Part of my suspicion of rereading may come from a false sense of reading as conquest. As we polish off some classic text, we may pause a moment to think of ourselves, spear aloft, standing with one foot up on the flank of the slain beast. Another monster bagged. It would be somehow less heroic, as it were, to bend over and check the thing’s pulse. But that, of course, is the stuff of reading—the going back, the poring over, the act of committing something from the experience, whether it be mood or fact, to memory. It is in the postmortem where we learn how a book really works. Maybe, then, for a forgetful reader like me, the great task, and the greatest enjoyment, would be to read a single novel over and over again. At some point, then, I would truly and honestly know it.

The Curse of Reading and Forgetting (via azspot)

The problem with reading so many books is that there have been more than a few times that I’ve checked out something from the library and then two or three chapters in, realize I’ve read it before.

A couple months ago I got halfway through Marian Keyes’ Anybody Out There before it hit me I’d read it before.  And the first time I read it was recent enough for me to have already scored it on Goodreads! Oops.

(via azspot)

Is “Historical Accuracy” a Good Defense of Patriarchal Societies in Fantasy Fiction?

kateelliottsff:

Are you aware that human history is full of examples of sexist, patriarchal societies where women were discriminated against? I’m sure you are, as a reader of The Mary Sue. I’m pretty sure you are as a person alive in the 21st Century, too. Yet so many of the historically inspired fantasy worlds we love are remarkably intent on reminding us of this. When I raise this issue with someone, I often get some variation of this in reply. Sexism in (to pick the most obvious example) medieval fantasy is okay or even desirable, the thinking goes, because in the real European Middle Ages sexism was the status quo. There’s no denying that, but fantasy is called fantasy because it’s a fantasy. There were no dragons in the real Middle Ages either, but we don’t have a problem including them.

A good point about dragons.

I would like to add a link to this great post by Australian writer Tansy Raynor Roberts: Historically Authentic Sexism in Fantasy: Let’s Unpack That over at Tor.com. A lot of times when people say “historically authentic sexism” they are defining it in a very limited and modern way that actively erases the actual lives people have in the past in favor of a narrow stereotype about lives in the past.

History is not a long series of centuries in which men did all the interesting/important things and women stayed home and twiddled their thumbs in between pushing out babies, making soup and dying in childbirth.

History is actually a long series of centuries of men writing down what they thought was important and interesting, and FORGETTING TO WRITE ABOUT WOMEN. It’s also a long series of centuries of women’s work and women’s writing being actively denigrated by men. Writings were destroyed, contributions were downplayed, and women were actively oppressed against, absolutely.

But the forgetting part is vitally important. Most historians and other writers of what we now consider “primary sources” simply didn’t think about women and their contribution to society. They took it for granted, except when that contribution or its lack directly affected men.

This does not in any way mean that the female contribution to society was in fact less interesting or important, or complicated, simply that history—the process of writing down and preserving of the facts, not the facts/events themselves—was looking the other way.

In history, from primary sources through most of the 20th century (I will absolve our current century-in-progress out of kindness but let’s not kid ourselves here), the assumption has always been that men’s actions are more politically and historically significant to society, BECAUSE THEY ARE PERFORMED BY MEN.

Source: eshusplayground

As my head uncluttered, my attention span expanded. In my first month or two, 10 pages of The Odyssey was a slog. Now I can read 100 pages in a sitting, or, if the prose is easy and I’m really enthralled, a few hundred.

I’m still here: back online after a year without the internet | The Verge

Some of us do this even with access to the internet!! Good grief.

It’s no Odyssey, but I finished the 300+ pages of The Chaperone in one day over the past weekend.  A hardback from the library no less!

I should note that I thought this guy’s whole leaving-the-internet-for-a-year thing was ridiculous from the get-go.  If you want a break from the internet, cut back!

/end rant

Source: theverge.com

During the worst dark nights of the soul, my smaller failings rise up one by one in a chorus of metallic voices: that unwritten, obligatory important letter; my tipsy, laughing, unintentional, klutzy faux pas booming into a sudden silence; the failure to speak when speaking would have helped someone…

These things are much worse to recall than any of my gigantic, life-changing mistakes. Those are boulders too big to see all at once, hulking, unmoving, and strangely safe, whereas the little things generate a cascade that turns into an avalanche. They’re all connected to one another somehow, neurochemically, so that remembering just one of them sets off a chain reaction sparking all the way back through the decades with increasing urgency until I’ve looped through my entire life, all the way back to the first one, which now seems worse than ever in light of all the others.”

Kate Christensen’s Blue Plate Special is out in July, and this is from the very first page, so you know you’ll want to devour it as soon as possible. (via maudnewton)

Well, any book by Kate Christensen is a guaranteed must-read for me.

Whatever you think of Shriver, perhaps the best thing about her is that she really doesn’t care. “I have not had British or American male authors make any effort to include me in their social circle,” she explained. “I should add that this is hardly keeping me up nights.
Lionel Shriver: time to talk about her big brother | Observer profile | From the Observer | The Observer

Source: Guardian

She seemed to have no inkling that life wasn’t as orderly as her pencil case and that everything is chance and at any moment any number of remarkable things can happen that are totally beyond our control, events that rip up our maps and re-polarize our compasses — the madwoman walking towards us, the train falling off the bridge, the boy on the bicycle.
Kate Atkinson, Emotionally Weird.  About 50 pages of this book read and I’m not absolutely into it, but it has certainly made me giggle a few times.
The lack of respectful coverage, the slut-shaming and name-calling, all the girly book covers and not-my-titles despite high literary aspirations, has worn me down, made me question everything: my abilities, my future, my life. This is what sexism does best: it makes you feel crazy for desiring parity and hopeless about ever achieving it.
My So-Called ‘Post-Feminist’ Life in Arts and Letters | The Nation

Source: thenation.com

Connie Britton joins Tina Fey in all-star 'This Is Where I Leave You' | Inside Movies | EW.com

Yeah, yeah, this is wonderful, but here’s my favorite part of the casting news:

Rounding out the cast is Ben Schwartz (the noxious Jean-Ralphio on Parks and Recreation, and scheming Clyde on House of Lies) as the family’s young rabbi, who is determined to bring a cool, modern edge to their faith’s longstanding traditions of mourning.

Also I don’t know what it says about either me or the book, but I read this one a few years ago and only vaguely remember major plot elements.  Like the main guy is separated, comes home to sit shiva for his dad, and falls for a gal he went to high school with who’s still in his hometown.  I think.  I recall it was funny in parts.