Russian Roulette | A Midyear Book Review

I have good intentions of starting a book club with a cohort of people who like reading as much as me. I joined such clubs in Boise and Honolulu, fell in love with books I would have otherwise ignored, and developed a habit for skipping synopses to decide if the story was for me. My roulette approach to reading has netted more favorites than my deliberate searches. Maybe it’s the universe guiding my reading or luck with a dash of magic—or maybe the saying “every book has an audience” exists because a story grows on you.

(Exhibit A –My Little Pony: The Movie … and B – My Little Pony: The Next Generation.)

Since I recently moved and have no physical community, this book club dream may be a virtual goal. (So if you’re interested, let me know. I don’t have much time, but I can always make time to talk books.)

And speaking of books, I find the midpoint of the year is a perfect opportunity to reflect on what I’ve read—namely the standouts that delighted, entertained, and taught me about the world. For your consideration, I present my midyear review. Some books are new, some are older, and all are worth reading. 

Fiction

Assembly | Natasha Brown (2021; 112 pages; Literary fiction)

Assembly is short but uses its space wisely. The story’s protagonist, a Black British woman, addresses what we must sacrifice to integrate and be enough. In navigating the corporate sector and judgments concerning her worth, she perfectly captures the ethos of the minority: “Work twice as hard. Be twice as good. And always, assimilate.”

Tender is the Flesh | Agustina Bazterrica; translated by Sarah Moses (2017/2020; 224 pages; Dystopian horror)

Originally published in Spanish in 2017, Bazterrica’s novel concerns a virus that has made animal meat poisonous to humans. Bereft of other viable proteins, people get creative. Haunting, horrific, and provocative, Bazterrica addresses the hypocrisy of humanity and the euphemisms we employ—“After all, since the world began, we’ve been eating each other. If not symbolically, then we’ve been literally gorging on each other.” (Note: this book is disturbing and gruesome; proceed with caution, dear reader.)

Lessons in Chemistry | Bonnie Garmus (2022; 400 pages; Multiple genres)

Garmus employs comedy and tragedy effectively in her debut novel. We follow Elizabeth Zott as she tackles glass ceilings, relationships, parenting, and patriarchal structures since the 1960s has no place for women chemists (even if they outperform the men). Many delightful aspects of this book made the pages pass quickly. And it’s been optioned for a miniseries on Apple TV, which I will be watching this fall.

City of Thieves | David Benioff (2008; 258 pages; Historical fiction)

Taking place during the Nazi siege of Leningrad, urchin Lev Beniov and military deserter Kolya must find a dozen eggs for a Soviet colonel to escape execution. The book takes you on a wild adventure that evokes Heller’s Catch-22 and Anthony Marra’s The Tsar of Love and Techno. It was witty, humorous, and delightfully tragic. Add it to your TBR list.

The Passenger / Stella Maris | Cormac McCarthy (2022; 400 pages / 208 pages; Psychological fiction)

This series was McCarthy’s swan song; he reportedly started writing about siblings Bobby and Alice Western in the 1980s and finished the books in October 2022. I started reading The Passenger because it was the closest recent comparison title to my own manuscript, and while the plot is a bit empty, the characters are compelling—their father being one of the inventors of the atomic bomb.* There is much to unpack about the legacy of sin and morality with tangents in physics and mathematics. These books aren’t for everyone, but I found them engaging and provoking on an existential level. 

Nonfiction

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People | Stephen Covey (1989; 381 pages; Self-help)

(It’s an older book, but it checks out.) Covey’s seven habits equip the reader to enhance their individual capacity while cultivating the necessary skills to achieve the highest level of maturity: interdependence. Covey establishes many of the principles visible in current habit and business literature; while he did not invent the principles, he made them popular, speaking to his influence in this sphere. I particularly like Habit 3—“Put first things first”—which distinguishes the important from the urgent in four quadrants and provides guidance on how to manage those events:

• Quadrant 1: Urgent and important (e.g.,  crucial deadlines and crises) – Do
• Quadrant 2: Not urgent but important (e.g., long-term goals and events) – Plan
• Quadrant 3: Urgent but not important (e.g., administrivia) – Delegate
• Quadrant 4: Not urgent and not important (e.g., unimportant email) – Eliminate

(I really should be putting this into practice.)

Thinking, Fast and Slow | Daniel Kahneman (2013; 499 pages; Psychology)

I started reading this book in 2016 but put it down for reasons I can’t remember. I recently picked it back up again as an audiobook and reveled in the science of probabilities and cognitive biases. Considering my job involves bias and rhetoric, I’ve used the advice in this book far more than I initially imagined. It is particularly useful for understanding the conflict between our irrational and logical brains. 

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel | Alexander Chee (2018; 288 pages; Autobiography)

Chee’s autobiography was required reading for my MFA program, but I adored his braided essays that describe the history of his writing experience. He writes about his life as a gay Asian-American writer, as a fly on the wall in socialite spaces. While only two chapters specifically address writing advice, he demonstrates his advice throughout the telling. (This is also a late add to my favorite LGBTQIA+ books—and the only nonfiction read I have, though I hope to add more.)

If you have any books that stirred your soul this year, leave a comment. What should I read next?

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* One of my MA Rhetoric cohorts is Oppenheimer’s granddaughter. She told me how most of her family pursued STEM tracks while she was the lone humanities student, but she had a desire to capture the culture surrounding her grandfather’s legacy.