Zoë's 2015 Challenge

Sorry, I've been procrastinating for a long time about starting a new thread! I'll set up the basics here and try to move on to replies and book reviews before too long. I don't seem to be doing any fancy tracking this year, so you can feel free to post immediately.

ETA: And of course I forgot to add the thread number. Oh well.

Books read:

January
1. A Practical Wedding by Meg Keene
2. The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson
3. All Who Go Do Not Return by Shulem Deen
4. Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare
5. Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare
6. The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey
7. On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City by Alice Goffman
8. Sophocles I: Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles
9. Curtsies & Conspiracies by Gail Carriger

February
10. Café in Berlin by André Klein
11. Waistcoats & Weaponry by Gail Carriger
12. Dune by Frank Herbert
13. Mord am Morgen by André Klein
14. Ferien in Frankfurt by André Klein
15. Karneval in Köln by André Klein
16. Momente in München by André Klein
17. Die Dritte Hand by André Klein
SS: Mitosis by Brandon Sanderson
18. Ungifted by Gordon Korman
19. Boston Strong by Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge

March
20. Firefight by Brandon Sanderson
21. Not a Drop to Drink by Mindy McGinnis
22. A Museum Once Forgotten: Rebirth of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art by John Wetenhall

April
23. Des Spielers Tod by André Klein
24. Cinder by Marissa Meyer
25. Zum Bärenhaus by André Klein
26. Scarlet by Marissa Meyer
27. Cress by Marissa Meyer

May
28. The Ice Dragon by George R.R. Martin
29. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
30. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo

June
31. The Gatekeepers by Jacques Steinberg
32. Fairest by Marissa Meyer
33. Heidis Frühstück by André Klein
34. Ahoi aus Hamburg by André Klein

July
35. The Life You Can Save by Peter Singer
36. Tyrell by Coe Booth

August
37. Bronxwood by Coe Booth
38. Kinda Like Brothers by Coe Booth

September
39. Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation by Jonathan Kozol

October
40. Primates of Park Avenue by Wednesday Martin
41. The Essential Bernie Sanders and His Vision for America by Jonathan Tasini

November
42. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

December
43. Winter by Marissa Meyer
44. This Is Not a Test by José Luis Vilson
45. This Can't Be Happening at MacDonald Hall by Gordon Korman

25. Zum Bärenhaus (To the Bear House) by André Klein.

This short mystery story was really not very memorable, but I keep reading this series anyway because the books are reliable and consistent. I know that the level of German will be just about right, the book will be readable, and the story will be entertaining enough to get me through to the end. I already have the fifth book and final book waiting on my Kindle.

In this book, the body of a young woman is found in the panda bear enclosure at the zoo. She has claw marks on her, so it's easy to dismiss the incident as some sort of accident rather than murder—things generally don't end well for random people who go into bear cages. But Baumgartner and Momsen of the murder department are determined to investigate despite their superior's telling them it's not their job. These investigations include going undercover at a meeting of extreme animal rights activists, where the detectives learn that the victim had been trying to kidnap a panda to prove some sort of point. But that's only borderline relevant; ultimately it turns out that she was involved in a relationship with the zoo's superintendent, who hit her with a golf club for a reason that I can't remember—one of the flaws of this series is that the ultimate explanations of events tend to be very terse and disconnected from the rest of the plot, which makes them both less memorable and easier to miss if you don't understand every word. Thinking back to earlier installments of the series, I also can't remember the motive for the second book: I remember that the perpetrator ran away when the detectives came to talk with him, but I don't really remember what he said when they caught him. Oh well.

26. Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

This is the second book of the Lunar Chronicles, and I actually found it the least interesting, which is very much a minority opinion. Scarlet's grandmother has gone missing, and Scarlet wants to find her; meanwhile Scarlet is falling for this mysterious Wolf character, a street fighter who may or may not be connected to her grandmother's disappearance.

My issue with Scarlet was that she wasn't intrinsically a very interesting character and didn't have much personal connection to the major events going on. Scarlet's grandmother is the one who did interesting things, not Scarlet herself. And the reader already knows who Scarlet's grandmother is and approximately who took her, which makes it harder to experience Scarlet's tension and confusion along with her. I mostly found myself looking forward to the sections with Cinder or Kai, which I found much more compelling. Scarlet doesn't really *do* much throughout the story: she meets (and falls for) a mysterious stranger who tells her that her grandmother has been taken to Paris, so she gets on a train with him and walks right up to the enemy with no plan, so they take her prisoner as well. That's basically the entirety of the plot. I felt like it was mostly just setting up for future books.

That said, I still enjoyed this book; it just had a very high standard to live up to. I'd certainly still recommend the series as a whole.

Happy new thread!!

Thanks, Amber!

Nice new thread, Zoe. I've enjoyed the Lunar Chronicles as well, although Winter not as strong as the others--I'm really looking forward to the concluding book.

A new thread! Continue to be v impressed at the bilingual reading you're doing.

>6 ronincats: Hi, Roni! I think you were one of the people who really cemented my resolve to read these books sooner rather than later, and I'm glad I did. I'm looking forward to the final one as well (I read Cress but haven't got around to posting about it yet). In the meantime, I still have Fairest to keep me occupied, but I'm not ready to move on to Levana's perspective while the others are still so fresh in my mind.

>7 charl08: Aw, thank you! But I'm afraid you wouldn't be so impressed if you saw how short and easy these books are ;)

I had that wrong! Fairest is the one not so strong--Winter is the concluding book we are waiting for! I just really couldn't feel for Levana, even knowing her backstory.

Happy new thread Zoe! Wishing you lots of great reading. :)

>9 ronincats: Ah, that makes more sense! First I wondered whether you had got an ARC, and then whether the planned series was being extended further. I'm glad to hear that Winter isn't the disappointing one. I was already expecting Fairest to be not so good, so that's okay :)

>10 jolerie: Thanks, Valerie! I wish you lots of great reading as well!

27. Cress by Marissa Meyer

I liked this third installment of the Lunar Chronicles much more than Scarlet. Cress is a Rapunzel-like figure trapped in a satellite orbiting the earth, where she's responsible for carrying out various hacking and surveillance activities on behalf of the Lunar queen. But since she's been treated so badly by the Lunars, stuck in isolation for seven years, she's eager to switch sides when the opportunity presents itself. I really liked Cress and her combination of brilliance and naiveté—she's a genius at all things computers, but she's had almost no experience with social interaction since she was a child. And of course, she's closely connected to the political intrigue in a way that Scarlet really wasn't. This book also had the benefit of moving the broader plot along and felt much less like filler overall. In a way, I'm actually glad that I started reading the series so late, because it means the final book is coming out later this year :)

28. The Ice Dragon by George R.R. Martin

Needless to say, I picked up this book because of the author, but it's no Game of Thrones. I'm not sure it's even long enough to be called a novella; it might just be a short story extended to book size with the addition of pictures. The result is that the plot isn't really fully developed; Adara is a described as a "cold" child, both literally and metaphorically, which means that she doesn't show much emotional connection to her family and prefers to spend her winters outside. She has a sudden change of heart (and physical temperature) at the end, when faced with the thought of leaving her family behind at the mercy of the enemy, so that was nice, but it wasn't quite satisfying because there's no explanation for how her basic character and physical composition could change so suddenly. The story is entertaining enough, and kept me occupied when I wanted something light, so I have zero regrets about reading it. But I'm glad I got it from the library rather than spending money on it.

Happy new thread! I feel the same way about The Lunar Chronicles -- loved Cinder and Cress, thought Scarlet was just okay. I also haven't picked up Fairest yet, mostly because it's gotten such lukewarm reviews.

>14 foggidawn: I'm glad to hear that someone else felt the same way about the books! I sometimes feel like my opinions are completely out of line with everyone else's.

Speaking of which....



29. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

This book has been getting a lot of buzz lately: it's currently #2 on LT's "Hot This Month" list, it was a popular choice for the End of the World category in the 2015 Category Challenge, and its high rating of 4.2 suggests that it's actually good.

I'll be the first to admit that I was swayed by the buzz and didn't do enough research into the book itself; the post-apocalyptic setting was enough to win me over. The book is set in the immediate and not-so-immediate aftermath of a devastating flu epidemic that kills more than 99% of the world's population very quickly, which sounded like an interesting premise to me.

And the book got off to a very strong start, with a compelling account of a Toronto paramedic-in-training and his experiences on the day the flu broke out. Unfortunately, after that first chapter, we didn't really meet that character again for more than 100 pages. Instead, much of the book focuses on the life of a Hollywood actor and his wives in the years before the pandemic—a topic that holds no intrinsic interest for me.

This may be a post-apocalyptic novel, but it's a literary novel first and foremost. The writing is excellent, and the whole edifice is carefully constructed. We can trace the journey of a paperweight from character to character through interconnected narratives in a non-linear chronology. There's plenty of reflection about life and the world, some of it quite powerful. I can understand why so many people have rated this book so highly.

At the same time, it's not really my type of book. There's a bit too much emphasis on introspection, on the mundane lives of not-particularly-likeable characters, on the clever linking together of disparate elements. It felt more like a book to be admired than a book to be enjoyed.

The prominent theme of reflection on a lost world also didn't entirely work for me because it wasn't quite believable that so much was lost, or at least that it was lost in the way portrayed here. There was no damage to infrastructure, just huge numbers of people dropping dead very quickly from an extremely contagious disease. Yet for some reason television news continued for five days (because obviously people would still go into work for that when everything else was shut down for the deadly pandemic), while the internet ended the day after television (because the internet is manually operated by humans), and it was only *after* that that the electricity went out. Once the electricity went out, it was just gone; no one had any solar panels or solar chargers or knowledge of engineering or access to books. And so even 20 years later, electricity was a concept of the mythical past.

I don't know. I find it a bit difficult to believe that so much knowledge would be lost in a world that ended from disease rather than war, and that the survivors would rebuild so slowly. But then, this book really wasn't about surviving in the aftermath of a pandemic, despite its setting. It was about tracing the interconnected lives of a group of people joined by their associations with a certain actor. It was about choices and regrets, loss and acceptance. If you enjoy literary fiction in general, I suspect that you'll enjoy this book as well. But if you're primarily drawn in by the post-apocalyptic setting, you may want to think twice.

>15 _Zoe_: Hmmm... Station Eleven is on my stack at home, but your review is making me think I may be a bit lukewarm about it. I don't mind some literary fiction, but I do have to like - or at least care about - the characters I'm reading about. Was it somewhat of a slow pace or a quick read?

>16 bell7: Well, it took me three weeks to get through it, but there were admittedly some distractions (specifically, a campus interview for a position starting this fall—more about that later!). I also picked up another book while in the middle of that one, which is never a good sign. But the first 25 pages were really compelling....

Oooh!

*patiently waiting for more about the interview...*

>17 _Zoe_: Fingers crossed for you.

>17 _Zoe_: I think I will continue to waffle about it until I either return it because of the size of my library stack or pick it up sometime in June suddenly having more time to read over vacation and dogsitting.

Congrats on the interview! Good luck and hope to hear more... :)

Wonderful review of Station Eleven (which is patiently sitting on my tbr shelf).

Waiting to hear about the interview!

*waits to hear about the interview*

(We're lining up!)

Great review of Station Eleven, Zoë. I have it on my Kindle, waiting to be read, and I'm curious to see if my thoughts about it line up more with yours, or with the general consensus.

*joins queue of LTers waiting to hear about the interview*

Sorry, I didn't mean to create all this suspense! I've just been reluctant to say anything until it's all finalized, but I'll give a rough outline for now: the interview was for a two-year dissertation fellowship/visiting assistant professor position at a state university a few hours north of here, in a department that's not at all where I thought I'd end up, but that offers good prospects for future employment. They made me a verbal offer the following week, and it's sort of driving me crazy not to have any of the details in writing, but I've told them that I do plan to accept the offer (assuming it really materializes in the promised form!). So it's both exciting and frustrating.

The teaching load is 2-2 (i.e., two courses in the fall and two courses in the spring each year), which my supervisors at a research institution think will be a worrying distraction from my dissertation, but I actually want to be teaching and have not been very happy just sitting by myself for the past couple of years and feeling like I'm not doing anything for anyone other than myself. So it's a very welcome opportunity, and I just wish everything were finalized already. But I'm about to leave for three weeks in Berkeley anyway, so it's not like I'll be able to do anything until July anyway.

>20 bell7: I wish I'd had more time for waffling! Since it's new and popular, my library had it on a two-week loan period, which did not go very well for me. Especially when they closed for the whole Memorial Day weekend, grrr. At least the $4.25 in fines is less than it would have cost to buy the book myself.

>23 kidzdoc: I think you'll like Station Eleven much more than I did, because you do tend to read plenty of literary fiction.

Zoe, congratulations on the job! That sounds like a great opportunity and hopefully will help you get a TT job down the road. A 2-2 load isn't bad at all from what I've heard. Will you be teaching courses in your specialty, or are they giving you mostly general ed classes?

Congrats on the job offer! Those verbal offers are frustrating, but very common in academia. And have fun with the teaching - I had a difficult time giving time to my dissertation while teaching, because I much preferred prep work for classes to research!

Wow. Congrats on the offer. I think your advisors are saying what advisers always say (is it just me, our have they forgotten the loneliness and poverty of 'focusing on the writing'). Some of the best writing moments for me were after a class when I felt re-enthused about my subject.

Thank you all! Jonathan, one of the classes would be more or less in my specialty, and the other would be completely general. I think that should be a pretty good balance.

Meanwhile, things have sort of progressed in that the department chair asked me when I wanted to schedule one of my classes (the other time slot was unfortunately pre-determined), but I still have no formal paperwork. Hopefully in the next few weeks. I'm starting to think about renting an apartment before even getting the contract signed, because there aren't that many housing options in this small town, but that's obviously not the ideal situation. I'm not worried that the department will change their mind (it's a *very* specific posting and they said I was the best candidate by far), but I'm worried that academic funding in general just isn't very reliable.

Amber, I'm glad to hear from someone else who enjoys teaching! I sometimes feel like I'm living in some sort of alternate reality. One of my supervisors told me that it wasn't really necessary to prepare classes at all, and that I could just wing it for the first year, making sure not to delay my dissertation schedule at all, and then put more thought into the classes the following year. Um, no thanks. If I'll be teaching the same classes multiple times, I think it makes more sense to do the major preparation at the very beginning (although that's something that I won't start until I actually have a signed contract). But then there's the guilt of disobeying my supervisor.... Bah.

Charlotte, I completely agree about getting re-enthused rather than just sitting by myself all the time! I can't speak for classes yet, but whenever I go to a conference, and my supervisors tell me that it's a worrying distraction, I feel like I actually gain more in terms of renewed energy and excitement than I lose in terms of time.

Ahhh, I'm behind on book posts.



30. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo.

I plan to write a full review of this one at some point, but here's a start for now.

This book is inspiring in the sense that reading a book about tidying did make me get started on tidying my own apartment, and I've managed to get rid of a lot of stuff already.

But this isn't a book to be taken literally, and the helpful advice is sometimes lost in a bunch of nonsense.

The basic premise is to go through each item you own and keep only those things that give you joy.

This works to a certain extent with optional items, and about halfway through she does acknowledge that you may need to keep some documents as well. It's a helpful principle to some extent, and I did manage to get rid of a lot of stuff by keeping this idea in mind.

But I also got the feeling that she was writing for people who had a lot of disposable income and a willingness to dispose of it, along with an enjoyment of shopping. Because my winter coat is sort of old and doesn't really bring me joy. But I still need a winter coat, and it can probably see me through another winter. If I dispose of it now during the nice weather, as she recommends, I'll be even more miserable when it gets cold and I have to find a new coat immediately, and having to purchase something in a rush will make me even less likely to love it. So I don't think this idea always works.

She also has a slight tendency to present her preferences as normal: for example, she mentions how you can eliminate most of your books, but talks about how to store purses and handbags by type (all the woven fabric-type ones, all the leather ones, whatever). Er, I don't think I have multiple purses and handbags of the same style. Similarly, she talks about how you should dress nicely even at home, because if you wear sweat pants, you'll start to look like you belong in them. Judgmental and not really relevant for the topic of the book.

Then there are the parts where it gets really weird, where inanimate objects are thoroughly personified, and there's some mention of auras, and so on. I'll elaborate on that in my extended review.

And she talks about her clients in uncomfortably judgmental ways. She's really opposed to stockpiling (i.e., getting more stuff than you need for the immediate future), and picks out one client's habits to elaborate on: this client had 80 rolls of toilet paper in her home, and explained that she went through it quickly because she had loose bowels. So the author commented as follows:

But even if she used one roll a day, she had at least three months' supply. I'm not sure she could have used up one roll a day even if she spent all day wiping her bottom, and by that time her bottom would have been rubbed raw. It made me wonder whether I should be giving her skin cream rather than lessons in cleaning.

I'm sorry, but it's really not her place to be judging and mocking her clients' medical issues. Just no.

She also comments that "My clients tell me that now life is more fun because when they run out of something they enjoy seeing how long they can last without it or trying to substitute other things."

This approach is just not of interest to me. I have zero desire to run out of toilet paper and "have fun" seeing how long I can last without it or trying to substitute other things. One of my main motivations for tidying is so that I can immediately find whatever I need and *not* have to waste time and money with a trip to the store because I don't remember where I put the spare batteries, or last summer's sunscreen, or whatever.

Anyway, this is already more than I planned to write right now, but I'll just reiterate that while the basic idea of the book can serve as a source of inspiration, I think it's important to pick and choose which parts to follow.

31. The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College by Jacques Steinberg.

I acquired this book on August 10, 2007, and finally got around to reading it :D. The prospect of teaching soon has renewed my interest in books about education. This one was extremely interesting, and I'd recommend it to anyone who's curious about the process.

32. Fairest: Levana's Story by Marissa Meyer

As expected, this back story of the bad guy wasn't nearly as good as the rest of the Lunar Chronicles. Partially I think it just started too late: by the time she's 15/16, Levana is already pretty thoroughly unlikeable. This is basically a book about what would happen if an immature teenager had complete power (mind control included), so that she could just compel her crush to marry her, etc. It's not very pleasant. And since she's supposed to end up bad, there's no sense of redemption or lessons learned. There's also hardly any information here that we don't already know from other books.

I didn't mind reading the book; it's short and light and I'm already committed to the series. Just don't go into it with high expectations.

>29 _Zoe_:. Zoe, I agree with you in general about this book, but I have found her recommendation of how to store clothes in a drawer to be a godsend. And while I still have lots of paper around, i did trim mny files by about 30%. Any inspiration in a storm!

>32 ffortsa: I haven't yet tried out the clothing storage method, but it definitely seems like one of the more promising aspects. I'm glad to hear that it's worked well for you!

>29 _Zoe_: I haven't read the book, Zoe, but have seen the you tube video showing her clothes folding method, which has changed my life! Well, so to speak. I now am folding all my clothes in drawers that way, which means I can get substantially more in a drawer and, better yet, see exactly what I have and get to it easily. Don't think I will bother with the book, though.
casual tee shirts and tank tops

>31 _Zoe_: I agree with you completely. While it is somewhat interesting to see what formed Levana, it isn't emotionally involving.

One of my supervisors told me that it wasn't really necessary to prepare classes at all, and that I could just wing it for the first year, making sure not to delay my dissertation schedule at all, and then put more thought into the classes the following year.

whenever I go to a conference, and my supervisors tell me that it's a worrying distraction

IMHO, Zoe, your advisor gives some ... peculiar ... advice. PhD students in my field (which is not that far off from yours) I have spoken to in preparation for grad school have told me just the opposite. I say keep on disobeying! :)

(Also, if you have any advice for me, that would be great.)

>34 ronincats: Thank you for that picture! It definitely looks like a great way to organize clothing, especially the stuff that I already have in drawers. It's frustrating when I can't see what's in there. My only concern was how it works when it's not full: after a week, when there are a lot of gaps, do the shirts still stand up or do they all fall over? I know she mentions in her book that if you fold things properly they'll stand on their own, but somehow I had doubts about my own folding abilities.

Meanwhile, this reminds me of another point I meant to make in my review: there's really no need to read the book to benefit from any good ideas that it contains. A lot of it is just filler, and you can find ample discussion of the good ideas elsewhere.

I think you had warned me about the Levana book, and I'm grateful for that! I had low expectations going in, so I wasn't disappointed.

>35 JDHomrighausen: Yup, I agree that the advice is peculiar. I'm not sure that established professors years out of the job market themselves necessarily have the best idea of what's required. They all seem to be extremely focused on the single goal of completing the dissertation, which is admittedly very important, but is really only one step on the journey. I'd much rather spend another year or two on the PhD and come out well-prepared for various employment situations than finish quickly with an otherwise empty CV.

So, my first piece of advice is to make sure you're doing things that make sense to you. No matter how well-intentioned your advisors may be, no one else is as invested in your life, your career, and your work as you are.

I just posted in your thread a few minutes ago, but is there any particular sort of advice that you're looking for? And will you by any chance be up in Berkeley sometime in the next few days?

33. Heidis Frühstück by André Klein

This is the final book (so far) in Klein's murder mystery series, and it's similar to the others in that there's a lot of focus on the mundane interactions of the detectives (the son of their superior is foisted on them as an unexpected intern; the male detective is trying to lose weight but keeps eating chocolate). The mystery itself is better-developed by some, but still ultimately depends on a weird and not entirely logical revelation.

The case begins when a human ear is found in some dog food, so the detectives go to the factory to investigate. It turns out that there was some insurance fraud going on, with a couple of workers deliberately cutting off their little fingers to ensure a nice pension for life, and the factory manager was complicit in this because he wanted to replace people with machines anyway. The nutritionist/vet was also involved, administering anaesthesia before the "accidents", but he eventually felt guilty and went to the manager saying that he wanted to tell the police. (I don't know why he didn't just go to the police directly....) Needless to say, the manager killed him, and the two workers helped dispose of the body. But where does the ear come into all this? It turns out that one of the workers wanted revenge on the manager, because despite the nice insurance payouts, he still wasn't satisfied with his jobless life. And so he cut off the ear (and put it in the dog food?), presumably so that the whole thing would be found out? Again, the ultimate justification wasn't quite clear.

It had been more than a month since I'd read one of these books, and in the meantime I've been spending a lot of time on Memrise working on German vocabulary. I also finally got around to purchasing a German-English dictionary for my Kindle, so that I can look up words on the spot rather than scrolling back and forth through multiple pages to check the glossaries at the end of the chapters. The result was a much smoother and more pleasant reading experience; I feel like I've made significant progress in my German in a relatively short time period, which is very encouraging. And I'm very glad that I have the Kindle, which greatly facilitates this process and makes it much less expensive. That was definitely a worthwhile purchase.

Congratulations Zoe! I am so happy for you!

>38 Whisper1: Thank you, Linda!

34. Ahoi aus Hamburg by André Klein

Another tiny German book, this one took only about an hour to read. I was happy to revisit Dino and his misadventures; this time, he hears about a ridiculously cheap apartment for rent, and it turns out the catch is that he's expected to function as the superintendent/handyman/janitor. This actually seemed like a pretty good job for him, carrying out random tasks on demand and socializing with the residents, so I was sad that of course it had to end so soon. I'd like to see Dino's story developed further.

The good(?) news is that at one point he gets an email from "Elizabeth", and I had completely forgotten about Elizabeth in the three months since reading the last book. So that means these stories should stand up to re-reading, and relatively soon.

>36 _Zoe_: What's really funny (in a non-laugh out loud way!) is that supervisors in the UK are under huge pressure to get their students finished 'within' three years. So they push the student to finish quickly - and for what? Without publications, it's completely pointless even applying for jobs, and without teaching experience it's difficult to even tide yourself over with temp jobs. So go figure...

>36 _Zoe_: There is that 'falling-over' problem with this method of storing clothing - or else I haven't found a way to fold things yet. I was putting away smaller types of clothing yesterday after a laundry run, and realized i would have to completely rearrange one of the rows if I wanted everything to stand up nicely again.

On the other hand, I managed to get the right sized wire drawers to store my sweaters and knits in, so that everything is only one level deep, and since they were knits, I rolled them rather than folding them. Works like a charm.

I somehow missed you started a second thread. *slaps own wrist* Hope your summer is treating you well!

Ahh, so far behind. I haven't been finishing many books, so there aren't many reviews to catch up on, but these are the ones that I do need to review at some point:

The Life You Can Save
Tyrell
Bronxwood
Kinda Like Brothers
Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation

I'm actually posting now because I need to keep track of all the books that I'm in the middle of, so that I'll actually manage to finish them eventually. Books in progress include:

This Is Not a Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and Education - I have something like 3 pages left in the epilogue, and so I left it behind in NYC since I had more important books to bring, but my visits there are short and full.

Doing Good Better - An ER book with 60 pages remaining to be read; interesting concepts but somewhat dry in presentation, and my interest declined sharply when the author started straying from the economics to push his own personal position on vegetarianism - he may well be right, but I would at least have liked to see an explicit rebuttal of the concept of free range livestock (even if just to say that it's too often misrepresented), rather than going from "factory farms are horrible" to "we should all be vegetarians". And then he recommends donating to charities that promote vegetarianism, which seems to conflict directly with his earlier advice to ignore issues that we personally care about (e.g., education) and instead focus on the charities that can make the most difference in terms of providing years of healthy life to humans.

Primates of Park Avenue - A study of the super-wealthy mothers of the Upper East Side, of interest to me because it's very close to the area where I live in New York, and because I thought it might offer a valuable glimpse of an unfamiliar world. But coming immediately on the heels of Jonathan Kozol's Amazing Grace, which I finished just before starting this one, some of the material here is a bit hard to stomach. In particular, it was almost disgusting to read about the quest for the $8000+ handbag. Still, I should finish this soon because it's already overdue at the library. 100 pages remaining.

Confessions of a Bad Teacher - About how broken the New York public school system is: charter schools, excessive testing, teachers blamed for all problems. Very readable from the perspective of the tone and writing, but sort of unpleasant and discouraging in terms of content. I'm only on p. 58 of 241, so this is probably the least likely to get finished.

Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do - for a book group, and super interesting. I can relate to so much of what I read here. On p. 62 of 219.

Discussion in the College Classroom - also for a book group, also very interesting. On p. 47 of 169.

On Course: A Week-by-Week Guide to Your First Semester of College Teaching - provided free at new faculty orientation, it's been nice to have some sort of guide. On p. 98 of 301.

And now my computer is almost out of batteries, so those last few were a bit rushed, but hopefully seeing them here will prevent me from losing track of them.

Some good stuff there. I'm looking forward to what you think of Whistling Vivaldi.

>44 _Zoe_: Ahh, so far behind.
With all you have going on, I'm surprised to see you here at all.

Confessions of a Bad Teacher
I clicked through to reviews and... it'd be too painful to read, too much to relate to.

Good to see you pop up!

>45 drneutron: Fortunately I have a schedule for Whistling Vivaldi (the book group meets four times during the semester, to discuss a few chapters each time), so I should actually finish it in the next couple of months! Incidentally, I really like this way of organizing a book group; it makes it much more manageable.

>46 qebo: It's definitely been a crazy semester/year! But I think I can manage to post every few months.

Confessions of a Bad Teacher is definitely painful to read, so I haven't picked it up for more than a month now. But I like the writing style and the topic is important, so I still hope to finish it one day.

>47 ronincats: I'm glad to see you here too!

So I actually managed to finish a book this weekend, and it was only a couple of weeks overdue at the library! :/



40. Primates of Park Avenue by Wednesday Martin.

This book has a really interesting premise: Martin promise to conduct a quasi-anthropological study of the super-rich women in the Upper East Side, using a sort of participant-observer approach. She came from a "normal" background and married into money, so she could bring an outsider's perspective to the topic. And I live in this neighbourhood (at least some of the time), so that added to the interest.

Unfortunately by trying to combine memoir and anthropology, Martin sort of fails at both. The attempt at an "objective" perspective means that there's surprisingly little background about Martin herself, which makes it harder to relate to her and appreciate her story. She doesn't even mention the names of her husband and sons, much less talk about how she felt about marrying rich. The observations tend to be more general: there's a lot about how mean and clique-y the women in the UES were, and how difficult it was to face them at the school drop-off, but not a lot of reflection about why this was worth it. The move to the UES was justified as wanting to be close to family and in a good public school district, but there's no discussion of how she reached the decision to stick with private schools after all.

The one place where Martin really seems to speak openly and honestly is in the final chapter, when she talks about the loss of a late-term pregnancy and how that finally made all the unwelcoming rich mothers rally around her. Which is all well and good, except that it's a sort of openness that has almost nothing to do with the topic of the book.

Similarly, Martin does a back-of-the-envelope calculation of how much it would cost to be a typical rich mother in the UES (approaching $100,000 a year), but she somehow avoids any meaningful discussion of her own finances. It's like she's trying to hard to be tasteful and respectful that she misses the whole point, and remains so general that she avoids giving any real insight into her life.

But we do learn that she wanted to fit in (this is described as typical for social animals, so she's basically not responsible for any of her decisions), and in order to do this she decides that she needs an $8,000+ Birkin handbag. I had to put the book down for a week or two after reading this chapter, because it was almost physically disgusting to me, especially when the last book I completed before this was Jonathan Kozol's Amazing Grace. There are so many worthwhile ways to spend money, but that wasn't even a consideration for Martin. Fitting in is the main goal. She does mention charity luncheons and such on occasion, but the emphasis there is always on the aspect of fitting in because that's what wealthy people do, with no discussion of the charities that the luncheons are actually benefitting.

Meanwhile, there are lots of anthropological diversions about the behaviour of various apes and monkeys, but I found them more distracting than interesting.

On the whole, I was not impressed with this book. It doesn't provide much insight about Martin's own life, much less about UES mothers as a whole. The basic message is that rich people are snobby but actually have a heart somewhere in there. Surprise! That doesn't exactly require a book-length treatment.

I initially added this book to my library hold list because I read an article that made it sound much more interesting than it actually was. I looked for that article again and couldn't manage to find it, because apparently there have been a huge number of articles written about the book in the meantime, most of them negative and many disputing the basic facts of the book (e.g., how long Martin lived in the UES and how many children she had when she lived there). Oh well.

>48 _Zoe_: every few months
Twice this month!

$8,000+ Birkin handbag
Ew. Though perceptions do change with income and surroundings... I spend $ now that would've been inconceivable in my 20s. But one does expect a quasi-anthropological analysis to notice a disconnect during a charity luncheon. Also to consider what fitting in consists of in this context as compared to others, and how one comes to recognize an $8000 handbag.

Hmm, I just finished reading (and enjoying) Crazy Rich Asians this week, but given your reaction to the Birken bag, it may not be a book for you.

>48 _Zoe_: What a great review!!!! I love your insights.

Hi, Zoe. I hope your insurance woes straighten out. I left you a reply on FB.

You might know this. If I find a bad link for a book title, is there a way to report it to LT staff? is there something else I should do about it? My last book title pointed to not only a different book, but a different author, and I'd love to know how to fix it.

Judy: When you make a touchsrone, the book appears to the right of the box you are typing in with a "more" option. Click that and it will give you a list of books to choosefrom if it is linking to the wrong book. :)

(On some devices after you click "more," the new box will pop up at the top of the page and you have to scroll up. That shouldn't happen, but it does on my old phone.)

>51 Whisper1: Thanks, Linda!

>52 ffortsa: I ended up just paying the $11. It really drives me crazy that I never know in advance how much any doctor's visit will cost here. If they had told me on that day that I would have to pay $11, I would have paid and not had a problem with it, but I hate getting surprise bills six weeks later. I don't know how people can tolerate the uncertainty.

>53 Ape: Thank you for answering the question for me :)

>54 _Zoe_: I do understand that nasty kind of surprise. Part of it is that the office staffer doesn't always know what your insurance will pick up and what it expects of you. I find it worthwhile to look at the statements the insurance co. sends me, or hit the website to see what the activity on my claims is.

For instance, I was all set to argue about a co-pay I was being billed for, since my FSA (pre_tax medical savings account) listed it as paid, until I noticed that they had paid the $54 to me and not to the doctor's office. Oops.

If we had a one-payer system in this country, it would be easier for everyone, including the doctors' staff. People have some fear about that kind of system, based on idiotic stories of other countries that have it, and perhaps more reasonable fears of certain procedures not being covered. And I suspect doctors would be less compensated under a government-sponsored single payer system. But the savings in office staff time, and perhaps even malpractice insurance fees, might offset their fears.

Yes, I really hope the US will switch to a single-payer system! It works so smoothly in Canada, and it's so nice not to be dealing with medical billing all the time. Every single time I go to the doctor I wonder whether it's time to move back yet.

Speaking of universal healthcare, I should post about the last book I finished!



41. The Essential Bernie Sanders and His Vision for America by Jonathan Tasini.

This was a really helpful overview of Bernie's positions about almost everything, presented in very accessible short chapters and based primarily on Bernie's own speeches, preceded by brief background sections. As a non-American, I occasionally would have benefitted from just a bit more background, but I'm obviously not the target audience.

I've never really followed American politics in detail before, and the whole primary system is very interesting to me.

I'm also much more optimistic about the future now that we're finally rid of Stephen Harper in Canada!

HI Zoe

I'm simply stopping by to say hello!

>58 Whisper1: Thank you for that lovely greeting!

> 41

I so love Bernie Sanders' stands on just about every issue. I am so happy that I'll be able to vote for a "socialist" in our upcoming election. I could also probably deal with Hillary as president, but the Republican nominees give me chills. I fear for my country if our leader turned out to be one of the current Republican front-runners.

For my Christmas/Hanukkah/Solstice/Holiday image this year (we are so diverse!), I've chosen this photograph by local photographer Mark Lenoce of the pier at Pacific Beach to express my holiday wishes to you: Peace on Earth and Good Will toward All!

What a beautiful picture! Happy holidays!

Hi Zoe. May your Christmas be bright and merry.

*Hugs*

It was bothering me that I abandoned this thread without at least mentioning my last few books of the year, so I'm going to go back and list them now. Better late than never, maybe?



42. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

My first time reading this classic, and I really enjoyed it.



43. Winter by Marissa Meyer

A satisfying but sort of boring conclusion to the series. There are no more surprises, just the nitty-gritty of bringing plans to fruition. You know going in what's going to happen, and hundreds of pages later, it's happened.



44. This Is Not a Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and Education by José Luis Vilson

This book started off well, discussing Vilson's experiences growing up and becoming a teacher in a low-income New York neighbourhood, but eventually it moved on to issues that I found less interesting: how he established a successful blog (which could have been more interesting if it had focused more on what made it acceptable to his employers and the tensions around that issue), how he spoke at conferences and met important people, etc. That wasn't the part of the story that was important to me; I would have liked more about the day-to-day teaching in the classroom.

There were also times when I felt like he was writing for teachers more in the know about the issues than I was, but that might be just because I was a foreigner. He mentioned at one point that he had been taken out of his classroom to become the school's "math coach", and I had no idea what that entailed, or how it could possibly be reasonable to change positions midway through the school year.



45. This Can't Be Happening at MacDonald Hall by Gordon Korman

Reread of a childhood favourite while visiting my parents over Christmas. I was a bit less comfortable with some of the stereotypes than I've been in the past: the heroes are troublemaking athletes, one of them is stuck rooming with a clueless nerd, interactions with the girls' school across the road include a (staged) panty raid, etc.

And now, back to my 2016 thread....