August 18, 2023 · 7:04 pm

All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days: What a bad title for an excellent book

Rebecca Donner’s biography of her great-great aunt, Mildred Harnack, All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days, is great (though the title is impossible for me to remember thus making it terrible when I try to recommend it). It has a thriller vibe as the resistance forms and fights in Berlin leading up to and during the Second World War. The cast of characters (I know, I know, they’re people) feel sharp and present – the best kind of biography for me is one where you can forget its non-fiction. And how wonderful to have recovered the story of Harnack, all but forgotten, from fragments and trace references, and to bring her heroism to the contemporary moment.

Harnack’s heroism is her bafflement that those around her are quiescent amid the rise of Hitler. Everyone, she thinks, seems to think someone else will solve the problem of Hitler, someone else will put a stop to the madness.

Most pressing to a reader in 2023 are the questions of what we do ourselves amid our parallel moment. Bravery is not my strong suit, and so I’ll simply suggest you read this one, and think about accrual of silence and shrugs. Sort of like how I approach choosing take-out on Friday nights, and then find myself annoyed that we’ve ended up with shawarma. Once again.

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May 17, 2023 · 1:54 am

The Last Thing He Told Me: A Forgettable Title, for a Memorable Book

It is an extremely good feeling when a person you love loves a book that you love. Orders of magnitude better feeling when a person you love who does not normally (ever) read books (1) reads a book and (2) loves a book and (3) that book turns out to be one you don’t mind/enjoy (I want so much to go so far as to say love, but… #integrity).

I get that this is what it means to share passions and that this is so much of what does underpin close relationships – I do. But so many of my recent friend additions have been ones where the first point of connection is being Adults With Small Dependents And Too Many Responsibilities, and not The! Joy! Of! Reading! (though to the credit of K. and K. this *is one of our shared connections, and I’m grateful for it).

Enter Laura Dave’s The Last Thing He Told Me. Our ill-named book club (famous for never picking, never-mind reading a book) decided we’d had enough mockery, and so we’d read a book. Problem: C. who refuses to read (anything? that can’t be true. But made up things where you might feel something). So we gave her the power to choose the book, and she did. And she loved it! (though, she – like me – couldn’t remember the name of it two weeks after reading it, so maybe something to take back to the focus group: get a better title).

I won’t tell you it’s the best book you’ve ever read, but it is a romp. The sort of thing you can immediately see being turned into a miniseries (oh wait, it has been already?) starring someone and someone and extra tall wine glasses. It follows Hannah and her step-daughter Bailey in the days after Hannah’s husband/Bailey’s father, Owen, goes missing – oh he leaves behind some notes, some cash, and is wanted in connection with a collapsing ponzi scheme (though maybe all ponzi schemes are collapsing? anyway).

While tripping along the thriller-suspense-can’t-put-it-down-just-one-more-chapter-I-swear lane, the book stumbles into some interesting thematic questions about what it means to be a parent – like literally in the sense of the limits of biology, but of course more in the sense of what responsibilities, what sacrifices, what ways of thinking-being are required. It makes a reasonably good case that ‘parent’ is to be – the verb, I mean – and has almost nothing to do with the noun.

And if you’re not into books with parenting themes there’s still lots of quasi-car chase scenes to keep you entertained, and modestly interesting other threads about identity and starting over. Perfect book for a beach or airplane.

But mostly? It’s a lot of fun. And so much more fun when your not-a-book-club people read it with you. Thanks, C.

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May 5, 2023 · 3:20 am

It Ends With Us: So… Colleen Hoover

My teenage niece suggested I read Colleen Hoover. I hadn’t heard of her, and read so much less than I want to, and thought “I will stay relevant! I will read Colleen Hoover to stay connected with the teens!” Apparently I will also stay connected to millions on millions of other people who do not live under a rock and have heard of Colleen Hoover. An article from Slate promised me that her books sold better than the Bible in 2022, a fact which I didn’t find that impressive because I thought most Bibles were free.

Onwards: I didn’t really like It Ends With Us, but I did read it in three days.

I am so glad so many people are reading. Might I suggest your next book be… something else.

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March 26, 2023 · 5:38 pm

David Copperfield and Demon Copperfield: Truly Genius

Ahhhhhhhhh.

I know generative AI is all like ‘I can write a thing in the style of so-and-so’ but with due respect to the robots, you cannot write like THIS. Jesus but Barbara Kingslover Hit It Out Of The Park with Demon Copperfield.

I’d heard it was good – well reviewed and on all the lists from last year, plus some personal recommendations – but felt held back by having not read David Copperfield. Some told me you didn’t have to have read David to appreciate Demon, but I thought I’d better check out the original just in case. And well. Guys. Did you know Dickens was a pretty good writer? Like I know you ‘know’ but maybe you’re like me and you haven’t actually read anything by him (or if you did it was a 100 years ago and a blur of high school English) and so you don’t really know. I mean don’t go out and drop what you’re doing, but I’m here to report: Charles Dickens was no slouch. But then, I cheated. I listened to it on audiobook (double speed and it still took 40 hours) and so maybe I’m a fan because of the British accent reading it to me and the aid of different voices. But probably it’s just a good one.

Anyway. So David Copperfield if you missed it: not an orphan from the outset, but an orphan, spends some time hungry, doing child labour, exploited, left for lost by institutions that should have – could have – protected him. Demon Copperfield? Same plot a few centuries later and this time it’s opioids and underfunded schools and exploitative companies and willful neglect that take center stage for judgement. [As an aside, if you don’t to read David Copperfield, then please, please, read Empire of Pain before you read this one – as it contextualizes (and layers the outrage) in incredibly helpful ways.]

Even while both books brilliantly attack institutions for the unmitigated failure (and not just passive failure, but active harm) of the young and the poor, they simultaneously argue for the profound – life changing – impact of individuals on one another. What harm, what hope might be possible in how we show up (or don’t) for one another.

So sure, all the institutions you can think of are (probably) failing, but they’ve been failing for centuries! Optimistic spin! AND as it always was and is also now true – we aren’t helpless in the face of it. While Demon and David both narrate exceptions – characters who are themselves exceptional and find themselves surrounded by others who – despite the structural failures that crumble – are kind. Kindness and caring are very small in the face of it all, and what we really need is revolution. And still. This reader clings to that tiny thing. Being kind, showing up, despite it all, holding hope.

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