While We Were Dating, by Jasmine Guillory

I got one last book in on my trip to California, making this trip probably the most productive reading vacation I've ever had. On my visit to Oakland I was staying just a few blocks away from East Bay Booksellers, a store I had heard of because of Jasmine Guillory. I've been following her on Twitter for years (since before her first book even came out) and so I knew it was her local bookstore, from which you can always order her books and request signed copies. So, it felt like the right place to buy a copy of her most recent book, While We Were Dating -- and I did indeed get a signed copy right off the shelf. I've read and enjoyed all of Jasmine Guillory's books, and they are absolutely ideal for inflight reading, which is how I read the last 200 pages of While We Were Dating. (I had exactly enough time on the flight to finish While We Were Dating and watch "Black Widow," so that worked out nicely.)

One thing that's very fun about Guillory's books is the way they are all interconnected. I do think each one could stand on its own, but it's a fun little reward as a reader to encounter central characters from previous books in small parts in others -- and the reverse. While We Were Dating brought back characters from multiple earlier books (and a reference to a cupcake shop that I felt had to be the same one from The Proposal). It's also fun as a reader to imagine which small characters from the book might feature as a future protagonist. While We Were Dating wasn't my favorite book in the series, but it had all the qualities I've enjoyed in Guillory's earlier books and it was the perfect cap to my Oakland vacation. 

Offshore, by Penelope Fitzgerald

Penelope Fitzgerald is a writer who has been on my radar for close to 25 years, but this is the first book I’ve read of hers. I remember in the late 1990s when I worked in a bookstore she was getting a lot of attention for The Blue Flower and The Bookshop and I think at one point I owned a copy of each, but I never did read them. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve felt a particular appreciation for writers who only gained recognition late in life — it gives one some hope. Along with Jose Saramago, Penelope Fitzgerald must be a prime example of this type. Offshore, published in 1979 when Fitzgerald was 63, qualifies as an early work of hers.

I am still in Oakland with the kitten. Offshore is not one of the books I brought with me to read. On Wednesday I went into San Francisco to meet a friend and I stopped by a thrift store in the Mission where I’ve always had good luck finding books. (I remember specifically that it’s where I bought Kinshu: Autumn Brocade several years ago, a book I’d never heard of but ended up loving. I got it on the visit here where I decided to undertake my world books reading project, and it was the first Japanese novel I read.) The shop had three Penelope Fitzgerald books, none of which I’d heard of, and I considered grabbing all of them (they were slim and wouldn’t add much weight, I reasoned), but I decided to get just one and narrowed it down to Offshore because — as is stated on the cover — it was the winner of the Booker Prize. 

Offshore is set in a small community of barge-dwellers on the Thames in the early 1960s. Each one is an outsider in their own way — a woman living apart from her husband with her two daughters who’ve stopped going to school; an elderly maritime painter whose own barge is beyond repair; a male prostitute who always has a sympathetic ear; a former Naval officer from the war who  doesn’t want to give up ship life though his wife does; a muddy cat who’s chased by the rats. the book is small, but beautifully shows how this odd little community comes together, and falls apart — along with their boats. 

Euphoria, by Lily King

I am, at the moment, kitten-sitting in Oakland, California. I took this photo yesterday with the book for scale to try and show just how small this little cat is, but I don’t think I succeeded. Euphoria is one of the two books I brought with me to upstate New York and didn’t start, so now having brought it on a second trip (on which, of course, I have picked up a few more books) I decided I really needed to read it so I didn’t keep carrying it around with me. I originally picked it up a couple years ago after it was recommended in Molly Young’s “Read Like the Wind” newsletter. I have considered starting it multiple times, and it was I think the mention in some other newsletter I get of a new book by Lily King that prompted me to do it now (or approximately now). It’s set primarily in early 1930s New Guinea among a trio of anthropologists, inspired by Margaret Mead. I think it was the phrase “love triangle” on the back cover that turned me off from reading this on the previous occasions I considered it. It’s hard to say exactly why; I’ve surely read many books that featured love triangles, so I think it was actually the phrase itself more than what it suggested that rankled me. I sort of wish the book were less blatantly inspired by Margaret Mead because I found it hard to think of the characters as characters, if that makes sense, and yet I know very little about Margaret Mead and so now I’m probably terribly misinformed. In any case, Euphoria was a gripping read. The advertised love triangle was more complex than it seemed and did not go quite how I expected it would. Novels about anthropologists in the field is sort of a micro genre of its own, of which I believe this is the fourth example I’ve read and one of the ones I’ve enjoyed the most. They’ve all had a similarly lingering sense of terror — the sense that things could turn bad at any moment (and probably will); the threat always coming both from without (the people being studied) and within (the anthropologists themselves). It’s a natural set-up for a compelling read, and Euphoria was that.

Telephone, by Percival Everett

A week and a half ago, I went to upstate New York to take care of my mom’s dog for a few days while my mom and stepdad went to Montreal. I brought three books with me: Two Serious Ladies, which I finished while there, and two books I’d selected to read next. On my first day up there, I went to the Goodwill in Hudson where I bought, among other things, the book Sudden Death by Alvaro Enrigue. When I finished Two Serious Ladies I briefly considered reading one of the books I had brought with me, but instead opted to start my new book. A couple days later I went back home and I was slowly moving along through Sudden Death. About a week later, I was 100 or so pages in. I was enjoying it, but not loving it. It’s a book about tennis and Caravaggio, Anne Boleyn, Hernan Cortes. I found myself confusing the characters across generations, and the story — in as much  as there was one — a little hard to follow. But generally, I was liking it. On Saturday morning, I left the house with a small purse which just fitted Sudden Death along with the basic necessities. I was going to donate blood in the morning, ahead of meeting a friend for her birthday, and finally picking up my CSA share on my way home that evening. The blood drive was in Cobble Hill, so I took the bus down there and read a bit on the way. After my blood donation I stopped by Books Are Magic to pick up a birthday gift for my friend. I managed to stuff it along with Sudden Death and the other necessities into my purse, though it wouldn’t snap shut. It was fine — I just had to manage until I met my friend and then she would carry the gift. I stopped for a bagel to keep my blood sugar up and I was standing outside the Bergen Street subway stop eating my bagel when I noticed a book on a stoop. It was an ARC of Telephone, by Percival Everett. He was someone I’d been meaning to read for a while — I even had two books of his at home that I’d picked up over the years. I tucked it under my arm, figuring I’d only have to carry it that way until I met my friend and then I could stuff it in my purse in place of the book I got her and maybe it wouldn’t snap, but that would be ok. I ended up having to walk to Jay Street because there was a train stalled at Bergen. However, I made it to the meeting point, reading a little more of Sudden Death along the way. I gave my friend her book, but it turned out Telephone was a bit bigger and I couldn’t manage to fit it along with Sudden Death in my purse. I took Sudden Death out and put it in my coat pocket, where it almost fit. It stayed put for the next several hours while we visited a museum and then went out for a late afternoon meal. I was running late getting back to my neighborhood from Columbus Circle and the trains weren’t helping any. When the A finally arrived, I took Sudden Death out of my pocket to read on the train home, but between the activity on the train and my anxiety about being late, I couldn’t concentrate. I held it on my lap through the whole trip. As I stood up to get off, I put it back in my coat pocket and walked to my CSA pick-up location, which was on the way back to my apartment. But somewhere between the train, the CSA pick-up, and my apartment, I lost Sudden Death. I didn’t realize until the following morning. I was so frazzled when I got home, I thought I might have set it down someplace weird. (I still wonder if it’s maybe in my apartment somewhere strange, though I looked everywhere I could imagine.) I retraced my steps to the yard where I picked up the CSA box and found no sign of the book. I had intended to finish it that Sunday, ahead of a trip to California on Monday where I wanted to start fresh. It was very disorienting. 

After my efforts to retrieve my lost book on Sunday, I debated very briefly what to start next and was, once again, won over by the attraction of the new. I read close to half of Telephone on Sunday and thought I would easily finish it on the plane. I easily would have finished it and had the time to watch at least one movie had it not been for my chatty neighbor (which is a whole story of its own). I arrived in Oakland yesterday afternoon with 22 pages to go, but I was too exhausted from my day of travel to finish it last night. Of course I woke up at 5:00 this morning. I had breakfast and coffee in the dark and picked up Telephone to read through to the end just as it was getting light. It was a really beautiful book, heart-wrenching throughout, but occasionally funny in unexpected ways. I’m glad finding this book in the midst of a crazy day finally got me to read Percival Everett. I suspect if I had not lost Sudden Death I wouldn’t have started this when I did and it might have just ended up on my shelves alongside the other two Everett books I own. Maybe sometimes reading the most recently acquired book isn’t such a bad habit. I brought the same two books with me to California that I had taken to upstate New York last week, so maybe I will finally get to those too. 

Two Serious Ladies, by Jane Bowles

Two Serious Ladies had been on my to-read list for quite a long time, and when I saw this cute edition at Greedy Reads in Baltimore I decided maybe now was the moment. This is a strange book about two upper class women friends who, separately (I mention this because given the title I somehow assumed they would do it together) run away from or escape from the life that society has prescribed for them. On a trip to Panama with her husband, Mrs. Copperfield moves herself into a hotel that is essentially a brothel and forms a strong attachment to one of the residents. Meanwhile in or near New York, Miss Goering sells her large home and moves with her irritable companion, Miss Gamelon, and Arthur, a man she met at a party, to a small unheated home on an island near the city (I wondered if it was Staten Island? Or just some made up place). After a while she abandons these two for a man she meets in a grubby bar in a town on the mainland (New Jersey?), and she subsequently abandons him for a mobster-type who assumes she's a prostitute and doesn't believe her when she denies she is one.

I know a little about Jane and Paul Bowles' life and I couldn't help wondering if the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Copperfield was a reflection of them. On their travels, Mr. Copperfield is intent on avoiding the places that attract tourists and going deeper and deeper into unknown territory. When we last see him, he is learning about Central America considering moving on to a remote cow farm in Costa Rica.

I'm not sure what to think about this book. The women at the center of it seem desperate to create a new mode of existence for themselves, but but also unable to find any happiness in it as they test their own boundaries. The book is at times quite funny, but also rather grim. 

Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke

Today I was supposed to be packing for an upcoming trip, or cleaning in preparation for same, or dealing with the masses of vegetables I've accumulated from 3 consecutive weeks of CSA pick-ups. So, obviously, rather than doing most of these things (I did pickle some ginger and beets this morning), I picked up a new book to read. Like many people, I was excited to hear Susanna Clarke had a new novel coming out last year. I read Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell when it was quite new, having been given a copy by a friend who worked for the publisher. This was, if memory serves, around the time of my Jane Austen binge (as I've written a couple times before, I came to her late), during which period I also read (and adored) Tom Jones. I devoured Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and it felt of a piece with the other things I was reading at the time. After I finished reading it, I passed it along to my then-husband who also devoured it, an experience that left him – bizarrely, I thought – somewhat angry. He felt manipulated by the book. Later, I'm displeased to realize, his critique of the book rubbed off on me. I haven't reread it, but I did watch the TV miniseries, which didn't raise my opinion of it. In the intervening years, I guess I've come to think of it not as a good book but as a diverting one. This may be unfair to it, though I do enjoy reading diverting books. The fact that it might be one was why I landed on Piranesi this morning. I hadn't heard much of anything about Piranesi except that it was "very different." I would agree that this is true, but – as with Clarke's earlier novel – I devoured it. I read it in the space of about four hours. Perhaps because of my grudgingly acknowledged bias against Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, I found myself thinking that Piranesi felt mature by comparison. Now I don't know if I'm being fair to either book, but I quite liked Piranesi. Maybe I should give Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell a reread.

Assymetry, by Lisa Halliday

I get many of my books from PaperbackSwap. The way this often works out is I hear about a book I think I'd like to read. I go to PaperbackSwap, where the book isn't typically available immediately, so I add the book to my wishlist. Some period of time later – maybe months, maybe years – I get an email telling me the book is available and I'm next on the list to get it. By this time, I often don't remember anything about the book – what about it made me want to read it, who recommended it – but I usually trust my former self and go ahead and request the book. This is how I ended up with a copy of Asymmetry in my mailbox last week. The cover informed me that it had made the New York Times' "Ten Best Books of the Year" list, which may be how I found my way to it. I usually do read that list and make note of the entries that sound of interest. 

In any case, I was plodding my way through another book (these seems to happen to me more and more lately), but I had a long, round-trip subway ride on the horizon over the weekend and I decided to start something new. By the time I got home from that outing, I was 100 pages into Asymmetry and I finished it two days later. It's very readable. (Ironically, perhaps, the book opens with a character reading a book that's very unreadable. Perhaps this was the clue that made me think it would be a good read for a long subway ride.) The book is divided into three more or less connected parts. The first centers on Alice and her relationship with a much older successful writer. The section was interesting to me, because I've long been fascinated with these types of asymmetrical relationships – not so much the age disparity, but the power disparity. I think they interest me because it's very hard for me to imagine being in that kind of relationship. It's hardly my best quality, but I'm aware that I'm a person who prefers power in my relationships (romantic and otherwise). What Alice gets out of this relationship is an education – and she wants it. It reminded me of a conversation I had years ago with a much younger friend who told me she liked her partners to teach her things. It was so bizarre to me at the time, I don't think I could even fathom what she meant. (It's not that I don't like to learn from my partners at all, but I'm a person who likes to learn collaboratively – co-discovery. This was one of the great strengths of my marriage, until it wasn't.) The second section of the book is an apparently unrelated (though there are hints here and there as to the provenance) first person narrative by an Iraqi-American man who has been stopped at immigration at Heathrow, where he has a stopover en route to Iraq. We learn a great deal about this man, from his birth to the present day (2011-ish) in the roughly 100 pages that are devoted to his story. And then we leave him at Heathrow and return to the older writer from the first section, who narrates his life story to a BBC radio host for an installment of Desert Island Discs. This third section brings to the reader's attention that we barely got to know the writer in the first section. I didn't find Asymmetry to be quite as profound as many of the blurbs seemed to suggest it was, but it was a very enjoyable read.