I was a little behind on my reading last month so I tried to get back on track in February! It was a nice balance of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
Tell the Machine Goodnight
Katie Williams
This was fun read set in a future where society has become even more dependent on technology. The protagonist works for a company that sells a machine that can tell you what to do to be happy. Instructions might be as simple as eating more oranges or as complex as divorcing your spouse. The narrative structures weaves together stories from the perspectives of a few different characters. The plot was a little vague, it was more of a snapshot of a place and time, perhaps a warning snapshot. But I enjoyed it despite the loose plotline.
Love’s Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy
Irvin D. Yalom
This was another recommendation from my brother’s girlfriend Anya! I was a little worried because Irvin is a white male psychologist so things could have gotten preachy fast. But it was actually a fascinating read and the author is as sensitive to his own biases and problems as his patients’. It explores a series of crazy, real-life cases and how he treated each patient. And of course, many of the issues like death anxiety, self esteem and love troubles, are universally relevant.
What is Not Yours is Not Yours
Helen Oyeyemi
I first read Helen Oyeyemi on a trip to London and fell in love with her. Every word of her abstract literary works is pure poetry. This piece is a series of interwoven stories centered on the theme of keys, keys to your heart, keys to a secret room, etc. Helen writes so vividly it’s a joy to read anything she puts on paper, her words really place you in the emotional middle of a different world. I highly recommend but I do caution that this is literary fiction, it may not be enjoyable to straight forward fiction readers.
When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt
Kara Cooney
You know I’m all about ladies in power! This book was a Christmas gift from my friend Sarah and I’ve been dying to read it. It was fascinating to learn about all these queens and the very specific circumstances that allowed them to take power. Cooney is an Egyptologist so it’s definitely straight anthropological nonfiction, not narrative nonfiction. My only qualm with this book is that there was a lot of academic back peddling (we don’t REALLY know what happened, sources are limited, etc.). But Cooney draws some very cool parallels to women in power in the present day and basically nothing’s changed.
Child Made of Sand
Thomas Lux
A friend picked this book of poems up for me at one of my former office jobs. Lux has a very interesting poetic style, vivid, cerebral, and funny. He grew up in rural Northampton, MA and his dad was a dairy farmer so his poems can vacillate from very country to very high brow. I enjoyed these poems and it’s always interesting to read work by local authors.
The Gardner Heist
Ulrich Boser
This was our book club book this month. I’ve, of course, always known about the Gardner Heist but it was fascinating to read all the nitty gritty details. That said, I would probably choose a book about the heist written by a local author next time. This dude is a writer from Washington D.C. who suddenly decides he’s going to find the missing art. I mean, the hubris to even think that. Part of his search includes driving around Ireland hoping to run into Whitey Bulger? So the part about Isabella and the art was fascinating but the author I wasn’t a fan of.
Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me
Teffi
Crazily I’ve never read Teffi! She’s an author who bridged the end of Tzarism and the launch of the Soviet Union when she fled Russia. Like Akhmatova she gives that dual perspective from the red and white reigns. To avoid a political threat, and to continue being read, she approaches her writing in a very comical way. She even took the pseudonym “Teffi” because it sounds silly. But underneath the comic genius her work is very dark and probing, as is Russian tradition. Highly recommend this book of short essays.
Cries of the Spirit: A Celebration of Women’s Spirituality
various authors
This is a wonderful anthology of poems about the female experience. Some are traditional styles, some are prose poems, and they’re almost all spectacular. There’s something especially powerful about reading these stories in a poetry format. It packs the punch of the female struggle even harder. The poems are also organized by theme (e.g. intimacy, motherhood, personhood) so you can jump to whatever theme you’re feeling that day.