As I started to report several weeks ago, I read nine books in February. That’s a good reading month for me. The nine:
- Apollo’s Fire: A Day on Earth in Nature and Imagination, by Michael Sims
- The Commoner: A Novel, by John Burnham Schwartz
- Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia, by Elizabeth Gilbert
- Rewind, Replay, Repeat: A Memoir of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, by Jeff Bell
- Life Class: A Novel, by Pat Barker
- The Anatomist: A True Story of Gray’s Anatomy, by Bill Hayes
- Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All of It) Back, by Frank Schaeffer
- On Chesil Beach: A Novel, by Ian McEwan
- Sleeping with Ward Cleaver, by Jenny Gardiner
Pat Barker is one of the best answers to the idiotic assumption that women writers are hopelessly domestic. You don’t get many canvases larger than World War I. It was interesting to read Life Class and On Chesil Beach in the same month — many of the same themes in both, and much excellent writing. Frank Schaeffer’s book is a fascinating look into an unusual branch of fundamentalism.
In March I was busy preparing and blogging for the Virginia Festival of the Book. It was my great luck to draw three excellent and challenging writers on which to focus: Michael Sims, Jennifer Ackerman, and Susan Freinkel. I read their books and also Susan Sonnenberg’s Her Last Death: A Memoir, and What Would Jesus Deconstruct?: The Good News of Postmodernism for the Church, by John D. Caputo. Believe me, by the end of March my brain was tired.
But now it’s April, and I’ve got Diary of a Bad Year under my belt, and a start on The Annotated Archy and Mehitabel. It’s going to be another good reading month.
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Filed under: authors, blogging, books, charlottesville, psychology, reading, science, VABook08, virginia Tagged: | book reviews
Yea! No, all women aren’t kidding ourselves about in the house and we don’t all get orgasmic about shoes.
I’m a psychologist writing as MysteryShrink.com
So what did you think of Diary of a Bad Year? I finished it a while back and would be interested in hearing your take on it.
The only one of those I’ve read is “Eat…”
Which would be your top recommendation?
Peg – I respect everything of Coetzee’s that I’ve read so far (Elizabeth Costello, Slow Man, Disgrace), but either I didn’t “get” Diary of a Bad Year or there wasn’t anything there to get. I thought the essays by Senor C. were very interesting, but the plotline with Anya and her husband didn’t do much for me. Anya in particular didn’t seem well fleshed out as a character. What did you think?
Catherine – They’re all so different, I can’t choose one. Out of all the novels listed in the post, I would definitely recommend Life Class (though it’s not the best Barker I have read), On Chesil Beach (ditto – not the best McEwan), and Diary (ditto for Coetzee). Three tremendously talented authors not quiiiite at the peak of their talents.
Nonfiction — the three books I read for the science panel were excellent. Crazy for God was fascinating if you’re interested in an inside look at the Religious Right phenomenon.
I finished The Annotated Archy the other day and it was lots of fun. Really a joy to read.