July Reading Wrap-up
So busy querying, no time to contemplate reading
From July’s Bookshelf:
Practice, Rosalind Brown. Ebook.
Walden, Henry David Thoreau. Audiobook.
Daybreak, Joan Baez. Mass-market paperback, used.
Be Ready When the Luck Happens, Ina Garten. Audiobook.
The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism, Ross King. Digital and Audiobook.
Beowulf, author unknown, translated by Seamus Heaney. Audiobook.
Under the Greenwood Tree, Thomas Hardy. Audiobook.
The "Read Good Challenge" for July was to read a translated book. I chose Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney. The story, produced by an unknown author known as the Beowulf poet, between 925 and 1025, is a swashbuckling tale of slaying monsters and dragons. The story begins in medias res (in the middle of the action) during funeral rites. The original passages I encountered in high school were undecipherable as I remember. But the Heaney translation makes sense and any reader can follow the plot. I read the audiobook narrated by Heaney himself. His heavy Irish brogue adds to the folkloric vibe. 3-stars.
I grew up in southern New England. Whenever Thoreau’s homage to the Massachusetts woods, Walden, was assigned, I skipped over it. I read Walden II by B F Skinner—but never the original. I was one of the few kids in my class who enjoyed The Scarlet Letter. I’ve visited Concord several times. But somehow I wheedled my way out of reading Walden. The "Read Good Challenge" for June was “Shame Forgiveness Month.” I chose to finally take the plunge and finished it in early July.
I agree with every one of Thoreau's observations. Many of his long passages make for evocative, lyrical prose. But often his evangelizing is overbearing. He built his rustic cabin on land owned by his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson agreed to the deal in order to have the cabin as a writing studio when Thoreau’s two-year stint there was up. The book's latter half, from the chapter about the ponds until the end, was more enjoyable than the beginning. Perhaps the woods had mellowed him. Thoreau's homesteading story is overshadowed by his desire to convert his reader to his progressive mindset. And the quiet details he describes make for a very slow reading experience. I'm glad to have read it but once is enough. 2-stars.
For 2025 Big Book Summer Challenge, I read The Judgment of Paris by Ross King (464 pages,) a non-fiction tome about the battle for the wallspace in the ‘M’ Gallery in the annual Paris Exhibition between Ernest Messonnier (a renowned Second-Empire painter) and Edouard Manet. The latter was scorned in his day. He wasn't even chosen for the exhibit of the artists who were rejected from the Paris Exhibition, “Le Salon Réfusé!” King does a remarkable job at illuminating the stakes and tension for the decade-long battle. He shows that Messonnier and Manet (and Monet, too) were fighting not just over wall space or collectors, but really over their separate visions of their dramatically changing world. Absolutely fascinating. 5-stars
I picked up the short debut novel, Practice, by Rosalind Brown. It is a day-in-the-life novel, describing the obsessive interiority of Annabel, a literature student at Oxford. She is struggling to write an essay about the 154 sonnets credited to Shakespeare. The reader lives her angst and follows Annabel’s mundane routines, thoughts, gazes, and bodily sensations. The shock of Brown’s directness when writing about the body was momentarily fascinating but ultimately, how our skin flakes or what a shower feels like isn’t all that interesting unless it advances a plot. It should be a prerequisite to read the sonnets before reading this novel. Brown has done her homework and recreates the way one’s thoughts move while reading them. At first, the antiquated language is overwhelming and confusing. Then fascination and awe take over—maybe attraction. Then, as one learns about the objects of the poems, “the fair youth,” and eventually, “the dark lady,” and the personae who is the narrator, one makes theories, judgements and assumptions. Occasionally Brown uses Shakespearean language to show how Annabelle’s mind is being saturated by her studies. It was Brown’s early passages of allusions to the sonnets that worked best. Anabelle is living a mixed-up love story, which I’m sure is supposed to parallel the unrequited love in the sonnets. That comparison isn’t clear or well-fleshed out. The characters weren’t drawn richly enough to make me care how they resolved their love affair. Despite living inside Anabelle’s brain, I don’t know how she feels about either her ex- or her current boyfriend. I never cared whether Annabelle met her essay deadline and I don’t think Annabel cared that much either. Worse yet, there were no consequences (stakes) for Anabel to resolve her relationship. The ending fizzled. I appreciated Brown’s intelligence and research; and how “on trend” I found her writing. I expected the ending to bring us back to the sonnets, to show us something cunning or compassionate about Annabelle, to summarize the novel’s multiple themes, offer a conclusion, or provide a twist or a final couplet. But if Brown attempted to do that, I didn’t find it. I liked the strong moments and clever tricks in Practice. But ultimately, the novel left me a bit disappointed. I would have liked more time spent on Shakespeare and less on urination and digestion. 2-stars.
Desperate for a fun read, I picked up Be Ready When the Luck Happens, by Ina Garten. I lived in Manhattan and was teaching myself to cook while Ina Garten was building her Barefoot Contessa empire in the Hamptons. From 2000-2003, I co-founded and operated an artisanal chocolaterie in Manhattan’s East Village, a decade or so after Ina paved the way for foodie businesses like mine. I visited her shops a couple of times, but she didn’t really spark my interest until I received one of her cookbooks as a gift. The recipes were failsafe and absolutely delicious. They weren’t exactly healthful, but they were crowd pleasers. I made her “perfect roast chicken” and now it has become a staple.
Her memoir is a romp through the Manhattan and Hamptons food scene during my pre-2000 formative years. If you have a fondness for old reruns of Julia Child or elaborate decorating with Martha, you will enjoy this memoir. She isn’t going to wow you with her sentences. The prose is correctly written, but she’s not a poet. Her innate talent is in a kitchen and in her business wisdom of knowing when to leap and when to pause. Garten is selective about what she shares and omits. She skates over years of hard work, personal stories and decision-making, commuting, making friends with celebrities, and simply living, all of which would have been interesting. She seems emotionally reserved, a quality I share and admire. But in a memoir, reserve makes it impossible for the reader to feel what the author felt. I did however feel her joy when she describes her big victories. But there is much more to her life than those moments of success. I was delighted to learn what a strong feminist she is. Her last chapter and epilogue were, by themselves, worth the price of the book. For any woman, but especially women entrepreneurs, this quick read is valuable for the wisdom Garten imparts, all the while making it taste like a gooey chocolate chip cookie! 4-stars.
I was gifted a mass-market paperback of Daybreak: an autobiography by Joan Baez, originally published in January 1968. I had read Positively 4th Street years ago and I’m so glad I did. It helped to have an understanding of Baez’s early life. They make excellent companion reads. Although Baez introduces her reader to her parents, her sisters, and a couple of important friends in Daybreak, throughout most of the book she holds the focus squarely on herself. One might say that's egotistical; maybe it is. But the point of the book is not really her own life, but rather her commitment to non-violence. So keeping the attention so controlled really zeroes the reader in on her message. It felt as if she was telling the world her thoughts in case her rebellious young voice was extinguished. Its publication date tells me she must have written this book in 1966-1967. It's not an autobiography as the title would suggest. It’s a memoir that pushes boundaries. Her writing is non-linear but in a way that is surprisingly easy to follow. It has a lot of lyricism but doesn't read like a song or poem. Almost 60 years ago, she was performing literary somersaults and kind of succeeding at them. Baez definitely can create a scene and develop her characters, but her vignettes can be a bit dizzying. She left a couple stories unresolved and I thought the book was a little too short. But she did make me love her music more (if that's even possible.) 4.5 stars.
Along with Jen The Librarian on Youtube, I read Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy. This is a pleasant little slice-of-life novel about rural characters in Wessex, Hardy's reimagining of the SW coast of England, near Dorset. It's charming, cosy, amusing. Nothing overly dramatic happens. It’s definitely not as miserable as some of his other books (which I adore!) What is remarkable is how Hardy makes the setting a character. In this book, he focuses on the trees, on the vistas, on the squeaking latch of a gate, on the birdsong, on the mud, on the clouds overhead. There is a wonderful scene of Christmas caroling, too. 3-stars.
The Judgment of Paris and Be Ready When the Luck Happens were my favorite reads in July, both non-fiction titles.
What did you read this summer? Did you tackle any "big books"? (400+ pages)
Have you read any of the books on my July Bookshelf? If so, I'd love to hear your thoughts!
I love Heaney’s Beowulf!