Readings

Several remarkable books I have enjoyed recently are:

How Not to be a Politician (2023): Rory Stewart’s scathing, thought-provoking and beautifully-written memoir covers his experience as a minister in the Cameron and May governments during the U.K.’s brexit turmoil.

Going for a Beer – Selected Short Fictions: Robert Coover’s 2018 collection will expand your mind about what short stories can be. “The Goldilocks Variations” is a retelling of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, written with repetitions and variations on the pattern of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. A man returns home to find an elderly lady in his bed, reassigned to his apartment by Social Security due to a bed shortage. And it goes from there, 30 astonishing stories.

“China,” Granta, Issue 169, Autumn 2024 provides a fascinating selection of short stories and essays written by Chinese writers (some of them expats, some residents). Several, such as Mo Yan (Nobel Literature prize, 2012) and Yu Hua (To Live, among others) are widely available, but most of them are by emerging writers not previously available in translation. Collectively, they provide perspectives on universal human issues and a glimpse into the rich literary culture existing below the surface in China.

“Imagine Me Gone,” by Adam Haslett (2016) tells the story of a woman who finds out about a history of disabling depressions in the man she is poised to marry and his family, marries him anyway, and lives consequences including the recurrence of the disease in one of her sons. Written in the voices of five main characters, it’s an impressive piece of writing as well as an empathetic story.

“Native Nations – A Millennium in North America” (2024 and the Cundill History Prize winner that year) relies on massive research (including oral histories along with conventional sources) to debunk several widespread assumptions about indigenous peoples in the U.S.A. (and implicitly, in Canada). It refutes the idea that North America was an ‘unowned’ terra nullius awaiting European occupation, along with the idea that indigenous peoples in the 16th century were helpless and passive victims of a more ‘advanced’ culture. Most obviously, it points out that the native nations have survived and explores the cultural and political renaissance that is happening now.