Resolutions and Bad Ass Women.

Every year I make a resolution to read more non-fiction. It's a sad state of affairs when a librarian has to make a reading resolution, but it has to happen. I did better this year than ever before. Especially biographies. Nearly all of the biographies I read are about women, because really, don't we all have enough old, white guys in our lives (especially during an election year?) Do I have to read about them, too?

Here are the greatest [lady] hits of 2012.

Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff
I like Cleopatra. I think she's neat. After Cleopatra: A Life was published, Stacy Schiff visited Pittsburgh as part of the Arts and Lectures Literary Evenings  (season tickets for $100!) program. The typical person knows three things about Cleopatra. 1.) She looked like this. 2.) She was delivered to Julius Caesar rolled up in a carpet. 3.) She was a sex-crazed she-wolf who brought down the mighty, noble Mark Antony (who was chilling in Egypt with Cleopatra while his wife in Rome was trying to save his reputation. But, whatever. As with most woman rulers the dudes got to write the history.) What perhaps isn't known about her is that she was a shrewd politician, strategist and negotiator with excellent administrative skills. She spoke Egyptian (the only of her family to do so,) Greek, Ethiopian, and the languages of the Medes, Jews, Partians, Arabs, Syrians and Trogodytae. Under her rule, Egyptian art and culture flourished and the Royal Library at Alexandria was considered the center of scholarship until the Romans showed up and burned it down like a bunch of goddamn heathens. There's a reason Rome wanted Alexandria and it wasn't for the views. And she did all of this while raising 4 children. Boom.

Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Life by Alison Weir
For quality historical fiction and non-fiction about the Kings and Queens of Great Britain, you cannot go wrong with Alison Weir. She not only wrote the biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine, but also wrote a fictionalized account of her life. Eleanor was a was a wealthy land-owning  Duchess in her own right, educated by the finest minds of her time, a poet and a scholar when she married Louis. Oh, did I mention she was the Queen of France and England? Not only that, but for 20 years she helped King Henry (II) run his empire and gave him eight (OMFG) children. Alas, she got caught up in a plot with her sons to overthrow her (cheating ass) husband and was imprisoned for 20 years. But the old bird outlasted Henry II, was released by her son Richard and was closely involved in the governments of both England and Aquitaine until her death. She was portrayed by Katharine Hepburn in the excellent 1968 movie The Lion in Winter.

Elizabeth Woodville: Mother of the Princes in the Tower by David Baldwin
Queen Consort of Edward IV and mother to the young, dead Princes in the Tower. There is a myth about Elizabeth Woodville that her family was descended from Melusine and that she "captured" Edward IV through witchcraft. Because accepting that the King of England fell for a charming, smart piece of ass was way too hard for some folks (like Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick and "Kingmaker") to accept. Elizabeth drove Edward's advisers crazy by doling out land and titles to her own family, but honestly, that's what every Queen did. Basically, the majority opinion was that she wasn't good enough (what with her low birth and widowhood) to be Queen Consort. Awesomely, she is remembered as the grandmother of Henry VIII and the great-grandmother of arguably the best monarch in English history, Elizabeth I. Suck it, Earl of Warwick.

Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie
She did not fuck a horse. I repeat, Catherine the friggin' Great, Empress of all the Russians, Her Imperial Highness did. not. fuck. a. horse. You know what she did do? I mean, besides make Russia one of the biggest countries in the world, a military superpower and a leader in culture? She also ushered in the Russian Age of Enlightenment. Oh, she had lots and lots of lovers for sure, but none of the equine variety. It was easier for (male) historians to condemn her for her sex life than acknowledge her amazing accomplishments. She was a serious despot though. Like made it easier for landowners to kill their serfs kind of despot. Yikes.

Madam Tussaud: A Life in Wax by Kate Berridge
(That whole French Revolution thing I talked about in my last post.) I first came across the story of Madame Tussaud in the historical fiction book Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution by Michelle Moran. Moran, incidentally, has also written excellent fiction about Nefertiti, Cleopatra's family and Empress Marie-Louise. Madame Tussaud's story is an epic rags-to-riches tale about an excellent businesswoman and survivor of the French Revolution. Cashing in on the celebrity obsessed public with her wax figures, at the height of the Revolution, Tussaud was forced to make wax death masks of her own friends killed as traitors. She was also friends with Marie Antoinette and Marat. That she was able to maintain these two oil and water friendships is a true testament to her flexibility, flair and hunger for publicity.

Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser
(French revolution thing again) Two things about Marie Antoinette. First, she got married to the future King of France when she was 14. Let me say that again. She got married when she was 14. Not only that, but she had to leave her home, travel hundreds of miles in a shitty form of transportation, only to be handed off to a bunch of hostile French strangers. She couldn't even keep her dog. Her dog, man. I don't know about you, but I was a total mess when I was 14. And I didn't get married until I was 30. Second of all, she did not, ever, at any time, say the words, "Let them eat cake." That did not happen.

[Let them eat cake] was said 100 years before by Marie-Therese, the wife of Louis XIV. It was a callous and ignorant statement and she, Marie Antoinette, was neither. -Antonia Fraser

The Rose of Martinique: A Life of Napoleon's Josephine by Andrea Stuart
This isn't just one of my favorite biographies of 2012, it's one of my favorite books. Born Rose de Tasher on a sugar plantation on the island of Martinique, Josephine was wild, sensual, fashionable and willful- also a cougar (by the day's standards.) Rawr. Catching the eye of Napoleon, she became not only his lover, but his hostess, his confidante and Empress. Josephine barely escaped the guillotine during the Revolution, but survived to flourish in post-revolutionary France. And although Napoleon put her aside for dynastic reasons, she always had his heart. In the very cool book Love Letters of Great Men and Women: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present Day by C.H. Charles, there is quote from a letter to Josephine:

If I am ready to execrate this life, I put my hand upon my heart, they portrait beats there; I look at it, and love is for me absolute happiness, and everything is smiling excepting the time when I see myself absent from my friend.

Other fantastic women I read about this year include Wallis Simpson, Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Victoria and a whole slew of French and English mistresses. Because let's face it, if I had lived then I sure as hell wouldn't be an Empress or a Queen. And let's take nun, wet nurse and nanny off the table, too.

Happy New Year!

Hey Sweden. What's up?

Do you need to talk?

Actually, it's not just you, Sweden. All your buddies in Northern Europe, Land of the Midnight Sun, Land of a Thousand Lakes, Mother Svea, whatever you want to call it, have some dark psychological issues. At least if you go by the books coming out of your region. I mean, seriously guys, you need more sunlight or less salted herring or more hockey or something? Because your authors are producing some twisted shit.


And it's awesome.

Teenage girl killers, child vampires, zombies, murders that look like suicides, serial killers making snowmen out of people (among other things in that particular series,) folks being forced to "donate" their organs in a dystopian society not so far away, and of course, that whole Girl with the Dragon Tattoo thing.

I'll start with Jo Nesbo (Norway) because he's the cutest and his mom was a librarian. I accidentally got into Scandinavian authors by picking up his Snowman, which is number 7 in the Harry Hole series. For whatever reason, the books are being released in the U.S. in the weirdest, half-assed fashion I've ever seen. I'm seriously not even sure they're being released in the right order. Not cool. But whatever, you can read each book as an individual story. You'll miss a little back story, but it'll still make sense.The whole series revolves around Detective Harry Hole, a binge-drinking, Doc Marten-wearing, anti-hero who also happens to be the best crime solver on the Oslo Police Force. His personal life is always a mess, he's always in trouble with his superiors, yet the worst of the worst cases come to him. All the books in the series have twisty, turn-y plot lines and moody atmospheres. Nesbo is definitely not selling Norway. The newest in the series, Phantom, looks good too- just not enough hours in the day.

My favorite book of 2012 is from heir apparent to Stephen King, John Ajvide Lindqvist. Lindqvist, best know in the US as the author of Let the Right One In (made into two great movies, Swedish & English) is redefining the horror genre. Yet the book I love best is his first "non-supernatural" novel. Don't get me wrong, I got a hell of a sunburn because I was so engrossed in Handling the Undead that I failed to notice I was on fire. And Harbor has ruined little kids for me (not that I was really a huge fan.) Even Little Star, released in English in October, has elements of the supernatural, but ultimately it's about alienation, bullying, fame and teenage angst. Because nothing says Happy Holidays like a gang of murderous teen girls.

Left for dead in the woods, Theres is rescued (if you can call it that) by D-list musician and wife beater Lennart Cederström. Upon discovered her perfect pitch Cederström makes the (odd) decision to hide her in his basement and create the perfect singing machine. By the time Theres is a teenager, she is eerily beautiful, with a spooky stare and no concept of or right or wrong. When events take a gruesome turn (with a drill) she ends up in Stockholm with her "brother" Jerry, one of the many adults in her life that treat her like a commodity they can use for their own end. After appearing on the Swedish American Idol, Theres hooks up with the bullied, overweight Theresa and together they make a chilling duo. They create a gang of alienated, disenfranchised teenage girls who are fiercely devoted only to one another, to the point of torture and murder. Twisted and grisly, Little Star is a compelling and horrifying tale about the suffering of modern living with an equally compelling and horrifying cast of characters.

Oh, and you'll never listen to ABBA the same again.

Unless you live in a vacuum or under a rock, you cannot have missed the explosion of Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy. I read all three (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The GirlWho Kicked the Hornet's Nest) under duress. I refused to read it because everyone else had. I'm contrary like that. (Of course as soon as I started I read all three in three days; I'm not too proud to admit I was wrong.) Be forewarned, there is a lot of violence. And much of it is against women. There were moments where I had to put down The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and take a breath. Lisbeth Salander is  possibly my favorite fictional character of all time. And I wouldn't kick Michael Bloomkvist out of bed either (especially the Daniel Craig version.) The Swedish movies are fantastic and the US version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is prettier, it is true to the book.

Ninni Holmqvist, The Unit

I went through a phase at the beginning of the year where all I wanted to read was dystopian fiction (after that phase I was super-interested the French Revolution, so...) Think Handmaid's Tale/Hunger Games kind of stuff. Because I'm a cheerful sort. The Unit stayed with me for a long time. Basically, if you're a single woman, without children or a job in a "progressive" industry at the age of 50 (the age for men is 60 because they are considered useful for a longer time) you check into a lovely place called the Reserve Bank Unit. You are given a clean, nicely furnished apartment, you are well-fed with lots of recreational opportunities. Oh, and you are a guinea pig for medical research and also have to donate your organs, one at a time, until the "final donation." Cool.

Camilla Läckberg, The Ice Princess & The Preacher
Picked these up at the library this week. Some of the reviews said The Preacher was the best Swedish crime novel of 2005 and in fact, Läckberg was voted Swedish Writer of the Year that year. Considered the Agatha Christie of Sweden, Läckberg was an economist until one creative writing class changed the course of her life. I'm about 50 pages into The Ice Princess and while it's compelling and well-written, Agatha Christie never wrote about bloody, frozen bodies in bathtubs!


And let's give a shout-out to all those translators. Without them, these books would be unreadable to me. 

Wonderful

Let me tell you something, son. When you're young, and you head out to wonderful, everything is fresh and bright as as brand-new penny, but before you get to wonderful, you're going to have to pass through all right. And when you get to all right, stop and take a good, long look, because that may be as far as you're ever going to go. -Robert Goolrick, Heading Out to Wonderful

This year it seems to me that books are coming to me right when I need them. Earlier this year I felt that way about Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behavior and now I feel that way about Heading out to Wonderful by Robert Goolrick. Goolrick, author of A Reliable Wife, can write a hell of a story. His prose is so gentle and understated that I was surprised into tears more than once just by the loveliness of his sentences. This is disconcerting considering how emotionally and erotically charged (and fucked up) this novel is. When I finished it sobbing at 2 a.m., I sincerely regretted not reading the entire book jacket, which gave fair warning that this was a book about obsession. Not that I would take it back, but I would have appreciated the warning.

Goolrick, in talking about his novels said:

I've always felt that ordinary lives hold a special fascination. Perhaps it's because I come from a small town, where daily events- from trips to the grocery store to broken bones to adultery and divorce- were all anyone talked about. There may not have been much glamour in them, but these stories have the pith of life about them, and they are fragile and touching and infinitely moving.  

His characters, Sylvan and Harrison "Boaty" Glass, Alma, Will and Sam Haislett and "townspeople" are quintessential post-WWII Americans. Every small town has a rich jerk, a beautiful mystery woman, a happy family and Brownsburg, VA is no exception. But not every town has charismatic, mysterious Charlie Beale, with his suitcase full of money, German butcher knives and a burning desire for a home.

Thirty-nine years on the planet had beaten the poetry out of him.

How indescribably sad. I don't know what could happen in the next 4 years that could beat the poetry out of me, but I imagine serving in World War II would do it. With impeccably good manners and baseball skills, Charlie slowly wins the town over. However, most of the story revolves around his relationship with 5 year-old Sam Haislett (the narrator.) I mean, he bought a dog because the boy wanted one; a neighbor doesn't just do that. By the way, best description of beagles, ever:

...looking at the squirming mass of puppies around his feet. He loved their spots, and the colors splashed on their skins, honey and black and white, the way their tongues hung from their mouths. 

And then there is the lovely, young, married Sylvan Glass. Bought and paid for by Harrison Glass, Sylvan is little more than a girl in love with movies and Hollywood. For Charlie Beale, it is love at first sight.

He heard her name everywhere. He heard it in the rustle of the trees outside his bedroom window while he slept. He heard it in the ripples of the creeks on his land, in the swish of his tires on the asphalt. He felt is as sweetness on his skin, a freshness of the air he breathed, a blessing in the sheets wrapped around his body at night. 

And so begins Charlie's long, downward slide into obsession. Taking Sam with him, he begins secretly meeting Sylvan at her house on the hill. Sam, who keeps Charlie's secret, waits patiently in the kitchen. He knows something is happening, but he can't ask anyone and that is a whole other story separate from the affair. Everyone in the town eventually figures it out, but the interesting thing is: no one really cares. In fact, many townspeople are secretly cheering them on and after Charlie saves Sam from a drowning accident, he can do no wrong.

Well, almost.

I am not giving away the rest of the story. The plot twists and the ending are so unexpected and so harsh. I literally reread the last few pages of the book because I simply could not believe it. Heading Out to Wonderful is definitely on my top 10 list for 2012.

If your heart is broken and there is no visible wound, no sign of sickness, what else is there to do but go on, act the way you're supposed to, do what has to be done? No use to say it hurts. Everybody knows that already, everybody can see it, and they know as well that they could never in a million years touch or soothe the place where the hurt begins.

Well hello there.

I've only said for four years that I'm going to start a blog about books. I like to ease into things.

The whole point of this blog originally stemmed from the closing of my library for renovation. I wasn't officially a "librarian" yet, but some regular customers wanted a way to keep up with what I was reading. And I have a writing degree, so I should write. Right?

Obviously none of that ever happened. Sorry.

So. Four years and three libraries later I'm finally doing it. I'm really doing it! With no hands, man.

Now I need to write some smart stuff about books, huh?

 ...

While I think of some smart stuff to write, please enjoy this pictures of my kittens, Otis and Ace.