by One connecting thread has driven my recent book selections: avoidance. What am I trying to escape? For one thing, public discourse these days. Racist tweets, rampant name calling, flat-out lies, derogatory treatment of women . . . who wouldn’t want to escape that crap? The other thing I’m avoiding is The Luminaries, my big white whale of reading failure. Having stalled at 300 pages, I’m dreading diving back in.
So I divert myself with the literary equivalent of a luxurious bubble bath. Something short, easily digestible, and entertaining. Ah, yes; books, take me away.
Books 31–35 in 2019
No. 31: Impossible Owls by Brian Phillips
This advanced reader copy showed up in my Little Free Library. As a geeky publishing-type, I was thrilled that someone passed on an ARC. Basically, an ARC is a mock-up sent to reviewers by publishing companies and editors. The book isn’t the final, ready-for-print version, but an ARC is complete enough to give some select few a head start so articles are ready upon release.
Impossible Owls contains eight lengthy essays. You do the math–at a total of 330 pages, each is a hefty piece. The first, “Out in the Great Alone,” caused me to drop the book and sigh with ecstatic longing: “This is the kind of essay I’d like to write.”
Phillips combines fact with personal experience to illustrate bigger concepts. The Iditarod serves up lessons in community and personal perseverance. Sumo wrestling yields this:
“The first time you read a story like this, maybe, you feel cheated, because you read stories to find out what happens, not to be dismissed on the cusp of finding out. Later, however, you might find that the silence itself comes to mean something. You might realize, for example, that you had placed your emphasis on the wrong set of expectations. That the real ending lies in the manner of the story turning away from itself. That the seeming evasion in fact conceals a finality, a sudden reordering of things.” ~ Brian Phillips, Impossible Owls
The Alaskan wilderness, Japanese tradition, Area 51, man-eating tigers, an aging Russian artist, science fiction, British royalty. Impossible Owls actively covers a lot of territory, but I would gladly follow Phillips anywhere.
No. 32: Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad by Austin Kleon
I stumbled across this Austin-based artist and writer thanks to Instagram and #blackoutpoetry. Kleon uses newspapers to create blackout (or redacted) poems. He’s written a series of books about, as his bio describes it, “creativity in the digital age.” I’d call Keep Going motivational self-help for creatives.
Kleon discusses and illustrates ten basic tenets for makers. For example, #3 is “Forget the noun, do the verb” (ahem; editor Leah would’ve used a semicolon). Loosely paraphrased: creative success isn’t about the title, it’s about the doing. I’m very partial to #9 (“Demons hate fresh air”) and inspired by “Build a bliss station” (#2).
Part common sense, part aspirational wisdom, and part I-can-too-do-that vindication, this short book is like a pep talk from a super cool friend. You know–the friend who’s made it.
I also purchased another of Kleon’s books, Show Your Work! 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered (review to come later). Perhaps the biggest lesson–Instagram is indeed a successful advertising medium for authors.
No. 33: Notes to Self by Emilie Pine
Do you read books based on a review? I most definitely do, and I stumbled on Notes To Self right after reading a New York Times interview of the author. Plus, I am going to Ireland at the end of the summer and Pine is Irish. Fate, right?
Like Phillips’ Impossible Owls, this is book of essays–albeit much more personal essays. Pine is straight-forwardly honest and heart-wrenchingly exposed while employing a poetic turn of phrase. She makes impactful work of few words:
“I’m not here. This is what I’m thinking as his hands are on me; his hands and his mouth and the rest of him, all telling me that he wants to be inside me. I’m not here. Because I shouldn’t be here, I shouldn’t be here at all. I’m only sixteen, my mum doesn’t know where I am, it’s a school night, I should be tucked up in my own bed, not being fucked on someone else’s. So I’m not here.“~Emilie Pine, Notes to Self
Rough reading, whether harking back to my sixteen-year-old self or reading as a mother of two daughters. And there’s more: alcoholism, infertility, divorce, blood of all sorts (literal and metaphorical). While Notes to Self provided more triggers than escapism, Pine delivered a bonding sense of sisterhood and feminist camaraderie. We’re all in this together.
No. 34: The Lost Girls of Paris by Pam Jenoff
Just enough historical detail combined with the right amount of you-go-girl daring and not too much love interest, The Lost Girls of Paris is ultimately a compelling spy mystery.
Jenoff’s book is based on the true story of British secret agents who were deployed behind enemy lines during World War II to transmit messages via code. Female secret agents, many of whom did not survive their mission.
This book really delivered for me. I escaped into descriptions of agent training, code transmissions, WWII details, and covert operations. The Lost Girls was a page turner that entertained while educating. I thoroughly enjoyed living that undercover mission in Paris.
No. 35: Dietland by Sarai Walker
How many times have I read Dietland? At least three. But this last time was difficult.
Sarai Walker’s novel is a mind-blowing look at diet culture, militant feminism, and self realization. The main character and narrator is Alicia “Plum” Kettle. Plum, who works for a fashion magazine, is fat; she dreams of the day when she’s thin–when she becomes Alicia. The novel encompasses her journey from blind follower of society’s prescriptive body norms to active transgressor. She has the nerve to finally choose to live as who she is.
Before, I’d found a lot of dark wit in the “Jennifer” acts, militant feminists who take on lad mags, pornography, rapists, and lingerie purveyors with savage vengeance. Today, I couldn’t laugh. As I told the book club (we read and discussed Dietland on my suggestion), current events have created one raw nerve. I’m filled with rage at the way women are being treated in our country, at the way society is backsliding to strip away freedoms and rights.
Right now, I’m a lot more Jennifer than Plum. And that identification was sobering . . . and a bit scary.
That being sad, I encourage you to read Dietland. It will change you, and that’s the mark of a truly excellent book.
An Extra Taste
“Man-eaters,” an excerpt from Impossible Owls
“Special Agents: The Women of SOE” by Simon Mawer, The Paris Review
NPR Author Interviews, “‘Dietland’: A ‘Fight Club’ For Women That Reclaims The Word ‘Fat'”
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