Raising My Glass High
As a lifelong Bookaholic, a particular question chases me whenever I finish the book in which I have been engrossed: what am I going to read next? Following this, a new cycle begins, one that affords me no rest until it ends with an answer that satisfies. Like so many who are addicted to words-on-the-page, I am in constant search of the next hardcover to crack open, or the new release that I can tap from the queue on my Kindle. Bookshop and Amazon are my go-to sources for literary quenchers.
Public libraries? Not so much, as my track record for returning books has not improved since I handed in my first overdues, at age seven, to Mrs. Whitaker, our neighborhood’s ancient librarian. I developed an inveterate fear of approaching the desk she guarded with such ferocity. As an adult, I always paid my late-fees (the total of which might have been comparable to the donation required to earn a plaque in the reading room), but as a child with no funds, I relied on Mrs. Whitaker’s benevolence—which, fortunately, was always in good supply, despite her disapproval as she checked my books in again.
To curb my bad-patron habit, I no longer belly up to the barcode on my borrower’s card. And I warn those willing to loan me a book from their own stash of favorites that such a gift will most likely turn out to be a dangerous one. Knowing that one unreturned paperback might land me in friend jeopardy, I prefer to avoid taking such a risk.
Like burrowing into a good yarn, however, kibitzing with others about books I’ve enjoyed is one of my favorite pastimes—and I am hoping it may be one of yours, too! So, if you are in the process of compiling that stack of summer reads that might satisfy your own book cravings, here are three titles that you may want to consider.
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE PEN ACKERLEY PRIZE FOR MEMOIR AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY 2018*
I first discovered Maggie O’Farrell’s lyrical writing while laboring over my own memoir. Published in 2017, I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death is the Northern Irish novelist’s story of her life, told through a series of “near miss” experiences in which she almost lost her life. Written as a collection of free-flowing essays, O’Farrell uses anatomical structure—like “Neck,” “Intestines,” “Cranium” and “Lungs”—to illuminate the part of her being which, at that time, was most in danger. The harrowing tales that comprise these chapters include a murder almost accomplished, a hemorrhage during childbirth, a near drowning, a miscarriage, and a reckless leap from a sea wall in adolescence.
Particularly moving and memorable—but perhaps most unsettling of all—is O’Farrell’s depiction of her daily struggle to shield her daughter (to whom the book is dedicated). As she writes about this middle child, who is born with an autoimmune system disorder, we witness the author as having matured beyond the girl who—consciously or unconsciously—found herself drawn to danger. As a mother now, she carries the weight of responsibility for keeping her children safe. “Holding my child,” she writes in one of her essays, “I realized my vulnerability to death; I was frightened of it, for the first time. I knew too well how fine a membrane separates us from that place, and how easily it can be perforated.”
While each piece reflects a “close call” that is the author’s alone, all are linked by a common thread with which everyone can identify: every story is underscored with the knowledge that such incidents can materialize in all our lives without warning. Despite her serious tone, O’Farrell’s memoir is not one submersed in terror. Rather, it is a deeply affecting read that advocates for choosing resilience over fear, and as such is evocative and affecting. Maggie O’Farrell shows us what it means to be fully—and vulnerably—alive.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE
LONGLISTED FOR THE ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION
A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE SUNDAY TIMES, THE TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH, i PAPER, NEW STATESMAN, SPECTATOR AND THE SUNDAY EXPRESS
Kate Summerscale is an acclaimed author of historical non-fiction, but I was drawn to this, her most recent book, because I’m a sucker for a good ghost story. As a psychologist, I became even more intrigued when I learned that Sigmund Freud makes a cameo.
Framed in the context of Britain’s pre-war anxiety around the time of what will eventually become World War II, the author revisits the strange-but-true events surrounding an unassuming “housewife,” one who has come to the attention of a pioneer in the study of psychic research. Amazon summarizes the book this way:
“Set in the unsettling world of the spiritualism-obsessed late 1930’s, it is the story of Alma Fielding, a south London woman who claimed to be attacked by her own flying furniture. Was she deluded? A fraud? Or was there really a poltergeist at work?” —The Sunday Times, Best History Books of the Year 2020
Summerscale draws heavily on the personal notes and illustrations of Nandor Fodor—an investigative researcher at the International Institute for Psychical Research in London—to detail his four-month study of Fielding. Mediums, seances, x-ray machines, female “bodyguards” and hypnosis all play some role in Fodor’s search for evidence that Alma is haunted by a poltergeist. Influenced as he is by Freud’s psychoanalytic studies on hysteria, however, (those which were so prominent at the time). Fodor more fervently hopes to find proof of his theory that “repressed traumatic experiences could generate terrifying physical events,” a point of view illuminated by Fielding’s story. Through probing interviews with his subject, he seeks to discover the memory—or memories—that Alma is supposedly suppressing. What follows is the story of an uneasy alliance between a fraught subject and her ambitious interrogator.
Arguably, more captivating than the ghost tale itself is Summerscale’s ability to resurrect an inconsequential story and place it within the historical context of the social, psychological and political forces that dominated society during this pivotal and frightening time. The result is a finely-woven narrative that educates as it entertains.
Published in 2019, Margaret Renkl’s Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss, makes for a great back porch or lawn hammock companion. As she so consistently does in the columns she writes for The New York Times, Renkl offers astute observations in this slim volume of personal essays about the cycle of life both in nature and in families. Goodreads says:
[It’s] breathtaking. Exquisitely rendered prose. An ode to the past, to beauty, to love, to loss, to elders, to motherhood, to family, to home, and most specifically to the natural world. There are fleeting echoes of Annie Dillard, Mary Oliver, Julie Zickefoose but the voice is uniquely Ms. Renkl's—wise, honest, poignant, and carefully observed. Reading this book feels like going home. Your heart will ache and burst with joy all at once.
Renkl’s Late Migrations prompts the reader to slow down and take notice; to reflect on the ties that draw us together. Another reviewer aptly notes:
For readers lucky enough to associate summer with family vacations, where cousins, parents and grandparents might all squeeze together into campers or cabins, Renkl summons up memories of familial closeness tinged with an acute adult awareness of how fleeting everything is.
This is a book that had me for more thirsting for more.
As my index finger hovers above the button that will send this missive to you, I become suddenly distracted: my mind is already mulling another book-sharing binge. What about mentioning… my internal voice begins. And then I bring it under control. Forget it! I exclaim, knowing exactly where I am going: to another riff on the other wonderful books I’ve soaked up in the last year. So, I take a breath and celebrate the summer reads I will soon consume with greed. Grateful to have an addiction that brings only joy—never harm—I reach for the lemonade that sits at my side and raise my glass high.
Happy Reading!
Best,
