The figurative void ahead of me is a function of my inability to imagine what comes next and my indecisiveness. But luckily, I have books, lots of them, to occupy my mind.
Now that I’m done with school, I’m finding endless curiosity in any which thing. It’s so nice to have the time to wonder about whatever I want again and I think my current reads reflect that.
For my book club (cutely named “Shelf Care” - we are collectively and individually called Shelfies) that I’m in with the girly friends I’ve known since middle school, we just finished up the Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides. This book follows the perspective of psychotherapist Theo who becomes obsessed with a painter who murdered her husband and ended up in a mental health care facility, never to speak again. Theo struggles with his own mental health throughout the story and becomes so consumed by this woman that he transfers to work at the same facility as her therapist out of the belief that he can get her to speak again.
If you follow me on Good Reads you will know that I really loathed this book but found it entertaining. I’ve never read a book with a narrator at once so bland yet so exasperating and judgmental. Mainly it was hard to get past the author’s obvious misconceptions and stigmas about mental health and it angered me that I’d contributed to this dude’s profiting off of that.
Interestingly, in our book club recap meeting we all separately noticed how after reading so many female authors back to back, the fact that Silent Patient was written by a male author really came through, particularly in how he characterizes the female lead and supporting cast. Hilariously enough, later that day I saw a random girl reading this in Central Park with the most outraged reading face ever. Very validating.
On a totally different vibe, I’m reading Black Wave by journalist Kim Ghattas. I got this book for free from the Institute of Global Politics at Columbia where Ghattas is a Fellow and where I have been a Scholar and am Researcher for the summer. This book details the history of the Saudi-Iran rivalry and brings us from the midcentury to current day. I’m finding this book absolutely fascinating and I’m only about a quarter of the way through. As someone who specialized in Latin American history and politics I’ve always wished for more time to learn Middle Eastern history and dynamics. So far this has been a really great book to do just that. Who knows maybe I’ll push myself to learn basic Arabic?
While Black Wave mainly centers Iran and Saudi Arabia, it also bounces around the political histories of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and several other countries in the region illustrating the interconnectedness of MENA. I say political histories because, as the book is so far arguing, the religious aspects, though often genuine in some respects, are repeatedly expropriated for political gains by elites, both established and new.
I want to do a longer, dedicated review on this one once I work my way through. It is dense and character heavy so it may take me some time to absorb.
On a somewhat polar opposite note, I’m also reading US Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch’s memoir Lessons from the Edge. This was another (signed) freebie from the Institute! I am always fascinated by how all American diplomats, politicians, bureaucrats, etc. can have the same earnest, matter-of-fact tone. They often say the same things, use similar sentences, it’s like they all go through some kind of cookie cutter bootcamp or they’re all copying each other. It’s a bit eerie and this book certainly has the same tone. After a semester in Hilary Clinton’s class, I absorbed a lot of this over the weeks, so reading this memoir is like I never left.
Yovanovitch has a really interesting story though and as a life-long foreign-service-curious person I’ve eaten it up. Throughout the book one really questions the point of certain US foreign policy decisions, and to be fair Yovanovitch does too, but there are points where it’s difficult to not roll your eyes at the self-righteous American-ness of it all. Nonetheless, she does a really good job of detailing Russia post-Cold War and her direct experience being there is very compelling. Really excited to get to her experiences in Ukraine and how the Trump drama played out. May do a review of this one too.
Otherwise, I’m bouncing between The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein, a history of governmental segregation in the US; our new book club pick Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk, a flick about vampires in Buenos Aires; and… somewhat ashamed to say the fifth Harry Potter book because it’s nice to fall asleep to.
Honorable mentions: I’ve gotten much more into local San Francisco politics due to some work I did last semester and some volunteer stuff I’m doing now on one of the mayoral campaigns. As such, outlets like Mission Local has been really fun to dig into, as has 48 Hills and even the neighborhood newspapers and Instagrams of the Richmond, the Sunset and North Beach.
OH, I’m also part of the way through John King from The SF Chronicle’s Portal, a really lovely book about SF’s history through the lens of the Ferry Building. I interviewed him a couple of months ago for some of that local work I mentioned. He was the sweetest old dude and this book captures his quirky elder Bay Area-ness well.
Finally, here are some random things I’ve Googled lately:
Fundamental differences between Protestants and Catholics
Define gambit
David Talbot
Bison at Golden Gate Park
Pirate Cat Radio
English the Play
I recognize that this list of reads is a bit unhinged, but like I said, I’m stoked to take this time while I’m finding a job to just read anything and everything, I’m really having a lot of fun with it. And I think it’s my duty as a proper Upper West Sider for just two more months to keep up this momentum of reading and writing obsessively :)
Let me know in the comments if you’ve read any of these or if there’s any others you’d recommend!
-Andrea