book
Added Yesteryear to Read Books
Rated Pretend We're Dead: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of Women in Rock in the ’90s 7/10
<div>While I didn't always agree with Pearson's analysis of the sociological trends surrounding the turn of the millennium, I did appreciate hearing from the musicians themselves. <br><br>I am a similar age to Pearson, so I too grew up listening to these women, and I agree with her argument that allowing alternative women to go "mainstream" (however that looks in the moment it happens) is what allows the kids who are a little too young for a scene, or the teenagers who live geographically outside of one, to discover music and artists they otherwise might have missed. I was the teen with a Rolling Stone subscription and cutout-covered bedroom walls! I watched 120 minutes every week! This is how I got into Hole, Garage, Tracy Bonham, and many of the other musicians interviewed in this book. Times have of course changed, but this is a look at how it was then.<br><br>However, sometimes Pearson slips into generalizations about music she doesn't personally find as appealing, and that's where I found myself disagreeing. I appreciate that she acknowledges what she wasn't as into, and how that informs her scope of the book. You can't NOT mention things like Lilith Fair, Riot Grrrl, and what music transitioned into after the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and she touches on them briefly. I disagree that there were no political rock bands to be found in popular music in the post-9/11 era, but I do agree that the landscape had VASTLY changed. <br><br>Mostly though, the book does give one a lot to think about, if you haven't already, and if you have, then it provides a chance to have the information all laid out and an opportunity to re-clarify.<br><br>I don't recommend the audiobook though. I didn't care for the narration (done by three people who are not the author). There were a bunch of little things, both identifiable and more ephemeral, that rubbed me the wrong way. For instance, if you are going to narrate a whole book about music, PLEASE make sure you are pronouncing Reading Festival correctly. Also, knowing that Liz Phair's speaking voice sounded more like one narrator, but was read by another with a much different voice, was a little amusing. </div>
Rated Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts 10/10
<div>YES, this. Read this if you write. Pair it with Craft In The Real World by Matthew Salesses, and you'll actually believe you know how to properly Write The Damn Thing without it feeling like an insurmountable, mysterious task. All of it is laid out in such a practical way that makes so much sense. Bell's suggestions are just that, suggestions — take what applies, be honest with yourself, leave the rest — but I found most everything useful in order to get the best possible writing done. And even if you've considered some of these methods before, it's so helpful to have it so concisely articulated. I'll be referring back to it often.</div>
Rated Rumpus Women Volume I: Personal Essays By Women 8/10
I started reading The Rumpus around a year ago, after a friend recommended it. Founded by Stephen Elliott, managed by Isaac Fitzgerald, and featuring guest spots from great writers like Steve Almond, Jami Attenburg, Roxane Gay, and Rick Moody, I quickly became a fan. With all the literary site hoopla regarding gender parity in writing, The Rumpus offers plenty of great content from women without making a giant deal about it — these women write for the site because they are talented, and they also have something to say.<br><br>With their book club — members pay $25 a month to receive a book a month before its publication — they attempt to keep things fairly even, gender-wise. For November 2010, they encountered some trouble in finding a new book that met their requirements, and so an idea was born: “We’d been searching for an edgy, honest, and literary book — the kind of writing that women contribute to TheRumpus.net week after week. What we sought was what we published daily. We could publish our own book, a compilation of women’s writing.” In six weeks, they had their material. The result is indeed an honest and literary collection of personal essays, and while some are more affecting than others, it’s a wonderful book. <br><br>Already the most well known portion is the correspondence between Elissa Bassist and the advice columnist Sugar. Sugar, for those of you not already familiar, is <i>magic</i>. She has a way of getting to the heart of serious matters in way that’s neither patronizing nor dismissive. Normally the questions come from people who wish to remain anonymous, but Elissa wanted her personal struggles with writing and depression to be broadcast:<br><br><blockquote>How do I reach the page when I can’t lift my face off the bed? How does one go on, Sugar, when you realize you might not have it in you? How does a woman get up and be the writer she wishes she’d be?</blockquote><br><br><br>Sugar’s answer, in part, became a rallying theme for the entire site: <i>Write like a motherfucker.</i><br><br><blockquote>Writing is hard for every last one of us—straight white men included. Coal mining is harder. Do you think miners stand around all day talking about how hard it is to mine for coal? They do not. They simply dig.<br><br>You need to do the same, dear sweet arrogant beautiful crazy talented tortured rising star glowbug. That you’re so bound up about writing tells me that writing is what you’re here to do. And when people are here to do that they almost always tell us something we need to hear. I want to know what you have inside you. I want to see the contours of your second beating heart.<br><br>So write, Elissa Bassist. Not like a girl. Not like a boy. Write like a motherfucker.</blockquote><br><br><br>I’m fairly certain there is a large chunk of the Rumpus-reading population who ask themselves on a regular basis, “What would Sugar say?” I know I have.<br><br>Elsewhere in Rumpus Women, we hear from Antonia Crane and her perspective on sex work. Her essay on moving from an unsatisfying Los Angeles strip club to a locals joint in New Orleans is upstanding:<br><br><blockquote>I’m relieved to see the range of body types and the signature dead gaze girls toss my direction while floating on plastic heels. They’re not all Vegased out. They’re real girls with stretch marks and round hips and crooked smiles, and their garters hold stacks of green. They’re making money. Maybe I can too.</blockquote><br><br><br>I don’t have any strong opinions on stripping and other sex work, except to say that it works out fine for some people, and for others, it’s a poor means of escape. I can’t judge in a widespread way, just like I can’t assume all accountants are boring nerds. Everyone has their reasons, and Crane illuminates hers well.<br><br>On the flipside of Crane’s perspective, Cheryl Strayed’s essay deals with considering a job as an escort in Portland. She ultimately decides that it is not for her, and that her other jobs “essentially left me the person that I was and wanted to be:” she says, “the sort who neither allowed her body to be a commodity, nor believed that any woman should.” It is just as easy to understand Strayed’s reasons as it is Crane’s.<br><br>Several of the essays deal with religion, like Gabrielle Calvovoressi discussing the Sabbath and Junior Middleweight Miguel Cotto, or Diane Spechler’s “Conversions,” in which she cheats on her boyfriend with an aspiring Judiasm-convert, a man who also gets her addicted to cocaine. That essay flows straight into Michelle Myung-Ok Lee’s “Losing My Relgion.” In it, she describes the erosion of her Christian faith after having a severely disabled child. To call it “moving” does not do it justice:<br><br><blockquote>I am confident I can know my own truth without someone else approving it. Because of my son, my writing, and the divine spirit of the universe, I am no longer sitting at a distance to my own life — scared, angry, wondering why I am being punished. I can live <i>into</i> life. That is grace and that is God, once lost and now found.</blockquote><br><br><br>Rumpus Women has stories of cancer, of sex, of pregnancy and of familial loss. Writers like Michelle Tea are honest about their drug use and bad relationship decisions. All people are flawed in their own way, and these writers are no different. To judge as though we are above judgement would only feed into the perpetual build-up/tear-down cycle in which we often indulge.<br><br>Near the end of the book, Michelle Orange touches on that cycle in her essay, “How to Have a Beautiful Corpse: Death and Dying in the Famous Age.” She talks about her childhood obsessions with James Dean, John Lennon and Michael Jackson, and the way the modern media reacts to a celebrity death. There are many great points she makes, too numerous to quote here, but perhaps it all comes down to this:<br><br><blockquote>We have now reached the culmination of this quandary, a destruction accelerated by the celebrity pileup that is the information superhighway. There are no controls on the culture as there are on the individual, and unregulated the primary impulse to adore and emulate can corrupt a society with a programming as vaguely but voraciously attuned to the concept of “success” as ours.</blockquote><br><br><br>Exhibit A, circa early-to-mid-2000s: “That’s hot.”<br>Exhibit B, circa, oh, now: “Winning.”<br><br>Overall, Rumpus Women covers a wide selection of women, while still managing to flow from topic to topic. Seeing as the women did not have any subject or length requirements when asked to write for the book, it makes the end result seem all the more fortuitous. I look forward to reading Volume 2, whenever it shall exist, and would certainly recommend this book to anyone, regardless of gender.<br><br>(This review originally appeared on <a href="http://glorifiedloveletters.blogspot.com/2011/03/rumpus-women-volume-i-edited-by-julie.html">Glorified Love Letters</a>.)
Reviewed Wild Problems
<a href="https://smus.com/books/wild-problems-by-russ-roberts">Full review on smus.com</a>
Wants to read Pen & Ink: Tattoos and the Stories Behind Them
Rated Pivot: A Novel 8/10
<div>A solid queer rom-com! It's fun, touches on the struggles of hearing loss, and also? Be still my heart — it contains competent event planners. If you're looking for something lighter to close out the year with, you'll have a good time. <br><br></div>
Wants to read Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk
Rated Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Doomsday Manuscript 8/10
<div>I was slightly surprised by how much I enjoyed this, my first Benny audiobook rather than the usual Big Finish audio adventure. I wondered if the style would be different, the writing weaker somehow, but it wasn't. I've certainly heard worse audio adventures centering around Benny. I'm sure the narration from Lisa Bowerman helps, since at this point, I bet she knows this character inside and out. I'm looking forward to listening to the other audiobooks with her that I got recently.</div>
Rated Quietly Hostile: Essays 10/10
<div>Very few writers make me cry-laugh while reading, or really do anything more than that amused rapid nose-exhale we do while writing LOL, but Samantha Irby is one of them. Maybe it's because I too will overshare about the various ways my body is falling apart, but I appreciate someone being funny about all that. Also, this book features my favorite way to consume Sex & The City (or AJLT) — which is through other people making jokes about it. (I've only ever seen a few episodes, and they were the edited ones on CBS or whoever aired them in the late-'00s.)<br><br>Also, if you're not subscribed to her "who's on judge mathis today?" newsletter, get on it because that too will be the peak way to consume the show.</div>
Rated Poorly Drawn Lines: Good Ideas and Amazing Stories 6/10
Though the content somewhat becomes the same sort of joke when it's compiled into one book, I really enjoy this comic, so I didn't mind too much. The darkly funny flash fiction between sections of comics were interesting, though a mixed bag.
Rated Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Gods of the Underworld 4/10
<div>It's just... ok. Honestly, it's the first Benny story that I really was waiting to be done with. It's not without redeeming features; there's the usual humor and Lisa Bowerman does a good job with all the voices, and I was at least invested enough to finish the story, but it's definitely not among the best.</div>
Rated Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Mirror Effect 8/10
One of the more interesting stories in these earlier adventures.
Rated ReadyMade: How to Make [Almost] Everything: A Do-It-Yourself Primer 4/10
<i>ReadyMade</i> is one of those magazines I periodically buy, thinking that if I'm ever overcome with a fit of craftiness, it would help inspire my poor wallet and me to make something interesting out of stuff I already have, or can obtain on the cheap. Some of their projects veer a bit towards the "I'm bored and like making things, soo... behold! This strange and only semi-useful thing!", but others really are small strokes of "Aha! What an idea!" Unfortunately, this book version of ReadyMade is more like the former. Apart from a couple of projects featured in the book, most of the stuff is not only kind of stupid, but also rather ugly.<br><br>What I like about the magazine and its website are the ideas for reusing fabric, decorating ideas that look more spendy than they are, and interesting food/party ideas. The book has no food or party projects, but it does have just a couple of ideas in the fabric/decorating categories that I liked: a doormat made out of doll-head clothespins and a dog bed made out of old jeans. The dog looks so happy!<br><br>I'd link to either of these projects, but the website doesn't have them. In fact, I have the suspicion that <i>ReadyMade</i> is a bit embarrassed by their book because it is nowhere to be found on their site. Published in 2006, perhaps they've heard enough flack in the past 5 years to know they really squandered an opportunity. (A <i>lamp cozy?</i> Really?)<br><br>Flat-out irresponsible was how they detailed the way in which they first financed the magazine at its inception -- using credit cards, and then using other credit cards to pay those cards, and then assuming they would be able to pay off the balances in <i>X</i> amount of time. While this would work in theory for the responsible, planned business, and it did indeed work for them, 5 years later, we know that not everyone is that financially skilled. I don't know if those pages would have made it through the editorial process were the book published today.<br><br>Also wasting space in the book is accounts of semi-failed projects that were previously featured in the magazine, such as a chair made out of plastic bottles. "The noise when sitting on it," was one of the cons associated with the project, as if that even needed saying. "Remake This!" they ask of these projects -- but why in the world would you want to? Surely there are better discard materials with which to craft a chair.<br><br>Somewhat interesting, however, was the historical pages on wood, cloth, metal, paper, and plastic. Talking about how these materials came into wide use is probably not interesting to everyone, and it certainly doesn't help with project inspiration, but it makes sense to start the different sections with these introductions.<br><br>There's really not much more to say about this book other than don't bother spending full price on it. I checked it out from the library, and I suppose it would be an okay used bookstore purchase if it were under $10, if for directions on the dog bed project and a couple of the wood building projects alone. Still, calling this book a guide on how to make almost everything is really misleading. Rather than <i>{Almost}</i>, it should read <i>{Hardly}</i>.<br><br><i>(This review originally appeared on <a href="http://www.glorifiedloveletters.com">Glorified Love Letters</a>.)</i>