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I'm in a season of reading thought-provoking books.

 The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green is a collection of essays. Green can rip his heart out of his chest and then write poignantly about how it bleeds. The topics are wide-ranging: Cholera to Icelandic sports to climate change. Each essay concludes with a star rating of the subject. Cholera gets one star. ⭐️ Depression gets one star. ⭐️ Love gets five stars. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

"We all know how loving ends. But I want to fall in love with the world anyway, to let it crack me open. I want to feel what there is to feel while I am here." John Green.

It was engaging and provocative.

Much like the other book I read this week, The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd.

 

Kidd juxtaposes the historical Sarah Grimke--daughter of a slave-owning family in Charleston--with a fictional enslaved person owned by the family named Handful/Hetty. The two lives are intertwined when Handful is given to Sarah on her 10th birthday. The writing is excellent. Each woman has a distinctive voice that tells the story of slavery and enslaver. The book brims with the burning desire to be seen, valued, and free. I stopped reading for a few days because I was worried about Handful, and I didn't see how there could be a happy ending for her. 

The invention of Wings is the March book for my book club. Great choice.  

Non-Fiction That Feels Like Fiction and Fiction That Feels Like Non-Fiction: A Jacob's Ladder

 

Earlier in my life, I was a fiction reader with occasional forays into biography. I would put the fiction to non-fiction ratio at 95%-5%. Now, the spit is closer to 60%- 40%. Perhaps, because there are really captivating non-fiction writers, or I've matured in my capacity to read non-fiction. Still, I think it's Malcolm Gladwell: I love his books and podcast. Self-help books have become necessary. I need help, please someone tell me what to do. Also, I now read some theology books because my husband convinced me and Tim Keller is a list maker. 

The book Chasing the Thrill by Daniel Barbaris is a memoir, adventure story, and biography telling a bizarre story of wealthy octogenarian Forrest Finn's hidden treasure. Finn hid the treasure; wrote a poem and a biography. If you could solve the clues in the poem, you could find approximately a million dollars or more in gold coins and other artifacts. People died searching. Finn's family was threatened by those hoping to force Finn to tell them it's hiding place. I stressed reading the book. I worried about who might die and what might be destroyed or damaged in the search. It was probably hidden in a State or Federal Park. I kept my husband updated as I read it, and we disagreed on Finn's responsibility. I thought Finn should recover the treasure to save further death and possible injury to his family, but my husband seemed more engaged by the mystery and adventure. A classic problem of opposites attract that we've wrestled with as a couple. I like security; he likes adventure. He gets me out of the house, and I make sure we have clean underwear when we go. 

There is research showing reading fiction can make you more empathetic. https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/how-reading-fiction-increases-empathy-and-encourages-understanding

I agree that fiction can give you perspectives on life that are unimaginable. Hell of a Book by Jason Mott creates understanding about being black in America. In that sense, Hell of a Book was painful to read, but Mott pulled me through his novel with intrigue and humor. The book feels like a Jacob's ladder toy that continually unfolds, but there isn't a clear "top" or "bottom." Mott juggles story lines with dexterity landing them deftly in the ending, leaving me, as a reader, amazed. I am a sucker for award-winning books, and Hell of a Book won The National Book Award for Fiction. I think this will be one of my top books for the year.

                                                                                                                                                      

Have I Read My Best Book of 2022?

I think I may have read my best book of 2022. If not, then in the top three. It is The Sentence by Louis Erdrich. This is the first book I've read by Erdrich, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for fiction. I love prize winners. I hope some of their shininess rubs off on me! The title connotes a prison sentence the main character, Tookie, has served, but it also refers to a sentence written by Proust crucial for solving ghostly problems. An amazingly clever set of bookends at the beginning and end. The book probably used "sentence" in other ways that I didn't even catch. Everything in the book feels complex and nuanced. I have little exposure to indigenous Americans other than westerns and learning we've broken every treaty the U.S. made with them. The book has both tragedy and laugh-out-loud moments. One is an interaction between the indigenous Tookie and a woman seeking validation for being "sensitive." I will be reading more of Louise Erdrich.

I also read Emotional Inheritance: A Therapist, Her Patients, and The Legacy of Trauma by Galit Atlas. Atlas, a therapist, proposes that unprocessed trauma is carried in the body and behavior from the victims to their descendants, poisoning their lives. It is filed under Psychology, but it reads like a memoir. She draws from her life and her patients to expound on her ideas. She makes a compelling case. I found myself gaining awareness of generational trauma. For a book that discusses the Holocaust, childhood abuse, suicide, and other sorrows, it left me feeling hopeful.

This was a three-book week. I finished Carved in Ebony: Lessons From Women Who Shape Us by Jasmine L. Holmes. Holmes is a black woman writing about influential, but sometimes obscure, historic black women who were unknown to me. Holmes chose well. These women were teachers, missionaries, and activists personally risking much to further others. It was a Christmas gift to me that was worth the time to read, and it expanded my understanding. 

More About Stanley Tucci--I Might Have a Problem

 

    I am the kind of person that when I find something I like, I really like it, and anything else is a disappointment. I might be headed that way with food memoirs. Last week it was Stanley Tucci's book, Taste. This week was My Life in France, by Julia Child with her niece, Alex Prud'Homme. I got there by watching the movie Julie & Julia with Tucci as Paul Child. It is a foodie, romantic film that I heartily recommend for Valentine's Day.

    My Life in France is descriptive of French food and a compelling life. I would say that Paul and Julia Child were odd ducks, just the kind of people I love to read about. Julia's awakening to her grand passion late in life makes me want to risk (A little bit, let's not get crazy).

Comparatively, my other book of the week, a reread for book club, seemed bland. I would call A Gentleman in Moscow a kindly read with more plot than character development. Count Alexander Rostov is sentenced to house arrest, but he lives in a hotel. He is there from 1922 into the late '50s. Rostov is changed and shaped by his confinement, but it surprises me that he retains his equanimity. Perhaps the book's lesson is that your lock-down buddies make all the difference; I think I would have gotten murderous or crazy, but he becomes an even lovelier person.