September seemed to go really fast. However, I did manage to read seven books.
Easiest first: I read one picture book, Pirate Stew by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Chris Riddell. The rhyme and meter don’t entirely work in this book, which made it less fun to read out loud (why yes, I did collar my kid and read it to him. He is used to this treatment.). However, the plot twist and the truly wonderful pictures of a diverse group of pirates make it worth it. I would not mind reading it ten thousand times to my kid or future grandkid, which is one of the true tests of a picture book, but I also would not choose it as a gift due to the aforementioned rhyme and meter issues. Good but not great.
My nonfiction reading has been about filling the gaps in my education and raising my consciousness. It is not always an easy process. Heather McGhee’s book The Sum of Us is a heartbreaker. The extent to which white people, in our history, have been willing to cut off our noses to spite our faces to avoid sharing with people of color is appalling. McGhee discusses the history, but she frames her vision for the future in terms of how all of us, of every color, can prosper more by helping the historically disadvantaged and dismantling our racist systems. It is, ultimately, a hopeful book. Definitely worth a read.
On the surface, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer is not that similar. Kimmerer brings an indigenous perspective to issues of ecology. However, at the root of the issue is, baldly, white greed. Not that greed is exclusively white, of course, but our white supremacist capitalist patriarchy has created a culture where we assume that more is better and we have no concept of enough, or of leaving some for others. Again, the dominant paradigm suggests we cut off our noses to spite our faces with our short term thinking. The writing in this book is lyrical and beautiful and compelling. Every once in a while, Kimmerer loses sight of her own privilege as a person with land and a good income, but that is a small quibble against an otherwise eye-opening book.
The Beautiful Struggle by Ta-Nehisi Coates was, in fact, a beautiful struggle for me. It is not a news flash that I am a white woman. My cultural references are not his cultural references, even though we are roughly the same age. I had a lot of work to do to parse out his meanings and to try to walk in his shoes. It was good for me, if not always fun. His writing is not always to my taste, but I can appreciate its high quality anyway. I learned things and would recommend the book.
In between all that heavy lifting, I read some fiction. A friend recommended The Most Beautiful Woman in Florence by Alyssa Palombo. It is historical fiction about Simonetta Vespucci, the model for Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. I was, obviously, interested because I’m spending a lot of brain time on artist models. I was disappointed in the book. Simonetta is characterized as not only drop-dead gorgeous, but also incredibly brilliant and a nice person, too. Palombo goes to great lengths to set up the plot so that the less than perfect actions Simonetta takes are somewhat excused by other people’s bad behavior. She could have been a complicated character, but instead she’s just another beautiful and perfect symbol. Not bad beach reading, but not what I was in the mood for.
I continue to read and enjoy Ann Cleeves’s Vera novels, this time polishing off Harbour Street. I enjoy the complex characters, the deep sense of place, and the lyrical writing. I look forward to reading more.
Finally, I continue my leisurely quest to read all of Ursula Le Guin. The Other Wind continues the Earthsea novels and raises all kinds of interesting questions about what gives life meaning, what death is, what we pay for our knowledge, all wrapped up in a compelling plot with characters to love and root for.
September total: 7
Fall total: 7
2021 to date: 58
Labels: books
