What are you reading this week of December 18, 2016?

[hermetic]

I'm still in Tibet with The Skull Mantra. This story is becoming quite frightening, showing what it's like when a tyrant takes over your country. Can you imagine living on half a cup of rice a day?

Just listened to Black Eyed Susans by Julia Heaberlin. A terrific story about a bizarre serial killer in modern-day Texas, the women and girls involved, and some provoking thoughts about the death penalty. The ending is quite satisfactory with just a little left over for perhaps a sequel. My thanks to the person who recently recommended it here.

Haven't been able to read much these past few days. We got smucked with a wicked storm and now everything is covered in ice and it's only just above zero. Shoveling has been harsh and I'm out like a light every night. This has also cut into my computer time. While I do read everything written in this Group, I haven't been able to reply as much as usual. Hoping that improves soon.

So, do tell, what are you reading these days?

[TexasProgresive]

1. Thanks, hermetic. I hope we don't begin living the Skull Mantra.

I've finished with Peter Robinson's Alan Banks for now and picked up The Black Book a John Rebus by Ian Rankin. There are a lot of similarities between the two cops. I am enjoying in as I did the Banks book.

[hermetic]

2. Mmm, an older one

Haven't read it but just took a quick look at some reviews. Sounds like Rebus has some interesting interactions with Big Ger in this one. Of course there were also a few people who didn't care for it. Perhaps I will someday get around to reading all of them. If the shoveling doesn't kill me first.

[TexasProgresive]

3. No snow here but the temp swings might kill me

80 yesterday 26 this morning. This is typical where we live. When cold fronts approach they suck up all this heat from the Gulf of Mexico. So the temperature rises. If it is an arctic front (what we call a blue norther) the wind shifts to the north and the temperature drops quickly in 15 or 20 minutes. Makes everyone sick.

[hermetic]

4. I live in high desert

I moved here to get away from snow/cold. Surprise! This is some Alberta Clipper or somesuch that has come upon us. Brrrr.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. The Best of Everything

by Rona Jaffe. It came out in 1958, is about working girls in Manhattan in the early 1950's. Very much a pre-feminist novel but very good. Years ago I saw the movie based on it, and I'm going to watch it again once I'm done reading the book.

[hermetic]

6. Highly acclaimed

as was Rona Jaffe. I was only a little girl when it came out so I never got the opportunity to read any of her work.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. That book is still in print.

So no excuse for not reading it.

To be honest, depending on your personal taste in novels, it may feel too dated to stick with, and I'd respect that. But at this point I'm not quite half way through, and I'm liking it a lot. I'm old enough (68) that the attitudes expressed in it were very familiar to me as I entered my teens and twenties. The rigidly defined roles for both men and women. The extreme of the the double standard. The absolute lack of career opportunities for women.

What I do like about the book is that more than one woman has a strong independent streak, and has a deep unease about the gender roles of the time. Because it was written back then, it's not women of a later era, expressing later feelings and beliefs (a common flaw in novels written after the time they're set in) but accurately reflects how some women rebelled as best they could against the restrictions placed on them.

Oh, and I got my copy from the library, so yours may also have it. If not, suggest it as a purchase.

[hermetic]

8. Yeah, I already checked

the library catalog online. They only have 1 book by Jaffe, Five Women. Written much later, 1997.

Actually you and I are the same age, but I didn't start living in the US until the mid-60s. This, I believe, has given me a rather unique view. My first outrage was over racial discrimination and I never really began to appreciate the double standard problem until the 80s, when I started living it myself. How sad, now, the see such little progress made on either front.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. It would be extremely interesting for someone from another country

to read that book and share her reaction to it, coming from a different culture.

As someone with limited means myself, I hate to suggest anyone purchase a book. I know that my library has a place on their website that allows me to suggest a purchase, and I'm surprised at how often my suggestion results in the purchase.

I don't believe I've ever read anything by her before this. Just checked, and my library also has Five Women and An American Love Story which is apparently out of print, as I don't find it on Amazon. I may need to read that one.

[hermetic]

11. For clarification

The culture I grew up in was The Navy. I was born in Texas and when I was 4 we were sent to Italy for 5 yrs. Then we lived on Adak, a tiny Aleutian island, followed by many years on Guam. Then I was sent to live with my grandparents in Albuquerque so that I could attend a "normal" high school. The date of my return to the US was November 22, 1963. Talk about culture shock.

Back then I would never have read a book like The Best of Everything. I was totally into sci fi, mysteries, and sweeping epics like Hawaii and Tropic of Cancer. I am curious to read it now, though, so thanks for the rec.

[Number9Dream]

10. "Wishin' and Hopin'" by Wally Lamb

If you like Jean Shepherd's "A Christmas Story, you'll probably like this story too. Lamb's holiday tale focuses on a feisty Catholic school fifth grader named Felix Funicello - a distant cousin of Annette Funicello. Both poignant and very funny, Wishin' and Hopin' transports us back to October, November, and December of 1964.

[hermetic]

12. Hi!

Good to see ya. Shoot, they have this book at my library but I was just there a few hours ago and there's no way I am going back outside again. The streets are so covered with ice that walking is close to impossible. My feet were slippin' and a slidin' every which way. And there's no end in immediate sight. Maybe someday next month it will get better.

I will check it out, though. I love "A Christmas Story" and I'm definitely on the lookout for anything that will make me laugh these days.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

13. Finished The Best of Everything.

Really, really good, although I'm not sure many men would like it, and anyone born after 1980 or so might not identify with the women in it. I could because I'm only a decade or so younger, and things were very much the same for me in my 20s as it was for them at that age.

Now I'm reading The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen, who was born in Vietnam and grew up in the U.S. The narrator of the novel is half French, half Vietnamese man who is a Communist sleeper agent who goes to the U.S. after the fall of Saigon. The format is that he is back in Vietnam and is writing an extended confession. It's incredibly good. My brief description doesn't begin to do it justice.

Oh, and the book won the Pulitzer Prize.