It's been a good few months on TOA for Etgar Keret, who I briefly mentioned in October when I reviewed The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God. There was a point not too many years ago when I would have counted him among my favorite authors but a couple of his more recent collections weren't quite up to my tastes. Fly Already was a welcome return to old ways, and in my book notes I've highlighted some ideas alongside my favorite stories - 'One Gram Short', 'Tabula Rasa', and a series of emails exchanged regarding a possible trip to an escape room on Holocaust Remembrance Day. The top honor goes to 'Pineapple Crush', which I consider one of the best stories I've read in the past year, but don't take my word for it, just read it for yourself here.
Fly Already by Etgar Keret (November 2019)
The insight I liked best from this book was about sunsets, and how they can open the heart - I can confirm from experience that making time to see the sunset is a cheap therapeutic, and I still often make an attempt to schedule my running so that I'm outside at this time. I also thought the comment about kids being prescribed certain medicines to solve the parent's problem was an important observation (though of course it's hardly a universal truth). My lasting memory of this book might be the thought about the importance of knowing which people bring out your best qualities - just as it's easy to forget the value of affinity, the quality of bringing out someone's best is sometimes dismissed in favor of other attributes.
TOA Rating: Three pineapples out of four.
