Without Lying Down

Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood by Cari Beauchamp (1997) 475 pages

Years ago I read the historical fiction book The Girls in the Picture by Melanie Benjamin. Fans of that would like this non-fiction book about Frances Marion's full life and career. Also, back in 2017, I borrowed a Mary Pickford movie and the DVD had a documentary with this same title, Without Lying Down. Cari Beauchamp died late last year, so this cinema history book moved up in my list of priorities. The title comes from a quote that Frances, as a highly paid writer in the early days of filmmaking, said, "I've spent my life searching for a man to look up to without lying down." 

I loved the behind the scenes stories of the filmmaking process the most. Frances was mentored by Lois Weber. Befriended Marie Dressler and helped to bring her from the stages of New York to the sets of Hollywood. Her friendship and working relationship with Mary Pickford fills a large section of the book. The cover photo is of the two of them. She also was friends with fellow writers Hedda Hopper and Adela Roger St. Johns. She worked closely with managing producer Irving Thalberg at MGM. Frances often worked on films for W.R. Hearst's company to star Marion Davies. The great love of her life was Fred Thomson, a now forgotten Western star, who died too young. Her hobbies of playing piano and sculpting as well as being a founding member of the Academy and then the Writer's Guild was fascinating too.

Finding Margaret Fuller

Finding Margaret Fuller by Allison Pataki, 395 pages

In the late 1830s, an aspiring writer went to stay at the home of Ralph Waldo Emerson and over the next decade, became a sought after literary critic, founding mother of the women's rights movement, and bestselling author. Yet few today know of Margaret Fuller, who died in 1850 at the age of 40. This book tells her story, from that first visit to Emerson's home through her work becoming a literary critic and foreign correspondent covering Italy's bid for unification. Peppered throughout the book are many literary heavyweights including, Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott (who was a little girl at the time), Nathaniel Hawthorne, George Sand, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

I don't know much about the Transcendentalists, much less Margaret Fuller, but after reading this book, I can honestly say I want to learn more about her. The first half of the book felt very focused on the men around Fuller, which seemed unfortunate for a book about such a fiery feminist, though the second half (which roughly corresponds with when she stopped spending so much time at Emerson's house) finds Fuller finally in the spotlight, and as such, is a much better part of the book. I can only wish that the whole book had been that way, and that I could have heard more about her travels as a single woman (which was very risque at the time). I suppose I'll have to track down some of her own writings to learn more about that.

Every Heart A Doorway

Every Heart a Doorway, Seanan McGuire, 173 pages

Though seriously late in writing this, I did read Seanan McGuire's for last month's book club. I was about twenty pages short of the end when the meeting occurred, but I did find our discussion of choice and how McGuire presents the aftermath of the Narnia Other World trope to be engaging and wonderful. That the children get to live these full, adult lives in one world, and then are just shunted back into reality moments after they left. It is intriguing how the various worlds the children visit are categorized, with different key words to help relate to one another through shared experience, though each world visited, each doorway opened, is different. I really enjoyed the characters Jack and Jill, who had visited a world of gothic horror and Hammer films. I have already picked up the second book in this series, which focuses upon those two characters.

Binti

Binti, Nnedi Okorafor, 98 pages

Binti is just amazing. It's a quick novella, rich in its world without over showing, connecting the reader to Binti, a young woman of the Himba people, who leaves her home and family to study at Oozma University, one of the most prestigious schools in the galaxy. Along the way, her ship is waylaid by a group seeking vengeance against the University, for the callous wrongs committed to them by researchers from the University. Binti must use her wits and diplomacy to navigate the scenario, which is a refreshing change from the ways that science fiction traditionally resolves conflict, with laser sword and plasma bolt. Binti's adherence to her belief and strength of character create an incredibly strong female lead, and I loved the language that Okorafor used to describe the world that Binti lives in.

Artificial Condition

Artificial Condition, Martha Wells, 160 pages

Artificial Condition is the second entry in Martha Wells's Murderbot series, and it is just as wonderful as the first novella. Her prose is quick and snappy, easy to read and enjoy in a sitting or two. Artificial Condition follows Murderbot after it has left the team it was paired with in All Systems Red. Stowing away on a research transport, it hires itself out as a private security agent in order to get to the bottom of the events that led it to hack its governing module, a piece of hardware that should force it to follow human directives and be unaware of the world around it in any capacity beyond that of a security drone. The research transport has an AI that quickly bonds with Murderbot, much to Murderbot's occasional displeasure. The only downside to Wells's work so far has been that I found the ending, much like the first, to come too abruptly. I felt like the novella could use another twenty to thirty pages to wind down. That said, I already have the third one on request from our library.

An Unkindness of Magicians

An Unkindness of Magicians, Kat Howard, 354 pgs

An Unkindness of Magicians was the December Orcs and Aliens book club book, and I unfortunately did not manage to finish it in time for the club meeting. That said, it was a quick read and fast paced. The intrigues of first half of the book keep coming and provide interesting surprises, but the last half of the book feels rushed. It seems to build towards a spectacular magical blow out, with the final action sequences and plot twists feeling underdeveloped and under explained. Howard's world of magicians living in secret in New York city, a society of upper class socialites, has so much potential fodder, and the back biting and politicking of The Turning seems like it could provide a rich opportunity for character development, but then the novel just ends. It did leave me wanting more, and I would like to read a sequel if Howard decides to write one.