A pile of "real" books teeters at the edge of a table too small to
hold them. Some I got recently for Christmas, others have been
sitting there, waiting for something to happen.
Truth is, I prefer reading books on various electronic devices and
cringe at the thought of propping up, say, Hermione Lee's excellent life of Penelope Fitzgerald (500 pages) although I longed for this
book more than any other. I whip through virtual pages, fighting
with the location and/or page locator, forget to bookmark, then can't remember the author or the title on the vast display provided via
the Kindle app. Still, I persist and whip out the iphone to read in
the supermarket checkout line. So many books, so little time!
For a book group, I read "A Constellation of Vital Phenomena"
by Anthony Marra, an American who spent time in Chechnya and Grozny and by way of some miraculous genius, wrote an impossible, overwhelming novel. Who knows how this kind of thing happens? Senseless, stupid wars and squalor both moral and
physical? What a harrowing read -- so powerful that took a break and read an old P.D. James, just to ground myself.
Back again in the Caucuses during the 1990s into the early 2000s with no resolution to the Chechen conflicts, Marra finds a way
out of the book. Inspired by work of Russian journalist Anna
Politkovskaya, (assassinated presumably for reporting she did from Chechnya) Marra became interested in the region when he was a college student in St. Petersburg.
So I got a book about Politkovskaya and maps of the Caucasus and delved to try to get some sense of the history and background of
this crazy place I knew nothing about. Thank you, Wikipedia.
The next book group book, a paperback this time, is "The Lowland" by Jhumpa Lahiri set in Bangladesh at the time of
partition as it moves from the 1960s, across generations, to the present in Rhode Island. Lahiri often writes about cultures crossing and changing. I always admire her characters and in this book, I especially liked descriptions of lowlands, of grasses and marshes and estaurine study. I didn't love the book but it did lead me into
an exploration of the history of Bangladesh, Pakistan and India
which I wrote down and now can't find.
I downloaded C. P. Snow's "The Light and the Dark" book 2 in
Snow's "Strangers and Brothers" series set at Cambridge during the 1920s and '30s. I will read this for another book group where I will be a guest. Heaven knows how they chose this one. Better they
should have picked "The Man Who Loved China" the brilliant
biography by Simon Winchester of the polymath and nutty Cambridge scientist and explorer, the late, great Joseph Needham.
So that's book groups. Now to the pile on the table: As I said earlier, I look forward to "Penelope Fitzgerald, A Life" by Hermione Lee. I hoped for this book for Christmas and there it
was! How sympathetic: Fitzgerald's great writing career didn't even begin until she was in her '60s.
Also for Christmas: "We Are Not Ourselves" by Matthew Thomas.
I'd heard of this novel but know nothing about it. Family saga. Irish. Set in Queens. 600 pages. Great reviews and on everybody's end of year best of 2014, etc. etc. I plan to read. Good title.
"Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche. Paperback. Bestseller. A novel I've known about but would not have owned
were it not for Christmas. I heard Adiche interviewed on NPR
a while ago and was intrigued by her surreal experience being an African becoming an American with racism and stereotypes in both places. I will read this. Thank you whoever gave it to me. I forget.
Me Before You by Jojo Moyes. I don't know this novel or author but my daughter-in-law says she enjoyed it so I will read it. Paperback.
Gail Godwin's "Evenings at Five" loaned to me by a friend who
thought I'd be touched by the title story. A husband and wife have
their ritual drink every afternoon at 5. He, of course, dies, so this is a sad story. Especially sad because I made Michael a perfect martini -- Absolute Vodka with two cocktail onions -- and delivered it to him (often in bed) at exactly 6 pm. Love and death. Maybe too
close to the bone. We'll see.
"Tracks" by Robyn Davidson is the Australian version of the American Cheryl Strayed's "Wild." Add several camels and a 1,700 mile trek across the Australian desert and you have a companion story: young woman tackles impossible journey, survives (somehow) and the book gets made into a movie. Same setup: meet every peril once: sand storm, bad snake, killing cold and thirst, lost compass, sore feet, sunburn, etc. etc. The Davidson book is surprisingly well written. I did see the movie and it wasn't all that great.
"Pastrix" by Lutheran preacher Nadia Bolz-Weber a tattooed, foul mouthed ex junkie, alkie, and stand-up comic, with perfect qualifications to become an ordained minister and founder of the
"House for all Sinners and Saints" in Denver. What a bold girl!
What a shock to the everyday clerical community Nadia must have been. She is devout, devoted and amazingly hardworking and funny. Her ideas of how religion should go and how church should be certainly resounds. With Nadia, Christianity is alive and well.
"By the Book: Writers on Literature and the Literary Life from the New York Times Book Review" is the kind of collection I enjoy. I love lists. I always want to know what other people are reading. Here is an example: Gary Shteyngart says the best book he has read recently is "Middlemarch." Don't you love it? He says he likes stories where people suffer a lot and says he has a weakness for funny characters who can't shut up. Carl Hiaasen's "Bad Monkey" was his favorite book of 2013 and he read Nabokov's "Pnin" so many times the book no longer has a spine. Oh, and Shteyngart's
own "Super Sad True Love Story" is on my list but so far I don't have it. Maybe just as well.
I've read most of Kate Atkinson's novels, including "Case Histories" and "Started Early, Took my Dog." I got "Life After Life" (500+ pages paperback) for my birthday in December and so far
it sits on the little table. Atkinson says the book is about "being English," but it begins with a young girl killing Adolf Hitler in
the early '30s, so go figure that one. We will see. Maybe if I
have this book alone, when nothing else is around. Desert island, maybe.
"My Own Country" a memoir by Abraham Verghese has been lent by my friend, Sue. She loves this book so I'd better read it. Set in Johnson City, Tennessee, it is the story of AIDS in a conservative community and the work of a dark skinned outsider. Verghese went on to write "Cutting for Stone" and "The Tennis Partner," among others.
For Christmas, between us, Sam and I ordered three copies of
Philip Klay's "Redeployment", a collection of short stories that won the 2014 National Book Award for fiction. Klay is a former Marine
who served in Iraq and people say Klay writes it like it is. I will certainly read this, almost did a week ago. Will send a copy to Roger and Sam will keep his. We've done this before. I get the same thing he gets for me.
Exhausting, isn't it? There is another pile across the room, stacked
up near the TV. Let's skip those at least for now. Happy New Year.
