thoughts on "bringing up bebe" as of page 53

Well, she's still doing the first-person-present thing, but I'm gritting my teeth.  Other than that, I want to take a highlighter and mark great swaths of texts and give it to a number of parents I know.  I just finished a chapter on pregnancy and am now on a chapter about babies sleeping, and although I am no longer in that stage of life I want to shout "TESTIFY!" and run around faith-healing all the sleep-deprived primal birthing worrywarts around me.

what I thought about "the devil in the white city"

For a book about multiple grisly murders and the Chicago World's Fair it was surprisingly sterile.  I liked it but didn't love it.  I don't have any deep thoughts about it.  It seemed like Larson was trying to establish a strong correlation between Burnham and Holmes to add narrative interest, and that didn't work for me, stylistically.  It was okay.

Now I'm reading "Bringing Up Bebe," a book about French parenting written by an American.  I got it because I think that American children are in large ways being failed by their parents who are a curious combination of milquetoast control freaks, and this book claims to have solutions for that.  But already she's losing me, because she opened the first chapter in first person present tense (e.g. "when my daughter is eighteen monts old, my husband and I decide"), which, unless done well, is one of my most hated authorial conceits.  Strike one.

what I thought about "flowering judas and other stories"

Katherine Anne Porter reminds me a bit of Willa Cather and a bit of Wallace Stegner.  Similar gift for narrative detail, similar subject matter.  My favorite story was the first one, "Maria Concepcion."  She's talented.  I like Cather and Stegner better, though.  Maybe I'll check out "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" and see if my opinion changes. 

what I thought about "ten little indians"

This is a collection of sad, funny, often beautiful short stories.  Sherman Alexie is a raw, honest, smart writer, and I need to stop forgetting that he exists when I have a hankering for Native American literature, which I sometimes do, and sometimes Tony Hillerman is not the right fit.  

My two favorite stories are "Do You Know Where I Am" and "What Ever Happened to Frank Snake Church?".  Lovely heartwarming/heartbreaking depictions of marriage, of loss, of betrayal, of resilience.  In "Frank Snake Church" there is an almost throwaway description of a girl who works in the admissions office of a community college, and she is so real.  It's a great book.  Check it out.

Thoughts about Sherman Alexie and/or his writing?

book blog is here, sort of

This is the book blog. I wish we could have a live chat, but then it would get to be a chore like all book clubs. I had one in Lehi where we read The Harvester (like a chaste, rural Harlequin romance, I recommend it) and The Poisonwood Bible (my choice), and that one worked pretty well for over a year, but then I moved. I was in one here and I think we only got through one book, which was The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio, which I did not love. I was embarrassed by that mom, and the book was depressing. Then that group went kerplooey, and I've been on my own since, which is fine, but sometimes you want to talk about a book with someone who's also read it. There's no crime in that!

So in the service of not creating an errand for everyone, we will make do with discussing our findings in the comments. It may take a while to get the kinks worked out, so please be patient with my analog-era brainwork.

First up is The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood. I'll post my notes in two weeks--that's probably enough time for anybody who wants to read it to track it down, right? I'm excited! It's a doozy.