Outside of a Dog, a Book is Man's Best Friend (The Book Thread)

[Erin]

So I thought I would get all this reading done while I was off work for my hip surgery but apparently Netflix got more of my attention instead I only managed to read three books. June, which I had discussed earlier in the thread, The Romanovs: The Final Chapter by Robert Massie and then Under My Skin by Sabine Durant.

I had actually read The Romanovs before, but it was a really long time ago so I didn't remember it well, and it was before I had read any of Massie's other books, and I was in the mood for some non-fiction. It's definitely very different than his other books in that it gets a lot more science-y and courtroom-y than any of his other books and in spite of being shorter than his other books, I found it dragged a lot and had a lot of filler in it. It's basically divided into two parts - the first covers the discovery of (most) of the Romanovs' bodies in 1991 (well, technically they were discovered in 1979 but nothing was done until the fall of the Soviet Union was imminent) and the scientific testing that followed. The second part then covers the numerous people who claimed to be Romanovs over the years, which was possible given the mixed up stories given by the Soviets initially following the murders and that there were no bodies. The most interesting part to me was probably the Anna Anderson story, although the whole courtroom drama over the fight for her tissue to DNA test it went on way too long. I was also disappointed that since it was written in 1995, it obviously didn't include anything with the subsequent discovery of the final two bodies in 2007. But I was hoping that Massie would have written an updated edition, especially since I was curious as to whether the controversy over whether one of the skeletons was Maria or Anastasia got resolved when the last two bodies were found. But he hasn't done so yet and Wikipedia is no help.

Under My Skin is a psychological thriller lent to me by a friend who assured me that it was "as good as Gone Girl" Not quite. It's not bad, but not great. It goes quickly. I didn't notice any massive holes in the plot although I wasn't particularly looking for them either. I did have one big complaint...it's not a spoiler but could give something away if you're smart, so I'll put in tags:

Spoiler

I felt like for the book to work, I needed to really like and root for the main character throughout the book and I never really found her particularly likeable to begin with, but maybe that was just me.

And now of course I'm back at work when what I really want to read is finally available...David M Shapard's Annotated version of Mansfield Park, which I think was originally promised about two years ago and the release date kept getting pushed back. But it should be arriving from Amazon today!

 

[Jenny]

And now of course I'm back at work when what I really want to read is finally available...David M Shapard's Annotated Mansfield Park, which I think was originally promised about two years ago and the release date kept getting pushed back. But it should be arriving from Amazon today!

ooo please do report in once you've started reading. I've always loved that book, even as I know many Austen fans aren't big on it. Have you ever seen the 1999 movie version by Patricia Rozema? It's one of my favourites - she does the book pretty closely, but weaves in some realities from Jane's life and circumstances of the day that add great texture to the usual costume drama. It's also a bit starker than most period movies, and the casting is wonderful.

 

[Nomad]

I love all of Austen's novels, even Northanger Abbey, which a lot people seem to dismiss as a "lesser" novel.

 

[Erin]

ooo please do report in once you've started reading. I've always loved that book, even as I know many Austen fans aren't big on it.

I can, but I'm sure I'll love it! I have read Mansfield Park before and love it too...in fact, I just read it last year when I decided to reread all of my Austen books before my trip to England where I was touring the area she grew up and visiting Bath. This one I'm mainly reading for the annotations now - I've been a huge fan of the versions that Shapard has done of all of the other novels and have been waiting very impatiently for Mansfield Park to complete the set. It will be interesting to see if he is done now or if he decides to take on some of her other works like Lady Susan.

Have you ever seen the 1999 movie version by Patricia Rozema? It's one of my favourites - she does the book pretty closely, but weaves in some realities from Jane's life and circumstances of the day that add great texture to the usual costume drama. It's also a bit starker than most period movies, and the casting is wonderful.

I have seen it, but I think we will have to agree to disagree on this one. There are parts of it that I appreciate, but I didn't like what she did with Fanny's character. Strangely, if it's ever on TV, I will watch it because I keep hoping I'll change my mind and like it but I never seem to. I own movie versions (sometimes multiple versions) of all of the Austen novels except for Mansfield Park because I've never found one that I'm satisfied with. (The 1980s BBC one is more faithful, but too 1980s; the 2007 ITV version also got the character wrong.) Maybe someday!

 

[Jenny]

I guess Fanny is open to some interpretation then, or is at least subjective. Didn't Jane herself say that she disliked Fanny? Or that she set out to created an unlikable character or something like that? I've read the books but am no Austen scholar.

I'm adding Mansfield Park to my re-read list for the summer.

 

[Nomad]

Interesting article on Fanny Price/Mansfield Park

Factoid: The "scandalous" play performed in the novel, The Lovers' Vows, was translated by Elizabeth Inchbald in 1798. Inchbald was an actress and playwright who also wrote two novels. A Simple Story (1791), her first novel, features two heroines who may have inspired Maria Bertram and Fanny Price.

 

[Nomad]

@Jenny : An interesting article which sheds some light on why Austen may have chosen that particular play.

 

[Jenny]

Interesting. I like this point at the end of the essay - we do tend to focus on Austen's characters and their circumstances rather than the broader scope of things:

If we construe Mansfield Park as a morality tale, or as a book about Fanny herself, we fundamentally misread Austen’s novel. It’s not called Fanny Price, after all. Mansfield Park highlights, as no other Austen novel does, the role that class and class privilege play in determining the popular qualities for a heroine’s charm and wit—characteristics that depend on an ability to transgress without consequence.

 

[Jenny]

Oh re the play - fascinating! What a clever idea to have it performed by people who were simultaneously playing the characters in Mansfield Park. I've bookmarked to read the rest of it, and now I'm really going to have to read the book again.

 

[Nomad]

Oh re the play - fascinating! What a clever idea to have it performed by people who were simultaneously playing the characters in Mansfield Park. I've bookmarked to read the rest of it, and now I'm really going to have to read the book again.

A Simple Story is still in print if you're curious. Just pulled out my copy - Austen may have split heroine # 1 (Miss Milner) into Maria Bertram and Mary Crawford.

 

[Erin]

I guess Fanny is open to some interpretation then, or is at least subjective. Didn't Jane herself say that she disliked Fanny? Or that she set out to created an unlikable character or something like that? I've read the books but am no Austen scholar.

That was Emma - "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like" (I had to look the quote up though). My recollection was that Austen liked Fanny and was disappointed that no one else really seemed to, although my memory is a bit hazy on that.

I really should be working right now, so I'll have to check out some of the articles after. I'm also very interested to see what Shapard has to say about Lover's Vows in the annotations.

 

[Jenny]

Ah OK I think you are right it was Emma. Who I do like I even like Gwyneth as Emma.

 

[Nomad]

I actually liked Emma as a character. She was misguided, thoughtless, and more than a little full of herself, but she grew up by the end.

 

[Artistic Skaters]

I really have to wonder who even reads short stories at all.

I love short stories. My favorites are by John Cheever, James Thurber, E.B. White, John Updike, Ann Hood, & Susan Vreeland among others. A good reason to read the New Yorker since I was a kid & when I was a teenager Redbook had short stories every month & I would always look forward to the next issue so I could read them. Tales of the City started out as short stories.

 

[Nomad]

I've decided to tell Ms. Archer "Better luck next time" and spend some time with Edith Wharton's first volume of short stories. I've read several of her novels and novellas, but none of her short stories.

 

[PrincessLeppard]

I started Hillbilly Elegy today. As some of you know, I teach in a mostly white, high poverty school. I have found myself nodding in agreement through much of the book. It's also really well written and engaging.

 

[Artistic Skaters]

Hillbilly Elegy is still #1 on the bestseller list where I live. Not sure if that is because the paperback version is out now or because of the interviews he has given to our newspaper about wanting to move back to the Midwest. The book sure has had a long run & there's still a big waiting list for it at the library.

 

[Prancer]

I started Hillbilly Elegy today. As some of you know, I teach in a mostly white, high poverty school. I have found myself nodding in agreement through much of the book. It's also really well written and engaging.

JD Vance came to my school a while back to do a presentation and Q&A session. We had a pretty long chat. He seems to be in shock even now at how successful his book is.

 

[nlloyd]

Such must have been the case with several of my instructors.
Whenever I attempted to share an idea of my own, I paid the price!

That is too bad. Originality is a rare commodity in academia - it's surprising how many very intelligent, highly competent scholars, struggle to achieve it. Instructors should encourage original ideas, as long as they are sustained by credible evidence.

 

[nlloyd]

When I can't settle on a full-length novel to read, I'll pick up a volume of short stories. I don't have to remember what happened in one story to make sense of what happens in another. If a particular story doesn't really grab me, I can just skip it. I don't even have to read them in order if I don't want to, although I rarely do that. Most of what I read in college I liked; I've even reread a few of those books. I wasn't a big fan of Death Comes for the Archbishop. Faith-based fiction doesn't often work for me. Two exceptions are Robert Elsmere and The Damnation of Theron Ware.

I too enjoyed Robert Elsmere - a surprisingly detailed, nuanced, and prescient depiction of a late 19C crisis of faith, along with the different religious options available at that time. And all the more interesting for having a woman as the author. I much preferred it to Samuel Butler's The Way of All Flesh, which is often paired with Edmund Gosse's Father and Son. Both seem more reductive and didactic than Ward's work. Have you read Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure, another fictional depiction of a late 19C crisis of faith?

 

[clairecloutier]

JD Vance came to my school a while back to do a presentation and Q&A session. We had a pretty long chat. He seems to be in shock even now at how successful his book is.

Any further impressions of him?

I've been surprised myself at the success of the book. I feel like the general issues covered in it (poverty, sociocultural issues/problems/characteristics in Appalachia) have been addressed extensively in many news articles over the last few years. Yet, with the way the media and public have reacted to the book, it's as if Vance was the first one to raise the topic. TBH I find it a bit .

 

[Nomad]

I too enjoyed Robert Elsmere - a surprisingly detailed, nuanced, and prescient depiction of a late 19C crisis of faith, along with the different religious options available at that time. And all the more interesting for having a woman as the author. I much preferred it to Samuel Butler's The Way of All Flesh, which is often paired with Edmund Gosse's Father and Son. Both seem more reductive and didactic than Ward's work. Have you read Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure, another fictional depiction of a late 19C crisis of faith?

I haven't read Jude yet, but I have read The Way of All Flesh, which I liked so much that I replaced my paperback copy with the hardcover Everyman's Library edition.

 

[cygnus]

This part was funny (and true, I think):



As to the rest of the article--interesting. I read a lot, but it's mostly nonfiction. I'm not very into modern English/American/Canadian literary fiction. I find it generally uninteresting, I don't know why. I'll pick up a book and read the first paragraph and I'm just not into it. Any fiction written in present tense generally annoys me (which I know is a weird thing to pick on, but I just hate it). Maybe if modern literary fiction were better, people would be more interested in reading it?? I don't know. I find I'm generally drawn to fiction either from the 19th century, or from 1900-1960, or from other countries.

ETA--All just my own personal take, of course, and completely idiosyncratic.

I'm with you on present tense writing- I just can't read a novel written that way. It's affected and annoying. I think I might have enjoyed "Wolf Hall", but I couldn't get past the first page because of it.

 

[Prancer]

Any further impressions of him?

He's very personable, but I expected that. In the book, he talks about relationships he has maintained for years and there were people who stepped up to help him on a pretty regular basis, so I figured he had to be quite likable.

I've been surprised myself at the success of the book. I feel like the general issues covered in it (poverty, sociocultural issues/problems/characteristics in Appalachia) have been addressed extensively in many news articles over the last few years. Yet, with the way the media and public have reacted to the book, it's as if Vance was the first one to raise the topic. TBH I find it a bit .

My take on that is

1. It's a tribute to the power of story-telling. He is a compelling writer.
2. He is the living embodiment of the American Dream--if you work hard, you will succeed. Most of us buy into that to some degree. Everyone likes to see pet beliefs confirmed.
3. He is one of Them who became one of Us for a lot of the media and establishment. And at least some of what he says confirms things they believe to be true, which is always well received.

I haven't read Jude yet, but I have read The Way of All Flesh, which I liked so much that I replaced my paperback copy with the hardcover Everyman's Library edition.

Really? The Way of All Flesh should be right up my alley, but I also found it didactic and rather heavy-handed.

 

[Nomad]

...

Really? The Way of All Flesh should be right up my alley, but I also found it didactic and rather heavy-handed.

Yes. Then again, I also liked The House of the Seven Gables, Babbitt, and Dombey & Son. I guess I have peculiar taste in books.

 

[emason]

Yes. Then again, I also liked The House of the Seven Gables, Babbitt, and Dombey & Son. I guess I have peculiar taste in books.

Interesting, dear, not peculiar.

 

[aftershocks]

I haven't read this one yet, but I'm looking forward to doing so: Mrs. Sherlock Holmes... by Brad Ricca

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29939393-mrs-sherlock-holmes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Grace_Quackenbos

I've met the author, Brad Ricca. He teaches at Case Western Reserve University. He also wrote, Superboys: The Amazing Adventures of Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster, the Creators of Superman.

 

[clairecloutier]

Just finished Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder. Overwhelming book .... Its main subject is the multiple disasters that befell Eastern Europe/Russia from 1930-1953: The horrific state-sponsored famine of Ukraine in the early 1930s; Stalin's Great Terror/purges of the late 1930s; the German invasion in 1941; the Einsatzgruppen mass murders of Jews in 1941-42; the Holocaust in 1942-45; the unofficial civil war in Belarus between Soviet partisans/German collaborators in the mid-1940s; the mass deportation of ethnic Germans in 1945-46; and finally, Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of the late 1940s/early 50s.

The major brunt of all these cataclysmic events fell on the borderlands of Eastern Europe: Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, the Baltic states. Snyder says that during the 1930-1953 time period, some 14 million people were killed in this region.

The book is extremely depressing and therefore I can't really recommend it per se. (Kept wondering: Why am I putting myself through this?) But, without a doubt, the information in it is important, vital, indispensable.

 

[ryanj07]

I recently finished Elinor Lipman's "The View From Penthouse B". It was an easy read that didn't leave much of an impression either way. I think the decision of the main character's sister to re-marry her ex caused me to like the book a lot less overall.

Also read Mary Kubica's "The Good Girl". It was solid but I didn't love it. None of the characters were that likable and the "twist" at the end resulted in me disliking Mia even more. I've been wanting to read "Pretty Baby" but I'm in no hurry after reading this one.

I'm now reading "Revolutionary Road". I've been meaning to read it for years and avoided watching the movie until I've read the book. It started a bit slow but I've really gotten into it now.

 

[Erin]

@ryanj07, I think you are right to give Pretty Baby a pass. I thought both of Kubicka's books were thoroughly meh. I can't remember which one I read first but decided I would still try the other one after someone told me that the it was better but whoever told me that was mistaken.

Lurving the annotated Mansfield Park. Even though I just read the novel last year in my Austen frenzy, I'm still finding all kinds of new things thanks to the annotations. I'm getting close to Fanny's Portsmouth visit and I know it's going to make me want to visit my brother who loves there and find various spots from the novel.

In the middle of the Austen, I also read Behind Closed Doors that someone (Prancer?) mentioned ages ago and I finally got off the waitlist from the library. My recollection was a page turner along the line of The Couple Next Door, which I would agree with, although I did find parts of it a little hard to read at times even as I couldn't stop turning the pages. One side note is I was searching for book reviews while I was bored in class and had only read halfway through the book and came across one from the Washington Times that gives away 90% of the book, which I couldn't believe. Luckily I don't care about spoilers but for anyone who does, stay away from that review!