Armchair Travels

COVID travel restrictions have you down? No worries. Two fabulous destinations await!

France and Spain: Two Steps Forward by Anne Buist and Graeme Simsion

Two unlikely pilgrims end up on the French portion of the Camino de Santiago. Zoe has flown to France from California to see an old friend after the unexpected death of her husband. When a scallop charm catches her eye in an antique store, she decides spontaneously to try the walk. Martin, an English engineer, meanwhile has decided he wants to test out a prototype of a pull cart along the route. Martin is methodically equipped with GPS equipment and plans to make reservations at plush accommodations along the way. Zoe has little more than the clothes on her back. In alternating chapters, we follow both as they interact with a common group of fellow travelers, local hosts,  and eventually, each other. This charming account will have you rooting for their success even as the definition of what that means changes with each kilometer traveled.

The Holy Land: The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd

As a young girl growing up in the first century, Ana has to beg her father to be taught to read and write. Eventually, she begins writing down the stories of women on carefully guarded scrolls. Upon the news she is to be betrothed to a widower, she goes to the caves outside of town intending to hide the scrolls her parents plan to destroy. It’s there she first encounters Jesus. And dear reader, she marries him. As political tensions rise, Ana becomes caught up in the drama and must flee to Alexandria. There she discovers a haven of writers and scholars. If you are anxiously waiting the second seasons of this show, this book is a must read.

“the cicadas were the only sound”

 After years of living in the chilly, wet Pacific Northwest, I can barely remember the humid bath that is Japanese summer. Reading The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada (translated by David Boyd) brought it all back, as well as the listlessness one feels living in a small town before making friends.

Asa and her husband have moved back to his hometown. Apart from cooking and some light cooking, Asa doesn’t have much to fill the long, humid days of summer. One day, her mother-in-law asks her to run an errand, so she sets out on a path by the river. Distracted by a strange animal, she falls into a hole.

Although Asa’s rescued fairly quickly, the incident sets off a series of strange events. Since Asa tells the story, we’re never quite sure what’s real, and what isn’t. Although not much happens in the way of plot, the tense mood Oyamada crafts makes this an intense and discomfiting read.

Challenge 3. Read a non-European novel in translation

Biased

Growing up in predominately white spaces shaped how I imagined the world. When I read a book, the characters I pictured in my head were white. When I listened to the radio station, I saw a white DJ or NPR reporter in my mind’s eye. Even now, in my mid-40s, I catch myself falling back into those earlier biases unthinkingly, even though my life experiences, friends, and the books I read have broadened my imagination away from white as the default.

Although I’ve delved into many non-fiction books about antiracism in the past year, I had not yet picked up Biased by Dr. Jennifer L Eberhardt. She gives an overview of the different situations in our society where implicit bias perpetuates inequalities in education and criminal justice. She describes implicit bias as “a kind of distorting lens that’s a product of both the architecture of our brain and the disparities in our society.” She also writes how bias is “not something we exhibit and act on all the time. It is conditional, and the battle begins by understanding the conditions under which it is most likely to come alive.”

Even though she’s a researcher, she’s also a mother of three Black sons. Throughout the book, Eberhardt also includes personal stories of how their observations of social situations sparked both her curiosity and fear.

Reading this book also reminded me of another tool available through Project Implicit. You can test your own implicit attitudes about age, race, sexuality, and more. With self-awareness, we can begin to reset our defaults.

Challenge 2: Read a non-fiction book about antiracism

Homegoing

 

The challenge is back! Since I’m done with my graduate program, I miss the required and recommended reading lists from my classes. That also means I’ve been reading way too many Harlan Coben mysteries. To get my brain back on track, the plan is to read down the list in order  (no procrastinating on the poetry and penguins).

First up: read a book you’ve been intimated to read. If you are unfamiliar with Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge, they provide handy curated lists for each category to get you started. That’s how I landed on Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi.

Gyasi follows the lineage of two half-sisters from 1700s Africa to present day. Each chapter focuses on one generation, alternating between the lines.  She strikingly shows how the evils and trauma of slavery persist, no matter how many years have passed since its abolition. The stories are richly varied, yet each character faces similar challenges in how he or she relates to the divine, nature, and human power structures. And ultimately survives.

Grappling with mental health aka "quirky"

Years ago, I began labeling books with the moniker quirky after noticing that “quirky situations” merited a movie rating of PG. Although the following list includes some 2020 releases, some are simply those I discovered this past year. Although old favorites made the list (see Kevin Wilson and Aimee Bender), others were included for the unique way the characters grapple with depression, ignition, death, identity, thirst, and divorce, among other more run of the mill challenges. All, fittingly for 2020, are memorable.

Inland by Tea Obrecht

“Might the dead truly inhabit the world alongside the living: laughing, thriving, growing, and occupying themselves with the myriad mundanities of afterlife, invisible merely because the mechanism of seeing them had yet to be invented?”

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

 “A philosophical question: if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? And if a woman who's wholly alone occasionally talks to a pot plant, is she certifiable?”

Ordinary People by Diana Evans

“His life required a dramatic change, a splintering, some kind of scandal or shock or tremor, when he most wanted to flee, to rip off his suit and run screaming from the building, and go – where?”

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson

“We just rode in silence the rest of the way, the radio playing easy listening that made me want to slip into a hot bath and dream about killing everyone I knew.”

The Butterfly Lampshade by Aimee Bender

“The conversation from the Living Room recorder between us all was the only one I could listen to in full, because if was the last I had, and the easiest to rewind to, and didn’t cause the same kind of ache.”

This is How it Always Is by Laurie Frankel

“Just because it’s made up, doesn’t mean it isn’t real,” said Penn. “Made up is the most powerful real there is.”

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

“Most adults claim not to believe in magic, but Klara knows better. Why else would anyone play at permanence--fall in love, have children, buy a house--in the face of all evidence there's no such thing?”