When our library closed a couple of weeks ago due to the pandemic, some friends went over at the last minute and got a good stack of books to read while sheltering at home. I didn't do that, figuring I'd go electronic and also try to work through at least some of the TBR stack, while recognizing that some books stay on the stack for a reason (i.e., you don't really want to read them). And I have definitely read some losers in March, but there were still highlights!
Fiction
Memory Police, by Yoko Ogawa. Memory Police is an older book (1994) only now available in English. It's an intriguing story of a society where more and more things are disappearing--in reality and in memory. A few people do not lose their memories when the items disappear, and these people are in extreme danger from the Memory Police. So the book's protagonist, a writer, hides her editor, who happens to be one of those people, in her basement. That's just a basic sketch of the book, which is quietly scary and sometimes a tad surreal. Definitely interesting.
Ghost Walls, by Sara Moss. In the north of England, a family whose bus-driving father fancies himself an amateur historian takes its holiday with an anthropology professor and group of grad students who are recreating life in the Iron Age. In enacting ancient cultural practices, weird (and misogynistic) things start happening. Ghost Walls is really more of a novella than a novel and even so, the pacing seems a little off--slow in the beginning, fast at the end. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it.
The Rabbit Series: Rabbit Redux, Rabbit Is Rich, Rabbit at Rest, and Rabbit Remembered, by John Updike. I had read the first Rabbit novel a few years ago and honestly didn't care for it, so I'm not sure why I suddenly decided to work my way through the entire quartet (plus a tag-along novella). As Updike works his way through the decades, Rabbit remains an idiot, as do pretty much all of the other characters. Updike is certainly making a point about the crass nature of American culture, and perhaps at the time the books were written, people were surprised to read these depictions. From the perspective of decades later, I just found the books unpleasant. Rabbit Remembered, which is set after Rabbit's death, is slightly less annoying, as it seems to suggest redemption is possible, but really, if you feel tempted to start the Rabbit series, don't.
Weather, by Jenny Offill. Offill writes in short paragraphs that don't relate directly to the paragraphs before and after. Although taken together, they provide a roughly chronological narrative, it's a very different way of putting together a novel and it conveys a sense that things are falling apart. And that's what's happening to the protagonist, Lizzie, a librarian who takes on a second job answering email, whose marriage is wobbly, and who feels responsible for her unstable brother. I don't think Offill is for everyone, but I enjoy her work (although I think The Dept. of Speculation was better).
The Mars Room, by Rachel Kushner. If you were an Orange Is the New Black fan, you might want to read The Mars Room, which feels much more authentic to me. Romy Hall is a single mother and former exotic dancer on her way to prison to serve two life sentences as the book opens. Her experiences over a number of years, as she navigates prison life and tries to locate her son, are juxtaposed with her backstory, building a totally authentic character. The audio version is narrated by the author in an urgent tone with a peculiar habit of not changing her intonation at the end of sentences. This was curious (and made me wonder if authors reading their own works is really a good idea) but didn't stop me from admiring the book.
Strangers and Cousins, by Leah Hager Cohen. This book recounts events in the several days before a large and somewhat unruly family marries their eldest child to her college girlfriend. Many secrets are being kept--the parents are pregnant and planning to sell the family home, the somewhat demented great-aunt is hiding the fact that she lost a brother in a fire that killed 18 children in the community, and the brides are planning a "pageant" more than a wedding to make a political point. All this is happening against a backdrop of community dissent over potential "take-over" of the town by a Hassidic community. The audio version of this book, too, is narrated by the author, but Cohen has a strangely sweet voice that to me did not match the story. Did not love.
Short Stories
Grand Union, by Zadie Smith
What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, by Helen Oyeyemi
These two collections of short stories were positively reviewed; indeed, one reviewer said What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours was "flawless." Sadly, I didn't enjoy either collection, but I found What Is Yours . . . particularly opaque. I enjoyed a couple of the stories in Grand Union, but overall I wouldn't recommend either collection except for short story aficionados.
Mystery
Shape of Night, by Tess Gerritson. Completely ridiculous (btw: Not a Rizzoli and Isles title).
Tell Me Lies, J. P. Pomare. This was an Audible freebie and, embarrassingly for both me and the author, I can't really remember the book even though it's only been three weeks since I listened to it. So . . ,.
A Death of No Importance, by Mariah Fredericks. This historical mystery set among the nouveau rich in New York City in 1910. The protagonist is a ladies maid--much more intelligent and woke than her employers. A variety of serious social/political topics are touched upon (the book ends with the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire) though they weren't all really well woven into the story. Still, good enough that I would read later titles in the Jane Prescott series if I come across them.
Almost, by Elizabeth Benedict. This isn't exactly a mystery, but I didn't want to dignify it by putting in the Fiction category. There's way too much foreshadowing of a nothing story.
Nonfiction
Know My Name, by Chanel Miller. Everyone should read this book, the account by the victim in the notorious sexual assault case in which the perpetrator, a Stanford swimmer, got a very minor sentence. The greatest insight for me was how multifaceted and long-lasting the effects of the assault were, even though Miller was unable to remember what happened to her at the hands of the perpetrator. It was alarming to me (perhaps particularly as a civic educator) how totally naive Miller was about the court system--for example, she was shocked by the fact that the jury decision had to be unanimous. We are clearly doing a bad job of educating young people about the justice system. I disagree with some of her recommendations--because she feels that the perp lies with impunity in the courts (and other reasons), she argues for cases to be handled by the universities, all while she rightfully excoriates Stanford for their handling of the case. Certainly, we must do better and one way to do that is to talk about important works like Know My Name and Missoula, by Jon Krakauer.
In the Dream House, by Carmen Maria Machado. This memoir is primarily an account of the author's relationship with a psychologically and physically abusive woman. It's beautifully written, very descriptive without going overboard. It's written in the first, second, and third person (which can sometimes get confusing). Even the chapter titles are intriguing, although I didn't always understand them; each was formatted as "The Dream House as . . . " with the phrase finished with terms such as "Prologue," "Perpetual Motion Machine," "Memory Palace," "Time Travel." I listened to the audio version, which was narrated by the author in a very urgent tone with few changes in inflection, which made listening somewhat exhausting. As a white cisgender woman, I had trouble understanding why anyone would be surprised that there is domestic abuse in lesbian relationships--violence clearly cuts across genders, sexuality, socioeconomic status, etc. But Machado helped me understand why those in the community don't want to acknowledge or talk about the problem. Her book should help bring it into the light.
Women Rowing North: Navigating Life's Currents and Flourishing As We Age, by Mary Pipher. The subtitle pretty well sums up the author's purpose, which she addresses through anecdotes and results from interviews she conducted. While Pipher is a psychologist, I didn't feel like she brought that much from her profession to the advice she gives--the book is more common sense than anything else. I felt like any intelligent woman in our age bracket [60s and 70s] could have written the book based on their own experiences. However, the book has been popular--my sister and a friend have really enjoyed it, so maybe I'm wrong.
Eat, Pray, Love Made Me Do It. I wasn't a big fan of Eat, Pray, Love and this book didn't really move me, but the idea of the book did--it's a collection of short pieces by people who were motivated to change their lives by reading Eat, Pray, Love. Books/words are powerful!
Miss American Pie, by Margaret Sartor. The bulk of this book is the author's diary, written when she was a teenager growing up in Louisiana. It's mostly as mundane as you might expect, but it did remind me that nearly everyone is insecure at that age--and probably at every age. And, the young Margaret did have a sense of humor.
Favorite passage:
It seems to me that most boys are born stupid.
Margaret Sartor, Miss American Pie
