Source of book: I own this   It has been over a decade since I read my first Neruda collection - a library version translated by Ben Belitt - and nine years since my brother-in-law gifted me this City Lights edition. It is fascinating to make the comparison, since the books are very different.   There are several different covers for this book - I have the boring red one.  This one is definitely the best. This particular collection was edited by Mark Eisner (who also translates a few of the poems), but the poems themselves are translated by eight different people, each of ..read more

 Source of book: I own this   For the last several years, I have read a feminist book (usually a classic) for Women’s History Month in March. This year’s choice was The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, the founder of the National Organization for Women. You can find the rest of my selections here.   Before getting into the details, I wanted to give a bit of a summary and my opinion as to what works in this book and what doesn’t.    The term she uses in the title is essentially a version of the Cult of Domesticity from the Victorian Era - the belief that [white mid ..read more

 Source of book: Borrowed from my kid.   Three of my kids were in high school during the Covid pandemic, and each had different experiences and challenges. The one who seems able to thrive in any educational setting is my second kid, but she took issue with the fact that for one year, there were ZERO female authors among the books they had to read in depth.    This did NOT make her happy, and as part of her protest, she chose to do her big paper on Ursula Le Guin, who was not only female, but strongly feminist. It was a badass paper (I read it), the result of my kid readi ..read more

Source of book: Borrowed from the library.    This was this month’s selection for our “Literary Lush” book club. While this book wasn’t specifically on my list, it is the sort of book I would have eventually read, particularly because my wife started listening to it on audiobook before we selected it for our club.   Let’s start with this:   The Ku Klux Klan never went away. It has merely changed form. MAGA is the Klan of the 21st Century. Anti-Woke is the Klan of the 21st Century. Anti-CRT and Anti-DEI are the Klan of the 21st Century. If you didn’t understand that a ..read more

  Source of book: Audiobook from the library I’m not even sure what to say about this book. It has its moments. The premise is quite interesting and relevant, and the characters good. But it lacks an actual plot. Very little happens, and when it seems like a promising bit of action or direction is about to take place, the narrative switches to something different.    The end of the book finally seems like it will go somewhere, and then it…just ends. I felt like this book could have been something, could have found a direction, but it never did. The author seemed content to cre ..read more

 Source of book: Audiobook from the library.   I had a house call in another town, and needed a short audiobook for that. This one was on my list, and happened to be available from the Los Angeles Public Library.  A Woman’s Story was originally written in French, translated by Tanya Leslie, and narrated by Tavia Gilbert. While most of the audiobooks I listen to are fiction, this one is non-fiction.    Ernaux grew up in a working class family, but an upwardly mobile one. Her parents grew up fairly poor, and worked as agricultural laborers as children. However, they we ..read more

Source of book: Borrowed from the library   This short novella translated from the Spanish is a rather unusual experience. On its surface, it is the story of a young woman, Makina, who travels from her village in rural Mexico, crosses the border into the United States, and seeks out her missing brother.    But there is a lot more to it than that. The book is full of imagery and metaphor, with obvious parallels to Greek mythology concerning the underworld - the scene involving Charon and the Styx is particularly obvious, as are a few references to Inferno. According to the tran ..read more

 Source of book: I own this   Anytime someone (usually right wing) makes the claim that back in the day, women were sweet and docile and submissive, I want to laugh in their faces.    Because that is one of the biggest piles of bullshit ever - one that never made sense to me even when I tried to believe it as a kid.    Women are human beings, and, just like men, they come in a wide variety of personalities. There have always been strong women who have been called loud, bossy, aggressive, unsubmissive, and all the other slurs that reflect what in men is called vir ..read more

Source of book: I own this   I have appreciated Will Rogers since I was a kid. He had a knack for a pithy quote, an astute observation, and a humorous way of looking at life.    For those who don’t know about him, Rogers was at his peak during the 1920s and 30s, as a humorist, both in person and in his newspaper columns. He also acted in movies and had a lasso act at the Ziegfeld Follies. He was urged to run for office - and likely would have won easily - but he declined, preferring to comment from the outside.    Rogers was Cherokee on both sides of the family - his ..read more

Source of book: Audiobook from the library   Another long trip, another Terry Pratchett audiobook.    The title of this book - Monstrous Regiment - comes from a poisonous pamphlet written by the misogynistic dickwad and anti-Catholic bigot John Knox. More about him at the end. Entitled The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, it - among other arguments for why women shouldn’t be allowed to be monarchs - claimed that women were only created in the image of God compared to animals, and were not equal to men in that regard.    Terry Pratche ..read more