by Junot Diaz

The first section is about Oscar as a young boy – Dominican immigrant, nerdy, overweight, cannot attract a girlfriend. This is the story that grabbed me.

The second section is about his sister Lola – tough, raped at the age of eight and nobody cared, steely, strong, mother hates her, they fight, she rebels. Now I was REALLY into it.

The third section is about the mother’s backstory in the Dominican Republic. It’s all about how the mother has big tits. She has an affair with a general. I couldn’t wait for this section to end, and was starting to feel bait-and-switched. The footnotes were growing thicker and harder to read.

Thankfully, we do come back to Oscar, from the perspective of his erstwhile college roommate and erstwhile boyfriend of Lola. I really liked this character. From here, we bounced around the various characters until the big climax that led to Oscar’s life being so brief.

There was a great deal of violence. I hated how men treated women and how women treated themselves. It did not end up being the book I signed up for and I would not recommend it.

by Ann Angel

A big picture-book bio of Janis for kids or young adults. Knew it all, probably seen all the pictures too; but gave me an excuse to spend time with her. Love, Janis.

by Oliver Burkeman

I subscribe to Burkeman’s email list, so I had kind of already read a lot of these.

I can’t believe he gave a shout-out to someone who advocates the mantra, “I choose to live in Easy World, where everything is easy.” I get the spirit of what he was trying to say; but I went to that woman’s website, and talk about woo-woo out the wazoo.

One of my favorite topics, arguing with myself about how bad a person I am, is covered (on Day 17). “Does anyone imagine that Vladmir Putin lies awake at night, worrying if he’s really as caring and thoughtful a person as he’d like to believe?” See? You’re better than Vladmir Putin. Reducto at Putinum.

by Kenneth M. Cadow

I liked it. The story kept me interested. Loved the character, and his resourcefulness.

by Hilary Mantel

Waaaah.. I have finished the second book, and there’s only one more; and there won’t be any more, because she’s dead. 😦

I wanted to save a couple of quotes from Wolf Hall before I return the book.

“How can he explain to him? The world is not run from where he thinks. Not from his border fortresses, not even from Whitehall. The world is run from Antwerp, from Florence, from places he has never imagined; from Lisbon, from where the ships with sails of silk drift west and are burned up in the sun. Not from castle walls, but from countinghouses, not by the call of the bugle but by the click of the abacus, not by the grate and click of the mechanism of the gun but by the scrape of the pen on the page of the promissory note that pays for the gun and the gunsmith and the and the powder and the shot.”

“And beneath Cornwall, beyond and beneath this whole realm of England, beneath the sodden marches of Wales and the rough territory of the Scots border, there is another landscape; there is a buried empire, where he fears his commissioners cannot reach. Who will swear the hobs and the bogarts who live in the hedges and in the hollow trees, and the wild men who hide in the woods? Who will swear the saints in their niches, and the spirits that cluster at holy wells rustling like fallen leaves, and the miscarried infants dug into unconsecrated ground: all those unseen dead who hover in winter around forges and village hearths, trying to warm their bare bones? For they too are his countrymen: the generations of the uncounted dead, breathing through the living, stealing their light from them, the bloodless ghosts of lord and knave, nun and whore, the ghosts of priests and friar who feed on living England, and such the substance from the future.”

Booker.

by Hilary Mantel

Getting my hands on the sequels as soon as possible.

I had no idea how much I would love this book. I didn’t think I cared about Henry VIII and the Tudors and the machinations of powerful now-dead people. But watching the Protestant Reformation unfold in England turns out to be an incredibly exciting excuse for simultaneously enjoying some absolutely beautiful prose. Two bookmarks:

“How can he explain to him? The world is not run from where he thinks. Not from his border fortresses, not even from Whitehall. The world is run from Antwerp, from Florence, from places he has never imagined; from Lisbon, from where the ships with sails of silk drift west and are burned up in the sun. Not from castle walls, but from countinghouses, not by the call of the bugle but by the click of the abacus, not by the grate and click of the mechanism of the gun but by the scrape of the pen on the page of the promissory note that pays for the gun and the gunsmith and the powder and shot.”

“For they too are his countrymen: the generations of the uncounted dead, breathing through the living, stealing their light from them, the bloodless ghosts of lord and knave, nun and whore, the ghosts of priests and friar who feed on living England, and suck the substance of the future.”

I didn’t care that I didn’t know precisely what was going on sometimes. As I’ve said before, I don’t refer back or forward to “casts of characters” or some such. A novelist has to make sense to me as the story flows; I’m not doing a book report here. And this all made sense; even when I didn’t grasp every detail as it flew by, I was always quickly regrounded.

by Robert Louis Stevenson

I had never actually read this adventure story before. Argh! 15 men on a dead man’s chest! Pieces of eight! Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum! It’s nice to read source material.

by Isabel Wilkerson

I did a lot of skimming, skipping most of the historical digressions in favor of the three life stories. I can appreciate this as a piece of reporting, but no way is this the second best book of the century. It was so repetitive. Wilkerson will tell you the exact same thing mere pages apart. “She had heard that they strapped women down during delivery” (page 245). “She had heard that up north, doctors strapped women down when they went into labor” (page 267). Within two pages, “their respective corners of the echoing mansion… feeling too small for two people so different from each other,” and “that so full a house would come down to just these two,” and “marooned in a house that was too big, but not big enough to escape each other.” This isn’t great writing to me.

by Jen Sincero

(re-read)

Because sometimes you just need reminding.