How to Introvert

Introvert Doodles: An Illustrated Look at Introvert Life in an Extrovert World
Maureen "Marzi" Wilson
Adams Media, 2016
unpaged


This is a quirky little cartoon book that is a lot of fun and I even learned something from Marzi. In between introverts and extroverts there are ambiverts, who have attributes of both other types. Cool, 'cause that's me! I enjoy people in limited amounts.

Meet Marzi. She's an introvert who often finds herself in awkward situations. Marzi used to feel strange about her introverted tendencies. Not anymore! Now she knows that there are tons of introverts out there just like her--introverts who enjoy peace and quiet, need time alone to recharge their battery, and who prefer staying in with their pet and a good book to awkward social interactions. -Back Cover

 

The drawing style is simple. Some cartoons have lots of text; some only a little bit. Some are very funny; some quite sad. And scattered within the frames is plenty of social wisdom.

 

Marzi has a website IntrovertDoodles, a popular Instagram site @IntrovertDoodles and a Twitter account @IntrovertDoodle. She has also written three other books:

• "Kind of Coping: An Illustrated Look at Life with Anxiety"
• "The Introvert Activity Book: Draw It, Make It, Write It (Because You'd Never Say It Out Loud)"
• "The Little Book of Big Feelings: An Illustrated Exploration of Life's Many Emotions" (Nov. 2019)

Bout of Books Read-a-thon 25

I’m joining the 25th edition of #boutofbooks! It's my fourth Bout of Books and I'm looking forward to a week of reading, reading, reading! Why not join us?

Here's the scoop on Bout of Books:

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly Rubidoux Apple. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01 am Monday, May 13th and runs through Sunday, May 19th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, Twitter chats, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 25 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team

I have 2 books to finish, and 3 others waiting in the wings when I do:

Books to finish:

    "The Bridge of San Luis Rey", Thorton Wilder
    "Shakespeare is Hard But So Is Life", Fintan O'Toole


Books to start:

    "The Prodigal Tongue", Lynne Murphy
    "Essential Encounter", Therese Kuoh-Moukoury
    "Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Parliament", Paul Gallico

Onwards and Upwards, Readers!

Vonnegut on Wealth Inequality

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
Kurt Vonnegut
Dial Press, 1965
275 pages

Another book read for #1965Club. Thanks to Kaggsy and Simon for hosting! I read some Vonnegut back in the 60s and 70s, during and after college, and I remember liking his offbeat vision of the world, especially in light of the large anti-war protests going on then at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Recently I started thinking about reading more of his novels and was pleased to find one from 1965 for the club reading week.

The story centers around Eliot Rosewater, a very wealthy man, and how he handles the funds of his family's tax-sheltering foundation. There's not much to the plot. The book is more about the various characters in the Rosewater family, past and present, plus the impoverished citizens of Rosewater County, Indiana, which is pretty much owned by the family, lock, stock, and barrel.

Eliot, who may or may not be insane for most of the book, gives a lot of philosophical musings/speeches about wealth in America and the plight of the poor. The whole story is farcical, satiric, a bit slapstick, take your pick of adjectives. I found it overblown and too snarky for my taste, and therefore more tedious than funny. It's not that I don't agree with Eliot, I just don't like the tone.

I think it's terrible the way people don't share things in this country. I think it's a heartless government that will let one baby be born owning a big piece of the country, the way I was born, and let another baby be born without owning anything. The least a government could do, it seems to me, is to divide things up fairly among the babies - Eliot Rosewater, page 121

Fifty-four years after Vonnegut wrote it, the book seems extremely relevant to today's world, where wealth inequality is a hot topic for the country. A publisher should re-issue it with a foreword by some current politician, scholar, or activist.

This is my entry for the Back to the Classics 2019 Challenge, in the Twentieth Century Classic category.

#1965 Club: A Classic Police Procedural Novel

Roseanna: a Martin Beck Mystery
Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö
Pantheon Books, 1967 translation by Lois Roth
Swedish original "Roseanna: roman om ett brott", 1965
212 pp.


Mysteries have never been at the top of my reading list. I do like the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series by Canadian author Louise Penny, and when I'm not in the mood for more serious Literature, I have a few cozy mystery series on tap. (Hello, Amelia Peabody!) I think the common thread here is that I like mysteries without a lot of blood and gore, graphic violence, serial killers, or misogynistic violence.

But I needed books for the #1965Club and quickly. So I followed the hashtag and found a few blogs with lists of books published in 1965. One review that caught my eye was for a Swedish police procedural called "Roseanna". As it didn't seem too bloody or dark, I got the Kindle version and plunged into 1960s Sweden.

I really enjoyed this story. The main character is First Detective Inspector Martin Beck of the Swedish National Police, Homicide Bureau. He seems like a very ordinary person, although "There were people who thought that he was the country's most capable examining officer." As such he was called out to a small town where dredging of the navigation channel near the locks had scooped up a naked female body.

The emphasis is on the police procedures as they attempt to solve the murder of the unknown woman, which eventually takes them over six months, all in a rather short book. The language is quite plain, without long passages of description. Conversations between the policemen often consist of short phrases or single words, a very realistic depiction of co-workers communicating. The inevitable government bureaucracy gets in the way. The story is about determined, even obsessed policemen working a difficult case, no heroes in sight. This is most assuredly not an action novel!

Ten books - Ten letters in the character's name

"Roseanna" is the first of 10 Martin Beck mysteries by Sjöwall and Wahlöö, often considered the "godparents of Nordic Noir". The series has greatly influenced writers in Sweden and around the world, especially for police procedural mysteries. Check out the web sites below for more information about the authors and Nordic Noir.


Further Reading

"The couple who invented Nordic Noir"
Maj Sjöwall and her late partner paved the way for Stieg Larsson and Jo Nesbø. Jake Kerridge meets her
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/authorinterviews/11741385/The-couple-who-invented-Nordic-Noir.html


"The queen of crime"
When Maj Sjöwall and her partner Per Wahlöö started writing the Martin Beck detective series in Sweden in the 60s, they little realised that it would change the way we think about policemen for ever
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/nov/22/crime-thriller-maj-sjowall-sweden


"Nordic Noir: Consider this home base for all things Scandinavian crime fiction."
http://crimebythebook.com/expert-witness-nordicnoir

Heading Back to 1965

Today's the start of the #1965Club, presented by Simon at Stuck in a Book and Karen at Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings. They pick out a year and everyone reads and reviews books published during that year. Sounds like fun! Plus since I graduated from high school in 1965, I thought it would be interesting to see what was happening in the wider world as I was being unleashed upon it.

As this was a last-minute decision, I have no idea if any of the books I own are from then, so I have some on order from the Cincinnati Public Library. I've been reading the Mrs. 'Arris series lately, and I see Ada is off to be an MP now. And just yesterday I decided to read and re-read Vonnegut novels, so there's one of his. And I loved Dodie Smith's "I Capture the Castle" so I'll check out another of hers. I'm hoping to finish 2 of them this week.

Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Parliament, Paul Gallico
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, or, Pearls Before Swine, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr
The Town in Bloom, Dodie Smith


UPDATE: After reading a favorable review of another 1965 novel, I've downloaded it to my Kindle! So I'm currently reading Roseanna: a Martin Beck mystery by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. Translated from the Swedish by Lois Roth.