November 30, 2023

One can read more when not fixing Thanksgiving dinner. (My husband and I enjoyed our Thanksgiving dinner at a favorite restaurant while our St Paul family was traveling. We even had some leftovers to bring home.) I must be honest, however, about the number of books I read this last month.

Several books I read this month were less than 200 pages. I didn’t set out to read short books, but several rose to the top of the pile.

Short Books

• Andy Catlett, Early Travels by Wendell Berry (fiction) 141 pages. See my review in my November 16th post.
• Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop by Alba Donati (nonfiction) 193 pages. Also in my November 16 post.
• The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt (fiction) 69 pages. Ann Patchett is wildly enthusiastic about this book, so how could I resist, and I did love it–and even read it twice. This book is part of New Directions publishers’ Storybook ND series, which publishes books that offer “the pleasure of reading a great book from cover to cover in an afternoon.” Love that! The book (story?) is described as a “modern morality drama” about a seventeen year old girl raised in Marrakech by a French mother and English father. The predominant theme in her life, as emphasized by the woman she knows as her mother, is to avoid mauvais ton or “bad taste.” The truth of her life is revealed, and she is confronted by the “publishing sharks of New York city.” Read it!
• So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan (fiction) 118 pages. I love each book I have read by Irish writer Keegan (Foster and Small Things Like These). She writes with such clarity that one is almost fooled, thinking each story is simple. But oh there is so much going on below the surface, in the internal lives of her characters. So Late in the Day is the title story in this book of three short stories. The other two are The Long and Painful Death and Antartica. The book is small and would fit easily in a favorite reader’s Christmas stocking.

What Else Did I Read?

Fiction

• The English Teacher by Lily King. I wasn’t sure how I would feel about this book by the end or what I wanted the ending to be. The English teacher is Vida Avery, who is a stellar teacher–until she isn’t. She teaches at a private school and has a quiet, private life with her teenage son, Peter. Unexpectedly, she marries, a recent widower with three children, and this new status opens her to an earlier trauma in her life.
• Two books in the Lane Winslow mystery series by Iona Whishaw. #3, An Old, Cold Grave and #4, It Begins in Betrayal. Set in Canada, post WWII, Winslow is happy to be away from her life as a British spy, but at the same time she becomes involved as an unofficial detective when murder occurs in her small village. The 4th in the series takes place mainly in London, however, when her romantic interest, Canadian Inspector Darling, is accused of a war crime. I will definitely continue reading this series.
• The Door-to-Door Bookshop by Carsten Henn. See my review in my November 23 post.
• Day by Michael Cunningham. I loved Cunningham’s earlier book, The Hours–loved the movie, too–but I must say I liked this book, but didn’t love it. I did like the structure of the book. One family, the same day of the year in three different years –2019, 2020, 2021–and how their lives change during the pandemic. There is no question that Cunningham writes beautifully, and I often stopped to re-read a sentence or paragraph, simply to enjoy the flow of the words, but I tired of the characters: Isabel, married to Dan, who is an old wannabe rock star hoping for a comeback, and Isabel’s gay brother Robbie, who lives with them, until they need the room for the two growing children in the family.
• A Likely Story by Leigh McMillan Abramson. A good read. Ward Manning is a famous novelist, but seems to be losing his touch. Claire his wife dies suddenly and their daughter Isabelle discovers a novel written by her mother. Isabelle edits and finishes the novel, presenting it as her own, and the novel Underpainting, becomes a bestseller. Dysfunctional family!

Ward Manning has given his daughter the legacy of being his. Having him as a father was a biographical sparkler bright enough to light up the rest of her life. Even if she did nothing.

p. 76.

• The Wind Knows My Name by Isabel Allende. In many ways this reads like a nonfiction book–about immigration into this country, but Allende’s narration kept me going. There were two main threads in this book that eventually were woven together. Samuel, an Austrian Jew, is separated from his family in 1938 and sent to England where he lived in a series of homes. He becomes a famous violinist who settles in California. The other strain involves a child, Anita, who is separated from her El Salvadoran mother. Serena, a social worker, and Frank, a lawyer take on her case –and you will have to read it to discover how it all comes together.

I just noticed the theme of Isabel (Isabelle) in this month’s reading!

Nonfiction

Except for The Diary of a Tuscan Bookseller, the other three nonfiction books I read this month are all books I have read before.

• The Summer of the Great-Grandmother by Madeleine L’Engle. This book is #2 in L’Engle’s Crosswicks Journal series, which includes #1, A Circle of Quiet and #3, The Irrational Season. I read #2 again because it deals with dementia, which at the point of history in which this book was written is referred to as senility, a term we no longer use. A number of people in our lives are suffering from forms of dementia, and I knew L’Engle would write honestly and compassionately about this disease. She refers to the Greek word, ousia, which means the “essence of being” — a helpful reminder as dementia is a disease of so much loss. After the death of the great-grandmother dies, L’Engle writes,

My memory of my mother, which is the fullest memory of anybody living, is only fragmentary. I would like to believe that the creator I call God still remembers all of my mother, knows and cares for the ousia of her, and is still teaching her and helping her to grow into the self he created her to be, her integrated, whole, redeemed self.

• Wintering, The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Kathering May. I underlined more than the first time i read it, but that is often the case when re-reading a book. A couple quotes reveal what is true for me and my wintering times.

Everybody winters at one time or another; some winter over and over again.

p. 10

We may never choose to winter, but we can choose how. Some winters are big, some small.”

p. 13

• Wayfaring, A Gospel Journey into Life by Margaret Silf. I read this book slowly throughout the whole month, usually only half a chapter during each of my morning meditation times. Silf invites the reader to use the imagination to meet the truths in the Gospel, but from the world of one’s daily life; to join Jesus in the Gospel stories and become part of those stories. She calls this “imaginative prayer.” One of the Gospel stories I continue to explore is the story of Martha and Mary when they invite Jesus to their home for a meal. I have seen myself as both Martha and Mary at different times, but this time as I read this story I was led to explore Jesus’s need for a “bolt hole,” from the world’s demands on him. Enlightening –and opened me to yet more dimensions. I expect I will use much of this material in the coming months in the contemplative writing group I facilitate.

December’s Plan

My intention in the coming month is to re-read old favorites, but that can change depending on which of the library books I have requested become available. Another issue is deciding which of my favorites I choose to read. Stay tuned.

An Invitation

What books did you give thanks for in the last month? I would love to know.