As I end another school year – we go on summer break tomorrow – in what was another tumultuous semester, I find myself consistently and constantly returning to books.  Reading brings me such solace.  It’s not the only thing, of course, but reading has this amazing ability to help me see outside of my own life, to think beyond the self. 

And as I looked back over what I’ve read in the past six months, I realize I was attracted to – perhaps subconsciously – nonfiction texts that forced me to see the world a bit differently.  While they weren’t in my top five, How to do Nothing and Lessons in Stoicism both pushed me in questioning my own values and ways of perceiving the world around me.  They were the right books at the right time for me.  I hope you too find the right books for you. 

If you are on summer holidays, may it be restful and filled with joy.  If you are in the middle of your school year, may you find the course as exciting and invigorating as when you first started teaching it.  And, as always, may you remain healthy and safe.

Best,

Tim

Best Books of 2021 (January - June)

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

I thoroughly enjoyed Ishiguro’s first novel since he won the Nobel Prize in Literature.  While I still like Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go more, this was classic Ishiguro: providing me just enough information to thoroughly mess with my head.  Klara, the protagonist, is an AF or Artificial Friend in this new society that feels eerily like our own, but isn’t.  Because she narrates the story, we see the world through only her eyes as she becomes a best friend to Josie, an actual live human being and teenage girl.  I don’t want to give too much away, but if you like Ishiguro, it’s worth reading!  I’m still thinking about Klara and Josie and the society Ishiguro has created months later and that alone made me put it at my number one book of the last six months.

Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar

This book of took me by surprise.  Constantly.  I picked it up from our school library because I liked his play Disgraced and had even seen it performed in Singapore.  Because I didn’t know what to expect, I wasn’t ready for his commentary about what it means to be an American.  The essays were so diverse, from his father treating Donald Trump’s heart condition in the 90s to the 15-year affair his father has with an escort.  But the most striking essays were about his own identity and family dynamics within the larger cultural capitalistic structures in the United States.   

American Dirt by Jeanine Cummings

Huge controversy surrounded the novel American Dirt (see here for a recap of it).  I still liked it.  On a pure plot level, I cared.  I cared about the characters - a mother and son - who are trying to escape a Mexican cartel after the cartel murders everyone else in their family (this happens in the first chapter).  I cared about them so much that I flew through the book, wondering if they would survive the ordeal in their migrant plight to make it to the US.

Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano

The story centers on a fictional account of a plane crash where 191 people die and one 12-year-old boy survives.  The author bases it on a true-life story of a 9-year-old Dutch boy who survives a plane crash while everyone else on his flight from South Africa to London dies. The novel follows the miracle boy as he recovers, attempts to make sense of his life, and continues living.  It flashes back and forth between scenes on the plane and after the crash.  I didn't love the back-and-forth chapters, but I was so engrossed with this character (Eddie as he's known before the crash and Edward as he's known after it).  You will fly through the novel because you care so much about him and want to know how his life turns out.

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders

I love George Saunders.  I loved Lincoln in the Bardo.  I loved 10^th of December.  This book is very, very different.  He’s still funny and witty and has some nice one-liners, but this is a book of nonfiction about the short story.  In it, he details how four Russian writers from the 19^th century have mastered the form.  Saunders analyzes seven different short stories and I was astounded at the heightened level of thought about craft in each of them.  It’s so intense!  It felt as if I was back in university, in a class on the short story, and I loved it.

Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam

Amanda, Clay, and their two kids rent a holiday home in rural Long Island for a vacation to get away from New York City.  But early on in their vacation, something goes wrong.  A couple knock on the door late at night – the owners of the home – and explain there’s a blackout in NYC and the surrounding area.  This couple have come to their 2^nd home even though Amanda and Clay have rented it from them to stay for the night.  The novel goes from there in really unsettling ways.   

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell

My wife joked with me that I was reading this book because I am incapable of doing nothing!  But the book isn’t about doing nothing.  Instead, it’s about resisting all the ways in which our attention is stolen from us and why and how we can reclaim it.  The book meanders, in ways I wasn’t expecting, and you have to be okay with an over-arching argument that goes in a whole bunch of different directions.  Still, if you are willing to let her wander around, Odell takes you to places you weren’t expecting, surprising you along the way.

Lessons in Stoicism by John Sellars

I don’t know much about the Stoics other than my superficial knowledge of the word itself.  Having picked this book up on a whim in the school library – and might I just add how much I love libraries for this ability to we spontaneous in my reading! – I found myself surprised by the depth in this short little book.  Sellars guides the reader through short chapters about how to live based on the writing and teachings of Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius.  It was eye-opening and perhaps a beginning into more detailed reading about them and their beliefs.  But this small little pocket size book is a perfect start to learning about the Stoics.    

Cynical Theories by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay

Cynical Theories: How activist scholarship made everything about race, gender, and identity - and why this harms everyone is not easy reading: the sentences are dense and the style is cumbersome.  But, what I like about it is the discussion I think it will provoke about critical theory.  Think of this book as a possible whole department read.  My guess is that the discussion will get heated, in a good way.

The Midnight Library by Matthew Haig

The Midnight Library by Matthew Haig is delightful.  Readers follow the main character Nora, a down on her luck 20 something, as she tries to figure out how to live her best life.  I don't want to give too much away, but she gets stuck, early on in the novel, in the midnight library, a sort of in-between place between life and death.  If you like Matthew Haig, you’ll enjoy his latest novel.