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Can you believe it’s July already? I can’t. I was just getting used to June, just starting to feel like I was in the June groove, and now it’s time to move on. I am not ready. Can we turn the calendar back to June 15th please? That should be enough for me to get my fill of June and then when July 1st rolls around again I will be ready. Not going to happen you say? Where’s Marty McFly or the TARDIS when you need them?

Well, let’s barrel into July then. What will the month hold for reading? I get a 3-day holiday weekend coming up for Independence Day. Groovy, some extra reading time.

Even though I have been (mostly) good about keeping my library hold requests down to a manageable number, two books I have been looking forward to reading that have long waiting lines have, of course, both arrived for me at once. I now have to either a) rush through The Buried Giant and Get in Trouble in three weeks, or b) choose one to focus on and not worry about the other and get in line for it again if I run out of time. Choice “b” seems the most likely one I will go with which means Ishiguro’s Buried Giant will get my attention first. I am looking forward to it.

Carried over from last month, I am still reading Elif Shafak’s The Architect’s Apprentice. I am enjoying it much more than I was before even though I am making my way through it rather slowly.

In June I began reading Portrait of a Lady by Henry James and The Martian by Andy Weir. Two very different books and I am enjoying each of them quite a lot. James manages to be funny and ironic and ominous and can he ever write! I know people make fun of his long sentences but I get so involved in the reading I don’t even notice the length of the sentences. I do notice sometimes the paragraphs are very long, but that is only when I am nearing my train stop or the end of my lunch break and I am looking for a place to stop reading. And The Martian, is it ever a funny book. The book itself isn’t funny I guess, there is nothing very funny about being left for dead on Mars, the character, Mark Watney is funny; humor as survival tool. Weir, I must say, does a most excellent job of writing about complex science in such a way that is compelling and interesting and makes me feel smart.

I have a review copy of a new book called Miss Emily by Nuala O’Connor on its way to me. The Emily in question is Emily Dickinson. It’s a novel from Penguin Random House and they are kindly going to provide a second copy for a giveaway. Something to look forward to!

I will also begin reading Elizabeth Bishop this month. I’m still reading Keats letters and biography and poetry but he will get a bit less attention as I start to focus on Bishop. Much as I wanted to like Keats, it seems I like the idea of Keats more than the actuality; enjoy his letters more than his poetry. Not that his poetry isn’t very good, it is, at least some of it because there is quite a bit of mediocre stuff he wrote to/for friends that makes me wonder why I decided to read the collected rather than the selected. Hindsight and all that. But even the really good Keats poetry left me with mixed feelings. I mean, I appreciate it and sometimes I have a wow moment, but it generally doesn’t give me poetry stomach (the stomach flutters I get when I read a poem I really connect with). We’ll see how it goes with Bishop. I have her collected as well as her letters to work my way through over the coming months.

Without a doubt there will be other books that pop up through the month, there always are! The unexpected is all part of the fun.

Filed under: Books, In Progress Tagged: Andy Weir, Elif Shafak, Elizabeth Bishop, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, John Keats, Nuala O'Connor

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So, I haven't blogged in a while. I've read a ton, but there are several major projects in life, work, and school right now, so... ergh. BUT! I bring you a special report. We will soon return to our regularly scheduled blathering.

So, before I go home and watch to see how the rest of my state voted (dude, it took me nearly 45 minutes this morning!) I'm off to Politics & Prose in DC to see Elif Shafak. I'm really super excited.

So, here I bring you a review of

The Bastard of Istanbul Elif Shafak

Family secrets, denied history and national identity all come to play as two families, as well as the past and present collide.

It's hard to explain the plot without just going on and on and on and on and on.

You have one girl, Asya, who lives with her mother, three aunts, her grandmother, and great-grandmother in Istanbul. She's an angry woman, I think she symbolizes Istanbul well-- modern and thinking she's Western, but pulled to the East and the past by tradition. (One that Asya at least tries to deny. It's easier to deny your past when you don't know who your father is.) All the men in her family die early. She has an uncle that was sent to America to try and break the curse.

You have another, Armanoush, who is Armenian-American, but with a Turkish step-father. In an attempt to understand her Armenian-ness, as well as the genocide and deportation that colors her Armenian family's view of everything, Armanoush runs off to Istanbul, where she stays with her step-father's family.

There's a lot more to it than that, trust me. The two family histories are complicatedly entwined, with the narrative jumping place and time on a regular basis.

More than anything, Shafak has wonderful characters, a love for Istanbul while still admitting her faults, a light touch with magical realism, and a good sense of finding the humor in the absurdities of everyday life.

Shafak was charged with insulting Turkish identity because of her discussion of the Armenian genocide. Luckily, the charges were dropped.

I really liked it and can't wait to read her other stuff.

Hopefully, if you're in the DC area, you can get to P&P in time to catch this event!

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Barb O'Connor tagged me. So blame her!!! (Note to Barb: my next chain letter goes to you, Honey...)

8 things about me....I hope this is at least mildly amusing, interesting, or random:

1. I lived in England when I was 11 and 16. Saw the Sex Pistols. (Syd Vicious threw up 25 feet in front of me.)
2. Yesterday, I looked in my closet and realized I owned 11 black dresses (but only one in another color). And two in the wrong size (you know what I mean.)
3. Things I'm most proud of: my kids, buying a house on my own, finishing my MFA, writing Head Case, writing four bad novels without any education whatsoever, being smart enough to say YES to M.
4. I have an MSPT, too. I used to work with people with traumatic brain or spinal cord injuries. If I had not moved to NH, I never would have written a novel.
5. I never thought I'd be a writer, but as a kid, I did want to be famous.
6. My children are both exactly my height. (in 30 days, this will change.)
7. I make an excellent spicy Thai seafood soup.
8. Lately, when I write, I listen to opera.

If you would like to share 8 things about yourself, consider yourself tagged.

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