June reading

in two sentences

I’ve been reading but in my usual erratic way so everything talks to each other but doesn’t always cohere.

1. Yiyun Li, The Book of Goose. Stark, like broken glass reflecting light.

2. Michael Connelly, Nightshade and

3. Ironwood. Addictive, not serious but not cheesy. I liked my first dip into Connelly. Good for when your brain is tired.

4. Evan S. Connell, Mrs. Bridge. Quiet, and then propulsive. Not the midlife crisis novel you want, but the one you deserve.

5. Tom Perrotta, GhostTown. Candy that wasn’t worth eating in the end. I won’t get that time back.

6. Atticus Lish, Preparation for the Next Life. Devastating. I’m not ready to talk about it yet. I love you Zooey.

7. Ross Barkan, Colossus. I wanted to like it. I didn’t.

8. Kristen Kobes Du Mez, Live Laugh Love. More on this to come.

9. Cal Flynn, The Savage Landscape: How We Made the Wilderness. I am interested in the wilderness as an idea. More on this in August.

10. David Edmonds, Death in a Shallow Pond. Great, great idea for a book, but disjointed and subject to too-clever summaries of what are complex ideas. I put it down.

11. Lauren Winner, The Dangers of Christian Practice. I took this on a beach vacation, which was my mistake (it’s not a beach read!). I’ve only finished half. Intriguing, but a bit stretched thin at the seams, imo, “danger” being a bit overwrought.