Tag Archives: Nonfiction

Book 33: Girl, Interrupted – Susanna Kaysen

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Kaysen, Susanna - Girl, InterruptedAm I the only person in the world who didn’t realize that this was a true account?

For some reason when I saw the movie back in high school I assumed the book was a fictionalized account and I would never have discovered this if it weren’t for my books into movies book group. I will say that the movie stayed pretty close to the book until the last 30 minutes or so when the director changed things to make Kaysen a first hand witness to a few things, ultimately increasing the dramatic tension, but other than that the novel and movie were great.

As part of Kaysen’s story she shares many of her own medical records (with redactions of course) that explain why and her admissions as well as updates on her progress while institutionalized. But what I found most interesting were here insights into the families of people who institutionalize they’re loved ones, such as this line: Click here to continue reading.

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Book 29: Loot: The Battle over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World – Sharon Waxman

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Waxman, Sharon - LootSorry for the long post in advance, it’s been a long time since I’ve read a book about museums and antiquities and I forgot how much I love them and how much they make me think!

This book has been on my to-be-read shelf since July of 2011 and I can’t believe I waited this long to read it! I will never forget my first Anthropology class in undergrad and the professor going off on a tangent about the looting of the museums after the fall of Saddam Hussein. It pretty much guaranteed I would be an Anthropology major. (I later switched to cultural anthropology and focused on gender in the media, but still the people were awesome!) The intrigue, the drama, the affairs and the crimes, it could be a spy novel if it were fiction and not fact! This book will count as a bonus book for my 2013 Mount TBR Reading Challenge.

What’s important to note is that this book is not academic, Waxman wrote the book for a general audience and in this she succeeds. There are very few things that would go above someone’s head who doesn’t have a degree or a heavy interest in Ancient History, Anthropology, Archaeology or Art History. She, or her editors, appear to have been very aware of this and kept to the journalistic research intent of the book.

However, this also work against her and ultimately I felt the entire purpose of writing the book got lost. Someone on Goodreads tagged the book as ‘ending goes south’ and that’s an apt description. Waxman keeps building the crescendo and it gets to a point where you just want her to tell you what happens. And then she reminds you that all of this is still happening and things are still changing rapidly totally dampens the bang that could’ve ended the book.

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Book 28: Down and Out in Paris and London – George Orwell

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Orwell, George - Down and Out in Paris and LondonI chose this novel because it has an awesome name. I had a vague idea of what the book was about, but didn’t have any particular views going into the book and didn’t realize it was nonfiction (or mostly so apparently) until after I finished reading and verified it because I wasn’t quite sure.. I knew it was an ‘adventure’ of sorts and thus I stuck it into my Back to the Classics challenge as a Classic Adventure and it conveniently qualifies also for my Mount TBR and my longer term The Classics Club Challenge.

It only took about two days to read the book and what I primarily noticed was that people are really interested in Orwell. I had multiple people ask me what I was reading on the T. I assume this is because Orwell’s name is in pretty large letters across the cover and that portion stuck out of my back pocket. It was a bit strange, but it was nice to talk to strangers. I feel like most people have only read Animal Farm or 1984 like me, but those who have read most (or all) of Orwell say that this one is his best work and it’s interesting as it’s his first ‘full length’ work.

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Book 8: Faitheist – Chris Stedman

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Stedman, Chris - FaitheistSince I decided to read so few challenge books this year, I’m able to pick up books on a whim and this is one of them! I encountered Faitheist through Heather’s great review at Between the Covers and knew I had to read it. So go read her succinct review first and then return to read my ramblings.

I’ll be the first to admit that I wanted to read Faitheist because the author is wicked cute, but the synopsis drew me in because I’m fascinated by how people negotiate identities especially when it comes to sexuality in relation to religion and geography.

So to start, I have never been very religious. I was both baptized and confirmed in the Episcopal church, but it was more a family history and social thing than anything else. I’ve never had bad encounters with religion, but I know it’s not for me mostly because of the inherent white heterosexist patriarchy built into most institutions of religion (both the people and the hierarchical structures). I’m still not 100% sure where I lie on the non-religious/agnostic/atheist scale, but regardless I think I can definitely agree with Humanism (which I clearly need to read more about, feel free to make suggested readings in the comments). Now with that bit of clarification out-of-the-way, on to my response.

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Book 60: Israel/Palestine and the Queer International – Sarah Schulman

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My third book for The Literary Others reading event, and the final ARC of this month was Israel/Palestine and the Queer International. I requested this book via NetGalley and the below response is my honest opinion and I did not receive any compensation. I requested the book as I’m well aware that my knowledge on what is going on and what has happened in the region is woefully lacking and I thought this would be a great perspective for an introduction and boy was I right.

Like most readers, at least on Goodreads it seems, I expected this to be heavier on academics, what with being a publication of Duke University Press (Go Heels! – sorry couldn’t help it :-D It’s a gut reaction…), but I found it incredibly approachable, well-reasoned and well written. This work clearly shows that Schulman is first and foremost a writer, her eloquent language, pertinent anecdotes and a great mixture of academia and activism really opened this book to a wider audience than I expected it to be able to reach. Previously, I have read two of her novels, After Delores and People in Trouble, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed and am definitely interested in reading more of her more recent work, as well as her more biographical works.

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