threatened!”) Then you take positivity one step further to the law of attraction, as made popular by The Secret. I’ve had people tell me earnestly that they expect certain things to happen in their lives because they have a positive outlook and believe that that positivity will produce a certain outcome for them.

Alas, as Ehrenreich points out, that type of thinking is a fallacy. As for me personally, I see no harm in someone preferring a glass half-full approach as long as they are grounded in the knowledge that positivity alone does not change outcomes and they recognize some rational truths about things sometimes discarded in place of positivity alone. Hard work, for example. Tenacity is another.

Ehrenreich touches on how Oprah has really manifested the “believe in yourself and it will happen” mentality among women (and men, but mostly women) in America. Her Life Class series currently airing on OWN is almost entirely about manifesting things in ones life through “intention.” Of course, it’s easy for someone worth billions to lecture on about how “intention” has made such a difference in her life. What about the single mom struggling to pay bills? What about the family with a foreclosed home? Intention and positivity aren’t bad in and of themselves, but they are not a cure and they are not life-changers. They are just helpful tools alongside the assortment of other tools that people have at their disposal in life: education, upbringing, personal ambition, intelligence, socioeconomic status. Factor in positivity and intention alongside a good education and hard work and you may be on to something. But! You can’t have “it all” without acknowledging that a lot more goes into the end result than a mere positive outlook.

Of course, if the powers of mind were truly “infinite,” one would not have to eliminate negative people from one’s life either; one could, for example, simply choose to interpret their behavior in a positive way—maybe he’s criticizing me for my own good, maybe she’s being sullen because she likes me so much and I haven’t been attentive, and so on. The advice that you must change your environment—for example, by eliminating negative people and news—is an admission that there may in fact be a “real world” out there that is utterly unaffected by our wishes. In the face this terrifying possibility, the only “positive” response is to withdraw into one’s own carefully constructed world of constant approval and affirmation, nice news, and smiling people.

[…]

The question is why one should be so inwardly preoccupied at all. Why not reach out to others in love and solidarity or peer into the natural world for some glimmer of understanding? Why retreat into anxious introspection when, as Emerson might have said, there is a vast world outside to explore? Why spend so much time working on oneself when there is so much real work to be done?

It’s a fascinating book and particularly insightful when you put it in the context of what’s happening around us in the world now.

Have you read this book? What do you think of the whole positivity/law of attraction movement?

folkinz:

Alison Bechdel’s Graphic Novel ‘Fun Home’ to Become a Stage Musical

Great talent is converging with playwright Lisa Kron and composer Jeanine Tesori adapting Alison Bechdel’s critically lauded graphic novel Fun Home to a stage musical via the Sundance Institute Theater Program.

Bechdel created a spot-on microcosm of lesbian life, politics, love and pop culture with her long-running comic strip “Dykes to Watch Out For” from 1983 – 2008, and while that strip was certainly semi-autobiographical, her graphic novel Fun Home focused on  her upbringing in her home that housed the Bechdel Funeral Home and on her relationship with her father.

“My father and I grew up in the same small Pennsylvania town and he was gay and I was gay and he killed himself and I became a lesbian cartoonist,” Bechdel’s character says in Fun Home.

This is one of my favorite books (graphic novel) and if you haven’t read it I can’t recommend it enough. 

I don’t often read YA novels anymore. I’ve taken myself into the world of classics, like D.H. Lawrence and (what I consider to be a modern classic) A.S. Byatt (Possession). But through a random recommendation from Amazon, I recently picked up Jennifer Echols’ Going too Far. It isn’t as cheesy as most YA novels tend to be. It certainly won’t win a Pulitzer. But it’s a light read with dark undertones (and overtones, to be honest) to take away from the heaviness of early twentieth century literature that I’ve recently been into.

The story goes, a young woman has to undergo punishment administered by an enthusiastic newbie cop in the form of a week long ride-along. During this week, both break down each other’s walls and figure out exactly why each other hurts, all the while being the giver of such pains.

It’s a solid story, with few if any at all, plot holes. The characters are written with strong voices, and they’re haunting enough to stay with you. I like the length and pace of the book because they both go together so well. The romance is very unconventional. When you start reading it, it seems pretty far-fetched for the characters to have the kind of connection that they build. But after having gone through their “love’s journey” so to speak, it’s pretty obvious that they spark something in one another that they both seem to lack in their respective lives. I’d read it again and again.

-namevictoriais

jaclynday:

What I’ve Read: The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

This is a book that’s really entirely about baseball. Sort of. It’s about baseball and it’s about people and relationships. There’s a reason it’s also received rave reviews and countless awards and mentions—it’s a really, REALLY freaking good book.

On the surface, it’s not that complex. It’s the story of a surprisingly talented college-aged baseball player, his roommate, his older mentor and a college president and his daughter. The majority of the action takes place on the baseball field, in the dorms or in the president’s living quarters. It feels like a coming-of-age book in a lot of ways, but it’s not just that. Where another writer may have taken a sardonic, overly intellectual eye to this story, Harbach was content to make it warm and earnest and that’s why I couldn’t put it down for two days straight.

After finishing this book, I knew that I wasn’t likely to read another like it for some time and I was surprised to find myself depressed by the thought. I’ve read several really good books in the past few months, but this one stands out as that rare example of something that deserves the hype, but never seemed engineered specifically to generate it. For that reason alone, I fully excuse the few problems I had with it (errant storylines that never got wrapped up, characters that seemed important but weren’t).

If you’re looking for a great novel, or maybe a new selection for your book club, I’d highly recommend taking a look at this!

Have you read this book? What did you think?

jaclynday:

What I’ve Read: The Atlas of Love by Laurie Frankel

I picked this up from a Borders clearance sale that Brandon and I popped into recently (all books 90% off…it was sad and exhilarating at the same time). I thought the cover looked cute and I’m never one to turn down a book that costs about $1. (Again, so sad!)

Because I paid such a low price for the book and because it was one of the “leftovers” in the fiction section, I didn’t have high expectations. I just wanted to be entertained and thought it looked like a good, light read…perfect for reading in the bath or with a cup of tea.

Instead, I was happily surprised that Frankel’s dialogue and character development grabbed me from the first page and held my attention until I finished. It’s her first published book, but you wouldn’t know it. She has a confident voice and the interesting details in this book kept it from being your cliched “baby on the cover” novel. The book’s pace does ebb and flow, but I was charmed enough by her writing to keep powering through.

The Atlas of Love is the story of three English-lit graduate students: Janey, Katie and Jill, who band together to help Jill when she becomes unexpectedly pregnant. After Jill’s boyfriend makes a break for it, Janey and Katie become substitute parents—living with Jill and Atlas (her son) and helping with everything from feedings to naps to play time. The book is thought-provoking, especially as tensions grow between the girls as Jill starts to pull away from the intimacy of their unconventional “family” situation.

The book is thoroughly charming and I hope Frankel continues on to write a sequel, since several of the character’s story lines have plenty left to explore. If you need a heart-warming “chick lit” book but would rather do without the cliches that usually come along with the genre, this is a good place to start.

P.S. Have you entered my book giveaway yet?

Have you read this book? What did you think?

readafuckingbook:

This Bridge Called My Back - Writings by Radical Women of Color

I don’t care what gender studies or queer theory class you’ve taken, you need to read this book, but be warned, it is a rare find and might expensive. It contains several essays by womanists discussing their experience, racism, poverty, how racism pervaded the feminist movement in the early 1980s and most importantly the individual experiences of asian pacific, black, american indian and latina/chicana women. This words you find in this book and the truths that will make your soul sick are imperrative for understanding the history of racism, feminism, systematic oppression and white privilege. These are stories that have, even today, been swept under the rug and out of sight. 

You need to read this fucking book. 

(via alohanico)

jaclynday:

What I’ve Read: The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson

This book is not your typical nonfiction examination of a certain subset of humanity. This is especially surprising because the topic of psychopathy is ripe for exploitation by writers. Think of the numbers of bad true crime nonfiction books that have been sold simply by masquerading as definitive works on the mind of a serial killer.

That’s not the case with this book. Refreshingly, it’s told from Ronson’s first-person perspective as he investigates psychopathy in both institutionalized settings and from the front-lines—with those people who may be psychopaths, but are also high-powered executives or politicians.

Much of the book is based upon Ronson’s meeting with Bob Hare, creator of the PCL-R test, which is essentially a checklist of traits that one can compare a potential psychopath too. If the score is high enough, the person being examined is more or less assumed to be psychopathic. Ronson, perhaps slightly over-confident with his newfound knowledge, goes Psychopath Hunting.

The book is surprisingly humorous and Ronson’s description of interviews (and the interview subjects) is riveting. While the topic isn’t a light one, he’s also managed to make the book nearly entertaining. This is also my slightest of criticisms: At times, I wished the book had a bit more heft or “meat.” I know the topic is overwhelmingly large, but I still felt that I wanted…more. More interviews? More examples? More…history? I can’t quite put my finger on it. Anyway, despite that one little qualm, I’d still highly recommend this book to you!

Have you read this book? What did you think?

jaclynday:

What I’ve Read: The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta

I don’t remember how I heard about this book, but I had added it to my library queue (I often add books to my library queue haphazardly and on a whim). Last night, during a particularly ridiculous bout of insomnia, I grabbed a cup of tea and settled in to read. Several hours later, I turned the last page. Maybe I was slightly delirious from lack of sleep (it’s been a rough couple of weeks), but this book knocked my socks off. Good til the last drop.

The Leftovers is the story of the people left behind after a Rapture-like event occurred on earth. It’s not weirdly religious like the Left Behind series, but is instead just about regular people coping with loss and confusion in different ways. The story centers around the small town of Mapleton, and zeroes in from there on a few families in particular. In one tragic example, a Mapleton woman lost her two small children and her husband in what becomes known as the Sudden Departure. In response to these events, she slides into a Spongebob Squarepants obsession, insisting on watching every episode and then journaling about it afterward in an attempt to feel closer to her lost children.

It could have been a more pointed book, taking on the American response to loss, how the world continues with massive holes in pop culture icons (Jennifer Lopez disappears in the Sudden Departure, by the way), how religion plays into the entire thing. Instead, the book just shows how these ordinary people decide to respond to what happened in ways that you or me may find strangely recognizable.

It’s not a haunting book in the way that some other loss-related or post-apocalyptic novels are, but it has stuck with me in a way that a book hasn’t in quite some time. I keep imagining myself in their place, wondering how I’d react. What I would do. While I appreciated that Perrotta mostly kept spiraling emotion out of the text, I see some other reviewers disagree with me and wish there had been more emotions in play.

Have you read this book? What did you think?

jaclynday:

What I’ve Read: Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton

Hamilton, the founder/owner of Prune in New York City, wrote this memoir around her experiences with food, but there’s a lot of other things happening in this book too. The publishers had the lucky fortune of a fawning quote from Anthony Bourdain about the book (“Magnificant. Simply the best memoir by a chef ever. Ever.”) and have successfully marketed Hamilton’s memoir as a kind of female-chef-written Kitchen Confidential.

I can see how they came to the conclusion that that was a good idea. Hamilton is feisty, sometimes vulgar, unromantic about the rigors of the life of a chef and is capable of writing about food in a skilled, juicy, not cliched way. On the other hand, the book veers off in strange directions—controversial ones, actually. Hamilton calls herself a lesbian and alludes early on to a girlfriend, then (without much fanfare or explanation) marries a male Italian…maybe to assist his quest for a green card? The unhappiness in the marriage is apparent, but she goes on to have two children with him in rapid succession. Other writers and reviewers (and lesbian writers/bloggers) have problems with this, as you can imagine. While she’s under no obligation to the reader to explain her choices and 180 degree switch to near-traditional (i.e. heterosexual with two kids!) domesticity, it’s disappointing to see the lack of explanation nonetheless, especially after her over-sharing tendencies throughout the rest of the book. Bizarre.

The food portions of the book are easily the strongest. The vignettes that she puts into these sections are humorous, entertaining and thought-provoking. It’s when the personal and family-centric creeps in that the book (more often than not) can take strange turns into inconsistency.

Have you read this book? What did you think?