It's been months since I have written anything here so trying to remember my feelings when I finished these books is going back in time a little bit. Looking down at this list - it includes two "can't put down til I'm finished" "shook me to my core" novels. Can you guess which two? If you follow me on twitter you already know because I couldn't contain myself from gushing to their authors.
Right around the time I was reading this book, I found out that a director I know had secured the stage rights to Secretary - the movie directed by Steven Shainberg based on Mary Gaitskill's short story. A musical adaptation of Secretary has always been my dream project but reading Gaitskill's essay regarding her feelings on the film was a good tonic to help me let the idea go.
I don't tear through these Jackson novels, but I always enjoy them. They are not the kind of novels I find it easy to devour in one bite because they require some time away and also some time to seep in. In all of Jackson's novels I've read this year, there are a couple of passages that stay with me after reading - in this one for example it was when Betsy tears through a hotel room beating up Bess, her other self. Books about mental illness always freak me out.
This was one of my favorites. I wanted to do nothing but lay on the couch reading it until I was finished and then when I had, I thought about it for days after. There was so much history in this book about relations between the Koreans and Japanese that I am embarrassed to say I knew almost nothing about.
The first story in this collection really hit me. But then others, not so much.
This book took me back in time to my own freshman year of college so vividly that memories I'd long forgotten came racing to the surface. It's beautifully written and hilarious. More than once Adam looked over at me uncontrollably giggling while reading in bed. I love, love, loved it.
This is another one I read quickly though I didn't enjoy it as much as Lacey's first novel, Nobody is Ever Missing. This is also something I couldn't help but think about the adaptation potential for while reading it, but then hit myself on the wrist as Unbecoming is still not finished.
This book is difficult. It goes between two perspectives - that of a young girl in present day England and the Renaissance painter her dead mother loved who is currently trapped in Purgatory. I don't read reviews until I've finished a book at which point they either enrage me (The Idiot) or unlock something I'd missed on my own (How to be Both). The review encourages readers of this book to read it twice. I'm sure if I did I would get more out of it. I usually love Ali Smith (her book length essay, Artful is still a favorite). But I am just not sure I enjoyed this one enough on the first go round to dig back in when there is so much else to read.
At the lake this weekend I learned the term "the worried well" from my soon to be sister-in-law Carly who is a social worker. That phrase pretty much sums up this memoir. However, as a member of this tribe myself, I still enjoyed reading Shapiro's perspective on the last eighteen years with her husband and their life together. And the aging stuff - even though I am at least twenty years younger than Shapiro - made me sweat.
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