The Classics Spin

**Update**

And the lucky number is 14: Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency!

Dirk Gently Douglas Adams

I have a feeling that many Classics Clubbers are going to be reading books they are neutral about. I thought about randomizing my choices, but, you know. Limited blogging time.

Anyway, I am “neutral” about Dirk G because I’ve already read the second book in the series. I really liked it, but it’s sort of weird to be reading the prequel now. On the plus side, it’s probably a short, easy read, and I should be able to finish by April 1st. AND, as if “Dirk Gently” isn’t the best character name EVER.

**Original Post**

I feel like I need to squeeze in another classic between brand-new books (which are also fabulous, seriously, Belinda’s Rings is blowing me away,) but I’m not sure what to read. So I’m going to leave it up to chance by playing The Classics Club Spin!

(What the heck is the Classics Club, you ask? Check out my list and the general idea here.)

Directions:

  • Go to your blog.
  • Pick twenty books that you have left to read from your Classics Club List.
  • Try to challenge yourself: list five you are dreading/hesitant to read, five you can’t WAIT to read, five you are neutral about, and five free choice (favorite author, rereads, ancients — whatever you choose.)
  • Post that list, numbered 1-20, on your blog by next Monday (February 18).
  • Monday morning, we’ll announce a number from 1-20. Go to the list of twenty books you posted, and select the book that corresponds to the number we announce.
  • The challenge is to read that book by April 1, even if it’s an icky one you dread reading!

Okay, so, depending what book I end up with, I may or may not actually finish by April 1. That’s only two and half months, and I have a book in progress to finish. I’m going to commit to START it by April 1.

Five I’m dreading

  • Moby Dick by Herman Melville – Long. About whales. Challenged by my sister’s BF to read it.
  • Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne – Long. Abandoned years ago. Too dense. But also awesome.
  • Clarrisa by Samuel Richardson – Long. Sounds dense. But one of those “have to read it” books.
  • Stoner by John Williams – Not my sort of book at all, but added based on a rave review.
  • Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf – I’ve been poisoned against Mrs. D by 101 Books!

Five I can’t wait to read

  • Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell – I *do* give a damn. So does MM superfan Maple and a Quill.
  • Beloved by Toni Morrison – A controversial book, even today.
  • Parade’s End by Ford Maddox Ford – Downton Abbey-esque, maybe? Loving the 1920s era.
  • The Tenent of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte – it’s by a Bronte, need I say more?
  • On Beauty by Zadie Smith – never read her, and she’s still alive, as opposed to most of the authors here…

Five I’m neutral about

  • Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys – A retelling of Jane Eyre, and I’m not crazy about Jane Eyre.
  • Dune by Frank Herbert – Not my usual genre.
  • The Monk by Matthew Lewis – Added ironically because of this awesome review.
  • Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams – I’ve read book two in this series, so it’s kind of anti-climactic to go back and read book one. But I really loved book two!
  • Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling – I’m curious but sort of meh about the whole HP thing.

Five free choice – Authors I love, i.e. safe bets

  • Cannery Row by John Steinbeck 
  • The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
  • The Ambassadors by Henry James
  • Nicolas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
  • Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

This is actually really scary! I’m so worried it’s going to be Tristram. I need more time to recover from pregnancy/baby brain! Keep your fingers crossed for me, and I’ll announce the winner tomorrow.

Review: The Night Circus

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Reviews for The Night Circus ranged from the breathless to the middling  to the damning, but popular opinion leans towards the breathless. “Beautiful!” “Magical!” “Like watching a movie!”

For me, this doesn’t bode well. I tend to look down on books that are “too” popular (book snob, remember?) and when I DO believe the hype, I’m often let down. I tried to go into The Night Circus without expectation, but I did buy into the idea that this would be a heavy-on-imagery, light-on-plot kind of book; and that was just fine, after reading a book that was very heavy (literally.) I looked forward to losing myself in a Victorian romance. Continue reading →

Reading Roundup: January 2013

No, there was no roundup for December. Here it is: I was reading Infinite Jest. The end. Since then, things have been a little more varied. Here’s what up in my reading world.

Books Read

  • The Night Circus by Erin Morganstein, borrowed from Cait at The Angry Vegan. Review coming soon. Preview: Meh.
  • The Fault in our Stars by John Green, a gift from Ambur at Burning Impossibly Bright. Review coming soon. Preview: Loved it. And, holy literary allusions, Batman!

Books ObtainedMagic of Saida

  • North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, another gift from Ambur, at The Edmonton Book Bloggers Christmas party!
  • The Magic of Saida by M.G. Vassanji, courtesy of Brie at Eat Books.
  • Belinda’s Rings by Corinna Chong, courtesy of @mattbowes at NeWest Press
  • The Paradise Engine by Rebecca Campbell (Advance Reader Copy), also courtesy of NeWest Press

Books I Want to Read

  • Beloved by Toni Morrison, because of this review by Rob Delaney
  • Away by Jane Urquhart, because it’s part of Canada Reads
  • The Midwife by Jennifer Worth because of this review on LindyLit
  • Rosina, The Midwife by Jessica Kluthe, because she’s a local author and tweep AND I love a good multi-generational saga.
  • The Winter King by Bernard Cornwall because of this review on The Book-A-Week Project (which is updated, finally, yay!)
  • Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese because it’s part of Canada Reads
  • Dad Says He Saw You At The Mall by Ken Sparling. Can’t remember where I came across it but it sounds so weird that I must find out more.

Bloggy Updates

So, in case you missed it up in “Books Obtained,” Edmonton’s NeWest Press sent me two books to review. Now, I know this is par for the course for many book bloggers, but this is the first time I’ve received review copies of anything, and, the first time I’ve received mail address to “Reading in Bed.” I’m a legit book blogger now!

likeaboss

I’ve got just under two week until I’m back to work, and the kids are in daycare now, so I’m hoping to plug away at the blog a bit more than usual till then. Apparently I will NOT be able to blog at work because my review of Sleeping Beauty got reading-in-bed.com flagged as porn. Probably for the best!

Lastly, I must give a shout out to Twitter Grammar Nerds @vgrabia, @andrewhorton, and @islandniles who helped me figure out that “roundup” in the post title is one word. It looks wrong to me, but, who am I to argue with strangers on Twitter?

Cool Story, Bro. (Why DFW Appeals to the Male Reader)

DFW

There’s something about DFW that makes me think he called people, or was called, “Bro.” Must be the bandanna.

After finishing Infinite Jest and realizing I had no idea what just happened, I found a few reviews on blogs I already follow. I was heartened to find that I was not the only one who finished the book and was completely and utterly confused.

I also noticed that all the Infinite Jest posts were written by males. This might not seem like a big deal, but, the vast majority of book bloggers I follow are female. Indeed, the vast majority of all book bloggers are female. Searching past my own blogosphere, I found numerous articles, reading groups, Twitter accounts, and wikis devoted to DFW and his work, and they were nearly all written by men. What gives? Why are all of DFW’s super fans male? Continue reading →

What’s The Deal With Infinite Jest?

One does not simply read Infinite Jest

I just finished Infinite Jest, and I have questions.

I finished the book early one morning, before the kids were awake. The first thing I did was Google “what happened in Infinite Jest.” The second thing I did was Google “Infinite Jest WTF” and my own blog was the fourth result. Gulp.

I started to read some blog posts and critical reviews, and quickly realized that if I just read what other people think, I’m not going to draw my own conclusions. So, I quickly wrote down my questions and impressions so they’re as fresh as possible. I don’t want to sound smarter than I am because I’ve read a bunch of other people’s thoughts.

(As an aside, 101 Books identifies this, reading reviews before forming an opinion, as a sign that you might be a book snob. Well… I’ve come to terms with my book snobbery, so I’m okay with that!)

This post is for other people who finished Infinite Jest, and, like me, were like “WHAT HAPPENED,” so you’ll feel better; for people who finished it and totally understood everything, so you’ll feel smart; and for people who haven’t read this book, so that maybe you’ll be intrigued enough to pick it up. Despite not understanding everything, I think this is an important book for all of us borderline millennials  and, well, everyone. To paraphase DFW himself, this book is about what it is to be a fucking human being.

In no particular order, here are my questions, impressions, thoughts, and feelings upon finishing Infinite Jest. Spoilers, etc:

  • What is the significance of TEETH in this book? Off the top of my head, the ADA forgives Gately for causing his wife’s obsession with cleaning her teeth, one of Himself’s films was about teeth, one of ETA staff is obsessed with teeth, Mario is “homo dental” which I don’t even know if that’s a thing, and every time I read “Ortho Stice” I thought of braces. This may seem like a weird thing to fixate one, but it is really bothering me!
  • These is a serious lack of female characters in this book. The settings are primarily male: A tennis academy and a drug recovery house, both of which of course have female residents, but are male dominated. The primary females are damaged or physically different – Joelle’s face (both as PGOAT and UHID), Avril’s height, Pat’s limp. Continue reading →

Mo’ Kobos, Mo’ Problems

I was hoping to get this review out before Christmas for gift-giving purposes, but perhaps you Boxing Day shoppers can make some use of it.

I got a Kobo Glo for my birthday and was pretty excited, and not because it came in pink (well, not only.) My first generation Kobo was slow, glitchy, and poorly designed, but it served me well over the years. The Kobo Glo addresses a lot of the issues I had, and some that I didn’t even think of, but after a few month’s use, I’m frustrated again.

Most of the new features are great. Obviously it’s better to have a touch screen and wireless capability. It handles footnotes and moving between sections with ease (Infinite Jest style footnotes are an exception, probably.) The battery life is great. The built in light is a GODSEND. And it’s FAST.

BUT…

  • The touch screen is too sensitive one moment, and totally unresponsive the next. I’ve had five pages skipped because I brushed my sleeve against the screen, and I’ve had to touch the screen five times to make it turn, within the same chapter.
  • The annotation feature. I WANT to love it. It’s got such potential. But the highlighting and typing is ATROCIOUS. Like, I can’t imagine someone, or more likely, many someones, signed off on this as good to go. It’s nearly impossible to highlight text with any precision, and once you do, good luck typing up your thoughts. The keyboard is slooooow. And you have to flip to the alternative keyboard for periods or commas.
  • It’s glitchy. Sometimes annotations work, sometimes they don’t. Turning it off and on fixes it, but it’s super annoying.

I’m in love with e-readers as a product because they allow me to read while co-sleeping with a baby. But the Kobo Glo just hints at their true potential. I don’t know if I’ll stick it out through another generation (or two) to see if they can get it right.

Reading Roundup: November 2012

The Fault in Our Stars John Green

All I Want For Christmas?

Am I allowed to do a round up post when I’ve obtained and read zero books this month? I do need a way to publish my Christmas wish list for certain secret Santas, so I’m going to say, “yes!”

Books Obtained and Read

  • None. That was easy.
  • Okay, I did read like 350 or 400 pages of Infinite Jest over November. That’s pretty much a book.

Books I Want to Read

Here are the top ten books I’d like to own in the near future, i.e. Christmas!*

  1. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green – I want this to be my next read, so it’s first on my list. Have I mentioned that I have a fangirlish crush on this guy? I mean watch this. Or this. Love him.
  2. 1,001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2012 Edition) – I own the original, but I’d love to have the updated version. These are beautiful books with lots of colour pictures. Great gift idea for anyone bookish!
  3. Strange Heaven by Lynn Coady – my local author pick, and sounds right up my alley in terms of troubled kids, family dysfunction and the East Coast setting.
  4. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck – I don’t own this book, which is ridiculous considering it’s my favourite read of like the past two years (pending completion of IJ).
  5. Mercy Among the Children by David Adams Richards – I gave my copy away at a book swap. I need to own this book.
  6. Dear Life by Alice Munro – After a year of long reads, I think I’ll be in the mood for some short stories. Nobody does it better than Alice Munro… unless…
  7. Astray by Emma Donoghue – I’m a huge fan of Emma Donoghue and she released a short story collection this year.
  8. The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir – Because: feminism.
  9. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell – I’m going to read more classics written by female authors next year. I loved the mini-series, so this seems like a good place to start.
  10. When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman – Something about this book keeps nagging at me. Strange title.

*I’ve been joking that reading Sleeping Beauty made me want to read 50 Shades. If someone buys it for me, I will read it. But I reserve the right to make snarky blog posts/live-tweet my disgust/roll my eyes with abandon!

The Month Ahead

  • Finish Infinite Jest. There will be much rejoicing.
  • Submit a story to The 40 Below Project. This is a stretch goal for me and my first time submitting anything! Check out the website and wish me luck! I’m (trying) to write about what it’s like to experience a sudden 20 degree drop in temperature. Also about teenage drama (what else?)
  • Get through the week-long extravaganza that is Benjamin’s 3rd birthday and Christmas.

Search Terms

Just for fun, here are some interesting search terms that have landed on the blog.

  • “erotic exerpts from the claiming of sleeping beauty anne rice” – yeah… getting a lot of these since my review went up…
  • “adult words with friends” – um, do I want to know?
  • “i enjoyed reading heart of darkness” – well, that makes two of us!
  • “runny romantic letters for him” – it is the season for runny letters!
  • “how you know you are a book snob” – if you have to ask….
  • “invisible woman sex fanfic” – sorry to disappoint you.

REVIEW: The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty by Anne Rice

The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty

I post on a women’s forum that runs very much to the mainstream. The posters tend to be married with children or heading that way. When a poster went “undercover” to post about her secret life as a submissive, it caused a bit of a sensation. She has a “taken in hand” marriage, which means her husband calls ALL the shots. They discuss things, but he has the final say. Period. And that might mean deciding what car to buy, where to live, or it might mean whether they have sex tonight.

It doesn’t much concern me what consenting adults do in their homes. However, the definition of consent in this scenario makes me nervous. The poster said that she gave her husband “blanket consent” for sex, whenever, where ever, and however he wants. But is consent still consent when it’s given in advance? How do you get out of this agreement if you want – isn’t it sort of, too bad, you gave your consent, so now what I say goes? To me, consent is rooted in the present tense. I can consent to sex now, but I can’t give consent for sex that’s going to happen tomorrow. Anyway, Drama Ensued. There were even accusations that this poster couldn’t be for real, but, a quick search of the internets tells me that “taken in hand” is a thing.

As I read The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, I thought about consent quite a bit. Sleeping Beauty was my first erotic novel. I admit to reading the odd, shall we say, flash fiction erotica, but it’s not a genre I ever considered for a literary experience. I chose Sleeping Beauty because it has a reputation as a literary Fifty Shades (I know, I know).

I knew that the story was based on Sleeping Beauty fairy tale, and that it would have a BDSM element, but I was not expecting so much cruelty and so little tenderness. I don’t have a problem with BDSM, and I understand this is fiction; however, when presented with non-consentual, penetrative sex with a minor, or if you wanna get real, a child being raped, on PAGE TWO I was taken aback. Context: “Beauty” is fifteen and unconscious.

He mounted her, parting her legs, giving the white inner flesh of her thighs a soft, deep pinch, and, clasping her right breast in his left hand, he thrust his sex into her. Continue reading →

Infinite Jest broke my Kobo. And my brain.

Once I got over my initial fear, I’ve been pretty cocky about reading Infinite Jest. It’s been WAY easier than I thought it would be. I’m able to pick it up here and there without backtracking to remember what happened. DFW’s quirks and tics aren’t bothering me much (though starting sentences with “and but so then” just doesn’t make sense to me.) It’s just SO much easier to read something written in and about a culture you’re familiar with, than say 19th century Russia. My shiny new Kobo Glo is really helpful, too. I can look up words right on screen (my new favourite word is postprandial) AND I can jump back and forth between main text and end notes (good thing because there are a ton of them).

So I’m thinking I’m quite SMRT. Then this happens:

Calculus in Infinite Jest

CALCULUS!

Calculus was by far the most difficult subject I’ve ever learned. In an academic career marked by minimum effort and honour roll results, calculus was just beyond my brain’s capabilities. I worked harder  than any of my other classes and barely passed. Having to think about calculus again was like a big smack down, reminding me that I’m not that smart after all.

And THEN the end notes started to get out of control. The Kobo works great until you have footnotes within an end note. Then it just sort of shrugs and says “yeah, I don’t know, you find your own way back.” And end note 123 splinters into its own chapter for some reason. I guess it takes a book like Infinite Jest to expose the limitations of the technology (DFW probably would have LOVED that. You know his BFF Jonathan Franzen would.)

So, what’s the point of all the fussy words, strange constructions, copious end notes, and mathematics? Is DFW just messing with us? Trying to make the reader feel dumb? Weeding out the riff raff? Showing off? I think it’s a bit of all of these, but there’s probably some meta stuff going on… like, life isn’t a straightforward narrative, or something. I don’t know. I’m feeling pretty dumb right now.

But, I will soldier on! I’m one third of the way through after 23 days of reading, so I’m on track to finish in less than three months total. For the record, though, this is the ONLY way I want to deal with calculus from now on:

Reading Roundup: October 2012

Wuthering Heights Penguin Deluxe Edition

Oh Heathcliff. Pop that collar.

A slow month, but a few things to remark on:

Books Obtained

  • Wuthering Heights, Penguin Deluxe Edition. I gave away my copy, so I needed a new one. I’m trying to collect nice copies of my favourite books. So far, I have a hardcover Love in the Time of Cholera and this paperback Wuthering Heights. Next might be Grapes of Wrath. I had so much fun following the readalong that I want to flip through it again!

Books Actually Read

  • The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty by Anne Rice. If I get it together and write a real review of this book, I might guest post it on Reading in Winter (After Dark), which you should definitely check out in the meantime if you enjoy a steamy read now and then. But this book. Wow. I knew it was erotica but I guess I didn’t expect to be bombarded with penetrative, non-consensual sex with a minor on PAGE TWO. And that was the LEAST risque scene in the book.

Books I Want to Obtain

The Month Ahead

  • Keep plugging away at Infinite Jest. I’m nearing the 25% mark!
  • SEE ANNA KARENINA. AM A LITTLE EXCITED. Paraphrasing a tweet I saw somewhere: How pissed is Jude Law that they didn’t make this movie ten years ago so he could play Vronsky? I’m pretty meh on Keira playing Anna, too. I saw the original 1935 movie with Greta Garbo and that’s a hard act to follow. But NO MATTER because COSTUMES and DRAMA and DOOMED LOVERS and EXCELLENT HATS.
Greta Garbo as Anna Karenina

Greta Garbo is not amused by the casting of the new Anna Karenina.