Always and again, books come to the rescue and reading is getting me through. In these trying days, reading is comfort and companion.
And because the slog* has lifted, I’m (finally!) enjoying a rush of really good books.
Here are a few of my recent favorites:
Say Say Say
by Lila Savage
A beautiful and evocative novel on the largely unexplored topic of caregivers.
Love this line:
For a moment, she would be fully present in this sadness, porous in her empathy. It was almost unbearable, but at the same time, it seemed like a gift, to feel so much.
Brontosaurus
by Leanne Grabel
Subtitled as a “memoir of a sex life,” this straightforward book takes on rape, telling the story and holding the fallout with clarity, heart, and humor.
If you like this, try:
• Telling: A Memoir of Rape and Recovery by Patricia Weaver Francisco
• Speak, a novel by Laurie Halse Anderson
• Bastard Out of Carolina, a novel by Dorothy Allison
Uncanny Valley
by Anna Wiener
A surprisingly gripping page-turner of a memoir about working in Silicon Valley. With an outsider perspective, Wiener is an excellent writer producing page after page of killer lines, like these:
He wore jeans so tight I felt as if I already knew him.
. . . the patron saint of mislaid sympathies.
He seemed like someone who would have opinions about fonts.
What was it like to be fun, I wondered — what was it like to feel you’d earned this?
If you like this, try:
• Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble by Dan Lyons
Writers & Lovers
by Lily King
A tale of small triumphs for an aspriring writer. This novel will likely appeal to a unique niche of women-writers-who-waitress-while-waiting-for-life-to-make-sense (yes, I saw myself in nearly every page).
Love this line:
I don’t write because I think I have something to say. I write because if I don’t, everything feels even worse.
If you like this, try:
• Father of the Rain, a novel by Lily King
• The Anthologist, a novel by Nicholson Baker
• Bird by Bird, a memoir-guidebook by Anne Lamott
My Dark Vanessa
by Kate Elizabeth Russell
This sometimes claustrophobic novel is dark, disturbing and compelling, and offers a refreshingly nuanced perspective on sexual abuse.
Love this line:
Sometimes I feel like that’s what he’s doing to me —
breaking me apart, putting me back together as someone new.
If you like this, try:
• My Education, a novel by Susan Choi
• Blue Angel, a novel by Francine Prose
• You Deserve Nothing, a novel by Alexander Maksik
* BOOK SLOG is that dreadful trudge through a swamp of so-so books that make you question your self, your choices, your ability to enjoy a rich and full literary life. Thank god, my slog is over!