First, a note on realism:
I do not follow book trends on Instagram or anywhere else very much, but it seems many people have a very ordered approach to their reading. They read in themed months, or according to certain prize lists, or by genre, or what have you. I...don’t. I have poorly formed and executed vague ambitions for what I want to read, and then in reality, I read something I heard about the other day that seemed interesting, or a book I’ve thought about for a while, or I just open the Libby app and pick a book that catches my eye.
So if you are looking for rhyme or reason here, look elsewhere. Also, these are unserious book reviews- this is fun reading for me, and I’ve just written a few sentences for each, and my entirely subjective rating of each. My ratings mean how much I want to recommend for people to read the book. 0/10 is don’t recommend, 5/10 is go ahead, but I don’t care if you don’t, 10/10 is you should read this.
Build the Life You Want by Arthur C Brooks (and Oprah Winfrey, but not really)
Mixed feelings. Very practically useful and lots of solid advice. If you are looking for a good jump-start to re-ground you in practical actions you can take to be happier, this is a good book and refreshing in the sense that it doesn’t try to sell you idealism but a realistic vision of contentment rooted in managing your emotions, living according to your values, having meaningful work, and nurturing your real-life relationships. My one note is that it is very much best-suited for people struggling with discontentment in already fairly stable situations who need to work on reframing their mindset, and observing and being grateful for and re-investing in what they already have. Which is a lot of people! It might not be great for someone who, for example, does need to break most key relationships in order to be happy, because they are not accepted by those key figures on their life. It is advice where the subject does not have an urgent need to drastically reimagine their world- more “Here’s how to be pretty happy within the structures that exist”. Personally, I find that message helpful and useful in its moderation. Very good for what it is, not for everybody.
(Also this book is not meaningfully *by* Oprah Winfrey, who lent her star power to its promotion and whose name appears on the cover. She seems to have read the book and then contributed extremely brief musings at the start of several sections.)
6/10
At Blackwater Pond (it will get its own post) by Mary Oliver
I know, I know, everyone loves Mary Oliver and I DO TOO. The reason I and everyone else loves her is because she’s great. What I mean is that reading her is like stretching and breathing deeply and finding your feet. She is a nature poet, and maybe a kind of modern romantic or transcendentalist, but what I love about her poetry is that it is based on what IS. She looks out on what really is, the bones of nature that endure no matter what churn of politics or emotions or ecological disaster are scrambling our realities and, having observed what she sees, she writes, with the force of proclamation, or organ music, or thunder, about those bones. We are used to raw truth, being told it straight, as a signal to brace for discomfort. But Mary Oliver writes truth about joy, which means her poetry feels like revelation. I feel that all of her poetry seems to be saying to me, “Look, what you have never noticed before- it is so beautiful!” and you are disarmed and realize how much you expect sadness and hardness in the world around you, and instead, she reminds you of the extreme beauty accessible through what it is ordinary and natural.
10/10
Inciting Joy by Ross Gay
Love love love.
He’s like Mary Oliver in that he has a steady eye for joy. He posits deep delight as not only a plausible subject for poetry but a daily wellspring of meaning. He insists on excess and solidarity and generosity as the way of the world, rather than scarcity and competition and hoarding. To give away is a way of life and a necessary one, not a Polyanna-ish fantasy of utopia. He insists on all people, but especially men, and especially Black men, experiencing all the richness and emotionality of life as a human birthright, not as a privilege or as virtue signaling about acceptable forms of masculinity. His political model is the garden: enough for the self but with more spilling over that you are called to give away. Gardens exist everywhere in the world.
People think Ross Gay is fluff, I bet. People think delight is fluff in general. It is not. He is not. Delight is necessary and Ross Gay is iron-clad in it. I really love his writing. Come for the flowers, stay for the robust and hopeful anthropology that rises from the soil.
8/10 (just because I would recommend The Book of Delights or The Book of More Delights first, but they are all of a piece)
Dune 1 by Frank Herbert
I listened to this half-consciously as an audiobook, which means I would be keenly following the plot for a while, and then zone out only to be jerked back to awareness by some weird Dune-ism, like why is this character named Duncan Idaho? Are the Fremen like futuristic Muslims (but also Jewish because they want the Lisan Al-Gaib)? Why do the Fremen have plastic? Are all of the characters high? Bene Gesserit means well-behaved in Latin so is it kind of a galactic, multi-century catty finishing school? Is Paul’s mom all-powerful or basically a slightly woo-woo grandmother? Why do they keep calling the housekeeper THE Shadout Mapes?
The mix of Tolkien-esque exalted language and strange contemporary references can be a bit jarring. Then again, Dune is good for dozing off at the sandy beach, which you can then dream is full of rapacious, god-like Shai-Huluds. Also, the narrator of the audiobook kept saying Paul’s wife/girlfriend/ dream desert damsel’s name (Chani) as Cheney, like Dick Cheney, so that kind of broke the fourth wall.
Again, this is not a serious review of Dune.
I find the Bene Gesserit way very funny - it seems like it’s mostly just close observations of other people but framed as mystical knowledge in a sort of hilarious therapy-speak. Like, “He looked away from me and turned bright red. I deduced his avoidance and a note of falseness in his voice, The ancient ways tell me he is likely embarrassed and lying.” Good job.
The idea of a religion planted for social control in the past is interesting.
Because I listened to this with about the same amount of attention as you give to a toddler who keeps asking you to watch them jump off a step five hundred times, I am not really qualified to rate it. But I will anyway:
6/10
The Rosie Project
This was cute though probably problematic (though I hate that word because it is usually terminally vague). By problematic, I mean that it is a book that is meant to be an adorable representation of a 39-yr old genetics professor with autism who has never dated and is looking for a wife, but I highly doubt the protagonist is an accurate depiction of the struggles of dating with autism (don’t ask me how I know). He is matched up with manic pixie dream rocker girlfriend Rosie in an unexpected turn of events and almost fumbles the bag several times through a number of social gaffes. It is well-written and witty, and Don’s (the main character’s) overly literal logic is sometimes a strong depiction of autism, but I couldn’t take seriously the idea that Don was reallllly bumbling or a terrible dating prospect, because of the following facts, which I will now list in an autistic, Don-like fashion:
He is autistic but, in the savant, genius, objectively amazing way, where he can learn entire social skillsets like cocktail making and dancing completely in a week and has perfect recall of seemingly everything all the time. This seems like it would mostly be jaw-droppingly cool, not a social deficit.
His awkwardness and bluntness are offset by a child-like purity of intention and unfailingly quick wit, both of which are obviously attractive. He is also deeply considerate of Rosie’s feelings when he can understand them, which is also extremely attractive.
All of Don’s peers are professors or doctors, or other similarly prestigious and well-heeled individuals, who are either likely neurodivergent themselves or informed enough to give him massive social leeway. This man has several social blunders in front of his boss, the Dean, for Christ’s sake, and it does not meaningfully impact him in any way professionally. This type of impact-less error would unfortunately be highly unlikely in the real world, especially for autistic people working less prestigious jobs, or autistic people of color.
He is a tenured professor at a prestigious university at 39. Not exactly facing obstacles because of his disability.
He looks like Gregory Peck, as is oft-repeated through the novel. On this fact alone, I found it difficult to take his romantic struggles seriously.
One could call this The Rosie Project or just as plausibly, How Rosie Was Not an Idiot and Recognized a Really Incredible Guy When He Was Served Up to Her on a Plate, because Don is kind of obviously a catch. So, I disagreed with the entire premise of the novel, but still found it fun to read, with a hearty grain of salt.
5/10, though should justly probably be a 4 or 3, if it weren’t such an enjoyable read
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
Well, this one was beautiful and great. It is a novella that I read based on this book rec list in The Atlantic, about a working father in 1980s Ireland who slowly discovers that the convent close to him houses one of the now-infamous Magdalen laundries. At the time, the exploitative nature of the laundries was not known, and the nuns running them enjoyed high social status, and are depicted as being central to the cultural and educational infrastructure of the working-class community. Upon happening on undeniable evidence of abuse, the protagonist is faced with both a moral choice (whether to take action against a powerful institution) and also the upending of his understanding of the social organization of his world. It struck me that the moral choice he faces is actually two choices: 1) the choice to believe the evidence of his eyes, and face the deeply uncomfortable reality that some respected community members are actually abusers, and then 2) to take practical action to counter the abuse. One cannot get to the second without going through the first, which I personally think takes more moral courage. Regardless, it is a beautiful, spare, powerful book that you can easily read in a day or two.
10/10
Currently reading: In the Margins by Elena Ferrante
In the interests of getting on with publishing this, I am not writing a final ‘take’ on this book. I will just say it is another bite-size piece (a little over 100 pages) of Ferrante writing about writing. If you haven’t read Ferrante, she wrote the Neapolitan series that begins with My Brilliant Friend, a novel of two female childhood friends and the diverging paths their lives take. Ferrante writes with x-ray-like clarity and honesty, that reminds me of Jane Austen’s crystalline articulations of the subtleties of human behavior. I am not yet done with this short book, but so far Ferrante has talked interestingly about the process it took her to speak in her own voice, rather than to create a prose she knew was excellent but was ultimately derived from models very different from her own sensibility. Shockingly, she says she wrote in this second way for decades, which would place some of her major novels into the category of excellent but still not actually meeting her inner goal of writing fully in her own voice. Quite a testament to the power of the pursuit and also to the idea that output which falls below individual standards can still be incredible works of literature. So far, In the Margins is well written (unsurprisingly) and helpful/consoling for anyone with an ongoing obligation or desire to write.
7/10 (because I’m not done with it yet)