Often, when everyone I know has read and loved a book, I don't care for it all that much when I finally get around to reading it (it's hard to live up to high expectations). Such was not the case with The Library Book by Susan Orleans, which I thoroughly enjoyed. (I am currently reading and loving another book everyone else read years ago--but that's for next month.) The rest of my August reading was mostly uninspiring.
Fiction
A Beginning at the End, by Mike Chen. This timely book deals with the aftermath of a deadly flu pandemic. Society is trying to relaunch, but the post-pandemic challenges and restrictions make life difficult for people. The book's main characters include Rob, a father who has not told her that her mother died during the pandemic (she thinks her mother remains in treatment); when the daughter acts out in school, social service agencies get involved in Rob's life. Moira is a young woman who was a pop sensation controlled by her father before the pandemic but used the pandemonium when the pandemic started to escape; now, her father is trying to find her (to use her for his own purposes). Moira is planning to get married, but knows things aren't right with her relationship; meanwhile wedding/event planner Krista tries to talk her into getting married, because Krista needs the money. The book is definitely more about relationships and honesty than a post-apocalyptic story--one reviewer criticized it for not being Station Eleven. It's definitely not Station Eleven -- Station Eleven is a marvel -- but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
The Last Cruise, by Kate Christensen. A motley crew of folks head out on the final cruise of a vintage ocean liner. The story focuses on three characters--a former journalist who is now a somewhat unhappy farmer in Maine, a sous-chef, and the only female member of an Israeli string quartet (which also includes her ex-husband and a man she has secretly longed for for many years). I, being a wanna-be foodie, enjoyed the parts about cooking on the ship--especially after things started to go wrong, and they went wrong in pretty much every way you can imagine. If you like to cruise, you might not want to read this book because it could possibly change your vacation plans forever. But I found it entertaining.
Mysteries
The Janes, by Louisa Luna. This was my second Luna mystery featuring bounty hunter Alice Vega and her sidekick Max Caplan. It deals with a current hot topic--sex trafficking of young women--but involves so many double crosses and red herrings that I became somewhat annoyed. I'm debating whether to give up on Luna. If you don't think I should, I'd be interested in your arguments!
Nonfiction
The Library Book, by Susan Orlean. If you are one of the few people who hasn't read this book, it's ostensibly the story of the devastating fire at the central Los Angeles Library in 1986. And it's that--exploring the dynamics of the fire, its aftermath (including the technology by which books were revitalized), and the investigation into who set the fire. But it's so much more--it's a history of libraries and their role in the community; a love song to books, libraries, and librarians; and a memoir of the author's relationship to libraries at various phases of her life (and I love a good personal library story). It's a truly wonderful book!
Whose Story Is It? by Rebecca Solnit. Solnit is widely admired as a feminist essayist. I agree with her wholeheartedly on almost all of her points--in this book she focuses on whose story/voice is privileged and whose is not--and yet I just don't find myself terribly engaged by her work. In fact, I fell asleep twice while listening to the audio version of Whose Story Is It? Yet I resonated to some of her ideas (see Favorite Passages below). Maybe I am too old and tired to concentrate long on deep thinking--so I'll recommend the book for those with greater focus!
I Need to Rant
So Elin Hildebrand is a popular "beach read" author. I had seen a recommendation for her book 28 Summers somewhere and decided I should read it instead of diverting myself with another bad mystery. First of all, the book is excessively derivative of the old movie Same Time Next Year, to the point that between chapters on each year there's a pastiche of "what we were talking about in 199_," similar to the visual montages in the movie (to be fair, she acknowledges the debt to the movie). What's so infuriating though is there was no actual reason for the couple in the book not to be together. The first year they were together, they weren't married to anyone else and, though the dude had an off-and-on girlfriend, he knew she was wrong for him. Yet he marries her, despite of being in love with someone else. The female character never marries and then dies relatively young. I mean, how retrograde (if not misogynistic) is that! Plus the ending is corny. Ugh, ugh, ugh.
Also Read
The Last Trial, by Scott Turow. (Sorry--I liked Turow's earlier work, but a case about insider trading and regulations governing drug testing just wasn't very interesting to me.)
Girls Like Us, by Cristina Alger
Trust Me, by Hank Phillippi Ryan
Fallen and The Kept Woman, by Karin Slaughter
The Herd and The Lost Night, by Andrea Bartz (I fear this author doesn't really like women very much)
Something She's Not Telling Us, by Darcey Bell
The Last Book Party, by Karen Dukess
Favorite Passages
The unexamined life is not worth living, as the aphorism goes, but perhaps an honorable and informed life requires examining others' lives, not just one's own. Perhaps we do not know ourselves unless we know others. And if we do, we know that nobody is nobody.
Comfort is often a code word for the right to be unaware.
Rebecca Solnit, Whose Story Is This?
In Senegal, the polite expression for saying someone died is to say his or her library has burned. When I first heard the phrase, I didn't understand it, but over time I came to realize it was perfect. Our minds and souls contain volumes inscribed by our experiences and emotions; each individual's consciousness is a collection of memories we've cataloged and stored inside us, a private library of a life lived.
Susan Orlean, The Library Book (and there are so many more I could list here)
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