Books, Books, Books I Read in August. . .

As I explained in last month’s book post, going forward I will no longer be posting photos of my handwritten journal pages, but rather will transcribe those entries — pretty much verbatim — here. I’ll probably keep reminding you of this as justification for the decidedly unpolished prose and the brevity of my comments. What I’m posting are definitely not book reviews, but rather notes I keep for myself (to remember what and when I read, to quickly record my response) and am sharing with you as the starting-point for a monthly discussion about our reading and also as a potentially useful reading list for you to choose from when you’re looking for a book recommendation.

The italicized paragraphs come directly from the pages of my handwritten journal, and I’ve added additional comments, links, information in regular font below.

My August 2021 reading:

54. The Marco Effect, Jussi Adler-Olsen. Mystery; Police Procedural; Nordic Noir; Department Q Series; Set in Denmark

Detective Maerck is as cranky as ever. Side-kick Assad knows something about Maerck’s much disliked boss that he’s keeping to himself, and secretary/assistant Rose is as insubordinate as ever. Bureaucratic corruption in Africa (Danish tax dollars gone astray in supposed development projects). . . and a 15-year-old Roma boy on the run from his supposed clan but afraid of being captured as a non-citizen and deported. Read as e-book borrowed from library.

I wrote about the first two in this series in this 2015 post and about the third in this one from 2016. And then, apparently, forgot that there were more I planned to read.  I see now that I leap-frogged over the fourth and should probably go back to read The Purity of Vengeance before going on to read Volumes 6, 7, 8. . . . It’s a lively, well-written series with a range of well-developed characters, convincing and often inviting settings (although also often gritty), and a narrative arc that builds over the entire series.  I’m enjoying these — you might also!

55. The Weight of Ink, Rachel Kadish. literary fiction; historical fiction; Jewish history; academic mystery; London

Nearing retirement, history professor Helen Watt works with brash young American grad student Aaron Levy on a trove of 17th-century Anglo-Jewish correspondence whose scribe is discovered to be, surprisingly, female — bur more surprises await, although clock is ticking for Helen (health) and Aaron as another team of scholars is given access.

Parallel stories — Aaron’s and Helen’s in early 21st century; Helen’s love affair — renounced — of 40 years earlier in Israel; and the story of Ester in anti-semitic, plague-ridden Europe. A gripping narrative, strong characters, thought provoking. Read in trade paperback, borrowed from library.

Recommended! Don’t wait as long as I did to read this. Very satisfying. . . (When I posted about this on Instagram, other readers chimed in to say how much they’d enjoyed it.)

56. Northern Spy, Flynn Berry. Thriller; Northern Ireland; Sisters; Terrorism.

Two sisters embroiled in IRA intrigues in contemporary Belfast, despite twenty years elapsed since Good Friday Agreement. Inexorability of certain choices. Identity as mother, daughter, sister. As I’ve found before with Berry (see this post and this one), the narrative arc is not as developed as I’d like, particularly at the end, but I love her writing, especially her keen observations about women and their relationships. Paperback borrowed from library.

57. A Private Cathedral, James Lee Burke. Mystery; New Orleans; Dave Robicheaux series.

Dave Robicheaux and his big buddy Clete Purcel once again tackling crime and corruption in New Iberia. And again, these two struggle with their own demons (alcohol, a propensity for violence when angry at injustice) as they pit themselves against economic and political structures. Morality is in the foreground even more than usual as Burke gets metaphysical in his exploration of Evil.

Big question for me here. Burke is 84, but how old is Dave Robicheaux, ’cause he’s still pretty successful with the middle-aged beauties, and no indication Viagra is required!

Borrowed from library on impulse, seeing its shiny new cover on a shelf. . . 

Here’s what I said about this book on Instagram:  “So…@jamesleeburke was born in 1936, and he’s already written and had published another book (Another Kind Of Eden—I haven’t read it, yet…) since A Private Cathedral was published in 2020. And I can assure you, based on the 2/3 I’ve read of the latter, that octogenarians can write! Some big twists here for Dave Robicheaux fans . . . skews more Gothic, more horror— than I usually read, but Robicheaux stomps in New Orleans, so comes with the territory. As usual, Burke writes setting convincingly and evocatively, and he also gives us, in Dave Robicheaux and Clete Purcel, good men troubled by conscience, by the social and political culture and corruption and environmental damage they see everywhere, and struggling for a philosophy that might keep them from the bottle. It’s a formula that can wear thin, but not for me, so far, with this series.”

58. Heaven and Earth, Paolo Giordano. Trans. Anne Milano Appel. Literary fiction; Books in Translation; Italian writer; set in Puglia (and Iceland!); love story; coming-of-age; eco-fiction; eco-agriculture; religion/spirituality.

Set in Puglia, tells of a teen-aged girl from a well-off family in northern Italy who visits her grandmother’s Puglia estate each summer. One night she sees 3 boys from a neighbour’s farm — “the kids from the masseria” — swimming illicitly in her grandmother’s pool. And she’s hooked into their lives from that point on, at first only in the summer, but eventually she inherits her grandmother’s estate and leaves university to join the eco-agricultural project next door.

And yes, one of the boys becomes her lover, her love. Does she lose herself along the way? And then find herself again? There are secrets and passions and commitments in this novel, which is much more than a love story. Principles — friendship, eco-activism, idealism vs. pragmatism, religion (a cultish version of Christianity) and/or spirituality. . . 

Another book I impulsively borrowed after spotting the shiny new cover on the shelf at our nearby library branch and recognizing the author’s name from having read and enjoyed The Solitude of Prime Numbers back in 2016 (unfortunately, I never made time to review it, but did include in my year-end book round-up).

Highly recommended. I’d read this again, if only to visit Puglia (and Iceland!) in its pages. (and I said even more about it in my Instagram post).

59. Monogamy, Sue Miller. Literary fiction; American contemporary; Domestic fiction; Marriage; Aging; Women’s lives; Female artist.

Really enjoyed this one — photographer meets bookstore owner and they’re both smitten almost instantly. She (photographer) is reserved; he’s full of bonhomie. But together they become the centre of a circle of interesting, creative people as they raise their daughter, his son and include his ex-wife, as a good friend, in their life together. Homey, nurturing old house; she creates wonderful dinner parties, etc. etc. But readers learn before she does that he’s fallen into another affair, is feeling guilty and extricates himself. Then dies suddenly and we wait to see her learn about this, try to slot it into her review of their 30-year marriage. Watch her move through grief and anger and eventually forgiveness, acceptance.

Not completely happy with the ending which seems to have her accepting some culpability but overall, thoughtful about marriage, parenting, women’s lives. . . . Read on my iPad, borrowed from the library.

I posted a few pages I especially enjoyed on Instagram, and I also thought you might like this speculation by the deceased bookseller about why we read fiction. As his wife, Annie, remembers,

his argument about fiction. . . [is that] . . . we read fiction because it suggests that life has a shape, and we feel . . . consoled, I think he said, by that notion. Consoled to think that life isn’t just one damned thing after another. That it has sequence and consequence. . . . I think it was more or less the idea that fictional narrative made life seem to matter, that it pushed away the meaninglessness of death.

She’s recounting this argument to her friend, Edith, who holds a long silence and then asks, “And otherwise it doesn’t matter? Life doesn’t matter?”

Discussion ensues. You’ll have to read the book.

Where you’ll also come across this thoughtful, observant passage through ex-wife Frieda’s inner monologue as she returns from helping her son and daughter-in-law adjust to life with a new baby. They were grateful for her help, but made it clear it was time for her to go home, and

In the train on the way home, Frieda found a seat by the window on the right-hand side of the car. While they were still in the city, while the window was still showing the city’s rump side to the train as it sped by, Frieda read, looking out only intermittently. But when they began to pass the small towns in Connecticut that opened out to the ocean, she closed the book on her lap. She watched the water, the beautiful swaying grass. She was even aware that she had had exactly this consolation in mind when she chose her seat, and she was grateful now that she could feel it working.

This was how you did it, she thought. How you managed in life. And she had, hadn’t she? Right now, the conscious noticing of the sun over the beautiful sweeps of pale-gold spartina, over the dark sea, the faraway boats. These last days, holding the baby, singing to her. At home, the careful preparation of the meal for one. The ritual glass of wine. The slow making of music from the patterns of notes on the lined page.

All in the service of some sense of . . . what? Purpose, she supposed. Order.

Or loveliness. A sense of loveliness that made everything possible.

It’s pretty obvious I’m recommending this, isn’t it? I think many of you would enjoy it. Let me know if you read it, would you? Or if you have already?

60. Dove Mi Trovo, Jhumpa Lahiri. Literary fiction; Italian; Single woman.

I borrowed the English translation (translated from the Italian by Lahiri, published in ’21, 3 years after Dove Mi Trovo) to refer to for occasional help but managed the Italian fairly well although so much vocabulary I didn’t know (nor did I bother/need to look it up). 

She’s so removed, this woman, this protagonist (single, on her own, in an unnamed city where each short chapter places her in a different location or situation) — yet she apparently longs for connection. Flirts with it, sometimes literally, as with her regular, on-the-street meetings with her friend’s husband — she doesn’t seem to recognize what she’s doing, at first, but realizes, eventually. Also realizes how connected he is to his family life, his wife and kids.

She’s always on the edge, observing, although she doesn’t lack for friends who invite her for dinner or come to her home for the tranquility or give her keys to their country place. . . 

An only child, who lost her father just before a planned special trip to the theatre, her childhood notable for parental reserve and frugality.

Suffused with longing, but also somehow a celebration of her own reserve, conscious of the privilege of her solitude. . . And, of course it’s entirely possible that my entire first impression of the novel is distorted by my having read it in Italian and missing many of the connotations, mistaking the tone. 

When I wrote about reading the (original) Italian of Lahiri’s In Altre Parole in my June reading post, I linked back to my first reading — in Anne Goldstein’s English translation — of the memoir.

61. Bear, Marian Engel. literary fiction; Canadian fiction; feminist; post-colonial; wilderness setting.

First read this in late ’70s, prompted now to read by a Social Media post — surprised how well it’s stood up. Middle-aged, single archivist leaves city to catalogue the bequest (for the institution that employs her) of a Victorian house and contents on a fairly remote island in Northern Ontario. And embarks on a relationship with the resident pet bear that she seems to see as liberating for both of them. Definitely has been on banned-book lists over past 40 years although clearly tongue-in-cheek (okay, can’t resist, tongues in other places as well!). Themes of eco-criticism, settler colonialism, feminism, etc. Also epistemologies, particularly Eurocentric and patriarchal propensity for categorizing. Huge fun but also thoughtful, definitely provocative. And, of course, couldn’t be written today without figuring out some way to limit communication to 70’s technologies . . . 

I wrote a bit more about this once-scandalous Canadian novel in this post. Have you read it? Scandalized or amused or a bit of both?

62. The House with No Rooms. Lesley Thomson. Mystery; Female detective; Set in London; Detective’s Daughter series.

Another Jack and Stella mystery in the detective’s daughter series. Again, something that happened in the childhood of a friend is the clue to a recent (and also a much earlier) murder. Love these flawed characters and seeing them building new relationships, learning new social skills. Enjoying,l also, seeing other characters fleshed out. And walking through London with them, this time spending considerable time at Kew Botanic Gardens.

As always, I’m keen to share impressions of any of the books mentioned here, but also (ridiculously) always keen to add your recommendations to my To Be Read list. “Ridiculously,” of course, because the list is already so much longer than I can ever hope to complete in this lifetime. Imagine the alternative, though . . . what if we ran out of good books to read?! Quelle horreur! Che horrore!