I should really pay more attention to web traffic

I was going to write a blog post about why I select whatever format (ebook, physical book, etc.) at any given point and I was looking for an old post I wrote about how I wasn't sure if I'd ever want an eReader (past me is so dumb) but I couldn't find it. So I decided "Google knows all. Let's ask it for the link to that post." I searched something along the lines of whatredread "should i buy" Kindle. Google did not turn up this post but instead turned up a Buzzfeed list 21 Things Men Should Never Be Ashamed Of.

Which...OK, that's odd. Then I look in the little description and my blog link is in there.

I click on the link and turns out Buzzfeed used one of the GIFs I use during our How To Be A Girl readalong in their list. Huh. Interesting. It's also on the Spanish version of that post.

So then I decided to just search "Whatredread" but that didn't turn much I didn't already know about. Instead I decided to start searching whatredread buzzfeed and see what turns up. Turns out that wasn't the only list.

A GIF from one of the Franzen readalong posts made its way onto a list of 20 Socially Unacceptable Things Everyone Wishes They Could Say and on a list of The 24 Completely Irrational Stages of Having an Internet Nemesis.

So there you go. I have no idea if that affected traffic. I probably should pay more attention to things like that. I feel like if some people at work read that last sentence they'll have a minor heart attack*.

Now I'll go back to trying to find that earlier post. Or, you know, not.

*Paying attention to web traffic is one of those things we're supposed to do.

There had been bees in her brain, a whole hive, no honey

For the most part Just The Right Book has nailed sending me books I enjoyed* but perfection would be a lot to ask for. I was a little skeptical when I saw the cover for Still Life with Bread Crumbs by Anna Quindlen and wasn't feeling any better when I read the summary, but you know what? Euphoria didn't seem like my thing and I enjoyed so HEY, let's give it a try. How bad could it be?

This was an early reaction to the book:

So yeah, not a great first reaction. But I was hopeful. Maybe it would get better. Maybe the main character has to be super annoying and say insufferable things only to later grow and change and get better.

Or she could keep being the same. That's an option too.

I admit, I can judge a book harshly if the character starts of doing or saying something obnoxious. Wait, that's not quite right. If the character starts doing or saying something obnoxious but being obnoxious is NOT the thing the author is going for. If the author means for the character to come off as obnoxious or dense or oblivious or whatever, we're good. But when the character says something like this

But for her family, which she had felt when she was a child hardly deserved the name, being composed of only a father, mother, and a single child, the trips were never pleasant.

Sorry, only children or couples without kids or single-parent households, YOU'RE NOT REALLY A FAMILY! I wonder what the optimal number of people is. Oh, and if you're wondering what trips were never pleasant, she's talking about her family taking vacations to places like "the shores of Long Island" (does not say, but implies the Hamptons) or "the occasional foray to Provence or Tuscany". If you're wondering if some terrible thing happened during these vacations, it boils down to her family didn't like nature that much. Her dad had allergies and her mom hated bugs, so they spent a lot of time not camping. THE HORRORS. No wonder she feels they were never really a family.

So here's the basic plot. Rebecca is a photographer. She was a successful photographer, so much so that she made a lot of money essentially off a single photograph, titular "Still Life with Bread Crumbs" which she took after one of her husband's impromptu dinner parties, that she had been living a pretty nice lift for awhile with a fancy Manhattan apartment** living off the residuals of this photo. She had some success with a follow up series, extreme closeups of her then-infant son, but not much since. She's divorced, her son is grown, and money is getting tight so she decides to rent out her NYC place and rent something smaller out in the country. She has an offer for a temporary teaching position down the road, but for her now her plan seems to be just spend less on rent. Which again, probably not the worst idea, but not a lot of "and HERE is how I'll improve my income".

While out there she meets a roofer name Jim Bates who takes care of a raccoon stuck in a trap in her attic and eventually helps with odd jobs around the cottage. There's a romance there, and it develops exactly as you'd assume it would (including a misunderstanding that could be cleared up in about 30 seconds) but it wasn't totally the focus of the story. At least not as much as I assumed it would be. Instead we get some flashbacks of Rebecca's life with her comically terrible husband or her talking about how mean her mom was before she was in a home (and was mean to other people) and in general Rebecca learning to find herself. There's a bit of a mystery with these crosses that show up in the woods that seem to be memorials, except it's not really a mystery because she doesn't to much with it. She sets it up, mentions it a few times and then brings us to the BIG REVEAL about what they are, except by that point they haven't really been a plot point so you're sort of like "Oh, right those."

Scanning through the reviews someone mentioned that the characters were either good and kind and wonderful people or they were ridiculously evil. No one seemed like an actual person, just the outline of one.

A few people have had good things to say about Quindlen so maybe this is just a misstep. Most of the negative reviews I saw on Goodreads seemed to indicate that they were expecting something else from her. The writing itself wasn't bad. It was just a boring and predictable story that made me eye roll a LOT.

GIF Rating

*Past successes: The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty, Euphoria by Lily King, Bird Box by Josh Malerman and The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion. They also just sent me Landline by Rainbow Rowell which is only not a success because I already own it. So I mean, they still nailed it.
**I was recently reading a piece about average home prices and if you're wondering, according to NYTimes the media cost for a an apartment in Manhattan is $980K. That's the median price. I realize fiction takes a lot of liberties with how much things cost (hello there, Monica & Rachel's apartment) but just to give you an idea how much money she's used to operating on, she had a fancy Manhattan apartment in a world where $1MM is the median price.

Title quote from page 173

Quindlen, Anna. Still Life with Bread Crumbs. Random House, 2014.

I'm bored and lazy so IT'S SURVEY TIME

So sometime back in August (which I only know cos that's when the original survey is from [thanks, Brie!]) I saved this survey as something to do when I'm bored/not motivated enough to write a review. Or like, if the next book I'm supposed to review is allllllll the way over there and I'm sitting in a beach chair cos we still don't have our couch and beach chairs are not easy to get out of. It's been awhile, so hey, survey time!

A - age: 31. I'm only sort of in denial about it

B - biggest fear: deep water? Or maybe specifically the ocean because OMG so many things in there can kill you and I am useless in the water. I'm useless on land too but soooo much worse in the water. I sort of love sharks though. But I love them while I'm over here. On land. And they're in the sea.

Also watch out for tough guy belugas

C - current time: 9:33. PM. Eastern Time.

D - drink you had last: lemonade

E - easiest person to talk to: Umm Tom? Both easiest cos I tell him all the things and also easiest cos he's normally right there. Well not now cos I am watching Project Runway and he is watching baseball because yeah, we need to fulfill some stereotypes. Apparently.

F - favorite song: I have no idea. It used to be Rx Bandits but I haven't listened to them in awhile. And I'm pretty sure this is the first time in ever I couldn't come up with a favorite song. Let's just say Green Day's "When It's Time" because that was our first dance song, so I sure do like it.

G - grossest memory: I'm sure there are grosser things that I've blocked out, but last weekend Tom and I were wandering around NYC and were in Time Square (OK, it was in part to see what's going on with the painted ladies that are causing so much ruckus recently) and I'm roughly 98% sure this guy was peeing on this map (like a mall directory) in the area and...yeah, that was special.
EDIT so since writing this answer there was some loud crash in the house but we can't figure out where it came from so I was checking the utility closet and walked into a spider web and while I'm sure that's not the grossest memory ever, I FEEL LIKE I HAVE SPIDER WEBS ALL OVER ME GAAAAAAAAAHHH. So yeah. I'll go with that for now.

H - hometown: This town in NJ that whenever people ask where I'm from I just name towns in the area because yeah, you're not going to know it. And then people go "No, just tell me the one." And I do and they're like "Oh wait, I don't know that one." It's near Morristown. People have sometimes heard of that one.

I - in love with: Lotsa things. Tom. My friends. My family. A bunch of TV shows. Way more material possessions than is probably healthy.

J - jealous of: people who don't burn if they think about the sun for more than 12 seconds. People who can speak other languages (how do you do that?? I hardly have this one figured out).

K - kindest person you know: I know a bunch of kind people, even if that kindness is hidden under levels of snark. DON'T THINK I DON'T SEE IT HIDING UNDER THERE.

L - longest relationship: With Tom cos it's been like 10 years? 11? I actually think our dating anniversary is coming up soon. Sometime. I dunno when. (Because I'm terrible.) But that's the one I like to count cos dude, 10 years. I put in the time, I'm getting the credit. I dunno who the credit is from, but I'm getting it.

M - middle name: Marie. Isn't that boring? Celebrities may come up with ridiculous first names but middle names are where you can go nuts cos who cares.

N - number of siblings: Just the one lil' brother. Who is awesome and does things like install surround sound and go see Straight Outta Compton with me.

O - one wish: Like genie-wise? Can I know ALL THE LANGUAGES? In part I guess so I can communicate with the world, but mostly so I can eavesdrop on people and then if they're talking about me I can be like 'OH WHAT NOW?" Except in their language.

P - person you spoke to last on the phone: Some wrong number that called my cell. Yes, that is the number you dialed. I've had this number since like 2001 so yeah, I'm sure whoever you're trying to reach is not here.

Q - question you're always asked: Is that your real hair color? It is, isn't it? You're Irish, aren't you? (Yes, yes I already said that, I'm not you lose.)

R - reason to smile: I just remembered there's a carmalita bar in the cabinet. They are these bars from Whole Foods that are usually just wrapped in saran wrap and in some bin by the bakery and they're made with oats and caramel and pecans and dark chocolate and probably crack given how much I love them. Oh also and like the love of friends and whatnot.

S - song you last sang: I'm sure it was something ridiculous. Something from a musical? Likely. I had "Anaconda" stuck in my head before so maybe that? Could be!

T - time you woke up: 6:20 this morning. Stupid work, being all far from where I am. I need more sleep.

U - underwear color: how apropos as ProjRun is doing an underwear episode. ANWAY green and white polka dots

V - vacation destination: like vacation I'm going to go on? recently went on? I dunno where we'll go next (I guess we'll see who is getting married next and when cos IT'S THAT AGE) but last vacation was to Chicago where we got to hang out with Alice (woooo!)

W - worst habit: nail biting? I do that a lot.

X - x-rays you've had: It was either x-ray or xylophone, wasn't it? I had my face x-rayed when I was like 8 and got hit with a baseball. I mostly remember it being very late and the x-ray tech guy was like 'OK little girl, why don't you sit in this giant scary room while I turn on this large machine and run out of the room, because obviously it's dangerous to be in here, k bye!" Not that I was that scared, more just "What the hell is happening to me right now?" I've broken bones since then but it's been my pinky finger and a toe, and an x-ray seemed unnecessary.

Y - your favorite food: that carmalita bar is pretty awesome. But also burritos. Or noodles. Plantains. Dumplings. So much food.

Z - zodiac sign: aries, which I'm pretty sure means angry?

So hey, you know you wanna do this to, right?

No one can ever know the inner parts of anyone else's marriage. It's a strange business

Back in July I wrote about my book selection process. This was inspired by me reading J. Courtney Sullivan's book The Engagements, which I'm pretty confident I would have never picked up had 1) other people recommended it and 2) I put it on my Goodreads list and even though I forgot why, I figured past me sometimes has good taste. Thank you everyone who recommended this book, even though I forgot who exactly you may be, because I really loved this book.

Romance and love story type things are not my typical first-choices when it comes to books. There are those I've read and even loved (anything Rainbow Rowell has written, for example) but it's still a genre I'm skeptical about. Which I should maybe get over because I almost missed this book. Or at least took a lot longer to read it than I probably otherwise would have.

The Engagements is a series of loosely-related stories, centered around love and marriage, spanning from the '40s (and onward) when Frances Gerety, an advertising copywriter, comes up with the now-famous tagline "A Diamond is Forever", to a couple in the '70s who are trying to come to terms with the fact that their son seems to be breaking his family apart, to a Boston EMT who is having some financial-related marital problems, to the '90s when a French antiques dealer leaves her husband to run off with a famous violinist, to a woman in the early 2010s who hates the whole concept of marriage and yet is roped into her cousin's big gay wedding.

The stories aren't all happy. The relationships are complicated. The characters aren't all likeable (but not in a The Dinner sort of way). Actually, now that I think of it, most of the characters are fairly unlikeable (or at least do some very unlikeable things). But all of the stories are interesting. They look at the way love and marriage has evolved, all anchored by Gerety's work through the decades to convince generations of couples that if you want to really say I love you, you say it with a diamond. This isn't a nefarious ploy on her part. She's in advertising and her client is De Beers and her job is to make people want to buy their diamonds. And I'm going to say now that Frances is definitely not one of the unlikeable characters. She's working in a man's world (think how awesome things were for ladies in the Mad Men offices) and kicking ass. Also Gerety is the real person who came up with the tagline and it seems like Sullivan captured how kick ass she was in real life so hooray for that.

Without meaning to, I was thinking of The Engagements a bit like dating someone. At first I was thinking "Hmm I really like this book. I hope things continue to work out." Then later it was all "Guys, I don't want to jinx it, but things are going really well with this book." Then finally "Oh man, I think this is one of the top books of the year. This is the real thing, you guys."

GIF Rating:

Title quote from page 471, location 6368

Sullivan, J. Courtney. The Engagements. Vintage, 2013. Kindle

Most women fight wars on two fronts, one for whatever the putative topic is and one simply for the right to speak

I'd heard about Men Explain Things To Me for awhile and seen it at bookstores and whatnot. I can't remember anything specific I heard about it. Just a general awareness of it's existence.

Oh, and I had read the first essay. Or a bit of the first essay:

He kept us waiting while the other guests drifted out into the summer night, and then sat us down at his authentically grainy wood table and said to me, "So, I hear you've written a couple of books." 

I replied, "Several, actually." 

He said, in the way you encourage your friend's seven-year-old to describe flute practice, "And what are they about?" 

...I began to speak only about the most recent...River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West, my book on the annihilation of time and space and the industrialization of everyday life. 

He cut me off soon after I mentioned Muybridge. "And have you heard about the very important Muybridge book that came out this year?" 

...He was already telling me about the very important book - with that smug look I know so well in a man holding forth, eyes fixed on the fuzzy far horizon of his own authority...So, Mr. Very Important was going on smugly about this book...when Sallie interrupted him, to say, "That's her book." Or tried to interrupt anyway. 

But he just continued on his way. She had to say, "That's her book" three or four times before he finally took it in....That I was indeed the author of the very important book it turned out he hadn't read, just read about.

See, it has humor, it deals with a serious topic. Maybe not the funniest thing but hey, good stuff, let's see more of this. I didn't get to see more of this.

This book was a disappointment. I don't know what it is about the cover, given it's just text on a solid colored background, but between the title and the cover and even the first essay a bit, I figured this was going to be funny. It's not funny. It's not meant to be funny. I can't even say it was marketed as a funny book. Or maybe it was. I don't know cos I can't recall any marketing for it. But it wasn't what I was looking for, despite the fact that I luuurve me some feminist but it was a times more pretentious than what I was looking for and blah.

That's not to say it's a bad. It makes good points, even if they're hidden under a bit of academia (or at least pseudo-academia, as I have been out of school long enough that I no longer speak the language). It's just that, I didn't want this book. I wanted this book, but funny.

I realize this is a useless review. Sorry. Let me share some quotes with you so you can get a flavor of the book and decide if this is the thing for you (But keeping in mind that this is not funny and you better be looking for SERIOUS ESSAYS if you read this.)

"We tend to treat violence and the abuse of power as though they fit into airtight categories: harassment, intimidation, threat, battery, rape, murder. But I realize now that way i was saying is: it's a slippery slope. That's why we need to address that slope, rather than compartmentalizing the varieties of misogyny and dealing with each separately."

 "Those who are threatened by marriage equality are, many things suggest, as threatened by the idea of equality between heterosexual couples as same-sex couples."

"Incidentally, if you Google 'female careerism,' you get a bunch of links, but if you Google 'male careerism,' Google asks if you really meant 'male careers' or even 'mahle careers.' 'Careerism' - the pathological need to have paid employment - is an affliction that only affects women, apparently."

So there you go. If I hadn't bought this as an ebook I'd totally do a giveaway of my copy. Is there a way to do that with ebooks? I assume not.

GIF Rating:

Title quote from location 111

Solnit, Rebecca. Men Explain Things to Me. Haymarket Books, 2014. Kindle

August Reading Wrap-Up

Oh man, August is over. Summer is over. I heart fall but I'm still sort of not ready for summer to be over. I feel like it went by so quickly. Probably because I feel like we sort of skipped over spring and also the summer was full of annoying house selling stuff, which got in the way of not-annoying vacation stuff (except for getting to visit Alice out in Chicago, which was the main vacation we took and worth it).

Speaking of house stuff, we're still unpacking things. I thought we were pretty much done till all of a sudden I realized there were a bunch of books I couldn't find.

Stiff. How To Be A Woman. Where'd You Go, Bernadette? Where did you go indeed? TURNS OUT they were in various boxes still in my mom's basement. I guess I should have been tipped off that something was amiss when we unloaded the books and they fit on the shelves. Things were double stacked at the old house AND we threw out 2 bookshelves (or like 1 1/2, if you consider it was one normal sized one and one little one). There are some built-ins at the new place, but not that many. So now I have a few more boxes of some of my FAVORITE books and no idea where to put them. But that is a problem for future me. Current me is just going to worry about my August stats, and I dunno what was going on but I did a lot of reading this month. Some good (Graveyard Book, I love you), some not so good (Intern's Handbook...) So let's take a look

Number of books read

7

Still Life with Bread Crumbs by Anna Quindlen

Bird Box by Josh Malerman

The Intern's Handbook by Shane Kuhn

Modern Love by Aziz Ansari and Eric Klinenberg

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

Number of pages read

2,213

Percentage of fiction

71%

Percentage of female authors

14% - which is the lowest share all year

Percentage of white authors

86% - still not great but also still not 100% so...small victories

Percentage of US authors

71%

Book formats

ebook - 43%

paperback - 57%

I actually also finished up WWZ audiobook again. But I've quit counting that one towards the stats. I should probably give another audiobook a try

Percentage of rereads

14% - gotta do my in-prep-for-the-movie rereads

Percentage of review books

0% but I sure did get some...intriguing requests this month

Books by decade

1990s - 14%

2000s - 14%

2010s - 71%

Books by genre

Fantasy - 14%

Horror - 14%

Humor - 14%

Literary Fiction - 14%

Sociology - 14%

Thriller - 14%

Travelogue - 14%

Well, I guess I can't say I'm stuck reading the same genres over and over

Resolution books

57% - whaaaaaaa??

Alright, let's see what counts

Modern Love - not white!

The Graveyard Book - not US!

The Rosie Effect - also not US!

A Walk in the Woods - written before 2000! I mean, barely before but STILL COUNTS!

July and August were my most successful months, at least in regards to amount read. I'm pretty sure I can't sustain this level of reading BUT WE SHALL SEE!