Well, July ends today. That went fast! I am still walking every day, still planking for 2:10 every day, balancing on one foot I am up to 35 seconds per side. And my reading yield was seven books again this month.
1. In Love: a Memoir of Love and Loss (2022) by Amy Bloom was first up. When Amy's husband, Brian Ameche, is diagnosed with Alzheimer's, he decides to die on his own terms, at Dignitas in Zurich, Switzerland. This is not an easy thing to make happen: you have to be in your right mind enough to make your own decision, but also far gone enough that doctors know that there will be no cure for you. It is difficult and expensive. Amy's wealthy sister helped to make it possible. Does that sound like a plot for a novel? Well, it is not. This is a nonfiction book. I struggled so much with Brian's last name. At first, I thought it looked French, so I was pronouncing it "A-mesh." But then, I learned he was from an Italian immigrant family. So, "A-May-Kay?" Rules of Italian, that is what it would be. But then I learned that his father was a Heinsman Trophy Winner, so I googled "Ameche and Heinsman Trophy" and got his father, who was born with the last name Amici. Itatlian pronunciation for that is "A-mee-chee." So, spelling changed to make it easier for English speakers. All except for those, like me, who are going to try to use Italian pronunciation rules!! Aside from stewing over pronunciation, this was a very loving, tender, well-told story.
2. Men: Notes from an Ongoing Investigation (2014) by Laura Kipnis. I do not remember how I came across this book, but it was an interesting read, although on my spreadsheet I just record, "I don't know what to say about this book." On her website, it says, "In the essays collected here, Laura Kipnis revisits the archetypes of wayward masculinity that have captured her imagination over the years, scrutinizing men who have figured in her own life alongside more controversial public examples."
3. Ms. Bixby's Last Day (2017) by John David Anderson was a lovely, lovely book for younger readers, but a good story is a good story is a good story, so you can be an older reader and enjoy this book, too. So beautifully told. Three eleven-year-old boys know that their teacher has (if I remember correctly) adrenal carcinoma, and that she will be leaving the school year early for treatment. When they think they will have one more week, suddenly they have none--she already went to the hospital a week early. They decide to give her the last day that she was supposed to have that Friday, skipping school and pooling resources to give her a wonderful day. It, of course, like most things in life, doesn't go exactly according to plan, but how tender and sweet it is. Beautiful story! Did I mention that this book was really good?
4. Once Upon a K-Prom (2022) by Kat Cho. I am nothing if not influenced by the K-Dramas I watch. I recently watched a short 5-episode drama called Behind Every Star, which was actually about the process of becoming an idol, which is what K-Pop singers are called. Well, in this book, we have an idol, Robbie Choi, Elena's childhood best friend who is now a K-Pop idol, a member of the boy band WDB, returned to their US home town to fulfill a childhood promise to take Elena to the high school prom. People go a little wild over Robbie, and the fulfillment of the promise turns out different than either Robbie or Elena imagined. (If you think that US kids would not be really big fans of a K-Pop group, think again. BTS, for example, has landed 26 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, 6 of which soared all the way up to #1, with one song (Butter), managing to stay #1 for 10 consecutive weeks. So. There is some basis in reality by making the boys of WDB uber-popular with US kids.)
5. Marabel and the Book of Fate (2018) by Tracy Barrett. This juvenile fantasy book was a fun read, about a twin Marabel, born a couple of minutes after her brother Marco, who is apparently "the chosen one" prophesied in The Book of Fate. He is "the chosen one" and she is the not so necessary "add on." When Marco is kidnapped, Marabel and her crew go in hot pursuit and learn so much along the way. About how things are different than they thought. I really like an idea that is put forth on page 284--perhaps "we're all the Chosen One in our own life." Wow--that is such a concept, isn't it? I think of the TV series "The Chosen," about the life of Christ. But...what we are each living is our own life story, and if we are the star of that story, then surely, indeed, we are the "chosen one" in our own life. I just really liked that thought.
6. Princes in Exile (1983) by Mark Schreiber--I can't remember how I found this (fiction) book, but I inter-library-loaned it, and it was an interesting read for sure. Ryan Rafferty attends a summer camp for kids with cancer. The bunk he is assigned to has six boys and two counselors, and they choose the group name "Princes in Exile," because they are all different, like they come from different kingdoms, and are thrown together in the camp, a kind of exile from real life, where they have to learn to negotiate the terms of their relationship, kind of like a meeting of princes or politicians. Ryan's form of brain cancer is supposed to be fatal, his time measured in months. Robert, on the other hand, has a form of leukemia from which many if not most victims recover. But who dies (during the time of the book)? I really like the doctor (an oncologist), who says something like--it is all in God's hand. He sees people live who he thought would die, and people die who he thought would live--only God knows. I can't find the quote now, or I would give the page number. But it is in there! (They made a movie of this book in 1990. I had not heard of the book or the movie before.)
7. Bruce and I have been watching Warehouse 13, a TV series which ran 2009-2014. I always read the credits, so noticed this show was filmed in Toronto, and so I was looking into the cast to see who in it is Canadian. One of the stars, Artie Nielsen, is played by Canadian actor Saul Rubinek, and he is also an author, so I inter-library loaned his book about his parents, which is called So Many Miracles (1988) and which he also did an accompanying documentary film with the same title. From reading the Wikipedia article about Rubinek, I knew that he was born in a relocation camp in 1948, and while he was still a baby, his parents became refugees in Canada, first living in Montreal, and then Ottawa, where they were living at the time the book was published. So interesting!! They really did have so many miracles to survive the war in hiding as they did! I will just tell one miracle to whet your interest: Frania's father sent his two youngest daughters away to try to save them. When Frania and Israel went into hiding with Ludwig and Zofia Banya, they had no idea where those sisters were. But they were being hidden by...Ludwig's sisters!!! Nobody knew this, they just gradually discovered it, because the hiders were not telling, and neither were the hidees. That is one of many miracles that occurred in the lives of these people. Frania, in 1988 (or earlier, because Saul began interviewing his parents in 1978) said she could imagine the same thing happening here, in North America, as happened in Europe if hate gets the upper hand. And that gave me chills, a bit, because I have thought the same thing over the past few years as I have seen hatred and contempt rearing their ugly heads in public life.
So!! Seven great books for July!
