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3.58 AVERAGE
3.58 AVERAGE
I am grateful to Netgalley for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
We live in strange times. Apocalyptic fires in Australia. Election after election where strongmen like Trump, Johnson & Bolsonaro prevail. Strong winds, floods, hurricanes. No snow in London for years now. A terrifying virus closing down schools & cities. People wearing masks. Climate change- now renamed climate emergency. We yearn to avoid the news.
Yet we get up in the morning. Make our coffee, pick up a book, post on Instagram, talk to friends, take our kids to school, go to work. We focus on the tiny & everyday, with doomsday scenarios increasingly forming the background noise of our lives.
In 2020 I have decided to read books on climate change; this was decided in a glib moment (which I half regret) of me thinking I should face my fears. Jenny Offill’s ‘Weather’ became a part of my personal climate change reading challenge unexpectedly. I didn’t predict how it would make me feel.
With fragmentary, spikey paragraphs that will be familiar to those who loved her 2014 novel Dept. of Speculation, Offill offers a unique take on climate change & Donald Trump’s America. It took me a while to feel at home in her writing, but once I did, I settled in & turned the pages greedily. I haven’t read anything as powerful in describing our current moment- our climate anxiety, our political anxiety, our efforts to manage our daily, mundane lives despite with all this around us.
There is though nothing heroic or relieving here. I hugely admire Jenny Offill for her achievement: in short perfectly formed snapshots, she captures our lives so accurately. Yet ‘Weather’ filled me with dread and deep sadness for ourselves & our limited choices, & for the generations to follow.
We live in strange times. Apocalyptic fires in Australia. Election after election where strongmen like Trump, Johnson & Bolsonaro prevail. Strong winds, floods, hurricanes. No snow in London for years now. A terrifying virus closing down schools & cities. People wearing masks. Climate change- now renamed climate emergency. We yearn to avoid the news.
Yet we get up in the morning. Make our coffee, pick up a book, post on Instagram, talk to friends, take our kids to school, go to work. We focus on the tiny & everyday, with doomsday scenarios increasingly forming the background noise of our lives.
In 2020 I have decided to read books on climate change; this was decided in a glib moment (which I half regret) of me thinking I should face my fears. Jenny Offill’s ‘Weather’ became a part of my personal climate change reading challenge unexpectedly. I didn’t predict how it would make me feel.
With fragmentary, spikey paragraphs that will be familiar to those who loved her 2014 novel Dept. of Speculation, Offill offers a unique take on climate change & Donald Trump’s America. It took me a while to feel at home in her writing, but once I did, I settled in & turned the pages greedily. I haven’t read anything as powerful in describing our current moment- our climate anxiety, our political anxiety, our efforts to manage our daily, mundane lives despite with all this around us.
There is though nothing heroic or relieving here. I hugely admire Jenny Offill for her achievement: in short perfectly formed snapshots, she captures our lives so accurately. Yet ‘Weather’ filled me with dread and deep sadness for ourselves & our limited choices, & for the generations to follow.
Last Friday, I went to get a library card for the first time in at least 15 years. As a bookseller, I had more than enough to read anyways, and there never was any reason to get one, it seems. And since I'm moving to a new town, I figured this was as good a time as any, and here we are.
This was the first book I borrowed with my new card, and it seems like an apt choice, because the narrator is a librarian. Thankfully, it's not a book about libraries, though. It's a book about existing in this world, with the climate catastrophe looming over everything.
It's written in bits and fragments, but it wasn't annoying - this definitely depends on my mood, but something like that can feel too pretentious for me to enjoy. This wasn't the case here, and I read more than fifty pages while still in the library, sitting next to my bf. (Yes, this is was the perfect date.)
It really struck a nerve with me, and I think it captures the times we live in as experienced by relatively wealthy people living in the West quite well. I think with topics like these it's nice to recognize that one isn't alone with those feelings and thoughts.
I'm glad I read it - it's a quick read, too, so a good book to get back into the groove of things.
This was the first book I borrowed with my new card, and it seems like an apt choice, because the narrator is a librarian. Thankfully, it's not a book about libraries, though. It's a book about existing in this world, with the climate catastrophe looming over everything.
It's written in bits and fragments, but it wasn't annoying - this definitely depends on my mood, but something like that can feel too pretentious for me to enjoy. This wasn't the case here, and I read more than fifty pages while still in the library, sitting next to my bf. (Yes, this is was the perfect date.)
It really struck a nerve with me, and I think it captures the times we live in as experienced by relatively wealthy people living in the West quite well. I think with topics like these it's nice to recognize that one isn't alone with those feelings and thoughts.
I'm glad I read it - it's a quick read, too, so a good book to get back into the groove of things.
This book feels like it could be a part of 10:04 by Ben Lerner. The tingle of panic rings so true to how many of us find ourselves feeling. Highly recommend.
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
I appreciate this fragmentary, loosely-plotted work and its melancholic tone and gloomy humor. Lizzy contains multitudes in her contradictory impulses to care for some people and shy away from others as well as the way she’s both hopeful and fatalistic.
The fragmentary style lends itself to quick reading but the work deserves slow, reflective reading. I see myself returning to this book as I have with her previous novel, Department of Speculation, which I also loved.
I'm somewhat reminded in tone, style, and concerns, of Mary Robison's novel One D.O.A. One on the Way.
The fragmentary style lends itself to quick reading but the work deserves slow, reflective reading. I see myself returning to this book as I have with her previous novel, Department of Speculation, which I also loved.
I'm somewhat reminded in tone, style, and concerns, of Mary Robison's novel One D.O.A. One on the Way.
I started this yesterday and finished it today. Last night I dreamt about a mass shooting. I think the dream was related to the book. Really a tense experience. I loved it. Quick read- like reading a mixture of someone’s tweets and their personal diary. Set in 2016 (ugh). Don’t have kids lol.
The style reminded me of No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood.
This was a little more focused, but it kind of fizzles out towards the end.
This was a little more focused, but it kind of fizzles out towards the end.
At first I liked this. I liked how it seemed to be snippets of ideas for future books that all danced around a general theme of anxiety of of our time, a sort of prescient fable about the pandemic. But then I found all the insert jokes annoying so I started skim reading and I missed the point where the husband went somewhere and some guy called will turned up and I didn’t care enough to go back and find out, I just skimmed to the end. So not great.
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
relaxing
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I just re-read this and I've realised that it reminds me a lot of Ducks, Newburyport.
emotional
funny
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated