Reading post: February

It's the last day of February, so it's time for a reading post. I haven't been reading as much as usual, too much time spent absorbing the terrible news...

The books I drew from my "Briefly Noted" envelopes this month were Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies, a novel by Maddie Mortimer, described as "striking," and The Walker by Matthew Beaumont, a work of nonfiction described as "heady." But the "heady" one was awful, so I picked again and came up with Still Life with Bones by Alexa Hagerty, described as "meditative."

• Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer (2022). A novel about a woman, Lia, dying of cancer. I enjoy cancer memoirs, but a novel, hmm. This one is experimental, meaning, for one thing, that the cancer is sometimes the narrator. That was interesting, but also (for me) confusing. I definitely had issues with the book, but overall I'd say it was worth reading.
  
  
• The Walker: On Losing and Finding Yourself in the Modern City by Matthew Beaumont (2020). This turned out to be a collection of scholarly articles written by an English professor. I can't stand English department writing. Makes me physically ill. So, after a few pages I sent it back to the library.
  
  
• Still Life with Bones: Genocide, Forensics, and What Remains by Alexa Hagerty (2023). Oh, God, this wasn't much better. I don't know why I thought a book with the word "genocide" in the subtitle would be something I'd want to read. I mean, it was somewhat interesting, about exhuming skeletons from mass graves in Guatemala and Argentina, what the bones can tell you about how the people died, etc. But mostly it was terribly depressing. One thing: I kept reminding myself that things are better here, even with Trump. No mass graves, yet.

 

Best books of the 21st century so far

In February I decided to read books off the New York Times list by authors with last names beginning with C or D.

• Outline by Rachel Cusk (2015). When I started this, I hated it immediately. Not enough to stop reading, though, and by the time I was halfway through I had changed my mind. It's experimental writing, mostly just a bunch of conversations between the writer and other people, with the other people doing all the talking, and NO quotation marks. So it's tiring. But Cusk has some interesting things to say. I requested another book by her from the library, A Life's Work: On Becoming a Mother, and when it came in I read it too. A clever view of early motherhood, although I found I didn't relate to it totally because she had one baby and I had TWINS.
  
  
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (2015). I had meant to read this for ages, just hadn't gotten around to it. I think I should have read it several years ago. His points about racism and the American Dream, in this letter to his son, are old news now. Still, it's worth reading, even now. Maybe especially now, with the all-out attacks on DEI. I keep thinking how stupid I was, back in 2020 with the George Floyd protests, to think that things from now on would be better.
  
  
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (2007). I tried to read this, but I gave up after about 50 pages. I'm sure I could have gotten through it, but it wasn't making me happy and I thought, you know what, I don't have to read this.

So I've now read 37 of the books on the list of the top 100. I'm hoping to get to 50. I obviously don't want to read them all -- lots of them sound like things I wouldn't be interested in. But 50, I think I can read 50.

 

Other reading

My other reading this month consisted mainly of the book for the book group (The Incredible Winston Browne by Sean Dietrich, which was OK but not really my thing), and Less Than Angels by Barbara Pym (note that I don't own a copy with this cover, but I couldn't find a picture of my cover, so chose this one). 

For several years now I've been reading two Barbara Pyms in February, but this year I decided to go down to just one -- but to really enjoy it. And I did. It's such a funny book, especially for someone with a background in linguistics. Even though I've read the book at least a dozen times, maybe 20 times, maybe more than that, I laugh at it every time. There is a character called Miss Lydgate, an elderly linguist based on someone Barbara Pym worked with, who makes me laugh all through the book. This scene takes place in a restaurant:

Catherine wondered again as she so often did why it was that so-called 'well-bred' people had such very penetrating voices. It could not be thought, in these days, that they were accustomed to giving orders to servants. Miss Lydgate could be heard all over the room and Father Gemini matched his tone to hers.

Miss Lydgate can be heard "all over the room" all through the book. She's a lovely character and the whole book is lovely. Apparently this novel got less attention from reviewers (back in 1955 when it was published) than any of Barbara Pym's other novels, and I just can't understand why. I love it from start to finish.

There are 13 Pym books (not counting the cookbook and the diaries and all that): 12 novels and a compilation of early work called Civil to Strangers. If I read one a year from now on (and die in October of 2050, as predicted), I will only read Less Than Angels once more, in 2038. What a terrible thought. Maybe, as my end is approaching, I can read two Pyms a year, so that I get to it again. OK, that is ridiculous, we are not going to think about that.

In March I will read two more books from "Briefly Noted" and try to read two more from the NY Times list. I will also try to read my next book about Franklin Delano Roosevelt: FDR by Jean Edward Smith.