* Free Love, by Tessa Hadley -- Somewhere I've read that every novel is about whether life is worth living. I'm not sure that's true about every novel (Don Quixote? The Phantom Tollbooth?) but this book definitely is. Phyllis Fischer blows up her perfect life, provoking the question of how much damage you can do in pursuit of your true self before it becomes unforgivable.
* Olga Dies Dreaming, by Xochitl Gonzalez -- A deceptively light-hearted book about a wedding planner and her politician brother that takes on serious themes of love, commitment, and betrayal. Bonus points for its portrayal of political activism in Puerto Rico.
It's the last day of the year, which means it's time again to list my favorite books of the last 365 days. In the order I read them:
The last day of 2022 brings us the first major book preview for 2023. September 2023 brings us a new Mary Beard, a new Lauren Groff, a new Zadie Smith, _and_ a new Anne Enright, so I might as well go ahead and put in my PTO requests now.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/dec/31/2023-in-books-highlights-for-the-year-ahead
Kelp was the key to America.
-- Pekka Hamalainen, _Indigenous Continent_
Although Charlotte loathed it, Schiller insisted on always having rotting apples nearby. Somehow the sweetly fermenting aroma stimulated his creativity."
(from Andrea Wulf's Magnificent Rebels)
Gingerly, Goethe pulled it open and found it filled to the top with rotting apples. He stumbled up to open a window. When Charlotte Schiller found Goethe gulping fresh air and the desk drawer wide open, she explained that her husband so loved the smell that 'without it he couldn't live or work.'
Suffering from writer's block? Try the Schiller cure!
"One day, as he waited for his friend to join him, Goethe sat down at Schiller's desk to make some notes. As he wrote, Goethe felt increasingly nauseated and close to fainting. It took a while to realize that a disgusting smell was coming from one of the drawers. . .
Honorable mention: I knitted a pair of gloves, not mittens, which I have wanted to do for a while, and which I will NEVER DO AGAIN. Making the fingers with the world's smallest double-pointed needles was a pain in the ass.
OK, everybody, time for your top three personal accomplishments of 2022! Mine:
* Took a long-desired family trip to Europe (if you don't think this is an accomplishment you have never traveled with my family);
* Introduced coworkers to the joys of a Passover seder with from-scratch gefilte fish and matzah ball soup;
* Wrote a review (for my nearly defunct blog) that I was really happy with:
https://sophronisba.com/2022/02/09/olga-dies-dreaming/
On a warm and breezy night in August 1834, a group of white men, nearly one hundred strong, gathered on Seventh Street, between Shippen and Fitzwater, in Philadelphia.
-- Kerri Greenidge, _The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family_
Hard Times is not Dickens's best novel, but it might be the most directly relevant to the current world.
https://newrepublic.com/article/169577/sam-bankman-fried-charles-dickens-hard-times
The revolution began quietly, with an awkward note sent between near strangers on June 7, 1897.
-- Isaac Butler, _The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act_
In the middle of The Magic Kingdom, and absolutely delighted that Russell Banks has written the novel I've been wanting to read since I wrote a term paper on the Shakers in college.
But why would I want to revisit a place that I regard as the opening wound in a wounded life?
-- Russell Banks, _The Magic Kingdom_
“Christmas, its generalized, secular pleasures aside, may not be part of my religion, but Dickens certainly is. “
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/08/charles-dickens-a-christmas-carol-joy
LitHub's best books of 2022:
https://lithub.com/our-38-favorite-books-of-2022
I've only read a handful -- most of these weren't even on my radar -- but I also loved The Marriage Portrait, which will certainly be on my top-ten list for the year.
When I was in eighth grade my sister helped kill another girl. She was in love, my mother said, like it was an excuse.
-- Stewart O'Nan, _Ocean State_
That is exactly how I used to react every time I had a Huey burger after college. For a good two decades, I'm saying.
In _Now Is Not the Time to Panic_ the two main characters have just taken a trip to Memphis and I feel this in my soul:
"And then we were in Memphis. It was kind of run-down, crazy potholes and a lot of litter, but Zeke was so happy. We immediately got a Huey Burger, and it was so good, even more because Zeke kept going, “Mmmm . . . Oh, I missed Huey’s,” like he’d been away in a war or something."
Sophronisba
Joined Oct 2022