November 2023 Reading Round-Up
The best and worst of my reading month
Welcome to the November 2023 Reading Round-Up. Each month I write about the books I’ve read and rank them from worst to best.
November, like October, was equal parts hectic and busy. School! Thanksgiving! Finals prep! Four finals stand between me and the glories of December break. The second half of December means time to read combined with an onslaught of compilations with the best books of 2023. It’s what I consider the most wonderful time of the (reading) year. Some of my favorite lists have already started dropping, from NPR to Time to The New York Times Best 100 and Top 10. Have they been a tempting distraction and source of finals procrastination? Absolutely.
For now, please enjoy my November 2023 Reading Round-Up, which is filled with books that I truly loved. And, if you are looking for even more recommendations, stay tuned, because I’ve got much in store for December and the start of the new year.
November 2023 Reading Stats
Number of Books Read: 8
Genre Breakdown: 88% fiction (7 books), 12% nonfiction (1 book)
Average Rating: 8.82/10
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8. Now You See Us - Balli Kaur Jaswal
Fiction, 303 pages
Cora, Donita, and Angel are all Filipina women working as domestic staff in Singapore when tragedy strikes: Flor, a fellow maid, is arrested for murdering her employer. The three don’t know Flor very well, but each is convinced that Flor couldn’t have done the crime and that she is instead being used as a scapegoat to protect the elite. The three women, each with different paths that took them away from home and to Singapore to work, have varying interest in trying to help set Flor free. Cora, who left the Philippines under mysterious circumstances and who has been working in Singapore the longest, understands the risks that could come from speaking out, while Donita, young, brash and new to the island, just wants justice for her friend. Along the way, the backgrounds of the three women are revealed as well as the dark undertones of the thriving domestic help economy in Singapore.
It should speak to the strength of the books on this month’s list that Now You See Us is ranked #8, because I really enjoyed this novel. It was fast-paced and engaging, serving as a great example of how fiction can expose readers to all sorts of issues and places they might previously have known little about. After I finished reading, I immediately had to google the Singaporean locations referenced and look at a map to understand how the geography played into the story. I thought there were maybe a few too many splashy plot points which felt a bit hastily concluded by the end, but that didn’t inhibit my enjoyment of the overall story.
Rating: 8/10
7. Going Infinite - Michael Lewis
Non-Fiction, 254 pages
Michael Lewis has to be one of the luckiest authors in the world. When he started shadowing Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of FTX and now a convicted felon, Bankman-Fried was at the height of his fame and power. Hailed as an innovative disrupter of traditional financial markets with the creation of Alameda research, a crypto quant trading firm, and then FTX, a financial exchange for crypto-currency, Bankman-Fried was on his way to becoming one of the richest men in the world. As an adherent of the effective altruism movement, which believes in donating the majority of one’s earnings to solve the world’s ills, Bankman-Fried and his fellow effective altruists determined if they made a ton of money at the peak of their productive working years, they could maximize their impact in solving the world’s problems.
This might have been the controlling narrative of Lewis’ book had FTX not imploded in November of 2022. Although I knew what was coming, I couldn’t help but think how obvious it was that a collapse was imminent as I read. Bankman-Fried might have been a genius when it came to math and data-driven calculations, but he was an absolutely horrible manager and CEO. Convinced that “adult” roles were a waste of time, Bankman-Fried focused on elements of the business that were interesting to him and assumed that the rest would fall into place through the work of those around him. Soon after the founding of Alameda Research in late 2017, Bankman-Fried and his fellow leaders discovered that the firm had lost $4 million. Bankman-Fried didn’t know why everyone was so concerned. There was an 80% chance the money would show back up, so why panic? I didn’t get the sense that Bankman-Fried was a malicious actor intent on stealing investor money. I did get the sense that he was in way over his head without realizing this fact himself. But, as any first year law student learns, not knowing the law does not absolve you of the crime.
While I did enjoy this book and found Lewis’ capacity to explain very complicated subjects clearly and concisely - it’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to understanding how crypto actually works! - I did sometimes feel like I was reading the movie montage version of the FTX story. There were multiple times when I would pause and think, wait, how did they go from a few guys to a headquarters in Hong Kong? How did they suddenly grow to three hundred employees living in the Bahamas? I would love to know more about the publishing team’s strategy, because while it probably was just dumb luck that the book was released in the same week that the jury in Bankman-Fried’s fraud trial returned a guilty verdict, I did get the sense that the editing process was rushed. The book is filled with interesting footnotes, but many of them conclude with the line “this is for another day,” despite the fact that those footnotes very well could have been relevant multi-page additions. This book could have easily and justifiably been 400 hundred pages. Instead readers are left with a 250 page digestible highlight reel of Sam Bankman-Fried’s life, written by one of the best narrative non-fiction writers in the business.
Rating: 8/10
6. The Postcard - Anne Berest
Fiction, 475 pages
In January of 2003 a generic postcard arrives at Anne Berest’s parents’ home in Paris with the names of four family members written on the back, all of whom had been killed in Auschwitz. At the time, the family is alarmed - is this some kind of practical joke? a threat? who sent it? - but over time, the postcard is put in a drawer and forgotten. Many years later, Anne, after having a daughter of her own, feels compelled to determine the origins of the postcard. Along with her mother, who has done her own investigation into the plight of the family, Anne learns the history of these lost loved ones while also discovering her Jewish identity within the context of a secular country with anti-semitic undertones.
I feel somewhat ridiculous admitting that it wasn’t until about halfway through this book that I realized that the story was mostly autobiographical. Although the first clue should have been that the author’s and protagonist’s names are the same, once I connected the dots, the questions of identity, nationalism, religion and homeland took on a more personal and profound bent. If I hadn’t known that the story was a real family history - with some key names and locations fictionalized - I would have said that the story probably could have been trimmed in places for the purpose of narrative fluency, but given that this was the actual journey the author took to discover the source of the postcard and its underlying significance, the length is justified.
Rating: 8/10
5. The King is Always Above the People - Daniel Alarcón
Fiction/Short Stories, 240 pages
The King is Always Above the People centers around young male protagonists in an unnamed Latin American country. Although the stories are not connected, each takes place either within the capital or a peripheral town, emphasizing the ever-present tension between belonging and displacement. As is common in a medium that allows the author to explore stylistically and structurally, each story has a distinct narrative voice, which works to masterful effect. My favorite story, “The Ballad of Rocky Rontal,” about a boy with a broken family life who grows up to be an imprisoned gang member, is written entirely in the subjunctive mood, creating both a disconnect as well as unique intimacy with the protagonist. In “The Bridge,” a man simultaneously deals with the aftermath of the death of his blind uncle as well as his father’s admittance to a sanatorium. “The Thousands,” is about a community building a town told through the point of view of the community itself in the first person plural. Overall, I was very impressed by this collection. I enjoyed some stories more than others, but was never let down by the strength of Alcarón’s writing and his creativity in promoting the larger themes of family, association, and displacement.
Rating: 8.5/10
4. Roman Stories - Jhumpa Lahiri
Fiction/Short Stories, 205 pages
If you want to feel like an underachiever in the best possible way, read Jhumpa Lahiri’s newer works. Jhumpa Lahiri, a fellow Barnard alumna, won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for her debut collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies. Although she now teaches at Barnard (I just missed her), she spent many years living in Rome and learning Italian, which is the language in which she wrote Roman Stories, her first short story collection since 2008. To top it off, Lahiri translated her own work from Italian into English for the average reader’s delight, and yes, this collection is delightful. Rome is at the heart of this collection, and is sometimes as much a character as the people who populate the stories. In one story in particular, “The Steps,” Lahiri tracks the lives of those who use a public stairway to get to their neighborhoods, creating a metaphor for the changing demographics, cultures, and traditions of the ancient city. Truly, everything that Lahiri writes is worth reading, and Roman Stories is no different.
Rating: 9/10
3. Sirens and Muses - Antonia Angress
Fiction, 349 pages
One might think that the Occupy Wall Street movement couldn’t be more removed from an elite New England art school, but on Wrynn’s campus, tensions are brewing over the role of art and its connection to capitalism. Louisa is a talented young painter who has recently transferred to Wrynn from a community college near her home in Louisiana. She’s taken out tens of thousands of dollars worth of loans to attend and stretched her family’s contributions for the chance to have the education of a lifetime. Her roommate, Karina, born in New York City to wealthy art collectors, is assured of her spot at Wrynn artistically, but struggles to fit in with other members of the student body, finding intrigue in a trust-fund holding, anti-capitalist, artistic provocateur, Preston Utley. When Louisa learns that her grandfather has had a stroke and the money going to her tuition will have to go towards his medical bills, she pins her hopes for staying at Wrynn on the winter art show, which has substantial cash prizes for its winner.
Everything comes to a head in Part One of Sirens and Muses when Preston stages a controversial prank at the art show, pushing all three students and a visiting professor to separately move to New York and strike out on their own. Removed from the comforts of school, each is confronted with the tensions between making art and making a living; commercial success and using art to advance a broader message or goal.
I listened to most of this book through Libby and thought the narrator did a fantastic job telling the story and giving it life. Of course, the narrator had much to work with in this beautifully written, compelling story of seekers and strivers, dreamers and idealists. My only complaint was that the story ended somewhat abruptly before many of the central issues could be resolved. Maybe this was the point - the book takes place at a time of great uncertainty - so it might be fitting for the ending to continue in this vein. What truly matters, however, is the richness of Angress’ characters within a remarkable debut novel.
Rating: 9/10
2. Olive, Again - Elizabeth Strout
Fiction, 289 pages
How often does a sequel live up to expectations? Olive, Again, the follow-up to Elizabeth Strout’s 2009 Pulitzer Prize winning collection of linked short stories, Olive Kitteridge, not only lives up to expectations but meets its predecessor eye-to-eye. When I read Olive Kitteridge back in March, I knew almost immediately that this book deserved a place on my all-time favorite long-list. Because Olive Kitteridge was a collection of linked stories, it was not hard for Strout to pick up where she left off over ten years later. Using the same format, Olive, Again continues to tell the story of Olive and the shifting nature of Crosby, Maine and the surrounding area. Each story paints a fuller picture of the area’s inhabitants in isolation and in connection to the larger community.
Olive remains one of my favorite characters in all of literature, not just for the qualities that Strout creates in her — brash and opinionated with an extradorinaiy capacity for empathy — but also for the fact that she exists at all. It is so rare to read a book with such a wonderfully complex and nuanced woman, let alone one in the latter stages of her life. Olive, Again places an emphasis on Olive’s aging, following her through nearly twenty years of life and the joys and sorrows that accompany entering one’s twilight. Please read this book. Please read Olive Kitteridge. Read everything Elizabeth Strout has written. You won’t regret it.
Rating: 10/10
1. Landslide - Susan Conley
Fiction, 263 pages
In this beautiful book (also) set in Maine, the setting is as omnipresent as its inhabitants. Fishing is the lifeblood on the coast of Penobscot Bay. What used to be a thriving industry, however, has declined in recent years as both climate change and overfishing changes the population of the surrounding waters and the people on the land. In an attempt to offset the scarcity back home, Kit Archer accepts a months-long job on a fishing boat off the coast of Nova Scotia, where he is caught in the blast of an engine explosion and breaks his femur. Stuck in a hospital across the border in Canada, his wife Jill is left to take care of their volatile teenage boys, Sam and Charlie, as well as newfound complications in her marriage. As winter sets in, Jill and the boys hunker down in their small house on a small island better suited for summer, surrounded by water and the constant reminder of how much their fortunes are out of their control.
Although this might not sound like a good thing, I indescribably found myself on the verge of tears for much of this book. I think this speaks to Conley’s capacity to write about the minutiae of this family’s life with reverent detail and heart. I was amazed at Conley’s capacity to create such nuanced portraits of teenage angst and longing, particularly in connection to a mother’s anxiety about her family’s well-being. Every detail was accounted for, fully immersing me as the reader in the mind of Jill, in the Archer family, and in the economic challenges of the town. When determining the difference between a great book and a truly superb one, it sometimes comes down to the little things. Obviously the writing has to be excellent and draw me in, but at the end of the day will I remember the story in the months to come? How did the book make me feel while I was reading it? Did it move me? Landslide meets all of these criteria with a resounding yes.
Rating: 10/10
All of the books written about above are available on my November 2023 Reading Round-Up Bookshop page, or you can click on the title of the book itself to be routed to the shop. Every book I’ve ever recommended, sorted by post, are also available on the general shop page.
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Want to see past months’ round ups? You can find those here.