2026 #39 The Lioness of Boston (Franklin)

 

The Lioness of Boston by Emily Franklin
My rating: 3.75 stars

My favorite thing about this book was the voice of Isabella Stewart Gardner. Told in first person, the narrative is beautifully reflective of historical Isabella as she navigates social isolation, and finds her way to being a patron and curator. As with any historical fiction, there are liberties, and Franklin does a good job of describing them in the afterword. I did question the choice to go forward with certain intimate details which, as far as I know, is just speculation. I look forward to reading Natalie Dykstra's Chasing Beauty: The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner to more clearly separate fact from fiction.
My biggest complaint about the book was the superfluous "name dropping." Franklin says that the art show in Paris took place, but Isabella was not there, and the whole scene felt very much a who's who of Impressionism rather than something that enriched the narrative. There were times were the historical references to art works in the ISG Museum felt a bit overwrought, and the dinner parties were likewise too focused on illuminating a panoply of historical figures. Most enriching was her (fictionalized) correspondence with Charles Eliot Norton, and the importance of the Dante Society, as well as her interaction with John Singer Sargent, whose portraits are especially significant to those who know the museum. There were some others as well, but without having a secure sense of the history, it was hard to parse the significant figures from the incidental ones.

Generally an entertaining book, particularly as I live in Boston and enjoy the ISG Museum as one of our real treasures. It is fun to think about how she might have been, and Franklin tries to bring her closer to our hearts as a woman trying to carve out a space for herself (in this case, Fenway Court, as it was called) in a world of art and culture very much commandeered by men.

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2026 Reading Goals: 39/60

2026 #38 Psalm for the Wild Built - Monk and Robot #1 (Chambers)

 

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.5 stars! Admittedly, this started slowly for me, but I think it is largely due to the fact that the only time I really give myself to read is right before bed. It was perhaps the perfect follow-up to my reading of _Siddhartha_ and strangely similar. Sibling Dex, a non-binary tea monk who may be having a bit of a crisis, is very much a seeker like Hesse's Siddhartha in that they feel a gap in the life they have chosen. Unlike Siddhartha, however, Dex has a companion--the robot Mosscap. I'm not giving anything away given the name of the series.

Once Mosscap entered the narrative I became much more invested. There's a tremendous beauty to this book. The theology and history that Chambers builds is very intriguing. We learn of the "Factory Age" that we might assume has some parallels to our current Anthropocene. Robot consciousness develops (as "an accident") and there is a climactic event/transition wherein robots decide to leave and humans revert to a more agricultural lifestyle, informed by a pantheistic (?) religion, that seems more akin to some indigenous understandings/approaches of/to religion. The world is not devoid of mechanics, but what exists is there in the service of recycling and renewing, such as Dex's greywater filter that they use in their mobile shower as they pedal across the land with their wares.

Oh could we ever use tea monks now. "Everybody needed a cup of tea sometimes. Just an hour or two to sit and do something nice, and then they could get back to whatever it was." (88%).

The book, largely through Mosscap, asks us to consider the purpose-driven life and how much of that defines our humanity. How much do we miss of the exhilaration of consciousness?

This is a book to read with intention, not as you drift off to sleep.

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2026 Reading Goals: 38/60

2026 #37 Siddhartha (Hesse)

 

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of my favorite teachers in high school insisted that I read this and The Little Prince. I managed to read the latter (and loved it), but never got around to Siddhartha until now, which is bizarre since I generally enjoy the Hesse works I've read. It is very much in the same vein as The Little Prince, so I can see why he recommended them together, but I think I got much more from this book reading it now (as I approach half a century on the planet), than I might have in high school. As I've been exposed to Buddhism through meditation, there were no really big surprises, but the blending of Eastern and Western theologies/references certainly piqued my interest. There are parallels between Gotama and Jesus (as he is described in various texts): "This is a holy man! His ideas may be strange, his words may sound foolish, but his glance and his hand, his skin and his hair, all radiate a purity, peace, serenity, gentleness and saintliness which I have never seen in any man..." (120). The teachings about love that Siddhartha absorbs run in parallel with Christian ideas of agape and caritas, although he certainly engages with eros too. The Campbellian Hero's Journey is obvious, but I loved that the ferryman was such a central and wise figure, as opposed to a grim Charon ferrying souls across the river Styx. Siddhartha's changing relationship to the self is instructive, and it is hard not to close the last page without feeling, perhaps, a bit more equanimity and peace in the knowing of suffering (not the suffering itself) and its role in shaping our selves.

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2026 Reading Goals 37/60

TYPTBR 18/18 - DONE!

2026 #36 The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories (Gilman)

 

The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I remember reading "The Yellow Wallpaper" in high school, and now I'm wondering why on earth they let me read it in HIGH SCHOOL? I somehow had forgotten how dark it is OR the darkness registers with me in a more meaningful way now that I'm an adult. What a brilliant piece though for its use of metaphor and "horror" of the psyche. The other stories in the collection are lighter, albeit no less feminist. I particularly enjoyed Mrs. Morrison in "Three Thanksgivings" as she refuses to let either her children or the appropriately named "Mr. Butts" commandeer her life. "The Cottagette" didn't really resonate with me, but I am mindful in considering when Gilman was writing (this particular story was first published in 1910). "Turned" has a narrative that for 1911, when it was first published, would have have been very bold. Gerta is taken advantage of in the worst way but finds perhaps an unlikely ally (I venture that while this narrative has become rather common, Gilman may have been one of the first to offer it in this way). "Making a Change" is another one that is very ahead of its time (again published in 1911), and I love the mild humor in which Gilman offers it. Here, an enterprising spirit takes on new meaning. "If I were a man" tiptoes into speculative fiction and doesn't rest in the clichés that it might. The final offering, "Mr. Peebles' Heart" was one of the most intriguing, featuring a female doctor who plays a rather significant role in saving her sister's marriage, or at least rescuing it from the doldrums of convention.

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2026 Reading Goals 36/60

TYPTBR 16/18

2026 #35 The Paris Express (Donoghue)

 

The Paris Express by Emma Donoghue
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An enjoyable read! It felt a bit slow for me in the beginning, and if you don't know the historical event upon which it is based, it does give you a false sense of anticipation. Donoghue does a really great job of portraying class stratification through the different cars on the train (although this felt a bit too transparent at times). Most of the characters are vivid and multi-dimensional and there's enough of a "plot" to keep things moving (along with the train).

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2026 Reading Goals 35/60

2026 #34 The Mirror of Her Dreams - Mordant's Need #1 (Donaldson)

 

The Mirror of Her Dreams by Stephen R. Donaldson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It is rather epic world building, but I just didn't love Terisa (late 1980s sensibilities or lack thereof notwithstanding). I wanted to see Geraden through someone else's eyes, and I came away not really understanding King Joyse's motivations. And "spice" is fine, but older creepy womanizers "claiming" young women (while they sleep, no less) is not sexy and pretty gross. For me, the most interesting character was Adept Havelock. The premise of mirrors and "translation" is terrific, but I'm not sure I was engaged enough to read the second in the series. If I happen upon it, I probably will read it, because I am curious and the first book ends without conclusion.

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2026 Reading Goals 34/60

#192030 Challenge: 1986

TYPTBR 16/18

2026 #33 The Guest Lecture (Riker)

 

The Guest Lecture by Martin Riker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Given that I assume Martin Riker is not a middle-aged perimenopausal female academic, I'm not quite sure how he so perfectly nailed my insomniac anxieties, but wow! I'm going to guess that the premise--the middle-of-the-night mental meanderings of a recently-denied-tenure economics professor--isn't going to appeal to everyone, but the book is fascinating. "Meanderings" isn't quite accurate either. Abigail starts out with the best of intentions to practice using "loci" as she directs her imagination to move through each room of her house as she consults John Maynard Keynes (the topic of her talk the next day) on each part of the talk she is to deliver. These conversations with the imaginary Keynes are absolutely delightful. Even with such a wise and thoughtful companion, however, Abigail's life-worries start to creep in, disrupting her focus and derailing her ability to compartmentalize (literally, in terms of the "loci" practice).

What was not expected and ended up feeling rather eerie given its top-tier relevance to my own profession, was an abundance of references to contemporary music! And not just the usual headliners either (John Cage, etc), but Susie Ibarra, Pamela Z, Mary Jane Leach...and many more. I can't remember how I learned about this book, but now I'm thinking one of my music colleagues must have recommended it. I even wrote down some names new to me! Riker's name-dropping is partially to fill out Evelyn, one of the characters we meet as Abigail's insomniac journey expands backward into her past, but it still came as a total surprise in a book I figured would be fairly economics-centric.

A side effect of all of this is that my long-sleeping interests in International Relations (when I briefly toyed with the idea of double majoring in college) were awakened, at least inasmuch as Riker (through Abigail) illuminates Keynes as both "creative improvisational human" and "institutional symbol of unchecked government expenditure that history has made him." (22%) At one point, Abigail beautifully captures the joy of reading Keynes's essays:

"...but I read them despite wrongness, despite datedness, for the voice of the person writing. His voice, his astuteness and humor, his crabbiness, the life in his voice, his way of seeing and thinking about the world that was not just in the ideas or claims or arguments but in the way the voice thought, the way the thought turned..." (58% Chapter 9)

Take THAT ChatGPT summaries! Be still my historian's primary-source-loving heart.

Part III is when Abigail's mind really lets loose--not so much as a hamster spinning on a wheel, but more like a rat running through a maze. She knows she needs to find the exit, but she takes the most circuitous route possible in getting there. While I enjoyed some of it, at times it started to feel a bit tedious.

I cannot say that I've read any book like this, and if you tried to summarize the "plot" for me, I probably wouldn't have picked it up. It seems quirky, but then you realize it really isn't (unless you are some rare soul who has never laid awake at night with your anxieties keeping you company). Mileage will definitely vary with this one, but for me, it was one of the best reading experiences I've had this year.



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