2019 Reading–March

Although March was a crazy month—I spent a week in New York,
was busy with the Virginia Festival of the Book, taught at the High Roads
Festival of Poetry and Short Fiction, then flew out to Portland, Oregon for the
AWP Conference—I still managed to finish reading six books.

[image error]We are Water by Wally Lamb

I didn’t love We are
Water by Wally Lamb, which I listened to on Audible. Although the novel is
told in several voices, it seems to focus on Annie Oh, a visual artist who left
her husband to pursue her career in New York and is now about to marry the
woman who owns the gallery that represents her. Annie had a very difficult
childhood and that has manifested itself in a number of odd choices, including
anger toward her son. Annie’s ex-husband Orion seems like a good guy, but he’s
got his own issues, as do all their children. These are interesting, if not
particularly likeable, characters, but it’s the story-telling that I didn’t
care for. You might want to wait for the movie, which I hear is in the works.

[image error]The Story of H by Marina Perezagua

I read The Story of H
by Marina Perezagua because the author was part of a panel I moderated at the Virginia Festival of the Book. It is a
solid, lyrical novel that addresses a wide range of issues—gender identity,
nuclear war, slavery, and environmental disasters among them. The main
character, H, is a hermaphroditic Japanese child who survives the Hiroshima
bombing at the end of WWII but in the process loses her male organs. She then
identifies as a woman and eventually finds herself in America with a man who is
a US veteran of the war. They are searching for the Japanese daughter he
fostered at the end of the war, and that sends H on a global search.  

[image error]Thomas and Beal in the Midi by Christopher Tilghman

Thomas and Beal in the
Midi by Christopher Tilghman continues the story the author has been
telling in earlier novels Mason’s Retreat
and The Right-Hand Shore. Now
(1893), Thomas, scion of the family, has married Beal, the daughter of the
freed black farm manager from the family’s estate in Maryland. Because they
cannot legally live together in Maryland, they travel to France where they fall
in with a community of expatriate artists and Thomas purchases a vineyard in
the Languedoc region. Having recently spent a month in the South of France, I
enjoyed this engrossing historical novel about the area. (Tilghman was also one
of the authors on a panel I moderated at the Virginia Festival of the Book.)   

[image error]Last Days of the Dog-Men by Brad Watson

Last Days of the
Dog-Men: Stories by Brad Watson. I’ve enjoyed Watson’s stories since I read
one in The New Yorker ten years ago. So I recently picked up this slim
collection of stories (1996) I hadn’t seen before. All the stories are strong,
but one in particular, “Kindred Spirits,” blew me away.

[image error]A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink

A Whole New Mind
by Daniel Pink was interesting (I listened to Pink narrate the audiobook). I’ve
read a couple of other of his books and had the pleasure of meeting with him
when he was the keynote speaker of a leadership conference I organized for the
Northwestern University Alumni Association (Pink is an alumnus of
Northwestern). The book was originally published in 2006 and argues that in the
future (now?) right-brain creativity will be more important for the US economy
than left-brain organizational skills.

[image error]Facts and Fears by James Clapper

Facts and Fears by
James Clapper. Former Director of National Intelligence under President Obama
(and also a top intelligence appointee in the Bush administration) recounts his
long military career and subsequent service in the Intelligence Community. The
first half of the book is a little slow, but it gets really interesting when he’s
writing about Snowden, Manning, and Assange, the so-called “Benghazi scandal”
(his sober account of what really happened is very helpful), and Russian
interference in American elections. My book club chose this book for March and
even though I wasn’t able to attend our discussion, I’m glad I read it.

That was another solid reading month. On to April!