My twelve-year-old granddaughter Claire (who reminds me every time we talk that she will be thirteen in October) called me yesterday, and we talked about Nerf battles, bears in Yosemite, the view of the Grand Canyon from 30,000 feet, the difference between a highway and a freeway, and how the Interstate Highway System works.
Claire knows she can talk to me about anything and yesterday, those were the things.
Claire is a voracious reader, but she’d be bored by the books I read when I was a kid. I told her how I preferred teen detective Trixie Belden over Nancy Drew, but she told me that the new Nancy Drew comics are pretty good. I had always hoped that she would like the books I did as a kid, The Wind in the Willows, The Trumpet of the Swan, Ramona the Pest or the Henry Higgins books, but she likes more angsty, futuristic books. Throw in a little dystopia and she’s all in.
In non-pandemic days, I’m always up for emotionally challenging books, one in which the ending isn’t all tied up in pretty ribbons, and intellectually challenging books that ask me to rethink some long-held (and unearthed) belief or learned prejudice. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates is an excellent example. I’ve tried reading a few more of those challenging books in the last few months, but I find that the emotional feels are exacerbated by real life. I read newspapers and news magazines and political commentary, and as part of my research for the memoir on grief, I’ve been reading academic papers on loss, bereavement, and the implications of not being able to see a loved one dead. All of that is enough of an emotional challenge right now. This makes reading for fun imperative.
Jennifer Wiener is one of my go-to writers for good endings, and by “good” endings, I mean satisfying; ones that don’t leave me in a heap of tears on the floor. I just finished Big Summer. So much fun! And Mrs. Everything is my favorite JW book to-date. It’s also recently been optioned for a TV show!
In an Instagram post, Weiner recommended books by several Black writers including Jasmine Guillory. I am currently reading her book The Wedding Date. Based on the first half, I will definitely read more Guillory books. Terry McMillan is another Black writer I love to read for that satisfying ending. Ever since How Stella Got Her Groove Back, she’s been a favorite.
Daughters of Erietown by the Pulitzer Prize columnist from Ohio, Connie Schultz, is one I didn’t want to end, and I hope Schultz has another book coming soon.
While the book, It’s OK to Laugh by Nora McInerny Purmort, is written as a series of essays about the life and death of her husband, is not the big downer you’d think a grief memoir would be. Also, Me by Elton John is a delicious piece of writing and includes some fun gossip about people in the recording industry whose names you’ll no doubt recognize.
I was in love with Elton John and Bernie Taupin when I was a kid, much to my father’s dismay. By the time I was twelve, I had bought or been given Goodbye Yellow Brick Road; Rock of the Westies; Greatest Hits Vol. 1; Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only the Piano Player; Mad Man Across the Water; and Caribou. When I wrote a report on Elton John in sixth grade (we had to write about someone famous), Dad told me he didn’t want me buying any more Elton John albums because EJ was gay. I had no idea what that meant, so I asked Dad, “What’s ‘gay’?” He walked away and never brought it up again, and I continued to collect Elton John albums.
Our county library is open again and is offering Grab ‘n Go service. I have three books on reserve to pick up on Saturday: The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal, Beach Town by Mary Kay Andrews, and Still Life by Louise Penny. I want to start reading the Chief Inspector Gamache Mystery series before it comes out on Amazon Prime Video. (Do you prefer to read the book first and then watch the show, or vice versa?)
Anyway…back to Claire for a moment. Whenever her name comes up on my cell, whether it’s a phone call or text, it makes my heart skip the same way it did the day she was born. I am still in awe of her, in awe that she exists and is part of my life. Sometimes, like now, when I think too hard on it, I get to crying a little. We play Battleship on Facetime, but it’s not the same as real life. What I wouldn’t give to hug her and to have her spend the weekend. But…I will take what I can get: phone calls, texts, Facetime, appropriately distanced visits.
While these days seem like forever, they will not last forever.
In the meantime, read for your sanity, read to lift your spirits. And listen to Steve Martin play his banjo!
Lynn Haraldson, Writer 
I will have to wait to get to know Chief Inspector Gamache on Amazon Prime because I cannot get past the first couple chapters reading Still Life. So then I tried Audible and thought it would help to listen to it, and my mind just drifted away. I know many people who absolutely love Louise Penny and her mystery novels in Three Pines; however, they do say Still Life is the toughest to get through, and that is where you meet all the characters for all the rest. Oh well. . . I’ll wait.
The friend who recommended the series said the same thing, that the first book or two were not that interesting, but if you can get through them, they get good. I got a third of the way through The Rosie Project and decided I’d had enough and put it away, so maybe I won’t get through Still Life, either LOL
I think they may have added to the Trixie Belden series. I also loved them.
Read aloud when they were little – All of my kids loved Little House extended series. Borrowers were also a favorite with all. One of my kids loved Box Car Children, they have added lots to the original series there too.
I just packed two boxes of classic books for my mother. She has discovered Steinbeck as a great love. My kids and I would all put Good Earth as one of our favorites and she loved that too. She is turning 80 next year, how she missed all the classics is beyond me. But it is a great activity for her now. I just ordered 14 books for xmas and her birthday to fill in some holes in what were in the two boxes.
I am currently reading my way thru Ann Patchett. I do not often like contemporary fiction, except mysteries. I read State of Wonder for a book group years ago. I just read Dutch House for another group. Loved both. So I am reading the rest of hers now. I like to do that with authors.