Julia
I found myself without reading material on a recent flight, so splurged on this, recalling how much I'd loved Wolf Hall. It was a 4- as opposed to 5-star experience for me because I knew what to expect of Mantel's style, whereas I'd been actually shocked by experiencing her craft for the first time. Still, this was a great read. There were points where I felt like the plot was almost careening towards the grim and foregone conclusion, in a way that both nervously thrilled me, and that I suspect may be a fairly accurate reflection of what it would have felt like to be living in the eye of the political storm Mantel depicts.
The honest truth is that I re-read this for the same reason I re-read The Corrections. I'm moving again soon, and these are big, fat books that I figured I'd be better able to relinquish after revisiting.
I was glad to re-read this. I Know This Much Is True is kind of schlocky, in the sense that Lamb clearly wants to deal with All. The. Big. Issues. and enable his readers in experiencing All. The. Big. Feelings. It's also kind of unschlocky, in that I think he succeeds admirably well, despite his intention to do so being clearly evident.
The spoiler alert below isn't related to the end of the novel, but I put it in because it does relate to potentially triggering content.
For example, on a fellowship interview this spring, an interviewer asked me about a novel that had influenced my clinical work. The first thing that popped into my head, nearly a decade after first reading this, was how Lamb created a narrator who rapes another main (and beloved) character, and the rape felt believable, strongly increased both my empathy for and anger (but not disgust) at the narrator, and Lamb's treatment of all of that didn't feel like a gratuitous portrayal of violence against women as a mean to an emotional end. It just felt like the way life really (often tragically) happens. I think about that a lot when working with people who have perpetrated violence instead of (or in addition to) being on the receiving end of it. We need to really understand both the aftermath of sexual violence, and what leads people to commit it in the first place. .
So, I think this is a good novel to read if you feeling like reading something that will likely make you cry, but not likely to make you feel as if you've been manipulated into crying.
Well...in the case of New Mexican history, truth is typically stranger than fiction. My uncle, who lived in and loved Albuquerque for roughly a decade, mailed this to me shortly after my arrival. Dornan has a knack for telling fascinating historical vignettes, so this is an easy and pleasant book to read in bits. It covers all the bases of NM's unique confluence of cultures (e.g., Native, Hispanic, and Anglo) with political intrigue, Catholic imperialism, cowboys, and accusations of witchcraft. Perhaps best summed up by this quote from one of the people unfortunate enough to try to govern an area of the worldwhere people of all backgrounds believe firmly in their own independence:
“Poor New Mexico! So far from heaven, so close to Texas!”
–Manuel Armijo, Mexican governor of the territory of Nuevo México, 1841
I read this a million years ago, when it was new, but my ambivalent experience with “Freedom” left me wanting to refresh my memory–am I not a Franzen fan, or just not a “Freedom” fan?
Upon re-reading, it became clear that my problem was “Freedom,” not Franzen (my, isn't this is an alliterative review). “The Corrections” was everything I wanted it to be–zany, painfully precise in its portraits of the characters (I swear I will stop with the alliteration), but compassionate towards all their inelegant fumblings.
Anyway, who doesn't love a good family drama (said the psychologist)?
No problem with this in terms of content(the title is a smidge misleading, but it's basically the Dialectical Behavior Therapy [DBT] skills manual). I love how Linehan's approach is really grounded in Eastern philosophy, with the kind of thorough explanation of techniques that I think only really comes from having a personal practice as well. I like therapists who practice what they preach :)
That said, I found the layout to be GAWDAWFUL. Seriously, so much great content–couldn't some editor somewhere have whipped it into prettier, easier to read shape?
Not my favorite Kingsolver novel (that would be The Poisonwood Bible), but a good read I got as a birthday present from roommates. Kingsolver can be a little heavy-handed with her moral lessons; in this novel, it's that we need to do something about climate change RIGHT NOW (which begs the question–who reading Kingsolver novels doesn't already believe that?). Nonetheless, she reliably provides spunky and wise female characters who are also not annoyingly perfect, and the emotional heft of this particular novel (regarding marriage, class, and identity) feels genuine.
This is a beautiful, beautiful book, with a very interesting backstory. Sorensen (born in 1912) was raised LDS in rural Utah, but went on to travel the world with her second husband (Evelyn Waugh's brother), becoming a Guggenheim-fellowship-winning writer in her own right. The novel meanders through the big and heavy themes of religion, culture, infidelity, and parenting from the perspective of a thoughtful yet imperfect heroine coming to terms with the world she grew up in, fled from, and then attempts to come to terms with. I feel quite grateful to have had this recommended to me by a dear friend, as I'm unsure I would have stumbled across it otherwise.
One of the most interesting things about the book is how Sorensen's exquisite descriptions of Utah still resonate:
“Sometimes, away, one forgot the austerity of this country and its rocky slopes. One remembered only blue of heights melting at skyline, receiving first snow while summer was still hot in the valleys. One forgot the semidesert alkali-ridden outskirts of irrigated villages, sparse brush-and-sunflower-covered slopes, spraying crickets at every step. One forgot that scrub cedar looked ragged and twisted like trees by the sea deformed by constant wind. One forgot summer-dry creek beds, ravines empty but for gray rocks, and remembered only water running. One remembered the beauty of sheep and lambs and forgot the deep dust they left, and manure, and the stiff stripped stalks of nettle and wild clover. Today Kate thought of how quickly, given war or devastation of any kind, this country would be wild again. The villages were, from above, literally cries in a wilderness.”
It's appropriate that I'm writing this review on Valentine's Day. Dunn will rip your heart out, stomp on it, and then leave you to tend to your own wounds. But you can't even really resent her for it, because she's so damn funny. This book, about a family of traveling carnies, is deliciously, uncomfortably twisted. I'm not totally sold on the ending, but I think it might grow on me over time as the only possible way for things to have ended.
One of the better descriptions of childhood:
“It is, I suppose, the common grief of children at having to protect their parents from reality. It is bitter for the young to see what awful innocence adults grow into, that terrible vulnerability that must be sheltered from the rodent mire of childhood.
Can we blame the child for resenting the fantasy of largeness? Big, soft arms and deep voices in the dark, saying, “Tell Papa, tell Mama, and we'll make it right.” The child, screaming for refuge, senses how feeble a shelter the twig hut of grown-up awareness is. They claim strength, these parents, and complete sanctuary. How deep and sticky is the darkness of childhood, how rigid the blades of infant evil, which is unadulterated, unrestrained by the convenient cushions of age and its civilizing anesthesia.
Grownups can deal with scraped knees, dropped ice-cream cones, and lost dollies, but if they suspected the real reasons we cry they would fling us out of their arms in horrified revulsion. Yet we are small and as terrified as we are terrifying in our ferocious appetites. We need that warm adult stupidity. Even knowing the illusion, we cry and hide in their laps, speaking only of defiled lollipops or lost bears, and getting a lollipop or a toy bear's worth of comfort. We make do with it rather than face alone the cavernous reaches of our skulls for which there is no remedy, no safety, no comfort at all. We survive until, by sheer stamina, we escape into the dim innocence of our own adulthood and its forgetfulness.”
Best novel I've read in a while; the kind of book I was sad to stop reading. It's been on my mental “to read” list since The New Yorker profile a bit ago on Mantel (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/10/15/121015fa_fact_macfarquhar), and I found that the actual novel exceeded my expectations. Simply enthralling.
It wasn't until the end that I realized that part of my great affinity to Mantel's prose is probably due to its Durrell-ian quality (although her style is in no way derivative). It struck me in particular in this quote:
“It's the living that turn and chase the dead. The long bones and skulls are tumbled from their shrouds, and words like stones are thrust into their rattling mouths: we edit their writings, we rewrite their lives.” (p. 602)
If you know nothing about adolescents who commit sexual offenses, but were interested in learning more, this would be a good place to start. Adolescent sexual offending is the topic of my dissertation, so I found myself noting where this book (from 2006) is now a touch out-of-date with regard to research, but DiCataldo certainly created an admirable and still-current overview of the many ethical issues surrounding how we think about and intervene with adolescents who have offended. I think a particular strength is his ability to draw connections between mental health treatment issues and the legal history of how such adolescents are adjudicated, which are two areas not often integrated (I think largely related to the biases of researchers–psychologists tend to have a psychological angle, and legal scholars tend to have a legal one). Serious miscarriages of justice have occurred with disturbing frequency in this population, and I think general public conception of JSOs tends more toward fiction than fact, so anyone interested in child welfare might appreciate this thoughtful and thorough review of the topic.
Meh. I take full responsibility for the two-star rating. Perhaps this is a lovely book (I certainly enjoyed some lovely moments in it), but I read it on a series of flights around the country for internship interviews. So the switches from present realism to past parables felt disjointed, and I kept wondering why Obreht wasn't giving us more of the narrator's here-and-now, as opposed to using her as the vehicle for retelling tales. Given the glowing critical acclaim plastered all over the cover, I personally may have just missed the nuance.
Read this in its entirety on the two flights from Baton Rouge to Salt Lake City. My memory of reading Bel Canto quite a few years back is somewhat hazy, but I think it's safe to say that Patchett is a master of fantastical plots just short of magical realism. My quibble here is that the plot lines get all tied up (and you want them to–hence my reading speed), but the relationships between characters are left sort of frustratingly unresolved. Not in the sense that I want the characters to make amends and love one another, but we see the protagonist's feelings about the complex cast of others evolve only in fits and spurts throughout, and in no way that comes close to keeping pace with the Amazonian adventures. Still, certainly an enjoyable read.
This book was fine, and DBT is obviously an enourmously effective therapy. I just wish that Linehan had put “manual” somewhere in the title, so I wouldn't have held out hope for so long that it would suddenly turn more fascinating than instructive (I probably unfairly judge fascination level by amount of clinical examples). She does, however, excel at writing clearly and without jargon.
Overall, I think this could be a useful book for many people in their recoveries from eating disorders. I do feel like it's necessary to add one big cautionary note: while I think that many readers would appreciate hearing about both authors' own struggles with eating disorders, and find solace and hope in the personal anecdotes, I can imagine such stories being hugely triggering for others. I don't think it's an insurmountable problem, even for those it might trigger (as dealing with triggers is, indeed, part of recovering from an eating disorder), but I do think it's a book best read after careful consideration of where along one's path to healing a given individual is.
Borrowed this from my clinical supervisor. For both clinicians and people struggling with binge eating, the most relevant thing to note is that this book was published in 1995. While some things are still usable (e.g., his general plan for understanding and working on your own binge eating), other things are just wrong (e.g., we know now exactly how harmful yo-yo dieting and associated yo-yo weight loss/gain is–very). I'd strongly recommend Intuitive Eating instead.
There are many, many things I loved about this–mainly that Gaesser takes a completely empirical approach to examining the fat phobia currently afflicting most of America (health professionals included). The data is, in fact, quite damning of this panicked and moralistic view of “excess” weight (Have your doubts? See this peer-reviewed summary of the main points: http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/35/1/55.full). I also really like his completely sane and actually achievable recommendations regarding physical activity, which can be boiled down to the idea that activity in the broadest sense, even at low levels and broken into short spurts throughout the week, is what is beneficial (not sweat-drenched workouts that take place at a fancy gym under the watchful eye of a personal trainer). But...BUT...despite the fact that Gaesser is eminently reasonable about so many things, he ends his book by making recommendations (albeit reasonable) about a relatively low-fat approach to food. And that's my problem. It's a diet in sheep's clothing. My bias is that I think that someone who works to become a reasonably effective intuitive eater can and will learn to eat food that averages out to be healthy enough over time, but as a result of having and listening to their actual appetitive urges as opposed to top-down self-regulation. My bias is also that that's the most compassionate way to achieve long-term goals, for those who choose to make them for themselves. Despite the “BUT,” this was still well-worth reading.
In all honesty, I read this after reading a certain Oatmeal comic (http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla). Here, Samantha Hunt gives Tesla a beautiful introduction, and Tesla himself turns out to be as kooky as one would hope such a prolific scientist and inventor would be, with just enough narcissism to warrant the occasional eyeroll. I can't say I understand the Tesla coil any better now than I did before, or anything useful like that, but Tesla was funny in addition to being a genius, and I'm glad to have read some of his own stuff directly.
YES. Just YES.
I've been really grateful for the experience to work in eating disorder (of all sorts) treatment, and it's raised my awareness about the absolute necessity of fat activism a significant amount. Here's the thing: feeling bad about your body, for whatever reason, has never helped anyone be healthier. Research is great–I am, after all, a social scientist–but it is less great when politics and hysteria play integral roles in how research is conducted, interpreted, and disseminated to the general public. Campos is a lawyer, not an obesity researcher himself, which I think really allows him to bring a critical eye and an appropriate sense of moral outrage to this issue. Even if obesity isn't of personal or professional relevance to you, this is a fascinating read. Tore through it on two plane rides, and would recommend it to anyone.
I suspect that I liked this book because I took it with a rather large grain of salt (npi). Eisenstein sometimes careens rather quickly from sensible (Why yes, raw vegan diets make plenty of sense for hermits with minimal physical activity–oh, you say you live in the world? With people? And a job? Perhaps rethink the celery...) to odd (I understood his logic around the point, but I think he's probably the first person ever to claim that tea is bad for you, and I just can't get on board with that idea). He's best when he talks about the actual practice of the yoga of eating–eat slowly enough to be able to actually taste your food, and trust that your sense of taste can guide you quite effectively towards what you want and need and away from what you don't. At any rate, the book is pleasantly short enough that you can avoid actually overdosing on the woo-woo; perhaps the best testament I can make to his good ideas is that writing this review has alerted me to the fact that I'm thirsty.
Finished this while at the beach, and then promptly forgot about it. Jacob and I started it out loud on a trip to Great Basin NP in Nevada, then finished it while drinking beer and squeezing sand between our toes in NC. I haven't read any P.D. James in a long time, but my mother (rightly) adores her as the most droll (drollest?) contemporary mystery writer. Only three stars because it's actually fairly difficult to read a mystery out loud & still keep the proper pace required to maintain suspense. Five stars for James' use of the adjective “mullioned” to describe a great many windows.
The three stars are because I experience a distinctly unpleasant tension associated with feeling uncertain as to whether the author will kill off one of the main protagonists by the time all is said and done. (I know, I know–it's YA. Still, Suzanne Collins is a harsh literary mistress). Less pleasant, but no less urgent, is my current need to KNOW HOW IT ALL ENDS. I'm mostly through “Mockingjay,” so I suppose tension of any sort will soon be relieved. Small comfort, I suppose :P
So this wasn't my favorite. I do, however, like the ending of the trilogy with respect to the plot arc across the books. Jacob pointed out that Collins, like Rowling in the later Harry Potter books, excels at writing with the voice of a sullen teenager. That's a great quality in a YA writer, obviously, but it left me spending a lot of this book waiting for Katniss to...grow up. And then she did, just a little too quickly in a somewhat rushed denouement. Still, I'd recommend the series to anyone looking to become obsessed with the outcomes in a fictional world for a few days/weeks, or wanting to dive right into some pop culture without regretting it later.
I read much of this out loud to Jacob while he was driving us from Zion National Park back to SLC. Credit to Collins where it's due for coming up with a pretty gripping plot, we then took turns polishing off the rest of the book over the next two days so we could find out what happened to Katniss. My one gripe is that the book is so clearly part of a series. I think movie franchises have ruined me for serial novels. I mean, yes, I did go see Johnny Depp's second turn as the delightful Captain Jack Sparrow, but then I felt exceptionally annoyed when the end of the movie unashamedly prepped audiences for a third, and have avoided subsequent installments. That said, novels aren't movies, and I like both Katniss and the idea of supporting entertainment of any variety that features kick-ass girls. So I'll be buying the second book soon.
True confession: Persepolis took my graphic novel virginity. And it was awesome. I really love Satrapi's aesthetic; the book is just sort of a true pleasure to read. Satrapi has a compassionate but clear-eyed view of her younger self, which is great in and of itself, but my favorite part was actually learning more about modern Iranian history in the context of a first-person narrative. Now what I'd really like is to get all my geopolitical updates as told from the perspective of spunky teenage girls in minimalist but lively cartoons.