I’m sorry, but I don’t especially know what to make of this one. Librarian semi-accidentally kidnaps 10-year-old whose parents and pastor are trying to de-gay him. I probably would be more charitable towards the book if it depicted librarians and library work more accurately.
What a nice looking small press book, so well-produced! I know you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but SSPT is just lovely. Oh yeah, the language and characterizations, too. Crawford takes her time exploring her characters and their worlds.
This book is kind of light and chick-litish, but it’s about women’s roller derby, so it’s at least a little bit awesome. What separates it from typical chick-lit is that while there’s definitely a dude involved, it’s really about not getting the guy.
Anne’s stories of making zines with women college students in Cambodia (“women college students in Cambodia” is a really big deal), are mixed in with Cambodian history and information about the current state of the country, and etiquette lessons for foreign travelers, e.g., don’t haggle.
Female French Resistance memoir: that’s all you need to know, right? Nancy Wake was high-spirited and strong-willed. She wasn’t the best writer you’ll ever read, but her memoir does give you some sense of her personality and adventures in Europe during World War II. It leaves you hungry for more, so like me, you’ll probably want to dig up a copy of Nancy Wake: a Biography of Our Greatest War Heroine or Nancy Wake: SOE’s Greatest Heroine.
Cantwell’s memoir begins after she graduates from Connecticut College 1953 and moves to New York City to be a writer. She is a Catholic from a WASPy town in Rhode Island, but passes well enough. Her mother is not impressed when she marries a Jew fairly soon after graduating. But she’d slept with him, what could she do? I don’t mean to mock. On the outside Cantwell isn’t someone I can relate to, but the quality of her writing voice really got me, both its competence and its appeal, if that makes sense. It seems like the better the writing I’m reviewing the worse my own gets.
Okay, I was super-stressed and considered removing the stressor from my life. Instead of working on the conference presentation I've been worrying about I borrowed the fourth in the Mercedes Thompson series from the library when I returned the third. A friend talked me down from my panic, but I already had the book, so I figured I may as well snarf it up. I also wrote the first part of my presentation.
The only vacationy thing I’ve done on my staycation is this pleasure read. The third in the Mercedes Thompson series has Mercy doing more brave, rash things and getting herself into and out of some bad situations, with a little help from her wolfy friends. As in Sookie Stackhouse’s world, the fae are kind of dicks.
If you’re wondering what in the world prompted me to read this book, it’s because I have a newly single friend who hasn’t dated in a really long time and who can be a little...impulsive, and I wanted to get her to read it with me. I actually don’t have a huge problem with the book or its premise. If what you want is to get married, then this book might really help. Is it the height of feminist (not to mention queer or polyamorous) enlightenment to put so much importance on getting hitched? Not necessarily, but I do understand the desire to have a partner and be in a committed relationship. I’ll freely admit that that desire is strong in me.
This is such a Rivington Street readalike that it’s hard not to compare the two. Both begin in Russia around the turn of the 20th century and move to the Lower East Side after a pogrom. Both are about young Jewish female union workers and both have lesbian characters, and both depict the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.
“You sound like a capitalist, all excited about machinery,” I said. “Aren’t you afraid that [linotype] will put printers out of work?”
“I was, but now I understand that the more books and pamphlets there are, the more men will read.” He dropped his voice. “And with this machine, we can make up our own pamphlets when the boss is out and melt the evidence before he comes back.” He leaned back in the sunlight, very pleased with himself.
The Williamsburg Bridge was its own sin. Its construction, Lena told me, made hundreds of people homeless when their buildings were torn down. A little like pogrom of progress, burning anything in its path, making Jews take to the roads with everything they owned on their backs, or move in with their relatives and landslayt, crowding more than we were ever crowded in Kishinev.