January Staff Bookshelf

Chase away the January chill by cozying up with a good book—if you’re looking for a new read, look no further. Featured we have a nice mix of contemporary, historical, and modernist literature!

Trevor L

I’m reading “The Elements of Eloquence: Secrets of the Perfect Turn of Phrase” by Mark Forsyth. It’s ideal train reading, as the 240 pages contain 39 chapters, each devoted to a particular rhetorical device. The prose is bright and breezy, and the examples drawn from a wide variety of sources are at turns witty or profound. While I doubt I’ll remember the definition of an isocolon or an epistrophe, I might be equipped to string a couple of half-decent sentences together thanks to reading this book.

Amanda

I’m still reading Intermezzo by Sally Rooney and really enjoying it so far. This book uses a lot of stream of consciousness which normally isn’t my favorite but mixes it among some other types of narration, making it an interesting read. I think Rooney is a genius and could sing her praises for days, so I doubt there will be a way for me to dislike it by the end. I also just started listening to Breaking Dawn, the final installment of The Twilight Saga.

John

Jack Gladney is the chair of the department of “Hitler Studies” at the College on the Hill in Blacksmith, a suburb of Iron City, which is in the east part of the United States. He’s made his reputation by wearing dark glasses, turning his first name into an acronym (J.A.K.) and knowing a lot about Hitler’s mother. The only problem–he doesn’t read or speak German. Okay, that’s not the only problem. His fourth wife (fifth marriage) Babette is keeping a secret from him, even though “they tell each other everything.” And he’s terrified of death–not pain or loss, but just death in general. Nothingness. The first part of White Noise proceeds in staccato fashion, with the action concerning Jack and Babette’s assortment of children from various marriages randomly interrupted by a disjointed sentence from the television, and punctuated by observations from fellow professors like, “Only a catastrophe gets our attention. We want them, we depend on them. As long as they happen somewhere else. This is where California comes in. Mud slides, brush fires, coastal erosion, mass killings, et cetera. We can relax and enjoy these disasters because in our hearts we feel that California deserves whatever it gets.” But in the second part, a local disaster ensues–the Airborne Toxic Event. A train crash releases the toxic byproducts of insecticide production as a dark billowing cloud. Does this danger stem the flow of white noise, bring clarity, courage, a sense of purpose? Um, no. The absurd dark comedy only heightens, even as the third part finds Jack on a clear mission that he believes may finally allow him to overcome his fear of death. White Noise won the 1985 National Book Award, and although the technology is dated (TV, radio), the themes are not–the sense of being constantly being bombarded, of modern life being a supermarket where everything from everywhere and everywhen is on offer, but we’re not sure what’s worth buying, what might cause cancer, or how we can stay connected to our fellow shoppers. I first discovered the 2022 movie starring Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig, and although there are some differences, I would recommend both to those who are intrigued by this summary. A few hours into the audiobook, I thought perhaps the 2 hours of a movie was long enough to spend with these people, but my interest picked back up in the second half of the book. They are more sympathetic than they should be, and the deadpan narration of the audiobook fits wonderfully.

Brian

I just finished reading ‘Julia: A Novel‘ by Sandra Newman. This is a “feminist retelling” of George Orwell’s ‘1984’ through the eyes of Winston Smith’s lover Julia. Obviously any kind of revisiting of a literary masterpiece can be dicey but this, to me, reads as a great companion piece to the original, it’s not trying to ‘erase’ or ‘replace’ Orwell’s book, it’s just looking at the events through a different lens. I found it very compelling and really really enjoyed it.  For what it’s worth this has the full approval of the Orwell estate!

Rachel

I am reading Raissa Maritain’s memoirs, We Have Been Friends Together and Adventures in Grace, and they are rocking my world. They’re a beautifully intimate window into what it was like to live in France in the early twentieth century, be married to Jacques Maritain, and hang out with all the most prominent artists and intellectuals of the time. As a person interested in literary modernism, I’ve always held 1920s Paris in unique fascination. But I haven’t necessarily had much insight into the indigenous and Catholic side of that experience. She speaks in detail about things like searching for answers amidst the intellectual dynamics of the Sorbonne, falling in love with Jacques, befriending Charles Peguy, Leon Bloy, and many others, and weathering two world wars. You definitely get the feeling that she wasn’t just Jacques’s wing-woman, but that she matched him spiritually and intellectually, and was even the unseen inspiration behind a lot of what he did. You also get an insight into the extraordinary suffering they both underwent losing friends and being exiled from their homeland due to war. It could use a little structural editing, but the characters, the events, and the insights more than make up for it. I am absolutely spellbound by it.

Trevor C

After unrelated discussions with Trevor Lipscombe about the dreariness of Essex and the Strict and Particular Baptists one week I serendipitously began reading Sarah Perry’s Enlightenment (Jonathan Cape, 2024), a book set in a Strict and Peculiar Baptist Church in dreary Essex. The book follows Thomas Hart, a fifty-something curmudgeon who has a column in the local paper in which he waxes lyrical about astronomy and faith, and Grace Macauley, the teenage daughter of the pastor. The central metaphor is a comet that may have been first observed by someone in the town the last time it appeared and Perry uses this as a way to explore Thomas and Grace’s relationship and how people impact our lives, leave, and then come back.  

Libby

I just listened to the audiobook of All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker. It’s a thriller that begins in 1975 with a serial killer on the loose in a small town in Missouri. A one-eyed boy called Patch thrusts himself into the danger when he witnesses the attempted kidnapping of his crush. Thus begins a search-and-rescue effort led by his best friend Saint. As I was listening I kept thinking, surely there can’t be more to the story? But Whitaker really gives us a complex and interesting tale that spans decades. I really enjoyed this one and would definitely recommend it to mystery/thriller lovers!

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