Discussion: What was the best book you read in November?
Plus the Anderberg family's favorites
Hey there, readers!
Once again, it’s time to chat about our favorite reads of the previous month. Here’s what our family most enjoyed in November:
Jeremy: I read Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights for the first time last month; it was better and weirder than I expected. What a novel. I also really enjoyed Emily Nussbaum’s Cue the Sun, which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago.
Jane: Historical fiction is one of my wife’s go-to genres and she quite liked The Second Life of Mirielle West in November. Hollywood, Louisiana, leprosy — this book had a bit of everything.
Graham (9 years old): Despite also reading the new Percy Jackson novel, Graham’s favorite book in November was How to Win a Slime War: “Two kids face off in an epic battle to see who can sell the most slime, while navigating sticky situations with friends and family.”
Willa (6.5 years old): The newest edition of Nat Geo’s Weird But True has been a hit in our household with both of the older kids. It’s provided hours of entertainment, so think about putting this one under the Christmas tree!
Bo (3.5 years old): Oliver Jeffers is always worth reading (especially Here We Are), and his new book Where to Hide a Star is a delight. In the cutest possible scenario, Willa has even enjoyed reading it to Bo.
Your turn! What was your favorite November read?
November favorite(s) The Expanse series (up to book 4 so far). Best book this year: A Gentleman in Moscow. Just the uplifting book I needed this fall.
To be honest, Jeremy, because of this stack -- and with a nod to your Pulitzer Project which inspired my own obsessive tracking spreadsheet (Pulitzer, Hugo, Nebula, Booker, Edgar...) -- I've enjoyed so many books this year. I'm back to reading under the covers with a nightlight like I did as a kid. How did I go so many years oblivious to this hunger for books?
I read The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham and boy did it cut like one. Along with the novels of John Crowley I read earlier this year, it's among the best books I read this year. It follow's the lives of several people, but one is centered more than the others, Larry Darrell who experiences trauma from his experiences as a WWI pilot. He is in love with a childhood sweetheart who comes from a higher social class than he, and the conflict centers around his refusal to get a job, and instead live on the pension from his service duty, and hang out in libraries and read books (good chap, he). He could have had it made in the shade and joined the company of a friend who was a stockbroker, but he was more interested in the search for wisdom. Maugham expertly contrasts this with the other characters who are all about rising up the ranks of society, making money and keeping up appearances. Darrell does work at times. He goes to a mine just for the experience and to give his mind a rest. He also does farm work and the like. He isn't afraid of getting his hands dirty. And this is one thing I think the book has to teach today's soi distant intellectuals: don't be afraid to do physical work, and it's probably not a good idea to trash talk those whose manual labor keeps things chugging along. The book covers the time period of the stock market crash in 1929, and let's just say Darrell isn't phased in the same way as the woman who could have married him, and the stockbroker friend she chooses instead of him. There is much else to mine from the book, including its profound spiritual dimension, that encompasses Christian mysticism as well as the wisdom of Vedanta and the East.