July has been a good break month. My kids have gone to several fun camps, we’ve celebrated some holidays and family gatherings, and I’ve taken time to rest and recharge (and read lots of nonfiction, apparently, as you’ll see from my reviews below). Near the end of July, we took off on the big trip of the summer which I like to call the Church History Mega Road Trip. We drove from Utah to New York and back, over 5000 miles in total. It was my first time visiting Palmyra and Kirtland, and my kids’ first time at any of the sights. We’re back now and were thrown straight into back-to-school prep, so I’m glad I got in some restful days early.
As for writing, I did finish one short piece of creative nonfiction that I sent in to Exponent II for their fall issue. I also sent in a couple of class proposals to some local writing conferences. In general, I’ve been less productive than I wish I had been, but I’m trying to accept that I have the opposite cycle from many writers: where most people have less work in the summer, as a mom I actually have more work in the summer than during the school year. It’s always difficult to be happy in the season that you’re in, but I’m trying.
Speculative Fiction
Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson – Sanderson hits this one out of the park for me. I love the Asian-inspired world and guessed one of the anime inspirations for the plot before I got to the afterward, though of course Sanderson takes it on an unexpected twist. The romance in this book is perfect for someone like me who loves a meeting-of-the-minds relationship but hates the typical romance tropes. The art in the book really captured the style of the story beautifully–are you sure you don’t want an anime Cosmere adaptation, Brandon? Maybe this book could be the equivalent of Star Trek: Lower Decks, the animated series among the live action?
Yumi’s story has some interesting religious angles which resolve really well at the 2/3 mark and then get undermined a bit by the Sanderlanche that twists the meaning of the resolution significantly. I won’t go into further detail for spoiler reasons, but if you’ve read the book and want to discuss Yumi’s faith transition, hit me up! I wish her story had been more mirrored, or perhaps inverted, in Painter’s side of the narrative, but his plot hits completely different notes. Still, this story is bound to be an interesting addition to the discussion of religion in Sanderson’s work.
Veins of Gold by Charlie N. Holmberg – Again I am compelled to read a fantasy romance even though they are not my favorite. Why? Because this one is set in Utah! However, the Mormon characters are largely on the margins. A polygamous wife cares for the illegitimate brother of the female protagonist, and they go to visit her house a couple of times. Her husband also provides some plot-moving opportunities but little direct influence on the narrative. I find it interesting that Charlie N. Holmberg chose to make the central family and the love interest all non-Mormons, in spite of being LDS herself. However, the book also chooses to draw directly on the LDS folk story of the crickets and the seagulls as the inspiration for the magic system, though in giving a non-miraculous explanation to the phenomenon, it also places itself outside the tradition. I find the whole concept of the book puzzling.
The Witch of Woodland by Laurel Snyder – A fun excursion into middle grade Jewish fantasy! I loved the main character–I loved that the author let her stay immature and young rather than forcing her to grow up. A good balance of explaining Jewish culture and terms for outsiders (with lots of personal voice to make it fun) while also letting us in on the experience of being part of the culture. I liked how the magic interacted with the Jewish tradition–a great example of how to mix real-world beliefs and fantasy. The resolution is bittersweet but satisfying. A few little content issues make me not want to pass it on to my kids, but nothing that would be a problem for adults.
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster – A road trip listen with the kids. A classic of speculative fiction humor of the punny Dad joke variety. I hadn’t read this one since 6th grade and it still holds up.
Nonfiction
East Winds by Rachel Rueckert – I’m actually not sure whether I read this in June or July, but somehow it slipped through my Goodreads radar, so I’m reviewing it now.
When she set out on a honeymoon that spans the globe, Rachel Rueckert gifted herself with the perfect set-up for an introspective memoir about the significance of marriage in various cultures, her own Latter-day Saint culture, and her own life. Her writing interleaves her current adventures as a newlywed trying to travel the globe from hostel to hostel in countries where she doesn’t speak the language, stories from her childhood struggling with an unstable mother and her parents’ eventual divorce, and more general sociological thoughts about the significance of marriage and gender roles and stories.
If that sounds like a lot for one book, it certainly can be at times. Rachel’s book is packed from wall to wall with significant ideas and stories both humorous and painful. Sometimes it took me a while as a reader to get the information that made previous stories made sense; I found myself arguing with the author’s opinions only to have a key experience revealed 50 pages later that made all the difference to my empathy. I don’t think it is a flaw, necessarily, just a recognition that everyone’s story has to start somewhere yet can’t make sense without all the pieces you don’t yet know. In that way, the form of the book echoes its themes about how marriage puts together two individuals who can never fully know each other or be fully compatible, about how this type of partnership works best when we are forgiving even when we can’t understand our differences, because it’s hard enough to understand ourselves.
I expected this book to be a little more universal in its themes, but it ended up being a very personal journey. I feel like I understand better where Rachel (and others who share similar growing up experiences with marriage and trust) are coming from when they question LDS norms about marriage, even though this book doesn’t reflect my own experiences (either growing up or in the past). Perhaps the best thing I can say about this book is that it makes the case for not treating “Mormon marriage” as a thing, because there is no Mormon marriage, but ultimately many, many Mormon marriages, all composed of unique individuals with their own experiences, even when they share some aspects of culture and context.
A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction by Terry Pratchett – Not so much an intentional collection of writings as an assemblage of miscellaneous pieces written for specific occasions over the years, often for fan convention programs or newspapers. Pratchett came through with some laugh-out-loud moments, as was to be expected, but also some keen insight in to the nature of two often looked-down-upon genres: humor and speculative fiction. I especially loved his continuation of Tolkien’s idea of spec fic as escape: “Escape as both escape-from something and escape-to something.” Both sides of this equation are important to consider when thinking about a nominally escapist genre.
Also wonderful to get some insight into the working habits of another of the consistent producers of fantasy books. He both dreads/avoids writing and finds a way to consistently make progress, something I could certainly learn from. One downside to the occasional nature of the pieces in this collection is that the same joke or story will appear in two or more chapters, slightly expanded or contracted. Overall, a worthwhile light read.
Poetic Diction: A Study in Meaning by Owen Barfield – Declaring bankruptcy on this one after struggling to gain interest for several months. Read about 1/3 of the book. Part of the problem was the atrocious formatting of the ebook, which seemed to be directly converted from an OCR scan complete with original pages and occasional jumbled words. I probably should have just purchased the hard copy.
But maybe not, as Barfield’s argument for the relationship between the sounds of the words and their meanings and how they changed over time seemed needlessly obscure and convoluted to me. And probably outdated as well, seeing as they were based on the early 1900s concepts of linguistics. I will certainly pick up more Barfield fiction in the future, but I don’t think his literary criticism is for me.
The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery by Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile – I first learned about the enneagram a few years ago from Anne Bogel’s podcast What Should I Read Next, but when I looked into it, it seemed so complicated that I gave up trying to understand it. I’ve always been a backer of the Myers-Briggs (INTJ here!) and Big Five personality systems and figured I was good. Well, my book club picked this read and now I understand the enneagram so much better. Is it going to change the way I think about myself? Not a ton; I don’t put too much faith into any one personality system, and I felt like the description of my number was not quite right for me. But maybe I just haven’t gotten my number quite right yet. The other two numbers I felt drawn to were ones that online tests didn’t put me anywhere near, though, so make of that what you will.
The one thing that really set this book apart from other personality systems is that it admits up front that it is not a scientific system, that it cannot and has not been proved by science. The Myers-Briggs people can get really obnoxiously obsessed with their system and seem to sometimes forget that it’s a theoretical framework and not the gospel truth. The Big Five system is actually based in science and is (ironically) much more moderate about its claims to truth. But the enneagram (or at least this book’s delivery of it) seems to be overt about the fact that it’s just a framework that could hopefully be useful in helping you grow.
And that’s the other great thing: this system focuses on how explaining why you are the way you are but on how you can overcome your flaws and be a better person. Instead of giving you an excuse for your behavior, the author focuses on teaching you to understand yourself and make fundamental changes in the way you interact with the world. It’s an excellent subversion, and I’m here for it.
How to Become a Straight-A Student by Cal Newport – I rocketed through this one looking for tools to help my teenager who is newly-diagnosed with ADHD. I came away with some solidified version of things I had only intuited before. In particular, I love Cal’s outline of how to write a paper, which crystallizes a repeatable formula for academic output. It’s a bit simplistic because it’s written for college undergraduates, but I feel like the formula will be something I can adapt as I start ramping up my academic output for graduate school. It’s a quick read with a practical approach to studying efficiently based on actual experience rather than theoretical ideas. Highly recommended to students at all levels.
Dinner with the President: Food, Politics, and a History of Breaking Bread at the White House by Alex Prud’Homme – This was a spontaneous library grab but ended up fitting well with my tradition of reading a book about an American president in July, which I didn’t have anything planned for this year. The concept here is genius–exploring history through the food served at the White House–and the author is the perfect person to write it. He’s Julia Child’s grandnephew and helped write her autobiography.
I didn’t finish the entire book but if it hadn’t been due at the library, I totally would have. Lots of fascinating small stories I didn’t know, like FDR’s wife punishing him for his affairs by insisting on keeping her terrible cook to insult his foodie tastes. I had no idea that Eisenhower was a great chef who had been cooking since he was kid. I’ve pulled a couple of cool ideas from the book for future short story inspiration. Highly recommended if you’re interested in history but are tired of biographies and war stories.
