I haven't done a reading recap in a while, but it's my birthday today, so! No better time than now. My gift to me, really. If you're new to the newsletter (hi!!), I do these recaps every few months; here's November's, September's, and July's. Somehow, this is my first one of 2024! Let's talk books.
It's now been three months since I bid so-long-farewell-auf-weidersehen-adieu to my corporate job, and one of the very clear improvements to my life has been, without a doubt, the ability to read more sans guilt, or having to squeeze in a few pages in the very early morning or late evening in lieu of sleep. And how sweet it is to spend more time with books — I feel most myself when I read.
In no particular order, here are a few Good Books I've read in the last couple of months. All links are to Bookshop.
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell. I know I said no particular order, but I think this is the best book I've read this year. It's a few years old (2020), and I am certainly not the first to rave about it, but my god, I was so jealous while reading it, because O'Farrell chooses every word on every page so masterfully. It is a gorgeous book, poetic without being self-conscious, which is an issue I've had with Good Books recently — they tend to be aware that they are Good Books. I am, famously, emotionally repressed, and reading Hamnet felt like repeatedly getting punched in the throat. In a good way.
Last Summer in the City by Gianfranco Calligarich, translated by Howard Curtis. You see, this is why I love perusing the shelves at my local bookstore. Because there is no chance I would've picked this book up any other way. This 1970 novel is apparently an Italian classic, but I had never heard about it because it wasn't translated into English until 2021. It was a quick read, reminded me of the film La Grande Bellezza (2013) but somewhat more fatalistic, and made me want to move to Rome. I recommend it for a lazy weekend in the spring/early summer.
Memory Piece by Lisa Ko. This novel is out this coming Tuesday, March 19, and it gave me a lot of feelings and made me ask myself many questions about my relationship(s) with art, capitalism, technology, and community. A story about three friends whose journey starts in the 1980s and takes us into the 2040s, Memory Piece often made me uncomfortable, as I often am when a book's dystopian future (derogatory) is not impossible to imagine. It'll make you wonder about your role in the very technology-driven world we're both creating and living in. Fun!
The White Album by Joan Didion. Lol I know. You'll be surprised, I'm sure, to know that I had never read anything by Didion prior to this. You’d be forgiven for said surprised. I feel like she's someone the girlies read in college, and for some reason I missed that boat — I think I was too busy with my very involved poli sci syllabi, and still hung up on the Austens and Brontës of the world (a fixation that remains). Naturally, I loved this collection. A good, self-contained essay is so difficult to write, and somehow Didion wrote hundreds of them. On a personal level, I love the routine of reading an essay collection: I wake up, pour myself a cup of coffee, journal for forty minutes, and proceed to read a couple of essays. A gorgeous morning.
I am currently reading Orientalism by Edward Said, and I'm finding it transformative in my understanding of the West's creation/study/perspective of the "Orient" (in this context: the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia), a Western field of study not rooted primarily in history or empirical analysis but in, among other things, imperialism and the fairly overt assumption of inferiority in non-Western societies. I've been wanting to read more about the history of the West's interventions in the Middle East, and if you have too, then this is a good place to start. I'd also recommend The Hundred Years' War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi — I read it a couple of years ago, and it's been very helpful in navigating this current moment.
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There's a glaring absence of Harry Potter fan fiction on your Good Books list...
Happy Birthday! 🎉🎁🎈