January 2019, end of staycation reading
Here are just some (about half) of the books of January with takeaways that I liked.
I continued with Jane Casey’s mysteries.
Takeaway: why I moved to the beach.
(I wouldn’t be sick of rain.)
Another memoir by Vivian Gornick, via Interlibrary Loan:
…..
embracing feminism in the 70s:
(I have, but not with the same intensity of joy and camaraderie.)
Perfect description of the kind of beach house I like:
Maybe Vivian knows why a friendship in which I had confidence but was often walking on eggshells did not work after all; my friend of forty years, Carol, once wisely warned me that if you become friends with someone angry or explosive, eventually that anger will turn on you:
…..
Meanwhile, this…from Two Years, Eight Months, and Twenty-Eight Nights, a Salman Rushdie book that Allan was reading:
“The garden belonged to the gardener.”
In another Jane Casey mystery, a subplot of a woman who’d had to move from a small rundown cottage into a London tower block, thus losing her community of neighbours, had me in tears. It brilliantly reminded me of the history of post WWII England, by David Kynaston, in which so many people were ousted from their communities and put into tower blocks.
She remembers her garden…
………..
I heartily recommend this funny and informative book about Scandinavia:
Everything about it is so entertaining that I can’t select any separate takeaways.
I became completely smitten with Novella Carpenter and want to be her friend and neighbour. I’d move to Oakland to be her neighborhood! I followed this gardening memoir with Gone Feral, her memoir about her father.
I read this because I had recently liked the film:
I somehow happened upon this quite wonderful novel about baking and farmers markets:
The kind of house I like:
Some advice:
It’s set in San Francisco:
I must read his other book.
A memoir/advice book written in a breezy, conversational style might be informative to someone who does not want to read anything as serious as Body of Truth by Harriet Brown or The Obesity Myth by Paul Campos
This helped me with my thoughts about someone with whom I expected to share old age …till the diet and fat-denigrating talk (“____ looks like shit since gaining weight”) began to predominate. My attempts to divert to a neutral topic were to no avail.
It is not easy (for me) to tell the difference between seasonal and long term people. I fall easily for anyone who gets mushy and sentimental at the beginning of a friendship. And I may not have enough years left to figure this out.
My biggest takeaway is this:
I told you the book is breezy and conversational, and the author swears so much that even I thought she went over the top in that regard. However, it was just what I needed to read as I go into a new year, after a 2018 that was, socially, shockingly bad in some ways. Do I have to screen skinny new friends to see if they are fat bashers or do I just wait for them to spring it on me, after I have emotionally invested precious time and love? I hope I won’t get ambushed, if there is a next time.
Walking on into 2019, I am still carrying the burden of 2018’s disappointment and increased social mis-fitting. Fortunately, I cherish solitude so intensely that I have welcomed having even more of it this winter.
I wrote, rewrote, then severely edited and almost deleted all of this personal revelation. I reminded myself that the books I like best are memoirs in which the author reveals flaws and heartaches. May Sarton, Vivian Gornick, Nella Last….. And personal revelation is why The Miserable Gardener, Bob Nold’s blog, is in my top two of blog reading.
If I bury the personal in posts about reading, non readers won’t delve deep enough to find it. But the thoughtful people who like that sort of thing will.
January reading drew to a close (except for bedtime chapters) when I subscribed to two channels that allowed me to easily watch three seasons of Gardeners’ World. Inside Outside TV) offers Big Dreams Small Spaces and a plethora of Alan Titchmarsh shows. So the rest of January’s rainy days and early evenings were this:
I have a family member who is quick to make weight comments, and critique the way people dress. I hate this about them, but unless I cut them from my life there is naught left to be done.
I am sorry that a friendship you have invested years and effort and love into has deteriorated like this. I guess many friendships do have a season.
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Not too many years….just three…but a lot of love.
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Thank you for the book reviews, Skyler. I would like to read Sourdough and Farm City. So many excellent books! I am so sorry you had such a hurtful friend experience this past year. It must have been hard. Remember you have many friends who love you just the way you are–beautiful inside and out.
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