about a book

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?

jaclynday:

What I’ve Read: An Italian Affair by Laura Fraser

How do you heal yourself after losing love? In the vein of Eat, Pray, Love, Fraser tells how she put a heart-breaking divorce behind her after a chance meeting with a Parisian professor in Italy who helped restore her self-confidence and her lust for life (and other things).

What really struck me about this book was the travelog feel throughout. Fraser is a skilled travel writer, and those skills are put to good use here as she offers a real taste of each location she visits to the reader. As she and “M” (the professor) part ways, then meet later in a different location, she aptly describes both the scenery and the way their relationship changes (or the way it just changes her).

It’s such a short, quick read. I curled up on the couch with a cup of decaf coffee and a few cookies and had it done in two hours or so. It transported me in a really exciting way, but I appreciated most of all Fraser’s honesty about her vulnerabilities. It doesn’t have what you might think of as a traditional storybook ending, but it does end on what I felt was a satisfying note—made all the more so by the knowledge that the book is a memoir and not fiction.

It was a perfect end of summer book for me and enticed me to perhaps drag out some pasta recipes again (I’ve had a pasta aversion for a little while here due to weird pregnancy food things going on). I hope you enjoy the book as much as I did!

Have you read this book? What did you think?

jaclynday:

What I’ve Read: Bed Rest by Sarah Bilston

I had gone to the library to pick up some books I had on hold and decided to buzz through the fiction section while there. As I walked through, I saw Bed Rest sitting on a shelf and picked it up on a whim.

It’s a pretty basic book. It’s short (you could read it in an afternoon or in a couple days), has a simple plot (pregnant NYC woman gets placed on bed rest, antics ensue) and ends on a fairly predictable note. This by no means, however, means that it’s not worth reading. It’s a light, fun book and I imagine anyone who has actually been on bed rest would find this book that much more enjoyable. Bilston is a humorous writer and manages to convey familiar chick lit emotions without resorting to any groan-worthy chick lit cliches. I really liked the book…and was relieved that I’m not on bed rest! (Knock on wood.)

jaclynday:

What I’ve Read: The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin and Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl

Both of these books were such an immense pleasure to read. I’ve been buried in A Song of Fire and Ice for the past couple of months with no let-up (I’m on book four, by the way), so it was nice to come up for air from Westeros into the late-1800’s Gilded Age and 1990’s New York City.

First, The American Heiress. I was completely engrossed in this book from page one and read nearly unrelentingly for three hours until I finished. It’s the embodiment of the guilty pleasure novel for me being full of period details, romance, scandal and obnoxious wealth. It’s the story of Cora Cash, a wealthy American girl, shipped from Newport, Rhode Island, to England to find herself a titled British man and some significant old-money real estate. It’s completely decadent and well-written besides. I can’t recommend a better book for your end-of-summer poolside/beachside reading fests.

Second is a book I’d never read, but had received recommendations for on several occasions. Somehow I kept forgetting to buy it or grab it at the library, but a couple weeks ago, I finally put it on my list. I’m so glad I did! Reichl’s job as food critic for the New York Times means that her face is (much to her dismay) one of the most recognizable among restauranteurs as well. Looking for an authentic experience, she develops a cache of extremely complex “characters” (complete with back story) to fool the restaurants she’s critiquing. In the end, though, this book is about more than her costumes, or her job, or even the food. It’s all about the dining experience. From start to finish, she makes it clear that the dining experience is not always about the service (but it sometimes is) or the ambiance (although that can help too). Sometimes it’s not even about the food. It’s a larger beast, hard to pin down and even harder to replicate after it’s been found once. Her writing (as you’d expect from such a prolific author) is clear, funny, touching and well-edited.

Have you read either of these books? What did you think?

paperbackgirl:

i finished state of wonder by ann patchett over the weekend. where to begin? i loved it. at the very least it equaled bel canto and truth and beauty: a friendship. highly recommended.

equaled bel canto?  this is a high recommendation.

edatrix:

i’ve been bad about writing and just wrote lovely reviews of these books, but Tumblr ate them.  here are the abridged versions.

Like Water for Chocolate

Food cures all, the kitchen is the heart of the home.  Love, family, life are up and down, but food is a constant.

Three Cups of Tea

Sometimes unexpected people can be heroes.  Don’t listen to all the bullshit you hear on TV.  Empowering women really is empowering the world.

Bel Canto

Plots about people are more lovely than plots about action only.  When you strip away the titles, the tuxedos, the makeup, and masks, people are really all the same.  We all need love.