“Where we lived in Italy was a cement building plopped on a hill. It wasn’t beautiful. But on the hill, you could see beautiful things.”
Hey blog. Happy April! I hope your March was lovely. Mine was! Today, I’d like to talk about a couple of the books I read this month (and I have a fun surprise at the end that perhaps no one will care about).
I most recently finished Everything Sad Is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri, which is an autobiographical novel written from the perspective of the author’s middle-school self. In it, he makes sense of his life and his history as an Iranian refugee living in Oklahoma. It’s filled with so many poignant and beautiful observations and stories that feel all the more special when you remember they’re being told by a sixth-grader to his classmates, trying to explain where he came from and how it shaped him. It’s middle-grade fiction but I think there’s so much in it for adults. It made me a little teary more than once, and I laughed out loud a lot as I read it. That’s really all I ask from a book that will be one of my all time favorites and this one certainly makes that list.
Earlier this month, I reread The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo. I read this book often when I was younger, and every year I like to revisit a few books I read when I was in elementary or middle school (seems to be a theme?), because it feels so special to revisit the values we hope we instill in children—stuff like courage and forgiveness and friendship—once I’ve left childhood. This also made me tear up, to be honest. “A rat is a rat is a rat,” until he encounters an act of grace. Too good!
“‘Oh, really,’ said Roscuro [the rat], ‘this is too extraordinary. This is too wonderful. I must tell Botticelli [the cynical rat] that he was wrong. Suffering is not the answer. Light is the answer.’”
Last one I’ll mention. I read And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini a couple of weeks ago. I’ve always been struck by Hosseini’s penchant for storytelling and the way he can write about really hard stuff with a lot of sensitivity and compassion. This book really is one of his best in both of those regards—it’s amazing how he’s weaves many different stories across time and place into this one really standout novel. There are so many characters and perspectives and somehow all of them are so memorable. Hosseini is a gem!
I said the last one was the last one I’d mention, but it would not be Fellows without some class reading, so I’ll mention that too. This month, we finished up How (Not) to Be Secular by James K.A. Smith and The Drama of Scripture by Bartholomew & Goheen as we wrapped our classes on Christ in Culture and New Testament. In the span of a few weeks we’ve covered the malaise of immanence AND an introduction to the book of Revelation. Talk about range!
My fun surprise (though “fun”, here, is subjective), is a few book recommendations for my fellow Fellows. Fellows, if you see this, my disclaimers here are that there is no guarantee that you will like the book I recommend for you if you read it; maybe you’ve read it before or you’ve decided you will never read that particular book and that’s fine by me; this list was based on an inexplicable vibe, I have no reasoning behind any of these; and, lastly, I am so unbothered if you ignore this completely unsolicited recommendation for the rest of your life! (I really just needed blog content. Cheers!) This I humbly give to you (again, so unsolicited! Ignore if you like.)
Emily: Beartown, Fredrik Backman
Ashley: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith
Janie: Poison for Breakfast, Lemony Snicket
Mallory: Rebecca, Daphne de Maurier
Madelyn: The Anthropocene Reviewed, John Green
Linsey: Gilead, Marilynne Robinson
Neil: The Last Shot, Darcy Frey
Ian: Open, Andre Agassi
Alec: In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
Matt: Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut
Sincerely,
Derren Lee