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.

Read in September 2011

1. Intercourse, by Andrea Dworkin
The political implications of intercourse from a radical feminist perspective. The first half of the book examines different (male) authors' views of sex; the second is all her. Quite a fiery analysis, quite absorbing. It made me despair at times of the male sex, but it's not really fair to count that against it.

2. The Weather of the Heart, by Madeleine L'Engle
I've posted two poems from this book before, here and here. Her spiritual musings are highly intellectual/her intellectual musings are highly spiritual; and she has a naturally lyrical voice.

3. Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier
Like a literary lovechild of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Emily Brontë. Such lovely prose...not flowery, but beautiful, to fit the elegance of life at a seaside manor in 1920s England. Very period-atmospheric, and sort of nouveau-Gothic.

4. The Dream of a Common Language: Poems, 1974-1977, by Adrienne Rich
I like pretty much all her writings, but I love her seventies/eighties work. Lesbian feminist thought/poetry at its glorious and incisive best.

5. The Stepford Wives, by Ira Levin
Funky retro satire-thriller slash conspiracy novel...contemporary to the second-wave feminist movement and mostly just amusing, but the penultimate scene was a bit too real to be funny. I read it in about an hour and a half (unfortunately, because I had chosen it for a five-hour flight...).

6. Goodbye Ed, Hello Me: Recover from Your Eating Disorder and Fall in Love with Life, by Jenni Schaefer
Quite conversational (a bajillion short chapters) without being light on content. Made me realize that there are still aspects of the ED/diet mentality in my brain/life that I hadn't recognized as such and was still tolerating. That's not discouraging, though — what's discouraging is thinking that a sometimes-mediocre recovery is as good as it gets.

7. Trickster's Queen, by Tamora Pierce
A favorite fantasy author from my childhood, i.e. always good.

8. love belongs to those who do the feeling, by Judy Grahn
More lesbian-feminist poems from another second-waver, yes. (I've been utterly absorbed by the questions and ideas of the seventies this summer.) Very spell-like, influenced by myth and ideas of ritual. Her work was recommended to me by the two Canadian sisters.

Read in April & May 2011

1. The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Sweet, kind of old-fashionedly odd. Made me even happier for spring and reminded me again how very much I want to see Yorkshire.

2. The Culture of Interpretation: Christian Faith and the Postmodern World, by Roger Lundin
Wicked interesting; really picks up in the second half. Read for my culture theory class (anthropology).

3. Jenny and the Cat Club: A Collection of Favorite Stories About Jenny Linsky, by Esther Averill
I love the Jenny Linsky picture books. They're from the fifties; the illustrations and characters are so darling and she manages to feature talking cats without anthropomorhpizing them. Bless her.

4. The Hotel Cat, by Esther Averill
And apparently she wrote at least one early chapter book about the Jenny world, too

5. A Wind in the Door, by Madeleine L'Engle

Where does she get these ideas? A children's sci-fi/fantasy about love that takes place in a mitochondria? It kind of works. "Kind of" as in, I couldn't stop being aware of how deeply funky the whole book was and her characters irritate me with their flatness and their all-sound-same dialogue, but "works" as in she has interesting ideas and knows how to tell a fast and absorbing story.

6. A Swiftly Tilting Planet, by Madeleine L'Engle

I liked this one a little better—unicorn and Charles Wallace, time traveling, Welshness. Yay.

7. Expect Resistance: A Field Manual, by CrimethInc
Anarcho-primitivist? Doctrine told in an alternating mixture of fiction and non-fiction. I recommend reading it ready to critique it and open to having your assumptions challenged by it. Definitely engrossing. Free pdf  [here].

Repost: To a Long Loved Love, by Madeleine L'Engle

Words this true make me respond in physical ways — I close my eyes and press a hand to my chest or my face — I don't know why. Everyone wants to be loved in this way — all lovers must also be seers. See-ers.

To a Long Loved Love: 7

Because you're not what I would have you be
I blind myself to who, in truth, you are.
Seeking mirage where desert blooms, I mar
Your you. Aaah, I would like to see
Past all delusion to reality:
Then would I see God's image in your face,
His hand in yours, and in your eyes his grace.
Because I'm not what I would have me be,
I idolize Two who are not any place,
Not you, not me, and so we never touch.
Reality would burn. I do not like it much.
And yet in you, in me, I find a trace
Of love which struggles to break through
The hidden lovely truth of me, of you.

- Madeleine L'Engle

Here's the second poem I promised

To a Long Loved Love: 7
Because you're not what I would have you be
I blind myself to who, in truth, you are.
Seeking mirage where desert blooms, I mar
Your you. Aaah, I would like to see
Past all delusion to reality:
Then would I see God's image in your face,
His hand in yours, and in your eyes his grace.
Because I'm not what I would have me be,
I idolize Two who are not any place,
Not you, not me, and so we never touch.
Reality would burn. I do not like it much.
And yet in you, in me, I find a trace
Of love which struggles to break through
The hidden lovely truth of me, of you.

- Madeleine L'Engle

Madeleine L'Engle writes amazing poetry

And I had no idea until my roommate introduced me to it! Such a crying shame, but now I have come into the light and it's all good.

I've added A Walk Through Durham Township, Pennsylvania, a fabulous photoblog I learned of from Heather, to my list of links. I recommend the Best Pictures archive. Also, I finished A Field Guide to High School (click for my GoodReads review) and Quest for a Maid (review coming, hopefully).

"To be loved for what one is, is the greatest exception. The great majority love in others only what they lend him, their own selves, their version of him."
-Goethe

I ran across that quote a few days ago and it reminded me of two beautiful poems of Madeleine L'Engle's. Here is the first, which I was delighted to realize is a sonnet, though not a perfect Shakespearean one. I'll post the second later this week. They really make me think...about how hard it is to love people -- really and well. Just like how they say peace is a hundred times harder than war.

To a Long Loved Love: 6
Neither sadist nor masochist, I still
Must turn to violence: break, be broken.
False image of myself I beg you: kill.
Help me destroy the one of you I've spoken
Within my willful heart. It is no more you
Than I am all that I would wish to be.
I cannot really love you till I hew
All these projections of an unreal me,
An imaged you, to shards. Then death
Will have a chance to free me for creation.
God! All this dying has me out of breath.
How do I understand reincarnation?
But if I burst all bonds of self-protection
Then may I find us both in resurrection.

- Madeleine L'Engle

The early bird catches the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

(That ^ was on my friend's Facebook profile. Funny in a slightly dreadful way.)

I lied. I guess by the time I could make myself post something announcing my absence, I'd been absent long enough, haha.

In Friday's edition of my college's newspaper, the stories at the top of the front page were the announcement of plans to triple the college's bandwith, and the death of the third alumnus to commit suicide this year. I don't know why, but seeing those stories juxtaposed kind of made me want to bash my head against a piece of furniture or growl profanity into my pillow. Or something.

There was a visiting high school student here a week or so ago from ENGLAND. She was teeny, and hilarious, and had, of course, a fabulous accent. And now I'm her friend on Facebook, huzzah!

Up next: some Madeleine L'Engle poetry, I think.