Fall reading

I don’t know if I can call this post “Fall Reading” since I only read 5 books the entire season, but there were other things taking my attention. Here’s what I’ve got for you…

The Water Dancer: A Novel by Ta-Nehisi Coates

“‘The jump is done by the power of the story. It pulls from our particular histories, from all of our loves and all of our losses. All of that feeling is called up, and on the strength of our remembrances, we are moved. Sometimes it take more than other times, and on those former times, well, you seen what happened. I have made this jump so many times before.'”

This won a National Book award and is one of Oprah’s new picks, so I felt compelled to try it. It wasn’t my favorite, but the writing is descriptive and full of imagery and it’s a topic that is still an open wound. The story gives the gift of humanity to the generations who lost their freedom in slavery.

“There are a few times in life when you leap up and the past that you’d been standing on falls away behind you, and the future you mean to land on is not yet in place, and for a moment you’re suspended, knowing nothing and no one, not even yourself.”

“‘I feel myself to be as free as I have ever been. And though I know this is not the true article, it is something. And I want it.’ Then she leaned over and kissed me lightly on the cheek… Oh, to be back there, and be young again. To be seated in the dawning hours of my life, the sun of everything breaking over the horizon, and all the promises and tragedies ahead of me. To be there… in the last doleful days of old and desolate Virginia. Oh, to be there with time to spare, with time to dream of riding out as far as that Elm County road went until fortune abandoned us.”

A Little Life: A Novel by Hanya Yanagihara

This book took me 7 weeks to read… mainly because it’s very long and also because I was busy and tired and only read 5-10 minutes at a time. The writing is absolutely lovely.

“The other aspect of those weekday-evening trips he loved was the light itself, how it filled the train like something living as the cars rattled across the bridge, how it washed the weariness from his seat-mates’ faces and revealed them as they were when they first came to the country, when they were young and America seemed conquerable. He’d watch that kind light suffuse the car like syrup, watch it smudge furrows from foreheads, slick gray hairs into gold, gentle the aggressive shine from cheap fabrics into something lustrous and fine. And then the sun would drift, the car rattling uncaringly away from it, and the world would return to its normal sad shapes and colors, the people to their normal sad state, a shift as cruel and abrupt as if it had been made by a sorcerer’s wand.”

The main character’s childhood was one of abuse and we watch him slowly work through it with new, trusted friends. He is physically disabled because of his past, which we learn bits about, but such a brave heroic main character. Ultimately, I enjoyed it.

“And he cries and cries, cries for everything he has been, for everything he might have been, for every old hurt, for every old happiness, cries for the shame and joy of finally getting to be a child, with all of a child’s whims and wants and insecurities, for the privilege of behaving badly and being forgiven, for the luxury of tendernesses, of fondnesses, of being served a meal and being made to eat it, for the ability, at last, at last, of believing a parent’s reassurances, of believing that to someone he is special despite all his mistakes and hatefulness, because of all his mistakes and hatefulness.”

The Light Between Us: Stories from Heaven, Lessons for the Living by Laura Lynne Jackson

“Brilliant cords of light energy connect all of us here on earth and connect us further to our loved ones who have passed. I can see these cords of light. I can see the light between us. And because the light is there, binding us, intertwining our fates, because we all draw power from the same energy source, we know something else to be true. Nobody lives a small life. No one is forgotten by the universe. All of us can greatly brighten the world. It’s just that some of us haven’t yet recognized how powerful we are.”

Andrea Scher recommended two of Jackson’s books on her blog recently and said she read them quickly and loved them. Jackson is a psychic medium and writes compelling accounts of how she came to accept her gift and use it for healing. I enjoyed this one and will probably read the other one too.

The Dutch House: A Novel by Ann Patchett

I enjoy Ann’s Nashville bookstore Parnassus Books website and newsletter and so I got to read an excerpt from her book long before it was published. This novel explores bonds within a family, siblings mostly, and how memories are shaped based on setting, in this case an architectural jewel of an estate, “the Dutch House.”

The Rain Watcher by Tatiana de Rosnay

I was excited to see that the author of Sarah’s Key and A Secret Kept had a new novel out! The story is about family secrets and reconciliation, a love of trees, and acceptance. Interestingly, Paris is going through a natural disaster as the novel progresses, with the Seine waters rising enough to flood the city, empty the hospitals, shut down almost everything. Highly recommend.