I've read two novels in the last six weeks, which for me, in summer, is ridiculous. One was a really bad book that I won't name because I am kind enough not to want the author to google himself and find this comment. I read it because I have the vaguest of vague connections to the author and wanted to see what he was up to. I kept reading it because I couldn't believe it could keep being so bad, and I wondered how he would manage to end it.
The other was Sue Miller's Family Pictures which I picked up at the lake and couldn't put down. So then I went to the library and took out two more Sue Miller novels, thinking her brand of engagingly familiar domestic realism was what I needed. But though I quite liked The World Below when I started it, and even picked it up a few more times, it still hasn't sucked me in.
I have a big stack of books on my dresser, waiting to be read. From top to bottom, it includes:
Stella Tillyard, Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa and Sarah Lennox, 1740-1832
James Robert Baker, Tim and Pete
Terry McMillan, How Stella Got Her Groove Back
Molly Hite, Class Porn
Judith Farr, I Never Came to You in White
Nancy Mitford, The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate
Alice Munro, Runaway
Lucy Grealy, Autobiography of a Face
Myla Goldberg, Bee Season
Michel Faber, The Courage Consort
Anthony Trollope, Phineas Redux
Sarah Grand, The Beth Book
Randal Keynes, Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution
Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces
Barry Unsworth, Sacred Hunger
Christine Balint, The Salt Letters
2 comments:
Well, I loved the Grealy book. Found The Beth Book hard to get into (and I haven't read it in ten years). I'd love to hear what you think of Bee Season (I didn't like it much while reading it but I couldn't put it down).
Have you read any Barbara Comyns? Their Spoons Came from Woolworths is awfully good and not as weird as some of her others.
Tove Jansson's The Summer Book (I think she wrote two adult novels and this is one) was a very easy read and would be perfect to read over the summer.
I'm really liking that Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin book. I don't think it's great biography (she's just kinda running down the events of these different writers' lives) but it's easy to read in tiny spurts, which is a plus these days.
I'm staring at my bookshelves but that's all I can come up with right now.
The Lucy Grealy book will suck you right in, at least it worked that way with me. If you enjoy it you then need to read Truth and Beauty by Ann Pratchett, Lucy's friend and former roommate, for a different perspective on Lucy. I found it fascinating.
Oh and happy belated birthday!
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