Reading, November 2023

The photo above has to do with a book I’m reading now, so it really belongs to next month’s Books of the Month post. But I did, after all, begin reading it back in September and then picked it up again in November. It’s a bedtime reading event that a granddaughter and I have been enjoying on Facetime, settling in around 8 o’clock for a chapter, when we can find a mutually available evening. We’ve just finished Chapter 13, with four more chapters to go, and there is much to resolve in a crisis our 11-year-old protagonist has created.

I thought you might be amused to see which mystery guest joins us for storytime . . . she does this “on the regular”; sometimes I get the slightly uncanny pleasure of having her stare right at the screen, and sometimes she turns her back on me, filling the screen with white and ginger fluffiness. . .

Now, having introduced Minnow, I’ll move on to my list of books read in November.

But first: I say this every book post now, for those who are new here and as a reminder to regular readers: As usual, the numbering comes from my annual handwritten reading journal, and the italicized text below is directly transcribed from that journal’s pages (once upon a time, I simply included photographs of those pages, but too many of you found my handwriting tough to decipher, especially in the photographed format). Notes to myself, that is, so that I can remember a book and remember my response to it, rather than any attempt at a more polished, edited review.

I’ve used regular font for any additions to my journal notes and included references to any posts from my Instagram Reading account.

71. Birnam Wood. Eleanor Catton. Thriller; Literary Fiction; Eco-thriller; Eco-activism; Billionaire Class; Set in New Zealand.

A thriller or is it literary fiction? Why the categories? Do they matter? This novel by former Booker-prize winner (for The Luminaries, which I wrote about back here) is both — and very topical, even important. Characters that I first thought the author was setting up as caricatures — the narrator sneers at the calculated earnestness of an eco-activist who herself sneers at the bourgeoisie, at capitalism, consumerism, liberal humanism, democracy. etc. There’s a “pulled himself up by his bootstraps” local tycoon/philanthropist who is also gently lampooned, but all pale, in the novel’s central plot, in comparison to the suave representative of the billionaire class who’s exploiting and manipulating in multiple directions, for one end: to become richer and hold more power by destroying the environment while extracting precious metals.

Devastating indictment of the billionaire class and its/their effects on our planet’s health and that of our social systems . . . .A page-turner that resonates long after the three or four days it might take to read.

I write a bit more about this book in my Instagram post.

72. 7-7-2007. Antonio Manzini. Crime/mystery; Police procedural; Rocco Schiavone series; Set in Rome; Read in Italian.

Apparently the last few volumes I’ve read of the Rocco Schiavone series have been somewhat out of order. This title should have been followed by Pulvis et Umbria (which I haven’t yet read, so that’s okay) before I read Fate il vostro gioco. Whoops!

7-7-2007 tells of the fatal attack that day on Rocco’s beloved wife, Marina (whom we’ve got to know through previous volumes as the ghostly interlocutor in whom Rocco confides regularly) . . . but it only describes the attack itself near the end of the book, after we learn the circumstances leading up to it. Two young men murdered, a probable organized-crime drug-distribution ring, all against the backdrop of Marina having gone back to stay with her parents because she’s discovered that Rocco takes advantage of his position to feather their nest, that he regularly interprets the law to suit his desire to skirt it. Never to the benefit of the wealthy, the corrupt, or the abusive, so he justifies his actions to himself, but Marina insists on a clearer and more honest accounting. And then she’s gone.. .

Sadly, this doesn’t seem to be available yet in English (there are French, German, and Spanish editions, it seems). But perhaps this has been brought to the screen — do any of you watch the series?

73. The Blue Book of Nebo. Manon Steffan Ros. Translated from Welsh to English by Manon Steffan Ros. Young Adult (but I enjoyed it and feel it has a wider appeal); literary fiction; apocalyptic fiction; parenting; adolescence; coming-of-age.

I read about this book in The Guardian a few months ago — it made news (in the Books section) as being the first-ever book in translation to have won the Carnegie medal, Britain’s highly respected award for children’s books, a medal with an 87-year-old history according to that Guardian article. I special ordered a hardcover copy for my oldest granddaughter but of course I had to read it first 😉

A post-nuclear apocalyptic novel set in a tiny Welsh town, Nebo. There’s been a nuclear war followed by a nuclear power-plant meltdown not far enough away. Those who don’t leave in time or who don’t want to go or have nowhere to go, die, and Dylan, his mother, Rowena, and his little sister, Mona, live in isolation.

Dylan and Rowena begin to keep a sort of logbook — the “blue book of Nebo” — taking turns in their separate sections, presumably not reading the other’s writing. Dylan generally records his observations of the natural world but also his frustrations and his sense of accomplishment with making a comfortable and satisfying daily life. They’ve had some success building a garden, trapping animals, collecting and storing water, making fires, etc.

It takes a year or two, we’re told, before Rowena decides it’s okay to scavenge from all the uninhabited houses within a reasonable carrying distance — most importantly for reading materials, but also food, treats, and a few creature comforts.

Beyond the quotidian accounting in their joint notebook, they both end up revealing in writing what they wouldn’t say to each other — and there’s no indication that they snoop for each other’s secrets. We read about Mona’s conception, but Dylan shows no sign of knowing how Rowena became pregnant after their village was cleared of other residents, for example. The secrets the reader discovers shift our perspective and illuminate Rowena’s losses, her past.

Overall, they find a way, in the slowed pace of their lonelier, less comfortable life, to a certain richness. Loss, certainly, but also love and closeness and an appreciation of life. The ending will surprise, perhaps. . .

74. The Covenant of Water. Abraham Verghese. Literary fiction; historical fiction; Set in Kerala, India, 1900-1970s.

A generational saga set in India — specifically in Kerala — covers the colonial period from 1900 to 1970s . . . with a young physician from Glasgow to emphasize this colonialsm for the reader: When he flees Scotland for India, for example, he realizes that while he was — as the son of a poor, alcoholic, single mother who committed suicie — “oppressed in Glasgow,” he is “oppressor here.”

Dr. Digby Kilgour’s story weaves around and throughout the story of 12-year-old Mariamma, sent from her home to be married off to a much older man; the girl grows, gradually, into the name “Big Ammachi,” reflecting her role as matriarch of a large family and estate. Also woven into this epic are mysterious disabilities that persist through generations and have to do with a fear of water — or a lack of that fear and a predilection for drowning. Throughout these same generations are those who climb fearlessly, perhaps in compensation for their avoidance of water. . . but the climbing has its own risks.

So disabilities and ailments, abilities and their risks. To these, add leprosy and medicine’s (and society’s) response to it. Throw in social stratification within the Indian population and then the hierarchies super-imposed on that by the British. Gender. Love and marriage and parenthood and the way these are embroiled by such stratification and separation and tightly guarded borders. And art (sculpture, drawing, painting, writing) as a response to all of this, but also as operating within those social constraints.

For a book that illuminates some of colonialism’s long and shameful history, The Covenant of Water offers many compensations to its readers. A huge narrative sweep with rich characterization, gorgeous cinematic setting, and compelling story-telling. I’m still trying to decide whether I’m leery of so much “redemption,” to be honest, but I know I’ve absorbed some of the darker truths through this reading, i.e. witnessing. Recommended (as by so many before me — I’m late to this title, and haven’t yet read Cutting for Stone.

75. Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More than They Expect. Will Guidara. Memoir; Business; Career; Hospitality Management; Restaurants.

Not my usual genre, but I loved the TV series The Bear, and this author and his approach to hospitality were mentioned there: Unreasonable Hospitality is the yellow book that grumpy, hard-to-manage Richie is seen reading after his stage in the episode “Forks.” In the memoir, Guidara quickly outlines his background, education, and experience in the hospitality industry, and then shows us how he took two-star New York restaurant Eleven Madison to one of the World’s Best 50. And then after finding themselves crushed at being 50th of those elite 50, how the restaurant team, guided by Guidara’s notion of “unreasonable hospitality” — “unreasonable” as in “above and beyond expectations” — climbed to the very top of that list.

Not sure what Richie thought (although his behaviour underwent a stunning transformation after that stage), but I found the book entertaining, thoughtfully written, and with so many ideas about engaging with others (not just customers or employees), about service rethought as hospitality (and why that shift makes a difference and can be, ultimately, empowering for the “server”).

A fast read — except for how often I interrupted myself to read out loud to Paul, whether he wanted to listen or not! So many anecdotes — humour, drama, tension, disappointment, team-building, gorgeous dishes and menus, creativity, conflict resolution.

My Instagram post here.

76. Small Mercies. Dennis Lehane. Crime fiction/mystery; historical fiction; American history; racism; forced busing; integration; working-class; Boston.

Devastatingly effective use of “genre” fiction — in this case, crime fiction/mystery novel — to explore and illuminate a socio-historical issue — here, the response to busing in Boston in the 1970s.

Predominantly Irish-American neighbourhood (working-class to poor families) has fought for a few years to keep its schools segregated, but the courts have finally ruled that they must be integrated and that some white students will begin the new school year taking the bus to a predominantly Black neighbourhood and the previously whites-only school will receive Black students bused in exchange.

Huge protests are planned, but before these take place a young Black man is killed . . . and witnesses say young white students are responsible.

And a mother begins to realize what her hatred has wrought and strives to understand where it has come from, and what has sustained it, and how it has sustained her. Until, that is, it tears her world apart, and she’s left questioning her identity, her place in society and in her community, without it.

I found it deeply moving. Beyond sad, what we often call “tragic,” I would say the ending lifts the book into the category of the classical tragedy. Can’t say too much about that ending, but . . . hope for change, agency, a kind of belated redemption. Highly recommended.

My Instagram post here.

And that’s it for my November reading. The last book post I’ll write this year, since my December Reading won’t make it onto the blog until January. But we’re not done our book conversation for the year yet, are we? Not until you fill up the comments section below with anything you have to say about what I’ve written here . . . and everything you want to say about what you’ve been reading There, wherever you are.

Thanks for reading,

xo,

f