all things are untied

you thought you would never have to hear my mundane thoughts about what I am reading again, BUT YOU WERE WRONG. I read a bunch of stuff over the semester for class but am way too lazy to try to reconstruct any of it so I'll just start fresh from the beginning of winter break.

American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us by Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell
( crabby old lady thoughts )

From Feminist Theology to Indecent Theology by Marcella Althaus-Reid
( crabby old lady thoughts ii: the revenge of the crabby old lady thoughts )

The Trouble With Normal- Michael Warner
Oh book, I have complex feelings about you. The first part of the book talks about hierarchies of sexual shame and critiques marriage as the way the state controls sexuality, which I agree with, but he fails to recognize that as long as marriage DOES convey benefits unavailable to people who aren't married then there are going to be people (including queer people, and even queer people who may disagree with marriage as an institution) who want or even need to get married for various legal reasons.  Throughout the book he also indulges heavily in the assumption that anyone who's queer must live in San Francisco or New York City, which is one of my pet peeves. (Also he kept using the word "tranny" throughout the book, which made me whisper "how about no, dude" on the bus.)

The Yacoubian Building- Alaa Al Aswani
I bought this book in its original Arabic when I was in Egypt with the intention of reading it, but I'm lazy, so it was nice to be able to read it without having to reach for a dictionary every 30 seconds. It's a wonderfully crafted novel following the lives of the residents of a building in Cairo and touches on abortion, homosexuality, murder, religion, and corruption in Egypt.

Still, the Small Voice: Narrative, Personal Revelation, and the Mormon Folk Tradition- Tom Mould
This was okay, but the organization was a bit wonky, and it occasionally felt like he was going out of his way to make folklore seem boring. Also, needs moar Three Nephites stories.

The Laughing Corpse- Laurell K Hamilton
I'm just going to link to wrabbit's post on this, because she explains the ridiculousness and glory of Anita Blake far better than I ever could.

Secularisms- edited by Janet R Jakobsen and Ann Pelligrini
Worth reading for a few of the essays on Turkey and Laura Levitt's chapter on Jewish secularism, but overall a bit lackluster.

Multiply and Replenish: Mormon Essays on Sex and Family- edited by Brent Corcoran
I wish this book had some kind of overall organizing principle. It can't seem to decide whether it's a collection of candid essays by practicing Mormons about their thoughts on sex and family, or something with a much more academic bent. Lawrence Foster's essay on the history of Mormon theology of the family is great, as is Levi Peterson's awesomely titled "In Defense of a Mormon Erotica", while Rocky O'Donovan's "Brief History of Homosexuality in Mormonism" seems to be based largely on conjecture and indulges in the misconception that all wives in a polygynous marriage were at least "kind of" lesbian. (It's one of my least favorite misconceptions, for those keeping score at home, and he uses it to claim a queer Mormon history, but he could have done it by talking about, idk, actual queer Mormons.)

Women of Covenant: The Story of Relief Society- Jill Derr, Janath Cannon, Maureen Beecher
This book is mostly great. Up until about page 350, it's a nice, evenhanded, concise history of the Relief Society. After page 350 it suddenly turns into a book with a definite agenda. (seriously. page 366: "At a time when abortion was attractively labeled 'reproductive freedom' and so-called 'gay rights' were championed by civil liberties advocates, the threat to traditional moral values was real." I MEAN REALLY.) I would recommend it highly up until about that stage in the book, because it's otherwise pretty good.

A Match Made in Heaven: American Jews, Christian Zionists, and One Man's Exploration of the Weird and Wonderful Judeo-Evangelical Alliance- Zev Chafets
Oh book, I wanted to love you. I thought I did when you were just about a dude talking about evangelical Christians and hanging out with rabbis. But then you got weird and threw in too many unconnected asides about your childhood and your feelings and I lost interest. I'm sorry. You're going in my bookmooch inventory.

Same Sex Dynamics among Nineteenth-Century Americans: A Mormon Example- D. Michael Quinn
This is the best book, you guys. You don't even know. Besides the general awesomeness of the subject matter and the way it's handled, I found this book very... comforting? In the same way that Women and Authority: Re-Emerging Mormon Feminism told me that women in the church who went before me weren't comfortable with their position either and were frequently quite vocal about it, this book told me that queer Mormons have always been there in some capacity. Sometimes it's nice, even if you kind of already know that, to have it reaffirmed.

The End of Mr. Y- Scarlett Thomas
Stay with me when I tell you this book is about a woman who gains the ability to teleport into other people's minds. If you are currently rolling your eyes and/or making a dismissive face, I implore you to reconsider. This is a really weird and smart and well-crafted book and you should read it. Really.

Catholic Does Not Equal the Vatican: a Vision for Progressive Catholicism- Rosemary Radford Ruether
I would highly recommend this as a primer for people who don't already know how awesome Rosemary Radford Ruether is. Because really? She's awesome, and everything she says about Catholicism can apply to any other religious institution. Also she is not afraid to get the Righteous Feminist Anger out, which I enjoy. 

Guilty Pleasures- Laurell K. Hamilton
This is completely wrabbit 's fault. I really liked it. I was kind of expecting to enjoy it in a "oh wow this is so cheesy" way, but I really, genuinely liked it. Damn you, wrabbit .

 We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle For the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People- Peter Van Buren

This is a magnificently depressing book. I think it's fairly common knowledge how badly the military side of things has been managed in Iraq, but this takes a scathing look at the State Department's role. I really liked it, although it does occasionally get overly memoir-y. 

 

Hunger Games Trilogy- Suzanne Collins

Oh Hunger Games trilogy, I have so many feelings about you. Mostly, that I find your fictional universe super interesting and kind of just want lots of fic about your politics and everyday life, but until the last half of the third book, Katniss Everdeen is mostly just a collection of YA female protagonist stereotypes. We're given a heaping dose of "but I'm not LIKE those OTHER girls" (or as wrabbit termed it, "Taylor Swift song syndrome"). All said, though, I'm way too excited for the movie. I'm really interested in seeing what they do with it.

 

A Visit From the Goon Squad- Jennifer Egan

This book is so sharp and cleverly executed. Egan starts with the stories of an aging, impotent musician-turned record executive and his assistant, a 35-year-old woman with a penchant for stealing things from people, and spirals out back and forth in time and between all the other characters who link them. The last chapter felt like a weird shift of tone to me, but it's a small problem in something I otherwise really enjoyed. Recommended overall. 

 

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy- John Le Carre

Read after I saw the movie. I think most of the adaptation choices from the book to the movie were good ones, but reading it did help the end of the movie to make a bit more sense. 

Another Isabel recommendation. SO GOOD, YOU GUYS. SOOOOOOO GOOD. There is not enough capslock or Os in "sooooo" to convey how good it is. If I recall correctly Isabel initially described it as "like if F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote a feminist YA novel set in a boarding school", and I found it to be as advertised. I'm getting this for my younger sister, for sure.

 Islamic Homosexualities- edited by Stephen O. Murray
This book can't seem to decide what it wants to be. Part academic writing, part pop-sociology, and in one instance part bizarre article about gay life in Karachi containing needlessly explicit accounts of sexual encounters (I don't need to know who got an erection when and how it was resolved, please and thanks). Most interesting article was probably Mildred Dickemann's "The Balkan Sworn Virgin". All around, I found the whole thing somewhat disappointing. 

Shattering Silence: Women, Nationalism and Political Subjectivity in Northern Ireland- Begona Aretxaga
A followup to my reading Armed Struggle. Quite well-done, particularly interesting for its discussion of the Armagh women's prison hunger and dirty protests and how they were received both by the public at large and by the IRA leadership. 

The Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman- Bruce Robinson
You guys! I made it all the way through a novel! It's a Christmas miracle! I do feel obligated to inform you that it was not that it was particularly great or anything. It is mostly about a teenage boy seeking out his grandfather's pornography collection. And morse code. These are not generally things that are relevant to my interests, but the writing was mildly entertaining enough to get me to the end.

The View From Saturday and From The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler- E.L. Konsigsburg
I spend roughly twenty hours a week in an elementary school library and when things are slow I indulge myself in reading things I read in elementary school. After a rather disappointing reread of the Wrinkle in Time series a few weeks ago I thought I'd give these two a go. They're still delightful, especially Mixed Up Files. I still kind of want to run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Mormons as Citizens of a Communist State- Raymond Kuehne
This book is probably intensely boring if you don't have a weird longstanding interest in anything written about Mormonism, but since I'm odd like that I really enjoyed it. It's a record of the LDS church in the GDR, with a good setup of what life was like for German Mormons and visiting church officials before, during, and after the period. 

Women and Authority: Re-emerging Mormon Feminism- edited by Maxine Hanks
SO GOOD. I want to just show up at any ward I ever attended and hand copies of this out to everyone. I almost feel like it should be subtitled "Everything you wanted to know about badass Mormon ladies prior to the 1980s but were always afraid to ask about because feminism is a dirty word and also why Mormon women should have the priesthood so there".* Especially worth reading for the selections from Woman's Exponent, a newsletter written by and for Mormon women during the earlier days of the church. 

On Shifting Ground: Muslim Women in the Global Era- edited by Fereshteh Nouraie-Simone
Really great collection. Favorites: "On- and Off-Camera in Egyptian Soap Operas: Women, Television, and the Public Sphere" by Lila Abu-Lughod, "Between Religion and Secularism: Islamist Women of Hamas" by Islah Jad, and "The Veil Debate-- Again" by Leila Ahmed. 

Brideshead Revisited- Evelyn Waugh
This was roughly what I expected, not too long, and kind of preposterously queer, all of which made me rather happy. 

The Scarlet Pimpernel- what's her pants Orczy 
Abandoned on page 98 for being astonishingly boring and the fact that if I read the word "aristocratic" one more time I was going to throw it against a wall. 

The Poisonwood Bible- Barbara Kingsolver
Abandoned around the point that the mom and the youngest daughter are sick. It was pretty good, I had just gotten to a point where I was like "what do you MEAN there are 300 more pages of this?" I am having a rough time with fiction lately, apparently. 


*I admit that this is an unreasonably long subtitle but work with me here