What I've been reading

"Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void" by Mary Roach, as an audiobook. The science and the politics around space travel budgets is beginning to get outdated since this was published in 2010, but it's still well worth a read. Roach is the person who is not afraid to ask about gross or taboo subjects like poop, body odor, sex in space, masturbation, or death in space, so she was the perfect person to write this. Her style is very breezy and informal (direct quote: "Some seriously hairy shit was going down on a regular basis."), but she is obviously a rigorous researcher and interviewer as well. LOVED it and want to read more by Roach.

and

"Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?: A Memoir" by Roz Chast, a graphic memoir. Roz Chast is best known as a cartoonist for the New Yorker. This graphic memoir recounts dealing with her elderly parents -- both in their 90s -- and their refusal to talk about death or aging until life circumstances force them to face the fact that they can't live on their own in their apartment anymore. The first 90 percent of the book is hilarious, and I laughed a lot. The last 10 percent of the book had me weeping almost uncontrollably. Toward the end, Chast gives up her wacky impressionistic cartoon style and prints verbatim some more realistic line drawings she did of her mother in bed, half comatose in her last few months of life. They are very moving in their simplicity. Another highly recommended one.

My full comments on both books here.

What I've been reading

I have been reading more this year, in part because I'm listening to a lot of audiobooks now that I'm commuting to an office job 4 days a week. I think I'll probably come in at around 54-55 books at least this year. My two latest reads:

"Two Serious Ladies" by Jane Bowles. I found this book in an article about gay authors' favorite books, and this was mentioned multiple times. The title is like the book, both in earnest and in jest. The two "ladies" in question are Christina Goering and Frieda Copperfield, who both are trying to discover themselves in different but absurd ways. Goering is an heiress who moves out of her mansion into a desolate shack on an island, allows her house to be inhabited by gold-digging hangers-on, and finds herself going home with a series of disreputable men. Meanwhile, Copperfield goes to Panama with her husband, only to abandon him in order to take up with a teenage prostitute and the middle-aged proprietoress of a run-down hotel. For being published in 1943, it's quite frank about bodies and sexuality. It's oddly compelling and amusing, though I wasn't entirely sure what to make of it at times.

and

"Herland" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. I'd read her novella, "The Yellow Wallpaper" in college English class, and I was curious about her novel about a feminist utopia. My husband listened to it as an audiobook (free via librivox.org) and said he liked it, so I gave it a try. I found it to be quite readable, though it does have the feel of a parable at times. Published in 1915, the novel starts when three explorers hear a tale about a country of all women. They make an expedition that upends a lot of their assumptions about the genders. The whole "Women would run the world better" theme got pounded in a little obviously at times, but overall, I did like it and would recommend it as a highly entertaining feminsit parable.

My full comments on both books here.