I forgot that I pre-ordered Lauren Fleshman's Good for a Girl until it showed up in my Kindle library yesterday. I devoured it. I loved Fleshman's voice when she was writing for Runner's World and so the book was an easy sell. But it was a hard read. It was an extended reminder that we live in a world where people just keep looking at women's bodies and saying, "Hm, you know what would improve this situation? If there were less of you, that's what." In competitive running as in the rest of women's lives, weight loss might offer a small short-term improvement but it does so with enormous medium-term and long-term costs. Fleshman does a nice job juxtaposing the joy of running against the train-wreck-itude of vast swaths of women's sports. I found it both sobering and encouraging, reading about all the damage that has been done to female athletes, and her determination to put future coaches on a better path.
I also forgot that I pre-ordered Catherine Newman's We All Want Impossible Things until it showed up in my Kindle library, but I did not devour it right away. I read the first half of the first chapter a few times and then got distracted. But once I got out of the first chapter I couldn't put it down. It is riotously funny -- the kind of snort-laugh funny that I can't read in bed because I might accidentally shake my husband awake giggling -- which is a little weird for a book about a woman losing her best friend to cancer. It is also hauntingly sad. In hindsight there are some implausible parts (like the hospice doctor's on-the-clock extracurricular activities, excuse me? and also the whole setup of the book -- would this character really leave her kid to go to an out-of-state hospice facility?), but I enjoyed the heck out of it anyway.
On the last day of 2022 I finished Four Thousand Weeks, which I had seen recommended in a zillion different places and started a few times. I found the first two-thirds of it every bit as thought-provoking as promised, but then he kinda lost me in the last chunk. I'm curious about whether you've read it and what you thought. Biggest takeaways: I would like to travel more, and I would like to dedicate more time to creative pursuits (specifically, music and fiction-writing). This book was a factor in my decision to finish the recording I posted on Monday. In the sections where I am singing harmony with myself I just could not find the F♯ in the alto part. I got it wrong an exasperating number of times, but I stuck it out because it's too easy for me to say to myself, "I don't have time to become a better musician." This is a less vulnerable way to live, but it is not a true statement.
One more recommendation: it has been a month since I finished Demon Copperhead, and I keep meaning to tell you how much I loved it. It's one of the best books I read in 2022, my favorite of the Barbara Kingsolver novels I've read, and a really well-done homage to David Copperfield. If you had told me up front that the Dora character would be an opioid addict I would have given the book some serious side-eye, but it works amazingly well. I'd love to chat about it with somebody else who loves Copperfield, so say the word if that's you.
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