What are you reading?

[DiveMilw]

I haven't read any of these but they were talking about them on the radio today.  Since I come here to find new book titles to read I figured this would be a good place for me to store the list. 
(And share it with all of you!)
Here's a link in case you'd like to listen to the broacast.
http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2018/08/08/border-novels-films-documentaries


Recommended Border Novels, Films And Documentaries
from Claudia Sadowski-Smith
"The River Flows North," by Graciela Limón (2009)
This novel by Latina writer Graciela Limón follows the journeys of Mexican and Salvadoran migrants, and their coyote, across the Arizona desert from Sonora, Mexico.
"The Guardians," by Ana Castillo (2007)
Set in a fictional New Mexican border town near El Paso, Texas, this novel by Latina writer Ana Castillo explores how a border crosser's disappearance affects his U.S. family and the local community.
"Tropic of Orange," by Karen Tei Yamashita (1997)
Set in Los Angeles and Mexico, this magical realist novel by Japanese American author Karen Tei Yamashita represents the interconnected lives of seven diverse protagonists, many of whom cross and re-cross the U.S.-Mexico border.
"Almanac of the Dead," by Leslie Marmon Silko (1991)
Set mainly in Tucson, Arizona, and Mexico, this novel by Laguna Pueblo author Leslie Marmon Silko represents the historical and contemporary relationship of indigenous peoples to U.S. borders.
"Borderline," by Janette Turner Hospital (1985)
The novel by Australian-born writer Janette Turner Hospital fictionalizes the reach of the 1980s sanctuary movement to the U.S.-Canada border.
"El Norte" (Dir. Gregory Nava, 1983, 1985 Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay)
This British-U.S. drama film follows two Mayan siblings, fleeing the Guatemalan civil war, on their journey north through Mexico and across the border to Los Angeles.
"Sin Nombre" (Dir. Cary Joji Fukunaga, 2009, 2009 Sundance Film Festival Excellence in Direction & Excellence in Cinematography)
This U.S.-Mexican thriller represents the journeys of a Mexican gang member trying to escape his dangerous lifestyle and a Honduran girl traveling with her recently deported father through Mexico to the U.S. border.
"Under the Same Moon/La Misma Luna" (Dir. Patricia Riggen, 2009)
This U.S.-Mexican film tells the story of a 9-year old Mexican boy's search for his mother who works undocumented in Los Angeles.
"Which Way Home?" (Dir. Rebecca Cammisa, 2009, 2010 Emmy and 2010 Academy Award nominee)
This U.S. documentary follows unaccompanied Honduran, Mexican and Salvadoran children on their long and treacherous voyage through Mexico to the U.S. border in their quest to unite with family members or to find work to support their families at home.
"The Golden Dream/La Jaula de Oro" (Dir. Diego Quemada-Diez, 2013, Golden Ástor for Best Film, 2013 Mar de Plata International Film Festival)

Based on interviews conducted by the director, this Mexican film tells the stories of four teenagers (three Guatemalan and one Tzotzil-speaking Mexican from Chiapas) on their dangerous journey through Mexico to cross the border into the United States.

[scenicdesign71]

It's been several years since the last time I read the original Fun Home graphic novel, so I've been rereading it in anticipation of the Victory Gardens livestream which starts today and runs through Sunday May 24th.

I've got it in paperback, but when I looked it up on Amazon for a friend who's planning to watch it "with" me (almost 200 blocks apart) next weekend, I discovered that it can currently be read for free on Kindle (which also has an easy web viewer, if you don't have an actual Kindle device and don't feel like downloading either the desktop or mobile Kindle app) by anyone who has Amazon Prime:

https://www.amazon.com/Fun-Home-Tragicomic-Alison-Bechdel-ebook/dp/B00DYEC8MC

And if you don't have Prime, the Kindle version only costs $2.99.  Personally, I find the book well worth owning in paper, but if dead trees just aren't your thing, you can't argue with these prices.

[Leighton]

I'm about a third of a way through 'The Nix', which is utterly gripping, and very moving.

[scenicdesign71]

Scenic geekery: the other day I rediscovered a book that was given to me for Christmas three or four years ago, about turn-of-the-(twentieth-)century scenic art in the opera houses, town halls and granges of (mostly) small-town New England:  a coffee-table book filled with century-old painted show curtains and backdrops that have been restored over the past twenty years by a group of dedicated conservators leading a small army of volunteers.

If you really want to geek out on the conservation process itself, their website includes a half-hour video on the subject that held my inner techie-nerd in rapt fascination (although, fair warning: as someone with experience, in my own not-unrelated line of work, doing lots of things that are recognizably fairly close-ish to -- or at least not-too-far-off-ish from -- many of the processes described here, there were parts of this video where even I got a bit lost trying to follow all the technical details).

I would recommend the book, though, to anyone even vaguely or tangentially interested in the subject (theatre, painting, Americana, ...?).  You don't have to be a geek to appreciate the pretty pictures.

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[DiveMilw]

I haven't read it yet but I did buy it.  The Kindle version of "Rita Moreno: A Memoir" is on sale at Amazon for $1.99.

[KathyB]

I haven't read it yet but I did buy it.  The Kindle version of "Rita Moreno: A Memoir" is on sale at Amazon for $1.99.

Thank you! I bought it also. It's next on my list after I finish the book I'm currently reading (Malibu Rising, by Taylor Jenkins Reid).

[DiveMilw]

I'm currently reading "Midnight Sun" by Ramsey Campbell.  I'm enjoying it although it is taking me a long time to finish it.  

[scenicdesign71]

I was just on the phone with a friend commiserating about how little actual (book-)reading either of us does anymore.  Magazines, newspapers, websites by the acre, but books not so much.

But I recently bought The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the 2003 novel which I may or may not have read back when it first came out (I think I might have, but, almost half a lifetime later, I wouldn't swear to it).  Either way, I'm now (re?)reading it in preparation for a production of the stage version.

It's being done in September at my alma mater, with my friend Kareem guest-directing a mostly-student cast from Tisch's MFA Acting program.  He has brought me in to design projections alongside a group of graduate students from the Design department who are designing the set, costumes and lighting as their thesis project.

Reading the script of the play about a week ago, I was surprised at how sparely-written it felt in comparison with memories of the spectacular NT production, which I had seen twice in its Broadway transfer; on the page, the play feels much more streamlined and linear than it did onstage.  While it hardly qualifies as late-breaking news that there's a huge experiential difference between reading any play and seeing it performed -- and while the original production of Curious Incident was hardly subtle or covert in its elevation of image, sound and movement to at-least-equal footing with the spoken word -- in this case the script really does feel almost like a different work altogether, or, putting it less strongly, like a rough sketch or outline of the play I saw in 2015.  (Our upcoming production is already shaping up along different lines than Marianne Elliott's much-admired original: whatever role projections may end up playing in ours, they won't be animating an otherwise essentially-static empty cube).

The stage script is notable for its fidelity to its source, no minor feat for a story governed so profoundly by its narrator's subjective viewpoint; but, compressed for length and minus the novel's often short, choppy chapters and diagrammatic illustrations, the play feels even more stark, almost skeletal, as a piece of writing.  This suggests that a lot of the show's richness onstage -- the reason it felt so much more lush (which isn't good or bad, just different) than the script reads -- can be attributed to Elliott and her creative team.  (Just as one small example, many abrupt jump-cuts in time and place that felt perfectly natural onstage go entirely, sometimes disorientingly, unacknowledged in the script's dialogue and sparse stage directions -- again, not a good or bad choice, but an interesting one).  It also means that if we're not following the blueprint of the original staging (as it seems we're not), then, even more than with most subsequent productions attempting to rethink an iconic original, we've got our work cut out for us.

Anyway, in the meantime it's been nice reading the original novel (or rereading it, as the case may be), both for clues about the adaptor Simon Stephens's intent, and just for the pleasure of it.

Yay reading!