Some Books That Made Me Happy
YWR #129
I think we can all agree* that fall is the best season.
*I assume we absolutely do not agree on this and please know that I honor your truth even if you misguidedly prefer the January-March Winter Industrial Complex.
But honestly. New school supplies? Cool evenings? The chance that the Bengals might go all the way? The smell of safely-tended fires in a fireplace? Puffy winter fur on your house cat? A whole scrum of aesthetically festive holidays on the way?
Boots?!?!?
Your honor, the prosecution rests.
Of course, it’s possible that I’m particularly partial to Libra Season and September, which is the most common month for birthdays, including mine.
So for this week, I merely proffer for your reading pleasure some books, new and old, that have made me uncomplicatedly happy. Come back next week for your thrillers and darkly nuanced love stories and climate survivalist doom (yes, fine, Kristen, I guess we are reading The Vaster Wilds then?) Come back in future weeks for all the brilliant snarls of writing that try to make sense of the fractured world and the stomach-swirling slugs it can throw.
This week - this weekend - maybe in just this space - we’re going to cling to the slippery joy of simple happiness, you and I. Be brave and join the fun by letting us know in the comments about some books that just make you happy. Call it the Five Lamb Friendship Circle, or a birthday gift, or just a random act of defiant joy.
Is it weird that a book about assassins of a certain age made me happy? Should I examine my ability to blithely look past murders that actually do have some on-page level of violence? Maybe I’ll think about that tomorrow.
In the meantime, Killers of a Certain Age is the Golden Girls-meets-James-Bond mystery you need while you wait for the next Thursday Murder book to come up on your library holds. (Oh, you just … buy books you want to read? Just like that? Where’s the Puritanical struggle in that?) The summary is in the title, really, but - while a foursome of female assassins are on their retirement cruise, they realize that the gig is not quite up - and that their age is not quite the liability they’ve been led to believe it is. Funny, propulsive, suspenseful, moving.
I couldn’t shut my yapper about last year’s A Lady’s Guide to Fortune Hunting so let’s talk about all the ways Sophie Irwin’s second book gave me delicious hits of dopamine.
When I heard A Lady’s Guide to Scandal was coming out
When my library let me know it was ready for me, better than possibly any drug
When I started this charming tale of a young Regency Era widow, Eliza, who married a much older Earl for duty, not love, and is left her late husband’s fortune as long as she behaves modestly and without scandal, to be judged by the Earl’s heir, her only love. And THEN it starts to heat up as Eliza’s sense of self and sense of duty become increasingly at odds. Can you even? Are you able?
Just about constantly throughout the book with the clever, sharp humor and charming turns of phrase
My only problem was that it ended. Cute, fun, delightful. No notes. Five out of five emotional lambies.
Does the fact that this only came out in paperback when her first was in hard copy mean that she’s not as popular as her publishers expected? As God is my witness, you all better get to reading this author so we can have more of her.
Once I went to see Freestyle Love Supreme and grown adult man James Iglehart performed a four minute apparently improv rap about the love triangle in The Hunger Games, and his seemingly effortless ability to weave pop culture and universal meaning together in a singular, hilarious voice is something I think about maybe weekly (since I don’t have to think about the Roman Empire). Like - how? And - can I have some?
Samantha Irby is kind of like that for me. Her essays about her life, her body, her health challenges, her career, her achingly hard childhood, make me literally giggle out loud for the entire book while also cracking my heart open. She can switch from an exhaustive overview of Sex and the City then talk about the death of her parents and you just hope the ride never ends.
I genuinely don’t know how to give this lambs, though - her writing is hilarious but some of the topics definitely are not. It’s an indefinite science, okay, guys?
Okay, this is the wildest of wild cards, but what the hey. This isn’t a “Books That Make EVERYONE Happy” newsletter, now, is it? Otherwise I’d plop down All Creatures Great and Small and be done with it.
Raising the Barre is a memoir by a woman who grew up wanting to be a ballerina but was encouraged to drop out of ballet in her teens. In her 50s, she goes on a quest to perform in her local Nutcracker ballet.
So okay, yeah, you might want to like ballet to like this. But really - this book is about unlearning the narratives we’ve been told and adopting a learning mindset to accomplish things we thought we were too ____ (old, fat, stupid, untalented) to do, just because our hearts call out to do them. Ballet just happens to be her backdrop.
The author is a narrative journalist with a number of books under her belt, so she skillfully mixes research and psychology into her personal growth narrative with warmth, humor, self-awareness, and optimism. I’ve re-read this many times.
PS On Instagram I recently threatened to write a whole newsletter about ballet books and I might still do it. Consider this your warning.
A Love Letter to Libby
Friends, it has come to my attention that not everyone knows about Libby, so clears throat, rolls up sleeves:
Libby is a free gift to you from the universe, by way of libraries.
Libby is a source for so many audiobooks, ebooks for your Kindle, newspapers, magazines, and probably skincare, it’s that good.
Libby requires only a library card to get things you’re getting from Amazon, Spotify, Audible, and eighteen media sites - for free. (And don’t get me started on what your library card can also get you - my local library also lets you check out gardening kits, baking equipment, musical instruments, wifi hot spots, CHROMEBOOKS - we don’t deserve libraries, I swear.)
Libby is the future that liberals want.
Okay, now we all know. group hug
This week’s books all link to indie bookstore Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, NC, nominated by Jill R. who really should have her own book newsletter because she’s one of the smartest readers I’ve known. It looks super cute and also lists staff picks on its website, which - COULD ALL INDIES PLEASE DO THAT?
And if these books didn’t make you happy, we’re still friends! Check out the archive for many weeks of books that might do the trick, and come back next week for something new!
Happy books for a happy birthday! Happy belated, Kerry!
Yay! I have missed this.