The Teacher

 By Michal Ben-Naftali

A story about a teacher who writes about her high school English teacher, who killed herself some months after the narrator's graduation. Nobody new much about the teacher. She was there and not there. Not sharing her past and her life with her students. Not with words, anyway. It was the narrator's job to piece out what information she could find and invent the rest to tell the story of the teacher, treading carefully, not to offend the late teacher, claiming it's all fiction. The teacher grew up in Hungary and was sent to the ghetto during the war, when she was in her twenties. She was part of the rescue deal known as the Kastner Train. [English translation; 196 pp.]

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The Butterfly Lampshade

 By Aimee Bender

A book about a girl whose mother's illness takes her away from her home to find a new home and family with her aunt. Weird things happen to the girl. images of things come alive, except they're dead. Are these things real? Is she imagining all that? It is a lovely story and beautiful writing. [285pp.]

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Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature

 By Linda Lear

A very detailed biography of an amazing woman. No, she wasn't perfect (for example, she was against women suffrage) but she was ahead of her time in so many other ways! Including the preservation of land and animals in England's Lake District. With the money she made from publishing her wonderful books, she bought 14 farms in the area with the intention of leaving them for the National Trust. She was also a breeder of award-winning Herdwick sheep, not too conservative to avoid trying new veterinary approaches. Really amazing reading about her. It took me a long time, and now all I want to do is watch videos about her and about where she spent most of her adult life, including two world wars. [biography, 583 pp. (including notes, index, etc.)]

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Glikl, Memoirs 1691-1719

Presented by Chava Turniansky

This was quite a journey in time and spce, to late 17th century Europe, following the life and stories of one woman and her family. Glikl (official name is Gluk) was a Jewish woman of the merchant class who tells in her own words (translated from Yiddish and Hebrew) what women like her at the time were living like and what was on her mind. Obviously, religion was a big part, the belief in the afterlife and the importance of penance and suffering. At the same time, money-making was a big part of her life as well. She was a very successful businesswoman, both before and after her first husband's death, lamenting the misfortunes/ineptitude of her sons in their businesses and having to always help them to get them out of trouble, and later her second's husband's bad lack and loss of fortune. Also interesting to see how common power shifts were in the area (today's Germany, France, Belgium) and their effects on the Jewish communities there.

Her words are accompanied by notes from Turniansky, which are sometimes helpful and interesting (other times they are stating the obvious, or are reference pointers). 

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Seeing Ourselves: Women's Self-Portraits

By Frances Borzello 

This book is full of interesting ideas, stories, analyses, and of course, beautiful images. I learned so much about the history of self-portraiture and what it meant to women artists throughout the centuries. I highly recommend it if you're interested in Art history [non-fiction; 272 pp., incl. index, biographies, bibliography, etc.] 

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The Cooking Gene

By Michael W. Twitty

A descendant of enslaved people as well as enslavers, Twitty goes from figuring out his family tree to dissecting the origins of the foods he grew up on, southern food. There's a lot to absorb here, in terms of food making, history, DNA tests. Some chapters were easier and faster for me to read, others were slower, not as interesting. Overall, quite a fascinating and illuminating journey [non-fiction; 444 pp.].

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The World New Made: Figurative Painting in the Twentieth Century

By Timothy Hyman

This book is a great introduction to modern art if you're not only interested in abstract expressionism (AbEx). As a newbie to art history, I found it fascinating and very informative, though at times I had to look at some artists' works online to compare past paintings to those included in the book.

Artists included in this book are varied in background, gender, race, and nationalities. Some are 'outsiders' who painted outside of the art world. Others had gained their name as AbEx, but realized they needed more, and as a consequence were shunned by the art scene when they switched to figurative. Different periods in the 20th century are discussed in the context of art. It's beautiful to see all the different ways artists find to express their ideas and thoughts in an era that doesn't appreciate seeing recognizable figures in paintings, and, later on, paintings in general. Many of the artists mentioned here I haven't heard of, and it's not completely due to my ignorance. They were literally erased from art history books. I'm glad things are changing now. [256 pp., including bibliogrpahy, illustration list, and index]

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Alice Neel Uptown

A Catalog

By Hilton Als. Foreword by Jeremy Lewison

A collection of paintings and drawings by Alice Neel, some of them accompanied by beautiful essays by Hilton Als that offer a combination of historical background on the subject of the work, some insight into Alice Neel's thoughts, and Als's own experience and perspective that relate to the painting. [144pp.] 

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A Good Neighborhood

 By Therese Anne Fowler

This was not an enjoyable book to read. Well, some parts were fine, but there was this narrator (first person plural -- presumably some self-assigned neighborhood representative) who kept warning of a tragedy to come, which I found quite annoying. Not to say it was a bad book, or that it didn't rise any emotions in me (yes, I teared up at the end), but it was too good a reminder of what a fucked up society we are living in, right now, which is frustrating when there's not much you could do. [311pp.]

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Mislaid

 By Nell Zink

Well, this book was hilarious and weird. Not exactly what I expected, but also made sense in retrospect. I guess I didn't expect it to be about racial issues, though. I like to compare it to a Jane Austen novel, only with more sex and drugs. The Austen part refers to the way she criticizes society. The rest of it is far from Austen. More like a mix of a soap opera and a spy comic book. As I said, it was weird. And hilarious. Recommended. [256 pp.]

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Native Son

 By Richard Wright

This book was not what I expected. The author didn't want it to be, and he quite succeeded in that. He also didn't want to make people to cry while reading this book. Well, this part almost work for me. I only cried toward the end. 

My expectations were skewed also because the previous book I read of this author was his autobiography/memoir. I expected that book to be intense, but it wasn't. I really loved reading it. This book, however, was very intense, but not quite as alluring. It took me a while to get into it, and often I was almost dreading getting back to it. Sometimes I felt like the character was doing irrational things, which was quite annoying. But then things started to make more sense in the third part of the book. It was also the part I read the fastest. And cried like a baby. [398 pp.]

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Number One Chinese Restaurant

 By Lillian Li

This book was very different from what I had expected based on the cover. I was expecting a humorous family drama, instead, there was quite a tension and mafia-like behavior between all the characters involved. The narrator covers one of two families per chapter, normally alternating, which is not my favorite structure, either. It wasn't easy for me to get into it, but by the end of it I felt like it was okay. [290 pp.]

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The House of Mirth

 By Edith Wharton

This book has so many phrasing gems! I wish I had a pack of sticky notes by my bed, so I could mark them as I read -- they are difficult to find otherwise. As for the story, it really is a tragedy. What happens when you're raised to be the one thing you don't really want to be, but you can't be anything else?

It is the story of Lily Bart, but also a critical look at society. The title of the book is taken from the book of Ecclesiastes, "The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth." Born to an "old money" family who loses its wealth, her only options are to either find a rich husband or inherit from an old aunt. Though beautiful and successful in attracting rich men, Lily keeps sabotaging her own efforts due to an inner conflict buried in the depths of her consciousness; by doing so, she also brings about her disownment. Spoiler alert: the end, as I mentioned earlier, is tragic. [350 pp. incl. Afterward]

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Black Boy

 By Richard Wright

When I just started reading this book I was like "holy sh*t, what am I in for?" There were some crazy things done by the very young boy in this memoir. But as I read on -- it is a fascinating book -- I learned so much (not that it explained the previously mentioned crazy things, but instead introduced other crazy things, but by then done by other people. Turns out the crazy kid was just a little kid). In fact, I believe that every one should read this book. Even though I was aware of issues for black people living in the south during the Jim Crow era, and the issues facing black people when they move north (not as bad, but still serious issues), I was not quite aware of the magnitude of these issues, which so skillfully come to life through this one boy's story. As I was reading this book pieces fell into place in this puzzle that is race in America. They don't always make sense, but it's clear what they lead to. 

I was strongly drawn to the stories of the young boy, later a young man as he moved from Mississippi to Tennessee to Chicago; amazed at how despite abuse at home, at work, and on the streets, despite total lack of support during the child's development, despite constant hunger and hardly any education, the boy managed to become whom he has become. I'm looking forward to reading more of his books. [464 pp., incl. appendices etc.]

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Genius of Place: The Life of Frederick Law Olmsted

 By Justin Martin

What an incredible book on such an amazing person. I loved reading about Frederick Law Olmsted's life and the times in which he lived. The book makes me want to visit places I never felt drawn to, just to be able to see his marvelous creations. He was multi-talented and when he finally settle down on one career, it was mostly because of demand. The book doesn't shy away from his shortcomings, either, which in turn don't diminish his greatness in the least. Such a fascinating book. [496 pp. including notes, index, and appendix]

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My Year of Rest and Relaxation

 By Ottessa Moshfegh

Most of the book I was thinking how weird it is, how horrible that person is, and how it's really just WEIRD. Basically, it's about a woman who decided to take a break and just sleep for a year, using a variety of prescription drugs she gets from a kooky psychiatrist. It starts in mid 2000, and supposed to last a year, and there are mentions of the Twin Towers throughout the book, so it's pretty much clear that 9/11 would come into play. Still, reading the last page made me cry. [289 pp.]

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The Irresistible Fairy Tale

 By Jack Zipes

The subtitle for this book is The Cultural and Social History of a Genre, and this is pretty much it, but also so much more! Each chapter discusses a certain aspect of the history of fairy tales, starting with how and why tales were created and told, and how they formed the basis of culture. Then there's a fabulous chapter that talks about the women writers in late 17th century France who combined folklore and mythology to create short-form tales that were suitable for print. Another favorite chapter is about Baba Yaga, the evolution of a beautiful, revered goddesses who healed and transformed into old, ugly witches, emphasizing how tales told by women are often different than those told by men with regard to the Baby Yaga. Similarly, the next chapter discusses how persecuted heroines differ in stories told by women storytellers, where they are not simply submissive, dependent creatures, but also canny and smart and doing the best they can in their difficult circumstances, where they are threatened or experiencing assaults and incest. 

So the book not only provides a lot of novel information about the history of this genre, but also lots of food for thought about the culture that made common fairy tales what they are, and how their retelling evolves with cultures. [235 pp., including notes and index]

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The Big Oyster

 By Mark Kurlansky

I would describe this book as a fascinating and humorous collection of anecdotes, all connected by their relevance to oysters. It's a great way to learn about the history of New York, and in particular, Manhattan, from the time before the Dutch arrived till early 21st century. There's so many things mentioned in the book that I would like to learn more about. I totally enjoyed reading this, and I've never had an oyster in my life, nor do I plan to have one. [307pp. including bibliography and index]

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Circe

By Madeline Miller

A fascinating account of the goddess Circe, based on available mythology, with the author's interpretations and additions. It's very nicely written, and I'd say more enjoyable than Homer's extremely violent account. [393 pp.]

 

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