Read in July 2013

1. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien (reread)

2. The Decisive Present, by Edmund X. White

3. The Hand That Cradles the Rock, by Rita Mae Brown

4. Somatic Engagement, ed. by Petra  Kuppers

5. Transformations, by Anne Sexton

*Titles link (mostly) to the pertinent Goodreads page — feel free to add me as a friend.

Read in February 2013

1. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson, trans. Reg Keeland

2. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera, trans. Michael Henry Heim

3. Love Poems, by Anne Sexton

Read in May 2012

As always, titles link to the pertinent Goodreads page — feel free to add me as a friend on there if you have an account.

1. X-Day, Vols. 1 & 2, by Setona Mizushiro
Manga about a motley group of outsiders that unites around a desire to blow their high school up. Yes, it's dark and it's about nihilistic people; it's also quite poignant. It didn't even matter that I didn't care that much about the plot; I cared enough about the premise and the narrator.

2. Imagine Being More Afraid of Freedom Than Slavery: Poems, by Pamela Sneed
I'm somewhat indifferent to her style, but her thought processes feel like my own, and that's comforting, and illuminating in some ways. Poems of memoir, of varying degrees of politicality.

3. Be the Person You Want to Find: Relationship and Self-Discovery, by Cheri Huber
This is a lot more Zen/mindfulness philosophy than it is normal self-improvement/self-help. It's good. She's compelling and explains well, and the formatting (i.e. the amount of empty page space) suits the content.

4. The Death Notebooks, by Anne Sexton
Image-driven, wandering, morbid. The sequence called "The Furies" is gorgeous.

5. Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology, by Rosemary Radford Ruether
This was such excellent food for my intellect. As it says, it is not a feminist theology; it is a contribution towards a feminist theology, in the form of assessments of and reflections on other Christian theologies and theological positions. She is bold, not always orthodox but eminently reasonable, very consistent, utterly penetrating... I kind of fell in love her writing and her thinking — she has a gift for synthesis and for articulating thorny things in spacious ways.

Read in April 2012

As always, titles link to the pertinent Goodreads page — feel free to add me as a friend on there if you have a Goodreads account.

1. A Prayerbook for Spiritual Friends, by Madeleine L'Engle and Luci Shaw
I liked this more as a portrayal of the friendship of these two women — both writers and poets, in the later part of their life — than as a devotional work. As the latter, it's nice, but pretty light.

2. The Passion, by Jeanette Winterson
Ambivalent. If you've read this, I'd be interested to hear what you thought.

3. Woman Hating, by Andrea Dworkin [free download]
Strong, compelling, clean analysis. The opening section on fairy tales was particularly brilliant. I felt a little skeptical about the claims and declarations she makes in the last twenty or thirty pages, though.

4. The Rosary for Episcopalians/Anglicans, by Thomas Schultz
Good basic primer, with some alternative rosaries to pray, e.g. one inspired by St. Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love.

5. The Book of Folly, by Anne Sexton
I don't remember. But I like her, and I finished it, so it couldn't have been worse than "pretty good."

6. The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green
Also ambivalent to this one, at least to the plot. The characters were realistic, quirky, and rather dear. I thought his portrayal of the subculture that arises among seriously ill children and teens was so interesting: the frequent experience of "cancer perks," doubts about the way cancer victims are made into saints, doubts about the meaning ascribed to their young lives because of their illnesses.

7.  Eight1011, by Sui Solitaire [Pay as you can here]
A polished, atmospheric collection of semi-/quasi-confessional poems. Somewhat dark, with an absorbing flow.

8. The Goose Girl, by Shannon Hale
Reread. Always gorgeous (a retold fairy tale). I was particularly struck this time by how cinematic the imagery was.

9. The Depression Book, by Cheri Huber
This Zen/mindfulness (a.k.a. tangerine-eating) perspective has significantly altered my own perspective on coping with depression, for the better, I think. Her approach to depression and other negative emotional experiences is unconventional but empowering, and pretty darn functional. If you deal with depression or anxiety, I highly recommend this.

"I Remember," by Anne Sexton

By the first of August
the invisible beetles began
to snore and the grass was
as tough as hemp and was
no color — no more than
the sand was a color and
we had worn our bare feet
bare since the twentieth
of June and there were times
we forgot to wind up your
alarm clock and some nights
we took our gin warm and neat
from old jelly glasses while
the sun blew out of sight
like a red picture hat and
one day I tied my hair back
with a ribbon and you said
that I looked almost like
a puritan lady and what
I remember best is that
the door to your room was
the door to mine.

Read in March 2012

1. Heist Society, by Ally Carter
This was fun. Thanks, Erin.

2. The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield
This gave me a very useful concept, that of Resistance, but I didn't care for his voice or the parts where he waxes metaphysical / quasi-spiritual in these oh-so Romantic directions.

3. Live or Die, by Anne Sexton
This was appropriately opened by the following Author's Note:

“To begin with, I have placed these poems (1962-1966) in the order in which they were written with all due apologies for the fact that they read like a fever chart for a bad case of melancholy. But I thought the order of their creation might be of interest to some readers, and as André Gide wrote in his journal, ‘Despite every resolution of optimist, melancholy occasionally wins out: man has decidedly botched up the planet.’”

4. The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai, ed. and trans. Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell
This is a book that I am happy to own. Genius at times. Sorrowful, philosophical, concerned with the mundane, rich with images. I put my Christian upbringing and education to good use catching the biblical allusions that pepper the long poems.

5. Pleiades, by Sui Solitaire
This was heavy with adolescent romantic angst. I liked the last twenty or so pages the best. These missives from Sui's past were interesting partly because I know her now, didn't know here then, but know from her blog some of the context for these writings. Her ear is excellent, and some of these have a distinct spoken-word feeling. Reading this was an oasis in my work day.

Read in January 2012

1. The Thing About Thin: Body Image, Eating Disorders, Resistance, + What Really Matters, by Sui Solitaire
[See this post.]

2. Girl Meets God: A Memoir, by Lauren F. Winner
Her style of writing is so plain that this book didn't captivate me at first, but by the end I loved it. It's about her conversion to orthodox Judaism after a Jewish upbringing, and then her conversion to Christianity during college. She's so smart. Funny at times, and very self-aware.

3. Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation, by Mary Daly
Deeply thought-provoking. She begins from the assumption that theology itself, and the Church itself, are corrupted by misogyny not only in form but also in principle. From there, she makes a full critique and describes her vision of a way forward, out of patriarchal religion.

4. The Lover, by Marguerite Duras
The story is absolutely messed up, and it was hard for me to stop thinking about that. The prose is kind of stream-of-consciousness. It's sad. It's not beautiful, though the atmosphere it builds is rather beautiful.

5. Jacob Have I Loved, by Katherine Paterson
A reread.

6. All My Pretty Ones, by Anne Sexton
Wonderful. Anne Sexton is becoming another favorite poet. I posted the opening poem from this collection several years ago: "The Truth the Dead Know."

Read in June 2011

1. Dark Fields of the Republic: Poems, 1991-1995, by Adrienne Rich

2. A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far: Poems, 1978-1981, by Adrienne Rich
Her younger work is much more accessible. This volume was a beautiful complement to the second-wave feminist essays and pamphlets I was reading around the same time. Intelligent, fluid, with plenty of righteous anger and grief. (I want to own it.)

3. To Bedlam and Part Way Back, by Anne Sexton

4. My Soviet Union: Poems, by Michael Dumanis

5. Tiger in the Well, by Philip Pullman
Reread. Engrossing YA Victorian mystery with a socialist flavoring. I love the protagonist, Sally Lockhart. It's the final in a trilogy; I wouldn't love her or enjoy it as much without having spent two books with her already. (The first is also very good; I didn't like the second that much.) My only gripe is that at times there is an intrusively modern, i.e. preachy, flavor to the liberalism.

6. Send Me Down a Miracle, by Han Nolan
Also reread. If I taught high school or middle school English, I would assign this. Really artful characterizations; resists being boiled down.

7. National Geographic: The Photographs, by The National Geographic Society

"The Truth the Dead Know"

I love the scene in the middle stanzas of this poem - especially the images she uses to create it - and the way she doesn't seem to feel the connection between June and bravery needs an explanation. Also the feeling in the last sentence, which I can't quite put a name on yet - not just grief.

The Truth the Dead Know
For my mother, born March 1902, died March 1959,
and my father, born February 1900, died June 1959

Gone, I say and walk from church,
refusing the stiff procession to the grave,
letting the dead ride alone in the hearse.
It is June. I am tired of being brave.

We drive to the Cape. I cultivate
myself where the sun gutters from the sky,
where the sea swings in like an iron gate
and we touch. In another country people die.

My darling, the wind falls in like stones
from the whitehearted water and when we touch
we enter touch entirely. No one's alone.
Men kill for this, or for as much.

And what of the dead? They lie without shoes
in their stone boats. They are more like stone
than the sea would be if it stopped. They refuse
to be blessed, throat, eye and knucklebone.

-Anne Sexton

Lisa Chellman's hosting today's Poetry Friday round-up over at her place.