June Books

I read a Henry Miller book this month. Afterwards to get the taste of Miller man-funk out of my system I made it a point to read more women. For July I plan on switching tracks again and reading only nonfiction. I realized how much I miss libraries. In the USA if I wanted to read a book about some topic I’d take it out from the library rather than buy it, but with no decent English language libraries nearby if I want to read a book about earthworms then I really, really, really better want to want read it, because I’ll be owning it. Now on to the books…

Bird by Bird – Anne Lamott

An enjoyable writing book that was thankfully light on the enthusiastic woo. Lamott does come across as a bit of a kook, but she’s a charming writer with an insightful eye for telling details. Yes, this book is geared towards realism rather than speculation, but all the same her advice and her reality checks are welcome. As is her personality – or at least the constructed personality that comes across in these pages. There’s something pleasant in reading a book by an author you know is a bundle of neurosis and prone to eating their own foot at time.s

Doll Bones – Holly Black

This book’s about three kids on the edge of adolescence going on an adventure at the behest of a ghost-possessed doll. It’s middle-grade horror with a straight-up quest in the middle of it. As someone well far beyond the target range of the book, it did take some intention on my part to give a damn, but overall an enjoyable read. The depictions of old American milltowns, in this case those in Pennsylvania and Ohio, rang true.

Lud-in-the-Mist – Hope Mirrlees

A “classic” fantasy novel from the 1920s the reads a bit like Tolkien’s Shire mashed up with David Lynch’s Twin Peaks. The town of Lud-in-the-Mist once had regular communication with the Silent Folk (the fairies) beyond the western hills, but that was long ago in the bad old days of Duke Aubery. His days ended in revolution and the current people of Lud have banned all commerce with the fairy folk, yet the strange narcotic fairy fruit arrives in the town just the same. When the fruit wreaks havoc in the household of Mayor Nathaniel Chanticleer the good man decides to track it to its source, including a trek west to the land from which no one has ever returned. This book’s by turns twee and sinister, and sometimes in the span of the same sentence let alone paragraph. If you like Dunsany’s Elfland’s Daughter or Charwoman’s Shadow you should enjoy this.

A Tale of the Time Being – Ruth Ozeki

A woman finds a diary floating in the ocean. The diary belongs to a Japanese girl named Nao who’s the victim of intense bullying. She plans on killing herself, but needs to tell the story of her great-grandmother, a Buddhist nun, before she does it. Later the universe collapses into fragments and multiple realities, and people go on dream quests to solve all their problems. I enjoyed the ride despite the lack of closure, which might very well have been the point.

The Time of the Assassins – Henry Miller

This book’s a long meditation/rant by Miller on the life and works of Arthur Rimbaud. It’s short. It’s dense. It’s ranty. It’s a Henry Miller book. And that’s good, as long as you can overlook the fact that he writes with his dink on the table.

White Is For Witching – Helen Oyeyemi

There’s this part near the end of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House where the haunted house begins to possess Eleanor and alter her perceptions of reality. This book is like that chapter all the time. Miranda Silver is a young woman with an eating disorder living with her brother and father in a house haunted by four generations of women, and they have chosen Miranda to join them. This was a surprising book, and thinking about it now I feel as if there was a whole layer of commentary present in it regarding Britain’s history of ethnic persecution that I barely grasped. Not that you have to, really, as the book does hold up as a stylish haunted house story.