Category Archives: Book Talk

30-Day Book Meme #4: A Monstrous Regiment of Women

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A Monstrous Regiment of Women

The book meme asks us to write about our favorite book from our favorite series. As I said, I don’t really have real favorites, but since I listed the Holmes & Russell series, I’m going to honor that choice and pick A Monstrous Regiment of Women as my favorite book within it.

It’s a book that represents a shift in Mary Russell’s relationship with Sherlock Holmes, which is interesting in and of itself, but it’s also a well-researched look at feminism and theology, how they mesh, and how they don’t, in 1920’s England. I enjoyed that aspect of the novel as much as I enjoyed the mystery at its core.

The Sunday Salon: Ice Cream as a Feminist Statement and Other Self-Help Suppositions

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The Sunday Salon.com

On my birthday in 2010, a good friend gifted me with a book from my Amazon Wishlish: Kiss My Tiara: How to Rule the World as a Smartmouth Goddess, by Susan Jane Gilman. I’d recently read her memoir of being one of the first Americans to travel in China when she was young, and wanted to read more of her stuff.

As sometimes happens when you have a to-be-read pile that reaches epic heights, and have to get the to-be-reviewed books read first, Kiss My Tiara kept getting shoved to the bottom of the pile. Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I had both the time and the mood to read it, and I’m glad I did, because while a lot of it doesn’t apply to me, a lot of it does.

Even better, unlike most self-help books, Kiss My Tiara is funny. I’m an improvisational comedian when I’m not writing or blogging, so the use of humor in this book (which is what drew me to it initially) really worked to keep me interested. Engaged even.

One passage that really made me giggle – and then made me think – was her suggestion that we women use our PMS bitchiness to get things done. “I mean,” she writes, “why harangue our loved ones when we can harangue our legislators. After all, it’s what we pay them for. It’s their job to listen to our concerns.” And so, she says (helpfully providing phone numbers) when your hormones make you want to kill your spouse or partner because he/she had the nerve to breathe too loudly (or whatever) instead of picking a fight, you should call Congress, and demand that your representatives actually represent YOU, or avail yourself of the White House complaint line.

And then there’s the bit about ice cream:

Ice cream is non-patriarchal. Ice cream, frozen yogurt, milk shakes – every dairy product we can think of is the exclusive product of females. So, okay, they’re cows. But eating this stuff can be a political act that neatly unites feminist principles with a love of animals. It can be a way of showing support for our bovine sisters! Fuck the vegans, I say. Anyone who doesn’t eat ice cream for purely “ethical” reasons is a killjoy and a moron and not to be trusted. Pro-ice cream is pro-woman, Baby!

Best. Self-help book. EVER!!!

But speaking of self-help, recently for All Things Girl, I had the opportunity to review two recent spiritual self-help books, and interview their authors. One is called The Enlightened Mom and it’s an amazing book about how mothers, and indeed ALL women, should embrace self-love in order to model loving kindness for their families. It basically boils down to “If mama ain’t happy, ain’t no one happy,” but it’s written in a really positive way, and as a Unitarian Universalist, the Christian elements felt appropriate and not off-putting, which is good, because even spiritual life guides should be supportive, not preachy. (Also, the Author, Terri Amos-Britt, is one of the most delightful, smart, wise, interesting women I’ve ever had the pleasure of speaking with.)

The other book, which also has a spiritual element was Dr. Carmen Harra’s book Wholiness, which teaches us how we have to unite to save the world. She talks a bit about 2012, and how it’s not the end of the world, but the end of a cycle, and how endings and beginnings have power. (She’s actually our “cover girl” for our last issue of the year.)

If this sounds like a whole lot of self-help, well it is, and no, it’s not really my preferred reading genre, but sometimes the universe sends things your way, and the best thing to do is accept them, explore them, and take the advice that applies, while not stressing over the bits that don’t.

Happy Sunday.

30-Day Book Meme #3: Holmes & Russell

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The Beekeeper's Apprentice

When you fall in love with a character or world, it’s natural to want more of what you love. I think that’s why so many of us read series of novels. I’m told that whenever you’re trying to sell a novel, if they ask you “Do you have an idea for a sequel?” the answer should always be “yes,” because series make money. Multiple books in general make money, actually, but people buy what they know.

The 30-Day Book Meme wants me to tell you my favorite series. There are so many. The Little House and Anne of Green Gables books, as well as Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys kept me entertained all during my childhood. As I grew older, I fell for such different series as The Cat Who… mysteries, and the Mrs. Pollifax novels, but I also loved Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire Mysteries, Anne Rice’s vampire and witch series (before she was popular and trendy, and later, overdone), and Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels books.

I love the Star Trek tie-in novels, and I also love the Pink Carnation series. I’ve spent hours on Darkover, Pern, and Valdemar, I’m a sucker for Harry Potter’s adventures, and I’m getting into Game of Thrones after watching the HBO series (my husband loves those books). I sip coffee with Cleo Coyle’s baristas and want to visit her alter-ego’s Haunted Bookshop.

But if I had to pick a favorite? It would have to be Laurie R. King’s Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell novels, first because I’m a Holmes junkie from way back, and second because she writes Mary with a feminist sensibility that I really enjoy. The books are well written, well plotted, and entertaining without being stupid.

They are best read in order, so begin with The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, and if you’re diligent, and read as fast as I do, by the time the new book comes out on September 6th, you’ll be ready!

30-Day Book Meme #2: Certain Women

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Certain Women

I’ve been a fan of Madeleine L’Engle since a friend of my mother’s gave me A Wrinkle in Time to read while I was at her house. It was, quite literally, a dark and stormy night, and I was sprawled on a guest-room bed covered in a patchwork quilt, immersed in a story and unafraid of the storm.

I’ve probably read A Wrinkle in Time at least a dozen times, but the novel I’m actually using for this prompt – a book I’ve read at least three times – is one of L’Engle’s adult novels, Certain Women. I like it because it’s a story within a story – on one level, it’s about an adult daughter spending time with her dying father, but on another level it’s the story of the play that her ex-husband created for father and daughter to perform, about King David and all his wives.

As someone whose religious education has been rather eclectic, I read it, the first time, with very little frame of reference, save for the fact that I read the Catholic version of the Bible cover-to-cover when I was seven. In the years since my first reading, however, my knowledge has expanded, and I’ve gotten more from the book.

I think I got even more from it as I’ve aged, as well…you can read the same book at forty that you did at twenty-five and even fifteen, and always enjoy it, but experience it three different ways, and with this novel, I’ve done that.

This Isn’t Treasure Island

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A Child's Garden of Verses

Robert Louis Stevenson’s poems were constant friends in childhood, poems my grandmother and I would memorize and recite. I knew all about having a little shadow, and going up in a swing.

One poem that I never appreciated until this weekend, which has been spent largely in bed, was “The Land of Counterpane,” in which a sick child turned the hills and valleys of his comfortable bed into all manner of landscapes for his imagination.

I don’t imagine my quilt squares as separate countries, but I do still let imagination run wild.

Even days spent propped on pillows have magic.

Originally written 30 August 2009 in another blog.

89 Books

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I did a wrap-up post with some of my favorite reads from 2010 a week or so ago, but I never posted my 2010 tally.

According to my reading log, between paper, kindle and various other electronics, I managed to read 89 books in 2010, which isn’t horrible, but I was shooting for 100.

Of course, I didn’t read much in February, August or December.

I read 85 books in 2009, or at least, I logged 85 reads, so at least there was some improvement, although my 2009 reading was better balanced, with most months having at least six titles.

I don’t make resolutions; I don’t believe in them, but I do believe in goals. So my goal for 2011 is to read 100 books.

So far, I’ve already read seven, six of which are on my new list, which isn’t a bad beginning, since we’re only nine days into the month AND I’ve been sick.

Year in Review?

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If I didn’t blog about the books I read, I’d forget half of them – not the books, just when I’d read them. My brain, apparently is less efficient at retaining this information than a sieve is at holding water.

The question from Booking Through Thursday, yesterday, was about favorites over the year. Least favorites, all of that. I’m not in the mood to do anything formal, but here are a few highlights.

Favorite Comfort Reading:
Anything by Cleo Coyle, under any of her pen names. The Haunted Bookstore cannot have a new volume soon enough, and her Coffee Mysteries are just my cup of…espresso con panna.

Favorite Mystery:
The latest from Sara Paretsky, Body Work and Richard Doestch’s The 13th Hour.

Favorite General Fiction:
I’m not sure. Jennifer Wiener’s latest disappointed me a bit, and most of what I read has been genre. I enjoyed my summer of Nantucket Novels, but I wouldn’t call them my favorites, really.

Favorite Women’s Fiction:
Without a doubt, The Naked Gardener, and not just because it’s the debut novel from someone I know through blogging.

Favorite Non-fiction:
Susan Casey’s The Wave, because it had water, myth, science, and adventure all in one book.

And just so you know, I’m currently still reading:
Slip Knot, by Linda Greenlaw
A Pointed Death, by Kath Russell
and a few more I won’t bother to list.

Happy New Year, everyone.