Steph & Tony Investigate!

So, I’ve been dragging my feet something fierce when it comes to finally wrapping up 2011 with charts and graphs and whatnot. Not to get all spoiler-y on you, but as we will see, the end of 2011 was marked by a dramatic plummet in my reading–I think the technical term for it is “reading slump”–which also accompanied a blogging slump. Alas, a new calendar year has not managed to allay my reading burnout (I’ve only read two books thus far, and those were both in an official reviewing capacity. If not for that, I would probably have nothing really read by now.), so perhaps that’s why I’ve been in no rush to write this post. Once it’s done, I got nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Bupkus. A few years back, a friend of mine was finishing up her dissertation and she would often lament about how the whole process sapped her of all her reading mojo and pretty much the only thing she could read for months was Middlemarch. No, that isn’t a typo, and no I don’t understand it. Slowly but surely I am dragging myself to the finish line of my own doctorate degree so who knows what bemoth will be my salvation through this all. Moby Dick? A Suitable Boy? Shataram? I suppose only time will tell… Tony is actually out of town the next few days so perhaps without my favorite distraction close at hand I’ll finally remember what it is to look at words on a page again. Fingers crossed.

Anyway, let us finally tour the wreckage that was my reading in 2011, shall we? (more…)

Excuse the cliché, but for me, 2011 expired with a whimper rather than roaring to its close with a triumphant bang. The year ended filled with a lot of stress and mental exhaustion due to school, and I spent the last week or two doing some heavy thinking about where I would like 2012 to take me. Because my brain was preoccupied with so many other tasks, my reading slowed down a lot—I read just one book in December, and that was at the very beginning of the month— and I was just so tired that for the first time in four years, I entered books into my spreadsheet and didn’t bother to write anything about them. And the thing is, the last three books of 2011 were ones that I would normally have tons to say about, but my brain was stubbornly moving towards hibernation mode and the thought of generating words just seemed far beyond my grasp, so I gave myself a reprieve and simply logged them and left them. I do still want to mention my last three reads of the year so that I have a clean slate delving into 2012, so I’m going to do a mega-post here and talk about THREE books instead of devoting one post to each book. Without notes, I probably don’t have enough to eloquently say about each one to justify unique posts (remember, I have a notoriously bad memory regarding books anyway, and when I’m stressed, my memory gets even worse), so while I almost never do this, here I go. (more…)

So, first question: how can a book about SEX be so, well, boring? I mean, the word “sex” alone is so incendiary, that not only am I sure that seeing it boldly placed there in that first sentence immediately grabbed your attention, but I can also only imagine the deluge of weirdo spam this post is going to incur. So you’d think that a book that essentially revolves entirely around sex (even when people aren’t having sex, it’s still all about sex) would be cause sweaty palms and racing pules, or at the very least an occasional cocked eyebrow and maybe a knowing smirk, right? And yet, no! In spite of a rather inspired premise, this book can best be described as “MEHsmerizing”, that is a book the inspires intense feelings of apathy and disinterest in its reader despite ostensibly scintillating subject matter. [And yes, I just coined that term, but I think it’s going to take off in a big way…]

And just what is this neat-o premise of which I speak? Essentially, it is this: an enigmatic drama teacher moves to a small suburban town and decides that the local high school will put on a production of the classic Greek comedy Lysistrata – a play in which all the women of Greece decide to abstain from sex until their men agree to end the Peloponnesian War. In an uncanny twist of events, as production on the play advances the women of the town are slowly overtaken by an enchantment that also causes them to spurn the advances of their husbands, lovers, and boyfriends. As sex lives become a thing of the past, tensions rise and soon the whole town is thrown into upheaval. It’s only a matter of time before someone reaches their breaking point, and when they do, things are going to get ugly…

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What is it that they say about the best laid plans? Something about how they never work out? That sounds about right… Despite my intentions to catch up on blogging while Tony and I were up in Canada, I wound up not even bringing my laptop and was hardly online at all. Instead I slept in late every day, played tons of Mario Super Sluggers on the Wii, tried my hand at NHL 2012 on the PS3 (never making it past the rookies), played some non-video game bowling (and finally broke triple digits!) and watched lots and lots of Mantracker (everyone outside of Canada is missing out, because Mantracker is possibly the best reality show ever made). I managed to read the bulk of one book (but not finish it) while we were away, so I was only marginally better at reading than I was at blogging. I feel slightly guilty about this, but mostly I’m just happy I got some time to completely relax and hibernate. I’m still not feeling entirely recharged, but I’m feeling quite a bit calmer than I did before the holidays.

Given that I wrote not a single thing while I was away, I still have four books that I read last year that I still need to write about. AND I need to write one of those fun summary posts in which I recap 2011. Already I am behind the times! Before I do any of that, however, I am instead going to direct your attention to the January 2012 issue of BookPage, in which I reviewed Penelope Lively’s newest novel, How It All Began. I did actually read this book a few months ago, so while it’s a 2012 book for most, it was actually a 2011 book for me. I’ve only ever read one other Lively novel, Moon Tiger, but she made a wonderful first impression on me and I’d been wanting to read more of her works ever since. Despite being published 25 years after Moon Tiger, How It All Began is still clearly a Penelope Lively novel. It is perhaps less experimental than MT, as it does largely focus on telling a briskly paced story filled with a dynamic cast of characters, but it still has a soupçon of metafiction, which I really love. The thing about Lively’s fiction that always seems to resonate with me is that she unabashedly loves stories and actively uses her work as a means of promoting the idea that we as humans are drawn to storytelling and the written word because of the closure and permanence they provide. Anyone who loves books like I do can’t help but feel that one has found a kindred spirit in an author who so unabashedly espouses this view in her books. Fellow readers will also get a kick out of the main character, Charlotte, as she herself is an ardent bookworm (and adult literacy teacher) and large swaths of her storyline are devoted to musings on how reading enriches one’s life. The novel as a whole is incredibly engrossing and touching, but that thread in particular really spoke to me.

Rather than read my inelegant ramblings here, check out my review at BookPage for the full scoop. In the interim, I’ll get to work on putting the rest of 2011 to bed!

To every one of our readers who happen to be celebrating something festive at this time of year, Tony and I wish all of you a very happy holidays! As has become our tradition, tomorrow we travel into the frigid North, this year to Canada, where we will spend time with my family and I will fastidiously avoid doing any kind of work, because my brain = scrambled eggs right now. Instead, I am going to try to read at least two books and to venture out of the house as little as possible. Here is a picture of Emmy who decided to bury herself in the couch at the cabin we rented one year at Christmas time… I am using it as my inspiration for this year.

Christmas Emmy

I still have a bunch of books that I need to talk about before the year is up, and hopefully I will muster the energy to do so in individual posts, so if all goes well, this site will be far from dead. I figure holiday hibernation time is the perfect time to catch up on my blogging; hopefully there will be some fun content for y’all to discover in the new year!

OK, time to pack and then maybe snuggle with the pups before they get sent off to puppy jail for the holidays (though no tears, because they just get to play with other neglected pooches all day every day, so it is essentially their idea of heaven). Happy holidays!

Hot on the heels of my dance with Dame Christie, I decided my lust for murder mysteries hadn’t been slaked, so I decided to take a turn with another queen of crime. Not only is Cover Her Face the first published P.D. James mystery, but it was actually my first dalliance with James’s writing at all. After my disastrous first date with Dorothy L. Sayers stemming from my reading Gaudy Night before picking up any of her other books, I have become a rather staunch adherent to reading serial fiction in chronological order, even when others claim it is not necessary, so for those of you who feel similarly and have yet to become acquainted with Detective Adam Dalgliesh, this is the place to start.

The following theory is just based on wild conjecture on my part, but I think that readers may be the most idiosyncratic when it comes to their taste in mystery novels. Little old grannies may suddenly profess a penchant for dark Scandinavian noir, and ostensibly there is even a market for readers who prefer crimes that are cracked by animal sleuths (Wikipedia tells me that Lillian Jackson Braun’s “The Cat Who…” mystery series, numbered 29 titles!). Personally, I’m a “Golden Age” mystery fan, loving my crimes to be relatively bloodless, to take place between 1910 – 1950, and to be situated in England if at all possible. I have no idea why that trifecta is pretty much the holy trinity when it comes to mystery novels, but there you have it. To me, these types of novels are pretty much the ultimate in comfort reading, and rarely do they fail to delight me. And of course there are exceptions to this rule (as my love of Tana French, clearly displays), but this is why it’s a rule and not a law.

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Guys, I am in the thick of it, dissertation-wise. I have been told on multiple occasions that the homestretch of one’s thesis is not for the faint-hearted, and I must agree one thousand percent. I keep trying to buoy my spirits by telling myself that everyone who gets a doctorate has to go through this fire walk at some point and that if it were easy, everyone would choose this path. I just have to keep getting up in the morning and pushing forward until finally this thing caves because I will not let this dissertation beat me. I don’t proudly proclaim the fact that I’ve actually been a grad student for seven years now, but given that that is the case, I certainly can’t back down now. I’ve invested too much of myself to let another six months of mind-breaking work conquer me, so come hell or high water, I will finish. And when I do, I shall rename this site “Dr. Steph & (Not Dr.) Tony Investigate!” OK, not really…

Anyway, this is all to let you loyal readers know that I haven’t forgotten you even though this space has been dormant for quite a while now. I’ve just been so mentally taxed of late that it’s left me little breathing room for fun. I’m still reading, albeit less than I normally do, but the thought of writing about any of the books I’ve finished has seemed impossible. Until now. Rather than mope about and give in to my exhaustion, I’m going to push through the waves of fatigue so that I can share some of the books I’ve been reading, because really, don’t books make everything just a little bit better?

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Whether you’re eating turkey today, or just laughing out our little turkeys, we wish all of our readers a happy and safe Thanksgiving weekend! (For the rest of you, sorry you don’t get a four-day long weekend. We’ll relax extra for you!)

Since Thanksgiving is just around the corner for those of us living in the United States, I feel that talking about a book that takes a trip through the madness industry is apt. Oh come now! I can’t be the only one who finds that large family gatherings are something akin to a trip to the loony bin! If, like me, you tend to find that congregations featuring your nearest and dearest tend to be a bit, well, colorful, OR if you just find yourself interested in mental health issues, I’m sure you’ll find this book enjoyable and educational… Whether it also leads you to mentally evaluate how many of the criteria on Robert Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist every person you meet exhibits, well, that’s just another perk, now isn’t it?

Like so much non-fiction, I think that The Psychopath Test is a fun read for those who have a pet interest in a certain subject but aren’t actually experts in that field. Those who have, say, majored in Psychology (as I did at university) will find that there are a lot of tidbits that are already familiar (though certainly I learned some things I didn’t already know), but that there is also a lot of glossing over of material as well as oversimplifications made for the sake of engaging storytelling or enhanced accessibility for the layman. That is why, although I found this book fun and interesting, I also found it exceedingly frustrating. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Jonson states anything that is deliberately false in this book, but there were moments where I felt like many nuances were lost (or counterpoints were omitted), so as someone who is more than passingly familiar with clinical psychology (though I will say straight up that although I am working on my Psychology doctorate, my area of expertise is cognition and perception NOT clinical populations) I found myself arguing with this book quite a lot. Just as a fair warning, after finishing this book, I jotted down some notes in my book spreadsheet, and when I imported those notes into Word, they filled an entire page. So yeah, I have feelings when it comes to this book (and yes, a lot of them are crabby and could likely be written in all-caps, but worry not, I’ve saved you from Caps Lock Steph… this time…).

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Thank you to all of you who stopped by to celebrate our blogiversary with us, whether it was simply to wish us well, suggest a book we should read, or suggest a book you would like us to buy you. This time around, I didn’t avail myself of magic (unless you consider random probability magical), but instead entered all people who commented suggesting a book they’d like to win into a numbered list like so:

And then I went to Random.org and this is what happened:

Which means that the winner of our third blogiversary giveaway is Katie B!!! And as a result, a copy of The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters will be making its way to her, while a different copy of it will make its way to me & Tony. I have to say that all of the books that were suggested sounded fantastic (and I even found out about a few new books in the process), so you’ve all given me plenty of food for thought when it comes to picking future reads. And of course, I’m guaranteed to be reading at least one Sarah Waters title come 2012. Thanks so much for stopping by our little corner of the blogging world (we know you’re busy too!), and here’s to another year of fun!