Look at me, almost catching up to the present moment. I feel the whirl of summer in my viscera and bones. July is always a hard month for me with its too muchness and August hasn’t calmed down much.
Poetry: Too Many Hats by Jess Morgan, a collection about being ADHD and neurodivergent and on one’s own in the world, trying to build a community out of jobs and friends and partners when family has failed. Funny, sad, and sweet, I saw Morgan read at an event last fall at Drury Lane Books in Grand Marais, and their book was a joy. I marked out a passage to read to my spouse, and I know exactly which friend I’m going to pass this on to.
Northanger Abbey by Austen, with my book store book group. I was looking forward to rereading this, but found it rather a slog, though it has some wonderful lines, and the delicious irony of the end, where the monster Catherine has been imagining is not unreal, but simply different from the monster that exists. It’s full of so many lying horrible vapid people. For a short book, it was a very slow read. Possibly a mismatch between book and time of year.
The Vet’s Daughter by Barbary Comyns. My friend Becca, one of the early readers of the original Girl Detective blog, tried to get me into Comyns long ago, and it didn’t connect. But with #NYRBWomen2024, I read first Our Spoons Came from Woolworths, and now The Vet’s Daughter, and holy wow, I must seek out all her books. The book is delicate and strange and achingly sad but in a beautiful way that absolutely justifies its every choice.
Knife by Salman Rushdie. Recommended by a dear friend, who said it helped her in the wake of the October 7 events last year. There are many good things about this, most of all that Rushdie survived his attack, mainly because his assailant was so inept. That Rushdie survived and lived to write about the horror. The mystical things he experienced in the wake of the attack are fascinating, and the contrast with the body horror of the actual attack are powerful. He attempts to get into the head of his assailant,and this is where, mostly, the book failed me as an exercise in empathy. Rushdie is a brilliant scholar and writer, but empathy isn’t a strength. How do we manage a both/and when the rhetoric is so strenuously either/or? I don’t know, and it’s a constant question, and often feels futile. Still, I admire Rushdie’s attempt to write into that spot, even as the book never quite managed to be as insightful as I wished it to be.
The Creative Tarot by Jessa Crispin. Crispin’s site Blog of a Bookslut was formative to me in the early online years. I appreciate this book and its interpretation of tarot cards as they relate to artistic projects and processes. Her language and examples are sometimes too binary for me, but I appreciate the approach and especially the suggestions for related art with each card.
For my Sayers project I finished Five Red Herrings, easily my least favorite of the series, though it’s not without its charms. I also listened to a dramatization, useful to learn about Scottish pronunciation, but sometimes curiously abridged. I finished the month with Have His Carcase, one of my very favorites.
K.J. Boldon 