The Beautiful Bureaucrat by Helen Phillips - (Publisher Summary: In a windowless building in a remote part of town, the newly employed Josephine inputs an endless string of numbers into something known only as The Database. When one evening her husband Joseph disappears and then returns, offering no explanation as to his whereabouts, her creeping unease shifts decidedly to dread.)
This bizarre book reads like a thriller with literary aspirations and I loved it. It’s short--you can read it in a long afternoon--and is surprisingly emotional besides.
Witches of America by Alex Mar - (Publisher Summary: Witches of America follows Mar on her immersive five-year trip into the occult, charting modern Paganism from its roots in 1950s England to its current American mecca in the San Francisco Bay Area; from a gathering of more than a thousand witches in the Illinois woods to the New Orleans branch of one of the world's most influential magical societies.)
Loved this so much. I read it slowly, savoring each page of a strange world I rarely get to glimpse. (I need to find some time to watch Mar’s Netflix documentary, American Mystic.) Mar takes the history of American witchcraft back to the source(s), and then gives us an inside look at how it operates in today’s modern world. It’s surprisingly calm, quiet--some of the rituals sound more like a candlelit yoga class than anything else, and the reader gets drawn in the same way Mar does. As humanity becomes more attuned to nature, to the appeal of emphasizing spirituality outside the bureaucracy and hypocrisy of organized religion, this type of belief system feels more right than other, more fascinating than scary.
Stoned by Aja Raden - (Publisher Summary: What makes a stone a jewel? What makes a jewel priceless? And why do we covet beautiful things? In this brilliant account of how eight jewels shaped the course of history, jeweler and scientist Aja Raden tells an original and often startling story about our unshakeable addiction to beauty and the darker side of human desire.)
I think I realized a few years ago that I wasn’t really a jewelry person and that’s become more obvious since. I enjoy the occasional fun of an interesting ring, or a pair of small stud earrings, but that’s about it. The way to my heart is through cashmere or a nice bag, not sparkly things. However! After reading this book, maybe I need to rethink this life path. Stoned is absolute jewelry porn, talking about stones in the hundreds of carats and the lengths that humans have gone to in order to find, mine, acquire, steal precious gems. Far from a dry accounting of famous jewelry, Raden has a wry, jokey tone, like a friend telling you about Marie Antoinette’s relationship to an absolutely ridiculous diamond necklace. Such a fun read.
Little Victories by Jason Gay - (Publisher Summary: The Wall Street Journal's popular columnist Jason Gay delivers a hilarious and heartfelt guide to modern living.)
A funny, sweet read, but there are many more memorable versions of this kind of book available right now.
The Mare by Mary Gaitskill - (Publisher Summary: Velveteen Vargas is eleven years old, a Fresh Air Fund kid from Brooklyn. Her host family is a couple in upstate New York: Ginger, a failed artist and shakily recovered alcoholic, and her academic husband, Paul, who wonder what it will mean to “make a difference” in such a contrived situation. Gaitskill illuminates their shifting relationship with Velvet over several years, as well as Velvet’s encounter with the horses at the stable down the road—especially with an abused, unruly mare called Fugly Girl.)
This book is incredibly readable. I wanted to lose myself in it for hours and the back-and-forth POV made it hard to step away. The story itself could have gone a very stereotypical, treacly direction and I think Gaitskill managed to avoid that by believably embodying the 11-year-old Velvet and giving her a rich background, fascinating inner voice, and all the complex teenage emotions one could imagine she might be feeling.
The Givenness of Things by Marilynne Robinson - (Publisher Summary: In The Givenness of Things, the incomparable Marilynne Robinson delivers an impassioned critique of our contemporary society while arguing that reverence must be given to who we are and what we are: creatures of singular interest and value, despite our errors and depredations.)
These essays are a lot to take in: very cerebral, existential, beautifully-written. Robinson’s intelligence is intimidating, but just when you think you can’t keep up with her brilliant, laser-sighted commentary, she brings it back down to a level the rest of us mortals can approach. The first essay (Humanism) was really beautiful. Fear, Theology, and Realism were my other favorites.