Sometimes you donāt have a lot to say, and so you write a short entry about what youāre reading, what you just read, what youāre re-reading, and what you might like to read in the future. No one minds, right?
A History of God by Karen Armstrong. I think this is actually overdue at the library. Donāt tell my new librarian friend Joy, okay? I got this a while ago and have dipped in and out sporadically. Itās well written, but I donāt think my brain is big enough to read very much of it at a time. I tend to get distracted when I use it as my bus book, I notice. Itās a history, as one might expect, of monotheism. Iām right at the part where itās the Dark Ages in Europe but in the Arab world theyāre having this major big smart discovery time, like a combination of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment (according to the book). Europe is drowning witches and having plagues and the Arabs are inventing algebra. One point this books makes over and over is that a lot of people at various times have decided that regular language is too small to contain God, that the way we think and conceptualize the world doesnāt apply to the way God is, and thatās why we have had to use special kinds of language to talk about and describe and think about God. I think thatās pretty interesting.
Home Comforts by Cheryl Mendelson. Just like when I was reading Biting The Dust, I had to put this down and go wash my dishes out of pure guilt. This is a doorstop reference manual written by a lawyer who clearly is in some sort of extended (and very productive!) manic phase because girlfriend wants me to have three sets of rags that I soak in bleach every night and wants me to wash and disinfect the garbage can every night and also wants me to a) have tablecloths and b) change them for every meal. Itās a little nutty. Not exactly in a Martha Stewart way, because there isnāt much bandying about of the word āperfectā, and there arenāt precious directions for making precious origami baskets for table settings. Iām able to ignore some of the more outstandingly time consuming things like rotating my canned goods in the cabinets (although this author believes we should all have pantries, apparently) and making a log of whatās in the freezer (frozen food? ice cubes?), and have really liked the very practical advice on how best to do laundry and what to use on what kind of stains and on ironing and how to hand wash your dishes without creating a giant soapy lake in your tiny handkerchief-sized kitchen. I didnāt really do household chores when I was growing up (which would make me spoiled, I know) and so to this day I donāt have much of an idea how to sew on a button or how to defrost a freezer. This bookā¦all 900 pages of itā¦is very helpful for matters like those.
Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros. I read The House On Mango Street years ago, probably in high school, and if I remember correctly I even made one of the chapters into a monologue for ninth-period drama class in tenth or eleventh grade. This is her newest book, and I got it from my gracious mother for Christmas off my Amazon wishlist. I just started it, and am only about two hundred pages in, but Iām enjoying the style and especially the Spanish songs that are sprinkled in and around the pages. I have just enough Spanish to get the gist of them, so thatās pretty fun. And Iām loving the depiction of pre-revolutionary Mexico City as the āParis of the New World.ā If this wasnāt a huge hardback, it would be the perfect bus book, but as such I think I should just leave it at home and read it before bed. Iām feeling so busy that thatās pretty much the only places and times Iām reading lately, and you know thatās not right. Sigh.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. What can I say. I love it. I love the language, I love the historical context, I love the characters, I love the snarkiness, I love the absurdity, I love the love, I love everything about it. Iām re-reading this for, oh, I donāt know, easily the fifteenth or twentieth time. The edition Iām reading right now has a very interesting introduction written by someone whose name escapes me at the moment, discussing Austenās place in the romantic literature of her time and that immediately proceeding her, and brings up that age-old question of whether she was a proto-feminist, comparing her, inevitably, to Mary Wollstonecraft. The issue I am finding most interesting this go-round is that of class and social mobility. I just find it fascinating that everyone talks so openly about how many thousands per year everyone else has. Everyone knows everyone elseās financial business. The notes on this edition are really good and theyāre making a couple of historical context things a little more clear for me. But can you all help me out with something? When Jane and Elizabeth are at Netherfield, and Mrs. Bennet comes to visit, and theyāre all having that awkward conversation about country life vs. city life and Mrs. Bennet says that she doesnāt find country life stultifying at all, and that she dines with four and twenty families? I get that thatās a stupid thing to say, but I havenāt been able to figure out if thatās because twenty-four is a laughably small or a ridiculously inflated number. Itās in the first six or eight chapters, or the first hour of the excellent BBC six-part series. Anyone?
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold and The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. I know I am eight hundred years late with these, and I knew they were going to be good. I am happy to report they were both excellent and made my Christmas vacation a very nice one in terms of good fiction. Actually, wait, no, I read The Lovely Bones before Christmas. In fact, I read it while I was at clinic, waiting for clients to show up who never showed up. I plowed through it in about three hours, and when I was done I sort of turned it over in my hands forlornly, not wanting it to be over, wondering if Iād perhaps spilled a little on the table that I could lap up. I was so excited to get it for Christmas so I can read it again. I left it in Miami with my mom and she says she sending it back to me, but I just went out to my mailbox and I saw nothing of the kind. Hmmmm.
Jenny and the Jaws of Life I love short stories. The only English class I took in college (I know, only one, can you believe it? How embarrassing) was a short story class called World In A Nutshell, and thatās it exactly for me. Anyway, Carl got this for me, and I snapped it up like it was a delicious morsel ofā¦something delicious. These stories hit me where I live. It doesnāt hurt that David Sedaris wrote the introduction, and itās nice to see that itās back in printā¦but seriously, how did it ever get out of print? Go read these stories right this second, okay? As a personal favor to me? Thanks, youāre a peach.
Small Wonders by Barbara Kingsolver. Well, of course Iāve read The Bean Trees and the Poisonwood Bible, as required by law. This is a set of non-fiction essays, some of which are her responses to September 11. I burned right through this (my mom gave it Carl for Christmas so technically I had to let him read it first, but I would sneak it whenever he wasnāt looking) and had my thoughts provoked on a number of subjects all having to do with our place in the world as Americans and as members of our communities and as humans and everything else. Itās very clearly politically to the left, which was sort of refreshing.
I think thatās about it. I still want to read The Virgin Suicides (and Middlesex, of course) and Tobias Wolff, whose story in the New Yorker I just read, and of course everything Lynda Barry has ever written or drawn, and then thereās all the newish Ursula K. LeGuin stuff, which Iāve actually read but donāt own quite yet. And I know thereās lots more stuff out there that I donāt even know aboutā¦which is pretty exciting, when you think about it.