My fellow/sister/whatevers, I confess: I have lust in my heart. I want two binchas of tea that will cost more than I afford at the moment…but…but…one is ON SALE and they sound sssssssooooo mouthwatering….and I can get 10-percent off …and I haven’t bought ANY pu’er in SUCH a long long long long time….oh, fuck, somebody shoot me before I talk myself into buying these! While we’re talking tea and ruinous expense, I also have my eye on some Camellia Crassicolumna Black, a rare and little-known yabao from Qianjiazhai, China for those times when you want tea but no caffeine. And I’m thinking about a new Yixing pot for blacks, b/c I’ve gone back to blacks, thanks to the wonderful He family in Laoshan. Of course, I can’t get a Yixing pot for what I could, say 20 years ago. Now it’s going to cost me dearly. But one must sacrifice for fine tea. I’ll get one this winter. I know the artist I want to buy from. He makes truly amazing pots.
Blog
-
End Of Watch By Stephen King
This ends the Bill Hodges trilogy started with Mr. Mercedes and continued in Finders Keepers. Like many of King’s books, I found it to be a good read, compelling enough to keep me interested, and it was certainly dark, which I like. But this was not a great book, nothing that is going to change your life or make you think about the nature of evil, etc. Once you finish close the cover, you pretty much forget it. I don’t like to leave things unfinished and had read the first two-just b/c my library at time was REALLY low on new books (see my entry entitled “Abibliophobia”) so just HAD to read this one to round out the series. I’d say read it if you like dark mystery type novels that aren’t going to challenge you over much. Typical King fare, ho-hum.
-
Children Of Earth And Sky By Guy Gavriel Kay-A Review
I hadn’t expected to LIKE this book as much as I did, but let me say that I found it to be a very good way to spend a Friday night! Ideally, of course, the night would have been colder with a fierce thunderstorm, as this book just begs for the reader to be ensconced somewhere warm sipping a cuppa ! I simulated these conditions with my AC, crawled in bed with my whippet, and entered the world of Senjan, Seressa, and Dubrava. Kay provides interesting characters, intrigue worthy of the Borgias, and a dog! (My whippet thought the dog was a very nice touch!) I was a fantasy reader when younger but fell out of the habit. Guy Gavriel Kay might persuade me to begin again, starting with his novels!
-
White Trash: The 400-Year Old Untold History Of Class In America By Nancy Isenberg-A Review
In White Trash Isenberg firmly puts to rest the notion that America is a classless society. She sets forth the foundations of the class system from its roots in colonial times then traces them through the settlement of the West. Her work detailing the influence of the eugenic movement and class is illuminating; as are the chapters comparing the rise of the African Americans following the Civil War and the poor whites from the Southern states. Nota bene: the white trash that she mentions in her book is composed of Anglo-Saxons, originally from the Appalachians or the South. This is a matter of history, not judgment. Americans need to read this book, to dispel their illusions that theirs is a society founded upon equality. Readers need to read this book because it will stretch their mind!
-
The Natural Way Of Things By Charlotte Wood-A Review
This book is a dark and disturbing dystopian tale, joining others such as 1984 (Orwell), A Handmaid’s Tale (Atwood), and 1Q84 (Murakami). The tone of the book is unremittingly bleak, and the underlying cautionary message of the book is that for women to dare to speak out about the truth of their sexual life, particularly if it implicates a man or men in wrongdoing such as rape will destroy them. Women’s bodies are seen as the cause of men’s actions; women are shamed, vilified, and portrayed as sluts, whores, and asking for whatever happened to them at the hands of men, the media, and, eventually, the events in this book. The women who are taken to the camp share similar stories. They’ve all spoken out in the media about being raped, with the exception of one woman who had her affair with a married politician exposed. Don’t look for any magical sisterhood or admirable character-forming to take place at this camp, despite their shared misery and deprivation. Though two women do grow and develop in interesting ways, forming a bond of sorts, the women by and large function maladaptively. The two women that the book focuses upon are fierce, brave, and survivors in a place that offers little hope. Warning: If you like your endings clean and your resolutions tidy, this is not the book for you.
-
The Natural Way Of Things By Charlotte Wood-A Review
This book is a dark and disturbing dystopian tale, joining others such as 1984 (Orwell), A Handmaid’s Tale (Atwood), and 1Q84 (Murakami). The tone of the book is unremittingly bleak, and the underlying cautionary message of the book is that for women to dare to speak out about the truth of their sexual life, particularly if it implicates a man or men in wrongdoing such as rape will destroy them. Women’s bodies are seen as the cause of men’s actions; women are shamed, vilified, and portrayed as sluts, whores, and asking for whatever happened to them at the hands of men, the media, and, eventually, the events in this book. The women who are taken to the camp share similar stories. They’ve all spoken out in the media about being raped, with the exception of one woman who had her affair with a married politician exposed. Don’t look for any magical sisterhood or admirable character-forming to take place at this camp, despite their shared misery and deprivation. Though two women do grow and develop in interesting ways, forming a bond of sorts, the women by and large function maladaptively. The two women that the book focuses upon are fierce, brave, and survivors in a place that offers little hope. Warning: If you like your endings clean and your resolutions tidy, this is not the book for you.
-
Reflections On A Privileged Childhood
I’ve been thinking about class, race, and privilege a lot lately. The struggles of the character in Adam Haslett’s novel to gain admission to grad school and afford to pay for that have lead me to reflect upon my college years and then upon my childhood. I’ve realized recently just how very upper-middle class and indeed affluent my upbringing was and how in some ways I had an extraordinary childhood. I grew up in a two parent household, where both my parents were college graduates. M y father worked for an oil company as a geologist; my mother taught high school biology-by her choice; she didn’t have to work. I was raised by a nanny until I was old enough for school and, while my family didn’t have full-time help, my mother did have a woman who came in twice a week to cook and clean house. I had activities such as early childhood ballet and gymnastics ( in the 60s in Mississippi), was in the band (when my parents saw I was serious, I got private lessons and a professional quality instrument) with trips to music camps, frequent visits to museums and symphonies, and winter vacations in warm climates. My battles with my mother, while important to me, now seem very first world: she wanted me to wear the designer labels she picked out, while I wanted to steal my father’s shirts and wear them over jeans. I had the best medical care possible at the time (and I needed it, being born 3 months premature). I’m still a little fuzzy on all the details but for much of my early childhood I required daily visits from a nurse and regular consultations with various specialists. And college. That was something that I never questioned as being in my future. Of course, had I not gone to college, I would have broken family tradition bigtime….b/c not only had my parents graduated from college, but at least one of each of their parents had also. As it turns out, I have what a friend insists on calling the ” genius gene” lol and took to all things academic like a duck to water. Though my parents were fully willing, eager, and able to pay for college, my entire academic career was scholastically funded by the colleges I attended and my grad school even threw in a teaching fellowship and paid me to go to school. My parents did pay for a private apartment off-campus, though, which I did not have to share with a roommate. And my father offered me a car, which I declined, as I hated to drive. So I finished with a B.A. and a M.A. with no student debt. I am very grateful for that when I hear friends tell me that they’ve just paid off their loans. I had it very well in many respects growing up. It was not perfect, nothing ever is, but my parents gave me a hell of a lot. I wish I could tell them, “I appreciate it.”
-
Abibliophobia
Yes, I confess to suffering from a severe and longstanding fear of RUNNING OUT OF BOOKS TO READ! I do not like ebooks; they do not satisfy my addiction to book dust, provide the visceral touch I require when turning pages, or have the needed heft to fill my book bag. No, I require print books, preferably hardbound, to fuel my desires. Nothing better on a Sunday morning than a good cup of tea, a warm whippet, and contemplating a nice stack of books to decide which to crack open next….
When you see me out n about, I ALWAYS have a book in hand. Like you see kids with their phones? That’s me, only I’ve got a book. I started reading when I was three. ( I grew up in an academic household.) From all accounts, I moved on to the hard stuff quickly and was reading my way through encyclopediae quickly. I remember getting my library card and the fight that I had to put up to be allowed to read adult books, even thought I presented the library with a letter from my parents stating I should be allowed access to anything I desired. I got a library card to the local college library, courtesy of an uncle who was a microbiologist prof, and what a joy that proved!
So, now I’ve had to give up my job as a feral librarian due to some ongoing health concerns. This will cut off my supply. Sure, I can still go to library as a patron. But I won’t be there as part of the pipeline anymore. PANIC! PANIC! PANIC! Also, no-one besides other librarians get my jokes that are Dewey Decimal System-based! I am seriously disturbed about this. Enough so that I am folding up habitation and saying fare-thee-well to my cool small town. No job, no reason to stay here. More on this later.
-
Underground Airlines By Ben H. Winters-A Review
No, I was not reading this simultaneously with Atkins book. I read it last week. But it has been on my mind. It seemed particularly relevant and timely, given all the racial tension in the country. Two more shootings-one by police in Milwaukee, one of a police officer in Georgia. SMH. Anyway, the book is in the genre of alt or speculative fiction, set in a modern America very much like our own…except that the Civil War never happened. Slavery is still legal in four states, and the book tells story of a man who, though African American and one who escaped from slavery himself, is used by the U.S. Marshall Services to hunt down others who are aided and abetted in such escapes by an entity known as the Underground Airlines. The conflict suffered by Victor, who dons many names in the pursuit of his work and doesn’t even whisper his true name to himself, reflects but one of the layers of this ingenious multi-faceted book, where you learn that nothing is ever as it seems. Both a first class story and an indictment of the system that thrives off the efforts of Persons Bound To Labor while repudiating responsibility for their welfare, this is a definite must read! Stay tuned for a comparison with Colin Whitehead’s Underground Railroad!
-
The Innocents By Ace Atkins-A Review
Welcome back to Tibbehah County, Mississippi !. If your view of humankind runs cynical, dark, and depraved, this is the book for you. The latest to feature Quinn Colson and Lillie Virgil, it paints a truly grim picture of life in small-town Mississippi. Corruption and misery seem as endemic to this place as the cicadas and heat; Lillie Virgil fights a hard battle against the tide as acting sheriff with Quinn as Deputy. There’s mayhem, murder, race, drugs, a titty bar, moonshine, bikers, Jesus, dirty politicians, guns, rednecks, and football involved. Whew!
I’ve been following this series from the beginning. The books just keep getting better and grittier, if possible. I lived for while in that part of Mississippi (a long, long, long time ago) and, while there is no actual Tibbehah County, Atkins’ description runs fairly accurate. Let it be known that I am not, shall we say, a fan of the state of Mississippi, despite having been born, bred, raised, and schooled there. I escaped after grad school. When people ask me, “Why don’t you go home?” I look at them like they’re crazy. They make laws against people like me there. I think it might be one of the states that still has a law on the books prohibiting an atheist to run for election. Not to mention that I’m Jewish, neutrois, and queer! Oh, yeah, a trifecta for being accepted down in Dixie! But I digress from the review. This is an outstanding book in the series. Read it for the mystery; read it for the grit; read it for the characters. I don’t care-just read it!