1.
The end of the year means book lists!

Lots of them... From The Conversation; from The Economist; from National Public Radio; from The New York Times; from The Marginalian... There are some titles that just keep cropping up, so in the dog-eat-dog world of book choices, they're probably the ones to prioritize...


But there are so many old ones still to catch up on...

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2.
Matthew Perry's manager (Doug Chapin) and publicist (Lisa Kasteler-Calio) contextualize Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing.

When Perry died, Chapin and Kasteler-Calio set up the Matthew Perry Foundation, which aimed to support addiction treatment and recovery, and help to reduce the attached stigma. This was something the actor had long talked about doing.

In an interview with Emine Saner earlier this month, they describe the importance of his memoir: "There were a couple of pivotal positive moments in Perry’s experience of addiction and attempts to get better. One was the therapist who told him it wasn’t his fault, that it was a disease... The other was the publication of his 2022 memoir -- funny, self-deprecating and brutal. 'He was always, throughout even his worst times, very helpful and engaged with other people,' says Chapin. 'They would come to him because he had so much experience with the disease [and treatment] that he knew a million avenues to suggest.' The book was a way to reach people on a massive scale." Chapin argues that it was a huge step, allowing Perry to present himself honestly, and feel the warmth of the response.

He goes on: "People don’t heal from this alone in a room. What we experienced... was that there are all these holes in the process of recovery. [If you're trying to recover] you can get six weeks of sobriety in a shelter, and then there’s nothing, you’re on the street. There needs to be a wholeness, because the process needs to be sustained for a really long time."

Both associates insist that Perry is present in spirit in the whole endeavour. Kasteler-Calio: "We’re doing what Matthew wanted. He said it over and over: I want to help as many people as possible."

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3.
Kate Jones peers into the writing rituals of Hilary Mantel.

I love Mantel (most recent read: Fludd). So this examination of the nitty-gritty of her production threw up lots of interesting points -- writers, according to Mantel, need to let their writing take over their life (when they're in the writing cycle at least). She preferred to work in silence; drank lots of tea but didn't stop to eat if things were going well; and wrote every day because only hobbyists don't...

On inspiration, though, Jones reports: "She claimed the best advice for writing came from her agent, a year or so into her writing career. Hesitating over whether to make a future writing project accessible and commercial or smart and unpopular, Mantel claimed he advised: 'Just write as well as you can.' That advice, she stated, saved her years, allowing her to move forward with her writing."

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4.
And here's Kate Jones again, taking another look at Louisa May Alcott's Little Women...

A while ago, Jones told us that Alcott didn't really like this book... I was shocked... Here, she shares a bit more about this pioneering author's life.

Simone de Beavoir liked Little Women, and identified, as so many of us did, with the character Jo. Other female writers also attest to its influence. Alcott's male contemporaries disparaged it (possibly without even having read it). Jones quotes literary critic Elaine Showalter on this: "There can be few other books in American literary history which have had so enormous an impact on the imagination of half the reading population, and have been so neglected by the other half."

More recently, the novel has attracted feminist interest. "Famously, Alcott was coerced by her publishers to end the story of the March sisters with a marriage proposal for Jo, an independent young woman who harbours ambitions to become a paid writer." Alcott herself never married, saying at one point: "I'd rather be a free spinster and paddle my own canoe." The author was disappointed, says Jones, "by the letters she received from young girls asking whom the sisters would grow up and marry, 'as if that was the only end and aim of a woman’s life'."

But Alcott was hardly footloose and fancy-free. Her family's financial circumstances meant that she had to help out; and she nursed her mother all through her last illness: "Elaine Showalter claims that Alcott’s only independence from her loving but all-consuming family was in her writing."

I still rate her as a formative childhood influence...


Get those little rabbits reading...

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5.
It seems we can't stop talking about Donna Tartt's The Secret History...

Shruti Koti and Neha Ambati have come up with a different angle on the death that sets the story in motion. Not sure I'm with them on that one... But the post also offers a broader discussion of the "dark academia" genre, taking a fresh look at the chronological positioning of the book in that context, and offering a perceptive critique. Key quote: "The nostalgia of dark academia, which romanticizes older academic culture and yearns for the past -- the days of all white students, uniforms that signaled status and hierarchy, and glorification of oppressive forces (slavery literally built the foundations of most Ivy League colleges) -- starts to take on a genuinely sinister tone."

They also recommend an excellent close reading of the Prologue.



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6.
Daniel Hack liked A Month in the Country as much as I did...

That book brings us Tom Birkin, who's trying to get his life together after the trauma of WWI. He finds work in Oxgodby, a quiet Yorkshire village, where he is charged with uncovering a mural on the wall of an ancient church. Hack puts his finger on one of the qualities that make this book so impressive: "Birkin finishes his job, the summer ends, he leaves Oxgodby. Birkin states that he remained 'haunted' by the 'happiness' of his time in Oxgodby 'for many years afterwards,' but that he never returned and never had any further contact with anyone he met that summer. Why not? How has he spent the following decades? What prompts the sustained act of recollection that is the narrative? Again, we don’t know. This reticence is one of the work’s most striking features, as haunting to the reader as his month in the country is to Birkin...

"As a short novel by an otherwise obscure author, with few characters and few events, A Month in the Country practically exudes minorness. For me, though, much of the novel’s appeal lies in the way it combines this seeming modesty with an interest in big questions, even Big Questions: What -- if anything -- gives a life meaning? What makes it worth living? How have the answers to these questions changed over time?"

Part of what brought Birkin back to life, Hack argues, was not so much the content of the picture he is slowly revealing (which represents the Last Judgement) as its superb artistry. Some have understood the book as "an allegory of the historical replacement of religion by art as a source of meaning". But for Hack, it is the material detail that entrances the former soldier: "It is when Birkin is discovering and describing the artist’s craftsmanship that the world is most pregnant with meaning -- and he and his narrative most alive."


The North Yorkshire Moors Railway