What I’ve read recently

Brief thoughts on what I’ve been reading lately…

Inside of a Dog, by Alexandra Horowitz. It’s a rare event when the New York Times reviews a dog book, but they did when Inside of a Dog came out in 2009. Horowitz studies and teaches animal cognition at Barnard College, Columbia University. This is a delightful and very well-written account of the various behavioral and anatomical things she’s learned about dogs. I loved it, of course, and would recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in dogs. I wrote a more complete review of the book here.

Memento Mori, by Muriel Spark. In an effort to prevent myself from buying any more books, I have been trying to read through all of the books on my shelves that I haven’t read yet. Memento Mori was one of them. I think I bought it at a library book sale for 25 cents and it’s been sitting on my shelves for years, untouched, unremembered. I was not very impressed with The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, despite all the hype around it, so I was hesitant to attempt another Muriel Spark novel. But I liked this a lot more than Jean Brodie. Memento Mori tells the story of a circle of elderly British friends and acquaintances who are haunted by an anonymous caller who tells them, “Remember you must die.” As the mystery unfolds, these witty, well-imagined senior citizens are forced to reexamine their lives and their buried scandals. Occasionally funny and touching, Memento Mori is not a great book, but it is a very good one.

A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan. Egan cast doubt on my theory about women writers by winning this year’s Pulitzer Prize for A Visit from the Goon Squad. I think many people were surprised that it beat out Freedom. Freedom, after all, just looks like a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel: It’s very thick, daunting, and a family epic in the model of a modern Tolstoy. A Visit from the Goon Squad is surprisingly slim and enjoyable. Who knew Pulitzers were so fun to read? With wit and delicacy, Egan channels thirteen interconnected characters over the course of a few decades. By the end of the novel, I was fully convinced that she deserves every ounce of praise she’s been receiving.

The Evolution of God, by Robert Wright. I am trying to learn more things and so I’ve decided that I need to read more nonfiction–particularly nonfiction that I might not necessarily agree with or know anything about. During my senior year at UNC, I was an intern at the University of North Carolina Press. One of the editors there asked me to work on a project in which I had to scour all of the top literary publications (the New Yorker, NYT, New York Review of Books, Harper’s, the Atlantic, etc.) for their lists of the best nonfiction books over the past 10 years. This sounds like a daunting task, but I loved it, because by the end, I had culled a highly recommended reading list. The Evolution of God was one of those books from that list. It was shortlisted for the Pulitzer when it came out in 2009 and there was a lot of hype surrounding it. Wright’s argument is that God, like humanity, has been evolving over time and essentially getting “better,” or more tolerant and humane. While I don’t necessarily buy his whole argument, he did make a lot of points that I think are really relevant to consider. Even though it’s clear that he’s not a fan of God in general, I appreciated his caveat at the end of the book, in which he discounts many frothing neo-atheists for jumping on the “anti-God” bandwagon. All in all, interesting. And very long. Wright is prone to generalize, but I guess when you’re talking about God, what else can you do?

Crossing to Safety, by Wallace Stegner. Lulu, one of Guion’s MFA colleagues, suggested that we read this book together and I’m so glad she did. We met last Thursday to discuss it at The Local. I had never read any Stegner before this but had always heard him mentioned with appreciation and fondness. Crossing to Safety is apparently regarded as one of his best novels and, interestingly, it was his last (published in 1987). In it, Stegner tells the semi-autobiographical story of the love between two academic couples in Madison, Wisconsin, and later, around the country. He accomplishes something with this novel that I have always wanted to accomplish myself: To write a truly great novel about “ordinary” people. It is a novel without your standard fare of infidelity, addiction, divorce, or melodrama–and yet it is a novel full of life. I loved it. I hope to read more Stegner soon.

A Summons to Memphis, by Peter Taylor. I’m reading this now for the next “Christ Church Classics” book club discussion. Taylor was a professor of literature here at UVA, and so his name is occasionally circulated in cultural conversations. I was looking forward to reading this book, because it makes an appearance on Francine Prose’s list, Books to Be Read Immediately, which I have been trying to complete for a few years now. I’m a big fan of Southern literature, but I haven’t been very impressed by A Summons to Memphis. As far as I can tell, it’s a nice, inoffensive story about one family’s mania for preventing each other’s marriages. Not especially interesting, which is somewhat surprising, considering that it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1968. I haven’t finished it yet, but from where I stand now, I don’t think I’d recommend it to anyone.

Right now, I’m reading Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides, and really enjoying it. I may talk about it later, once I’ve finished.

What are you reading? Anything you’d recommend?