It's that time! I'm reviewing my year in reading starting today!

I've done a lot of writing about reading this year. In many cases, I've written about these books in the newsletter, in Writerly Wednesday, on Goodreads, or at Literary Quicksand, the book blog to which I contribute. So, I'm lifitng some sentences from myself for these blurbs. It's fine.

Here are the stats: I've read 63 books this year, including 17 audiobooks. This was an interesting year for audiobooks in that there were several books I loved, but that I wished I'd read on paper.  So, here are the best five audiobooks - books that do really well in this format - in alphabetical order by author.

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson. Narrated by Jeannie Stith.
Anderson is a master at writing teenaged girls with real and scary problems. Two years ago, I had this author on my list for The Impossible Knife of Memory, about a girl whose dad suffers from PTSD. In Wintergirls, eighteen year-old Lia details her spiral into mental illness and near-fatal anorexia. Her conditions intensify following the death of her ex-best friend Cassie, herself a bulimic who had called Lia 33 times on the night she died. Lia's pain gives rise to a raging fantasy life that terrified me and held me transfixed. Narrator Jeannie Stith conveyed Lia's desperation and confusion believably.


The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown. Narrated by Ed Herrmann.
Brown's work is a riveting emotional portrayal of individual sacrifice and team dedication against the backdrops of the Great Depression and the rise of Hitler. Brown's primary subject is Joe Rantz, a sympathetic underdog from rural Washington, who together with eight other guys from the UW crew team, aim for the 1936 Berlin Olympics. As narrators go, Ed Herrmann ranks among the best I’ve heard. He emotes without condescension or smarm. Nothing in his performance – not even the closest of crew races – seems overdone. Full review at Literary Quicksand.




Just Kids by Patti Smith. Narrated by the author.
Smith's memoir, the story of her creative partnership with Robert Mapplethorpe, is a hypnotic and spare tribute to the artist's life.  Smith's writing floats along conversationally, deceptively simple. You're just reading, taking in the stories about art and life in the 1960s and 70s, until you’re  stunned by the beauty of a particular sentence. It happens over and over again. I loved hearing Smith reading this herself. At one point in the recording, she sings a few bars, and I had chills. Full review at Literary Quicksand.




The Martian by Andy Weir. Narrated by R.C. Bray.
The Martian is totally not my kind of book. In a super-sciency sci-fi novel (originally published serially on a blog!), Mark Watney gets left behind on Mars by his crew who understandably mistakes him for dead. As he's not dead, he describes his situation - the compromised equipment, the dearth of food, the loneliness and isolation. Watney's first person narration, interspersed eventually with vignettes of NASA problem-solvers on earth, kept me listening. R.C. Bray delivers it with a perfect deadpan, accentuating the strong humor (and strong language). This is a funny thriller with a happy ending, great for a road-trip with teens.




The One-in-a-Million Boy by Monica Wood. Narrated by Chris Ciulla.
My takeaway from this book is that "It's never too late." An odd eleven year-old Boy Scout befriends Ona Vitkus, a 104 year-old woman whom he convinces to both record memories ("shards" of her life) on tape AND to pursue a Guinness World Record (World's Oldest Licensed Driver). This is not a spoiler, as it happens right away: the eleven year-old dies of heart failure, and the 104 year-old befriends his sometimes-absent father, Quinn, who takes over the scouting duties. Chris Ciulla effectively conveys Quinn's crushing grief, the boy's lingering recorded voice, and Ona's high, breathy sarcasm, as well.




Here are the other audiobooks I listened to this year in alphabetical order by author. 
This year, I'm including a short blurb! Links go to full reviews I wrote for Literary Quicksand.

• A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman - Charming, gimmicky, saccharine, and ageist.
• The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly - Good writing, good plotting, fun characters.
• Outline by Rachel Cusk - Filmy, dreamy, too smart.
• Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler - I admire the book, but not the narration. Read the paper.
• Cartwheel by Jennifer duBois - Engrossing, page-turning, self-important.
• A Sudden Crush by Camilla Isley - Frothy, frivolous, fairty-tale fun
• Be Frank with Me by Julia Claiborne Johnson - Far-fetched, but endearing.
• Great House by Nicole Krauss - Serious, layered, accomplished, complex- read the paper.
• Truly, Madly, Guilty by Liane Moriarty - Not my favorite Moriarty, but she's still my favorite.
• After You by JoJo Moyes - Great fun to revisit Louisa Clark. A satisfying sequel.
• Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell - Cool sentences and word choices. I'm not into history enough to love it a lot.
• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead - An important book about whiteness, blackness, and the enduring trauma of American slavery. Read a paper copy.

I don't really know how to review musical theater, but as I learned in the Better Living Through Criticism blogging challenge, I enjoy reviewing things even if I have no context or qualifications for doing so. Here we go!

Fun Home is based on a brilliant graphic memoir by Alison Bechdel. Here's what both the book and the musical are about: Alison grows up in a small Pennsylvania town. Her dad is unpredictable and exacting. Sometimes, he's warm and brilliant and talking about books and intellectual life. Sometimes, he's angry and yelling and the kind of person that makes you feel like no matter what, you can't do anything right.

Have you lived with this type of person? If you have, you'll recognize Bruce (Robert Petkoff), viscerally. The portrayal made me feel a little sick, especially during the part when Helen (Susan Moniz), the mom, makes the kids furiously clean the house while Bruce takes a shower. Then, everyone stands straight for inspection, and Helen sings a line about never knowing what will happen when Bruce comes down the stairs.

In the musical - I saw the national touring company of Fun Home - a 43 year-old Alison (Kate Shindle) remains on stage the whole time. She's trying to write a book about growing up with her dad. She conjures memories and tries to caption them, as in cartoons.  There's a small Alison (Alessandra Baldacchino), a kid, who wants desperately to be accepted in Bruce's world, but who also finds his demands troubling. There's a medium Alison (Abby Corrigan), a wonderfully awkward first-year college student. Her posture and especially her jeans are awkward. She discovers through reading, and then via Joan (Karen Eilbacher) that she's gay. When she tells her parents this news, she finds out that her dad is also gay.

Memory is paramount in this show. You watch the oldest Alison try to remember things. "It's just memory," I think is what she says. "I'm remembering something." The appropriate sets slide on and off the stage as backdrop for these moments. In fact, the whole show mirrors the writing of Bechdel's memoir. In the beginning, there's no fanfare - Shindle just walks across the stage to her desk and starts working and talking, and you realize it's begun. The orchestra sits upstage on a platform. You see bricks and would-be props around. Then, scenes get built. Drawings get made. Childhood blurs with adolescence blurs with a adulthood. Alison tries to process a terrible tragedy, and the walls appear all around her.

You know something bad is coming, and you want happiness for Alison and her family. It seems like, just like in real life, some things turn out okay, and other things really don't. The songs reflect these dual outcomes. They don't rhyme, and they have repeating refrains about specific images that echo the nature of memory. For instance, what stands out to Small Alison about a handsome butch woman is the woman's huge ring of keys. That's the chorus of the song about that memory - the keys.

Can you tell I loved this? I have seen three great plays of late, two which I reviewed right here. December may become known as the Month of Theater. I hope not. December is busy enough already.



Young love in the back of my English classroom.

When I tried to coach Shef into winning a research study. What is wrong with me?

I saw a movie last night called The Diplomat. It's a documentary about a real-life person named Richard Holbrooke. You might know Richard Holbrooke as the guy who brokered the Dayton Accords which ended the war in Bosnia in 1995. You might also know him as the Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan under Secretary Clinton. Holbrooke tried to sell President Obama on his Afghanistan policy until the day he died. On that very day, he had an appointment with David Axelrod at the White House, but Axelrod wouldn't give him time in the Oval. Holbrooke and Obama didn't get along, as it turned out. That dynamic, as portrayed in the film, fascinated me.

Anyway, I saw this documentary at  a special screening. After I finished watching it, the director, David Holbrooke, answered questions about its making and talked about his subject, who was also his father. You can imagine that Richard Holbrooke might have been something of an absentee dad, what with all the State Department positions he held in the administrations of three different presidents.

Luckily, it seemed like David had mostly forgiven his dad for being gone a lot. At least, he totally understands that his dad was doing really important stuff while not at home. I was pleased to note that David seemed pretty well-adjusted.

Here's how The Diplomat impacted me:

• I felt like I should know more about foreign affairs. I found some podcasts from the Council on Foreign Relations, so that ought to help.
• It reaffirmed my commitment to education. Kids need to understand that big, complex problems can get solved, and that they can be part of those solutions.
• It made me want to be a risk-taker. Yes, there are big decisions and tough choices, and not everyone is going to like you. But, being liked isn't the whole thing. Sometimes it's more about looking around, learning, rolling up your sleeves, and trying some things.

Theater: I saw Sense and Sensibility at the Guthrie Theater last weekend. It was utterly delightful, with all the heart I remembered from the novel (Austen, obvi) and the movie (Thompson, natch). I can't be alone in favoring stories wherein people who are wholesome and good and filled with integrity win out in the end. This is one of those. Also, the staging was cool with a large turntable in the middle of the set, meant to symbolize movement between spaces and also the whirling and unpredictable alliances and dissolutions of well-to-do society. I like plays, as it turns out. I'm going to another one, called The Oldest Boy, soon. The same gal who directed Sense is taking on this one. It'll probably be just as good.

Audiobooks: I'm in the middle of The Boys in the Boat, narrated by the warm-voiced, and I choose to believe warm-hearted, Edward Herrmann. The story of a scrappy eight-man crew headed for the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin is riveting all on its own, but I think it's made even more so by Herrmann's perfect narration. If you like underdog stories, true stories, sports stories, or just any old good story, you might want to consider this recording. I can already tell it's going to make my list of Favorite Listens of 2016.

Music: Although I've reviewed music at least once, I'm not good at it, and I don't have any music to review today.

Podcasts: I like all of the usuals, but the one I won't miss these days is The West Wing Weekly. Of course, I also watch the corresponding television episode each week - the one they're going to discuss. Last week's was the one where people are mean to Ainsley Hayes, and to make up for it, Sam, Toby, Josh, and CJ decorate her office with Gilbert and Sullivan posters. As the podcasters pointed out, there were a few problems with the episode, but I don't care. I love that moment when they sing the HMS Pinafore song. The lesson to me is this: sometimes things that aren't perfect still work.

Media Report: February 2016

Jason Bourne Movie Review

I decided to do some round-ups of the summer.  Why not? Let's start with movies.  I wanted to see more movies in the theater, and I accomplished that goal.  In fact, I saw 8 movies.  I'm now realizing that naming of the top 5 of 8 seems sort of... well, dubious, I guess.  I only have to cut out three of the movies and then I'm listing, like, the best.

Good news, though: I just looked at my list, and cutting out the three was pretty easy. I cut Ghostbusters, The BFG, and The Angry Birds Movie.  Here are the rest in order of how much I enjoyed them, least to most.

5. Now You See Me 2.  Magic, mayhem, and some good anti-capitalist sentiment.

4. Finding Dory. Family, loyalty, epic bridge crash.

3. Me Before You. I started sobbing midway through, and I couldn't stop.  My friends didn't have the same issue and thus didn't look as wrecked on exiting the auditorium.

2. Bad Moms. I saw this with my mom.  Two hour PTA meetings about bake sales.  LOL because #truth. The message is familiar: Do your best and forget the rest.

1. The Secret Life of Pets. Wicked funny and very sweet.  Let's end with a quote from that fine film: "You aren't doing great, but you aren't drowning and that's something."