Saturday, November 21, 2009

Wading Through My Wishlist



 Latest additions to the Great Monstrosity that is my wishlist....



Inspired by A.J. Jacobs's The Year of Living Biblically, evangelical pastor and author Dobson (The Jesus Study Bible) devotes a year to emulating Jesus' life and teaching. His initial commitment to keep kosher, observe Jewish holy days, not shave and read the four gospels weekly expands into an exploration of Judeo-Christian devotional practices. Seeking teachers from several religious traditions, Dobson incorporates Jewish prayers, the Catholic rosary, Orthodox prayer rope and Episcopal prayer beads into his daily devotional life. ~Publisher's Weekly









 It isn't quite love at first sight when Celia, Sally, Bree and April meet as first-year hall mates at Smith College in the late 1990s. Sally, whose mother has just died, is too steeped in grief to think about making new friends, and April's radical politics rub against Celia and Bree's more conventional leanings. But as the girls try out their first days of independence together, the group forms an intense bond that grows stronger throughout their college years and is put to the test after graduation. Even as the young women try to support each other through the trials of their early twenties, various milestones—Sally's engagement, Bree's anomalous girlfriend, April's activist career—only seem to breed disagreement. Things come to a head the night before Sally's wedding, when an argument leaves the friends seething and silent; but before long, the women begin to suspect that life without one another might be harder than they thought. ~ Publisher's Weekly





In the tradition of recent hits like The Bitch in the House and Perfect Madness comes a hilarious and controversial book that every woman will have an opinion about, written by America’s most outrageous writer. Covering topics as diverse as the hysteria of competitive parenting (Whose toddler can recite the planets in order from the sun?), the relentless pursuits of the Bad Mother police, balancing the work-family dynamic, and the bane of every mother’s existence (homework, that is), Bad Mother illuminates the anxieties that riddle motherhood today, while providing women with the encouragement they need to give themselves a break. ~Amazon.com






What did you add to your ridiculously huge wishlist this week? Read any of these?


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Making Toast by Roger Rosenblatt



Making Toast: A Family Story
by Roger Rosenblatt
Pub: Ecco (Feb. 2010)
ARC ISBN: 9780061965371
Genre: Nonfiction/Memoir
Source: BookBrowse First Impressions (many thanks!)




Summary in a Sentence (Or Two):

When his daughter, Amy, died suddenly of a heart condition, Roger Rosenblatt and his wife moved in with their son-in-law and their three young grandchildren. His story tells how a family makes the possible out of the impossible.

My thoughts:

I can probably guess what some of you are thinking: Are you kidding me? Not another tragi-memoir. Never fear, fellow readers. Rosenblatt does not stoop to histrionics here. This memoir is wonderful. I am not a fan of overly sentimental writing, especially in the memoir genre which can sometimes be whiny and self-aggrandizing. Making Toast is a refreshing read. Rosenblatt's prose is simple and not affected at all. As a result, the spare writing makes the book all the more stunning.

By the end of this slim narrative I felt as if I had also moved in with Rosenblatt's newly widowed son-in-law, Harris, and their three children- Jessica, Sammy, and James. Rosenblatt is tender in his writing, and although I initially felt his style to be too choppy, I soon fell into the rhythm of his writing and finished the book in one sitting. I was sad when it was over; I wanted to know more about their lives. Highly recommended.

This book counts towards the Random Reading Challenge.

Rating: 5/5


Also Recommended:
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Friday, November 20, 2009

Guest Reviewer: Angry Management



Angry Management
by Chris Crutcher
Pub: Greenwillow, 2009
ISBN: 9780060502478
246 pages
Genre: Fiction (Novellas)
Source: Library Copy


Please give my mom Ann, a high school library media specialist, a warm welcome here on A Bookshelf Monstrosity as she reviews Crutcher's new book :)


Summary in a Sentence:

A collection of short stories featuring characters from earlier books by Crutcher such as Sarah Byrnes and Angus Bethune.

Mom's Thoughts:

I just finished reading Angry Management by Chris Crutcher today.  I enjoyed it very much.  It was basically 3 short stories or novellas in one book.  One interesting thing was that Crutcher used characters from some of his previous works--Angus Bethune, Sarah Byrnes, Mr. Simet from Whale Talk, and others.  But you would not have to read any of his previous books to enjoy this book.  Mr. Nak is the leader of the Angry Management group at Global Community Health.  I like the case notes Mr. Nak writes at the beginning of each novella (Nak's Notes).  He describes these as First Impressions.  I liked each story, but my favorite was "Meet Me at the Gates, Marcus James." Recommended for fans of Crutchers'  Deadline and Whale Talk.

Rating: 4/5


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Thursday, November 19, 2009

Weekly Monstrosity Giveaway List 11/19

Each Thursday I update my giveaways list...now go and discover some new blogs!

If you haven't already, enter my 100+ Follower Celebration giveaway here.

If you know of another great giveaway not on this list, please feel free to post it below in the comments.


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Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Waiting On Wednesday (9)



Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Breaking the Spine.


This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is:
 

 
"A dazzling, searing, and inventive memoir about becoming a father in the age of terror. In 2007, during the months before Nick Flynn’s daughter’s birth, his growing outrage and obsession with torture, exacerbated by the Abu Ghraib photographs, led him to Istanbul to meet some of the Iraqi men depicted in those photos. Haunted by a history of addiction, a relationship with his unsteady father, and a longing to connect with his mother who committed suicide, Flynn artfully interweaves in this memoir passages from his childhood, his relationships with women, and his growing obsession—a questioning of terror, torture, and the political crimes we can neither see nor understand in post-9/11 American life."
This title will be released on January 18, 2010.

What's your "waiting on" pick this week? Leave your link here!

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Tuesday, November 17, 2009

All Things Kid Lit: The Boy Who Invented TV

Picture Book Pick of the Week:




The Boy Who Invented TV
by Kathleen Krull
Pub: Knopf, 2009
ISBN: 9780375845611
40 pages
Biography









Summary in a Sentence:

Presents a picture-book biography of Philo Farnsworth, who created the world's first television image in 1928.



From Booklist:

When Philo Farnsworth was growing up at the turn of the last century, electricity was hard to come by, but he was intrigued by new inventions like the phonograph. By the time he was 11, there were power lines around the family farm. He was particularly intrigued by what was then just a thought: television. At 14, Philo was plowing a field, and the parallel lines sparked an idea about breaking down images into lines of light, capturing them and transmitting them into electrons that would be resassembled into a complete picture. In an attention-holding narrative, Krull explains how Farnsworth held on to his dream to develop television, and in smart, concise fashion ably explains scientific concepts behind it.

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MySpace Codes


Kid Lit News:

National Public Radio
November 11, 2009

Sesame Street was always considered an experiment. When the very first episode aired on Nov. 10, 1969, the show seemed to pose one big unanswered question: Could children learn from television? Forty years later, that question has been answered. Millions of kids can thank the program for the 1-2-3s and A-B-Cs, but what have the show's actors and producers learned from their grand experiment? Let's count eight lessons of Sesame Street.



The Seattle Times (WA)
November 16, 2009

Since 1975, author/illustrator Tomie dePaola has been chronicling the life of Strega Nona, the grandmotherly Italian witch/folk healer and her magic pasta pot. Now, Strega Nona is back in her ninth adventure.


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Monday, November 16, 2009

Books By Theme: Get thee to a nunnery!


Photo credit: estherase




Sisters: Catholic Nuns and the making of America
by John Fialka
Examines the role nuns have played in the building of American society, discussing how they became the nation's first group of independent professional women.



The Scent of God
by Beryl Bissell

In 1957, 18-year-old Bissell entered the monastery of the cloistered order of the Poor Clares in New Jersey. At 33, after falling in love with a priest, she left. The memoir details Bissell's lifelong love affair with God and decade-long love affair with an Italian priest, Vittoria Bosca.




Through the Narrow Gate
by Karen Armstrong

A former nun reveals the intimate details of her life within the enclosed world of an austere religious order.



The Tulip and the Pope: A Nun's Story
by Deborah Larsen

The author recalls her memories of convent life and her desire to give up all worldly thoughts and possessions in order to become a nun in 1960, and describes her decision not to take her final vows in 1965.




Unveiled: The Hidden Lives of Nuns
by Cheryl L. Reed

Cheryl Reed recounts the experiences she had while researching the lives of nuns and discusses how her research impacted her own spirituality and beliefs. From the cloister to the convent to the public arena, these women answer a host of intriguing questions about life, love, sex, prayer, faith, and spiritual empowerment.



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Sunday, November 15, 2009

GLBT Challenge 2010



The basic idea of this challenge is to read books about GLBT topics and/or by GLBT authors.
This challenge blog is the brainchild of Amanda from The Zen Leaf.

The challenge runs year-round, and there will be three levels of participation:
  • Lambda Level: Read 4 books.
  • Pink Triangle Level: Read 8 books.
  • Rainbow Level: Read 12 or more books.
Since I have quite a few challenges going on these days, I'm going to start at the Lambda level and see how it goes from there. Here's my very tentative list:

  • Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides-  Three generations of a Greek American family find themselves plagued by a mutant gene which causes bizarre side effects in the family's teenage girls.
  • Trans-Sister Radio by Chris Bohjalian-  Divorced school teacher Allison Banks falls in love with Dana Stevens, her summer university instructor, but when Dana reveals that he plans to have a sex change operation, Allison must judge whether their relationship can survive, even amidst the fallout from the people of their small town.
  •  Lucky in the Corner by Carol Anshaw- Fern, having never quite forgiven her mother for leaving her marriage to live with her lover, Jeanne, gets a better understanding of the ambiguities of parental love when she takes on the care of her best friend's baby.
  •  My Heartbeat by Garret Freymann-Weyr- As she tries to understand the closeness between her older brother and his best friend, fourteen-year-old Ellen finds her relationship with each of them changing.
 I'll link to my reviews as I read them.

Click here to sign up.

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