Here are the five books that I’m enjoying now.
| <IFRAME style="WIDTH: 120px; HEIGHT: 240px" marginWidth=0 marginHeight=0 src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=wwwvibrantnat-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0142437964&fc1=000000&IS2=1 | 1. Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust In graduate school I bought a complete set of Proust. It sat on my shelf, yellowing, till I finally donated it to a used bookstore. Lydia Davis and her new translation is what led me here. Sixty pages on the narrator’s mother, who won’t come upstairs to give him a kiss goodnight! Forty pages on relationship anxiety! Ten on the narrator’s love for hawthorne blossoms! This reading is perfect take-a-step-into-another-time escapism. |
| <IFRAME style="WIDTH: 120px; HEIGHT: 240px" marginWidth=0 marginHeight=0 src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=wwwvibrantnat-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0307387895&fc1=000000&IS2=1 | 2. The Road by Cormac McCarthy Not for the faint of heart, though it’s short and accessible. A man and a young boy travel by foot, pushing a grocery cart through a post-apocalyptic world. Dark doesn’t even begin to describe it, but never have I read anything like it before. Spare, rhythmic, void of anything green, sunlit, or comforting, though certainly it made me feel better about my own dark thoughts. A little line I love from another of McCarthy’s novels, Blood Meridian: “Did you learn to whisper in a sawmill?” |
| <IFRAME style="WIDTH: 120px; HEIGHT: 240px" marginWidth=0 marginHeight=0 src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=wwwvibrantnat-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0691089590&fc1=000000&IS2=1 | 3. On Beauty and Being Just by Elaine Scarry There’s an academic tinge to these essays, but I am devouring them for their pleasing architecture and lovely quotables. |
| <IFRAME style="WIDTH: 120px; HEIGHT: 240px" marginWidth=0 marginHeight=0 src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=wwwvibrantnat-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=1583227857&fc1=000000&IS2=1 | 4. Emergence of Memory Edited by Lynne Sharon Schwartz I’m reading this book because I’ve read absolutely everything else Sebald has written. As he died in a car accident some years ago, all that’s left to explore are interviews and commentary. That’s a true tragedy. Sebald is sui generis, a writer mixing nonfiction, fiction, and photography to speak about exile and memory. He wanders. Some little detail on a wall, or in the landscape, will lead him, he says, “like a dog following the advice of his nose. Invariably he finds what he’s looking for.” The interviews are a little repetitive, but satisfying. It’s Sebald. That’s enough. |
| <IFRAME style="WIDTH: 120px; HEIGHT: 240px" marginWidth=0 marginHeight=0 src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=wwwvibrantnat-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0374281734&fc1=000000&IS2=1 | 5. Varieties of Disturbance by Lydia Davis Because of my long interest in blended genres, this writer has always fascinated me. She has gathered stories, ranging in length from one sentence to over a dozen pages. Many are about her experience as a new mother. It’s a book to pick up and dip into, virtually anywhere. Great for reading at night, when you can’t keep your eyes open for more than a half hour. Wise and odd. |
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The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls is wonderful and autobigraphical. If you’ve ever felt your life was difficult and your childhood faulty, read this before you make any decisions.