Tuesday, August 29, 2017

The End of the Perfect 10: The Making and Breaking of Gymnastics’ Top Score ― from Nadia to Now (by Dvora Meyers)

The "sports" category in the RHC was a tricky one, but I enjoy gymnastics and decided to go with this one.  It was overall a fairly light, enjoyable read. I would have liked a little more inside baseball (er, gymnastics) about scoring data, the specifics of the new system, etc. I could tell the author knew her stuff, but missed the hardcore data nerd stuff.  I would have liked fewer awkward pop culture references (sample quote: "[N]o one was going to hop on the podium like Kanye to protest your medal: 'Imma let your national anthem finish, but Dominique Dawes had the best floor routine of the meet'").  But overall, a fairly enjoyable way to check another item off the list for the year.

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How to Murder Your Life (by Cat Marnell)

I used to be a devout xoJane reader and found Cat Marnell to be equal parts fascinating trainwreck and talented writer, so naturally when this memoir went on sale for Kindle, I snatched it up.

Cat and I probably have literally zero in common -- I don't care about beauty or fashion, certainly don't think it should be aspirational at all costs, and neither have a trust fund nor enjoy snorting angel dust. But the woman can write. I'm not even sure how she does it -- there's a spark to her writing that I can't pin down.

And so, despite disagreeing with her worldview on almost every page, and completely in spite of myself, I devoured and loved this book.

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Sunday, August 13, 2017

Vacation Reads

We spent last week traveling to and around Boston for a family vacation. I read seven books on the trip (gotta love airplane reads) and it was a nice mix of stuff. Here are my reviews:

Punch Escrow (by Tal M. Klein)

Fun, hard sci-fi. It doesn't quite stick the landing, but I will definitely read the sequel that Klein sets up in the epilogue. I'm picky about sci-fi but all three of my vacation reads in this genre were good! This one was found via Scalzi.

Half a Life (by Darin Strauss)

Memoir that I read for a new book group I'm in at work. This is the story of a guy who, "half-a-life ago" when he was eighteen, hit a classmate with his car and killed her.  Great hook, but this memoir  feels half-baked. (He doesn't address how the accident impacted his passengers, for example.) He's also way too defensive about his own past emotions and apologizes for them a lot, even though there's no need for him to. I got the feeling he might actually not have enough distance yet. Some really excellent writing, and I thought the ending was powerful, but overall this didn't move me the way it should.

Sugar (by Kimberly Stuart)

Super cute rom-com about a pastry chef who takes a new job and ends up on a restaurant reality show with her ex-boyfriend.  Has a couple of "people don't talk like that" dialogue moments (my pet peeve) but only a couple. Sprinkled throughout are some unfortunate anti-fat moments also. But mostly very charming and light, good vacation read, with a fun plot and a good main character.

Texts from Jane Eyre (by Mallory Ortberg)

I wanted an excuse to buy this, and vacation became my excuse. Mallory Ortberg is hilarious and this little book is a gem.

The Custom of the Country (by Edith Wharton)

I needed a book for the "published between 1900 and 1950" category of the Read Harder Challenge, and somehow I had never read this before. How can that even be considering how much I love The Age of Innocence? This was amazing. I love Wharton's anti-heroine, Undine Spragg. I love the classic Whartonian social machinations. I love the subtle, rich writing. This is spectacular in every way. 

The Three-Body Problem (by Liu Cixin, trans. Ken Liu)

I'm going to swap this out as my "set at least 5000 miles away from your house" pick, because this is set in China and translated from the Chinese, and I think meets the spirit of the challenge better.  I love both the storyline and the style of the translation. Great, Hugo-award-winning sci-fi novel, and the beginning of a trilogy.  Also delves into the Cultural Revolution and that part is interesting as well -- although the virtual reality parts may have been my favorite. Thumbs up!

11/22/63 (by Stephen King)

An excellent pick for the airplane ride home, I have to say, as it is a classic Stephen King doorstoppy page-turner. I was a huge IT fangirl when I was younger, and I loved the Derry side-plot here.  The time travel into the 60s allows King to indulge all his most folksy folksiness (the "Land of Ago" for example) but overall this is a gripping and detailed time-traveling love story. King at the top of his form.

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Friday, August 04, 2017

The Autobiography of Malcolm X (Malcolm X and Alex Haley)

I really do fantasize about creating a syllabus out of the books I've read lately, both fiction and non, that cover the spectrum of the African-American experience in somewhat chronological order. The Autobiography of Malcolm X would spark some amazing student essays, I'm sure.

The best way to describe this book is thought-provoking. I only had a very surface idea of Malcolm X and what he stood for, not even having seen the film about him, and I found him brilliant and surprisingly sympathetic.  His "militant" viewpoints (such as "all white people are the devil") are frankly understandable, especially when you've just finished reading about the history of slavery or you see around you how its effects persist to the present day.  I was far more sympathetic to him, even at his most extreme, than I expected to be, and I enjoyed hearing his viewpoints in his own voice, unfiltered.

You also see his ideas evolve and become more moderate towards the end of his life, which he seems to know is around the corner -- by the end of the book, the Nation of Islam basically has a price on his head, and not long after, he was assassinated. (I should note that his attitudes towards women evolve from "terrible" to "also terrible" but you can't have everything.) It would have been interesting to see how they would evolve further, and how he would have responded to today's movements such as Black Lives Matter. (He also would have approved of white folks getting involved in SURJ, I'm positive.)

I think this was a really worthwhile read. Also, Starr's father in The Hate U Give has a framed picture of Malcolm X on his wall, so my syllabus really has come full circle.  If anyone wants a suggested reading list and essay topics, do let me know! It would be a great class. :)

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