I used to think the perfect year would jump from spring to fall, but lately I am truly starting to appreciate summer. Maybe it's because this one has been relatively cool and much rainier than usual. Anyway, summer is winding down, and it's time for a reading roundup before pumpkin spice hits the shelves and frost hits the tomatoes.
True Grit, by Charles Portis - an absolutely fabulous 5-star read. I loved Mattie Ross, Rooster Cogburn, and LeBoeuf, and I loved the setting (the Old West circa 1870). I especially loved the writing--Mattie is the first-person narrator, and her voice is crisp and authentic with a dry wit. I listened to the audio version, as read by Donna Tartt, who also provided the afterword for the novel. Tartt raves eloquently about her entire family's multi-generational love for this novel, and she also wrote an excellent piece for the New York Times after Portis's death in 2020. I am sorry I didn't read this book as a teenager because I definitely feel I would have had a lifelong love for it, as does Tartt. Even if you're not sure you would like a Western, it's a short book and well worth a try. I actually think it should be on school reading lists.
I've never seen the John Wayne movie and didn't really want to. However, I did just watch the 2010 movie with Jeff Bridges as Rooster, Matt Damon as LeBoeuf, and Hattie Steinfeld as Mattie. I thought it was fabulous. Very true to the book, snakes and all! I've just put a couple of other books by Portis on my GoodReads TBR list.
The Survivors, by Jane Harper - this Australian author is definitely becoming a favorite of mine. I like everything she writes. This standalone mystery is set in Tasmania, in a stiflingly small seaside village where most people are carrying a load of secrets under a weight of guilt. The perfect setting for a good then-and-now set of mysteries. I loved reading about the deadly caves--spooky and intriguing. Good, interesting characters, and, as always, well-written.
Station Eleven, by Emily St John Mandel - I never read sci-fi (except the occasional time travel yarn) and I loathe post-apocalyptic distopian stories, but my daughter said Station Eleven was really good and had lots of Shakespeare in it. She reads books that I recommend, so I thought I should do the same. It was really good--and it did have some Shakespeare in it. The post-apocalyptic cast of characters is a troupe of actors who put on Shakespeare's plays and travel with classical musicians who put on concerts in the upper Midwest after a virus destroys civilization and the survivors are attempting to survive. The novel was published in 2014, and anyone who read it before Covid hit was probably even more scared than the rest of us when Covid was in its earliest, scariest phase. I really enjoyed the jumping around in time (we get to know the characters before their world changed), and I especially enjoyed reading about how people viewed the lost world. I really had to swallow a lot to accept the idea that no one who survived could figure out how to turn the lights back on, but the author did a believable job in creating a fictional world I wanted to read about. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but I am glad I gave it a shot.
There's a mini-series that my daughter says is very good, and so I will be watching that sometime this Fall if I ever finish watching Castle.
The Last Runaway, by Tracy Chevalier - this was a reread of one of my favorite novels by one of my favorite contemporary authors. Set in 1850, it is the story of a young woman who immigrates to the US and makes her way in the new world, becoming a link in the underground railroad and quilting her way into a place for herself. Rereading this book has inspired me to find a place in my office to set up my sewing machine so that I can finish the quilt I started a few years ago so that I can start on my own underground railroad sampler quilt. Here a link to my original review, complete with references to Austen's Mansfield Park and Gaskell's North and South and the Thornton family, particularly the ladies. I'm happy to say that I saw the parallels on the second reading as well.
Happy Dog Days of Summer!
