Spring, Silent, Smelly and Otherwise

I spent the first half of International Women's Day horrified that not only did my students know nothing of women ecologists, which I had expected, but they also knew nothing of Rachel Carson (or Silent Spring, or DDT, or the EPA or Richard Nixon).  I spent the second half of the day sheepishly confessing that I had never read Silent Spring to several colleagues who sheepishly admitted the same.

March 7

We're going to change that.  Let me know if you want to be part of the Silent Spring read-along.  I have two "in real life" colleagues allegedly joining me, and we'd love to have you as well.  The format will be loose, but I'll be hosting discussions here, and welcoming anyone else who'd like to join.  Comment on how you'd like to participate.

March 8

Meanwhile, with a few set-backs (Spring Break is always cold.), spring is well on its way here.  The two foot peach tree is finishing its glorious run (see photos).  We've been harvesting asparagus, the lilacs are fragrant and wonderful, the fabulous scent of the golden/clove/buffalo currants is wafting in through the open window and the tulips popped up out of nowhere and bloomed yesterday (March 21).  Mockingbirds are fighting over territory and some trees have leaves that didn't have them yesterday.

Match 9

March 10

March 12

March 15

March 16

Good Omens for Lucky STIR

Intrigued by a meta analysis of best books (13 top 100 list condensed into one), Janet and I chose Good Omens (#316) by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman to read for August STIR.  That it has a lucky title is just bonus.
I laughed in bed at the list of characters.  Join us if you will.
If you'd like my thoughts on other recent reads: Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White (#118), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (#40), the first three Louise Penny Novels*, or The Language of Flowers, let me know.
It also looks like I will never get around to reviewing One Fifth Avenue (Candace Bushnell), The Hobbit, the other Jennifer Crusie books I've read, Marcus Samuelson's Yes, Chef, the newest Robin McKinley (Peagasus, which is in dire need of the second half of the story, to be released 2014), the Nora Ephron books, Betty Friedan's memoirs or much of anything else I've read in the last year.  I'd be happy to discuss if you ask questions.

*Abbreviated thought: you should read them.

STIR Flowers and Other Fun

SalSis and I are reading Vanessa Diffenbaugh's The Language of Flowers (found here on Amazon) for STIR for April.  I know nothing about it, except that the novel kept getting mentioned when I was searching for Victorian Language of Flowers information for a class recently and a facebook friend stayed up all night reading it the same week.  I just purchased it and it looks good.  Let me know if you are interested.
Krista and I will be reading Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White one of these times.  It's a crazy plot twisted Victorian thriller and I am much looking forward to it.  Again, let me know if you are in.
Soon, I will be offering up a notice that My Mother was correct and Louise Penny is excellent and I'm so angry at all of you for not mentioning her before, but I can't write about that now because I have 40 pages left in the book (and another one to start right after that).

"They'll be scary ghost stories"

I read two ghost stories last week (Author's note:  last week was Dec. 20 as of when I was first typing this).  Like most Americans, I don't think that Christmas is the season of ghost stories (see discussion in the comments of Wuthering Expectations here about cultural seasonality of ghost stories) so every time I sing along with Andy Williams  I wonder about the scary ghost stories I should expect along with "kids jingle belling" and "marshmallows for roasting" (at Christmastime?  Really?) during this most wonderful time of the year.  I also don't particularly like ghost stories, so I was surprised to find myself reading two of them in the week before Christmas.
A Christmas Carol, is, of course THE Christmas ghost story.  I had not read the original before and was pleased to find that it is fabulous.  Readers who find Victorian novelists in general, and Dickens in particular, to be cumbersome and intimidating, aren't thinking of the opening of A Christmas Carol:

Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. . . .

Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade.

Haven't you wondered what is dead about a door nail?

Dickens includes delectable (and unintimidating) descriptions of the produce and sweets.  The action moves at a good clip.  And while some readers might find it manipulative, I find it an indicator of good writing that tiny Tim's death made me cry because of the the way it changed his father's gait; even though I knew that Scrooge would reform and Tim would not die in the actual, rather than potential, future. 
If you've read A Christmas Carol recently, I'd love to discuss it with you, and it you haven't, you really should (although if I were you I'd wait another year because there is something special about reading it at the right time of the year).  Let me know.
As for the other ghost story: it was Jennifer Crusie's Maybe This Time, and it stunned me.  Crusie writes some of my favorite romantic comedies (I love lit professor Rohan Maitzen's explanation of why she enjoyed some of Crusie's novels despite not being a "romance reader").  All of them include quirky characters, who are rarely conventionally beautiful, living in Ohio.  Some of the more recent ones include some mystery or crime investigation, which is always secondary to the relationships.  None of the others have included ghosts.
Maybe This Time included hints of ghosts from the beginning, but I kept waiting for the big reveal.  As the action proceeded I became increasingly afraid that Crusie would totally Scoobie Do it: we'd suddenly realize it was just projectors, mirrors and an overuse of salvia, but equally worried with the alternative: that the ghosts in the story are really ghosts.  About ten pages from the end (despite the ghosts, it is a fun, fast read), I looked up and told The Mister, "There are ghosts in my book."  I couldn't quite believe it.  The Mister guessed I had to be talking about A Christmas Carol because the library romantic comedy I was holding in my hand clearly didn't have ghosts.  But it did.
As I look into it, I learn that Maybe This Time is based on The Turn of the Screw but, as I have never read any Henry James, I was completely unaware.  MTT would probably be a fun read for the person who is a fan of Henry James the way I am a fan of Jane Austen:  enjoying both the original and the sometimes silly derivatives.

Books, kids, flowers, recipes and vinegar all to come soon.  Stay tuned to Sparkling Squirrel!

STIR up some ghosts

New: We're going to be reading "A Christmas Carol" for the December STIR.  Like many of you, I have seen many productions of this, but I am not sure if I have actually read the original Charles Dickens text.  So, let's read and discuss.  Sure, I know we're in the midst of holiday craziness and finals time but A Christmas Carol* is short, it is timely, it is good, and it is widely available for free (including on several forms through Project Gutenberg here).  Grab, borrow, or download yourself a copy and we'll start discussing on Dec. 20th.

Newish:  We're going to be reading Kenneth Miller's Finding Darwin's God for January at the request of one of my students who wants to discuss.

Sorta Random: Has anyone made vinegar, sauerkraut or kimchee?

Old: I had the good fortune to see Janet and skype with Brenda recently.  Janet and I discussed July's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and concluded that Tom Wolfe was fantastic at re-creating the scene, but that we were overall satisfied to be done with that scene (both in the book and satisfied that it wasn't part of our life).  Brenda and I each had issues with verisimilitude in Diary of Marie Landry.  The book is allegedly the diary of a 14-year old.  I didn't believe that her English would be quite that good and thought that the diary device was overall unnecessary.  Brenda didn't believe that Marie would whine so little and be so repentant when she did whine.  Brenda was also waiting for some sexual tension or growing up issues.

*Novel or short story?  To italicize or quote?

New STIR: Diary of Marie Landry

If you've been thinking, "Gee, I would really like to read a short new YA historical novel about the plight of the Acadians after being kicked out of Nova Scotia written by A woman from New Orleans with some connection to the University of Lome in Togo," now's your chance.  If you haven't been thinking that, here's your chance to think that and then read and discuss it.
The new STIR selection is The Diary of Marie Landry: Acadian Exile by Stacy Demoran Albritton.  Brenda, who lives in Lome, Togo, is the selector of this work, based on some connection to the author or illustrator or translator (I'll admit I've forgotten).
The book is short, moving and an easy-read.  Neither the writing nor the story is fantastic; it feels a bit like reading a junior high "history made personal" assignment, but altogether it is solid.
I think both mothers would enjoy it, as well as Beth as many others.
Please join us!
Kenneth Miller's Finding Darwin's God it is on for January if I can find someone to read it with me (I'm reading it because one of my students couldn't put it down, but very much wants to discuss) and I think we'll do A Christmas Carol later in December.

STIR Next?

Compared to 2011, I've done a very poor job of organizing STIR this year.   Good books have been read (The City and the Mountains, The Hunger Games, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest [albeit not read by me] and The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test) and interesting discussions have been had (Janet, I am really going to call you because we have lots of say about E. Kool Aid), but I didn't formalize a schedule and I didn't contact an up-and-coming writing to join the discussion.  And I've completely forgotten who wanted to be the next selecters.
Let me know if it was you, or if it wasn't you but you want it to be you.

Bacteria Good: Tripping Bad

 As I've previously mentioned, sometimes the universe shouts a message to me through sheer repetition (I'm sure many political advertisers shout through repeition as well, if only I lived in a contested state and watched television).
From reading The Elecric Kool-Aid Acid Test and dooce.com, being awakened by my children, and from looking at photos of celebrity fashion "don'ts", it is clear to me that I should never do acid*.  Heather Armstrong of Dooce likened the experience of child-caused-sleep deprivation to an acid trip (although, like me, she has no first hand experience with the latter) which concurs with Tom Wolfe's description.  It makes me wonder why anybody would ever intentionally enter that state, especially knowing that it could sneak up on them unawares later in life.  Message received, universe.  I'll stay away from those guys hanging out around the playground and their stickers**.
When The Wall Street Journal, Parents Magazine, Conservation Magazine, Best Science Writing 2011, and The Art of Fermentation all, within a week, instruct that bacteria can be beneficial, how could I ignore the message?  I must surely breast feed my baby, allow my children to get dirty, refrain from germaphobic sanitizing, and not take antibiotics uncessesarily.  Okay, I already do all of those things.  Why is the universe telling me this now?
Maybe the prompter the universe hired to give me personal messages is on vacation and we're into reruns for August?

By the way, Janet and I are discussing lots about Electric Kool Aid.  If you read it and want to join us, please let me know.

*Even though my attractiveness went way up to a friend of a friend when he learned I'm into acid this year and plummeted when he learned that it's "not that kind of acid".

**Was anyone else instructed in elementary school to stay away from unknown adults encouraging you to lick stickers because they might have LSD on them?  I was.  The Mister thinks this is crazy.  He does have a point.  While I know that LSD can make people do weird things, I'm pretty sure going a long way out of the way to give away acid to third graders was not high on most of their lists.

A little acid to brighten up STIR

The thing about acid is that, in the right dose, it can brighten up any dish.

My summer reading needs a bit of brightening.  I carried One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,  the May/June STIR book around for weeks.  I finally sat down to read it.  I managed five pages before deciding it was too depressing for me now (that statement may cause my  Brother in Law to shake his head sadly and wonder just how "lite" I need my reading to be, and many others of you to shake your heads because it is a great book*). So I picked up The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.  My Mother had given it to me for my birthday and, to me, it has the title of a quirky book (and a star one at that).  I was two pages in before I fully realized I had traded cruel treatment in a mental institution for teenagers with terminal cancer.  Terminal cancer won.
The Fault in Our Stars suffers a bit from a Juno complex (the teenagers are way too witty for their own good), but is generally fabulous-- if you are into romantic comedies about teenagers about to die.  I highly recommend it for a lot of my reading audience.  There's also a fabulous champagne scene tying stars to sparkling wine (using the alleged Dom Perignon quote, "Come quickly! I am drinking the stars!"), a few sucker punches plot-wise, and a lot to think about (teenage cancer patients being more worried about their what happens to their parents after they die than about their own fates, for instance).
In any case, Janet, was here over the weekend (hooray for friends who visit!) and we decided I needed an "acid" book this year.  Janet and I like to read "recent classics" (Graham Greene last year, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Faulkner were under consideration for this year).  So, even though it is officially off-limits for being officially non-fiction, the July STIR selection is The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe.  Acid! Classic! and with references to the author of the book I didn't read.  Join us if you'd like.

Speaking of STIR books, I realized two from last fall were mostly overlooked during the Juno's Daughters craziness.  I still highly recommend, and would still like to more discuss The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.  The former is a short novel with a masterful building of tension, the latter an account of where cells we research really came from.

Other books I've recently read (recently being the first half of the year):  The Lacuna: Barbara Kingsolver's latest novel I found super-engrossing for the first half (Mom needs to read it) and good for the second half.  The first was one of the best half of a book I've read in a long time.   What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell which was perhaps a bit more entertaining than Outliers because, as a collection of articles, it has less of a point and a more interesting range.  NutureShock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman: a scary evidence-based book about child behavior that explains how we are doing it all wrong.    Highland Fling: a romantic comedy by Katie Fforde. I enjoy Fforde because her characters are always not-gorgeous, working, and more often than not, gardening and that was true of this one as well, but I liked Wild Designs and Second Thyme Around.  Toss the Bride by Jennifer Manske Fenske: fun, but not as well-written as those by Fforde or Jennifer Crusie.  Bet Me: one of my new favorites from the aforementioned Crusie.

*If you read One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, let me know and I'll try to set up a discussion with Debbie, the book's selector. And maybe me. Someday,

Cuckoo STIR Soon

Some day, say, tomorrow, I will turn in my grades and then someday, after more meetings and graduation and stuff and stuff and stuff, say Friday or next week, I will post the rest of the Hunger Games discussion, videos of my sons sledding (yes, that happened in December) and giggling, new garden images, and questions about acid and Easter egg dye.
As of now, that time still feels like the far-distant-future.  So I write briefly to alert you that the next STIR selection is One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, suggest by Debbie.
Join us as we join NPR (??) and the 50th Anniversary Read-Along.

Hunger Comparisons

When I've had conversations about the Hunger Games*, other works similar to (or not similar to) the series have always been part of the conversation.  While certainly not unusual for me to make comparisons, I find it striking that I always do with Hunger Games.  I never felt compelled to describe Harry Potter as combination of Chronicles of Narnia, A Separate Peace and Star Wars, at least not until right now, but very few Hunger Games conversations did not include mention of The Lord of The Flies, "The Lottery", Star Wars, Spartacus, The Truman Show, "The Most Dangerous Game", Nineteen Eighty-Four, or Survivor.
So I'll kick off the Hunger Games discussion with a few questions:
1) Have you made comparisons of the Hunger Games with other works?  If so, with what?
2) Which of the above have you read or seen?
3) Why do you think this work elicits so many comparisons?
4) What else do you want to talk about regarding Hunger Games?

Next big discussion point: The ick factor.  How hard is it to get past the idea that you are reading, for pleasure, a violent work which has a point that violence should not be entertainment?

Hungry Books

The ethereal oranges mentioned in the earlier post are just one of the foods mentioned in The City and the Mountains. That AR and I both selected the orange passage for our blogs is more telling about our knowledge of each other than the writing of Eca de Queiros. I'm into creative cooking of all forms, including wanting to try real molecular gastronomy (I would have loved to dine at El Bulli, for instance, and would seriously consider wd-50 for my fantasy weekend of food in NYC*) and AR is into mocking fancy food**.

In another post, or at least a post in my mind, I will write about the various kinds of things I don't know how to read, and what that means. I very much enjoyed The City and the Mountains, but felt I was missing a great deal because I know so little. So little about Portuguese history, so little about Portuguese literature, so little about the times, that I didn't really know when I was being made fun of. In the novel, Paris is Civilization and Civilization is soulless, at best. The Mountains (of Portugal) have their own issues, but the air is clean, the work is meaningful and the food is satisfying.
Perhaps, because, unlike AR, I have no experience with soul-satisfying food in Portugal, or perhaps because one of the wonderful moments of my life was an extravagant dinner in Paris (in 1984***) of the sort that a modern Eca de Quieros would mock (roster kidneys! pigeon! bitter chocolate souffle!). So I'm not sure the point really resonated with me.

Anyway, interestingly, The City and the Mountains did not make me hungry while reading it. Scant food though there is in The Hunger Games (and Catching Fire, and Mockingjay) the food there is makes me want to eat. I want to eat the breads of all the districts. I want to eat the cookie Katniss tosses aside. I hear of roast birds and lamb stew and I just plain want to eat.

So yes, Hunger Games discussion on for sometime soon. It feels weird to be on-trend. Janet, don't worry about the deadline. It will go fast. One of these times I'm going to contact my cousin who gave me the book and tell her she's starting a discussion.

In the meantime, what do you know about Portuguese food, what books make you hungry and what you want to discuss concerning The Hunger Games.

*But I want to eat at Le Bernardin, pretty much anything Momofuku group, the Red Rooster and a whole bunch of ethnic restaurants, to name just a few.

**He might actually be a bigger foodie than I am, but he is the post-fine dining kind of foodie that is really into perfect fried chicken and restaurants of the least ambiance. I very much enjoy the perfect local burger and street food and soul food, but I also like dining as theater and sniffing corks makes me foolishly happy.

*** I figured out that my mother had just turned 39 on this month-long Europe trip. My parents were such adults at my age. I'm so far behind on so many life experiences, but it pleases me to think about how many great meals my parents have eaten since that pivotal summer and how many more opportunities I could have.

But those were my quotes!

Over at Wuthering Expectations, Amateur Reader has started our discussion of The City and the Mountains by Eça de Queirós.
I've been reading this Portuguese STIR novel differently than I read most novels. First, I have read it in ridiculously small chunks (not due to any particular characteristic of the book, but because of the set up of my life and the age of my child who has become an efficient breast-feeder). Secondly, I have been marking specific passages to have something to discuss with AR.
If one reads Wuthering Expectations at all, one quickly notices that AR writes about the actual text. Surprisingly, a focus on the author's sentences is not the norm among book bloggers. Actually, if you've been in a typical book club, this is not surprising at all. How much we liked the book, what it reminded us of, what we liked better, what we are going to eat, what we are going to read next. . . this is what my book club actually talked about. The writing of the book in front of us, not nearly as much.
So I started marking passages in The City and the Mountain.
I marked a passage that reminds me of most modern offices:

From the foot of [Jacinto’s] desk, soft, fat cable snaked over the carpet,
scurrying into the shadows like startled cobras. On a bench, and reflected
in its varnished surface as if in the water of a well, stood a Writing
Machine, and further off a vast Adding Machine, with rows of holes from
which protruded stiff, metal numbers, patiently waiting. (21)

And a passage that deals with food:

And for dessert, iced oranges in ether.
“Why in ether, Jacinto?”
My friend hesitated and made a rippling gesture with his fingers as of an aroma being wafted away.“It’s a new thing. Apparently the ether develops and brings
out the soul of the fruit.” (28)

And everything I typed after this disappeared. Hmmmm. Who is in for The Hunger Games, by the way?

STIR up your reading, 2012

During the second half of 2011, I read 2 or 3 (or 4 or 5) books a week. I've read none in the last six weeks.
Whoah. I never read no books.
I don't even have one in progress that I'm not liking which is slowing me down. I've just not been reading.
But that is changing.
STIR 2012 is here.
Once again, each month or so one of my friends will be picking a book that she or he wants to read and thinks I would like*, promoting that book in advance on my blog so other friends can join, discussing it with me (in person, over the phone or electronically) and allowing me to share the discussion.
I'm also hoping to have another author involved with our discussion, as happened with Juno's Daughters, but lined up in advance and happening over the summer.
What to do now: 1) pick a month is you want to be a selector
2) check out the February(ish) and March selections and read them if you'd like.
3) think if you know of an author who would like us to read her or his work and would be willing to discuss it with us.

February: The City and the Mountains by Eça de Queirós (read up on other works by Eça de Queirós here on Wuthering Expectations as part of the Portuguese Literature Challenge). My copy, translated by Margaret Jull Costa, was a Christmas gift from MBiL, with whom I will be discussing it.
March: The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins Everybody is reading it, why don't we? My kind cousin sent me the trilogy for Christmas. Read the story before the movie

Summary of 2011 to come someday in the meantime, links here.

*Fiction, under 500 pages, no horror. We laugh about how well our students read directions, but fewer than half of the selections in 2011 met these criteria.

Juno's: Associations and Extensions

If your book club(s) have been anything like my past book club, most of the interesting conversation is only tangentially associated with the book. We found ourselves discussing travel, other books and memories the book triggered.
Here's the place to post thoughts triggered by Juno's Daughters but not actually about Juno's Daughters.
JD reminded my mother and me of A Valley in Italy because of similar parenting styles. However, A Valley in Italy was memoir (note to SalSis-- JD is not!) and the author had not suffered the consequences of her laissez faire parenting, or grown, as Jenny had (or at least she did not think that her daughter running off to Paris and getting married at 17 while she [the mother] was pregnant in her 3rd or 4th child-producing relationship was suffering a consequence of her parenting style).
One friend was reminded of a multi-day party we attend every summer with a band and a gathering of wanna-be-hippie types (note to Mom and Prairie Quilter-- we do not run around naked at such party, nor do we indulge in toothpicked brownies [but we are aging enough that the food is typically excellent]).
I was reminded of Prospero's Books (based on The Tempest), Feast of Love (based on A Midsummer's Night Dream, but I did not know MSND well enough to recognize it), 10 Things I Hate About You (the Heath Ledger movie, based on Taming of the Shrew), Snow Falling on Cedars (takes place in the same part of the world, but in a very very different time and under very very different circumstances) and various travels to islands (in Puget Sound and in Scotland).

Juno's Questions for Other Readers

E-mail me the questions you'd like to ask the other readers of Juno's Daughters and I will add them here.

1. Do you think your response to the book would be different if you had a different set of familial relationships? (e.g. I have no sisters, am the mother of 2 boys, and both my parents [married to each other] have been a stable and positive force in my life. Some aspects of the book just felt bizzaro to me, but might not have if I had a trying relationship with a sister or my mother was younger and struggling alone as I was growing up).
   

Juno's Questions FOR the Author

E-mail me your questions for Lise Saffran, author of Juno's Daughters, and I will post them here.

1. What was your relationship with The Tempest before you started Juno's Daughters? Had you been wanting to work with Shakespeare or The Tempest in particular? [SpSq note: this is partially already answered in a comment on the "Overall Impressions" post].
2. In novels about novelists there is always this moment when the characters take on lives of their own, outside of the writer's control. Is this a reality for you? As you were writing JD were there times when you felt you were just recording actions of characters rather than manipulating words?
3. Did you consider making Lilly 18 so there would have been less of an "ick" factor?
4. My cover blurb mentions that Juno's daughter is part "Led Zeppelin" anthem. I'm not a big Zeppelin fan, so I missed the references. Can you elucidate?
   
5. How do you balance your other job, writing at the creation stage, writing at the editing, revising and promoting stage, being part of your family and being "yourself" (i.e. someone neither defined by her occupations or family roles).

Juno's "Final Reflection" Questions from the Author

Comment on the questions posed by author Lise Saffran's after completing Juno's Daughters:

1) What was your first impression of Jenny and Lilly's "competition" over Trinculo? Did your feelings about it change as the book progressed and the stakes became higher?

2) Do you think Jenny was right to go see Monroe without Lilly? Do you think she had closure after meeting with him? Do you think he'd changed from the monster he was when she left him? (What about their meeting hinted at his maturation, or his lack of maturation?)

3) Were you satisfied with the end of the novel? Discuss in particular the significance of Jenny and Frankie's conversation about Monroe, and Frankie's quotation of Love's Labour's Lost. How is the last paragraph especially relevant to the theme or themes of the book?

4) How did you feel about the elements of "artifice" in the novel (the middle-chapter-as-play, the previously-mentioned changing character names) by the time you got to the end? What effect did you think those elements had on your reading of the novel?

Juno's "While Reading" Questions From the Author

Comment with answers to Lise Saffran's questions to be considered while reading Juno's Daughters:
) How much do you believe that Jenny's own relationship with her sister and her mother play into her parenting? Similarly, what do you think of Jenny's approach to parenting and does your opinion change as you move through the book?

2) Think about the depiction of small-town, hippie life on San Juan Island—what about the dynamic of its residents do you find endearing? Do anything about their life seem claustrophobic or limiting? Would you wish to live in a place like this?

3) How do you find yourself reacting to the fact that the visiting actors are known (at least until the end) by the names of the roles they play in The Tempest? Do you find it distracting, or does it serve to underscore the insider/outsider dynamic of island life?

4) If you were unfamiliar with The Tempest, are you finding that the novel gives you enough of the play as you go along to understand the interplay between the two stories? If you were familiar with The Tempest, were you expecting Juno's Daughter's to more directly echo the plot of the play?

Juno's Overall Impressions

Comment on any general thoughts on Juno's Daughters here.