A brief summary of what I’m currently reading or have recently finished, why I read it, and whether I’d recommend it. Although really, it’d have to be truly terrible for me to bother writing about a book I wouldn’t recommend……
My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me (Jennifer Teege) – At a recent medical appointment, the examining doctor told me that he loves to learn about people by striking up seemingly random conversations in grocery stores, hallways, and waiting rooms. I prefer to learn about people through books, in the form of biographies and memoirs. In this memoir, an adopted woman of mixed race discovers that her grandfather was a concentration camp commandant (featured in Schindler’s List), and struggles to come to terms with that. In some ways, I think it parallels, though on a much deeper and probably more profound level, a journey we all take when we revisit childhood memories and experiences with the added knowledge and perspective of adult eyes and realize all was not as we thought.
The Moonstone (Wilkie Collins) – Heralded as the first modern English detective novel, it centers around the mysterious disappearance of a Hindu religious artifact. Modern-day readers who desire to censure anything that’s not Politically Correct by 2020 standards should probably skip this; it’s full of British stereotypes of upper class women and Indians (by which I mean those native to the subcontinent of India). I’ve never been more inclined to read Robinson Crusoe than when I finished this. In terms of detective novels though, I prefer Doyle, Christie, and Sayers.
Surprised by Joy (C.S. Lewis) – Lewis’s own account of his conversion. He warns in the preface that it starts out slowly but gathers speed as he continues, and that’s a well-deserved warning. There’s only so much I want to read about a lonely and unhappy childhood, and this approaches that line. It does add highly relevant context and background to the events that follow though.
The Earthsea Cycle (Ursula K. LeGuin) – Not a single book, but a series of fantasy novels (an original trilogy written in the late ‘60s/early ‘70s, with a couple more novels and short stories added in the ‘90s; I’ve not read those additions). Don’t read this if you’re uncomfortable with the “good guys” using magic. Much, if not most, of the fantasy genre deals with the battle for good to prevail over evil, and this is no different. It’s most prevalent, I think, in the last of the trilogy, The Farthest Shore.*
* Literally mere hours after I wrote this sketch, I happened to be listening to an episode of The Literary Life Podcast about George MacDonald’s Phantastes. I learned from that episode that MacDonald is widely considered to be the founder of both Christian fiction and also fantasy as genres, and that Ursula LeGuin was heavily influenced by his work. So with that additional knowledge, it makes perfect sense to me that the theme of good vs evil is so prevalent in fantasy, and also in this specific series mentioned. If you’d like to listen to two far more knowledgeable people speak about this, it’s in the first 20-30” of this episode.
So there you have it: 4 books I’m reading right now or have recently finished. If you’ve read any of these (or decide to after reading this post), drop me a note and let me know what you thought of them! And let me know what you’re reading right now too.