At the end of 2017, I read Autumn by Ali Smith and really enjoyed it. It was the first book of a planned quartet named after each season, and I made a mental note to keep an eye out for the other books in the series.
A few years later, I was in a bookshop in White Bear Lake and I saw they had multiples of the other books in the series - I hadn't gotten around to keeping up with the books, so I had still only read one book and bought another, so I picked up two books from the store and then eventually realized that at this point I had two copies of Winter and no copies of Spring. Understandably, this did not inspire me to finish reading this set of books.
So now it's 2024, and I'm trying to read the books on my shelf, but I still have an incomplete mish-mash of books from this series. But! I was in Half-Price Books and Spring was on the shelves, but it was the hardcover, and my other three books were paperback. The header image gives away my decision, but I did have to take a moment and think about whether the matching set was important, or was a complete set enough for me?
So far, this set hasn't been too off-putting, so I'm happy with my decision. Now I just have to get around to reading these.
I read one of the books that I bought last month, and bought two more books this month:
Spring by Ali Smith - see above
Pnin by Vladmir Nabokov - see below
I also read two books that have been on my shelves for a while, so it's another month where small progress is being made toward having read most books in my house.
One of those books was The Remembered Part by Rodrigo Fresan. See the picture above and explain to me why the publisher didn't keep books 2 and 3 of this trilogy consistent in design? It's fine. I'm trying not to be bothered by it.
Reading this book was an experience. 800 pages that all take place in the mind of the character as they think about literature and life and culture. It's not an exciting read, and it takes some time to accept the fact that although there are recurring events, there is no plot and there are no answers coming. Fresan is incredible at keeping countless plates spinning as we cartwheel through the mental carnival of the narrator, and as I got closer and closer to the end I realized that I was going to miss sitting down and spending 30 or 40 pages in the head of the narrator every day.
The book is nominally about memory, but it's also about Dracula and 2001: A Space Odyssey and about fatherhood. I really enjoyed it, but I am positive that this is a book that is impossible to recommend. Read the whole trilogy if you want almost 2000 pages of rumination.
For about 200 pages in the middle of the book Fresan goes on a digression about Nabokov, the narrator's favorite writer. I remember reading an excerpt of Pnin in an issue of The New Yorker that was in my landlady's house way back in grad school and liking it, so inspired a little bit by Fresan, I bought that book as well, and since I'm missing that dense, fully crafted style of The Remembered Part, maybe I can get a shorter shot of it from Nabokov.
What have you read? What are you about to read? What book series do you have that don't quite make up a matched set of consistent design or format?
Novels read in August:
-----------------------------
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
In the first few chapters you (like me) might think this is a book that will require you to decide if you care about this listless young Iranian American recovering alcoholic in a Midwest college town as he tries to write good poetry. And then the rest of the book is a challenging, beautiful story about art and grief and colonialism and art and grief and more grief and maybe I shouldn't have read this right after one of my friends died after a short and intense diagnosis and treatment, but also the book had more than just grief, and I did care very deeply for this young recovering alcoholic by the end.
The Remembered Part by Rodrigo Fresan
Mentioned above. I enjoy reading Fresan and I might just pick up this trilogy again sometime.
It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over by Anne de Marcken
There are some beautiful sentences in this novel. It was short and spare and I found things that I truly enjoyed. An undead narrator goes on a cross country journey to deal with grief and hunger and life.
Nettle and Bone by T. Kingfisher
A re-told fairy tale that has no obvious source material. It was a good story, but nothing too groundbreaking. This won the Hugo award last year, and I have to say I've read better Hugo winning novels.
Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera
Two characters interact and kill and love and fight each other through constant reincarnations working backward and forward through history. I want this book to be a 600-page doorstop that is more and more full of the ideas here. Maddening sketches of a timeline that has deep backstory.
City of Mirrors (Cronin)
Axiom's End (Lindsay Ellis)
How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse (K. Eason)
The whole Passage Trilogy by Cronin was outstanding. Nice, original take on vampire horror, sci-fi/sci-fantasy horror.
Axiom's End is book one of a first-contact trilogy. Interesting, but not as compelling narrative. I am 50 or so pages into the second volume (Truth of the Divine).
Rory Thorne was a delight. Book one of a trilogy as well. A bit of Princess Bride vibe in the narrative, a bit of Lois McMaster Bujold in the style and ethos. I loved it. Can't wait to start the next one (How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge).
I just can't get myself to start the Lindsay Ellis trilogy.
I'd say that the writing is not as fluid as I would prefer. The protagonist is an angsty, troubled 20-something woman with Daddy issues.
Question: Are the Rory Thorne books 7th grade appropriate? The little ghost is getting into Star Wars level space opera and this seems like it might work for that?
Perry Rhodan!
I would also like to know. The oldest is a grade lower but is a voracious reader. I finally organized his bookshelf and that got him occupied with older books but fresh ones are always first on the list.
Little G has recently devoured:
The Leviathan series by Scott Westerfeld - steampunk WWI alternate history/ fantasy
All of Jennifer Nielsen's historical fiction novels (Resistance, A Night Divided, Rescue, and others)
Keeper Of the Lost Cities series by Shannon Messenger - fantasy, he's read the entire series three times now
When he's a little bit older, Messenger's SkyFall has gone over well with my niece who loved the Keepers series (my kids also enjoyed Keepers - don't think they've tackled SkyFall yet).
Wings of Fire, Heroes Guide to Saving Your Kingdom, and Ranger's Apprentice series have all gotten a lot of love in our house over the years. And anything Riordian-written or endorsed according to my middle 2 kids.
No sex and no f-bombs (in the first book, anyway). Might be mildly challenging for an average 7th grader, but I would say "yes, appropriate."
Thanks! Might do a family read for book 1 and see if he reads ahead
I may have been incorrect on the f-bombs. Can't recall for sure.
But there's magical fairies (brief appearance), a bad-ass princess (Rory), a cyborg body-maid/bodyguard, and more.
I have fond memories of reading Pnin back in my college days.
Very tangentially related . . . I just read a fascinating review in the New Yorker of a new memoir, Turning to Stone, by a geology professor at my university, and I definitely want to give it a read. It's somehow about both the life of planet Earth and her life.
Honest Abe and I finished A Wrinkle in Time last night.
As for me, my August reads included :
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
American Anarchy: The Epic Struggle Between Immigrant Radicals and the US Government at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century by Michael Willrich.
I really liked the character building of Salvage the Bones, but the ending didn't really do much for me. I wasn't expecting closure or a sense of fulfillment or anything, but I expected something.
White Teeth, Z. Smith - all the rage in the New Yorker now.
The Lakeside Supper Club, J. Stradal - this could be any of the resort/supper clubs up by where I grew up by Park Rapids - Chateau Paulette's, Vacationnaire, Val Chatel, etc.
Started 50 Chemistry and The Light Eaters.
I've not really read much for leisure over the past year... it was something that fell by the wayside whenever I got busy at work. Getting even busier the past month somehow actually pushed me to read (maybe because I didn't have time to watch TV or something, I could just crack open a book at opportune moments? I dunno.)
I finished Dragon Teeth, which was clearly a book that Crichton got the idea for when researching his other dinosaur novel. I was entertained enough, though the ending felt a bit rushed as he seemed to cease leaving room in actual history for the historical fiction that had been weaved to that point. Maybe that was the posthumous thing came in... maybe he never had an ending and that was why it was unfinished?
I also finished Ready Player One. It felt like a lot of tell instead of show, but I don't know how else you'd do that with a book like this, and the plot moved quickly enough that I didn't mind too much. There were far too many points where I felt like the world he created was inconsistent and I wish there had been more care given there. But I think that's because I understood this world and the story that was being told in a pretty strong way, so I wanted it to be done to the best possible level. Anyway, I enjoyed it, but not enough to read Ready Player Two.
If anyone else is interested, Franz Nicolay is doing a book tour for his new book "Band People". He'll be at SubText Books in St. Paul on October 17th, and I'm planning on being there