Category Archives: Reading

Public Libraries, Rhubarb, and Volatile Organic Compounds (P.U.) — June 2024 Month in Review

Creative non-fiction, Humor, Knitting, Life and Other Existential Problems, Month in Review, Parenting, Poetry, Reading, Recommendations, Things that smell, , , ,

Starting is arguably the hardest part of anything, especially writing, where the beginning has to hook and promise and reveal enough ankle. Sometimes the Muppets might even show up.

I was going to start this Month in Review talking about how the cicadas are mercifully almost gone. (Just in time, too, because one flew into my face and then I had to consider taking a flamethrowing to my own puss.) Then I was going to wax not-exactly-poetic about the stench of them rotting by the trillions. If you want more information, check this out. However, if you want to avoid yet another closeup photo of the critters, the big take-away is “As microbes break down and digest the cicada carcasses, ammonia and volatile organic compounds are released…Ammonia has a strong odor, as do some VOCs containing nitrogen and phosphorus — which the bodies of periodical cicadas are rich in.” 

There were a lot of places in that quote where I wanted to set fire to my face again.

The whole cicadapocalypse/decomposition was going to be some sort of averagely-expressed metaphor about June.

But it just made me want to open a window, and that’s tricky these days. 

Since I was clearly on an off-gassing thematic thread, I considered opening with commentary about politics and world affairs. Each try degenerated into either something like a subtweet or a pitch for some sort of Toxic Positivity MLM.

That ain’t me, kid.

Not that I don’t believe in ripping myself open and spilling all the blood/tea, but “think good thoughts” isn’t my brand. I’m not unrelievedly sweet nor optimistic. I’m hilarious and cynical and misanthropic and ALSO a little optimistic. That’s hard to capture. 

(Also, I still write “80085” on my calculator and think it’s hilarious high art.)

(Also, I have a calculator.)

(Also, are we still using “subtweeting”? I’d ask my kids but they are still mad at me for randomly throwing “skibidi toilet” into some otherwise Quality Parenting Moments.™)

But yesterday on my social media, I wrote “I wish you all the wonderful communities of weirdos you need. If you lack one (or enough), I will enthusiastically be a charter member of yours.”

So that is also how I choose to start this wrap-up of June and the second half of the year. I will be here in a completely official capacity as part of your Weirdo Community. We don’t take a lot of selfies and there is always pastry.

Ooh, look: Weirdo! Muppet!

Here are some splashes of marvelous from June 2024

(i.e. things I enjoyed that you may also enjoy or possibly not if you are feeling contrarian and cross.)

  • For much of June, a percentage of my children were in poorly-timed camps and fun classes that made me do the precious calculation of “is it worth going home or should I stick around?” (My calculator is not used for such things, see above.) The quiet gift of this was spending time in the local public library of the town where they had these classes, and boy howdy was it fantastic. I love public libraries and all they stand for. Like most other libraries I’ve visited, I had the best, friendliest, fiercest, most welcoming people greeting me and who were very happy to tell me that in the winter they light the fireplace and people just hang out and read there. More adults need to rediscover our libraries beyond having meetings there. It brought back warm memories of Harper Library and the many happy semesters there rather than, you know, doing homework or going to class. Some things age well, like libraries. Some things do not age well, like cicada corpses.
  • We have started introducing a certain percentage of my children to Mel Brooks. Avoiding the whole non-argument about whether we could make something like Blazing Saddles nowadays, Happy June Birthday Mel Brooks! And can I just have a moment of appreciation for the glory that is Madeline Kahn?
  • I cleaned out my knitting nook. Unlike any knitter ever, I buy more supplies than I’ll use in a lifetime. It’s a bulwark against death, profound optimism, and maybe some self-delusion. I don’t knit that fast. I have the same problem with books. Maybe I can make a deal with someone in that department to keep me going until all the books are read and the wonky hats knit.
Why, no, I’m not a professional photographer OR a professional organizer. Why do you ask?

So I might not find the right way to start these months in review, but ending in cake is always the way. As Vincent said in the above link, my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum.

So, tell me about your favorite library. Or your favorite cake. Or your favorite weirdo community.

The Folio – What I Read Mid-March Through April 2024

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It’s All About the Transformation!

Oh, the twitchy weirdness of not blasting this out the second March ended. Of course, I’m the only weirdo policing the time boundaries of my own monthly book roundups. What can I say? I like the snap of “March Reads” better than the soggy “What I Read March Through Mid-April 2024.” 

But here we are, and this is how it’s going to be for a while and now I’m uniquely positioned as a mid-month book yammerer. 

Market niches, folks.

In the last five weeks or so, I’ve completed seven books.

Ahem.

I was set to roll out an unremarkable apologia, a grand harangue about life and reading and such.

Mad busy, that’s me.

A grand self-flogging, agonizing about feeling like a fraud for not being able to “keep up.” As if I’m somehow a slacker in the sacred arts of wordcraft and self-betterment.

I might have even gifted you this.

Then I’d pivot, launch a counter-offensive on myself, get all gooey about the bliss of slow reading and how my own calendar is stuffed to the gills and my body is drafting strike plans.

I had all sides of this covered and an abundance of gems like “my relationship with reading has evolved” and “joy of discovery.” Flowcharts, highfalutin words, and not a few huffs and puffs.

But there’s something to be said for not doing that.

Let’s just get to the books in some particular order or other:

These Precious Days by Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett excels at weaving tales loosely enough to let them breathe but tightly enough to make them work. Patchett’s explorations of love, loss, and friendship are patient, never slow. She once again pulls, surgically, from the everyday and it is glorious to look at how life squiggles under her microscope

I loved “Three Fathers” (which you can read here). There was a section about one of the fathers whose writing talent, perhaps, did not rise to the level of his eagerness, his effort, or his output. It was a good reminder to her (and me) that when we ask people to read our work, we ask them to give us their time. And time is a gift sometimes more precious than feedback.

I adored “A Talk to the Association of Graduate School Deans in the Humanities,” because it was about life in/of the Humanities. Bookstore Ownership! Theater Attendance! Staged readings of Our Town in the living room. Reading! Community! Oh, how I want all of that. Next, life, I suppose.

“Contrary to popular belief, love does not require understanding in order to thrive.” — Ann Patchett

The Best American Essays 2022, Alexander Chee Editor)

This collection is a child of the pandemic. Each essay, no matter the theme, has an undercurrent of wearing a path in the carpet from pacing back and forth. The collection prowls and lies in wait. 

As with any anthology, you will love some pieces more than others, but trust me, something will snag you, whether you’re reading as a fan or a scribe. Sublime craftsmanship. 

From Chee’s introduction on sense memories and writing: “Was the writing wet? Could you feel the rain, the blood, the tears?” 

Standouts for me were “Abusement,” “Ghosts,” and “China Brain.”

You’ve Got a Book in You by Elizabeth Sims

Every month I try to read a craft book or two. Sometimes I come across texts that are lush and gorgeous. Other times I come across things that are practical and fresh. This is more the latter, but there are dabs of the former.

I’m adding this to my I-only-need-to-lean-over-and-grab-it shelf. 

It’s full of solid advice without being simplistic, repetitive, or useless. 

It’s a reminder that we write because we love it. We may not love it all the time, but we need to commit to that love every time.

It’s “LET’S GOOOO!” across 280 pages.

This one hits at the right time. I think a year or so ago, when I thought all was well with my first novel, I’d have scoffed a little. Now I realize what a lifeline it is.

 I especially like her sections on stormwriting.

“Open it up, write deeper, write long, write relaxed, write loose. And never ever worry about your finished product in the midst of all this messy glory.” — Elizabeth Sims

The Witches are Coming by Lindy West

If you loved Shrill, you may very well love this, even though it covers some of the same territory. That’s probably the point, though. Have things really improved in the world since then? Nope.

I laughed and then didn’t – shouldn’t things be better? Especially if we can name them? Are we naming them correctly?

West is brilliant and the through-line in this book is similarly brilliant. She makes it look easy. It is not easy. That’s her gift. 

“So fine, if you insist. This is a witch hunt. We’re witches, and we’re hunting you.” — Lindy West

The Book of Fire by Christy Lefteri

I won this book in a Goodreads Giveaway, and wrote a longer review here, but for the purposes of this blog, here is a bit of that about this gorgeous book:

The novel is a study of grief, trauma, and guilt. The narrative unfolds in two timelines: one during the fire and the other weeks after. Third-person narration in one timeline adds an honest and heartbreaking layer of detachment. 

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

This is an eco-murder mystery set in a Polish village. I almost quit after reading the first quarter. It’s…a little slow and I am feeling impatient these days. Thank goodness I didn’t quit. 

The crafting of language, especially as this is a translation – and a deft one – kept me riveted. 

Deep respect to translator Antonia Lloyd-Jones.

The main character’s devotion to Blake works nicely in this book that is a warning about the natural world getting revenge upon us all. 

This is apparently a movie or something, although the BBC could have done a hell of a series. Then PBS could have found a home for it nestled amongst its other weird and cozy mystery series.

It is a genre-busting tale told by a character in every sense of the word, where we recognize the cruelty of these men in how they treat her, an aging woman, and how they treat animals in the world around them. So please read this and can we talk about how older women in society are treated? THANK YOU!

Cut and Run by Ben Blacker and Ben Acker

ANY BOOK WITH AN UNWITTING ORGAN DONOR IS FUNNY, RIGHT?

Possibly not, but this one is. Available exclusively as an audiobook on Audible, it nails the art of snappy banter and clever meta-commentary. The cast is made up of the finest in the business. *Waves to Ed Begley Jr.*

What’s been moved to your “Finished” pile?

WTFebruary

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All this and a bag of chips…

My February reads were all about…aboutness.

I’m not surprised. My own February was all about the aboutness. The aboutness of these books, my writing, and my little spheres. More on that in an upcoming post.

In my previous post, I mentioned it feels as though my reads become a snapshot of that month. Is this synchronicity? Narrative Psychology? Searching for meaning where there is none? Hermeneutics? Dianetics? A sign I’m playing too much Connections?

MAYBE.

February’s reads were about equilibrium and paradoxes in unstable systems, power structures, and belonging.

Without further ado, here are a few words about the books I finished in February, and also some bonus items I enjoyed this month that were not books. If you’d like to talk more about any of these, let me know in the comments!

In no particular order:

Earthlings

How do you survive in a society that actively seeks to harm you? One option is to detach your identity from your physical body and redefine “human.” Another option is to violently reject that society by breaking all of its taboos.

Welcome to Earthlings, where our main characters do that and more.

Our protagonist, Natsuki, believes she is alien — to her own family, this society, and her own humanity. To survive, she stumbles through life with an 11-year-old’s emotional capacity to connect, capable of articulating the grosses of abuses only as “It’s really hard to put into words things that are just a little bit not okay.”

This keeps her alive but not living.

This book is a caboodle of content warnings, loneliness, sorrow, and shame.

It’s a cruel book and a tender one.

Natsuki is lost and disconnected, and like a few of our other narrators this month, her disaffection and abjection are extreme, but not entirely alien to us.

Like all of us, she is in a state of hide and seek, with only other damaged souls calling “Olly olly oxen free.”

She finds sanctuary in outer/inner space.

As I told a friend, proceed at your own risk. Then with abandon.

The Scrolls of Deborah

As I wrote in my review (which you can read HERE), “Goldenberg has picked up the baton of biblical fiction and proves she deserves it. She challenges herself to tell a story rooted in the everyday lives of women in the Middle Bronze Age — lives of service, heartache, and not a great amount of agency. But what is there? Sisterhood. Add to this Deborah’s connection with God, and Goldenberg gives us a beautifully crafted character study, told exquisitely.”

Even if you don’t think you’re a fan of Biblical fiction, try this imaginative retelling of the matriarchs and patriarchs of the Book of Genesis.

Post Office

This book by the godfather of Dirty Realism reads like a Shrinky Dink mid-bake.

This addled temptress was almost indigestible. I wondered if it were an academic exercise designed to alienate and re-engage the reader. “Is this a joke? Am I not getting the joke? Am I the joke?”

Post Office oozes hostility and misogyny, swinging from bawdy to gross. And it’s funny. I feel dirty for reading it.

The book works best in its howlingly funny and bleak depictions of the Post Office’s workings, the longest relationship for the narrator, albeit one built on damage.

With a to-be-read list miles long, I doubt I will seek out more Bukowski, but who knows, because lines like this hit just right:

“In the morning it was morning and I was still alive.

Maybe I’ll write a novel, I thought.

And then I did.”

Poststructuralism: A Very Short Introduction

Poststructuralism, unlike me, developed in France in the 1960s and explores how language describes & constructs our world

This slim book demystifies the critical theory, explores the interplay among knowledge, meaning, and reality, considers the role of language, power, and communication in crafting our sense of identity. It’s a nice dive into what it means to be human.

(And…that’s the connection.)

I really liked it.

The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories, Volume One: Where on Earth

Some of LeGuin’s earth-bound stories, mostly about people resigned to crumbling desolate places or seeking escape from them. Some hidden gems, some well-known gems, and others that, even in their middling levels, are LeGuin, which is to say, remarkable masterclasses in writing. Come for “The Diary of the Rose,” stay for “Buffalo Gals, Won’t You Come Out Tonight.”

The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother

A story of uncovering secrets and uncovering self, how much we choose to be who we are, how much that is forced upon us, and how much is imprinted. At its heart, though, a story of family.

(MINI-RANT: The audiobook confounded me. There are two narrators of this tale, the author and his mother. The mother’s family came to the country from Poland when she was two, and she was raised primarily in Virginia, which is why the narrator uses…a heavy Borscht-belt “Jewish” accent that is parodic and upholds some weird inapplicable stereotypes?

I turned it off, which was tragic also because J.D. Jackson, who narrated the other chapters, is a complete dream. End rant)

Read, don’t listen to, the book and allow yourself to slow down and savor passages like this:

“It was always so hot, and everyone was so polite, and everything was all surface but underneath it was like a bomb waiting to go off. I always felt that way about the South, that beneath the smiles and southern hospitality and politeness were a lot of guns and liquor and secrets.”

Things made February a little less WTF and more WTG

(Look, as Ms. LeGuin said: “I don’t know anything about reality, but I know what I like”)

My daughter closing in on my height. My sons closing in on their father’s height.

This substack by Michael Ian Black and this one by Steph Sprenger.

These chips. Forever and ever: