What I'm Reading: 'Giovanni's Room' by James Baldwin

I read my first James Baldwin novel (Go Tell it on the Mountain) in late 2013, so for the entirety of #ReadWomen2014, I was anxiously awaiting the opportunity to read more James Baldwin. The events of Ferguson made his writing all the more relevant (unfortunately), and Melville House recently published his last interview, making James Baldwin very top-of-mind for me.

I can't really describe Giovanni's Room without revealing that it disappointed me. The prose is stark and beautiful and it's an intensely rendered love story, BUT -- it's probably the first novel to make me realize how much #ReadWomen2014 has changed me. The fact that there's a few very minor female characters doesn't necessarily bother me; it is, after all, one of the most significant gay novels ever published, so it's not really a book about women. But that said, I just wasn't able to connect with it in the way I expected to, nor in the way that I did with Go Tell it on the Mountain. It's such a brief little book, but it just left me cold in a way I haven't experienced in a long time.

Re-post: Happy Birthday, Toni Morrison!

Today is the birthday of Nobel Prize-winner and Bookhive favorite Toni Morrison. Celebrate by reading her rather large body of work, and get ready for her newest novel, to be published this spring. Not sure where to start? Check out my #ReadWomen2014 post on Morrison.

Bookhive's 2015 Reading Resolutions

I make New Years resolutions every year, but I generally try to go easy on myself. I'm not looking to give up caffeine or lose 50 pounds; normally I pick a few things I'd like to learn, a few dishes I've always wanted to try cooking, and some books I know I want to read. It's nice to start the year with some intentions, even if they're small.

Last year my resolution was #ReadWomen2014, so that was relatively simple, and I stuck with it. As part of that goal, I also strove to read a lot more women authors of color (which I did) and some of the major feminist texts (which I mostly did not). 

This year my reading resolutions are very influenced by the blog; I don't spend much time on reading that I can't later write about, so my resolutions are also (hopefully) a forecast of what you can expect to see in 2015:

One poetry book per month -- This is not something I have ever had much success with, but Adrienne Rich has made me believe again. I will try not to let this become One Adrienne Rich Book Per Month, I promise

Doorstop Books -- I've read some very long books, but all the major ones (Atlas Shrugged, Infinite Jest, War and Peace) are still on my shelves. I still haven't decided which I'll attempt first, and I'm not going to put any metrics to this, because one will feel like a success. I'll be blogging throughout the experience, and I hope someone is inspired to read along with me.

More of Those Obnoxious Books I Missed in College -- The Rilkes and the Walter Benjamins of the world deserve my (and your) attention. I miss the experience of collegiate reading immensely, and I don't want to let too many post-grad years go by without revisiting the meaty stuff.

What are your reading resolutions for 2015?

#ReadWomen2014: A Year in Review

2014 is over, which means #ReadWomen2014 is over (although #ReadWomen has only just begun!). It was a success for me in the objective sense, in that I exclusively read books by women (and women completely dominated my other reading, like online content), and I add a tremendous number of titles by women to my bookshelves.

It was a success in a much more abstract sense in that I enjoyed it immensely, and it proved to be the easiest "challenge" I've ever taken on. I've attempted structured, directed (pleasure) reading in the past, but it never worked. This was so effortless to stick with because there is no end to excellent literature and non-fiction written by women in every possible genre; not that I doubted this very obvious fact, but the reason I was able to stick with it is largely because I was always able to find something I was in the mood to read.

Probably the greatest takeaway from the experience though is the greater breadth of exposure to literature I feel I've gained. There were so many women authors who I always intended to read, and this year I did because I had the ideal opportunity, and no excuses. I can now speak knowledgeably about Joan Didion, when a year ago I had never read a word by her; I would even go so far as to call her one of my absolute favorites now, and someone I will keep reading for the rest of my life.

Probably the biggest failure of the experience for me has been my inability to conquer the big, definitive feminist texts. At the start of 2014 I made myself a reading list to ensure I didn't waste a year reading one Margaret Atwood book after another (JK, that's the opposite of waste, it's a sacred task). On the list were many of the landmark feminist works of the 20th century, and most of them remain unread or partially read. I was shocked and disappointed by how irrelevant I found them to be. But to keep things in perspective, I also found myself enjoying so many books this year that were distinctly feminist, if not necessarily Feminist.

If you took part in #ReadWomen2014 (in part or whole), I'd love for you to share your experiences (good or bad) in the Comments.

Bookhive's Best of 2014

So many bloggers and writers and editors will tell you how much they positively despise putting together "Best of' lists at the end of the year. Those people are lying. Making lists is incredibly fun and frankly not all that difficult. Yes, there are tons of movies and books and albums that are made each and every year, but only a small fraction of them are worth consideration for a "Best of" list and it is quite literally their job to figure out which ones. So they can get over it. 

A few caveats regarding my own list: I am not a professional literary editor or reviewer; I have a full-time job so anything I read that was published in 2014 had to be squeezed into an already busy schedule, and additionally, had to be available to me at the library or interesting enough to warrant a purchase, which is rare for new titles. I'm still not enough of a mover and shaker to warrant advance review copies, so I do my best to keep up and I have the library fines to prove it. Thus, my favorite titles published in 2014:

The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore -- Smart, well-researched, incredibly interesting and so much more than a history of a comic book character. 

On Immunity by Eula Biss -- Really hard to describe but brief and wonderful all the same. Her meditations on the nature of disease and vaccination are poetic and troubling.

Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples -- This comic started a few years ago but the latest issues and an omnibus edition were published this year, so it's fair game. I am not a comic book expert, so when I say it's my favorite comic book, that probably means very little, but it's really terrific; funny, challenging, and beautiful.

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson -- Just ignore the YA-genre buzz around this short prose-poem memoir. Adults should read it, kids should read it.

Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant by Roz Chast -- A really warm and honest and insightful graphic memoir on the aging and death of Chast's parents. I cried less than I expected.

Women in Clothes by Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits, and Leanne Shapton -- I was surprised by how many "Best of" lists forgot about this one, because it made a huge impression on me. I still haven't removed it from the pile next to my bed because I keep going back to it. It is endlessly entertaining and makes the smallest minutiae of women's lives fascinating.

#ReadWomen2014 Non-Fiction: 'Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy' by Karen Abbott

By the time we made it to the Civil War in my AP U.S. History class, I had already been accepted to the University of Michigan Honors Program, so to say I was unmotivated would be a very polite interpretation indeed. I was a borderline distraction to my classmates; I did not prepare for the exam in the slightest, and when I got my test score in the mail I thought it was a mistake, because it was surprisingly decent. Needless to say, Civil War history is not my "thing."

Which is why I am so appreciative of history books that are able to successfully explore a rather large, important moment in human history with a very narrow, precise lens. It is my favorite type of non-fiction, and the more minute, the better. I really am enjoying Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy thus far; all four women featured in the book are very distinct characters and their own brand of bad-ass. Obviously my favorite is the Union Soldier from Michigan who cross-dressed her way into becoming a war hero. The best detail is that she had to pretend to be much worse at sewing and cleaning than she actually was, so as not to give herself away. It almost feels like too much fun to be a Civil War history book.

What I'm Reading: 'The Shipping News' by Annie Proulx

My streak of Eastern Canadian literature continues this week with The Shipping News. Annie Proulx is technically an American author but this is certainly one of the best known fictional depictions of Nova Scotia, so it counts. When I picked up Who Will Run the Frog Hospital I didn't even realize what a strong French-Canadian connection it had, so this year has been highlighted with two really wonderful trips to Ontario and Quebec and tons of accompanying Canadian literature to support it, and most of it accidental.

What is there to say about a novel that won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award? It is objectively "good" in every sense of the word, although her prose style is so different from what I expected. I suppose I was anticipating a kind of spare, bleak, post-Hemingway prose style (where did this idea come from? Was it because of the 'Brokeback Mountain' dialogue?) but instead it feels more reminiscent of her American contemporaries like Philip Roth, Thomas Pynchon (no shade), and maybe even a bit of Vonnegut.

I've been thinking a lot lately about masculine vs. feminine writing styles, and wondering if anyone can tell the difference. This is mostly inspired by the Elena Ferrante situation -- a reclusive and very talented Italian woman author who many think is secretly a man, presumably because her writing is so excellent). Can anyone really tell the gender of the author by their prose? I think Annie Proulx is proof that gender assignment to writing style is complete baloney; her writing shares more stylistically with her male contemporaries, and if I had read it without knowing the author, I would have guessed the gender wrong.

Which I suppose is the point of an exercise like #ReadWomen2014 -- readers should make every effort to enjoy books written by men and women, and good literature should be good literature, not "good literature...for a woman." To get back to Annie Proulx then, and her many prizes, it seems likely that The Shipping News would have to be perceived to be such a literary accomplishment as to surpass those of Proulx's male contemporaries, whose work is often given attention, praise and prizes such much more readily. And for me, it has lived up to every bit of that hype and probably deserves a bit more.

#ReadWomen2014: Sarah Waters

For the second time, I'm recommending you read an author who I haven't had the time to read yet (but in my defense, several of her books are on my shelf, waiting for the Christmas vacation to be consumed).  As Wikipedia says, "She is best known for her novels set in Victorian society and featuring lesbian protagonists." So, there you go.

I became aware of Sarah Waters via NPR's Barrie Hardymon. At this point, our tastes have aligned so closely that I will read anything she recommends, and she has been one of Sarah Waters' most vocal supporters in 2014. The Paying Guests was her big novel of the year, and has been included on many year-end lists (including NPR's Book Concierge, where you can read a review by Barrie herself).

#ReadWomen2014 Non-Fiction: 'Yes, Please' by Amy Poehler

I don't think this needs any endorsement or stamp of approval from me; you know you want to read this, and you're going to. I had the audiobook pre-ordered on Audible, and the narration credits include Amy Poehler, Seth Myers, Carol Burnett, Kathleen Turner and Patrick Stewart; this is one instance in which I will very strongly recommend the audio book version, because Poehler uses the medium very thoughtfully with very funny results. It's also going to be the best way to get your Amy Poehler fix while we wait a few more months for 'Parks and Rec' to return to NBC.

What I'm Reading: 'Outlander' by Diana Gabaldon

I thought that this would be the best week to talk about Outlander since the series wrapped up its first half of season one on Saturday evening. If any of you are as swept up in the world as I am, it was a tragic day indeed. But! While you suffer until it comes back on Starz in April, you can satiate your love for the Scottish Highlands with the novels upon which the series is based (all eight of them!). 

I started the book a few weeks ago and then set it aside in favor of other things, until the series reached an impending big moment (I won't spoil it, but those of you who watch the series know what I'm talking about), which motivated me to pick the book back up again, and then I managed to voraciously consume it in a manner of weeks. It is, at its core, a book about time travel, so naturally things get a bit crazy, but Gabaldon does such an excellent job of transcending any genre that it could possibly exist in (fantasy,  historical fiction, romance, adventure). I would liken it to the Game of Thrones series in that way; i.e., it is ideal for people who never read historical fiction or romance or fantasy, myself included; unlike GoT, however, the Outlander books have been written for a female audience. so you can read them without feeling guilty and recommend them without apology. If I had a teenage daughter I would definitely try to get her hooked on them as a passive way of teaching essential feminine/ist values and sex ed.

Books on Books: 'The Madwoman in the Attic' by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar

I first came across The Madwoman in the Attic via Madeleine's thesis project in The Marriage Plot, but I'm surprised that I made it through four years of humanities studies without having read it, as I, much like the fictional Madeleine, spent a lot of time with books that were described as "discourses." The Madwoman in the Attic is the O.G. of feminist readings of fiction, and its influence cannot be overstated. I've been thinking a lot about it recently as I was reading Claire Messud's The Woman Upstairs, whose very title and premise are something of an homage. The book is largely concerned with female authors like Jane Austen, the Brontes, and Virginia Woolf, and it's a really excellent follow-up to anyone who has already read and enjoyed some of the major women writers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

It's easy to find a first edition at any decent used book store (especially those in college towns), but do yourself a favor a pickup a newer copy that include their revised introduction, which should give you a better taste of the cultural impact the book had on feminism and literature.

#ReadWomen2014: Roxane Gay

In case you haven't figured it out already, I am a fan of Roxane Gay. I have already endorsed her first novel, An Untamed State, and her essay collection Bad Feminist, out this week. Both are great, and by all means, buy them and read them.

I would be remiss, however, if I didn't include an endorsement for Roxane Gay's prolific writing on all manner of subjects, all over the Internet, most of it freely available. She is at the very forefront of the literary Internet, and her Twitter feed is a joy to behold. There are a few authors I really truly enjoy following on Twitter because they approach it as just another form of authorship, rather than a stream of self-promotion, and Roxane Gay is certainly one of them. I know a lot of people who don't use Twitter because they aren't really sure how or why they need it, and she's a good example of what you might be missing.

Equally as an enchanting is her Tumblr page, which she updates almost daily. This is the best place to find aggregation of all her Internet writing, including terrific essays written for the likes of The Rumpus and Salon. If you enjoyed Bad Feminist, this is the source material from which it was born, and there is plenty more out there. What I particularly love about her Tumblr though is the deeply personal, almost diary-like writing exercises she posts every week. Lately they've been following a similar structural pattern of Gay's narration and photos of her cooking a recipe (she's a devotee of Ina Garten) while she reflects on her life. The results are equally profound and delicious, and if you're a fan of food writing, you'll love it. It reminds me of Nora Ephron's food writing, but maybe a bit more heartfelt and somber. Really, really lovely stuff.

I often try to carve out a ten minute chunk in every work day to see what she's been writing, and I never find myself skimming her content, which is rare for stuff in my RSS feed. I read and digest every word while I sip my coffee, and then I impatiently wait for her to post again. Every voracious reader understands that anxiety and enthusiasm that comes from waiting for a favorite writer to finish a project so it can be consumed, and with Roxane Gay, you only have a wait a few hours.

Finally, she has a work of non-fiction/fiction/poetry on the Haitian diaspora, Ayiti, I haven't read it yet, but I really can't wait to check it out. For those who enjoyed An Untamed State, it will provide a lot of parsing out of the Haitian-American cultural  context of that novel.

#ReadWomen2014 Non-Fiction: 'Bad Feminist' by Roxane Gay

Bad Feminist: Essays

By Roxane Gay

Roxane Gay's book of hilarious and incredible essays drops TODAY so get thee to the bookstore! Some of it has been previously published and circulated on the Internet, so if you're unsure about committing to the whole book, you can dip you your toes in the free content. However, I advocate strongly for just purchasing and reading the whole damn book because there is plenty of new stuff and it's just good.

While she touches on feminism and politics, most of the essays are her pop culture writing, which is some of her absolute best stuff, imho. I am not ashamed to admit that I got into Roxane Gay's writing via her live-tweeting of The Bachelor ( a surprising number of very respected literary authors engage in this), and I'm most looking forward to reading her essay on HBO's Girls, which I somehow missed the first time around.

If you happen to be in the Detroit area, Gay is doing a reading from Bad Feminist  at Literati in Ann Arbor on Thursday, August 7, so you can get a signed copy and support a local independent bookstore.

This Week in Books, Portland Catch-Up Version: Zadie Smith is a reading addict...

A Prayer Journal

By Flannery O'Connor

Apologies all around for missing the last two "This Week in Books" posts. I know you live for them. It was hard to keep track of what was going on in the world of books while prepping to travel, doing the travelling itself, and then recovering from travelling, but I'm finally back to normal, for a day, and then I prep for a weeked Up North. At the very least I did my best to accumulate some good links the past two weeks, and here they are:

Oprah! Zadie Smith! What they want you to read this summer! Her comments about reading and prison are particularly chilling because that was my primary takeaway from reading Orange is the New Black-- she got to read so many books in prison!

If you, like me, have Joan Didion fever this summer, check out this essay on Play It As It Lays  from Alice Bolin and The Believer. There is a short write-up on it over at The Millions as well, and they recommended it as one of this summer's "Burnt Out Reads."

Hilton Als reviewed the posthumously published Flannery O'Connor book A Prayer Journal. It's behind a pay wall but you can read the intro and if you're a NYT subscriber, you  can enjoy the whole thing (and maybe share some quotes in the comments? Just a thought). This combines one of my favorite contemporary essayists with one of my favorite female authors, so I might even consider paying to read it.

Here's a brief piece on book hoarding from the LA Times. I found it to be abysmally depressing, but that's just me. Also, I tend to read the books I won, so that might disqualify me.

Finally, the thing I am most excited about -- Matter and MSNBC.com are doing a public book club reading of Susan Faludi's recent feminist classic Backlash: the Undeclared War Against American Women, and have invited plenty of intelligent and inspiring female writers and thinkers to contribute (Roxane Gay, Lena Dunham, etc.). You can read along, tweet along, and read their lively discussions of each chapter.

#ReadWomen2014 Non-Fiction: 'A Call to Action' by Jimmy Carter

A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power

By Jimmy Carter

Obviously, the message behind #ReadWomen2014 is that women authors have been largely neglected, which is why the hashtag is used exclusively in reference to female authors. Just this once, however, I’m going to advocate a book about women by a male author-- not just any male author, but former US president, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and prolific author Jimmy Carter. Yes, he is a man, but the sole focus of the book is on the deplorable conditions in which women are expected to live and operate around the world, with particular focus on the role world religions have played in this oppression.  And really, male authors still only make up about 10% of the books I recommend, so I feel okay letting this one slide.

Is it completely terrible to admit that this book initially caught my eye (at Literati in Ann Arbor, Michigan, an all-time favorite book store of mine) because of its gorgeous, sumptuous blue cover?  If you, like me, have a tendency to fetishize books as physical objects, this book’s aesthetic powers alone make it worth buying.  When I read the title (in embossed gold!) I knew I had to have it.  In some ways it reads like a long list of transgressions against women, so I had to pace myself through the chapters.  I really appreciated the way global issues were seamlessly woven in with more national and local issues that have been getting a lot of media coverage lately, including the Stubenville rape case. I highly doubt that the book will turn out to be as influential as it should be, but at the very least I so appreciate a man with incredible reach and power aligning himself with women’s issues.