** Love Illuminated by Daniel Jones

Love Illuminated: Exploring Life’s Most Mystifying Subject (with the Help of 50,000 Strangers) is a distillation of many. many letters read by the editor of the Modern Love column in the New York Times. His many anecdotes flow fluently and often, happily, against received wisdom — except when he argues in favor of arranged marriages…  And his riffing on selecting last names is hilarious.

* After Her by Joyce Maynard

Perhaps Wendy Lesser has a point. There are lots of books that are, well, mediocre. Exhibit A: After Her, which strains to recreate the frisson of a (real) serial killer’s spree, although to be fair it paints a sweet picture of a loving detective-father’s relationship with his daughters. The plucky heroine could not save it for me. I recommend Labor Day instead (the book).

 

* Why I Read by Wendy Lesser

How can I not enjoy a book that states, in its second paragraph, the obvious truth that reading is a compulsion? (Hello, fellow addicts!) Because Why I Read: The Serious Pleasure of Books should perhaps be renamed “The Pleasure of Serious Books, as determined by the author, who may well enjoy a mystery book or two but let’s face it, will only consider Literature with a capital “L” as worth our time an investment”. Perhaps that title was a little long? But alas it seems to be a love fest for Literature majors, who not only read and enjoyed The Brothers Karamazov, but also remember the plot and each character’s name, and enjoy dissecting the plot thirty years afterwards. I plead forgetfulness, and the difficulty of Russian names, and general ennui with the whole concept of dissection — and I feel just a little left out and put out when the dissection occurs without the quick summary that may help the non-cognoscenti follow along.

Perhaps the whole point is to exclude those who have not read the recommended 100 books that appear in appendix, and those who intend to read outside the list.

*** Counter Culture by Candacy Taylor

Counter Culture: The American Coffee Shop Waitress is a haunting book that describes long-time, “career” waitresses, highlighting the difficulty of their jobs as they walk miles, heft heavy loads of plates, and soothe the egos of difficult customers. If you think, like me, that any job is interesting and unique, and you enjoy learning about how everything works behind-the-scenes, you will enjoy this book — and tip, generously, your next capable waitress.

*** Japanese Zen Gardens by Yoko Kawaguchi

I have visited several Zen gardens in Kyoto and I enjoyed them very much, but after reading Japanese Zen Gardens I feel I was like someone who would visit Chartres or Florence without knowing anything about the Bible and would wonder who, exactly, is the bearded man in the middle, and why there are so many winged creatures floating about. It turns out that the beautiful gardens I saw are full of symbols, all the harder to recognize because they are a lot more subtle than bearded men and winged creatures. And even after learning about turtle islands and crane islands, I still find it difficult to recognize them, especially crane islands. (I do with the author had chosen to be more didactic for beginners like me and would dare to diagram over the gorgeous pictures to highlight the symbols!)

If you are at all interested in Japanese gardens, or gardens in general, I highly recommend the book that will open your eyes to what’s right in front of you and hidden in plain sight.

** The Big Tiny by Dee Williams

The Big Tiny: A Built-It-Myself Memoir is not a memoir of building and living in a tiny house (although a tiny house is duly built and lived in over the course of the book). It’s really the story of an existential crisis that motivated the move into said tiny house, much in the way that Wild told the story of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail as remedy for a breakup.

In fact, the tiny house is not exactly a complete shelter, as it lacks a shower, or even running water, and despite the custom trailer it is built on, resides permanently in the backyard of a traditional house with traditional fittings (and the missing shower). Still, it provides an interesting exploration of what we really need to live comfortably  — and that’s not the average 2000-square foot house!

** My Struggle (III) by Karl Ove Knausgaard

My Struggle: Book Three goes back to before book 1, when the author was still in elementary school (actually the summer before he started school) and recalls his father’s rigid parenting, not well balanced by this mother’s warm and attentive, although no-nonsense nurturing, especially when she spends a year studying at a distant college and he is left with his father and older brother during the week. Having read book 1 and book 2, I found this installment to be quite sedate, maybe too much so. It’s plain spoken like the other two but without the adult asides that pepper the others, and I missed that a bit. It is, however, a great portrait of growing up in the 70s, in a brand-new subdivision where all families are, apparently, the same, with lots of children allowed to roam very freely compared to now and lots of (mild) mischief occurred.

What will book 4 bring?

*** Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler

Feeling that you have read too many happy novels lately? Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant would be a wise choice to plunge into a miserable family: sad, overwhelmed mother, deserter-father, cheater-older brother and his stolen (read the book to know why), unhappy wife and his sad son, too nice-younger brother (who does manage quite a good life for himself, considering, including the title restaurant), and a very smart but unlucky in love younger sister. There’s very little hope, I think because there is very little kindness all around, but the writing is beautiful and I found myself captivated by all those sad characters. It would take so little to make any of them happy!

** Lost and Found in Johannesburg by Mark Gevisser

Lost and Found in Johannesburg starts with a delightful child’s game of  wayfinding, using a road atlas in pre-Google Maps days, which leads the author to discover how apartheid denies streets that link areas inhabited by people of different race, and ends with a brutal home invasion, decades later, that leaves the author shaken and confused about his home town. In between, he explores his family’s history, as Lithuanian immigrants and liberals in a city where black people can only live in servant quarters, mandated in every (white) suburban house.

I found the book interestingly meandering, although the lengthy description of the home invasion and the subsequent (wholly ineffective) police investigation and trial seemed to be way too lengthy compared to the rest.

 

*** Don’t Point that Thing at Me by Kyril Bonfiglioli

Don’t Point that Thing at Me features the hilarious adventures of Charlie Mortdecai, art dealer and crook, as he transport a stolen Goya from London to the US in what must be the ultimate road trip aboard a Rolls Royce and carrying an ill-obtained diplomatic passport. His loyal servant, Jock, is reminiscent of PG Woodehouse’s Jeeves in his permanent readiness — but in a louche incarnation, and serving a very together master. It’s a madcap comedy that keeps twisting to the end. Read it!