Kate's Queen City Notes

Blundering through Cincinnati, laughing all the way

Category Archives: Reading


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100 Book by 40: Treasure Island and Anne of Green Gables

Who doesn’t like pirates? No one. Honestly, that could be the end of my thoughts on Treasure Island. The book was a fun little romp. The pirates were larger than life. The plot was fun. The book was tolerably short. You should read it.

I could draw a bunch of comparisons between The Pirates of the Caribbean and Treasury Island. But, really, is it any wonder that the plot of a book is better than the plot of a movie? The book was wonderful even lacking a hot Johnny Depp.

On to Anne of Green Gables, I was fully expecting to hate this book. I’ve not enjoyed most of the children’s books that I’ve read on this list, particularly those with female leads. But I got this as an audio book from the library. I loaded up my iPod, and listened as I drove all over Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio this holiday season. I suspect listening to the book made me enjoy this book more than I would have reading it. One of the things that I will pay a bit more attention to going forward is how my experience differs from listening vs reading.

Objectively, Anne was pretty obnoxious character. Because I could tune her out a bit while enjoying the scenery, I found her more tolerable. I am certain that I will never read this book. I am happy that I heard it, mostly for Morella’s character development. Margaret Atwood wrote the intro to my particular copy of the book and suggests that the book is primarily about Morella. I tend to agree with her position. The character that experiences the most transformation is Morella. While Anne transforms from a child to a woman, Morella embraces parts of her self that had lain dormant for years. Technically, I haven’t listened to the last few chapters of Anne of Green Gables, but, as I’ve seen the movie and the f0reshadowing is pretty clear, I will consider this one done in terms of blogging about it. I will listen to the last chapters on my run this week.


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100 Books by 40: DUNE

The last few weeks have felt overwhelming. While I enjoy the time off around the holidays, I don’t enjoy that I am traveling so much. There are many reasons for this. I hate driving. I’ve reached an age where my back appreciates no beds other than my own. My separation from the gym makes my anxiety pool with zero outlets. Eating off my typical diet leads to a 5 to 10 pound weight gain that will need to be addressed come January. Clothes get tighter. I returned from Chicago six days ago. Yesterday I returned from Northern Ohio. Discomfort. That’s a good word to describe my holidays.

As a solid introvert, I lose control of my alone time while traveling. I like people. I like being around people, but it exhausts me. I need little recharging moments throughout my day. I peppered reading sessions throughout my 4-day trip to Chicago. Every day, I would sneak off for a couple of hours and read Dune. I had other books to read, like Treasure Island and David Copperfield. But I always picked Dune. Since my other two reading selections where snug on my Kindle, those books would have been more sensible reading choices. Dune was borrowed from my library was decidedly more bulky and less convenient for taking busses and the train around Chicago.

I picked Dune because it captivated me from page one. If you’ve been reading my blog, you know that I don’t like science fiction as a general rule. I wasn’t fond of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I’ve struggled to put my finger on why I often don’t like this genre. My least wordy explanation is that lazy writers use the non-realistic setting to enable sloppy plots, although admittedly this wasn’t the problem with Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

There were thing things that I loved about Dune. First, there wasn’t excessive creative license around what the creatures and characters looked like. Herbert seemed to save all his creative energies for developing classes of characters that come with specific sets of skills and abilities, the Bene Gesserit are an excellent example of this. I get the sense that sci-fi writers get carried away with describing the strange visuals of their creatures and then fail at adequate character development.

Second, Herbert revealed details around both these classes of characters and context information at an appropriate pace. The novel starts out with little to no description and jumps right into plot. He would mete out details and bits of back-story as he described action. This is one of the best paced novels I have ever read.

Third the political, ecological, and religious themes  are excellent. First, this is one of the first fictional books that I’ve ever read that considers the ecological implications on plot development. The interplay between religion, power, and politics resonates as being in line with our own history books.

I will be reading the sequels to this book. This is one of the few books that I just couldn’t put down once I started. I highly suggest that you give it a read.


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100 Books by 40: A Town Like Alice

I’ve been on this 100 books by 40 mission for a little over a year. At the outset, I wanted this effort to drive me to read more. If that is the only measure of success, this has been very successful. There have been other unintended consequences.

I like writing. I am doubtful that my writing is of interest to most other people, but I am satisfied with the effect the process has on my mood and thoughts. I’ve noticed through the year that my thoughts are getting easier and easier to type. I’ve picked up editing habits that yield ever better results. My posts now go though multiple draft readings across days prior to posting. Plus, rereading my year of posts helps me spot grammatical issues across time. I noticed that I have a problem mixing my metaphors. Metaphors will get extra attention in my edits from now on.

In addition to establishing better writing patterns, this year has made me a different reader. I recall in the not terribly distant past, I struggled with reading Dickens. The variations on English proved challenging. With Austen, Hardy, Eliot, Dickens, and the Bronte sisters behind me, I don’t struggle anymore. Seventeenth century British Literature feels easily in my grasp. I’m still pretty certain that I’m missing some nuance in these novels, but I easily follow plots and conversations.

These changes are positive, but I’ve noticed one effect that I’m ambivalent about. Reading these novels is making me more sensitive to technically good prose. I was gazing longingly at my unedited copy of On the Road, and I thought how exciting it will be to pick that up. It’s number 90 in my list, and it’s my favorite book. What a great way to celebrate wrapping up this adventure. Then I thought about how pedestrian recent novels feel to me now, fresh off Hardy and Eliot. What if I get to my favorite book and only find disappointment? What if I don’t enjoy David Foster Wallace anymore?

I can’t explain how sad this makes me feel. My favorite authors reach into my deepest thoughts and emotions and come back giving voice to things that I cannot find words for. Their voices resonate deeply, and make me feel less alone. But still, I’m too curious to deviate from this adventure. Now that I’ve started I must know if my most cherished books can withstand the changes that have been wrought in me.

So, all of that has nothing to do with A Town Like Alice. As mentioned in past posts, the 30’s are the land of 1000 page books, but A Town Like Alice broke from that trend with a mere 300 pages. The book is basically a war romance. The character development is good, and the true events that inspired part of the plot were fascinating. The female lead gets marched around Malaya with a group of British women for miles and miles. The Japanese didn’t have an appropriate camp to house them, so military leaders just kept sending them to different outposts without purpose. More than half of the women and children died.

I found all of the historical information in this book really interesting. It gave me a great sense of what Australia was like after World War 2. Otherwise, I found this book unremarkable.

Welcome to the 30's of the BBC's 100 best books list, also known as the land of 1000-page books.

Welcome to the 30’s of the BBC’s 100 best books list, also known as the land of 1000-page books.


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100 Book by 40: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

My book quest has made it into my dreams. Typically my dreams are about anxiety or mundane activities with a little weird thrown in. I spent many years bartending and waiting tables; my anxiety dreams for nearly a decade involved some form of me being in the weeds. If you aren’t familiar with the phrase “in the weeds”, it’s a service industry phrase to describe getting overwhelmed by your tables/customers. There are many causes for a good server to be in the weeds, but they normally stem from a particularly needy table or poor seating timing. My mundane dreams typically involve something that I would do in my waking hours. A few weeks ago, I had a dream that I was required to converse with other people using only PHP (server-side web programming language) statements and methods. I woke up laughing.

So, my book dream, I was with Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder and not Johnny Depp).  He was giving me a tour of my high school cafeteria. My classmates were at various tables acting out assorted Disney movies. I’m not sure why or how the cafeteria transformed into the set for Bedknobs and Broomsticks, but it did. Willy Wonka seemed to take this morphing as an obvious transition and proceeded the tour in our new location. This is where I woke up.

I’ve seen the 1971 edition of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory several times, although the last sitting was years and years ago. I’ve not seen the 2005 version. Here’s the first thing that struck me about the book in contrast to the movies. Willy Wonka isn’t as weird in the book as he is portrayed to be in either of the movies, but particularly the 2005 release.

As a kid, I found Willy Wonka terrifying, and the oompa loompas doubly so. Full disclosure, I am completely freaked out by little people. I am ashamed that I feel that way, as I know they are people and should be treated with respect. They freak me out in the same way that an unleashed dog nearing me freaks me out. I was bitten by an Irish Setter when I was 5, and unfamiliar dogs still make that lizard part of my brain light up with the fight or flight response. I feel the same when confronted by a little person, although I was not bitten one. Still the same fight or flight physical response happens.

After the first few chapters of the book, I was put at ease by a number of things. First, Willy Wonka was peculiar, but not to the extent that I was expecting given both the movies. And the oompa loompas were described as being knee-height, bearing more in common with Tinkerbell than the orange-faced terrors in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Once the uncomfortably weird aspects of the movie were purged from my mind, I really enjoyed the book. The book was less dark than either of the movies. With one exception, the uncertain fates of the naughty children are pretty heavy. They imply that Augustus Gloop could be mashed into raspberry cream. Veruca Salt along with her parents could be incinerated. Although the book seems to pass this off as less scary than it seems as I write it now.

In short, I really liked this book. I liked it more than either of the movies, and I am a Gene Wilder fan. Because Willy Wonka is less frightening, the ending with Charlie and his family moving into the factory is far more sensible. Finally as a vehicle for teaching morality to children, I thought it wasn’t as heavy handed as some of my other reads on this list. Now, only to get over my irrational issues with little people…


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100 Books by 40: Middlemarch and Pillars of the Earth

In my quest to read 100 books by 40, I have learned that the 30’s are the land of 1000-page books. Between Middlemarch, David Copperfield, and Pillars of the Earth, I feel like each book is taking weeks. I feel that way, because they are. When I download them on my Kindle or pick them up at the library, I find myself groaning at the size of them.

My original intent was to write two separate entries for Middlemarch and Pillars of the Earth. Since I was reading them simultaneously, I was inadvertently comparing them. Both are epic in scope, covering large swaths of time. With Middlemarch set in 19th century England, and Pillars of the Earth set in The Middle Ages, both are narrating an existence that I find remote. Both books are around 1000 pages.

That’s were the similarities end. Some have suggested that Middlemarch is the best novel written in the English language. Pillars of the Earth? Not so much. Pillars of the Earth seemed like a children’s book by comparison. George Eliot carefully crafted characters full of good intentions who all fall victim to their own limited perspectives, experiences, and unacknowledged expectations. She does an incredible job of describing the space between expectations and reality being the canyon that separates a person’s happiness from disappointment in marriage and relationships.

After reading that paragraph, you might think that I enjoyed Middlemarch. I did not. I was scratching my head over Middlemarch‘s reputation through the first half of the book. Clearly, Eliot is a master of the craft of writing gorgeous sentences and paragraphs, but I didn’t really connect with the characters until the last half of the book.

*******Minor Spoiler Alert********

The thing that hooked me was the troubled marriage of Tertius Lydgate and Rosamond Vincy. The way Eliot describes how their relationship decends into dysfunction is stunningly relevant. I think she’s summarized why marriages dissolve for the last two centuries. Eliot’s observations on how we relate to each other is timeless. This discovery made wading through the first half of the book worth it.

Pillars of the Earth then. Ken Follett has a thing for cathedral architecture. He spends many paragraphs talking about building methodology, and cathedral parts like tranceps, celestories, naves, ect. I enjoyed none of that. Not only are his descriptions difficult for me to visualize, but I simply don’t give a shit about cathedrals. Sorry about it, Europe.

On top of this, Follett’s characters are as shallow as kiddie pools in comparison to Eliot’s. I finished the book at a bar. The patron next to me said reading the book was on his bucket list. Thinking that a literary perspective on Pillars of the Earth might make me more positive about the book, I inquired why it was on his bucket list. He proceeded to say that it was important. I asked in what way. I legitimately wanted to hear some explanation for why the book is great. I realized too late that he was manswering. (Manswer – when a man presents something as fact that he’s only deduced or has limited to no knowledge of. This habit seems to come on the dad gene.) I accidentally backed him into a corner where he had to admit that he didn’t know why the book was important. I immediately felt bad for making things awkward.

I do have a new appreciation for inherent political instability of The Middle Ages. But even in this respect Pillars of the Earth holds up poorly against Middlemarch. Eliot had the benefit of writing in the time she lived, so her descriptions of the political environment and social class as actors on the characters resonates where Follett falls flat.

Net Middlemarch, yes. Pillars of the Earth, no.

In closing, here’s some stellar quotes from Middlemarch.

We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, ‘Oh, nothing!’ Pride helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our own hurts―not to hurt others…

I am not magnanimous enough to like people who speak to me without seeming to see me…

For my part I am very sorry for him. It is an uneasy lot at best, to be what we call highly taught and yet not to enjoy: to be present at this great spectacle of life and never to be liberated from a small hungry shivering self–never to be fully possessed by the glory we behold, never to have our consciousness rapturously transformed into the vividness of a thought, the ardour of a passion, the energy of an action, but always to be scholarly and uninspired, ambitious and timid, scrupulous and dimsighted.


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100 Books by 40: A Prayer for Owen Meany

I finished 100 Years of Solitude and A Prayer for Owen Meany. Books that have an abundance of quirky characters annoy me. The last book that I read that had obnoxious, quirky characters was Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. Here’s what Captain Corelli’s Mandolin had going for it that 100 Years of Solitude did not, a good story. 100 Years of Solitude gets the dubious distinction of being the only book that I’ve read on the 100 best books list that I disliked enough to want to put down.

On top of my displeasure with 100 Years of Solitude, I am reading Middlemarch. My god, that book is so very long. It’s good, but I can’t shake the feeling that I will be reading it until winter. This is the context in which I read A Prayer for Owen Meany.

“…but every study of the gods, of everyone’s gods, is a revelation of vengeance toward the innocent.” – From A Prayer for Owen Meany

The book is set in 50’s-60’s New Hampshire, and 80’s Toronto. I am struggling to summarize what the book is about. It’s a story of childhood friends and how they are impacted by Vietnam, with a heavy splash of religion or more specifically faith. I don’t have it in me to talk about the religious aspects of the book. I feel like that would require 500 words to dive into and adequately discuss.

Here’s what struck me about the book. John Irving is a pretty great storyteller. Authors seem to over-play their hands when foreshadowing. Irving had moments of excessive foreshadowing. For each of those moments there were nine or ten instances of relating seemingly insignificant details that many chapters later gained significance. I loved it. This was a satisfying read.

” I believe that President Reagan can say these things only because he knows that the American people will never hold him accountable for what he says; it is history that holds you accountable, and I’ve already expressed my opinion that Americans are not big on history.” – From A Prayer for Owen Meany

“Mrs. Hoyt was the first person I remember who said that to criticize a specific American president was not anti-American; that to criticize a specific American policy was not anti-patriotic; and that to disapprove of our involvement in a particular was against the communists was not the same as taking the communists’ side. But these distinctions were lost on most of the citizens of Gravesend; they are lost on many of my former fellow Americans today.”  – From A Prayer for Owen Meany

Here’s an update on my reading list.
Reading now:
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett

Finished reading:

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
53. The Stand, Stephen King
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens *I read this when I was too young to appreciate it; I would like to read it again as an adult. I will do so if I have time.
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding *I’ve read this twice. I will read it again if I have time.
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac *I’ve read this twice. I will read it again if I have time. I have the unabriged unedited version and will probably take on that if time allows.

Pending reading:
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie


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100 Books by 40: The Grapes of Wrath

The BBC’s 100 Best Books list (the list I am reading through) is heavy on 19th century British authors, which in turn makes the stories therein loaded with tales of 19th century England. It’s sensible that the lion’s share of English Literature would be written by English authors, and specifically not American authors. My British co-workers joke that we don’t speak English; we speak American. And I laugh and make jokes about The Queen, but I know there is truth in that statement.

While this is all very sensible, as a consequence I don’t connect deeply to these stories nor to the characters. I came to The Grapes of Wrath with the unconscious expectation to encounter another story with little bearing on my experiences. I was shocked to find that this book is about my family.

The Grapes of Wrath is set 1930’s. It describes the experiences of poor tenant farmers being driven from their barren dust bowl farm in Oklahoma to California in search of a way to make a living. The story centers around a family and their journey, all the while telling a narrative around the effects of the industrialization of food production.

And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses. – The Grapes of Wrath

The characters come alive with regional accents and colloquialisms. They are proud and hard-working. They are self-reliant and resilient in spite of the challenges they face. They are driven to desperate acts by the compulsion to survive.

There ain’t no sin and there ain’t no virtue. There’s just stuff people do. – The Grapes of Wrath

My dad was 42 when I was born, and he was the youngest of my grandmother’s nine children, which explains how so many years exist between our generations. My grandparents were poor tenant farmers in rural north east Ohio. My grandmother was 36 in 1930. They moved from one rented farm to another, only to find the house dilapidated and the land exhausted.

My grandmother used certain phrases, phrases that K-12 schooling has scrubbed out of use. Mayhaps. Mayhaps, I will go to the store. Haint so. The characters in The Grapes of Wrath are my grandmother. They are my great aunts and uncles. They are cousins and extended family. But the stories diverge. My grandparents were lucky. They would probably call it God’s will. Since they lived in Ohio, and not The Dust Bowl, they managed to get food on the table during The Depression. Through incredibly hard work they were able to feed themselves and get enough extra to keep on their land. My dad and his 8 siblings supported eachother and the family such that they all got college educations. By the time my grandmother died at 100 in 1994, she was living in a home of her own. This isn’t now The Grapes of Wrath ended.

The Grapes of Wrath is about the human toll that’s taken by the relentless progress that capitalism demands. Hordes of humans are grist for that mill. This issue is just as relevant today as it was when this book was written. In the book, migrant farm workers who balk at shrinking wages are called reds. Occupy Wall Street supporters balk at minimum wage and are called socialists. The most remarkable thing is how little has changed.

Income inequality in America. Unsustainable.

“Why, you’re Joe Davis’s boy!”
“Sure,” the driver said.
“Well, what you doing this kind of work for-against your own people?”
“Three dollars a day. I got damn sick of creeping for my dinner-and not getting it. I got a wife and kids. We got to eat. Three dollars a day, and it comes every day.”
“That’s right.” the tenant said. “But for your three dollars a day fifteen or twenty families can’t eat at all. Nearly a hundred people have to go out and wander on the roads for your three dollars a day. Is that right?” – The Grapes of Wrath


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100 Books by 40: The Story of Tracy Beaker

Imagine my pleasure when I picked up The Story of Tracy Beaker, and found it to me such a slim book. This is mostly owning to how long Middlemarch and The Grapes of Wrath are. I just realized a couple of weeks ago that I am running a bit behind in my goal to read 100 books by 40. In addition, I have an epic copy of The Grapes of Wrath from the Hamilton County Library. It looks like it was bound in the 60’s and was acquired from another library by Hamilton county. It is complete with multiple students notes and highlights.

The Story of Tracy Beaker is a children’s book. But the themes seem a bit heavy for kids. In all fairness, I don’t know any young adults well and can’t have a firm grasp on what they can and cannot digest. The book is written from the perspective of a ten year-old girl living in a children’s home awaiting a new foster family. She’s been bounced around to a couple of different homes, and acts out in a way that is reasonable given her history.

My epic copy of The Grapes of Wrath

My epic copy of The Grapes of Wrath and The Story of Tracy Beaker

This book was touching, and adequately described what sort of feelings kids without homes must experience. The ending was realistic and hopeful without being a storybook finish. This was a great two-hour read, and I would suggest it.


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100 Books by 40: Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented

I am starting with an aside. I don’t watch much TV, outside Mad Men and Breaking Bad. I was watching Fringe. I just started back up with Dexter. I feel like I have gone from drinking a 20 dollar bottle of wine to a 50 dollar bottle of wine. Dexter is a great show. I dropped off after the Julia Stiles season; I hate her. And that season was such a disappointment after the John Lithgow season. So far Colin Hanks is a vast improvement over Stiles.

Now then Tess, this was a great book. It is set in 1870’s England. The book primarily tells the tale of what happens to women as a result of sexual indiscretion as opposed to men. Things have changed little from the time of this novel to today. Men are still easily forgiven if not encouraged to express themselves sexually, and women are still penalized. Sure the consequences have changed, but the overall practices are quite similar. Girls who claim rape are bullied on Twitter (thanks Stubenville rape case). Women who advocate for accessible birth control are called sluts (thanks Rush Limbaugh).

The author was very sympathetic to Tess. The author seems to argue that sexuality, particularly female sexuality is natural. There is one bit that I didn’t enjoy about the book, and discussing it requires a spoiler alert.

*********************SPOILER ALERT**********************************
Tess ultimately murders the man who took here virginity. There are many things that lead to this which makes the reader sympathetic to Tess’ actions. She flees with the man who she actually loves; she is apprehended while sleeping on the altar of Stonehenge. This metaphor for nature being sacrificed at the altar of convention and religion was a bit too much for me. I felt like this bit was heavy-handed. Otherwise the book was really great.


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100 Books by 40: The Hobbit

I finished reading The Hobbit this week. And I’m nearly done with Tess of the d’Urbervilles. I started this project 12 months ago, so this is a great time to check my progress and evaluate my reading pace as compared to my goal. If that last sentence felt controlled, you should know that I manage multi-million dollar projects for a Fortune 50 company. Charting progress against a measurable goal is like breathing to me. Sorry about it.

Now then, The Hobbit was such a pleasant romp as compared to Gone with the Wind. Unlike my sequence of book-reading vs movie-viewing for The Lord of the Rings books, I saw The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey before I read the book. Having finished the book, I can say dividing the book into tree movies was a poor choice. The book has a nice brisk pace to it; it’s exciting to read. The first movie was a total snooze in comparison. I enjoyed this book very much. Don’t let the movie dissuade you from picking it up.

I have been reading for 12 months. With seventeen books under my belt, I have averaged 1.42 books read per month. Since I have 30 months remaining and 67 books left to read, I will need to increase my pace to 2.23 books read per month.  That’s a 36% increase. While that’s nothing to sneeze at, I did read other stuff this year. I browsed my subscriptions to the New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Economist. On top of that, I read I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t): Making the Journey from “What Will People Think?” to “I Am Enough”, What do Women Want?,  and Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. These books were great for very different reasons. I didn’t write about them here, mostly because they aren’t on my list.

I am thinking that if I cut out that other reading, I should make my goals. It’s just tough to keep at that list. Most of the books are pretty tough reading and cover emotionally difficult subject matter. The Grapes of Wrath is coming up, for example. I am sure I will learn a lot from that book and value my experience reading it. But let’s be honest, if we all wanted to live in the reality of The Great Depression wouldn’t we have chosen to stay there? Exactly. I need to stop writing and read…