TWI Books: #31
May. 14th, 2007 10:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akujunkanAppropriately enough for this Mother's Day posting, there are three women-oriented books in the eight I read this week.
1) The Body Project - Joan Jacobs Brumberg
I'd read most of this book in segments in various course packets while earning my Gender Studies degree, but wanted to have a proper go at it. It's an excellent work that looks at the ways in which American adolescent women's attitudes toward menarche, clothing, fitness, virginity, and personal appearance have changed from the 18th century to the present. Brumberg's analysis is carefully considered and lucidly presented, and she deftly avoids slipping into shrill alarmism. The Body Project imparts a sense of the dangerous ways in which women have been encouraged to focus on the outer, encouraged all the while by businesses that see the potential for big earnings in adolescent insecurity. It's an accessable and entertaining volume whose enjoyment potential reaches far beyond the women's studies cachet.
2) Kiss My--Left Behind - Earl Lee
I'll admit that curiosity, more than any other factor, drew me to this volume. How on earth could anyone hope to write a parody of a book that is utterly laughable in and of itself? I'm happy to report that Earl Lee has found the golden formula for doing just that. Every aspect of the original, from the names (femme fatale lust interest Hattie Durham becomes Hadshe Dunhim) to the premise (bona fide rapture becomes a conspiracy concocted by hypocritical televangelist small fries) to the social commentary of the original is both fair game and deftly and humorously handled. Carl Hiaasen or Christopher Moore couldn't have done it better. Granted, Kiss My... would have greatly benefited from a closer edit, but the cleverness of the prose helps to make up for this shortcoming: Even with the good money her husband made as a pilot, it was difficult for Ireme to manage her household funds when so much money had to be sent out to various charities. Ireme began to cut back on some of the family's more frivolous expenses, and she applied for four or five new credit cards to make it easier to manage. Occasionally she had to cut back on the 10% that she regularly tithed to the local congregation, but she tried to make up the difference by volunteering her time to all the church-sponsored events. Soone Ireme was spending a lot of time picketing in front of the local "gay friendly" churches, carrying her hand-made sign: "God hates Faggs." Then she found herself picketing every Wednesday afternoon in front of the Womyn's Health Clinic. Ireme knew that they didn't actually perform abortions there, but she suspected that they wanted to. For the win.
3) Slapstick, Or Lonesome No More - Kurt Vonnegut
This was one of the few Vonnegut books I hadn't already read at least once. According to the autobiographical introduction it was written shortly after the death of an immediate family member, an event whose influence clearly informs the rest of the book. Slapstick envisions an earth plunged back into the middle ages thanks to the cataclysmic destruction of natural resources, but its astute observations of family, love, and human interaction ultimately make it much more than a piece of post-apocalyptic fiction. This book is definitely worth reading, especially if you're a fan of Cat's Cradle.
4) Witch Week - Dianna Wynne Jones
This is the first time I made it to the fourth book in Jones' Chrestomanci series, and I'm happy to say that I was pleasantly surprised. Witch Week is good--the best of the bunch, in fact. The plot is inventive, the characters grow and mature, there's tension and a fair amount of humor, and best of all, it didn't leave me feeling as though half of the story was missing (as the first three volumes did to varying degrees). You'll need to read the first three stories to get the full effect, but Witch Week makes it well worth your effort.
5) The Gypsy Game - Zilpha Keatley Synder
Synder's The Egypt Game was one of my absolute favorite books as a child. The Gypsy Game is Egypt Game's "sequel," written several decades after its predecessor. It's a well-written book with a solid plot and I was amazed to see how well Synder recaptured all her characters after such a long leave of absence. I could easily see where the plot was going, but a child definitely would not, and I enjoyed the volume despite its transparency. This is definitely one of the best young readers/young adult books I've read in quite awhile.
6) Shen Of The Sea - Arthur Bowie Chrisman
I received this Newberry Award-winning book sometime during elementary school, but never got around to reading it until now. The first thing that struck me about Shen Of The Sea is how far we've come in our attitudes toward East Asia since the 1920s when it was written. Not to say that Shen is disrespectful toward China, but it is filled with cultural inaccuracies; several of its stories appear to be rather bowlderized from their original form and others are obviously nothing more than English fairy tales reworked with "Chinese" trappings. Still, it's quite nicely illustrated and would probably delight little children.
7) The American Indians In America - Jayne Clark Jones
I received this book as a Christman or birthday gift sometime around 2rd grade. It is a well-written (if necessarily abbreviated) account of Native American history from the 18th century to the mid-1980s. It covers the shameful treatment of Native Americans on the whole by the U.S. government in an age appropriate, but not whitewashed, manner for its target age group. Some of the content of its latter chapters are woefully outdated (witness its prediction that casino gambling would vastly improve the situation of Indians everywhere), but it is still a very readable and accessible introduction to the post-glory days of this ethnic group.
8) How The Pro-Choice Movement Saved America - Christina Page
In a word, excellent. Page's book is easily the most thorough and readable account of what the "pro-life" movement envisions for America's future, and how Americans on the whole are basically opposed to the long term goals of the movement. Best of all, How The Pro-Choice Movement... is in no way polemical; its arguments are clear headed and well reasoned as well as carefully researched and documented. This book should be required reading for everyone.
9) The Double Life Of Pocahontas - Jean Fritz
Another never-read book from my elementary school days. The Double Life... is a semi-novelised biography of Pocahontas that presents her life from the arrival of the Jamestown settlers to her death in England, written at such a level as to prepare YA readers to make the transition from fictionalised biographies to more academic histories. Definitely recommended as a good, non-Disney-fied introduction to both this important personality and time period of American history.
SBS: Ninety-nine books. It keeps growing, and growing, and growing...
That will be all.
1) The Body Project - Joan Jacobs Brumberg
I'd read most of this book in segments in various course packets while earning my Gender Studies degree, but wanted to have a proper go at it. It's an excellent work that looks at the ways in which American adolescent women's attitudes toward menarche, clothing, fitness, virginity, and personal appearance have changed from the 18th century to the present. Brumberg's analysis is carefully considered and lucidly presented, and she deftly avoids slipping into shrill alarmism. The Body Project imparts a sense of the dangerous ways in which women have been encouraged to focus on the outer, encouraged all the while by businesses that see the potential for big earnings in adolescent insecurity. It's an accessable and entertaining volume whose enjoyment potential reaches far beyond the women's studies cachet.
2) Kiss My--Left Behind - Earl Lee
I'll admit that curiosity, more than any other factor, drew me to this volume. How on earth could anyone hope to write a parody of a book that is utterly laughable in and of itself? I'm happy to report that Earl Lee has found the golden formula for doing just that. Every aspect of the original, from the names (femme fatale lust interest Hattie Durham becomes Hadshe Dunhim) to the premise (bona fide rapture becomes a conspiracy concocted by hypocritical televangelist small fries) to the social commentary of the original is both fair game and deftly and humorously handled. Carl Hiaasen or Christopher Moore couldn't have done it better. Granted, Kiss My... would have greatly benefited from a closer edit, but the cleverness of the prose helps to make up for this shortcoming: Even with the good money her husband made as a pilot, it was difficult for Ireme to manage her household funds when so much money had to be sent out to various charities. Ireme began to cut back on some of the family's more frivolous expenses, and she applied for four or five new credit cards to make it easier to manage. Occasionally she had to cut back on the 10% that she regularly tithed to the local congregation, but she tried to make up the difference by volunteering her time to all the church-sponsored events. Soone Ireme was spending a lot of time picketing in front of the local "gay friendly" churches, carrying her hand-made sign: "God hates Faggs." Then she found herself picketing every Wednesday afternoon in front of the Womyn's Health Clinic. Ireme knew that they didn't actually perform abortions there, but she suspected that they wanted to. For the win.
3) Slapstick, Or Lonesome No More - Kurt Vonnegut
This was one of the few Vonnegut books I hadn't already read at least once. According to the autobiographical introduction it was written shortly after the death of an immediate family member, an event whose influence clearly informs the rest of the book. Slapstick envisions an earth plunged back into the middle ages thanks to the cataclysmic destruction of natural resources, but its astute observations of family, love, and human interaction ultimately make it much more than a piece of post-apocalyptic fiction. This book is definitely worth reading, especially if you're a fan of Cat's Cradle.
4) Witch Week - Dianna Wynne Jones
This is the first time I made it to the fourth book in Jones' Chrestomanci series, and I'm happy to say that I was pleasantly surprised. Witch Week is good--the best of the bunch, in fact. The plot is inventive, the characters grow and mature, there's tension and a fair amount of humor, and best of all, it didn't leave me feeling as though half of the story was missing (as the first three volumes did to varying degrees). You'll need to read the first three stories to get the full effect, but Witch Week makes it well worth your effort.
5) The Gypsy Game - Zilpha Keatley Synder
Synder's The Egypt Game was one of my absolute favorite books as a child. The Gypsy Game is Egypt Game's "sequel," written several decades after its predecessor. It's a well-written book with a solid plot and I was amazed to see how well Synder recaptured all her characters after such a long leave of absence. I could easily see where the plot was going, but a child definitely would not, and I enjoyed the volume despite its transparency. This is definitely one of the best young readers/young adult books I've read in quite awhile.
6) Shen Of The Sea - Arthur Bowie Chrisman
I received this Newberry Award-winning book sometime during elementary school, but never got around to reading it until now. The first thing that struck me about Shen Of The Sea is how far we've come in our attitudes toward East Asia since the 1920s when it was written. Not to say that Shen is disrespectful toward China, but it is filled with cultural inaccuracies; several of its stories appear to be rather bowlderized from their original form and others are obviously nothing more than English fairy tales reworked with "Chinese" trappings. Still, it's quite nicely illustrated and would probably delight little children.
7) The American Indians In America - Jayne Clark Jones
I received this book as a Christman or birthday gift sometime around 2rd grade. It is a well-written (if necessarily abbreviated) account of Native American history from the 18th century to the mid-1980s. It covers the shameful treatment of Native Americans on the whole by the U.S. government in an age appropriate, but not whitewashed, manner for its target age group. Some of the content of its latter chapters are woefully outdated (witness its prediction that casino gambling would vastly improve the situation of Indians everywhere), but it is still a very readable and accessible introduction to the post-glory days of this ethnic group.
8) How The Pro-Choice Movement Saved America - Christina Page
In a word, excellent. Page's book is easily the most thorough and readable account of what the "pro-life" movement envisions for America's future, and how Americans on the whole are basically opposed to the long term goals of the movement. Best of all, How The Pro-Choice Movement... is in no way polemical; its arguments are clear headed and well reasoned as well as carefully researched and documented. This book should be required reading for everyone.
9) The Double Life Of Pocahontas - Jean Fritz
Another never-read book from my elementary school days. The Double Life... is a semi-novelised biography of Pocahontas that presents her life from the arrival of the Jamestown settlers to her death in England, written at such a level as to prepare YA readers to make the transition from fictionalised biographies to more academic histories. Definitely recommended as a good, non-Disney-fied introduction to both this important personality and time period of American history.
SBS: Ninety-nine books. It keeps growing, and growing, and growing...
That will be all.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2007-05-14 02:38 am (UTC)I like your reviews - I keep adding titles to my alarmingly growing list of Books to Read. o__O
no subject
on 2007-05-14 03:04 am (UTC)Glad you're liking the reviews, btw. ^^