SITREP - In My Mind It's Fall
Pumpkins, the ultimate symbol of fall, grow in six out of the seven continents, with Antarctica as the only exception
I will be honest with you all: I’m not feeling it this week. I had a rough stretch of work that ended with losing a patient. This happens often, but some patients hit me differently, and I can’t seem to shake this one.1 I’ve found it hard to focus on reading. It seems the only thing I can concentrate on are cult documentaries on YouTube. I still have so many videos to edit and film, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I know the mental funk will pass, but I also know I can’t force it to go away. Grief, if that’s what this is, is a process. This week, I’ve been focusing on taking it slow while listening to what my brain needs so as not to feel so sad or overwhelmed. Needless to say, this will be a short newsletter.
On a happier note, it was opening weekend for the New York State Renaissance Faire this weekend. We have a tradition of going on opening day every year, which I missed last year because of work. We were determined not to miss it this year! So yesterday, we donned our costumes and headed to the faire. I love strolling the booths with a mug of mead, people-watching, and watching the joust. It’s one of my favorite places because no matter how weird you are, you will never be the most bizarre person at the fair, which is so freeing.
Booker Update: I finished two more Booker longlisted books this week. I have one left, Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange, which I hope will be good. I really need to end this list on a high note.
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Book Things:
Currently Reading:
Meet the Georgians: Epic Tales from Britain's Wildest Century by Robert Peal: I picked this short nonfiction to pair with Mansfield Park because I thought it sounded fun - and I was right. I’ve been trying to read nonfiction about the Regency period or about Jane Austen’s life with each of her novels. Some of these have been hits, like Jane Austen at Home. At the same time, others have been huge misses, like The Darcy Myth.
Meet the Georgians is a collection of stories about notable Georgian figures, from Bonnie Prince Charlie to Mary Wollstonecraft. I find myself picking this up on breaks at work. It’s the perfect book to dip in and out of when you have a few minutes. We often think of people in the past as being very prudish and tightlaced, and I blame the Victorians for that misconception. The Georgians were a rowdy bunch.
If you have any suggestions for other nonfiction books I can read about the period or Austen’s life, please drop them in the comments, and I’ll add them to my ever-growing list. (24%)
The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia by Juliet Grames: My main reads for the week were both eARCs for the Booker longlist, so I needed an audiobook for the drive to work. My library had The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia available on audio, so I borrowed it. I don’t think I can handle anything too complex at the moment, so this historical mystery is the perfect choice.
I shared this in a previous SITREP, but in case you missed it, this story follows a young woman in the 1960s who goes to a remote Italian village to start a nursery school. Shortly after she arrives, a major rainstorm causes flooding. When the waters recede, a skeleton is revealed, but our narrator is the only one who seems compelled to find out who this person is. It’s very interesting so far, and it has a large cast of characters. There’s a lot of discussion of women’s rights, religion, immigration, and the mafia. I’m enjoying myself, and I may pick up Grames’ first book, The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna when I’m done. (71%)
Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon: I thought I had read a chunk this week, but I was wrong. I really need Booker to end so I can find joy in reading again. (19%)
Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright: Holding, one book to go!! (65%)
Lies and Sorcery by Elsa Morante: Still holding...2 (63%)
Recently Finished:
You can tell when I’m in a funk because my reading drops off dramatically.
Playground by Richard Powers (Out September 24, 2024, from W. W. Norton & Company): This is my first time reading Richard Powers, and I don’t know if he’s for me. I need to know if this is the typical book for him: very obvious and kind of hollow eco plot with a twist that will make you roll your eyes. I didn’t hate this, but the story didn’t captivate me. I loved all the parts with Evie. I loved her love for the ocean, but the other characters were a little flat. Also, I’m a bit confused by the ending; I can’t help thinking this is the story of a billionaire trying to make himself feel better for destroying the world before he dies - a plot that does nothing for me. I don’t know if I care about this. I honestly wanted more of an uncanny Black Mirror vibe.
Playground isn’t out until late September, so I will probably have to wait until then to have more people to discuss this with. Early reviews for this are very positive, making me wonder if I missed something. My booktube review is pending.
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner (Out September 3, 2024, from Scribner): I stand by what I said last week: the first-person narration becomes tedious very quickly, so I don’t care about what’s happening with the plot. I guess the ending was interesting. Our spy starts to empathize with the man she’s surveilling. I also appreciated the look at eco-terrorism and protesting. Some interesting points were brought up (I guess). But this was a miss for me. Like with Playground, I’ll be interested to see how this is received once it’s published in a few weeks. My booktube review is pending.
Just in from publishers:
(Thank you to all the publishers who send me books for spotlight and review. I will never get over how bonkers it is that this happens.)
I don’t have any publisher mail this week, but I do have two new books that arrived from my friend
because sometimes she gets duplicates from publishers, and she always shares the reading wealth!
Highway Thirteen: Stories by Fiona McFarlane (Out now from Farrar, Straus, and Giroux): This is a collection of interconnected short stories about how a serial killer's crimes reverberate through the lives of everyday people in the small town of Barrow, Australia. I’ve been in the mood for cult documentaries and serial killer dramas lately, so maybe I need to pick this up sooner rather than later.
Sucker by Daniel Hornsby (Out now from Knopf): “Succession meets Bad Blood in this sharp-toothed satire of Silicon Valley and the 1 percent, in which the black-sheep son of an industrial tycoon starts working for a tech pioneer who's running a biomedical startup selling nothing less than immortality, only to uncover the horrifying truth at the heart of her sublime promises.” The story is filled with “secret labs, vanished employees, and mutated test subjects” - I’m hoping this is going to give Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang but for the tech industry. After Playground, I need a book that viciously skewers the ultrarich of Silicon Valley.
3, 2, 1, Round-up:
(AKA Random Non-Bookish Things Because I Totally Have Other Interests)
Three Random Things I’m Loving:
We have a couple of must-see booths at the Renaissance Faire, one of which is this lovely kitchen witch, Cucina Aurora, who makes some of our favorite small-batch coffee. She also makes infused olive oils and other savories, but we stock up on coffee every year. We love her autumn blend (which says a lot because my partner generally hates flavored coffees). This year, she added a toasted coconut cold brew for summer, which I have steeping in the fridge and can’t wait to try.
When my dad was here last week, we put together the propane fire pit table and loved it! It’s been cooler this week, especially in the evenings, so I’ve been sparking the fire and reading on the deck while the sunlight fades. I can’t wait for autumn!3
Speaking of fall, I broke out the fall scents for my wax warmer this week. As soon as there was a chill in the air, I needed the house to smell of apples, pumpkins, and spice. I have wonderful soy wax melts that we found at a fall craft fair last year. The company is called Sweet Light Farm. We have the Apples & Maple Bourbon melts on the warmer now. They have an Etsy shop but don’t seem to have wax melts listed right now.4 I hope they’ll add some when I’m ready for more. I love small-batch candles and melts because the fragrance doesn’t make me sneeze like many store-bought ones.
Two Videos to Watch:
The Janeites among you will already know about Dr. Octavia Cox and her excellent videos about Jane Austen and her novels. I loved this discussion about how Austen uses wit in her books, especially on the heels of reading Mansfield Park, which feels like the least “witty” of all her novels.
I loved this video essay about the trend of Greek mythology retellings. Every month, a new retelling or myth-inspired novel seems to be published. Yes, these are classic stories that seemingly stand the test of time. However, do we not have new stories to tell? What value is there in rehashing old stories? Why do we keep going back to the Greeks?
One Adorable Picture of Mercy
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Thank you for reading. See you next week!
Sometimes, I wish I could talk about these things more openly on the internet, but HIPAA. Yes, I can talk with my partner and friends, but I wish we could be more open about things as healthcare professionals. It’s not natural to struggle and fight to keep someone alive, only to lose them. And then to carry on with your life and work like it’s nothing - like it doesn’t touch you. Some patients come home with you.
I’ve seen a lot of people on Bookstagram reading Lies & Sorcery lately, but I haven’t seen anyone really enjoying it. Most people seem pleased with themselves for finishing an 800-page behemoth, regardless of how mediocre it was. I’m glad I’m not the only one who finds this book a slog.
Tom, I promise we read all the instructions and secured all the connections so I won’t blow up.
I have some of their candles as well, and I love them, but I like to have the wax warmer going while I sleep, and you can’t do that with a candle.
Boy, Alyssa, I’m starting to think that Nerdy Nurse might be a member of the MCU! Either that, or reading all those fantasy and supernatural stories over the years has imbued you with some mysterious powers of your own, such as the ability to control the weather and the timing of the seasons. I say that because I really thought you were jumping the gun yesterday when I read your newsletter comments about looking forward to the fall season and all the sights, sounds, tastes, and smells that accompany it. True, I’ve seen a few maple trees tinged with red and yellow, and the goldenrod and asters are coming into bloom, but we’re still only a little past the middle of August, and I was sure we had another few weeks of late summer weather left to enjoy, given it’s remained on the hot and humidexy side of things hereabouts.
But alas, such was not to be! For you have donned your mystic robes. You have gazed into the sacred flames of your patio fire-pit table. You have uttered the incantatory phrase, “Pumpkin Spice!” into the trembling atmosphere, and lo! You have summoned forth the Spirits of Autumn and the Harvest Season … but kind of prematurely, if you ask me.
I say that because I was up early this morning to enjoy the balmy predawn darkness, as I’ve been doing for most of the summer. Sipping my morning two cups of Kenyan coffee—cream, no sugar—and eating my one carbonized piece of toast with a slathering of crunchy peanut butter, I sat quietly reading and enjoying the sound of Mother Nature’s own white noise coming through my open windows in the form of countless crickets chorusing me from the greater outdoors. Time passed, and there was a brief patter of rain from a passing shower, followed by the cry of a distant loon from the nearby lake. I felt as if I were living inside a real-life YouTube sound room video.
Then it happened. Gradually, the leaves started rustling on the trees outside. The curtains on my windows began to shift uneasily, and I felt a breeze with an ever so slight chill to it enter my living-room. There was no throw within reach, so I had to get up and go looking for the heavy red plaid flannel shirt I hadn’t worn in the early morning since mid-June. Putting it on, I resumed my chair and my book, but it was no good; it was just too cold to read comfortably. So, I forced myself to get up again and went about the house shutting windows. I also had to close my front door, but before doing so I stepped outside to gauge the changing weather. There was a brisk wind from the north and I could see a few yellow leaves blowing by in the steady breeze. I couldn’t help but think that your wish had been granted, and that fall had now arrived.
Like everyone else here, I have books I’ve read and books I haven’t read, and that applies to the Georgian period of British history as much as anything else. So, books on 18th century Britain and the Regency that I’ve read and can recommend are as follows:
“Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England” by Amanda Vickery, published in 2009. This is probably the best book on my list and contains chapters on ‘Setting Up Home’, ‘His and Hers: Accounting for the Household’, ‘The Trials of Domestic Dependence’, and ‘Wallpaper and Taste’, to name a few.
“Eavesdropping on Jane Austen’s England: How Our Ancestors Lived Two Centuries Ago” by Roy and Lesley Adkins, published in 2013. This book is an enjoyable read and lives up to its title, giving a survey of late 18th/early 19th century Britain with a focus on Jane Austen.
“Our Tempestuous Day: A History of Regency England” by Carolly Erickson, published in 1986. I don’t recall much about this book, but it covers the Prince Regent, Lord Byron, the Duke of Wellington, and other prominent figures from the Regency period.
“Beau Brummell: The Ultimate Dandy” by Ian Kelly, published in 2005. This is a highly readable biography of the Regency clotheshorse who established the standard male pattern of dress, consisting of trousers, shirt, jacket, and tie, the last of which evolved from the cravat.
“George IV: The Grand Entertainment” by Steven Parissien, published in 2001. This is one of the better biographies of George IV that I’ve read.
“My Lady Scandalous: The Amazing Life and Outrageous Times of Grace Dalrymple Elliott, Royal Courtesan” by Jo Manning, published in 2005. I’ve never actually read this book from cover to cover, but I’ve paged through it many times looking for all the naughty bits in the way of text and illustrations, and not had any difficulty finding them.
A few Regency related books I have but haven’t yet read but which look promising are:
“An Elegant Madness: High Society in Regency England” by Venetia Murray, published in 1998. This book looks really interesting with a lot of solidly researched information.
“Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa, and Sarah Lennox, 1740-1832” by Stella Tillyard, published in 1995. This won the ‘History Today’ Book of the Year Award.
“The Unruly Queen: The Life of Queen Charlotte” by Flora Fraser, published in 1996. I enjoyed Flora Fraser’s other biography, “Beloved Emma”, about Emma, Lady Hamilton, mistress to Lord Nelson.