A Certain Slant of Light

A rare edition of Books I’ve Abandoned. Possibly two weeks ago I would have enjoyed Douglas Boin’s Alaric the Goth: An Outsider’s History of the Fall of Rome, but I just can’t with a sympathetic account of a nation’s capital being sacked right now. (Probably the book’s pervasive presentism would still have annoyed me two weeks ago, though.)

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

I finished A. J. Pearce’s Dear Mrs. Bird, a novel set during the London Blitz about a young woman who becomes a stealth advice columnist when her magazine’s actual advice columnist refuses to answer letters containing Unpleasantness. This book is a delight, albeit the kind of delight that nearly made me cry at one point because Emmy is such a good friend to her best friend Bunty, even when she thinks she’s a bad friend. The book comes to a satisfying but fairly open end, so I was thrilled to learn that there’s going to be a sequel. A chance to spend more time with Emmy and Bunty and Emmy’s coworker Kathleen and her boss Mr. Collins!

I also read Anne Bogel’s Don’t Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life. I often read self-help books when I already know basically what I need to do, but need a little more nudging to push me to actually do it, and as my reason for not doing things often is that I’m thinking… and thinking… and thinking about it, this book was quite helpful in that regard.

I also really liked the chapter about incorporating little rituals into your life, not least because it sparked an idea for what to do with all these candles we’ve got lying around: why not light a candle while I’m writing letters? I’m more likely to remember to actually use the darn things if I associate them with a specific activity, and letter-writing (unlike, say, watching a movie) involves a certain amount of staring into space thinking “What should I write next?”, during which time a flickering candle flame is a pleasant companion.

What I’m Reading Now

It was the melancholy secret that reality can arouse desires but never satisfy them; that love begins with a human being but does not end in him; and that everything can be there: a human being, love, happiness, life - and that yet in some terrible way it is always too little, and grows ever less the more it seems.

Erich Maria Remarque’s Three Comrades continues its exploration of low-key despair. Our narrator, Robert, has been drifting through life in the years since the Great War. When the book begins, he has just met a girl, Pat, with whom he briefly finds love and purpose and happiness. However, it turns out she has consumption (don’t they always?), and although I’ve only gotten up to the part where Pat goes away to a sanatorium, I strongly suspect she’s going to kick the bucket before the book is out. It would be out of keeping with the general mood of the book for her to live.

What I Plan to Read Next

rachelmanija’s review of Waubgeshig Rice’s Moon of the Crusted Snow so intrigued me that I put a hold on the book at the library.