Tag Archives: book reviews

Cleaning Out the Stacks

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Last week I was talking about cleaning up my desk, and this week I’m thinking about cleaning up my stacks of books. I had a large stack of print and online books I was reading (let’s not even get into the like 80 items in my Netflix queue although granted some of those are also specific for my husband, but still, when will I ever watch all of that?), and I find myself staring at a much smaller stack. I have 5 ebooks and 4 print books not in my currently reading stack. That feels like a really great number; a number that also means I’ll be able to start buying books again soon.

I also have a stack of I’ve-finished-but-I’m-not-keeping that I’m not sure what to do with yet because I’m not really racking up credit at the used bookstore anymore. hmmmm

Part of the reason my stack went down pretty quickly was because I had time to read, but there were also a few books that I stopped reading. They just weren’t engaging me enough. Some things I did finish:

  • The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore is a memoir that looks at two young men with the same name with very different life outcomes. There are times that the book has some cliches (in writing), but the story is very thought provoking. I’d actually like to teach it, or portions of it for discussion.
  • I most have been on a memoir bent because I also finished Jon Pineda’s memoir Sleep in Me. I actually didn’t know a lot about the book before I purchased it. I had read both of Jon’s poetry collections after working with him during my time as an MFA student. When I picked readers for my thesis I wanted to work with at least one guy and someone who was not familiar with my work. Jon fit the bill. You can see Jon’s poetic voice throughout this memoir.
  • Speaking of mentors and/or people I worked with as an MFA student: I also finished Sally Keith’s third collection of poems The Fact of the Matter.
    I took several seminars with Sally while I was a grad student. She was also my second workshop and later my thesis advisor. Heck, she even had to fill in as the faculty member who watched me present my Poetic Closure class. And just like all of those roles, and layers, so is her poetry in this collection. Just think of the phrase that makes up the title. It is an expression itself, but the word matter can mean so many different things which is what you’ll find yourself doing with Sally’s poems: reading and re-reading to try and pick up on all the layers and threads.
  • I also finished another great issue of Georgetown Review. If you haven’t picked up a sample issue or submitted there before you should!
  • One note on what we’ve been watching (apparently not as much as I’ve been reading!) is that I watched The King’s Speech finally which was just a great watch. The documentary (also on Netflix) about the King isn’t quite as good, but was still interesting.

Ok, I’ve babbled on too long! I think it is time for me to dig in and work on some submission packets before I have to get ready for this afternoon’s exam :)

A Year of Teaching with Book Reviews Sprinkled In

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Had two different posts I wanted to do today, but perhaps I can weave them together? One was that I wanted to talk about my first year teaching full-time and the second was that I had a few books on my finished list that I had not yet reviewed.

One of the books I want to mention kind of merges my two words of teaching and writing. Writing Doesn’t Have to Be Lonely by Lawrence Weinstein is an inexpensive tool about exactly what the title says. This is a great resource for students taking college courses (and that is to whom it is geared), but I think it would also be a great little book to have around if you are introducing anyone to how to politely work in a workshop/critique setting. That being said I can’t put it on my syllabus, sadly, because we’ve gone to standardized textbooks for our classes. They are voted on by committee and last about two years. Hopefully the next time around maybe I could suggest this as a resource that could be bundled in.

But, before all of that above, about a year and a half a go I tried to write an essay about my first semester working as an adjunct professor, but I ended up publishing it as a blog post instead. I was a busy, but pretty happy beaver after my first semester of teaching. Granted, I only had two classes. The spring of 2011 would bring me 5 classes and my first glimpses of committee work, but even with the new responsibilities I still really wanted to get a full-time spot.

Why? For many reasons but they narrow down to focus. Having a more specific office and a specific course load are definitely gifts. Now that my office has moved I’ll even be a bit happier (I think) because I’ll have less to haul around. The course load, however, is still large. 6 classes a semester so that is 12 a year since I have opted out of teaching for the summer (at least for now). With that you get a much better paycheck, committee work, advising work, the said office (I’m sharing which works fine for me), a 30 hour a year professional development requirement, and a better name-tag. I’m serious about that last one :)

It has been daunting and, at times, I still think about how nice it would be to teach at a university for the lower work-load (and also for the possibility of teaching graduate students creative writing), but that is more of a dream. Even if I had the opportunity it would be difficult to take it because I feel that my students need me. Maybe I’m just thinking too highly of myself, but when I see students I taught in comp 1 showing up in my comp 2 classes I feel like maybe I’m doing something right.

Now on to the other two books I want to mention, and how they might fit into this discussion. The first is News of the World by Philip Levine and the second is Drop Dead Healthy by AJ Jacob which I read on my e-reader.   The poetry book wasn’t the one I actually wanted to read, but it was the one in the stores. I have had it so long that Levine is no longer our poet laureate already! I bought it when he started. He is, no surprise, a gifted writer, and this is a solid collection, but it isn’t a book I’d see myself coming back to. I particularly enjoyed the more surreal prose type poems towards the end of the book.

The second book is from an author I’ve been stalking for a while. I enjoyed his “Year of Living Biblically” as well as the other two most recent (“Life as an Experiment” and “Know-it-All”), and while I enjoyed this current book it definitely doesn’t come down as my favorite. You still get a lot of Jacobs’ humor as he tries out fitness and diet regimens, but I think he tried a little too hard to do the “whole body” thing as the later shorter chapters on things like hands weren’t quite as amusing as reading about him trying a paleo diet and workout.

I did enjoy that as he tried to diet he’d find himself, at times, obsessing about food. Yep, that’s what happens with diets! I’d like to have seen him spend more time on what it was like to diet, but this book focused more on the whole body. Fun read though.

And now perhaps I should finish up the other two print books that are oh so close to being finished, but wait I also need to do some serious prep work. Classes start on August 15th! And the balancing act begins again.

Many Mini Reviews

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Yesterday I caught up most of what has been fueling me in video and today I want to post some mini book reviews:

  • First up was a quick and terrific read by Robert Lee Brewer. I finished his second self-published chapbook ESCAPE. Robert approaches self-publishing in the right way. Many of the individual poems were published in literary magazines first before he put together the collection. Robert also has a built in audience that warrants having an item to see so two thumbs up for Robert! I am particularly fond of the skill Robert has to shape the endings of his poems. One of my favorites was “always at a crossroads” where he starts with “you’re afraid. the wind stopped holding the flat,” and ends with “not every cornered animal bites.” Don’t you just want to know what went on between those lines? Limited edition chapbook btw if you don’t have a copy yet. Not sure how many he has left!
  • Next up was the most recent novel I finished When the Emperor was Divine by Julie Otsuka. I’ve had this on my list for a while because I’d heard of how wonderful a writer Otsuka was and I’m also amazed that it wasn’t until I was about 30 years old that I ever heard there were internment camps in the US for Japanese-Americans during WWII. For an example of her writing style, “Sometimes, when he was running, he could hear it clacking against his lucky blue stone from the sea and for a moment he felt happy. His pockets were filled with good things.” I think that last sentence would make a fantastic writing prompt. Feel free to borrow.
  • The second poetry book I finished is another title from Sibling Rivalry Press by Stephen S. Mills titled He do the Gay man in Different Voices. I’ve already submitted a poem (a cento) I wrote in response to the lines in this book so I can’t post it this week, but this is a book that will conjure up a response, I think. Mills is a skilled poet who writes those long lines and long poems that I always envy since I tend to do everything on the short side. Some people might say this is a very in your face book where there is sex, violence, and everything else that goes into an R rated or higher movie. But you will know that from the first few poems and yet you will read on because there is a hunger to the voices in these poems that wants to be let out. And, as one line said, “their fascination with the way color leaves.”
  • Finally in my paper based reading that I’ve finished recently is the non-fiction book Power and Control in the Television Worlds of Joss Whedon by Sherry Ginn whom I may have mentioned before. She is a psychology professor where I teach and we presented together about sci-fi themes in different forms of writing. Or as one of the librarians put it – we talked about geek poems :)  It is for Dr. Ginn that I’m working my way through revisions on my “Farscape” essay for another book for which she is the editor. Sherry has a great voice. She is able to weave her love of pop culture and academic writing into a fairly easy read. And, come on, how can you beat reading a book that critically analyzes some of my favorite shows like “Firefly” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer?” Well, I couldn’t!

This week I only have poetry books in my pile because I’m trying to steam through my remaining paper based books before summer’s end. Then the decision will be: do I go completely paperless for reading or not?

Taking questions, comments etc about these books and/or what you have been reading. Do you review on blogs and/or other sites? Share your links!

And – of course – READ!

Poetry Connections are Always a Part of my Personal and Professional Conversations

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For day three of four of this week’s Digital Literacy and Professional Conversations Conference we started with a focus on the idea of connectivity and how to find those professional conversations especially in the world now of social media which got me thinking: I want to time these ideas to two poetry books I recently finished.

And how does this image tie-in I bet you wonder? Thanks for Steve Fulton who took the shot. Can you figure out where he was standing before he left to take the shot?

Steve was also the one who lead a workshop on finding social media conversations for professionals. We talked about hashtags on twitter (like #edchat and #engchat for teachers or maybe some of my poet friends here remember #poetparty and #52poetry) as well as finding blogs to read and how to follow them on RSS readers etc like Google Reader. I found some new people to follow although I don’t use RSS feeds anymore. I find my content via streams on Facebook and Twitter.

So how does this tie to the books I finished recently and wanted to review?

The first one is a chapbook from Folded Word by Julie L. Corbett titled On the Humber. Folded Word, of course, published my 2nd chapbook and my first full length collection. They have always had a good handle on social media and, in fact, one of their very first projects was to publish twitter based literary magazines some of which are still out there.

Corbett’s collection has a very lyric feel to it. Each poem, although some a little bit looser than others, connect in some way to this idea of this particular river. Before I read Corbett’s bio I noted that many of her poems had a lot of fun sound play such as the poem “The Bridge” where she writes, “spanning an estuary / suspended bank to bank/ . . . strength / in that twist / twisted and twisted / steel twine / holds tight” etc. When you read her bio you find out she is very involved in her spoken word community. (Can you see how the connections are starting to build?)

The second book I finished was a full length collection by Kelli Russell Agodon titled Letters From the Emily Dickinson Room. This prize winning book has been on my list of items to read for quite some time, but not because it was a prize winner. No, I came to know Kelli’s work via various blog connections. I read her other full length collection as well. I follow her on Twitter as well and we are Facebook friends (I think!). Back when I did use Google reader I also followed her blog that way, but now I wait for her to tweet when she has a new post. Like the poems in ED many of her blog posts are about finding balance. As some of my earlier posts note this week , I’m thinking about that a lot this week.

It is extremely difficult for me to find a “favorite” poem in this terrific collection of poems that use word play, great juxtapositions and just plain old solid writing but if I had to speak to one perhaps it is “Preparing Lucky Pea Soup in the New Year” where Agodon writes such brilliant two lined stanzas as, “It’s easier to suffer alone, / with a cold night and diced tomatoes.”

Yes, there are some sad poems in this book, but the voice they are song in is so striking that I kept re-reading them. The idea of re-visiting poems and the power of closure was also in the fore-front of my work today as I did a solid revision of my “Poetic Closure” essay. One of my fellow workshop participants has agreed to read it.

Tomorrow is the last day of the conference. What other connections will I find? Who else will connect with this post as I prepare to share it on Twitter, Facebook, Google + and – of course – to those special friends who take the time to subscribe to the blog :)

Recently Read

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I like to share what I have been reading. I used to do so via reviews first on Amazon, then for a variety of litmags, and also on Goodreads. I’ve decided, however, to talk about books a bit more informally right here on my blog. Here are a few I rounded up recently.

First up is Dead Glass by Tom Mahony is a Folded Word micro publication. These stories come together to form a bigger whole but you can pause on each twitter length segment as well. This is also wonderfully illustrated and is either available in a small handmade edition (1st press run sold out and a 2nd is running) or e-book. I have a first run hand-made edition but now I’m tempted to get the e-book as well.

Speaking of e-books I finished two recently. The first was The Year of the Flood by Maragret Atwood. It was kind of strange reading that book because I read the companion book “Oryx and Crayx” years and years ago.  In many ways I actually like TYOTF better than O & C. I found the characters more engaging and theirs was a story I wanted to hear because O & C felt like it ended with a cliffhanger. If you haven’t read either you might want to read them simultanteously. I think that would be interesting to do.

I also finished Stiff by Mary Roach which had been on my list for a long time. Mary makes scientific writing interesting. I could easily see myself using some of her work in my classes to show students what you can actually do with research. This isn’t one for the squeamish though. There aren’t pictures but there are well-written descriptions of cadavers in various states of decomposition.

Last up in paper was Cornelia Funke’s The Thief Lord. In many ways I am actually surprised that I read this book because the first book by Funke I read (Inkheart) I wasn’t overwhelmed with. I liked her imagination and ideas though so I decided to read another one of her books. I really loved “The Thief Lord.” It is one of those young adult books that would be a great read for a variety of ages. The chapters are nice and short so it would make a great before bed read as well. I’ve now added Funke back to my list of authors I’ll read more work from – just not the rest of the Inkspell series I guess.

I still have several other books in my reading stack and in my to read piles so I’ll be checking back in to go over some more. What have you guys been reading?

Poetry Book Camp: Day 2: Write What You Know

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I’m putting this blog post along with a review I completed on Goodreads recently. Read both and you’ll see the tie-in. This info about the review is all new just for you guys!

In the review I talk about that common creative writing teacher mantra: write what you know. But, have you ever been told that in reference to something that did happen to you? I have. This ties in to something I have talked about before – the idea of truth vs fact in writing. You have to find what actually resonates, but part of what I challenge you with today is to take something that has either been admonished even though it was factual to see if you can find a way to find some other kind of truth in. Can you change some of the “facts” around or can you just freshen it up with more interesting language? What about the piece isn’t ringing real?

As a way to talk about this I am going to post a poem, one I’m not sure if I have shared here before, that was recently rejected for publication. What, if any, parts of the poem resonate with you? What parts do you think may have actually happened?

Let’s discuss. The poem will appear after the review and will be removed, along with any actually works in progress that you guys post in comments, a week from today.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

I occasionally go back and try to read “classics” that I missed and this was also available as a Kindle edition so even better!

It took me a while to actually get into the story. It is wonderfully descriptive, but I think I am so used to “get to the action” that I was thinking that in the first chapters. The early chapters also have some pretty dated comments that are definitely racist, but once I stopped squirming (knowing when this book came out and how that would fit with the mindset of young people from the time) I was able to move past that and instead just spend quality time with the fantastic main character: Francie.

I have a hard time deciding what age level I’d say this book would be good for because you are introduced to a young girl but you see her progress to first dates, first jobs, and there are some very real ugly things that take place (although very well written). I’d probably say this would be a terrific book to discuss with a young woman maybe from the ages of 11 on up? What do others think?

I’m really glad I took the time to read this even as my heart broke for Francie when a teacher grades her compositions down as Francie writes about her real life – being poor etc – because I went through a similar experience where I was told to write what I know when I was writing EXACTLY what I knew.

But, like Francie, you keep going and she is a great model for any girl; really, for anyone who ever dreamed big.

View all my reviews

 

–and the poem is being revised :)

Two Book Review for the Price of One (0 x 0 is 0)

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I’m actually combining two reviews for this post because one was short and the other was “eaten” while I was trying to type it using wi-fi that rebooted so . . . It is now short as well!
The Tiger's Wife: A Novel
The Tiger’s Wife: A Novel by Téa Obreht
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I had written a quite lovely review of this book, but the internet ate it . . . Tiger internet? Suffice it to say that I really enjoyed this read. It is beautifully written, but a bit slow for the first 100 pages. Still, I recommend it : )

The Graveyard Book
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a full little read! I want to say it would be a fun book to read to your child before bed, but some of it is a bit scary . . . so . . . maybe not. Depends on your child. Speaking of that, this would be a great one to read with your kids, even just sharing the experience to discuss the different types of classic ghostly characters that appear, but the modern ways that they are woven into the story.

Read this one on my Kindle Fire so I also enjoyed that they included the black and white sketch art (just a few images) in the Fire edition. Recommend this one :)

View all my reviews