Two books exploring the power and peril of stories

Plus more fanfic authors being pulled-to-publish and the rise of the divorce plot

My reading life has been glorious lately. I feel I am striking a perfect balance between new books and old, fiction and nonfiction, audio and print, books for projects and books just for me. I hesitate to even type those words because I worry I might jinx myself, but I always come here to gripe when I hit a rut, so I felt it was worth celebrating the opposite of that too. Sometimes, through no machinations of our own, our reading lives soar, and today I get to share two very different books I recently devoured and adored.

This week in books.

This week I read…

• Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon. I loved this book! It’s rare to read new fiction that feels completely fresh and original, but not necessarily experimental either—but Glorious Exploits is it. The story is a sort of brutal yet comedic buddy romp set on the island of Sicily during the Peloponnesian War. The plot is set into motion when two unemployed friends decide to direct a production of Euripides’ Medea using a group of starving Athenian prisoners as their actors. The men, Lampo and Gelon, are great admirers of Athenian art and theatre—especially Euripides—even as they despise the Athenians with whom they are at war. Everything about this book feels unexpected from the choice of Lampo (the harsher, more bumbling, and less art obsessed friend, as the narrator), to the setting (when was the last time you read historical fiction set in a BCE century?), to the contemporary Irish voice, to the completely unexpected conclusion. It’s hard to know how to “sell” this book, but I actually think it has pretty wide appeal for literary fiction readers. If you enjoy books that, as someone in my book club stated, “set the beautiful next to the brutal,” if you enjoy books that explore the power and limitations of art, if you appreciate unexpected tonal choices—you might very well love this book too. Bookshop | Libro.fm

• Bibliophobia by Sarah Chihaya. This is memoir in essays about Chihaya’s lifelong experience with depression and suicidal ideation that culminated in a breakdown that landed her in the hospital and changed the course of her life and career. I want to state that bluntly upfront, because I think this book has been mismarketed and subsequently celebrated on social media as a book about books. This is a book that should be celebrated—it is not a book to pick up merely because you want a book about books. What I appreciated most about this memoir, in addition to Chihaya’s meticulous prose and almost academic essay structures, was how rigorously she examines her own depression. The book brilliantly allows her to take the skills and frameworks she mastered as a literature graduate student and apply them to herself as text—mining her own subtext, analyzing context, and providing unexpected connections between texts. Of course, as an avid reader and professor of English, books and literature are a fundamental part of Chihaya’s experience. Both the symptoms and the causes of her depression are connected, in Chihaya’s views, to books and reading. In one essay, she obsessively reads Anne Carson’s “Glass Essay” over and over again as part of her daily routine. In another, she examines how thinking about narrative arcs, particularly what it means to arrive at an ending, skewed her own perception of what a life should look like. Throughout the memoir, she explores her inability to read after associating her relationship to books with her eventual breakdown. There are certainly aspects of the memoir that I related to and I know other bibliophiles will find connection with. Perhaps most notable is the idea that’s popped up over and over in both the marketing and reviews of this memoir: book as Life Ruiner. In fact, my copy of Bibliophobia came in a box that, once I removed the finished book and accompanying green tote bag, asked in bold text: “WHAT IS YOUR #LIFERUINER?” Chihaya defines a Life Ruiner as “the book that sets you on the path to a life built by and around reading. To call it a Life Ruiner is not to say that a life of letters is necessarily ruination—but rather to identify it as the book you can’t ever recover from, that you never stop thinking about, and that makes you desperate to reach that frightening depth of experience with other books.” I love this idea, and it’s not surprising that other readers are equally enamored. But I find the discourse (and the hashtags..) around the book that has focused so heavily on the Life Ruiner to be both reductive and overly expansive: reductive because it excludes so much of what Bibliophobia is exploring and overly expansive because it invites every reader to take on a main character role in Chihaya’s life story. Maybe that’s okay—Chihaya explores the contrasting experiences of a reader as a nonentity observing the world of the book and that of characters as avatars we readers can inhabit. There is certainly not one right way to read any book, even such a singular work of nonfiction. But, for me, this is an example of a book I adored that happens to be situated in the middle of some online fanfare I reject. Bookshop | Libro.fm

Now I’m reading…

• I picked up this book after hearing the author talk with

  Traci Thomas
  on The Stacks.

New on my TBR…

• I was just approved to read an advanced copy of the new Mr. Darcy and Miss Tilney mystery on NetGalley. These books are my weakness and I know I will not be able to hold out much longer.

Links I love.

It’s fascinating to me how many readers are thinking and writing about narrative voice. Have we all collectively grown tired of first person and shifting POVs? (I, for one, am tired of neither, but still find myself looking for more variety in narrators.) Here are eight contemporary books that use an omniscient narrator. I added several to my list. (Electric Lit)

Answer four questions and get a romance rec. I took this like four times and wrote down all the recs. (NYT, gift link)

More and more fanfic authors are being pulled-to publish. Read about how and why it’s all happening now. (NPR)

I really enjoyed

becca rothfeld

’s take on the rise of the divorce plot. (Washington Post, gift link)

All about blurbs, the removal of blurbs, and the reaction to the removal of blurbs. (Vox)

9 of the Best Black Romance Books (Book Riot)

I loved All Fours, but I’m not sure how I feel about an on screen adaptation… (Vulture)

3 audiobooks to whisk you away to other times and places. (Washington Post, gift link)

Electric Literature is publishing its first book. It’s described as “a vital anthology of essays by trans and gender-nonconforming writers of color, sharing stories of joy, heartbreak, rage, and self-discovery.” I can’t wait! (Electric Lit)

I loved reading

Natalie

’s thoughts on the point of sex scenes in romance novels.

What's the point of a sex scene, anyway?

End Notes.

• I went to Pilates this week! As a former figure skater, I tend to really like movement that forces me to think about technique, and this is just the thing.

• Speaking of ice skating, I’m having so much fun taking Louise skating! I do have some weird feelings about the whole thing. I don’t know that I want her to be a skater, and I definitely don’t want her to feel like I want her to be a skater. But for now, it’s a treat to do something with her that I really enjoy doing.

• I’ve been watching Scamanda and Apple Cider Vinegar and, first of all, they are so gripping, but, second of all, what is wrong with people?!

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Happy reading!

Sara