It Happened on a Train: Summer Reading

Summer, for me, is a marathon reading experience. I maintain a list of books I want to read next, but the list grows and changes. I certainly don't go in any kind of order. In fact, sometimes a book presents itself out of the blue. 

This summer, I saved the "Summer Reading Bucket List" from the Next York Times Book Review earlier this month. Rather than helping me choose books, I use it to mark those I've read that fit the criteria. As a result, though, the selections vary widely. Nevertheless, I am always amused to see the threads that tie my reading together.

Most recently, I read Emma Donoghue's novel The Paris Express, a departure from other books by her I've read--particularly Room, which haunts me still, and Frog Music. This novel follows an ensemble cast of characters heading on a train toward Paris. There is an American artist, a young woman studying medicine, a woman who goes into labor, a young boy traveling alone, employees of the railroad, and a young woman who plans to celebrate her twenty-first birthday by blowing up the train, particularly when she is assured there will be three members of Parliament aboard before they read their destination. 

I'm reminded of Ann Patchett's suggestions that all of her books follow the formula of Canterbury Tales: Take people from different walks of life, put them together, and see what happens.  Based on an actual train disaster in 1895, the author explores the political climate in France as well as some of the fears tied to time and speed. 

The next book I picked up, eager to read it as soon as it was available, was Fredrik Backman's latest book My Friends. (So I get to check off "Read a book in translation.) If both these novels were made into movies, the same actress might be cast in both. In Backman's book, Louisa has just fled her group home on the day before her eighteenth birthday, still grieving the loss of her only friend there. 

She slips into an art exhibit to see a painting that has fascinated her most of her life, since she first saw it reproduced on a postcard she carries with her. Suspected of planning to deface the painting, she escapes into an alley, where she encounters what at first appears to be a homeless vagrant. He is The Artist (as he is called for most of the book). Near death, he commissions Ted, one of his childhood friends to take his life savings to buy back the painting. Then he tells him to give it to Louisa. 

The gift is too much for her. Though Ted is least equipped to deal with the socially awkward teenager, the two end up riding together on a train toward the seaside town and the pier depicted in the painting. They carry the painting and The Artist's ashes, and the back story unfolds. Louisa has to remind Ted that while the story is an old one for him, it is happening in the moment for her.

Anyone familiar with Backman knows that while his stories vary, his skill at developing quirky, engaging characters is a constant. He explores similar themes: the power of love and friendship, friends that are family, with some of the most lovable curmudgeons. Even the minor characters, both the heroes and the villains, come to life.

Maybe what I need is a long, slow train trip with a big bag of books.

It Happened on a Train: Summer Reading

Radio Silence Doesn't Mean I'm Not Reading

What probably should be my retirement years haven't turned out to be just that. After one semester off about ten years ago, I've been back as an adjunct ever since. Teaching has never gotten in the way of reading, but combined with other ventures, I've neglected to report on my reading. 

This summer (academic summer, that is; I know real summer doesn't start until June), my reading list covers has run the gamut. I read three pop rom coms in a row. Go figure. I started with The Wedding People by Alison Espach because it was getting a lot of press. It was clever, and the idea of an adjunct ditching her classes and heading off to a tropical vacation--even if it is with suicidal intents--drew me in. Living in Nashville, the bachelorette capital of the US, I also enjoyed some of the humor from an outsider's perspective. 

I also read Rufi Thorpe's Margo's Got Money Troubles, and I didn't find a personal way in. I did finish reading, which I don't always do these days. Then a friend I trust recommended Colton Gentry's Third Act by Jeff Zentner, the story of a B-tier country artist who gets cancelled for an alcohol-fueled rant about gun control, after losing a close friend at a concert shooting. Of the three, this would be the best for a book club because (a. there is SO much food talk, since he ends up looking the restaurant business. If your book club is like mine, a food link makes for a fun evening; and (b. there were some really clever lines--the ones that make me stop and open my notes app.

I also read Jean Hanff Korelitz's novel The Plot, and I will seek out the sequel, aptly entitled The Sequel. For anyone who's read Yellowface, this plot might ring a bit familiar. 

I've read two Liz Moore novels recently. I started with God of the Woods, which has been fun to pass along, followed by The Unseen World, which would make a good companion reading with Richard Power's Playground. While I was "in the woods," I read Heartwood by Amity Gaige, another newer release, set in the northern segment of the Appalachian Trail, when a forty-something woman goes missing. The multiple perspectives are well-done, but making it less a whodunnit than a how's it gonna turn out. Warning to Southern purists: If you listen to the audiobook, the narrator (mis)pronounces Appalachian as Appalaychian instead of Appalatchian. 

Those titles are just a few from my recent reading list, but what brought me back here, wanting to share was a book someone--and I can't remember who--recommended on Facebook: How Donating a Kidney Fixed My Jumpsuit by Jim Sollisch. 

Not infrequently, I am stopping mid-book to tell other reading friends, "You've got to read this one." This is one of those books, but it also makes me want to get out my notebook or open a new document on my laptop and start writing my stories. Sollisch is in the advertising business but has written and published short essays, particularly in newspapers, for several years. Most of these are under three pages. He manages to tell his story, reminding readers just how universal some of those stories really are. It's a book that makes me want to read out loud. I already see so many ways I want to incorporate this book into my freshman composition course when fall semester rolls around. 

Which do I love more--a book that makes me want to read, one that makes me want to write, or one that opens up great book conversations? Maybe all three.

Radio Silence Doesn't Mean I'm Not Reading

Prequels: The Ultimate Spoiler Alert

 

Narratives told out of chronological order are nothing new. After all, Sophocles wrote Antigone about twelve years before Oedipus Rex. C.S. Lewis' Narnia series was likewise written out of chronological order. So when I learned that David Wroblewski had written Familiaris, a prequel to The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, one of my all-time favorite novels, I couldn't wait to read it, but I was concerned about knowing too much.

Familiaris is the story of Edgar's grandparents John and Mary Sawtelle, the original breeders of what become known as Sawtelle dogs. Like the earlier novel, this one is not only lengthy, but grand in scope. While the first novel was a modern retelling of Hamlet, this one does not seem to have such a direct literary origin. 

Wroblewski has assembled a big cast of characters--two childhood friends of John, who come with them to the farm they purchase after becomes across it while waiting on his car too cool off. Their quirks are endearing and surprising. Frank, who lost a leg and arm in the war, is justifiably curmudgeonly. The large and taciturn Elbow discovers his own talent with woodworking, but his charm is his shifting personas--the Man Who Agrees with Everything, the Man Who Questions Everything, and so on.

Throughout the narrative, the author weaves in subplots, the earliest, the man who first tamed wolves; the most significant to the plot, Walter Payne, and Ida, the newborn he discovers in a raging wildfire and takes to raise. The supernatural element of her strange gifts are a small but curious part of the plot.

I knew to anticipate the birth of John and Mary's sons, Gar and Claude, since they are major characters in Edgar's story. Wroblewski's characterization of Claude, in particular, allowed me to be cautiously sympathetic with the boy, despite knowing the role he plays in the future.

Familiaris, above all, is a beautiful love story--John and Mary, naturally, but also their love for the dogs they raise, extending long after sending them to new homes, and from beginning to end, the love under the surface of John, Elbow, and Frank. Wroblewski varies his narrative style from time to time, sometimes almost mythical, sometimes epistolary, but he beautifully captures human nature, particularly the pain of loss.

I suspect I'm going to be re-reading The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, if only to visit the dog Almondine one more time.

Prequels: The Ultimate Spoiler Alert

The 2024 Book Report: My Year of Reading

I plan to follow up with notes on some of my favorite reads this year, here is the list of books I read this year. A few I have to Google to remember their content; others will not leave me. As I read other people's list of favorite books--as well as the New York Times list of the best books of the century so far, my list of what to read next gets longer. Here are the 80 I read and remembered to record:

Books I Read in 2024

Carolyn Weber, Surprised by Oxford

Lee Smith, Silver Alert

Julie Whelan, Thank You for Listening

Elena Ferrante, The Lying Life of Adults

Fred Chappell, I Am One of You Forever

Daniel Mason, North Woods

Kari Gunter-Seymour, Dirt Songs

William Kent Kruger, The River We Remember

Elena Ferrante, My Brilliant Friend

Margo Jodyne Dills, The Nail Set

James McBride, The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store

Jill McCorkle, Old Crimes

Chris Bachelder & Jennifer Hebel, Dayswork

Gary Goldman, What I Meant to Say Was

Abraham Verghese, The Covenant of Water

Luis Alberto Urrea, The Hummingbird’s Daughter

Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!

Mark Zwenitzer & Charles Hirschberg, Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone?

Carla Jean Whitley, Muscle Shoals Sound Studios

Percival Everett, James

Angeline Boulley, A Firekeeper’s Daughter

Sarah Clarkson, Book Girl

David Grann, The Wager

Leif Enger, Peace Like a River

James Goodhand, Day Tripper

Erica Bauermeister, No Two Persons

Ben Groner, Dust Storms May Exist

David Platt, Something Needs to Change

Lucinda Williams, Don’t’ Tell Anyone the Secrets I Told You

Amor Towles, Table for Two

Marianne Worthington, Girl Singer

Leif Enger, I Cheerfully Refuse

Julia Alvarez, The Cemetery of Untold Stories

Colm Toibin, Long Island

John Cowan, Hold to a Dream

Tommy Orange, Wandering Star

Monica Wood, How to Read a Book

Gillian McAllister, Wrong Place, Wrong Time

Luis Albert Urrea, Goodnight Irene

Anita Prose, The Mystery Guest

Sian Hughes, Pearl

Mohsin Hamid, Exit West

Amanda Skenandore, The Life of Mirielke West

Sean Dieterich, Kinfolk

Emilie Hart, Weyward

Barbara Martin Stephens, The People and the Music

Jodi Picoult, Wish You Were Here

Michelle Horton, Dear Sister

Ariel Lawhon, The Frozen River

Honoree Fanonne Jeffers, The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois

Joanna Quinn, The Whalebone Theatre

Elizabeth Berg, We All Are Welcome Here

Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Goo Omens

David Barry, Big Trouble

Matthew Perry, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing

Christina Dodd, Daughter of Fair Verona

Scott Owens, Augury of Birds

Adrian Rice, The Chances of Harm

Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist

--. Show. Your Work.

Paulette Giles, Chenneville

Elizabeth Strout, Tell Me Everything

Ryan McGee, Welcome to the Circus of Baseball

Brian Fairchild, Willie, Waylon, and the Boys

Tyler Mahan Coe, Cocaine and Rhinestones

Louise Penny, The Grey Wolf

Emily Critchley, One Puzzling Afternoon

Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These

Chris Whitaker, All of the Colors of the Dark

Todd Snider, I Never Met a Story I Didn’t Like

 Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

Liz Moore, God of the Woods

Leah Weiss, If the Creek Don’t Rise

Ruth Thompson, Journey Bread

KB Ballentine, All the Way Through

John Thomas York, The Charge,

Claire Keegan, Foster

Desmond Tutu and Ngho Tutu, The Book of Forgiving

Thomas Fuller, The Boys of Riverside

Jonathan Haidt, Anxious Generation

Elizabeth Keating, The Essential Questions

 

 

The 2024 Book Report: My Year of Reading

Two Nonfictions Reads: A Heavy Load

 I have always considered myself a reader of fiction, but I recall years when I was fascinated by biographies and autobiographies. Among my recent reading selections, a couple of nonfiction selections have had a heavy impact. 

Matthew Perry's memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is the very definition of dramatic irony from the first page when he opens with "Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead."

This look into the tortured life of abuse of the actor known for his role as Chandler Bing on the long-running series Friends. Throughout his revelations about his experiences with addiction, "the big terrible thing" of the title, I was so overwhelmed by his sense of hope. 

He describes his may experiences in rehab, as well as his pride for helping others going through the same experiences. He had insight into his overwhelming sense of disconnection and abandonment (sent to fly alone when he was far too young to be on his own) and his sense that he was never enough. He describes breaking up with Julia Roberts before she left him. 

He also paints such a supportive picture of his co-stars on Friends, particularly noting David Schwimmer's generous insistence that they negotiate their salaries as a team, no individually. Most tragic is the sense that his fame and success led others to give him what he wanted, not what he needed, providing drugs until they caught up with them. The news will continue to play out the aftermath as his suppliers face serious charges in his death.

Another recent memoir also let me needing something light to read--as a palate cleanser. Michelle Horton shares her sister Nicole Addimando's story. Charged with murdering her partner and father of her children, after years of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, Nikki was a test case of new laws to protect victims of abuse. The system failed her. 

Michelle, a single mother raising her son, took in Nikki's children and rallied support for her sister's legal case and then told her story. Her own guilt at overlooking signs of her sister's abuse, she joined forces with other supporters, wearing purple as a sign of solidarity and showing up time after time. 

If the story had been fiction, it would have been tough enough to read. As a true story, it was heartbreaking. I still think it was a story that needed to be told.

Two Nonfictions Reads: A Heavy Load

 One of my strongest-held beliefs is the power of fiction to increase our empathy as we inhabit others' lives. I'd go so far to say that reading fiction is, at least for now, the best way to time travel. Books have taken me to places I might eventually visit, but they have also taken me to other decades and centuries.

I read There, There, the earlier novel by Tommy Orange for which his latest, Wandering Stars, serves as both a prequel and sequel, when it first came out. Now I feel the urge to read it again, even though some parts of the novel are embedded in my brain. 

Wandering Stars starts after the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre, with the story of Jude Star, ancestor to the characters that make up most of the narrative. Orange helps to fill out the complicated history of the country's attempt to "reeducate" Indigenous children, purportedly to "Kill the Indian, Save the Man." 

The stories of extreme abuse in these boarding schools where families were forced to send their children can be found in a number of other novels. Orange follows the family lineage, picking up after the shooting at the Oakland powwow chronicled in There, There. Orange picks up with story lines of some of the characters in that story, but focuses on Orville Red Feather, now dealing with addiction to pain meds after being shot there. His friend Sean, an adopted boy who has recently lost his mother to cancer, finds through a DNA test that while he always assumed he was Black, he has a percentage of Native American blood. 

The novel deals with addiction, while examining identify and family connections. What struck me as I read, particularly since I have read such a range of books this summer, was how beautifully Orange tells the story. Even the references to the wandering stars--literal and figurative--are woven in with such a subtle hand. The book is also a reminder of the power and the necessity of reading books that make the reader uncomfortable.

Summer Is for Reading

 Summer reading has so many connotations. While, for most adults, summer doesn't necessarily have more time for pleasure reading than any other time of the year, the idea of lazy days under a beach umbrella with a good book is still appealing. For those of who living on the academic calendar, summer means a break from boning up on required reading--and especially from reading stacks and stacks of student papers. 

My list of what I want to read next far extends the number of days and hours, but I have made a valiant effort to make the most of reading time. One of the best surprises for me so far has been Monica Wood's novel How to Read a Book, not to be confused with the nonfiction book of the same title by Mortimer Adler.)

This novel opens in a women's prison, where 23-year-old Violet Powell attends a book club while serving time. The narrative shifts perspectives between Violet, Harriet Larson, the retired English teacher who moderates the book club, and Frank Daigle, a retired machinist whose life is inextricably linked to Violet's. 

As a book clubber and English teacher, I loved Harriet's effort to find reading material that will appeal to her motley crew of woman. While the women bond over their supposed antipathy for the book selections, they are won over by poetry, particularly Edgar Lee Master's Spoon River Anthology. 

The book takes interesting turns, especially as Violet tries to start a new life "in the Outs." Wood's story affirms the power of forgiveness, friendship, and second chances. I was already recommending the story before I finished it, knowing I'd need to talk to someone about it as soon as I finished.

Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister, one of the selections from Reese Witherspoon's Book Club, is a suspenseful novel that makes a perfect summer read. As the book opens, Jen Brotherhood is waiting for her 18-year-old son to get home by curfew. She sees him arrive as a man approaches. To her horror, she sees her son stab the man. She and her husband Kelly go through the nightmare of his arrest, forced to leave him in the jail cell. The next morning, she is shocked to see her son at home--until she sees on her calendar that she has over back to the prior day. 

I will admit that I am a sucker for time travel stories. In this story, Jen is moving backward, first a day at a time, and then with larger leaps. Is the butterfly effect in operation? She has to deal with the frustration of knowing that anything that happens, anything she tells anyone will have no impact as she moves backward. McAllister managed to keep me guessing through the entire story. 

I finally got to read the latest Kristin Hannah novel The Women that so many people have been talking about. To be honest, the writing is what one would expect from the romance genre--far too many coincidences, too predictable in places, and nothing so well worded I had to stop and make notes, BUT having lived through the Vietnam era and aftermath, I was interested in this story of the often overlooked women who served as military nurses in country. Frankie McGrath has grown up in wealth and comfort, but has always been haunted by the "hero's wall"--curated by her father who had not been able to serve. 

When Frankie, a trained nurse, joins the Army and volunteers for Vietnam, her parents react in shock. The description of the horrors, the friendships, even the music, the protests, and the inconsistent news reporting bring the historical period to life. Hannah has done her research. In the afterword, she says despite her interest in telling the story decades earlier, she had to wait until she was read to tell the story.

The novel is worth reading, even if only to discuss the era with others. I'm curious as to whether the recurring motifs of cheating death, chance encounters, and dishonest lovers was an obstacle to other readers. 

Summer Is for Reading