A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

This book was a reco from Carolyn and I LOVED it! It was a long one but I got so engrossed in the characters and the plot that it didn't drag at all.

The book focuses on Diana Bishop, an Oxford scholar, who is descended from two of the most renowned witch families in existence but has renounced her powers and tries her best to live her life as a pure mortal. When she accidentally opens a bewitched alchemical manuscript she inadvertently sounds an alarm that attracts a whole slew of daemons, witches and vampires - all who want to know the contents of that book.

One of the vampires who comes flocking to Diana is Matthew Clairmont, a several centuries old vampire who, despite the social taboos, Diana starts to fall for.

I know vampires are all the rage now-a-days due to Twilight and True Blood but I think I just love the idea of living forever - Matthew has known so many great people, visited so many notable places, been so many different people and I find myself jealous! The book talks about having to keep their existences away from the humans (Muggles) so there is just the teeniest, tiniest part of me that wonders and if their really are magical folk out there and I'm never privied to this information, I would be very upset!!

Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer

I hesitate to say I was raised Mormon but from about age 5 - 14, that was the church we went to almost every Sunday. My memories of it are hazy (and mostly entail playing Red Light, Green Light with other kids) but there are some parts of the theology that I remembered.

However, I will say that upon reading this book and getting the full low-down on the Mormon history, I am APPALLED that my parents signed us up for this! I know missionaries are very persuasive, well-meaning (at times) people and I'm sure painted a great story about eternal life and family and all that but did they tell them about Joseph Smith translating from a top hat or these Revelations? Do people honestly hear these things and think "Oh, yeah, I can see that"?

The book was fascinating, from my own personal history but also just in a cultural study. It goes back and forth between a savage murder in the early '80s by two Mormon Fundamentalists and the history of Mormonism, starting with Joseph Smith, through Brigham Young, and into current LDS life.

Mormonism is interesting in that it is such a young religion in comparison to other main-stream religions that there is a lot of media coverage and modern thought stemming around its creation. I feel that there is less to battle with Catholicism, Judaism or Islam since they go back so far and their starts are so clouded in history and honestly, at this point, can you really argue with something so entrenched in daily society? But to create a whole new religion that has so many similarities with those already in existence and to continue to claim yours as the "one true church" is an exercise in arrogance.

Bossypants by Tina Fey

I'm not sure how much everyone watches SNL - I don't think I ever really did before moving to NYC. Now we watch it religiously, as well as Tina's actual show, 30 Rock.

This book was HILARIOUS - I was that person cracking up on the subway amidst cranky commuters. It was a quick read and followed a brief synopsis of her life from childhood through her experiences at NBC and debating having a second child at 40.

What always strikes me about Tina Fey is that I would consider her a very pretty woman but all of her comedy is self deprecating both about her personality and her appearance. I guess self-deprecation is the cornerstone of most comedy but sometimes I feel bad for her and really hope that she doesn't really believe some of the things she says. (This is probably why I could never have my own comedy act).

My favorite part was when she was talking about her Sarah Palin SNL impression - AKA - My favorite few months of TV. If you haven't seen the season opening clip - it is a must: http://www.hulu.com/watch/34465/saturday-night-live-palin--hillary-open

I really related to her over-stressing tendencies and was glad that others must be able to find humor in my making myself crazy as I was able to find humor in hers :)

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Henrietta Lacks was a poor black women who died in the 1950s from cancer. Her cells were harvested (a routine procedure for almost every medical treatment even today - do you ever read the consent forms that you sign?) and are still alive today. The HeLa cells are still being utilized for scientific research around the world and are the basis for many medical advances. Skloot does a great job of explaining the science behind all of this so that the average person can understand it.

The other side of the story is about Henrietta's family, a real study in how poverty impacts every aspect of someone's life - health, education, and ability to climb out of that situation. I found the family story fascinating from a sociological perspective especially since I worked with people in similar situations in the GED program in Baton Rouge.

My book club had a great discussion about medical ethics (a retired pediatrician joined us for the meeting to give us his perspective). Some of the members felt that Skloot inserted herself into the story too much but after reading about her background (her own father was involved in medical trials when he was dying of cancer) I feel like her involvement was appropriate.

Skloot raises important questions about medical ethics, disclosure of personal information, who owns the cells that are harvested for research and who should profit from that research. As Henrietta's son says, why can't her family even afford health insurance when others are making billions from her cells? Very thought provoking as well as a good read!

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

Interesting book about Ernest Hemingway's first wife, Hadley, and their life together in Paris between WWI and WWII. Reminded me very much of Loving Frank - why do "geniuses" get away with behaving like jerks and why do smart women allow men to treat them so badly? In relation to When Everything Changed (see post by Lisa), some of this was due to the period they lived in but I also realize that it still happens today. Earlier this year I read part of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein (NOT a book that I recommend)about the same group of people living in Paris during that time so I enjoyed getting a different view point. I confess that I haven't read anything by Hemingway but may do so in the future just to find out whether or not I agree that he was the genius that he and everyone else thought he was. The book is very well written in the genre that I recently discovered is called "creative non-fiction" - a story based on facts.

1000 White Women: The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus

This book was recommended by Elizabeth and I absolutely LOVED it!

The story is based on the premise that back in 1875 the Cheyenne Indians requested the US government trade 1000 white women for 1000 horses. The idea being that in the Cheyenne culture, children are raised in the mother's tribe/culture so any children produced from these unions would be raised in white culture and it would be a learning process for the Indians, who were being decimated by whites, to become acclimated in the culture.

Naturally, in real life, this proposal didn't fly and everyone went home without a resolution but the book takes the idea that it DID happen and how the program unfolded through the journal of the main character, May Dodd.

May was in an insane asylum for promiscuity (sex does make you crazy, doesn't it?) when she signed up for the program - what better candidate to shack up with an Indian husband for two years after all? The journals take the reader through her time in the asylum, the cross-country trip to meet up with her tribe and then the gradual learning of the Cheyenne culture and working to integrate a conflicting set of values/morals into her own life.

Its an amazing concept and very well executed book. I loved all the characters, the descriptions and the writing. What really blew my mind was that it was written by a man - just like in Memoirs of a Geisha - a man being able to fully express a woman character is astonishing to me.

I hope others read it, would love to hear what you all think!

Doing my Pat Conroy Dance

Currently Reading: The Lords of Discipline

Wow, the profanity is rampant thus far. The book focuses on a South Carolina Military Institute that "makes maggots into men," etc. Pat can always take human suffering to a whole new level - his descriptions of the degradations and creative torments (that I'm sure all have a basis in truth) are astonishing and horrifying. I have no doubt that this type of treatment exists in these types of schools. I've heard people joke about "plebe" week/month/year before but I guess they have to repress the memories of how awful it truly was or, to the point that Pat makes, once they survive it, they become a part of the "the system" and embrace the madness.

As I have mentioned in prior PC posts - our main character, Will McLean, is a replica of Leo (South of Broad), Jack (Beach Music) and Tom (Prince of Tides) - all emotionally damaged men with a penchant to lash out due to an innate inability to express all of their inner torments. What I do love about these men though is that they see beauty and culture and would wrap themselves in a blanket of it but they all have that edge, that dark edge, that keeps them from the possibility of ever being fully happy.

As with other PC books, the story takes place in the Southland - Charleston, SC to be exact - and makes the reader jealous to not be from this mythical place that Pat creates. I've never been to most of the places he sets his stories in but I'm afraid that even when I go, I won't see it through these character's eyes and I can never as fully be in love with a place as he maintains someone can be.

I'm only half way through right now, can't wait to see where we go from here!

The Atlas of Love: A Novel by Laurie Frankel

This started out as a cute, simple book. It follows the main character who has two best friends and one of them gets pregnant by this guy who decides he doesn't want to have a kid. Three girls decide to move in together and raise the baby - very 3 Men and a Baby/Little Lady action - and they all experience the frustrations of raising a baby and being graduate students/professors(?).

PS - because they are all English/Literature majors, they decide to go very literary when naming the baby and name him Atlas... and even though I would love to be able to call my future daughter Scarlett, that just seems a bit much for me.

The end of the book was when it got a little weird for me - I felt that there was some serious character mangling and that the author let them go outside of their normal behavior for the sake of drama. Basically the kid's dad comes back into the picture and the kid's mom decides she is going to cut her friends out of their lives and make a sudden home with this guy. I thought her freak out was a little out of character for how she'd been built up but I guess everyone has a little crazy hiding in them.

The hardest part for me was the main character's struggle. The baby's mother was constantly relying on her friends to raise her baby and pretty much taking advantage of them so they got really attached to the baby. When the mom started going psycho, they made her start taking all responsibility ... it was a hard position of "make the mom mature and deal with her own problems because she is being a bitch to her friends" or "be with the baby." I reaaaaallly hate those positions because it always feels like there is no way to win and either way you feel like screaming. When the character did the mature thing and helped take care of the baby, I was proud of her but the anger at the friend made my stomach wrench. (I might get too involved in the books I read).

Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne

This book was about the progressive fall of the Comanche Indians, as told through the story line of Cynthia Ann Parker and her son, Quanah Parker – the last great Comanche chief.

I thought the first and third quarters of the book were interesting but the middle part was a little harder to get through. I think I just like the humanist side of relating to either Cynthia or Quanah but the middle section of the book focuses on the systematic destruction of the tribes by the Mexican, Texan and US governments and while heart-breaking/fascinating – war maneuvers don’t typically hold my attention.

This book actually got me a little riled up but I couldn’t honestly decide who’s “side” I was on each time I started to rant about a particular piece from it. Yes, the Indian attacks were horrific – rape, murder of non-combatants, scalping, torture, kidnapping – all despicable, despicable things BUT then there are two parts to think about.

1 – Of course, I would do anything to defend myself/ my family if I felt we were being encroached upon and essentially had a target on our heads

2 – The book makes the point that this was their way of life. The Plains Indians, Comanche’s in particular, were a war society – it wasn’t just white settlers they did this to it was to any enemy - so they didn’t think they were being unusually caustic or acting outside the normal set of agreed upon war responses.

Then when I start thinking about the settlers – the early ones really had to be either crazy or dim-witted to move out to where they did. It would be the rough equivalent of setting up shop in Afghanistan right now, not really the place to see and be seen folks! But that is what makes us Texans great – bull-headed as all but we will keep our land and guns, won’t we?

So while Manifest Destiny was not a term used at this time – the concept was there and people were pushing west. Who wouldn’t want to go? Explore uncharted territory; find anything that wasn’t one of the over-crowded eastern sea-board cities?! So they go, being told they can and that the government wants them to (Fun Fact: The Mexicans enticed people to settle Texas to ostensibly be a first barrier against the raiding Comanches).

So these people feel they have every right to move west and are appalled at the atrociously violent raids against them so they react in a variety of ways – successively more violent over the years.

Are the Indians right that their land/culture/livelihood was taken from them and no response is an over-reaction OR are the settlers right to be able to push forth into new worlds of discovery as the nation was being built? There are obvious moral aspects of this that tip the argument (genocide being one) but I just can’t fall fully on one side. I think that if it wasn’t the white settlers, it would have been another invading group eventually.

Anyways, great book – completely recommend. Hope someone reads it so I can see what you think!!

Gone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star State by Randolph Campbell

A.K.A - Longest book ever written.

It has been a very interesting endeavor but I will say, it has tested even my stamina when it comes to delving into history. I think the FDR biography was the only other one that really made me deliberate if I really should finish or find the cliff notes...

I will say I haven't actually finished this book yet and it has been over a month (A MONTH) since I started but I did take two slight detours into Sue Monk Kidd's books so hopefully that excuses my delay.

Enough kidding, I have liked this book and it has been VERY (exhaustively) informative about the great state. It all started just before Texas Independence Day when I was reading in Texas Monthly about the 175th Anniversary of Texas and got all filled up with state pride. I realized that as much as I boast about the Lone Star State, all I really knew was what I learned in school (which we all find out is pretty much rubbish once we are older) so I thought to educate myself with one of the foremost experts on the field.

This man knows EVERYTHING about Texas from every single original inhabitant to every census ever taken to the ridiculous politics throughout Reconstruction. (I've only just hit the oil boom but I fully expect him to also know who actually shot J.R. once I get there.) The level of detail that has gone into this book is staggering, I can't even begin to imagine the bibliography that has to go with it.

I do like how he pulls global and U.S. events into the conversation to give a well-rounded perspective of events. One of my favorite things about history is the give and take, one action has a direct and equal reaction, cause and effect, nothing exists in a vacuum. What would Texas be like if a few key events hadn't taken place? How different would our lives be? Our identities as Texans that most states don't possess - would that have ever formed without Goliad, the Alamo or San Jacinto? If the goal was to always be incorporated into the Union, how did the focus ON Texas as its own entity have time to grow and be so pervasive through generations?

Sam Houston has really emerged as more of a hero than I ever previously thought of him to be. He alone seems to have had a clear mind and head about the best practices when it came to governing but as it always seems to be in politics, those who shouted louder, won out.

I will say the one thing missing from the book so far, though he does touch on it slightly (and god knows there is no more room for extra information) is the role women played in the creation of the state. Right now, its pretty much a boys club but I know there are some key ladies in the history that need to be given their due.

All in all, I'd recommend but give yourself PLENTY of time to get through it.

When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women From 1960 to the Present by Gail Collins

This book is incredible, not only for the events it catalogs, but for Collins' ability to synthesize material from 50 years into something coherent and cohesive. It's right at 400 pages but her writing style is such that the book is an easy read. She frequently uses first person accounts from women regarding their personal experiences which make it all the more meaningful and interesting.

The book looks at fashion, education, careers, family, the sexual revolution, Civil Rights, and so much more. I had no idea how intertwined the Equal Rights Amendment was with the battle for Civil Rights. I learned so much from this book, both about events and people I was already familiar with as well as many I was not. I have a whole new group of heroines and even a few heroes, as well as several villains and villainesses.

This would be a wonderful book for a book club as each person would have a different perspective based on their age, where they were living, and their personal circumstances. I certainly have a very different perspective on many things after reading this book.

If you read it, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Little Bee by Chris Cleave

Oh dear, this was one that I know I was supposed to have liked – that millions of Oprah fans would boo me for not enjoying but I think its “a pass.”

The premise of the book is a young girl who is an African refugee and was stuck in a detention center in England for two years and finally escaped. On the day of her release – she made a phone call to a man and he killed himself soon after, before she was able to make it to his home. This man had a family and Little Bee basically lands with the family and as we learn, has a history with both the man and his wife from their vacation to Africa several years prior.

You can all guess the turmoil (and who really vacations in Africa?) that was experienced during this trip - the incident on the beach is a very poignant part of the story and probably the best 20 pages of the book. It does make you very acutely aware of the lives some of these refugees are fleeing and how little alterative they have to jumping ship and hoping for the best in a new country.

Despite that bit of clarity, I thought the rest of the book was kind of slow and I just wasn’t really that invested in the characters. I did learn that British kids are afraid of “baddies” vs. our American “bad guys” – learn new things everyday.

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

I read this book because the author of “Devil in a White City” said he took inspiration from it for his scenes with Holmes the serial killer during the Chicago World’s Fair. Maybe I’m not deep enough (and definitely not sensitive enough, damn you TV) but I though the book was pretty slow and kind of boring.

It follows the two killers leading up to and after a horrible murder of a very peaceful family of four and the law as they are trying to solve the case after the murders are discovered. The reader has it all connected (its really not as complex as you think/hope/expect the whole time its being built up) and the characters are kind of annoying. It was an interesting look at truly heartless people who can kill in cold blood (with no true motive) and then eat a hamburger after but it didn’t shake me the way I think it was supposed to. Their cold blood didn’t run my blood cold.

I did just find out that it was based on actual murder and all the characters were real. Apparently Capote and Harper Lee went to the town after the murderers were caught, conducted hundreds of interviews with the towns people and law enforcement and then Capote spent six years writing the book.

According to Wikipedia this book was "regarded by critics as a pioneering work of the true crime genre." I know this is considered a classic so was surprised to feel so mediocre about it, has anyone else read it? What did you think?

Frank: The Voice by James Kaplan

Old Blue Eyes himself – very up close and personal. I never knew much about Frank Sinatra but you always hear about him, you actually hear him in every elevator; he plays a melodic part in almost every romance movie. This is a spoilt, lazy boy from Hoboken, NJ who became a cultural phenomenon that changed the way music was experienced and how fans interacted with their icons (The Beatles could probably blame/thank Frank for starting the crazy idolization by fans thing).

Frank started out as a do nothing brat with an overbearing mother (he told Shirley MacClaine “she scared the shit outta me. Never knew what she’d hate that I’d do”) and a pretty quiet father. He bought his way into his early bands in true Draco Malfoy fashion but was never satisfied and was always convinced he deserved more, he WOULD be the best. I never knew that he had several slump years where people were pretty much writing him off – he couldn’t get a gig, couldn’t get a real part in a movie, couldn’t manage his personal life – Frank wasn’t the cool cat we think of for many years.

The parts on his personal life (it does go in to his mob connections but not very deep) were positively insane – what he put his first wife through (though it does sound like she got him in the end) and then his relationship with Ava Gardner – wowza, talk about textbook crazy pants – all of that combined is such an interesting look at a classic narcissist.

My one complaint about the book is despite how very long it is, it stops when he is in his late 30s – right as he won his Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. He lived for 50 more years! Was he a watered down version of his footloose and fancy free self that last half of a century that the author didn’t want to bother or is there sequel coming out?

I completely recommend – it was such an all-encompassing, real portrait of someone who is a part of all of our lives just about every day! Warning though, I couldn’t get his songs out of my head the whole time I was reading it and still have “That Lady is a Tramp” in my head just about every other day!

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson

This was such an unexpectedly fascinating book (I guess I will actually read anything, even if I have no idea what its about!). The whole premise of the book is to look at the “Great Migration,” of blacks from the south to northern cities from the period of Reconstruction through the 1970s and the social/cultural/economic affect that has had on their families and their adopted cities.

The author conducted 1,200 interviews and focused primarily on three stories (she appeared to be very closely involved with these three people – with one of them when he died sort of thing) but the story is populated with corroborating stories and examples of particular experiences from all of her interviews.

What I thought was really interesting was the big emphasis the author put on making the choice to leave. Some people stayed behind with the thought “better the devil you know,” and some just knew their situations couldn’t be borne any longer, not if there was hope for basic survival elsewhere or god-forbid, a chance to flourish.

It is also an interesting to concept to suppose things had been different – what if a more sensitive approach had been taken during Reconstruction, what if the southerners hadn’t felt so desperate to clamp the Jim Crow laws down? What if no one had felt the need to leave? Is that even feasible? All things considered it certainly doesn’t sound so but what if things had been different? What would northern cities be like, hell what would the south be like? Would we all be the same we are now without this huge cultural revolution? How would we be different? Would there be less strife between races or is strife always a foregone conclusion?

I know all of history is this way but it’s such a crazy thought to think that decisions that were made 140 years ago have had such lasting ramifications on people’s daily lives.

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

Okay, call me a modern day Pollyanna but if I was going to adopt a religion, I think it would be "The Happiness Project." I came across it in a magazine and downloaded the sample on my Kindle just before Christmas because I thought it would be nice to start the new year off on a happy note - I was thinking it would be primarily a beach read. Instead, I found a whole new way to look at life EVERYDAY!

Gretchen Rubin is a writer who lives in the UES of New York and decided one day that while she was not fundamentally unhappy, she could stand to have more happiness in her day-to-day life. She set a goal to make herself happier over the course of a year and broke each month down into overall goals with specific strategies applied to each month (e.g.: March: Work on Marriage - Do a week of "Extreme Nice", etc). It was a very formulaic approach, which I appreciated because sometime when people say "I'm going to get happier" they go about it by "learning to see the beauty in things," or "stopping to smell the roses," yack. Gretchen takes a real life approach to this concept and God love her, she has her short-comings but she is very candid when sharing them - this girl has a temper and I must say I totally identified with her on most of her self-professed faults.

What I really loved were some of the conclusions she came to - she realized that by making herself happier she was really making others around her happier/calmer and their happiness made her happy (see where the Pollyanna thing comes in).

Having a good attitude / being nice are such fundamental, basic things that I've noticed so often gets overlooked or pushed to the side (especially in NYC). Sometimes you don't have the time to think of others or you dislike them and you don't have the inclination or sometimes it really doesn't occur to you. Taking a step back and thinking of how your actions affect those around is an absolutely fascinating project that I have been doing these past few weeks. Just looking at my attitude and how when I put on a happy face, others do too and we all have a better day - WOW, BREAKTHROUGH.

I can't wait to read this book again and if it wouldn't make me feel like a missionary, I would probably send gift wrapped copies to everyone I know so they can join the bandwagon.

The Passage by Justin Cronin

I picked up this book because I had read The Summer Guest by the same author and enjoyed it. (FYI, Cronin teaches English at Rice University in Houston.) Warning for those who also read The Summer Guest - this book is nothing like it, hard to believe the same author wrote both! That said, once I got into the book I couldn't put it down even though at 750 pages in hardback it was very difficult to read in bed.
The Passage is a futuristic, end-of-the-world/human-race type book about VAMPIRES but these are not the kind of vampires made popular in current mass media, there is nothing remotely romantic about them. A bioengineering experiment designed to cure cancer and prolong human life goes bad and creates vampires (called virals in the book) instead. The human race is wiped out except for a few pockets of survivors who don't know about each other. Most of the story takes place a little more than 100 years from today.
This is not the type of book that I usually select but it is well written with good character development and enough action to keep you reading.