Vigil by George Saunders

genre: fiction

Jill Blaine arrives at the bedside of K.J. Boone as he is nearing death.  As a sort of an angel, Jill knows that her role is to provide comfort as K.J. moves from this world to the next.  But, it turns out, K.J.'s life, while full of prestige and wealth and power, was actually a fairly destructive one.  And there are those on the other side who would like him to make it right before he passes over.  

I don't know how to categorize this Christmas Carol kind of story.  I enjoyed being in this in between space between life and death with Jill, as she remembers who she was as she tries to remember what her new purpose is.  K.J. is beyond caricatured, which got a bit annoying, but I honestly could imagine that there really are people in this world like that - people who do not care for the planet or for the people and animals trying to live on it.  I do really think that there are people who only care about the bottom line and that's a deeply upsetting thought.  I'm not sure I completely understand the author's point at the end.  I DO think personal responsibility matters, but I also can admit that no one is raised in a vacuum and that nature AND nature will make us who we are.  It wasn't fast moving but it was engaging.  Kinda wish I'd done the audio because I'm sure I would've gotten through it a lot faster.

Eradication: A Fable by Jonathan Miles (audiobook)

genre: fiction

This short novel is subtitled "a fable." Now that I am finished reading it, I've dug a little bit into the actual definition of a fable and I am intrigued by this label. There are no anthropomorphized animals in this book but there is definitely a moral and it's one I am still pondering.

We first meet our main character, Adi, while he's on a boat heading out to a remote island. He's been charged with a specific task: save the island's wildlife by eradicating it of the creature that's destroying it. Adi finds that this is a task much easier considered than actually performed. The goats that he's meant to disappear off the island are *also* wildlife and unfortunately, Adi can't just turn off his brain to do the thing. What we end up reading is the circular thoughts of a man who has experienced great tragedy and yet somehow can't stop wanting to live and let live. What deserves to die or go extinct and what deserves to be saved? And are humans even the right creatures to make that choice? It's a gritty and sometimes upsetting story (most especially if you are a serious animal lover) but I don't think it's going to leave me any time soon.

A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls: Margaret C. Anderson, Book Bans, and the Fight to Modernize Literature by Adam Morgan

genre: biography

Margaret Anderson's decision to leave Indiana and go to Chicago to find a way to be a writer would pivot her life in ways she could've never imagined.  From editing a pioneering art and literature magazine to being arrested on obscenity charges for serially publishing the new work Ulysses by James Joyce, Margaret lived a big life.  She wanted to be surrounded by new and beautiful things and ideas - and, most especially, perhaps, to live her life openly as the lesbian she knew she was.  The circles she found herself in and the relationships she made show a portrait of a women full of contradictions who wanted to create something that could spark discussion and expose a core of creativity and modernism.

I'm not sorry I read this because I'd never heard of Margaret Anderson before.  I sure have heard of a LOT of her friends and contemporaries though!  There is so much name dropping in this book that even with the cast of characters in the front, it got a little exhausting.  I appreciated, so much, what she was trying to do while living during a time when women were really only expected to show up in particular ways and when freedom of speech depended solely on one slim perspective of what was acceptable.  As she got older and it was just lots of moving around and being with different partners before more moving around some more with other different partners.  I learned a lot but I was also kinda bored. 

The Burning Library by Gilly Macmillian (audiobook)

genre: thriller

Dr. Anya Brown has just done the impossible: she's managed to translate the elusive Folio 9 and this achievement has set her up to get a job wherever she could want in academia.  With her love of languages and exceptional memory, she is great at making connections other folks cannot see.  Elsewhere, the body found on a remote Scottish beach will start a cascade of circumstances that won't affect just Anya but might somehow lead to an even deeper mystery.

Okay, do LOVE dark academia and I also do LOVE stories about ancient things, a la Indiana Jones or the Da Vinci Code, so keep that in mind.  If you do NOT like those types of stories, this book will not be for you.  If you DO like stories where you never know who is on your side or not as you race to put pieces of a puzzle together, then this might be worth trying.  I liked that it completely centers capable and intelligent women, and overarching crux of the plot is women finding ways to create the kind of world they want, even if it does sometimes require you to suspend your disbelief a little more than you'd want.  This is not a short book and I listened to the whole thing over a weekend, I was that engaged it in.

Theo of Golden by Allen Levi

 genre: contemporary fiction

When Theo arrives in the small Southern town of Golden, Georgia, he doesn't really have any huge plans.  He appreciates that it's warmer than his New York home and the way the river flowing by reminds him of his Portuguese childhood.  Although he is no longer a young man, by any measure, his heart is youthful and he finds pleasure in beauty wherever he can find it - and there is much to find in Golden.  When he sees some hand drawn portraits in the local coffee shop, soon his mind is occupied by both the faces in these pictures and the hand that drew them.

Theo's way of showing up in the world is a lovely thing to read. His interest, his kindness, his appreciation, all of this made him an interesting person to get to know.  Are the characters in this book a little simply drawn?  Maybe, but not so much that I wasn't able to suspend my disbelief and slide into the story. It got a little long and sometimes a bit too theologically preachy but I liked how it wrapped up at the end and I did like the cozy community Theo created.  Probably for the writing it deserves a three but for the cozy factor and some of the beautiful images I'm still thinking about I'm giving it a four.

The Professor by Charlotte Brontë (audiobook)

genre: classic fiction

Our Professor, William, does not start off in his profession.  In fact, in a Dickensonian way, he has to pull himself up by his bootstraps with hardly a friend in the world to care for him.  His loveless youth, however, does spur him to invest in himself and with determination he finds his way to Brussels.  In this fashionable city he chooses his path and tries to create a life for himself with good work and, hopefully, with someone by his side to join him.

The Professsor is Charlotte's first book, published after her death.  I am a devotee of Jane Eyre but this came no where near to that work of art.  There are so many caricatured and rather horrible people and the last half an hour of the book could literally just not exist and the story wouldn't have changed.   There is a LOT of French here, which I can handle, but there is no translation, which I can imagine would be irritating.  And YET.  You can still see her genius in there.  The romance, although dripping with Patriarchal drivel sometimes, also was also sometimes exactly what you'd want.  A few quotes that I had to listen to twice, they felt that lovely:

"I supposed the sensations, stirred by those first sounds, first sights, are felt but once.  Treasure them, memory.  Seal them in urns and keep them in safe niches."

When I looked at her, it was with the glance fitting to be bestowed on one who I knew had consulted jealousy as an advisor and employed treachery as an instrument.  

I loved her as she stood there, penniless and parentless.  For a sensualist charmless, for me a treasure -- my best object of sympathy on earth.

That is my little wild strawberry, Hunsden, whose sweetness made me careless of your hot-house grapes.

So, not a complete wash but not great.

The Wisdom of the Beguines: The Forgotten Story of a Medieval Women’s Movement by Laura Swan.

genre: non-fiction, history

As I've been learning more about Belgium, more than once I have heard of the "beguines."  In fact, in the lovely newly released book Canticle by Janet Rich Edwards, the main character becomes intimate with one of these communities of religious women who manage to stay out from under the thumb of the clergy.  This book is a non-fiction look at this fascinating medieval European women's movement and the individuals who stand out for their piety, their resourcefulness and the spiritual guidance that they provided to the men and women in their circle.

It is so hard to wrap my head around how long ago this happened.  These women were preaching and owning property and illustrating their own books in the 13th and 14th centuries! I haven't known much about the mystics either until the past year and I saw several familiar faces among these pages.  I am so glad that their wills and their teachings survived until this time so that we could learn more about them and what they valued.  It's not a quick read, unfortunately, it is mostly just straight history with a lot of Christian theology interspersed, but if you're interested in the subject, this is very straightforward and does share a lot of information.   I finished the book feeling both angry for what they were up against but honestly proud of all the things they managed to do.

The First Time I Saw Him by Laura Dave (audiobook)

genre: thriller

In this follow up to The Last Thing He Told Me, we start of knowing a few things.  Owen is still gone.  It's been over five years and now Hannah and Bailey have set up a new life together.  Bailey's grandpa is even a part of it and despite missing Owen like crazy, life isn't completely bad.  What Hannah knows, though, is that this kind of peace can never last, not when you're caught up in a web like they are.  So when she gets the slightest hint that things are getting shifty, all bets are off. And the only two things that keep her going are #1 keeping Bailey safe and #2, the possibility that Owen could be a part of their lives again.

This was a quick and interesting listen.  I was all in from the start and the multiple points of view helped move things along - maybe it helps that I did really enjoy the first book.  I  I like when people aren't just straight up good or bad, it makes my brain buzz with trying to figure out if I can root for them or not.  I DO know that I like Hannah as a character, I like her desperate love as a step-mamma for Bailey and the twists in this short book were just good enough.  

I Hope You Find What You're Looking For by Bsrat Mezghebe (audiobook)

genre: historical fiction

For middle schooler Lydia, DC is home.  For her mother Elsa, however, "home" will always be Eritrea in Africa, a tiny country under the thumb of Ethiopia that has struggled for decades to win its independence.  This story goes back and forth in time as we experience the tightly knit Eritrea immigrant community in DC as well as Elsa's upbringing and experiences as a rebel fighter in the war.  When a distant cousin comes to live with them, Lydia is forced to look closer at her own mind and at the things she's always taken for granted.

The "current" time in the book is actually my own high school years and Lydia was born the same year I was, so it is crazy for my brain to make sense of her world versus my own, at the same time period.  Lydia wants so much to understand her own family, that yearning for herself making her show up as a really frustrating teenager sometimes. But I became so invested in these characters.  I adored Mama Zewdi, the matriarch of the family and as much as Elsa was like a closed book much of the time, I felt so much compassion for the trauma she'd endured.  I liked that this is a DC story, with so many of the places familiar haunts to me.  And I think, in the end, this story is about the triumph of human nature finding empathy and kindness even in the face of true horror.  It is about what we do for the family we're given and the family we choose and it is about love of country and culture and the ties that can bind us even from a world away.

Excellent narration.

The Unveiling by Quan Barry

genre: fiction

Even with all of the world she's already seen, Striker's still amazed by the vastness and beauty of Antarctica. Despite most of the people on the cruise ship drive her crazy, it's hard not to be awed by the scenery. When her kayaking excursion goes wrong, though, the lines around reality seem to blur.

This book was like a fever dream. I did not like it. It starts off like an actual story taking place in this actual world. But soon it's like I'm reading through a curtain, and I have no idea of what is real and what is not and sometimes it's so gross but then the gross thing isn't real or it's a ghost but in this world are ghosts real? I have no idea. It was just not fun to piece it together. When Striker's talking about the past, I was solid and I felt compassion for her childhood experiences. But then you zip back almost mid sentence to the present and the present is a s**t show. I don't hate books like this in theory, sometimes they come together and I'm awed by how things click, but this was not the case. I kept reading, thinking at some point it would coalesce in my brain but no. The writing is not bad, I just still can't even tell what I actually read.