Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin

4/5 stars

What's it about? On his fourteenth birthday, John debates the state of his soul as an awakening slowly overtakes him. A masterpiece work of history, faith, and family.

How’d I find it? All of Baldwin is required reading, but I found this particular paperback at a library sale. That pulp paper still smells delicious.

Who will enjoy this book? If you liked William Faulkner’s Light in August or Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, you’ll appreciate Go Tell It on the Mountain.

What stood out? Baldwin is such a master of the page. I love how he builds momentum in a scene, especially if it involves a service at Temple of the Fire Baptized (see below). The religious setting of the novel brings into relief its other themes, including the complexity of family and the impossibility of salvation for people of color in a racist America. A book one will want to revisit.

Which line made me feel something? “Someone moved a chair a little to give them room, the rhythm paused, the singing stopped, only the pounding feet and the clapping hands were heard; then another cry, another dancer; then the tambourines began again, and the voices rose again, and the music swept on again, like fire, or flood, or judgment.”

The Möbius Book by Catherine Lacey

4/5 stars

What's it about? Catherine Lacey dissects the end of her marriage through a hybrid work in two parts: a memoir detailing the breakup’s aftermath and an uneasy novella about two old friends, whose relationships have both ended, reconnecting despite suspicious activity next door.

How’d I find it? We all know how much I adored The Biography of X. If Catherine Lacey writes it, I want to read it.

Who will enjoy this book? While I didn’t care for Lisa Halliday’s Asymmetry, those who did might like the oblique structure of The Möbius Book.

What stood out? Catherine Lacey knows how to put a book together. I don’t doubt that the personal nature of the content made this a taxing book to write, and she approaches that subject matter (loss, grief) with innovation in form. “Husband left wife,” she seems to say. “Here’s the cliché I survived, and the fiction that came from it.” The Möbius Book can be read in either direction (starting with the novella or the memoir piece). I found the novella a more interesting approach.

Which line made me feel something? Some of Lacey’s anguish hit close to home: “Haven’t you ever tried to love or take care of someone despite being given ample reason that they cannot or do not want to receive your love or care? A faith it could go differently. An amnesia of how it’s gone. Haroula thought for a moment, very still, then handed me a half orb of orange. No, she said. Why would I do that?”

The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene

4/5 stars

What's it about? Brian Greene (elegantly, dare I say?) explains superstring theory, its potential to solve the conflict between quantum mechanics and general relativity, and the history of scientific discovery behind these theories.

How’d I find it? I’ve had this book on my shelves for at least ten years, as evidenced by where I found it: Books for America, a wonderful but long-gone used bookstore in Washington, DC.

Who will enjoy this book? If you enjoy popular science à la Neil deGrasse Tyson and Carlo Rovelli, you’ll appreciate The Elegant Universe.

What stood out? This is physics made approachable, a feat achieved by visuals, Greene’s enthusiasm, and many a metaphor to buoy readers through the more abstract concepts. Garden hoses will remind me of multiple dimensions forevermore. And like any good popular science book that focuses on astrophysics, The Elegant Universe gives the people what they want: a chapter on black holes.

Which line made me feel something? The descriptions of scale in this book make the mind wobble: “a black hole whose mass is about three times that of the sun has a temperature of about a hundred-millionth of a degree above absolute zero.”

Prairie, Dresses, Art, Other by Danielle Dutton

4/5 stars

What's it about? Danielle Dutton writes to the four title subjects, forging a collection of plain good storytelling. A book that takes risks, and they work.

How’d I find it? The person who recommended Best Barbarian by Roger Reeves suggested this one, so I had an inkling I’d like it.

Who will enjoy this book? Readers of Anne Carson and Maggie Nelson’s Bluets will love this book.

What stood out? I was particularly smitten with the collage pieces of Prairie, Dresses, Art, Other: “Sixty-Six Dresses I Have Read,” a quilt of writing about dresses that builds into a larger narrative, and “A Picture Held Us Captive,” a smart essay on how artworks converse with each other. The eclectic mix of work featured here includes flash fiction, essay, memoir, and even a one-act play.

Which line made me feel something? From the short story “Installation:” “The ‘hillside’ evoked hillsides, she realized, but other things as well. It felt like a performance. It felt like an obsession in space.”

Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky, translated by Sandra Smith

4/5 stars

What's it about? This vivid and human account of the Nazi occupation of France is made all the more potent by the fact of the novel’s publication long after the author’s death at Auschwitz.

How’d I find it? Suite Française appears on “best of” lists, and I had to check it out.

Who will enjoy this book? Fans of Kristin Hannah’s work and Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See should like this one.

What stood out? Suite Française collects two of a planned five-part series unfinished by Némirovsky; the work she was able to complete captures war in the intimate details of individuals trying to survive. The edition I read concludes with Némirovsy’s notes on the project, as well as heartbreaking correspondence that describes her deportation and disappearance.

Which line made me feel something? “Yet this music, the sound of this rain on the windows, the great mournful creaking of the cedar tree in the garden outside, this moment, so tender, so strange in the middle of war, this will never change, not this.”

Best Barbarian by Roger Reeves

4/5 stars

What's it about? In his second collection, Roger Reeves interrogates the grief and suffering wrought by humanity. Best Barbarian lays out our ugly, violent, and racist wrongs and marvels at how we continue to reach for each other to survive.

How’d I find it? This was recommended by someone who knows poetry and my taste in poetry. A home run.

Who will enjoy this book? These poems should be appreciated by any poetry reader. Try Kyle Dargan’s work once you finish Best Barbarian.

What stood out? Like Anne Carson, Roger Reeves is a poet-scholar whose work mines history, literature, myth, and memoir as source material. Every poem contains a treasure trove of references deserving of multiple reads. Take “Domestic Violence,” a nod to Dante, Chaucer, and Virgil in which Louis Till is guided in the afterlife by Audre Lorde, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Lucille Clifton. Yeah, it’s heady.

Which line made me feel something? Almost every line caused a twinge, but I was of course drawn to “The Broken Fields Mended,” which riffs on Whitman: “It is like the future and past of us meeting above and below us, our something in the way / Of disappearing, our something in the snow; though the deer past, though the angel burned, stay with me”

Every Deep-Drawn Breath by Wes Ely

4/5 stars

What's it about? Physician Dr. Wes Ely discovers that the ICU practice of sedating and immobilizing critically ill patients leaves many with chronic illness and disability if they survive their hospitalization. Through research, determination, and collaboration, Dr. Ely vows to cultivate a practice of beneficence (doing good) instead of benevolence (wishing good). An impassioned plea for compassion in critical care.

How’d I find it? A colleague recommended this title for our book club, and oh, how it fired up us nurses. I borrowed my copy from Multnomah County Library.

Who will enjoy this book? Every Deep-Drawn Breath pairs well with Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal, which Dr. Ely lists as an inspiration for his book.

What stood out? Dr. Ely’s belief in his mission comes through the page, and it’s hard to resist his conviction. For healthcare workers, this book will read as a call to action; my fellow nurses and I spent much of our book club meeting discussing ways to introduce long-term quality-of-life activities into our daily practice. Every Deep-Drawn Breath’s most valuable content is perhaps the resource section at the end of the book with practical information for patients, families, and the medical community.

Which line made me feel something? I need to know more about this Halpern: “Compassion can be understood as empathy in action. I had long been a believer in researcher and bioethicist Dr. Jodi Halpern’s work on clinical empathy, especially her teaching that compassion should never be an extra step in our care, but an adverb to describe how we care.”

Overstaying by Ariane Koch, translated by Damion Searls

4/5 stars

What's it about? The narrator lives in her childhood home alone and can’t quite rouse herself to leave the small town where she grew up. She becomes fascinated by a visitor and invites him to stay, and before long the visitor consumes her whole existence. Funny, trippy, and endlessly strange.

How’d I find it? I love this influencer for translated book recs. She knows what’s up.

Who will enjoy this book? Overstaying embraces absurdity and tension in the manner of Samanta Schweblin. In fact, the fluidity of interiors reminds me of Seven Empty Houses.

What stood out? The narrator’s sense of humor makes this bizarre tale more fun than creepy, quite a feat when the visitor with his furry “brushfingers” mutates and evolves the longer he lingers. Overstaying fills inertia with small horrors (how I loved the sentient vacuum cleaners) and completes its sense of claustrophobia with short, choppy chapters. Koch pulls off an immersive mirage of a book.

Which line made me feel something? This tidbit had me laughing out loud: “It’s all the same to me whether or not he’s planning to poison the neighbor children. They’re all right, because they’re small, but then again they’re not that small; now that I think about it, they have chubby thighs.”

On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle, translated by Barbara Haveland

4/5 stars

What's it about? Tara Selter wakes up every morning to November 18th, and nothing she tries ever seems to propel her out of the time trap. A trim, melancholic novel on the mystery of existence.

How’d I find it? I read an excerpt from this novel in Harper’s had to pick up a copy to read the rest.

Who will enjoy this book? This blends the dreaminess of Samantha Harvey’s Orbital, the enigma of Hervé Le Tellier’s The Anomaly, and the domestic focus of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

What stood out? This book is the first in a series of seven, and I appreciated its metaphysical musings in the form of Tara’s daily journal. We enter the story on her 122nd iteration of November 18th and follow as she tries to lure her confounded husband to her aide, develops an obsession with the night sky, and logs how her continued presence diminishes the resources of the day. On the Calculation of Volume is about time in such a way that you feel time while reading it.

Which line made me feel something? “The unthinkable is something we carry with us always. It has already happened: we are improbable, we have emerged from a cloud of unbelievable coincidences.”

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

4/5 stars

What's it about? Bounty hunter Rick Deckard wants a real animal, and to get one, he needs to “retire” as many androids as possible and collect the spoils. When Rick is tasked with eliminating a group of Nexus-6 androids, he begins to question the nature of the soul.

How’d I find it? I credit the shelves of Powell’s. This cover caught my eye.

Who will enjoy this book? I mean, if you enjoyed Blade Runner…

What stood out? Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? has the noir undercurrents of a Chandler novel, while trudging through the miseries of nuclear aftermath. Tiny twists abound. Through it all, the characters interrogate the larger questions, which makes this novel ambitious beyond its carefully plotted intrigue. Extra points for sticking the landing.

Which line made me feel something? “Alive! He had often felt its austere approach before; when it came it burst in without subtlety, evidently unable to wait. The silence of the world could not rein back its greed.”