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Wednesday Reading Meme
Nov. 24th, 2021 08:24 amWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
“Active friendships require active maintenance. You don’t get to sit back, do nothing, and enjoy the benefits of a meaningful relationship - any relationship.”
I needed a break from my Vietnam book, and Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman’s Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close was just the pick-me-up I needed. It reminded me of Kayleen Schaeffer’s Text Me When You Get Home (not coincidentally, Text Me When You Get Home was where I first read about Sow and Friedman), and it was so uplifting and refreshing to read a book by people who take friendship seriously as a relationship worth investing time in, and attempting to fix if it goes off the rails.
(I’ve been reading a lot of Slate advice columns recently, and I really soured on them after realizing how much of their friendship advice is built on the idea that friendship is basically disposable and should be jettisoned if it ever gets uncomfy. In fact, in general I’ve come to feel that the Slate advice columns are monuments to everything wrong with the modern approach to relationships of all kinds… Consider this entry a resolution to stop putting myself through this aggravation. They’re just so darn readable, though!)
The children’s librarian Jess and I fell to discussing the Caldecott awards, and she broke out a couple of picture books that are getting award buzz for this year. I fell in love with Corey R. Tabor’s Mel Fell: it’s about a baby kingfisher who jumps from the nest, intending to fly, and then falls - falls - falls (you’ve got the book turned on its side, so the bird is falling two whole pages each time) - right into the water!
And then, in the water, you turn the book so it’s open like a normal book, as the baby bird scoots through the water, catches a fish, and then starts to fly back up - and now the book is turned on its side the other direction, as the she flies up - up - up! As Jess said, “It should feel gimmicky, but it works perfectly for the story.”
The other book, Muon Thi Van’s Wishes, chronicles her family’s escape from Vietnam as refugees. There’s an almost Good Night Moon quality to the simplicity and quietness of the text, which contrasts with and therefore highlights the family’s treacherous journey in the pictures.
What I’m Reading Now
More of Max Hastings’ Vietnam, of course. Nixon has just been elected, and just about everyone with any power has concluded that the war in Vietnam is unwinnable, but the US is nonetheless going to keep fighting for another seven years because no one wants to be the one who calls it. My GOD.
What I Plan to Read Next
Once I've finished Vietnam (and Fire from Heaven... and Glory Road...) I want to take a break from war books for a while. I have been struggling to get through all three of those books and I think I just need to read some stuff where no one slaughters anyone AT ALL.
Fortunately, I’ve got a couple of books left on my list from last December’s Christmas book binge: Betty MacDonald’s Nancy and Plum and Rosamunde Pilcher’s Winter Solstice. (I’ve long meant to read a Rosamunde Pilcher book, as she’s one of my mom’s favorite authors.)
“Active friendships require active maintenance. You don’t get to sit back, do nothing, and enjoy the benefits of a meaningful relationship - any relationship.”
I needed a break from my Vietnam book, and Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman’s Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close was just the pick-me-up I needed. It reminded me of Kayleen Schaeffer’s Text Me When You Get Home (not coincidentally, Text Me When You Get Home was where I first read about Sow and Friedman), and it was so uplifting and refreshing to read a book by people who take friendship seriously as a relationship worth investing time in, and attempting to fix if it goes off the rails.
(I’ve been reading a lot of Slate advice columns recently, and I really soured on them after realizing how much of their friendship advice is built on the idea that friendship is basically disposable and should be jettisoned if it ever gets uncomfy. In fact, in general I’ve come to feel that the Slate advice columns are monuments to everything wrong with the modern approach to relationships of all kinds… Consider this entry a resolution to stop putting myself through this aggravation. They’re just so darn readable, though!)
The children’s librarian Jess and I fell to discussing the Caldecott awards, and she broke out a couple of picture books that are getting award buzz for this year. I fell in love with Corey R. Tabor’s Mel Fell: it’s about a baby kingfisher who jumps from the nest, intending to fly, and then falls - falls - falls (you’ve got the book turned on its side, so the bird is falling two whole pages each time) - right into the water!
And then, in the water, you turn the book so it’s open like a normal book, as the baby bird scoots through the water, catches a fish, and then starts to fly back up - and now the book is turned on its side the other direction, as the she flies up - up - up! As Jess said, “It should feel gimmicky, but it works perfectly for the story.”
The other book, Muon Thi Van’s Wishes, chronicles her family’s escape from Vietnam as refugees. There’s an almost Good Night Moon quality to the simplicity and quietness of the text, which contrasts with and therefore highlights the family’s treacherous journey in the pictures.
What I’m Reading Now
More of Max Hastings’ Vietnam, of course. Nixon has just been elected, and just about everyone with any power has concluded that the war in Vietnam is unwinnable, but the US is nonetheless going to keep fighting for another seven years because no one wants to be the one who calls it. My GOD.
What I Plan to Read Next
Once I've finished Vietnam (and Fire from Heaven... and Glory Road...) I want to take a break from war books for a while. I have been struggling to get through all three of those books and I think I just need to read some stuff where no one slaughters anyone AT ALL.
Fortunately, I’ve got a couple of books left on my list from last December’s Christmas book binge: Betty MacDonald’s Nancy and Plum and Rosamunde Pilcher’s Winter Solstice. (I’ve long meant to read a Rosamunde Pilcher book, as she’s one of my mom’s favorite authors.)
