Perfect Tandem Read

MOONGLOW by Michael Chabon and THE HARE WITH AMBER EYES by Edmund De Waal

Importance of Reading

Reading is as necessary for my health as breathing. When my depression is BAD I find reading novels hard so I switch to short stories or read some short and straight-forward nonfiction until my focus and concentration improve. I have trouble understanding people who don’t read much. (And, yes, 45 has spoken about how he doesn’t read much. Explains a lot.) Many articles have proclaimed the importance of reading good literary fiction in building empathy. An oft-quoted study found that readers of literary fiction scored higher on understanding others’ emotions than readers of genre fiction, but:

The academics are keen to stress that they are not claiming a superiority for literary fiction. “What we are saying is that there are different ways of telling a story, and they have different impacts on the way we perceive social reality. Literary fiction, we say, tends to challenge social categories — the characters are category-resistant … Popular fiction, on the other hand, uses types of characters which help us immediately understand what is going on. That’s how we learn about the social world — how we build our national and cultural identities,” said Castano.

I’ve tried, without consistency or success, to update folks about what I’m reading, but my Goodreads site is never 100% up to date. If you check out my Goodreads, you’ll see that I tend to gravitate to literary, character-driven fiction, as do most of my book clubs. In nonfiction, I am much more interested in narrative nonfiction (tells a story) than in expository, descriptive or persuasive.

Tandem Reading

Lately I’ve been reading two books at the same time, a tandem read if you will. They are both good empathy builders, IMHO. I don’t do this all the time, but this time I needed to share because this tandem is a beautiful one. I am reading Michael Chabon’s (pronounced, in his words, “Shea as in Shea Stadium, Bon as in Bon Jovi”…) MOONGLOW and Edmund De Waal’s THE HARE WITH AMBER EYES.

If you read the previous post What is Forgotten?: Legacy, Stories & Letting Go of Stuff, you will understand already how much De Waal’s book is resonating with me. Consider this, from De Waal’s website:

How things are made, how they are handled and what happens to them has been central to my life for over thirty years. So too has Japan, a place I went to when I was 17 to study pottery. How objects embody memory — or more particularly, whether objects can hold memories — is a real question for me. This book is my journey to the places in which this collection lived. It is my secret history of touch.

My highly recommended tandem read.

MOONGLOW has not been, for me, an easy read though it is compelling. Chabon’s style can be dense and challenging — I don’t mind that all, but it can get too heavy for me for long stretches and I decided I needed to break it up with something else. So, when THE HARE WITH AMBER EYES was coming up for one of my bookclubs, I decided I’d see if my post-election brain could handle two reads at once. I bought THE HARE in Kindle reader with audio to be able to switch between reading and listening. I rarely buy audiobooks, but since I’m spending hours lately starting to declutter for downsizing ahead, I thought it made sense this time. When I am doing mindless household tasks — washing dishes, folding laundry, packing items to give to charity — or driving, I listen. It did not take long to realize I had struck tandem reading gold! If you’ve already read one, I suggest you consider the other. If you’ve not read other, and you are not afraid to face the broad themes of legacy, memory and family values (what do we really pass on to our loved ones?), do consider a tandem read. The duo could lead to a great bookclub discussion — if you have an ambitious bookclub.

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Perfect Tandem Read was originally published in Pam Writes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.