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Reading Wed– Thursday
Mar. 31st, 2016 03:02 pmWhat did you just finish?
The End of Karma: Hope and Fury Among India's Young by Somini Sengupta. This is one of the best "explaining the new India to the West" books I've read, and it's a surprisingly popular subgenre. One of the positives is simply how current Sengupta's information is; she includes numbers and politics all the way up to 2016. Another plus is who she chooses to focus on: many of the books in this subgenre include only success stories, while others concentrate on the worst aspects of modern India. Sengupta allows both sides to coexist, and it makes for a much more interesting and complex book. She's an Indian woman who was raised in the US, and has lived in both countries for many years as an adult. It makes her supremely well-positioned to understand both cultures and to explain and translate between them.
The End of Karma is focused on what Sengupta calls "nooday's children" (after Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children"): the generation born after 1991, when India heavily reformed its economic system, making riches for some and increasing inequality for others. She does this through seven chapters, each focused on a particular individual whose story encapsulates some major issue. Thus we have Anupam (a man from a "backwards" caste who nonetheless gets a scholarship to one of the best colleges in India. Sengupta uses him to explain India's reservation system – a sort of affirmative action – caste politics, education, and the recent history of Bihar, one of India's poorest states), Mani (a maid in a gated community in Gurgaon, one of the most exclusive cities in India, though Mani herself is an adivasi – an indigenous community that holds a similar role in the social structure to Native Americans in the US. Sengupta discusses economic inequality and the issue of servants in this chapter), Rakhi (a former guerilla commander in the Maoist rebellion in eastern India), Shashi (a political activist working for Narendra Modi, India's current Prime Minister), Rinu (a middle-class teenage who gets caught up in India's censorship laws), Monica (who marries Kuldeep in a cross-caste marriage and ultimately becomes the victim of an honor killing), and Varsha (a poor girl who dreams of becoming a cop; Sengupta uses her chapter to talk about women's rights and sexual assault).
The chapters on Bihar and Modi were particularly fascinating and informative. I, like many liberals, loathe Modi (he's a Donald Trump-like figure, viciously nationalistic but with "good for business" cred), and Sengupta does a good job of explaining both where haters like me come from and what his supporters see in him. Overall the book is well-written and incredibly insightful. Highly recommended.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I mostly don't read books on my phone, because a) the bright screen hurts my eyes if I use it for long periods of time, and b) it annoys me to have to turn the page every paragraph or so. But now and then I get stuck in line or waiting for a table with nothing else to do (and having forgotten to carry a book in my bag), and then I do turn to the Nook app on my phone. Though I don't remember why I downloaded Secret Garden in the first place; possibly it just came free with the app.
And that's why I've slowly been making my way through The Secret Garden over the last few months. I've never actually read it before, though I knew the story from having seen a movie version, and I owned a picture book retelling when I was little. The full book turns out to be exactly the right choice for a spring read; it's full of loving descriptions of flowers and gardens and warm dirt and robins and sunshine and pulling weeds and the wind over the moors (unsurprisingly, I suppose). It's cheerful and gorgeous and just what I needed to read at the end of winter.
I was disappointed by how the ending shifts focus from Mary to Colin, because I find Mary a more interesting character, and it's sad to see her disappear into the background of someone else's story. But ultimately it's a classic for a reason, and I'm glad I read it – even if only because some CEO decided it was a cheap book to give away.
For Love & Liberty: Untold Love Stories of the American Revolution by Alyssa Cole, Lena Hart, Kate McMurray, and Stacey Agdern. The romance genre world has been going through some upheavals lately, mainly in regards to diversity among authors, readers, and characters. You probably heard about the wank over the Holocaust novel (yes, someone did actually write a Holocaust romance novel, and yes, it actually featured a Jewish woman falling in love with a Nazi concentration camp commander), but that's just been the loudest of the many scandals over the last several years.
Oddly, most of this problem seems confined to the published romance world. Self-published romance is also huge and well-regarded, and seems to suffer less from a lack of diversity. Not to say everything is perfect there! But if you want a book with a fat black heroine, or a tomboy Latina heroine, or an Asian hero, well, it's not hard to find them.
Which is the background for this book. All four of these authors were frustrated by the abundance of white-only historical romances, so they decided to band together and self-publish an anthology that focused on diversity. It's a lovely idea, but unfortunately the stories themselves vary in quality.
"Be Not Afraid" by Alyssa Cola. Elijah is a black solider in the American army; Kate is a black woman working for the British army in return for her freedom after the war. When Elijah is taken captive by the British, they're instantly attracted to one another, but their serious disagreement over which side to support in the war, as well as Kate's tragic past, make a real relationship hard. I liked this story, though I wished it could have been a little longer. The ending was abrupt and some issues seemed too easily resolved, but overall it was definitely worth reading.
"A Sweet Surrender" by Lena Hart. Siaragowaeh, an Iroquois woman, finds a wounded British soldier and nurses him back to health. This was my least favorite of the stories. The hero is a total alpha-hole, and the sex harkens back to old-school bodice rippers, complete with an abundance of consent issues. Plus the plot heavily mimics Disney's Pocahontas movie, which is never a good sign.
"Rebels at Heart" by Kate McMurray. Charles is a well-known British-loving dandy; Isaac is his free black valet. At least that's what they seem to be. In reality, Charles is a poor farmer and he and Isaac are lovers. The war forces them to confront what they really mean to one another, and to choose which side gives them the best chance for a happy future. This was my favorite of the stories. It was very well-written, the characterization was interesting and complex, and I would very much read more by this author.
"Home" by Stacey Agdern. Abigail and Jacob are a young Jewish couple in Manhattan, engaged to be married. But when war breaks out, their marriage may have to be put off – and then things get even more complicated when Jacob decides to enlist as a soldier. I liked the premise of this story, but the writing just wasn't as good. It was incredibly melodramatic, full of people gasping and almost fainting and staring in shock for no reason at all.
What are you currently reading? Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn. I was promised lesbians in Jamaica, but this is instead turning out to be depressing literary fiction in Jamaica with only very very minor lesbians. Alas.
The End of Karma: Hope and Fury Among India's Young by Somini Sengupta. This is one of the best "explaining the new India to the West" books I've read, and it's a surprisingly popular subgenre. One of the positives is simply how current Sengupta's information is; she includes numbers and politics all the way up to 2016. Another plus is who she chooses to focus on: many of the books in this subgenre include only success stories, while others concentrate on the worst aspects of modern India. Sengupta allows both sides to coexist, and it makes for a much more interesting and complex book. She's an Indian woman who was raised in the US, and has lived in both countries for many years as an adult. It makes her supremely well-positioned to understand both cultures and to explain and translate between them.
The End of Karma is focused on what Sengupta calls "nooday's children" (after Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children"): the generation born after 1991, when India heavily reformed its economic system, making riches for some and increasing inequality for others. She does this through seven chapters, each focused on a particular individual whose story encapsulates some major issue. Thus we have Anupam (a man from a "backwards" caste who nonetheless gets a scholarship to one of the best colleges in India. Sengupta uses him to explain India's reservation system – a sort of affirmative action – caste politics, education, and the recent history of Bihar, one of India's poorest states), Mani (a maid in a gated community in Gurgaon, one of the most exclusive cities in India, though Mani herself is an adivasi – an indigenous community that holds a similar role in the social structure to Native Americans in the US. Sengupta discusses economic inequality and the issue of servants in this chapter), Rakhi (a former guerilla commander in the Maoist rebellion in eastern India), Shashi (a political activist working for Narendra Modi, India's current Prime Minister), Rinu (a middle-class teenage who gets caught up in India's censorship laws), Monica (who marries Kuldeep in a cross-caste marriage and ultimately becomes the victim of an honor killing), and Varsha (a poor girl who dreams of becoming a cop; Sengupta uses her chapter to talk about women's rights and sexual assault).
The chapters on Bihar and Modi were particularly fascinating and informative. I, like many liberals, loathe Modi (he's a Donald Trump-like figure, viciously nationalistic but with "good for business" cred), and Sengupta does a good job of explaining both where haters like me come from and what his supporters see in him. Overall the book is well-written and incredibly insightful. Highly recommended.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I mostly don't read books on my phone, because a) the bright screen hurts my eyes if I use it for long periods of time, and b) it annoys me to have to turn the page every paragraph or so. But now and then I get stuck in line or waiting for a table with nothing else to do (and having forgotten to carry a book in my bag), and then I do turn to the Nook app on my phone. Though I don't remember why I downloaded Secret Garden in the first place; possibly it just came free with the app.
And that's why I've slowly been making my way through The Secret Garden over the last few months. I've never actually read it before, though I knew the story from having seen a movie version, and I owned a picture book retelling when I was little. The full book turns out to be exactly the right choice for a spring read; it's full of loving descriptions of flowers and gardens and warm dirt and robins and sunshine and pulling weeds and the wind over the moors (unsurprisingly, I suppose). It's cheerful and gorgeous and just what I needed to read at the end of winter.
I was disappointed by how the ending shifts focus from Mary to Colin, because I find Mary a more interesting character, and it's sad to see her disappear into the background of someone else's story. But ultimately it's a classic for a reason, and I'm glad I read it – even if only because some CEO decided it was a cheap book to give away.
For Love & Liberty: Untold Love Stories of the American Revolution by Alyssa Cole, Lena Hart, Kate McMurray, and Stacey Agdern. The romance genre world has been going through some upheavals lately, mainly in regards to diversity among authors, readers, and characters. You probably heard about the wank over the Holocaust novel (yes, someone did actually write a Holocaust romance novel, and yes, it actually featured a Jewish woman falling in love with a Nazi concentration camp commander), but that's just been the loudest of the many scandals over the last several years.
Oddly, most of this problem seems confined to the published romance world. Self-published romance is also huge and well-regarded, and seems to suffer less from a lack of diversity. Not to say everything is perfect there! But if you want a book with a fat black heroine, or a tomboy Latina heroine, or an Asian hero, well, it's not hard to find them.
Which is the background for this book. All four of these authors were frustrated by the abundance of white-only historical romances, so they decided to band together and self-publish an anthology that focused on diversity. It's a lovely idea, but unfortunately the stories themselves vary in quality.
"Be Not Afraid" by Alyssa Cola. Elijah is a black solider in the American army; Kate is a black woman working for the British army in return for her freedom after the war. When Elijah is taken captive by the British, they're instantly attracted to one another, but their serious disagreement over which side to support in the war, as well as Kate's tragic past, make a real relationship hard. I liked this story, though I wished it could have been a little longer. The ending was abrupt and some issues seemed too easily resolved, but overall it was definitely worth reading.
"A Sweet Surrender" by Lena Hart. Siaragowaeh, an Iroquois woman, finds a wounded British soldier and nurses him back to health. This was my least favorite of the stories. The hero is a total alpha-hole, and the sex harkens back to old-school bodice rippers, complete with an abundance of consent issues. Plus the plot heavily mimics Disney's Pocahontas movie, which is never a good sign.
"Rebels at Heart" by Kate McMurray. Charles is a well-known British-loving dandy; Isaac is his free black valet. At least that's what they seem to be. In reality, Charles is a poor farmer and he and Isaac are lovers. The war forces them to confront what they really mean to one another, and to choose which side gives them the best chance for a happy future. This was my favorite of the stories. It was very well-written, the characterization was interesting and complex, and I would very much read more by this author.
"Home" by Stacey Agdern. Abigail and Jacob are a young Jewish couple in Manhattan, engaged to be married. But when war breaks out, their marriage may have to be put off – and then things get even more complicated when Jacob decides to enlist as a soldier. I liked the premise of this story, but the writing just wasn't as good. It was incredibly melodramatic, full of people gasping and almost fainting and staring in shock for no reason at all.
What are you currently reading? Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn. I was promised lesbians in Jamaica, but this is instead turning out to be depressing literary fiction in Jamaica with only very very minor lesbians. Alas.
