Rest of the Summer Reading

Today is the last day of August, and so also the last day of my summer reading period.  I have eight more books to talk about, two of them kid books, five fiction, and one nonfiction.

I have enjoyed all of the Trenton Lee Stewart books I’ve read and The Secret Keepers is no exception.  The protagonists were engaging, the plot inventive, and the device at the center of everything ingenious.  Initially, I had a bit of trouble getting into the story, but I think that was me and not the story itself.  One of the things I particularly like about Stewart’s work is that he values not only the intelligence but also the heart of his characters—even their mistakes come from a desire to make things better or to protect loved ones.

The other kid book was gifted to me.  It’s called The French Twins and was written by Lucy Fitch-Perkins in the period between World War I and World War II, looking back on events from the former.  The twins of the title live in Rheims with their mother when the Germans invade.  The French spirit, coupled with American aid, eventually triumph over the invaders.  It’s not a terrible story, but it reads very much as a piece of American propaganda about cooperation.  I am skeptical about the values of nationalism, to say the least, but I kept the book because on the whole it was about facing adversity with resilience.

Some years back, I saw half of an unfortunate production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.  It soured me on the play itself unfairly.  I revisited the play recently because of a story I’m writing and found it better than I remembered, if not likely to be my favorite.  The intersection of ambition and fate, the play of relationships, and the corrosive effects of wrong action make for a compelling if difficult read.

Then I needed some lighter stuff, so I read three Julia Buckley books, Death Waits in the Dark, Pudding Up with Murder, and Death in a Budapest Butterfly.  I enjoyed all three, but I also learned that two fluffy books in a row is enough.  By the time I got to the third one, I was bored with yet another plucky, pretty heroine and her misunderstandings with her handsome, manly boyfriend as played out over a cozy murder.  Not that I won’t read her next books, too, just that I require slightly smaller doses than I currently administered.

A better rest was provided by Louise Penney’s latest, A Better Man.  It turns out that I enjoy complex characters more.  The interplay of evil and good in even the most upright of her characters feels more true.  While it is always worthwhile spending time in Three Pines with Gamache, some of Penney’s plots are better than others.  This one was better than the last few and managed to explore issues of social media trolls, artistic integrity, and abuse patterns along the way to catching the perp.

Finally, I read Philip Pullman’s collection Daemon Voices.  The book contains essays, introductions, and talks about a variety of topics ranging from how stories are constructed to why Blake is awesome to where meaning comes from for those who don’t believe in God.  His work is well-crafted and thought-provoking.  Also, often funny.  I highly recommend it.

Summer total:  16 books.  Year to date total:  39 books.

Summer Reading So Far

I have this recurring fantasy in which I spend my summer reading.  So far, it is not reflected in reality.  However, I have finished a few books so far.

Two of them I wrote about on my fitness blog back when I completed them.  This is about the other six.

My fascination with all things Alice continues.  I read Morton N. Cohen’s biography Lewis Carroll to learn more about Charles Dodgson and to wrestle with the issues of artist versus work.  I am still wrestling.  Cohen seems to have concluded that the man was not a child molester.  Whether or not Dodgson ever touched the girls he knew, he took some photographs that make me very uncomfortable.  He also wrote some utterly enchanting stories and nonsense poems.  How do we do the math on a life?  I have some other biographies on my list of things to read after I am allowed to buy books again that seem to have drawn conclusions different from Cohen’s.  No book, sadly, is going to be able to decide for me; I will have to do the work myself.

Epistemology is one of those words that I have had to look up over and over.  I believe Richard Feldman’s book Epistemology has cured me of this particular ailment.  It also, for a while, cured my insomnia.  That said, it does lay out the various schools of thought on what we might or might not know clearly.  In a classroom setting, it would be good basis for a bunch of conversations.  I’m glad I read it, but do not need to read it again, so I gave it back to T.R., who loaned it to me in the first place.

Possibly to reward myself for finishing those heavier works (figuratively, anyway; the second one was not a lot of pages), I read Laura Lippman’s Baltimore Blues, a straight-ahead mystery novel with a scrappy heroine that I thoroughly enjoyed.  I think the book came to me via my free library and when I need a break I may well seek out more in the series.

As pretty much everyone who knows me knows, T.R. has been studying Arabic.  It occurred to me that I had never read The Arabian Nights.  We were talking about Disney’s Aladdin, and T. has issues (which he will discuss at length) with the cultural interpretations used in the animated film.  Neither of us has seen the newer, live-action one, so some of the issues may have been resolved.  For Christmas last year, I asked him to get me an edition of the tales that was less filtered through a white European perspective, which turns out to be Husain Haddowy’s translation.  In the meantime, my little library brought me Andrew Lang’s collection of the tales.  I read the two versions back to back and it was entertaining and enlightening.

For one thing, some of the tales we think of first when we consider The Arabian Nights are later additions or interpolations:  this includes Aladdin and his lamp, the voyages of Sinbad, and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.  All three of those tales are included in Lang’s version and are not part of Haddowy’s.  Haddowy’s work is much closer to Chaucer and Lang’s is a lot more Disney; Lang cuts out the poetry, the sex, and a lot of the general debauchery.  Haddowy’s version is also much funnier.  In any case, both versions were fun to read.  No one need be executed in the morning.

Finally, I read Intergalactic PS3 by Madeleine L’Engle.  It is basically a short version of A Wind in the Door geared for slightly younger readers.  I find her work to be consistently inspiring, especially in these times when we need to learn to see and love those who are different from us.

Totals so far for summer:  2 fitness, 2 nonfiction, 3 fiction, and 1 kid book.