Shaina Reads: February 2016

, by Shaina

Let's Talk About It: The Blogging Echo Chamber (Or Not?!)

In her memoir The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination, Sarah Schulman dedicates a chapter to the homogenization of art and creation. She specifically discusses how MFA programs can encourage uniformity when they guide their students toward a predetermined set of "influential voices":

One is the homogenization of influences. Students in an MFA program often are exposed to the same ideas and artworks as their classmates. They don't stumble through the world accruing eclectic influences, based on their own aesthetic interests, impulses, and chance. They lose the opportunity to fight to be influenced, to check out weird things and trail after unusual people. This creates homogeneity.

Schulman took on big topics in a slim number of pages—most prominently how the AIDS crisis led to literal and artistic gentrification—and you should definitely read it to learn more about them. It also got me thinking about something smaller and closer to home.

I've only been blogging for a little over a year, and in that time, I've come across a wide variety of bloggers. Genre junkies, free-range readers, folks who only post reviews and others who never post them, people only reading the latest and greatest and others who have zero interest in chasing down ARCs. No matter what you want to read, someone is out there writing about it; if they aren't, it's a cinch to grab a URL and get going on writing it yourself. The reading and writing freedom is astounding and invigorating. Even so, I do think that many bloggers (particularly newer ones) go through a period of thinking they should only be covering the newest, buzziest books on the block.

On the one hand, perhaps this is good—if we're all going to read the same book, what could be better than having a wide variety of opinions on it, rather than a a small handful of authoritative voices coming from above, à la The New York Review of Books? Plus, we have the power to cover far more books than do the big outlets, meaning that overlooked gems are more likely to get their fair share of attention.

On the other, I do wonder if there is a tendency toward creating an echo chamber that discourages bloggers from reading outside of the publishing cycle out of fear that readers won't be interested in hearing about backlist or books off the beaten path. Even if our opinions on it vary, we're still only thinking about and covering a finite amount of source material.

This brings up the elephant in the room, the one Schulman is really getting at above: being "successful" at what we do (in this case, blogging). When we don't believe that the books we want to read or the content we want to create is "interesting enough," we may look toward other "successful" bloggers to guide us in what we should read and how we should write. This isn't necessarily bad—there are lots of excellent, "successful" book blogs out there—but depending too much on them for guidance can perpetuate sameness in what we read and how we write about it.

I'm throwing a lot of different ideas at the wall here, and I'd love to have you all weigh in!

Do you think there's such a thing as a "blogging echo chamber"? Do you think that the sheer number of blogs out there prevents this from being true? Talk to me!

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, by Shaina

bookish thoughts

Amped About ARCs: Three Upcoming Books I Can't Wait to Read

All book covers from Goodreads.

Remember how I was going to #ReadMyOwnDamnBooks this year? Yeah, well... I'm still technically doing that, but three upcoming reads got me excited enough to contact some publishers and add some new paper to my shelves. Oops. With any luck, they'll be more than worth it.

Here's what I've got on tap for the next few months:

At the Existentialist Café, by Sarah Bakewell (March 1)

After having it on my shelf for about four years, I finally read and adored Bakewell's How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer last month. I never ended up reviewing it, but it was an absolutely delightful biography of the granddaddy of the modern essay. I recently caught wind of her latest, At the Existentialist Café, and knew I needed more of her warm, accessible nonfiction in my life. Out next week from Other Press, the book promises a close look at the post-World War II existentialist movement and some of its key players. As someone who was super into existentialism as an angsty teen (who wasn't?), I'm excited to learn more about the philosophy's foundational thinkers. Also, I totally used the Canadian cover for my graphic, because the U.S. one is far less attractive. Not sorry.

Some Possible Solutions, by Helen Phillips (May 31)

I was absolutely sucked into Phillips's moody, creepy novel The Beautiful Bureaucrat last year. Bosses without faces, cubicle walls with questionable stains, and an enormous, dark secret lurking between the lines of a spreadsheet... are you interested yet? Her new short story collection Some Possible Solutions, out in May from Henry Holt, promises to bring even more weirdness. The stories all revolve around bizarre "what if"-type situations straight from the files of your most surreal dreams. I mean, what would you do if you woke up to find your hometown populated entirely by your own doppelgängers? If my experience with Bureaucrat is any indication, I'll inhale this collection in less than a day. I can't wait.

Disappearance at Devil's Rock, by Paul Tremblay (June 21)

Tremblay can join Bakewell on the list of authors I read and loved last month. A Head Full of Ghosts was equal parts horror story, portrait of mental illness, and examination of the deleterious effects of the media on personal life. It was also just plain engaging; the guy clearly understands his genre, and I was more than happy to go along for the ride. Tremblay's latest work looks to bring more scares along with the mystery of a fourteen-year-old boy's late-night disappearance at a state park. Combining the supernatural with the painful truths of Tommy's childhood, Disappearance at Devil's Rock promises to shock us in the end. HarperCollins/William Morrow might not be releasing this until June, but I'm already getting my popcorn ready over here.

Some honorable mentions go out to two books I got from the illustrious Julianne this week. She sent me The Good Death: An Exploration of Dying in America by Ann Neumann (out last week from Beacon Press) and Toward a More Perfect University by Jonathan R. Cole (out last month from PublicAffairs). Important and fascinating nonfiction, ahoy!

Also, @_ulianne is my #nonfiction #bookmail fairy. #towardamoreperfectuniversity #thegooddeath #beaconpress #perseusbooks #jonathanrcole #annneumann

A photo posted by Shaina (@shainareadsbooks) on Feb 23, 2016 at 3:39pm PST

Anything in particular that YOU'RE excited to read soon? Tell me so I can go request even more ARCs.

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, by Shaina

bbaw

Book Blogger Appreciation Week (Or #BBAW), Day Three: Bloggers Made Me Do It

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, by Shaina

bbaw

Book Blogger Appreciation Week (Or #BBAW): Day One (... or Two) Introductions!

"Hey Shaina, weren't BBAW introductions supposed to be posted yesterday?"

1) Yes. 2) Too bad.

I completely forgot that yesterday was the start of Book Blogger Appreciation Week until late in the day. I have it on good authority that I can post my introduction a day late, so hell if I'm going to miss my chance to jump in on this love fest.

Yesterday's topic: Introduce yourself by telling us about five books that represent you as a person or your interests/lifestyle.

Those of you who already know me know how much I care about leaving this world a better place than I found it. You can trace the roots of my interest in public health, social justice and how the two intersect directly back to my reading.

I first read Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot in college; Mountains Beyond Mountains opened my eyes to the field of medical anthropology, and Henrietta Lacks smacked me in the face with the concept that our social environments and the social categories we belong to have serious consequences, good or bad, on our overall health. The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin came into my life later on but firmly cemented the commitment to racial justice that Henrietta Lacks first kindled within me. I'd like to thank these three books for encouraging me to go to public health school in the fall!

I may have only read a few of them so far (give me a break, this thing is more than a thousand pages), but Michel de Montaigne's Essays represent my curiosity and belief in transformation as a reader and as a human being. His essays span a wide variety of topics (a selection: sorrow, liars, names, the custom of wearing clothes, cannibalism, drunkenness, thumbs); I too love to learn a little bit and ruminate too much about everything, so he and I could definitely be buddies. Montaigne was also a skeptic, and he firmly believed that truths are changeable over time and entirely dependent on the person who holds them. I hope I never stop learning and challenging myself to think harder about the world, especially the dark and/or painful parts, and I know I can trust Montaigne and his doorstop of essays to remind me. Oh, and my Montaigne tattoo. Yes, even though I haven't finished his book. Shhhhh.

Finally, I don't know what this list would be without Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling. I've always been a voracious reader, and Goblet is one of the first books that I vividly remember destroying as a child. A bath just wasn't a bath without re-reading about all the food at the Triwizard Tournament opening feast and the water going tepid. I don't (usually) treat my books like this anymore, but that coverless, waterlogged and well-loved paperback will always hold a place in my heart.

So, there you have me as a reader: justice-oriented, ever-curious and occasionally destructive. Want to be friends?

Are you participating in BBAW? I'd love to meet you!

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, by Shaina

monday

It's Monday, February 15! What Are You Reading?

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, by Shaina

reviews

Pairing the Pages: Mr. Splitfoot and A Head Full of Ghosts Are Bona Fide Sock-Rockers

The awesome reading streak continues! Julianne and Emily were my bookish fairy godmothers this week and pointed me toward two very different but equally excellent novels. One brought the creepy, the other brought the magic, and both were an absolute joy to read.

A Head Full of Ghosts, by Paul Tremblay

"I tell Rachel that there is no starting point or ground zero for what happened to Marjorie and my family. If there was, the eight-year-old me cannot find it with the supposedly clear lens of hindsight. ... In a way, my personal history not being my own, being literally and figuratively haunted by outside forces, is almost as horrible as what actually happened. Almost." - pg. 13

Sarah and John Barrett and their two daughters, Marjorie and Merry, have fallen on hard times. John lost his job a year ago, and Marjorie has just started showing frightening signs of acute schizophrenia. Desperate for answers (and for money), John and Sarah agree to have their family filmed for The Possession, a reality show about—you guessed it—demonic possession and to have Marjorie's "demon" exorcised on camera. We hear about all of it from eight-year-old Merry, a precocious, athletic child who can't quite tell if her sister is faking everything or actually coming apart.

I could tell from early on that Paul Tremblay knows his horror. I would expect nothing less from a Bram Stoker Award winner and the former president of the board of directors of the Shirley Jackson awards (thanks, dust jacket!). There are a lot of tropes here, but it's entirely self-aware and surprisingly fresh; part of the story is even told in the form of blog posts about The Possession series, pointing out that the show creators used every tired trick in the possession/exorcism book. I loved watching the relationship between the two sisters unfold as their home dissolved around them. I adored the nods to Shirley Jackson's work, especially in our maybe-not-so-reliable narrator Merry. I loved that there were moments that literally made my stomach turn and my mouth gape.

I didn't even know that I was craving horror when I picked it up, but it couldn't have scratched that itch any better.

Mr. Splitfoot, by Samantha Hunt

Ah, what's there to say that hasn't already been said (and spoiled) in my video review with Julianne?

Nat and Ruth are seventeen, just a year shy of being unceremoniously kicked out of their foster home called Love of Christ! (yes, with the exclamation point). The good news? Nat can speak to the dead, and the business of getting people in touch with their late loved ones is booming.

Fast-forward about thirteen years, and Ruth's niece Cora is stuck at a dead-end job and in a dead-end relationship, and she just found out she's pregnant. Her long-lost and newly mute aunt Ruth shows up and quite literally helps her to walk out on all of it, taking only her baby along for the ride.

Much like Bats of the Republic, this book completely defies a quick summary. Much unlike Bats, the numerous elements—multiple séances, a mysterious cult, and a box full of money being just a few—work in tandem to create something bigger and more meaningful.

"Before I was pregnant, I thought carrying a baby meant knowing a baby. That's not true. I don't know anything about this child. Pregnancy is a locked door in my stomach, all the weight of life and death and still no way to know it. The baby gives me a small kick, taking what's delicate—lung tissue, tiny see-through fingers, hair fine enough to spin webs—and hardens it into a tough thing, a thing that likes it rough. It'll grow and I will be the only one who remembers when it was unmarked and delicate as a moth." - pg. 219

It took some time to settle into the story, but eventually I was getting lost in Samantha Hunt's sentences. She never quite gives you the full picture, and yet she says so much: about the family you're given and building your own, about motherhood, about the universe, about taking a long walk and maybe, just maybe, finding yourself as the end of it.

This book is confusing and surreal and absolutely glorious. Read it.

If you're looking to bust a reading slump or, like me, want to keep good book trend going strong, you can't go wrong with either of these. Have you read them?

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, by Shaina

monday

It's Monday, February 8! What Are You Reading?

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, by Shaina

bookish thoughts

Bookish Art: The Price of the Ticket (A Documentary of James Baldwin)

Three weeks ago, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I had the good fortune of attending a free screening of the stunning James Baldwin documentary The Price of the Ticket. In just under 90 minutes, the film tells the story of the iconic writer's life, from his earliest days in Harlem to his death by stomach cancer in 1987, and all of the stories, essays and novels that he produced in between. The film was followed by a discussion with writer, producer and director Karen Thorsen.

"There Are Days When You Wonder" from DKDMedia on Vimeo.
Having scarcely scratched the surface of Baldwin's oeuvre with Nobody Knows My Name and The Fire Next Time, I went into the film with a limited knowledge of the man. (Fun fact: Either it doesn't come up in those collections or I was asleep while reading them, but I had no idea that Baldwin was gay. Thanks for informing me, The Price of the Ticket!) I walked out in awe, not the least because of how much we got to see of Baldwin himself. There is a lot of archival footage and photography of James Baldwin out there, and not just from his television interviews. I guess that's what happens when you make friends with a bunch of visual artists. (Another fun fact: Baldwin agreed to be filmed for a student's thesis, which resulted in a super staged shot of him getting out of bed in his tighty whities.)

When she set out to make her film, Thorsen did not know that some of the first footage she would end up shooting would be at Baldwin's funeral. Paraphrasing the website and Thorsen's own commentary at the screening, she had originally intended to make a film with Baldwin about the process of writing his next book. They made this plan in 1986. The following year, Baldwin was dead, but not before personally mailing Thorsen a letter apologizing that he would no longer be able to be involved with the film. Instead, Thorsen crafted a portrait of Baldwin as told in his own words and the words of those he worked with and those he loved (and who loved him). More often than not, those two latter categories overlapped.

To promote its recent digital restoration, Thorsen and The Price of the Ticket are currently touring the country. Even if you've never read any of Baldwin's work, I highly encourage you to see it if it ends up near you. Not only is the film itself a masterly slice of personal, cultural, and literary history, but the discussion afterward—the anecdotes and thoughts of the film creators and audience members—will stay with you. Hence why I'm writing about this nearly a month later!

Have any of your seen The Price of the Ticket or read any James Baldwin? Any other excellent literary documentaries you'd recommend to me?

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, by Shaina

reviews

This is a Review: Bats of the Republic, by Zachary Thomas Dodson

It's difficult to come up with a summary for Bats of the Republic; the 2016 Tournament of Books shortlist pick is so darned ambitious. In a blend of science fiction, historical fiction and more than a dash of the Wild West, Dodson weaves a pair of dramatic love stories. Though they take place 300 years apart, they are connected by Texas landscape, powerful bloodlines and the contents of a mysterious letter. As those of you who follow book buzz likely already know, the format of Dodson's solo debut is anything but traditional.

First, the good. That whole "illuminated" thing on the cover? 100% accurate. This is one of the most physically beautiful books I've ever had the pleasure of reading. There are sketches, photographs, family trees, diagrams and books within books. Pages fold out and become maps, and, right in the back, there's a mysterious envelope with "DO NOT OPEN" scrawled across the front. And there's an actual letter in it! (Library readers, don't fret; if your copy of the letter is missing, Dodson includes a URL you can use to access it.) I loved turning each page and not knowing what I would be in for. While Dodson isn't the first to have gone the dossier-as-novel route, his take on it is definitely most aesthetically-pleasing I've come across.

A photo posted by Shaina (@shainareadsbooks) on Jan 17, 2016 at 5:22pm PST

Unfortunately, I don't think the story lived up to the concept. I am willing to admit that some of the historical or mythological references probably went right over my head. Even so, it felt too cluttered. Without getting into spoiler-y territory, Dodson packs in cowboys and Indians, dystopia, occult alchemy, serial killers, political succession and intrigue, and zoology. Got all that? Yeah, me neither. If we had gotten, say, three of those things, I think this would have been a much more cohesive story. As it stands, I got way too lost trying to link all of the details together. I'm not opposed to a complex story (for one I loved, see The Shore by Sara Taylor), but it has to come together. Unfortunately, Bats never fully did for me.

I also think that the number of things going on got in the way of me connecting with any of the characters. Some of this is intentional, I think (you know, rigidly-surveilled and regulated futuristic society and all that), but I would have liked some more humanity along with my bells and whistles.

If you're looking for an absolute treat for the eyes and don't mind the story playing second fiddle, Bats of the Republic is a worthy choice. If the story gels more for you than it did for me, even better—please come back and tell me all about it!

Have you read Bats of the Republic? Did you get more out of it than I did? Talk to me!