Month: September 2016

Summer reading

I read a lot this summer.  At the outset of the season, as I wrote my mid-year reading review, I realized I hadn’t read much fiction this year.  So I swore to myself that the summer months would hold a lot of novels.  And they did.  I would love to hear what you’ve been reading, too!

Lab Girl, Hope Jahren – I loved this book, which is suffused with the wonder of the natural world.  Jahren’s beautifully-written story is a love letter to science.

Modern Lovers, Emma Straub – Straub’s book is entertaining, wise, and truly has its finger on the pulse of what it means to be in midlife.  I related to an uncomfortable degree.

The Spiritual Life of Children, Robert Coles – I’ve long wanted to read this book and I finally did.  A thoughtful perspective on the deep and rich interior lives that children often have.  My favorite passage is here.

Wilde Lake, Laura Lippman – Taut, page-turning mystery, with a complicated female protagonist to boot.  I’m in.

There and Then: The Travel Writing of James Salter, James Salter – Essays by one of my very favorite writers about the traveling.  Beautiful prose, short snippets, you can see parts of the world in these pages.  My favorite passage is here.

What Alice Forgot, Lianne Moriarty – An entertaining confection that raises a big question: what do we take for granted over time, and what do we need to remember?

The Weight of Water, Anita Shreve – I don’t know why I’ve not read this before, but I’m glad I did.  Womanhood, relationships, the ocean – so much story in here, and so gorgeously written.  My favorite passage will go up next week.

Before the Fall, Noah Hawley – Gripping from page one.  I couldn’t put this down.  I found the ending a little unsatisfying, I’ll be honest, but this is an excellent, fast-paced story.

Days of Awe, Lauren Fox – A recommendation from my sister, and she’s never wrong.  A lovely book about friendship, marriage, motherhood, and adulthood.

The Atomic Weight of Love, Elizabeth Church – A recommendation from Katie, who’s also never wrong!  I adored this book about being a woman in the mid 20th century, subjectivity, science, birds, love, and identity.

The House of Secrets, Brad Meltzer – My love of thrillers is well-documented, and I tend to read everything Meltzer writes.  This book, heavy on the Benedict Arnold history, was very entertaining.

It’s Okay to Laugh: (Crying Is Cool Too), Nora McInerny Purmort – That this memoir is both a tear-jerker and a laugh-out-loud page-turner is a testament to the lovely writing and the irrepressible spirit of the writer.  Highly recommend.

The Singles Game, Lauren Weisberger – Fun, light, entertaining. I enjoyed this look inside the tennis circuit.

Heroes of the Frontier, Dave Eggers – I loved this book, which managed to be both light and deeply wise.  Despite the way the story careens all over the place (literally and figuratively), it powerfully describes the love between a mother and her children. I rarely read the NYT Book Review, but I did about this book, and these lines (by Barbara Kingsolver) have stayed with me: “The heroes of this frontier are Ana and Paul, a dynamic duo who command us to pay attention to the objects we find in our path, and stop pretending we already know the drill … she (Josie) sees them learning to take what a human animal really needs, divining the crucial difference between genuine dangers and manufactured ones. She is learning to be the mother her life demands, rearing the sort of brave humans the future will require.”

The Girls, Emma Cline –  As wonderful as I’d been told.  Cline’s story is feral and fecund, powerfully evoking the vulnerability of teenage girls and their deep desire to be a part of something bigger than themselves.  I could not put this book down.

The Excellent Lombards, Jane Hamilton – A wonderful, bittersweet evocation of adolescence.  This book is an elegy for a way of life that’s receding (farming) as well as for the innocence of childhood.  Tear-jerking, thoughtful, and lovely.

Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint, Nadia Bolz-Weber – I loved Nadia’s wry humor and her clear-eyed ability to see the holy in even the most winding paths.  This is a beautiful, powerful book.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette, Maria Semple – I laughed out loud while reading this.  Often. Another book I’m not sure why I waited so long on.  Hilarious and tinged with thought-provoking commentary on motherhood, identity, and conforming.

Truly Madly Guilty, Lianne Moriarty – Another successful page-turner by Moriarty.  Like all of her books this one circles around an event which is a mystery until revealed.  It is more tragic and less salacious than I expected, but the outcome is heartening, the message optimistic.  Entertaining.

Siracusa, Delia Ephron – Riveting writing on an unsettling topic.  Europe, midlife, marriage, parenthood, trust and the breaking of it … there is so much in this novel.

Sweetbitter, Stephanie Danler – I love the writer’s voice and her beautiful, heartbreaking, raw depiction of young adulthood in New York.  I never lived in New York and I never waited tables, but even so, I found this book almost unputdownable.  A gorgeou way to close out the summer.

What have you read this summer that you recommend?  I want to hear!

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Summer 2016

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I think this is my favorite photo from the summer.  Sunset, no filter, July 4th, Marion, Massachusetts.

Summer 2016 was uneventful and calm until the end, when it was far too eventful.  June, July, and the first half of August held lots of family time and a bunch of no-child time and many books and runs.  Summer was a reminder of how deeply blessed I am on the friendship front, as I was lucky enough to spend time with some of the women I love the most in this world. It also reminded us of how fortunate we are, and of the line we walk on a daily basis.  Despite difficulty at the end of the summer, we turn into September more viscerally aware of our good fortune than before.

I suppose challenges have a way of reminding us of all that’s good.

June started out with coding camp for Whit, then had hockey camp for Grace (meet my children), and then they spent 3 weeks with my parents doing sailing and tennis.  Matt and I spent weekends down there.  What a privilege to spend long empty days with both my parents and my children.  We had a marvelous reunion with my sister, her husband, and daughters, and all four cousins on my side of the family were together.  Then Grace and Whit went off to sleepaway camp for 3.5 weeks.  Matt and I laid pretty low during this time, weekdays working and weekends at the ocean.  We played tennis, sailed, swam, and read a lot of books.

We had a magical dinner with one of my oldest and dearest friends, Jessica.  She, her husband, Matt, my parents, and I had a relaxed, happy, wine-soaked dinner.  We debated and discussed and laughed and reminisced.  I’m grateful beyond words for her company on this road, the truest kindred spirit I’ve ever met.  I just wish we saw each other more.

I spent a weekend in Shelter Island with two of my three college roommates.  This was our second annual visit and it was even more spectacularly wonderful than the last one.  We swam off a boat, we watched a thunderstorm roll in, we played with one roommate’s small children, we laughed so hard our stomachs hurt.

I read a lot of books, and will write a post about them shortly.  A lot of great fiction, as was my plan heading into the summer.

We had a week with Matt’s family in Vermont, which was joyful, exuberant, noisy, full of waterskiing and tubing.  Matt’s parents had all three sons and all six grandchildren together. A rare treat.

And then the summer ground to a quick, sudden halt.

Matt tore his hamstring severely while waterskiing. Then Whit was diagnosed with suspected Lyme and treated.  The last couple of weeks of August were not our best.  Matt had surgery on his hamstring (the injury was both significant and unusual).  He reacted poorly to the  drugs he was on after surgery and fainted not once but twice (both times I caught him) on the last day of August at home.  We had two 911 calls, and the second resulted in ambulance transport to the ER.  He was gray, clammy, and not fully awake.  I was very scared.  After many hours ruling lots of things out, they think he had a reaction to the medication, both anesthetic and pain killers.

Matt is resting quietly as I write this.  Our children are healthy and Whit’s responded well to his Lyme treatment.  I feel tired and deeply thankful at the same time.  I have Pam Houston in my mind:

I was breathless and frightened by the frailty of miracles, and full of the fact of our lives

I hope you are all entering fall with awareness of your blessings, many happy memories from the summer, and some good books under your belt. Beginning September full of the fact of your life.  I know I am.

 

the days were finite, full of awe

I didn’t want to see for miles.  I didn’t want to peer into a telescope and spot the highway in the distance, the farms on the periphery the birds in formation.  I wanted to stand at the base of the bird tower and crane my neck toward Chris and Hannah, bathed in sunlight, golden.  Love was foolish and inevitable. We were just waiting to be shattered by it. The days were finite, full of awe.

– Lauren Fox, Days of Awe