December books
- Jan 27, 2017
- 3 min read
I might not have met my goal of 100 books this year, but I've read some inspiring stuff this year! Check out my December favorites, below.
The Sot Weed Factor // John Barth
To be fair, I haven't quite finished this novel. But I've definitely read enough to recommend it. For those who don't know, for the last three-ish years, I've been on a literary journey to read TIME Magazine's Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century. I'm at about 85 done, 15 to go, which is bittersweet for me. This novel was one that took me awhile to find in the used book stores, and I ended up finding it somewhat randomly at a used book fair for only a dollar or two. Fate!
This is a satirical novel and it is, quite frankly, hilarious. The--I hesitate to call him this--protagonist, Ebenezer Cooke, is a study in ridiculous pomposity.
The Painted Bird // Jerzy Kosinski
Let me preface by saying: I was putting off reading this book. A friend read it a year or two ago and told me it was disgusting and even read aloud some particularly gross passages. And she was right. It's totally gross!
But it's also totally worth it--at least in my opinion. I think it's easy to get lost and desensitized to atrocity in this day and age. The media presents us with sanitized versions of terrible events in far away places, but this book takes a serious atrocity--WWII Eastern Europe--and puts it right in your face. Read this to remind yourself how easy it is for fear and ignorance to sever ties of society and humanity.
The Novel Cure: An A-Z of Literary Remedies // Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin
So I didn't so much read this book this month as much as used it. This thing is amazing! I got hit with a nasty cold in the middle of the month and was feeling really pathetic. I just wanted to curl up in the bath with a book for an hour or two. Some people feel like they never have anything to wear despite a wardrobe full of clothes, and that's how I am about books. I have nothing to read! (Lies.)
In desperation, I turned to this book and flipped to the section "Cold (common)." And one of the suggestions was Eva Ibbotson's Journey to River Sea (the next book in the list). Serendipity struck and that book was literally just behind Novel Cure. It was a sign! And it totally did the trick. A long soak and a comforting read made me feel a million times better.
This book has it all. Whether you're suffering from ennui or a bad breakup, there's a list of suggested reading.
Journey to River Sea // Eva Ibbotson
Do you have any of those books that you just keep coming back to years later? Any novel by Eva Ibbotson is that for me. They're amazingly well written and reading them feels like getting a big bearhug. Journey to River Sea is about a tenacious girl who move from a British boarding school to the middle of the Amazon to live with extended family who are, needless to say, not that nice.
While I don't have any children of my own, I always recommend Ibbotson's books to parents of girls, because the heroines (and some heroes) of these stories are so awesome: strong, curious, kind (but sometimes not), smart, and sometimes deeply uncool.
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