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I finally finished some books, and I’m going to pretend that it isn’t made much less impressive by having skipped last week. So in the last two weeks:

Books finished:

• SEXUALITY AND SOCIALISM. I loved this. I am proud of Sherry Wolf, the author, who is also my friend. I was very familiar with the U.S.’s history of homosexuality and homophobia through the early ’70s, and with many of the debates in the LGBT movement today, but almost totally ignorant about the period in between. So my favorite parts of this book were about the rise of queer theory (which the author has an interesting and, to my mind, convincing critique of as “militant defeatism”) and the connections between the LGBT and labor movements, from the 1930s to today. Fun stuff.
• DIARY OF BERGEN-BELSEN by Hanna Levy-Hass. This was fascinating: Levy-Hass writes about the starvation, the diseases, etc. but what seems to pain her the most in her concentration camp experience is the collaboration of her fellow Jewish prisoners. A committed communist before her imprisonment, she helps to lead resistance in the camp: she is chosen to represent 120 women when they organize to demand control over the food distribution (to take it out of the hands of corrupt relatively ‘privileged’ prisoners and make it equitable).

  Her ability to keep her thoughts lucid in these conditions is remarkable, and she expresses immense frustration with her fellow prisoners and pain at seeing their servitude, even while acknowledging that her own relative physical health (and it was relative: the descriptions of all of their bodies are chilling) is likely what makes it possible for her to keep hold of her senses. At one point, she writes that for the rest of her life she will judge people not by how they act in “normal” conditions, but by remembering how they did, or imagining how they would, act in conditions of inhumanity.

  Levy-Hass was the mother of Amira Hass, who remains the only Israeli journalist to live in the Occupied Territories so she can report in honesty and solidarity with Palestinians. Hass’s introduction and afterword, substantial essays about her parents’ lives before and after the camps, contribute enormously to the book. In particular, she draws out the personal and political implications of her mother’s subsequent disillusionment with the USSR, whose Soviet Red Army had liberated both of Hass’s parents.

• Most excitingly, I am back to reading kids’ books! Yesterday I finished ONE-EYED CAT by Paula Fox, a lucky find at a used bookstore, and GEOGRAPHY CLUB by Brent Hartinger, which kicks off my LGBT teen book reading series. Reviews of these two are coming.

Reading this week:

• The LGBT reading continues — others I purchased are Perry Moore’s HERO and Peter Cameron’s SOMEDAY THIS PAIN WILL BE USEFUL TO YOU. More recommendations very very welcome!
• I also bought THE HOT ROCK, the first DORTMUNDER book by Donald Westlake. There’s a long and sad history here, because Emily lent me the Dortmunder series years ago, and I left them in my boyfriend’s car, and it will tell you a great deal about the state of his car that they remained there, lost, until he had to trade in his car a few years later. Emily spotted the books in one of my apartment’s many random book piles this past May, and justly took them home; as penance (and ’cause I usually trust her recommendations) I’m going to make this the first of my mystery reading kick after Mieville’s CITY & CITY.

That’s the plan — it remains only to be seen whether the fact that I’m moving these next two weeks (uck!) means I read less ’cause I’m packing, or more ’cause I’m putting off packing…

Posted in Sunday Summary

…because even though I skipped last week, my Sunday Summary is really embarrassing. Meaning, I continue to start many books, and finish very, very few. I once had a professor who (twice!) sent me a long quote from Trotsky about how the problem with the young comrades is how they skipped from topic to topic instead of having the focus to really learn anything. That professor knew me better than people in positions of authority over me ought.

In my defense, my ongoing roommate search is taking way more time than I ever expected which kind of sucks, and also, I’ve been kind of obsessed with reading things related to my (new! improved!) MA thesis, which kind of really doesn’t suck at all, except it’s taken up my reading-for-fun-especially-about-teenagers-falling-in-and-out-of-love-with-each-other time. And come to think of it, the fact that I now read about unobserved heterogeneity distributions instead of cliques and monsters at bedtime may explain why I’ve been sleeping really poorly.

Anyway. Books finished and yes that is an inaccurate use of the plural:

• FROM A TO X by John Berger. This is one of the best love stories I’ve read. It’s made me reconsider the fact that I never read adult fiction. There was really no way I wasn’t going to love this one, seeing as how it’s about love:
  

  I was clinging to you hard, not with my arms, because it was not your body I was clinging to, we were both sitting well back in our seats, very calm, I was clinging to your intentions, your exact intentions. What they were I couldn’t tell because I knew nothing about flying, but the way you intended whatever it was, was deeply familiar to me, and inseparable from my love for you.

  And war:

  What I admired about Fernando was his capacity to persuade people to be honest with themselves, for when this happens they gain the advantage of surprise. An incomparable tactical advantage in any insurrection. It’s the lies we tell ourselves that make us repetitive. Fernando understood this.

  And prisons. It’s about prisons.

Reading this week:

• SEXUALITY AND SOCIALISM by Sherry Wolf. I put this down before finishing it when I was dealing with some other things, but I’m very excited to get back into it. Especially because the last few chapters are on the stuff I know less about. I particularly want to get more into her critique of the turn to queer theory in the academy.
• I’ve been thinking about going on a mystery kick. Lenore’s been reviewing some promising books I want to read, but I believe I’ll start with China Mieville’s new detective novel, CITY & CITY. It’s exceedingly rare that I shell out for a new hardcover, as I did with this one at a book fair last month (damn you for placing it by the register!), so I’ll feel lame if I don’t read it while it’s still new.
• I’m also thinking about going on an LGBT young adult reading kick, because it’s been a while since I’ve read much of this lit (not in any large quantity since I was in high school, when there was a lot less of it). This was inspired by reading in the NY Times Book Review today about the promisingly-titled THE VAST FIELDS OF ORDINARY, which is so new that I’m going to try to get my hands on a free copy for review (in a political periodical), which means I won’t be reading it this week. So: LGBT teen/kid book suggestions welcome!
• My boyfriend went to the American Library Association conference (he was exhibiting for Haymarket Books) and brought me back some freebies. They’re short enough that I can review them this week, so I’m keeping them a surprise…