What I read, and loved, this year

Even though I ventured out more this year than I did in post-March 2020, I still mostly stayed home. On a related note, I may have read more books this year than I ever have before. Here are some of my favorites.

I loved "Matrix," Lauren Groff's most recent novel. It's a departure for her, set in medieval England, but as a longtime lover of historical fiction, I think she pulled it off magnificently. I like almost anything with Eleanor of Acquitaine as a well-drawn character. I've had a minor obsession with her since I was a kid and read E.L. Konigsburg's "A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver." If you have a kid in your life who might be into strong women characters in European history, I highly recommend this book, as well as Groff's — though not for kids.

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Photo by Nancy Klingener

The return of some beloved local institutions and the loss of one

I hope you're enjoying the holiday season. When I was growing up in Massachusetts, one of my high school classmates would always go to Florida for the holidays and I remember thinking, that's just wrong. Warm weather and palm trees did not jibe with my New England-formed notions of holiday atmosphere.

Turns out, I was wrong. I love holidays here. Even though we don't have snow and it doesn't get dark as early, there's something about the enthusiasm for adding lights and decorations that makes me happy. A well-lit palm tree or a "tree" made out of lobster traps with buoys for ornaments is a beautiful thing. I love seeing all the bikes, lit up and decorated, and you can ride them around the island to admire everyone else's efforts.

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I caught the elves in action, decorating Fred the Tree, while driving up the Keys. Photo by Nancy Klingener

Happy Thanksgiving from the rogue island of Key West

I hope you are enjoying a safe and happy Thanksgiving holiday and that, if you're traveling, it's not too stressful.

And I'm really hoping that the blood pressure has gone down for the significant number of Key Westers who had a collective freakout last Wednesday when it was reported that there was draft legislation in Tallahassee that would "abolish the city of Key West."

After having our own small freakout in the newsroom, we (at WLRN) decided not to report on this because ... nothing has actually happened yet. No bill has been filed. No one has even posted, that I know of, an actual copy of this draft legislation — or information about who is sponsoring it.

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The founding of the Conch Republic, 1982. Photo from the Ida Woodward Barron collection, Monroe County Public Library

Not the same old story

The 2019 Key West Literary Seminar has come and gone. It was a good one. A great one, in my highly subjective opinion. I was the program chair and the theme was my proposal - born from the plethora of reboots and adaptations like the Hogarth Shakespeare and Austen Project series. Though it changed a lot from my initial conception to its reality on stage - because of the input of committee members, and more. And made it better. I expected more Shakespeare - and was surprised at so much Tempest and so little Lear - and at least some Austen. And all that Homer/classical/Greek mythology stuff! Did not really see that coming, but was so incredibly glad it did.

Highlights? Hard to name any specific sessions because I enjoyed every single one (though if you forced me, I’d name the one pictured above, with Valerie Martin, Emily Wilson and Margaret Atwood, moderated expertly by Kate Tuttle).

Instead I’ll just brag on, I mean celebrate a couple things I REALLY ENJOYED about the Seminar:

• It wound up feeling very woman-centric - and this was NOT by design and, indeed, partially due to the unplanned absence of four men who had been invited and accepted but later dropped out (John Banville, Colm Toibîn, Daniel Mendelsohn and Marlon James). I guess we replaced them with women but that wasn’t an intentional course. Margaret Atwood set the tone with her brilliant, bespoke keynote - not an off-the-shelf speech like we’ve seen occasionally delivered in that space. And I’m especially glad that this wasn’t a Seminar organized around WOMEN and archetypes and influence - it was just archetype and influence, with a bunch of really smart women to talk about it. And a couple of smart men, too.

• The Seminar audience got its first exposure in this space to graphic novels and fan fiction. Graphic novels was intentional and Eric Shanower knocked it out of the park with a really detailed, fascinating talk about his work process in putting together his epic, ongoing Age of Bronze series about the Trojan War. Coolest aspect of that, in some ways? No gods! It’s all humans, doing horrible things to each other, but without supernatural meddling. We’ve talked for a long time about including graphic novels, and even doing a whole Seminar on the subject. I have always advocated for incorporating them into the theme as another form or genre in literature, and I hope we will continue to do so. As far as fan fiction - Naomi Novik started out writing Star Trek: The Next Generation fan fiction. I asked her about it in a panel and it just took off - since most of the audience members had never heard of such a thing and their minds seemed to be blown by the concept. I am NOT advocating for a Seminar on fan fiction, and I don’t think you should feel compelled to seek it out if it’s not your thing. But it is a huge avenue of writing and reading for a LOT of people and I’m glad we acknowledged its existence.

• For the most part, the Seminar was a politics-free zone. Again, not intentional but what a blessed relief. Our current political state did come up, tangentially, on Sunday morning after Joyce Carol Oates’ short story reading and Kevin Young’s talk about Bunk. But it wasn’t a focus and it didn’t get brought into every conversation and it was just SO NICE to hear and think and talk about literature and books and not have every single thing come around again to THAT. Kind of like that period after Hurricane Irma when we were off the grid - but less traumatic. And much more comfortable, temperature- and running-water-availability-wise.

• Not-so-humblebrag: Of all the books that got name-checked a lot during this Seminar, D’Aulaires’ books of Greek and Norse myths probably topped the list. And I was the first to get there (in my intro Friday morning). They really are great, and obviously influential in the lives of a lot of people. I bought a copy of the Norse myths a few years ago when they reissued it with a new introduction by Michael Chabon. I may have to seek out a copy of the Greek myths for myself, too. Maybe after I finish Mythos by Stephen Fry, a book I highly recommend though I don’t think it’s available in the U.S. - I stumbled across it in the Stockholm airport during a layover on our way home last fall.

My year in …

Listening

So a friend asked for my podcast recommendations for this year, apparently remembering this list from last year. Which led me here, and the sad realization that I haven’t posted in almost a year.

I’m just going to blame Irma. What’s the expiration date on that, anyway?

A lot of my regular listening (The Daily, On The Media, Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me) hasn’t changed, though this year there have been a couple additions to the regular rotation — I listen occasionally to Today Explained, Vox’s answer to The Daily and pretty regularly to It’s Been A Minute with Sam Sanders, especially the weekly recap shows — they are much more interesting and varied than most recap shows, which I think stems from the diversity (in all ways) of the guests and Sanders’ realization that the world and our lives extend beyond the latest palace intrigue from DC. Thank you! And the Football Daily from the BBC. I’ve gotten into the Premier League over the last couple years, following my mom and other family members, and this helps me learn more about the game even if I don’t always understand everything they’re saying, both for accent and football technicality reasons. Also: It’s a relief to listen to people talk passionately about something other than politics or a hideous murder.

Anyway, my favorite limited series for this year are:

In The Dark, season 2 - The first season was so incredibly good, about a murder from the ‘80s that took way too long to solve. This one was about a bunch of murders and the man who has been tried for them — six times! — and why the case keeps getting overturned. And why the prosecutor keeps trying him. They did what real investigative journalists do: they found new evidence and held accountable the people making decisions. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear Curtis Flowers’ case.

Slow Burn, seasons 1 and 2 - Season 1 was about Watergate, which happened when I was a little kid and I read “All The President’s Men” like 30 years ago so I feel like it’s OK I don’t know all the weird details. Season 2 was about the Clinton impeachment, which happened when I was an adult — but it was still amazing to hear the details, some of which I knew and some I didn’t. Both seasons have obvious relevance to our current situation, but it was truly harrowing to listen to the episode on how women, especially, reacted to the Clinton-Lewinsky relationship and his behavior in general — an episode I happened to listen to just as the Brett Kavanaugh hearings were happening.

30 For 30 season 3 - Key West was reportedly one of the first places in the country with a Bikram yoga studio and I went there a lot in the mid-90s. This season is all about Bikram Choudhoury, his empire and his downfall. The primary voice is someone who used to manage a Bikram studio so it’s told with understanding and compassion for those who became part of that world (I was never an acolyte, thank God, but I understand the appeal of the routine and it did make me more flexible).

Serial, season 3 - It’s like they read my mind! Or my earlier complaints about season 1 and maybe some other true crime shows - I like them, obviously, but I was a little frustrated with how season 1 focused on one extraordinary case. Not that it didn’t deserve the focus but it felt like many listeners, especially, didn’t realize that the justice system can be incredibly unfair or messed up for a LOT of people — especially poor people, especially minorities — and that this one case was not an isolated incident, even if it had some extraordinary qualities. So in season 3 they took on an entire city, or at least hung out there for a year, and really looked at it in a systemic way, still using individual, compelling stories to illustrate but always keeping the broader context in mind. Brava, Sarah Koenig and crew.

Reading

I was on Sundial, WLRN’s excellent locally produced show, today talking books with Connie Ogle and to prepare I went through some of my favorites for the year. Here they are along with the answers to some of host Luis Hernandez’ questions.

Number of books read: 51, according to my Goodreads account

Favorite books published this year: Transcription by Kate Atkinson, Circe by Madeline Miller

Favorite work of nonfiction: (I’m still reading this and it was published last year but … wow): Bunk by Kevin Young, an amazing work of scholarship and historical/social analysis about hoaxes, humbug and fakery, from the Sun newspaper’s 1835 Moon hoax and P.T. Barnum to “reality” TV and …

Most immersive reading experience of the year: The seven books (so far) in James S.A. Corey’s Expanse series. I got interested via the TV show, but as usual the books offer a much richer world and so much more information about the characters. Also: they really know how to move along the plot. And the good news: the two guys who write under this pen name seem to be much better than George R.R. Martin - one of them used to work as his assistant - about keeping the books coming despite having an ongoing TV show at the same time.

Best read of the year: The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra. Published in 2015, it’s a series of interlinked stories set in the Soviet Union and after, with a particular painting that ties it together. Brilliant, heartbreaking, beautiful. H/t to my husband Mark for the recommendation.

Biggest disappointment: The Witch Elm by Tana French. Unlike some readers I know (Connie, cough cough), I am willing to go with the sometimes preposterous plots in French’s Dublin murder squad series because I so love spending time with these characters. This book was French’s first where the protagonist was not a detective but was a victim/witness/suspect. But I found it a real slog to spend 700 pages inside that guy’s head. Please go back to the squad room!

Looking forward to in 2019:

Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James, the first in a proposed fantasy series. Yes, please!

Big Sky by Kate Atkinson - a return to the excellent Jackson Brodie series. Thank you!

Tiamat’s Wrath by James S.A. Corey - next in the Expanse series. Keep it up, guys!

Also reads:

I read and enjoyed several books by some of my favorite writers this year, along with one newcomer. They included: Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik, Time’s Convert by Deborah Harkness (how fun to return to that world with the unexpected bonus of spending time in late-Colonial Hadley, Mass. Hadley!), Lethal White by Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling) and The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden - that’s the conclusion of a trilogy based on Russian history and folktales and isn’t officially published until January, but I got my hands on an advanced copy.