Quick Lit January 2018 Archives

When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing

by Daniel H. Pink

From the publisher: "Everyone knows that timing is everything. But we don't know much about timing itself. Our lives are a never-ending stream of 'when' decisions: when to start a business, schedule a class, get serious about a person. Yet we make those decisions based on intuition and guesswork. Timing, it's often assumed, is an art. In When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, Pink shows that timing is really a science. Drawing on a rich trove of research from psychology, biology, and economics, Pink reveals how best to live, work, and succeed. How can we use the hidden patterns of the day to build the ideal schedule? Why do certain breaks dramatically improve student test scores? How can we turn a stumbling beginning into a fresh start? Why should we avoid going to the hospital in the afternoon? Why is singing in time with other people as good for you as exercise? And what is the ideal time to quit a job, switch careers, or get married?"

Plainsong

by Kent Haruf

From the publisher: "In the small town of Holt, Colorado, a high school teacher is confronted with raising his two boys alone after their mother retreats first to the bedroom, then altogether. A teenage girl—her father long since disappeared, her mother unwilling to have her in the house—is pregnant, alone herself, with nowhere to go. And out in the country, two brothers, elderly bachelors, work the family homestead, the only world they've ever known. From these unsettled lives emerges a vision of life, and of the town and landscape that bind them together—their fates somehow overcoming the powerful circumstances of place and station, their confusion, curiosity, dignity and humor intact and resonant. As the milieu widens to embrace fully four generations, Kent Haruf displays an emotional and aesthetic authority to rival the past masters of a classic American tradition."

Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs

by Beth Ann Fennelly

I actually read this before our current Quick Lit window, but I haven't yet given it the attention it deserves here on the blog, and it's such a gem I wanted to make sure it was on your radar for the 2018 Reading Challenge, perhaps as "a book you can read in a day", or "a memoir, biography, or book of creative nonfiction." These 52 "micro-memoirs" are by turns quirky, witty, poignant, and laugh-out-loud funny, and so different from pretty much anything else I've ever read.

Manhattan Beach

by Jennifer Egan

From the publisher: "Anna Kerrigan, nearly twelve years old, accompanies her father to visit Dexter Styles, a man who, she gleans, is crucial to the survival of her father and her family. She is mesmerized by the sea beyond the house and by some charged mystery between the two men. ‎Years later, her father has disappeared and the country is at war. Anna works at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, where women are allowed to hold jobs that once belonged to men, now soldiers abroad. She becomes the first female diver, repairing the ships that will help America win the war. One evening at a nightclub, she meets Dexter Styles again, and begins to understand the complexity of her father’s life, the reasons he might have vanished. With the atmosphere of a noir thriller, Egan's first historical novel follows Anna and Styles into a world populated by gangsters, sailors, divers, bankers, and union men."

The Lathe of Heaven

by Ursula Le Guin

This 1971 science fiction classic is set in a dystopian 2002 Portland (so, 40 years in the future at the time of writing, which was VERY interesting to read in 2017!), and focuses on a man whose terrible dreams actually come true, a power-hungry psychiatrist who wants to harness those dreams to improve the world, and the attorney he begs to intervene (who is perhaps the most interesting character). It's a short story, with incredible depth, and I'm so glad I finally read it.

The Last Mrs. Parrish

by Liv Constantine

I picked this up because the reviews are great and it was the December pick for Reese Witherspoon's book club, and I really like her picks about half the time. I read this quickly—it's definitely a page-turner—and appreciated the three different points of view. If you enjoy the domestic noir genre, this is a solid pick, especially if you enjoyed The Wife Between Us. The Skimm says this is "The Talented Mr. Ripley with XX chromosomes."

The Last Ballad

by Wiley Cash

North Carolina native Wiley Cash writes page-turning Southern literature. This 2017 release is a fictionalized account of the 1929 Loray Mill strike in Gastonia—with a special focus on folk hero and ballad singer Ella Mae Wiggins—and was partly inspired by Appalachian mining town backgrounds of Cash's own grandparents. Though set nearly a hundred years ago, Cash's story sizzles with life. Readers, don’t miss his acknowledgements—and if you’re loving this story, go ahead and place a hold on Cash’s most recent novel: When Ghosts Come Home, one of my 2021 favorites.

Quick Lit January 2018