Bybee's Endless Wishlist: April, 2020

I bought this blank journal back in 2009, thinking that it would be the next volume of What I've Read, but somehow, it became my Wishlist.

 (Somehow = I was going through a lofty, pretentious cycle, and suddenly, nothing would do for recording my reading posterity but a Moleskine journal.)

Wishlist is a great journal. The cover is black pleather, embossed with hieroglyphics.The endpapers resemble the cover. It's comforting just to hold it in my hand and rhythmically trace my fingers across the cover, so it shouldn't be a surprise that I've been holding it in my hand a lot more lately and filling its pages with titles I hope to read one day. Filling and filling and FILLING! Because I didn't buy/check out a single book this month! All that habit, all that longing went into an endless wishlist.

In no particular order, here is the list for April, 2020. Sometimes I made little notes to myself:

Miles Franklin biography. Author: ? (Saw at Seattle Public Library. Standing next to farting woman.)

Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood - Jennifer Traig.

A Journal of the Plague Year - Daniel Defoe.

Anna Kavan Books:

A Charmed Circle (1929)

Let Me Alone (1930)

The Dark Sisters (1930)

A Stranger Still (1935)

Asylum Piece (1940)

Change the Name ((1941)

I am Lazarus (1945)

Sleep Has His House AKA The House of Sleep (1947)

The Horse's Tale (1949)

A Scarcity of Love (1956)

Eagle's Nest (1957)

A Bright Green Field and Other Stories (1958)

Who Are You? (1963)

Ice (1967)

Julia and the Bazooka (1970) Published posthumously.

A Stranger on Earth: The Life and Work of Anna Kavan - Jeremy Reed. (biography)

Books by Patricia Bosworth:

Montgomery Clift: A Biography

Anything Your Little Heart Desires: An American Family Story (memoir)

The Men in My Life: Love and Art in 1950s Manhattan (memoir) Oh God...where is my time machine?

Lincoln on the Verge (nonfiction) Ted Widmer.

Redhead By the Side of the Road - Anne Tyler. 

The Plague - Albert Camus

Alex Trebek memoir (July, 2020)

Pale Horse, Pale Rider (novella) Katherine Anne Porter. (Takes place during the 1918 pandemic!)

A Face Like Yours (novel) -Frances Cha- (Takes place in South Korea)

Novels by women published in the 1930s:

Not So Quiet - Helen Zenna Smith. 1930. Novel about WWI female ambulance drivers.

The Shutter of Snow (1930) -Emily Holmes Coleman. (A woman spends time in a mental hospital after the birth of her baby)

Women Against Men (trio of novellas) (1933) -Storm Jameson-

Novel on Yellow Paper - Stevie Smith (1936)

South Riding - Winifred Holtby (1936)

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (1937) -Winifred Watson-

If It Bleeds -Stephen King

Alice Adams Novels:

Careless Love AKA The Fall of Daisy Duke (1966)

Families and Survivors (1974)

Listening to Billie (1978)

Rich Rewards (1980)

Superior Women (1984)

Second Chances (1988)

Caroline's Daughters (1991)

Almost Perfect (1993)

A Southern Exposure (1995)

Medicine Men (1997)

After the War (2000) (posthumously published)

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 (novel) - Cho Nam-Joo

Guts (memoir) - Kristen Johnson (Tammy on Mom)

I'm Your Huckleberry (memoir) -Val Kilmer

Old Lovegood Girls (novel) -Gail Godwin-

My Sister, The Serial Killer -Oyinkan Braithwaite- (novel)

Year of Wonders (novel) - Geraldine Brooks- (Plague Novel. 1688?)

Ecstasy & Me: My Life as a Woman (memoir) - Hedy LaMarr -

The King of Confidence (nonfiction) - Miles Harvey (James Strang, Mormon sect leader 1840s?)

The Betrayal of the Duchess (nonfiction) -Maurice Samuels

Charles Jackson biography by Blake Bailey: Farther and Wilder

Home Work - Julie Andrews (memoir)

My Dark Vanessa (novel) Author ???

Ducks, Newburyport (novel) - Lucy Ellmann (keep an eye on Care's progress reports)

Kopp Sisters series (novels) - Amy Stewart-

LBJ - Caro

 An odd and interesting list. Maybe a little demented. You can see patterns in the old bookworm brain. I sent my spawn the photos and he wrote back: "Is this your Mothers' Day gift list?"

Next post: What I read in April.

March 2020: Worrying and Reading

I don't know what to make of these days. I've had three coronavirus dreams in the past week, so I obviously puzzle over it awake and asleep.

The book I read two years ago, The Great Influenza by John M. Barry seemed so fresh in my mind when the news about a possible epidemic started appearing in January. I remember I read the book because it was the 100th anniversary of what was the 1918 flu pandemic. It was a difficult but rewarding read. In these past few weeks, I've never been so glad to have read a book, because I felt it gave me a bit of warning/preparation.

Although I've been worried, (and on one particular evening, downright panicked), I also have felt grounded and secure in knowledge, thanks to Barry's book. This grounding has been a source of comfort in a time when all kinds of confusing information and indifference and even derision have been swirling around everywhere, and especially while I was being styled as a worrywart and a killjoy through February and March. That last (long-winded!) sentence might strike you as full of anger, and you'd be right.

 I have to admit that I have sometimes let myself wonder if this was my grief and anxiety of the past year somehow made palpable. Something about all of this brings out my dark, superstitious side, something severe and medieval. Is it the cognitive dissonance? In this age of advanced technology, we seem to be flailing; we don't have all the answers; we have to resort to ancient methods like social distancing and self-isolation to cope.

This seems gloomy, but I also know I've got reasons to be thankful. I've been talking more often with that bookworm I made (with the assistance of another bookworm) back in 1984. During his time off, he's been binge-reading books from the Who Was...? series. I also feel as if imminent catastrophe has reawakened--jolted awake -- part of my brain, and I'll be damned. It still works. In addition, I was grappling with an issue, and circumstances have provided a much-welcomed hard reset. There's coffee and books and book bloggers, most of them going through the same thing, so I'm still connected to my bookworm universe, perhaps even more tightly and significantly than ever.

Would it be weird to be thankful for Tiger King? My brain seems to crave and fully respond to fuckedupness that isn't a virus. I first noticed this response in some of my reading for March.

Only three books for the month! I'm having trouble concentrating. Other people are falling into books to escape, and reading more than ever. Which one are you?

1. Updike - Adam Begley. (biography)  Not just a biography, a literary biography, and best of all, footnotes on practically every page! Nice balance between the life and the work, and he's not too reverential. It made me want to reread the Rabbit Angstrom books. I'm totally in love with Adam Begley's style as a biographer. Excited to have discovered him. I can't wait to read his recent tome about Harry Houdini. Happy with myself for finding Updike for one dollar at Dollar Tree, but peeved that I put it away for almost two years.

2. Who Was...Jesse Owens? - James Buckley, Jr. (biography) The only thing I knew about Jesse Owens was that he competed in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and his stellar performance made Adolf Hitler eat his words about the superiority of white people. James Buckley, Jr. does a great job of filling in the gaps. When discussing Jesse's family's move to Ohio when he was a child, I was pleased to see a sidebar about The Great Migration. He lived a varied and full life after the Olympics, and Buckley doesn't shy away from discussing controversy where Owens is concerned. The Who Was...? series is substantial, satisfying reading because the authors don't write down to their younger audience. They might have to downplay some of the particulars to keep things G-rated, but they tackle difficult or complex topics honestly.

3. Darling Rose Gold - Stephanie Wrobel (novel) I can't say enough positive things about this compact psychological thriller debut novel. Wrobel uses the case of Gypsy Rose Blanchard and her mother as a jumping-off point, then gives the facts a neat little twist. It's darkly funny and well-told. Got enjoyable whiffs of Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, Gillian Flynn. I loved everything, even the acknowledgments. The cover is stunning. I devoured Darling Rose Gold in a couple of sittings. Could not put it down. An excellent distraction (see above comments about Tiger King). I hope it's not too long before Wrobel's follow-up novel.

I've also been working my way through The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel for several weeks, and while I am finding it entertaining, the multiple characters and machinations and the sometimes opaque writing style don't always lend themselves to my current state of mind. Still, I'm hoping to finish this book in a few days. I almost said 'by the weekend', but really. What's the difference anymore?