Category: Books

I often prefer The Odyssey to The Iliad. The former is more interesting structurally, with a greater variety of things and characters within it. The latter often feels like bros broing out. That being said, I appreciate the epic quality of the story and the terrifying ways in which the gods meddle in people’s lives. War Music isn’t a strict translation. It’s sort of poem inspired by The Iliad. Why’s there a helicopter on the cover, you might ask? One of the things that makes this book sort of interesting is the way in which Logue throws in modern metaphors to emphasize things within the story. In a way, it sort of ties the absurdity and bloodthirstiness of war from ancient times directly to the absurdity and bloodthirstiness of war today. The sad thing about this book is that it’s unfinished. An epic project that surpassed the author’s life. There’s a ghost that haunts this book. A ghost of what might have been and reading it, I felt a kind of bone-deep sorrow. But time runs ever on. I think this is a worthy read for any fan of The Iliad, but I’ll probably be going back to The Odyssey next time.

(I read this book at the recommendation of Max Read, who has a newsletter that I like with pretty solid book suggestions.)

This 1948 novel by Sylvia Townsend Warner tells the story of an English nunnery from the 12th through the 14th century. Characters come and go, the nunnery drifts into various states of disrepair, and the nuns live their lives. It’s the story of a religious institution and the ways that it affects the women and (some) men who live within and around it. For a book about a nunnery, there’s less religious fervor than I was expecting. The marvel of this book is in the detail of the day-to-day which manages to never be boring. The pragmatic realities of the feeding, clothing, housing, and maintenance of the nunnery for the people within take center stage. There’s also a subtle theme about the ways in which power and authority of positions change the people who inhabit them in sometimes unexpected ways. Everyone in the book feels real. No small feat for a book that has scores of characters. I can’t think of another book that I’ve read that’s quite like this one, even the other book by this author that I’ve read. I’d strongly recommend this one.

A book of Irish myths with lovely illustrations by P. J. Lynch. I especially liked “The Birth of Cuchulainn”, “Bricriu’s Feast”, and “The Enchanted Deer”. Cuchulainn was born as Setanta, but he killed Chulainn’s dog and took the dog’s place, becoming the cu (or hound) of Chulainn. There are lovely little dodges and half turns throughout, in the same way that “The Birth of Cuchulainn” has two meanings. A good intro to some Irish mythology.

I read this book on the history Venice based on the recommendation of Venkatesh Rao, a writer I like. It tracks the history of Venice from its very beginnings to the height of its imperial trade network to its eventual downfall and marginalization. This has a lot of what I look for in a history book: excellent detail from primary sources, an authorial voice and point of view, and larger historical context.

One the fascinating things about this book is the way in which their full-throated capitalistic enterprise required an intense police state and an embrace of community collective action. Their trade empire worked because they could rely on the accuracy of their bookkeeping to keep track of things coming in and things going out. Their system faltered when the collective and private civic virtue. Well, that and the Portuguese finding an alternate way to get spices from India.

Worth a read, I’d say!

Red Rabbit never went where I expected it to go, delightfully so. It’s a spooky, supernatural Western with witches, ghosts, cannibals, demons, and lazy sheriffs (well, just one). There’s a lot of gore and violence in this one, so it may not be for everyone, but there’s a core of kindly compassion in it that I found appealing. Also, that cover is pretty great!

I was immediately struck by the cover with its picture of the burning tower. I think I would’ve read it just on the cover alone. There’s something stark and unsettling about it, apart from the obvious ruin and destruction.

Hav is actually two books: The Last Letters from Hav (1985) and Hav of the Myrmidons (2005). It’s a travelogue of a fictional country that was so compelling when it was published that people wrote the author asking her how to get there. It reminds me very much of one of my favorite books, Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, about her travels in the Balkans between the two World Wars. Hav is filled with people washed up from other places, settled into a kind of aimless mishmash of languages and cultures. The sequel paints a picture of a world that I think we all might recognize in how much has changed in what we’ve lost and gained.

It’s a slow, quiet, meditative book and I was happy to have found it.

Shades of Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco, in that they both explore the ways in which wealth and power use explorations of the occult to subdue and exploit those who aren’t. Whereas Eco’s book is steeped in academia, Enriquez’s book dwells more in the mundane, the domestic, the day-to-day. This makes the intrusions of horror more, well, horrific. Not a pleasant book, by any means, but one written thoughtfully and with great care. One of the rare books that captures the complicated relationships between children and adults in a way that feels real and true. If you’re up for a long unhappy book filled with some pretty unpleasant stuff that manages to thought-provoking and profound, this is the book for you. I’d also recommend her books of short stories, The Things We Lost in the Fire and The Dangers of Smoking in Bed.

Yeah, I kept reading books, to the surprise of no one. Here were some standouts for me (I read a lot of good books this year and had trouble whittling down the list to a manageable number!):

Peace by Gene Wolfe: Like wandering through a dream. Non-linear and haunted by ghosts (or maybe a single ghost?). I started the year off with this one and it’s stuck with me. One of those books I might’ve turned back to page 1 and started rereading if I hadn’t had so many other books I wanted to read.

Luda by Grant Morrison: There’s something in this to offend just about everyone! It’s about an aging drag queen in a fictional Glasgow. It’s a whodunnit, a love story, and something that doesn’t fit into any kind of genre. There’s minimalist writing and then there’s this one, which turns maximalist up to 11. 

Existential Psychotherapy by Irvin D. Yalom: When someone tells me that a book is their favorite book (or the one they’ve been most influenced by) I’ll go out of my way to read it too. A former coworker of mine recommended this one and I tried to track it down. It took me a while and I managed to get a copy through interlibrary loan (ILL is rad, yall! pretty magical) There’s a lot to chew on in this one, but the key takeaway for me is that psychotherapy often miss the mark because it focuses on symptoms rather than the key underlying issues beneath them, such as, death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness. Yeah, it’s a heavy book! I’m glad I read it.

When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut: A book of short stories about real people, mostly physicists. Through a kind of fictional nonfiction, Labatut attempts (and succeeds, I think) to explore the terror and loneliness that the people in this book must have felt when thinking new thoughts about the world for the first time. For example, Heisenberg coming to grips with the uncertainty principle. I’ve never read another book like it (except for his newest, The MANIAC). 

The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez: The story in this book is through a revolving matryoshka doll of stories: an immigrant family recounting the myths and fables of their homeland; an epic saga of two heroes defeating a god/emperor; the final point of view moments of nearly every character  mentioned in the book, no matter how minor; and some other things I’ve probably forgotten. Frankly, this book should’ve been an unreadable mess, but somehow Jimenez pulls the strings tightly enough together for it all to make sense. A lovely and unusual book.

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion: Didion writes with harrowing clarity about the madness of grief in the year after her husband dies. As someone who often tries to solve his problems through writing, this was a tough read. Didion deeply questions the value of the act of writing in the face of the death of a loved one. I was humbled by her candor and the depths of her self-reflection, though.

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree: A half-orc opens a coffee shop and makes friends along the way. Sweet and light and short. A pick-me-up in novel form.

Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers: A story about artificial intelligence and language. Really good stuff. A nice alternative way to thinking about this stuff than so much of the foofaraw being thrown around about “AI” these days.

V. by Thomas Pynchon: It’s the last of Pynchon’s books I hadn’t read. At times, baffling and confusing. At others, ineffable and profound. Still others, just the ultimate silliness. There’s a little something of everything in the best of Pynchon’s books, and I’d rank this one with the best. I’d never recommend a Pynchon novel (too much work, I think) but there’s nothing else like it.

Unnatural Ends by Christopher Huang: A solid whodunnit. There’s novel within a novel here and a murder mystery in both.

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry: I don’t consider myself a fan of Westerns, but I thought I’d give this one a chance. Great book! Very very long. Also, just brutally sad at times.

What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama: A librarian helps a bunch of people turn their lives around through the power of books and reading. Very sweet and how could I resist!

The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera: A “chosen one” say no thanks! to all that and then moves to a city where he joins a support group of other ex-chosen-ones. A vibrant and creative fantasy about the weight of family and history.

I very much enjoyed this book about the power of books, self-reflection, and community to change lives.