It’s been a slow month for turning the page. So much on my plate, both official and self-inflicted. Still struggling to make sense of my future newsletter. I know what I THINK I want to do, but do I have time to do it consistently, and does it make me feel right about the world? So many questions. Have also been doubling down on my back and neck rehab. I’m getting there, but I’m not sure I will ever get where I need to be without going under the knife. Not a pleasant thought. What IS a pleasant thought is the reality that I encountered some seriously good books this month, and I have my colleagues to thank for the first two books on the list.
Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam is a glorious book by Andrew X. Pham, who also penned my second book, The Eaves of Heaven: A Life in Three Wars. These books are beautiful. Sure, they speak to trauma, war, refugee hardship, and a challenging family life, but they do so in poetic fashion. There were passages I read again and again, only to curse Pham for his writing ability, knowing I would never be able to muster such prose. (The world needs ditch diggers, too.) The Vietnam War was why I became a photographer, so these books had a special impact on me. I highly recommend them both.
The final book is one that came into my possession on a morning run through my semi-rural neighborhood. A free library box down a dusty road. I almost didn’t take this book, and I almost quit this book on page one. This rarely happens to me, but there was something about the writing style that felt off. I reminded myself of my public school education and kept plowing through. Claire Messud’s The Emperor’s Children is a gem. The style is dense, but once you settle into the cadence, it’s so well done. Messud knows human nature, and I’m sure the characters are based on a combination of real people. Family dynamics, fame, infidelity, shame, the trappings of wealth, and more are rolled into a New York story that kept me going to the very end.
I just noticed this last book has a three-star rating on Goodreads. Surprised, not surprised. Book reviewers, at least for me, are like movie reviewers. Most of my favorite movies get terrible reviews. I find book critics and movie critics to be a bit uptight for my liking. And when the public starts reviewing, well, buyer beware. (Myself included.) I’m just a hick kid from a questionable town. My father owned a swamp. What more do you need to know?
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Please stop adding to my TBR list. Please…
Mark, I totally feel you. Dan is always keeping my tbr list suuuuper long. Not complaining in the slightest, however, my bank account is pissed at me.
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I’m here to help!
My hold list at the library is Milnor inspired.
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The library is my happy place.
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Never.
I almost quit reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, and I am glad I powered through. Sometimes the divisive authors are worth the struggle. Thomas Pynchon comes to mind.
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That’s a top ten book for me!
Just finished Ocean Vuong’s “The Emperor of Gladness.” What a poetic writer. Consider this line about birds taking flight from trees: “Look how the birches, blackened all night by starlings, shatter when dawn’s first sparks touch their beaks.”
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Heavenly…
I was looking forward to your monthly reads. *adds them all to the tbr list*.
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I’m between books and don’t know what to do with myself.
Catfish and Mandala has been sitting on my shelf for a long time. I always think I will pick it up this time, but I don’t. I don’t know exactly why. But now, for the month of June, this will be my first book!
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It’s worth it. It’s not about the bike, that’s for sure.
No pressure, but ……no thoughts/stories about Salgado?
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Total bummer. I do not understand the link between malaria and leukemia.
“Most of my favorite movies get terrible reviews. I find book critics and movie critics to be a bit uptight for my liking.”
Mate, spare me the bloody misery of dragging myself through the festering pile of critical reviews for books, flicks, or telly, where self-righteous, up-their-own-clacker critics rip apart a story’s soul with their insufferable, ranting bullshit. Sometimes I swear they’re dissecting shit with a spreadsheet, overanalysing every damn frame, page, plot, subplot, character arc, and line of dialogue until the story’s stripped of any soul and left gasping under a pile of overthought wankery. But what hits home for me? It ain’t technical perfection; it’s the raw feeling a story sparks. So yeah, if the critics are slamming it, odds are I’m all in but I’ll give credit where it’s due; every now and then, one of the buggers hits the mark.
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It’s like high brow readers bagging on Hunter Thompson while praising those who ripped him off.
If you’re looking for reading suggestions, try The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King, anything by Thomas King, Unreconciled by Jesse Wente, Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, Seven Fallen Feathers by Tanya Talaga. I could go on and on- one of the joys of working in a library. I will miss it when I retire in June. Luckily the city library is a short walk away, but it won’t be the same as discussing good books with librarians and teachers every day.
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Just reserved that first one at the local library. thank you!