Caturday ~ cattitude

Beginning ~ with nostalgia

The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much? ~ by Leslie Bennetts, 2007, women's studies

"My grandmother made the world's best rhubarb pies and sewed extraordinary silk garments with exquisite craftsmanship worthy of a French couturier.  Raised to devote her all to marriage and family, she worshipped her talented husband, doted on her children, and baked homemade bread whose enticing aroma drew every one to the kitchen.  Although she lived for nearly eighty years, she never worked outside the home or held a paying job.

"Such latter-day paragons of traditional femininity often make people nostalgic for bygone times, but even then, the truth was frequently a lot darker than the champions of conventional gender roles like to admit.  Although my grandmother's life adhered faithfully to the old-fashioned stereotypes so often held up as a modern ideal, the result was a disaster, not onlly for her but also for her children and relatives."  (p. xv)

This book has been on my shelf for at least two or three years, and I've finally decided to take a look at it.  I'm trying to sort through books I want to keep and books I'm willing to discard, even if I haven't yet read them.  This one looks like one I'll try first.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays.  Click here for today's Mister Linky.

Beginning ~ with rifles in the office

The Septembers of Shiraz ~ by Dalia Sofer, 2007, fiction (Iran), 8/10

When Isaac Amin sees two men with rifles walk into his office at half past noon on a warm autumn day in Tehran, his first thought is that he won't be able to join his wife and daughter for lunch, as promised.

Here's a synopsis of the novel: 

"In the aftermath of the Iranian revolution, rare-gem dealer Isaac Amin is arrested, wrongly accused of being a spy.  Terrified by his disappearance, his family must reconcile a new world of cruelty and chaos with the collapse of everything they have known.  As Isaac navigates the terrors of prison, and his wife feverishly searches for him, his children struggle with the realization that their family may soon be forced to embark on a journey of incalculable danger."

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays.  Click here for today's Mister Linky.

Library Loot ~ February 26-March 4

The Invention of Wings ~ by Sue Monk Kidd, 2014, fiction (South Carolina)

Hetty “Handful” Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household.  The Grimke’s daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women.  This sweeping novel is set in motion on Sarah’s eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership of ten-year-old Handful, who is to be her handmaid. We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty five years, as both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other’s destinies and forming a complex relationship.  Handful will endure loss and sorrow, finding courage and a sense of self in the process.  Sarah will experience crushed hopes, betrayal, unrequited love, and ostracism before leaving Charleston to find her place alongside her fearless younger sister, Angelina, as one of the early pioneers in the abolition and women’s rights movements.  Inspired by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke, Kidd goes beyond the record to flesh out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real and invented, including Handful’s cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts danger in her search for something better.

I see now why it's taken weeks for me to get this book — it's an Oprah Book Club 2.0 selection.  At one point, I think I was 43rd on the list.  Finally, I got one of the eight copies in our system.  My librarian friend Claire has heard it's good.  So have I.

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire @ The Captive Reader and Linda @ Silly Little Mischief that encourages us to name the books we checked out of the library.  Click here to see what others got this week.

Monday Mindfulness ~ paying attention

"What is the sound of one hand texting?"

That's how the NYTimes article starts, the one about mindfulness getting its share of attention.  The author, David Hochman, defines mindfulness as "a loose term that covers an array of attention-training practices."

Okay, that got my attention, and I wondered, "Am I interested in mindfulness because there's a lot of attention being focused on it?  Or am I noticing the articles and blog posts about mindfulness because I'm already paying attention to it?"

Do you know the zen koan "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"  That first sentence, which changes the last word to "texting" is a play on the classic koan.

Where is your attention these days?  On books?  On texting?  On the world around you?  What's on your mind?

Sunday Salon ~ nothing much to report

READING

Currently reading ~ The Dovekeepers ~ by Alice Hoffman, 2011, fiction (Israel)

Just finished ~ Five Famous Mice Meet Winston of Churchill ~ by Jean Davies Okimoto, illustrated by Jeremiah Trammell, 2014, children's, 10/10

Need to finish ~ Living Buddha, Living Christ ~ by Thich Nhat Hanh, 1995, religion

Also need to finish ~ Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth ~ by Reza Aslan, 2013, biography

From The Sunday Salon's original website:

"Every Sunday the bloggers participating in that week's Salon get together — at their separate desks, in their own particular time zones — and read. And blog about their reading. And comment on one another's blogs."

Caturday ~ 26 letters