Whoa, it's been like 10 months since I've written in here -- not that I haven't been reading. I've been keeping track of all my books on listography. In fact, according to listography, I've read like 34 books since I last wrote in here.

So, here are quick impressions of 34 different books. ( Read on. )

So, that's that.

While They Slept: An Inquiry into the Murder of a Family by Kathryn Harrison

Okay, so I know I'm only 8 books into the new year, but I'm already ready to call this one a favorite of 2009, not even kidding. Harrison's book looks at Billy Gilley's 1984 murder of his parents and one of his younger sisters, relying on extensive interviews with Billy and his sister Jody Arlington (who some of you might know/remember from her work with the Clinton administration) & loads of research. Harrison takes a story that has the potential to be exploitative and sensationalistic and instead renders it clearly, truly, and with a delicate, academic, yet emotional approach. Obviously there's a lot of heavy stuff in here, including extensive discussion of physical, emotional, and incestuous sexual abuse, but I think Harrison poses some important questions: How do survivors function? How are we reborn after tragedies? What do we do in order to survive -- how do we demarcate ourselves and our experiences? What parts of ourselves do we contain or kill? Etc. I feel weird talking about how much I liked this because it's such a gruesome story, but Harrison's treatment of the subject and her brilliant writing really made all the difference for me.

Black Girl/White Girl by Joyce Carol Oates

This is another book that I picked up at a library books sale ($1 for a nice hardcover edition, workth mentioning mainly because the cover and the price are what sold me on this.) Like most of Oates' novels, I read this -- fast and then felt largely ambivalent about it. The story centers around Genna, the daughter of a prominent counterculture activist and lawyer and the experiences she has rooming with a young black woman at a small liberal arts college. The novel tackles some tough stuff largely centered around race relations & it's not always so skillful. At times, I cringed at things Genna did or said, but was left feeling that while some of it squicked me out, it's probably a largely accurately portrayal of how many well-intentioned privileged white girls behave when they're trying to prove how non-racist they are.

I had an unexpectedly long weekend -- the school where I'm doing student teaching was called off because of sub-zero temperatures and there were no classes on Monday in honor of MLK Day, so I was able to indulge in a few books.

Daphne by Justine Picardie

The most recent issue of Bitch Magazine (the noir themed one) had an article on the "madwoman in the attic" and Daphne was one of the suggested novels. I've never read anything by Daphne du Maurier or any of the Brontës, but decided to pick this up from the library anyway and was very pleasantly surprised. Picardie does a nice job of developing two separate stories: du Maurier's research of Branwell Brontë and her discovery of a literary scandal involving forgeries, manuscript thefts, etc. & that of a young woman working on a thesis about du Maurier and the Brontës. Though the subject matter sounds potentially dry (especially if you haven't read anythign by du Maurier or the Brontës), Picardie's writing carries you write along. The book is a surprisingly quick & fun read.

The Archivist: A Novel by Martha Cooley

The Archivist is another book about books -- while Daphne has a focus on du Maurier and the Brontë family, The Archivist is all about T.S. Eliot. Well, it's actually about an archivist who's in charge of a valuable bequest of Eliot's correspondence -- letters between Eliot and a close friend (Emily Hale.) Like Daphne, there are a number of stories told in The Archivist. The book is not just about Eliot, but about love, madness, religion, conversion, the Jewish tradition, & the U.S. post-WWII. I enjoyed this a lot more than I would have predicted & I'm delighted that I picked it up off of the free book cart at the library.

The Museum of Dr. Moses: Tales of Mystery and Suspense by Joyce Carol Oates

I finished The Museum of Dr. Moses at work this evening, so I'm not sure that it counts as weekend reading, but oh well. Oates is one of those authors that I'll read pretty much anything by, even though, more often than not, I end up being underwhelmed. I got The Museum of Dr. Moses for $2 at a library book sale & while I enjoyed a few of the stories, I was, as usual, underwhelmed. It was a good, quick read -- nice for an afternoon spent inside or an airplane ride.

Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life by John Sellers

I started out the new year with Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life by John Sellers. My boyfriend and I have similar taste in music (last.fm even goes so far as to list our compatibility as 'SUPER') and he knows I like books, so why not lend me a book about indie rock? The logic isn't flawed, but the book was, sadly, far from great. Every now and then, I'll read a book by Chuck Klosterman, even though I'm aware of the fact that I am likely to be, at some point, annoyed, disappointed, offended, etc. But at least Klosterman occasionally makes me laugh. I found Sellers to be annoying, impossible to sympathize with, and totally unfunny. I couldn't get into his narrative (even though roughly 1/3 of it centered around Guided by Voices, one of my all-time favorite bands), & I was repelled by his gross overuse of footnotes (seriously, many of them went on for pages).

A Good and Happy Child: A Novel by Justin Evans

A Good and Happy Child had all the right elements to creep me out -- an exploration of the darker side of Catholic tradition, sinister academics, mysterious happenings, psychological trauma, etc. The book centers around George, a new father who finds himself unable to hold his son. After visiting a psychiatrist, George begins to journal, which leads to an exploration of long forgotten childhood experiences involving his father's mysterious death and George's subsequent troubles, which his father's university colleagues attribute to demonic possession. I know, the premise might sound a bit ridiculous, but Evans' writing is tight and super creepy & while I had a few complaints with the ending, I really liked this.

Thrumpton Hall: A Memoir of Life in My Father's House by Miranda Seymour

Thrumpton Hall chronicles the life of Seymour's father and his enduring & obsessive love for his family's English garden estate. I wish there were a better way for me to summarize what this book is "about", but Seymour writes so richly about her father and his estate (the house itself begins to feel like a living, breathing thing as you read on) that it's really about so much more than a man and his house. I loved how Seymour wove a narrative regarding her writing process and research into the text & while I checked out a bit for some of the longer explorations of various branches of the family tree, on the whole, the book is largely captivating. If you've read Fun Home by Allison Bechdel (which I highly, highly suggest reading), Seymour's father reminded me quite a bit of Bechdel's -- they share a similar commitment to the restoration of a period home, the creation of a suitable family image, etc.

My (minimal) progress on the list of "1001 Books to Read Before You Die" is being charted here. I found a copy of the list on Listology, here.

Books I've read have been struck-through.

( 1001 Books to Read Before You Die )

Here is a list of everything I've read so far:

( January, 2009 )
09. The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami
10. Election by Tom Perotta

( February, 2009 )