Book Serendipity, September through Mid-November
I call it “Book Serendipity” when two or more books that I read at the same time or in quick succession have something in common – the more bizarre, the better. This is a regular feature of mine every couple of months. Because I usually have 20–30 books on the go at once, I suppose I’m more prone to such incidents. People frequently ask how I remember all of these coincidences. The answer is: I jot them down on scraps of paper or input them immediately into a file on my PC desktop; otherwise, they would flit away.
Thanks to Emma and Kay for posting their own Book Serendipity moments! (Liz is always good about mentioning them as she goes along, in the text of her reviews.)
The following are in roughly chronological order.
- An obsession with Judy Garland in My Judy Garland Life by Susie Boyt (no surprise there), which I read back in January, and then again in Beard: A Memoir of a Marriage by Kelly Foster Lundquist.
- Leaving a suicide note hinting at drowning oneself before disappearing in World War II Berlin; and pretending to be Jewish to gain better treatment in Aimée and Jaguar by Erica Fischer and The Lilac People by Milo Todd.
- Leaving one’s clothes on a bank to suggest drowning in The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, read over the summer, and then Benbecula by Graeme Macrae Burnet.
- A man expecting his wife to ‘save’ him in Amanda by H.S. Cross and Beard: A Memoir of a Marriage by Kelly Foster Lundquist.
A man tells his story of being bullied as a child in Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood and Beard by Kelly Foster Lundquist.
- References to Vincent Minnelli and Walt Whitman in a story from Touchy Subjects by Emma Donoghue and Beard by Kelly Foster Lundquist.
- The prospect of having one’s grandparents’ dining table in a tiny city apartment in Beard by Kelly Foster Lundquist and Wreck by Catherine Newman.
- Ezra Pound’s dodgy ideology was an element in The Dime Museum by Joyce Hinnefeld, which I reviewed over the summer, and recurs in Swann by Carol Shields.
- A character has heart palpitations in Andrew Miller’s story from The BBC National Short Story Award 2025 anthology and Endling by Maria Reva.
- A (semi-)nude man sees a worker outside the window and closes the curtains in one story of Cathedral by Raymond Carver and one from Good and Evil and Other Stories by Samanta Schweblin.
- The call of the cuckoo is mentioned in The Edge of Silence by Neil Ansell and Of All that Ends by Günter Grass.
A couple in Italy who have a Fiat in Of All that Ends by Günter Grass and Caoilinn Hughes’s story from The BBC National Short Story Award 2025 anthology.
- Balzac’s excessive coffee consumption was mentioned in Au Revoir, Tristesse by Viv Groskop, one of my 20 Books of Summer, and then again in The Writer’s Table by Valerie Stivers.
- The main character is rescued from her suicide plan by a madcap idea in The Wedding People by Alison Espach and Endling by Maria Reva.
- The protagonist is taking methotrexate in Sea, Poison by Caren Beilin and Wreck by Catherine Newman.
- A man wears a top hat in Benbecula by Graeme Macrae Burnet and one story of Cathedral by Raymond Carver.
- A man named Angus is the murderer in Benbecula by Graeme Macrae Burnet and Swann by Carol Shields.
The thing most noticed about a woman is a hair on her chin in the story “Pluck” in Touchy Subjects by Emma Donoghue and Swann by Carol Shields.
- The female main character makes a point of saying she doesn’t wear a bra in Sea, Poison by Caren Beilin and Find Him! by Elaine Kraf.
- A home hairdressing business in one story of Cathedral by Raymond Carver and Emil & the Detectives by Erich Kästner.
- Painting a bathroom fixture red: a bathtub in The Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith, one of my 20 Books of Summer; and a toilet in Find Him! by Elaine Kraf.
- A teenager who loses a leg in a road accident in individual stories from A Wild Swan by Michael Cunningham and the Racket anthology (ed. Lisa Moore).
- Digging up the casket of a loved one in the wee hours features in Pet Sematary by Stephen King, one of my 20 Books of Summer; and one story of Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link.
- A character named Dani in the story “The St. Alwynn Girls at Sea” by Sheila Heti and The Silver Book by Olivia Laing; later, author Dani Netherclift (Vessel).
Obsessive cultivation of potatoes in Benbecula by Graeme Macrae Burnet and The Martian by Andy Weir.
- The story of Dante Gabriel Rossetti digging up the poems he buried with his love is recounted in Sharon Bala’s story in the Racket anthology (ed. Lisa Moore) and one of the stories in Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link.
- Putting French word labels on objects in Alone in the Classroom by Elizabeth Hay and Find Him! by Elaine Kraf.
A man with part of his finger missing in Find Him! by Elaine Kraf and Lessons from My Teachers by Sarah Ruhl.
- In Minor Black Figures by Brandon Taylor, I came across a mention of the Italian film director Pier Paolo Pasolini, who is a character in The Silver Book by Olivia Laing.
- A character who works in an Ohio hardware store in Flashlight by Susan Choi and Buckeye by Patrick Ryan (two one-word-titled doorstoppers I skimmed from the library). There’s also a family-owned hardware store in Alone in the Classroom by Elizabeth Hay.
- A drowned father – I feel like drownings in general happen much more often in fiction than they do in real life – in The Homecoming by Zoë Apostolides, Flashlight by Susan Choi, and Vessel by Dani Netherclift (as well as multiple drownings in The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, one of my 20 Books of Summer).
- A memoir by a British man who’s hard of hearing but has resisted wearing hearing aids in the past: first The Quiet Ear by Raymond Antrobus over the summer, then The Edge of Silence by Neil Ansell.
A loved one is given a six-month cancer prognosis but lives another (nearly) two years in All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilbert and Lessons from My Teachers by Sarah Ruhl.
- A man’s brain tumour is diagnosed by accident while he’s in hospital after an unrelated accident in Flashlight by Susan Choi and Saltwash by Andrew Michael Hurley.
- Famous lost poems in What We Can Know by Ian McEwan and Swann by Carol Shields.
- A description of the anatomy of the ear and how sound vibrates against tiny bones in The Edge of Silence by Neil Ansell and What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfisher.
- Notes on how to make decadent mashed potatoes in Beard by Kelly Foster Lundquist, Death of an Ordinary Man by Sarah Perry, and Lessons from My Teachers by Sarah Ruhl.
- Transplant surgery on a dog in Russia and trepanning appear in The Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov and the poetry collection Common Disaster by M. Cynthia Cheung.
- Audre Lorde, whose Sister Outsider I was reading at the time, is mentioned in Lessons from My Teachers by Sarah Ruhl. Lorde’s line about the master’s tools never dismantling the master’s house is also paraphrased in Spent by Alison Bechdel.
- An adult appears as if fully formed in a man’s apartment but needs to be taught everything, including language and toilet training, in The Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov and Find Him! by Elaine Kraf.
Two sisters who each wrote a memoir about their upbringing in Spent by Alison Bechdel and Vessel by Dani Netherclift.
- The fact that ragwort is bad for horses if it gets mixed up into their feed was mentioned in Ghosts of the Farm by Nicola Chester and Understorey by Anna Chapman Parker.
- The Sylvia Plath line “the O-gape of complete despair” was mentioned in Vessel by Dani Netherclift, then I read it in its original place in Ariel later the same day.
- A mention of the Baba Yaga folk tale (an old woman who lives in the forest in a hut on chicken legs) in Common Disaster by M. Cynthia Cheung and Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda. [There was a copy of Sophie Anderson’s children’s book The House with Chicken Legs in the Little Free Library around that time, too.]
- Coming across a bird that seems to have simply dropped dead in Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito, Vessel by Dani Netherclift, and Rainforest by Michelle Paver.
- Contemplating a mound of hair in Vessel by Dani Netherclift (at Auschwitz) and Year of the Water Horse by Janice Page (at a hairdresser’s).
- Family members are warned that they should not see the body of their loved one in Vessel by Dani Netherclift and Rainforest by Michelle Paver.
- A father(-in-law)’s swift death from oesophageal cancer in Year of the Water Horse by Janice Page and Death of an Ordinary Man by Sarah Perry.
- I saw John Keats’s concept of negative capability discussed first in My Little Donkey by Martha Cooley and then in Understorey by Anna Chapman Parker.
- I started two books with an Anne Sexton epigraph on the same day: A Portable Shelter by Kirsty Logan and Slags by Emma Jane Unsworth.
- Mentions of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination in Q’s Legacy by Helene Hanff and Sister Outsider for Audre Lorde, both of which I was reading for Novellas in November.
- Mentions of specific incidents from Samuel Pepys’s diary in Q’s Legacy by Helene Hanff and Gin by Shonna Milliken Humphrey, both of which I was reading for Nonfiction November/Novellas in November.
- Starseed (aliens living on earth in human form) in Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino and The Conspiracists by Noelle Cook.
- Reading nonfiction by two long-time New Yorker writers at the same time: Life on a Little-Known Planet by Elizabeth Kolbert and Joyride by Susan Orlean.
- The breaking of a mirror seems like a bad omen in The Spare Room by Helen Garner and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.
The author’s husband (who has a name beginning with P) is having an affair with a lawyer in Catching Sight by Deni Elliott and Joyride by Susan Orlean.
- Mentions of Lewis Hyde’s book The Gift in Lessons from My Teachers by Sarah Ruhl and The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer; I promptly ordered the Hyde secondhand!
- The protagonist fears being/is accused of trying to steal someone else’s cat in Minka and Curdy by Antonia White and Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen by P.G. Wodehouse, both of which I was reading for Novellas in November.
What’s the weirdest reading coincidence you’ve had lately?
Short Story Catch-Up: Carver, Cunningham, Park, Polders, Racket, Schweblin, Williams (& Heti Stand-Alone)
I actually read 15 collections in total for Short Story September. I’m finally catching up on reviews, though I’m aware that I’ve missed out on Lisa’s link-up. (My other reviews: Heiny, Mackay, McEwan; the BBC National Short Story Award 2025 anthology; Donoghue, Grass, Isherwood, Mansfield as part of my Germany reading.) To keep it simple and get the basics across before I forget any more about these books, I’ll post some shorthand notes under headings.
Cathedral by Raymond Carver (1983)
Why I read it:
- I’d really enjoyed What We Talk about When We Talk about Love.
- This fits into my project to read books from my birth year.
Stats: 12 stories (6 x 1st-person, 6 x 3rd-person)
Themes: alcoholism, adultery, fatherhood, crap jobs, crumbling families
Tone: melancholy, laconic
File under: grit-lit
For fans of: John Cheever, Ernest Hemingway, Denis Johnson
Caveat(s): It doesn’t match What We Talk about When We Talk about Love.
If you read just one story, make it: “A Small, Good Thing”
(University library) 
A Wild Swan and Other Tales by Michael Cunningham (2015)
Why I read it:
- I have a vague plan to read through Cunningham’s whole oeuvre.
- This one is different to his others, and beautifully illustrated by Yuko Shimizu.
Stats: 11 stories (3 x 2nd-person, 8 x 3rd-person)
Themes: coming of age, longing, loss, bargaining
Tone: witty, knowing
File under: fairy tale updates
For fans of: Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman
Caveat(s): For the most part, he doesn’t do anything interesting with the story lines.
If you read just one story, make it: “Little Man” (the Rumpelstiltskin remake)
(Secondhand – Awesomebooks.com) 
An Oral History of Atlantis by Ed Park (2025)
Why I read it:
- I’d heard buzz, probably because Park was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his novel.
Stats: 16 stories (12 x 1st-person, 1 x 1st-person plural, 1 x 2nd-person, 2 x 3rd-person)
Themes: the Asian American and university experience, writing, translation, aphorisms
Tone: jokey, nostalgic
File under: dystopian fiction, metafiction
For fans of: George Saunders
Caveat(s): There’s more intellectual experimentation than emotional engagement.
If you read just one story, make it: “An Accurate Account”
(Read via NetGalley)
Woman of the Hour by Clare Polders (2025)
Why I read it:
- I always like to sneak at least one flash fiction collection in for this challenge.
Stats: 50 stories, a mixture of 1st- and 3rd-person
Themes: childhood, sexuality, motherhood, choices vs. fate
Tone: sharp, matter-of-fact
File under: feminist, satire
For fans of: Claire Fuller, Terese Svoboda
Caveat(s): There’s too many stories to keep track of and not enough stand-outs.
If you read just one story, make it: “Woman of the Hour”
(BookSirens)
Racket: New Writing Made in Newfoundland, ed. Lisa Moore (2015)
Why I read it:
- Naomi’s blog always whets my appetite for Atlantic Canadian fiction, but I’m rarely able to find it over here.
Stats: 11 stories, mostly by Memorial University creative writing graduates (7 x 1st-person, 1 x 2nd-person, 3 x 3rd-person)
Themes: mental health, bereavement, tragic accidents
Tone: jaunty, reflective
File under: voice-y early-2000s lit-fic
For fans of: Sharon Bala (her story is among the best here), Jonathan Safran Foer; hockey
Caveat(s): I wouldn’t say I’m now a fan of any of the writers I hadn’t heard of before.
If you read just one story, make it: “23 Things I Hate in No Particular Order” by Gary Newhook
(Little Free Library)
Good and Evil and Other Stories by Samanta Schweblin (2025)
[Translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell]
Why I read it:
- I thought it would be good to add in another title in translation.
- I’d read Schweblin before (but I wish I’d remembered that I rated Fever Dream 2*.)
Stats: 6 stories (5 x 1st-person, 1 x 3rd-person)
Themes: near-misses, grief, memory, suicidal ideation
Tone: introspective, jaded
File under: Latin American weirdness (some mild magic realism)
For fans of: Guadalupe Nettel (The Accidentals is very similar but a bit better)
Caveat(s): A couple of the stories are overlong and none of them are particularly memorable.
If you read just one story, make it: “William in the Window”
(Read via NetGalley) 
The Doctor Stories by William Carlos Williams, compiled by Robert Coles (1939)
Why I read it:
- I’m not sure how I came across it; perhaps through another doctor–author such as Gavin Francis or Atul Gawande?
Stats: 14 stories (plus a handful of poems and an autobiographical fragment), all 1st-person
Themes: addiction, childbirth, immigrants, poverty, the randomness of suffering
Tone: hardboiled, dedicated
File under: autofiction, dirty realism
For fans of: Raymond Carver, Gabriel Weston
Caveat(s): The descriptions of immigrants’ appearance/behaviour/speech is not always kind.
If you read just one story, make it: “Old Doc Rivers”
(University library) 
And a stand-alone story:
“The St. Alwynn Girls at Sea” by Sheila Heti (New Yorker, 2025)
To my knowledge, this is the only short fiction Heti has published. I’m generally a big fan of her bizarre autofiction – though Pure Colour was a step too far for me – and was fascinated to see on Eleanor’s blog that this is historical fiction, a genre Heti hasn’t attempted before. Or is it historical? The students of a girls’ boarding school have been sent out on a ship for their safety during a conflict. With news of a planned meet-up with a boys’ boat for a talent show and calls to knit socks for soldiers, it seems it must be the Second World War. But then there are references to headphones, Prince and Kurt Vonnegut. So it’s an alternative Cold War fantasy? Or a dystopian future scenario with retro elements? As in Motherhood, the characters appeal to an Oracle (here, a photograph of a departed girl called Audrey) when stymied by confusion. But the actual plot is just girls wanting men to love them – Dani obsesses about Sebastien, with whom she’s exchanging letters; Flora can’t stop thinking about her father’s infidelity – a common Heti theme, but the teenage perspective feels glib, indulgent; it’s YA without the heart or commitment. So I was somewhat aghast to learn this is from Heti’s novel in progress.
Book Serendipity, Mid-April to Mid-June
I call it “Book Serendipity” when two or more books that I read at the same time or in quick succession have something in common – the more bizarre, the better. This is a regular feature of mine every couple of months. Because I usually have 20–30 books on the go at once, I suppose I’m more prone to such incidents. People frequently ask how I remember all of these coincidences. The answer is: I jot them down on scraps of paper or input them immediately into a file on my PC desktop; otherwise, they would flit away!
The following are in roughly chronological order.
- Raising a wild animal but (mostly) calling it by its species rather than by a pet name (so “Pigeon” and “the leveret/hare”) in We Should All Be Birds by Brian Buckbee and Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton.
- Eating hash cookies in New York City in Women by Chloe Caldwell and How to Be Somebody Else by Miranda Pountney.
- A woman worries she’s left underclothes strewn about a room she’s about to show someone in one story of Single, Carefree, Mellow by Katherine Heiny and Days of Light by Megan Hunter.
The dialogue is italicized in Women by Chloe Caldwell and Days of Light by Megan Hunter.
- The ‘you know it when you see it’ definition (originally for pornography) is cited in Moderation by Elaine Castillo and Bookish by Lucy Mangan.
- Women (including the protagonist) weightlifting in a gym in Moderation by Elaine Castillo and All Fours by Miranda July.
- Miranda July, whose All Fours I was also reading at the time, was mentioned in Chinese Parents Don’t Say I Love You by Candice Chung.
- A sibling story and a mystical light: late last year into early 2025 I read The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham, and then I recognized this type of moment in Days of Light by Megan Hunter.
- A lesbian couple with a furniture store in Carol [The Price of Salt] by Patricia Highsmith and one story of Are You Happy? by Lori Ostlund.
- Not being able to see the stars in Las Vegas because of light pollution was mentioned in The Wild Dark by Craig Childs, then in Moderation by Elaine Castillo.
- A gynaecology appointment scene in All Fours by Miranda July and How to Be Somebody Else by Miranda Pountney.
- An awkwardly tall woman in Heartwood by Amity Gaige, How to Be Somebody Else by Miranda Pountney, and Stoner by John Williams.
- The 9/11 memorial lights’ disastrous effect on birds is mentioned in The Wild Dark by Craig Childs and How to Be Somebody Else by Miranda Pountney.
- A car accident precipitated by an encounter with wildlife is key to the denouement in the novellas Women by Chloe Caldwell and Wild Boar by Hannah Lutz.
- The plot is set in motion by the death of an older brother by drowning, and pork chops are served to an unexpected dinner guest, in Bug Hollow by Michelle Huneven and Days of Light by Megan Hunter, both of which I was reading for Shelf Awareness review.
- Kids running around basically feral in a 1970s summer, and driving a box of human ashes around in Case Histories by Kate Atkinson and Bug Hollow by Michelle Huneven.
- A character becomes a nun in Case Histories by Kate Atkinson and Days of Light by Megan Hunter.
- Wrens nesting just outside one’s front door in Lifelines by Julian Hoffman and Little Mercy by Robin Walter.
- ‘The female Woody Allen’ is the name given to a character in Women by Chloe Caldwell and then a description (in a blurb) of French author Nolwenn Le Blevennec.
- A children’s birthday party scene in Single, Carefree, Mellow by Katherine Heiny and Friends and Lovers by Nolwenn Le Blevennec. A children’s party is also mentioned in Case Histories by Kate Atkinson and A Family Matter by Claire Lynch.
- A man who changes his child’s nappies, unlike his father – evidence of different notions of masculinity in different generations, in Case Histories by Kate Atkinson, What My Father and I Don’t Talk About, edited by Michele Filgate, and one piece in Beyond Touch Sites, edited by Wendy McGrath.
- What’s in a name? Repeated names I came across included Pansy (Case Histories by Kate Atkinson and Days of Light by Megan Hunter), Olivia (Case Histories by Kate Atkinson and A Family Matter by Claire Lynch), Jackson (Case Histories by Kate Atkinson and So Far Gone by Jess Walter), and Elias (Good Girl by Aria Aber and Dream State by Eric Puchner).
- The old wives’ tale that you should run in zigzags to avoid an alligator appeared in Alligator Tears by Edgar Gomez and then in The Girls Who Grow Big by Leila Mottley, both initially set in Florida.
- A teenage girl is groped in a nightclub in Good Girl by Aria Aber and Girl, 1983 by Linn Ullmann.
- Discussion of the extinction of human and animal cultures and languages in both Nature’s Genius by David Farrier and Lifelines by Julian Hoffman, two May 2025 releases I was reading at the same time.
- In Body: My Life in Parts by Nina B. Lichtenstein, she mentions Linn Ullmann – who lived on her street in Oslo and went to the same school (not favourably – the latter ‘stole’ her best friend!); at the same time, I was reading Linn Ullmann’s Girl, 1983! And then, in both books, the narrator recalls getting a severe sunburn.
On the same day, I read about otter sightings in Lifelines by Julian Hoffman and Spring by Michael Morpurgo. The next day, I read about nesting swallows in both books.
- The Salish people (Indigenous to North America) are mentioned in Lifelines by Julian Hoffman, Dream State by Eric Puchner (where Salish, the town in Montana, is also a setting), and So Far Gone by Jess Walter.
- Driving into a compound of extremists, and then the car being driven away by someone who’s not the owner, in Dream State by Eric Puchner and So Far Gone by Jess Walter.
- A woman worries about her (neurodivergent) husband saying weird things at a party in The Honesty Box by Lucy Brazier and Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal by Robin Ince.
- Shooting raccoons in Ginseng Roots by Craig Thompson and So Far Gone by Jess Walter. (Raccoons also feature in Dream State by Eric Puchner.)
- A graphic novelist has Hollywood types adding (or at least threatening to add) wholly unsuitable supernatural elements to their plots in Spent by Alison Bechdel and Ginseng Roots by Craig Thompson.
- A novel in which a character named Dawn has to give up her daughter in the early 1980s, one right after the other: A Family Matter by Claire Lynch, followed by Love Forms by Claire Adam.
- A girl barricades her bedroom door for fear of her older brother in Love Forms by Claire Adam and Sleep by Honor Jones.
- A scene of an only child learning that her mother had a hysterectomy and so couldn’t have any more children in Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Other People’s Mothers by Julie Marie Wade.
- An African hotel cleaner features in Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and The Hotel by Daisy Johnson.
- Annie Dillard’s essay “Living Like Weasels” is mentioned in Nature’s Genius by David Farrier and The Dry Season by Melissa Febos.
- A woman assembles an inventory of her former lovers in Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and The Dry Season by Melissa Febos.
What’s the weirdest reading coincidence you’ve had lately?
Book Serendipity, Mid-December 2024 to Mid-February 2025
I call it “Book Serendipity” when two or more books that I read at the same time or in quick succession have something in common – the more bizarre, the better. This is a regular feature of mine every couple of months. Because I usually have 20–30 books on the go at once, I suppose I’m more prone to such incidents. People frequently ask how I remember all of these coincidences. The answer is: I jot them down on scraps of paper or input them immediately into a file on my PC desktop; otherwise, they would flit away!
The following are in roughly chronological order.
- The angel Ariel appears in Through a Glass Darkly by Jostein Gaarder and Constructing a Witch by Helen Ivory.
- The protagonist’s surname is English in Wild Houses by Colin Barrett and The Cannibal Owl by Aaron Gwyn.
- I read scenes of grief over a tree being cut down / falling next to one’s house in Dispersals by Jessica J. Lee and Small Rain by Garth Greenwell, one right after the other.
- A mother who does kundalini yoga in All Fours by Miranda July and Unattached by Reannon Muth.
- The idea that happiness (unlike anxiety and sorrow) leaves no trace in writing or in life appeared for me on the same day in Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks and Small Rain by Garth Greenwell.
- Someone considers suicide by falling but realizes that at the current height they would injure themself but not die in Wild Houses by Colin Barrett, The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham, and The Courage Consort by Michel Faber.
- The homosexual “bear” stereotype appears in The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham and Small Rain by Garth Greenwell.
- A William Blake epigraph in Open, Heaven by Seán Hewitt and one of the poems included in Poetry Unbound by Pádraig Ó Tuama.
- A group biography including nine pen portraits (plus the author): Nine Minds by Daniel Tammet, followed in quick succession by Uneven by Sam Mills. (Similar, but with just seven subjects, is a book I’m currently reading about women’s religious conversions, Godstruck by Kelsey Osgood.)
- A book–life serendipity moment: in All Fours by Miranda July there is mention of an elderly cat named Alfie who needs to be given medication several times a day. Snap!
- By chance, I started reading Myself and Other Animals, a posthumous collection of short autobiographical pieces by Gerald Durrell, on his centenary (7 January 2025).
- Guilt over destroying a bird’s nest in The Book of George by Kate Greathead and I’ll Come to You by Rebecca Kauffman.
- The main female character has a birthmark in The Book of George by Kate Greathead and The Blindfold by Siri Hustvedt.
- Reading two novels at the same time that open with a new family having to be found for a little boy because his mentally ill mother is presumed to have died by suicide: Unexpected Lessons in Love by Bernardine Bishop and Going Home by Tom Lamont.
The protagonist is mistaken for a two-year-old boy’s father in The Book of George by Kate Greathead and Going Home by Tom Lamont.
- The mother is named Ellen in The Book of George by Kate Greathead and I’ll Come to You by Rebecca Kauffman.
- An ailing elderly father named Vic in Going Home by Tom Lamont and The God of the Woods by Liz Moore.
- A mother is sent to a mental hospital after the loss of her young son in Invisible by Paul Auster and The God of the Woods by Liz Moore.
- A brother and sister share a New York City apartment in Invisible by Paul Auster and The Book of George by Kate Greathead.
- A mention of the Japanese artist Hokusai in While the Earth Holds Its Breath by Helen Moat and The Secret Life of Snow by Giles Whittell.
Adults dressing up for Halloween in The Blindfold by Siri Hustvedt and I’ll Come to You by Rebecca Kauffman.
- A second husband named Tim in Unexpected Lessons in Love by Bernardine Bishop and Because We Must by Tracy Youngblom.
- The idea that ‘queers find each other’ in Edge of the World: An Anthology of Queer Travel Writing edited by Alden Jones and My Autobiography of Carson McCullers by Jenn Shapland.
- Experiencing 9/11 as a freshman in college (just like me!) in Dirty Kitchen by Jill Damatac and The Book of George by Kate Greathead. (There is also a 9/11 section in Confessions by Catherine Airey.)
- An intense poker game in I’ll Come to You by Rebecca Kauffman and Going Home by Tom Lamont.
The main character is expelled on false drug possession charges in Invisible by Paul Auster and Alligator Tears by Edgar Gomez.
- Missing the chance to say goodbye before a father’s death, and a parent wondering aloud to their son whether they’ve been a good parent in The Book of George by Kate Greathead and The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.
- Someone departs suddenly, leaving her clothes and books behind, in Invisible by Paul Auster and My Autobiography of Carson McCullers by Jenn Shapland.
- Mentions of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama-era U.S. immigration policy) and “Two-Buck Chuck” (a nickname for the Charles Shaw bargain wine sold at Trader Joe’s) in Dirty Kitchen by Jill Damatac and Alligator Tears by Edgar Gomez.
- A City Hall wedding in New York City in Baumgartner by Paul Auster and Dirty Kitchen by Jill Damatac.
- Polish Jewish heritage and a parent who died of pancreatic cancer in Baumgartner by Paul Auster and The History of Love by Nicole Krauss.
- In Because We Must by Tracy Youngblom, she reads The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo aloud to her son while he is recovering in hospital. I was reading Despereaux at the same time! (Also, in real-life serendipity, Youngblom and I both have a sister named Trish.)
- A code of 1–3 knocks is used in Confessions by Catherine Airey and The History of Love by Nicole Krauss.
A scene of a teacup breaking in Junction of Earth and Sky by Susan Buttenwieser and The Möbius Book by Catherine Lacey.
What’s the weirdest reading coincidence you’ve had lately?
Winter Reads, I: Michael Cunningham & Helen Moat
It’s been feeling springlike in southern England with plenty of birdsong and flowers, yet cold weather keeps making periodic returns. (For my next instalment of wintry reads, I’ll try to attract some snow to match the snowdrops by reading three “Snow” books.) Today I have a novel drawing on a melancholy Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale and a nature/travel book about learning to appreciate winter.
The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham (2014)
It was among my favourite first lines encountered last year: “A celestial light appeared to Barrett Meeks in the sky over Central Park, four days after Barrett had been mauled, once again, by love.” Barrett is gay and shares an apartment with his brother, Tyler, and Tyler’s fiancée, Beth. Beth has cancer and, though none of them has dared to hope that she will live, Barrett’s epiphany brings a supernatural optimism that will fuel them through the next few years, from one presidential election autumn (2004) to the next (2008). Meanwhile, Tyler, a stalled musician, returns to drugs to try to find inspiration for his wedding song for Beth. The other characters in the orbit of this odd love triangle of sorts are Liz, Beth and Barrett’s boss at a vintage clothing store, and Andrew, Liz’s decades-younger boyfriend. It’s a peculiar family unit that expands and contracts over the years.
Of course, Cunningham takes inspiration, thematically and linguistically, from Hans Christian Andersen’s tale about love and conversion, most obviously in an early dreamlike passage about Tyler letting snow swirl into the apartment through the open windows:
He returns to the window. If that windblown ice crystal meant to weld itself to his eye, the transformation is already complete; he can see more clearly now with the aid of this minuscule magnifying mirror…
I was most captivated by the early chapters of the novel, picking it up late one night and racing to page 75, which is almost unheard of for me. The rest took me significantly longer to get through, and in the intervening five weeks or so much of the detail has evaporated. But I remember that I got Chris Adrian and Julia Glass vibes from the plot and loved the showy prose. (And several times while reading I remarked to people around me how ironic it was that these characters in a 2014 novel are so outraged about Dubya’s re-election. Just you all wait two years, and then another eight!)
I fancy going on a mini Cunningham binge this year. I plan to recommend The Hours for book club, which would be a reread for me. Otherwise, I’ve only read his travel book, Land’s End. I own a copy of Specimen Days and the library has Day, but I’d have to source all the rest secondhand. Simon of Stuck in a Book is a big fan and here are his rankings. I have some great stuff ahead! (Secondhand – Awesomebooks.com)
While the Earth Holds Its Breath: Embracing the Winter Season by Helen Moat (2024)
Like many of us, Moat struggles with mood and motivation during the darkest and coldest months of the year. Over the course of three recent winters overlapping with the pandemic, she strove to change her attitude. The book spins short autobiographical pieces out of wintry walks near her Derbyshire home or further afield. Paying closer attention to the natural spectacles of the season and indulging in cosy food and holiday rituals helped, as did trips to places where winters are either a welcome respite (Spain) or so much harsher as to put her own into perspective (Lapland and Japan). My favourite pieces of all were about sharing English Christmas traditions with new Ukrainian refugee friends.
There were many incidents and emotions I could relate to here – a walk on the canal towpath always makes me feel better, and the car-heavy lifestyle I resume on trips to America feels unnatural.
Days are where we must live, but it didn’t have to be a prison of house and walls. I needed the rush of air, the slap of wind on my cheeks. I needed to feel alive. Outdoors.
I’d never liked the rain, but if I were to grow to love winters on my island, I had to learn to love wet weather, go out in it.
What can there be but winter? It belongs to the circle of life. And I belonged to winter, whether I liked it or not. Indoors, or moving from house to vehicle and back to house again, I lost all sense of my place on this Earth. This world would be my home for just the smallest of moments in the vastness of time, in the turning of the seasons. It was a privilege, I realised.
However, the content is repetitive such that the three-year cycle doesn’t add a lot and the same sorts of pat sentences about learning to love winter recur. Were the timeline condensed, there might have been more of a focus on the more interesting travel segments, which also include France and Scotland. So many have jumped on the Wintering bandwagon, but Katherine May’s book felt fresh in a way the others haven’t.
With thanks to Saraband for the free copy for review.
Any wintry reading (or weather) for you lately?
Watch the Movie or Read the Book?
It’s a risky business, adapting a well-loved book into a film. I’m always curious to see how a screenwriter and director will pull it off. The BBC generally does an admirable job with the classics, but contemporary book adaptations can be hit or miss. I’ve racked my brain to think of cases where the movie was much better than the book or vice versa, but to my surprise I’ve found that I can only think of a handful of examples. Most of the time I think the film and book are of about equal merit, whether that’s pretty good or excellent.
From one of my favorite Guardian cartoonists.
Watch the Movie Instead:
Birdsong [Sebastian Faulks] – Eddie Redmayne, anyone? The book is a slog, but the television miniseries is lovely.
One Day [David Nicholls] – Excellent casting (though Rafe Spall nearly steals the show). Feels less formulaic and mawkish than the novel.
Father of the Bride and its sequel [Edward Streeter] – The late 1940s/early 1950s books that served as very loose source material are hopelessly dated.
This Is Where I Leave You [Jonathan Tropper] – Again, perfect casting. Less raunchy and more good-natured than the book.
Read the Book Instead:
Possession [A.S. Byatt] – This is one of my favorite novels of all time. It has a richness of prose and style (letters, poems, etc.) that simply cannot be captured on film. Plus Aaron Eckhart couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag.
Everything Is Illuminated [Jonathan Safran Foer] – The movie’s not bad, but if you want to get a hint of Foer’s virtuosic talent you need to read the novel he wrote at 25.
A Prayer for Owen Meany [John Irving] – The film version, Simon Birch, was so mediocre that Irving wouldn’t let his character’s name be associated with it.
It’s Pretty Much Even:
Decent book and movie: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, The Help, The Hours, Memoirs of a Geisha, Never Let Me Go, The Remains of the Day
Terrific book and movie: The Fault in Our Stars, The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared (Swedish language), The Orchid Thief / Adaptation (both great but in very different ways!), Tamara Drewe (based on a graphic novel, which itself is based on Far From the Madding Crowd)
If I’m interested in a story, my preference is always to watch the movie before I read the book. If you do it the other way round, you’re likely to be disappointed with the adaptation. Alas, this means that the actors’ and actresses’ faces will be ineradicably linked with the characters in your head when you try to read the book. I consider this a small disadvantage. Reading the book after you’ve already enjoyed the storyline on screen means you get to go deeper with the characters and the plot, since subplots are often eliminated in movie versions.
So although I’ve seen the films, I’m still keen to read Half of a Yellow Sun and The Kite Runner. I’m eager to both see and read The English Patient and The Shipping News (which would be my first by Proulx). All four of these I own in paperback. I’m also curious about two war novels being adapted this year, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk and The Yellow Birds. There’s every chance I’d like these better as movies than I did as books.
As to books I’m interested in seeing on the big screen, the first one that comes to mind is Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal. It might also be interesting to see how the larger-than-life feminist heroines of Siri Hustvedt’s The Blazing World and Brian Morton’s Florence Gordon would translate for cinema. Can you think of any others?
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 