Author: Jennifer @ The Relentless Reader

Readathon Preparation!

~ Jennifer @ The Relentless Reader ~ 36 Comments
24 Hour Readathon
Who else is getting ready for the READATHON? I’m going to capitalize that word because I’m so excited! EXCITED!! 
Want to read some first-class Readathon tips? Head over to 1330v
Today I hit the library and the grocery store. Books and snacks. Yay! 
Readathon books, yahoo!
I browsed until I had found a nice stack of smallish books. I think I’ll have plenty to read, even if I end up not liking one (or more) of them. 
That thick sucker on the left? That is Blankets, a graphic novel by Craig Thompson. I thought that would help to break things up for me if my head starts hurting from all of the words. 
Some of the other books on my stack are Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Push by Sapphire and With or Without You by Domenica Ruta. (The only non-library book on my pile)
Readathon snacks, mmm mmm

The snacks. Salty and sweet, just like me. Don’t fret, I’ll be picking up some fruit and veggies too. And bagels, don’t forget the bagels and cream cheese. Perhaps apples dipped in peanut butter?

I’m a bit too excited about the food I think.

Let’s do this thing!

Review: By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham

~ Jennifer @ The Relentless Reader ~ 14 Comments

By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication Date: September 2010
Category: Literary
Source: Library

Description:
Peter and Rebecca Harris: mid-forties denizens of Manhattan’s SoHo, nearing the apogee of committed careers in the arts—he a dealer, she an editor. With a spacious loft, a college-age daughter in Boston, and lively friends, they are admirable, enviable contemporary urbanites with every reason, it seems, to be happy. Then Rebecca’s much younger look-alike brother, Ethan (known in the family as Mizzy, “the mistake”), shows up for a visit. A beautiful, beguiling twenty-three-year-old with a history of drug problems, Mizzy is wayward, at loose ends, looking for direction. And in his presence, Peter finds himself questioning his artists, their work, his career—the entire world he has so carefully constructed.

Like his legendary, Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, The Hours, Michael Cunningham’s masterly new novel is a heartbreaking look at the way we live now. Full of shocks and aftershocks, it makes us think and feel deeply about the uses and meaning of beauty and the place of love in our lives.


My Thoughts:
I read By Nightfall as part of The Literary Others LGBT reading event hosted by Adam at Roof Beam Reader.

By Nightfall was listed at Over the Rainbow Books and was a finalist for gay fiction in the 23rd Annual Lambda Literary Awards.

I know the dude won a Pulitzer for The Hours, and this book was smiled upon by critics as well. But By Nightfall didn’t do it for this girl. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it.

The writing was agreeable. The story was fine. What I didn’t like was the whiff of smarty-pants snobbery. Maybe I’m a sensitive person. Maybe I don’t like a book that talks down about my area of the country. Repeatedly.

In conclusion, it was an ok read. Would I read it again? Nah.