A buzzy new book and the classic its rooted in
Plus winning nonfiction and the Booker longlist
Hey, readers!
This week has been hectic so I’m keeping today’s newsletter short, but I do have three new book reviews for you. I’ll be back with more advice and recommendations next week. If you missed it, you can use this form to tell me your current reading mood, share a book you love that you want a readalike for, or pose a reading life dilemma you need help solving. I’ll select requests for responses in the regular Sunday newsletter while I’m previewing books for my fall reading guide.
This week in books.
This week I read…
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann. I finished this excellent work of narrative nonfiction shortly after sending out last weeks newsletter and I don’t have much more to add. It’s impeccably researched, engagingly told, and precisely written. I was amazed by how real and vivid the story became to me—Grann has a real gift for bring the past to life and I’ll continue to pick up whatever he publishes next. Amazon | Bookshop | Libro.fm
Our Town by Thornton Wilder. Ann Patchett suggested reading Our Town as a way to get more out of her new book Tom Lake and I’m glad I did. Not only it enhance my reading of Patchett’s new book but it’s an excellent play in its own right and I can’t believe I hadn’t experienced it before! This play in three acts can be read in a single sitting but it packs an emotional wallop into it’s short page count and simple story. It can be hard to read a play and it isn’t always the emotional experience a novel can provide, but some plays are so great, it’s worth it to experience them however you can. This is one of those and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves books that are about nothing but contain everything. Amazon | Bookshop
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. I really like Ann Patchett a lot, but in a year in which we’re getting new books from Zadie Smith, Lauren Groff, and Jesmyn Ward, Tom Lake was not my most anticipated book of the year by a long shot. Maybe that level of expectation and putting my excitement behind other books helped, because I really enjoyed this book, but it didn’t exactly blow me away. This is a quiet story, a warm story, a simple story. Much like Our Town, the Pulitzer-winning play that plays a pivotal role throughout the book, it’s almost quaint and folksy—a little slice of Americana. The book takes place on a cherry farm in Michigan in the early lockdown stage of the Covid pandemic with the protagonist Lara’s three grown daughters returned home to wait out the quarantine. Although the weight of the pandemic looms in the margins of the novel, it also manages to capture that almost unspeakable sense of coziness those with ideal circumstances might have felt at times—all our loved ones under one roof, nowhere to go, and little to do. Lara certainly cherishes having her girls back and with this extra time she deigns to tell them the story of when she dated a now famous actor in her twenties when they were both doing summer stock theater (yes, the production was Our Town) in a Michigan town called Tom Lake. To be honest, I wasn’t that interested in Lara’s story of first love lost, nor was I particularly compelled by the present time line—at times I found myself a bit bored. The story lags a bit without much in the way of bite or punch or conflict. But Patchett’s voice is triumphant and she would win me back again and again. After reading much of Patchett’s nonfiction and watching so many of her Instagram book recommendations, I felt like Lara, of all her narrators I’ve read, sounds most like Ann herself, and the drops of wisdom she sprinkled throughout work well in her hands, though I may have detested them from other authors. Ultimately, this is a book about the stories we tell (and keep) about our lives. That’s a theme I can never resist, and this lovely, hopeful, genuinely happy exploration of that often devastating theme felt refreshing and quite nice. Amazon | Bookshop | Libro.fm
Now I’m reading…
Lots of titles for my fall reading guide, including finally getting to Jesmyn Ward’s Let Us Descend.
I need to read more buzzy summer books so Chelsey and I can discuss them on the podcast! What should I read?
If you are an international reader or just prefer UK covers, you can also order books through my Blackwell’s affiliate page!
Links I love.
The Booker Prize Longlist was announced this week! I can never stick to a commitment of this kind, but I’m very interested in exploring many of these 13 titles.
Choose. your own summer reading journey.
Ann Patchett talked about her bookstore and her new book on the NYT Book Review podcast.
This new Pride and Prejudice retelling sounds compelling.
I loved this spoiler discussion of Barbie by the Pop Culture Happy Hour crew.
I’m not surprised to hear that everyone in the Hamptons is reading The Guest. I wonder what they all think of the ending…
End notes.
This week in views, listens, eats, and moments of joy.
I saw the Barbie movie on Monday and I really liked it! Was it perfect? No. But it sure was a lot of fun.
We finished watching Silo…I’m still not sure it was good but I’m even more curious to find out more after that final scene.
Up next in our TV queue is The Diplomat. I’m only one episode it but I think it will be worth the watch.
Louise is talking up a storm and it is so much fun. Some of the words she knows crack me up. “Pilates” is a new addition since I’ve started going more regularly. When I asked her what mama does at Pilates, she executed a perfect downward dog. She’s not far off!
Lou has been really into playing with Play-Do lately and we’ve noticed she mostly enjoys standing to play. We bought this activity table for our basement and it’s perfect. I love that it has a little lip around it to help keep toys and craft supplies on it and later we can purchase higher legs for it to make it a big kid table!
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Happy reading!
Sara
The Diplomat...so good!,,
I love to see OUR TOWN on any reading list! My dad read it to me as a kid and even though I didn't get all of it at a young age, it's been such a special story to age into. Every age seems to bring new understanding to it...