Great! I’ll start a new thread.
@SouthJerseyChessMom, re your post #123, my daughter and my niece (both HS seniors) adore “Hamilton.” Thanks to them, I know many more of the lyrics than I ever thought I would.
Thanks Mary.
Anyone want to share the books sitting on your bedside table ready to be picked up sometime soon?
mathmom and SJCM: Losing a parent is hard even when you know the time has come to let your mother and father go. My condolences.
I never got to this month’s books, but will try to do better next time. 
Congrats, Mary, on the final college decision!
And condolences to mathmom and NJCM on your losses. My stepfather passed away in February after many years of dealing with Alzheimer’s (and many years of caregiving by my mother).
I watched my mother-in-law live for years and years without being able to walk or talk or recognize anyone. I know my mother would far prefer to have left us the way she did with good memories.
So many in this group have had sad experiences with dementia-related afflictions in their families. I lost my mom and dad to heart disease and cancer, respectively. In a way, they were lucky because neither of them suffered excessively, and they kept their mental clarity up until the end.
I finally made it through all seven volumes of Proust. It took me from the end of last December right up through the end of March. What a ride! Basically, I loved all of it.
Right now I am finishing up a fascinating work of fiction (Spanish in translation) called The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll, by Álvaro Mutis. I had never heard of this book, but my other group was reading it as part of an international reading project, and I joined in. The book is great! Next I will be reading Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov with the same group.
What I am reading. Still reading* Maus*. I’m also reading the last of the Glamour books by Mary Robinette Kowal. The first one is very much an homage to Pride and Prejudice, but after that they go off into different genres. My favorite so far is number four a heist story with Lord Byron, in Venice (well mostly in Murano). Unlike some authors it appears she knows when to stop - number five says pretty firmly it’s the end. (I’m bad and I peeked.) Amusingly she’s a bit of a seamstress and sewed the gown that appears on the cover of the book. She makes a point of only using vocabulary that appears in Jane Austen novels or that the OED says existed then.
Congrats on making it all the way through Proust. I read the first one, liked it, but was really not tempted to read more. My senior year in college suitemate took a Proust course and I remember her intoning her accomplishment whenever she finished one. I’ve got Lolita and * Invitation to a Beheading* and have dipped into both. I don’t know if I’ll finish them or not. The first I read long ago, the second, well, it’s too Kafkaesque for me.
I’m happily ensconced in the sixteenth century. I mentioned The Lymond Chronicles once before: I had started the first in the series The Game of Kings. I read the first chapter and then reread it, knowing I needed to up my reading game. I’m too used to flying through books. When I finished The Game of Kings, I started it again. I wasn’t ready to move on. When I finished the second in the series Queens’ Play, I started rereading the next day. Now I’m almost through with it (for the second time) and have the self-control not to go for the triple - I think. Besides there are six books in the series and I really do want to read them all. The author Dorothy Dunnett has another series too that I want to read. Life is good.
https://fiskeharrison.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/2014/11/28/the-tls-review-of-lymond/
https://www.nytimes.com/books/00/12/24/reviews/001224.24malcolt.html
If you start the series, be patient. The books are dense with detail. If you’re used to reading with little effort, take the necessary time to acclimate to Dunnett (100 pages or so till you’re hooked.)
I’m sorry for your losses, mathmom, SJCM, buenavista. Losing family is so hard.
Yay for your daughter’s decision, Mary!
I have My Brilliant Friend on the nightstand. I’m over half-way through it and have mixed feelings; the characters are, for lack of a better word, rough. Additionally, I have the second Louise Penny myster*y, A Fatal Grace, and a book recommended in the WSJ by Molly Keane, Good Behaviour waiting. I’ve been on a food book kick since listening to some podcasts about women in the food world (Radio Cherry Bombe). I’ve borrowed several of Ruth Reichl’s non-fiction books from the library, and finished listening to her first novel, Delicious, which definitely reaches back into her experience as editor of the wonderful, but gone Gourmet Magazine. Another food book on my to-read pile is In Pursuit of Wild Edibles; A Forager’s Tour by Jeffrey Greene.
Based on a recommendation by @nottelling from the Best Book thread, I’'ve been listening to Philip Roth’s American Pastoral read by Ron Silver. It is indeed a really fine pairing for the author and reader. I’ve had difficulties with some of Roth’s obsessive writing–he can get pretty graphic or just downright dirty, but Pastoral isn’t too, too, imo. The story’s very compelling.
Buenavista sorry to read you are, also, in the club no one wants to be in- family member with dementia.
So it keeping with Ignatius’s theme of books on nightstand-
I’ve been buying and gifting this book, Jean Carvers," 100 simple things to do to prevent Alzheimer’s"
For those of us in our 60’s, know that this dreaded condition starts forming in our brains now.
@NJTheatreMOM my father passed at 58 of pancreatic cancer, and I used to say " cancer" is a word I hated the most. Sadly, “dementia” has become the word I despise.
So to all your continued good health, and those of your loved ones----- check out this book.
http://www.alzheimersweekly.com/2013/07/100-simple-tips-to-prevent-alzheimers.html
Oh the Lymond chronicles. I had started once and didn’t get far, then I inhaled them when I was nursing my oldest and had paid maternity leave for six months in Germany. After I finished the last one I was sorely tempted to start all over knowing then what I had obviously missed in the first ones. So be warned @ignatius !
I heard a little about “Reading Lolita…” and found it extremely ironic that in a culture where little girls barely into puberty are considered temptresses, reading a book about exactly that is banned. I also found it extremely ironic that women would want to read about such a thing.
As for dementia, the fear should be progressive dementia with no treatment or amelioration. I’ve had dementia due to a medical condition which got treated, first in an unacceptable (to having a family and a job) manner, then later in a very acceptable manner (no worries on holding down a job or raising a family). I think there are many many things that people are afraid of, medically, but the reality is the fear isn’t the condition as much as any condition which causes impairment and gets worse. (yes, just saw Lou Gehrig biography on TV, a newer one - how very sad).
rhandco, it sounds like you have faced–and overcome!–quite a medical challenge. I am learning from everyone here that dementia can take many forms and progress in different ways. Thanks for sharing with us.
Re your comments on Lolita, i.e., that it’s “extremely ironic that women would want to read about such a thing,” I have to say that I have absolutely no desire to pick up the book. But I also feel like it might be smart of me to read it nonetheless. This writer more clearly explains what I mean:
http://www.elle.com/culture/books/a32033/10-mysoginistic-novels-every-woman-should-read/
(@PlantMom, coincidentally, American Pastoral is on this list.)
Very interesting list and point of view, Mary. I guess was able to get through Lolita because, to me, Humbert Humbert was mostly just pitiable (as well as being entertainingly articulate). I’ve never been able to stomach Philip Roth, though. Every time I’ve tried to read something of his, I’ve had to put it down because it makes me too uneasy. His writing reminds me waaay too much of all the negative things about my dad’s generation.
Just popping in to defend Philip Roth against the Elle Magazine list. American Pastoral is not misogynistic in the least! Really, I can’t stress this enough. Although the main characters are men, the women are very finely drawn. If anything, his male characters come in for much rougher treatment than his female characters do.
NJTheaterMom, if the only Roth you’ve read is Portnoy’s Complaint (which I have to confess finding extremely funny) or Sabbath’s Theater, I’d recommend giving him another chance. I’m pretty sensitive to misogyny – I can’t stomach Updike, for example, despite the fine writing, and I’m happy no one is reading Mailer anymore. And I definitely believe Jonathan Franzen has misogynistic tendencies – especially evident in the Corrections. But I think Roth gets a bum rap! (Just don’t start with The Humbling).
(Ghost Writer is a short but extremely well done book, if you are interested in giving him another try.)
Plantmom, I’m glad you are enjoying the audio! Would love to hear what you think when you are done.
Been meaning to “join” the bookclub – maybe I’ll join you with The Dig!
Thanks, nottelling! Ghost Writer looks good. I’m going to give it a try.
Hope to see you here for our Dig discussion.
@nottelling, thanks for the informative post. I have never read any Philip Roth–a terrible gap in my education, I’m afraid.
I hope you can join us for The Dig – I just started a new thread.
Thanks for the list, Mary, and for sharing your opinion, nottelling. Honestly, when I saw the list I had to ask myself if I knew the definition of misogyny or if my reading choices are askew! What I didn’t post in my “on the nightstand” reply was that in addition to American Pastoral and a reference copy of Lolita, I also have Saul Bellow’s * The Adventures of Augie March* and Twain’s Life on the Mississippi here too.
@nottelling, I finished listening to American Pastoral last night. The audio format may have biased my opinion more than a little, but I thought it was excellent–really fine reading by Ron Silver. About the content: to me this book is about a thousand different ways of questioning why, which, or how events of the past could have caused what is, in the present. It’s about self blame and trying to wish away a past; how we yearn for the ability to imagine a future; and how we can dream up whole lives based on pretty superficial information. It’s about a clash of ideas and dreams of differing generations, parents and children, husbands and wives, people of different faiths. There’s a good deal of Newark area history. I suspect I probably would have been a little impatient if I had read some of the sections, but listening to the novel made even the glove trade history sound fascinating Roth is indeed hard on all of his characters, but especially Swede Lebov. There’s sexism, yes, but misogyny just is not the word I’d tie to this book.
Thank you, Plantmom for that perfect description of the book. I completely agree with you. You nailed it. In addition to all that, it is about as heart-wrenching portrayal of parenthood that has ever been written. It is pretty amazing that Roth wrote that book without ever having been a parent. In yet another theme (in addition to those you mentioned), there is the question whether someone could truly be interesting or deep without suffering.
It is a profoundly sad and tragic book, one of the saddest I’ve ever read – but it also has one of the funniest scenes in all of literature (Jerry’s Valentine’s Day present to his girlfriend). Just thinking about that scene ten years after reading the book makes me laugh out loud!
Okay, sorry for highjacking! I’m just so happy that someone took my suggestion because I love that audiobook so much!
I quite liked Corrections, but couldn’t finish Purity. Welcome !!!
Yes, incredibly sad and tragic and heartbreaking for any parent. But very big LOL’s to the scene you reference. Being in a mixed marriage myself, I found the interview of the daughter-in-law at the end of the book highly amusing as well (although I had no such encounter with my FIL ).