What are you reading in 2024?

[KayLR]

Rosa, I wholeheartedly agree with you on This Tender Land. I think about it all the time.

I have Tom Lake on my TBR list.

[rosarugosa]

The Serviceberry by Robin Kimmerer. Describing the gift economy of the natural world. Abundance and reciprocity. It is a good reminder to question our overly consumptive ways. In one passage she talks about the gift of water. I was reminded of how when I go to Costco, I see customers by the dozens walking out with flats of bottled water. A natural gift now polluted and commoditized.

I've heard good things about this one too.

[rosarugosa]

Rosa, I wholeheartedly agree with you on This Tender Land. I think about it all the time.

I have Tom Lake on my TBR list.

I think we often like the same books. I've enjoyed several that you've recommended.

[KayLR]

I wonder, then, if you have read ,,"The Briar Club," by Kate Quinn. I got partway through and became disappointed in it. I hate when a smart, likeable female character starts making stupid choices. It feels like a manipulation somehow.

[rosarugosa]

I wonder, then, if you have read ,,"The Briar Club," by Kate Quinn. I got partway through and became disappointed in it. I hate when a smart, likeable female character starts making stupid choices. It feels like a manipulation somehow.

I have not; I haven't read anything by her.

[catherine]

I've heard good things about this one too.

Yes, I had pre-ordered it on the basis of my trust in Robin Wall Kimmerer's ability to write something that I would find a very worthwhile read, and The Serviceberry did not disappoint. I read the whole book (no big feat--it's a small one) on the train from VT to NYC. I've been interested in the gift economy since reading Sacred Economics by Charles Eisenstein, and The Serviceberry is MUCH more approachable. Another example of how Mother Nature does a much better job than her arrogant children keeping the flow of life going in a way that benefits everyone.

I loved it.

Pinkytoe: the flats of bottled water drive me crazy, too.

[iris lilies]

Unmask Alice, which is about Beatrice Sparks and her literary hoax Go Ask Alice. Absolutely fascinating, and Richard Nixon figures in this one, too, along with Art Linkletter! On tape, in the Oval Office.

I finished this book yesterday. It was kind of a slog I will have to say. But I had no idea Beatrice Sparks had penned so many other books other than Go Ask Alice.

Wow, she rode every teen scaremongering trend there was didn’t she? She started with a drug trend. Then onto Satan worship and suicide. Then onto AIDS. Wasn’t there even a book about street kids/prostitution? I lost track because I skimmed the last 50% very quickly.

What a con artist. She lied about her credentials throughout her writing career. She was not a therapist to adolescents and had never had that position. She was not educated in that way and apparently didn’t even have an advanced degree.

[Tybee]

I finished this book yesterday. It was kind of a slog I will have to say. But I had no idea Beatrice Sparks had penned so many other books other than Go Ask Alice.

Wow, she rode every teen scaremongering trend there was didn’t she? She started with a drug trend. Then onto Satan worship and suicide. Then onto AIDS. Wasn’t there even a book about street kids/prostitution? I lost track because I skimmed the last 50% very quickly.

What a con artist. She lied about her credentials throughout her writing career. She was not a therapist to adolescents and had never had that position. She was not educated in that way and apparently didn’t even have an advanced degree.

I know, right? She did a lot of damage, I think, with those books. It goes to show how scaremongering works. That's why I really liked the book. I gave it to my daughter-in-law because she was raised with a lot of those fundamentalist values, went to Christian school as a kid, has spent a lot of time in therapy trying to get over how she was raised. So I think it's good to figure out why people thought what they thought, and some of the reason was this woman and people who bought into her s**t.