The latest Laura Lippman.  I am actually reading Life Sentences right now as well.

The latest Faye Kellerman.   I am actually on a bit of a murder mystery/thriller kick right now having read the Steig Larsson trilogy this summer and just finishing Faithful Place by the always wonderful Tana French just last night. 

According to Rachel Shukert Everything is Going to Be Great!

And, similarly How Did You Get This Number?

I might have linked to this already: a tale of goats, gardens and Martha Stewart in upstate New York written by a former drag queen. 

Lots of kids books too, including, BOOM! a book formerly known as GRIDZBI SPUDVETCH!

And, a Dumb Diary book (#10) , the latest Clementine book.

Here’s a review of Girl Parts and an interview with the author, John M. Cusick.   It’s about robots among other things…

I am also re-reading the Little House books…that is, I am reading them to my kids.  They are a tad grislier than I remembered but they are proving to be quite popular in these parts.

What are you reading now?  What are you reading to or with your kids?

Every summer I say I won’t teach more than two classes but I ended up with three this summer plus I agreed to give the  two opening lectures in a series to celebrate a local synagogue’s 90th anniversary.  I gave the second one last night and while I really enjoy that sort of thing it is a huge relief to be done.  The first topic required a lot of research and energy and time…

I have not done much writing or reviewing lately though I have done some of that.  But, I guess my heart hasn’t been in it.  In fact I had an article sent back to me because it was a bit on the sloppy side but it is all fixed and ready to go now.  Ugh.

I did manage a fantastic trip to Washington DC and Virginia with my kids, my mom and my sister.  We survived the heat wave and had a lovely time.  The time on the plane was perfect for reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl who Played with Fire.  I read the third book as soon as I got home.  I have also spent a ton of time this summer reading the “Song of Ice and Fire” series, or whatever it’s called.  It is not a genre I usually read but has been super fun and entertaining.

As for other summer rituals I have only managed one camping trip, one baseball game and about 5 days of swimming; I have just been too busy for most fun.

And, that busy-ness is jacking up some of my plans…or should I say is contributing to the jacking up of my plans.  See, when I finished my masters degree I wanted to go on for my PhD.  But, for a number of reasons (including huge student loans and a partner who was getting a tad weary of my utter lack of financial contributions to our mortgage, etc) I decided to put it off.  Well, in the almost decade since finishing that degree I have work in a cushy non-profit job in a big city, moved to a smaller city and spent about 8 years as an adjunct prof at a community college and worked on a side as a freelance writer and teaching things here and there.  I also had two kids.  In the past couple years the desire to go back to school has re-surfaced.  But, it is so damn complicated.  I cannot move to find the “right” program and the university here doesn’t offer a PhD in my field.  But, there is a related field that I am very interested in and so I decided to do that.  It was that or write a book…but it seems that both options require time and energy I just don’t have…so they twist up into unfulfilled wishes in my gut.

In the past few months I decided to apply to the PhD program for next year and try to get funding.  Funding is key.  I announced this to many friends and family, hashed it out with that still weary partner, etc.  I signed up for a Spanish class to begin to work on the language I know I will need.  But, then it hit me like a ton of soul-crushing bricks.  This is at least five years I am talking about, maybe eight.  Even if I get funded, it may not be for the whole time and I would be scrambling for money the whole time.  It may not be fun.  It may put a lot of pressure on my family members to be ever-patient, ever-supportive and picking up my domestic slack.  In the end, I would essentially have my same job but just with a slight pay raise.  My advisors could be assholes…my classmates could be assholes.  I mean, it could be like the third best thing I’ve ever done and I could get a tenured position and publish all kinds of good stuff and be the favorite prof of all undergrads…or not. 

My reasons for going back are really two: I love school!  I like the challenges, the research, the learning and debating.  I like the work and the rewards of school.  And, second, I have always wanted the title, DR. Citizenbeta…this is very personal and has lots and lots to do with my family background and personal background but it is true.  I want that proof of success.

The flip side to all this is that things are good now!  Very soon both my kids will be in school full time and I can teach more (which I really do like to do) and also have an eye out for other opportunities.  I can write more—not just book reviews and little articles (which I like to do as well) but more large and creative projects.  Short stories….I am a good teacher, a good lecturer and because of that get asked to do some interesting things around town.  I could do more of that.  I could, instead of spending hours in the library (love love love) while my kids are in school, get some excercise (need  need need)…Am I talking myself out of this whole thing?  It will always be there I guess but maybe the time is all wrong.  I just don’t know.

Today though is starting with errands but ending with an art party with me, my aunt, cousin and my kids…just making and creating and being silly.  This weekend we’ll see friends and also participate in the annual chicken coop tour (every year I look forward to the crowds of people coming to say how lovely our hens are and how thriving our garden).  This weekend I have grading to do, a review to write, a good book on the side table to enjoy.  I have a half knit sweater that needs attention…and it feels like more than enough to make me feel like a success.  Really.     

I am on vacation. According to the calendar at any rate. This is week two of my two week semester break but it has been filled so far with stomach virus (two of the four of us), sleepless nights due to neighbors party, aforementioned stomach virus, bad dreams (mine and others), a very messy house, no time or energy to exercise, and a knitting project gone horribly awry. And, I actually did have to go to work today to get ready for classes beginning on Monday…But, I have also spent time with friends eating and chatting and randomly perusing antique shops. A and I, the healthy ones of the bunch, snuck out yesterday and managed to make a great adventure of a pet store, a fabric store and a funky grocery store. It is about the small things, folks.

Summer semester begins on Monday and my daughter’s school year ends on Friday. We have no vacation overlap. Just as I am gearing up to learn names, wrestle with copy machines and door codes, make sure I have work clothes clean each day, re-write lectures, grade and grade some more, she is winding down and getting ready to celebrate the end of kindergarten (bittersweet!) and getting used to saying “first-grader.” She also just finished her first year of religious school (those who know me are always surprised that I send the kids to religious school and that we attend the occasional Shabbat service…it was not something I was in the habit of as an adult but my oldest has a deep religious streak and when given the choice she picked religious school over gymnastics and everything else except soccer.).

For a number of reasons she is not attending summer camp this year though she did the last two. She would’ve been the oldest kid at the synagogue’s camp and it didn’t seem worth the expense this year. She is attending a week long dance camp with a friend but most of the season will be spent much less scheduled. Playdates galore, trips the museum and botanic gardens, swimming and hiking. She is teaching herself to read and write in Hebrew (told you—religious streak) and I imagine a great deal of energy will go towards that in the coming months. I am excited for her; the meaning of summer, or, should I say the reality of summer, changes so much as we grow up. We have to work, we have to go to the grocery store, we have to schlep our kids around. I would love to spend my summer the way I did as a teenager (except for the summer school part) just lounging in the sun with a book, sitting around with friends, walking along the river or driving up to the mountains. Time in the sun with my kids will be good, too. And, of course, good books.

Lately I have been reading a lot of YA (hey! I read what they pay me to read). It is good but it’s not satisfying any deep bookwormish itches…What are you reading? What do you recommend? I did just finish The Lemon Tree which was so good but as non-fiction it didn’t totally draw me in to the story and abandon me there! I have four books on their way to me about women in ancient Israel, etc for a mini-class I am teaching and so really want to get some good fiction in before I have to plow through those.

What are you planning on reading this summer?

Here is some of the work I have been doing (besides that whole other job I have).

The new Barnaby Grimes book

Falling In by Frances O’Roark Dowell

Stolen and an interview with author Lucy Christopher

]]> http://www.citizenbeta.com/sblog/?feed=rss2&p=302 http://www.citizenbeta.com/sblog/?p=301 http://www.citizenbeta.com/sblog/?p=301#comments Sun, 25 Apr 2010 20:38:09 +0000 admin http://www.citizenbeta.com/sblog/?p=301 Many months ago my mother lent me a thick paperback copy of Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy. I am a fast reader, very fast in fact, but this book took me a long time to read. Sometimes it felt like a chore. And the funny thing is, this book is very good. Written in the early 1920’s it is the story of a young man named Clyde Griffiths who kills his pregnant ex-girlfriend (though she believes he plans on marrying her) in order to be with a rich and beautiful girl who probably has no intention of actually marrying him. The copy I have ran 856 pages and a lot of sounded like this:

“So, by virtue of such mental prestidigitation and tergiversation, inspired and and animated as it was by his desire for Sondra, his inability to face the facts in connection with Roberta, he achieved the much-coveted privilege of again seeing her, over one week-end at least, an in such a setting as never before in his life had he been privileged to witness.” Yep..I actually read about 12 or 15 other books while I was reading this one. I already feel a little lonely without it.

But as plodding as the book sometimes is linguistically, the story is so compelling it is hard to walk away from. There was an introduction that I read before I began the novel so I knew about the murder and Clyde ending up on death row (though I didn’t know his fate). The third part of the book, which picks up right after the murder and is about the man-hunt, investigation and trial, is awesome. It moves at brisker pace with clearer language and finally after so many hundreds of pages introduces some new characters. This book was based on a true crime and is the basis for the Elizabeth Taylor movie, “A Place in the Sun,” which I really want to watch now!

In other news: Spring is in full force here, complete with the seasonal winds we deal with around here. But the bluster is tempered with the fact that the garden is in and the hens are laying a lot and I am winding up this term. I get a few weeks off and then will be ready to greet a whole new bunch of students (and hopefully see some old students in different classes). School is out in a month for L, too and instead of rushing about all summer or doing a summer camp we will be relaxing and seeing where our fancy takes us. I may put her in a week long science camp as she really wants to do one but it will depend on time and money and otherwise we have lots of adventures and projects planned.

Speaking of projects. Check out this little “ballerina cat” I knit for a 3 year old birthday present. I was finishing it up minutes before the party so it has no arms, no ballet slippers but my girls loved it so I hoped the birthday girl would too. Plus, it used up a bit of this blue and green yarn I had around. Right now I am knitting a sweater that is taking me almost as long as the Dreiser book (and it is actually a sweater vest—no sleeves!) and learning to knit cables on a dish cloth pattern.

Below are some recent reviews and here is a link to an interesting conversation about unschooling.  I don’t think it would work for us and I have many serious questions about it though I have thought a lot about more traditional homeschooling. What do you think?

REVIEWS:

Sweater Quest: My Year of Knitting Dangerously by Adrienne Martini

The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book One, The Mysterious Howling by MaryRose Wood

Exodus and Emancipation by Kenneth Chelst (page 16)

Summer home in Sweden (LOOOVE it!)

Red shoes

mystery novel

Any Camilla Engman painting

What is on your wishlist?

I am only teaching two classes but feel like I am devoting a good amount of energy to each and thus the semester is going well.  So well in fact it is almost done. 

All this allows me plenty of time for my most recent obsessions: knitting, baking bread, and knitting.

Here are some links to recent work and some photos of recent projects.  What are you keeping busy with as the lion days of March give way to the lambs? 

Devotion: A Memoir by Dani Shapiro

Ghosts and Lightning by Trevor Byrne 

The American Girl by Monika Fagerholm

The Things That Keep Us Here by Carla Buckley

Dear Dumb Diary #9: That’s What Friends Aren’t For  and interview with author Jim Benton

Encyclopedia Mythologica: Gods and Heroes by Sabuda and Reinhart

Also, found this reference to one of my reviews.

And here is an interview I did with the author, David Whitney.

Shades of Grey—the first in a new trilogy by Jasper Fforde 

The Lonely Hearts Club–a teen novel for teen fans of the Beatles or something along those lines

Green–a sweet chapter book about leprechauns and the (half) humans who love them

I have been writing a lot lately for one local publication that sends work my way but it is of pretty limited interest.  But, here on page 7 is a review/article that may be worth reading for somebody out there and on page 2 there is an article that mentions a lecture mini-course thing I am doing later this month.  In other words, if you have always wanted to pay to hear me talk now is your chance (and for the record, I didn’t take a few classes in Jewish History, it was essentially, though not officially, my grad degree).   

Fiction:

The Likeness…I think I liked this one better than In The Woods, which I liked a lot.  French has such a great writing style, blends genres well and has really compelling characters. Plus, it is creepy and I like creepy tales.  

The Master and Margarita…Okay, I admit I didn’t really understand much of what was happening in this novel but it was so much fun and so vividly described.  I felt a huge sense of accomplishment when I was done with it, too!

Oh Pure and Radiant Heart…As I have written before I really liked How the Dead Dream but I feel this novel was a bit better; the characters were interesting and well developed and the narrative at once super funny and quite thoughtful.  I especially appreciated how Millet played with history, morality and religion as themes. 

The Glister…Another creepy one with a strong moral (but not preachy) undertone.   This short novel is atmospheric and scary and the ending was so strange I had to read it a couple of times just to make sense of it.  Very powerful. 

The Elegance of the Hedgehog…This book is just so smart and literary and meaty and enjoyable.  Again there are well-developed characters and a compelling story line.  I really can’t say how wonderful this book is! 

Non-Fiction:

Wild Swans…I don’t know too much about modern Chinese history and this book taught me a lot (and scared the shit out of me).  It is a memoir but packs in so much history and culture and it is quite fascinating.

Abigail Adams…A really awesome examination of Adams and early American culture.  Adams was rebellious and headstrong, intelligent and crafty and this book told her story without the dryness typical of historical biographies.

When Everything Changed…An eye-opening look at the last few decades of women’s lives in the United States focusing on politics, law, journalism and the work place as well as the racial and gender equality movements.

Your turn!  What were your favorite reads of 2009??