I've skipped a few Fridays, so this weeks post collects the best or most interesting of what I've acquired for the last few weeks. I'm especially happy about the Winnie the Pooh collection and Wizard of Oz (the gorgeous B&N leather bound edition), as they are part of the library I'm building to enjoy with my son as he gets older. He's only 2, so I'm impatiently waiting for the days when he's old enough to enjoy something beyond Star Wars ABC.

These were mostly acquired at the used book store, but a couple of the Doctor Who books are Kindle editions.

Any month where I read more than Booklikes 10-book-covers-per-post limit is a good month (except possibly November, where all the reading I did took time away from the NaNoWriMo writing I should have been doing, alas). Not counting all of the picture books I read with my boys, I finished fifteen books in November. (I only wrote ~12,000 words.)

4.5 stars:

As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales of the Making of The Princess Bride, Cary Elwes -- This is a must for anyone who loves The Princess Bride. I recommend the audiobook, as most of the cast and crew contribute, so it's like listening to a radio show documentary.

The Year We Fell Down, Sarina Bowen -- I don't usually read New Adult, but I glommed onto the Ivy Years series hard. I read the whole series in a long weekend. This first book, with a paraplegic heroine, was my favorite.

4 stars:

Yes Please, Amy Poehler -- Considering I have nothing in common with Amy except that we both have two young sons, I related to this memoir a lot more than I thought I would. Plus, it was super funny.

Understatement of the Year -- See my above comment about glomming the Ivy Years series. This third book was my second favorite, a second-chance romance involving two hockey players (yes, it's M/M. Read it even if you don't think that's your thing.).

Scenes From the City, Penny Reid -- This won't appeal much to anyone who isn't already into the Knitting in the City series, but if you're already a fan, the fifth story in this collection will have you salivating for the 2015 release of Happily Ever Ninja. Act fast, this is only on sale through December 15!

Blonde Date -- A short story, really more of a vignette, in the Ivy Years series. The hero is wonderfully beta.

3.5 stars:

Men Explain Things to Me, Rebecca Solnit -- a thought-provoking set of essays on feminist topics, but a little too spendy, considering how short it is, IMO.

The Year We Hid Away, Sarina Bowen -- My least favorite book in the Ivy Years series, this was still a very entertaining read. It just had an awesome premise which didn't quite live up to my hopes.

The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan -- This has been on my TBR for 20 years. I'm glad to have finally made time for it. It was a more timely read than I expected, but my interest waned in the last third of the book.

This I Believe, various -- I've been plugging away at this collection of short essays in my spare time since the summer. A few of them were real gems.

3 Stars:

Landline,  Rainbow Rowell -- My least favorite Rainbow Rowell book so far. I just couldn't connect with the heroine at all, but the book still had the sharp prose and poignant emotion that I love about Rowell's work.

Dirty Rowdy Thing, Christina Lauren -- Entertaining, but not especially memorable.

2.5 stars:

Screwdrivered,  Alice Clayton -- The snappy dialogue did not make up for the cliched plot and the too stupid to live heroine.

2 stars:

Beyond Possession, Kit Rocha -- my first disappointment in the Beyond series. This novella just felt flat to me. 

1 star:

The Temp, Part I,  Lacey Wolfe -- I won this in a giveaway. Since I don't have anything nice to say, ....

As for what's on tap in December, I just started Sarah MacLean's Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover, and it's off to a strong start.

Happy Holidays!

I have such a hard time reviewing audiobooks, for (at least) two reasons: 1) it takes me a lot longer to finish them than it would if I were reading and so my memory of the earlier parts of the book is not as clear when it comes time to write a review, and 2) I listen to audiobooks while driving, so I can't stop to make notes or highlight or bookmark sections I want to remember for later, so when it comes time for a review, I don't have much to say. This review, then, is just a broad sketch of my general impressions.

I've been meaning to read this book for twenty years, since my own days as a Smith student (Betty Friedan is also a Smithie), but I never got around to it until Audible made it a Daily Deal sometime this summer. Parts of it were very dated, as you'd expect, but most of it was still extremely relevant.

I don't know about the choice of Parker Posey as a narrator. She's a sort of high brow, intellectually superior, privileged white woman, and she speaks with a subtle but unmistakable undertone of Snark. This makes her very like Friedan, actually, but I think the message would be more accessible to a wider audience without the Snark. That's probably true of Friedan's writing, too.

I really enjoyed the introductory essays by Anna Quindlen and the 1997 foreword by Friedan. The 1997 reflection was fascinating, both in what it told of Friedan's reflection on her own work over time, but also my own sense--having missed the 1950s and 60s (when the Mystique was at its peak) but having come of age in the late 1990s and lived to the present--that feminism has lost ground since Friedan's 1997 essay. Friedan talks about the GOP's last desperate efforts to strike down abortion, for example, but the intervening years have seen those efforts become more successful and less desperate, alas.

I also liked the middle sections where Friedan eviscerated functional anthropology and Freudian theories used to keep women homebound and uneducated, though I found it ironic and unfortunate that, a few chapters later, Friedan bought into those same disqualified Freudian notions without question when she suggested that homosexuality was one of the regrettable side effects of the Mystique, because frustrated mothers can't help but twist and pervert their sons into homos. A product of her time, sure, but interesting that Friedan could be so skeptical of Freudian thought when comes to women and so blind when it comes to another marginalized group she didn't understand.

I kind of turned off in the later chapters about the psychological damage that frustrated mothers caused to themselves and to their children, probably because I don't put a whole lot of stock into psychology in general.

Still, it's an important book if you're at all interested in feminism or women's studies, and I'm glad to have closed this gap in my education.

I was totally on board with Ms. Friedan right up until she got to the chapter about how one of the tragic side effects of the Feminine Mystique is that all of these infantile, frustrated, overbearing housewife mothers can't help but turn their sons into twisted, immature, promiscuous, self-loathing, neurotic homosexuals. Wow! Amazing that Friedan could so clearly skewer Freud's theories about women as a product of his time, culture, and personal biases, and yet she swallows those same flawed Freudian theories about homosexuality wholeheartedly without question.