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158. Girls Like Us

Sun, 3 Jan 2010 13:03:18 -0500

Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon - and the Journey of a Generation, Sheila Weller

I grabbed this at Barnes & Noble as part of a last ditch effort to finish my music Book Resolution (having already jettisoned the “classical” part in the past month), and was not expecting it to be absolutely fascinating. It goes to show you that any really well written book can be interesting, no matter the subject. The book tells the story of three women rock and roll stars - Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon, but more than that, through their lives examines the amazing changes that women faced in the 1960’s - how their opportunities were wider than ever, but how nonetheless there were so many doors closed and burdens to overcome. From the perspective of a woman born in 1978 t is sort of mind-blowing. Not that I wasn’t aware of this stuff, theoretically, but the lives of these extremely successful, talented, and famous women illuminated a number of issues I’d only thought of academically before this.* And the book is pretty interesting from a gossipy pop culture bio, too - lots of famous people and affairs and all that. Not to mention all the talk about the music - the famous albums and songs, and where they came from and how they were produced and all that jazz. But the best stuff is the feminism, the rest is just the icing on the cake.

Date/Place Completed: December 2009; D.C.
Categories: Non-Fiction; Book Resolutions

*One part that particularly caught me off guard was a decision about how now days women are able to marry men who are their friends and companions and to be part of a team where both have careers and lives (this is isn’t the exact point, but I can’t find the quote, alas!), but that such a concept was almost alien in the 1950’s...

157. Go Tell it on the Mountain

Sun, 3 Jan 2010 11:00:21 -0500

Go Tell it on the Mountain, James Baldwin

I loved this book. I cannot help (and perhaps this is racist, but so be it) but compare it to the two other books I read on the Modern Library List that were written by famous black Americans, Native Son and Invisible Man, and Go Tell it on the Mountain was by far my favorite. All are fabulous, of course, but Baldwin was the one I enjoyed the most.* I think the reason was that while all three books deal with being black in America, Go Tell it on the Mountain was about something else, too - and in that sense it seemed more effective to me, because its treatment of race in America was less of a bludgeon and more of a rapier. Its a bildungsroman, the story of John, growing up in New York, and trying to make sense of his life. What is his relationship with his father? What is is relationship with God? Will he be a preacher, like everyone expects, or will he instead engage with the secular world? It is also the story of his father, his mother, and his aunt, and through each character we learn more about the family, about the characters, and about being black - and being American. I loved the characters - I loved how each character seemed like a real person, with warts and with dignity. I loved how the women were as real and compelling as the men - and how we saw how each character, no matter how flawed (like John’s father, for one), had become the person they were so that we understood, and even sympathize with them.

I just read another book, a “great books” type list that recommends Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room as one of the books you should read and I have to saw that I am eager to read more of his work.

Date/Place Completed: December 2009; on the (10 hour) train back to D.C.
Categories: Fiction, Modern Library Top 100, Book Resolutions

*The Modern Library disagrees - they ranked the it much lower than the other two.

156. Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day

Sun, 3 Jan 2010 10:43:04 -0500

Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day, Winifred Watson

This is an absolute charming book, and the only thing that kept it from being one of my favorite books of the year is that, alas, I read the book after I saw the movie, so I wasn’t surprised by the plot. Sad to say, knowing what happened took a bit of the delight off of it - which is not a fault of the author, of course. Nor did it mean that I didn’t love reading the book - just that if I’d read it without knowing what would happen I think I would have been in love, instead of just charmed. So, I suggest you read the book before you see the film - especially if you (like me) are the kind of person who enjoys sweet confectionary novels from the 1930’s.

The plot is as follows. A middle aged woman named Miss Pettigrew has lived her life as a proper woman, and paid the price. She’s been a governess, always biting her tongue, and living in other people’s homes, and dying by inches in middle class poverty. Then one day, when she is on her last dime, her agency accidently sends her not to a home looking for a governess, but to a young actress looking for a maid. Miss Pettigrew walks into an awkward situation, takes charge, and away we go! Oh, its flighty fantasy, sure, but it’s so fun, and the grounding in Miss Pettigrew’s real life situation keeps it from floating away. Just a gem of a book.

Date/Place Completed: December 2009, in Boston (fake Christmas!)
Categories: Fiction

155. Miss Pym Disposes

Sun, 3 Jan 2010 10:31:03 -0500

Miss Pym Disposes, Josephine Tey

This is a classic mystery, written by one of the golden age authors. Tey, who died young, wrote only a few novels, but she’s held out as a one of the great ones. Previously, I’d read one of her books - Daughter of Time, in which her detective, Inspector Grant, is laid up in the hospital and uses the time to solve one of the great historical mysteries - the Princes in the Tower (and to acquit Richard III in the process!). This is is more straightforward, and has nothing to do with her detective, but is nonetheless a grand psychological mystery, and was great fun to read. Makes me want to find the rest of her novels!

Miss Pym is a psychologist - or rather, she’s written a psychological book, and become an overnight sensation. An old friend asks to come speak and at the college she runs (a college for athletic education - which seems sort of strange, but whatever, this is 1930’s Britain). Miss Pym stays, and gets to know the students, and then gets all wrapped up in their lives - including murder. I don’t want to give more away, as the fun is the characters, but it’s a clever little mystery with a wowzer ending. And the atmosphere of what it was like to be in a girls college at the time is fun, too - shades of my very favorite book of all, Gaudy Night.

Date/Place Completed: December 2009; D.C.
Categories: Fiction

154. The Friday Night Knitting Club

Sun, 3 Jan 2010 10:19:07 -0500

The Friday Night Knitting Club, Kate Jacobs

I do not even know where this book came from (maybe a yard sale?), but it came up on my commuting book route, and I figured, why not - I was in the mood for something a bit light, after the Spanish Civil War. This is basically chick lit, and not of the “oh that’s a label we put on books written by women type,” but rather straight up chick lit. It is the story of Georgia Walker, a single mom who runs a knitting shop in Manhattan, and the lives of the women who are in the shop - her patron, her daughter, her knitting club. It’s not a great book (you can see the seams on the plot, the love story seems like wish fulfillment of the utmost kind, etc., and it’s pretty ham handed in its characterizations, too - the characters never seemed like people, just archetypes), but you know what? I read the whole thing and (SPOILER), I cried at bits, and I would read a sequel (though I’d be embarrassed about it). This is not literature, but it’s harmless enough, and I wish Kate Jacobs the best in her endeavors.

Date/Place Completed: December 2009; D.C.
Categories: Fiction, Commuting Book