Anacortes Books

Mina and I took a six-day vacation to Anacortes to attempt to see some orcas (we succeeded!) and I finished three books on the trip.  For once, none of them were for the Read Harder Challenge - I started a fourth book for that, but it's not done yet. 

Famesick (by Lena Dunham)

I'd heard good things and once I picked up this memoir about Dunham and the making of Girls I could not put it down.  She is as annoying and blind to her privilege as you think she is but she's also been through so much (and seemingly was victimized by her former business partner, who I came out of this really hating).  It's well written, full of juicy details, and makes you angry all over again at how the healthcare system (even if you have all the money and privilege on earth) and the entertainment industry repeatedly fails women. Will side-eye Adam Driver forever and will forever root for Lena Dunham. 

Tell The Wolves I’m Home (by Carol Rifka Brunt)

This is from 2012 but I picked it up because of a recommendation on Reddit for AIDS-related literature that mentioned it in the same breath as one of my favorite novels, The Great Believers.  And holy shit is it good. I am sure this will end up on my top five list at the end of the year.  It's a coming-of-age novel set against the backdrop of AIDS (the 1980s, AZT isn't a thing yet at the beginning of the book), when a girl's beloved uncle dies of AIDS. It's emotionally complex and so subtly written, absolutely beautiful.  Brunt hasn't written anything since then (except there was something supposed to be published in 2024 that wasn't...) and that is sad to me because this book is so amazing. 

Green River Killer (by Jeff Jensen and Jonathan Case) 

So it turns out that Jeff Jensen of Entertainment Weekly fame is the son of Tom Jensen, a lead detective on the Green River Killer case.  This is a graphic novel written by Jensen and illustrated by Jonathan Case.  I enjoyed it but it was pretty fast and has less depth than I was hoping for. Ultimately the case was cracked by DNA in 2003 even though he was a suspect in 1983 (so many more lives lost...) so this focuses on Tom Jensen interviewing Gary Ridgway and taking him to the scenes of past crimes to try and get closure for the families whose loved ones were killed. But it's only 234 pages and we don't learn a ton about Jensen, Ridgway, or his victims. It's fine but not amazing.

The Director (by Daniel Kehlmann)

An intriguing entry on the ToB longlist that I opened and then couldn't stop reading, The Director is the fictionalized account of a real-life director who made art films in Nazi Germany at the behest of propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. 

The point of view characters change chapter by chapter (although narration is in third person) with time skips that leave the reader to fill in their own blanks.  It's about complicity - and to what extent you can maintain your own moral compass in the face of that complicity. The final few chapters made me gasp multiple times. It's a page turner that absolutely sticks the landing. 

I had never heard of Kehlmann before but really hope this tour de force ends up in the Tournament. Either way, you'll definitely see it again on my list of favorite reads of the year - maybe even in first place.  

Mercury Pictures Presents (by Anthony Marra)

Really wonderfully written epic, with an amazing setting (Italy and Hollywood in the late 1930's and early 1940s) and a fabulous main character in Maria. (I also loved her love interest, Eddie Lu.)  Yet somehow it took a long time to get through it for me. 

Maybe it's just long and I'm out of practice or something. Maybe it is the narrative switching from stories I was engrossed in to other characters who I found less interesting. Maybe it is the flash-forwards that often removed some of the suspense for me, as the narrator just tells us how things will turn out from time to tie.

But I was really into it at the beginning and the end, and I love the writing, the verisimillitude, the characters, the ending, the plot. So much to love! Just maybe.... it could have been shorter.  Still, I think it's going to be a ToB contender, so I'm glad I read it.

The Killer Angels (by Michael Shaara)

I read this for the "read an award-winning book from the year you were born" category: The Killer Angels, an historical novel about the Battle of Gettysburg, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in the year I was born.

Not sure how I landed on this book as I am not usually a person who reads war books or historical novels or books with only white men in them, plus this has a ton of battlefield description (and I hate descriptions of scenery) yet this was so compelling I couldn't put it down. It is written from the perspective of some of the key players at Gettysburg, both Union and Confederate, and is completely vivid and humanizing.  

I did have to look up the author's assertion that Robert E. Lee was "against slavery." He wasn't. There are some issues with how the author engages on the topic but "the South claims this war isn't about slavery but it's totally about slavery" is definitely articulated.  But Shaara is more interested in exploring the battle itself and the heroic actions of men on both sides and on those terms, it's a compelling story.

This is like, the opposite of a book I thought I would read and enjoy. And yet, I loved reading it.

Matrix (by Lauren Groff)

I loved this historical novel, set in the 12th century during the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine, centering on Marie of France, a semi-obscure historical figure who lived out her life in an abbey. Groff envisions her as a mystic, a leader, and a writer.

As In This House of Brede shows us, the interior life of a community of women can be fascinating. (In this case, Marie's desire for other women is also a thread running throughout the book.) She uses her position in the abbey to claim power in one of the only ways available to women at the time, and this exploration of female power is the center of the book.  

I also love Groff's writing style, present-tense omniscient, and how she drops in references to future events seemingly without holding anything back. And yet removing the suspense doesn't make the book any less compelling. Looking forward to discussing this one in the Tournament in March!

The Lacemaker And The Princess (by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley)

Category is: "a middle grade book that doesn’t take place in the U.S. or the UK" and thus I read this middle-grade historical novel about a young lacemaker named Isabelle who encounters Marie Antoinette one day, and becomes a companion to her daughter. This is based on a real story about a commoner who did become a companion to Marie-Therese at Versailles.

This novel shows the French revolution from both sides: on the one hand, Isabelle lives in the palace, where the royal family is kind to her; on the other she lives in relative poverty, and Isabelle's brother George has revolutionary ideas and works for the Marquis de Lafayette (who I definitely did not envision as Daveed Diggs, similarly to how I definitely did not envision Marie Antoinette as Kirsten Dunst).

This was a solid middle-grade offering, which made me want to go back and reread Antonia Fraser's biography of Antoinette and also visit Versailles. It's 2020, so I can do the former, but not the latter. Someday!

Catherine, Called Birdy (by Karen Cushman)

A historical young adult novel set in the 1200s, in which Catherine narrates her fourteenth year.  She's rebellious (insomuch as she can be in the 13th century) and resisting being married off by her father, while commenting on feudal life and the people around her. 

The diary format and general charm and self-possession of Catherine reminds me a bit of Cassandra and I Capture the Castle. The well-researched historical details makes this immersive and fascinating. It gave me a glimpse into medieval life that managed not to be too anachronistic in a portrayal of a  young woman and her social world. Great read!

Bring Up the Bodies (by Hillary Mantel)

A little late for the Tournament of Books, but I just finished the sequel to Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies. This one essentially covers the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn from Thomas Cromwell's point of view, with Mantel's characteristic attention to dialogue, detail, and metaphor, and with Cromwell being as inscrutable and ambiguous as ever.

I would not have read it if someone hadn't told me that Mantel fixed the pronoun thing that drove me so crazy with Wolf Hall, and she did! There are a few awkward "he, Cromwell" constructions, but it's better than "he" just floating around by itself in the confusing way that it did in Wolf Hall. So this book is an easier read for sure.

It's also just as gripping as Wolf Hall if not more so, since we know Anne Boleyn is doomed, and we're waiting to see how it happens. Mantel does ascribe a strange motive to Cromwell (which is that he's getting revenge on five men specifically for a play they were in years ago) which apparently does not square with history.  I also feel that whole section of the trial and arrests and so forth is somewhat rushed, and I don't get a clear sense of the characters of some of the men. (That's probably my fault for not being aware of their names beforehand, as I'm sure they're mentioned throughout in nicely subtle dramatically ironic style.)

Mantel doesn't really take sides on whether Anne Boleyn was guilty or not, which I think is done well. (I've read some complaints from the pro-Anne contingent, but I think Anne is nicely ambiguous and not unsympathetic here.) As usual, this left me wanting to re-read Wives of Henry VIII, but this time I am also eagerly anticipating the third book in the trilogy. Bring on Jane Seymour! Bring on Anna of Cleves!