July 2020 Book Recap
At the beginning of the year, during a rewatch of Mad Men, I was struck by Don reading the following line from a book: “Now I am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting, and modern."
A couple months later, and the title fit the global situation even more. O'Hara's poetry is ephemeral, evocative, and right on time. Definitely my favorite of the month.
Daily Reminder:
“In times of crisis, we must all decide again and again whom we love.”
— Frank O'Hara, *Meditations in an Emergency*
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*Meditations in an Emergency* by Frank O'Hara (Poetry) // [Classics: Some of my favorites were: "To the Harbormaster," "Aus einem April," and "River."] GoodReads
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*Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems* by Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo (NF) // [Economics; social policy: The authors are a husband and wife team who won the Nobel Prize in Economics “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty.”]
*A Very Punchable Face* by Colin Jost (NF) // [Memoir; humor: A great surprise of a book and welcome distraction—better than expected.]
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*Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe* by Brian Greene (NF) // [Science; philosophy: “We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”]
*The Art of Seduction* by Robert Greene (NF) // [Psychology; philosophy: Nothing beats Greene's 48 Laws of Power, although this one was entertaining and insightful. Must be taken with a grain of salt.]
*The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail—But Some Don't* by Nate Silver (NF) // [Science; economics: Interesting at points; was hoping for more—basically, it's hard to make accurate predictions.]
*The Troop* by Nick Cutter (F) // [Horror; thriller: Fun campy, GORY romp. Perfect summer reading.]
*Lovecraft Country* by Matt Ruff (F) // [Horror; fantasy: Mixed feelings on the book and the HBO adaptation.]
*If It Bleeds* by Stephen King (F) // [Horror; thriller: Just not a huge fan of short story compilations, no matter the author.]
Let’s be GoodReads friends!