A book I really didn't enjoy, nor do I think I was meant to: Very Cold People, by Sarah Manguso. Evidently her childhood was very similar to the one described in this book, so I'm glad she was able to overcome it and write about it. It was just so depressing:/
When Women Were Dragons, by Kelly Barnhill. Her first adult novel, still leaning heavily into the fantasy/fairy tale realm. I liked the story, but felt it was a little too didactic for an adult novel. But that dragon world sounds like paradise!
The Puzzler, by J.A. Jacobs. Not my favorite of his books, but I will still read whatever he publishes.I love his deep dives into topics that I wouldn't expect to enjoy.
This Time Tomorrow, by Emma Straub. One of my favorites of the month, involving life on the Upper West Side, friendship, and mortality. Her dad and best friend are two of my favorite recent characters. Some quotes:
Maybe that was the trick to life: to notice all the tiny moments in the day when everything else fell away, and, for a split second, or maybe even a few seconds, you had no worries, only pleasure, only appreciation of what was right in front of you.
...but that was New York, watching every place you'd kissed or cried, every place you love, turn into something else.
Happy endings were too much for some people, false and cheap, but hope--hope was honest. Hope was good.
We Don't Know Ourselves, by Fintan O'Toole. This took me so long to read! I think I checked it out three times from three different libraries. O'Toole wrote a history of modern Ireland, modern in his definition starting with 1958, the year he was born. I learned so much about the dark side of the church's role in Irish government (spoiler: it was all dark.) His premise is that the Irish exist by dodging reality--about the abuse of children by priests, about abortion, about government corruption--and anyone who confronts others with that reality is breaking the code that keeps the country together. Great quote (among many) toward the end of the book: "What is possible now, and was entirely impossible when I was born, is this: to accept the unknown without being so terrified of it that you have to take refuge in fabrications of absolute conviction." (Sounds like a description of a Trump supporter, now that I read it again.)
Bloomsbury Girls, by Natalie Jenner. A semi-sequel to The Jane Austen Society, which I think I started and didn't like. This one was enjoyable, a bit predictable, but it's London and bookstores. so I lapped it up anyway.
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