A New Year
January 30, 2022
Is it? Still? A new year? I’m hanging on to the “new” in New Year and its associated sense of optimism and hope for as long as I can!
Gemma Correll‘s illustration, “Is this the most January January ever?”, made me laugh. There definitely seems to be a general malaise afoot as 2022 gets rolling. Conversations I’ve had with fellow readers have reflected this. Due to the mood, there is a prevalent sense of disappointment &/or frustration from an inability to focus on reading with the ease we have in the past. I’ve felt it too. I admire those who have been able to embrace a Pandemic pause in their lives to devour bigger books and more pages than ever. My books-per-month count may be way down but I have found a new appreciation for essays and short stories. It seems writers and publishers have as well – there are so many new collections on the shelves and more to come. If you’re struggling with getting into a novel, why not dip a toe into a book of essays or stories? There are many genres but here are a few that may lighten the mood or distract you with intriguing thoughts.
I Miss You When I Blink: Essays by Mary Laura Philpott – Sometimes when all the news articles seem to be too much one needs a little escape. This collection from a charming, self-professed Type A-overthinker, abounds with humour and poignancy. Philpott writes self-deprecatingly but honestly and often with a wink. Marriage, parenthood, big life moments, and more importantly, the little moments all feature.
The Souvenir Museum by Elizabeth McCracken – I’ve yet to read McCracken’s work but feel strongly pulled to dive in. She is the only reader Ann Patchett apparently trusts for input on a manuscript. Now that’s an endorsement for having an understanding of words! “With sentences that crackle and spark and showcase her trademark wit, McCracken traces how our closely held desires—for intimacy, atonement, comfort—bloom and wither against the indifferent passing of time. Her characters embark on journeys that leave them indelibly changed—and so do her readers.“
The Book of Delights by Ross Gay – “A volume of lyric essays” in which poet Ross Gay shares “a daily essay about something delightful – an essayette” . The Crow’s Ablutions, and Flowers in the Hands of Statues, Loitering, and The Sanctity of Trains just a few titles among the 102 included here. Plenty of quick little reads to make you pause with a gentle hmmmm or a giggle. Truly delightful. Perhaps this will serve as inspiration to slow our pace and notice the delights we encounter in our own days.
Midlife Bites: Anyone Else Falling Apart or Is It Just Me? by Jen Mann – Jen Mann is a popular blogger, known for writing with humour about home life with kids and the crazy-making expectations that bombard us. Her epic “Overachieving Elf on the Shelf Mommies” rant went wildly viral and gathered her a fervent following among the more “realistic” mom-set. Now Jen has taken her truth telling to the mid-life crisis and her wry humour is hitting a nerve yet again. “I inhaled this book in one sitting; it’s a must-read for anyone over forty. This should become the gift all girlfriends give one another.”—Zibby Owens, host of the award-winning podcast Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books
Binge: 60 Stories to Make your Brain Feel Different by Douglas Coupland – Feels like it’s been a while since we’ve had something from this creative thinking icon. I’m intrigued by the title alone and look forward to giving this a try. “The characters, of course, are Doug’s own: crackpots, cranks and sweetie-pies, dad dancers and perpetrators of carbecues. People in the grip of unconscionable urges; lonely people; dying people; silly people. If you love Doug’s fiction, this collection is like rain on the desert.” (goodreads)
The Joy of Small Things by Hannah Jane Parkinson – Happy focused vignettes by a young English writer on topics as wide-ranging as Finding Lost Things, Fonts, Pockets, The Smell of Wood and Being Inside When its Raining. Many of these pieces appeared in her very popular column in the Guardian newspaper. Hard to decide whether to fly through them all in one sitting or dole out just a few deep sigh worthy moments at a time.
The Most of Nora Ephron – Our beloved Nora wrote some of the most enjoyable, funny, challenging, and poignant essays of our time. Two collections, I Feel Bad About My Neck and I Remember Nothing are included in this recently released compilation of ALL of Nora’s writings. Screenplays, novels, essays, blogposts … they are all here in one “most” impressive collection. “Readers will admire their literary heroine even more when … they discover, or are reminded, of the brave positions she took, and of how far her preoccupations and her writing ranged.” —Francine Prose, The New York Review of Books
These Precious Days by Ann Patchett – I read this lovely collection over the holidays; it was a favourite gift. Ann always inspires with her way of seeing the world and some of these essays will remain with me always. A great thing about essays is that they are more easily re-readable. I can see keeping this on a nearby shelf and re-visiting on down the road and finding new gems that emerge with the passing of time and a change in perspective. Highly recommend.
Nora Ephron
July 7, 2012
Nora Ephron (1941-2012)
“Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.”
You know that question, who would you invite to your dinner party if you could invite absolutely anybody – real or fictional, dead or alive? Norah Ephron would be on my invite list. Sadly, at a youthful 71 years, she passed away on June 26th. Among her many movies, When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail have become our generation’s comfortable favourites – like old friends we visit on occasion and then savour why we love them so: the witty humour, the poignancy, the frank authenticity. The writing is stellar and I know every one of you reading this can recite a line, or even several, or, let’s be honest, the entire script, from memory. (“I’ll have what she’s having!” ) Nora’s mother advised her that “everything is copy” and “take notes” which perhaps contributed in a small way to Nora’s striking ability to capture pitch-perfect dialogue and scenarios so authentic, many thought she’d read their minds.
Nora was not just a screenwriter and movie director, she was a novelist and essayist as well, with titles like: I Feel Bad About My Neck, Heartburn, I Remember Nothing, Wallflower at the Orgy, Crazy Salad and Scribble,Scribble. She was also known to be a devoted reader. Here are a few of her thoughts on reading:
“Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on. Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficit disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it’s a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it’s a way of making contact with someone else’s imagination after a day that’s all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss.”
“… the state of rapture I experience when I read a wonderful book is one of the main reasons I read; but it doesn’t happen every time or even every other time, and when it does happen, I am truly beside myself.”
Arianna Huffington was a friend, and grateful to Ephron for her commitment to the Huffington Post. Read Arianna’s tribute and a collection of Nora Ephron’s HuffPo articles and blog posts here.
It has become abundantly clear that Nora Ephron was admired, respected and loved by many. So many wonderful articles have been written in her honour in recent weeks. In the words of Meg Ryan:
“Nora was an era. We pictured ourselves inside her dreams and they became ours. All wisdom, wit and sparkle lights, what a treat she was, what a blessing. I marvel again and again, what a life… To have created a simple happiness in people, to have added to the sum of delight in the world.”
If you haven’t laughed your way through them yet, perhaps you’ll make room on your bedside table or in your beach bag for one of these recent collections:
