Mary Gordon

I picked up Spending by Mary Gordon a few weeks ago and one hundred pages in - I am torn with this book - do I like it or do I want to continue reading it? It started out extremely interesting - the idea of a mildly successful contemporary female artist getting a chance to experience having a muse. It is a play on the idea that throughout society male artists have had the advantage of having female muses to fuel their work and make it stronger while women have been historically at a real disadvantage (no male models, drawing from sculptures, no one to clean their brushes, fix their meals, tell them their art is amazing, etc. ). Having recently read the Russell Banks book, a fictional biography on the artist Rockwell Kent - I had a mild look into the life of a male artists. This whole muse concepts seems really old school. I guess I will run along a read a few more pages.

Little Bee

I finished Little Bee by Chris Cleave a few weeks ago. It was a good read that was tough to put down. Before I knew it the book was done. The american design of the cover appeals to me- orange with a black silhouette of a woman with a printed gloss coating. Apparently, the cover design and name of the book was different in the earlier British release. I find that odd. marketing! Without giving away the story - it was enlightening to the matter of suffering and surviving as a refugee.

Today I am reading a Mary Gordon book and a local mystery novel. More on those later.