Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Late Summer Reading Open Thread

By

As the world anxiously awaits the release of what promises to be the greatest book yet published by an Editor of BMG, Bob’s Barack Obama for Beginners, I wanted to open discussion up on two topics.

First, what is everyone reading this summer? I’m looking forward to reading Bob’s book and finally getting to Obama’s memoir, Dreams of My Father. But I’m looking for other ideas. Truthfully, I read few books with a political slant, so I’d like to hear what everyone is reading in any genre, non-fiction or novel, on any topic.

Second, and this may have been discussed before, but do denizens of BMG have a fun nickname yet? I know we use the shorthand “BMGers”, but I’m looking at constituencies like the KISS Army, Dumbledore’s Army, Red Sox Naton, Colbert Nation, McCainiacs, Wayne-iacs, Fanilows, Dead Heads, Parrot Heads, and Kosacks and realize our identifier could be upgraded.

BMGers is boring, Blue Mass Groupies is OK, but kinda long. The BMG Army might be too militaristic given the opposition to Iraq. And BMG Nation seems a geographic stretch. A creative brain trust populates this blog; let’s kick around some ideas for a new appellative.

Please share widely!
fb-share-icon
Tweet
0

Comments

  3. But I’m sure some folks on the right-wing might call us BlueMassholes….

    • Along the same lines we could be called the BMs. I have no constructive suggestions. Yet.

      <

      p>Reading material: In my never ending quest to read things I somehow missed out in earlier life, I just finished One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. Then I rented the DVD. Two thumbs up for both. Prior to that it was East of Eden by Steinbeck.

      <

      p>On the non-fiction front, I am still making my way through A History of Israel by Howard M. Sachar (1020 small-print pages – I’ve been reading this off and on for over a year).

      • There are BMG members of all ideological stripes here. Even among us “blue” BMG members- i.e. Democrats- not all of us are “lefty” enough to be called moonbats.  

  4. Well, this summer is personal (English) teacher development for me.  Sadly, literally, I’m working my way through all of Eugene O’Neill’s plays–backwards.  Since I’m using the definitive Library of America 3-volume versions, that means I’m in Volume 3 and in the middle of More Stately Mansions.  I also read the two definitive biographies of O’Neill, Stephen Black’s and the Gelbs’ in prep.  (I teach O’Neill during year–Desire Under the Elms and Long Day’s Journey Into Night, so every now and then I feel the need to steep myself in O’Neill.)  

    <

    p>Concurrently on my train-wreck travels through Modernist American literature is a re-read of The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner.  I assigned this text as extra summer reading to weed out the weak in one of my classes for the fall.

    <

    p>I also have to read Gatsby and A Farewell to Arms.  

    <

    p>If I don’t slit my own throat by the end of the summer given the uplifting nature of my own assigned reading, it’ll be a miracle.  I should probably seek professional help.  đŸ˜‰  

    • It’s worth noting that Harlem Renaissance lit and African American lit of the 30s is steeped in Modernism.

      <

      p>I don’t mind O’Neill, but I can’t say I’m in a rush to read all of his plays. For anyone interested, O’Neill is buried in JP.

      <

      p>Zora Neale Hurston, author of the Modernist classic Their Eyes Were Watching God, wrote an unpublished theatrical show that consisted of seven skits, one skit being Bahamas in which she appropriated the O’Neill character Emperor Jones and used him to satirize Marcus Garvey.

      <

      p>Good luck with your self-assigned reading.  

      • lit.  We use Hurston’s Their Eyes in our senior elective Women’s Lit.  I once got into a huge argument in graduate school with many members of the seminar class over my assertion that Toni Morrison is hugely overrated and that Hurston is a far superior writer and novelist.  Boy, that didn’t go over well, but, heh, it’s good to shake things up now and then.

        <

        p>I love the American Modernists, so, for me, there’s no such thing as too much O’Neill.  The more depraved and grotesque, too, the better.  I’m also a huge devotee of Flannery O’Connor.  lol.

      • I haven’t read that in years and have managed to avoid teaching it.   Believe me, my American Lit year is pretty extreme as it is; I think I have the death and dying thing pretty well covered.  đŸ˜‰

        • Someone from the old Dean crowd was looking for you.  I hope that you are doing OK.  I’m thinking of you.

          • We’re doing all right.  I had hoped to be able to go to the unity thing, but it just didn’t work out.  We’ll be at the next one, though.  

    • Although my middle school reading list is not nearly as heavy as your high school list.  

      <

      p>I have been reading Evan Hunter/Ed McBain because my students loved a couple of his short stories in the past.  Most of the new stuff I am finding seems too sexy or too violent for middle school, however.  I may also freshen up my working knowledge of Agatha Christie – the kids have loved her plays.

      <

      p>Young adult fiction:
      The Sea of Monsters, Riordan’s sequel to The Lightning Thief, and Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.  Already finished The Wild Girls, by Pat Murphy and The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry.  The latter book has a character who tries to speak fake German.  His first line made me laugh until I cried.  The dog ran from the other room to see what was the matter.  The Murphy book could be useful for teaching writing (the main characters win a writing contest), but I don’t think it has broad enough appeal for an entire class of kids to read.  Maybe a literature circle of motivated girls.

      <

      p>If anyone missed it, the NYTimes had an article about the increasingly blurred line between young adult and mainstream fiction a little while ago.  If you enjoyed Harry Potter, treat yourself to some other YA reading once in awhile.

      <

      p>For myself:
      Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin on audiobook.  I think this one is a big best-seller?  I’m enjoying it, but wish I had a map of northern Pakistan to try to sort out some of the locations.  (Maybe the hardcopy of the book has a map – the audiobook does not.)  Mortenson built his first school and economic development projects in the early 1990s, but I have seen some media coverage recently that the U.S. military is urging the U.S. to make education infrastructure a centerpiece of the efforts to stabilize Afghanistan and this border area of Pakistan.  Maybe that’s why the book has come out now.

      <

      p>Also: Shakespeare’s Wife, by Germaine Greer.  I have not found this book as engaging as the review led me to expect, but I’m thrilled to see some of the myths peeled away from Cousin (?) Ann Hathaway.  

      <

      p>On deck: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski.  Saving this one for a hammock by a lake in northern Michigan – actually, Lake Walloon, where Hemingway got his start.

      • My son, who is starting 6th grade this fall, is an avid reader.  He read quite a bit of stuff not generally of interest to 5th graders this year, including The Life of Pi by Yann Martel, Longitude by Dava Sobel, and Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susannah Clarke, which gives you a sense of where he’s at.  He had one required book for the summer, Laurie Halse Anderson’s Fever 1793.  He enjoyed that quite a bit, but the books he could not put down this summer were The Body of Christopher Creed by Carol Plum-Ucci and Dragon Moon by Carole Wilkinson.  BTW, he has read all of Riordan’s books and loved them.  

        <

        p>I taught And Then There Were None two years ago in a sophomore foundations-level class.  They enjoyed it, but it was a tough slog, as Christie’s style is a bit dated for them.  I’m not sure I’m in a hurry to try that again, but I won’t likely have the opportunity as the past two years I’m the American Lit queen (juniors).    

  5. Just finished Pinker’s The Stuff of Thought which I read on tblade’s recommendation. The heaviest and most interesting chapters were the first few. I found the later chapters amusing but I kept asking myself “Why am I reading this?” I’m plodding through Rorty’s Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature and Lakoff’s The Political Mind.

    • but I find as he ages he become more pedantic and rigid.  I’m not sure I agree with his views on the blank slate stuff, but that’s a discussion for another day.

      <

      p>A book club/group on this site might be interesting, but I suspect it will be skewed to the science and quantitative, despite the nature of the landlords.  Would people be interested?  I’m of two minds (BS Geology, MA English) and read both science and arts, but I wonder if there is enough diversity here to make it valuable for everyone concerned (she said, fearing she’s the only literature [expletive deleted] out there…].

    • Just finished Pollen, In Defense of Food. I read his Omnivore’s Dilemna earlier this year and Botany of Desire a while ago. In Defense of Food suggests a number of potentially productive research projects beginning with “What did you Great Grandmother eat?”

      • Crab apple jelly. Boiled beef and potatoes. Pasta and tomato sauce (which my grandfather has refused to eat since leaving his mother’s house in the 30s because he had it so often). Eggs and bacon. Occasionally fish.

        <

        p>I know what my great grandmother ate because I still talk to my grandfather about how he grew up in the Depression and the things his mother would cook to feed 8 mouths. As one result, this was handed down and my whole family has a bland, finicky Yankee palate and I can’t get anyone to eat anything outside of meat (meaning steak and chicken) and potatoes. And god forbid anyone try to season the meat or potatoes.  

        • Hey, would you like some seasoning for that?

          <

          p>No thanks!  I have butter and salt!

          <

          p>My grandmother refused to eat tomatoes because she thought they were, literally, poisonous.

          <

          p>She prepared bacon by boiling it.  My mother has a funny story about realizing as an adult that bacon is actually pretty yummy if not boiled.  Lots of stew with all of the ingredients far more cooked than acceptable to the modern palate, in order to tenderize a cheap cut of meat.

          <

          p>Grandma and grandpa both liked their meat cooked to the point where it was no longer recognizable as meat, but only as hot shoe leather.

          <

          p>On the other hand, she was the best baker I have ever met, and could make cakes and pastries better than any I have ever tasted.  Sadly, the recipes are lost because they were all done by eye:  pinch of that and some of that.

          <

          p>No corned beef and cabbage, though, which she considered an American thing.

      • Pollen’s recommendation, which sounds spot on to my ears.

        <

        p>I just finished “Franco and Hitler”, a fascinating look at Spain during World War II, and am trying to plow through “After Tamerlane”, a book about a fascinating subject written in a very dry fashion.

    • …when it was written Barack Obama was barely out of college.

      <

      p>The “voice” is personal, and some of the content would not be there, I expect, were this a political book.

      <

      p>It is well worth reading.  Anyone want to borrow my copy as I am done?  Contact me directly if you do.  This book is not a tome, not a reference book, and I am quite willing to lend it out, no worries.

    • haven’t read any recently.  But I did get thoroughly hooked on Battlestar Galactica during a recent recuperation.  Watched the 1st 4 seasons on DVD, and am chomping at the bit for the 5th to become available.  Also watched the 1st season of Heroes and liked that a lot too.  Save the cheerleader, save the world!

      <

      p>SciFi has a long and distinguished tradition of examining social and political issues from the safe distance of futuristic imagination.  So hate to break it to ya, but if you read decent scifi, you’re reading political stuff in another, much more fun form.

  8. I’ve got a few books I’m reading at the moment.  I’m almost done reading tblade’s recommendation by Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name.  It has been eye opening and made me profoundly disappointed in our forebears and my own teachers, to say the least.  Also reading Rowling’s Harry Potter en de Orde van de Feniks as a fun way to expand my Dutch.  And now that I’m back from vacation, I can finish the books I left unfinished at home: Dietrich’s The Final Forest (about the clash of the Pacific NW timber industry with environmentalists and changing economics) and David Suzuki’s The Autobiography.

    <

    p>Recent reads include Betty McDonald’s autobiographical tale of life in a t.b. sanitorium The Plague and I; Monica Sone’s autobiography Nisei Daughter about growing up 1st generation Japanese-American in pre-WWII Seattle; Mari Grana’s biography of her grandmother Pioneer Doctor: The Story of a Woman’s Work and a hikers guide to Mount St. Helens.

    <

    p>My mother in law sent me home with the following:
    The Singing Sands by Josephine Tey, a 1940s era Scottish mystery writer, and Het Huis van de Moskee (The House of the Mosque) by Kader Abdolah.  The latter was written by a Iranian-born Dutch guy, who says the following about his book (apologies for my translation)

    I wrote this book for the western world.  It’s about people, about art, about religion, about sex, about film, about the importance of radio and television.  I have tried to shove aside the curtains and let Islam be seen as a lifestyle.  What has been revealed surprised even myself. ..

    <

    p>On the fall list is Roadside Geology of Washington.  I read every issue of Journal of Great Lakes Research, a quarterly, and spend most of my time reading research papers on flora, fauna and geology.

  9. Entertaining fiction offering insights into Indian politics and culture: Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games, an amazingly good thriller set in Mumbai; M.G. Vassanji’s The Assassin’s Song, about the heir to a centuries-old shrine caught between modern-day Hindu and Muslim factions.  Moving a little to the west and into the realm of memoir, I also liked Three Cups of Tea.

    <

    p>Pure entertainment: Peter Temple’s The Broken Shore is an Australian detective story written in a spare, distinctive voice.

    <

    p>On the border between history and memoir: Sandy Tolan’s The Lemon Tree is the story of two families, one Palestinian, one Israeli, connected by a house once owned by the Palestinian family and then home to the Israeli family after 1948.

Archives