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Dear readers, I need to confess something.  I shoulded on my reading buddy.  Yup, on Ashley.  I’m the one with the giants hold list (70 titles) and I shoulded on Ashley about her reading life.  

So, what had happened was, we were having our regularly scheduled meeting to discuss our plans for the next month (now this month).  (During these meetings, we plan our Monday posts about book-related things, our Thursday posts about specific titles, and discuss what other books we are planning to read in the next few weeks, either together or separately.)  During our last meeting, Ashley mentioned she needed a new nonfiction book (y’all, she reads SO. MANY. nonfiction titles) for her miracle morning, as she mentioned in her reading guide for grads.(I hear it works, but it requires more coherence than I have in the mornings).  So I said, oh, I got this.  Y’all, you should have seen the level of side eye she gave me (we were on a video call, so I DID see it).  Like I don’t read or know about non-fiction titles (I know though, not my wheelhouse).  She said some sass, I said some sass, who knows what it was because it was late and we were an hour plus into our meeting.  But, I HAD IT AND I KNEW IT.  (It is also relevant to note that Ashley and I were both in possession of Kindle Unlimited subscriptions and were working on reading from that as exclusively as possible – we’d even just planned the next month’s posts around it, again, this was before we cussed and threw our hands in the air at the beginning of this month.)  When I found it, it was You Learn By Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life by Eleanor Roosevelt.  See, SEE!  Ashley needed some better living, inspiring something for her morning day-setting routine and I HAD IT!  AND I was planning to read it too!  And it was on Anne Bogel’s list of books for graduates, so it was going to be fantastic.  

OR. NOT.  

Remember when we mentioned a slog of a book we planned to share, but didn’t want to share a book we didn’t like?  Hold onto your hats because Ashley is coming for this book and I’m excited for it!  She passionately didn’t like it, while I just plain didn’t like it.  I have apologized for shoulding us into reading it (again I’m sorry and also #blameAnne).  Here’s the thing, we’ve both been reading suggestions from Modern Mrs. Darcy’s Anne Bogel for years.  We read this because she suggested it.  Even though we didn’t like it, we’re still going to read her suggestions.  YEARS worth of fantastic suggestions (including several of our favorites), means that there will be something that just doesn’t land with us occasionally.  It’s statistics, and we don’t expect it to be 100%, sort of like the exception that proves the rule.  As memory (and my favorites lists) serve me, she’s suggested two books that didn’t land with me (this and one other I DNFed), and at least nine of my top favorites for the last three years combined.  Yes, of 15 books, 9 came from this one source, plus many, many others that I thoroughly enjoyed.  

Should we have DNFed (Did Not Finish) this book?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  Sometimes, you hold out hope that it gets better and the cringe worthy pieces will be overcome by gems later on, especially when you are reading this book because of a trustworthy recommendation.  Other times, you want to finish the book so you can know how it ends and berate it later.  And still other times, you decide it’s not worth the time and effort and just put. it. down.  For sweet Eleanor Roosevelt’s You Learn by Living, we went with hoping for the best, and preparing to berate it.  Maybe you’re welcome, maybe if we ever do this again we shouldn’t share with you.  Either way, please share your thoughts and judgement in the comments, as always.  

Ashley has very passionate feelings about this text, so I”m going to leave the bulk of the berating to her, but I do want to say a couple of things.  First, keep in mind the landscape of our society is rapidly changing.  Six months ago, I would have sung the praises of Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven from the rafters as a title for any fiction reader.  Three months ago, I was cringing about it and telling you all not to read it (for the first time, rereaders know what they’re getting into, go for it).  It’s a fabulous book, about what happens during and after a pandemic, so…there’s that.  See, see how that needs a warning label now and it didn’t six months ago?  (The whole pandemic thing is my only hang up dear readers, so if you’re watching “The Hot Zone,” maybe this is the book for you right now.)  Going in, we realize You Learn by Living was at least 50 years old because the cover was the 50th anniversary edition.  That should be a good sign, right because that means 50 years later it’s still in print.  Well, the copyright date is 1960, so 70 years ago, but still, has all that much changed in the last 20 years?  Other than technology, not really from where I sit. 

Here’s the thing, Eleanor was the niece of one president, and the wife of another (her fifth cousin).  She was a debutante in 1902.  The level of wealth and privilege, and many of her “lessons” result from this perspective, and her reflections back on her life when she was 76.  While they may be quite applicable when one has a certain level of wealth and all the perks and responsibilities that comes with it, for the majority of people in modern times, they feel a struggle to relate to, much less implement.  

One more comment on DNFing a title before Ashley really digs into this one.  Sometimes you need someone to should on your reading life and tell you that you should DNF a title.  The other book I didn’t enjoy was historical fiction and set in a location I knew very little about.  The setting captivated me, but I could not bring myself to care at all about the characters.  At 30% or so, I was complaining about these waste of oxygen characters, again, and Ashley asked me why I kept picking up the book.  Well, local book club friends had read it, and it’d heard good things, and I was interested in the setting and the historical aspects, just not the characters.  Y’all, Ashley said the best things – she said, you should DNF that sucker and find something else better with that setting.  Yup, she shoulded on my reading life and it was amazing.  Eventually I did find a title in a very similar setting that I did enjoy, with many characters who I wanted good things for, it just wasn’t that book.  

Dear readers, what’s a title you DNF or perhaps one you did, but only so you could complain about it from a place of full knowledge?

~Nikki

There are so many times that Nikki and I discuss the possibility of DNFing a book. We also constantly discuss our desire to avoid ‘shoulding’ on anything in our lives, particularly our reading life. I don’t necessarily consider Nikki’s suggestion of You Learn By Living as a should. I agreed to the buddy read because we wanted to (ab)use our Kindle Unlimited subscription and it was a recommendation from Anne Bogel. Also, I had never read anything by Eleanor Roosevelt, and I felt that it would behoove me to read something from such a prolific writer and popular figure from our country’s history.  I am about to come down hard on the longest-serving First Lady’s work because it failed to meet the expectations that I had for it knowing her political, diplomatic, and personal history. I will not be reading anything else she has written. I would not recommend this book to be placed on a list for new graduates. There are some satisfying quotations that could be pulled out of the text for uplifting and inspiring young adults, but if you were to read the text in its entirety you get an overwhelming sense of hypocrisy and privilege from the author. Be warned, the following is very quotation heavy and specific to sections of the text rather than the text as a whole, but I’m trying to give the most problematic examples. So, let’s dig in.

The first chapter is entitled “Learning to Learn” and Eleanor has several salient points to wit “the most important ingredients in a child’s education are curiosity, interest, imagination, and a sense of the adventure of life,” and “Education provides the necessary tools, equipment by which we learn how to learn.” These are great! Let’s take these to heart and put them into action in our lives, but then she goes and talks about “rather pathetic letters from young women” asking “how can I educate myself so that I will fit in with my husband’s family and friends? What ought I to learn?” She condescendingly shoulds on these young women who are trying to better themselves by asking someone they respect and admire for advice by suggesting they “read at least a few of the classics, books on history, art, philosophy, biography, some of the best fiction.” She’s basically giving a Eurocentric reading list filled with dead white men with the addition of some contemporary fiction that would have also been deemed ‘the best’ by white men. This is not the view we need to espouse in today’s global culture in order to help broaden the horizons of young people asking our advice on what to read. I understand that the invention of the interwebz has changed our world in dramatic ways since the writing of this book, but I am disappointed in this answer from one of the foremost advocates of the United Nations. We need to learn that though it is still a good idea to have such a liberal arts background, we also need to sample the arts and history of the non-western world. Try from some books in translation and from authors of color.

Oh, and then let’s talk about this quote regarding how French children in Paris are surrounded by great monuments: 

“Later, he will know who Napoleon and Jeanne d’Arc were because he saw their statues every day as he walked to and from the park. He may be more interested in the Guignol, but when he grows up he will have absorbed, unconsciously, the impact and meaning of his surroundings. That is what makes a nation’s culture. The kinds of things with which you surround a child will sink into his consciousness.”

Eleanor is not wrong here. Children will absorb these things into their consciousness so when they are surrounded by memorials to hatred and racial discrimination as part of their ‘nation’s culture’ it is no wonder that systemic racism is still a problem in our country. How can we grow and do better when we have literally placed reminders of that racism on pedestals? Let’s start doing better for our future by dismantling the narrative of our hateful past. Eleanor certainly doesn’t talk about those issues and the privilege that is inherent in a system that allows such monuments to stand without context of how to change and be better. 

And, oh, the questionable things she says about women. Eleanor is known as a proponent of women’s equality and yet still says things like “most women…would agree that meeting the needs of others is not a real burden; it is what makes life worth living. It is probably the deepest satisfaction a woman has.” And also: 

“WOMEN have one advantage over men. Throughout history they have been forced to make adjustments. They have adapted their own personal wishes and ambitions and hopes to those of their husbands, their children, and the requirements of their homes. In the great majority, they have arranged to fit their own interests into a pattern primarily concerned with the interests of others. This has not always been an easy process but the result is that, in most cases, it is less difficult for a woman to adjust to new situations than it is for a man.”

Just. No. Women are more than this and we deserve more than being the facilitators of men’s and little human’s desires. We each have valid needs and wants that need to be respected and accommodated by others. We should not be told it’s alright for us to make ourselves into something less than we are. She gives a very disturbing example of a husband not remembering important dates like anniversaries and family birthdays, which I can only assume is an example of her own life with FDR. “If he neglected to do the things she wanted and had expected of him, it was not because he did not want to make her happy, it was because there was so much else on his mind.” Giving him subtle reminders in the days leading up to the event “was never a reproof or suggestion he had been inadequate.” Except, real talk, he was inadequate and he didn’t want to make her happy because if he knew she enjoyed spending time together on their anniversary then he would have made her desire a priority. This example of a husband is a grown-ass man with access to a calendar for annual reminders. In FDR’s case, he literally had secretaries to help manage his calendar. All he needed to do would have been to request reminders from his secretaries a certain amount of days in advance of the event. It should never be up to a wife to manage her husband’s calendar. He is a grown adult human who made a commitment to another human being in holy matrimony, he can damn well remember the date he took his vows or the date his child was born. Accept the responsibility or bear the consequences.

And oh, the hypocrisy! She begins chapter seven by stating the loss of our individuality is a great danger and in the same chapter goes on to state she believes strongly in social conformity. Pick one thing, please, and stick to it. Though, I suppose she lived her opinions since she refused to divorce and both she and FDR were known to have had extra-marital affairs. And then how she talks about the need to educate our children so that they can become informed members of our democracy [cringe, because we know she knows our government is a democratic republic] and praises the way the Soviets educate their children by giving them no freedom of choice. 

I could, honestly, go on for days and pages, but no one really needs more than what I’ve pointed out here. My overall summary is that this book is unfortunately dated, making it not the timeless advice on living a life filled with learning, but a time capsule of outmoded social norms. We as a society have grown since this was written, and I think we are so much the better for it. The one or three gems of advice are as nothing compared to the overwhelming privilege and condescension inherent in the rest of the words. Please don’t suggest young minds adopt these tenets for living. I will come for you.

~Ashley

We’re struggling with not liking the books we’ve been picking. Will book club be the same? Who knows, but if not, we’d love to berate it with you! Registration is still open for Virtual Book Club at 7:30pm Central Time on Friday 26 June to discuss Deanna Raybourn’s A Curious Beginning (A Veronica Speedwell Mystery Book 1).Also, if you have suggestions of what we should read next for book club, bring them!  We want to hear from those who participate what they’d like to read and discuss!