notgdcareads-blog-blog

[notgdcareads-blog-blog]

Adrian Nicole LeBlanc is a journalist who started out pursuing the story of Boy George, a heroin dealer whose trial she was writing up for Newsday. That tiny assignment turned into a ten-year research project on life in the South Bronx, resulting in this epic work of narrative nonfiction that follows the various women in Boy George's circles.

LeBlanc lived with these families for ten years. She loves the people she's writing about and is intimately involved in their lives. That's why it is so amazing that she never once uses the word "I." This book isn't about her, and it isn't about Boy George. It's about the everyday life and struggles of young women growing up in urban poverty. It hints at those big-picture forces of social inequality -- one chapter is almost wholly dedicated to a mother of five's inability to secure birth control, for instance -- but it does so almost accidentally. The whole book is comprised of actual anecdotes, events, conversations, and even transcripts, with no editorializing. She is firmly on the women's side and empathizes with them, but not in a judgmental or preachy way; she just tells their story. This isn't supposed to be a political book, and if it is, that's because politics touch real lives. This is a master work of journalism and a portrait of the average American life we don't like to talk about in big long fancy books. And I'm so glad we have it.

You know that John Green quote about evangelical zeal toward books? This is that book for me. Read this book.

Review by catherineaddington

[notgdcareads-blog-blog]

This month's IRL Book Club selection is How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid! Elizabeth D. is hosting at the Reynolds Center (Smithsonian Museum of American Art/National Portrait Gallery) with some baked goods on November 9, so be sure to RSVP to the Facebook event if you are down to come. Kelsey S. has informed us that this book is wonderful, for what it's worth. Check it out this month and see for yourself!

And if that ain't enough to convince you to join us, well, this book is totally John approved.

Note: This book comes with a slight CW for sexual content and violence. According to our sources, neither is particularly graphic, but it's there.

[notgdcareads-blog-blog]

The NotGDCA Reading Room turned 1 today!

I can't believe it's been a year! Thanks for sticking around and supporting this little nerdy corner of our awesome-increasing lives. Submit a review as a birthday present? ;)

[notgdcareads-blog-blog]

Alice Munro, who has just won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature, wrote this short story for the December 27, 1999 edition of The New Yorker. It was also published in her collection Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage in 2001. The story was later adapted into the acclaimed film Away from Her (2006); director Sarah Polley's adapted screenplay was nominated for an Oscar.

The full story can be read online at The New Yorker. Here is how it begins...

Fiona lived in her parents’ house, in the town where she and Grant went to university. It was a big, bay-windowed house that seemed to Grant both luxurious and disorderly, with rugs crooked on the floors and cup rings bitten into the table varnish. Her mother was Icelandic—a powerful woman with a froth of white hair and indignant far-left politics. The father was an important cardiologist, revered around the hospital but happily subservient at home, where he would listen to his wife’s strange tirades with an absent-minded smile. Fiona had her own little car and a pile of cashmere sweaters, but she wasn’t in a sorority, and her mother’s political activity was probably the reason. Not that she cared. Sororities were a joke to her, and so was politics—though she liked to play “The Four Insurgent Generals” on the phonograph, and sometimes also the “Internationale,” very loud, if there was a guest she thought she could make nervous. A curly-haired gloomy-looking foreigner was courting her—she said he was a Visigoth—and so were two or three quite respectable and uneasy young interns. She made fun of them all and of Grant as well. She would drolly repeat some of his small-town phrases. He thought maybe she was joking when she proposed to him, on a cold bright day on the beach at Port Stanley. Sand was stinging their faces and the waves delivered crashing loads of gravel at their feet.

“Do you think it would be fun—” Fiona shouted. “Do you think it would be fun if we got married?”

He took her up on it, he shouted yes. He wanted never to be away from her. She had the spark of life. ...

p.s. In the spirit of notgdcareads, I must say that all things Alice Munro have my 100% recommendation. -ed.

[notgdcareads-blog-blog]

Great catch from DC nerdfighter Hussien :) Politics & Prose is perhaps DC's most beloved bookstore, and would you believe I haven't been yet? Methinks we need more (mini)gatherings there. IRL book club field trip anyone?

Politics and prose in DC has nice table of books that have been banned for their fREADom table. It’s nice to see Looking for Alaska in such nice company

[notgdcareads-blog-blog]

The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson tells the story of 11-year-old Galadriel "Gilly" Hopkins, a foster child who wants desperately to be reunited with her mother.  The book, for young readers (age 10+), is on the Banned Book list because Gilly is a terror: she curses, steals, and is racist.  She misbehaves because she believes none of her foster families will ever want to keep her and give her a forever home.  In her pockets, she carries a picture and a note from her mother, whom she last saw when she was a toddler, and she clings to the hope that, one day, her perfect mother will come for her. In the meantime, Gilly finds herself placed with Maime Trotter, a large woman with a large heart who takes her in as if she was her own child.  All Gilly can seem to see in Trotter is her size and the fact that her home is dusty.  Along with Gilly, Trotter is also fostering William Ernest, a shy, skittish seven-year-old.  When Gilly discovers that Trotter is friends with Mr. Randolph, their neighbor - an old, blind African American man - Gilly feverishly writes to her mother to save her.  But, by the time she receives a response, she finds that maybe she over-reacted about everything. Amusing and often touching, The Great Gilly Hopkins is a childhood book that I was very glad to revisit.  As an adult now, I found myself understanding things I never would have been able to comprehend as a kid.  The story takes place in Maryland and Virginia, which makes it a book I strongly recommend for people in the Greater DC Area.  My only real complaint about it is that I wish it was longer.  I can see why people worried about little kids reading it, but it definitely should be discussed with them, not banned.  There are lessons to be learned from The Great Gilly Hopkins, no matter how old you are.

Review by posthumorously

[notgdcareads-blog-blog]

Congratulations booksnrooks!!! You are the winner of the September giveaway! I'll be in touch with details, but in the meantime, everyone check out how great this review was!

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern (YA fiction/ fantasy)

Black and white words, laced through with tints of red. The mundane and the magical collide, night melding with light, woven together with passion and love. A perfectly enclosed glass, bigger on the inside. It’s not often I have either the time or inclination to read into the wee hours, but this book inspired me to make the time and gave me the inclination. I consumed it in bite sized chunks right up until the end, when I, ravenous, could not resist any longer. The book went down like a perfect box of chocolates: beautiful on the inside as well as the out, just the right amount of sweetness, and full of mysteries waiting to be unwrapped. I’m not sure how I managed to stay up as late as I did, buoyed by words not just within the pages but from my own imagination. After midnight, when the circus starts, worlds and dreams collide, and my mind, contained within the circus, could not always comprehend the difference between awake and asleep. It’s been years since I’ve been so swept up in such beautifully crafted prose; perfectly balanced, like an acrobat or an illusion too real to be true. 

Review by booksnrooks, originally posted here

[notgdcareads-blog-blog]

To wrap up this September of daily book reviews, I bring you nerdfighting author Maureen Johnson's 13 Little Blue Envelopes (which turned out to have a sequel). I'm a sucker for life-changing summer stories a la Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and I actually picked this book up right after I finished that series many summers ago. It instantly became one of my favorites. You've got the European adventure, the deceased relative turned guardian angel via scavenger hunt, the crazy characters and the average American girl experiencing it all. But it never feels like an amalgamation of tropes with Maureen Johnson's fresh, fun writing.

You have to be into the lighthearted, suspend-disbelief road trip story. But if you are, this is a great one.

Review by catherineaddington

[notgdcareads-blog-blog]

Just when seventeen-year-old Cullen Witter thinks he understands everything about his small and painfully dull Arkansas town, it all disappears. . . .  In the summer before Cullen's senior year, a nominally-depressed birdwatcher named John Barling thinks he spots a species of woodpecker thought to be extinct since the 1940s in Lily, Arkansas. His rediscovery of the so-called Lazarus Woodpecker sparks a flurry of press and woodpecker-mania. Soon all the kids are getting woodpecker haircuts and everyone's eating "Lazarus burgers." But as absurd as the town's carnival atmosphere has become, nothing is more startling than the realization that Cullen’s sensitive, gifted fifteen-year-old brother Gabriel has suddenly and inexplicably disappeared.  While Cullen navigates his way through a summer of finding and losing love, holding his fragile family together, and muddling his way into adulthood, a young missionary in Africa, who has lost his faith, is searching for any semblance of meaning wherever he can find it. As distant as the two stories seem at the start, they are thoughtfully woven ever closer together and through masterful plotting, brought face to face in a surprising and harrowing climax.  Complex but truly extraordinary, tinged with melancholy and regret, comedy and absurdity, this novel finds wonder in the ordinary and emerges as ultimately hopeful. It's about a lot more than what Cullen calls, “that damn bird.” It’s about the dream of second chances. (x)

Recommended by hugstiles

[notgdcareads-blog-blog]

Today's recommendation is a book I first encountered as a movie, and both are great. It's a period piece, an epic romance, a family drama, and a carefully crafted novel -- but you don't understand what it's really about until the very end. A beautiful book.

from Atonement by Ian McEwan

[notgdcareads-blog-blog]

Jamaica Kincaid lays out her Antiguan childhood experience in this short memoir that doubles as a fierce indictment of imperialism through a calm, subtle description of everyday life. She's a brilliant writer with an important and overlooked story.

[notgdcareads-blog-blog]

In this stunning new novel, Ian McEwan’s first female protagonist since Atonement is about to learn that espionage is the ultimate seduction. Cambridge student Serena Frome’s beauty and intelligence make her the ideal recruit for MI5. The year is 1972. The Cold War is far from over. England’s legendary intelligence agency is determined to manipulate the cultural conversation by funding writers whose politics align with those of the government. The operation is code named “Sweet Tooth.” Serena, a compulsive reader of novels, is the perfect candidate to infiltrate the literary circle of a promising young writer named Tom Haley. At first, she loves his stories. Then she begins to love the man. How long can she conceal her undercover life? To answer that question, Serena must abandon the first rule of espionage: trust no one. Once again, Ian McEwan’s mastery dazzles us in this superbly deft and witty story of betrayal and intrigue, love and the invented self. (x)

Recommended by Nina J. "I really enjoyed it! There was a bit less MI-5 than the summary suggests, and more of Serena and Tom's relationship, but there was a lot of Cold War history and politics, so that was pretty cool. Fair bit of sex, though, but if you've been reading his books then that's probably nothing new."

[notgdcareads-blog-blog]

General Matsika's children steal out of the house on a forbidden adventure--and disappear. In Zimbabwe, in the year 2194, the children's parents call in Africa's most unusual detectives--the Ear, the Eye and the Arm--who have powers far beyond those of other human beings. The children must avoid the evils of the past, the technology of the future, and a motley assortment of criminals in order to return home safely. 1995 Newbery Honor Book; ALA Notable Book; ALA Best Book for Young Adults. (x)

Recommended by Megan G. K. and Charlotte H.

[notgdcareads-blog-blog]

"This monster is something different, something ancient, something wild. And it wants the truth." reads the back cover of Patrick Ness's award-winning A Monster Calls, a story of loss and grief that focuses on a young boy, Conor, as he deals with his mother's fight with cancer. 

I bought this book earlier this year, because it was on sale and John Green's blurb at the top of the book was enough recommendation for me. 

I finished this book in less than a day, had my mom read it who finished it later that day, then told my sister about it, which lead my mom to cursing, my sister to crying, and me walking into walls trying to understand how such an important lesson could be taught perfectly within two hundred pages of words and pictures.

There's a quote from J.K. Rowling that goes: "I have a real issue with anyone trying to protect children from their own imaginations. If we cannot acknowledge that a lot of us have a bit of darkness within ourselves, some more than others perhaps, and bring it into the light and examine it and talk about this part of the human condition, then I think we will be living in quite a dangerous climate. I think that's more damaging for children."

This book doesn't just acknowledge the darkness within Conor. This story rips his darkness open like a wound and demands he bleed it out. This story shows we don't heal darkness by ignoring it and not even by destroying it; but by accepting it and, if we can, by bringing it into the light.    

Trigger Warning: This book comes with a trigger warning for depictions of death

Age Range Recommendation: Young Adult, though I feel anyone who reads Harry Potter could read this 

Review by doyouwanttobesaved

[notgdcareads-blog-blog]

Glen David Gold's literary debut dazzled critics and fans from coast to coast. Now Carter's center stage for a spectacular paperback . . .The response to Glen David Gold's debut novel, Carter Beats the Devil was extraordinary. He hypnotized us with his portrait of a 1920s magic-obsessed America and of Charles Carter -- a.k.a. Carter the Great -- a young master performer whose skill as an illusionist exceeded even that of the great Houdini. Filled with historical references that evoke the excesses and exuberance of Roaring Twenties pre-Depression America, Carter Beats the Devil is a complex and illuminating story of one man's journey through a magical and sometimes dangerous world, where illusion is everything. (x)

Recommended by Ashe W.

[notgdcareads-blog-blog]

Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children. Now, for the first time, this astonishing novel is made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and newly added second and third appendices. The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story -- of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams. (x)

Recommended by Sandow S. "Postmodern Gothic lunacy."

[notgdcareads-blog-blog]

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

Quentin Coldwater is brillant but miserable. He's a senior in high school, and a certifiable genius, but he's still secretly obsessed with a series of fantasy novels he read as a kid, about the adventures of five children in a magical land called Fillory. Compared to that, anything in his real life just seems gray and colorless.  Everything changes when Quentin finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the practice of modern sorcery. He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. But something is still missing. Magic doesn't bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he though it would. Then, after graduation, he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real. (x)

Recommended by Ashe W.