This was an odd month for reading. Each time I finished a book I felt at a loss about what book I should read next. There just wasn't anything I was particularly in the mood for this month. I kept borrowing books from the library and then returning them without even starting them. But despite that, I still ended up reading the usual average number of books and enjoyed (most of) those that I read just fine. The ones I didn't enjoy, well I REALLY didn't enjoy them. These are the books I finished in June,
The Best American Poetry 2023 David Lehman Series Editor; Elaine Equi Guest Editor
I like poetry generally and one of my goals this year was to read more poetry. I picked up this book at the beginning of the year thinking it might give me an idea of contemporary American poets I should look out for because I have a hard time finding contemporary poetry I like. I subscribe to The New Yorker and every week when the new issue arrives I flip through it to read the cartoons and the poetry first. Very, very rarely do I find a poem I like. Most of the poems in the New Yorker I am at best indifferent to and at worst detest. I assumed this had something to do with the poetry editor. Well, the same thing happened with this book. Of the 75 poems in this volume, I dog eared 12 to go back to after I finished. And of those 12, only 6 still interested me on the re-read. And not one of them made me want to go find other poetry by the poet. I read this slowly, only 2-3 poems a day. By the final few days I couldn't WAIT to finish this book and get rid of it.
Clear by Carys Davies
What an exquisite little book this is. It is very short, less than 200 pages. The story takes place in 1843 near the end of the Scottish clearances when landlords would force the people who had lived on the land for generations to leave their homes to make way for sheep. It also is the year of "the Great Disruption" of the Scottish Church when approximately 1/3 of the ministers broke away in rebellion against the patronage system whereby the landowners had the ability to install ministers in the parishes on their estates. John Ferguson is one such minister who has broken away, but he is under tremendous stress about how he will support himself and his wife Mary. And so he takes a job to travel to a small island (somewhere near Shetland) and oust the only remaining inhabitant of the island, a man named Ivar. Ivar doesn't speak English, he speaks only a language called Norn. This is the story of John, Mary and Ivar. I can't say more without spoiling the story but it is a beautifully written little book. Although it was short it took me a week to finish because I didn't want it to end (and I was also afraid how it would end). Highly recommended.
The Comfort of Ghosts by Jacqueline Winspear
This is the the last of the Maisie Dobbs mysteries according to the author. And she tries to tie up a lot of the loose threads in this book. Mostly she succeeds (and also maybe sets the stage for mysteries in a later period featuring one of the younger characters in this book?). I've enjoyed this series although I liked the books that took place in the 1920s better than the later WWII era stories. I don't think this particular book would appeal to those who haven't read the entire series but I do recommend the series.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
This was a a re-read for me and part of a BlueSky readalong. It had been years since I read it and I was surprised how little I remembered details, just the broad story. I enjoyed re-reading it especially in conjunction with reading "Her Mother's Laugh" which I finished last month. The comparisons with Victor Frankenstein creating his creature and then abandoning him was interesting to compare with the scientists doing genetic engineering research. I recommend that everyone read this novel at some point in their lives, it isn't a long book. And it reads much differently than all of the movie adaptations that have been made.
Death of an Airman by Christopher St. John Sprigg
I've had mixed results reading the British Library Crime Classics I inherited from my mom, but without a doubt this one has been my favorite. I think it's because I love stories that involve amateur pilots from the 1920's and 30's. I'm not sure why. In this story from 1934, one of the flight instructors at a private air club crashes and dies. But all is not as it seems. He was a good pilot and inspection shows nothing wrong with the aircraft. Was it an accident, was it a suicide or was it murder? Edwin Marriott, the visiting Australian Bishop of Cootamundra, who is taking flying lessons at the club, is on the case with Inspector Bray from Scotland Yard. Sprigg wrote only seven crime novels and was killed in the Spanish Civil War before the age of 30. It is good that this one was republished.
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
This was the book for my book club. The main character, Elizabeth Zott, is a chemist working in 1960's America. She puts up with a lot of misogyny. She also finds and loses love. And she eventually becomes a television celebrity with a cooking show that is based on chemistry. Basically the author explores all the various meanings of "chemistry" which I enjoyed. But the best part of the novel for me were the portions that were told from the point of view of her dog. He was a great character. Some parts of the novel I found depressing, because life for women in the work force has improved but not as much as one might hope. While I enjoyed this book and do recommend it, I also didn't take it very seriously and thought of it as a good beach read.
The Extinction of Irina Rey by Jennifer Croft
A group of translators are gathered in a Polish village to translate the latest novel of a "great writer". The narrator is unreliable and we know that because she is so stupid. Sorry. Others may not find her stupid, just misguided and not very observant. I found her stupid. I think I was supposed to find her funny, but I didn't. Then to make it more complicated it was supposedly a book in translation and the "translator" would insert footnotes telling you how full of s**t the narrator was. It wasn't clear to me who actually "wrote" the novel (obviously Croft did but I wasn't clear if the purported narrator actually was supposed to have written the novel given the way the novel ends) which mostly just frustrated me. The plot meanders (and was in my opinion unbelievable), I had a hard time keeping the characters straight and I never really had a sense of the "mysterious" forest they were living on the edge of. I don't recommend this.
