Heteroglossia

3 recreational reads and the best of the school reads so far. 1. Dark Money (Jane Mayer) - An expansion of Mayer's own piece in the New Yorker abt the Koch Brothers. I'd say this is a nec read to understand where we are today. Trump didn't happen overnight and he didn't happen by accident. As of y'day, there's story going around that Kochs have pledged to $ back reps who vote no on AHCA. That's bc they want to want to make it more terrible. They don't believe in gov't and actively fund its destruction. Also they let some employees die bc they didn't want to enforce env't regs. Everyone profiled in here (including Betsy DeVoss!) is heinous but the book is excellent. 2. Heat & Light - or... gas & oil. Haigh's novel abt fracking in rural PA is sort of the literary equivalent of a Soderbergh film abt fracking. Lots of characters and POVs, lots of narrative threads but a good, fast read. 3. The Gloaming - Weird but v good novel. American, Pilgrim, is abandoned by her husband in Western Europe and in her grief, is involved in an accident that kills 3 kids. After being exonerated, she tries to start a new life in Africa but something has followed her intent on doing her harm. Kind of a ghost story, kind of a treatise on race and class, kind of a theoretical look at experience and being. Also a fast read. 4. Everything Is Miscellaneous - Weinberger looks at the third order of order, the digital order, which unlike the first two (physical and representational), is defined by multiple simultaneous points of access. Includes discussion of metainformation especially the use of tags (and hashtags) to explore how we search, retrieve, and use information in the digital world. Really well done, lots of real world application. Read it for an Info Retrieval Systems Design class (which is a lot more interesting than it sounds). #bookworm #fiction #nonfiction #infoscience #february2017reads #playingcatchup #goodreads

Read this! "The bombing, for which Mr. and Mrs. Khurana were not present, was a flat percussive event that began under the bonnet of a parked white Maruti 800, though of course that detail, that detail about the car, could only be confirmed later. A good bombing begins everywhere at once." So begins Karan Majajan's stunning and unforgettable novel about the detonation of a small bomb in an open market in Delhi in the mid 1990s that immediately kills two young brothers and severely injures their friend. As the title suggests, the novel traces the trajectory of trauma caused by this initial explosion that envelops the grieving parents, the bomb's young survivor, the bomb maker himself, and a young philosopher whose radicalization begins the trauma anew. No one character is presented as the villain here as the antagonist is the religious conflict in all its gory complexity. Majajan's prose is flawless (as evidenced by that opening paragraph) and the story is both pointed and expansive, troubling and yet somehow, inevitable. First 5 star read of the year! Finalist for the National Book Award. #bookworm #january2017reads #playingcatchup #laaaaaatergram #goodreadschallenge2017 #india #nationalbookawardfinalist #fivestars

In the mid-seventies in Spencerville, VA, 8 yo Rocky worships his rebellious older half-brother, Paul. When Paul betrays the family and disappears one night, Rocky is devastated, confused, and left to weather adolescence w/o Paul's guidance. As a teen, Rocky begins a dangerous tryst w his older neighbor that has consequences that reverberate through the whole town. When Paul returns and tragedy immediately follows, Rocky is left wondering how well he ever really knew his brother. This is a really well done coming-of-age novel told in the voice of a likable, insightful narrator by a talented writer. Tarkington has a gift for both character and prose to the extent that you're willing to forgive him some of the missteps in plot. His novel includes a handful of surprising shifts in focus but there's a self-awareness in the writing that allows for it. The title comes from the Neil Young song and the music of Young and his ilk features prominently in the story (another plus as far as I'm concerned). Good read. #bookworm #january2017reads #playingcatchup #laaaaaatergram #goodreadschallenge2017

Commonwealth - When Bert Cousins crashes Franny Keatings's Christening party in 1961, he initiated a chain of events that will shape the Cousins and the Keatings for decades to come. Moving from CA to VA and back again, Patchett crafts a character-driven story that is generous in emotion and detail as she warmly captures the human flaws and foibles, tragedy, and redemption of this memorable blended family. I really enjoyed this. Reminded me of Tyler's Spool of Blue Thread in terms of its small scope but big heart. Another Brooklyn - Jacqueline Woodson's prose poem reads as a haunting, lyrical love letter to black girlhood. Narrator August is a 35 yo anthropologist when she returns to Brooklyn following her father's death and recalls the events that defined the adolescence of August and her 3 best friends, Sylvia, Angela, and Gigi. As she details the experiences of these girl-women caught in the struggle btw people's expectations of them & their expectations of themselves, Woodson evokes a time and place specific to her girls but resonant to any reader. Woodson's poetic voice is exquisite. This was v nearly a 5 star read and its status as Ntnl. Book Award finalist is well deserved. Recommend both of these books! #bookworm #playingcatchup #january2017reads #goodreadschallenge2017 #goodreads

Another in the Hogarth Shakespeare series, Jeanette Winterson "covers" (her words) Winter's Tale. Winterson brings the Tale of a jealous king who sends away his baby daughter believing she is the product of an affair between his wife and best friend effectively into the present and plays w time and meta in interesting ways. This is a perfectly good book that left me cold for some reason. Maybe because I'm not as familiar w the original play and its themes. Of the 3 authors I've read in this series, all 3 have taken different approaches to the project. Anne Tyler adapted Shrew as AU fanfic, M Atwood designed a prison setting mimetic of her play-within-a-play framing device, and Winterson foregrounded her relationship as the author to the material and its characters within the novel itself in the most post-modern of the approaches thus far. That Shakespeare is a character, that Shakespeare's char from Tale are characters, that Shakespeare's other characters are char, and that Winterson herself is a character in her novel is fascinating but for me, the novel itself, was not. #bookworm #january2017reads #hogarthshakespeareproject #goodreadschallenge2017

NBC correspondent Richard Engel has written two previous books abt his time covering the war in Iraq but this one, published at the beg of 2016, spans from his move to Egypt as a recent college grad in 1996 through the dissolution of Palestine/Israel peace talks, the US invasion of Iraq, the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel in Lebanon, the Arab Spring, the rebel uprising in Libya that overthrew Gaddafi, and up to the present w/ Syria, Aleppo, and the rise of ISIS. Through this comprehensive chronicle of events, he also provides the history lessons necessary to understanding why there is so much conflict in the region and why it's unlikely to end. He also offers his own take based on 20 yrs of being entrenched in the various conflicts incl that w/o the US invasion of Iraq, there is no ISIS. But it's the combo of both Bush and Obama's flawed foreign policies that created the absolute chaos that exists today. One of my 2017 resolutions is to become more knowledgeable abt foreign affairs and this was my first read on the Middle East. Good place to start as it was v informative and accessible. Highly recommend. #bookworm #january2017reads #nonfiction #worldlit #goodreadschallenge2017

Smith's latest moves back and forth between two timelines in the unnamed narrator's life. In the first, we meet her in dance class in a poor London neighborhood where she befriends Tracey, the only other person of color in her class. Tracey is a brilliant dancer but treacherous person and the narrator spends the better part of 20 yrs loving and hating her. As an adult, she's the personal assistant to a Madonna-like international pop star who in Madonna fashion wants to build a school in Africa for girls and tasks her assistant w overseeing the project. The past traumas of her childhood and the challenges of appeasing a famous narcissist play out over 25 years and 3 countries (UK, US, and Senegal) as Smith once again focuses her eye on gender, race, and class. So. I wanted to like this so much more than I did. I loved On Beauty but have never been able to get through White Teeth. There are pockets of real brilliance here and there - some of the best writing I've read- but they get lost among endlessly meandering paragraphs with a not that interesting nor empathetic main character. She is the type who does self-destructive things and then is surprised (and in one instance outraged) when her behavior has consequences. It's worth reading for the sporadic wonderfulness but it's 100 pages longer than it should be too. #bookworm #january2017reads #firstonedone #goodreadschallenge2017

This was my last read of 2016 and it was a perfect way to conclude a year of so many books. Cynthia Ozick is very serious abt lit criticism and she opens her essay collection arguing that the dearth of real critics (and not just reviewers) today is threatening to kill the modern novel. She extends the assumption that art and criticism have a necessary relationship to purport that w/o criticism, there is no art. She then takes a subsection of the Western canon and classifies the authors as monsters, fanatics, icons, and souls to suggest how that classification informs and problematizes their influence and reach. For example, Ozick writes that Orwellian and Kafkaesque have become meaningless descriptors in that the mythos of the authors they reference supersedes their actual work; people use the terms to connote a general feeling or mood in a piece and not an allusion to specific texts. To the extent that we only understand literature through precision of language and we can only get at that precision through criticism, we do ourselves a disservice (if not real harm) in not demanding that criticism continue. If all that sounds too theoretical for real world consumption, Ozick invokes Auschwitz in two essays toward the end of the book to explore how crisis in language (and the death of metaphor) has very real consequences. Given our current crisis in language and instability of meaning ("take him seriously not literally"), the stakes are then considerably raised from the death of the novel to the death of life as we know it. A note: this was the only library book I borrowed this year of which I then bought my own copy to have as a reference. #bookworm #nonfiction #litcrit #december2016reads #playingcatchup #lastoneoftheyear #oneohfive #andscene

This ethnography of a handful of families living below the poverty line in Milwaukee has been included on a number of Best of 2016 lists w excellent reason. Sociologist Matthew Desmond split his time between the city's North Side and an overpopulated trailer park between May 2008 and December 2009 to detail the epidemic of serial eviction among low income (and no income) renters. He captures the daily indignities and challenges including the threats to employment, mental and physical health, and education that are inherent in this inequitable privatized landlord/tenant system that is designed to exploit the poorest people in America. It is a stunning look at class, race, and gender. Desmond also includes his methodology as well as one possible solution - housing vouchers akin to food stamps- to an undeniably complex problem. He makes the comparison to suggest that the lack of money and resources right now indicates a collective acceptance of the dehumanizing act of denying millions of Americans the right to a home. Unforgettable read. #bookworm #december2016reads #playingcatchup #nonfiction #bestof

Eleanor Flood is an affluent SAHM (and former animator) who has vowed to be less of an asshole to her husband, kid, and people in general starting today. Semple's latest novel is set over the course of one surprisingly eventful day in Eleanor's life (w/ a handful of flashbacks that point to why she's such a mess). It's very similar to but even less substantive than Where'd You Go, Bernadette? (though it is set in the same universe). But Semple has a fantastic irreverent wit that's incredibly engaging. I loved every bit of this as I was reading it and immediately forgot it as soon as I was done. #bookworm #december2016reads #playingcatchup #latergram

Margaret Atwood's contribution is the second entry I've read so far in the Hogarth Shakespeare Series wherein a selected group of contemporary novelists are publishing retellings of Shakespeare's plays through Hogarth Press. When I read Margaret Atwood's play was The Tempest, I was very excited to read it. It was...satisfactory. There are 4 criteria I used to evaluate Hag-Seed. 1. It's far superior to the other entry I've read in the series, Anne Tyler's Vinegar Girl (Taming of the Shrew) +1 2. It's also superior to the other Margaret Atwood novel I read this year (The Heart Goes Last) which was a total mess +1 3. It is a compelling re-imagining of The Tempest in that Atwood explores the theme of prisons in the source material by setting the staging of the play (within the book) in a literal prison. She definitely embraced the spirit of the Series made clear by her fidelity to and modification of the original play. +1 4. BUT she's Margaret Effing Atwood, queen of Feminism, allegory, political commentary, empress of the Natural World -- so I was hoping for sooooo much more than what this book is. A) None of the natural metaphor exquisitely captured in Surfacing -1 2) None of the world building or statement making found in The Handmaid's Tale -1 It's worth reading if Atwood's name doesn't raise your expectations. If it was written by someone else, I might give it a higher rating. But alas. (Also the use of rap in the play w/in the book could not be a more conspicuous rip off of Hamilton.) #bookworm #december2016reads #hogarthshakespeare #playingcatchup #latergram

RPF! Vanessa is Vanessa Stephen Bell and her titular sister is Virginia Stephen Woolf. The book is a novelization of the real life love triangle between Virginia, Vanessa, and Vanessa's husband, Clive Bell, significantly before Virginia began publishing or met Leonard Woolf. The familial drama is told from Vanessa's POV and set amongst the Bloomsbury Group, a real life self-proclaimed collective of artists, authors, and critics in London in the early 20th c that included EM Forster, Lytton Strachey, etc. I loved this because I've long been interested in the Bloomsbury Group and I'm a big fan of Woolf's work. Likely though, because it focuses on Virginia's mental illness but pre-dates her fame, it's a more compelling story if one knows all Virginia came to signify (and how she inevitably eclipsed older sister/artist/caretaker, Vanessa, in the public record). It's akin to Villa Americana (also loved) for the Anglophile. #bookworm #december2016reads #realpersonfiction #playingcatchup #latergram

Mothers and daughters. Strout's novel is set during a short period of time in the past when the eponymous character was hospitalized after complications from an appendectomy. Her estranged, extremely provincial mother sits at her bedside for 5 days and her presence allows Lucy to reflect on and reconcile her dysfunctional childhood growing up dirt poor in rural Illinois. Because most of what I know abt Strout is that her most famous work was adapted into an HBO miniseries, I didn't expect My Name is Lucy Barton to be as literary as it is. But the slim novel is an exquisite example of evoking presence through absence; what is not said between Lucy and her mother contains more meaning than what is. This seemingly unassuming character study is a powerful depiction of how we can withhold, crave, and choose to give love that's thought to be unconditional. I loved it. 5 stars. And that's 100! #bookworm #december2016reads #latergram #goodreadschallenge2016 #doneanddone #imstillreadingthough #becauseobviously

1. The Argonauts - Maggie Nelson is a prof. of critical studies (art, literature) at Cal Arts and this memoir (of sorts) is the diaristic writing she did when she was pregnant for the first time while her partner was beginning Testosterone and top surgery to transition from F to M. Interwoven w her personal experiences of love, motherhood, transformation, etc. are bits and pieces of theory and criticism that inform how she relates her own exp. from the people she refers to as her "foremothers". Feminist theory, queer theory, lit theory, and art criticism are all incl to shape an incredibly intimate narrative. Formally, unlike anything I've read and I was mesmerized by it. 5 ⭐️s. 2. The Little Red Chairs - A mysterious man claiming to be a healer arrives one night to a very small town in contemporary Ireland and the residents are all immediately taken with him, none moreso than beautiful, long suffering young wife, Fidelma who begins an affair w the stranger. When his horrific past is revealed and he's removed from the town, Fidelma is also cast out and must make a new life for herself while still reeling from his betrayal. Moving from Ireland to London and finally, The Hague, O'Brien's novel ultimately explores what it means to be an immigrant and how one creates a home from nothing. Warning: this novel depicts arguably the most brutal scene I read this year. It's not gratuitous but it is gut-wrenching. Still, I was captivated by this story and these characters I'd not previously encountered. Good read. 3. Lab Girl - Dr. Hope Jahren is a geobotanist and her first book is as much a memoir of her twenty yrs of professional experience as a woman scientist as it is a dedicated love letter to trees. Her writing, especially her scientific writing, is wholly accessible and while the reader doesn't necessarily walk away loving plants, Jahren compellingly conveys just why she's dedicated her life to studying the natural world. Nonfiction outside my wheel house but I'm glad I read it. #bookworm #december2016reads #ninetynine #latergram #goodreads

Sontag wrote the first piece, Illness as Metaphor, in 1978 when at 42 she was being treated for breast cancer. An alt treatment at the time to chemo and radiation was psychotherapy which assumed there was a "cancer personality" that needed to be reconciled in order for the patient to get well. Sontag compares and contrasts the popular perceptions of TB patients w/ cancer patients to explore the stigma surrounding cancer and how conventional use of cancer as a metaphor or the reliance on metaphor in talking abt cancer is harmful to the patient. Ten years later, she revisited her illness as metaphor thesis to focus on the AIDS epidemic and how we came to culturally define that disease by the people it afflicted. In some ways, Sontag suggested, there's a stark difference btw how we consider cancer patients (as somehow struck down at random; "why me") and AIDS patients (who primarily are infected through voluntary contact w/ another) but ultimately, we are still looking at, talking abt, and even to an extent trying to treat/prevent illness - as a metaphor to the detriment of all (most esp but not only patients). Obvs this was a personal read for me and while some of it felt dated, a lot resonated particularly on the division of the culture of cancer vs. the experience of cancer. I'm still processing and hope to write more abt what I took away from it and also look at it against When Breath Becomes Air, which significantly employs metaphor for its title but actually speaks very plainly about disease. A note: Sontag successfully treated her breast cancer in the '70s and was in remission for nearly 25 yrs. She died in 2004 from an aggressive strain of leukemia, possibly related to the treatment she'd previously received. #bookworm #dec2016reads #playingcatchup #notmorbid #itsjustadisease #thyca

In present day Berkeley, Irina has just been hired at Lark House, an assisted living facility for the elderly. Irina's favorite resident quickly becomes the glamorous Alma Belasco who, though alone, remains consumed by the bizarre love triangle that shaped her life for over 50 yrs between her cousin, Nathaniel and Ichimei, the Japanese-American son of her family's gardener. Eh, I don't know. Part of me wants to reread House of Spirits to confirm that Allende used to be a really great writer and part of me is scared it won't hold up. Japanese Lover is a solidly serviceable novel but she throws every 20th c horror she can imagine in there - Alma is sent to family in the US as Hitler invades Poland. We see Auschwitz, Japanese internment camps, Bosnian civil war, Internet child pornography, AIDS, Mossad, etc. etc. etc. As such pretty much everything is surface and Allende plays it incredibly safe; almost exclusively telling and not showing. I read it fast? I don't really recommend it though. Not with all the other great stuff out there. #bookworm #dec2016reads #latergram #ninetyfive

I'll tell you right now I gave this book five stars and have no regrets. I love Anna Kendrick. Not in an online fandom way - does she have a fandom? - but I will see almost any movie w her, own The Last Five Years soundtrack, and have lost an embarrassing # of hrs. to watching her junket interviews on YouTube. I was thrilled when this book was announced and hoped it would live up to my expectations. It surpassed them. She is funny, yes but she's also incredibly frank abt her sex life, her biggest fears and flaws, her real feelings on the "industry". She's also very relatable as per her brand w references to the Babysitters Club, 3 Ninjas, and the whole spectrum of pop culture that defined kids growing up in the 90s. She did not phone this in or use it as a cash grab. She pushed herself and took risks and it shows. I mean, she's not Joan Didion but she is sort of Anna Kendrick as Joan Didion and that's a five star achievement. (I will also listen to the audiobook as read by her.) #bookworm #december2016reads