My dear fellow readers, happy belated independent bookstore day! I hope everyone went out and celebrated the book to the best of their ability. Even if you’re on a budget, I hope you at least dropped in and soaked up the magic of the bookstore. 

As for myself, I am still deep in James Joyce’s Ulysses and I finally feel as though I understand just how long and arduous a journey Odysses had home. There is plenty to appreciate in the text but I do catch myself thinking “perhaps some editing here” more often than I might care to admit. 

All of this time wandering Dublin with Bloom and Stephen has still left the rest of my bookshelf woefully neglected, but I did sneak in a few pages with authors other than Joyce:

Walking into the library and spotting The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk was a very exciting moment. I have loved her past novels and the skull on the cover alongside the phrase “a health resort horror story” only intrigued me more. This is a really engrossing, engaging book about a young man removed from his life and family to recover from his respiratory health problems only to be thrust into a tumult of medicine and politics and nature and death. I will likely write a longer review of the novel when I have the time, because once again Tokarczuk has written something remarkable. 

I also picked up Chasing Beauty: the Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner by Natalie Dykstra. One of my favorite mugs at home is from the gift shop of the wonderful Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and is stamped with Gardner’s quote “Shan’t you and I have fun with my museum?” I am very picky about biographies but Dykstra tells Gardner’s story with life and humor and feeling, something you quickly realise fits her subject perfectly. Although Dykstra’s text is full of descriptions of the individuals and art that make up Gardner’s life, the book is also full of photographs of the same, so you can appreciate the full scope of Gardner’s family, connections, and world. With bookshelves full of biographies of wealthy men who built museums, libraries, and concert halls, this is an important addition. 

On the other hand, Clear by Carys Davies is a slim book set far away from the busy world of the American Gilded Age. John is a Scottish minister trying to follow his religious convictions away from the established church and build a new ministry. Ivar has lived alone on a remote island far to the North of Scotland and unbeknownst to him is soon to be caught up in the Clearances. Mary is John’s wife and determined to keep their feet on the ground and build a life together, even while supporting his religious vision. This short novel tells the story of how their lives intersect and something new emerges. It’s a short, sharp tale and well worth a read.

Finally, in between listening to Ulysses recordings (it really is a text that benefits from being read aloud) I listened to the collection of short stories by Ben Shattuck, The History of Sound. It’s an excellent audio production, with each story told by an individual narrator to bring the voice of each character through with clarity. Although they are all short stories, Shattuck cleverly weaves together the narratives making it a satisfying collection.

Well until next time fellow readers! Whether you are reading plenty or just enough, fiction or fact, mystery or horror, or like me trying to tackle a Big Book, I wish you the best.