January books and bookish things

I have certainly enjoyed reading other people’s posts about what they have been reading and I have also been listening to the “What Should I Read Next?” podcast by Anne Bogel. She talks to her visitors about their favorite books and then recommends others she thinks they’d like. I almost always end up writing at least one title down! Browsing Anne’s bookclub, I noticed they were reading The Stationary Shop and so I read that one and then listened to her talk to the author. The Ten Thousand Doors of January I never would have found on my own, but that is their February read. Reviews below!

First I have to share with you this awesome video by Max Joseph about how to read more. It includes visits to many of the world’s best and most beautiful bookstores. Summarizing his quest, he says,

“These bookstores are like temples. Some of them have even been churches. A place to get in touch with your higher self and nourish your soul. There’s something about being in a bookstore that makes you feel infinite, like you can touch the magic.”

Plus now I want to put books on the ceiling too. 🙂

I had a great time arranging my office bookshelves, grouping by subjects and by favorites. I also splurged and got some actual (non-Kindle) books over the holidays that I’m excited about.

Did you know that a Librocubicularist is someone who reads in bed? That’s my favorite time of day – putting on pjs and forgetting everything except my book and then falling asleep!

Lady Clementine: A Novel by Marie Benedict

“All the strain and struggle that have comprised my life—my lonely and strange childhood, the wild swings of my unusual marriage, my struggle with motherhood, my compunction to constantly prove myself worthy, the tumult of two wars, even my pervasive sense of otherness—seem to fall away. In the vacuum of calm, I see with unexpected clarity that, without my unique hardships and failings, particularly with my children, I could not have become the Clementine who forged this path through politics and history, and without me, my husband could not have become the Winston who helped deliver peace to this broken world.“

Marie Benedict has a new novel out today? Buy it and read it immediately! In this novel, Benedict selects yet another woman who was overlooked by history books. I enjoyed learning more about her. Winston Churchill’s wife, Clementine (rhymes with Josephine), served much more than the usual role of a political spouse of that time and made some world-changing contributions. She was an equal to Churchill in all ways. She took an integral role in her husband’s speeches, decisions, and tasks. She fought for women’s right to vote and improvements to war-time conditions in the hospitals, bomb shelters, etc, and helped position her country in favorable eyes of other world leaders.

“He had finally uttered the words I’d been longing to hear. I examined this man, over a decade my senior and an important, if controversial, member of Parliament, and saw the sensitive person who lay beneath the blunderbuss of his exterior, one who understood and shared my sense of being different. In that moment, I knew with utter certainty that I could make a life with him. It would not be an easy life—no, it would be one of striving and ambition—but it could be an important and purposeful one.”

Lovely War by Julie Berry

This love story is told by goddess Aphrodite, defending her actions in two relationships during WWI to her fellow gods. I cried many times while reading this book, it was just so touching. I also learned a great deal about how African American soldiers were treated in this war and afterward. This is a love story, a war story, a history lesson, and a reminder to hold on to hope in dark times.

“Let them start their dreadful wars, let destruction rain down, and let plague sweep through, but I will still be here, doing my work, holding humankind together with love like this.”

The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson

Amazing book! Reads like a fun chemistry textbook. I had to make myself stop sharing facts and stories with my family, but I found it all so fascinating. If you’re also amazed at how many remarkable things our bodies do every minute, read this book. Bryson is humorous and writes so compellingly that I couldn’t wait to read about what bacteria has been found or scientific discovery happens next!

Twenty-one Truths About Love: A Novel by Matthew Dicks

An entire novel in lists? It sounds better than it really is. I’m not sure about his guy… he starts out lost and I have to say, I’m not convinced he’s exactly figured everything out at the end of the book. His wife is pregnant, he’s rapidly (and secretly) spending their savings just to stay afloat because he quit his teaching position and opened a bookstore, and he thinks all the time about his own inadequacies. I got through it but didn’t love it.

“Additions to Dan’s Laws of the Universe:

• Wanting to be a better human being and finding a way to become a better human being are two very different things.
• “Acknowledging the problem is the first step in solving it” is only spoken by people who have actually solved their problems. I bet that plenty of people acknowledge their problem, never solve it, and therefore never say that
• A person is more than a person. A person is the promise of everything that person can be.
• A man who doesn’t believe in God prays in desperate times in the same way a drowning man attempts to draw breath while underwater.
• Sometimes all you have left is the impossible.
• The person who has nothing in life except the desire to be the boss is the last person who should be the boss.”
  

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

“Doors, he told her, are change, and change is a dangerous necessity. Doors are revolutions and upheavals, uncertainties and mysteries, axis points around which entire worlds can be turned. They are the beginnings and endings of every true story, the passages between that lead to adventures and madness and—here he smiled—even love. Without doors the worlds would grow stagnant, calcified, storyless.”

Fantasy? Magic? Doors as portals to other realms does sound odd, but the story unfolds in such a believable and real world that it works. The power of love throughout the book makes it. I like that the emphasis on the importance of words and stories too. Very well-written.

The Stationary Shop: A Novel by Marjan Kamali

This love story begins in pre-revolutionary Iran in the 1950s and carries us into present time. I thought it was easy to get swept into the story right away, though I the he-said/she-said went on for far too long. This novel could have ended about halfway through, but then I wouldn’t have gotten to stay up half the night with the main characters, tears falling into my pillow. 🙂

“Roya wanted wholeness, she wanted warmth, she wanted escape and comfort. The Stationery Shop and its books gave her that. Then Bahman filled it with his presence. But if she had to determine a day when she actually fell in love beyond repair, it was the seventh Tuesday. That day signaled winter’s end. It was the kind of day when the chill and frost and dispirit of the season gave way to the promise of blooms and greenery and new beginnings. It was a day ready to rupture.”

“‘Roya.’ When he said her name, it did not matter: the decades, the children, the cancer, the betrayal, the loss, the coup, the rewritten history. He said her name the same way he had always said her name. They were Bahman and Roya again, the couple dancing, talking breathlessly as they leaned against the books in the shop. She held on to the seat of the plastic chair. It was not an option to fall.”

The Only Street in Paris: Life on the Rue des Martyrs by Elaine Sciolino

“The Rue des Martyrs became an addiction. I got hooked on its spirit: the rhythm, the collective pleasures, the bonding with merchants, the way I felt when I walked up and down it. I became like Louis-Sébastien Mercier, the eighteenth-century writer and first street reporter of Paris. He wandered on foot, recording the everyday habits and customs of people of all classes and professions: prostitutes and policemen, servants and street vendors, criminals and priests. And artists, beggars, philosophers, greengrocers, and washerwomen. Mercier was driven by curiosity, not destination.”

That pretty much describes Sciolino too. She collects old postcards and gets absorbed into everyone’s story. She tells of artists and poets who lived on this long street; she takes friends to secondhand shops and learns their stories too. She describes the history of all the booksellers on the street; she grew attached to the decaying church that sits at the bottom of it; and she interacts with shopkeepers, friends, and other storytellers making their way on this “only street in Paris.” Very charming book.

Where the Forest Meets the Stars: A Novel by Glendy Vanderah

This is a different kind of story but oh so compelling. It tells of three main characters who are on vastly different paths who come together in a heartwarming way. A barefoot young girl appears out of nowhere outside the cabin where a scientist is doing research and says she is from another planet. A seemingly magical child who ultimately transforms the others’ lives in the best way. Unique and captivating… I read this in 2 days, it was so good!

Upstate by James Wood

A friend suggested this one for it’s lyrical writing. A man reflects about his life, marriages, and two daughters. He and his daughter Helen travel from the UK to New York to visit his other daughter Vanessa, who is depressed. This is a novel full of the characters’ thoughts about family, regret, and each other. Actually, not much actually happens plot-wise in the book, which I found frustrating, but it did lead me to ask myself why some people find it so hard to be happy. Each of these family members lives and thinks so differently! I have to admit that I skimmed the latter half of the book because I couldn’t get invested in their story.