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| |  | | July 06, 2018 | Therese Patricia Okoumou, who scaled the Statue of Liberty to protest family separation at the border
| | This week It's hot, it's a holiday week here in the U.S., and I've made an executive decision to focus on books, not the news today. On the podcast this week, we talk about summer reads with Jessica Knoll, Yrsa Daley-Ward, and Glynnis MacNicol.
| | I'm reading A few things I've enjoyed so far this year....
Novels that took me to a distant future:
- The Power by Naomi Alderman, which is about women shooting electricity out of their hands, and made me consider the long arc of history and inherited narratives in such surprising ways.
- The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch, which is a dystopian Joan of Arc story but so much more.
Reported nonfiction about bad behavior: So much unconventional, gorgeous memoir: - The Terrible by Yrsa Daley-Ward, which feels like a book of both poetry and prose, and is about a tough upbringing and even tougher search for self.
- Vanishing Twins: A Marriage** by Leah Dieterich, which takes its title from a twin that is absorbed in utero, and is about wanting to see yourself reflected in the people you love.
- No One Tells You This by Glynnis MacNicol, a book about the joy and possibility of not following the script.
- Night Moves** by Jessica Hopper, which made me want to spend more time in Chicago and also be a better chronicler of my own life in real time.
- Amateur: A True Story About What Makes a Man** by Thomas Page McBee, which prompted me to reconsider my feelings about not just masculinity but femininity, too.
Um, I can't believe I hadn't read this before: Current obsession: - Kudos by Rachel Cusk, which I'm savoring. It's the third book in her Outline trilogy, which I got into after my friend J.Ryan Stradal (who also happens to be a great novelist) told me that Transit changed how he felt about language. I don't think that statement was hyperbolic. It's been a long time since I was so narratively engaged in something so plotless. The books are written in first person, but our narrator doesn't do much talking. You mostly learn about her through the details she is drawn to in other peoples' stories, a technique that blew me away after I finally noticed it. Anyway, shout out to my fellow Cuskheads. And apologies to my friends, who listened to me breathlessly ramble about her work after I switched from beer to tequila at a backyard barbecue on Wednesday.
Up next: ** I read these as advance-reader copies, so they're not on sale yet. But they're coming soon!
What's the last great book you read?
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