Just about one year ago, I asked the Arena’s readers: Do you love to read, but most of your reading takes place in ten-minute snippets or at a time of night when you really ought to be sleeping?
If that was your situation in 2024, as well, you just might be what we at the Arena call a HIP: a Harried Intellectual Parent.
As every HIP knows, reading is as hard to schedule as it is essential. When a HIP settles down to read after the kids are in bed, he will more than likely be interrupted by a toddler who needs a drink or a kindergartener who had a nightmare. Moreover, the moment when she finally cracks open her book on a Sunday afternoon will almost certainly turn out to be exactly .01 seconds before the moment when her teenager asks to talk about problems at school or brings up his complicated existential concerns.
Still, the HIP is a committed reader who doesn’t despair in such cases (mostly). Why not? Why, because there’s always another chance tomorrow night for interrupted reading!
If you’re looking for an excellent new book to restart seventeen times in one week before you finally get through the first chapter, I have a short list of eight suggestions based on my own interrupted reading this year. And if post-kid-bedtime reading really never seems to work for you, never fear – each of these books always pair well with your (cold – see: interruptions) morning coffee.
New Books:
I Cheerfully Refuse, by Leif Enger
I’ve already mentioned this book once at the Arena in recent weeks, so I will only briefly note it again here. If you enjoy fiction and worry about whether future generations will continue to read books for information and pleasure, you’ll not regret reading this outstanding novel.
Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic, by Nadya Williams
Hannah’s Children, by Catherine Pakaluk
Family Unfriendly, by Timothy Carney
Very likely you have heard of at least one of these three books already this year, and perhaps even read some or all of them. I read each and enjoyed each and wrote about each this year, but what I haven’t seen considered in writing so far is the ways that these three books work together (and the ways in which they are distinct). The three books seem to me to be approaching many of the same general questions – How are American experiences regarding children and parenthood changing? Why are they doing so? How can we make things better? – but they do so from three different disciplinary and authorial angles.
I have spent a fair bit of time turning these books over in my head as a trio. While Pakaluk’s book reminds me of my own research, Williams’ and Carney’s surprised me at times with points of view that I had never before considered but with which I strongly agree. I recommend reading these three books in sequence and holding them in conversation with each other in your mind over time. I have found this to be very fruitful in my thinking this year. Perhaps you could even do this as a sort of extended book cub project with some fellow HIP friends?
Other Books:
Foster and Small Things Like These, by Claire Keegan
I went down a bit of an Irish literature rabbit hole this year and found myself stunned by the clarity of Keegan’s writing and the precise, implicit feelings that both of these novellas convey. The film based on Foster, The Quiet Girl, is also exceptional. Small Things has recently been made into a movie, as well, and although I worried about the casting and feared that the film might be essentially anti-Catholic, I was encouraged by Joe Griffith’s recent positive review. I’m not sure whether I’ll see it or not, but I’m sure I will read the book again.
They’re not cheerful books to read, neither one nor the other of them, so do take care about when you read them. Prepare for them to make an impact.
Lights in a Dark Town and Shadows and Images, by Meriol Trevor
My favorite historian studies John Henry Newman and has been recommending these novels about him to me for a while, and my children have read and greatly enjoyed the first book. I’m so glad I finally actually read both books all the way through myself.
Trevor also wrote a biography of Newman, and clearly admired him tremendously, as do the main characters in both books. I admire him, too, and so reading about him in these novels was fun for me. But more importantly, I learned a great deal as I read about both the Anglican and the Catholic churches in Britain in the mid-19th-century, and I found both nooks quite fascinating. I already knew the basics of this history, but as an Americanist I had never stopped to consider what living as a Catholic (or an Anglican in reference to Catholics) in that place at that time might actually have been like. Any book that awakens the historical imagination more accurately is always worthwhile.
Enjoy!