Kate's Point of View

The Product of Creative Frustration

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Hooked on Reading

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On August 16, 2013

In books, reviews

Growing up I was a highly successful participant in the Book It! program. I don’t remember all of the specifics, but for every certain amount of books I read I received a certificate for a free personal pan pizza at Pizza Hut. I hooked my family up with a lot of pizza. Even though the challenge was just intended to be a personal one, I saw a way to win prizes for something I loved to do anyway and I went for it.

This same things happened with every reading program I joined, including one where I completed the entire summer goal for reading in one month. I’ve known since I was young that I would never win more than a participation award for athletics. But put me in a competitive reading environment and I’m golden.

Last year I had two friends of mine mention their “Goodread Goal.” I’ve been a member of Goodreads since May of 2010 and I had never heard iof a Goodreads Goal. I looked into it and knew I would set one for myself for 2013. I read 53 books in 2012, which I thought was pretty amazing – avergaing one book a week. For 2013 I wanted to push myself so when January 1 rolled around, I set my goal at 55 books for the year.

What happens next is predictably obsessive and unnessarily competitive. All this year I have had the number 55 in my head and I’ve been furiously reading. On August 11, 2013, I completed my 55th book for the year. That means in about 32 weeks –20 weeks ahead of schedule – I finished my goal. I averaged 1.7 books a week. And I feel it necessary to point out that though this stack did include some fluffier titles including one Nicholas Sparks book and many Kathy Recihs novel (the series on which the television show Bones is based), I also read some weightier titles.

Goodreads has suggested that I up my year’s reading goal. I think I’m safer to be content looking at my completed goal and to stop reading competitively.

My top 5 book recommendations from my year so far are:

  1. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan: Thoroughly enjoyable story with a nerdy plot.
  2. Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter: I just loved this novel. The cover art is beautiful and so is the writing throughout.
  3. Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris: So funny!
  4. Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted: And all the Brilliant Minds Who Made The Mary Tyler Moore Show a Classic by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong: Although not a light read, this book gave me great insight in television and made me better appreciate the history of women in television.
  5. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein: Total tween novel, but I can’t help myself.

Here are the books I read, in reverse chronological order.

  1. The Engagements by J. Courtney Sullivan
  2. The Choice by Nicholas Sparks
  3. Visitation Street by Ivy Pochoda
  4. Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris
  5. A Mercy by Toni Morrison
  6. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
  7. Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan
  8. The Fields by Kevin Maher
  9. Purity by Jackson Pearce
  10. Arcadia by Lauren Groff
  11. Driving Sideways by Jess Riley
  12. The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell
  13. This Side of Jealousy (The Innocents, #2) by Lili Peloquin
  14. Calling Me Home by Jullie Kibler
  15. Conversations with Mom: An Aging Baby Boomer, in Need of an Elder, Writes to Her Dead Mother by Betsy Robinson
  16. Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted: And all the Brilliant Minds Who Made The Mary Tyler Moore Show a Classic by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong
  17. Chronology of an Egg by Peter Tieryas Liu
  18. A Place at the Table by Susan Rebecca White
  19. The Girl Who Would Be King by Kelly Thompson
  20. Nine Years Under: Coming of Age in an Inner-City Funeral Home by Sherri Booker
  21. A Different Blue by Amy Harmon
  22. The House Girl by Tara Conklin
  23. The First Rule of Swimming by Courtney Angela Brkic
  24. Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
  25. The End of Sex: How Hookup Culture is Leaving a Generation Unhappy, Sexually Unfulfilled, and Confused About Intimacy by Donna Freitas
  26. Homeward Bound: Why Women are Embracing the New Domesticity by Emily Matchar
  27. All the Roads That Lead from Home by Anne Leigh Parrish
  28. The Dinner by Herman Koch
  29. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
  30. A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
  31. Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
  32. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
  33. Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead
  34. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
  35. The Book of Madness and Cures by Regina O’Melveny
  36. The Orphanmaster by Jean Zimmerman
  37. Flash and Bones (Temperance Brennan, #14) by Kathy Reichs
  38. Spider Bones (Temperance Brennan, #13) by Kathy Reichs
  39. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
  40. Defending Jacob by William Landay
  41. 206 Bones (Temperance Brennan, #12) by Kathy Reichs
  42. Devil Bones (Temperance Brennan, #11) by Kathy Reichs
  43. Bones to Ashes (Temperance Brennan, #10) by Kathy Reichs
  44. Break No Bones (Temperance Brennan, #9) by Kathy Reichs
  45. Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley
  46. The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
  47. Cross Bones (Temperance Brennan, #8) by Kathy Reichs
  48. Monday Mourning (Temperance Brennan, #7) by Kathy Reichs
  49. Bare Bones (Temperance Brennan, #6) by Kathy Reichs
  50. Grave Secrets (Temperance Brennan, #5) by Kathy Reichs
  51. Fatal Voyage (Temperance Brennan, #4) by Kathy Reichs
  52. Deadly Decisions (Temperance Brennan, #3) by Kathy Reichs
  53. Death du Jour (Temperance Brennan, #2) by Kathy Reichs
  54. Déjà Dead (Temperance Brennan, #1) by Kathy Reichs
  55. Women from the Ankle Down: The Story of Shoes and How They Define Us by Ra Bergstein
This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.

Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted

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On June 28, 2013

In books, reviews

When I was growing up, my parents would only let me watch unsupervised television if it was a kids show on Nickelodeon or a re-run Nick at Nite. So even though I was born a year after it went off the air, I grew up with The Mary Tyler Moore Show. (Also with Donna Reed, My Three Sons, The Patty Duke Show, Mr. Ed…) When I watch television, it’s almost always for enjoyment and escape. I’m not typically trying to place the show in the context of television history. Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted: And all the Brilliant Minds Who Made The Mary Tyler Moore Show a Classic by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong has given me a new perspective on many of the old Tv shows I used to watch.This book didn’t change my memory of The Mary Tyler Moore Show as a sweet sitcom / drama. It did add more depth. Now I appreciate it for the strides it made towards showing women in the workplace. Women being single in their thirties. Discussing birth control on television. And so much more.

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong did a great job in pulling together this book. It reads a little more “history book” than I was expecting and took my a while to really get into, but the amount of information she relays is impressive and the fun facts she scatters throughout the book are ones I will wow my friends with for sure.

A few weeks ago I was out of town for work and eating alone at a restaurant, reading this book. The waiter, being nice, asked what I was reading. “Ohmigod! When I’m with my friends we’re always accusing each other of being a Mary or a Rhoda! My friend is turning 50 and what do you get a fifty-year-old who doesn’t need anything? Please write down the name of that book so I can get it for him.”

Thirty-five years off the air and still relevant.

I received this book as part of the Goodreads First Reads program.

This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.

Review of A Place at the Table: A Novel, by Susan Rebecca White

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On June 18, 2013

In books, reviews

I reviewed A Place at the Table: A Novel, by Susan Rebecca White, for Nudge.

Although I often tire of books with alternating narrators, I appreciate a well-crafted novel with intertwining storylines. There are plenty of books like this, but too many share a frustrating feature: unlikeable characters. It might sound like a petty issue, but why would I bother reading about someone I don’t like? Author Susan Rebecca White circumvented this by creating an ensemble cast of completely enjoyable characters for A Place at the Table: A Novel.We meet Alice as a child living in the south and see racism through her eyes when she discusses having to enter stores through a back entrance to buy cast-off items and when she and her brother come across the body of someone who has been lynched. When we see her again, much later in her life, she’s living in New York City enjoying some prestige for being the founding chef of Café Andrews.

Read my complete review of A Place at the Table on Nudge.

 

This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.

A great book for nerds. And aren’t we all a little nerdy?

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On May 7, 2013

In books, reviews

Sometimes a book becomes one of my favorites because it is entertaining. I don’t always want to travel to new places and learn new things, to be challenged and pushed. Sometimes I simply want to be transported. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan accomplished this for me.It was wonderful.

I reviewed the book for Nudge. Here’s an excerpt:

When Clay Jannon visits Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore for the first time, the bookstore proprietor asks him, “What do you seek in these shelves?” That turn of the traditional question, “How can I help you?” is like a conspiratorial wink that implies, “How can I assist on the adventure on which you are about to embark?” It’s an apt question for such a book as Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan.

Clay is between design jobs when he gets third shift work at Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. What should be a pretty dull job, standing behind a counter at an infrequently visited bookstore in the middle of the night, is made more interesting by the eccentric characters that do come to the store for books. They pay no money for the books they seek, which contain only coded text, instead checking them out them as if at a library. During his near-solitary evenings, Clay can’t help but become intrigued as to how the bookstore can stay open and what the books are that people are checking out.

You can read my complete review of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan on Nudge. 

 

This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.

Adult

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On March 4, 2013

In classes, reviews, television

This weekend was what I always thought it would be like to be grown up. Truly. When I was younger thinking about what being an adult would encompass, what me as an adult would do, I thought every day would be like this weekend. Fabulous and full. Creative and energizing. Dizzying and fun. I envisioned myself attending swanky events and hobnobbing with famous people. I knew I would be creative and reading and taking classes forever. As a kid, I could have never imagined the minutia that makes up a lot of life. I wouldn’t have predicted home maintenance, and visits to the gym and the amount of time I spend going laundry. In my mind, every day would be like a holiday. This weekend was pretty close to that.On Friday we celebrated my brother-in-law’s birthday. It was all of my siblings and their significant others, as well as my niece. A good time to hang out with everyone.

Saturday morning I went on all sorts of errands. Normally I hate running around town to check things off my list. Right now I’m in the middle of several art projects and an art class and most of the stops were to get supplies. That made things more fun! I’m especially excited about a letterpress class I’m taking.

Then I went to the library and met an author I really like. I can’t go into more detail than that for now because I had him sign a book for me and I want to use it as a gift. But I will tell you this. Not only did I get to talk to him, he also retweeted me and now follows me on Twitter.

Then I finished a book called Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead and thank goodness because I hated the characters in that book so much and am happy to be done with them.

Then I got gussied up and went to the International Freedom Conductor Award Gala, which was sponsored by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. Wonder Boy wore a tux and I got to wear a dress I got for a steal – originally $250 and I spent $25.

There were two winners of the International Freedom Center Conductor Award: Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and Nicholas Kristof. Kristof co-authored Half the Sky, which I totally adore. The other author of the book was his wife, Sheryl Wu Dunn. At one point last night I went to the bathroom and on my way out passed Wu Dunn. It didn’t register quickly enough with me who she was but I knew she looked familiar and smiled at her. She smiled back and a few steps later I realized I had missed my opportunity to say thanks for helping with such an awesome book. But, she totally smiled at me so I will take it. (Wonder Boy used a urinal next to Kristof but didn’t say hello because of boy bathroom code. Bathrooms = miss opportunities for us.)

The gala went by very quickly and I was a little disappointed not to hear more from Kristof, what he did say was powerful.

When asked why he is able to keep doing what he does, seeing so many atrocities, Kristof said, “Side by side with the worst of humanity you invariably find the best.” I love that.

Later he shared the story of a Sudanese woman who was brutally raped by eight men and then beaten. When talking with her, he kept pushing her to make sure she understood and was okay with him sharing her story in the New York Times, concerned of her facing ramifications for that. Her response, “Telling my story is the only tool I have to fight back.” That just gives me chills. It reminds me why journalism is important and why I wanted to go into writing when I was 18.

Today I slept in and then made homemade pancakes. I finished an art project and then Wonder Boy and I went to two open houses. I posted two new items on Etsy. Afterwards I visited a friend and we drank wine, talked and looked at photography.

Tonight Wonder Boy and I watch Searching for Sugarman, about Sixto Rodriguez. The movie was really great, which is fitting since it was highlighting such an amazing musician.

It’s been an exhausting weekend but filled with so many good things I don’t really feel tired. Just content. If all weekends were like this, like childhood me imagined, that would be all right.

This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.

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