My sister, Jenny, and I are spending the summer revisiting the Harry Potter series, some of the most read and most anticipated books of our childhood. You can catch up with our thoughts on Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (we read the British version), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire or just jump right in with us on book five. 

Kim: Before we start, can we take a moment to have FEELINGS about Sirius. His death is just so quiet yet so traumatic in a way that I don’t think readers, Harry, or Dumbledore realize yet. And also, Dolores Umbridge — is there a more horrendous character in these books?

I remember not enjoying this book very much the first time that I read it. I thought Harry was awfully nasty all of the time — so much all caps yelling — in a way that felt even more dramatic than a teenage boy ought to be. This time, my feelings have softened… but before I dish, what do you think?

Jenny: Sirius made me cry as always, but you are right in that it happens so fast and then there is almost no time to process for anyone cause Voldy is back!!!!!

Dolores Umbridge was even more foul then I remember her. She is pure, unadulterated EVIL, looking for power and willing to do anything to get it. Gaaah, she is horrific!!!!!!!!!!!!! Almost if not more horrific than Voldemort because the government is supporting her and nobody in the Ministry is stopping her evil ways. In fact if anything she is being supported by the government and they keep making new decrees and increasing her power!

Tell me your thoughts on Harry before my anger overtakes me!

Kim: Dolores is totally supported by the Ministry. That’s what makes her so frustrating! The only way the people of Hogwarts can fight back is through civil disobedience (or outright disobedience) since she is the one in power.

The first time I read this book, I couldn’t get over how angry Harry was, but not at the right people. It was very 16-year-old kid in a way that we haven’t seen Harry before. He’s rash and prone to putting himself in bad situations, but I don’t remember him being this straight-up unpleasant.

This time around, I saw better where he was coming from. Leaving Hogwarts and then hearing NOTHING would be awful. Not getting to talk to your friends would be terrible. Having Dumbledore ignore you would be maddening. I also caught more moments where people around Harry called him out for his unpleasantness (mostly Hermoine, which is why I love her). That made it better too. What do you think of Harry in this one?

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Last night I was planning on writing a review to post this morning, but then I remembered it’s the Bout of Books, which gave me all the excuse I needed (which really wasn’t much of an excuse at all) to spend the night reading rather than writing. I’ll have reviews next week, I promise.

Anyway, here’s my official-ish count for reading yesterday. I’ll probably do the rest of my weekly updates on this post until I do a wrap up on Sunday night or Monday morning.

Wednesday

• Pages Read Today: 199
• Total Pages Read: 481
• Books Read/Finished: Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed (finished), Night Film by Marisha Pessl (in progress), and Why Have Kids? by Jessica Valenti (in progress)
• Other Notes: Day three of no extra screen time went really well. The boyfriend and I watched one episode of Breaking Bad over dinner, but other than that I didn’t watch any television yesterday. I also read about 200 pages across three different books, which is a lot for me. Night Film is still gorgeous (although also dark, I had to put it down after awhile) and I think Why Have Kids? is going to be a provocative read.

Thursday

• Pages Read Today: 101
• Total Pages Read: 582
• Books Read/Finished: Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed (finished), Night Film by Marisha Pessl (in progress), and Why Have Kids? by Jessica Valenti (in progress)
• Other Notes: I broke down a little bit on the television thing yesterday. I got home from work late, right as the boyfriend was leaving for his evening shift, so I ended up eating dinner by myself. I was tired, so watched the last half hour of a movie I started over the weekend rather than reading. I could have listened to an audio book instead… but I just wanted to veg out for a bit. Oh well, today is a new day full of great books to read!

Friday

• Pages Read Today: 372
• Total Pages Read: 954
• Books Read/Finished: Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed (finished), Night Film by Marisha Pessl (finished), and Why Have Kids? by Jessica Valenti (in progress)
• Other Notes: I flew through the last 400 or so pages of Night Film late last night. It was awesome, although the book is also creepy as hell which made it hard to get to sleep last night. After that, I’m just not sure what to read next. I kind of want something light and fun, but I’m also anxious to get into my rereads of Oryx and Crake and Year of the Flood so I’m ready for Maddaddam when it comes out. I guess I’ll just be winging it!

If you want to see my progress for Monday and Tuesday, you can find it at this post. Happy reading, everyone!

So, this book. It’s a doozy that made me think and feel a lot… not all of it positive.

Very Recent History: An Entirely Factual Account of a Year (c. AD 2009) in a Large City by Choire Sicha really is nonfiction that reads like a novel, a detailed look at life in a large East Coast city (quite obviously New York City) through the money, sex, politics and people that make up the city. There are two threads to the story — a broad, almost anthropological look at the big themes of the city and a narrative about a small group of friends centered around John, a gay reporter for a weekly newspaper.

In the first half of the book — the half of the book I really liked — the narrative balances more to the big picture. The all-knowing voice that is analyzing the culture of the city reads a lot like an alien (or a really skilled anthropologist like Jane Goodall or Paul Farmer or Margaret Mead) sat down and decided to apply their scholarly mindset to chronicling a very particular moment in time in a very particular place in the not very distant past. I loved the way Sicha went at this concept full bore, pulling back our ideas of work and money and relationships to their most basic terms:

Almost everything in the City was capital. The offices were made to make money; the buildings were to make money; inside the buildings and the offices people were employed to make things that made money. And then around these pillars were services: restaurants, bars, shops, cobblers, dressmakers, all to serve the people who were employed making money. So: almost everything. Everything except love, probably. People in the City didn’t often make explicit matches of their children for the transfer of money or goods. But the arrangements of love had an old-fashioned lag to them, in which capital was attached. For instance, people talked about “marrying well,” which meant that someone was marrying someone rich. … There was also a custom of gift-giving at the time of the actual legal ceremony of marriage. When contracted, the parties would join in accepting gifts or, even more boldly, in dictating which gifts would be accepted.

Obviously, there’s a political slant in the way these descriptions are written. In being matter of fact, Sicha is able to point out the hypocrisy or absurdity of some of these (really, our) customs and arrangements and the powerful people who continue to support them. It’s just brilliantly executed and so very funny (and frustrating) to read.

In the second half of the book — the half that left me mostly bored — the balance of the narratives shifts more to John and his circle of friends, the “characters” of the story. Unfortunately, they weren’t very interesting characters to follow around for that much time. They’re all (if my memory serves) gay men in their late 20s or early 30s working jobs they didn’t like (or not working at all), spending nights and weekends staying out too late at various bars. I couldn’t keep them organized as I read, and their similarities made for a narrative without much variety. I wish that Sicha would have chosen a different bunch to follow — maybe John’s coworkers instead of his friends — to make this narrative feel as layered as the more anthropological thread of the story. The city is big and broad and interesting… these characters were not.

So in the end I feel torn about this book — there were parts I really liked, but I’m not sure if those parts were outbalanced by the parts that I really didn’t like. While Very Recent History was a biting look at sex, money and power in a big city, but I just couldn’t generate enough sustained interest for the characters who inhabited this place to enjoy the book as much in the end as I did in the beginning.

Other Tour Stops: Write Meg |  Broken Teepee | Dreaming in Books | Man of La Book |  Doing Dewey | guiltless reading | The Year in Books | A Bookish Affair (Aug. 22) | Bonjour, Cass! (Aug. 26) | Bibliophilia, Please! (Aug. 28) | 50 Books Project (Aug. 29) |

The Bout of Books 8.0, a week-long readathon, officially started at 12:01 a.m. today, but since I was sick most of the weekend I definitely didn’t stay up late to sneak in a few super-early-morning hours.

After going back and forth a bit, I decided that my one goal for the week of the Bout of Books is to eliminate all of my solo time in front of the television. I will still watch some tv with the boyfriend (we usually watch during dinner), but otherwise the television is staying turned off this week.

I don’t care how many books I read or even how much time I spend reading. I just want to see what I do with my time when I’m not sitting in front of the tv for a good chunk of my evenings.

Books to Read

I don’t have a specific plan or goals of which books to read, but these are the books grabbing my attention at the moment:

• Night Film by Marisha Pessl — I splurged and pre-ordered a copy of this one. It’s supposed to arrive in the mail on Tuesday (fingers crossed!).
• Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed — I’ve been reading this one very slowly over the last month or so. It’d be nice to finish it sometime this week.
• Why Have Kids? by Jessica Valenti — I found this one at the library this week and I’m really curious about it.
• Geek Love by Katherine Dunn — I borrowed this book from a friend several months ago but haven’t read it yet. I saw it on Andi’s readathon pile with some enthusiastic endorsements so on to the pile it goes.
• Visiting Tom by Michael Perry — I’m on a book tour for this one at the beginning of September, so I might try to finish it up this week.

Updates

I think the plan will be to do short updates on this post everyday, with a final update and reflections at the end of the week, maybe next Sunday night or Monday morning. I don’t want to spend a lot of time doing readathon updates on the blog, so if you want to see how I’m doing I’ll mostly be on Twitter and Instagram.

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