Up for another Book Menage?

I'm in the middle of a few books right now, so as I was reading this morning, I thought, hm, what should I post about today? And then I got thinking about having another Book Menage.

I can illustrate exactly how that came about: I'm reading a book called Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture, which I am finding interesting. So this morning I looked at it, and thought, "it's good, but it's not rocking my world like John Bowe's Nobodies did." Then of course I started thinking about the Book Menage* where we discussed Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the Global Economy.** Which got me thinking about the Menage, and how I often suggest books I've already read and loved and want to re-read. But this time around, I thought, I don't particularly have any books or subjects which I need to suggest. That's new.

Which throws the gates open: Do you have any subjects or titles you'd like to tackle for our next Menage, which we could set up within the next month or so? Let me know in the comments, and we'll see what we can put together.

In other news, my friend Sarah Nagle has had a spectacular article on collection development (which is really more interesting than it sounds--it's the job whereby librarians and library staff build and maintain their collections of books) in the latest issue of RA News. Do check it out, and nicely done, Sarah!

*For any readers new to Citizen Reader, our Book Menages are where we pick two books, usually nonfiction but sometimes one nonfiction and one fiction, and discuss them singly and in relation to each other in the blog comments over the course of a week. We call it the Menage because it's 1 reader + 2 books; get it? Kinky!

**Which, frankly, I think was my choice for Best Book of the Decade. In terms of sheer new thoughts and insight gained, nothing in the past few years has hit me as hard or stayed with me as long as that book has.

Comments

[sherry (nite swimming)]

I don't have any suggestions (I like your suggestions) but look forward to participating.

[Citizen Reader]

Sherry,
Thanks for the vote of confidence. I'm completely blanking on what to choose! Maybe I'll look on my bookshelves and see what I haven't read there yet.

[Tripp]

Hmmm you could do a classic (pre- WW2) travel narrative and compare it to a recent one of the same region.

[Citizen Reader]

Tripp,
Hm, that is interesting. I keep forgetting about Travel as a genre. Maybe even a more recent title of Travel and History from the same area? Although I like your classic idea too. Any titles that spring to mind for you?

[Ruthiella]

You most recently wrote you needed to read a book about L.A. When I google, I get "City of Quartz" as an option (although I think it was written before the subway was built). A friend of mine, who actually lives in L.A. and who has read the book, did not like it because he found it to be too negative. But hey, everyone (besides my friend) loves to hate L.A.

However, I don't know what a good companion to this would be, having never read it. There is plenty of fiction set in Los Angeles (James Ellroy is a personal favorite).

[Laura]

I'm a fan of memoirs and personal essays. Perhaps a graphic memoir and a textual memoir?

[Rachael]

Oh, if we're considering travel, why not consider one of the excellent books about Australia and/or Capt. Cook? I'm thinking Blue Latitudes--it's been on my list for ages, and it's supposed to be good.

I'm up for anything, though!

[CR Fan]

Yes, travel. I'm reading explorer books with my kid. Crazy. I once read The River of Doubt because an older, interesting person suggested it. It was out of my usual area, and CR, you know how long it took me to read. However, that book has played into my thoughts in many areas (historical, political, environmental, cultural). Crazy. Last night I saw a show called Jungle, on the Amazon. I was freaked out by the rain forest in River of Doubt, now I'm really blown away by that book.

I like the idea of travel at different times. Arctic exploring is also brutally interesting.

[Citizen Reader]

Ruthiella,
I like the suggestion of an LA book, but am really enthralled with the travel idea and will see how that plays out. Are there travel books about LA, I wonder? If not, I'll try to track down some NF on the city of angels and keep it in mind for the next Menage. Thanks! (I've also ALWAYS wanted to read James Ellroy but just didn't get that far yet. I do like Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins series.)

Laura,
I like the memoirs too but we've done those a couple of times, and we did a GN last time. But I am going to write this down somewhere as a suggestion for future Menages. I'm always looking for excuses to read memoirs, after all. Thanks for the suggestion!

Rachael, CR Fan (wow, fabo user name--tee hee),
Yes, I think travel is where it's shaping up. I will consider this brave new nonfiction genre and see where we end up. Although, exploring stories? Sometimes I get so annoyed by exploration stories, although I like the historical ones better than the adventure ones ("so this one time I climbed a mountain I probably shouldn't have, and got stuck in bad weather, and lots of other nice people who were smart enough to stay off the mountain in the first place had to risk their lives to come save me...").

Rachael, Blue Latitudes would probably meet both travel and exploration needs. Hmm. Very interesting.

I've never gotten around yet to reading "River of Doubt." Must fix that.

[CR Fan]

Oh, sure. Explorers find lots of ways to be jerks. I didn't say I liked explorers. In fact, pushy explorers "discovering" places, treating natives badly, setting other explorers/settlers forts on fire, pillaging, moving on. No wonder we're a nation of imperial, plundering jerks.

In fact, I told someone the other day, settlers always get a bad name, and this person went on to tell me that just that day in a meeting a manager was telling him and his colleagues that they needed to be frontiersman and explorers, not settlers.

Settlers are the people who stay put (or who eventually stay put) and try to care for something (and have to because they're in the middle of it). To settle...bad connotations, even though it might mean choosing to care for someone or something.

Kurt Vonnegut said it best: Everybody wants to build, nobody wants to maintain.

[Tripp]

Please, please, please read James Ellroy. He is astounding. Start with either the Black Dahlia or the Big Nowhere and read through to Blood's A Rover. You could probably give the earlier books a miss (and maybe even the penultimate volume Cold Six Thousand). You might also like his true crime memoir, My Dark Places, which describes his attempts to solve his mother's murder.

As for suggestions, maybe something like A Time of Gifts, followed up by Jan Morris?
http://www.nybooks.com/shop/product?usca_p=t&product_id=4819

[Tripp]

On the Blue Latitudes note, there is also Confederates in the Attic by the same author. Great book.

[Citizen Reader]

Tripp,
I will read Ellroy, I promise. Further bulletins as events warrant.

I've read a couple of Jan Morris's travel narratives, and they didn't really light my world on fire (although I did find "Conundrum" interesting). But I will look into A Time of Gifts, and Blue Latitudes. Thank you! (I've read Confederates in the Attic--you're right, interesting stuff.)

[Lu]

I've never been able to participate in a Menage for one reason or another, so I'm really looking forward to this one. Travel seems like a perfect theme! Looking forward to it!

[Venta]

As I sit in an airport anxiously waiting to go home, I can still get enthusiastic about travel. I have The Sex Lives of Cannibals sitting on a bookshelf unread. Maybe pairing it with something non-tropical? I am looking forward to a menage!

[Rachael]

Not proposing it for menage, but for anyone who likes or is intrigued by travel memoirs, consider Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven, about a young woman who backpacks through China (when it was just beginning to open to the West) with an acquaintance from college. Yeah, bad things ensue.

[Citizen Reader]

Lu,
We'll be glad to have you!

Venta,
Did you go to Midwinter? I hope you have safe travels, wherever you're returning from.
"Sex Lives..." is a GREAT book--read it when you get home--but I've read it. I'm thinking it's time to tackle two books I haven't read. Further bulletins as events warrant.

[Jessica]

If we're going to do travel/explorers, here are a few on my list that I haven't read. Sorry, I seem to have a fascination with those "people who don't belong there getting in trouble in the snow" stories, even though I *loathe* snow.

"West with the Night" - Beryl Markham
"No Horizon is So Far" - Liv Arnesen
"Ice Bound" - Jerri Nielsen
"My First Summer in the Sierra" - John Muir
"High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed" - Michael Kodas
"Around the World with Auntie Mame" - Patrick Dennis (it's a sequel)

I think it would be fun to do one historical and one contemporary account. Either that, or one travel and one about the effects of travel.

[Rachael]

Interesting idea--the effects of travel.

Or we could do one on travel/exploration one on the pleasures of home/belonging to a specific place.

[Citizen Reader]

Jessica, Rachael,
Actually, I like all these ideas (historical/contemporary, exploration/home etc.). Maybe we could combine travel with some Environmental Writing narratives about one's home, like Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Will continue to think. Will having the discussion at the end of February work, do we all think? Or is March better?

Oh, and Jessica, I found "High Crimes" by Kodas quite interesting. More so than Krakauer's Into Thin Air, personally.

[Jessica]

Drat! I can never seem to find anything you haven't already read. Come to think of it, I may have added it to my list after reading one of your reviews.

I'm good for February or whenever.

[Citizen Reader]

Well, in all fairness, Jessica, you listed five other books that I hadn't read, so that's pretty good! I just wanted to throw in a good word for High Crimes if you were considering it. :)

[Beth]

Hmmmm, how about we read an NF travelogue and then a fictional one? You know, a journey that's an actual one as opposed to an "emotional journey" (the idea of which makes my skin crawl). Of course I have no suggestions, as my brain is useless today, but I just thought it was an interesting idea.

I'm also very fascinated by the brain (on a completely different note) and have the YA book Marcelo in the Real World in my "On Deck" pile at home, about a young man with Aspergers. Perhaps in the future we could read this and a memoir on the subject? Just throwing it out there.

[Ruthiella]

I read a favorable review on NPR's website about a book called "When Wanderers Cease To Roam; A Traveler's Journal of Staying Put" by Vivian Swift. It is only 208 pages too. Just a suggestion. I shudder to think, but I am going to ask: Have you ever had a book on the Book Menage that was truly terrible? How do you vet them, if you haven't read them?

[Ruthiella]

Uh oh, I take it back. I looked at the book on Amazon. I think it might be a bit too "twee", with pictures of cats and tea cups. SORRY.

[Rachael]

Oooh, for fiction/non-fiction pairings we could do Blue Latitudes (hm, am I pushing to hard? I've had it on my to read list since it was published) and Matthew Kneale's English Passengers, which I loved. It's a bit dark, but I like that.

[Citizen Reader]

Beth,
I like your idea too but I may struggle for a bit to come up with some fiction that matches. The brain's an interesting topic too--we have yet to do a Science Menage. Have you read a book called "The Three-Pound Enigma"? (I think the author was Shannon Moffat.) Very good, readable stuff.

Ruthiella,
Well, I like both cats and tea so I don't know that that putsme off. I will investigate.

As for vetting books, most of the time I've either read the books in question or I figure the quality will get hashed out in the Menage. (I love talking about books I hate almost as much as I love talking about books I love, so that's no problem.) Actually, the Menage surprises me a lot, which I enjoy. During one of the last ones pretty much everyone adored the story collection "Dangerous Laughter," by Millhauser, and were kind of cool about "The Brain-Dead Megaphone," by George Saunders. My experience was the exact opposite--loved the Saunders, could have done w/o the Millhauser--so I actually like not to vet the books sometimes.

[Citizen Reader]

Rachael,
I am the least persistent person in the world ("is this hard? I quit.") so I am charmed by your persistence. I'm looking into Blue Latitudes, although I don't know if can pair it with "English Passengers," which I couldn't get through. (Too long.) I am totally biased towards shorter works. Maybe if I can find a little travel novel to go with BL...

[Beth]

I have not read that, no, but I have read "The Brain That Changes Itself" and it's wonderful. I learned about the world of neuroplasticity there and have been fascinated by it ever since.

I'll have to put the Three Pound Enigma on my list now :)

[Donna]

My husband recently read and enjoyed Somerset Maugham's "The Gentleman in the Parlour". It would be a classic travelogue which could be paired with another modern title.

First published in 1935 it is the account of a journey the author took from Rangoon to Haiphong. Whether by river to Mandalay, on horse through the mountains and forests of the Shan States to Bangkok, or onwards by sea, Maugham's muse is in the spirit of Hazlitt, who wrote: 'It is great to shake off the trammels of the world and public opinion...and become the creature of the moment...and to be known by no other title than "The Gentleman in the Parlour".'

[Rachael]

Maybe Steinbeck's Travels with Charley? Have dog, will travel (across America).