Hi folks,
A few thoughts on some reading that will not make it into a full review.
Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson (November 2020)
I sometimes worry that my reading reviews, with their bullheaded insistence on digging out the insights buried within a work, overlook a critical characteristic of any book - readability. It's important for an author to pack information, knowledge, and wisdom between the covers, but it's a futile exercise if a reader struggles throughout the journey from start to finish. This fact is at the core of my strong recommendation for Nothing to See Here - it's not the type of book I tend to read, which is perhaps best exemplified by my unusually short book notes, but it was the one book in 2020 that I couldn't put down. If a lesson must be learned from Wilson's story, it's that the powerful, possibly due to reasons of incomprehension, make for unsuitable protectors of the weak.
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (February 2020 - book notes)
Satrapi's graphic memoir covers her childhood in Tehran from the ages of six to fourteen, a period that coincides with the Iranian Revolution. Persepolis and its creative storytelling was helpful for me as an introduction to this moment from history, but there is much more to this work than the educational value. It occurred to me as I thought about this book that the way Satrapi guides us through her story informs us of events in the way anyone experiences history whenever it's made in real time - through snippets of scattered and sometimes contradicting information, coming from all manners of sources, that slowly come together to reveal the full story; my experience of the pandemic strengthens this lesson. The technique demonstrates not just what happened in those extraordinary times, but also shows the incremental effect the revolution had on the people in her life as they found themselves gradually swept into the cold, ruthless path of history.
Lost Cat by Caroline Paul and Wendy MacNaughton (January 2021)
OK, so I read it again, sue me. I emerged from round 2 with some book notes, out of which the following captured my attention - humans worry too much about the future and the past. The fact that Paul projects this insight onto one of her cats suggests it's a lesson learned from pet ownership, or perhaps it represents the hard-earned wisdom gained from writing the book. I am in no position to argue with these possibilities, but I suspect a pet owner must understand this before taking on the responsibility for another living creature, just as a writer recognizes the fact before scribbling that first blemish onto the blank page; the solution to our anxieties, these endless concerns regarding the future or the past, lies in the tasks, hobbies, or responsibilities that demand no less than our full attention to the present.
