Time // 8:50 a.m.

Place // My sister’s couch in Minneapolis

Eating and Drinking // At the moment, a glass of water. But I hope we’re going to go out and get some fancy coffee and donuts soon.

Reading // I had to go look at my Goodreads queue to figure out what I’ve been reading this week! It’s been one of those sorts of busy, no time to settle in sorts of weeks. But I did finish two books, All the President’s Men by Carl Woodward and Bob Bernstein and Queen of the Ait by Dean Jensen, which is a June release about the two most famous circus aerialists in the 1930s. I thought it was awesome.

Yesterday I stared reading The Boys in the Boat by Danie James Brown, which is about the U.S. Olympic crew team in 1936. I have a total weak spot for historial sports nonfiction, so this one seems to be right up my alley so far. I’m also slowly making my way through Getting Things Done but David Allen and getting nerdy excited to try implementing his systems to get my life more organized.

Watching // I didn’t have much time to watch much this week. I think I forgot to mention that I finished season four of Fringe last week or the week before (the season got MUCH better about six episodes in), but I’m holding off a bit on starting the final, abberviated season. This week was all about season finales for the shows I’ve been into. My sister and I watched the finale of The Office last night, and although it was a bit heavy-handed it was also nostalgic and funny and lovely.

Listening // I’m taking a break from my current audio book — Insurgent by Veronica Roth — to catch up on some of my favorite podcast, Pop Culture Happy Hour. I love those guys, but I’m bad at keeping up week-to-week and so end up getting caught up in big batches.

Working // I have had a crazy couple of weeks at work, but they’ve been the good, lots of news to cover and write about kind of crazy. This Friday I got to come down to the Twin Cities to see our local FFA (Future Farmers of America) chapter teach some inner city elementary school kids about where their food comes from. There is really nothing more fun than taking photos of little kids with animals.

Updating // Last week I mentioned a phone photography class that I was thinking about signing up for. I decided to just go for it, and I’m happy about that decision. I take a lot of photos on my phone, but I want to improve them. I think that’ll be fun. Plus, starting it on the week of my vacation will be fun because I’ll have new and interesting things to take pictures of.

Anticipating // My sister and I are heading out to do some shopping this morning, including a stop at Half Price Books, one of my favorite places to visit. I got rid of about 20 books this week, so I’m anxious to sell a few (and see what goodies I can bring home). After that, we’re meeting one of my best friends from college for brunch at a place that does $2 mimosas. Yum.

Organizing // The “to do” list application that I have been using, Astrid, appears to be going away thanks to an acquisition by Yahoo. So I’m shopping around different apps and looking for some recommendations. Right now I’m testing out Remember the Milk and Todoist, but I can’t seem to make up my mind on either.

Wanting // I would love if there was a way to teleport from where I live to the Cities. The drive isn’t long, about 2.5 hours, but it’s awfully boring. I’m not really looking forward to it this afternoon.

Apologizing // I’m sorry for any typos in this post! I’m writing it on my tablet in the WordPress app, and I don’t think there’s a way to do spell check… that’s annoying!

Hmm… I’m at the end of the post, and I don’t think I’ve explained any of the photos in my picture at the top… so, from top left going clockwise: the sign in front of a grocery store that is owned by a distant relative, Hannah stretching in a super weird way, some art that I bought last week, and my current read, The Boys in the Boat.

Happy Sunday, everyone! What are you reading today!

Currently: May 19, 2013 is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

This post originally appeared on Book Riot. 

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Game of Thrones (all the series), the Harry Potter series and The Hunger Games, so reader beware if you care about spoilers. Spoiler alert: I don’t.

I’ve never been the kind of person that gets too uptight about spoilers. If I’ve had the opportunity to read or watch something — the book is past the publishing date, the show has already played on television — then I don’t feel like I have much of a right to complain if I come across a spoiler. There’s nothing that makes me roll my eyes more than seeing a chorus of “Stop talking about X because I haven’t seen it yet!” come up on social media; if you’re worried about being spoiled, it’s your job to avoid it, not the rest of the world’s job to protect you.

It’s possible that I’ve adopted this attitude, however, because the person in my life most likely to “spoil” me is, well, me. My name is Kim, and I’m addicted to spoilers.

Looking back, I think I’ve always had a predilection for spoilers. I remember gobbling up any and all news I could find out about each new Harry Potter book as the series progressed. After J.K. Rowling announced a major death in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I semi-actively sought out news until I confirmed Dumbledore’s death (but not the circumstances surrounding it) before the book was officially released.

But this spoiler problem has gotten progressively worse. When I was reading Game of Thrones for the first time, I couldn’t remember who was who; Theon Greyjoy, for whatever reason, stumped me every time he showed up in a chapter. When I came across a character that I knew I should know but couldn’t place, I’d grab my phone and hop on Wikipedia to get a reminder.

But I would also skim over information I wasn’t looking for, unintentionally (at first, anyway) revealing plot points that would show up two, three or four books later. I knew Robb Stark would die at the Red Wedding before I even knew who Edmure Tully was (sob!). I knew Joffrey was going to marry (or almost marry?) and then die (joy!). I knew that Dany would get her dragons (huzzah!). At this point, I know what happens to my favorite characters in all five books although I’ve only read two of them.

Spoiling myself is both liberating and frustrating. There’s no plot question I hate more than “Will they or won’t they?” I think love triangles are boring, so any time I can hop online and and find out that yep, Peeta and Katinss end up together, it makes me feel calm and, I think, helps me pay attention to the book more carefully because I’m not rushing to have a single question answered.

But spoiling myself also keeps me from being surprised. Spoiling myself is a direct result of being an impatient reader, a reader more interested in the destination than the journey. And while sometimes that’s ok — especially if the book is one where I don’t really care about either (coughTwilightcough) — there are other books that earn the destination because of the journey. I almost looked up a summary of The Round House because I wanted to know who raped Geraldine, but I held off, making the conclusion all the richer.

I’m not sure what I should do about this spoiler addiction (or if I should do anything at all). I’m working to fight it when I think it matters, but my curiosity to know the ending often overrides any sense of propriety I have about remaining and unspoiled reader.

Hi. My name is Kim, and I’m addicted to spoilers.

True Confessions of a Spoiler Addict is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

Title: I Never Promised You a Goodie Bag: A Memoir of a Life Through Events — the Ones you Plan and the Ones You Don’t
Author: Jennifer Gilbert
Genre: Memoir
Year: 2012
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Acquired: From the publisher as part of a TLC Book Tour
Rating:

Review: Jenny Gilbert was a vivacious, outgoing, unflappable twenty-something, just back from a trip to Europe, when a violent attack split her life into Before and After. Outside a friend’s apartment, Jenny was assaulted by a total stranger intent on killing her. Despite being stabbed more than 30 times, Gilbert survived the attack. But from that moment forward, she’d never be “Jenny” again. After the attack, she was “Jennifer,” a woman determined to rebuild and reclaim her fabulous New York life:

The result of my rebuilding was an assemblage of contradictions, all hidden beneath a shiny skin. I was a fearless fearful person. I was isolated but afraid to be alone. I was terrified of thins that most people take for granted — especially sleep — but the stuff that others approach with trepidation didn’t even faze me. New career choices, job interviews, selling, cold-calling — that was nothing to me. I knew what it was like to almost lose everything, so the day-to-day things that cause the average person anxiety? Please. What’s the worst that could happen to me…

Jennifer got a job working for a small event planning coming, cold-calling businesses and building up a portfolio of wealthy corporate clients. Eventually, she quite the firm to start her own company, finding solace and excitement in being the kind of person that could fix any problem and living vicariously for the joyful days of the people she was helping. I Never Promised You a Goodie Bag is Gilbert’s memoir of surviving, rebuilding and learning that life is often out of our control.

I had this book on my mental “You Might Like This” list ever since I read a lovely review on Meg’s blog last November. When the ladies at TLC Book Tours pitched it to me, I thought it sounded like a nice change of pace from what I have been reading — an inspirational story about a woman taking control of her life and making it into what she wants. I like those kinds of stories once in awhile.

Like Meg, I went into the book not knowing much about The Attack that throws Gilbert’s life into such disarray. I knew something bad happened to her, but I had no idea how visceral and violent it would be. The way she describes it is very clinical and matter-of-fact, which makes it almost more unsettling to read. I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about it again because it really did shock me.

As much as the attack takes center stage at the beginning of this book, I Never Promised You a Goodie Bag isn’t about that single event. It’s about how Gilbert chose to respond to it, how she decided to take control of what her life would be and make it what she wanted. She doesn’t always do this successfully or in the most healthy way; for years, she refused to tell people about what happened to her or wear a swimsuit on a beach because she was afraid people would see her scars. She struggled with an eating disorder, looking at controlling food as a way of controlling her chaotic inner life. She had a string of less-than-healthy relationships until finding  her best friend and husband.

But through all of this, Gilbert is a woman I can and do admire. She never looks for sympathy because of her attack. She takes care of herself, grows her business, and continues to learn and adapt and evolve to become a better, healthier person. I just really liked her and reading about her life, despite the fact that her ultra-rich, New York City story is so entirely different from me. I enjoyed reading this book, and I think other memoir readers would enjoy it too.

Other Tour Stops: Book Hooked Blog |  A Patchwork of Books | Sharon’s Garden of Book Reviews | From LA. to LA | A Musing Reviews | Tiffany’s Bookshelf |  The Well-Read Redhead | guiltless reading | Patricia’s Wisdom

If you have reviewed this book, please leave a link to the review in the comments and I will add your review to the main post. All I ask is for you to do the same to mine — thanks!

Review: ‘I Never Promised You A Goodie Bag’ by Jennifer Gilbert is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

Title: A Chance to Win: Boyhood, Baseball, and the Struggle for Redemption in the Inner City
Author: Jonathan Schuppe
Genre: Narrative nonfiction
Year: 2013
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Acquired: LibraryThing Early Reviewers
Rating:

Publisher’s Summary: For most of his young live, Rodney Mason was good at two things: dealing drugs and throwing a baseball. Then a drive-by shooting left the 27-year-old ex-con paralyzed, cutting that list to one. He vowed to turn his life around and to do it by returning to the game that he loved. Rodney decided to form a Little League team in Newark’s South Ward, hoping to save kids from the street life that had claimed his youth and his mobility, and maybe, in the process, to save himself, too. It wouldn’t be easy — these were kids from violent neighborhoods, with unstable home lives, few positive male role models, and failing schools. Most had never played baseball before, but, through the fists and tears, lopsided losses and rare victories, Rodney made them a team and gave their impoverished community something to root for.

Review: When I first grabbed A Chance to Win, I knew it was going to be exactly the kind of book I love to read. To tell this story, journalist Jonathan Schuppe spent years following Rodney Mason, a paralyzed drug dealer turned baseball coach, and his Little League team, writing a story that’s both about sports and about what happens in the places that people in power forget. It’s the wonderful kind of investigative and emotional narrative nonfiction I am drawn to.

As I’ve thought about the book, I realized that it’s actually a bit of a mash-up of two other books I love: Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc and Friday Night Lights by Buzz Bissinger. Like Random Family, A Chance to Win is about what it is like for kids to grow up in an abandoned, dangerous place. And like Friday Night Lights, it’s about the power that sports can have in a community as well as how sports are not the answer to every problem.

The emotional core of the story is Rodney, learning about his childhood, his dreams to play baseball, his temptation into gang life and his meandering journey to try and help other kids avoid his path. But Schuppe also wisely follows two of Rodney’s players and their families to get a broader look both at what this Little League program could accomplish and the overwhelming odds these kids face anyway. It’s far-reaching and awfully sad, sometimes. This is not a feel good story because the kids win. It’s satisfying, I suppose, because despite everything some of them keep trying.

If there is one critique I have about the book, it’s that there are almost no women or girls. Part of that is the point, built into the entire premise of the story — because boys get involved in the drug business, few grow into men or have children that they can or will mentor. Schuppe asserts that since baseball is a sport passed down from fathers to sons (a contention that feels a little dubious, since I think you could say the same thing about other sports), it doesn’t have a chance in a place like South Newark with no male role models. That, in turn, makes Rodey’s role as an adult male mentor and coach even more important and worth writing about.

While I’m totally on board with the premise, I still wish there was a little more about life for girls in this area. Schuppe does write about a couple of mothers (mostly in relation to the men in their lives), but there’s only one girl on the baseball team who, in the end, doesn’t get much time in the story. Intellectually, I know there’s not much to be done about this — she just doesn’t fit into the way Schuppe decide to frame this story, and you can’t invent more girls to play baseball — but I still couldn’t help wanting that story too. I am on the lookout for a book that fills this niche — the life for young women in troubled neighborhoods — so if you have any recommendations, dear readers, please let me know.

But despite the fact that I just spent two paragraphs complaining about it, in the grand scheme of this book it’s a pretty minor issue. Overall, Schuppe does a remarkable job writing a compassionate but honest story about what life is like in a place most of us have decided to ignore and what happens when one person (flawed and imperfect and complicated) steps up and tries to make a difference. A Chance to Win is a wonderfully thoughtful book that I highly recommend.

Other Reviews: … and a little wine |

If you have reviewed this book, please leave a link to the review in the comments and I will add your review to the main post. All I ask is for you to do the same to mine — thanks!

Review: ‘A Chance to Win’ by Jonathan Schuppe is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

It has been quite the week, both online and offline. I feel like this is going to be even more of a “catch all” type of post while I try to remember everything that’s going on!

Time // 9:30 a.m.

Place // At my desk in my office, again.

Eating // Nothing yet. I am not sure what I want for breakfast today.

Drinking // Black tea, orange flavored, I believe.

Reading // I’ve had a flightly week with my reading. I decided to try something totally different last Sunday afternoon, so I picked up All the President’s Men, an account of the Watergate investigation, by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. The book is very, very “inside baseball” when it comes to politics and reporting, but I’m really enjoying it so far.

But I’ve also be dipping in and out of several other books – I Never Promised You a Goodie Bag by Jennifer Gilbert, Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell, and Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, to name a few. I haven’t had much time to read this week, so I haven’t gotten very far in any of them. I’m hoping this week will be a little less frenetic… but that’s not looking likely.

Contemplating // On Friday, I participated in in 2013 Chick-fil-A Leadercast webinar, a leadership seminar broadcast around the world. This year’s theme was “Simple Lead,” so all of the speeches were about ways to work through complexity to lead more effectively. The speaker that most stuck with me was David Allen, author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. He talked about the importance of freeing up “psychic bandwidth” to give yourself room to think by getting all of the “stuff” out of your head.

That really resonated with me — lately its felt like my brain is running in a million different directions — so I started reading Getting Things Done. When the boyfriend saw me reading the book he got this incredulous look on his face, pointing out that I’m the editor of a newspaper and maintain a successful blog… do I really have a problem getting things done? And no, I don’t really. I get a lot of stuff done. My problem is that, lately, I can’t seem to focus on anything because there are too many things in my head. And stuff that isn’t related to work or the blog — making a dentist appointment, for example — falls by the wayside all the time. I’m not far into the book, but I’m really excited about the idea of getting a system in place to get things out of my head in an organized, actionable way.

Cooking // I have not done much cooking lately, but I think I am going to try this recipe for Chana Saag tonight for dinner.

Blogging // This is maybe my biggest news of the week: Friday was my five-year blogiversary! I was so nutty this week I almost missed it and didn’t get to celebrate as much as I might have wanted, but I’m really proud of this milestone. If you click over to the post, there’s a little giveaway at the end too.

Shopping // The last thing I need is a new purse, but I want this one SO BAD. It’s the same size and shape as my current purse (a red version of this bag) that I love and get complimented on all the time. And my red bag is getting a little worn around the edges… so I might splurge this week.

Promoting // I have a post up on Book Riot this week about my addition to spoilers. It was a fun post to write, but be warned there are some spoilers in it for Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, and The Hunger Games trilogy.

Hating // Clutter! On Friday night I did a little bit of a book purge (I got rid of like 20 books) and cleaned my closet, but I’m still feeling distracted by all the “stuff” in my life. I need to keep working on this.

Wanting // I want to sign up for an online class, The Phone Photography Project, for later this summer. It’s only $39 at the introductory price, but it starts right when I’ll be on vacation and so I’m concerned I won’t participate as fully as I should. I’m probably going to sign up anyway.

Anticipating // I’m really excited to have a day without a to do list. I usually make one for the weekend, but since I had to work most of the day yesterday covering our local college commencement ceremony, I didn’t bother. I still have things to do, but nothing that can’t wait.

Happy Sunday, everyone! What are you reading today?

Currently: May 12, 2013 is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

Today this blog turns five years old. Five years old! That’s practically ancient in Internet time.

Earlier this week, Jeanne (Necromancy Never Pays), who has also been blogging for five years, wrote something in her profile on Book Bloggers International that resonated with me:

Like any blogger who has been at it for more than five years, I’m looking for a new direction. I think it must be a little like writing a second novel—all the stuff I most wanted to write about, I have written about already, so there’s less sense of urgency.

I’ve been tossing around ideas for this post for a few months — ever since I got started thinking about blogging milestones when I celebrated 1,000 posts — but it took Jeanne’s comment for all of my fleeting and tangled thoughts to come together.

Despite the feeling that everything has been said before, I think can be useful to revisit where we’ve been once in awhile. The book blogging community is growing so big so quickly that it’s impossible to know or remember where we’ve all come from. It’s nice to be reminded of our “origin stories” once in awhile. But part of surviving online for five years is also to not get bogged down in what we were, to constantly be evolving to fit better into the virtual and real life landscapes we exist in.

I started this blog on Saturday, May 10, 2008, one week before I was set to graduate from a small liberal arts college on the prairie of Minnesota with a B.A. in English. I had kept various blogs through high school and college, but they were of the angsty rants about how boys didn’t like me, I was too chubby, and my life was really hard (all things that were untrue, even if they didn’t feel like it at the time). I decided I wanted to put useful and interesting things on the Internet, and that my degree in English made me qualified to write about books.

I didn’t really know there were other book bloggers out there. I mean, I assumed there were other people who wrote about books online, but I didn’t know that book blogging was going to become a thing for me personally or for the book community at large. The idea of advance review copies or going to a book conference or writing about books on other websites wasn’t even a calculation. If you want an idea of how much I didn’t know anything about this book blogging thing, check out this post from June 2008 — I was excited about getting 20 hits per day and wanted to know about what things other bloggers put in book reviews. How simple things were back then, am I right?

Since May 2008, I’ve gone through many big life changes, the kind you go through when you’re just out of college and trying to figure out what to do with your life before a mid-life crisis hits. In my case, I went to grad school, panicked about the future of the journalism industry, interned for the summer, adopted a cat, finished my master’s degree, got my first job, then quit my first job to move back to the town where I went to college (and move in with a boy for the first time) to be the editor of a small town newspaper. Aside from my family and some very close friends, this blog has been the most constant thing in my life since I started writing five years ago.

There are lots of pieces of advice that I’ve seen veteran bloggers give about how to maintain your blogging energy. And lots of that advice is good. But the only piece of advice I can give at this moment about keeping up a blog is that you have to be willing to let the blog evolve with you. As my life has changed, the way I blog and think about blogging has changed too. The bloggers that I love to read embrace that change and incorporate it into their blogging lives rather than letting their blog remain stagnant while they change behind the scenes.

I don’t think embracing change has to be a big deal. Recently, for example, I decided to change up the regular posts I do on Sundays. I had been doing The Sunday Salon, a sort-of meme on Sundays I joined several years ago, but I’d lost my interest in the non-format. In February I started doing Currently posts every Sunday using Instagram photos, which has really given me some of my blogging energy back. It’s a little change, but one that I made after realizing that I needed to do something to give me a slightly different direction. Evolution is what helps a blog survive.

Well, evolution and people. If I had 800 more words, I’d talk about how grateful I am for the friends I’ve made through this community and because of this blog. It’s genuinely amazing and I feel honored every day. As much as it’s hard to believe that this blog is five years old, I can’t imagine any parts of the last five years without the community I’ve found because of it. Book bloggers are my people.

As a thank you for being a wonderful community (and for reading all the way to this very long post), I’m going to end with a giveaway. Fill out your information in the form below to be entered for a $10 electronic gift certificate to the online bookseller of your choice/ One week from now, I’ll draw five winners. There are a couple of extra survey questions, but you can ignore those if you want.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. The last five years have been truly wonderful.

Photo Credit: chrisinplymouth via Compfight cc

Thoughts on Blogiversary Number Five is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

Title: The World’s Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette’s, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family
Author: Josh Hanagarne
Genre: Memoir
Year: 2013
Publisher: Gotham Books
Acquired: From the publisher for review consideration
Rating:

Review: The first time Josh Hanagarne’s parents realized they might have reason to be concerned about his behavior was when he was six. On stage during a Thanksgiving play, Hanagarne just couldn’t stop moving:

Under the bright lights, my nose, eyes, lips, and tongue contorted as if they’d seceded from my face and were involved in a game of one-upmanship. … Not only did my tics last the entire performance, they got worse the longer I was on stage.

By the time he was in high school, Hanagarne’s tics had progressed to the point of nearly constant distraction and incidents of unintentional violence. Determined to conquer what was soon diagnosed as Tourette Syndrome, Hanagarne started a series of questionable and unpleasant therapies. But it took guidance from an unlikely source — an autistic strongman and former Air Force Tech Sergeant — to help Hanagarne learn to harness his tics.

Along the way, Hanagarne fell in love and faced the prospect of infertility, completed library school, struggled with his faith and started a blog. In The World’s Strongest Librarian, Hanagarne recounts his life-long love of books and his path to learn to calm his tics and live a life he is proud of.

When I told people I was reading a memoir by a Morman weight-lifting librarian with Tourettes Syndrome, I got some pretty quizzical looks. And that’s understandable; there are a lot of ways a memoir that tells so many different stories could go awry. But Josh Hangarne isn’t tempted by any of the paths that lead memoirists astray, making The World’s Strongest Librarian one of the most engaging memoirs I’ve read in a long time.

One thing I especially loved about this memoir was Hanagarne’s voice. He has a unique way of looking at the world that I found really delightful to read. This passage, for example, just made me smile:

During the school year at the Say-Riverside library — a branch of the Salt Lake City Public Library System — at about three in the afternoon, the doors would open and a flood of kids would spill into the stacks and over the computers. Most of them got beacheds on the PCs. The rest of them would wash up on the chairs, or sometimes the floor. And then, in accordance with some occult signal, they would all start jabbering like seagulls.

Hanagarne brings this same sense of humor to writing about his faith, he and his wife’s issues with infertility, and his Tourette’s. His voice kept this memoir from being maudlin and kept me reading even when his story was difficult and sad.

Another thing I really appreciated about this story is that Hangarne recognizes that he is not the hero of this story. He admits his dark moments, the times when he was ready to give up or call it a day. He acknowledges that his parents and his family have helped guide him through difficult times with his illness. He writes with candor about the times he made bad decisions, while also quietly celebrates the times when he did the right thing. The whole memoir felt honest and humble to me, which I liked a lot.

But please don’t think this memoir is entirely serious. There are tons of fun, absurd anecdotes about Hangarne’s time as a librarian in Salt Lake City, dealing with crazy and thoughtful and off-the-wall patrons. I’m not a librarian, but those moments really did make me laugh. Plus, Hanagarne loves books as much as he loves anything, which is always a fun twist for a book lover.

The World’s Strongest Librarian is a wonderful memoir that I know I will be recommending often.

Other Reviews: Devourer of Books | Suey’s Books | The Relentless Reader |

If you have reviewed this book, please leave a link to the review in the comments and I will add your review to the main post. All I ask is for you to do the same to mine — thanks!

Review: ‘The World’s Strongest Librarian’ by Josh Hanagarne is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

Title: Pain, Parties, and Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953
Author: Elizabeth Winder
Genre: Nonfiction
Year: 2013
Publisher: Harper
Acquired: From the publisher for review as part of a TLC Book Tour
Rating:

Review: In May of 1953, Sylvia Plath, then a 21-year-old junior at Smith College, arrived in New York City for a one-month assignment as a guest editor for the college issue of Mademoiselle. Plath, along with the 19 other women selected for these prestigious posts, would spend 26 sweltering, frenetic, life-changing days working on the magazine and learning how complicated the world of the 1950s could be for smart, ambitious women.

Pain, Parties, and Work is a biography of a moment, an exploration of the 26-day period that led to the first of Plath’s several breakdowns and suicide attempts. In the book, author Elizabeth Winder interviews many of the women Plath served with to gain and understanding of what Plath was like as a young woman, before she became the tortured, talented, and tragic poet we remember her as today.

I was drawn to read Pain, Parties, and Work after I learned that Plath’s time at Mademoiselle was the inspiration for her autobiographical novel The Bell Jar, a book I read for the first time almost exactly two years ago. I really connected with the protagonist, Esther Greenwood, and her struggle to feel like she fit. Plus, I didn’t know a lot about Plath other than the way her life ended and I was curious about what she was like as a young woman.

At the beginning of the book, I was a little skeptical that Winder was going to be able to draw many conclusions about Plath’s life based on a month-long experience. Her Mademoiselle stint seemed, at first, to be mostly about the second to words of the books title — parties and work. Plath was a glamorous young woman who loved fashion and makeup and food and her many boyfriends. She seemed, at times, rather frivolous and entirely carefree.

But as the book continued, I began to see what Winder learned through her interviews with the other guest editors — life in the 1950s was difficult for talented women. They received mixed signals about what they should want, even more than I think we get today. And it was difficult for Plath, trying to blend her sense of adventure and fun with her strong work ethic and perfectionism all within the strict ideals of what women were supposed to be, trying to reconcile “Medea with Emily Post.”

But Plath was not the only guest editor who struggled to survive this New York experience; the other women also had to work hard at the “self-policing, the grueling effort it took to make all that varnish seem like second nature.” While it’s sad to admit, I think women today still do this — put on a good face to others while privately struggling to meet the expectations that society creates. The expectations are different now than they were in 1953, but no less difficult to manage.

Pain, Parties, and Work is really a wonderful little book. It’s a biography of Sylvia Plath, but it’s also a look at 1950s womanhood and a portrait of life in New York City at this time. Winder packs a lot into the story, all while presenting a very specific but convincing exploration of a time that upended Sylvia Plath’s life and influenced her decisions for years to come.

Other Tour Stops: Savvy Verse & Wit |  50 Books Project | Veronica M.D | Unabridged Chick | The Road to Here | nomadreader | Man of La Book | The Blog of Lit Wits | Necromancy Never Pays | Luxury Reading | (May 7th) Tiffany’s Bookshelf | (May 8) Book Hooked Blog | (May 9) Peppermint PhD | (May 13) A Bookish Affair | (May 14) missris | (May 15) guiltless reading | (May 16) The Scarlet Letter |

If you have reviewed this book, please leave a link to the review in the comments and I will add your review to the main post. All I ask is for you to do the same to mine — thanks!

Review: ‘Pain, Parties, and Work’ by Elizabeth Winder is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

Time // 8:30 a.m.

Place // Back at my desk… it’s too chilly to be out on the porch today.

Eating // Nothing yet. But I am hungry. I might break in the middle of this to grab some food, but we’re pretty low on anything delicious right now. I suspect I’ll be going to the grocery store this afternoon.

Drinking // Lemon-flavored black tea.

Reading // I had a great reading week to follow up last weekend’s Readathon. Since last Sunday I finished three books: Divergent by Veronica Roth, The World’s Strongest Librarian by Josh Hanagarne and Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon. The top quote above is by George Orwell from The World’s Strongest Librarian.

Today I need to finish Pain, Parties and Work by Elizabeth Winder so I can post a review for a TLC Book Tour tomorrow (items five and six on my weekend to do list, bottom right photo). It’s very interesting so far, so I’m excited to share more about it with all of you. After that, I’m not sure what I’ll read next, probably one of my library books (Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg or A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan — I decided I’m going to hold off on Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs until the October Readathon).

Watching // I finished season three of Fringe this week and I’m not feeling especially drawn into season four so far. Part of what I love about the show is Peter and Olivia and Walter being together, so the fact that they’re not is sort of annoying. I know things get back to “normal” eventually, but I’m not really excited to get there.

Nate and I also watched a couple of movies this week, Hitchcock (which we both liked a lot) and Iron Man 3 (where a lot of stuff gets blown up).

Listening // I started listening to Insurgent by Veronica Roth (the second in her YA series after Divergent). It’s pretty decent YA that holds my attention when I’m exercising. I’ve been trying to run more, but the chilly weather has left me pretty unmotivated.

Blogging // I didn’t get a lot posted this week, just a review of Frozen in Time by Mitchell Zuckoff and my April 2013 wrap-up, but I’m more optimistic about getting some posts up this week. I went to a local coffee shop yesterday and got drafts of several posts started — hooray!

Promoting // I’m looking forward to participating more fully in Armchair BEA, a way for book bloggers to participate in Book Expo America from the comfort of their living rooms. I am not going to BEA this year (a combination of money and wanting to travel other places), so I’m excited to try this out fully at the end of the month.

Avoiding // I have to work on a couple of small issues with my health insurance company, which I have been putting off for a couple of weeks now. I really need to get on the phone and take care of it today or tomorrow

Anticipating // I’m working on a really fun story for the newspaper this week, so I’m anticipating the time it’ll take that to get put together. If it works out like I’ve planned it in my head, it’s going to be really neat. I was inspired to try a more visual story by a new book I bought, The Newspaper Designer’s Handbook, which has the best dedication I’ve seen in awhile (bottom left photo).

Happy Sunday, everyone! What are you reading today?

Currently: May 5, 2013 is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.

I managed to read 13 books in April. And only two of those were books I read during the Readathon. This is not typical reading behavior — I’m normally much slower — but I’ll take it.

Looking at the list, there’s a lot of fiction and YA fiction, which was a nice change of pace and probably why I was able to read so much. I didn’t really get to any of the review copies I had on my shelves, but given how out of sorts I was for most of this month that’s probably a good thing. Crabby Kim is not an especially good book reviewer.

Books Read In April

1. Hochschild, Arlie Russell: The Outsourced Self (nonfiction)
2. Erdrich, Louise: The Round House (fiction)
3. Berger, Jonah: Contagious (audio book/nonfiction)
4. Flynn, Gillian: Sharp Objects (fiction)
5. Collins, Suzanne: Catching Fire (YA fiction/reread)
6. Yolen, Jane: Curses! Foiled Again! (YA graphic novel)
7. Shriver, Lionel: The New Republic (fiction)
8. Schuppe, Jonathan: A Chance to Win (nonfiction)
9. Grossman, Austin: You (fiction)
10. Zuckoff, Mitchell: Frozen in Time (nonfiction)
11. Collins, Suzanne: Mockingjay (audio book/YA fiction)
12. Brooks, Max: World War Z (fiction)
13. Roth, Veronica: Divergent (YA fiction)

I’m planning to do reviewletts of You and World War Z at the end of this week, but I’m not sure what I’m going to do about reviewing all of the YA fiction. I may just do a few Twitter-style reviews (140 characters) and call it done. Thoughts?

Other Books Reviewed

• Does Jesus Really Love Me? by Jeffrey Chu
• Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls by David Sedaris

Books I Want to Read in May

• I’ve got two “required” books for this month: Pain, Parties and Work by Elizabeth Winder (nonfiction about young Sylvia Plath) and I Never Promised You a Goodie Bag by Jennifer Gilbert (a memoir of “survival, renewal, and transformation”) for a couple of book tours with TLC Book Tours.
• I need to read a couple of June releases to decide what to recommend for Bloggers Recommend. At the moment I’m looking at Queen of the Air by Dean Jensen and Eating on the Wild Side by Jo Robinson.
• I’ve got a few other May releases I’d like to get to: The World’s Strongest Librarian by Josh Hanagarne, Don’t Worry, It Gets Worse by Alida Nugent, and Paper: An Elegy by Ian Sansom.
• My local library has been really good to me the last few weeks, I’ve got Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs, Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg and Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell on my shelves now that I’d love to read.
• I’m also a bit behind on my 2013 TBR Challenge pile. I’m not sure which of those books sounds appealing now, but I hope I can read at least one.
• And then there are all the books I missed in April… too many to even count.

Writing Around the Internet

You can check out lots of good books coming up this month in the Bloggers Recommend newsletter. My contribution is Jonathan Schuppe’s A Chance to Win, which I really liked. I also previewed some upcoming books for May over at Book Riot.

Speaking of Book Riot, I had some pretty good pieces over there this month, if I do say so myself. My favorite was Roger Ebert’s Best Reviews of Movies Based on Books, but I’m also proud of a discussion post about paperback releases (spoiler: I wish all books came out in paperback immediately) and five bookish cross-stitch projects I found on Etsy.

Here on the blog, it’s mostly been about book reviews and catching up on Sundays with my new “Currently” post format. I’d like to get some more discussion posts up this month, but we’ll see what happens.

2013 Goals Review

• Essay a Day, Take Two: I’ve been failing something terrible at this goal. As much as I love to read essays, I just don’t think my heart is in it for now. I’m going to put this goal aside and revisit it for 2014.
• 12 Ebooks and 12 Audiobooks: I’m still at 2/12 for ebooks but got to 4/12 for audio books — I finished Contagious and Mockingjay this month.
• Balance Books In/Books Out: I don’t even want to know on this one. I haven’t updated my books list for awhile so I’m not even sure. It’s not good though. I’ve bought a lot of books lately.
• Balance Review Copies (40), My Books (30), and Borrowed Books (30):  A look at my stats shows I’m at 44 percent review copies, 36 percent of my own books, and 20 percent borrowed books. That’s pretty close to where I want to be.
• Leave One Comment Per Day: This has been going reasonably well. I don’t do it every day, but I think I leave a comment most days.
• Read My Shelf of Doom: Since I finished reading Possession in April, I haven’t made any progress on this project. I hope I can fit in a book or two this month to start catching up.

So, that was life here at Sophisticated Dorkiness in April. Here’s to a wonderful month of May!

PHOTO CREDIT: ROB WARDE VIA FLICKR

April Wrap-Up and a Look to May is a post from: Sophisticated Dorkiness, © 2010.