The Once and Future King – TH WHITE ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/4

In a very old college journal for Creative Writing 212 (our teacher made us keep journals for the entire semester… and then he would make us give them to him so he could READ and comment on them… this is very weird right? I can’t believe I’m just starting to re-evaluate this), I found a note saying how The Once and Future King was one of my favorite books. Which was weird because I really couldn’t remember anything about it except for a few vague emotional ghosts of feeling enthralled while it was in my hands. So I went ahead and re-read, and loved it. It is both eerie and also unsurprising how relevant and timely this book is. Does might really equal right? What is the right way to wield power? What does it mean to be a great leader? Is it possible to create a perfect society, and if so, what cost does it exact? What do you do when your personal values conflict with the values you publicly (and often painfully) ascribe to? Is war inevitable, or is it the result of having absolutely no imagination? I can fully see back to why I loved the first book (Sword in the Stone, duh it rocks) so much, but this re-read experience was special in how much the other three books in the full collection resonated. This book is a classic for a reason, and I’m fully Team Gwen and Lance btw and I only want to see movie versions where Gwen is old and Lance is ugly.

Intermezzo – Sally Rooney ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/4

I hated it 70 pages in and was convinced this was my last tango with old Sally after the sad sack disaster that was Beautiful World… but then my very wise friend (shout out Eddie) who recommended it to me encouraged me to just try and keep going and see if i didn’t warm up to it… well i effing did and this book is LOVELY. Another Thestral Book… one of those reads that does the job just fine with any reader but becomes a living, breathing and painfully lovely creature in the hands of any reader who has experienced a deep loss. One brother is a glossy idiot, the other brother is a geeky loner, and you come to love them both. The women overall felt less fully drawn to me, which keeps surprising me since Rooney is, in fact, a woman, but the exception is the character of Margaret whom I was utterly obsessed with. I wanted to follow her around and physically fight anyone who gave her any shit. This book talks about grief and loss and the shadowy feelings that follow you along in the infinite procession that is “after” The Thing in ways that are excruciatingly plain, yet I’d never seen them laid out that way before. This book did the thing where it had lines on lines that were so effing specific and personal, yet they felt aggressively universal, as if in some quiet lines here and there Rooney finally screamed the obvious loud enough for you to hear it as a reader.

The Bright Sword – Lev Grossman ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I got myself on some insane King Arthur kick this Spring and didn’t want to read this until I’d re-read TOFK, hence the review above. That said, this was a great follow-up and I sincerely enjoyed the back-to-back Aurthurian Mystical Magickery Tour. This book has a very cool juxtaposition of being set in the middle ages while being unabashedly woke, and it worked.There is a trans character whom I thought was brought to life absolutely stunningly and with so much reverence. There are complicated, terrible, redeemable, understandable women. There is a character of color who basically gets called “That Black Guy” the whole book but you get to learn what his actual history and character and motivations and foibles are, as well as his actual ethnicity. There is a gay one-handed knight who specializes in battle-axe-ery and always being two steps ahead of everyone else, thankfully for everyone else. The main character, Collum, almost gets relegated to the background due to the complexity and vibrancy and whole-ness of all of the supporting characters around him and in my book that’s a very cool and good thing. The ending didn’t fully do it for me, but as far as staying true to Arthurian form and adventure-isms, this book does it. Don’t miss if you like King Arthur stuff.

French Lessons – Peter Mayle ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I just love Peter Mayle. I understand that this isn’t a creative reach by any means, but reading Mayle is the equivalent of melting into your couch on a breezy Sunday morning and watching old episodes of Barefoot Contessa with all the windows and screen doors open. He just writes these beautiful chapters about food, and people who love food, and the country of france who houses all this food and the people who love that food, and all the foibles and delights associated with all three of these levels of things. This book focuses more specifically on food and food events than A Year in Provence, which is more about food and people. Start with A Year in Provence but I still can’t recommend this sweet and cute and interesting little read enough. I know have a Frog Leg Festival, a Fine Wine Marathon, and a Nearly Naked Rich People Watching Brunchy Afternoon Extravaganza added to my list of things that I must make happen before I die.

The Flaw – Antonis Samarakis ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I think it’s rare for me these day to go into a book with absolutely no expectations or predictions about what i’ll think or even what the reading experience will be like. This book was one of those welcome rarities. The Interrogator, is fully and wholly loyal to The State is tasked with wrangling a confession out of The Suspect who has been apprehended as an enemy of The State who need only confess to his terrible doings. The Interregator is believes blindly in the fact that The Suspect is guilt and that it’s certain that he’ll get a confession out of The Suspect with his wiles and ways; The Suspect doesn’t give an inch. These guys have a weirdly beautiful day together and experience the mundane, honest, everyday buzz of life. The power shifts. You have no idea what’s happening or what just happened except of course you do. There is a big flaw, and it’s obvious and completely out of sight, and everything explodes. I know there are all kinds of cool themes of political intrigue and commentary on totalitarianism and individualism and loyalty and morality and all the rest of that and I appreciate that and could probably appreciate it even more if I spent some more time reading up on it, but what got me about this book is just that it’s about The Truth vs ideology, People vs pretense. Pesky feelings vs weapony facts, I get the point of this book and it’s extraordinary and I fully believe that this book is important and masterful and underrated, but at the end of the day I also saw humans who began to understand one another as two humans and paid the price for it because of all the shit built up on top of them, and it made me cry and hold it dear and I loved it.