August 2016 Reading Wrap Up

August was a pretty stellar reading month for me.  I read 12 works in total, although only 11 are pictured below (Lucy Knisley's Something New was already returned to the library).  There was a bit of a mixture of forms this month - novels, short stories, personal essays, a graphic novel, and a play. 

The books I read were:

• Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts 1 & 2 by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne, and John Tiffany (library)
• Human Acts by Han Kang (advanced reader copy - published in the USA 1/2017)
• The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante 
• Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante
• August Folly by Angela Thirkell
• Good Evening Mrs. Craven: The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes by Mollie Panter-Downes
• Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman
• Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris
• Glaciers by Alexis M. Smith
• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
• Something New by Lucy Knisley

"And what did you think of them?" you might ask.  Well, in the future I'll post a review about each book as I finish it, but since this a nascent blog, I'll share my thoughts in a bit more detail.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts 1 & 2 (Scholastic)

This book (play? script? dramatization?) has gotten so much attention and spawned such divisive reactions among the Harry Potter faithful!  I tend to lean on the side of appreciating it for the form that it was, with all the trappings that tag along, but not altogether loving it as a standalone work.  I would certainly not turn down tickets to the production, if they were to present themselves.  Alas, that is not likely to happen.

Human Acts (Hogarth)

This work is a perfect example of something that is brief yet powerful.  Han Kang, with the assistance of translator Deborah Smith, weaves a hauntingly beautiful, historical fiction tale of the Gwangju Uprising in South Korea in 1980.  While there is an Introduction that gives some context to the uprising and the South Korean government's violently brutal response to it, it is the stories of the characters that give it life, breath, and substance. An interconnected narrative of person, time, and location make up the structure of Human Acts, but it is the spirit that lives within that narrative that makes the story so powerful.

The Story of a New Name & Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay (Europa Editions)

These are the second ("New Name") and third ("Leave and Stay") books in Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels quartet.  Continuing where the first novel, My Brilliant Friend, left off, we follow best friends Lila and Elena as they age from their late teens into their early thirties.  There are marriages, separations, births, violence, reconciliations, failures, estrangements, celebration, modernization, successes, and misunderstandings.  Really, it's about life in all of its messiness and joy.

August Folly (Virago)

This was my first experience with Thirkell, and I have to admit that August Folly was my least favorite novel that I read in August.  It's sweet, non-violent, full of small-town drama, and entirely asexual.  In fact, "twee" is a sublimely perfect adjective to describe this story of a small, English village full of kooky and endearing characters.  

There are many interconnected storylines, and a large cast of characters, which makes it somewhat challenging to keep track of who is who. In fact, there are so many infatuations, jealousies, romances, misunderstandings, and stodgy British discourses that it may make your head spin. Some of the subplots felt like they were pulled straight from Pride and Prejudice, including a stand-in for Mr. Collins, called Mr. Moxon.

I am a devout lover of the TV show "Gilmore Girls", and I couldn't help but find similarities between Stars Hollow and Thirkell's village of Worsted.  In both, everyone knows each other and their lives and business, sometimes to an embarrassing extent.  When Stars Hollow hosted the Festival of Living Pictures, it was a dead ringer for Worsted's production of Hippolytus.

Each of the characters has their own follies, and finding out how they are (or are not) resolved is a delight. There are no weighty, worldly subjects brought to bare here. No particularly deep philosophical questions are brought up or answered. Yet, the story is quite enjoyable.

Good Evening Mrs. Craven: The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes (Persephone Books)

This collection of short stories gives readers a sense of everyday life in England during WW2 - how older men, children, wives, mistresses, and others who remained on the Home Front dealt with the fear, loss, and inconveniences of war. All of the 21 stories, in some way, comment on how members of different classes viewed the now-changing structure of English society. 

Whether it's about members of the upper-classes providing shelter to London evacuees during the blitz, household servants who admonish the lack of adherence to pre-war decorum, wives who feel guilt for not minding that their husbands are away at war, frustrated veterans who are too old to participate in this war, or women who have to call their boyfriends' wives covertly in order to get updates on his safety - the author masterfully evokes emotions and insights from the reader. The writing is beautiful and well-crafted. 

While not non-fiction, The Wartime Stories feels authentic and based completely in reality. All you need is a time machine to go back and meet Mr. Craven, the ladies of the local Women's Voluntary Services League, or the housemaid Dossie.  

And let's have a minute to admire the gorgeous endpapers!  From Persephone -
"‘Coupons’, 1941, shows women’s clothes against a repeat of '66', the number of clothes coupons allowed a year during the war, with the number needed per item."

Ex Libris (FSG)

Ex Libris is a celebration of Anne Fadiman's love of books, the written word, and all things literary. And her love is infectious. This collection of 18 hilarious, personal essays cover topics such as combining personal libraries with your partner, proofreading everything everywhere, sexism in the literary/publishing industry, unexpected books you find on another person's bookshelf, book snobbery, and an exploration of the continuum on which different people care for their books. 

My favorite essay, titled "Nothing New Under the Sun", looks at originality and plagiarism in writing throughout the ages. As someone who teaches undergraduate courses, and therefore reads a lot of assignments, I care deeply that authors give credit for ideas when they are not their own. So does Anne Fadiman, who takes great (and humorous) pains to not plagiarize "anything" by incorporating 38 footnotes into her 5-page essay. Footnotes range from the title of her essay (from a Bible verse), to an anecdote about a recipe cooked by an editor (not eaten by the author, but told to her by a friend, so the friend gets a footnote), to conversations that the author had with her husband (the husband gets a footnote). In her aggressive thoroughness, Anne pokes fun at the writing and publishing industry and the frequency with which words, phrases, and more have been plagiarized throughout time immemorial.

Holidays on Ice (Hachette)

David Sedaris is one of my favorite humor writers.  He is gleefully self-deprecating, and unafraid to share embarrassing stories about his friends and family.  This collection of personal essays and short stories focus specifically on holiday gatherings and activities - Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter.  The most well-known of these essays, "Santaland Diaries", recounts episodes from the author's real-life stint working as Crumpet the Elf in a department store's North Pole.  Listen to a reading of the essay on Public Radio here.  Other stories feature neighbors who try to competitively out-decorate and out-charity each other, tardy trick-or-treaters, and the hazards of explaining the concept of the Easter Bunny to a foreign culture.

Glaciers (Tin House)

In Glaciers, the reader follows one day in the life of Isabel, a young woman living in the Pacific Northwest, who works as a damaged books librarian in a local library. We follow her as she wakes up, goes to work, interacts with coworkers, eats her meals, goes shopping for vintage clothes, and attends a literary party. These events are not particularly sensational, but take on new meaning when given context from flashbacks of her past: Growing up in Alaska, experiencing the divorce of her parents, moving to the Pacific Northwest, and cultivating a love of vintage and "forgotten" treasures.

Isabel's most significant relationship to date is with her high school best gay friend Leo, with whom she feels she can share anything. She doesn't have a particularly wide group of friends, and she often prefers the company of her cat to other people. She's almost like a glacier, a hard-packed individual floating in isolation. She secretly pines for one of her coworkers, nicknamed Spoke, and after she finds out a pivotal piece of information about him she has to decide whether or not to act on her feelings, once and for all.

I found this novel to be a delightful, emotionally-charged, and full of beautiful prose. I loved Isabel, and was enchanted with the ways in which the author reveals more of her personality and her past. I was rooting for her throughout, and I really wished that the story was longer, so that I could spend more time with her.

The Underground Railroad (Doubleday Books)

This is an incredible book, pulling no punches about the harshness of life for a dark-skinned person in mid-19th century America. There are moments of joy and comfort, but they are infinitesimal compared to the brutality and overwhelming suffering. Yet, amongst all of the darkness there is a sliver of hope.

After particularly brutal encounters with her Georgia cotton plantation master Terrance Randall, 16 year-old slave Cora agrees to leave the only life she has ever known (with no small peril to herself if caught) and follow fellow slave Caesar away to the Underground Railroad station. For those unfamiliar with the historical Underground Railroad in the USA, read more here.  Only, in this world, it is a literal railroad - a network of tracks and tunnels built under the Earth. There are stations with platforms, and steam trains driven by actual conductors. 

At each station stop, Cora sees a different part of the United States, and symbolically how the nation might be realized as a response to slavery - both sinister and respectable. She bears witness to eugenics, white supremacy, total destruction of the natural environment, police states, and non-consensual medical testing. Even the locations that seem utopian are in actuality just enclaves surrounded by communities who are openly hostile toward dark-skinned people.

Throughout her journey, Cora is constantly pursued by bounty-hunter Ridgeway and his crew, who are notorious for using the most brutal of tactics (any means necessary) to uncover a runaway slave and return "it" (his term) to the master. Because he was unable to locate Cora's mother after her escape, he is maniacally obsessed with finding and returning Cora.

I found the writing to be lyrically beautiful, despite the horrific brutality of the story being told. There were many times where I was so upset that I had to put the book down and walk away. I was often overcome with sadness and anxiety for Cora and her plight. She represents what most slaves could never dream of, let alone experience - the hope of freedom from bondage and equal standing in society. In many ways, this hope is still not realized in America today.

Homegoing (Knopf) 

Homegoing explores the long-term saga of a family tree that stems from a Ghanian woman named Maame. The story really begins with her two children, unknowing half-sisters named Effia and Esi. Through their lineage, the reader experiences the cultural, political, economic, and other changes in both Ghana and America from the 1700's through the 2000's. 

Each chapter follows a different family member in a subsequent generation, alternating between Effia and Esi's sides of the family tree. The chapters are relatively short, and as a result they feel more like vignettes of the characters' lives. Because Yaa Gyasi's writing is so captivating and engrossing, I was left wanting after every chapter. More than once she would use the phrase "and then 10 years went by" (or something similar) and I really, really wanted to know what happened in those 10 years! The writing is that good! This is really a side-criticism, I suppose, because I fully realize that the book I want would be thousands of pages long, or would expand to be an entire series of books. I would read the crap out of that series, however.

Although the writing is very good, the storytelling itself suffers in the later third of the book. As the generations move closer to modern day, it felt more and more like the author had a checklist of major historical and cultural events that she wanted the characters to experiences. As a result, the story itself felt forced at times. There was some redemption from this in the final chapter(s), but overall the first 2/3 of the book were much stronger from a storytelling and character development perspective.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Homegoing, and the story it tells is heartbreaking and hopeful at the same time. I look forward to reading any future works from Yaa Gyasi. 

Something New (First and Second)

 Lucy Knisley's graphic memoir focuses on her engagement to fiance John and their wedding planning process. Throughout, they strive to maintain a sense of authenticity and individuality, in opposition to a wedding industry that favors cookie-cutter conservativeness. The illustrations are beautiful, and the author even includes reproductions of photographs from throughout her engagement and wedding. There is an honesty throughout the story that transcends even the marriage process. It's a beautiful love letter to loving relationships in all their forms.



I look forward to what reading the month of September holds in store!   Until next time.


Librorum annis