2019 Reading — August
I’m not sure why, but I only read five books this month. Possibly because the book club selection this month was a slog.
[image error]Beautiful Country Burn Again by Ben Fountain
Beautiful Country Burn
Again by Ben Fountain is a book I wish I hadn’t bothered with or spent
money on, but it was my book club’s selection for this month. Fountain, a
former lawyer and a fiction writer, is a clever stylist, but I disagree so
strongly with his views that it was hard to continue reading this. In my
opinion, Hillary Clinton would have made a fine president. I thought she was
the most qualified candidate in recent memory, with sound policy positions.
There is no acknowledgment that she would have been a much better choice than
Trump, only criticism that she should not have been the Democratic Party
nominee. He seems to be of the opinion that the only way to save the country is
to burn it down, which is what Bernie would have done. I don’t buy it. I belong
to the Realist wing of the Democratic Party.
[image error]Sometimes We’re All Living in a Foreign Country by Rebecca Morgan Frank
Sometimes We’re All
Living in a Foreign Country by Rebecca Morgan Frank is a fine collection of
poetry published by Carnegie Mellon University Press. I’ve known Morgan, as she
is called, for a long time (from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, I think) and
we run into each other now and then, at AWP or elsewhere. Earlier this year she
was in Charlottesville for the Virginia Festival of the Book and I was glad I
was able to hear her read along with two other poets—one familiar to me, one
not. Anyway, I enjoyed the poems in this collection, which aren’t as concrete
as some other collections I’ve read recently. Instead, these poems tend to be
almost surreal, allowing the speaker’s imagination to soar, taking the reader
along.
[image error]Blue Hours by Daphne Kalotay
Blue Hours by
Daphne Kalotay is an engaging and surprising read about a writer who, as a
young woman right out of college, moves to New York City and meets a wide
circle of new friends, including a group of men and women with whom she shares
an apartment. So far, it feels familiar, despite the compelling drama that they
experience separately and together. But then, twenty years later, the writer
receives a package of letters from one of her old roommates, a woman who has
been kidnapped in Afghanistan while doing aid work there. The narrator and the woman’s
ex-husband go in search of her, discovering a lot about themselves in the
process. The writing is beautiful and ties the two halves of the book together
with consistent imagery.
[image error]Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling
Harry Potter and the
Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling is the second book in the Potter series.
I listened the first one as an audiobook a few years ago and it was
entertaining enough, so I thought I’d give Book 2 a try. Again, entertaining
and wildly imaginative. Harry returns to Hogwarts for his second year of wizard
school, but he is plagued by a voice threatening to kill and various classmates
turn up petrified. Eventually, he realizes that the source of the problem is in
the Chamber of Secrets. Even without the help of Dumbledore and Hagrid, Harry
is able to save the day.
[image error]Prague Summer by Jeffrey Condran
Prague Summer by Jeffrey Condran was thoroughly enjoyable, especially because I’m about to travel to Prague myself. The story is about Henry Marten, a rare book dealer in Prague, and his wife Stephanie, who works at the US Embassy there. They receive a visitor (a stranger comes to town!), one of Stephanie’s old roommates from Washington. In the course of showing her around the city, the purpose of her visit becomes clearer. I enjoyed getting a glimpse of the city and also the rare book business.
