Stuff I've Been Reading November 2021

Books Read November 2021 (Native Heritage Month)

Let me start with a brief note about reading and productivity. I read fewer books in November than in previous months. For a minute, I felt bad about that. But then I realized that this is a hobby. And as I thought further, I realized that I am a person who believes strongly in the importance of contemplation -- that life is not just about doing but also about simply being and reflecting. No one facing death wishes he or she had spent more time at work and less time with family and friends. Or, as I once saw in a carton in the New Yorker: A cat lies on his deathbed taking his final breaths, surrounded by family. His final words, "I wish I had taken more naps!"

 

For those interested in contemplation, I would suggest starting with the life and writings of Thomas Merton (above).  A good book to start looking at Merton's ideas about contemplation is the, appropriately titled, New Seeds of Contemplation. However, Merton, like other writers in the mystic tradition, can be challenging. Here is how he starts his book:

Contemplation is a more profound depth of faith, a knowledge too deep to be grasped by images, in words or even in clear concepts. It can be suggested by words, by symbols but in the very moment of trying to indicate what it knows the contemplative mind takes back what it has said, and denies what it has affirmed. For in contemplation we know by "unknowning." Or, better we know beyond all knowing or "unknowing."

Let us now move on to what I read and what I thought about what I read.

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones. (library hardcover and audible audiobook). 416 pgs. 416 running pgs. 7 November.

This novel manages to be both a teen slasher/thriller and a meditation on the genre of teen slashers/thrillers at the same time. Plus the author foregrounds the native American experience throughout the narrative. Stephen Graham Jones is a talented author worth reading. For a book about violence, it is, surprisingly, humorous.

Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch by Rivka Galchen. (kindle and overdrive audiobook). 288 pgs. 704 running pgs. 14 November. 

A novel about a witch hunt, not in Salem Massachusetts, but in 17th century Germany. The book presents as serious, but is, at least in my opinion, fun. 

Not about the book, but about something else Galchen wrote. She has a great essay she published earlier this year in the New Yorker about her neighborhood in Manhattan. The title of the essay is Living in New York’s Unloved Neighborhood. The short blurb says, "A nameless section of Manhattan resembles the nineteen-seventies city that’s been romanticized in the movies. But do we really want to live in “Taxi Driver”? One of my favorite essays of the many great essays in the New Yorker this year.

 

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich. (kindle and overdrive audiobook). 416 pgs. 1120 running pgs. 19 November.

There is a reason why Erdrich's name keeps coming up as a possible Nobel prize winner. She is that good. This book, to quote Whitman, contains multitudes: the Native experience, incarceration and re-entry, the pandemic, George Floyd, running an independent bookstore, the covid pandemic. And, yet, Erdrich, in The Sentence, manages to bring up all these huge issues without seeming heavy-handed; other books that aim to do so much are hundreds of pages longer than Erdrich's book. My favorite of the month.

Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline. (kindle and overdrive audiobook). 288 pgs. 1408 running pgs. 24 November.

A supernatural thriller that is, sort of, a native werewolf novel. A thriller with some elements of experimental literature.  I liked this book, but it might not be for everyone.

 

Books Purchased November 2021

Zuckerman Bound by Philip Roth. (hardcover). from amazon. 1 November.

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones. (kindle). 4 November.

Bittman Bread: No-knead whole grain baking for everyday by Mark Bittman and Kerri Conan. (hardcover). From amazon. 16 November.

Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline. (kindle). 20 November.

The Dream Songs by John Berryman. (used hardcover). From amazon. 26 November.