reading journals
Each year Richard attempts to read 75-100 titles, covering a wide variety of subjects. If your interest is piqued by any of his journal excerpts below, click on a year. See also his My Book World posts at his Blog page.
1987-1993 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
1987-1993 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Recent Excerpts (REV. SEPTEMBER 2023)
Agus, David B. The Book of Animal Secrets: Nature’s Lessons for a Long and Happy
Life. New York: Simon, 2023.
At first I felt this book to be a bit contrived, but as I got deeper into it, I realized that the author has a seriousness of intent and purpose. From domesticated canines to “wild” animals, he intends for us to see that we have much to learn about living from our animal friends. A few things he hammers home again and again: 1) Companionship can include animals. 2) Like pigeons, pay attention to patterns; don’t take the same route to and from work each day. 3) Keep your cardiovascular system fit. Don’t smoke. Sleep in a flat position. Maintain dental hygiene. 4) Eat a diverse diet, “but stay as close to nature as possible.” Like chimps, learn to take some risks; don’t be afraid of trial-and-error learning. 5) Teamwork, like ants employ, is always a healthy way to live. These are just a few lessons learned from our wild friends.
Garmus, Bonnie. Lessons in Chemistry. New York: Doubleday, 2022.
Garmus sets the novel in the 1950s, but the protagonist, Elizabeth Zott, brings to the surface all the sexism and misogyny that professional women face during that era. Zott falls in love with a fellow scientist, Calvin Evans, while they work side-by-side in the same commercial laboratory. With no intention of ever marrying or having children, she finds herself pregnant—just as her beloved lover (with whom she cohabitates) suddenly dies. Though she has only a master’s degree, her research is superior to the man in charge of her work and who steals it and claims it as his own.
So many wonderful features to this novel, it would be a shame to spoil them all by listing them here. Suffice it to say that Garmus has created a complex novel, yet one that reads simply. She does such an excellent job of guiding readers through the complexity by way of reminders of events that have occurred in the past—without seeming repetitious. Quite a gift. Get the book. Read it. Laugh out loud as I did. Cry during the denouement, as all the pieces, like an Agatha Christie novel, come clattering into place. You won’t be sorry.
Krouse, Erika. Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation. New York:
Flatiron, 2022.
Krouse, a fine novelist and short story writer (I became acquainted with her work in The New Yorker), turns to nonfiction in this book. She lives in Colorado where she secures a job as a private investigator for an attorney who is attempting to litigate against the town’s university (you don’t have to comb your memory for long to realize she’s talking about the University of Colorado). In her developing career—she informs her boss during her interview that she is not a PI—she learns to interview victims of sexual violence at the hands of the university’s potential recruits, contemporary football players, and coaching staff (at least by way of their complicity). It is a case that continues for six years until it is “resolved” (you’ll have to read the book to see what that means).
Snyder, Rachel Louise. Women We Buried, Women We Burned: A Memoir. New
York: Bloomsbury, 2023.
This book comes to me as sort of a literary triptych: 1) The author’s abusive childhood 2) The author’s pursuance and achieving of a higher education, and 3) The author’s life as a result of the first two. Oh, where to begin?
A little girl loses her mother (having been raised in the Jewish faith), and her father (a questionable “Christian”), remarries rather soon. Little girl rebels against all: her parents, her schools, all teachings that have come before. And why not? She is subject to such great hypocritical abuse by her father: formal spankings that her father rationalizes by way of the scriptures, though adult Rachel later puts those readings into context:
And all the spankings ever do (as with most children) is fuel her anger. Young Rachel repeatedly runs away from home. She does drugs. She begins to work at an early age because her father gives written permission (child labor being perhaps another form of abuse). The blended family of four children broadens to include two new siblings, babes Rachel adores, though her older siblings not so much. When the two parents can no longer “control” their older brood, they pack four suitcases and kick them out. Rachel is in her teens, and she drops out of high school (or actually the school drops her, expels her for her poor behavior and academic record).
Thus begins Rachel’s education: Sensing that she is innately intelligent. But learning that if she doesn’t finish her education, she will never have a life. This long-but-short education includes working as a booking agent for local Chicago bands (which she’s excellent at), attending Barbizon school of modeling (at the behest of her Jewish grandmother) but dropping out. Eventually, she is convinced by a friend to take the GED (General Education Development) exam, which, in spite of her academic weaknesses she passes with little effort: “If everyone knew how easy the GED was, no one would ever finish high school” (161). Then she begins to attend community college, moves on to earn her undergraduate and graduate degrees related to literature and writing. Teaches, earns a living as a freelance journalist.
The third part of Rachel’s triptych consists of her adulthood. She begins by booking passage for the Semester at Sea, which changes her life’s trajectory. For many years following her education, Snyder will travel the world as a journalist and writer. She will marry a British man and have a child overseas. She will return to the US, living in Washington DC, but will travel to Arizona to help care for her second mother, the second one also to die from cancer. The most poignant section of the memoir, the last third, will pull together with the first two, to finally bring to rest Rachel’s anger with her father and her stepmother, will finally make Rachel a whole person. If not a tour de force, the book is pretty damn close.
Somtochukwu, Ani Kayode. And Then He Sang a Lullaby. New York: Roxane Gay,
2023.
It would be a great understatement to say that the country of Nigeria is an unsafe place for the LGBTQ+ community to live. In this debut novel, Somtochukwu takes readers through the lives and loves of two young men. For one, neither set of parents offers any support for their gay sons. One man establishes a close relationship with his sister, which helps. Still, these two college men are on their own. On their own when one is beaten up by his very roommates. On his own in almost every context of his life. For those of us who complain about our LGBTQ+ lives in the US, we need only read this novel to realize we must be thankful for what we have and continue to fight against such bigotry here and abroad.