In which I wrap up November.
(1) Things which I have read and enjoyed
Apparently I've been having something of a non-fiction month this month.
I read Elizabeth-Jane Burnett's The Grassling, a memoir-cum-landscape-exploration about Devon, which is a bit strange and a bit lovely and bit pretentious at times, and I'm glad I read it. I also read Kathleen Jamie's latest essay collection, Surfacing which I really enjoyed. The archaeology essays, from Alaska and Orkney, are particularly wonderful, and I'll definitely be going back to her work. And I read Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino, a whole different kind of essay collection. I had quite a lot of fun reading them, they're bright and entertaining, but they've not really stayed with me, not like Jamie's essays have. I guess what I'm saying is slow-paced writing about summers exploring the archaeology of a place work more for me than sparky, fast-pased essays about modern life.
And finally, I finished reading Not Working: Why We Have to Stop by Josh Cohen, which I started in the summer before I was forcibly stopped - it's a psychoananalytical approach to some of the ways people respond to the treadmill of the modern world, the characters we take on as we resist or when we actually do get the chance to stop: burnout, slacker, slob, and daydreamer (and if you're wondering, I'm the daydreamer...). I really enjoyed it - and I felt it benefited, actually, from a slow read, picking it up, putting it down, letting my mind wander around the ideas and how they might be relevant for me.
My only novel was The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, which I quite enjoyed but which didn't explore memory quite as deeply as I would have liked. I find memory fascinating, and I hoped that this novel, which is premised on things being removed from circulation by the memory police and forgotten by the majority of the population, would explore more of the link between memory and emotion and identity - but it doesn't really go there.
(2) Things which I have watched and enjoyed
I made it to the cinema twice this month - once to see Knives Out again (just as enjoyable second time around) - and to see Marriage Story which I ADORED. I'm so glad I managed to see it in the cinema, secured safely in the dark away from all distraction. It's so well done, and so easy to feel that you know Nicole and Charlie and are caught between the two of them. I loved the how the way things unfold shifts your sympathy pendulum from one to the other and back again: I'm sure most people come out feeling more sympathy for one than the other, but by and large, honours and condemnation are fairly equal. It also has the best use of a Sondheim song in a non-Sondheim context ever, as Charlie sings Being Alive, and - ultimately - turns out to be maybe just that bit better at a relationship as a divorcé than he was as a husband. Please watch it.
(3) A recommendation of some kind
It's now December, so you should get yourself to a Ceremony of Nine Lessons and Carols, or a performance of the Messiah. Personally I like the former to include O Come All Ye Faithful in Latin, and the latter to be the full version, including He Shall Purify the Sons of Levi but those are hard to come by so you may want to be less picky.
(4) In the pile for December
I've got a couple of weeks off, so I'm looking for at least one chunky novel to keep me going. A bit of me is thinking about making sure Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is on my kindle for a re-read, but I did also get Ducks, Newberryport on recommendation from a friend, so that may be the one. I might also read a bit of Iain M Banks, and I did also put all of Earthsea and The Dark is Rising on the Kindle as well.
In non-book news, I am desperate to see Greta Gerwig's Little Women, as even the trailer is giving me feelings, and I'm excited to see the next Star Wars (come on, it's not going to be the last one) but trying not to overdo it, because I don't always trust JJ Abrams that much.
(5) A photo from the month gone by
Mushrooms in the woods on Wimbledon Common, found during Forest Church.