www.annemoore.net

 

 

 

 

 

Reading: comfort and wisdom

Here’s what I’ve been reading and liking lately.

shoppingEvicted is a thick work of nonfiction by sociologist Matthew Desmond, about tenants and landlords in a poor part of Milwaukee. The book is richly told, detailed, Dickensian. I liked the telling more than the tale, which is depressing, heartbreaking, hopeless. Women and children, the disabled, the underemployed, the drug addicted losing their homes. Housing as a human right? I’m sold.

imagesOn to a big read, The Nix, by Nathan Hill, which tells the story of a young man who must reunite with the mother who abandoned him as a child, who has resurfaced as a political terrorist. This read is a wild ride that spans continents and decades, mostly set in and around contemporary Chicago. It’s a coming of age story, a love story, a satire, a terrifying on-the-ground retelling of the 1968 Chicago riots. 620 pages, so much to like.

images-1In my post-election funk, I needed comedy. Francine Prose’s Mister Monkey was my salve. From a musical that never goes out of style — Mister Monkey — we enter the lives of actors, the director, the author, a man and his grandson in the audience. What a delightful web! Each of their stories entrances; I especially loved the grandfather in the mix with today’s fussy parents and the school teacher on a first date from hell. Sweet, funny, surprising. A rollicking read.

Also in the blog

When I describe our place in Quebec, few people can fathom our unplugged life. No television, telephone, cell calls or texts, no computers, newspapers or mail service, no stores nearby, no need to get in a car. Yes, we have a roof, beds, bathrooms, running water, comfy couches, electricity. We’re not camping. Indeed, certain services

(...)

In the Ottawa airport bookstore, after a few weeks in the woods, I picked up the paperback of Michael Ondaatje’s “The English Patient.” At the time I knew nothing of the writer. Too, I was traveling with my two small boys. An hour into the flight I looked up, so taken by the story and

(...)

Can a book beat you up? I’ll carry the psychic bruises from John Updike’s “Rabbit, Redux” for a long, long time. I’m not complaining! I’d rather go for a wild ride than slog through some of the fiction I waded into this summer. I brought a stack to my favorite reading spot, a dock beside

(...)