Books Read This Month
Close to Shore by Michael Capuzzo
Oh. My. Gosh. This book is PHENOMENAL. It’s the true story of the shark attacks in 1916 along the New Jersey shore. Capuzzo is incredible at building suspense. He begins with a young man in the water—what he was doing there, what he was likely thinking, and what he was looking forward to. Then he cuts to the young man’s father and all the hopes and ambitions he had for his son. The juxtaposition makes the senselessness of what happens next even more haunting. And the shark isn’t finished. It would claim several more victims before the attacks finally stopped. Just extremely well-written, fascinating, and genuinely terrifying. The attacks would later help inspire Jaws.
A Life of One’s Own by Marion Milner
This is one of the most unique books I’ve read. First published in the 1930s, it’s the account of the seven-year inner quest Milner undertook to find out what makes her truly happy. Her method was: “(a) to pick out those moments in my daily life which had been particularly happy and record them in words. (b) To go over these records in order to see whether I could discover any rules about the conditions in which happiness occurred.” The whole book is an ode to the necessity of journaling—writing things down to see what we really think. Her introspection inspired me to look at my own introspection in new ways.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
I belly-laughed while reading this book. It’s gold. The premise: Earth is about to be destroyed by bureaucratic aliens to make way for an intergalactic hyperspace freeway. Questions arise: “Why are we born? Why do we die? Why do we spend so much time in between wearing digital watches?” I wrote LOL or LMAO on almost every page. It’s absurd and deep—absurdly deep. I loved it so much that immediately after finishing it I bought the entire Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy box set, Don’t Panic by Neil Gaiman about the creation of the series, and one of Adam’s nonfiction books, Last Chance to See.