Oh, how distressing I found this book, and oh, how I wished that Peggy Orenstein had kept this whole distressing story to herself. I got annoyed with Ms. Orenstein straight away when she said that in her pre-baby-mania days, she used to say that women who made pre-Betty Friedan choices shouldn’t be surprised when they end up with pre-Betty Friedan results. Which is to say, women shouldn’t choose to be stay-at-home mums, as that is a choice that could never be feminist, and if they do make that atavistic choice, they just deserve all they get. Nasty. I found this…
3 CommentsReading the End Posts
Recommended by: Books and Cooks, who reads good books and has pictures of pretty food that makes me feel envious. I finished this today, and then I went ahead and read Waiting for Daisy, and I had such a strong reaction to Waiting for Daisy that I’m having a hard time remembering what I thought of Matrimony. This is one of those that doesn’t have a catchy plot. It starts with the main character, Julian, and he meets a friend called Carter in his freshman year writing seminar. Julian meets a girl called Mia and Carter meets a girl called…
5 CommentsRecommended by: A Garden Carried in the Pocket, who always seems to read such interesting books, that lucky duck. I am very, very fond of dysfunctional family memoirs. Or crazy people memoirs are also fine too. Both types of memoirs make me feel grateful for my own lovely family, which is not at all dysfunctional and handles crazy extremely well. So I enjoyed this, and it was also an interesting insight into the ways of the toffs. (Cause I’m all lower-middle-class American South girl.) When I started reading it, I thought that Liza Campbell didn’t compare well to people like,…
3 CommentsAh, Linda Newbery. I’ve been meaning to read one of her books for about a year and a half – I very vaguely remember wanting to buy it at the Foyle’s on the South Bank when I was there in January 2007 with the family. Something with clocks. Sisterland is about a girl called Hilly who has a problematic sister that’s got a crush on a racist kid (British kids are scary! I’m never raising my kids in England cause those British kids are way too frightening!), and her grandmother has got Alzheimer’s and is forever talking about someone called…
2 CommentsRecommended by some book blog somewhere, though damned if I remember where. I’ve been meaning to get this out of the library for ages, and it was very fortunately not checked out last time I went. Oh, it was such fun to read! I was so pleased by it! It’s all about the Brits during the Napoleonic Wars, only they’ve put in dragons also. Laurence, the main guy, is a captain in the Royal Navy and he’s all got his duty and good manners and his ship captures a dragon’s egg from a French ship, and the egg hatches and…
1 CommentRecommended by: Books and Other Thoughts One of those books I wish I’d read when I was a kid. I would really have enjoyed this book as a kid. These twins, Jason and Julia (must people’s names match?) move into a great big house on the ocean. Their parents immediately leave, they meet another kid who lives nearby (Rick), and the three of them are plunged into exciting adventures with codes and clues and dark passageways and boats that take them to ancient Egypt. If I were about ten years younger, I would have – well, probably still not thought…
4 CommentsRecommended by: Geranium Cat, sort of. I was actually after The Angel in the Corner, but the library hadn’t got it. They had a large collection of Charles Dickens books with spines that didn’t say the titles, which I spent lots of time sorting through, but the only Monica Dickens book they had was Kate and Emma. It’s about a girl called Emma whose father is the judge in children’s court, and this girl Kate whom Emma sees in court one day when she’s a-visiting, and then they become best friends. But Kate’s life is one of degradation and poverty,…
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