A classic epic, a haunting post-apocalyptic novel, and a great mystery of history

Plus Irish novels, a Shakespeare discovery, and a great sale of the perfect pants

My reading is back, thank goodness! I’ve added a couple of books to the Paperback Summer Reading Guide and finished a small handful of books I can tell you able now. It is such a great feeling to be in a reading groove. I wrote about my best strategies for getting out of various styles of reading slumps earlier this week, but for today, let’s get to the books.

Reading in Public No. 72: 6 styles of reading slumps

This week in books.

This week I read…

Paradise Lost by John Milton. I read this over the course of six weeks for a wonderful class taught by Orlando Reade through McNally Jackson. Having gone to grad school for literature and teaching English for many years, I was familiar with passages of this foundational text, but I’d never read the whole thing. In fact, I was a little bit against reading the whole thing because I’d encountered a lot of snobbish English lit folks in my life who don’t think you can read anything written in the English language well without having read Paradise Lost. But I had been eager to take a class this year and in browsing through some options, something about this one called my name. I’m so glad I read it and I’m so glad I read it in this manor.

This 17th century epic poem is Milton’s dramatization of Satan’s rebellion in heaven, banishment to hell, and plot to destroy God’s newest creation—humankind—through temptation, Sin, and Death. It’s a religious and philosophical treatise and an epic fantasy story rolled into one, and I found it unbelievably compelling on both fronts. The story is good! Miltons language is evocative and the way he brings this ancient story to life is visceral and moving. And the ideas he’s exploring are complicated and twisty. I loved my reading of this, but I was so grateful to have a group of smart people and an excellent instructor to really comb through the details and has out the philosophy with.

Now that I’ve read it, I am seeing it everywhere, and I guess I am starting to consider the view that nearly every English language text comes back to this one. Bookshop | Libro.fm

I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, translated by Ros Schwartz. It was my turn to select the book for my IRL book club, and (after seeing it featured in The Atlantic) this viral phenomenon was my choice. I’m happy to report it was a great read and made for an excellent conversation. The story begins with forty women held captive in a cage, in what they believe is an underground bunker. They’ve been there for years, the youngest among them is a teenager who has only known this life. Although the women she is with have memories of their lives before—lives with jobs, partners, and children—they cannot remember how exactly they got to where they are now. The cage is policed by guards who punish the women if they touch each other and, though it is clear the guards mean to keep them alive, nobody knows the reason for their captivity.

There are so many times I thought I knew what this book was going to be, but it never conformed to my expectations. It’s perhaps best described as post-apocalyptic fiction in genre, but it’s shockingly quiet, subtle, and psychological. It’s a book that’s full of contradiction.s It’s filled with death, but there is nothing gory, graphic, or gratuitous. It deals intimately with the female body, but it’s not an explicitly feminist text. It could easily be read as bleak, but proved, to me, to be exceedingly hope-filled and beautiful. I don’t want to say more about my takeaways, because discovery and interpretation are part of what makes this an excellent reading experience, but if you do pick it up, come back and talk to me. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Bookshop | Libro.fm

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. On Friday, I teased that I had recently read a mystery that kept me up past my bedtime. I typically really hate mystery novels, but the descriptions of this book and the fact that it’s on so many “best mysteries of all time” lists intrigued me, and I decided to try it as a bit of a palate cleanser. Technically, this is the fifth book in Tey’s Inspector Grant series, but it reads fine as a standalone and as a none mystery reader, I wasn’t about to read four other mysteries just to see if I liked this one. I also knew that even if I loved it, I probably wouldn’t go back to read the others, so I was okay with minor spoilers for earlier books in the series.

The book begins with the brilliant Inspector Alan Grant bed-bound in a hospital because he’s fallen through a trapdoor and severely injured himself. He’s deeply embarrassed by this fact, but most of all, he’s bored. Grant loves examining faces, so a friend of his brings him a big stack of printouts of portraits to help him pass the time. Grant finds himself particular struck by a portrait of Richard III, a great villain of Shakespeare and history at large who had his two young nephews murdered in The Tower of London. But Grant doesn’t think Richard looks like a murderer, and it starts to drive him a bit mad. Collecting all the history books and assistance he can garner, he sets out to learn as much about Richard III as he can to understand the discrepancy between the face and the story.

This book is literally just people sitting around a hospital room reading books, sharing research, and having conversations. I loved it! Tey is great with characterization and pacing, which is all this book required to sore. Grant himself is a fun character to be around, and there was so much humor and heart in the peripheral characters. I enjoyed the ensemble and was pleased every time a visitor popped into Grant’s room. As for the pacing, I just couldn’t put it down. The information is parceled out perfectly to keep me hanging, and I got so deeply invested in this historical mystery. Did I do a ton of subsequent research on Richard III? Yes. Did I order several Richard III books, including the Shakespeare play? Yes. Have I joined The Richard III Society? Not yet, but I have poked around their website. I learned from this book, that I deeply love a mystery that can be “solved” with research and that I’m more interested in the mysteries of history than the typical murder plots found in crime novels. Bookshop | Libro.fm

Now I’m reading…

I’m a third of the way through a new release by an author I’ve enjoyed in the past, and I’m having a lot of conflicting feelings. It almost feels too familiar, but I’m sticking with it in the hopes that it takes a more surprising turn. I’ll report back, of course.

New on my TBR…

I asked for recommendations for more research-based mysteries in my most recent Friday Mood Recs post. Many of them sounded great, but this might be my next foray into this sub genre.

Links I love.

In a perfect coalescence of timing, a new article about the perfection of The Daughter of Time released just last week. (Lit Hub)

Tommy Orange won the Aspen Words Literary Prize for Wandering Stars. (Kirkus)

This new Shakespeare letter is going to be of particular interest to fans of Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet. (NYT, gift link)

7 novels by autistic authors that are revolutionizing literature. (Electric Lit)

20 best May books for young readers. (Kirkus)

Two books for when you need a laugh. (NPR)

3 new horror novels about the haunting power of family. (NYT, gift link)

8 Irish novels about the rise and fall of big houses. (Electric Lit)

A retrospective on our most literary pope. (Lit Hub)

End Notes.

What I’m watching, listening to, making, and loving this week.

• I started watching Meddling on Peacock, which is a documentary about the 2002 Olympic Pairs judging scandal. If you’re at all interested in figure skating or if you read The Favorites earlier this year, you need to watch this.

• We just started using the Goldminds App with Louise at bedtime and so far it has been really helpful at calming her down in the evenings.

• My favorite Everlane pants are on sale. I don’t need another pair, but maybe you do!

• I use this Vitamin / C SPF combo daily and love the glow it gives me.

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Happy reading!

Sara