More time means more books. Over the past three months, I’ve maintained my early to bed, early to rise schedule even though I didn’t need to get up for work. The cats wake me at 5am, and most days, I just stay up after I feed them.
When I’m working, I eat breakfast, exercise, shower, and write before logging on at 8am. I work all day, relax with my husband, eat dinner, and then crawl in bed around 9pm and indulge in a few pages of a novel before my eyes close. Sometimes I might read a little on my lunch break.
On sabbatical, I read in the morning. I read during the day. Fiction! During the day! I read at night. I spent the entire afternoon yesterday on the couch devouring Loving Frank, a novel about the love affair between feminist Mamah Borthwick and architect Frank Lloyd Wright. I read for a couple of hours, cat-napped for an hour, then reached over to the table from the couch and picked it right back up without getting up. It was an intense and brutal novel, and I feel melancholy after reading it (and after lying on the couch all day). But now it’s done, and I can move on to the next on my long list of other books I want to read.
I know I won’t be able to read this much when I go back to work, and that’s okay. I need to create and not just consume. But I will certainly miss taking in all the stories, the beautiful writing, the characters, the settings. I’ll keep my wake-up and go-to-bed hours when I go back to work next week, but I might shift my working hours. Maybe I’ll start and end later to accommodate a slightly longer swim workout, and to give myself time to read while I’m awake rather than as my eyes are closing for the day.
Books I read (so far) on sabbatical:
- Paris Letters: A Travel Memoir about Art, Writing, and Finding Love in Paris, Janice McLeod ♥️
- The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown
- The Inferno, Dante Alighieri
- A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles ♥️
- The Iliad, Homer (translated by Emily Wilson)
- The Paris Wife, Paula McLain ♥️
- James, Percival Everett ♥️
- Beloved, Toni Morrison ♥️
- Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
- The Paris Novel, Ruth Reichl ♥️
- 1000 Words: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round, Jami Attenberg
- Less, Andrew Sean Greer
- The Road, Cormac McCarthy ♥️
- Night Watch, Jayne Anne Phillips
- Now Is Not the Time to Panic, Kevin Wilson ♥️
- In Our Time, Ernest Hemingway
- The Turn of the Screw, Henry James
- The Lost Queen, Signe Pike ♥️
- The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien ♥️
- The Godmother, Hannelore Cayre
- Die with Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life, Bill Perkins
- Loving Frank, Nancy Horan
Butterfly Mind 
4 responses to “Book bonanza”
I’ve read Loving Frank! A long time ago. It got me really thinking about historical fiction, and then I took a long sojourn to Hilary Mantel’s neck of the woods (Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies). In turn, I think that’s what had me primed for Circe and Song of Achilles.
From your list here, I’ve also read The DaVinci Code, The Inferno (and the entire Divine Comedy – it’s what my undergrad senior thesis was centered around), Beloved, Slaughterhouse Five (also part of my thesis project), The Road (which I mightily struggled with, but wow does McCarthy have some of the most gorgeous sentences ever), The Turn of the Screw (I struggle with both Henry James and Edith Wharton, though I wonder if now that I’m older I’d be able to appreciate them more), and I own but haven’t yet read Gentleman in Moscow. I can’t remember if I’ve read The Things They Carried – it’s deeply familiar, but I don’t own a copy, so I think I probably haven’t. It seems like something I could have perhaps read as background to my senior thesis, though I tried to not read too far beyond WWII lit, and this is obviously quite far beyond that.
I have been swanning my way through Kate Atkinson lately. She has a series with protagonist Jackson Brodie (which I liked), but you may enjoy Life After Life and A God in Ruins. Behind the Scenes at the Museum and Human Croquet are also in a similar vein. Gritty magical realism? I think that’s how I’d describe them.
Yes! Loving Frank is a perfect example of the power of historical fiction — I learned so much from it, things I would have never retained from dry facts in a history class. I have tried several times to read Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies (because what a title!), but I have just not been able to crack them. I can’t get through the language or something, I don’t know what my blocker is.
I didn’t know your senior thesis was about the Divine Comedy! I want to talk to you about that some time. I’ll also be curious to hear what you think of Gentleman in Moscow when you get to it. I adored it. I wasn’t a fan of The Turn of the Screw. It reminded me of The Haunting of Hill House but not nearly as good (I know Turn of the Screw predates Hill House, but James uses way too many words, and I’m a Shirley Jackson fangirl).
I did like Life After Life! I haven’t read A God in Ruins, but I like the title. I’ll put that on my list. I also just ordered The Agony and the Ecstasy.
For Beloved, which I read because Owen said, Mom, you have to read this, it’s so good, my local book store is doing a banned books book club series, and I went to the one where they discussed Beloved, and I’m so glad I did! I sometimes regret not getting an English degree when books and words are so obviously where I love to spend my brain power, so I’ll have to make the best of it with book clubs instead. The next one in the discussion series is Handmaid’s Tale, which I’ve read before but for whatever reason it didn’t do it for me. I ordered another copy and will read it again for the discussion; maybe discussing it with others will make me appreciate it more.
Toni Morrison paints such stark yet rich images. Her compassion and authenticity really grip you (well, me anyway). I’m glad Owen got gripped!
I’ve read handmaid’s tale a few times – I “like” it. I find it engaging though distressing. I have never been able to summon the courage to watch the show.
We Were the Mulvaneys might be more engaging for you? I enjoyed it.
I just reread Handmaid’s Tale and had a much different experience than my previous read. It’s genius, and I’m with you on putting “like” in quotes.