Untold Histories and the great books that found me this week

I'm sorry I've gone missing from the blog. I've been feeling a little uncertain in this space. I'm hoping it will pass.


Over the last few days, I read two extraordinary books: The Sense of An Ending by Julian Barnes and Look At Me by Jennifer Egan.  The first came to me after a long hold at the library. The other was left for the taking on a stoop (this is a wonderful Brooklyn thing.)

I was amazed at the shared themes between these two (very different) books.  As if I put one down and it bled into the other.  So many incredible ideas about personal story. The way we put together pieces of our pasts to create a narrative and how listeners fill the gaps with assumptions. How we spin stories and sell them for consumption, how they change our futures in their telling. Does the essence of who we are ever change beneath the veil of legend?

Lately, I've been looking hard for silence.  I've been thinking for every email I read, every conversation I have, how many things are left unsaid. I'm wondering if there is a deeper truth in the omissions, the untold histories.

So, I've been reading and writing and working and living and maybe none of that is interesting or all of it is -- as I figure out what to share here.

In the meantime, maybe none of this makes any sense, but what I mean to say is that I read not one but two great books, and so I'm wondering what you are reading out there?

A Stack To Read

Here's another stack of books beside the bed.

A friend loaned me Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl. This morning I found myself on the subway, standing next to a woman reading the same book.  This is not surprising given its popularity but I did like that we were both reading it without the jacket cover (I put it back on for the picture).  When I first glanced over, our pages appeared identical, each labelled an AMY ELLIOT DUNNE diary entry.  Upon closer inspection, I saw that the entry on her page was dated July 5, 2008. Mine: April 21, 2009.  I loved that we were in this strange time stretch together but I was just a few months ahead.  What I know she will know. What she read I read once. 

I found Hiaasen's Hoot on the sidewalk.  Friends with overflowing shelves gave me the rest of the stack. We can't keep them. Take them.

I like that this stack came to me, the bindings all worn, because they didn't quite fit where they were. These are books I didn't seek out.  But sometimes a book finds you.  Sometimes the list of desired books is too enormous, the wait at the New York Public Library too long, and maybe I think I know what I want to read but don't really, so I did something a little crazy. I pushed this spontaneous stack ahead of everything else. I'll put my faith here.

Have you read any of these books?  What are you reading?