My favorite and most impactful read from September was Emotional Labor by Rose Hackman, followed at a close second by The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai, although it feels a little not-quite-right to compare a novel to a nonfiction read.
Sonia and Sunny is quite a tome that apparently took nearly two decades to write, which means that Desai not only kept all of the threads of this sprawling tale tightly woven, she kept track of them over nearly 20 years. I’m lucky if I can maintain continuity throughout a 1,000-word blog post, so I’m pretty impressed by the craft that went into this novel. I’m also impressed because usually with books this long, even when I really like them, I get to a point where I’m like, “okay, when it this going to wrap up?” but with this one, I was always waiting to know what happened next to each character.
I’ve described the novel as a little like a more serious When Harry Met Sally, which is true-ish, but it’s also got so much in it about the nature of home and the experience of not having a particular geographical location in which one feels like they totally belong (something I can relate to, although not on an international scale as Sonia and Sunny experience), miscommunication, family as both a home base and as something that holds us back, the lies we tell ourselves and others, and the pros an cons of interconnected cultures versus more independent cultures. Most of all, though, it deals with the many ways that all of these things contribute to a modern sense of loneliness and separation. It feels like a novel perfectly placed in our current time period, and I feel a little like it’s haunting me.
In my writing life, I have been writing every day, which is a step in a direction that I want to go. I’m working my way through Walking in this World by Julia Cameron (a follow-up to The Artist’s Way), which has been providing me with timely encouragement for my renewed embrace of creative life even as I fight against it and find lots and lots of excuses to procrastinate. I’m on pace to finish the book just before my birthday in December, which is satisfying timing to me.
I was going to blog about current events, but I need to process a little bit more to have any hope of writing something coherent rather than just a rant that ends with me crying at my keyboard. As an antidote to the news, I’m volunteering more (reading to pre-K and kindergarten classes, delivering books to schools, editing curriculum), signing up for more hours at work, playing piano, taking more mindful walks, attending live music events, not drinking alcohol, and trying to sleep more (but oddly enough, staying up-to-date with the news hasn’t been helping my sleep). I’m also really enjoying reading fiction, but that’s not necessarily news.
I’m super excited for October, the month every year when I give myself permission to gorge on spooky books. Bring on the pretend scary to counter the real scary!
Here’s what I read in September (not counting the several that I DNFed):
September Completed Books:
My favorites from September:
- Emotional Labor by Rose Hackman
- The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
Currently Reading:
- Flashlight by Susan Choi (although my ebook got pulled back to the library, so it might be a while before I will get back to this one)
To-Read for October:
In addition to my StoryGraph, you can see my Litsy profile for status updates throughout the month.
Imperfect Happiness 