January books
The Bright Sword, by Lev Grossman. Takes place at the very end of Arthur’s reign. A small band of knights try to hold the country together. I liked the Magicians Trilogy and I liked this book, too. The magic reminds me of the magic in his other books, which implies to me that Lev Grossman has a stable mental model of how magic works. That’s delightful.
The Buried Giant, by Kazuo Ishiguro. A book about war and memory and the price of peace. The ending is particularly poignant. This one also takes place in post-Arthurian Britain. It’s my third book by this author, and I’ve concluded that I just don’t enjoy reading his books. They’re beautifully written and he’s very talented, just not my cup of tea.
Both books told the same basic story of post-Roman Britain, which is that a huge wave of Saxons immigrants took over England and most Britons fled to what is now Wales. No idea how accurate it is, but the similarity is interesting.
Unseen Poems, by Rumi. 14th century Persian poetry. These poems are so famous and have persisted for so long and I like them so little that I have to believe something is getting lost in translation. My favorites are the most overtly religious of them. At times they remind me a little of Saint Augustine’s Confessions. My least favorite are full of lines that surely appeal to the “used to be on LiveJournal” wing of Instagram (“Burn heart. In this lightning, be still.”). Taken as a whole I find them to be fairly inaccessible and this book has reinforced my general skepticism of translated poetry.
The Orient Express, by Graham Greene. More suspenseful and faster paced than The End of the Affair. The writing is just as beautiful, the characters have just as much depth. I love Graham Greene. The story is bittersweet and sad, as all his writing seems to be, but he’s just not a downer in the same way Ishigiro is. I should really tackle The Power and the Glory this year.
All the Beauty in the World, by Patrick Bringley. This author takes himself pretty seriously, lots of the writing is very pretentious, and "describing your feelings about art" is a tough genre to nail (up there with "describing your trips" and "describing your encounters with god"). That said, I just couldn't hate it. He loves the Met so much, and it is really the one of the best places in the world. Learning more about it from an unusual perspective (the author was a security guard) was a delight.
In progress:
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, by Mark Twain.
- The Ascent of Money, by Niall Ferguson.
- The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage, by Paul Elie