When The Dangerous Book for Boys was released, there was a great hue and cry because A BOOK FOR BOYS IS EXCLUSIONARY! AND SEXIST! AND WE SHOULDN’T ENCOURAGE BOYS TO DO DANGEROUS THINGS!
Insert eye roll here.
Once upon a time, before I was a mom, I taught English literature, specifically eighteenth and nineteenth-century literature. My real love is the novel, because I am a nerd and I am fascinated by the structure of literary narrative and the self-reflexive nature of a really well-written novel. In other words, I like stories that are self-consciously about narrative — novels that are about novels.
I told you I was a nerd.
Diane Setterfield’s debut novel, The Thirteenth Tale, is a novel about novels. But before you cross it off your list as too smart or too hard, let me tell you that “The Thirteenth Tale” is also a ghost story, scary enough to keep you awake at night, which is fine because the story is so compelling that you won’t want to put it down for something as silly as sleeping. (more…)
American readers often find Indian novels daunting; I don’t know how many people I’ve talked to who have said, “I tried to read [insert name of Salman Rushdie novel here] but I just couldn’t get through it.” We are put off by the intense reliance on magic realism and history, both of which are integral to the genre. American novels — let’s face it — are often divorced from history and fantasy.
But it is precisely this reliance on magic and history that give the Indian novel its remarkable texture and depth. And for readers who are daunted by Rushdie, Indu Sundaresans’s The Spendor of Silence offers a wonderful in: Sundaresan’s novel is both an Indian novel and an American novel, one that unfolds a classic adventure/love story against the backdrop of World War II.
I’ve been thinking quite a bit recently about how to make your closet work for you. And by “you” of course I mean ME because really, your closet is your problem, but I have to go into mine every single day and find something to wear.
Which can be a gigantic hassle, honestly.
So I’ve been cleaning the closet and swearing off shopping and taking pictures of my outfits every day. And into this midlife crisis (seriously, what else would you call it?) comes Nina Garcia’s The Little Black Book of Style.
I may have done a little happy dance when the book arrived, because god knows I need all the help I can get. Plus I had JUST finished cleaning out the closet, and had gotten rid of absolutely EVERYTHING that I wasn’t wearing, AND I had sworn off shopping for an entire MONTH so that I could have some time to really see what I had before I ran out and bought anything else.
I was sure that Nina Garcia was going to save me.
Garcia opens the book with some good solid advice, including specific instructions for “editing” your closet (toss what you don’t wear, buy the right size, don’t be persuaded by sale prices, avoid trends). She advocates ruthless editing, which I agree wholeheartedly with. Of course, I had already DONE that, but okay! We’re on the same wave length, clearly.
Garcia goes on to lay out the basics of the stylish wardrobe, and again, this is useful. The little black dress, the menswear shirt, the cashmere sweater–all good pieces, and worth having in your closet. But then . . .
But then she kind of lost me. (more…)
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