That amorphous literary ambiguity thing killed this for me. You?
Every book I bought, read and finished in October--
The real stuff is way down below, but first, a list of everything I bought (or otherwise acquired), read and finished (different categories!) in October. It’s long!
Books Acquired:
($$, 1/2$ author discount, gifted, or library)
I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself by Glynnis MacNicol ($$)
The Wedding People by Alison Espach ($$)
The Sequel by Jean Hanff Korelitz ($$)
Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman ($$)
Reasons Not to Worry by Brigid Delaney ($$)
Colored Television by Danzy Senna ($$)
Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo ($$)
My Vampire Plus-One by Jenna Levine ($$)
The French Art of Living Well by Cathy Yandell ($$)
Revisionaries by Kristopher Jansma (gifted)
Big Witch Energy by Molly Harper ($$)
Entitlement by Rumaan Alam ($$)
Christmas Is All Around by Martha Waters ($$)
The Holiday Honeymoon Switch by Julia McKay (gifted)
The Shithead by Tim Grahl (gifted)
Books Read:
Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman
Reasons Not to Worry by Brigid Delaney
Famous for a Living by Melissa Ferguson
Colored Television by Danzy Senna
The Bookshop of Hidden Dreams by Karen Hawkins
The Au Pair Affair by Tessa Bailey
Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo
Wear it Well by Allison Bornstein
The Shithead by Tim Grahl
Entitlement, Rumaan Alam
Books Finished: (a note—not finishing a book during the month doesn’t mean I DNF’d it. More likely I’m still reading.)
I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself by Glynnis MacNicol
The Wedding People by Alison Espach
The Sequel by Jean Hanff Korelitz
Witches Get Stuff Done by Molly Harper
Buying books and reading them are two different hobbies, right? I’m writing this well into November, and I can honestly tell you, though, that I’ve finished 4 of the books I started in October and started 2 of the ones I acquired. I’m trying to be… a little more thoughtful. But also, this is what Little Free Libraries are for.
My biggest readerly thoughts this month are around Entitlement, Rumaan Alam and Colored Television by Danzy Senna. Both are “big” books in that they got a lot of press, are by previously known and lauded authors and were reviewed in the big places (NYT, NPR, LAT). Alam is maybe the better known as the writer of Leave the World Behind. Danzy Senna probably hates that she’s often identified as the partner of Percival Everett (author of National Book Award winner James, among other things)
I think about these together, not because both are books with Black protagonists written by authors who identify themselves, or are lumped by society, somewhere on the BIPOC range, but because both seemed to this reader to want to convey something of that experience. Colored Television is, plot-wise, about a biracial novelist who for various reasons decides to enter/gets sucked into the world of Hollywood screenwriting and ends up—partly because its what she wants, and partly because maybe it’s all she has ever felt she has to offer—being asked to represent all biracial people in her script. She makes terrible choices, things happen, it’s very entertaining and also thoughtful and if the goal is to convey to some extent what it’s like to be her, or to be one person living the experience of being biracial, it succeeds, all in sort of an entertaining fever dream. Tl; dr: recommend!
Entitlement, plotwise, is about a young Black woman working for the foundation of a Bill Gates/elder Elon Musk type figure, a billionaire with reasons for wanting to give much of his fortune away who also wants to be known and thanked for that work. She’s the adoptive daughter of a white woman well known for her own feminist world-changing work—which provides that similar theme of being caught between racial worlds. It’s a tiny foundation and she either becomes, or sees herself, as representing the universe of Black life that this billionaire cannot see, and that maybe she herself cannot see, although she taught in a charter school in her first job. And then she gets tripped up by the proximity to the billionaire, the awareness that not everyone wants what he has but she does, and her confusion about who she is supposed to be in the world.
Both the protagonists in these books are surrounded by money that isn’t theirs and that may or may not have been earned by its possessors. Both want the lives that money can buy and also feel guilt and confusion around wanting it. And both are trying to figure out what the experience of being themselves—a particular woman with a particular and specific background that is both unique and not—should be while also navigating the expectations of the people around them—or what they think those expectations are.
Colored Television was for me, the better reading experience and therefore probably succeeded better in the aim of hauling me into that headspace, probably because Entitlement, about half way through, becomes somewhat speculative. Things happen—or maybe they don’t, maybe they’re only imagined by the protagonists. She does or says things she wants to do or say, or maybe she doesn’t. I can see the goal of these scenes—the ever-present question of whether she’s performing the role of good Black girl, or good girl—but they pulled me out of her head and into the head of the author, which changed the reading experience for me in ways I didn’t want. Others definitely disagreed—Entitlement is making lots of “best books of the year” lists. But it won’t make mine.
Other moments of note in October: Both Meditations for Mortals and Reasons Not to Worry, which I’m intentionally reading slowly, are helping me keep my focus on the analog world around me in ways I’m finding deeply positive. And The Wedding People is my pick for book I’d most suggest you pick up of my October finishes—and my most giftable too. It’s thoughtful and engrossing and a great read, and I appreciated it’s ultimately hopeful take. I think you will too.
If you’ve read Entitlement and Colored Television: BOOK GROUP!! I’d love to hear what you thought of both. Let’s talk. (in the comments.)
Big Witch Energy is a sequel to Witches Get Stuff Done, which was fun with an unusual twist to the witchiness. Haven’t read the second yet but eventually I will!
Ooh but Big Witch Energy, if only for the title. I just got Cunning Folk about medieval magic and how it was woven into daily life. It's a bit wonky but I need these facts for personal use and it's great to see how awful neighbors used to be!