I’ve been recovering from some medical issues and reading entire books has been a challenge. I started with rereading Jane Austin.
At the recommendation of a friend, I moved on to Table for Two by Amor Towles. I’m not a huge fan of short stories, but with my limited attention span, it seemed like a good start. Thankfully, all the stories were long and satisfying. At the beginning of each, I thought: “Maybe too pat.” “Maybe too stylized.” Yet I ended each being surprised and charmed.
I moved on to Bret Lott, Gather the Olives. That sent me back, first to my own first days visiting family in Nahariya when I was twelve, and then, traveling with my husband and two young daughters across Israel in 1999. Bret’s is a uniquely Christian view. Published just before the October 7 attacks, it captures a time and an optimism which is impossible to conjure now. His first breakfast, the light of Jerusalem, the variety of foods, the disorientation with an unfamiliar alphabet, the struggles, and yes, the success of communication—the possibility of hope, of shared history and values. All that might still be there, yet the noise of evil makes it hard to reimagine any kind of harmony in that troubled region.
I just picked up Siân Hughes’s Pearl, long listed for the Booker Prize. Inspired by a 14th century poem of the same name, I am relishing this haunting story of absence and loss.