In our monthly book club, we discuss whatever we happen to be reading and ask everyone in the comments to do the same. What Are You Reading This Month?
Having And Being Had by Eula Biss
Eula Biss began writing Having And Being Had (September 1, Riverhead) shortly after she and her husband bought their house, in a gentrifying neighborhood in Chicago. Biss comes from a working-class background, had something of a bohemian young adulthood, and was uncomfortable with the comfort that comes with owning a home. With her latest book of nonfiction, Biss interrogates such contradictions surrounding labor and art-making under capitalism. “Work, in fact, is interfering with my work, and I want to work less so that I can have more time to work,” she writes of her teaching job at Northwestern. The sentiment will be familiar to any artist who isn’t independently wealthy or is without a benefactor. The book is strongest when Biss identifies what she calls a “literal symbol,” something that “stands for what it is and for something else, too,” as when she talks about biking in a city where cars dominate the road or selecting funds in her retirement account. “I’ll have to choose a priority, he says, because the same company that offers a generous maternity leave might do something destructive to the environment… I want nothing to do with this, I think. But I want to retire.” The book began as a diary, and the whole thing reads like a manicured journal. Biss notes what others have to say about work, without quite synthesizing it with her own thoughts and experiences. The result feels like someone hopping from stone to stone to get across a brook; Biss skims and keeps moving, as if to keep from falling in. [Laura Adamczyk]
The Night Swim by Megan Goldin
Former Reuters reporter Megan Goldin follows up her bestselling 2019 debut, The Escape Room, with another thriller that takes its cue from a 21st-century invention: the true crime podcast. The Night Swim (August 4, St. Martin’s) is told mostly from the perspective of Rachel Krall, host of the popular Guilty Or Not Guilty, who is drawn to the (fictional) small town of Neapolis, North Carolina, to cover the rape trial of local golden boy Scott Blair. (The trial appears to be modeled after the Brock Turner case; Scott is also a championship swimmer.) As Rachel gets to know the players on all sides of the case—the lawyers, local law enforcement, Scott’s family, as well as Kelly, Scott’s accuser, and her parents—she’s intrigued by letters she’s receiving from the enigmatic Hannah, urging her to look into the mysterious death of her sister, Jenny, a few decades prior. Naturally, Rachel discovers an unlikely tie that binds both cases. What elevates The Night Swim above mere page-turner is its subject matter: Goldin unflinchingly explores how women who survive sexual assault hold emotional damage that can affect them for the rest of their lives. It makes for a gut-wrenching read at times, but a very worthwhile one. [Gwen Ihnat]
Shine by Jessica Jung
When it comes to K-pop, you won’t find too many commonalities between its loyal fans and vocal detractors. But if there’s anything that we can glean from those who are somewhat in tune with the finer details of the industry and those who engage in total speculation, there appears to be, at minimum, a shared curiosity regarding the professional culture behind the glossy images and sharply rendered bops. This month, I’ve been gathering insights from a presumably reliable source: K-pop legend and former Girls’ Generation vocalist Jessica Jung, who has woven some of her personal experiences throughout an enthralling novel, Shine (September 29, Simon & Schuster). While fans won’t exactly find the no-holds-barred tell-all that they’ve been clamoring for since Jung exited South Korean megalabel SM Entertainment in 2014, they will get to follow the cleverly crafted journey of Rachel Kim, a Korean American teen and DB Entertainment trainee who hopes to debut with Seoul’s most anticipated up-and-coming girl act. Rachel’s road to stardom is riddled with fascinating (and perhaps inspired by real life) potholes—a suave veteran idol named Jason Lee, ruthless mean girl and fellow trainee Mina Choo—that greatly exacerbate her trek. Although I’m certainly not impervious to the more dramatic threads of Jung’s engaging yarn (seriously, who is Jason supposed to represent?!), Shine’s heart beats with a story of a girl who struggles to navigate both American and Korean spaces, wishes to win the approval of her headstrong, feminist mother, and strives to overcome fear and naysayers in order to pursue her lifelong dream. It’s an all-around charmer. [Shannon Miller]
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I’m reading Axiom’s End by Lindsay Ellis.
I just started My Mother’s House by Francesca Momplaisir. It starts with a sentient house committing suicide, so that’s pretty weird. On audio I’m almost done with English History Made Brief, Irreverent, and Pleasurable. It’s not telling me anything I didn’t already know, but is indeed fun and good for listening to while I work. There’s a whiff of conservatism from the author, but they seemed to strive for a mostly apolitical history.Also read in September:Offshore by Penelope FitzgeraldUtopia Avenue by David MitchellThe Ice at the End of the World by Jon Gertner
Offshore is great. If you liked it and haven’t read other Fitzgerald, I’d recommend it – I’ve liked everything else I’ve read by her pretty equally, although I think Human Voices and At Freddie’s are her best along with Offshore.
I did like it, although it had that thing I’ve noticed with a lot of midcentury literature where it seemed like it ended just really abruptly? But I will be seeking out more of her work; I have this reading project for 2020 where I picked out 12 women writers who I’ve never read before (one per month), and Fitzgerald was September.
She definitely does not mind wrapping up her novels quickly when she’s done what she wants to do – hence all of hers are pretty short, something I appreciate (having read a lot of 300-page novels that could have been 15o pages). Reminds me of Muriel Spark a bit in that regard.
Yeah, I didn’t hate it or anything, it was more like “Well, that ended!” And having just come off reading a couple of books which were a bit of a slog, I definitely appreciated the brevity.
on the SF/fantasy side, i just finished gideon the ninth, which was quite good. i will get harrow the ninth, the next in the series when i can.
non-fiction is me wading through archetypes and the unconscious by cg jung.
not sure what i am going to reread next, since i do not have any new ones lying about at this moment. 🙂
LOVED gideon- it has taken over my book club and all spouses/siblings/friends- you name it.
Harrow the Ninth is amazing. Completely batshit insane (even more than Gideon), but amazing. I read it in one sitting, late into the night, just to find out what was going on.
Our local Science Fiction and Fantasy book club means I’m currently reading The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers.After that I have Harrow The Ninth by Tamsyn Muir on deck. I really, really enjoyed Gideon The Ninth, so I have high hopes for the sequel.
Yes to both of those! Gideon was a hoot and Becky Chambers makes me feel better about the world at large.
Brigid Brophy – In Transit. A wacky experimental novel from 1969 about a gender-ambiguous person who decides to miss their flight and stay in the airport indefinitely, relishing in the modern anonymity of it. Puns, fourth-wall-breaking, and lesbian gangs abound.George Gissing – The Odd Women. 1893 novel about the UK’s early feminist movement. Lots of interesting elements, so it’s a pity a lot of time is devoted to a somewhat uninteresting romance.John Adams – Hallelujah Junction. Memoir by the composer. Somewhat interesting.Neil Gaiman – Stardust. I’d seen and forgotten the movie. This is a fun quick read.Elmore Leonard – Out Of Sight. The movie is better.Michelle Alexander – The New Jim Crow. A good analytical overview of the structural racism of the justice system.Ted Chiang -Stories Of Your Life And Others. Hit-and-miss; Babylon and maybe the title story are the only ones I really loved (the title story is hard to separate in my head from Arrival).I also abandoned:Frank Herbert – Dune. I found the prose here really hard to read, and I hated all the chapter epigraphs.Dorothy B. Hughes – The Expendable Man. A noir novel that I went into not knowing a lot. It’s not clear what the novel is doing until a little ways in, and figuring that out was compelling – but once I got there I didn’t really feel like I need to read the rest. I’m glad I read that first quarter or so, though.Umberto Eco – The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. Unlike Foucault’s Pendulum, which is a brilliant novel that basically consists of lists, this is a boring novel that basically consists of lists.
I think it’s funny how the movies of Out of Sight and Rum Punch/Jackie Brown invert the books’ endings and are so much better for that.
I appreciate your mention of Foucault’s Pendulum. It’s a wonderful antidote to our conspiracy-crazed world.
I’m halfway through Stories of Your Life and Others right now, actually (first time reading it or any Chiang too). I agree thus far “Tower of Babylon” and “Story of Your Life” are the clear highlights – the latter might be one of the best novellas I’ve read – but even his more ordinary stories still have some gorgeous turns of phrase and ideas that are way beyond your normal sci-fi writer. I’m really looking forward to picking up Exhalation and seeing how his style developed over the years
Yeah, even the stories I didn’t particularly like were at least thought-provoking and none were painful to read. I’ll probably check out Exhalation eventually.
In the middle of There before the Chaos – The Farian War #1 (technically the 4th book following gun runner queen Hail Brystol) by K.B. Wagers. I love these books, and the audible narrator is exquisitely pleasing to the ears. Wagers tends to overuse certain things in her prose (drink every time Hail sticks her tongue out at someone), but I enjoy these characters and the sci-fi political maneuvering. I just finished Ken Liu’s Wall of Storms and Grace of Kings. Both really wonderful Eastern Fantasy books, which is something I’ve gotten really into following RF Kang’s Poppy War series. Eagerly awaiting each series’ third book. Both do great jobs using epic stories of magic and kingdoms to look at privilege and bias and prejudice in a society. Next up is Sword of Kaigen, which looks to be another Eastern influenced Fantasy.On the graphic novel front I just finished Ascender #2 from Lemire and Nguyen and Isola. I’m reading Sean Lewis’ Thumbs, with God Complex and Sea of Stars next on the docket.
I just finished Before the Fall by Noah Hawley. This is my second novel of his this summer (first, The Good Father), using them as distractions until Fargo premieres.
I highly recommend The Assignment by Liza Wiemer – very timely and important.https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43164249-the-assignment“In the vein of the classic The Wave and inspired by a real-life incident, this riveting novel explores discrimination and antisemitism and reveals their dangerous impact.”
Parable of the Sower, by Octavia E. Butler — a reread that is ominous, I actually read the sequel before this on the first go-round so now I vaguely remember what happens as this sets it up, and what happens is not good. But what takes place here is not good either, this is a book about how things get worse and worse and even if you know that you won’t be fully prepared for how bad they’ll get, not something that is fun to read right now. Climate destruction, slave employment, endless death and pain, it’s all here! And Butler denies nothing, her lead character is an empath and can literally feel others’ pain, this means she needs to harden herself to survive and even as she creates a small society her self-possession is unyielding. It has to be. A grim book that has survival above all on its mind and has no illusions about what that takes and what help the rest of society will give. Everything’s too far gone, and if Butler saw this in 1993 than imagine how fucked we are now.
I finished Yaa Gyasi’s Transcendent Kingdom last week and I’m still thinking about it. Homegoing remains my favorite, but this one is still exceptional, maybe a little softer than the other. I am eagerly awaiting the release of Jack at the end of this month. Until then, I’ll be reading:Minor Feelings by Cathy Park HongEuphoria by Lily KingCaste by Isabel WilkersonThe Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
Beginning tomorrow (because that’s when it will be released), I will be enjoying ‘The Trouble with Peace’ by Joe Abercrombie.
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. Loving it so far.
Jumping on the Dune train. The trailer for the movie really intrigued, but who knows when I’ll actually get to see it. Theaters won’t be an option for me any time soon. I’m also listening to Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste on audiobook.