On my Kindle right now: White Fragility, by Robin DiAngelo. I bought it last September and got bogged down, but I have pulled it back up to the top of the queue.
I am also reading Sun Slower, Sun Faster on Melanie's recommendation. It is unexpectedly timely, as the event that brings the cousins together is a polio outbreak that closes one of their schools.
Also in my current reading pile: Under the Gaze of the Bible. I am finding it difficult but worth the effort. It is unexpectedly rich and thoughtful. It is bringing home for me how complex the study of theology is, and how much I have to learn.
I finished Oliver Twist, this year's #SAMDRAL book, on May 29, which seemed like a terrible time for an enthusiastic middle-aged white lady to post about her favorite Victorian novels. Things that stood out to me on this reading: the shadow cast by capital punishment in an era when theft was punishable by death (I did not remember how many noose references there are in that book); the pointedness with which Dickens reminds us that it's easy to spout off about personal responsibility when you're not the person in question (Mr. Bumble, A One-Man Cautionary Tale); the distinctively Dickensian certainty that life is a messy complicated tapestry when you can only see the underside, but occasionally we are granted hopeful glimpses of the front. (Also: I always thought Nancy was a prostitute, but apparently this is disputed.)
If you find yourself in need of a quick and amusing read, Sorry I Missed You made me laugh out loud. I thought it was going to be diverting fluff, but the author does a nice job, I think, sketching the relationships among the characters.
My pal Becky recommended Writers and Lovers, which I devoured. I am still thinking about whether I like the ending. Have you read it? Tell me your thoughts on the ending, please.
I am also still thinking about the ending of Rodham, which might be my favorite of the books I've read this year. I persuaded my college roommates to read it with me; we are going to have a Zoom book club meeting after they finish it. Curtis Sittenfeld is one of my favorite contemporary authors. She has an unparalleled knack for writing scenes that make me squirm even as they keep me reading. If you've read anything about Rodham, you know it's an alternate history: what if Hillary hadn't married Bill Clinton? Criticism of Rodham has focused heavily on Sittenfeld's choice to write about sex in a book focused on a woman so many people found "unlikable." A lot of the book is about what it was like for Hillary to be a smart woman in a world that was (and sometimes still is) deeply skeptical of smart women. Some of that skepticism is expressed with regard to competence: it used to be commonplace for the world to tell smart women that they couldn't do a job because they were women, and then, when it turned out they could in fact do the job, to tell them that their competence was un-feminine. It was a frustratingly tautological flavor of misogyny. Some of that skepticism is also expressed in the idea that too much intelligence renders a woman unattractive. For this reason I have to wonder if Sittenfeld is nodding to herself at the people saying "eeewww!" about the sex scenes. "Yep," she is saying to herself, "saw that coming from a mile away." Anyway, I want to talk about the ending with people who have read the book, but I don't want to spoil it for people who haven't read the book. Tell me if you've read it and want to chat!
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