Recent Reading Wrap Up
Some books I enjoyed recently & a fun guide to see if you should read them, too!
I think my favorite posts on Substack are reading lists. I love finding out what other avid readers have been loving and liking and skipping. I read a lot. Like, “a lot a lot” (said in Lindsay Logan’s Annie voice from The Parent Trap) and I go back and forth between logging what I read and letting everything slip and slide around my mind, leaving the truly extraordinary to stick in my memory for the long term.
But lately it seems I’ve been reading banger after banger. I want to share with you some thoughts about a few books that I’ve enjoyed. I’ve read others that I’ve liked, too, but these are the standouts. All of these books are quite different from one another—set in different time periods, written by writers of different eras and in one case, language, and the stories all have vastly differing plots. That being said, on further reflection I’ve noticed a couple of similarities among them that hint to broader themes I find myself drawn to as a reader:
A woman alone
In groups and out groups
Women reclaiming agency
Women as creators
“Society”
There are, of course, other themes coursing through these novels, some overlapping, some not, but these are some of the ideas explored in the following novels that I, in turn, find myself exploring within myself and the facets of society that most intrigue me.
Cousins by Aurora Venturini
This book was absolutely wild, written with such a freeness and a complete lack of self-consciousness and disinterest in judgement that you know it could only have been written by a very steady hand, a woman completely sure of herself. Shout out to Martha of Martha’s Monthly, whose post “Women in Translation Month” introduced me to this book.
The novel is written from the point of view of a young woman named Yuna, who is a promising young painter, is self-described as handicapped, and is part of a very dysfunctional family familiar to trauma. The story follows four women as they suffer a number of tragedies and harm and help each other (a warning: this book deals with abuse, rape, murder, and violence in many forms). The structure has been described as formally daring and Yuna’s voice as “darkly hilarious.” What I simply love is how brazen and buzzing the whole thing is, and that Venturini wrote it when she was eighty-five. You go, girl. In fact, she wrote right up until she died at ninety-two and to that I say: hell yes, and may I please be so lucky.
Read this book if you like off the walls translations, formally innovative books, paintings by Frida Kahlo, coffee and pastries, loud parties, and don’t mind the feeling of being disturbed by art.
Sex and Rage by Eve Babitz
I threw myself into this one without reading anything about it, which is a great way to read a Babitz, I think. I read The Dud Avocado about five or six years ago and remember thinking: “What is happening? Are you allowed to do this in a novel?” There was a plot, but it was loose. I felt completely at the whims of the characters, and I felt that way with Sex and Rage, too. There is a plot, but if you, like me, prefer wayward characters and plotless novels and irresistibly precise details of description, then you, my friend, will like Eve Babitz.
This novel follows a surfer, Jacaranda, as she grows up in L.A., falls in and out of love both romantically and platonically, and comes to know herself through these relationships, her love of California, her inclusion and exclusion of a sort of “jet set” of elite society people, and through herself as a bourgeoning writer, learning to examine the world around her and her place in it.
I think it’s really fun to read a book and then read everything I can about the writer afterward, and I loved discovering that Eve Babitz was an “it girl” of L.A. in the 60s and 70s. She was a visual artist, creating album artwork for Linda Ronstadt and Buffalo Soringfield, and she first grew a tad famous after—rumor has it—she posed for this photograph to make her boyfriend jealous:
Yes, that is a nude Babitz playing chess with Marcel Duchamp.
In her day, her work was often overshadowed by whom she happened to be dating at the time, many of whom were very famous men, the likes of which included Steve Martin, Harrison Ford, Jim Morrison, and the Ruscha brothers (not at the same time…I don’t think, though I honestly wouldn’t put anything past Ms. Babitz). Reading her work at a remove from when it was originally published has allowed me to experience Eve Babitz as a writer first, an “it girl” second, and I like that. I think she’s a writer who deserves to be taken seriously as a writer first. Though, I honestly think Babitz would not have cared what anyone thought of her or her work. I mean, come on—Look at her self-assuredness, her frozen-photograph swagger:
Who is on the other line? Who cares? It’s Eve Babitz you want to hear.
Read this book if you like salty cocktails, beach days, carrying a beat-up paperback in your purse at all times, getting a tad too tipsy at dinner parties, large and flowy outfits, oversized sunglasses, falling in love too quickly.
Circe by Madeline Miller
This is one of those books that was everywhere, and I mean everywhere, a few years ago and I had absolutely no interest in reading it. I remembered doing projects on Greek gods in my junior high Latin classes and feeling super bored. Yeah, okay, this one is the goddess of the hearth and this is the goddess of war, but, like…what are they wearing when they go off the clock? How did they feel after they shot that thunderbolt or whatever? What did they really think of what all the tiny people were doing down on earth? When I read the myths, everything felt so…vague. (Which makes sense, because, like the Bible, these stories are OLD, probably started as oral stories passed down, and have been through multiple translations by people with varying visions of what the stories were and should be.)
Now, after reading Circe, I see how all the vagueness creates space for imagination. The novel follows the goddess Circe from her birth through her growing up and focuses on the time she spent banished on her island. While reading, I was taken with Miller’s physicality of Circe and her surroundings. Her descriptions were vivid and lush. I was fascinated by the way she filled space and time with deep characterization and action when Circe is the only person on stage, so to speak. In my writing classes, teachers often told us to make sure we never had a person driving a car alone, that is—we should add in one or two other characters to keep things moving at all times, but here, the moments where Circe is alone, making her magic and discovering herself, shine brighter than the relationships she forges across the centuries we spend with her.
Read this book if you like foraging, walking barefoot, seeing justice served to stupid men, wearing your hair long, being alone, feeling windswept, drinking wine from goblets or elegant glasses, listening to stories told round the dinner table long after everyone has finished dessert, waking early and staying up late.
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Wow. Wow, wow, wow. I had never read anything by Edith Wharton before, and what a treat this was. I knew nothing about this novel, and fell into it headlong. Going to bed to read each night was a delight, both because of the richness of the characters and the even sophistication of the sentences. Like, dang, Wharton could write!
The novel follows Newland Archer, a man of society in the Gilded Age in New York, as he finds himself in an emotionally complicated threesome of sorts—both with two women, and with ideas of tradition and freedom. As I read, I checked in with reading guides made by Haley Larson, Ph.D., on her Substack Closely Reading. I loved getting to her her thoughts and analyses on the characters, and she often grounded the novel historically so I could have a better sense of what was significant in the novel in terms of economics, setting, and details that I may have overlooked (her analysis of flowers, for one!).
I read this book slowly, and I thought about it a lot. At one point, I was sitting on a bench at the park while my husband and son played at the park and Michael asked me what I was thinking about. The Age of Innocence, I said. Reading this book made me want to write a paper on the significance of theater in the novel as a way of highlighting the seen and unseen in the main relationships. Haven’t wanted to write a paper since…ever. So, yeah, I guess you could say I enjoyed this book. I’m looking forward to watching the movie with Winona Ryder, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Daniel Day-Lewis (directed by Martin Scorsese!).
I am also quite taken by Edith Wharton and will be using her portraits as inspiration for my next author photo:
Read this book if you like going to the theatre, glassware, bouquets of fresh flowers, hand written notes and letters, the show The Gilded Age, impressionist paintings, rose or lavender flavored treats, archery, intense conversations by a roaring fireplace, smoldering eye contact from across the room.
Well, this was fun! Please do tell me if you have read or plan to read one of these books in the comments below. What are you reading? What should I read next? I hope you’re doing well!
With love from my kitchen table,
Kaia
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Coming up next week: our first installment of Halloween Heart! I promise this one is more cozy than creepy. Take care, dear ones!
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Ooh! You’ve made me want to read them all!
But I think I’m going to pick up Edith Wharton because you made such a case for her and her writing, and having some along for the ride explaining the significance of things during the era she wrote in sounds fabulous!
I appreciate you!
I feel like I'm always on the treadmill of reading whatever is most recent, so I love this list! Definitely putting a couple of them on my queue ASAP