Category Archives: Non-fiction November 2023

The Mutual Admiration Society
by Mo Moulton
Rating: ★★★½
Publication Date: November 5, 2019
Genre: non-fiction
Pages: 384
ReRead?: No
Project: halloween bingo

A group biography of renowned crime novelist Dorothy L. Sayers and the Oxford women who stood at the vanguard of equal rights.

Dorothy L. Sayers is now famous for her Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane detective series, but she was equally well known during her life for an essay asking "Are Women Human?" Women's rights were expanding rapidly during Sayers's lifetime; she and her friends were some of the first women to receive degrees from Oxford. Yet, as historian Mo Moulton reveals, it was clear from the many professional and personal obstacles they faced that society was not ready to concede that women were indeed fully human.

Dubbing themselves the Mutual Admiration Society, Sayers and her classmates remained lifelong friends and collaborators as they fought for a truly democratic culture that acknowledged their equal humanity.

Gaudy Night
by Dorothy Sayers
Series: Lord Peter Wimsey #10
Publication Date: January 1, 1935
Genre: mystery: golden age (1920-1949)
Pages: 528
ReRead?: Yes
Project: 2024 read my hoard

When Harriet Vane attends her Oxford reunion, known as the Gaudy, the prim academic setting is haunted by a rash of bizarre pranks: scrawled obscenities, burnt effigies, and poison-pen letters, including one that says, "Ask your boyfriend with the title if he likes arsenic in his soup." Some of the notes threaten murder; all are perfectly ghastly; yet in spite of their scurrilous nature, all are perfectly worded. And Harriet finds herself ensnared in a nightmare of romance and terror, with only the tiniest shreds of clues to challenge her powers of detection, and those of her paramour, Lord Peter Wimsey.

My second book pairing is focused on Dorothy Sayers and her circle of friends at Oxford during WWI. I read The Mutual Admiration Society last year and really enjoyed it a lot. It’s not just focused on Dorothy Sayers, who is definitely the most well-known of the women who are profiled with its pages, but it also followed the lives of her other friends and associates. They lived during a time of extraordinary culture change, and the book chronicled how they reacted to, and benefited from, those cultural changes as individuals who sought meaning in their lives.

Any of Dorothy Sayer’s Lord Peter Wimsey series would pair well with this book, but I chose Gaudy Night specifically because it is Sayer’s manifesto, arguing that educating women is valuable, that women can be scholars, that work is work whether it is performed by a man or a woman, that intellectual work is valuable and that women should have the personal agency to do the work they are best suited to do, whether that work involves marriage and children, or not, and whether society approves of women doing that work, or believe it should be reserved for men. It is a book that I have read, and re-read, and will continue to read in the future.

Middlemarch
by George Eliot
Rating: ★★★★★
Publication Date: January 1, 1871
Genre: classic
Pages: 853
ReRead?: Yes

George Eliot's Victorian masterpiece: a magnificent portrait of a provincial town and its inhabitants

George Eliot's novel, Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life, explores a fictional nineteenth-century Midlands town in the midst of modern changes. The proposed Reform Bill promises political change; the building of railroads alters both the physical and cultural landscape; new scientific approaches to medicine incite public division; and scandal lurks behind respectability. The quiet drama of ordinary lives and flawed choices are played out in the complexly portrayed central characters of the novel--the idealistic Dorothea Brooke; the ambitious Dr. Lydgate; the spendthrift Fred Vincy; and the steadfast Mary Garth. The appearance of two outsiders further disrupts the town's equilibrium--Will Ladislaw, the spirited nephew of Dorothea's husband, the Rev. Edward Casaubon, and the sinister John Raffles, who threatens to expose the hidden past of one of the town's elite. Middlemarch displays George Eliot's clear-eyed yet humane understanding of characters caught up in the mysterious unfolding of self-knowledge.

This Penguin Classics edition uses the second edition of 1874 and features an introduction and notes by Eliot-biographer Rosemary Ashton. In her introduction, Ashton discusses themes of social change in Middlemarch, and examines the novel as an imaginative embodiment of Eliot's humanist beliefs.

I have read Middlemarch three times. The first was in college, the second in my thirties, and the third was earlier this year. Each time I read it, I find things that I missed the other times that I have read it.

This last time, I found myself in sympathy with Tertius Lydgate, more than I ever had before. He made such an unwise decision when he married Rosamund, and she slowly smothered the life from him. Dorothea, eventually, finds a way to a real marriage built on respect and affection. Poor Lydgate, on the other hand, is just stuck in an arid, sterile marriage with a childish, vacuous, deceitful woman of no understanding. Rosamund never changes. How awful would it be to be married to someone utterly incapable of emotional growth or insight?

My Life in Middlemarch
by Rebecca Mead
Rating: ★★★★
Publication Date: January 28, 2014
Genre: memoir
Pages: 293
ReRead?: No

Rebecca Mead was a young woman in an English coastal town when she first read George Eliot's Middlemarch, regarded by many as the greatest English novel. After gaining admission to Oxford, and moving to the United States to become a journalist, through several love affairs, then marriage and family, Mead read and reread Middlemarch. The novel, which Virginia Woolf famously described as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people," offered Mead something that modern life and literature did not.

In this wise and revealing work of biography, reporting, and memoir, Rebecca Mead leads us into the life that the book made for her, as well as the many lives the novel has led since it was written. Employing a structure that deftly mirrors that of the novel, My Life in Middlemarch takes the themes of Eliot's masterpiece--the complexity of love, the meaning of marriage, the foundations of morality, and the drama of aspiration and failure--and brings them into our world. Offering both a fascinating reading of Eliot's biography and an exploration of the way aspects of Mead's life uncannily echo that of Eliot herself.

I love bookish memoirs, and all the better when the bookish memoir focuses on a book that I have loved. I don’t think that I would recommend this book to a person who has never read Middlemarch, or who has read and disliked it. In order to really enjoy My Life in Middlemarch, it’s necessary to be at least moderately enthusiastic about the primary source material. However, I found that reading it while I was reading Middlemarch added a lot of enjoyment to my reread.

The book itself is a blend of criticism and personal essay, and includes a fair amount of biographical information about George Eliot. This makes it really helpful as an adjunct to Middlemarch itself.

According to the website Masterclass:

Narrative nonfiction, also known as creative nonfiction or literary nonfiction, is a true story written in the style of a fiction novel. The narrative nonfiction genre contains factual prose that is written in a compelling way—facts told as a story. While the emphasis is on the storytelling itself, narrative nonfiction must remain as accurate to the truth as possible.

Using this definition, I think that probably the first book using this style that I read was A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr, which I read around the time it was published, in 1995 (all title links are to the GR book page). It’s sometimes difficult for me to distinguish “narrative” non-fiction from just garden-variety non-fiction, though. For the most part, when I think of narrative NF, I think of books that are sort of pot-boilery, that more obviously sets out to hold the reader’s attention by using devices like suspense, foreshadowing, irony and vignette, as opposed to it’s dryer cousin.

Here is a round half dozen suggestions for great narrative non-fiction that I would recommend to anyone, even readers who primarily read fiction, or who are generally turned off by the dry reputation of non-fiction.

• Devil in the White City by Erik Larsen: there was a point where this book was everywhere, back in the early 2000’s, and for good reason. It is a ripping story.
• A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson: this is the only book by Bill Bryson that I’ve read, and I don’t know why because it was hilarious. I still remember sitting on my couch reading next to my husband, who was watching t.v., and laughing to the point that he made me read part of the book out loud to him because I was being so annoying.
• Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer: I have also read Missoula, Into Thin Air and Into the Wild by Krakauer, and his books are riveting. I will concede that I have heard him criticized for presenting a biased perspective, especially in Into Thin Air, so YMMV.
• Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann: Martin Scorsese recently adapted this for film, although I haven’t seen it yet. The book is really good, although also deeply infuriating. Grann also wrote The Lost City of Z, which is also terrific.
• The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan: I actually mentioned this book in my review of Fever in the Heartland. It’s a deep dive into the dust storms of the 1930’s, and is bleak, heartbreaking, but also a testament to the resilience of the human spirit. Egan won the Pulitzer for it in 2005.
• Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams: This is the only book on my list that I’m not positive really belongs here. I read it a long time ago, and it’s a memoir as well as a piece of nature writing, but I remember being transfixed by it.

I’ve tried not to overlap with the other topics I am planning to discuss later in the week, so I’ve left off some books that would definitely fit here that I’m planning on talking about in a future post.

The topic for this week is: choosing nonfiction.

What are you looking for when you pick up a nonfiction book? Do you have a particular topic you’re attracted to? Do you have a particular writing style that works best? When you look at a nonfiction book, does the title or cover influence you? If so, share a title or cover which you find striking.

I haven’t ever really given this much thought, so it was interesting to sit down and try to figure it out. There are a few things that come to mind when I think back on how I’ve chosen my non-fiction reads.

• One way of picking up a piece of non-fiction, for me, is the serendipitous way that a book will sort of make it’s way in front of me. Maybe it’s a topic I’m interested in, and I see it come up on Goodreads a couple of time because some of my friends are reading it. Or, I’ll listen to a podcast and it will be mentioned. Or, and this is especially true of narrative non-fiction, a particular book can just be everywhere, all at once. This is how I ended up reading Killers of the Flower Moon, which has now been adapted to film. I came across it on GR, and, as well, I had a friend in my “real” life who was reading it, who really sold me on it.
• But, there are also a lot of times that I get interested in a topic from a piece of fiction, or a specific author, which will lead down the rabbit hole of non-fiction. I have some posts already drafted to talk about this “book pairing” process, because that’s the theme for next week, but one example of this would be my love of WWI, interwar & WWII British women’s fiction, which is what caused me read The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson, and to seek out war diaries, like A Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain and Few Eggs and No Oranges by Vere Hodgson.
• Unlike fiction, where I am an unapologetic cover hound, I don’t really think that covers or titles influence me when I’m picking non-fiction. It’s all about the theme or the content.

When it comes to themes or topics, I can’t get enough of:

• Bibliomemoirs. I love them so much that I think I will probably write one at some point, just for myself. And, in a way, isn’t a book blog just a long form, endless bibliomemoir? I love to read about other bookish people and their reading experiences.
• Cult memoirs: I am strangely fixated by books written by (especially women) authors who have escaped from authoritarian or fundamentalist religious organizations. I went through a month or so a couple of years ago where I basically mainlined them like heroin. Maybe this is because, as a godless heathen, reading about fucked up religious experiences (that too often seem to involve actual sexual abuse) makes me feel better about my choice to leave religion behind as a young woman.
• Golden age mystery: I love vintage, Golden Age mysteries (especially Agatha Christie), so I love picking up pretty much anything that goes behind the scenes of those authors, publishers, books, etc. Martin Edwards, in particular is brilliant at this (The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books, The Golden Age of Murder and Life of Crime are all exceptional, and are TBR exploders) and , but I also really enjoyed John Curren’s Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks, Poirot by Mark Aldridge, David Suchet’s Poirot and Me, and A is for Arsenic by Kathryn Harkup. I also read Lucy Worsley’s new Christie biography Agatha Christie: A Very Elusive Woman in April and loved it. If I see a new book on this topic, I buy it. Immediately.
• History: I have a range of historical topics that interest me – far too many to list here. Suffice it to say that if I want to read something non-fiction, I’ll often turn to a time period or historical event that intrigues me and find a book to match it.
• Narrative non-fiction: especially around social justice, environmental, or social history issues.

That’s not all, but that’s enough for now!

Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age
by Katherine May
Rating: ★★★½
Publication Date: February 28, 2023
Genre: essays, non-fiction
Pages: 212
ReRead?: No

From the New York Times-bestselling author of Wintering, an invitation to rediscover the feelings of awe and wonder available to us all.

Many of us feel trapped in a grind of constant change: rolling news cycles, the chatter of social media, our families split along partisan lines. We feel fearful and tired, on edge in our bodies, not quite knowing what has us perpetually depleted. For Katherine May, this low hum of fatigue and anxiety made her wonder what she was missing. Could there be a different way to relate to the world, one that would allow her to feel more rested and at ease, even as seismic changes unfold on the planet? Might there be a way for all of us to move through life with curiosity and tenderness, sensitized to the subtle magic all around?

In Enchantment, May invites the reader to come with her on a journey to reawaken our innate sense of wonder and awe. With humor, candor, and warmth, she shares stories of her own struggles with work, family, and the aftereffects of pandemic, particularly feelings of overwhelm as the world rushes to reopen. Craving a different way to live, May begins to explore the restorative properties of the natural world, moving through the elements of earth, water, fire, and air and identifying the quiet traces of magic that can be found only when we look for them. Through deliberate attention and ritual, she unearths the potency and nourishment that come from quiet reconnection with our immediate environment. Blending lyricism and storytelling, sensitivity and empathy, Enchantment invites each of us to open the door to human experience in all its sensual complexity, and to find the beauty waiting for us there.

Enchantment by Katherine May is my second book by Ms. May, which I checked out from the library earlier this year when it was published in February. Like Wintering, it’s a bit difficult to pigeonhole, being a memoir, a book of essays, and, as well, a bit of straight up science writing. Unfortunately, it didn’t resonate with me quite so well as May’s first book, which I read back in 2022.

Wintering
by Katherine May
Rating: ★★★★
Publication Date: November 10, 2020
Genre: memoir, non-fiction
Pages: 241
ReRead?: No

Sometimes you slip through the cracks: unforeseen circumstances like an abrupt illness, the death of a loved one, a break up, or a job loss can derail a life. These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected. For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. Wintering explores how she not only endured this painful time, but embraced the singular opportunities it offered.

A moving personal narrative shot through with lessons from literature, mythology, and the natural world, May’s story offers instruction on the transformative power of rest and retreat. Illumination emerges from many sources: solstice celebrations and dormice hibernation, C.S. Lewis and Sylvia Plath, swimming in icy waters and sailing arctic seas.

Ultimately Wintering invites us to change how we relate to our own fallow times. May models an active acceptance of sadness and finds nourishment in deep retreat, joy in the hushed beauty of winter, and encouragement in understanding life as cyclical, not linear. A secular mystic, May forms a guiding philosophy for transforming the hardships that arise before the ushering in of a new season.

There was something about this book that really worked for me – I think there was a bit of serendipity in my decision to read it. I was, myself, in a bit of a difficult time, experiencing a period of dislocation. It was the tail end of the pandemic, and work was really getting me down. Things were pretty miserable, I was pretty miserable, it was the dead of winter (literally and figuratively – it was January, 2022) and I stumbled onto the book.

I wish that I had read it ten years ago. Maybe even twenty years ago. This would have been difficult, because of course, it wasn’t published until 2020, but nonetheless, May’s open acknowledgment that some years are light and some years are dark, but both are normal, was an extraordinary insight that I had somehow avoided making on my own. I’m very GenX – I’m a buck up. shut up and get it done sort of person. But, of course, there are times when all of the bucking up, shutting up, and getting it done don’t really make me feel any better. Sure – I feel better about the thing that was the issue, but that doesn’t mean that the issue has gone away.

A good example of this was my career, from which I am now retired. There were years when I was able to handle the stress, manage my caseload with aplomb, get my work done and support my colleagues. And then there were years when I pretended that I was able to do all of those thing, but underneath, I was a frigging mess. It would have helped me, personally, to be able to offer myself some grace when things were bad. Maybe I wouldn’t have burned out. More likely, I would still have burned out, because my work eventually burns out everyone, but I would have been kinder to myself along the way.

So, of the two, Wintering was the one that worked for me better, although I liked both of them.