I, like many readers, have a long list of books I want to read. They’re titles and authors accumulated through personal rec’s, book reviews, podcasts, everywhere really. I’d say I have about several dozen, but not more than 100, books on the list.
Since I don’t always like to know a lot about the book before I read it, my list serves me well. It’s so long that by the time I get around to reading one from the list, I don’t really know where the recommendation came from or what it’s about. Coming of age, or period piece? Contemporary author, or a classic author I’ve never even known about? Fluffy and fast, or real meat on the bones? Even if I’m not sure of these answers at page 1, I know it will be a good book because it’s something I took the time to make note of.
Twice in the past six months, I’ve been super excited to crack one of these books open, thinking I was going to enter into a light, entertaining, contemporary world, only to get sucker-punched. They ended up being about the end of the world.
The first book was Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam. The second was Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet. Both are excellent novels. Just too distressing to read during a global pandemic. Even though I just read Children’s Bible this past week, when the Covid outlook is a lot more positive, it still really hits home how precarious our world is, particularly because of the effects of climate change. Reading about children confronting illness, uncertainty, environmental and human carnage in an overall hopeless atmosphere just isn’t great for the psyche.
For a real good kick-in-the-balls trifecta, read these books and then watch the movie First Reformed.
Sadly contemporary life, if reflected by contemporary fiction, is looking more and more end-of-the-worldish.