Pandemic Reading Strategies & Recommendations, Serious or Tongue-in-Cheek
If you’ve been spending time blog-hopping or on Twitter over the last few weeks, you will have seen countless riffs on this topic. Everyone’s pondering what’s best to read in these times. All we can get our hands on about plagues (Boccaccio, Camus, Defoe)? Allegories of similarly challenging worldwide disasters (WWII, 9/11)? Childhood favorites? Comfort reads? Funny books? Light, undemanding stuff? Rereads?
My general answer would be: as always, read whatever you want or can – anything that captures your attention is worthwhile. We’re under so much stress that our reading should be entirely unpressured. But to be a little more specific, I’ve gathered reading recommendations on a variety of topics, drawing on lists that others have made and linking to my own blog reviews where applicable.
(Some of these ideas are less serious than others.)
If you are brave enough to learn about zoonotic diseases:
Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic by David Quammen: This is top-notch scientific journalism: pacey, well-structured, and gripping. The best chapters are on Ebola and SARS; the SARS chapter, in particular, reads like a film screenplay, if this were a far superior version of Contagion. It’s a sobering subject, with some quite alarming anecdotes and statistics, but this is not scare-mongering for the sake of it; Quammen is frank about the fact that we’re still all more likely to get heart disease or be in a fatal car crash. 
If you can’t look away from pandemic stories, historical or imagined:
I already had Philip Roth’s Nemesis (set in 1940s New Jersey amid a polio epidemic) out from the library because it was on the Wellcome Book Prize shortlist in 2011. I was also inspired to take Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks (set in the 1660s and featuring an English village that quarantined itself during the Plague) off the shelf. I’m nearing the end of these two and should have my reviews up next week.
You will see no one book referenced more than Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. It’s a wholly believable dystopian novel in which 99% of the population has been wiped out by a pandemic. The remnant bands together not just to survive but to create and preserve art. “What was lost in the collapse: almost everything, almost everyone, but there is still such beauty.” (My full BookBrowse review from December 2014.)
See also this Publishers Weekly list of “13 Essential Pandemic Novels.”
If you’re feeling cooped up…
Infinite Home by Kathleen Alcott: “Edith is a widowed landlady who rents apartments in her Brooklyn brownstone to an unlikely collection of humans, all deeply in need of shelter.” (I haven’t read it, but I do have a copy; now would seem like the time to read it!)
…yet want to appreciate the home you’re stuck in:
Years ago I read and loved At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson and Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin. I can’t tell you anything more than that because it was before the days when I reviewed everything I read, but these are both reliable authors.
I love the sound of A Journey Around My Room by Xavier de Maistre: “Finding himself locked in his room for six weeks, a young officer journeys around his room in his imagination, using the various objects it contains as inspiration for a delightful parody of contemporary travel writing and an exercise in Sternean picaresque.”
I’m also drawn to Home: The Story of Everyone Who Ever Lived in Our House by Julie Myerson, who combed archives for traces of all the former residents of her 1870s terraced house in Clapham.
If you’re struggling with being on your own:
The Lonely City by Olivia Laing: This remarkable book on outsider artists interweaves biography, art criticism and memoir. Laing is a tour guide into the peculiar, lonely crowdedness you find in a world city.
How to Be Alone by Sara Maitland: Maitland argues that although being alone is easy to achieve, there is an art to doing it properly, and solitude and loneliness are by no means the same thing. Profiling everyone from the Desert Fathers of early Christianity to the Romantic poets, she enumerates all the benefits that solitude confers.
Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton: A one-year account of her writing life in New Hampshire, this is Sarton’s best. The book dwells on the seasonal patterns of the natural world (shovelling snow, gardening, caring for animals) but also the rhythms of the soul – rising in hope but also falling into occasional, inevitable despair.
See also this Penguin UK list of books to read in self-isolation.
If you’ve been passing the time by baking…
The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living by Louise Miller: As chief baker at the Sugar Maple Inn in Guthrie, Vermon, Olivia Rawlings settles into a daily routine of baking muffins, bread and cakes. This is a warm, cozy debut novel full of well-drawn secondary characters and romantic possibilities. There’s nothing clichéd about it, though. Livvy is a sassy narrator, and I loved how Miller documents the rhythms of the small-town country year, including tapping the maple trees in the early spring and a pie baking contest at the summer county fair.
Sourdough by Robin Sloan: Lois Clary, a Bay Area robot programmer, becomes obsessed with baking. “I needed a more interesting life. I could start by learning something. I could start with the starter.” She attempts to link her job and her hobby by teaching a robot arm to knead the bread she makes for a farmer’s market. Madcap adventures ensue. It’s a funny and original novel and it makes you think, too – particularly about the extent to which we should allow technology to take over our food production. 
…but can’t find yeast or eggs in the shop:
Yeast: A Problem by Charles Kingsley (1851). Nope, I haven’t read it, but our friend has a copy in his Everyman’s Library collection and the title makes us laugh every time we see it.
The Egg & I by Betty Macdonald: MacDonald and her husband started a rural Washington State chicken farm in the 1940s. Her account of her failure to become the perfect farm wife is hilarious. The voice reminded me of Doreen Tovey’s: mild exasperation at the drama caused by household animals, neighbors, and inanimate objects. “I really tried to like chickens. But I couldn’t get close to the hen either physically or spiritually, and by the end of the second spring I hated everything about the chicken but the egg.” Perfect pre-Easter reading.
And here are a few lists I put together for Hungerford Bookshop:
If you need a laugh:
Fiction:
Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
The Darling Buds of May (and sequels) by H.E. Bates
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
Heartburn by Nora Ephron
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
Anything by Nick Hornby
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
Anything by David Lodge
Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher
The Rosie Project (and sequels) by Graeme Simsion
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
Nonfiction:
Anything by Bill Bryson
21st-Century Yokel by Tom Cox
Anything by Gerald Durrell
Anything by Nora Ephron (essays)
This Is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay
Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood
Dear Lupin by Roger Mortimer
Anything by David Sedaris
Little Failure by Gary Shteyngart
If you want to disappear into a long book:
The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
The Nix by Nathan Hill
We, the Drowned by Carsten Jensen
Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile by Alice Jolly
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
If you’re looking for some hope:
Almost Everything: Notes on Hope by Anne Lamott
Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit
Hope Dies Last: Making a Difference in an Indifferent World by Studs Terkel
I’ve been doing a combination of the above strategies, reading about historical plagues in fiction and nonfiction but also doing some rereading and consuming lighter genre stuff like mysteries. I continue to dip into new releases, and I enjoy the ongoing challenge of my reading projects. Right now, I’m working through a few current Women’s Prize longlistees, as well as some past Wellcome Book Prize nominees and Women’s Prize winners, and I’m about to start a third #1920Club title. Plus I’m already thinking about my 20 Books of Summer (I’m considering an all-foodie theme).
Further reading:
- Book Riot pinpoints seven categories of books to read during a pandemic.
- Clare surveys the post-pandemic literary landscape.
- Elle logs her pandemic reading and viewing.
- Laura discusses pandemic reading strategies and distraction reading.
- Literary Hub looks at parallel situations, including post-9/11 reads, to make predictions, and asks what your “go-to quarantine read” says about you. (I’ve read Kindred most recently, but I wouldn’t say that describes me.)
- Simon thinks about what we can and should read.
- Susan highlights some comfort reads.
What are your current reading strategies?
Choose the Year Book Tag: 2010
Thanks to a couple of Lauras (Reading in Bed and Dr Laura Tisdall) for making me aware of this tag that has also been going around on BookTube. If you haven’t already taken part and think this looks like fun, why not give it a try?
Goodreads lists the 200 most popular books of any given year. Skim through and see how many you’ve read from the list and discuss whichever ones you like. (I chose not to answer the last two questions of this prompt but have included them at the bottom of the post.)
- Choose a year and say why.
I browsed a few of the years and found that 2010 contained 12 books that I’ve read, including some that stood out to me for various reasons. For instance, two of them marked the start of my interest in medical-themed reading. I also think of 2010 as when my reading went into ‘mega’ mode, i.e. approaching 200 books per year. (Now it’s more like 320 a year.)
- Which books published in that year have you read [or if none, heard of]?
Because the list is based on the number of times a book has been added to users’ shelves (though not necessarily read and rated) on Goodreads, there is a LOT of YA and series fiction, e.g. Mockingjay at #1. Other notable inclusions: Heaven Is for Real by Todd Burpo and Orange Is the New Black before that really took off.
Read at the time:
Gimmicky child narrator, but thoroughly readable: Room by Emma Donoghue (#4)
Medical masterpieces: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (#6) and The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee (#45)
Postmodern, angsty pop culture-filled delights: A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (#31) and Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (#37). I wonder if they’ve stood the test of time?
Vintage Bryson in curiosity-indulging mode: At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson (#69)
Not his usual sort of thing, but my introduction to him and a damn fine work of historical fiction: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell (#112)
Not my usual sort of thing (sappiness + magic realism), but I read it at a festival and it passed the time: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender (#116)
Part of my progressive Christian education, but not a great example; not memorable in the least: Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream by David Platt (#138)
A joy of a linked short story collection set among expat journalists in Rome; this author hasn’t disappointed me since: The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman (#156)
Who knew typesetting could be so fascinating?! Just My Type: A Book About Fonts by Simon Garfield (#178)
Read later on:
A brilliant WWII novel, truly among the best of the best: The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer (#93)
A DNF: Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow (#73) was way too involved for my level of interest.
- Are there any books published in that year that sound interesting, and would you read them now?
On the TBR:
#50 Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson
#75 The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
#124 Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok
#152 Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
None of these are priorities, but I’d still read them if a copy came my way.
[4. Most obscure-sounding book
5. Strangest book cover]
Do you remember any of these 2010 releases with fondness? Which other ones from the list should I read?
Recent Bylines: Glamour, Shiny New Books, Etc.
Following up on my post from June, here are excerpts from and links to some of my recent online writing for places that aren’t my blog.
Review essay of Gross Anatomy by Mara Altman for Glamour UK
The female body has been a source of deep embarrassment for Altman, but here she swaps shame for self-deprecating silliness and cringing for chuckling. Through a snappy blend of personal anecdotes and intensive research, she exposes the cultural expectations that make us dislike our bodies, suggesting that a better knowledge of anatomy might help us feel normal. While 11 of her 15 topics aren’t exclusive to women’s anatomy—birthmarks, hemorrhoids, warts and more apply to men, too—she always presents an honest account of the female experience. This is one of my favorite books of the year and one I’d recommend to women of any age. It’s funny, it’s feminist, and it’s a cracking good read. (My full review is complete with embarrassing personal revelations!) 
Essay on two books about “wasting time” for the Los Angeles Review of Books
In Praise of Wasting Time by Alan Lightman 
&
The Art of the Wasted Day by Patricia Hampl: A poet’s delight in lyricism and free association is in evidence here. The book blends memoir with travel and biographical information about some of Hampl’s exemplars of solitary, introspective living, and it begins, quite literally, with daydreaming. 
Hampl and Lightman start from the same point of frazzled frustration and arrive at many of the same conclusions about the necessity of “wasted” time but go about it in entirely different ways. Lightman makes a carefully constructed argument and amasses a sufficient weight of scientific and anecdotal evidence; Hampl drifts and dreams through seemingly irrelevant back alleys of memory and experience. The latter is a case of form following function: her book wanders along with her mind, in keeping with her definition of memoir as “lyrical quest literature,” where meaning always hovers above the basics of plot.
Book list for OZY on the refugee crisis & another coming up on compassion in medicine.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reviews
(Their website is not available outside the USA, so the links may not work for you).
Slave Old Man by Patrick Chamoiseau
Chamoiseau is a social worker and author from the Caribbean island of Martinique. Translator Linda Coverdale has chosen to leave snippets of Martinican Creole in this text, creating a symphony of languages. The novel has an opening that might suit a gloomy fairytale: “In slavery times in the sugar isles, once there was an old black man.” The novel’s language is full of delightfully unexpected verbs and metaphors. At not much more than 100 pages, it is a nightmarish novella that alternates between feeling like a nebulous allegory and a realistic escaped slave narrative. It can be a disorienting experience: like the slave, readers are trapped in a menacing forest and prone to hallucinations. The lyricism of the writing and the brief glimpse back from the present day, in which an anthropologist discovers the slave’s remains and imagines the runaway back into life, give this book enduring power.
Lake Success by Gary Shteyngart
Barry Cohen, a conceited hedge fund manager under SEC investigation for insider trading, sets out on a several-month picaresque road trip in the second half of 2016. The ostensible aim is to find his college girlfriend, but he forms fleeting connections with lots of ordinary folks along the way. Barry may be a figure of fun, but it’s unpleasant to spend so much time with his chauvinism (“he never remembered women’s names” but gets plenty of them to sleep with him), which isn’t fully tempered by alternating chapters from his wife’s perspective. Pitched somewhere between the low point of “Make America Great Again” and the loftiness of the Great American novel, Lake Success may not achieve the profundity it’s aiming for, but it’s still a biting portrait of an all-too-recognizable America where money is God and villains gets off easy.
Shiny New Books reviews
(Upcoming: Nine Pints by Rose George and Under the Rock by Benjamin Myers.) Latest:
The Immeasurable World: Journeys in Desert Places by William Atkins
Atkins has produced an appealing blend of vivid travel anecdotes, historical background and philosophical musings. He is always conscious that he is treading in the footsteps of earlier adventurers. He has no illusions about being a pioneer here; rather, he eagerly picks up the thematic threads others have spun out of desert experience and runs with them – things like solitude, asceticism, punishment for wrongdoing and environmental degradation. The book is composed of seven long chapters, each set in a different desert. In my favorite segment, the author rents a cabin in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona for $100 a week. My interest waxed and waned from chapter to chapter, but readers of travelogues should find plenty to enjoy. Few of us would have the physical or emotional fortitude to repeat Atkins’s journeys, but we get the joy of being armchair travelers instead.
Mrs Gaskell & Me: Two Women, Two Love Stories, Two Centuries Apart by Nell Stevens
I was ambivalent about the author’s first book (Bleaker House), but for a student of the Victorian period this was unmissable, and the meta aspect was fun and not off-putting this time. Stevens has a light touch, and flits between Gaskell’s story and her own in alternating chapters. One strand covers the last decade of Gaskell’s life, but what makes it so lively and unusual is that Stevens almost always speaks of Gaskell as “you.” The intimacy of that address ensures her life story is anything but dry. The other chapters are set between 2013 and 2017 and narrated in the present tense, which makes Stevens’s dilemmas feel pressing. For much of the first two years her PhD takes a backseat to her love life. She’s obsessed with Max, a friend and unrequited crush from her Boston University days who is now living in Paris. This is a whimsical, sentimental, wry book that will ring true for anyone who’s ever been fixated on an idea or put too much stock in a relationship that failed to thrive.
Times Literary Supplement reviews
I’ve recently submitted my sixth and seventh for publication. All of them have been behind a paywall so far, alas. (Upcoming: Face to Face: True stories of life, death and transformation from my career as a facial surgeon by Jim McCaul; On Sheep: Diary of a Swedish Shepherd by Axel Lindén.) Latest:
How To Build A Boat: A Father, his Daughter, and the Unsailed Sea by Jonathan Gornall
Gornall’s genial memoir is the story of a transformation and an adventure, as a fifty-something freelance journalist gets an unexpected second chance at fatherhood and decides to build his daughter, Phoebe, a boat. It was an uncharacteristic resolution for “a man who [had] never knowingly wielded a plane or a chisel,” yet in a more metaphorical way it made sense: the sea was in his family’s blood. Gornall nimbly conveys the precarious financial situation of the freelancer, as well as the challenges of adjusting to new parenthood late in life. This is a refreshingly down-to-earth account. The nitty-gritty details of the construction will appeal to some readers more than to others, but one can’t help admiring the combination of craftsmanship and ambition. (Full review in September 7th issue.) 
My Most Anticipated Releases of the Second Half of 2018
Here are 30 books that are on my radar for the months of July through November (I haven’t heard about any December titles yet), plus one bonus book that I’ve already read. This is by no means a full inventory of what’s coming out, or even of what I have available through NetGalley and Edelweiss; instead, think of it as a preview of the books I actually intend to read, in release date order. The quoted descriptions are from the publisher blurbs on Goodreads. If I already have access to the book in some way, I’ve noted that.
The first half of the year seemed to be all about plants. This time around I have plenty of memoirs, some medical and some bookish; birds and watery imagery; and some religious and philosophical themes.
[By the way, here’s how I did with my most anticipated releases of the first half of the year:
- 17 out of 30 read; of those 8 were at least somewhat disappointing (d’oh!)
- 5 unfinished
- 1 currently reading
- 1 lost interest in
- 1 I still intend to read
- 5 I didn’t manage to find]
The upcoming titles I happen to own in print.
July
No One Tells You This: A Memoir by Glynnis MacNicol [July 10, Simon & Schuster]: “If the story doesn’t end with marriage or a child, what then? This question plagued Glynnis MacNicol on the eve of her 40th birthday. … Over the course of her fortieth year, which this memoir chronicles, Glynnis embarks on a revealing journey of self-discovery that continually contradicts everything she’d been led to expect.” (NetGalley download)
The Lost Chapters: Finding Recovery and Renewal One Book at a Time by Leslie Schwartz [July 10, Blue Rider Press]: “Leslie Schwartz’s powerful, skillfully woven memoir of redemption and reading, as told through the list of books she read as she served a 90-day jail sentence. … Incarceration might have ruined her, if not for the stories that comforted her while she was locked up.”
The Bumblebee Flies Anyway: Gardening and Surviving Against the Odds by Kate Bradbury [July 17, Bloomsbury Wildlife]: “Finding herself in a new home in Brighton, Kate Bradbury sets about transforming her decked, barren backyard into a beautiful wildlife garden. She documents the unbuttoning of the earth and the rebirth of the garden, the rewilding of a tiny urban space.”
Crux: A Cross-Border Memoir by Jean Guerrero [July 17, One World]: “A daughter’s quest to find, understand, and save her charismatic, troubled, and elusive father, a self-mythologizing Mexican immigrant who travels across continents—and across the borders between imagination and reality; and spirituality and insanity—fleeing real and invented persecutors.”
The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon [July 31, Riverhead]: “A shocking novel of violence, love, faith, and loss, as a young woman at an elite American university is drawn into acts of domestic terrorism by a cult tied to North Korea. … The Incendiaries is a fractured love story and a brilliant examination of the minds of extremist terrorists, and of what can happen to people who lose what they love most.” (Print ARC for blog review at UK release on Sept. 6 [Virago])
August
Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller [Aug. 2, Penguin Fig Tree]: I’ve loved Fuller’s two previous novels. This one is described as “a suspenseful story about deception, sexual obsession and atonement” set in 1969 in a run-down English country house. I don’t need to know any more than that; I have no doubt it’ll be brilliant in an Iris Murdoch/Gothic way. (Print ARC for blog review on release date)
If You Leave Me by Crystal Hana Kim [Aug. 7, William Morrow]: “An emotionally riveting debut novel about war, family, and forbidden love—the unforgettable saga of two ill-fated lovers in Korea and the heartbreaking choices they’re forced to make in the years surrounding the civil war that continues to haunt us today.” This year’s answer to Pachinko? And another botanical cover to boot! (Edelweiss download)
A River of Stars by Vanessa Hua [Aug. 14, Ballantine Books]: “In a powerful debut novel about motherhood, immigration, and identity, a pregnant Chinese woman makes her way to California and stakes a claim to the American dream. … an entertaining, wildly unpredictable adventure, told with empathy and wit” Sounds like The Leavers, which is a Very Good Thing.
The Shakespeare Requirement by Julie Schumacher [Aug. 14, Doubleday]: A sequel to the very funny epistolary novel Dear Committee Members! “Now is the fall of his discontent, as Jason Fitger, newly appointed chair of the English Department of Payne University, takes aim against a sea of troubles, personal and institutional.” (Edelweiss download)
Gross Anatomy: Dispatches from the Front (and Back) by Mara Altman [Aug. 21, G.P. Putnam’s Sons]: “By using a combination of personal anecdotes and fascinating research, Gross Anatomy holds up a magnifying glass to our beliefs, practices, biases, and body parts and shows us the naked truth—that there is greatness in our grossness.” (PDF from publisher; to review for GLAMOUR online)
Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters by Anne Boyd Rioux [Aug. 21, W. W. Norton Company]: This is the bonus one I’ve already read, as part of my research for my Literary Hub article on rereading Little Women at its 150th anniversary. (That’s also the occasion for this charming book.) Rioux unearths Little Women’s origins in Alcott family history, but also traces its influence through to the present day. She also makes a strong feminist case for it. My short Goodreads review is here. (Edelweiss download)
September
Lake Success by Gary Shteyngart [Sept. 4, Random House]: I read his memoir but am yet to try his fiction. “When his dream of the perfect marriage, the perfect son, and the perfect life implodes, a Wall Street millionaire takes a cross-country bus trip in search of his college sweetheart and ideals of youth. … [a] biting, brilliant, emotionally resonant novel very much of our times.” (Edelweiss download; for Pittsburgh Post-Gazette review)
In My Mind’s Eye: A Thought Diary by Jan Morris [Sept. 6, Faber & Faber]: One of my most admired writers. “A collection of diary pieces that Jan Morris wrote for the Financial Times over the course of 2017.” I have never before in my life kept a diary of my thoughts, and here at the start of my ninth decade, having for the moment nothing much else to write, I am having a go at it. Good luck to me.
Help Me!: One Woman’s Quest to Find Out if Self-Help Really Can Change Her Life by Marianne Power [Sept. 6, Picador]: “[F]or a year she vowed to test a book a month, following its advice to the letter, taking the surest road she knew to a perfect Marianne. As her year-long plan turned into a demented roller coaster where everything she knew was turned upside down, she found herself confronted with a different question: Self-help can change your life, but is it for the better?” (Print ARC)
Normal People by Sally Rooney [Sept. 6, Faber & Faber]: Much anticipated follow-up to Conversations with Friends. “Connell and Marianne both grow up in the same town in rural Ireland. The similarities end there; they are from very different worlds. But they both get places to study at university in Dublin, and a connection that has grown between them despite the social tangle of school lasts long into the following years.”
Mrs. Gaskell & Me by Nell Stevens [Sept. 6, Picador]: “In 2013, Nell Stevens is embarking on her PhD … and falling drastically in love with a man who lives in another city. As Nell chases her heart around the world, and as Mrs. Gaskell forms the greatest connection of her life, these two women, though centuries apart, are drawn together.” I was lukewarm on her previous book, Bleaker House, but I couldn’t resist the Victorian theme of this one! (Print ARC to review for Shiny New Books)
Heart: A History by Sandeep Jauhar [Sept. 18, Farrar, Straus and Giroux]: “Deftly alternating between key historical episodes and his own work, Jauhar tells the colorful and little-known story of the doctors who risked their careers and the patients who risked their lives to know and heal our most vital organ. … Affecting, engaging, and beautifully written.” (Edelweiss download)
To the Moon and Back: A Childhood under the Influence by Lisa Kohn [Sept. 18, Heliotrope Books]: “Lisa was raised as a ‘Moonie’—a member of the Unification Church, founded by self-appointed Messiah, Reverend Sun Myung Moon. … Told with spirited candor, [this] reveals how one can leave behind such absurdity and horror and create a life of intention and joy.”
Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss [Sept. 20, Granta]: I’ve read Moss’s complete (non-academic) oeuvre; I’d read her on any topic. This novella sounds rather similar to her first book, Cold Earth, which I read recently. “Teenage Silvie is living in a remote Northumberland camp as an exercise in experimental archaeology. … Behind and ahead of Silvie’s narrative is the story of a bog girl, a sacrifice, a woman killed by those closest to her, and as the hot summer builds to a terrifying climax, Silvie and the Bog girl are in ever more terrifying proximity.” (NetGalley download)
Time’s Convert (All Souls Universe #1) by Deborah Harkness [Sept. 25, Viking]: I was a sucker for Harkness’s A Discovery of Witches and its sequels, much to my surprise. (The thinking girl’s Twilight, you see. I don’t otherwise read fantasy.) Set between the American Revolution and contemporary London, this fills in the backstory for some of the vampire characters.
October
All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir by Nicole Chung [Oct. 2, Catapult]: “Nicole Chung was born severely premature, placed for adoption by her Korean parents, and raised by a white family in a sheltered Oregon town. … With warmth, candor, and startling insight, Chung tells of her search for the people who gave her up, which coincided with the birth of her own child.” (Edelweiss download)
Melmoth by Sarah Perry [Oct. 2, Serpent’s Tail]: Gothic fantasy / historical thriller? Not entirely sure. I just know that it’s the follow-up by the author of The Essex Serpent. (I choose to forget that her first novel exists.) Comes recommended by Eleanor Franzen and Simon Savidge, among others. (Edelweiss download)
The Ravenmaster: Life with the Ravens at the Tower of London by Christopher Skaife [Oct. 2, 4th Estate]: More suitably Gothic pre-Halloween fare! “Legend has it that if the Tower of London’s ravens should perish or be lost, the Crown and kingdom will fall. … [A]fter decades of serving the Queen, Yeoman Warder Christopher Skaife took on the added responsibility of caring for these infamous birds.” I briefly met the author when he accompanied Lindsey Fitzharris to the Wellcome Book Prize ceremony.
I Am Dynamite!: A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche by Sue Prideaux [Oct. 4, Faber & Faber]: “Friedrich Nietzsche’s work forms the bedrock of our contemporary thought, and yet a shroud of misunderstanding surrounds the philosopher behind these proclamations. The time is right for a new take on Nietzsche’s extraordinary life, whose importance as a thinker rivals that of Freud or Marx.” (For a possible TLS review?)
Almost Everything: Notes on Hope by Anne Lamott [Oct. 16, Riverhead]: I haven’t been too impressed with Lamott’s recent stuff, but I’ll still read anything she publishes. “In this profound and funny book, Lamott calls for each of us to rediscover the nuggets of hope and wisdom that are buried within us that can make life sweeter than we ever imagined. … Almost Everything pinpoints these moments of insight as it shines an encouraging light forward.”
The Library Book by Susan Orlean [Oct. 16, Simon & Schuster]: The story of a devastating fire at Los Angeles Public Library in April 1986. “Investigators descended on the scene, but over 30 years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who? Weaving her life-long love of books and reading with the fascinating history of libraries and the sometimes-eccentric characters who run them, … Orlean presents a mesmerizing and uniquely compelling story as only she can.” (Edelweiss download)
Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver [Oct. 18, Faber & Faber]: Kingsolver is another author I’d read anything by. “[T]he story of two families, in two centuries, who live at the corner of Sixth and Plum, as they navigate the challenges of surviving a world in the throes of major cultural shifts.” 1880s vs. today, with themes of science and utopianism – I’m excited! (Edelweiss download)
Nine Pints: A Journey through the Money, Medicine, and Mysteries of Blood by Rose George [Oct. 23, Metropolitan Books]: “Rose George, author of The Big Necessity [on human waste], is renowned for her intrepid work on topics that are invisible but vitally important. In Nine Pints, she takes us from ancient practices of bloodletting to modern ‘hemovigilance’ teams that track blood-borne diseases.”
November
The End of the End of the Earth: Essays by Jonathan Franzen [Nov. 13, Farrar, Straus and Giroux]: “[G]athers essays and speeches written mostly in the past five years … Whether exploring his complex relationship with his uncle, recounting his young adulthood in New York, or offering an illuminating look at the global seabird crisis, these pieces contain all the wit and disabused realism that we’ve come to expect from Franzen.”
A River Could Be a Tree by Angela Himsel [Nov. 13, Fig Tree Books]: “How does a woman who grew up in rural Indiana as a fundamentalist Christian end up a practicing Jew in New York? … Ultimately, the connection to God she so relentlessly pursued was found in the most unexpected place: a mikvah on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. This devout Christian Midwesterner found her own form of salvation—as a practicing Jewish woman.”
Becoming by Michelle Obama [Nov. 13, Crown]: “In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her—from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address.”
Which of these do you want to read, too? What other upcoming 2018 titles are you looking forward to?
In Praise of Literary Prizes
I like a spot of competition. Whether watching Olympic figure skating, playing board games like Scrabble and Boggle, entering a low-key Oscars pool, or rooting for my favorites in American Idol seasons and Miss America pageants, I’ve always loved trying to pick the best. This means that literary prizes are hugely exciting for me, and I follow the races closely.
I’m particularly devoted to the Man Booker Prize. I was delighted to see Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life on the recent longlist (catch up on it here), a truly interesting set of books, diverse in terms of their genres and authors’ nationalities and nicely balanced between male and female writers (6:7). I’ve read four of the longlisted titles so far:
The Fishermen, Chigozie Obioma (full review in May 2015 issue of Third Way): From a young Nigerian debut novelist comes a haunting tale of sibling rivalry and revenge. With sectarian riots afoot, the four oldest Agwu boys decide to make money by skipping school and fishing in the Omi-Ala River. Things get more complicated when Abulu, the local madman, issues a prophecy that seems bound to divide the brothers. The first quarter of the novel, especially, is drenched in foreshadowing (not always subtle, nor do the plot turns often rise above the predictable). Rich with prophecy and allusions, this owes much to biblical narratives and tragedies from Shakespeare to Chinua Achebe.- Lila, Marilynne Robinson – reviewed at For Books’ Sake
- A Spool of Blue Thread, Anne Tyler – also reviewed at For Books’ Sake
- A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara – reviewed at Shiny New Books
Next up: I’m reviewing The Green Road by Anne Enright for the November 2015 issue of Third Way. The Booker Prize shortlist will be announced on September 15th and the winner on October 13th.
Beyond the Booker, here are some of the other prizes I follow throughout the year, listed in vague chronological order:
The Not the Booker Prize run by the Guardian. On this year’s shortlist is Shame by Melanie Finn, a book I loved when I reviewed it for Third Way’s April 2015 issue. It’s a powerful story of regret and the search for redemption. Though it has elements of a straightforward psychological thriller, the daring structure and moral complexities are more akin to Graham Greene. In alternating chapters, Pilgrim Jones contrasts flashbacks to her car accident and the subsequent investigation back in Switzerland with her present-tense African odyssey. This is Conrad’s Africa, a continent characterized by darkness and suffering. The question of culpability remains murky, yet the possibility of salvation shines through. [Voting will take place in October.]
- The Guardian First Book Award (open to both fiction and nonfiction): the shortlist will be announced this Friday, August 14th. One entry, Spill Simmer Falter Wither by Sara Baume, has already been chosen by readers, and the other nine are selected from publishers’ submissions. [Winner announced in late November.]
The Dylan Thomas Prize for young writers (under 39) went to Joshua Ferris for To Rise Again at a Decent Hour last year. [Longlist in September, shortlist in October and winner announced in November.]
- The Costa Book Awards give separate prizes for fiction, debut fiction, biography, poetry, and children’s books, and also choose one overall winner. [Category shortlists in late November, category winners in early January and overall winner on January 26, 2016.]
- The Folio Prize, only two years old, considers any work of fiction published in English; before the Booker expanded to include American entries last year, it was the most Catholic of the fiction prizes. Now it risks being considered redundant; especially since it lost its Folio Society sponsorship, it’s unclear whether it will continue. [Shortlist in February and winner announced in March.]
The Wellcome Book Prize is for medical-themed literature, fiction or nonfiction. Last year’s winner, The Iceberg by Marion Coutts, meant a lot to me for personal reasons but was also one of the most unusual and impressive memoirs I’ve ever read. I reviewed it for The Bookbag here. [Shortlist in March and winner announced in April.]
- The Pulitzer Prize is America’s premier literary award. I confess I often feel a little out of touch with the winners and don’t necessarily make a conscious effort to seek out the nominated books. I’d like to be more familiar with Pulitzer winners. Next year marks the prize’s centennial, so there’s no better time! [Winners announced in April.]
- The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize is for any book that has been translated into English and published in the UK in the previous year. I’ve found some great offbeat reads by browsing through previous longlists. As of next year, the prize is merging with the Man Booker International award, which previously recognized the life work of a foreign author every other year. [Longlist in March, shortlist in April and winner announced in May.]
The Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize, the UK’s prize for comic literature, has run since 2000. Among the past winners are Paul Torday, Howard Jacobson, Terry Pratchett, Geoff Dyer, Gary Shteyngart, and (surprise!) Ian McEwan. I’ve read five of the winners, including Lost for Words by Edward St. Aubyn. [Shortlist in March and winner announced in May.]
- The Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction (formerly known as the Orange Prize). Ali Smith won the 2015 award for How to Be Both. [Longlist in March; shortlist and winner announced in June.]
Do you follow literary prize races? Do you make a point of reading the winner and/or the shortlisted books? All comments welcome!
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 