What I read in June
Antología de la literatura fantástica, compiled by Jorge Luis Borges, Silvina Ocampo and Adolfo Bioy Casares. An extensive selection of fantastic stories, some more clearly so than others. My clear favorite was Enoch Soames, by Max Beerbohm, which is in the public domain. It's a great story. You can clearly see where it's going since the beginning, and it gets there masterfully. I also really liked one by Rudyard Kipling, The Finest Story in The World. My only problem with this compilation is that the translations are uncredited. I suspect several of them were done by Borges and Co., but this is not definitively stated.
Pnin, by Vladimir Nabokov. I loved this one. A pleasure to read.
A Life's Work: On Becoming a Mother, by Rachel Cusk. I have always had a thing for reading motherhood memoirs. I like them of all kinds. I appreciate the raw, angry ones written by women who had a really miserable time and I also appreciate the nice, conflict-free ones (which are, admittedly rarer). In any case, this one is neither, and I liked it all the more for it. Some reviewers on Goodreads seem to think this book shows that Cusk regrets becoming a mother, hates her child, etc, but I read nothing of the sort. It's an honest book discussing a messy subject. I found it way more hopeful and positive than the last such book I had read, My Work by Olga Ravn, which I also enjoyed but was a far more exhausting read. Cusk's memoir feels like listening to a friend who recently became a mother letting it all out. I would recommend it to everyone.
Hamnet, by Maggie O'Farrell. I found this book insufferably precious. It drove me absolutely insane. It reads like riding a bike on cobblestones, adjective adjective adjective. Adjective adjective adjective. Everything is small and delicate and wonderful and special. Also the whole shtick of never mentioning Shakespeare by name adds nothing to it, quite the contrary as the ways of avoiding it become bizarre and convoluted. I suspected this was so, but I got the book as a gift so I read it. I think I should finally learn my lesson and avoid megaviral, award winning movie adaptation books, even when gifted.
I made an account on BookWyrm. I'll try to remember to keep it up to date.