After my post yesterday about the fiction and poetry I read last month, I'm finishing up my June reading wrap-up with the nonfiction and soon-to-be-published books I read.
I'd borrowed this book from the library and as soon as I got it home and looked at it, I knew I wanted my own copy. Bill found it at Awesome Books and while he was at it, picked up a couple of other books by this author. Her name seemed familiar and it dawned on me that I might have read one of her later books about the history of alphabetical order which was an extremely enjoyable and fascinating read. I looked it up and yes, that's her. At that point I had even higher hopes for this book and I was not disappointed. It's an excellent book and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute I spent reading it. I was engrossed. Flanders starts by making the distinction between languages that have the same words for house and home and those that have different words. She argues that in the former, much of life occurs in public places while in the latter, it takes place in more private settings. Because of this, ideas of what home is evolved in different ways, which she proceeds to lay out. As she does throughout the book, she provides numerous examples to illustrate her ideas. These examples come from various countries, primarily western European, but also the US. She recognizes that this is a limited area, but to include Asia and other places would make the book impossibly long. Even within this limited geographical area, the differences are interesting, going from when home was pretty much one room to what we see today. Once houses started to have more specialized areas, family life changed as well, of course. She writes about practical things, such as how the process of cooking changed as the configuration of houses changed as well as how attitudes and cultural/societal expectations changed. For example, heating used to be from a kind of fireplace, of course. This was usually in the center of the room and there was a hole in the roof for the smoke to escape. This had implications for how people lived on the ground but also showed the ways in which people used the smoke to preserve meats and to clear thatched roofs of vermin. Eventually, the fireplace was moved to a wall and there was a sort of hood over it. People would sit under this hood to eat and socialize. When the swinging crane to hold the cooking pots was introduced, the cook no longer had to lean into the fire to deal with the food. And because there was usually just one big pot, food was usually boiled or stewed. It wasn't until stoves were invented that people could plan on cooking numerous things at once. Beyond the practicalities, there were also emotional connotations to fireplaces, not to mention image issues. When more efficient stoves became available, many people (depending on class) bought them because they gave out more heat more efficiently. Expert advice manuals chided people who preferred the stoves for abandoning the fireplace because the stove didn't create the same image. Even small changes could lead to culture change, as it did with a switch from twig brooms to corn brooms. When people used brooms made from twigs, there were certain bits that did not get swept up. These bits were not considered dirt and were just left on the floor. But when corn brooms became the norm, that changed. These brooms could sweep up finer particles so what didn't used to be considered dirt now was and it was expected that it would be removed. Reading this I was reminded of things I've read about the impact of electricity in rural Ireland. When people used oil lamps for light, much simply wasn't visible. When electric light was installed, people felt some dismay about the dirt in the corners that became visible. And of course, all these changes in expectations and definitions of cleanliness--the evolution of the definition of dirt--meant more work for women. You can probably tell that I just love this book and I'm so glad to have my own copy.
Here are a few books that will be published soon. I thank NetGalley, the publishers, and the authors for digital review copies of these books. Publication dates may vary, depending on location.
On Taste: In Humans and Other Animals
by Davide Risso; Gabriella Morini
Published on August 25, 2026 by Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231221290
This fascinating and informative book does exactly what the title says--explores how taste works in humans and other animals. I'll say at the outset that I have no background in biology or other hard sciences, other than a general class or two as an undergraduate. No matter--I found this book to be very accessible. Concepts were explained well without getting deep into the weeds where it would be hard to follow. It's a short book, but ranges widely across different aspects of taste. I was particularly interested in the cultural and linguistic evidence/aspects of taste and the foods humans eat and don't eat. I learned some fascinating things, like the fact that we have taste receptors all over, not just in our mouths, that temperature has an impact on taste, and that some sea mammals and penguins do not taste because they simply swallow their food, for example. Some whales, however, still have active receptors for salty tastes. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and can definitely recommend it.
Christina Rossetti: Over 100 selected poems
by Christina Rosetti; Pele Cox
to be published on March 16, 2027 by Gemini Books Group
ISBN 9781786752116
This is a lovely collection of some of Christina Rosetti's poems, which includes well-known work like Goblin Market and In the Bleak Midwinter, as well as other poems across a variety of topics. These topics include love (not only romantic love), spirituality, death and the afterlife, , and nature and beauty. Like so many people, my introduction to Rosetti's work was the Christmas carol, In the Bleak Midwinter, which I still love. Later I read Goblin Market in an anthology. I thoroughly enjoyed reading more of her work, all of which was new to me. I will seek out more.
I quite like the way the book is structured. It begins with a picture of Rosetti and a short biographical sketch. Each chapter is based on one of the themes listed above and begins with a short (one page long) explanation of the significance in the topic to Rosetti and her work. Following this, there are poems with one or two in each section accompanied by a short critique of the poem. This is the third book in this series that I've read and I have loved them all. I highly recommend this one if you're at all interested in Rosetti, Victorian literature, or poetry in general.
Gaining Ground
by Joan Barfoot
to be published on August 25, 2026 by Faber and Faber
ISBN 9780571399888
As I was reading this excellent and powerful book, I kept wondering why I'd never read any work by this author before. After reading it, I know I'll be reading more. I loved this book, which opens with a woman who is outside, hard at work and reminding herself that her name is Abra. She is so used to being alone that she's almost forgotten her name, even as she knows who she is. She sees a visitor coming up the lane towards her cabin and is dismayed. She doesn't know who this person is or what she wants, but soon learns that this is her daughter, Katie, now grown, who was 9 years old when her mother left. The interaction is tense, but Abra suggests that Katie book herself into a hotel in the nearby town and visit her from time to time. Katie agrees. These visits and their time together bring up memories for Abra and readers learn about her past life--how she ended up in what other people might see as an enviable life, only to walk away to create a life based on what felt right to her.
There is so much in this book and so much that I could relate to in my own life. I grew up in the kind of world Abra left behind and the author captures the shallowness and game-playing aspect of it so well. Even though Abra and her husband, Stephen, are successfully 'improving' their situation as the years go by, at least by societal standards, Abra feels less and less satisfied with and more and more distant from her own life. She doesn't feel successful at all, even as she rationalizes with herself about what she 'should' feel. She loses herself and feels like she's acting out a life. I've been there myself. It can be bewildering to understand that what people think is a good life is quite the opposite of that on a personal level. Abra doesn't set out a plan to leave her family, the whole thing unfolds quickly and unexpectedly. One day, she just knows where she is supposed to be. But the groundwork had been laid over several years as she came to understand that she was the outlier and she couldn't live her life in the situation she was in. Her husband wasn't going to give up his life and while some version of her could continue to exist in that world, she couldn't build a life there. Throughout the book, readers follow Abra's thought processes, her growing awareness, her epiphanies, and her evolution. I was gripped by this book from the start. I was rooting for Abra and felt some tension about how Katie's arrival would impact her hard won peace. For me, moving away from a situation in which I was acting out a life with my name on it didn't involve leaving my family, but it did involve leaving a world in which I'd invested most of my adult life to that point. It was extremely difficult and it took a long time to get back to myself. Joan Barfoot captures this perfectly. This edition also contains a fascinating afterword by the author in which she writes about the book and about the reactions to the book when it was first published. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
And that wraps up my reading wrap-up for June. I hope you had an excellent reading month then and are having one now. Happy reading!
PS: Jeanie, of The Marmelade Gypsy, commented on yesterday's post that she's not a fan of short stories in general, but enjoys mystery short stories. For Jeanie and anyone else that enjoys mystery short story collections, I wanted to recommend Deadlier: 100 of the Best Crime Stories Written by Women, edited by Sophie Hannah. It's an excellent collection and a great read--perfect for dipping into to read a story here and there as the mood strikes. I highly recommend it--and Jeanie's blog, which also involves books and art as well as beautiful photos and interesting stories.
No comments:
Post a Comment