First up, Companion Piece, by Ali Smith. Another author who could write an advertising jingle and I'd read it. Did I get the whole curlew/curfew thing? Probably not. Did I love the sheer enjoyment she had playing with language? Absolutely. A quote:
"No, I meant why are books important, she said. Apart that they're a pleasure? I said. Because, uh, because they're one of the ways we can imagine ourselves otherwise."
And another (perhaps the last lines of the book? I don't have it in front of me to check.):
"Every hello, like every voice - in all the possible languages, and human voice is the least of it - holds its story ready, waiting. That's pretty much all the story there is."
Happy-Go-Lucky, by David Sedaris. My least favorite of his books by a mile. Did the pandemic make him cranky or is it age? Or am I the cranky one?
And back to a mystery with The Dark Remains, by William MacIllvanney and Ian Rankin. A prequel to MacIllvanney's series, written by Rankin. 1970s Glasgow, a dark and depressing city with dark and depressing cops and mobsters. Now I'll have to find the MacIllvanney books and see if Jack Laidlaw remains a philosopher cop or not.
The Willpower Instinct, by Kelly McGonigal. This was a re-read, mainly to see what I could use for my ReLearn program. It's loaded with research, but written in a breezy way so you don't feel loaded with research. Very helpful summaries, and lots of things to share with my class. I have her new book The Joy of Movement from the library but I think I got the gist of it from a New York Times article.
The Foundling, by Ann Leary. Based on a true story about a home for "feeble-minded women" in the late 1920s. It could have used a bit more "show, don't tell" as we learned about these homes and the eugenics movement, and it really lost me at the tidy ending.
Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? by Seamus O'Reilly. At times I was laughing so hard I was afraid I'd wake Kevin up. Other times had me tearing up. A great memoir set in Northern Ireland.
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