The Folio: What I Read Mid-June through Mid-July 2024

Literary hookups for me, for you.

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Because I’m far from the median on the hectic-to-chaotic continuum that is currently My Life™, reading time was limited this month, and the books, for the most part, were long and/or required revving up the ol’ noggin.

This month’s reviews are abbreviated, awkward attempts to match you with a potentially great read for the next time you’re curling up on your couch, you need something to take your mind off the cloud of B.O. on your train commute, or you’re having an actual summer vacation and want to read a book. (Hello, my southern hemisphere friends! You might need to read these upside-down or counterclockwise in a warm nook.)

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

A classic set during World War II and a great choice if you grok gallows humor in your horrors-of-war reading. Be prepared for hilarious yet nightmarish loops of bureaucratic nonsense that test man’s survival and will to do so. The book is one of relentless madness well told. Brilliant and with bite.

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The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov

If you’re intrigued by the tug-of-war between tradition and progress, The Cherry Orchard might be a good literary match. Although the plot is one of fighting over an ancestral cherry orchard, the real battleground is a family as it teeters on the edge of change. Eras end and characters must either cling to tradition or leap into modernity while grappling with obsolescence and loss.

Still, Chekhov intended it as a comedy; I read it as tragi-comedy, much like Catch-22. 

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All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Can I interest you in a Pulitzer Prize winner? 

Doerr’s exquisite storytelling shines. Non-linear dual narration, present tense, and short chapters are tricky things to do well, and he does. Doerr also brilliantly introduces unforgettable secondary characters (tip-of-the-hat to Frederick and Madame Manec) while keeping focus on Marie-Laure and Werner. Despite the protagonists being children, this book is for grownups who understand that while there is always beauty to be found in small moments of humanity, war isn’t meant to be pretty at the beginning, middle, or end. 

All the Light We Cannot See is the book from this month I’m most likely to reread, and the one I’d most strongly recommend. Bring it to your favorite spot and get to know it.

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I: Six Nonlectures by E.E. Cummings

Got a taste for stubborn independence and poetic genius? Delivered as six (non)lectures at Harvard (we’ll forgive him that), this work is “an aesthetic self-portrait of one whole half” (the writing half) “of this and no other indivisible ignoramus as is.”

In other words, Cummings promises I: Six Nonlectures to be a bird-flipping romp through his mind.

And it is.

Slightly wacky, fully erudite navel-gazing, but done so well.

Cummings, in some ways, comes across as the nation’s oldest teenager (sorry, Dick Clark) and in some ways sagacious. Literary canon abounds, as does a not-small amount of his own verse. This is not something I’d recommend reading poolside, but in a place where you can comfortably saunter alongside his thinking. Take the time. Take the time.

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Save the Cat Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody

Are you a structure dork like me? Save the Cat Writes a Novel is good for pre-writing organization, but, if (like me) you’re between drafts and need to shore up your pacing and plot, this book may earn some space on your writing desk. 

Save the Cat has its devotees and its detractors. The huffiness abounds in both camps.

The book provides a structural framework that guides without dictating, offering a flexible roadmap akin to the Hero’s Journey. It considers storytelling elements and their impact on reader satisfaction, with an eye towards inherent audience desire for certain elements of plot and pacing.

As with any craft book, use what works, discard what doesn’t. 

Whether you’re a plotter or an all-but-the-most-extreme pantser, Save the Cat is worth a thumb-through. 

Engage and use as you wish.

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Time should be less of a four-letter word in the next month, and I’ve got some excellent books to share with you — one might even get its very own post!

Meanwhile, I’m happy to discuss more about any of this month’s reads — feel free to jump into the comments section. No splashing, no running, no roughhousing.