May & June 2023 Reads
Reading tanked a bit there for a while, but I'm on the comeback: 6 novels, and a couple nonfictions
Hey again!
I’m back after a month off. And (happily? sadly?) you didn’t miss much, because I went through a pretty decent dry spell with the whole reading thing. So this will be my catch-up for both May and June, and then I’ll hopefully be back in the regular reading swing of things for July.
I assume this is pretty common, but every once in a while, Reading and I cool a bit on each other, so I read nary a book from mid-May until the last week of June. And so sometime this next week I plan to do a bonus post about the things I filled my bookless hours with, in case you, too, are going through a phase and need some recommendations. So stay tuned for that.
Anyway, below are the 8 books I read in May and June, a microview of each, and longer reviews of my 5 favorites.
Note: starred entries below are reviewed in more detail later.
The Books, in the order I read them:
Empty Theatre: A Novel: or The Lives of King Ludwig II of Bavaria and Empress Sisi of Austria (Queen of Hungary), Cousins, in Their Pursuit of Connection and Beauty Despite the Expectations Placed on Them Because of the Exceptional Good Fortune of Their Status as Beloved National Figures, with Speculations into the Mysterious Natures of Their Deaths (2023) by Jac Jemc - Novel (Literary Fiction)
Hilariously (to me) long-titled satirical historical novel about the lives of royal cousins dealing with the pressures of royalty in mostly ill-advised and unhealthy ways. A lot about how high expectations and constant public-eye-edness will absolutely mess with your head and life until the real you is lost in a sea of masks.
Partisans: The Conservative Revolutionaries Who Remade American Politics in the 1990s (2022) by Nicole Hemmer - Nonfiction
Fascinating exploration of the shift in Conservatism after Reagan, especially looking at the influences of Newt Gingrich, Pat Buchanan, Rush Limbaugh, and Laura Ingraham. Probably not thrilling to everyone, but if you’re a little bit obsessed with the underpinnings of today’s alt right, this is a good one.
*The Bullet That Missed (2022) by Richard Osman (book 3 in the Thursday Murder Club series) - Novel (Mystery)
This was the book that kickstarted my return to reading after a month off. I needed something light and fun and this series has been exactly what I needed each time I’ve picked up the latest entry. Set in an English retirement village, an eclectic group of wonderful characters decides to try to solve murders.
*The Greatest Love Story Ever Told: An Oral History (2018) by Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman - Nonfiction (Memoir)
Lovely and hilarious book about one of the most iconicly normal- and healthy-seeming couples to ever come out of show biz. I must recommend the audiobook for this one especially, since Mullally and Offerman read it themselves, and even offer a bonus chapter.
*Dr. No (2022) by Percival Everett - Novel (Literary Fiction)
Author of one of the books that has stuck with me most from last year (The Trees [2021], reviewed here) returns with another novel that will absolutely stick with me into next year. Taking the Bond villain idea that the title alludes to and melding it with the anger and bitterness of a Black man who has both particular oppressions from his familial line as well as the general oppressions of systemic racism, Everett remains one of the most compelling writers I’ve been introduced to of late.
*My Nemesis (2023) by Charmaine Craig - Novel (Literary Fiction)
This story revolves around the rivalry the protagonist, Tessa, a successful author, forms with the wife, Wah, of a philosopher that Tessa forms an intellectual (and then perhaps dangerously more) attachment to, and employs one of the best examples of modern unreliable narration as we see Tessa’s self-assured viewpoint broaden and fracture.
*Brotherless Night (2023) by V. V. Ganeshananthan - Novel (Literary Fiction)
Brilliant novel set during the first several years of the Sri Lankan civil war, following a Tamil medical student from Jaffna as she watches her country and family endure the endless stresses of oppression and revolution while trying to deal with her own tragedies and do the right thing in a morally murky world.
Mindstar Rising (1993) by Peter F. Hamilton (book 1 of the Greg Mandel trilogy) - Novel (Sci-Fi)
The most recent pick for the Sci-Fi/Fantasy book club I’m in, with a protagonist who is a mix between hardboiled private eye and James Bond (who has an implant that allows him to sort of read minds), set in a climate-changed near-future Britain. Greg Mandel, formerly of a government experiment to create psychically powered super soldiers, is hired to find out who is messing with an industrialist’s business. The most interesting parts to me were the implications of the experimental glands Mandel and a few other characters were given, as well as the adaptations and changed landscapes in a climate-weirded world.
My Top 5 (in no particular order):
The Bullet That Missed (2022) by Richard Osman (book 3 in the Thursday Murder Club series) - Novel (Mystery)
The second entry in this series was one of the many titles not reviewed in full from my first ever post on here where I summarized my first 6 months of reading of 2022. So I thought it was time to give the latest Thursday Murder Club book its due, and also discuss the series as a whole, since I’ve found myself recommending them to people pretty often. Some of the insights here are gleaned from an interview with the author at the end of the audiobook for The Bullet That Missed, so I recommend that as well. Anyway, the series begins with The Thursday Murder Club (2020), followed by 2021’s The Man Who Died Twice and now this one from 2022. So if the pattern holds, I will be looking forward to the fourth entry sometime later this year. I can’t for the life of me remember where I heard of the first one, but it made it on my list and was an utter delight. My first impression was that this is an author who knows and loves some amazing elderly folks, because the characters avoid easy stereotypes and are as engrossing and quirky and complex as they should be. Osman, in the aforementioned interview, says that the germ of the idea came from visiting his mother, and the various clubs at the retirement community, like a Tuesday Chess Club or something, and so the idea of the Thursday Murder Club was formed. I should also say, my wife Ally and I have been very into old murder mystery shows: we made our way through the entirety of Columbo, and now are 3 seasons deep into Murder, She Wrote. So this series is definitely scratching a similar, much more intricate itch than any given episode. Osman also mentioned Murder, She Wrote (being a natural companion, since it, too, is about an older non-cop solving murders), and said that he didn’t want it to be as contrived seeming (something that is hard not to think about as you go through more and more episodes where Jessica runs across yet another murder everywhere she goes, week after week), with each book leading naturally into the next through the choices and mistakes the protagonists make. Also, each book picks up basically where the last one left off, so relatively little time has passed between all three of them so far, which means there can be plenty more, despite the advanced ages of the protagonists. I realize I haven’t actually described much of what happens or why these are so enjoyable yet, but in an effort to avoid important spoilers, let me just say that the characters and plots are excellent and you should just pick up the first one and see.
Good quote: “‘It’s the people, in the end, isn’t it?’ says Viktor. ‘It’s always the people. You can move halfway around the world to find your perfect life, move to Australia if you like, but it always comes down to the people you meet.’”
The Greatest Love Story Ever Told: An Oral History (2018) by Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman - Nonfiction (Memoir)
If you’ve seen Parks and Rec or Will & Grace, then you know that Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman are hilarious actors who both have had pretty iconic sitcom roles (it must have been a hoot for this real-life married couple to play Ron and Tammy, dementedly unhinged ex-spouses on Parks and Rec). And maybe you’ve read some of Nick Offerman’s previous books, such as another victim of that first ever post of too many titles, Where the Deer and the Antelope Play (2021), which I also very much enjoyed. In any case, this book is essentially a transcription of a series of conversations the couple had about what brought them to this point of their lives, what makes them compatible, and some of the experiences they have learned from. It’s a wonderful and funny dive into what makes relationships tick, how flippin’ cute they are and why, and how they’ve tried to be the best possible version of themselves as people and spouses. Ally and I listened to the audiobook together, mostly as we drove here and there, and I highly recommend audiobooking this title in particular, since they bring these transcribed conversations back to life incredibly naturally and make it even more enjoyable than the version on the page. Although there are also unmissable photos and things in the print version. So make sure you find access to both somehow, I guess. Anyway, not only did we have a great time listening, but we also learned some stuff about how to be a perfectly imperfect couple.
Good quote: “It may seem a little obvious that Megan would feel that in her music or that I would feel it in woodworking, but there are so many domestic places, so many little ways that you can make your existence holy in how you choose to treat your loved ones and people in your community.”
Dr. No (2022) by Percival Everett - Novel (Literary Fiction)
As mentioned above, I loved Everett’s 2021 novel, The Trees, which was my introduction to him as a writer. So when I saw he had a new novel out, it was a no-brainer to add it to my to-read pile. Adding to the intriguing-ness was the title. I grew up a pretty big fan of James Bond films, specifically the Sean Connery ones, of which the 1962 film Dr. No was the first, so, while I couldn’t possibly fathom what connections there would end up being, I was even more on board. What followed was a novel I couldn’t possibly have expected. The Bond villain we find, John Sill, is like Bond villains we might be familiar with in some ways: rich, with almost boundless resources to bring to bear on his plot, and filled with a need for revenge and destruction. But also, this villain stands apart from expectations: he is self-aware of his desire to become a Bond villain, and chooses this path as the best possible means of revenge on a country that has done nothing but cause him and other Black people pain. It’s an intriguing and sometimes surrealistic dynamic. As narrator, we are introduced to a brilliant mathematician, Wala Kitu who is on the spectrum and who is recruited by Sill to help accomplish his villainous plot. Kitu is an expert on the concept of nothing, and Everett delights in the many word plays associated with this throughout the novel (it’s fantastic). As Kitu gets more embroiled in the plot to try to steal a box of nothing from Fort Knox (the Bond-ishness of the plot is stellar), he begins to try to counteract and foil Sill. It’s an incredibly rich text that mixes genres and places absurd heists alongside extended meditations on what nothing really means. I highly recommend it.
Good quote: “Now here he was, tailored iron-gray suit, thin maroon tie, a maroon handkerchief peeking out from his breast pocket. His oxblood wing tips gleamed. He looked like a supervillain or, worse, an upper-crust English spy, an openly promiscuous and functionally alcoholic heterosexual with an on-and-off-again messiah complex. It was the shoes, the way they were tied.”
Also, Mike Putnam, friend and writing buddy, shared this super interesting interview with me, so give that a read if you’re interested.
Bonus good quote from the interview: “I use humor as a weapon in writing. There is no better way to address serious stuff, especially with Americans, than if you get them laughing; then you can do shit to them. That’s the function of humor.”
My Nemesis (2023) by Charmaine Craig - Novel (Literary Fiction)
One of the 2023 titles I was most excited for (and wrote about being excited for in this bonus post, along with Brotherless Night below), this slim novel did not disappoint. We begin and are led through a sort of confession, starting with the narrator, Tessa, describing the night that she accused her nemesis, Wah, of being “an insult to womankind,” before backing up to take us through the beginnings of the story, working our way back up to this night in question, and then into its aftermath. There is so much here: Tessa’s complex relationship with feminism and motherhood, and how she compares and contrasts her version to Wah’s, as well as Tessa’s status as a public intellectual who has written about her daughter extensively, and that daughter’s complicated relationship with the version of her Tessa builds and the version of herself she lives, not to mention their mother-daughter relationship. We see Tessa’s marriage strain under the stress of a not-quite-platonic friendship with Wah’s husband Charlie (there’s an incredible moment where Tessa and her husband Milton spend part of their anniversary trip with Charlie, and the implications of that wash over them all). I don’t think I’m explaining it well, but the best part of this novel is the way Craig uses the first person narration to offer us Tessa’s viewpoint on everything around her while also sliding in the details that can show us the cracks in her judgments, which all comes to a head in the book’s finale, which will knock you right off your feet. There’s philosophy and jealousy and so much self-justification and self-delusion. Wonderful stuff.
Good quote: “I am too cynical to reserve judgments, as you’ve no doubt noticed, and you could say that my essay was written from the perspective of a woman staring down into the abyss of a cynicism that had become too gargantuan to tolerate. There was the wreckage of my first marriage behind me. There was the damage I had caused my daughter—damage whose depths I was only beginning to fathom. There was everywhere the thickening atmosphere of hatred and injustice, in the face of which I could no longer claim to know the purpose of my writing, which broadly took aim at the ways men ensnare women (a preoccupation born of my first marriage), while solipsistically fixating on my own life.”
Brotherless Night (2023) by V. V. Ganeshananthan - Novel (Literary Fiction)
I came across this title because of the recommendation of a writer I follow (and have even had the opportunity to hang out with a few times) SJ Sindu (novels Marriage of a Thousand Lies [2017] and Blue-Skinned Gods [2021] as well as the recently released middle-grade graphic novel Shakti [2023], among others—all highly recommended), who is also Sri Lankan-American. Brotherless Night takes place during the first several years of the decades long Sri Lankan civil war, following a young woman from Jaffna, Sashi, as she and her family and friends and colleagues all are impacted by the war in different ways. This novel does an incredible job of bringing the realities of the conflict to life through these characters. We see both the oppression of the Tamils in Sri Lanka, as well as the murder of one of Sashi’s favorite teachers at the hands of the revolutionary Tamil Tigers. Sashi is pushed into service as a young medical student at a Tiger field hospital, but in the end lends a hand more to help the everyday people assaulted by the violence rather than to assist the flawed insurgents. The complexities of war that Ganeshananthan achieves through this protagonist, who ends up helping to catalogue what is happening, much to the ire of all sides seemingly, is what makes this novel shine. She is fiercely trying to find the best path of the terrible options available to her. I’m not usually drawn to historical fiction as much, but I loved this one and learned a lot and feel compelled to try to learn more about Sri Lankan history and its current state of affairs, which is one thing historical novels offer that I sometime miss out on.
Good quote: “Imagine the places you grew up, the places you studied, places that belonged to your people, burned. But I should stop pretending that I know you. Perhaps you do not have to imagine. Perhaps your library, too, went up in smoke.”
In Case You Missed It:
There wasn’t anything to miss over the past month or two, but I guess this is a sort of preemptive ICYMI to try to keep me honest about getting that bonus post I mentioned in the introduction done in the next couple of days before some friends’ wedding (the why will become apparent once I’ve finished said post). So anyway, check back in a few days! It’ll be under the “StoneWright Bonus Reads” tab at the top of the homepage.
Cheers! As usual, feel encouraged to subscribe and share, etc. etc.