"What if pretending to enjoy life is the same as actually enjoying it?"

My reading interests lately have ranged from romance to historical fiction to social commentary. And of course sprinkled in are the lighthearted murder mysteries (if such a thing isn’t an oxymoron) as they become available on my holds list.  

End of Story by Kylie Scott

Winterland by Rae Meadows

Summer Stage by Meg Mitchell Moore

The Trackers by Charles Frazier

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman (Thursday Murder Club series)

“it sliced right through me”

When poet Christian Wiman was diagnosed with cancer, he knew he believed in something, but “what,” he writes, “was considerably less clear.” His book My Bright Abyss is a collection of ruminations on faith, belief, love, death, and grief.

As a poet, he often includes excerpts from his own writing along with stanzas from both lesser and well known poets and theologians. As someone in my book club aptly observed, this “complicates” things. But reading this book wasn’t meant to be a simple matter of sitting down and opening it. His musings and interweaving of other writings makes you pause, think, reread, take notes, reread, and breathe.

As a recent episode of this show proposes, some things are meant to be savored. This book is one of them.

“Christ is God crying I am here, and here not only in what exalts and completes and uplifts you, but here in what appalls, offends, and degrades you, here in what activates and exacerbates all that you would call not-God.”

Amway

There’s a moment in her appearance at Seattle Arts and Lectures where Ann Patchett describes the Peter Dukes of her twenties (Peter Duke is a character from her new novel).  And she charms the audience by describing how one young man charmed her by pretending to sell Amway. Later in the conversation with Melinda French Gates, Gates makes reference to Amway and Patchett says, “That’s going to be your take away?!” 

My take-away is going to be the fabulous list of recommendations she peppers throughout her interview. And of course I’ll be anxiously awaiting my own copy of Tom Lake arriving from Elliott Bay Book Company, a bonus perk of supporting SAL.

 

Ann Patchett recommends….

Monsters by Claire Dederer

Do Tell by Lindsay Lynch

Swing Time and The Fraud by Zadie Smith

The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

James by Percival Everett

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason

Absolution by Alice McDermott

Fool for Love by Sam Shephard

The Cherry Orchard by Anton Checkhov

Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy

The Orchid Thief and The Library Book and On Animals by Susan Orlean

The Magician’s Elephant and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and The Beatryce Prophecy and The Puppets of Spelhorst by Kate DiCamillo

WooHoo! You’re Doing Great! Sandra Boynton

The Moment of Lift by Melinda Gates

Earn Prizes!

Miss the pizza coupons and pencils from your childhood summer reading program? Many local libraries now have summer reading programs for adults! For example, here’s the Book Bingo card from the SPL and their list of reading suggestions.

Here are a few suggestions of my own that explore relationships on set, on the stage, and in the great outdoors:

Every Summer After by Carley Fortune

Happiness for Beginners by Katherine Center

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

The Friendship List by Susan Mallery

They’re Going to Love You by Meg Howrey

Weather Girl by Rachel Lynn Solomon

And I’m looking forward to these new releases coming out later this summer:

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead

What are you looking forward to reading this season?

Lily Brooks-Dalton

These may not be your typical beach reads, but these two novels by Lily Brooks-Dalton are thought-provoking imaginings that are haunting in their realism, and entirely plausible in their prophecy. 

The Light Pirate

“There is a necessary tension between knowing how nature works in theory and witnessing it.”

Wanda is born during a hurricane. Although her father and brother work tirelessly as linemen to keep the lights on, eventually the strength of the increasingly frequent storms is too much for Florida’s infrastructure to handle. Most people become climate refugees as the state shuts down for good, but Wanda stays behind in the only home she’s ever known. Under the tutelage of Phyllis, a naturalist and survivalist, Wanda becomes adept at adaptation, the new superpower in this unrelentingly hostile environment.

Good Morning, Midnight

“He had never been satisfied and never would be. It wasn't success he craved, or even fame, it was history: he wanted to crack the universe open like a ripe watermelon, to arrange the mess of pulpy seeds before his dumbfounded colleagues. He wanted to take the dripping red fruit in his hands and quantify the guts of infinity to look back into the dawn of time and glimpse the very beginning. He wanted to be remembered.”

Augustine opts to remain in the Arctic after the rest of the scientists leave upon news of an impending disaster affecting the rest of the planet. In the hasty departure, he finds that a little girl, Iris, has been left behind. Meanwhile, Sully and her crew have just been to Jupiter and must speculate why all communications with Earth have been disrupted. Even though Augustine has Iris for company, he diligently tries to connect with others on his ham-radio. In this way, he’s able to connect with Sully who has been likewise scanning the frequencies for proof of life. Faced with an unknown future, human connection offers the only hope.

"best day ever"

Does anyone else have July 21 marked on their calendar? In honor of the big event, I'm reposting something I wrote in 2017. 

Growing up, I had one Barbie doll. She wore roller skates and a neon yellow sports outfit. However, she was often relegated to the back of the closet since I much preferred playing with “My Friend” dolls.  

When my daughter was in kindergarten, she began asking for Barbies. Most were modeled after the Disney princess characters, but she also favored Barbies who were going to the beach. When we packed up to move last year, she gave the whole collection away. She has held on to her generation’s 18” doll.  

So I was curious, but not invested in, the story of Ruth Handler, the brains behind Barbie. Barbie and Ruth: The Story of the World's Most Famous Doll and the Woman Who Created Her by Robin Gerber opens with Ruth Handler in court. Her company, Mattel, is being accused of shady financial practices.

This dramatic opening sets the stage for Handler’s life. Gerber rewinds from the 1970s to Handler’s early years in retail. We learn how her business acumen, along with the creativity of her husband Elliot, launches her into business.

After a few years in the toy business, Ruth decides to create a doll that allowed girls to “project their dreams of their own futures as adult women.” As Gerber says, “Boys and girls did not just play with different toys; they grew up to be men and women [like Handler] who created different toys.”

Just as fascinating as reading about Barbie’s birth, was learning the story of how toys grew from being a Christmas commodity to one that is sold year-round. Television played a big role in making this shift as it changed the timing of the sales and manufacturing of toys. Designers also had to take into consideration how a toy would look on television.

After leaving Mattel and struggling with breast cancer, Handler created her second business. She developed and sold a product called “Nearly Me” - a silicon breast prostheses.

Whatever your opinion on Barbie’s suitableness as a role-model, it’s hard to disagree with Handler’s. Despite her later legal troubles, she became a leader in a male-dominated field and created an iconic toy that has made it onto kids’ Christmas (and Birthday and Tooth Fairy and Last Day of School) lists for generations.  

Oof

Fans of Laurie Frankel and Miriam Toews rejoice. If you appreciate their dark  humor, you’ll revel in We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman.

Ash and Edi have been best friends practically from birth. Now they must face Edi’s impending death. Edi says her goodbyes to her young son and husband and moves into a hospice facility near Ash’s family. Over the next few weeks, a revolving cast of characters visit Edi, bringing lip balm, bagels, and approximations of “The Cake” - a lemon pound cake she tasted once and has never been able to replicate. When Ash isn’t keeping Edi company, she’s juggling her own cache of lovers, trying to persuade her daughter to go to class, and sharing meals with her ex, Honey.

How do you say goodbye? How do you reconcile loss with life? Whose idea was it to name a candy horehound? All these questions and more are broached with love and humor. Death is messy. Life is messy. And sometimes all you can do is embrace the corporeal to deal with it.

Oh, and near the end, there’s a bit about petrichor. Always a good sign of a good read.