The delicate art of choosing one's next read
Hello, friends!
I’m on the cusp of completing Billion Dollar Loser: The Epic Rise and Spectacular Fall of Adam Neumann and WeWork, a thorough dissection of everything that went wrong with this real estate company that wanted to a) change take over the world, and b) be a technology company, despite not really being one. It’s been a good read, but it’s one of those books that just makes you feel a little icky, in that The Social Network kind of way.
So next I’m lining up a feel-good read. Well, if not “feel-good,” then at least “fun”. But I’m having a hard time choosing. Here are the candidates I’m debating:
LaserWriter II, by Tamara Shopsin From the description:
LaserWriter II is a coming-of-age tale set in the legendary 90s indie NYC Mac repair shop TekServe―a voyage back in time to when the internet was new, when New York City was gritty, and when Apple made off-beat computers for weirdos. Our guide is Claire, a 19-year-old who barely speaks to her bohemian co-workers, but knows when it’s time to snap on an antistatic bracelet.
I know absolutely nothing about Tamara Shopsin, except that Jason Kottke has posted about her and her family’s grocery store several times. But I love a great workplace novel, and I love a period ’90s novel, and when the two come together, I have to read. (Plus, this novel has an exceptionally great cover design.)
The Book of Form and Emptiness, by Ruth Ozeki From the description:
One year after the death of his beloved musician father, thirteen-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear voices. The voices belong to the things in his house—a sneaker, a broken Christmas ornament, a piece of wilted lettuce. Although Benny doesn’t understand what these things are saying, he can sense their emotional tone; some are pleasant, a gentle hum or coo, but others are snide, angry and full of pain. When his mother, Annabelle, develops a hoarding problem, the voices grow more clamorous.
At first, Benny tries to ignore them, but soon the voices follow him outside the house, onto the street and at school, driving him at last to seek refuge in the silence of a large public library, where objects are well-behaved and know to speak in whispers. There, Benny discovers a strange new world. He falls in love with a mesmerizing street artist with a smug pet ferret, who uses the library as her performance space. He meets a homeless philosopher-poet, who encourages him to ask important questions and find his own voice amongst the many.
And he meets his very own Book—a talking thing—who narrates Benny’s life and teaches him to listen to the things that truly matter.
After Ozeki’s previous novel, A Tale for the Time Being, whatever she wrote was going to be an instant-buy. (Time Being is an exceptional novel, one of the great books of this century, I think. But I’ll confess, I tried starting it two or three times before I actually succeeded. When I say that a book has a right time and a right reader, this is my perfect example of that.) That said: This is a book about everyday objects that talk. So it might require a few tries, too.
Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel From the description:
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?
I’ve never read Mantel’s work, but seeing as she’s recently finished her Wolf Hall trilogy (comprised of this novel as well as Bring Up the Bodies and The Mirror & the Light), and I’ve just watched the BBC’s adaptation of the first novel (it’s fantastic), perhaps it’s time to dig in.
I’ve mentioned that recently I’ve been watching a lot of film and television set in the Middle Ages or earlier, and of them all, Wolf Hall might be the best. (Mark Rylance’s portrayal of Thomas Cromwell is legitimately chilling.)
The Lincoln Highway, by Amor Towles From the description:
In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the juvenile work farm where he has just served fifteen months for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett’s intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother, Billy, and head to California where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden’s car. Together, they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett’s future, one that will take them all on a fateful journey in the opposite direction—to the City of New York.
I’ve had Towles’s A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility on my list for years at this point. I have to start actually reading his books somewhere, and maybe this is the best place to start.
I Had a Hammer: The Hank Aaron Story, by Hank Aaron and Lonnie Wheeler From the description:
I Had a Hammer is much more than the intimate autobiography of one of the greatest names in pro sports—it is a fascinating social history of twentieth-century America. With courage and candor, Aaron recalls his struggles and triumphs in an atmosphere of virulent racism. He relives the breathtaking moment when, in the heat of hatred and controversy, he hit his 715th home run to break Ruth’s cherished record—an accomplishment for which Aaron received more than 900,000 letters, many of them vicious and racially charged. And his story continues through the remainder of his milestone-setting, barrier-smashing career as a player and, later, Atlanta Braves executive—offering an eye-opening and unforgettable portrait of an incomparable athlete, his sport, his epoch, and his world.
I love, love, love baseball. When Hank Aaron died at the beginning of 2021, I went looking for a book about him, and found this one. Though his playing days ended just a few years before I was born, his character and legacy have towered over the game since. And that’s always meant something, particularly while the era of baseball I fell in love with was also the era of steroids and drug abuse, amongst other stains. That Aaron emerged from the challenges of his own era as the hero he is is remarkable, and I’m excited to read more about his life.
The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemison From the description:
This is the way the world ends. . .for the last time.
It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world’s sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester.
This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.
At this point, does Jemisin need any explanation? She’s won just about every award for her fiction that a person can win. And it’s high time I read her.
Better Off Dead, by Lee Child and Andrew Child I’d share the book’s description here, but does it really matter? This is a Jack Reacher novel, and with a Jack Reacher novel, the story is almost secondary. You’re reading for other reasons. That said, I’m a little wary of this one. Lee Child is an exceptional thriller writer, one of the handful of authors who really seems to elevate the genre. (Even celebrated literary writers like Haruki Murakami are avowed fans.) But Child announced in early 2020 that he was no longer going to write the Reacher novels; instead, his brother, Andrew, would take the reins. Better Off Dead is the second book with Andrew at the helm, and I’m wary because the previous one…well, Andrew’s stepping into very big shoes here. It’s my hope that Better Off Dead represents a step forward; if not, then I might simply go back to the beginning of the Reacher series and start over (and stop when Lee did).
Such a Fun Age, by Kiley Reid From the description:
Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains’ toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store’s security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make things right.
But Emira herself is aimless, broke, and wary of Alix’s desire to help. At twenty-five, she is about to lose her health insurance and has no idea what to do with her life. When the video of Emira unearths someone from Alix’s past, both women find themselves on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know about themselves, and each other.
This one’s been on my list for quite a while. By all accounts, Kiley Reid is one of the best young writers to publish lately, and I’m very excited to read this.
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, by Oliver Burkeman From the description:
The average human lifespan is absurdly, insultingly brief. Assuming you live to be eighty, you have just over four thousand weeks.
Nobody needs telling there isn’t enough time. We’re obsessed with our lengthening to-do lists, our overfilled inboxes, work-life balance, and the ceaseless battle against distraction; and we’re deluged with advice on becoming more productive and efficient, and “life hacks” to optimize our days. But such techniques often end up making things worse. The sense of anxious hurry grows more intense, and still the most meaningful parts of life seem to lie just beyond the horizon. Still, we rarely make the connection between our daily struggles with time and the ultimate time management problem: the challenge of how best to use our four thousand weeks.
Burkeman, who writes for The Guardian, is also the author of a newsletter, The Imperfectionist, which I can’t recommend enough. As he puts it, it’s about “productivity, mortality, the power of limits, and building a meaningful life in an age of bewilderment”.
Speaking of bewilderment…
Bewilderment, by Richard Powers From the description:
The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while single-handedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin, following the death of his wife. Robin is a warm, kind boy who spends hours painting elaborate pictures of endangered animals. He’s also about to be expelled from third grade for smashing his friend in the face. As his son grows more troubled, Theo hopes to keep him off psychoactive drugs. He learns of an experimental neurofeedback treatment to bolster Robin’s emotional control, one that involves training the boy on the recorded patterns of his mother’s brain…
I’ve never read Powers before, and his previous novel, The Overstory, seems to come highly recommended. While it’s never intentional, I often find myself sidestepping an author’s best-known work when I read them the first time, and instead read another title. I don’t really know why I do that; is it conscious? Maybe.
All right, I concede that maybe many of these wouldn’t be “fun” to most readers. I should substitute with “fascinating” or “challenging”. I can’t even pretend they won’t also come with icky-feeling bits, since some of them are about things like racism, or class warfare, or corruption, or vintage laser printers.
I’d love to hear what you’re reading now! What books have excited you this fall?
✏️Until next time,
Jg
Thanks for subscribing to Letters from Hill House! You’re reading the free edition.
- If you’d like to also receive The Dark Age letters, here’s how to do so
- If you’re enjoying the newsletter and would like to buy me a coffee, here’s how to do that
- My web site has more writing, and info about my books
- If you just want to say hello, just click Reply, or email me
Note: This newsletter may contain affiliate links for which I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.