Tag: book review

American Cozy by Stephanie Pedersen

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So back when I shared my 2021 Reading Challenge list and showed off my “jar o’ prompts,” I mentioned that there were 2 categories I’d exempted from my randomizing system: the very first category (“In the beginning…”) and the category about “a book that you associate with a particular season”—the latter because I had chosen a book that went along with my ongoing love for hygge and things hygge-ish, and I was determined to read that book while we had snow on the ground.

Well, our recent end-of-January/early-February snowfalls created the perfect atmosphere for cozy, cuddly, hygge-reading. So here I am with a book review!

The front cover of a book: American Cozy Hygge-Inspired Ways to Create Comfort & Happiness Stephanie Pedersen

I feel a little bit bad, though: I really wish I’d liked this book more than I did. ‘Cos I have every faith in Pedersen’s good intentions.

It’s just that her flavor of hygge really doesn’t do it for me.

Continue reading “American Cozy by Stephanie Pedersen” →

Book buffet

On By MezzoSherriIn Books Books Books, Life-Long Learning, Meta-Blogging, Pop Goes the CultureLeave a comment

I am falling way behind in my book reviews. There’s still one book left over from 2020, as well as the 3 I’ve finished this far for different 2021 challenge prompts. So that leaves 4 titles that “need” covering. Now that I’m back to work after my end-of-year vacation, I won’t be completing books quite as quickly as I was before, which means it is hypothetically possible for me to get caught up. If I keep posting 4 or 5 nights a week and make sure that every other post is a book review, I could probably have everything back in balance before the end of January.

A closeup of a small stone cairn sitting on an empty beach. The water line and sky are out-of-focus behind the cairn.

But here’s the unpleasant truth. I’m not sure I want to post all those book reviews. Thinking about that responsibility, the schedule and discipline needed to get caught up again—and then to stay caught up as I keep reading and blogging—it’s kinda giving this blogging hobby of mine an unpleasant taste of obligation and work.

Call me lazy, but that’s what I’m feeling.

Continue reading “Book buffet” →

It Was All a Lie by Stuart Stevens

On By MezzoSherriIn Books Books Books, Life-Long Learning, Politics and Policy, Pop Goes the Culture, Topics of StudyLeave a comment

I write this post tonight not so long after the final polls closed in Georgia’s senatorial run-offs—two elections that will have a tremendous impact on the balance of power in the U.S. Senate and, by extension, on the legislative agenda of the Biden administration and the 117th Congress.

I also write this not-so-many-hours before the (usually-ceremonial) meeting of Congress to certify the Presidential election results from November 2020—a meeting at which approximately 100 congress members* are planning to commit sedition by objecting to the integrity of entirely NON-fraudulent election results, on the basis of…

I dunno. On the basis of them being authoritarian asshole toadies, I suppose.

It’s enough to drive a girl MAAAAAD!!!

A statue of the Queen of Hearts from Disney's Alice in Wonderland, in closeup showing her clenched fist and screaming, angry face.

It’s also a fitting time for me to rock out another book review to catch up from all my vacation reading. Because the book in question is by a political operative who devoted his career to getting Republicans elected, but who felt compelled in this current moment to craft a “blistering attack on the modern Republican Party and its wholesale surrender to Donald Trump.” (The Boston Globe)

Continue reading “It Was All a Lie by Stuart Stevens” →

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

On By MezzoSherriIn Books Books Books, Life-Long Learning, Pop Goes the Culture, Practicing in the Heart, Topics of StudyLeave a comment

I never know whether to read the book before seeing the movie or vice-versa.

Luckily enough, I’ve studied enough literature and enough films to understand the differences between these two expressive languages. Different story-telling techniques make a great book as opposed to those that make a great film, and a film can err just as readily by being too faithful to the book it’s adapting as it can by disregarding too much of its source material. (Exhibit A: Kenneth Branagh’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.)

That perspective helps me regardless of which direction I travel (book-to-movie or movie-to-book) with a particular text.

A stack of leather-bound books sitting next to a small stack of film canisters.

Still there are times when I make a very decided choice of what direction I want to travel. It’s not always the same direction, ‘cos I’m complicated that way. Sometimes I make a very strong “movie first” choice, and sometimes I go all-in for “book first.”

With Just Mercy it was a strong “book first” directionality.

The book’s been on my radar for quite a while, and I remember hearing about the movie when it came out in 2019. Then it all came back more strongly onto my radar last spring, when the film was made available for free in the early wave of last summer’s #BlackLivesMatter protests.* When a co-worker shared this tidbit of news on our social email chain, there were several other colleagues who shared how the movie was totally good, but paled in comparison to the book.

So I moved Stevenson’s book closer to the top of my reading list.

Continue reading “Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson” →

The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes

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Poor Jojo Moyes! I might have enjoyed her book some degree more had I not read Kim Michele Richardson‘s Book Woman of Troublesome Creek over the summer. Both novels explore the largely-forgotten history of the Depression-Era Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky, and Moyes’ novel certainly pales in comparison to Richardson’s.

A black and white photo of a packhorse librarian, astride her horse with an armful of reading materials.

Though let’s be honest, here—Moyes is doing just fine without my fandom. She has best-selling cred and movie deals galore.* I can’t exactly imagine her crying her self to sleep amongst her millions simply because a certain Ms. MezzoSherri likes the other packhorse librarian book better than Moyes’.

And here’s another wee truth-bomb: I’m pretty sure I’d have given this book a 2-star rating, whether or not I knew about Richardson’s novel ahead of reading Moyes’s.

Continue reading “The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes” →

White Too Long by Robert P. Jones

On By MezzoSherriIn Books Books Books, Life-Long Learning, Politics and Policy, Pop Goes the Culture, Spirituality, Topics of Study1 Comment

With a subtitle like The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity, you can safely assume that, yes, this as another one of my socio-cultural analysis reads of 2020. It was a completely random discovery, flashing by in the slideshow of newly acquired titles in my library’s online catalog. But it felt like a timely book about an important topic I could do to learn more about.

So I impulsively clicked the “Place Hold” button and this volume made its way to me from Haverhill.*

In this exceptional work, Jones mixes memoir, history and statistical analysis to build his case that—similar to so many other American institutions—racism and white supremacy are baked into the DNA of American Christianity.

At one level, this did not very much surprise me. After all, as outlined in so many places (The 1619 Project, Between the World and Me, Stamped from the Beginning) by so many people, white supremacy and anti-Blackness are woven into the warp and weft of this country. At another level, this particular lens of analysis was brand new to me, as a non-Christian born and bred in Christocentric USA.

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Melania and Me by Stephanie Winston Wolcoff

On By MezzoSherriIn Books Books Books, Politics and Policy, Pop Goes the CultureLeave a comment

Back to my 2020 sociopolitical reading list—though, admittedly, a title chosen with the full expectation that it would be more lightweight than the others I’ve read.* It was the kind of book I expected to be a gossipy, tell-all: the kind where you half expect to be shaking sand out of your iPad case after reading the Library’s e-book copy.

A vintage drawing of two women in 1950s style. One is whispering into the other's ear: "No, no...this isn't gossip. It's the truth."

It was not a book I expected to be such an ever-loving slog.

Continue reading “Melania and Me by Stephanie Winston Wolcoff” →

City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert

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Another title from the “just caught my attention” collection. This book caught my eye last year when I attended my second Mama Gena’s weekend in the Ziegfeld Ballroom. That site isn’t actually the building where the Follies were performed, but it still had a potent resonance, walking in the spiritual footprints of the Ziegfeld Girls while doing Mama G’s program, and then learning about this novel about 1940s New York showgirls all at the same time.

Full disclosure: I’ve never read anything by Gilbert before. I know Eat, Pray, Love was a huge phenomenon, and that Gilbert followed it up with another memoir (or two or three) as her life took additional twists and turns. It wasn’t ever a definitive decision I made against reading her stuff, I just never got around to it. (So many books, so little time…)

Still, knowing what little I know about the whole Eat, Pray, Love thing, I was truly puzzled about what type of “New York showgirl” story this particular author might want to tell. Would it completely eschew her introspective memoir thing to go all the way into glitz and escapism? Would it tell an anachronistic story of female sexual liberation and expression? What exactly would I find behind this pink feathered cover?*

A closeup of the book cover for City of Girls, showing the title in front of a picture of pink feathers.

The answer? A little bit of all of the above.

Continue reading “City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert” →

Beauty Mark by Carole Boston Weatherford

On By MezzoSherriIn Books Books Books, Pop Goes the Culture1 Comment

Unsurprisingly for me with a few days off, I’ve been doing a fair bit of reading. This latest book steps outside of my two main categories for 2020* to be part of the “books that randomly caught my eye” category that is always in play for me, year in and year out.

I stumbled across this book in a newsletter (weekly? monthly?) about new titles sent by a local indy bookstore. It may seem hyberbole to say I “stumbled across” something in a newsletter that I’m actively subscribed to, but I stand by my sense of fortunate chance here. Frankly, y’all, I hardly ever open those emails, so let’s just ponder the odds of me just randomly opening this middle-of-the-pandemic issue to see something so patently designed to catch my eye: a YA verse novel about Marilyn Monroe.

A close-up of Marilyn Monroe's face in full glamour mode, but with the black & white tonailty overlaid with bright, bold, unrealistic colors (blue lips, rainbow hair, pitch black and red diagonal neck)

I prefer to think of it as a small, blessed piece of good fortune.

The title stayed on my mind until things with COVID settled down to the point where books could once again travel on interlibrary loan**, whereupon I put in a request for it, and then happily picked it up.

Continue reading “Beauty Mark by Carole Boston Weatherford” →

The Truths We Hold by Kamala Harris

On By MezzoSherriIn Books Books Books, Life-Long Learning, Politics and Policy, Pop Goes the Culture1 Comment

Contextual set-up: aside from Shakespeare Project the Second, my 2020 reading has been deeply preoccupied with sociopolitical analysis—both anti-racist texts, and exposes of the Cheeto POTUS’s administration. This book doesn’t fit clearly in either of those sub-categories, but it’s definitely part of the same reading family that has been so front-and-center for me since I emerged from my first bout of “pandemic brain” and started actively reading again.

An screencap from MezzoSherri's Libby shelf, showing the thumbnail for Kamala Harris's book The Truths We Hold.
Thank you, Libby!

It wasn’t till I started writing this post that I realized The Truths We Hold is a campaign book.* But of course it is. Released about a week or two before Harris launched her Presidential campaign in January 2019, and with the flag-waving subtitle An American Journey, it has all the hallmarks of the genre.

And no shame on that. This sort of book has a long and respectable lineage, from JFK’s Profiles in Courage to Obama’s Audacity of Hope to Warren’s This Fight is Our Fight.** Good on Harris for writing her own, and I hope she continues to earn healthy royalty checks throughout the remainder of her long career in public service.

Still, I think I’m glad I read the memoir when I did rather than during the heat of the primaries.

Continue reading “The Truths We Hold by Kamala Harris” →