Lose Your Mother...Find Yourself

Mother

I found this story, Lose Your Mother...Find Yourself , on Fresh Yarn. It resonated with me, I suppose, because I just lost my own mother.

Now I Don't Have to Read the Book

jane Fonda

I now know more about Jane Fonda than I ever wanted to know. Sounds like she spends a lot of time explaining why she grew into someone she didn't like but discovered religion and became pathologically introspective and now she adores herself.

Today in Literature

Anne Sexton
On this day in 1960, "confessional" American poet Anne Sexton published her first book of poems, To Bedlam and Part Way Back. Read the article.

Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine

Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine

The New York Times Book Review called this book "Brilliant". I don't agree. I thought it was a good little timewaster and that's about it. It is the story of three women who meet in the sixties, two of whom embraced all the craziness of that time and one who was reluctantly along for the ride. All three face challenges as they move on to another era. They raise children, start and end relationships, deal with cancer and insanity. We are told what happens to these women over the years but get no sense of who they really are. I found it superficial. Suzanne, especially, is presented as a stereotypically driven woman who sacrifices true love for a career and a nice apartment.

The Book Club

This bit from "The Vinyl Cafe" is funny because it's so true.

When the meeting began it was clear to Morley that no one in the club had read the book except for her. She felt a warm smugness envelop her as the discussion began. But before it was her turn, the conversation had taken flight from the book she had struggled through and had landed on another novel by the same author. A much shorter book that the club had, apparently, read the previous year.When it was Morley’s turn she cleared her throat and said,“I would like to bring the conversation back to this month’s book.” The book she had spent the last twenty-four hours struggling through.Everyone stared at her blankly. It was Dana Regan who said, “Why would you do that, dear? We’re not talking about that book.”At the next meeting, it was Morley’s turn to go first. For once she had understood the book. She hadn’t liked it. She felt sure of her opinion.“The early parts were okay,” she began, “but I have to say, the second half of the book . . .” Morley was rather pleased with herself now. She was about to try out a new expression, something she had never said before. “I have to say,” said Morley, “that I think this book is . . . deeply flawed.”There was a snort from the other side of the room. “Why on earth would you say that?” said Fay Struthers

Dress Your Family In Corduroy and Denim

sedaris

Preparing for a 20 hour drive to Arkansas to visit my terminally ill mother, I armed myself with wine (Jonesboro is that anomaly called a dry county) and the latest David Sedaris book that I'd been saving for just such an emergency. The only way I could imagine getting through the next few days was getting drunk and laughing out loud (in between the tears). I found myself unable to drink much (a most unusual state of affairs) but the book ameliorated my mood a bit. These stories about the whacked out Sedaris clan are his best yet, funny as ever but more complex and bittersweet.

Charlotte Bronte: Sex Obsessed Genius?

You have to love this article. Follow the link.

"I can find no remnant of the breathing, brilliant novelist in Haworth; it is merely the site of a death cult that weirdly resents its god. I wander up the road to the moors and am surprised they haven't packaged the mud - "Real Brontë Mud!" As the taxi bumps down the famous cobbled street, past the Brontë tea-rooms, the Villette coffee shop, Thornfield sheltered housing (imagine 50 creaking Mr Rochesters) and the Brontë Balti (Brontë special - Chicken Tikka; it's true), I yearn to rip the road signs down and torch the parsonage. This shrine needs desecrating, and I want to watch it burn. I want to see the fridge magnets melt, the tea-towels explode and the wedding bonnet wither. Somewhere, glistening in the ashes, there might remain a copy of Jane Eyre. That is all of Charlotte Brontë that need loiter here. "