1995, possibly first edition, from Highsmith Press
John Warren Stewig
Looking at Picture Books
Original and/or purchase price unknown
Worn paperback with autograph
C+
Although Stewig has some good advice for teachers, children's librarians, and others who are interested in picture books, the text is ironically not well supported by the illustrations, which are often too small to see the details he's describing. Also, he sometimes discusses books that aren't represented at all in the pictures, so unless you've seen these books, and recently, you won't have a clear idea of what he means.
I did find the book less dated than I expected, although the section on computer-generated graphics of course is. And while the recognition of multiculturalism and gender equity is good to see, there's no mention of alternative families, not just gay and lesbian parents (Heather Has Two Mommies was six years old at this point), but even those with unmarried or divorced different-sex parents.
I was pleased with the amount of attention paid to British author-illustrator Anthony Browne, one of my favorites, who went on to become the Children's Laureate from 2009 to 2011. (No, I don't own any of Browne's books, but I've read at least a half dozen.)
Monday, October 7, 2013
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Moo: A Novel
1995, 1996 Fawcett Columbine edition
Jane Smiley
Moo: A Novel
Original price $12.00, purchase price $5.95
Worn paperback
B
This book's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness: the wide array of perspectives from which the story is told. It's good to get different takes on events and characters, with everyone from university staff to students to relatives to a large pig named after racist former Agriculture secretary Earl Butz chiming in. The problem is, it's a lot of people (and creatures) to keep track of, and even on what must be at least my fifth reading, it took me awhile to differentiate between roommates Mary, Keri, and Sherri, or to remember who exactly Garcia was. Some characters are referred to in different ways, and we don't find out Chairman and Lady X's first names (Jake and Beth) till quite a ways in, his not till the last chapter.
The novel is set in the academic year of 1989 to 1990, so it's a very turn-of-the-decade setting, looking back at Reagan and other aspects of the '80s, looking forward to a world with greater technology and less Communism. Smiley sets most of the chapters on campus, but we're aware of a larger world, so one chapter might have a party, while another is about the destruction of a cloud forest in Costa Rica, and yet the party and the destruction may be linked. As I noted in my review of Thousand Acres, this is a more satiric and yet more upbeat book. She blithely calls one chapter "Deus ex Machina," even though the machine in question doesn't solve absolutely everyone's problems.
If I had to pick a favorite character, it would be Mrs. Walker, the provost's near-omnipotent, part-Native-American, all-lesbian secretary. Mrs. Walker's long-term girlfriend Martha thinks she's the only one who finds Mrs. Walker hilarious, but I did, too, and I was glad every time she undercut someone for the greater good. Even the unpleasant, or semi-unpleasant characters, like Lionel Gift and Timothy Monahan respectively, are fun to read about. If the book had been tighter-- either with fewer characters, or doing more with the relatively neglected ones-- I might've given it a B+. Even with the major characters, more editing would've helped, since the Xes fluctuate between three and four children for no reason.
The title is confusing at first, since the cover (on this edition anyhow) shows Earl B. and there are no cow characters in the story. (There are a few horses whose POVs we don't get.) It turns out that Moo is the name of this agricultural university and, as with the Xes, no more formal name is ever presented.
Jane Smiley
Moo: A Novel
Original price $12.00, purchase price $5.95
Worn paperback
B
This book's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness: the wide array of perspectives from which the story is told. It's good to get different takes on events and characters, with everyone from university staff to students to relatives to a large pig named after racist former Agriculture secretary Earl Butz chiming in. The problem is, it's a lot of people (and creatures) to keep track of, and even on what must be at least my fifth reading, it took me awhile to differentiate between roommates Mary, Keri, and Sherri, or to remember who exactly Garcia was. Some characters are referred to in different ways, and we don't find out Chairman and Lady X's first names (Jake and Beth) till quite a ways in, his not till the last chapter.
The novel is set in the academic year of 1989 to 1990, so it's a very turn-of-the-decade setting, looking back at Reagan and other aspects of the '80s, looking forward to a world with greater technology and less Communism. Smiley sets most of the chapters on campus, but we're aware of a larger world, so one chapter might have a party, while another is about the destruction of a cloud forest in Costa Rica, and yet the party and the destruction may be linked. As I noted in my review of Thousand Acres, this is a more satiric and yet more upbeat book. She blithely calls one chapter "Deus ex Machina," even though the machine in question doesn't solve absolutely everyone's problems.
If I had to pick a favorite character, it would be Mrs. Walker, the provost's near-omnipotent, part-Native-American, all-lesbian secretary. Mrs. Walker's long-term girlfriend Martha thinks she's the only one who finds Mrs. Walker hilarious, but I did, too, and I was glad every time she undercut someone for the greater good. Even the unpleasant, or semi-unpleasant characters, like Lionel Gift and Timothy Monahan respectively, are fun to read about. If the book had been tighter-- either with fewer characters, or doing more with the relatively neglected ones-- I might've given it a B+. Even with the major characters, more editing would've helped, since the Xes fluctuate between three and four children for no reason.
The title is confusing at first, since the cover (on this edition anyhow) shows Earl B. and there are no cow characters in the story. (There are a few horses whose POVs we don't get.) It turns out that Moo is the name of this agricultural university and, as with the Xes, no more formal name is ever presented.
Friday, October 4, 2013
The Worst Movies of All Time, Or: What Were They Thinking?
1995, 1996 Citadel Press edition
Michael Sauter
The Worst Movies of All Time, Or: What Were They Thinking?
Bought new for $16.95
Worn paperback
C+
This book somewhat overcomes its limitations. First of all, Sauter sometimes seems to see watching a bad movie as some sort of macho endurance test, so you can say, "Yes, it was boring, poorly done, what have you, but dammit, I watched till the end!" I can almost see doing that for the bragging rights, although it doesn't appeal to me personally. (After all, I recently decided a book wasn't worth finishing just to blog about, although I do have fun ripping into the D+s.) But why read about someone else doing it? Also, Sauter obviously is following in the steps of not only the Medveds but Margulies and Rebello's then fairly recent (1993) Bad Movies We Love, not to mention the cheesier of the cult movies that Peary wrote about, so there's a great deal of de ja vu. It doesn't help that many of his selections are identical to those covered by the other authors.
Still, I felt the book was reasonably well written (although wracked with typos) and it was nice that he devotes about four pages to each of his Bottom 50, all of them big-budget bombs (artistically and/or financially), like Cleopatra. That's two-thirds of the book, and then there are another 33 movies that win in their category, ala the Medveds. (But I think their pick for a Reagan movie, That Hagen Girl was one of the Medveds' 50 Worst but later beaten out by Hellcats of the Navy as the worst Reagan movie, since that had two Reagans.) Then there are about 80 pages on "the baddest of the B's," primarily from the '50s and '60s.
The most recent movie in the book is Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992), the one with Tom Selleck, and surprisingly I can't accuse Sauter of what I accused the Medveds of, paying more attention to recent releases than earlier. On the other hand, this doesn't cut down on the de ja vu.
Michael Sauter
The Worst Movies of All Time, Or: What Were They Thinking?
Bought new for $16.95
Worn paperback
C+
This book somewhat overcomes its limitations. First of all, Sauter sometimes seems to see watching a bad movie as some sort of macho endurance test, so you can say, "Yes, it was boring, poorly done, what have you, but dammit, I watched till the end!" I can almost see doing that for the bragging rights, although it doesn't appeal to me personally. (After all, I recently decided a book wasn't worth finishing just to blog about, although I do have fun ripping into the D+s.) But why read about someone else doing it? Also, Sauter obviously is following in the steps of not only the Medveds but Margulies and Rebello's then fairly recent (1993) Bad Movies We Love, not to mention the cheesier of the cult movies that Peary wrote about, so there's a great deal of de ja vu. It doesn't help that many of his selections are identical to those covered by the other authors.
Still, I felt the book was reasonably well written (although wracked with typos) and it was nice that he devotes about four pages to each of his Bottom 50, all of them big-budget bombs (artistically and/or financially), like Cleopatra. That's two-thirds of the book, and then there are another 33 movies that win in their category, ala the Medveds. (But I think their pick for a Reagan movie, That Hagen Girl was one of the Medveds' 50 Worst but later beaten out by Hellcats of the Navy as the worst Reagan movie, since that had two Reagans.) Then there are about 80 pages on "the baddest of the B's," primarily from the '50s and '60s.
The most recent movie in the book is Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992), the one with Tom Selleck, and surprisingly I can't accuse Sauter of what I accused the Medveds of, paying more attention to recent releases than earlier. On the other hand, this doesn't cut down on the de ja vu.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
The Moor's Last Sigh
1995, 1996 Vintage Edition
Salman Rushdie
The Moor's Last Sigh
Bought new for $13.00
Worn paperback
D+
This has many of the flaws of Rushdie's Midnight's Children-- grossness, meandering, wasted characters, boring incest, sexism-- but I more frequently (or Moor-frequently, as he would say in his Carrie-Fisher-level wordplay) found myself saying, "Who cares?" Even the narrator-"hero" says he doesn't care. As with Midnight's, the older generations have the better stories, but those end up being pointless, too.
I should note that there was a book alphabetically between The Golden Compass and this novel, Roszak's The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein, but I was so disgusted with its view of sexuality that I gave up halfway through, figuring it wasn't worth finishing just to post about. Roszak thought he was bringing out Mary Shelley's feminism but the "heroine" is sexually victimized by almost everyone, including her adoptive mother, a painter. Then I read this book and the free-spirited mother is a painter who molested her son!
At that, it's still a better book than Roszak's. At one point, I was considering giving it a C. But then I got to Moor's romance with Uma (not Thurman) and she's so obviously manipulating everyone, and only his mother sees through her. Then Uma dies in a bungled attempt to kill Moor, because even the schemers in this book are idiots. And then there's Nadia Wadia and an Andalusian dog and on and on, and by the end I was glad Moor was aging at double the normal rate, because he'd have to die eventually. So, yeah, just like with Carrie Fisher, it's a drop from a C on the earlier novel to a D+ for the second one I own.
Salman Rushdie
The Moor's Last Sigh
Bought new for $13.00
Worn paperback
D+
This has many of the flaws of Rushdie's Midnight's Children-- grossness, meandering, wasted characters, boring incest, sexism-- but I more frequently (or Moor-frequently, as he would say in his Carrie-Fisher-level wordplay) found myself saying, "Who cares?" Even the narrator-"hero" says he doesn't care. As with Midnight's, the older generations have the better stories, but those end up being pointless, too.
I should note that there was a book alphabetically between The Golden Compass and this novel, Roszak's The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein, but I was so disgusted with its view of sexuality that I gave up halfway through, figuring it wasn't worth finishing just to post about. Roszak thought he was bringing out Mary Shelley's feminism but the "heroine" is sexually victimized by almost everyone, including her adoptive mother, a painter. Then I read this book and the free-spirited mother is a painter who molested her son!
At that, it's still a better book than Roszak's. At one point, I was considering giving it a C. But then I got to Moor's romance with Uma (not Thurman) and she's so obviously manipulating everyone, and only his mother sees through her. Then Uma dies in a bungled attempt to kill Moor, because even the schemers in this book are idiots. And then there's Nadia Wadia and an Andalusian dog and on and on, and by the end I was glad Moor was aging at double the normal rate, because he'd have to die eventually. So, yeah, just like with Carrie Fisher, it's a drop from a C on the earlier novel to a D+ for the second one I own.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials, Book I
1995, 2007 Random House edition
Philip Pullman
The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials, Book I
Original price $7.50, purchase price $2.80
Slightly worn paperback
B-
Had I graded this book when I first read it a dozen or so years ago, I might've given it a B or B+. This time though I realized that, except for some nice touches here and there, Pullman doesn't have much style. To take the most glaring example, the witches are invariably described as having "ragged elegance." Also the plot depends a great deal on shock value, and that's gone on the third or fourth reading.
What I'm left with is some interesting world-building, not just the witches and of course the armored bears, but also the morally ambiguous world of adults. Enemies, as young Lyra learns, can both be wrong, even in the case of her charming but ruthless parents. Lyra herself is disobedient and dishonest, but brave and good-hearted.
This reading, I had some questions about the daemons, the familiars/souls that all humans have. Why, other than Jungian psychology, is a daemon usually the opposite sex of its human? And why do the personalities sometimes coincide and sometimes not? Lyra's daemon Pan is much more of a worrier than she is. Does this represent the self-doubt that she seldom shows?
I won't address the "anti-Christian elements" till we get further into the trilogy, since they're minor until the last few chapters of this book. (The Church is presented more as a political than a religious body.) I will say though that oddly enough the book most reminded me of A Wrinkle in Time (1962), as children struggle with good and evil, and-- more so in Subtle Knife (1997) of course-- travel between worlds.
Philip Pullman
The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials, Book I
Original price $7.50, purchase price $2.80
Slightly worn paperback
B-
Had I graded this book when I first read it a dozen or so years ago, I might've given it a B or B+. This time though I realized that, except for some nice touches here and there, Pullman doesn't have much style. To take the most glaring example, the witches are invariably described as having "ragged elegance." Also the plot depends a great deal on shock value, and that's gone on the third or fourth reading.
What I'm left with is some interesting world-building, not just the witches and of course the armored bears, but also the morally ambiguous world of adults. Enemies, as young Lyra learns, can both be wrong, even in the case of her charming but ruthless parents. Lyra herself is disobedient and dishonest, but brave and good-hearted.
This reading, I had some questions about the daemons, the familiars/souls that all humans have. Why, other than Jungian psychology, is a daemon usually the opposite sex of its human? And why do the personalities sometimes coincide and sometimes not? Lyra's daemon Pan is much more of a worrier than she is. Does this represent the self-doubt that she seldom shows?
I won't address the "anti-Christian elements" till we get further into the trilogy, since they're minor until the last few chapters of this book. (The Church is presented more as a political than a religious body.) I will say though that oddly enough the book most reminded me of A Wrinkle in Time (1962), as children struggle with good and evil, and-- more so in Subtle Knife (1997) of course-- travel between worlds.
Friday, September 27, 2013
Reasonable Creatures: Essays on Women and Feminism
1995, updated from 1994 edition, from Vintage Books
Katha Pollitt
Reasonable Creatures: Essays on Women and Feminism
Bought new for $11.00
Worn paperback
A-
I only had to get as far as the preface to this edition and the more upbeat introduction to the hardcover edition to remember how much I loved Pollitt's writing. She was my favorite contributor when I had a '90s subscription to The Nation, and the essays here (from roughly '86 to '93) are some of her best. If anything, I agree with her more, particularly on her questioning of difference feminism, than I did two decades ago. (The "Carol Gilligan's Island" joke is still great.)
Pollitt is intelligent, witty, snarky when she has to be, compassionate, and, yes, as reasonable as Wollstonecraft could ask for. I was really struck by the similarities to Susan J. Douglas this time, although media critic Douglas of course has a different focus. The two women are roughly the same age (Pollitt born in late '49, Douglas within a year later) and have daughters of roughly the same age (Pollitt's in '87, Douglas's I think the next year) who in their early childhood were clever and feisty but fond of playing Wedding and Disney Princess. (Both women see Ariel as an improvement over Sleeping Beauty.) The writers' personalities seem similar as well, although Pollitt comes across as more concerned with issues of class and race.
Douglas doesn't address the 1993 Bobbitt case till her 2010 book, but one of Pollitt's essays here is on how ordinary women seemed to sympathize more with Lorena Bobbitt than feminist leaders did. One thing Pollitt is very good at is putting controversial news stories in context, contrasting them with what else was covered, or ignored, at that time, as with the media treatment of the plaintiff in the William Kennedy Smith rape trial vs. not only how Smith was treated, but also against the coverage of the Central Park jogger's case. If I had to pick a favorite essay, it's the one on Baby M, so much good common sense mixed with empathy.
But, really, I love it all, from "The Smurfette Principle" (tokenism in children's entertainment) to "That Survey" ("...they interviewed no college-educated single women, and thus have no idea how many want to marry, think they want to marry but only fall in love with Greek sponge divers, are contentedly cohabiting in nonmarital bliss, are gay, hate the very thought of marriage or just don't care one way or the other") to the more serious essays, like the ones on abortion. I tried to think of a flaw, why this is a B+ rather than an A-, and just couldn't.
I probably never will give out A's or A+s. Unless Pollitt and Douglas collaborated? Meantime, we'll see how Pollitt's Subject to Debate stacks up when we get to 2001....
Katha Pollitt
Reasonable Creatures: Essays on Women and Feminism
Bought new for $11.00
Worn paperback
A-
I only had to get as far as the preface to this edition and the more upbeat introduction to the hardcover edition to remember how much I loved Pollitt's writing. She was my favorite contributor when I had a '90s subscription to The Nation, and the essays here (from roughly '86 to '93) are some of her best. If anything, I agree with her more, particularly on her questioning of difference feminism, than I did two decades ago. (The "Carol Gilligan's Island" joke is still great.)
Pollitt is intelligent, witty, snarky when she has to be, compassionate, and, yes, as reasonable as Wollstonecraft could ask for. I was really struck by the similarities to Susan J. Douglas this time, although media critic Douglas of course has a different focus. The two women are roughly the same age (Pollitt born in late '49, Douglas within a year later) and have daughters of roughly the same age (Pollitt's in '87, Douglas's I think the next year) who in their early childhood were clever and feisty but fond of playing Wedding and Disney Princess. (Both women see Ariel as an improvement over Sleeping Beauty.) The writers' personalities seem similar as well, although Pollitt comes across as more concerned with issues of class and race.
Douglas doesn't address the 1993 Bobbitt case till her 2010 book, but one of Pollitt's essays here is on how ordinary women seemed to sympathize more with Lorena Bobbitt than feminist leaders did. One thing Pollitt is very good at is putting controversial news stories in context, contrasting them with what else was covered, or ignored, at that time, as with the media treatment of the plaintiff in the William Kennedy Smith rape trial vs. not only how Smith was treated, but also against the coverage of the Central Park jogger's case. If I had to pick a favorite essay, it's the one on Baby M, so much good common sense mixed with empathy.
But, really, I love it all, from "The Smurfette Principle" (tokenism in children's entertainment) to "That Survey" ("...they interviewed no college-educated single women, and thus have no idea how many want to marry, think they want to marry but only fall in love with Greek sponge divers, are contentedly cohabiting in nonmarital bliss, are gay, hate the very thought of marriage or just don't care one way or the other") to the more serious essays, like the ones on abortion. I tried to think of a flaw, why this is a B+ rather than an A-, and just couldn't.
I probably never will give out A's or A+s. Unless Pollitt and Douglas collaborated? Meantime, we'll see how Pollitt's Subject to Debate stacks up when we get to 2001....
Thursday, September 26, 2013
The Butches of Madison County
1995, possibly first edition, from Laugh Lines Press
Ellen Orleans
The Butches of Madison County
Bought new for $7.95
Slightly worn paperback
C+
I remember being bored by both the novel and the movie of Bridges of..., which this obviously is a lesbian parody of. I didn't find this book hilarious, but I did enjoy the skewing and skewering of the "tragic romance" and pseudo-intellectual pretentiousness. Notable for an early example of a man, the farmwife's husband, who lives more of his life online than in reality.
Ellen Orleans
The Butches of Madison County
Bought new for $7.95
Slightly worn paperback
C+
I remember being bored by both the novel and the movie of Bridges of..., which this obviously is a lesbian parody of. I didn't find this book hilarious, but I did enjoy the skewing and skewering of the "tragic romance" and pseudo-intellectual pretentiousness. Notable for an early example of a man, the farmwife's husband, who lives more of his life online than in reality.
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