The Last 5 Books I Read
It's that time again when I share my latest literary adventures. I've been flipping through pages, sipping on cups of iced coffee, and diving headfirst into captivating stories. From thrillers that kept me up all night to heartwarming tales that left me with a warm fuzzy feeling, these last five books have taken me on quite the rollercoaster ride.
Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott
I’d never heard of Ursula Parrott when McNally Editions introduced me to Ex-Wife, the author’s 1929 novel about a young woman who suddenly finds herself suspended in the caliginous space between matrimony and divorce. The first thing I wondered was where it had been all my life. Ex-Wife rattles with ghosts and loss and lonely New York apartments, with men who change their minds and change them again, with people and places that assert their permanence by the very fact that they’re gone and they’re never coming back. It’s Divorcee fiction at its finest.
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
Searching for love in the wrong places – in Edwardian England. Maugham explores many themes in Of Human Bondage, including premarital sex, disease, abortion, and veiled homosexuality. The focus is on Philip Carey, a flawed character whose struggles elicit both sympathy and frustration, as he hides his limp and seeks work while living on the streets.
The book has its flaws: it’s too lengthy—about fifty thousand words too long. Some parts feel like unnecessary tangents, like discussions on art or Carey’s time in Germany and Paris. The many women in Carey’s life can be overwhelming until Mildred emerges as the center of his emotional turmoil. But despite its issues, Of Human Bondage remains a masterpiece.
Letters to Vera by Vladimir Nabokov
I’d been stumbling across a lot of quotes from Nabokov to his wife, Vera on Pinterest. They felt so intimate and wholesome that I decided it was time to read the collection. From the moment Vladimir Nabokov met Véra in 1923, he sent her passionate letters, detailing the events of his days (meals eaten, hours slept, butterflies collected), the process of his work, and the sights and sounds of wherever he was. Nabokov’s letters are filled with such effusive declarations of love and “quirky Russian endearments” that one feels almost voyeuristic in reading them: “My poochums, pooch-chums,” “Pussykins,” “My grand ciel rose,” “my greenikin.” “My darling, my sweetest love, my darling,” he wrote, even while in the midst of an affair with another woman. Véra, exhausted and “overstrung,” subjected her husband to a “long-distance chess game,” pitting her desires against his. She won, as usual.
In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware
Let’s be realistic, we all know I spend each night before bed reading one thriller after the other. I’ve read most of Ruth Ware’s books with the exception of her debut, and my Libby hold finally came through. Despite the fact that this book was fairly standard for a thriller, I could barely put it down and it was so enjoyable to read. Ware said in an interview with Simon and Shuster that she was inspired by Agatha Christie, “with a finite cast of people in a remote house they can’t escape from.” This is a good introduction to thrillers and mysteries for those who haven’t read many, and Ware is great at setting up characters if you like more character-driven books.
Thirst for Salt by Madelaine Luca
And so we embark on a doomed romance serving as the centerpiece of Madelaine Lucas’s novel, Thirst for Salt. It’s a relationship that sees the narrator make mistakes familiar to both readers as she pines for an emotionally unavailable man and shuts herself off to the world outside her lover. The only escape she does have from her increasingly insular existence is literature—both in what she reads and in what she writes. Madelaine Lucas is a rare breed of prose I’ll flip rocks over to find. She writes in exquisite prose full of longing and lyricism, making this a novel of small moments unfolding in a relatable, lived-in world. She delivers a thoughtful, reflective narrative that focuses on memory and on a character trying to understand human nature, her place in the world, and what love is.