Sereste & Ruth by Wild and Trish Mbanga

Date Started: July 11, 2015
Date Finished: July 12, 2015
Book Acquisition: Purchased after reading Whatever You Do, Don't Run: True Tales of a Botswana Safari Guide by Peter Allison
Overall Rating: 3/5

This book is not a sophisticated history of the famous couple. It was clearly well researched, but it also was ineptly written. Literature snottiness aside, I really enjoyed this book. Sereste and Ruth were a remarkable couple and reading about the formation of modern Botswana was surprisingly interesting. I don't tend to gravitate to African history, honestly. I think in school I actually subbed out my African History requirement for one of the Middle Eastern classes.

A couple years ago I did read a book called Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness that was the author's account of growing up in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Zambia at about the same time that Botswana came into existence. I would totally go back and reread that right now because I'd be interested to see what it says about Botswana but some asshole kept the book in a bad breakup (fuck you, Montana).

Anyways, I don't have a lot to say about this book. It was good, I liked it.

Side note: I've done a poor job of updating this blog (and even reading) recently. The last book I finished, before this one, was read on the plane back from visiting Chris and Rachael. Then like eleven seconds later they were out here for a visit so I've been pretty busy. And I got that boyfriend thing happening which occupies the Sundays I used to spend reading. He did just lend me a Chuck Klosterman book, though, and I am super looking forward to it. Maybe that will be next? I did just purchase The Far Pavilions but I had completely forgotten that the damn thing is literally a thousand pages long and the print is super fucking small.

Back Sheep by Georgette Heyer

Date Started: June 21, 2015
Date Finished: June 21, 2015
Book Acquisition: Acquired for my by Aunt Vicki
Overall Rating: 5/5

I am willing to blanket statement that this is the one of the best Georgette Heyer's out there. I would have said it ranks in the top five, but now I'm having trouble believing that. Definitely top ten, maybe? In no particular order, at off the top of my head:

Allison Top Ten Georgette Heyer Books (maybe, it's hard to say)

1. Venetia
2. The Reluctant Widow
3. Faro's Daughter
4. The Grand Sophy
5. Devil's Cub
6. Frederica
7. Regency Buck
8. Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle
9. Bath Tangle
10. Black Sheep

Ugh, wait. That list is impossible. But Georgette Heyer will creep up again and again this year so there is time to revisit. My Aunt Vicki has spent some time and effort tracking down used Georgette Heyer books so that I can have my own library (a Myers girls tradition). It's made me feel like an adult to have my own copies of these books instead of having to constantly borrow them from Mother.

The common thread in my top ten is that they're all actual adult women being taken seriously and autonomous individuals, as apposed to being nineteen and flighty and dear god, I cannot tell you how it annoys me to read those books now. Nineteen year olds are too quick to give up their autonomy to the authority of random men in her world. Ugh. The worst.

I somehow hadn't read Black Sheep before even though I've been reading Georgette Heyer books for nearly fifteen years and have completely worn out multiple copies of Venetia with constant re-readings. I liked it enormously. I like their relationship. Five stars all around.

Whatever You Do, Don't Run: True Tales of a Botswana Safari Guide by Peter Allison

Date Started: June 17, 2015
Date Finished: June 17, 2015
Book Acquisition: Carrollton Book Exchange
Overall Rating: 3/5

I'm sitting on a plane en route to the California. My flight was delayed, then delayed again, then hastily boarded so we could sit on the tarmac in a line of planes as orderly as any elementary school class on the way to lunch. This book made the delays and the literal hours spent in security seem really pretty okay. It was light, and interesting, and very endearing read about (you guessed it) a safari guide's experience in the African Bush.

Favorite Parts:

1. The introduction of Dick, an atrocious but much loved vehicle. It reminded my very forcibly of Richard Hammond's love for Oliver in the Top Gear Botswana Special. 
2. The (true) love story between Sir Sereste Khama (one of the founding fathers of Botswana) and his English wife, Ruth. I hope I have a marriage as obviously devoted as theirs. I was so impressed by them in fact that I've just purchased a book about their lives. 
3. At some point, when Allison was going something he was sure would kill him he thought he tombstone would need to read, "HERE LIES PETER ALLISON. HE WAS RIDICULOUS." (186) Even if I die very normally, I want a similar inscription. I love being ridiculous. I think it's one of my better qualities.  
4. Allison's descriptions of "Bird Nerds" (and his eventual descent into those same ranks.

"My perception was that people who watched birds wore funny clothes and had poor hygiene. They has beards (even the women) with bits of food stuck in them. Bird-watching was close kin to the dirty perversions of stamp collections and crocheting cushion covers." (124)

Eventually Allison says, "I am on those people, I thought, and it didn't seem such a bad thing after all." (127)

THIS IS EXACTLY HOW I FEEL ABOUT MY MOTHER'S CLAN. In the last couple months  I have taken up the much loved Myers' pastime of  gardening and embraced my love of counting birds. I have generally been marginally interesting in bird, and birding, but my family is borderline nonsensical in their birding quest. My grandparents have spent small fortunes chasing birds across the world.

For this last Christmas I requested a small bird feeder to stick to my window in the hopes of distracting my cats from their more destructive pursuits. Mother got me a feeder just like her own, well frequented feeder, and super high quality seeds. I set it up at a prominent window and waited. To date it's been up for nearly six months and I've literally never had a damn bird come visit. Not a single. fucking. bird.

Somehow this rejection has fueled me. Every couple months I move the feeder to a new window and hope for a visitor. In the meantime, I've started making lists and tallying the birds that visit the yard (but not the feeder). I have a pair of cardinals, the occasional blue birds and blue jays, and packs of robins (mostly in the front). The lists were the final straw, really, "I am on those people, I thought, and it didn't seem such a bad thing after all."

The Wolf of Wall Street by Jordan Belfort

Date Started: June 6, 2015

Date Finished: June 7, 2015

Book Acquisition: Cobb County Library Book Sale, Spring 2015

Overall Rating: 3/5

The Wolf of Wall Street confirmed my deep suspicion that I could never be a drug addict. I’ve enjoyed dabbling, certainly, but to spend that many YEARS out of control seems like a metric shit ton of work. Honestly the whole book was similarly exhausting. JB’s life (or rather, the decade chronicled in this book) was a wild and ridiculous romp. I’m currently coming off a week long birthday-bender and even that’s been draining to me. I almost don’t have the motivation to go get hammered tonight. I will obviously (because I’m not a little bitch), but I’m longing for the days of exercise and sobriety and a marginally clean house. Instead I’ve got piles of random things on every surface, and I HIKED STONE MOUNTAIN FUCKING HAMMERED. WHY DID I FEEL THE NEED TO BE HAMMERED FOR THAT EVEN?! I CHUGGED BEERS (WITH AN S) IN THE PARKING LOT BEFORE HIKING.

Any who, the book is delightfully written, and totally worth reading, but I don’t really have a lot to say about it. The high points were the general malarkey, obviously, and JB's relationship with the Duchess. I don't know what it says about me that I love wildly toxic couples but I'm a million percent sure that it's nothing good. Either way, I’m happy I’m not business mad, and vaguely pleased that I don’t have zillions of dollars to throw around. I’m certain I’d be even more hideously self-centered and ridiculous if either of those were the case. 

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Date Started: June 6, 2015

Date Finished: June 6, 2015

Book Acquisition: Cobb County Library Book Sale, Spring 2015

Overall Rating: 3/5

I've read Atonement before, on some airplane a decade or more ago. I don't remember anything from the first reading except that the book was grossly melodramatic and that I sobbed through the ending, attempting to blow my nose on those tiny airplane cocktail napkins.

I picked this book today because I wanted something heavy and beautiful and far away from here and now. And I got that in droves. However, I think my favorite part wasn't the drama, or the intrigue, or the heartbreak (both the characters' and my own). The best part was how delightfully bored every one was before before the Big Dramatic Thing happened. There's a particular quote I wrote down that I think defines it perfectly. "...he made himself think about time, about his great hoard, the luxury of an unspent fortune. He had never before felt so self-consciously young, nor experienced such appetite, such impatience for the story to begin." (86)

PREACH IT, ROBBIE. 

Lately, I've been feeling so damn oppressed by this very happy, if boring, life I'm living. I have a well-paying job that I generally enjoy, three little fuzzy creatures that adore me, a garden with buckets of nearly ripe vegetables, and Daniel and I just bought a Wii. But there's something about turning twenty-five that makes me think I shouldn't take so much joy in these little moment. Perhaps the little moments are making me complacent enough that I'm going to miss out on the big moments - the moments that drive the plot in my life's story. 

I've been working very hard the last couple months at not comparing my life with anyone else's life, but it's been hard to do. I see people I knew from school traveling the world or settling in other countries and I get this hot, angry knot in my stomach. Why didn't I do that earlier? Why did I get cats, a dog, debt? My job has lulled me into the delicious comfort of having enough money to do literally almost whatever I want, so leaving that for something uncertain seems ludicrous. Even the fucking tomato plants feel like a weight. I've named them, loved them, how could I just leave? The other end of the spectrum also makes the angry, jealous knot appear. I see friends with husbands and intentional babies and I feel like I'm behind. I feel like I'm missing out on all this time with the love of my life, because I haven't found the stupid jerk yet. There are so many shared adventures we're missing out on! 

I'm just sitting here, in the middle of those extremes, trudging along. 

The book's melodrama was clearly contagious - this post is far more self-pitying than I meant it to be. I think I'll have to balance it out with something ridiculous. Perhaps it's time to re-read some more Christopher Moore.

EDIT: I spent the half hour after finishing this book sighing and banging around dishes so the world could hear my displeasure. Daniel wasn't home so the claterring was a largely pointless exercise but it made me feel hugely better. Then I went to the symphony and had a delightful tiny adventure and it made me feel perfectly content with the small moments of happiness.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

I re-read the Count of Monte Cristo a few months ago. It was one of my favorite books in middle and high school and I haven’t read it in seven plus years so I figured it was time.

Allison’s Three Most Frequent Exclamations While Re-reading the Count of Monte Cristo:

1. OMG DUDE GET OVER ITTTTTTTT.

2. Holy shit, that’s fucked up. Wooowww. That’s truly fucked up.

3. OMG SHE IS LIKE A THOUSAND YEARS YOUNGER THAN YOU AND YOU RAISED HER, THIS IS SO GROSS.

You may have surmised that I didn’t love the Count as much as I did before. I really could not figure out why homeboy could not just get the fuck over himself and go off and live with his fabulous wealth. (Perhaps my mother saying “the best revenge is a life well lived” made an impact on me after all.) I also could not understand why he was so set on ruining the lives of the CHILDREN of the people who had ruined his. I know he changed his mind later and helped (most of) his enemies’ children live happily ever after, but seriously, Edmund Dantés was a sadistic prick.

Lastly, let’s talk about Haydée. For those of you who haven’t read The C of MC recently I’ll give a brief synopsis of how Haydée comes into the Count’s life. Haydée was sold into slavery after her father (a Turkish pasha) was assassinated by political rivals. The Count purchased her out of slavery when she’s twelve (as part of his extended revenge plan) and then raises her, alternately calling her his slave and his daughter (sometimes both at once). Then she falls in love with him and says creepy things like “I love you as one loves a father, a brother, a husband.” At the end of the book they run away together to start a new life (leaving behind a trail of dead (and dead inside)).  I have some issues with this plot line. Besides the serious case of Stockholm Syndrome, the Count is like fifty and SHE IS A TEENAGER WITH PRETTY CLEAR DADDY ISSUES.

My visceral reaction to re-reading a previously MUCH loved classic made me seriously wonder how I could be so infatuated with such a weird and dark fucking book ten years ago. I wanted to go back in time and ask past- Allison, “Why did you like this?! How did this appeal to you?! What is wrong with you?!” But I couldn’t because no one has shared the secret of time travel with me yet. Furthermore, because I never kept any sort of journal, I couldn’t even begin to recreate my thoughts and feelings at that time in my life (which is maybe for the best, really). I remember thinking the whole book was this incredibly beautiful and tragic love story. And my best guess is that because I was eleven or twelve years old when I read it for the first time, being nineteen seemed incredibly grown up and perfectly old enough to be making decisions about running away with your many decades-older father figure/master.

The couple days I spent reading The Count of Monte Cristo this winter really made an impact on me. For one, it’s made me terrified to read The Three Musketeers, which I loved even more than The C of MC. What if d'Artagnan is as big a douche lord as the Count? I don’t know that I’d be able to recover, honestly. He is the archetype of my ideal man.

On a deeper level though, this excursion into the past made me think about my relationship with books and how they reflect my life. So I’ve decided to write about each book I read during my 25^th year. That way, I can theoretically come back and see this delicious snapshot of my life, as told by the books I read. I’m not sure how it’s going to flesh out yet, but I don’t turn twenty-five for two more weeks so I’ve got plenty of time.