Not much to report in my personal life over the past couple of weeks. It snowed last Sunday, which was a surprise to myself. I caught this picture well before it stopped snowing – so there was more accumulation by the end of it.

This being MEA weekend, I am spending Thursday and Friday with the kids. So far, we haven’t done much interesting, though today we plan on going to the library. This weekend, I will participate in Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon. My goal is to read 12 hours – which would be more than I am usually able to pull off for a readathon. But I like to challenge myself. 🙂

On the Blog

Over the past two weeks, I have reviewed Going Clear, by Lawrence Wright, Hillbilly Elegy, by JD Vance, & And I Darken, by Kiersten White. In a slightly hypomanic state, I felt the need to outline my reading goals for the rest of the year (I said that I changed my goal from 75 books to 60, but I have since then decided to add a graphic novel a week in order to make my 75.), as well as my reading goals for next year (which are subject to change). I also added a Nonfiction Challenge and a Fiction Challenge in order to diversify my reading.

Reading plans for the following week

These are the books that I expect to make progress on (though not necessarily complete) over the next week. The Witch of Willow Hall, Them, and The Re-Origin of Species ARCs. The Passage and The Wasp Factory are my Halloween season reads. And The Lies We Told is this month’s Book of the Month pick.

Completed

I finished 4 books over the past two weeks. Reviews for The Hate U Give and The Lions of Valletta are coming up next week. Beyond These Walls will not be not published until January, and the review will wait until then. Though I will say that I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Acquired

Perhaps I overdid my acquisitions over the past two weeks. I requested way too many books from NetGalley and Edelweiss, so my focus for a while will be to catch up on those ARCs. American Overdose, Fade, Bone Lines, The Patriot Bride, the Liberty Bride, The Cumberland Bride, and Beneath a Prairie Moon are NetGalley books. The Re-Origin of Species and The Torture Machine are from Edelweiss. Room and Steelheart are both Daily Deals from Audible. The Wasp Factory is a book I purchased because I wanted to read it for Halloween season. And The Lions of Valletta as a birthday present.

This update has been posted to Caffeinated Reviewer’s Sunday Post.

Summary: This is the story of a female Dracul of Wallachia. (In other words, I think she’ll develop into Dracula by the end of the trilogy?) In this first book of the trilogy, Lada and her brother Radu are taken hostage by the Ottoman Empire as insurance against their father’s uprising. Lada and Radu grow up friends with the Sultan’s  son, growing in power.

My Thoughts: This book had a slow beginning but picked up about a quarter of the way through. I wasn’t invested in any of the characters until then. But at that time, the characters became very interesting. The concept of a female Dracul is also creative and fun. It’s nice to see a strong female anti-hero. I am very interested in reading the rest of the series to see how Radu and Lada develop.

 

 

Now I will post some goals for next year: my goal for 2019 is at least 100 books.

NetGalley

I plan on reading an average of one nonfiction and one fiction ARC from NetGalley each month, for a total of 12 each in a year.

Total: 24, Running Total: 24

Award Winners

I plan on completing 2018 and 2019 shortlists for the Man Booker Prize and the Wellcome Book Prize. Pictured above are the books on 2018 shortlists that I do not plan to have already completed. The Wellcome Book 2019 Prize longlist will be announced in February, the shortlist in March, and the award winner in April. The Man Booker 2019 longlist will likely be announced in July, the shortlist in September, and the winner in October. Depending on how I’m doing on last year’s shortlists, I may read some of the longlisted books as well.

Total: 12, Running Total: 36

Studies

I am currently trying to educate myself with a variety of literary, philosophical, and historical studies. The categories are:

a. Scripture
b. Philosophy
c. World Literature
d. Meaning of Life
e. Judaism
f. History
g. Self Help
h. Myth

Total: 8, Running Total: 44

The Well-Educated Mind

I’m still working on the Well Educated Mind project, based on the list of books and discussion question suggestions in Susan Wise Bauer’s book, The Well Educated Mind.

Total: 12, Running total: 56

Miscellaneous Fiction

Total: 22, Running total: 78

Miscellaneous Nonfiction

Total: 22 Running Total: 100

Hey everyone! There are 87 days left of this year, and I’ve decided to change my goal of 75 books this year to 60 books. That’s another 23 books I need to read in 87 days, at an average of 1.85 books per week. 🙂 I have separated my goals categorically:

NetGalley

I have currently been approved 8 NetGalley books, and my goal is to finish and review them all by the end of the year. That’s approximately 1 book every 11 days.

Audiobooks

Rotating between fiction and nonfiction, I plan to finish these 8 audiobooks by the end of the year. Again, a total of 1 book every 11 days.

Litsy Markup Postal Bookclub

For the first time ever, I have signed up for the a postal bookclub through Litsy. In this one we join a group of 4 people. In November, we each pick a book, read it, and make highlights and notes in the margins. At the end of the month, we mail our book to the next person in our group, and receive one from someone else. Then we read, mark, and mail that one, and so on. As I have not been assigned a group and discussed what types of books to read, I will not venture a guess as to what my book choice will be. But this will be 2 books over the months of November and December.

General Reading

And my final 5 books will be these.

 

Summary: Vance reminisces about his Appalachian childhood in a struggling Ohio town. He describes why he (and people with the same poor white-kid background as he) switched from Democrat to Republican over the past decade. Despite this being touted as a book that helps you understand why Trump was elected, it was mostly a memoir and not a political book.

My Thoughts: This was an enlightening book, as it did a good job of showing how the attempts of the Democrats to help poorer people backfired on the poor white Appalachian folks, and why they would want a major change. Vance described how people flocked from deep in Appalachia to steel-working towns in Ohio before and during the Cold War. But when steel became a lagging industry after the Cold War, many people lost their jobs and struggled to find any job to support themselves. The welfare system (according to Vance) only made things worse, because it encouraged people not to find jobs.

I found Vance’s life story quite compelling, and his description of why his family switched from Democrat to Republican when they did was mostly reasonable. However, I wasn’t completely convinced by his argument that it isn’t racism that turned people  like himself against Obama. Vance claimed it was because they couldn’t relate to Obama because he was Ivy-league educated, from a big city, and wore a suit everywhere. That’s a load of bull. If THAT were their reason for not liking Obama, then they wouldn’t like Trump either. Unfortunately, that few paragraphs of the book colored my view of the rest of his argument.

Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed Hillbilly Elegy and it made a lot of good points. And, importantly, the narrative was interesting and always brought me back for more. And I would have been perfectly willing to listen to a valid argument about why their issue with Obama had nothing to do with race (I’m sure they have other reasons), but he gave a very poor excuse, which made me think it was simply that – an excuse. Vance literally couldn’t come up with a valid reason to say why they related to Trump better than Obama (other than race). This book would normally have gotten four stars, but I’m going to dock it .5 because of that big problem.

Summary: Wright’s book covers the history of Scientology from the youth of L. Ron Hubbard, to Scientology’s founding, to the current scandals.

My Thoughts: Going Clear is meant to be impartial, though I found it to lean heavily in the anti-Scientology direction. For instance, it provides pages and pages of stories that make the reader cringe, followed by a short statement saying that the Church of Scientology does not verify those claims. If it were impartial, it would spend the same amount of time presenting the Church’s side as the opposing side.

It is, however, clearly well researched. I had some knowledge of L. Ron Hubbard previous to reading this book – my grandpa knew him for a short time while he was still an aspiring writer, and so my dad has stories about that. I had no clue that he was so cruel, dishonest, and mentally ill. (Other than having a clear problem with believing in his own invented stories.) The only other book I’ve read on Scientology was Beyond Belief, by David Miscavige’s niece Jenna Miscavige Hill. My view of David Miscavige was colored by Ms. Hill’s rendition of him, which was much kinder than that in Going Clear. She did briefly mention that there was rumor of his violence, but not anything that would make me suspect the violence that Wright reports. I found this book to be believable, well-researched, and eye-opening. Definitely worth reading if you’re interested in learning about Scientology from the non-Scientologist’s view. It gets four stars (loses half a star due to claims of impartiality).

Happy weekend everyone! It’s been a busy two weeks.

D’s been having increased anxiety again, and we’re still trying to figure out if there’s a root cause that we should consider when creating an IEP. We had her assessed by a speech language therapist, and she turned out to be above average in spoken language. So when she DOES hesitate and have an anxiety attack while talking, it’s not because she can’t find the words first. The anxiety comes first, THEN she can’t find the words. We are now discussing assessing her for mild autism, based on some small sensory issues, a preference for structure, and some awkward responses to social cues. I’m about as convinced that she has autism as I was that she had a spoken language problem (which is, not very), but perhaps an assessment will at least rule out a problem that we can now just ignore. Or perhaps they’ll find something that I don’t expect. I am still relatively convinced that she has dysgraphia, but we are waiting for the first parent/teacher conference to determine what the teacher thinks about her writing skills.

M, on the other hand, has been excellently. We finally got a stimulant for the attention that seems to work and have no adverse side effects. We had a form filled out by the teacher, which said that M was in the normal range on the ADHD indicators and that he was above average both academically and behaviorally. That’s right. M’s better behaved then the other kids. That’s a far stretch from last year, when he was getting in trouble every day. So, yay! Something’s going right! We are thinking of not doing an IEP for him right now, since he’s in such a good place.

Aaron and I are doing well. There’s no news for Aaron. On the other hand, I made the mistake of going to the dentist on my birthday. Booooo! I’ve never had dental problems in the past, other than a couple of cavities, so it came as a shock when I was told I had periodontal disease and one cavity (underneath a silver filling – meaning I’ll have to get a partial crown). I’ve never had a crown. And the deep cleaning process for the periodontal disease sounds awful. Ugh! I’m going to be listening to that Dentist song from Little Shop of Horrors for the next couple of weeks, I think.

Periodontal disease is a risk factor for early-term birth (pre-37 weeks) and low birth weight. I’m not overly worried, as I haven’t noticed any symptoms of periodontal disease (even bad breath) other than the bleeding gums. But I DO trust my dentist. So, yay, even MORE appointments over the next two weeks. I’m SOOOO tired of appointments right now. I take me to all of mine, the kids to all of theirs, my parents to all of theirs….soooo tired.

On the Blog

I finally managed to publish a couple of book reviews! Yay!

The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood

The Mars Room, by Rachel Kushner

Plus, I joined #bookstagram. I’m hibernatorslibr (same as my twitter account). It’ll mostly be pictures of books and me, books and cats, or just books.

Currently Reading

I’m on the last 50 pages of The Hate U Give, so I should finish that today. The Passage is my scary book this month – I’m hoping to get through the whole series before Halloween, but we’ll see what happens. The Gene, so far, is excellent. And I Darken and Beyond These Walls are both ARCs from NetGalley. Yes, I’m behind on And I Darken, but I’ve decided to be responsible and catch up on some of my unreviewed books.

Completed

I finished three books last week. Reviews coming.

Bailed

I didn’t want to give up on this beautiful book, but I just couldn’t find myself interested in the words. I found my mind wandering instead of concentrating on how to move on after I am dead. I guess I better not die. 🙂 Not in Ancient Egypt, anyway. The book, otherwise, is beautiful and highly recommended.

Acquired

Beyond These Walls, The Witch of Willow Hall, and Them are all ARCs from NetGalley. I went crazy and requested a bunch of stuff. 🙂 The Greeks is a textbook that is suggested by a Ancient Greek history Great Course that I’m working on currently. The Mahabharata replaces The Egyptian Book of the Dead in my classical literature studies. To Be a Machine will be the next Nonfiction book I listen to (chosen because it won the Wellcome Book Prize), when I am done with my Halloween reading. And, finally, I gave up on reading Gulliver’s Travels in lieu of listening to it. Haven’t started the audiobook yet, but I’m looking forward to it.

Summary: Following the stream-of-consciousness of a few different characters, this is mostly the story of Romy Hall, who is serving two consecutive life sentences in the California State prison system. Kushner’s story slips back and forth between the now and the past, so the reader slowly learns about how Ms. Hall ended up where she did. It is a gritty, realistic book that gives a fairly accurate view (as I’ve heard from prison inmates) of what women’s prison is like.

My Thoughts: I started listening to this right after it made the Booker Prize shortlist. Although I understand perfectly why it made the shortlist (the writing style is superb), I wasn’t overly impressed with the story.  Don’t get me wrong…I had emotional investment in Ms. Hall, and felt the other characters were realistic and well-written. And I think Kushner achieved exactly what she set out to do: flawlessly executing the stream-of-consciousness style. I was just in the mood for a story with more plot. But this book wasn’t about plot. It was a book about character and setting. And the characters and setting were superbly written. So I will still give the book 4 stars, even though it wasn’t what I was in the mood for.

 

Summary: Offred lives in a dystopic world in which the society she knew fell apart and was replaced by a militaristic, uber-religious, man-controlled culture. She has been taken as a “handmaid” – a new form of the Biblical consort with whom married men of wealth can have children if their own wives can not conceive. (That is, of course, the men believe that the problem of conception is with the woman and not with the man.) When people around her begin to act in ways that the new culture will not abide, she must make a choice of whom to trust.

My Thoughts: This is my first Atwood book, and I’m very impressed. Yes, ok, it’s not for people who dislike books that make you uncomfortable. But if you’re in the right mood, this was thoughtful feminist writing full of symbolism. Atwood is a real pro at subtley-but-somehow-harshly making a point. I know, it sounds like making such a point is impossible, but somehow Atwood managed. I am eager to read more of her books.

 

 

Spoilers Below

I am currently on a project outlined by Susan Wise Bauer in her book The Educated Mind. In it, she provides a list of questions to ask while you’re reading a book. Although this is not one of the books in her list, I think it is worthy of asking those questions.

👽What is the most central life-changing event?

This “central life-changing event” usually takes place at the beginning of the book, according to Susan Wise Bauer…and understandably so. But in this case, the book takes place with a lot of flashbacks. I’d say the revolution that overturned society would be the central life changing event for Offred. It is because of this that she lost her job, her husband, and her child. It is because of this that she was forced into handmaidenhood.

It is easy to confuse the reader with too many flashbacks that inform the reader (possibly a little late) what happened to bring the character to her current spot. However, Atwood did an amazing job, and I applaud her seamless work of giving us just as much information as we need, but still leaving mystery and not forcing information into the narrative unrealistically. This takes talent. I could easily believe that Offred really was writing the story with the understanding that her audience would know the background of the revolution and the norms of her society. Facts were not forced upon us, they were casually, and naturally, dropped.

👽What does the central character want? What is standing in his or her way? What strategy is pursued to overcome this block?

Now this is a hard question. Offred wants a lot of things, and some of them conflict. She wants life to be back the way it was before the revolution. She also, more realistically, wants to be safe – and therefore to get pregnant. But she also wants to live her life, which is why she dares to do things that endanger her. She wants to be unique in a world where even her name is taken away from her.

How do you even list all the things a character like Offred wants? Some of the things she wants are specific to her character, but I think Atwood meant her to represent every woman who has ever felt oppressed. In which case she wants freedom. She wants to speak out. She wants equality. She wants to be an individual who is valued. It is because of these more subtle desires of Offred that I can say Atwood can be harsh but subtle at the same time.

👽Who is telling you this story? Is this person reliable?

Offred is telling this story, but who Offred is has become a question at the end of the book. Is she reliable? Well, yes and no, I think. I think she is honestly relaying what is in her heart at any given point in the narrative, but she also has a constricted view of what is going on in the world. She is not allowed to see the mechanizations of society or of the people around her from her current position, so she has to relay things only as she perceives them and perhaps not as they are.

👽 Does the end have a resolution or a logical exhaustion?

In the end, the story is artfully left open to interpretation. Did she escape? Was she caught and punished? We don’t know. But this, I think, was the best ending that could happen given the overall meaning of the book. Since Offred represents the wants and needs of all women in the world, and some women are eventually liberated and some continue to be oppressed, there is only one way to end the story – by leaving it open.

 

 

 

Well, it’s been a productive couple of weeks, and I even got a little bit of reading done! I started the process of informing the school district that we were looking into getting IEPs for the kids. We may be jumping the gun a bit on M, whose impulse control issues have greatly increased this year (we’re still working on the attention aspect), but D still has pretty bad anxiety attacks when attempting to compose written work. I noticed that when she types, the anxiety is nonexistent. (I asked her if she felt better typing, and she said “no,” but that’s not what I was seeing.) The school counselor was a bit reluctant for M, but seemed willing to start a process for D.

Yesterday, the family all headed out to the Minnesota Ren Fest, and we had a great time. (We’re having our “adult” trip next weekend, so we can do stuff besides watch the kids on rides.) Then, at 10:30pm, I picked up my nephew, J, from Valleyfair. As I was driving through Savage, a cop with flashing lights zoomed by. As I entered Shakopee, two more zoomed by. I said to myself “they better not be headed towards Valleyfair!” Sure enough. As I turned through the entrance gate to Valleyfair, two more cop cars zoomed in. My final estimate is that there were about 30 squad cars there, from 5 different cities. There was also a police helicopter circling with it’s light shining down on us. Shortly after I arrived, they shut off the entrance so that the worried parents had to line up at the gate (pretty much pulled over on the shoulder of the highway) to pick up their kids. I was “lucky” to have arrived before they shut down the gate, so I got to sit in the mess and listen to all the rumors. Which were – several fights, stampedes, a stabbing, and a gunshot. (It turned out to be several fights and stampedes. No one was injured.) I was stuck there over an hour as I waited for J’s friends to be picked up – you know, I thought I’d try some adulting and stick around until they were all safe. But as J and I got in our car at the end of the ordeal, a cop came up to us and told us rudely it was time to “move on.” Really? Would he have rather I abandoned a bunch of teens for HIM to watch over? I’m sure most of the cops there were wonderful people, but that left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

Currently Reading

Still working on The Hate U Give and Hillbilly Elegy. I decided to pick up The Mars Room when it made the Booker Prjze shortlist. I was torn between it and The Overstory. But I’ll start with the short one first.

Completed