Friends and Strangers by J. Courtney Sullivan

Elisabeth is purported to be a former NYT journalist and published author of two books. Yet what we see is a foolish (gives away a HUGE sum of money to an obviously worthless sister), grossly immature woman (maybe I can just tell my husband [no spoiler] instead of the truth about how [no spoiler]). I really didn’t buy her as a successful adult in any realm.

The babysitter she hires, Sam, for her new baby, is a wide-eyed college senior in awe of everything and willing to see the best in everyone. She’s bowled over by the ‘peaceful vibe’ of Sam’s expensive home and lifestyle. She’s also got hero worship for the president of her college, and she’s buddies with all the Hispanic ladies she formerly worked with in the school cafeteria. Finally, she’s also engaged to and in love with a much older guy in London, Clive, with whom she’s had a whirlwind long-distance relationship.

I didn’t understand Clive or Sam’s enamorment with him. I guess the sex was really hot, though we are thankfully spared most details; and she’s young, so that’s probably all lit takes, but we never really see the appeal. The one thing Elisabeth ever gets right is her first impression of Clive: icky and wrong for Sam.

The plot of the book is our slow discovery of how low Elisabeth really will sink in her selfishness; how long it will take Sam to realize her idols are false; and what will happen with Clive. In the end I was disappointed that it wasn’t more interesting. (  )

Merchants of Truth by Jill Abramson

Jill Abramson offers a thorough overview of several major news organizations’ transition to the digital age, with a focus on four in particular: NYT, WaPo, BuzzFeed, and Vice.

This book is dense, with very few breaks in the very long chapters. Much was uninteresting to me, but I kept reading for the sake of the tidbits that offered me glimpses of what goes on behind the scenes to give me the news I consume every day.

I was least interested in Vice – the interests of its barely-legal male target demographic in no way coincide with my own. NYT & WaPo, OTOH, I read weekly and daily respectively, so those were the inside scoops I was really showing up for. (  )

The Art of Choosing by Sheena Iyengar

I don’t know, I just didn’t really learn anything. The most exciting part was when she starts talking about the famous jam study, and how everybody seems to know about it but everybody gets it slightly wrong; and then she reveals that she should know because she’s the one who actually conducted the jam study. Mind blown!

[The jam study offered people a taste test of 24 different jams, then repeated the experiment with only 6 jams, and found that 24 jams attracted more attention but 6 jams resulted in more sales.] (  )

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

This was amazing. “You got to go there to know there.”

Our protagonist Janie starts life at 17 with a brief loveless marriage to a good provider to satisfy her grandmother who raised her, but she only starts life for real when she’s pushing 40 and meets Tea Cake.

First, though, she runs off from the first husband to hook up with a big-talking passing stranger who’s going down to Florida to be a “big man” in an up-and-coming colored town. Big man he does become, and makes her the big woman; but that’s not who she wants to be.

After his death, when she’s pushing 40, another stranger appears to whisk her away – another sweet-talker, but this time, not someone who wants to be a big man, just an ordinary man. And at first he thinks he has to keep treating her like the big woman she’s become accustomed to being, but no, that’s not how it is at all. For the first time in her life Janie is loving and being loved, and she’s ready to live life. They move down south to the Everglades, to “the muck”, where Tea Cake is a farm laborer; and Janie dons overalls and works right beside him during the day, and parties with him at night, and thus do they live.

And the lesson is to live, and you can’t explain it or teach it to anyone else, because “You got to go there to know there.”

The writing was constantly blowing me away. Two quotes that I bookmarked:

“When the people sat around on the porch and passed around the pictures of their thoughts for others to look at and see, it was nice. The fact that the thought pictures were always crayon enlargements of life made it even nicer to listen to.”

And “It happened over one of those dinners that chasten all women sometimes. They plan and they fix and they do, and then some kitchen-dwelling fiend slips a scorchy, soggy, tasteless mess into their pots and pans.” Isn’t that TOTALLY how it is! (  )