It was not the garden I disappeared into last night, Bookman and I had an evening out! We saw Move Live on Tour, a ballroom and contemporary dance performance/concert starring brother and sister Derek and Julianne Hough. It was sold out and even though we bought tickets the afternoon they went on sale, our seats were in the middle of the very last row, so high up we were looking down on the stage. It was still lots of fun though and the dancing was amazing. But you aren’t here to read about that so let’s talk books!
Can you believe it is July already? We are over halfway through the year. It feels like I have read hardly anything but I know that is not true. In spite of all the time spent in the garden in June, reading went fairly well. I am about to begin chapter seven of Founding Gardeners. I am enjoying the book very much and it is hard to not rush right through it. It is such a fascinating way to look at history, I never imagined how much a person’s theory about gardening and agriculture could affect one’s politics but there it is at the very beginning of the United States. Actually, when I think about it I am surprised that I am surprised because my gardening practices and political views are indeed linked. I, however, am not founding a country so haven’t spent much time thinking about the broader picture like Washington and Jefferson did.
I didn’t get far in But What by Judith Herzberg in June. Reading Antigone Poems through a couple times put a damper on reading other poetry. But Herzberg will get attention in July for sure.
I had also planned on reading Euripides’ play Medea in June but that didn’t happen either. I got sidetracked by a few books I’d been waiting for in the library hold queue coming in and demanding my attention. July might not be any less crowded with must read library books, but I will certainly try to keep Medea in view.
One of those have to read books is My Struggle: Book One by Karl Ove Knausgaard. It gets off to a great start and then gets a bit boggy in the middle before it begins to pick up again. Just at that point I had to return it to the library because I was out of time! The book is much longer than I expected. But I immediately requested another copy and with luck I should have it again next week after only a two week break.
Another of the have to read library books that arrived last week is The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison. It is an essay collection that actually made it onto the bestseller lists for a few weeks. It is also published by Graywolf Press, a local independent publisher. It is a series of essays that explore the concept of empathy. I have read the first one and, wow, was it ever good. I have high expectations for the rest of the book.
About a week and a half ago I also started reading Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. This is only the second Mieville book I have read and I am enjoying it quite a lot, which means I will have to gradually work my way through reading all of his books. One of the things I really enjoy is that he just starts telling the story without a huge world-building info-dump. You are suddenly in this very alien world with all sorts of real alien beings and you just have to go with it and trust the author won’t let you down. And he doesn’t let you down. Eventually all begins to make sense and the more sense it makes the weirder it is which is interesting and exciting as the story veers into unforeseen directions.
I am expecting another have to read library book in the next few days, Gathering Moss: a Natural History of Mosses by Robin Wall Kimmerer. I read and loved her book Braiding Sweetgrass earlier this year. I have been waiting patiently for Gathering Moss since April. Who would have thought a book about moss would be so popular? But there you go.
And if I can manage it, I hope to get to a book from my own shelves that I have meant to read for ages: Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner. I was inspired to finally pick it up after Whispering Gums wrote a wonderful blog post on Stegner’s Crossing to Safety, a book I have read a very long time ago. I almost tossed over Stegner for Woolf, but Woolf will wait patiently until August.
So there is July. And no doubt there will be a few unplanned books that make their way in but that is all part of the fun.
To add to your voluminous list, let me recommend Zia Rahman’s In the Light of What We Know. It is the finest book I read since Night Train to Lisbon, if you remember how much and how often I wrote about it. Like Mercier’s masterpiece, Rahman’s in a philosophical novel in the truest sense. I guess you have to like those works of fiction that combine a great story with an endless set of questions and insights.
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Richard, I’ve not heard about Rahman’s book so I had to look it up. It sounds interesting. Of course I need to get around to reading Night Train to Lisbon first, that has been sitting on my shelf for a while now!
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I agree that Zia Rahman’s book is one of the best I’ve read in years. It’s intelligent but not dry. Around every corner I found something marvelous (in the literal meaning of the word). I highly recommend it.
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Thanks for the link, and wow, so glad it inspired you to read Angle of repose. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed but you may of course.
And no, I can’t believe it’s July. We saw friends last night – at the movies to see The Jersey Boys – with whom we try to go to movies weekly. However, we are all going to be travelling on and off for a little while and so when we said goodbye, we said “see you in early September”. Wah, I thought, so far away! And then I stopped and though, hmmm, it’s almost the middle of July already!
That show you went to sounds great. We love to go to dance performances, and are going, next week, to Australia’s top indigenous dance company whom we’ve seen several times, the Bangarra Dance Theatre. I can hardly wait.
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whisperinggums, I almost decided to reread Crossing to Safety instead since I don’t remember much about it at all. But the one I have not read yet won out π
Oh, so you are going traveling again soon? Hope you have fun!
I love dance but don’t get the chance to go very often. I don’t know about there but here tickets are so very expensive. The opera of all things is inexpensive and I keep trying to get Bookman to go but he refuses every time. But I’ll break him down one of these days!
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Yes, we are off to Singapore-Thailand but just 10 days … A family celebration.
And yes tickets are pretty expensive here too. We usually only get to one or two a year, this will be our second for this year. We get very little opera here … Need to go to Sydney for that. But, I’m not as passionate about it. Went to quite a lot in my 20s though and did enjoy it.
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I hope you have a lovely time!
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Thanks Stefanie — it will be warm for a start! But, yes, it will be lovely to be with family.
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Not familiar with many of the books . . .but Angle of Repose
is a lovely read.
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Usual interesting mixture of books. Very interested to see how you get on with China Mieville as I have 3/4 books of his on my shelves. Because it is 1914 I recently read Margaret Macmillan’s fine account of the run up th ww1 – The War That Ended Peace. Also started George Saunders Tenth Of December and not quite sure what to think (cross/mix of South Park and Nathaniel West!). Enjoy your reading.
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Macmillan’s book was so good it made me believe it is 1914!
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Ian, the other Mieville book I read was The City and The City and it was fantastic. Perdido Street Station is so very different I was a bit thrown at first. I have no idea where the book is going but it is really interesting and Mieville can write and like the big words and makes me keep running to the dictionary. I had to laugh at it being 1914 π Glad it was a good book. I’ve not read Saunders but he always gets lots of buzz. After your description I’m not sure I’d like him all that much.
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I didn’t think I would like him that much either but, despite the hype, I am sort of enjoying his stories and they have more heart than I first expected.
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Hmm, maybe I will have to give him a try sometime after all.
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booksandbuttons, I have heard Angle of Repose is really good so I am very much looking forward to it!
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I like how varied your reading list is! I picked up Perdido Street Station a few years ago, before Mieville got so famous, and put it back down fairly soon–I never got into the story. You, on the other hand, seem to be reading voraciously through everything.
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Jeanne, I like to keep things interesting! π Perdido Street Station is a really interesting book, so very alien and I have no idea where it is all going. It has taken me awhile to warm up to it because it is so alien and gritty and doesn’t exactly make you feel welcome.
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I’m actually not too far behind you now in Founding Gardeners–you are right–what a conflict creating the capital was! And even though I have visited DC several times never really gave any of it much thought as to the reason streets and places were named as they are. It is really interesting reading–so much to take in though I can only manage a few pages at a time (rather that is how my reading usually goes–I get to pick up books in fits and starts and I can manage more pages in some books than in others). Too bad about the Knausgaard–I want to read that as well–it sounds like you’ll have it back in hand soon enough. I loved Crossing to Safety, too, and keep meaning to read more of Stegner’s work. Oh so many books I want to read….I feel like I haven’t read so much either and here we are zipping along, but I know I am reading more than I think. Hopefully you will get some of the cool weather we are forecast next week! π
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Danielle, Founding Gardeners is so much fun. I’ve never been to DC before but when I do finally manage it, it will be even more fun imaging dirt roads and wandering cows. The “replacement” Knausgaard arrived for me Friday and since it came from the university library I have it for several months so I don’t have to rush to the end thank goodness! There is always so much to read it never feels like we read enough, does it?
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I do hope you get to Medea soon. It was something I didn’t expect to enjoy but it was incredibly powerful.
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BookerTalk, I hope I get to Medea soon too! I’m going to do my best π
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