Birthday Book Haul

My birthday was last week and several of my lovely family members got me books! This pile also counts as my current TBR.

Bad Feminist

Roxane Gay’s collection of essays about feminism and what it means to dance to sexist music and be a feminist. She talks about race and gender and class with a critical, sometimes humorous, eye. So far I’ve read a couple of the essays and I love how she balances serious critique with levity and her ability to engage in criticism without the baggage of dense academic language.

Yes Please!

I love so much of what Amy Poehler is and I am so excited to read her book. One thing I noticed when I first picked it up is that it is weirdly heavy because it is printed on thick, glossy paper. It’s worth it, though, because the design on the inside of the book is fantastic. Old family photos, bright 2-page section headers. One of my favorite things about Amy Poehler is that she acknowledges that she has worked really hard and put herself in positions to succeed, but also that she has benefitted from luck and goodwill of others as well.

100 Years of Solitude

After my post about tracking my reading, I’ve been looking more closely at who and what I read. One area I noticed I was woefully under-reading is anything by authors of color, and especially classics by authors of color. Where better to start that 100 Years of Solitude? I’ve heard amazing things and this particular edition is beautiful.

North and South

The Youtube curmudgeon BazPierce introduced me to this one. He described it as Pride and Prejudice for communists, which just sounds delightful. That’s really the extent of my knowledge about this book, but based on that I’m looking forward to picking it up.

Heading into finals, reading is slow going. But I’m definitely planning to finish these by the end of winter break, just in time to start my 2015 TBR.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

I read Jane Eyre for the first time in high school. The only books I had read by 19th century British authors at that point were Jane Austen’s novels, which I think may be why I was underwhelmed by the book. Charlotte Bronte, though covering similar themes, has a different style than Jane Austen. Since then, I’ve read many, many more classics and wanted to give Jane Eyre a second try.

This time around, I loved it. Any story that includes the English Moors, which The Secret Garden introduced me to, is mournful and mysterious. This book is no exception. Jane’s life has been a bit rough. She is an orphan, adopted by family members who don’t want her, sent to a boarding school whose benefactor is harsh and controlling, and then is a governess. She isn’t Oliver Twist, but she isn’t well off either. She takes a position as a governess for a French child who is the ward of an English man but is not his child or relative, in a house where strange things sometimes happen with no explanation.

I loved Jane as a character. She is introspective and insightful. She demands respect from those around her, something that isn’t common in modern fiction let alone 19th century fiction. I think in some ways it’s because she has nothing to lose – her family is already gone, she has no inheritance – but also because her situation has allowed her to be independent. Since she is independent, she sees no reason to accept anything less.

This book examines gender and classism. The men in Jane’s life, starting with Mr. Brocklehurst, try to control her and subjugate her. Brocklehurst tries to instill in her ideas about her place, St. John tries to mold her into a subservient wife, as does Mr. Rochester. She only agrees to marry Mr. Rochester first under the agreement that she will continue to work as a governess, and then when she has independent wealth. She refuses to marry St. John at all. Jane can be a little classist, as evidenced in her description of her new students at her school. She comes to realize, though, that given an education they are as smart and hardworking as their wealthier counterparts.

I’m so glad that I re-read this book. Jane is a fantastic character and the social commentary is timeless.

A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

This year, one of my goals is to read the entire Sherlock Holmes canon. I’ve always been a fan, having read the short story anthologies years ago, and after watching Sherlock I wanted to get to know more of the source material. Obviously, I had to start with A Study in Scarlet.

The first half of the book was really compelling. The Watson/Sherlock back story, Gregson and Lestrade’s anti-bromance, just seeing all the elements of Sherlock Holmes being put in place was enjoyable. I was confused, though, when the culprit was caught yet there was still half the book left. This was where the book kind of lost me.

The sudden switch to Utah and Mormons caught me so off guard that I thought maybe the Kindle file had somehow become corrupted and some other book was inserted into my Sherlock Holmes. It took several chapters before I realized that this was the culprit’s backstory. It was a gutsy move and an interesting narrative device, but I didn’t particularly care for it.

Overall, I have mixed feelings on this book. It was great to see the basic Sherlock Holmes pieces being put together, but it really lost me with that wild west adventure. Still, I’m excited to continue working through the canon.