Tag: Love Story

The Stacks Book Club — August 2019 Books

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August is just around the corner, which means its time to share out picks for The Stacks Book Club for August. We’ve got two very different (and very good) nonfiction stories for you!

Our first book, for the August 14th, is The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander. In her memoir, Alexander shares what it is like to have loved and lost after the sudden death of her husband. She uses her skills as a poet to tell this beautiful story of love, family, community, grief, and a life well lived. This memoir was touted as Michelle Obama’s favorite book of 2015 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Then on August 28th, we’re reading The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South by Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington. This book might not scream “beach read” but trust us, this book is hard to put down. This true crime story explains how two men in Mississippi could be imprisoned for over 30 years for a crimes they didn’t commit and how the forensic experts who helped convict them have a long history of exploiting the death investigation industry and the racist history of The United States. Hold on, this one is a wild ride.

As always, we want to hear from you, so please reach out with your thoughts, questions, and things you want to hear discussed on the podcast. You can email us at thestackswithtraci@gmail.com, comment on this post, or reach out to us through our Instagram @thestackspod.

Order your copies of our August books on Amazon or IndieBound:

  • The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander (Amazon | IndieBound)
  • The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist by Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington (Amazon | IndieBound)

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/thestacks). We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of The Stacks.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed here. For more information click here.

Love’s Labour’s Lost by William Shakespeare

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Love’s Labour’s Lost is a strange little play, and was my read for March for the #ShakeTheStacks Challenge. It starts with a King asking for his male courtiers to join him in a vow of celibacy (because women are a distraction from enlightenment) and leads to, of course, these men (including the King himself) meeting some women and wanting to break that vow almost immediately. I didn’t enjoy reading the play and found the language and the action very confusing. Mostly because there is a lot of langue and very little action.

What I did find interesting and worthwhile in this play, is that the ending is a bit of a twist. In a normal Shakespearean comedy everyone would end up madly in love, sing a little song, and literally get married. In Love’s Labour’s Lost that is not the case. The play instead ends with the women telling the men something along the lines of “its nice that you like us and all, but we couldn’t possibly trust you after all the lying and oath breaking, and so you need to do a year of community service, then we can see about that whole love thing”. It feels extremely modern and empowering for these female characters and I loved that twist. It couldn’t redeem the play for me, but it would make for very interesting conversation.

The rest of the play is just a bunch of talk about breaking oaths and falling in love and a lot of mistaken identity and role play. I’m sure it works much better on the stage than it does on the page, which makes sense, as it is a play. I certainly understand now why more people aren’t drawn to Love’s Labour’s Lost, and why we don’t see many productions of it. There is however a movie if you’re interested in seeing this play.

If you’re working your way through all of Shakespeare’s plays like I am for #ShakeTheStacks Challenge, good luck with this one, and please tell me your thoughts. If not, I would say you could read mostly any other one of Shakespeare’s plays and enjoy it more than I did Love’s Labour’s Lost.

Next month for #ShakeTheStacks Challenge, I’ll be reading Richard II

  • Paperback: 160 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Classics; Reprint edition (June 5, 2000)
  • 1/5 stars
  • Buy Love’s Labour’s Lost on Amazon or IndieBound

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/thestacks). We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of The Stacks.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs in which we receive a small commission when products are purchased through some links on this website. This does not effect my opinions on books and products. For more information click here.

The Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare

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The Two Gentlemen of Verona is one of Shakespeare earliest comedies, and was the February read for the #ShakeTheStacks Challenge. It is the story of Proteus and Valentine, two young men who are best friends and in love with two different women, Julia and Silvia. As the play goes on, things change, mostly Proteus, and the whole thing goes off the rails. There is crossdressing, a dog, some rebels, love songs, and banishments. Its a whole thing.

This play is not a great read, it is much better on stage. A lot of the humor is physical, revolving around Launce and his dog, Crab. Not to mention Proteus’ change in a allegiance makes most sense when its seen, on the page it feels manic and unfounded.

The women in this play are fiercely loyal and committed to their own happiness. They both are able to express their free will in a way that many women characters are not, even in today’s literature, especially that written by men. Both Julia and Silvia get to be a little mean, which I love. Sure, they’re also a little spoiled, but their hearts are in the right place.

The ending of the play has left scholars stumped/in debate with each other for centuries. The pay off of the complicated and morally troubling ending is really something. Seeing the play (and having been in it, as Silvia), and how each actor plays the ending is really what makes the ending so confounding.

The writing to The Two Gentlemen of Verona is very straight forward, and if you’re new to Shakespeare’s plays it is a great pick. Otherwise, I might not suggest this one. It doesn’t have a ton to say that doesn’t get said better in other plays like A Midsummers Night Dream or As You Like It. The Two Gentlemen of Verona feels like a place that Shakespeare started exploring themes like, loyalty in conflict with love, women dressing up like men, and love triangles gone wrong.

Next month for #ShakeTheStacks Challenge, I’ll be reading Love’s Labour’s Lost.

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/thestacks). We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of The Stacks.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website, and this comes at no cost to you. This in no way effects opinions on books and products reviewed here. For more information click here.

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

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When I started my #ShakeTheStacks challenge, I have to admit, I was most looking forward to rereading the plays I already knew and love, chief among them, Romeo and Juliet. The play is one of, if not the, most well known of all the Shakespeare plays, and is certainly one of the first people are introduced to.

The story of two teenagers from feuding families who fall in love and make a bunch ill advised decisions that eventually lead to their deaths (thats not a spoiler, its in the prologue, I double checked). The story seems almost cliche, because even if you’ve never read or seen Romeo and Juliet you’re familiar with its components even on the most basic of levels. This is the play responsible for some incredibly famous lines; “parting is such sweet sorrow” and “a plague a both your houses”. Even with all of that, hundreds of years of quoting and adapting and parodying, Romeo and Juliet is profoundly emotional and resonant.

I loved reading this play. I loved saying the words out loud (sometimes acting to myself alone in my bedroom, in the interest of full disclosure). The poetry is vibrant and raw, many of the speeches are begging to be said and heard. The way the speeches and characters are crafted show that Shakespeare too was fascinated by these declarations of love and loyalty and rage and vengeance. The most palpable energy in this play is fear, the unknown. Shakespeare taps into this over and over again as the play unravels. What comes next? Romeo and Juliet reads like a thriller even when the reader (or watcher) knows what comes next.

The characters in this play are all so well written from the Lady Capulet to Paris to Mercutio and even the Prince. Each are unique with strong points of view on their world, they’re never confused for one another. This is the first play in my #ShakeTheStacks challenge where I can say thats true. They have their own speaking patterns, and their own thoughts on life and love. They are also all (except a serving man here or there), crucial to the progress of the play.

My most favorite character is Juliet. She is the moral center of this play. She drives the action and is our guide through Acts 2-4. She constantly asks the question “what is right here?”. She delivers fantastic speeches and grapples with a variety of emotions, allowing the reader (or audience) to see her evolution and her resolve. My favorite of all her monologues comes in Act III, Scene 2: “Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?” (if you’ve never encountered this text, I suggest you check it out).

I so loved rereading this play. While it isn’t totally faithful to the play, the Romeo + Juliet film by Baz Luhrmann is so good. Claire Danes is an explosive Juliet, and Leonardo DiCaprio is perfect as our aloof and emotional Romeo. And for the most part, the movie stays true to the text, though it does omit a lot. If you have the time read the play and then watch the movie. Neither disappoints.

Next month for #ShakeTheStacks, I’ll be reading The Two Gentlemen of Verona.

  • Paperback: 128 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Classics; Revised ed. edition (February 1, 2000)
  • 5/5 stars
  • Buy Romeo and Juliet on Amazon

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/thestacks). We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of The Stacks.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs in which we receive a small commission when products are purchased through some links on this website. This does not effect my opinions on books and products. For more information click here.

Reincarnation Blues by Michael Poore

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0A544274-291F-4462-980B-D964D85B5239This week on The Stacks podcast, Lauren Fanella and I discussed Reincarnation Blues as part of The Stacks Book Club. You can listen to our full conversation about the book, its themes, and who we think should star in the TV series of our minds, right here. There are spoilers on the episode (there are none in this review), so I suggest you read the book before you listen.

If you’re not familiar with Reincarnation Blues by Micahel Poore, check out a little bit about the book here

First we live. Then we die. And then . . . we get another try? 

Ten thousand tries, to be exact. Ten thousand lives to “get it right.” Answer all the Big Questions. Achieve Wisdom. And Become One with Everything.
    
Milo has had 9,995 chances so far and has just five more lives to earn a place in the cosmic soul. If he doesn’t make the cut, oblivion awaits. But all Milo really wants is to fall forever into the arms of Death. Or Suzie, as he calls her.

But Reincarnation Blues is more than a great love story: Every journey from cradle to grave offers Milo more pieces of the great cosmic puzzle—if only he can piece them together in time to finally understand what it means to be part of something bigger than infinity. As darkly enchanting as the works of Neil Gaiman and as wisely hilarious as Kurt Vonnegut’s, Michael Poore’s Reincarnation Blues is the story of everything that makes life profound, beautiful, absurd, and heartbreaking.

My feelings about this book changed wildly as I read it. When I first started I was all in. I was 50 pages in telling my sister-in-law this is a must read. Then at about page 150 I was wanted to quit (and only held out because I’d heard good things, and had committed to covering it on the podcast). Then I got to the last 100 pages and was back in again.

I loved Michael Poore as an author. He is smart, and unsentimental, and witty, and flip, and emotional, and wise, and direct, and all the things that make a book like this resonate. He is fluid in his writing and his ideas are strong. He is never passive. He has a clear point of view on the important things in life. He has a strong moral compass when it comes to social justice and compassion, and that is what drives Milo and the entirety of Reincarnation Blues. He guides us as the readers through the universe as he sees it. I loved Poore so much, I even read the acknowledgements and swooned a little.

Its worth noting here, that Poore has opinions on prison, and rape culture, and soulmates, and the criminal justice system, and punishment, and meditation, and global warming, and the role of wealthy people in the economy, and so much more. He uses different lives to explore this major issues. In the discussion of these topics I was head over heels for this book. I’d never read a fiction book that was so direct in discussing these things, without being a fiction book about these things.

Of course, I also had parts of this book I wasn’t so into. I couldn’t quiet get into the story. The book felt more like a grouping of short stories, than a novel. I could never quiet get in a groove. And with each life being a different place and world and lifetime and era, I would fall in love with something or someone and then it would be gone. There were, of course, references to things in past (or future) lives, which I loved, but for the most part, I had to learn to enjoy the good moments and then let them go. Which I guess is a metaphor for life, or another one of Poore’s strong opinions on the way things should be.

The book is a little sci-fi, a little magical realism, and little bit of an adventure story, and then also a love story, and then once again its a story of humanity and one’s duty to society, its a genre-bending social commentary. Its unlike anything I’ve read. In a good way. While, I only gave it three stars, because it didn’t fully click with me, I could see this being a favorite book for a lot of people. It has all the potential to be a beloved book. It just wasn’t quiet for me. It is kind of a funny book like that. It could never really be the type of book that achieved consensus. Also, I don’t think I understood the ending. This happens to me more often than I’d like to admit.

If this review excites you, you should read this book. If you’re at all interested in a book about many lives and many characters and the big picture ideas of life, you should read this book. I don’t know how you’ll feel about it. I hope you’ll like it, you might not. I think either way, its worth a read. I’m certainly glad I read it. I now know I love Michael Poore.

Don’t forget to listen to Lauren and I discuss Reincarnation Blues further on the podcast.

  • Hard Cover: 384 pages
  • Publisher: Del Rey; First Edition edition (August 22, 2017)
  • 3/5 stars
  • Buy Reincarnation Blues on Amazon

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page (https://www.patreon.com/thestacks). We are beyond grateful for anything you’re able to give to support the production of The Stacks.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs in which we receive a small commission when products are purchased through some links on this website. This does not effect my opinions on books and products. For more information click here.