World War Z is a damn fantastic book.

World War Z is a damn fantastic book. 

 TRUE I am realizing this years after its publication, but better now than when I'm 90.

Max Brooks, son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft, and evidently an immensely talented individual, put together over 300 pages of survivor accounts of a zombie apocalypse and made it awesome.

more-awesome-than-Milla-Jovovich awesome

I'm not a zombie apocalypse planner. I sat in my room in my ground floor apartment the other day and suddenly realized that if zombies showed up, I'd be dead in fifteen seconds because of the sheer indefensibleness of my situation. Again, ground floor, and there're giant windows everywhere. I'd have to somehow get to the Sears Tower, which probably wouldn't be TOO hard because it's like a mile and a half away, but I'd have to bring a weapon, and all we have is an aluminum baseball bat and a two by four. Also I've been spending the winter eating McVitie's Digestive Biscuits, so my preparation has been more for staying warm during hibernation than running from infected deadalive people.

So this lack of previous interest -- coupled with my fear of most things zombie-related -- is why I am only reading this book now. After Alley said she read it for like the 40th time. My older brothers also read it ages and ages ago. One of them was so ahead of the zombie trend, I once walked home from school, saw him studying our house from the front yard, asked what he was doing, and he said "Trying to figure out how to zombie-proof it." He's got a plan, but he also has two kids now, so I'm now dependent on my girlfriend somehow making it here from Minnesota on her scooter, because I feel like in terms of helplessness I'm like this puppy stuck in a bowl.

It won't get off my legs someone help meee

But as to the actual book. WHAT DOES ONE SAY. If you haven't already read it, read it. I'm putting it up there with those books that just everyone should read and love. Max Brooks is an authorial genius as far as I'm concerned. The level of skill in terms of planning how the zombie outbreak would break, the impact it would have, what would have to be accounted for logistically -- and he keeps it from being too technical and keeps it human. The device of spreading out the story across survivor accounts -- fantastic. As his narrator says at the beginning:

But isn’t the human factor what connects us so deeply to our past? Will future generations care as much for chronologies and casualty statistics as they would for the personal accounts of individuals not so different from themselves?

 The description of the Queen staying in England? Omg. "Their task, their mandate, is to personify all that is great in our national spirit. They must forever be an example to the rest of us, the strongest, and bravest, and absolute best of us."

The voices are all different, and it's so damn international, it makes me happy. The talk about France's need to get their national pride back? Yeah. That makes sense. And Russia's fall back to being a theocracy, and North Korea's way of dealing with the outbreak (...one surmises), and how humanity sucks but is also awesome -- this is a great book. With that word used in the most meaningful way possible.

My battle buddy, Sister Montoya, fifty-two years old, she’d been a nun, still was I guess. Five three and a buck even, she’d protected her whole Sunday school class for nine days with nothing but a six-foot iron candlestick.

I will read this again. I was thoroughly impressed by Max Brooks and this book. Long live well-written AU stories with ridiculous amounts of detail and wonderfully distinct voices.

Bleak House Readalong Reminder HAVE YOU STARTED YET

The Bleak House readalong's first post is in ONE WEEK. ONE WEEK TO READ ELEVEN CHAPTERS. IT CAN BE DONE. 

That's less than two chapters reading a day, suckahs. You put this off til the last second and you're gonna miss some damn spiffy sentences. THIS IS DICKENS'S BEST BOOK; THAT IS WHY WE ARE READING IT. Don't treat it like some lameass sophomore year English assignment.

What I will be saying to all of your excuses

ADVICE. Would be to create a list of characters. There are a MILLION characters in this book, and if you have problems keeping people straight, make a list. Write things like "Tulkinghorn - Dedlocks' lawyer; wears breeches in 1852 -- weirdo." (he is)

Speaking of breeches, I love the pants off this book. It is awesome. But also I haven't read it all the way through since I was 18. So I'm quite excited about this readalong. QUITE.

IT'S GOING TO BE SO RAD, YOU GUYS

So write down which characters you like, what you don't get yet, who seems to be an asshole, what you think Dickens is trying to do with his silly social reform realism, and who you think has the best name so far. Guppy? Jellyby? Pardiggle? SO MANY TO CHOOSE FROM.

This is gonna be the best.

Rule Brittania

Behind the Candelabra: Sure, this seems factual

Last summer, I got monstrously drunk at Pride, went back to my friend's apartment, and passed out on her couch (if you follow me on Twitter, behold my profile pic). When I woke up and felt disgusting, she suggested we watch a movie, and AS LUCK WOULD HAVE IT, the HBO adaptation of Behind the Candelabra: My Life With Liberace was on On Demand, and I had JUST seen Patton Oswalt giving it rave reviews.

I got through like an hour before passing out again, and when I woke up, everything had gone to hell and Matt Damon was strutting around in furs, yelling at Michael Douglas. Needless to say, I was totally on board to read the super-short book this thing was based on.

gimme

So obviously the main problem with reading one person's side of a relationship is it's never accurate. You don't know what the other person was thinking all the time. You're hurt, because it's over and you had FEELINGS wrapped up in it, which cloud your judgment. And there was a giant lawsuit that the author, Scott Thorson, had had against Liberace, so that complicates the truth further, because what if to gain his point in court he had slightly stretched/bent the truth? You can't go back on that now in your tell-all book published the year after Liberace died (1988).

Some of the reviews on Amazon were along the lines of "I WANTED MORE SEXYTIME GOSSIP," but as I went into it SOLELY knowing that Liberace was gay and sometimes played by Michael Douglas, I found the entire book fascinating.

And I believe Scott's background, at least. And why he, as an 18-year-old boy would take up with a 58-year-old. Scott was in foster care, shuttled from home to home, and according to him, Liberace was the first person to tell him he loved him. At first I was like "Bullsh--" then I thought about it, and that could absolutely have happened. And does. And omg.

According to Scott, he and Liberace were in a five year relationship that ended because Scott got too old. And also looked liked Liberace, because the latter made him get plastic surgery to make this happen.

chin implaaant

A lot of the book details all the stuff Liberace had, which was great from a voyeuristic perspective (what? mirrored pianos? get out of town), some background on him (which was great, again, because I knew nothing), and the slow decline of the relationship, which Scott does not excuse himself from.

Because of the recentness of the movie, it took a while for me to realize this was written in 1988, which then explained a LOT. Like "Today, because of the AIDS epidemic in Hollywood, employers are reluctant to hire known gays."

Which at first made me all

But theeeen it all made sense. This was only a year after Reagan said the word "AIDS" in public. And in case you were unaware, this is what Liberace died from, which is the especial worst because he spent most of his life defending his staunch heterosexuality. Oops. BUT ANYWAY, it was short, it was entertaining, and I believe like 60% of it. You could probably just watch the movie, though. The parts I was awake for were excellent.

Minnesota: Where I did nothing but quote Drop Dead Gorgeous the whole time

So sometimes in life, it's late. And you're on OKCupid. And you see a girl's picture and think she's pretty and then find out she's in Minnesota because OKCupid is dumb about geography, but ALSO SOMETIMES you message her anyway and then you email for a month and then she visits you for New Year's annnd then you're in Minnesota and she's your girlfriend.

Yay.

I was in Minneapolis/St Paul! For the first time! People had accents and said "about" in a weird, Canadian-American hybrid sort of way. Also, you know how you read about  how People of the Past used to be all "There're wolves in the woods and they'll eat you!" and you're like "blah blah, no longer something to worry about"? That is BULLSHIT, because Minnesota woods look like they are wolf-infested, and if someone told me to go into them and gather firewood so Ma could make griddlecakes, I'd say hell no, I'll get eaten by the wolves that are obviously there.

My usual scheduling insanity was calmed down because my primary reason for going to Minnesota was Minnesota Girlfriend (...MG?) instead of the usual 'Something Historical Once Happened Here.' THAT BEING SAID — there were still doingses done.

LEGO tableaux!

Yeah. I went to the Mall of America. Was real excited about it, too. There was a sock store. I now have giant squid AND gnome AND manatee socks.

I also ate this ice cream. 

THEN, we drove straight to the Flour Mill Museum, because why not. It's called Mill City Museum, but don't let that fool you; it's just flour. Minneapolis was real into flour back in the day, mainly because...Mississippi River? I think? As MG would point out, I don't really read the museum placards, so I'm a bit unsure as to why they picked flour, but that they did. Pillsbury AND Gold Medal were there. And maybe something else, but eh. I was busy making fun of Gold Medal's slogan, which is "Eventually, Why Not Now?" Really, sirs. That's the most apathetic ad campaign ever. You know why it worked? It was 1910. The bar was low. People read that and went "Oh. Huh. Good point."

The cool thing about the museum is that it's inside a flour mill that partially burned down. The not-as-cool thing is it happened in like 1991 after the building had been abandoned for decades, instead of in like 1895 while the mill owner's daughter was there for a tryst with Johnny the flour bagger but she dropped her candle and the whole thing went up in flames. BUT the tour people take you to the top and you can take pictures of Minneapolis, and it's not that bad of a city, I must say.

Behold the former mill district!

I met up with Emily, my oldest friend (we met when we were five), who now lives in Minneapolis. We hadn't seen each other in three years, but what matters that when you have a history of American Girl doll sleepovers and choreographed dances to Brigadoon? We went to the St Paul Chamber Orchestra, because we are fancy now, and sat behind all the cultured hippies of the Twin Cities.

But we left at intermission because we decided our time would be better served drinking and catching up (aka I make her gossip about mutual acquaintances). Our search for a bar pretentiously called The Artists' Quarter ended in a security guard telling us it closed, BUT right next door was a place called Meritage (rhymes with Heritage) that was the swellest, and the concertmaster from the SPCO was there and I got to tell him "the Stravinsky was fantastic" and ahahaha that's not a thing people should say.

23 YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP RIGHT HERE

We also saw some people ice skating outdoors and ARE YOU PEOPLE INSANE (yes, because they're Minnesotans). Chicagoans are good about The Cold compared to most of the rest of the country, but when it gets to like Minnesota and North Dakota, we look like Floridians. 

OTHERLY, MG and I went to the Minnesota History Center, where she got excited about an "educational" buffalo carcass and I got to pretend I was a suffragette and all were happy.

Other than a lesbian dinner party (like a regular dinner party! but with lesbians!), that was most of the trip. Aside from going into a truly awesome used bookstore called Midway Books, which despite its awesomeness had the women's studies section in the bargain basement area.

in the unwanted, basement books section

Did I mention that MG made me grilled cheese at 9 AM? Because that happened and I'm telling everyone. I'm gonna go ahead and say this is a side effect of her being an almost-pastor. Or just being a really nice person. Whatever, one of those. The main point is that grilled cheese is delicious. We also went to a place called Snuffy's Malt Shop (not kidding) where we got peanut butter-bacon burgers and malts, so what I'm saying is that I'm coming back from this trip feeling great, health-wise.

I left Minnesota with two books, one of which was purchased at the above awesome-but-not-to-Judith-Butler bookstore, and the other I stole from MG's bookcase.

Guess which is which.

So -- MINNESOTA. I liked you. I would visit you again. Even though you call this a gopher when it is CLEARLY A GROUND SQUIRREL.

You could've drawn a gopher
and you chose not to.

Aside from that and your hideous cold and ridiculous amounts of snow, you're a good state, State.

1927: A lot happened that year and Bill Bryson is ON IT

One Summer: America, 1927 is the first Bill Bryson I have finished. I have now come to the conclusion that while I am not so much a fan of Bryson travelogues, I am a devotee of his collection-of-random-facts books. I thoroughly enjoyed this.

He starts with the murderess Ruth Snyder, switches to Charles Lindbergh, then jumps over to the Great Mississippi Flood. In the first three chapters. There is so much information in this book, it just makes me go 

this gif is appropriate for like 50 reasons

  
DID YOU KNOW that of the 120 million people living in America in 1927, half still lived on farms or in small towns? And that now that number is 15%? So we've become a much more urban-focused society and that is FASCINATING and how has it changed our ways of thinking I don't knowwww but we should maybe think about it.

Also skyscrapers have "pointed masts" on top so that we can tie AIRSHIPS TO THEM. But then airships didn't really take off (ahahaha), so instead we just have a bunch of pointy buildings sittin' around.

Relatively useless facts coupled with tons of digressions are my favorite for obvious reasons, so this book was the cat's pajamas. What gets you more is realizing that this kind of book could've been written about any year in history. Every year, a ton of stuff happens. Why Bryson picked 1927, I'm not sure. A lot of it seems to center around Lindbergh, because damn, that boy was popular (before he said he thought the Nazis had some really keen ideas):

The New York Evening World called [Lindbergh's transatlantic flight] “the greatest feat of a solitary man in the records of the human race.” Another called it “the greatest event since the Resurrection.”

And apparently no one called bullshit on this. Everyone just nodded and went "Yeah, totally." I cannot express how frustrating it is to not be able to put my brain in the place where I find Lindbergh's accomplishment remarkable. My brain just goes "Yeah, he flew across the Atlantic. Okay." And I say "NO, BRAIN. He was the FIRST ONE. And a bunch of other people had died trying to do it. And he had no one else in the plane and it was freezing and he had no forward visiblity." And my brain goes "Yeah, no, still not into it."

oh well.

Grumpy Old Man Bryson is largely absent from the story, and only contributes enough of his personality as to be delightful.

Only about one murder in a hundred resulted in an execution. So for Ruth Snyder and Judd Gray to be accused , convicted, and ultimately executed , they had to be truly, outstandingly inept. They were.

Worse was a popular dance called the black bottom, which involved hopping forward and backward and slapping the rump— an act of scandalous abandon focused on a body part that many would rather didn’t exist at all.

There was, of course, a section on Al Capone and Chicago, which would make me have civic pride, only IMO only idiots are impressed by Al Capone. Unless they're genuinely into him having built a business as large as his was. But no, they like that he was a gangster. A gangster who died of syphilis, I might add, but whatever apparently, a gangster nonetheless. Gangsters: Ruining people's lives. Murdering parents. Dealing in blackmail and extortion. Mmm, let's be proud. 

I AM, however, proud of the fact we elected and then reelected a man who said during his campaign that King George V was going to annex Chicago, and that, if elected, he would find him and "punch him in the snoot."

I also learned about other things! Sciencey things! Like how we have TV now because of Philo T. Farnsworth, and maybe that boy should get some more recognition, and also I still don't understand how TV works, but well done, scientists.

1927 was an excellent first Bryson. Thinkin' next I'll look at At Home and A Short History of Nearly Everything, as they seem to be along the same lines.

Let's close with an example of why an entire book could be written about this one year:

in the week that Richard Byrd and his team splashed down in France, that New York suffered its first heat wave, that Calvin Coolidge celebrated his fifty-fifth birthday by donning cowboy apparel, that Charles Lindbergh took off for Ottawa, that Henry Ford's minions prepared his apology to the Jews, and that the world's leading central bankers assembled in secret conclave on Long Island—the story that preoccupied the nation was how fit and eager Jack Dempsey was.

Don't you want to know more about Jack Dempsey? OF COURSE. Read this book. 

Late night historical lady talks

Maybe it's 1 AM, and maybe I drank some Coke at midnight, and maybe I need to talk about Medieval Women by Eileen Power for a sec.

And also Christine de Pizan — WHAT? What? Christine de Pizan, who even are you? You're writing in like 1405 and you're attacking misogynists and defending women as intelligent beings who are just as human as men? WHAT? In 1405?? HOW. I feel like I missed something, OR the 1400s weren't as shitty as I thought, OR Christine de Pizan is basically the greatest human being ever.

She wrote Book of the City of Ladies, which is basically like "Oh, women are evil? Here's a list of A MILLION AWESOME WOMEN WHO WERE NOT." And then men were like

...I assume.

But EILEEN POWER even. I've had this book Medieval Women kicking around since I was in high school. I remember bringing it on my high school's spiritual emphasis retreat and while trying to read it, arguing with my History teacher (whom I obviously sat near on the bus) and then ended up calling him a papist, because that's my favorite insult other than communist and ANYWAY, said papist argument meant I never actually read much of this 1975 book by this Eileen Power woman.

WHO, it turns out, died in 1940. But an enterprising gentleman assembled some of her lectures on medieval ladies and put them in a book to be sold for ₤1.95 in nerdy bookstores everywhere. 

So Eileen Power was born in 1889, which ASTONISHES me, mainly because I'm usually astonished when women write awesomely before 1960, despite all the evidence like Wharton, Eliot, Sayers, the aforementioned Pizan, etc etc.

Eileen Power looking smart

I'm still on her first lecture (vaguely titled "Medieval ideas about women"), and she points out — EXCELLENTLY, I might add — that:

In the early Middle Ages what passed for contemporary opinion came from two sources — the Church and the aristocracy. In other words, the ideas about women were formed on the one hand by the clerkly order, usually celibate, and on the other hand by a narrow caste, who could afford to regard women as an ornamental asset

Oooooh.

Let us all be aware these two ladies existed and were awesome.

Minithon: The Endening

I'M NOT LEAVING

I LOVE THE MINITHON SO HARD.

IMO, you definitely want a readathon to end when you still want to be reading, as opposed to painfully pushing yourself to keep going, watching the clock with a barely suppressed groan as you realize you're nowhere near the finish line. As the clock ticked down to 6 pm (CST), I found myself rushing to pick up books I hadn't touched yet. "No! I need another hour!"

This is one of many reasons why the Minithon is the best. Along with the snacks and GIFs and minithon hashtag stalking.

HOW TO EVEN SUM UP THIS MINITHON. The minithon of January 2014. Extra-delightful because it is cold and I had no wish to leave the apartment. First off, the ladies were, as always, a cause of sheer joy. I do not know how various book blog people actually find each other, but I feel honored — NAY, BLESSED — to be in their company and seeing pictures of their snacks.

I FINISHED Bill Bryson's America, 1927, which was great and wonderful and I shall most def review it soon. I made it 2/3 of the way through Behind the Candelabra by Scott Thorson, read the first chapter of Bleak House, the intro and first excerpt in The Essential Feminist Reader, the first chapter of Wigs on the Green, the beginning of Wide Sargasso Sea, and the preface to Medieval Women.

SUCCESSFUL MINITHON INDEED. Notice how those were almost all mini parts of books? Notice that? Yeah, that was of course totally unplanned and merely another offshoot of me having problems focusing on one book, but ACCIDENTALLY OR NOT, still in keeping with the theme.

When I skimmed the intro to Wigs on the Green, I became somewhat alarmed at the comparison of Mitford to Wodehouse, as I actually don't really like Wodehouse's style. These fears were put to rest when I actually began the book and found the sentence:

Poor young men who have just received notice of agreeable but moderate legacies can do nothing more stupid than to ring up Jasper Aspect.

Who is Jasper Aspect! Why is his name so fantastic! Why is it terrible to ring him up! So many questions from one sentence. The first chapter was excellent and I think I might now like Nancy Mitford.

The other fun little thing from my reading was, in the introduction to The Essential Feminist Reader, Estelle B. Freedman says "Another recurrent rationale for women's rights, first articulated by the French utopian socialist Charles Fourier, declared that the progress of a civilization could be measured by the level of its women."

Oooh, said I. But then, of course, Freedman talks about ethnocentrism, etc etc, which is all valid. BUT THEN. Immediately after, I picked up Medieval Women, published in 1975, and its first sentence is "The position of women is often considered as a test by which the civilisation of a country or age may be judged."

Hey, idea I hadn't heard before but have now read twice in ten minutes! Look at you!

Just one of many bonuses of participating in the minithon. I love you all. Long live miniature things.

MINITHON POST THE SECOND

Halfway through the minithon and I have:

1) Gone grocery shopping.

2) Eaten an orange and the remaining hummus I made yesterday.

3) Taken a shower.

4) Read the first chapter of Bleak House, almost to the 2/3 point of Behind the Candelabra, and am 30 pages from the end of Bryson's 1927.

Feelin' good

Plan for the rest of the thon is to finish 1927 (yayyyyyyyy), read the first excerpt in The Essential Feminist Reader, and start like three other books. Just 'cause.

CARRY ON, MINITHONERS

MINITHON SO EXCITING

Ah, it is time for the minithon, hosted by the completely awesome Tika at Reading the Bricks. We love Tika.

Like that, Tika. We're like that.

SO. The minithon is eight hours, and we mainly are just going to eat snacks (be on twitter) and read books we have justified somehow as mini. HERE'S MY STUFF:

Typical minithon overly ambitious book pile

THAT LIST, for those who don't want to squint at spines, is:

Notre Dame de Paris, Hugo
Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
Wigs on the Green, Nancy Mitford
The Essential Feminist Reader, ed. Estelle B. Freedman
What Was She Thinking: Notes on a Scandal, Zoë Heller
Medieval Women, Eileen Power
One Summer: America, 1927, Bill Bryson
Bleak House, Dickens

Notre Dame de Paris has a tiny goat in it! Wide Sargasso Sea is a mini reinterpretation of Jane Eyre! Wigs on the Green I have no idea! Essential Feminist Reader is made up of tiny little mini essays and things, and I have now run out of justification powers. BUT THEY ALL WORK, WHATEVER I NEED TO START READING.

I plan to finish 1927 and this eBook I'm reading — Behind the Candelabra — and maybe look at some of the others? All while eating hummus and oranges. Mmm.

ALSO — ALSO — I changed the Bleak House schedule because now it's gonna be six weeks instead of four and you all won't have to read as much, so EVERYONE PANIC LESS.

MINITHON HO.

Bleak House in February

THE TIME HAS COME.

Some of you have not read Bleak House. Which is a silly state of affairs, because it is the greatest. SO. In the dreary month of February (and also half of March), we shall read (or re-read) Charles Dickens's best novel! And it will be the funnest and full of overly emotional GIFs and OH how excited I am.

Posts are on Tuesdays and start February 4th. We'll skip intro posts and just jump right in with a schedule I will post later in the month, possibly here.  SIGN-UP BELOW; BE THERE OR BE SQUARE THIS IS GOING TO BE SUPER-FUN BECAUSE I LOVE THIS BOOK MORE THAN CHIPMUNKS LOVE RAISINS.

February 4th - Chapters I through XI
February 11th - Chapters XII through XXI
February 18th - Chapters XXII through XXXII
February 25th - Chapters XXXIII through XXXIX
March 4th - Chapters XL through XLVIII
March 11th - Chapters XLIX through LV
March 18th - LVI through LXVII

The Invention of Wings, Sue Monk Kidd: Lady abolitionists and attempted slave uprisings

Sue Monk Kidd's new book, The Invention of Wings, does not have a cover that would make me want to read it.

But when Penguin asked if I wanted to review it, I gleefully said yes, SOLELY based on the fact that I saw the movie The Secret Life of Bees and thought it was damn fantastic. I trust Sue Monk Kidd. Also I have a fondness for books set in the South, and oh my, does this deliver in that regard.

While Secret Life of Bees was set in the 1960s, The Invention of Wings goes all the way back to early 1800s Charleston, South Carolina. I've BEEN to Charleston, and let me assure you, it is kickass.

Cobblestones!

The Invention of Wings alternates narratives between Sarah Grimké and one of her family's slaves, Hetty (or "Handful"). This device could remind one of The Help, only The Help turned out in the end to be all about the Southern white lady and her problems and not so much about the actual help, whereas Kidd has no problem making Sarah's issues seem comparatively insignificant. Handful is never suddenly overcome with sorrow about something bad that has happened to Sarah, because HANDFUL IS OWNED BY SARAH'S FAMILY. Sure, she feels bad for her sometimes, but you can't really get around the "Yeah, that's really terrible, but I could be sold to a rice plantation tomorrow if your mother decides it" thing.

I didn't know for sure whether Miss Sarah's feelings came from love or guilt. I didn't know whether mine came from love or a need to be safe. She loved me and pitied me. And I loved her and used her. It never was a simple thing.

So I loved that.

Sarah Grimké and her sister Angelina (or "Nina") were real people, although Kidd says her aim was "not to write a thinly fictionalized account of Sarah Grimké's history, but a thickly imagined story inspired by her life."

This would normally bother me, but since Handful's narrative is almost entirely imagined, it helped me let go of worrying what was real and what wasn't. If I had a question, I ran to Wikipedia. The overall facts of their lives are real, and made me somewhat ashamed of our school system and myself for never having heard of the Grimké sisters before. They were staunch abolitionists from a wealthy Charleston family living in the early 1800s. This went so against the tide of popular sentiment, I cannot even fathom it. Their family's house in town had 17 slaves. And they somehow came to the realization that slavery was wrong, and acted on it.

Acted on it so much that they moved NORTH (horror of horrors) and wrote pamphlets that were not only burned in Charleston, but got them banned from the city. This was at a time when even in Philadelphia, some abolitionists had bounties on their heads.

The Grimké sisters also espoused the cause of women's rights, and their arguments impacted women like Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucretia Mott. "Sarah was the first woman in the United States to write a comprehensive feminist manifesto, and Angelina was the first woman to speak before a legislative body." Can you believe that! And no idea who they were. Until this book.

I'd call Kidd's writing page-turning prose, because while it's not as beautiful as A.S. Byatt's (although is that even a fair comparison?), she has a knack for mixing in beautiful imagery with events that keep the story moving. There are some lovely passages like:

I couldn't have explained then how the oak tree lives inside the acorn or how I suddenly realized that in the same enigmatic way something lived inside of me—the woman I would become—but it seemed I knew at once who she was.

Kidd also accomplishes what I find to be a marvelous thing, which is to make a feminist in 1803 a believable feminist in 1803. A few times at the beginning, I said "What! No," about some deed of Sarah's, positive that this was yet another case of someone from a future time placing modern day values in the past to make a character seem forward-thinking. But no. Every time, it was something Sarah Grimké had actually done.

And as always, the fact that this is a book I actually finished should be some sort of testament to it.

If you need further incentive to read it, check out the Australian cover, because I would read THAT book in a heartbeat.

Feminist Theory from Margin to Center: This is gonna be a fun one

The wind chill is currently -21, and for the first time in memory, work is shut down because it is too cold to go outside. So let's discuss feminist theory!

In 1984, bell hooks wrote a book called Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, which is what you name something when you really want it to GRAB the reader, y'know? But Anita Sarkeesian said to read it, and I do what that girl tells me.

*runs to library*

Feminist Theory is split up into 12 essays, the majority of which explain why bourgeois white women (see: me and pretty much everyone who reads this blog) co-opted the feminist movement and aren't addressing needs beyond their own. WHICH WAS A LITTLE HARD TO HEAR, but true nonetheless.

She kicks it off right at the beginning by addressing Betty Friedan's groundbreaking work, The Feminine Mystique, and calling it bullshit because 

In the context of her book, Friedan makes clear that the women she saw as victimized by sexism were college-educated, white women who were compelled by sexist conditioning to remain in the home.

Oops. Because, as bell hooks (ms. hooks? sure) points out, a large number of the country's women were already working. Because they had to. The "From Margin to Center" part of the title addresses the idea that those who have been at the margins of the movement have a different perspective on it, and their voices should be heard. Also, hey, maybe poor/working class/non-white women shouldn't be on the margins of the movement.

THE 1960S HAVE ALREADY HAPPENED, POOH

She makes the argument that the women who headed the feminist movement seemed primarily concerned not with actual equality between the sexes, but with class equality. One of my favorite questions she poses is:

Since men are not equals in white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal class structure, which men do women want to be equal to?

Followed by the idea that bourgeois white women "were ultimately more concerned with obtaining an equal share in class privilege than with the struggle to eliminate sexism and sexist oppression."

Zing, ms. hooks. Zing. She counters so many of the prevailing (in 1984) trends — should we be hating men? NO. We should be telling men they need to stop being sexist assholes, but we shouldn't hate them. We should acknowledge they have problems too, but that doesn't mean they can be shitty to us.

how we can deal with this problem

Should we be telling women they can be free of having to be at home and should go to work to gain a sense of self? NOT AS MUCH, because working women who have to work at menial jobs can see the home and their family as where they CAN be themselves. By ignoring the realities of lower class conditions, the movement was being astonishingly blinkered.

Should women be forced to talk about how they are victims? NO. Because women who are hit the worst there need to emphasize their strengths.

She also makes the excellent point that while white women and black men are both oppressed, white women have power over black people and black men have power over black women, so the only people left without anyone to have power over are black women.

Black women with no institutionalized 'other' that we may discriminate against, exploit, or oppress often have a lived experience that directly challenges the prevailing classist, sexist, racist social structure and its concomitant ideology.

 Oh, you mean they have a special vantage point FROM THE MARGINS TO THE CENTER. 

At the heart of everything, bell hooks seems to be saying we need to examine things outside our own immediate experience and look to a feminist movement that does not solely serve our interests. If people are truly interested in equality between the sexes, they need to try for true equality, and not equality within class/race.

And also maybe we could try to listen to other people sometimes kthx the end.

TBR Challenge 2014 -- Sure, why not

I think I completed Adam's TBR Challenge one year. Once. And I have tried since to reach such heights of glory, with nary a shadow of success. It is, however, what started me having a book blog and for that I will forever view it with affection.

Medieval Women, Eileen Power. I've owned this for years. Years. I brought it with me to read on a trip in high school but instead ended up playing ping pong. I will read it.

Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld. She's supposed to be good, right? And I really wanted to read this. And then I bought it yeears ago, but I still have not read it. I find that ridiculous.

A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole. Do eBooks count? Because I've owned this for like three years, and I REALLY want to read it and it just hasn't happened. But I KNOW IT'S GOOD. I know it's really good. But nope. Not yet.

Wigs on the Green, Nancy Mitford. I bought this when Borders was going out of business. And then my prediction came true. Except instead of that being its fate in the hands of another, it has been caused by me. Alas.

Cranford, Elizabeth Gaskell. My copy is from the 1950s and I super-love it. Also I need to read some Elizabeth Gaskell that isn't North and South, because obviously EVERYBODY has read North and South, amirite? Gotta stay ahead of the herd. Gotta stay ahead.

Mayflower, Nathaniel Philbrick. Back in college (when I bought this book), I was real psyched about it. Then I read like 50 pages, found out some stuff about cod, and never finished it. I even own Philbrick's next book about General Custer, which I ALSO have not read. Mayflower needs to happen. (I will gain all the knowledge, like Pokemon, and then I can die with dignity, with all my knowledge Pokemon scattered about me at my funeral)

Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys. You knowwww how the word "postcolonial" can make your eyes glaze over and you to suddenly cease to be interested in whatever's being talked about? No? Just me? Right, well couple that with a hatred of PC retellings that is only now dying down after more than ten years of being a primary characteristic de moi, and Wide Sargasso Sea (which is kiiiiiiiind of a reinterpretation of Jane Eyre) has not been directly up my favorite of alleys. But I am 28. It is 2014, and I can read this.

How to Be a Woman, Caitlin Moran. Remember how everyone else who was going to read this has read this and how Laura sent me a copy and I somehow still haven't read it? Yeah, so there's all of that, and I do really LIKE Caitlin Moran, because how can you not (unless you're a Sherlock fan, amirite?), so I WILL READ THIS THING.

Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut. My dad got me this last Christmas (2012), because I ASKED for it, because he loves Kurt Vonnegut. This copy is pretty. Vonnegut wrote my favorite short story. I would like to read this.

The Son of Neptune, Rick Riordan. DID YOU ALL KNOW I LOVE RICK RIORDAN? I went through a Percy Jackson thing a few years ago, then slowwwly fell out of it while he was releasing the Kane Chronicles series (which is about Egyptian mythology instead of Greek). He's not the BEST writer ever, but he improves over time, and his updating of gods/monsters into the 21st century is A+. I've owned Son of Neptune since it came out, and it's one of those books I've REALLY wanted to read, but just...haven't. Now there're two others in the Heroes of Olympus series and a THIRD coming out in October, and I want to read them all, damnit.

Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser. I tried reading Dreiser's An American Tragedy back in college, but got upset with it because of some Christianity stuff early on (upset in a way a 20-year-old gets upset), BUT I found Sister Carrie in a used bookshop in Sarasota, Florida and the FIRST sentence is

When Caroline Meeber boarded the afternoon train for Chicago, her total outfit consisted of a small trunk, a cheap imitation alligator-skin satchel, a small lunch in a paper box, and a yellow leather snap purse, containing her ticket, a scrap of paper with her sister's address in Van Buren Street, and four dollars in money.

Yeah. Like I'm not gonna read that. (I mean, evidently I'm not, until this year. also -- four dollars in money? just four dollars, Dreiser. just four dollars)

Notre Dame de Paris, Victor Hugo. You know how when you take a Hugo/Balzac course in college and you're supposed to read Notre Dame de Paris, but instead you sit on your couch and watch The X-Files with your roommate, so you're forever stuck on page 473, the chapter "Grès et Cristal"? Like 150 more pages and I can finish this book from 2007.

ALTERNATES (because really what're the chances I'll like all of these)

What Was She Thinking?, Zoe Heller. I love Notes on a Scandal. What a great film indeed. And I had my mom buy me the book yeeeears ago, and I need to read it. Because it's just sitting there.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, Mindy Kaling. Poor Mindy. I've had her book since it came out. I have a signed bookplate for her book. And I have not read her book. 2014, it'll be your year, Kaling.

2013 Wrap-Up: Books.

2013 was SO WEIRD. Can you believe the stuff not read at the beginning of the year that has now been read? GAH. My mind can almost not fathom it. ALMOST. Anyway. Here's a survey I stole from Alley.

Number of books read in 2013: 62. I would've beaten 2011 instead of tying, but someone pretty from Minnesota decided to start dating me, so. That took up some reading time.

1. Best Book You Read In 2013? Ok, I read a ridiculous amount of non-fiction this past year (17/62), and of that, the best was almost definitely the unfortunately-titled survey of romantic friendship from the 1600s to the 1970s, Surpassing the Love of Men by Lillian Faderman. It led to so much other research AND made me read Diana Victrix, which is SO good. Best FICTION, though...agh. I am not sure. Visit from the Goon Squad? Valencia? There were a lot of excellent books discovered this year.

2. Book You Were Excited About & Thought You Were Going To Love More But Didn’t? NIGHT FILM, DAMNIT. Still bitter about that. Why weren't you scary, book. I so wanted you to be scary.

3. Most surprising (in a good way!) book of 2013? Probably Love Story by Erich Segal, actually. I expected it to be pretty dumb and instead thoroughly enjoyed it. Although Michelle Tea's Valencia also seemed like something I would absolutely hate, and instead she became one of my favorite authors.

4. Book you read in 2013 that you recommended to people most in 2013? Pretty sure that's The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway. Time travel! Sexytimes! Is anything else required of a book?

Nope.

5. Best series you discovered in 2013? Best SERIES? Hm. I guess Scott Pilgrim, although really I just don't read a lot of series-type books.

6. Favorite new author you discovered in 2013? EASILY MICHELLE TEA. MICHELLE, IF YOU'RE READING THIS PLEASE COME TO CHICAGO AND TALK WITH ME ABOUT HOW AWESOME YOU ARE.

I will be the raccoon to your irritated cat

7. Best book that was out of your comfort zone or was a new genre for you? I was unsure about Ann Patchett's Truth & Beauty because I don't usually go for the 'memoir of a friendship' sort of thing, but I picked it up because hey -- Ann Patchett. And obviously it was great. Isn't Ann Patchett great? Yes, she is.

8. Most thrilling, unputdownable book in 2013? Easily The River of No Return. Get it, read it, love it.

9. Book You Read In 2013 That You Are Most Likely To Re-Read Next Year? Er...I don't really re-read books? But sure, in this alternate universe where that happens, what would AU Alice re-read. Hmmmmmmmmm. Probably the ever-gripping Diana Victrix by Florence Converse, Wellesley grad.

10. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2013? 

11. Most memorable character in 2013? That's hard. I don't remember characters' names easily. Either Offred from The Handmaid's Tale (which really was excellent, btw), or Hiram Grewgious from The Mystery of Edwin Drood. HIRAM GREWGIOUS I LOVE YOU.

12. Most beautifully written book read in 2013? Mayyyyybe Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, if only for one of the early chapters. So well done.

13. Book that had the greatest impact on you in 2013? Probably Surpassing the Love of Men, if only because it led to -- you know what, NO. The Mystery of Edwin Drood is what led to Surpassing the Love of Men, which led to Diana Victrix and Queer Dickens and Passions Between Women, so I'm going with the completely fantastic and unfinished Mystery of Edwin Drood. Oh, how I love it.

14. Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2013 to finally read? I dunno. Visit from the Goon Squad? As with most book bloggers, since I'm pretty constantly reading, I usually don't feel guilty about books I've "put off," because it's not like I was doing other shit. I was just reading something else. I WILL GET TO YOU EVENTUALLY, ALL BOOKS.

15. Favorite Passage/Quote From A Book You Read In 2013? 

"Ted deliberated this question while downing three espressos in the hotel lobby, letting the caffeine and vodka greet in his brain like fighting fish." (Visit from the Goon Squad)

Ok, it's not my FAVORITE, but like I'm gonna wade through notes on 62 books. Nice try, survey.

16.Shortest and Longest Book You Read In 2013? 
Shortest: Love Story, 125 pages.
Longest: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, 870 pages.

17. Book That Had A Scene In It That Had You Reeling And Dying To Talk To Somebody About It? THAT PART OF FRANCES WILLARD'S JOURNAL WHERE SHE WAS SUPER-GAY ABOUT HER BEST FRIEND OH WAIT THAT WAS ALL OF HER JOURNAL.

18. Favorite Relationship From A Book You Read In 2013 (be it romantic, friendship, etc). Agghhhhh. Okay. Okay. I can do this. Right. Pick one. Okay. Oh! You know what? Not actually hard. Because Helena/Rosa from Edwin Drood.

19. Favorite Book You Read in 2013 From An Author You’ve Read Previously:  Toss-up between Truth & Beauty and The Mystery of Edwin Drood. No, you know what? Edwin Drood wins. It wins all the things.

20. Best Book You Read In 2013 That You Read Based SOLELY on a Recommendation From Somebody Else: Tell the Wolves I'm Home. We all have that rule that if three of us recommend a book, we all have to read it, right? Yeah, so three of my cherished fellow bloggers rec'd this and it was obviously great.

21. Genre You Read The Most From in 2013? Lady Books That Have Lesbian Under-or-Overtones. Yep.

22. Newest fictional crush from a book you read in 2013? ANOTHER TOSS-UP, only this time between Helena Landless from Edwin Drood and Enid from Diana Victrix.

Hey, Helena. Sup?

23. Best debut book you read? Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara. Written in 1934! Like F. Scott Fitzgerald but better! Everyone appreciate John O'Hara now!

24. Most vivid world/imagery in a book you read in 2013? Stealing from Alley and going with Harry Potter even though it was a re-read. But seriously, OBVS this.

25. Book That Was the Most Fun To Read in 2013? The most fun...probably Alice Paul and the Battle for the Ballot, because it talks of suffragettes hiding in dark corners and popping out crying "VOTES FOR WOMEN." And that is the best of all images. Also it's REALLY well done and Mary Walton is the bee's knees.

26. Book That Made You Cry Or Nearly Cry in 2013? Code Name Verity? I think? How can you not cry at Code Name Verity, I ask you.

27. Book You Read in 2013 That You Think Got Overlooked This Year Or When It Came Out? The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway. More people need to read it, and then we all need to petition the publisher for a sequel, because MORE TIME TRAVEL AND SEXYTIMES.

28. Did you complete any reading challenges or goals that you had set for yourself at the beginning of this year? "I don't set concrete challenges or goals because when I do that I fail." Well said, Alley. That thing.

29. Bookish Events on your blog in 2013? I hosted a six month long Harry Potter readalong. REMEMBER THAT? REMEMBER HOW IT LASTED SIX MONTHS? Yeah, so that happened. And then I hosted no more in 2013 because six months.

30. One Book You Didn’t Get To In 2013 But Will Be Your Number 1 Priority in 2014? I didn't finish Sue Monk Kidd's The Invention of Wings, but I will do so IMMINENTLY because I'm really, really liking it and it is in my purse right now waiting to be read more.

31. Book You Are Most Anticipating For 2014 (non-debut)? I have no idea what's coming out. That's probably bad, right? I should be aware of things? Oh! Actually, Little, Brown sent me Emma Donoghue's new book Frog Music (coming out April 1st!) and I've been putting off reading it so my thoughts can be fresh, etc etc. But pretty psyched about that because DONOGHUE. And evidently (according to research I just now did), Sarah Waters has a book coming out. So it's just a banner year for all.

32. One Thing You Hope To Accomplish Or Do In Your Reading/Blogging In 2014? Er....review...more books? I've been getting more review requests for books I actually WANT to read, so that's pretty spiffy. If I could actually review them, that would be delightful.