It seems I have been remiss in updating you regarding my reading habits. Odd as it may seem, given my own internal struggles with the idea of posting book lists, this was not intentional. Also not surprisingly, once I noticed that I had failed to make book posts, I was initially more than willing to just let them remain in the ether. Then I wanted to write about something I had read, and relate it to something I had read previously, except that a previous post only existed in my imagination.
So I suppose today's post is an attempt to rectify that situation, or at least insure that it does not happen again in the future.
May
May was packing month.
Three Reacher novels on the exercise bike, or when my back was sore from packing boxes.
Holy Envy was read twice, because I needed to read it twice to really get the gist of what Barbara Brown Taylor was saying. She manages to be accessible and deep and to subtly explore what we can learn from other's faith and traditions without either belittling them or ourselves, or falling prey to a kind of imperialism of belief.
Olive Kitteridge: I had intended to reread this for a long time, not having liked it much the first time around. I still found it interminably sad. A novel about the way we all hunger for intimacy and connection, but sometimes cannot allow ourselves to experience it. I am glad to have reread it but will not read it again.
The Sense of an Ending: This I loved. That same sense of yearning for intimacy, but deftly explored. A book that seems straightforward, but isn't. Life as we assume it to be, as we remember it, how we perceive it, and the vagaries of memory. You don't really the see the depth until the end, and then you wonder how you missed it all along. Much like life, that -- if one is astute and observant. Barnes pulls off magic here.
Two lives: Linda Ronstadt's life in music with great insight into the process of making of music. Stephanie Land's astute social commentary from a perspective different from a majority of its readers. Maid pushes buttons, MANY buttons, alas.
June
June was moving month.
Lee Child, Alafair Burke and George Simenon offered distraction and easy entertainment on the bike and off.
Rosalind Creasy's Edible Landscaping filled my head with dreams and ideas and helped me refine my own desires.
I found The Road to Character both fascinating and simultaneously frustrating due to sense of whinging about the book that bordered on off-putting. I came close to abandoning it. With time, my feelings have softened because of the ways it has sparked connections between ideas in my head.
Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance is an incredible, moving, and powerful novel. I loved it even though it is often dark, often distressing. Also tender. The majority of the story takes place in India in 1975, during the time of the great emergency, but for all the despair and horror in this book there is also hope and transformation. I emerged from reading it a different person than the one I had been going in. I wish I had written about it. It is worth reading again, not in order to write, but because it has more depths to plumb.
July
I don't really know what happened in July; unpacking perhaps and light reading.
Ruth Reichl reminded me of a time and place and a magazine I loved. Lidia Bastianich reminded me of my own path to becoming a cook and inspired me as I settled into a new kitchen.
The War of Art is about how we sabotage ourselves. It is repetitive, annoying and, as an audiobook, an effective tool to be wielded when one needs a bit of a push.
I found the horses more interesting than the people in Rosalind Belben's Our Horses in Egypt.
I am late to discovering Tana French, an author who seems to write murder mysteries that appeal to those who love literary fiction. The Likeness is enjoyable and thought provoking read that explores the way the choices we make shape the people we become.
August
The month of escapism perhaps. I was in the house, but not settled. I may be paying the price now for the things I could have done but did not. The books were good though.
Six Week Cure... is a good summary of information in the Eades previous books, with notes, but I decided not to keep it on the shelves. I like the links to primary sources. It is not difficult. I have no idea if the diet works as I haven't attempted it.
Salt, Sugar, Fat is a very good exploration of how corporate interests have altered the way we eat and imagine eating. Not necessarily a good study of the implications therein, but there are other books for that.
My Sister the Serial Killer captured my attention from the beginning and held it with smartly written spare prose which walks the perfect line, keeping the poignancy and absurdity in check, while simultaneously hiding and revealing. There is a lot of depth here, but it sneaks up on one from behind.
I read Where'd You Go Bernadette simply because I saw a trailer for the movie. It was a thoroughly enjoyable light read and the author uses humor and satire well in describing the absurdities of modern life as well as our lack of tolerance. Actually the aspect of this novel I enjoyed the most may be the way the author portrays the tyranny of those without imagination. I decided the movie would probably bore me and so haven't seen it.
I got through Nine Perfect Strangers on the bike, but wouldn't read it otherwise. Average.
I couldn't ride the bike reading Where the Crawdads Sing. The nature writing was too poetically beautiful. I enjoyed the novel, although it verged into sappy sentimentalism at times. This suited the story however so I can't consider it a flaw.
David Graeber's Debt is one of the most intellectually enjoyable and thought-provoking books I have read in a long time. Graeber encourages the reader to ask questions, to get beyond the blinders of one's own mind-set. You might not agree with him about everything, nor should you, but he will make you think.
Two books about art: Rackstraw Down's In Relation to the Whole, and Mary Gabriel's Ninth Street Women, which isn't so much about art as the artists and the cultural changes that shaped an art movement, have continued to crop up in my thoughts and understandings. Both are important because they have helped me to see in new ways.
Finis.
