the one I read in 2012.

What a ridiculous drought.  Learning how to be a literate working mom is no easy gig.  I just realized that my last post was in August 2011.  And while I've been sporadically digging into the pages and posting on Goodreads, I'm not finding the same kind of joy in reading.  I can't sit still and I can't get consumed by words.  When I can't even get into an Anna Quindlen memoir, something is terrible wrong.

Intervention needed stat.


I read Behind the Beautiful Forevers for my book club.  The book was amazing but deserved a bit more attention from me to truly appreciate.  We had a most insightful discussion around issues of poverty and the world beyond the United States.

I am determined to come back to the book this summer.

There's been a whole lot of llama, llama around here.

the one that reminded me of Harvard

Granted, I am a college counselor . . . but this book (Crazy U) by Andrew Ferguson was AWESOME.  Everything I learned at the Harvard Institute on College Admissions two summers ago was detailed in this book.  I wish I could put this book in the hands of every junior parent preparing for an empty nest.  I wish I would have written the book.  Part research, part memoir.  Better than your average prep book.

College admissions is (for lack of a better term) insane.  It's an industry and there is deception and drama and so much money.  I get nervous when I think how expensive college will be for Maren someday and then I realize that education is changing and fast.  It's just too hard to predict what lies ahead.

Is college the next bubble to burst?  Hmmmm . . . makes for an interesting read.

p.s. yes, I'm very sad that I will be starting a "book diet" next week when I head back to work. boo.  hoo.

the one that has me moving to Paris.

I know, I know . . . . another Paris book.  So cliche.

But there really is something about French culture that appeals and (at times) repels.  I love how French girls consider their skin to be so pristine and "enjoy the physical and emotional value of unfettered, ritualized body care."  I love how they eat cheese as dessert, never the appetizer.  I love how birthdays are simple, at-home affairs with little old cakes and a single present.

They're serious those French gals though.  They know their current events and they would never get caught watching Real Housewives.  Too many museums to hit & ballets to attend.

Here's the thing.  I didn't even like being in Paris.  It scared me a little.  But it also inspired me.  I aspire to "bien dans sa peau" or "to feel good in one's skin." At ease in body and soul.  One day I'll get there . . .

 

the one about Cinderella.

Peggy Orenstein's book "Cinderella Ate My Daughter" was good but a little fluffy & preachy.


Packaging Girlhood comes more highly recommended.  


 I like this JK Rowling quote better. 
"I’ve got two daughters who will have to make their way in this skinny-obsessed world, and it worries me, because I don’t want them to be empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones; I’d rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny - a thousand things, before ‘thin’. And frankly, I’d rather they didn’t give a gust of stinking chihuahua flatulence whether the woman standing next to them has fleshier knees than they do. Let my girls be Hermiones, rather than Pansy Parkinsons. Let them never be Stupid Girls."

the one that hit home.

i'm not sure why I read "the long goodbye" this weekend.  it wasn't intentional.

you see, my mom died three years ago today.  and here i am writing a blog post on a grief book.  i'd like to think reading mom w/cancer books will be a phase for me but it's unlikely.  losing your mom is not a phase you grow through.  it sticks.

this book is reminiscent of Joan Didion's "the year of magical thinking" and Romm's "the mercy papers".  If these books irritate you, then don't plan to lose someone you love.  They are raw.  So is the experience.

the long goodbye is less about the dying, more about the grief.  The notion that: "I am becoming someone whose mother is dead."  O'Rourke explains that you don't just mourn the dead person, you mourn the person you got to be when the lost one was alive.  a daughter knows what it is like to be "unmothered."

i've made huge steps forward in my grieving.  but have yet to go through all the plates and the scarves and the teaching memorabilia that i just can't bear to part with.  and i still believe that my mom is alive in butterflies and fireflies.  the magic of this, the comfort . . . is slowing wearing away.

o'rourke is a poet and "the long goodbye" a poem.  maybe i have a poem to write too.

the one that made me nostalgic about books.

I was just at the small town Newport library today and learned it was going to close.  Sad, sad, sad.  I have overly fond memories of getting book suggestions in the library of Westview Elementary and weekly trips to the public library in Burnsville and reading among the pillows and nooks at Normandale Hills.

Don't even get me started on the Scholastic book order that came every month.

It kills me that they are taking books out of schools.

The Reading Promise was such a wonderfully sweet book about the relationship between a girl, her dad and books.  I thought this was yet another memoir that didn't need to be written but was pleasantly surprised.  Alice Ozma is precocious and unique and smart.  Her dad taught her to exclaim over thunder strikes and make friends with spiders.  I laughed out loud several times when reading and almost cried.

Such a surprise this book.  LOVED.  IT.

the one that felt extreme.

I love that Amy Chua wrote her Battle Hymn b/c it made me react and then really think.

I.E. when she rejected her daughters' birthday cards and tried forcing Lulu to eat caviar.  And it really creeped me out when she kept talking about OUR violin or took her daughter out of recess and art class to get in more practicing.  But it wasn't so much the actions she took that caused me alarm but the tone.  And one sentence the author stated really stuck out:  "the truth is I'm not good at enjoying life."

I'm hearing (MPR) that Americans are over concerned with being Happy. Happy. Happy and thus creating a generation of kids that can't deal with unhappy or plain old mediocre.

So many perspectives.  Where will I fall as a mom?

Easy book to read and would be an excellent book club discussion.  We all have childhoods to dig through.

the mysterious one.

I'm not funny and I don't like mysteries.  But I was and I did, Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie would be an incredibly good book.  The heroine is a plucky little British girl who has a passion for chemistry and rides around on a bike named Gladys.  I really liked Flavia.  She reminded me SO much of Harriet the Spy from way back.  I just wasn't that interested in the plot and stamps, unfortunately.

But do read this book (and the de Luce series) if you want a light, interesting read.

the one that is causing anxiety.

And in sharp contrast to the lovely tennis memoir I read over the 4th weekend.
A perfectly fine book with a few parenting gems that I ought not gloss over.

You Are Your Child's First Teacher by Rahima Dancy
written by a wise, old Waldorf midwife
(who lost me when she encouraged not to push reading.  get it, got it Heidi.)

I REALLY need to stop reading books that emphasize how you will irrevocably screw up your kid if you send them to daycare during the first three years.

the one that brought me back.

I really loved reading Andre Agassi's Open.  He took me by surprise.  I celebrated his victories and bemoaned all his losses.  As always, Sampras :) But what I liked most was the feeling of nostalgia hearing names like Chang & Courier & Edberg (my love!) & Wheaton & Krickstein.

And remembering that Agassi married Brooke Shields for like a day and was rumored to date Babs.  I think he'd be a hard guy to live with, yes? But how perfectly perfect that he ends up with Graf.

At times I felt like I was reading a gossip column.  But I have to say, there was really a lot of meat to this book.  I got a true sense for how Andre's life and psyche have evolved over time.  What a wonderfully complicated person he is.

It was fun reading this during Wimbledon.  Which sadly, I only watched for a few minutes.  They just don't make tennis stars like they used to.