A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

3/5 stars

What's it about? Thirteen-year-old Meg Murry and her savant baby brother Charles Wallace embark on a mission to find their long-missing father, with the guidance of the enigmatic Mrs. Who, Mrs. Which, and Mrs. Whatsit and the support of smart, athletic Calvin. The quest has a far more complicated objective: to save the world from Evil.

How’d I find it? Though I rarely reread anything, I’ve recently had a hankering to revisit books I loved as a child. I met Madeleine L’Engle when I was eleven and was in awe of her. A Wrinkle in Time was the first of her books I encountered.

Who will enjoy this book? This book is perfect for young readers interested in probing bigger questions about purpose and goodness.

What stood out? The eerie monotony of the planet Camazotz and the healing love of Aunt Beast hold special places in my literary education; the story abounds with similar treasures. A Christian undercurrent that was invisible to me as a child runs through A Wrinkle in Time, and it admittedly smacked of another agenda that I found less savory in this reread. I wish the rescue of Charles Wallace was less rushed after such a paced build to the climax, but this is a small gripe in a story that sparkles with ingenuity.

Which line made me feel something? This conversation between Meg and her mother: “‘Do you think things always have an explanation?’ ‘Yes. I believe that they do. But I think that with our human limitations we’re not always able to understand the explanations. But you see, Meg, just because we don’t understand doesn’t mean that the explanation doesn’t exist.’”

Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion

4/5 stars

What's it about? Sometimes actress and full-time sad girl Maria Wyeth is wise to the emptiness underlying the dazzle of Hollywood in the 1960s and can’t unsee it, especially after having a clandestine abortion. The husbands and lovers, the ambling days by the pool, the beloved daughter too complicated to mother, the vapid gatherings—Maria can’t summon the performance to care.

How’d I find it? My husband said I should read this and lent me his copy. He was right.

Who will enjoy this book? Readers of Bret Easton Ellis will recognize the vibes, and those who love Eve Babitz will recognize the Los Angeles that Didion captures so vividly.

What stood out? The ennui of this book absorbs the reader, so much so that one might crave a chaise lounge nearby. Maria moves through her life tearful and without a filter, indulging fixations: her upbringing in an abandoned mining town, the loss of her mother, the L.A freeways. Didion nails setting so completely that it’s easy to forgive the confusing shifts in time. Enjoy the passages describing Maria’s long drives; they’re a particular treat in this merciless novel.

Which line made me feel something? Maria tries to connect to her past, or anything really, during an impromptu trip to Vegas: “By the end of a week she was thinking constantly about where her body stopped and the air began, about the exact point in space and time that was the difference between Maria and other. She had the sense that if she could get that in her mind and hold it for even one micro-second she would have what she had come to get. As if she had fever, her skin burned and crackled with a pinpoint sensitivity. She could feel smoke against her skin.”

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver

4/5 stars

What's it about? As bare as they come, this slice of America serves up hard-drinking, hard-loving folks and their myriad violences. Carver lays out these raw tales and doesn’t flinch.

How’d I find it? Some library sale. I may not recall the when or the where, but I remember celebrating the cover of this edition and the smell of its pages, perfectly yellowed and of the pulp variety.

Who will enjoy this book? For fans of the film Birdman and Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson, another all-time great story collection.

What stood out? Carver rips out your literary heart and pours himself another bourbon. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love is a book for writers, a revelation of short fiction. The effortless craft of this book amazed me. Readers, beware: there are no tricks here. If you don’t love the first twenty pages, you’re not going to love the rest of them.

Which line made me feel something? I couldn’t get enough of how the titles of these stories carry so much weight, often some abrupt devastation, exemplified in this parting shot from “The Calm:” “But today I was thinking of that place, of Crescent City, and of how I was trying out a new life there with my wife, and how, in the barber’s chair that morning, I had made up my mind to go. I was thinking today about the calm I felt when I closed my eyes and let the barber’s fingers move through my hair, the sweetness of those fingers, the hair already starting to grow.”

The Birds of Pandemonium by Michele Raffin

3/5 stars

What's it about? Michele Raffin details her journey from animal lover to conservationist, as her California home evolves into Pandemonium Aviaries, a sanctuary for abandoned and endangered birds. A cozy read about compassion that will warm your cold human heart.

How’d I find it? I spent a year living in my spouse’s grandmother’s home in rural Virginia, and she generously left behind a wall full of books. This book was among them.

Who will enjoy this book? Helen Macdonald fans and those who liked The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery will want to pick this up.

What stood out? The stories of individual birds make up the most compelling sections of The Birds of Pandemonium. Take Sweetie, a joyful quail saved from becoming dinner by being forgotten in a supermarket produce section. Or Amigo, a red-headed Amazon parrot who survives a series of bad homes to fall in love with Michele’s son. The book is impactful in its urging to be better stewards of the natural world and to take responsibility for the lives that depend on us.

Which line made me feel something? Raffin shares a list of poetic flock names, of which I found particular delight in “an ascension of larks” and “a lamentation of swans.”

Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin, Translated by Megan McDowell

5/5 stars

What's it about? A new technology is sweeping the world. Kentukis, cute pet robots controlled by anonymous human users, offer companionship to their keepers and an intimate relationship with a stranger to their dwellers. What might such privileged access cost us? Can privacy exist in a world where someone is always watching? A genius novel about connection.

How’d I find it? Samanta Schweblin’s prowess ensures that every book she puts out is a winner. I picked up my copy at Powell’s. I mean, look at that cover!

Who will enjoy this book? I was heavily reminded of the charming stories in Out There by Kate Folk while reading Little Eyes. Another short and creepy read that features tech gone bad? This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno.

What stood out? Schweblin structures the novel in vignettes, using locations as chapter titles. The effect turns the book into pins in a map, a book-length collection of reels. My favorite storyline: Emilia, a single woman in Lima whose son gifts her the chance to be a dweller, becomes so attached to her German keeper that she pushes the boundaries of her role as household rabbit. Little Eyes feels like a warning from the future, one that clearly ruffled me, as I’m composing this review in incognito mode.

Which line made me feel something? In a chapter focused on Alina, the bored partner of an artist: “Why were the stories about kentukis so small, so minutely intimate, stingy, and predictable? So desperately human and quotidian…Sven would never change his art for her. Nor would she change, for anyone, her state of existential fragmentation. Everything faded.”

Fire by George R. Stewart

5/5 stars

What's it about? A lightning strike in the Sierra Nevada creates the wildfire known as Spitcat, which rages over eleven days in this outstanding nail-biter of a nature novel. Through intricate portraits of the firefighters, animal inhabitants, and the forest itself, Stewart crafts a luxurious landscape in which readers will become heartbreakingly invested.

How’d I find it? Fire was the August 2024 selection of the NYRB Classics Book Club, which you absolutely need in your life.

Who will enjoy this book? Fans of The Overstory by Richard Powers or Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson will not be able to put Fire down.

What stood out? This read utterly enchanted me. Chapters open with a philosophical or historical treatment of fire, including the glorious line “Lightning is the true Prometheus,” before zooming into the happenings of one of the book’s characters, including the Spitcat herself. I couldn’t get enough of John Bartley, the ranger who loves the trees as family, and Judith, the plucky young lookout who first sees smoke. Originally published in 1948, the book suffers from some racist and sexist language, its only weakness.

Which line made me feel something? Stewart’s writing blew my socks off. Take, for example: “Now a fire is more like a shape-shifting monster, stretching out long and encircling arms before it. Now a fire is like a nation, growing weak for a while, and then springing up with a new vigor, as millions of flamelets within it die, or as new flamelets blaze up. But—man or monster or nation—like them all, the fire is the thing-in-itself. It begins, and is, and ends; it is born, and lives, and dies.”

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman

2/5 stars

How’d I find it? Thanks to this bookstagrammer, I get all kinds of great recommendations for reads off the beaten path.

Why not 3 or more stars? I Who Have Never Known Men has a fascinating premise: a young girl and 39 women are imprisoned for years in an underground cage patrolled by guards, and no one knows why or how they got there. Once they escape to the desolate world above, the story spins its wheels for the rest of this short and nightmarish novel, stalling at any moment that threatens momentum. Harpman’s commitment to letting the reader marinate in uncertainty is quite the tease and memorable indeed.

Tell the Machine Goodnight by Katie Williams

5/5 stars

What's it about? Pearl works for Apricity, whose proprietary tech tells people what they should do to be happier. But do people even want to be happy? Pearl’s son Rhett has an eating disorder, and maybe Apricity can tell Pearl how to save him. A gorgeous novel about humanity and fulfillment.

How’d I find it? The New York Times review made reading this book a priority. I found a gently used copy at Powell’s.

Who will enjoy this book? Tell the Machine Goodnight is for the sad girls, a pet sub-genre of mine that includes all of Lana Del Rey’s discography and the film Sometimes I Think About Dying. You know what? I’m creating a tag called Lana to commemorate works of this ilk. If you appreciated the writing chops and feels of Biography of X by Catherine Lacey or the “sad girls of the future” lilt of Everything You Ever Wanted by Luiza Sauma, you’ll enjoy Williams’s first adult novel.

What stood out? Williams chooses to shake up the narration throughout the book, made up of standalone chapters à la Olive Kitteridge. The effect rounds out the story’s focus on the human, which contrasts with the added chaos of technology. Calla Pax, a superstar for her screaming abilities, was a particularly compelling character.

Which line made me feel something? The meaning of Apricity recalls our blue light present and holds its melancholy tightly: “The warmth of the sun on one’s skin in the winter.”

Liberation Day by George Saunders

3/5 stars

What's it about? George Saunders tinkers with technology, absurdity, and amusement parks in this collection of nine short stories.

How’d I find it? You know when you go into a bookstore on a Tuesday when the fresh titles are laid out, and you see not only a new book from a favorite author, but also that it’s signed? I had that experience at Solid State Books.

Who will enjoy this book? If you like the work of Karen Russell or Stephen Millhauser, these stories strike similar notes.

What stood out? As usual, Saunders brings wit and playfulness to the page, and his writing sparkles. “Mother’s Day” and “Elliott Spencer” were the book’s most successful stories. Much of Liberation Day reads like retooled versions of past powerhouses; the title story recalls Tenth of December’s “The Semplica Girl Diaries,” while “Ghoul” shares elements with “Bounty”. Having recently finished CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, I received this collection as an entertaining echo.

Which line made me feel something? I related cosmically to the narrator of “The Mom of Bold Action,” whose deluge of thoughts seems to keep her from ever actually writing: “‘The Discontented Dog.’ The Discontented Dog was never happy. No matter how many peanut-butter thingies he was given. When he was in, he wanted out. When out — She grabbed another peanut-butter thingie from the box. ‘The Peanut-Butter Thingie Who Sacrificed Himself So the Other Peanut-Butter Thingies in the Box Could Live.’”

Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants by Mathias Énard

4/5 stars

What's it about? In the aftermath of a falling out with Pope Julius II, Michelangelo accepts a commission from the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II to design a bridge for Constantinople (today’s Istanbul). A dreamy morsel of a novel about desire, inspiration, and the work of creating.

How’d I find it? I was so mesmerized by the English translation’s cover that I bought a copy of the original French during a trip to Paris.

Who will enjoy this book? The tone will be familiar to fans of Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino and the “Letters from Zedelghem” section in David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas.

What stood out? Énard makes Constantinople a character in its own right; time and place are beautifully rendered here, an exquisite strength. While the language drips with sentiment and poignancy, the effect happens to work perfectly for its subject matter — a fictional interlude in the life of a Renaissance genius. I also enjoyed the kernels of authenticity sprinkled throughout the tale, like Michelangelo’s lists of ephemera and translated correspondence from the period.

Which line made me feel something? The title comes from Rudyard Kipling and is wondrously evoked in the novel (translation attempt my own): “We conquer them in telling of battles, kings, elephants, and marvelous beings; in telling them of the happiness beyond death, the living light that presided over their births, the angels surrounding them, the demons who menace, and love, love, that promise of forgetting and fulfillment.”