Book Blog: July 2023
Me: I’m going to write blogs about other stuff.
Also me: Too busy doing stuff to write about stuff.
On that note, I am still posting some stuff on my regular IG account, but for friends and family I started rico.family@ so we can post more real-time photos of both of us. That does mean we need to actually know you — all the more reason to become friends with us.
To books, then! Lots of disappointments in July, including the newest Emily Henry book, Happy Place, which was so terrible I gave up after 70 pages. Thankfully some of the books I started I finished (11, which seems to be my book number), so favorites below. Maybe I’m just getting crankier — we’ll never really know.
Fiction
The Many Daughters of Afong Moy (Jamie Ford): This was such an interesting novel with interwoven, multi-generational stories from the mid-1800s to the 2040s, and while this device doesn’t work for all novels, in the hands of a skilled author I find it lovely. Based on the emergent field of epigenetics (with a lot of artistic license, of course), the story tracks the generational traumas that have piled up for Dorothy and, increasingly, her daughter in 2045. The book ping pongs to different challenging experiences these women have faced as Chinese women moving in a primarily White world. This was my first encounter with Ford’s work and I can’t wait to read more of his novels.
The Man Who Smiled (Henning Mankell): If you are new to Wallander, head straight to the first book in the series, Faceless Killers. Otherwise… This might have been my favorite Wallander book yet because we see a new Wallander who reluctantly returns to the police force after a year off to try to overcome the trauma detailed in the previous book (The White Lioness). When a friend reaches out to him for help but then is found dead shortly thereafter, Wallander decides he has to go back and to solve this case. Mankell really develops Wallander over the books (my one tiny complaint is that I wish he fleshed out more of the other characters), but in this case I especially enjoyed meeting Ann-Britt, the newest member of the force and I hope a future character in this series.
Nemesis (Agatha Christie): In this book, Miss Marple is reconnected to a previous case (detailed in A Caribbean Mystery) when she learns that Mr. Rafiel has died and asked her to solve a crime for him. The challenge is that he has not stated what the crime is, but has booked her a gardens and houses coach tour and she is to figure out what has happened. A runaway boulder down a hill resulting in the death of a fellow traveler strands the tour in a small village. As she meets other curious tourists and villagers, she starts to gain insight on what the crime might be, and how to solve it in a way that would’ve made her friend proud.
Carrie Soto is Back (Taylor Jenkins Reid): Jenkins Reid is a sharp and witty author, and kudos to her for making tennis, the world’s second most boring sport, interesting enough to carry a novel (in case you are wondering, baseball is obviously the most boring of sports). She is also creating quite a world with characters interacting with one another (a bit cheap to plug a fictional biography that one of her characters reads that she also wrote).
This book follows tennis phenom Carrie Soto, out of retirement to prove that she is still fantastic and to make sure that her Grand Slam Title record stays hers. She is certainly an unlikable character at times, but underneath her gruffness you can see her care for those closest to her and her pain at losing her mother at such a young age. The book moves across a Grand Slam season (eg; the four biggest tennis tournaments) and has lots of fun and witty dialogue with a bit too much tennis. Still it was a lovely summer read for the deck and an engaging story arc.
Nonfiction
Rough Sleepers (Tracy Kidder): Rough Sleepers details the story of Boston’s homeless through the eyes of Dr. O’Connell, a physician who was expecting to do a one-year rotation in an outreach program but who never left. This book was an intersection of medicine, outreach, and social programming, but it was the stories of the patients — and the care and love Dr. O’Connell had for them — that made me keep reading. Kidder is matter-of-fact and while bringing warmth and compassion to the stories.
Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma (Claire Dederer): [Note: I won a copy of this book through the Goodreads Giveaway]
What happens when a writer, artist, or director we loves turns out to be a monster — or, at least, does monstrous things? This is the questions Dederer sets out to answer in this book. It was quite a meta-experience, this book — how Dederer reveals her own process of writing and how her identity shifts and changes, especially as she connects with other writers and artists. Chock-full of examples, each chapter feels like an essay of sorts that examines a different facet of this issue. Is it okay to like a work if someone “didn’t know any better” that what they did was wrong? Is it fair to apply today’s morals and social norms to artists from previous eras (the best chapter in my opinion as it addresses the third conditional tense problem that is strong in “woke” circles now)? How does who reviews art change how we perceive it? Which voices are not heard in this discussion?
This is certainly a very literary book in that it’s smart and snappy, but I felt this was well-balanced by what felt like the author’s asides to us, her confessions that she *too* has done or thought of things that others might consider monstrous. I also appreciated that she challenged us to get away from “we” (as in what should WE do about this?) and bring it back to the “I.” What is your perspective? What art do you like or dislike and why? What will you allow? At the same time, there are larger things at play (all the -isms) that put the burden on the consumer to decide.
I had no idea how she would wrap up this book, but the last chapter really brought it home for me. We still accept and love the work of monsters who create art because we have all loved a monster in our own lives — a friend, partner, family members, neighbor — and still find ways to love these people. “What do we do about the terrible people that we love?” she writes. “Do we excise them from our lives? Do we *cancel* them? Sometimes. But to do so is an excruciating process, and ultimately goes back to the calculator I introduced in the beginning . . . . How terrible is their terribleness? How much do we love them? And how important is that love to us?”
That’s all, friends. Keep your fingers crossed that I pick better books in August!
Cheers, S
