Obviously, writing about ballet is a challenge, since even photographs can’t really capture the art form. But I thought Homans’ actual descriptions of various ballet dancers and their styles were marvelous: she captured the flavour well and really conveyed it to me as a reader. And she did have some guiding themes that served her well through most of the book. But the last two parts, which focused on the twentieth century, really killed a lot of my love for the book.

I would still recommend this to ballet enthusiastists, because the historical bits were compelling and fascinating. Homans obviously loves ballet and that really comes through in her text. But my recommendation comes with a large reservation: be prepared to slog through the final two hundred pages. Unless you’re an ‘insider’ in the ballet world, I can’t imagine a reader wanting to know as many details as Homans feels compelled to share. I’m still glad that I read this, but I was even happier to turn the final page.

I was most intrigued by the chapter on the ‘China hands,’ a handful of foreign service officers who were in China during its civil war and with their deep knowledge of the country (two of them had been born and raised there by American missionary parents) sent back reports on the political situation pointing out the strength of Mao’s side. Later, under Senator McCarthy, these internal memos became a reason to put the officers on loyalty trials for supposedly being Communist sympathisers. While I knew that the McCarthy era had been bad for the State Department, I didn’t realise just how absurd things had gotten. And I enjoyed reading about the way State used to operate; the officers in China often went out into the field, exploring and meeting various contacts, in order to get the ‘feel’ for what was going on. Gurman explains how, in part due to these trials, that approach got scaled way back, which is interesting in light of then Secretary Rice’s ‘transformational diplomacy’ speech, in which she advocates changing the foreign service so that more officers are stationed outside of the embassy/consulate cluster and thus closer to the ‘people’ in various countries. I would have liked to see Gurman address this specifically, but I understand it was beyond the scope of her book, which focused more on how the foreign service as a government bureaucracy dealt with internal dissent under various presidents (and how individual foreign service officers did, or did not, impact national policy).

I imagine anyone with a bit of interest in political science or international relations will very much enjoy this, and I heartily recommend picking it up if my post has sparked any curiousity.

Consider this a feeler post, then. If I did start the feature, which I would call A Most Particular Compendium, I’d probably do it once a month. Maybe twice if I was ‘overwhelmed’ by participants (unlikely, let’s admit). Here’s how it would work: you would e-mail me five to ten of your top books of all time, preferably with a brief annotation (think twitter-like brevity) for each title, as well as a short little description of yourself. I would then do a post in which I’d include your mini-biography and annotated favourites, then share my five to ten recommendations (also annotated; everything’s better with annotations). If that sounds like fun, please let me know in either a comment or e-mail! And if you already know you’re interested, feel free to e-mail me your bio/list (astripedarmchairATgmailDOTcom).

P.S.: I recently wrote up a little copyright policy page. Pretty much the sole purpose of said page is to tell anyone interested that

if you feel inspired by any of my blog features/post formats/review directories/etc. (so basically, an idea or blogging approach), definitely reproduce it on your own blog however you like! A credit link the first time you do it is nice, but you certainly don’t need to credit me every time. I take a ‘more the merrier’ approach to blogging stuff like that, so don’t feel you need to e-mail me/leave a comment seeking permission. I would enjoy seeing your interpretation, so feel free to leave me a link to your post. :) The one caveat is that if you want to do a similar series to one on my blog, please choose a different name (i.e., not Assembling My Athenaeum) so that they don’t turn into memes.

So, if you’re a fellow book blogger and you love the idea of doing this on your own blog, go for it! And be warned…if you do start a feature like this, I’ll probably be e-mailing you for recommendations. :D

Anyway, upon revisiting Mansfield Park this time around, I was struck by Austen’s focus on portraying the difference between the surface of people and their inner characters. Of course, this is a frequent theme with her, but one that she seems particularly interested in driving home in this novel. From Sir Thomas Morland, who is quite fond of Fanny and determined to treat her well, but whose somewhat gruff manner makes her nervous of him, to the more obvious suspects such as Mary Crawford, whose pleasant manners and humorous conversation masks a rather amoral, egotistic approach to life, Austen challenges her readers to look past what a character says and instead see them for who they are.

So I love Mansfield Park for its ‘message’ and heroine, but I also love it as a piece of writing! While Fanny lacks the witty banter of Miss Elizabeth Bennet, Austen’s narrative voice contains plenty of wry humour; I frequently found myself giggling. And Mrs. Norris has to be Austen’s best villain: her unabated cruelty to Fanny and self-deceptive nature is pitch perfect.

In sum, I’m surprised that Mansfield Park is often ranked lowest in Austen’s canon. I think it’s a rich book that works on multiple levels, and I always find myself rooting for Fanny and her quiet morals to win the day. The ‘bad’ characters are all at heart selfish, a vice which creates just as many problems and havoc in the modern world as it did in Austen’s time (and thus I don’t see this as a prissy novel in the slightest). And as always, I find myself renewed in my love for Austen. If you’re new to her, I certainly think Mansfield Park would be an interesting place to begin (especially if you want to get to know her without the ghosts of film adaptations drifting through your head!).

I first discovered Laurel Thatcher Ulrich during my reading for Women’s History Month back in 2009 with her Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History. She’s an American historian with a focus on eighteenth-ish century New England women, and she’s also the origin of that famous quote. Most importantly to me, she’s a fabulous author and scholar (a Harvard professor, actually), with a loving attention to detail that makes her work simply fascinating. Funnily enough, Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History is different from her other books: it opens with a discussion of the quote’s life in popular culture and then each chapter describes a different woman whose ‘bad’ (aka contrary to societal norms) behavior made her place in history. It was fascinating, and I knew I had to read more of her! Since then, I’ve read one a year: The Age of Homespun in 2010 and A Midwife’s Tale in 2011. Both were excellent: I honestly can’t choose a favourite! They also cemented her as one of my very favourite authors; unfortunately, I only have one book left (Good Wives, her earliest) to read. Good thing for rereading! And I have my fingers crossed she has another book in the works at the moment. ;)

Sadly, I don’t have any of her books on my shelves at the moment! I would very much enjoy a little complete collection of her works; the only upside of having a favourite author who’s not very prolific is that it’s easier to acquire all of her works. I think she’s the kind of nonfiction author that has ‘crossover’ appeal, so even those readers primarily interested in fiction will probably like her. Really, all of her books are marvelous, so the only advice I have to is to with the one that strikes your fancy most. As for me, I suspect I’ll be requesting Good Wives from the library shortly. And perhaps one of these days I’ll finally get a tee with Ulrich’s famous observation…

That being said, as someone who’s read several books on this and related issues, not much of the information or studies were new to me. (I do love reading about studies, though, because often the scientists come up with the most ingenious approaches to measuring whatever effect they’re curious about.) This is more of a synthesis than ground-breaking work. And I couldn’t help wishing for a wee bit more detail. Fortunately, the authors were happy to reference several other books, and I think it’s about time that I picked up Pink Brain, Blue Brain by another neuroscientist, Lise Eliot, and Delusions of Gender by psychologist Cordelia Fine.

If you’re new to gender and brain research, or you just want to know the most current scientific findings and studies without having to devote a lot of time to a book, The Truth About Girls and Boys is perfect for you. If you’re more like me (or Ana), this will probably still be a good read but is less ‘essential.’ Either way, I’m glad that wrote it, and I just hope it gets into the hands of those in power!

Do y’all have any unusual reading habits? Here’s one of mine: when I begin a book, I flip to the last page. Not to read the ending, in fact I studiously avoid looking at any of the words, but to see how long the book is. Then I divide that number into even ‘chunks’ that are somewhere between 50 and 60 pages each so that I know how many pages I should be reading in each session (and how many sessions the book will last). I am especially thrilled if the chapter breaks correlate to my number. If they’re not exact but close, I’ll follow chapter breaks instead, otherwise I just look for a handy pause when I’ve hit that number. It’s not something I force myself to do, I just really enjoy numbers, so it’s my way of settling into a new book.

Does anyone else do this? If not, do you have any other reading quirks?

Only two one-sentence reviews this week! I’m right at the edge of finishing another couple of books, but I didn’t want to rush things for the sake of my blog. And I’ve already written up posts on three (one hasn’t been published yet), so there you have it!

Books I Would Have Loved, Except for One or Two Little Quibbles or Books I Really, Really Liked

Read Marriage: a History by Stephanie Coontz if…you’re curious about how the institution of marriage has been viewed by society throughout history, especially in the US & UK or you read a lot of older books and want to feel more informed when it comes to all of the marriage plots or you just enjoy learning quirky historical facts.

Read Cart and Cwidder by Diana Wynne Jones if…you enjoy fantasy books with resourceful child protagonists or you’re a DWJ fan working through her back list or you’re looking for a good read-a-loud book for your own children or students that you’ll like as well.

P.S. My new year of reading has started out wonderfully! Not a bad book yet. :) I hope yours is going as well!

Curious, energetic, and enthralled, those bookworms have earned the right to a metamorphosis, one that captures the magic and drama of what happens to them when they read powerful, breathtaking stories. And nothing describes them better than [enchanted hunters,] a term that went through its own transformative shift to emerge as a radiant description of how we read.

-Maria Tatar, Enchanted Hunters

Vlog

Titles Mentioned

• Castles Made of Sand by Andre Gerolymatos
• A Rainbow in the Night by Dominique Lapierre, translated from French by Kathryn Spink
• A New Time for Mexico by Carlos Fuentes, translated from the Spanish by Marina Gutman Castañeda & the author
• Founding Mothers  by Cokie Roberts
• The Ethics of Identity by Kwame Anthony Appiah
• How Philosophy Can Save Your Life by Marietta McCarty
• Shaming the Devil by Alan Jacobs
• Dancing in the Dark by Barbara Ascher
• Cart and Cwidder by Diana Wynne Jones
• The Three Theban Plays by Sophocles, translated by Robert Fagles
• The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
• The Conversations at Curlow Creek by David Malouf
• Galore by Michael Crummey
• Spies of the Balkans by Alan Furst
• The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova

See more details in my LibraryThing collection.

Well, it is! At first, I was a bit worried; the language style felt a bit more casual and slang-y than I remembered it. But soon it settled into a rhythm, and I was lost again in Yoshimoto’s haunting, elegiac world. While I still love the title novella, especially the final scene, I really cherished “Moonlight Shadows” this time around. It’s set in a Tokyo winter and centers around a young woman caught up in grief due to the sudden, tragic death of her boyfriend a few months earlier. Every morning, she jogs through the park because she can’t sleep and doesn’t want to think. But one morning, she meets a mysterious stranger on the bridge, one who seems a bit magical. It’s a ghost story, which is probably part of why I loved it, but the mix of nostalgia and hope, deep heartbreak with renewed faith, seemed just right for this time of year. We’ve just passed the darkest days of winter, in the Northern hemisphere at least, and while we might not see much evidence yet, the day is gaining a bit more with each sunrise and sunset. To sit curled up under a blanket, watching winter through my window, with a hot cup of tea and a beautiful book, is such a privilege. And yet, it’s also one that I only have because I’m too ill to work but have parents who support me. That knowledge doesn’t spoil my experience, or the scene, but it does change the flavour a bit. I suspect Yoshimoto would understand that and know how to put it into words, better than I can myself. All I know is that I’m tempted to make Kitchen a new year tradition, and in the mean time I’ll continue happily reading the rest of her novels. She manages to mix quirky characters and young narrative voices with emotional quandaries and gently-described scenes that go straight to my heart. And that is something to treasure.

Suggested Companion Reads

• The Translator by Leila Aboulela (This slim novel had a similar focus on love and grief.)
• Twinkle Twinkle by Kaori Ekuni (Another Japanese novel that deeply affected me and had quirky characters with unconventional relationships.)
• Troll: a Love Story by Johanna Sinisalo (A thoughtful little Finnish book that features unusual love and a hint of the supernatural.)

(P.S.: my hands are not amused, so I’m going on a typing fast until Sunday. I’m still reading blogs and e-mails and the comments I get here, but I won’t be replying for awhile. And I won’t be on Twitter. Thanks for understanding! -Eva)

(P.P.S.: I tried taking my own cover photo for this post, because I always admired it when Claire of Kiss a Cloud did so. I’m obviously not at her level, but let me know if you think I should just use stock publisher cover images instead!)