February in Books

Date-onomics: How Dating Became a Lopsided Numbers Game by Jon Birger

A surprise to no one who has lived there: NYC is a terrible place for a straight single woman who wants to marry a straight single man. I had a very unusual experience of dating in New York. I never went on a blind date or tried online dating. Six months after the end of a six year relationship, I met my husband through mutual friends. According to Birger's thesis, a key to this success was that my husband didn't live in New York, and we were willing to have a mixed-education marriage (what a sacrifice! Insert eye roll). This is a big focus of Date-onomics: more women are going to college and college graduates liked to marry each other. There aren't enough male college graduates, particularly in urban environments like NYC, and this has impacted how people date (and "moral" norms). If you think society is going to hell in a hand basket, this might give you a new way of looking at it. 

Disclaimer to 30-something women of New York who would like to marry a college-educated man (and this book sort of strangely assumes that that's a given): are you looking for some motivation to get out of New York? This might be a good book to read. Are you committed to staying in New York (work, family, insert your reason here) and don't want to be more depressed about the dating scene? Maybe don't. Want to know which states are "more single-woman-friendly" without having to read this book? Colorado, Vermont, Maine, Washington State, California (specifically Silicon Valley), New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and South Dakota. And the suburbs. Want to read the best chapter without committing to the whole book? Time published an excerpt. 

Enter Helen: The Invention of Helen Gurley Brown and the Rise of the Modern Single Woman by Brooke Hauser

I read this book because Gurley Brown is originally from Arkansas, spent many years in New York, and I didn't know much about her. This book was okay. I have never read Sex and the Single Girl and would now like to. There is a reference to Franke's Cafeteria and positive support of archives and archivists. But unless you are a Cosmo fan (Gurley Brown was the editor-in-chief for over thirty years and created Cosmo's iconic style and voice) -- and I never was -- this is not an especially compelling read. 

My Not So Perfect Life: A Novel by Sophie Kinsella 

This book hits all the good marks of Kinsella's best works and was a delight to read. 

Wedding Night: A Novel by Sophie Kinsella 

This one is a just okay Kinsella novel - the characters (or at least one of the two narrators) is more likeable than Becky, but it wasn't one of my favorites. If you are horrified by people purposefully sabatoging people with allergies - skip it. 

I'm SO CLOSE to finishing Erik Larson's In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin. Maybe I should have done that instead of writing this blog post ... 

In the queue for March (pre-ordering books on Amazon is a dangerous thing. And delightful! Books you forgot about arrive in the mail!): 

• Tom Nichols, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters
• Damion Searls, The Inkblots: Hermann Rorschach, His Iconic Test, and the Power of Seeing 

We bought an RV!

Yes. Seriously. We bought an RV! 

I know it looks huge, but this is a SMALL RV! 

This purchase goes on the long list of if you had told me three years ago (when I lived in Queens, worked in midtown Manhattan, and hadn't driven a car more than a few miles in several years) that today I'd be living in Oregon and an RV OWNER, I'd be curious about how these events transpired (I'd also have some questions about the dogs and the work bit). 

We've been talking about taking an extended road trip for awhile (and after really missing our puppies while we traveled abroad last year, wanted them to accompany us on the next long trip). We talked ourselves out of the RV idea a few months ago, but kept coming back to the advantages: 

• Finding safe food when traveling requires a lot of planning and just generally takes up a lot of energy. An RV has a kitchen and gives us a lot more freedom re: food. 
• Tim works everyday regardless of what kind of trip we're taking, so having a consistent work space for him makes running a business on the road less stressful. 
• Getting to sleep in the same bed (almost) every night sounds great. And not having to set up a tent and full campsite or find a dog-friendly hotel sounds ... easier. 
• We want to take a lot of road trips, so this is hopefully the first of many RV trips. 

The dogs were skeptical. I don't think they realized it's a vehicle and that they'll get to come too!

There are, of course, other challenges associated with RV travel, and I'm sure we will experience some (but hopefully not all) of them. So, we decided to look ... and you know what happened. As someone who has never taken an RV trip, I've immersed myself in research and list-making. 

There is a lot to learn and prepare before we leave (in the next few weeks? We don't have an exact time frame yet, but we're looking at the first weekend in March). I'm excited. :) 

Do you live along this route (this is a ROUGH DRAFT) and want to meet Toby and Kiley? Let me know.

January in books

I signed up for the goodreads 2017 Reading Challenge for some extra motivation to stick with my reading goal this year. For what will probably only happen once this year, I am "ahead of schedule"! 

Quick reviews: 

Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear ... and Why by Sady Doyle

I have followed Doyle on Twitter for awhile, but hadn't previously read much of per published work. She's a good writer - witty, engaging, and thought-provoking. This book is excellent, and I highly recommend it.  

Adnan's Story by Rabia Chaudry

If you loved Serial and haven't listened to Undisclosed, go do that and then read this book. There is a lot more about and from Adnan here and helped me connect to this case in a new way (which after so many hours of investment is saying something). 

All the Single Ladies by Rebecca Traister

I married "later" and as a result have spent most of my adult life as a single lady. This book validates both roads. 

Traister references a multitude of other works (fiction and non-fiction), including Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl. I had heard of Gurley Brown, but didn't know that she was born in my very own Arkansas. A new biography of Gurley Brown, Enter Helen: The Invention of Helen Gurley Brown and the Rise of the Modern Single Woman, is now on my "to read" list.

Finding Fraser by kc dyer

This book is for Outlander fans. As someone who recently traveled to Scotland (and visited several Outlander locations), I simultaneously enjoyed and was annoyed by these references. Overall this is a fun and light-hearted read. It uses Outlander as a jumping-off point; this is not an ode to the storyline (thank goodness). 

Prada and Prejudice by Katie Oliver 

I will admit that I've read a lot of Jane Austen spin offs. This one is not the best nor the worst; just a fun, silly, quick, take your mind off the world crashing around you read. Because we need those. 

2016: The Year in Books

The brevity of this list is embarrassing. Was I so distracted by the election that I barely read in 2016? Yes. Yes, I was. Goal for 2017: 52 books. And I'm going to start with all of the in-progress reads at the bottom of this list. Right, because I don't have a huge stack of books that I haven't even started.

Non-fiction: 

• Gyles Brandreth, Philip & Elizabeth: Portrait of a Royal Marriage
• Carolyn Jessop, Escape
• Carolyn Jessop, Triumph: Life After the Cult
• Ron Miscavige, Ruthless: Scientology, My Son David, & Me
• Rebecca Traister, Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women -- My favorite non-fiction read of the year. 

Fiction: 

• Sophie Kinsella, Shopaholic to the Stars
• Sophie Kinsella, Shopaholic to the Rescue
• J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child 
• I read the entire Harry Potter series. Again. 
• Richard Taylor Pearson, The Role
  
  Full disclosure: I cried when I got this one in the mail because I've known the author for thirty years, and I'm so damn proud of him. This one deserves its very own post. Also, Kindle version for $0.99 and Audible for $1.99? It's a steal. Go buy it.  
• Curtis Sittenfeld, Eligible

Travel: 
Oh, do you not read travel guides cover to cover so you don't miss anything? These shouldn't really count? 

• Rick Steves Pocket Amsterdam
• Rick Steves Scotland
• Rick Steves Ireland (link is to the 2017 edition. We used 2016)

Cooking/Canning/Gardening: 

• Neela Paniz, The New Indian Slow Cooker
• America's Test Kitchen, Foolproof Preserving
  I just started canning this summer, so I mostly focused on pickles. We have so many pickles. Please take some. 
• The All New Ball Book of Canning and Preserving
• The Backyard Homestead Book of Kitchen Know-How
  I'm going to be honest here -- this book (and my husband's homesteading dreams) scare me. 
• America's Test Kitchen, Master of the Grill
  This was our first summer in our house, and my husband took a broken grill off the hands of some neighbors who wanted to be rid of it, procured the necessary parts, and got it back to working order. He has consulted this book more often than I have. I did, however, use it's recommendation to purchase grill utensils.  
• Steven Solomon & Marina McShane, Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades
  Because we knew we were going to be gone at the end of the summer, this was our throw things in the ground and see how they turn out year. That's not the attitude of this book (nor any successful gardeners?). 

Started, but need to finish:  

• Rinker Buck, The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey 
• Rabia Chaudry, Adnan's Story 
  This isn't going to happen until I'm caught up on this season of Undisclosed. I was better at regular podcast listening when I had a commute. 
• Cohen, Karol, Noel, & Zaller, The Party Decides: Presidential Nominations Before and After Reform 
• Mary Roach, Grunt I made the mistake of starting this audiobook with my husband and now feel obligated to wait for him to finish. It's never going to happen. 
• Rebecca Traister, All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation 
  I feel bad about this one. It's really good. I would have convinced my NYC book club read this one ... I even have the hardback and audio versions. 
• Kenji Yoshino, Speak Now: Marriage Equality

This list doesn't even include Mormon research stuff. Yikes. I have a lot of books to finish. 

Read It: Shopaholic distractions

I’ve been feeling down the last few weeks … nothing too big -- just a diminished faith in my fellow Americans, general hopelessness about the future, and never seeing the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. You know, small stuff.

But since the election, I’ve needed a further distraction. So a few weeks  ago I wondered, “has Sophie Kinsella written anything new?” I’ve read all of the Shopaholic series (or so I thought), though I think her best work is her non-Shopaholic books (Can You Keep a Secret? is my favorite). And what do you know? The last few years have brought us a Shopaholic novella and two new full-fledged installments.

Shopaholic on Honeymoon (short story) - this one is free!

Shopaholic to the Stars

Shopaholic to the Rescue

I began thinking I’d have more or less the same praise and complaints as all the other Shopaholic books, until I got to Shopaholic to the Rescue. Spoiler alert: Becky is more likable in this last installment!  

What I always like:

• Kinsella is really funny; I always find myself laughing until I cry at at least one point in the book. That episode occurred while I was reading as my husband was falling asleep, and my rendition of what was so funny was apparently mystifying.
• Once I’ve started, I can’t stop. I stayed up until 3am to finish Shopaholic to the Stars.
• I’m invested in the characters -- Becky, Luke, Suze, and the whole family.

What always bothers me:

• The main character has some serious impulse control and addiction issues that are never quite addressed in a serious manner. I find it very stressful. This gets better in to the Rescue.
• That’s really the main thing, but you can’t only have one bullet point.

My anxiousness was sky high during the last few weeks of the election, so I turned to a few distraction books - the best was Elizabeth and Philip: Portrait of a Royal Marriage. A review is forthcoming.

My Favorite Things In 2016

2016 has, overall, been a pretty crappy year for the world at large. For me personally (devastating heartbreak aside), 2016 was full of good things. In an effort to stop wallowing and appreciate life, here are my favorite things in 2016 (in no particular order): 

• I quit my job! I very rarely use an alarm clock, I have time to prepare slow cooker meals in the morning and not think about dinner again until it's time to eat, my house is super organized, I'm working on a Mormon history project (so I have an actual real reason to read all of those Mormon books ...), I don't spend an hour and a half or more a day commuting, and I have two dogs as office-mates. It's awesome.
  
  
• I made pickles that taste just like my late grandmother's with cucumbers I grew in my garden. My grandmother was incredibly talented, so doing anything remotely close to her is an achievement in my book.
  
• Me quitting my job meant that we got to travel a lot more this year, including a month-long trip to Scotland and Ireland. (It was wonderful, but two weeks away from home is long enough). The trip included a visit to the Laney River in County Cork, Ireland, a place I've always wanted to visit.
• We got a National Parks Passport (the centennial edition to boot) and acquired several stamps. This is the nerdiest thing in the world, and I love it.
  
  
• We traveled to upstate NY to visit numerous religious history sites. This is not a trip my husband would ever endeavor on his own, and he was game for everything. He also encouraged and made the whole quitting my job thing possible, which is pretty huge.  
• I got to vote for my real-life Hermione.
  
• Favorite new guilty pleasure TV show: American Housewife
• Favorite non-fiction writer: Rebecca Traister
• Favorite new kitchen gadget: it's a tie between my new waffle iron and the Ball Tech Electric Water Bath Canner.
  
• We hired a house cleaner. Life changing. 
• It snowed in Portland two weeks in a row!
  
• All of my siblings were in the same place at the same time (and my husband finally got to meet them all), which is rare and wonderful. 
• Our niblings (and their parents) visited us in Oregon, as did many other friends. 

Read It: Talking as Fast as I Can by Lauren Graham

A few days before Christmas, my husband began (repeatedly) asking me what I was reading on my Kindle and when Amazon boxes arrived (a daily occurrence in our house, particularly in December), if I had ordered any books (another regular occurrence). I was confused by his sudden interest in my reading habits and a smidgen embarrassed -- of all the times to ask, he chose when I just happened to be reading TWO Shopaholic series books in a row. Seriously? He confessed that he was only asking out of concern that I was going to get the book that was already wrapped and under the tree ... Lauren Graham's new memoir Talking as Fast as I Can! It's nice when husbands are nosey out of sweetness, and I got to open a Christmas present early!

The only reason I had not already ordered this book is because I was still debating between the hardback and audible versions. Or both? It's probably going to be both. The book was definitely good enough, and having Lauren Graham read it to me sounds delightful. If you are also debating audio vs. hardback/digital, I will tell you that the pictures are important, but not so important that flipping through the book at some point won't do the job. 

Review: Lauren Graham is a delight, and this book is all Lauren Graham! If you are not a Gilmore Girls fan, this book is not for you. If you haven't watched Gilmore Girls, may I ask why? Go watch it. If you ARE a Gilmore fan, I especially whole-heartedly recommend this book. If you have yet to watch A Year in the Life, go watch it now and then read the last chapter. I wish I had read the last chapter right when I finished "Fall" on November 25 (that's right. I stayed up until midnight, watched "Winter" and "Spring," slept a few hours, and watched "Summer" and "Fall." I have neither a job nor children, and my houseguests seemed okay with me ignoring them), and I needed someone with whom to talk about all the feels. Reading Lauren Graham's experience coming home to Stars Hollow (and her reaction to those last four words) is worth the read.  

Things I Have in Common with Lauren Graham:

• I also feel guilty about using paper towels, so I compensate by using the smaller section perforated kind. 
• We both love Season 2, Episode 7 "Like Mother Like Daughter" because of the following scene (starts at 0:53): 

• She uses FreshDirect. 
• We both had the lead in the musical our junior year of high school, but not senior year. Fortunately, that was my performing peak, but not hers. 

Signs I've watched Gilmore Girls too many times: 

• Graham gets a few Gilmore details wrong (this I can understand - she has a life - but did no one fact check the manuscript?). Christopher doesn't get Lorelai a disposable camera to take photos at Rory's graduation. It is part of a gift basket for HER graduation; she uses it for the "graduate flanked on either site by her proud parents" photo. Oy with the poodles already. 

So, this one is a highly recommended fast read for Gilmore fans. Graham also mentions her novel, Someday, Someday, Maybe, several times, which I also read and enjoyed.