Top Ten Tuesday: Fall TBR

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the lovely folks over at the Broke and the Bookish. This week's theme is

Top Ten Books on my Fall TBR List

So, I really need to step up my challenge reading, or I'm not going to finish by the end of the year. If I put them at the top my my to be read list, I'll get to them quicker...right?

Beloved, Toni Morrison. A reread.

Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier. This on scares, me, to be honest. I really don't know why, but it's always been one of those books I think I'm not going to like. I'm planning on taking a deep breath and diving in.

The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton. This is probably cheating, since I've already started it! (it's good).

The Remains of the Day, Kazou Ishiguro. I just picked up a copy of this on sale, so I need to read it. I love the cover, which certainly helps me want to pick it up.

Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters. I just put in an inter library loan request, so hopefully it doesn't take too long to arrive.

Death in the Afternoon, Ernest Hemingway. I haven't read any Hemingway in far too long.

Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehernreich. Another book that's been on my shelf, unread, for far too long.

Divergent, Veronica Roth. Something fun and quick. And something I can borrow from a friend. Free is good!

Black Boy, Richard Wright. I just read two books by Zora Neale Hurston, a contemporary of Wright's with supposedly completely different views of the racial issues of their time. It will be interested to make comparisons.

Midnight's Children, Salmon Rushdie. This really should be the book I'm most looking forward to finishing, as I started it months ago and then abandoned it. Not because I didn't like it, just because, well, I don't know why. I'm going to finish it!

Do you have any suggestion as to where I start? What are you looking forward to reading for fall?

Sunday Salon: August in Review

In August I made a real effort to step up my reading. I went from 6 books in July to 11 in August, which I think is pretty good. I also made sure I read some translated books, since I hadn't read one since  Miral  in May. All this reading means that I need to step up writing reviews!

So far this month I've started two books, Age of Innocence and Hemingway's Boat. Both of them are good so far, but completely different. I haven't read any Edith Wharton in awhile, and I'm wondering why. I'm only a couple of chapters in, but I'm really enjoying her observations about New York society. I'm thinking September is going to be a month focused on the classics, since I still have a ways to go on the Back to the Classics challenge.

Here's my August breakdown:
11 books total
5 fiction                45%
6 nonfiction          55%
7 female authors  64%
2 translated           18%

Quick Thoughts: Books You Need to Read

All three of these books earned 5 star ratings from this picky reader.

Alias Grace
Margaret Atwood

Let's start with the one I read back in January (eep!): Alias Grace. Margaret Atwood, one of my favorite living writers, fictionalizes the tale of Grace Marks, an Irish immigrant to Canada who is convicted of murdering her employer. I love Grace, the unreliable narrator, the "alienist" doctor intent on finding out the truth about her crime, and the Canadian frontier setting.

I wish I'd written my thoughts when the book was fresher in my mind, but it was not to be ;-) It was very good, that I clearly remember!

Anne Of Green Gables
Lucy Maud Montgomery


 I absolutely loved the Anne series when I was growing up. That Anne girl, with her endless, exhausting supply of energy, her determination to make the best of whatever life threw at her, her fiery red hair, worked her way into my heart. I'd been wanting to re-read Anne of Green Gables for some time, hoping it would provide a much-needed comfort read. Happily, it did not disappoint. Anne and the other characters were just as charming as they were fifteen years ago when I first met them. Montgomery's descriptions of Prince Edward Island have lodged themselves deep in my imagination, making me ever hopeful that I'll one day get to see the White Way of Delight for myself.


Brother, I'm Dying 
Edwidge Danticat

This is Danticat's story of her two fathers, who were also two brothers. As perhaps you would expect from a writer, there is a theme focusing on the importance of words running throughout this memoir. Her uncle depends on his words as an orator and preacher, then loses them completely when surgery removes his voicebox. He relies on compulsively jotted notes to detail the activities around him. Danticat listens to the stories of the elder women in the family and is taught about life, and about death. She struggles to find the words to communicate with her parents, who have left her and her brother in Haiti as they try to prepare a place in New York.

The end, of course, is heartbreaking. What else would you expect with a title like Brother, I'm Dying? There is hope though, and life, and beauty.

Okay, which one are you going to read first? 

Classics Giveaway Winners Announced!

Gold medal US Olympic Soccer Team. Hey, you're a winner, too!

Last week I posted a classics giveaway, and today I'm announcing the winners. Thanks for everyone who participated. Go classics readers! Winners, be on the lookout for an email so you can send me your mailing address.

Melisa won Bleak House
Jenna won Things Fall Apart
Beth won A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Jillian won The Painted Veil
Reading Pleasure won Anna Karenina
Bex won The Bell Jar
Allie won Rabbit, Run (it probably helped that she was the only won who wanted it!)

Quick Thoughts

Lamb

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
Christopher Moore

Supposedly a comedic re-imagining of the gospels, but I'd argue that there's really not that much actually re-imagined. I was going to write a long ranting review of this book, but I just cannot muster the energy. Just for starters, there is an incredibly infuriating rape scene. Plus, your typical rank misogyny and racism. I am so over comedy that seeks to uphold and reinforce existing systems of privilege rather than help dismantle them.

The Good Muslim
Tahmima Anam

The Good Muslim

Covers the rise of radical Islam in Bangladesh as experienced by one family.

There was nothing really terrible about this book, and I know a lot of people have really liked it, but it just wasn't for me. I couldn't connect with any of the characters, and there wasn't really much going on plot-wise, until the rushed-feeling climax. It kind of reminded me of Thrity Umrigar - lots of internal dialogue, focus on female characters, South Asian setting. Unfortunately, I'm not really much of a fan of hers, either - but if you are, maybe this book is for you. I didn't realize that it is actually the second in a series, so perhaps reading A Golden Age before this one would have at least helped me appreciate the characters a bit more.

(On a side not, when Zaid goes to the madrasa, it reminded me of clients who think their driving on a suspended license charge is no big deal, until they get sent to jail. It's like, wow, this is NOT GOOD.)

The Sense of an Ending*
Julian Barnes

The Sense of an Ending

I have the feeling that if I'd sat down and read this in one sitting I would have had a completely different reaction to it. I loved the first portion that I read. I was completely wrapped up in this remembering of the past. I put it down, went to bed, and when I picked it up next the magic was just gone. The more I read the less I liked it. The concept is good - what is memory? who am I? who are these people I once knew? - but not particularly original. So basically - meh.

*Sent to me by the publisher

Have you read any of these? Think I've got it all wrong about your favorite book? Feel free to tell me about it :-)

A Classics Giveaway

I'm currently participating in a couple classics reading challenges. One is just this year, and one is a longer term project.

Books!

I noticed that many of the participants have chosen the same books, and some of those books are ones that I've read, and are currently sitting on my shelves, taking up space for new things I could be reading. That means one thing - a giveaway!

Get your choice of the following books:

• The Painted Veil, W. Somerset Maugham
• Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith
• Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
• Bleak House, Charles Dickens
• Rabbit, Run, John Updike
• The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

Here's what you have to do:
Comment on this post, telling me which book you'd like AND telling me how to contact you should you win.

Here's what you can do: earn extra entries by following me on twitter and/or tweeting about the giveaway.

Simple.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Hanging of Angelique

The Hanging of Angelique

The Hanging of Angelique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montreal
Afua Cooper

"Slavery is Canada's best-kept secret, locked within the national closet. And because it is a secret it is written out of official history. But slavery was an institutionalized practice for over two hundred years. ...Canada may not have been a slave society - that is, a society whose economy was based on slaves - but it was a society with slaves."

Canadian slavery was certainly something I knew nothing about prior to reading this book. I was always taught that Canada was the promised land for slaves in the US, especially after the Fugitive Slave Act. Afua Cooper's groundbreaking book dispels that myth.

She focuses her narrative on one young enslaved woman, christened Marie-Joseph Angelique, who was accused of setting her mistress's house on fire and, as a result, burning down much of Old Montreal. Cooper is sure to put Angelique's story in context, explaining how slavery was an integral part of Canada's foundations.

Cooper does not shy away from placing blame on Angelique. In fact, the idea that this was a purposeful act, borne of the frustrations and chafing of the slave system, is central to her thesis.

"Did Angelique set the fire? Your guess is as good as mine. No one saw her light the spark that started the blaze. All the evidence was circumstantial. But I believe she did set it."

When Angelique set the blaze, she acted willfully, deliberately. She was not a woman to sit idly by and quietly bear the harsh hand she was dealt. Throughout her life she rebelled, through acts large and small. Her final act of rebellion ended up even bigger than she had probably anticipated.

Want more like this? Try:

• Sojourner Truth, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth. Another slave narrative from a woman with Dutch ties.
• Assata Shakur, Assata. A 1987 autobiography from another resistor that clearly shows the struggle continues.
• Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace. The fictional retelling of a famous Canadian murder case. In this case, the accused is servant girl Grace Marks.