Two Weeks’ Worth of Reading

185. The Story of a Marriage by Andrew Sean Greer

 

I chose this book originally because of all the positive buzz I heard about it. I was happy to see when I received it that it was set in San Francisco. Consequently, I saved it for a month so that I could take it along with us on our anniversary trip to SF. We are here in SF now. I started it yesterday on the plane and finished it last night.

It was the perfect book for this trip. Of course its setting in SF is fun, as we visited some of the places mentioned in the book. But, more than that, the book looks at the idea of marriage and love and relationships and commitment. Greer is a master of ambiguity, as is life, so his book perfectly reflects both the despair and the joy that marriage and relationships can bring.

 

186. A Crack in the Edge of the World by Simon Winchester

 

What better book to read while on a trip to San Francisco than this one? A Crack in the Edge of the World tells the tale of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire. The fires that started just shortly after the earthquake exacerbated the devastation the earthquake created. It took three days for the fires to be completely put out. By that time, all of Chinatown and much of San Francisco was in rubble and ashes.

It’s a little scary to read a book about an awful earthquake while visiting the site of the earthquake, reading expert opinion that there is a 65% probability that another terrible earthquake will hit San Francisco before 2032.

187. Roughing It by Mark Twain

Another book I chose to read while on our California trip. Roughing It is an account of Twain’s life in the West. Twain travels with his brother to California and Nevada during the time of the Gold Rush. Twain looks for silver, has run-ins with bad guys, and observes the West in its early days with humor and cleverness. Lots of politically incorrectness that probably struck the readers of the day as hilariously funny.

188. Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

Unaccustomed Earth is Lahiri’s third book, with two collections of short stories and one novel. She seems to know the immigrant experience, the loneliness, the out-of-sync feeling with the rest of the world. Her characters try to form new bonds and try to change to fit the new world in which they are living. The title comes from a Hawthorne quote that promotes the benefits moving into new soil, both for plants and for people. These benefits are subtle in the stories presented here and only occur after an initial crisis of transplanting takes place.

189. Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six Word Memoirs by Famous & Obscure Writers edited by Smith Magazine

Here are some of my favorites:

“I was born with some assembly required.”

“I live the perfect imperfect life.”

“You are all in my imagination.”

“Take a left turn, then fly.”

“Cursed with cancer. Blessed with friends.”

“I wouldn’t change it a bit.”

“Can’t read all the time. Bummer.”

“Put whole self in, shook about.”

190. Live Generously: 50 Small Acts that Make a Big Difference edited by Julie Van Pelt

This little book shares ways we can do small things that will improve the world. Some easy things that I want to do are to plant bulbs and to use my own coffee cup when I buy coffee.

191. What Now? By Ann Patchett

Ann Patchett gave a commencement speech at Sarah Lawrence College that was so widely regarded that it ended up as this book.

I liked this part: “The secret is finding the balance between going out to get what you want and being open to the thing that actually winds up coming your way. What now is not just a panic-stricken question tossed out into a dark unknown. What now can also be our joy. It is a declaration of possibility, of promise, of chance. It acknowledges that our future is open, that we may well do more than anyone expected of us, that at every point in our development we are still striving to grow.”

192. This Land is Their Land by Barbara Ehrenreich

I like Barbara’s books, but she, an extreme liberal, does exactly what the extreme conservatives do:  She tells little scary stories out of context to promote her own agenda. Is our land really such a scary and terrible place? I don’t think so. What are her suggestions for making things better? She rarely proposes solutions, and, if she does, they are generally a single sentence at the end of her diatribe. Is it useful for people to read books like this? Not if it hardens us to the world and makes dialogue with others more difficult, I think.

193. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Sharp

A book that was on many people’s recommended reads lists. Jean Brodie is a teacher at a girls’ school with a following. She’s sharp and well-read and clever, which goes against the grain of the educational institution, but she is also flawed and leads her students onto paths that do not always serve them or the world well. Why is it when we find someone we admire we seem to ignore the parts that don’t work for us? A cautionary tale, in a sense, for me.

1 | Comment (0)