Titles. First of all, I'm bad at titles. In picking titles for workshops, I was never the one who came up with a catchy, clever, or evocative title. So if I wrote a book that needed a title more exciting than, say, Teaching the Social Sciences and History in Secondary Schools, I would need a lot of help. But I do sometimes wonder if marketing departments are providing a little too much help. This suspicion was strengthened at an event a few years ago at the Broomfield Library. Author Cynthia Swanson was asked why she had titled her book The Bookseller when that didn't really describe the book in any meaningful way. She replied that she had titled the book something else (I don't remember what her proposed title was, but it was much more evocative of the story), but the publisher suggested the alternative title because books with bookseller, bookshop, bookstore, or library in the title were very popular. Now, I suspect the new word that is sneaking into lots of titles is river. Just Google "Titles including river" and you'll see what I mean.
This story came to mind this spring when I read The Night We Lost Him, by Laura Dave. I immediately thought that title had been chosen to remind people of her previous book, The Last Thing He Told Me, which was very successful, made into an Apple TV series, etc. But the second book was not in any way a follow-up to the previous one, the title didn't fit the book all that well, and it certainly didn't add anything to the experience of reading the book (perhaps that's asking a lot of a title but at least try!). A couple of the books I liked this spring had titles that lived up to this expectation, so I think it's possible!
Okay, on to spring's favorite reads.
Fiction
Fully two months into spring, I was afraid the Fiction section of this post might be empty, but luckily I came upon two good novels in a row in May! First was My Friends by Fredrik Backman, an author whose work I don't always love. But I loved My Friends, which, as you might expect, is an exploration of friendship--and art and surviving one's family. Louisa is an almost-18-year-old who has recently lost her best and only friend. She has found her way to an auction house where a painting she has loved since she stole a postcard depicting it from a foster home frig; she just wants to see the painting before it is sold but ends up causing a bit of a stir at the event. She escapes to an alley where she stumbles across a man who seems to be homeless but is actually the artist who created the painting. He recognizes her as a kindred spirit, buys the painting himself, and (when he dies the next day) arranges with his friend Ted to give her the painting. She freaks out and begs Ted to take her with him in his and the artist's home town to dispose of the artist's ashes. On the very lengthy train trip, amidst a number of adventures, Ted tells her the story of their group of four childhood friends. Ted and Louisa are both quirky characters but their stories and their evolving relationship are engaging and touching.
The relationship at the heart of Rental House by Weike Wang is less touching, but it is engaging. Nate and Keru are a couple who have decided not to have children. Nate is a white guy from a lower class Southern background; Keru is the only child of perfectionistic immigrants from China. When the book opens, they are on vacation at a Cape Code beach house. They have invited their parents to visit (not at the same time) and the visits reveal generational and cultural gaps that torment the couple. Five years later, they are on a different vacation, this time at a luxury bungalow in the Catskills, where they can't escape prejudices (the European couple in the next bungalow labels them DINKs and makes various assumptions about them) or their families. Rental House presents two slices of a couple's life and it doesn't reach a neat conclusion, which kept me thinking about families and how they affect relationships after I finished the book.
Mysteries
I recently went to a great event sponsored by the Jefferson County (CO) Library System that featured several mystery writers, including C.J. Box, who I didn't realize had written a stand-alone mystery that won the Edgar award. So I immediately picked up Blue Heaven (an evocative title with an unexpected meaning) and quite enjoyed it. Two kids, mad at their mom and her boyfriend, decide to go fishing when they have an early release day from school. They have the misfortune to see a murder and then become targets of the killers, a group of retired LA cops (not a spoiler--it's revealed in the blurbs on the back of the book). Luckily, they happen to find a hero, rancher Jess Rawlins, a wonderful character. The book ends with a bloodbath followed by a kind of mystical series of conversations, an odd juxtaposition that somehow works. Definitely glad I read it.
I also enjoyed Famous Last Words, by Gillian McAllister (also a good title with multiple meanings in the story). On her first day back at work after nine months' maternity leave, Camilla is interrupted by a visit from the police, who inform her that her husband Luke is involved in a hostage situation--as the hostage-taker. After releasing one hostage and shooting the other two unidentified victims, Luke escapes and is not heard from for seven years. But then things start happening; Cam is in the process of having Luke declared legally dead but suddenly starts to think he might be alive and begins trying to figure out what really happened. The same events prompt Niall, the hostage negotiator who felt he failed during the initial siege, also begins investigating new leads. Working separately, the two move towards a more complete understanding of why Luke acted as he did and what has happened since. I figured out who the real culprits were before the end--something that I am not particularly good at (despite having read thousands of mysteries)--but it didn't ruin my enjoyment of the book.
Presumed Guilty, by Scott Turow, is more of a legal thriller than a mystery, although there's certainly a whodunit aspect to the book. Here, Rusty Sabich, the falsely accused protagonist of Presumed Innocent, takes on the job of defending his fiancee's son, who is accused in the murder of his on-again/off-again girlfriend, a brilliant, beautiful, and deeply troubled young woman. Around 70 percent of the book focuses on the trial, so if you don't like reading testimony, cross-examination, etc., you'll probably be bored--but I like that sort of thing. The book has a lot of similarities to its predecessor, beyond the title, which for sure is meant to evoke that earlier bestseller, which Apple TV recently remade as a series. But the title fits the story, and the legal maneuvering and mystery of who killed Mae kept me interested.
The Examiner, by Janice Hallett, is presented in messaging app posts between and among a cohort of art students working on their master's in multimedia art, their instructor, other staff at the college, staff at a company for whom the students are creating an installation as their final examine, and the titular examiner, who reviews all their work to be sure it is being graded fairly. At first they seem like a fairly normal group, with people vying for the teacher's attention, accusing each of other of cheating, and the like. But gradually we learn more of their back stories and begin to suspect that some are not in the class to improve their artistic skills. I don't want to include any spoilers, but I'll just say I was impressed that Hallett used the unusual formal well, giving the characters depth and surprising me with plot developments. I read another of her books with a similar format, The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels, which I did not like quite as much and made me think I don't need to read a lot more books constructed in this manner--but I still respect the author's skill in constructing character and plot in this innovative way.
My online book group (University of Illinois alumni) chose Look Closer by David Ellis for its spring into summer book. It's set in a fictional Chicago suburb and features a U of C law professor as one of its highly unreliable narrators. I don't want to say much about the plot because it's so incredibly twisty (though it takes a while to get going). I'll just say a woman is found hanged the day after Halloween. Was it suicide? Murder--by a lover (but who?), a jealous wife, an intruder? If you can figure this thing out before the end, you're way smarter than me.
Nonfiction
Over the past several years, I have come to admire Adam Kinzinger's moral compass and courage, even though we disagree on many issues. Reading his book Renegade, I especially appreciated his commitment to service and his willingness to admit his mistakes/flaws. I also felt compelled to rethink my views on some folks (e.g., John Boehner), but most of all felt real sorrow for moderate Republicans who basically lost their party to nut jobs and people who place power over principle. I recommend reading his book and checking out what Adam is doing with his group Country First.
The French Ingredient: Making a Life in Paris One Lesson at a Time, by Jane Bertch provides an interesting take on French culture and relationships as she reflects on her decades living in Paris, first as a banker and then as the proprietor of a cooking school, La Cuisine. The most moving part of the book for me was her recounting of how she and her business partner dealt with the COVID pandemic, the ways in which small food businesses worked together to survive, and the joy she felt when they were able to reopen and see beloved clients again. I'm not sure what I learned from reading the book would make me a better visitor if I ever return to Paris, but maybe. And I'd definitely take a class at La Cuisine.
Space travel is not necessarily an interest of mine, but Adam Higginbotham's Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space, made many best of 2024 lists, so I checked it out--and I'm glad I did. I must admit that I was an adult when the Challenger disaster occurred, and I remember it vividly, but in terms of what happened after, all I really remember is that O-rings were somehow responsible. But, of course, humans were responsible--as Higginbotham documents, people knew that the O-rings could--and perhaps even were likely to--fail in cold temperatures and they recommended that the mission be scrubbed when temperatures at Cape Canaveral were below freezing that January in 1986. However, decision-makers did not heed the warnings and the result was disastrous. And, perhaps even worse, NASA did not seem to learn the lessons of this series of events, as there were problems that signaled what would happen to Columbia years later. As Higginbotham says, these disasters are a testament to "man's overconfidence in his own ingenuity" or as Richard Feynman wrote, "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
Poetry
Still City by Oksana Maksymchuk is a collection of poems inspired by or about the war in Ukraine. As you might expect, most are grim, either through very literal descriptions or metaphor. In fact, I found myself reading the book much more quickly than it deserved because focusing too intently was debilitating. While reading, I couldn't help thinking about the program at the Longmont Museum I went to in February, at which curator Jared Thompson shared what he had heard from Ukrainians when he visited their country: they are tired of seeing and creating art about war. Let's hope they can move on to other themes soon. Meanwhile, here are a few of Maksymchuk's poems:
Drone Footage
When a shell strikes a person
there's a scattering
resembling a flock of birds
taking off
hands flying in the air
signaling
feet levitating
in mid-ick
their avian shapes
casting shadows
lithe and carefree
from on high
Mother's Work
The remains
buried hastily
in the yard
recently ran about
with a shaggy dog
sewed a dress for a doll
bombed at Scrabble
sang a lullaby
Duck-Rabbit
a field, dry reeds
a path of ice
like a blot of ink--
a child on the ground
bright red on white
her arms reaching out
shot dead or
making a snow angel?
New and Collected Poems, by Marie Howe, won the Pulitzer for poetry this year. I had only ever read a few of her poems, so I definitely wanted to read this collection. It's good, very good, but it's sometimes as depressing as the Maksymchuk collection written about an ongoing war. Death is a theme in many of the poems--the death of Howe's brother, our own inevitable deaths, the death of the planet. The first poem in the collection goes through the process of accepting one's age while recognizing that one does not understand death. Later, her dying brother focuses her attention on her own mortality.
Prologue
In the middle of my life--just past the middle--
walking along the street with our little dog Jack on a leash
--OK--just past the late-middle--
in what some might call early old age,
on a street crowded with children and tourists
my father dead, my mother dead,
my young husband gone from me and grown older (a father,
a husband now to someone else),
Jason dead, John dead, Jane and Stanley and Lucy and Lucie
and Billy and Tony and now Richard dead,
I came to the edge
and I did not know the way.
The Last Time
The last time we had dinner together in a restaurant
with white tablecloths, he leaned forward
and took my two hands in his and said,
I'm going to die soon. I want you to know that.
And I said, I think I do know.
And he said, What surprises me is that you don't.
And I said, I do. And he said, What?
And I said, Know that you're going to die.
And he said, No, I mean know that you are.
Many other poems draw on Biblical characters, stories, or themes, with an entire section inspired by Mary Magdalene, including a poem about the diversity of penises she experienced. These were not my favorites. I felt more positively about a number of poems about children and the experience of mothering and learning from children. I found this one particularly evocative:
Hurry
We stop at the dry cleaners and the grocery store
and the gas station and the green market and
Hurry up honey, I say, hurry,
as she runs along two or three steps behind me
her blue jacket unzipped and her socks rolled down.
Where do I want her to hurry to? To her grave?
To mine? Where one day she might stand all grown?
Today, when t=all the errands are finally done, I say to er,
Honey I'm sorry I keep saying Hurry--
you walk ahead of me. You be the mother.
And, Hurry up, she says, over her shoulder, looking
back at me, laughing. Hurry up now darling, she says,
hurry, hurry, taking the house keys from my hand.
And here's one of the most fabulous lines I've read in a while, though I'm not sure I know what it means: "and the wind makes music of what water was."
Favorite Passages
Nothing weighs more than someone else's belief in you.
The world is full of miracles, but none greater than how far a young person can be carried by someone else's belief in them.
He feels like telling her that the artist didn't give her the painting because it was his inheritance, he gave it to her because he realized that she was the inheritance. Art is what we leave of ourselves in other people. But he doesn't quite know how to say that.
--Fredrik Backman, My Friends (kind of love the contradictory truths)
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