Books read in October 2021

1. No One Is Talking About This, by Patricia Lockwood (2021)

The first half read like a series of sort of absurdist, sort of accurate micro-blog posts about the internet. It captivated me and made me laugh. The second half was a strange dive into a pressingly offline world of familial medical crisis. It didn't carry me all the way with it but it certainly was interesting and did not lack conviction.

2. Escape from Wolfhaven Castle, by Kate Forsyth (2014)

Read as research for niece/nephew birthday present shopping. Charming early middle-grade fantasy. Just enough age-appropriate peril and spooky, and just enough safety. Takes being a good story seriously without taking itself too seriously at it.

3. Happy Endings Are All Alike, by Sandra Scoppettone (1978)

I was impressed by her young adult novel about a teenage alcoholic, The Late Great Me, that I read earlier this year. This one is a very early treatment of a lesbian relationship (up against much lesbophobia) in a young adult novel, and it has aged just fine.

4. A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload, by Cal Newport (2021)

Clever, interesting, frustrating (because I am not a manager able to create large-scale changes) but still inspiring for me as an individual. His studies of companies that don't operate off email are fascinating because they make you realize how much of our current set-up is neither inevitable nor optimal (or even really good). I also found the history of professional email use interesting in a nerdy way.

5. East, by Edith Pattou (2003)

Reread. When I was a teenager, I liked this book more than it deserved (I thought then) and I think that more now. It's so likeable in some ways but in other ways it phones it in, particularly the farther Rose's journey carries her. I wish it had been edited better. But it gives a good cozy feeling. And it makes me want to learn how to weave. And the cover is so lovely and brings back all these memories.

6. Outside, Inside, by LeUyen Pham (2021)

This picture book about early COVID lockdown made me cry. It is so sweet and good. I'm just sad it doesn't go through the present day (it ends in June 2020) - because it is so comforting to see this set of global experiences through this book's lens, and even as a grown-up, I could have done with being gently and wisely carried along by its pages through all the rest of this exhausting, life-altering experience. My mom, who teaches, told me that the elementary school social workers/counselors in her district were all given copies of this book at the start of the school year, and I can see why.

7. The Beast's Garden, by Kate Forsyth

Uff, Kate Forsyth does it again. I am verging on obsessed and yet to be disappointed! Right after finishing this I went online and put holds on a couple more of her books at the library. This is a World War II-era tale inspired by the German fairy tale "The Singing Springing Lark" (a variation of "Beauty and the Beast"). I was moved to learn at the end how many of the characters were real historical figures (and their actions real historical actions they took in the resistance). Gripping, intricately historical, poignant. This novel covers six years of fiction-within-history, with no skipping around or fading to black to cut out chunks of time! It would have been tiring if it hadn't been so unceasingly fascinating.

8. Where Three Oceans Meet, by Rajani LaRocca, illustrated by Archana Sreenivasan (2021)

Sweet, bright picture book about a multi-generational (a girl and her mother and grandmother) family trip through India.

"Surely You Remember"

After they all leave,
I remain alone with the poems,
some poems of mine, some of others.
I prefer poems that others have written.
I remain quiet, and slowly
the knot in my throat dissolves.
I remain.

Sometimes I wish everyone would go away.
Maybe it's nice, after all, to write poems.
You sit in your room and the walls grow taller.
Colors deepen.
A blue kerchief becomes a deep well.

You wish everyone would go away.
You don't know what's the matter with you.
Perhaps you'll think of something.
Then it all passes, and you are pure crystal.

After that, love.
Narcissus was so much in love with himself.
Only a fool doesn't understand
he loved the river, too.

You sit alone.
Your heart aches, but it won't break.
The faded images wash away one by one.
Then the defects.
A sun sets at midnight. You remember
the dark flowers too.

You wish you were dead or alive or
somebody else.
Isn't there a country you love? A word?
Surely you remember.

Only a fool lets the sun set when it likes.
It always drifts off too early
westward to the islands.

Sun and moon, winter and summer
will come to you,
infinite treasures.

- Dahlia Ravikovitch

translated by Chana Bloch and Ariel Bloch
in The Window

Gratitudes & things that are making me happy

 • Watching hachiya persimmons ripen on my neighbors' trees, the fruit nearly the same color as the changing leaves

• Time off work

• Rainstorms, for my fire- and drought-plagued home

• Critically, a handy neighbor able to stop my roof leaking

• And for a very rainy-day lunch: hot chocolate and grilled cheese

• Fairy tales - I've been reading slowly through the first edition of the Grimm collection

• Isn't It Romantic, the movie - lots of laughs on a recent weekday night

• The colors of the sunset reflecting in the puddles on the rooftop across the way

• New comfy work-from-home pants

• Finding nice, brand-new hiking boots in my size at a secondhand store, for under $40

• Al-Anon meetings, the kindness there and the feeling of hope and calm I receive

• Giving up on a book partway through sometimes 

• Giving up on books I own but haven't read, sometimes

• Booster shots for my girlfriend and my mom

• Juniper (our cat daughter)

• A daydream of learning to weave

Read in September 2021 (part two of two)

(Part one here.)

10. Goldenhand, by Garth Nix (2016)

Eh, meh. As a fan of the original books in this series, I was intrigued to learn of this one's existence, but thankfully my experience of Clariel a few years back tempered my expectations. This felt like a reunion episode of an old TV show, not that well written and made more for audience gratification than to realize a compelling story. Nick and Lirael's awkwardness was cringe-inducing, rather than amusing. Also, it's hard for this book's particular Great Peril to follow the previous one (i.e. the literal end of the world as threatened in Abhorsen).

11. Self Care: A Novel, by Leigh Stein (2020)

As a fascinated/horrified observer of the women's wellness industry, and a veteran of a small and dysfunctional start-up, this satire about the inner workings of a wellness social media platform was certainly amusing to me, and also nudged at some more serious questions about gender and social media.

12. Outside In, by Deborah Underwood, illustrated by Cindy Derby (2020)

Beautiful, moving picture book. 

13. The Secret Hour, by Scott Westerfeld (2004)

Reread. It didn't totally hold up for me, but I get why I thought this was fun when I was nineteen. I think I would still recommend it to a teenager.

14. Reigning Cats & Dogs, by Hilary B. Price (2003) 

Reread, cartoons about the cat/dog-lover life, very amusing. Thanks to my mom for telling me to reread this.

15. Up to This Pointe, by Jennifer Longo (2016)

Reread, read this for the first time last December. Still lovely!

16. The Case of the Missing Marquess, by Nancy Springer (2006)

Fun and original, the first in the Enola Holmes series about Sherlock Holmes's teenage sister and her exploits. Has a nice, appropriate feminist tinge to it that added to my enjoyment. Not 100% lighthearted, against my expectations, but still in the greater part a romp. I would have loved this as a tween.

17. Kitten Lady's Big Book of Little Kittens, by Hannah Shaw (2019

Read as possible gift research for a niece. The author is a Youtuber who specializes in kitten rescue (whom I know of because my girlfriend loves her). Cute and educational, with great information and kitten photos.

18. Ghost Wave: The Discovery of Cortes Bank and the Biggest Wave on Earth, by Chris Dixon (2011)

I think I really wanted a long-form article on this topic rather than a monograph, but I made it through the book anyway. Certainly lots of interesting subject matter here, particular as I enjoy engaging non-fiction about the ocean and oceanic sports. However, this presumed more interest in the particular surfers who populated its pages, and more knowledge of surfing (see: all the jargon involved in describing how a particular wave was ridden) than I actually have. It was also rather mannish, both in the weird "conquering hero" way the men relate to the waves they ride and in little details like all the women mentioned (who are mentioned at all because of the men they're related to) being described as beautiful. Not unhappy I read it, but it took me a few weeks.

Rain walk

 In honor of fall's first rains, photos from a rain walk I took in late autumn last year.