"Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage" by Belle Burden

"The speed of our beginning and the speed of our ending felt like matching bookends. They both came out of nowhere. He wanted it, he wanted me. And then he didn't."

I was very drawn to the premise of Strangers as soon as I saw it in Trident Booksellers, because just the day before, we had met someone who was supposed to get married this past summer, but two weeks before the wedding, her fiancé left her for someone else. Her story seemed like it would be closely mirrored in Burden's book, which chronicles the sudden dissolution of the author's 20-year marriage. (As it turns out--I've bastardized Tolstoy in almost this exact way before, but I'm going to do it again: each unhappy relationship is unhappy in its own way.)

This is definitely a compelling, even mildly shocking, read. What initially felt like it might just be a very public way of revenge turns out to be more nuanced than that. The reader hunts for clues in the past and chases after elusive answers, seeking understanding, right alongside the author.  Ultimately, Strangers turned out to not be a book that I would consider top-tier, but it definitely had a voyeuristic pull, especially considering the fact that it tells a true story. 

This book started off as a 700-word essay for the weekly NYT column, "Modern Love". After I finished reading Strangers, I found myself very curious to read its antecedent, Was I Married to a Stranger? I was unable to find a copy that I could read without paying for it (and heck, I already paid for the book!!) but I ended up telling myself it's not like I would learn anything new from the article after having read the whole book. Although it would be interesting to see where the focus lay in the condensed version, just as it may be interesting to see how Gwyneth Paltrow approaches the material in the coming Netflix adaptation.

I am torn between not mentioning this at all (because over eight billion people either don't know, or don't care, or both) and addressing an elephant in the room that an infinitesimal number of people are aware of. I am deciding in favor of the latter, minimalist style: Sam and I, for various reasons, each scuttled our first marriages, and I can imagine some of those elephant-aware people wondering if I don't see parallels between us and Burden's ex, or wondering if we feel no guilt. To which I will only say two things: 1) you don't scuttle a beautiful yacht that is in great shape, or more directly stated, nobody ever leaves a good marriage; and 2) another quote from Strangers (which was meant to evoke sympathy for the author; admittedly, saying it directly to Burden was heartless, but that didn't keep what was said from resonating with me): "James leaving Belle could be a good thing. My father left my mother for another woman, and she was the love of his life. They were so happy together." 

“Life of M” by Rachel Cusk

We enjoyed a quick trip to Boston last weekend, where we spent a lovely Sunday morning in Trident Booksellers (where you should totally go, and where you should definitely order the lemon ricotta French toast, though you should also try to keep your eyeballs from popping out of your head when your server brings it to your table and you see how ginormous it is). 

After our wonderfully lazy brunch, we headed further into the shop for an equally wonderful browse. (Note to booksellers out there: if you have the room, lean hard into the tables-with-stacks-of-books option where your customers can be enthralled by the many and varied book covers, as opposed to endless shelves of gives-you-a-crick-in-the neck spines. And if you don't have the room . . . make room.) 

Mid-browse, after having wandered slowly through several cozy nooks in the store, my eye fell on the Rachel Cusk shelf. And--what was this? Life of M? I hadn't heard of this one. I snatched it up and quickly flipped to the copyright page. Published in 2026? How can this possibly have happened? (“This” being the fact that one of my favorite authors has published a book about which I was completely unaware.) It felt like both an unexpected treat and an egregious oversight.

Let’s fast-forward past the conversation where Sam tried to remind me that he had mentioned this book to me previously, so I wasn’t actually unaware of the book—I’d just forgotten about it. (On brand.) Anyway, when he told me the premise of the book (it's a quasi-biography of a famous actress who is only identified by the letter M, although rumor has it that the actress is Natalie Portman), I said, "That's weird." (That's what you said last time we talked about it, Sam replied.) It seemed like quite a departure from Cusk's other books. But that didn't stop me from buying it.

This is a short book, and very easy to gobble down (especially with feet up, on vacation time), but there was something that annoyed me as I read. Similar to how the letter M stands in for the name of the actress, Cusk engages in what I guess I might call very vague name-dropping--really more hints than anything else. I found myself trying to work out the little riddles and mysteries. And then it was like the last line said ha HA, gotcha! Nothing is as it seems!

Ultimately, not my favorite Cusk book, but I still enjoyed the reading experience.

"Bad Actors" by Mick Herron

I'm done with the Slow Horses series now.

No, really, done with the series. I've finished reading the last book in our boxed set and I don't plan to seek out any books that follow. I'll still watch the TV show, but I've had my fill of the books. 

Bad Actors is the one where political "superforecaster" Dr Sophie de Greer disappears (or so it would seem), which allows the PM's slimy advisor Anthony Sparrow the opportunity to try to oust Diana Taverner and take control of MI5. It's also the one where Shirley Dander is in rehab, and there was just something about the pages-long fight at the San just bored me. If I had to guess, I would credit that scene with the end of my desire to read more about Slough House.

Only problem is, I'd grown so accustomed to the treat of reading a bit of this series every night at bedtime! I do have another bedside book I'm working through now, but it just doesn't scratch the same itch. It feels more like work than like play. 

"Cosmos" by Carl Sagan

"Other things being equal, it is better to be smart than to be stupid."

While I find humor in that (under)statement, my assumption is that it was not meant to be comic, based on the tone of the rest of  the book, which is largely earnest. Its scope is vast, which is fitting for a book about life, the universe and everything, covering the history of existence generally--from all the way back to before that cosmic explosion known as the Big Bang--and specifically reviewing the history of science. And throughout it all, there is a well-deserved thread of awe.

Unsurprisingly, this book led me to think of things I’d never thought before. Like this: so many things in nature point to rebirth or renewal (the sunrise after the sunset, the reappearance of the sun after an eclipse, the return of the waxing crescent moon after a new moon). No wonder humans created the idea of life after death.

I definitely also learned things. How did I never before learn (or how do I not remember that I once learned) that the sun is at one of the two foci of each planet’s elliptical orbit? I mean, I knew that the planets have elliptical orbits rather than circular ones (although the orbits look more like circles than ellipses when just eyeballing it), but I always thought that the sun was right in the middle of those orbital paths, rather than shifted off-center. 

I just wish I could actually remember everything that I read in this book. I read books like this because I want the knowledge that exists in these books to exist in my head as well. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way (at least for me). And yet I don't regret the time I spent reading it, and won't give up trying with other similar books. Surely with each new thing that I read, I am forging connections with what I have learned in the past, and I am adding hooks upon which to hang other things I will learn in the future. 

"Trad Wife" by Sarah Langan

Can a terrible book really be a terrible book if you just CAN'T STOP READING IT??

When I first started reading this book, it wasn't long before I was breathing a small sigh of disappointment. I'm not sure what it was that bothered me: maybe the dialogue seemed a bit unrealistic, and the characters were only talking, not doing anything to ground them in reality.

But it wasn't long before I could not put this book down. I don't remember when exactly it happened, but it definitely happened. 

This is the story of Jenny Kaplan, a journalist in NYC who goes viral for a raw and honest autobiographical essay, then suffers the inevitable backlash. Her boss is forced to fire her, but lets her down gently by offering to send her on location to interview tradwife Mia Wright, influencer extraordinare from Black Swan Farm in Pennsylvania. A tradwife is just about as polar opposite from Jenny as you can get, but that's the contrast her former boss is looking for. Somewhat reluctantly, Jenny agrees to go.

At first glance, Black Swan Farm is beautiful and idyllic, and Mia is the perfect wife in a perfect family living a perfect life. Things are just a little weird. It's unsettling, and there's an undercurrent of tension, but these weird things that happen--they're just small things, maybe even misunderstandings. But the small things start to stack up. And by the last fifth of the book, it's become a full-on horror novel. Not my usual fare, but by then I was hooked. 

And I do like the cover! Despite the old-fashioned-seeming title font. It's like it's retro in a bad way. Although come to think of it, that's probably the whole point.

"The 100 Best Vacations to Enrich Your Life" by Pam Grout

For anyone who has tired of vacations that involve relaxation on a beach with a novel (which is not me, yet!), this book is full of ideas for unique and fulfilling things to do if you can get a few days or a week off work. It's divided into four chapters: arts & crafts getaways, volunteer vacations, brain retreats, and wellness escapes (though some of the suggestions would fit into more than one of these categories). 

I bought this book years and years ago (possibly almost 20) but had never read it until now. As such, I ignored the dollar amounts it lists for costs and fees. I didn't check on any of them, but I wouldn't be surprised if they've basically all doubled by now (or worse). 

For a lot of these vacation ideas, I found myself wondering: Why not just do these things close to home, on a smaller timescale? A lot of them are not necessarily location-dependent (as long as you can find people with know-how and supplies). The book does make a good point about this: doing new things while on vacation allows you to focus on them in a way you normally could not, if you were trying to squeeze them in between days at work and dentist appointments and taking out the trash. Also, even if you could do these things close to home, would you? It takes a certain amount of intentionality and motivation. Well, maybe this is how I ended up taking a brief wheel-throwing class at a local art space this summer?

Out of all 100 vacations suggested in this book, though most sounded intriguing and unusual, there were two that stood out to me as ones I might actually want to look into:

• Colby College Great Books Summer Institute: a week-long "in-depth discussion and workshop on six selected classic books" in Waterville, Maine. Alas, Google makes it appear as if 2025 was the final year for this!
• Immersive Spanish lessons at Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. From a satisfied customer: "I learned more Spanish in one month than I did in two years at my local community college." I never had the opportunity to be an exchange student. Maybe it's not too late!

"Une riviere verte et silencieuse" by Hubert Mingarelli

Prepare to be impressed. Rather than spending six years on my second book in French, it only took me just over six months to read this one! (Insert winky face here.) Never mind that at only 124 pages it was shorter than the first one; it wasn't that much shorter. 

I've read three other books by Hubert Mingarelli (all expertly translated into English by my favorite French-to-English translator who also happens to be the best French-to-English translator in the world as well as the best husband I've ever had), but somehow I only managed to blog about one of them. No idea how that happened. But A Green and Silent River is in a similar vein: brief, subtle, intense. Luckily for me, Mingarelli's books are written in simple, almost sparse prose. Unlike the others, however, this one is not associated with World War II. (Yay!)

AGASR (or URVES?) is told from the perspective of a young boy named Primo who lives with his father (as far as I remember, the existence or fate of his mother is never mentioned). The pair have fallen on hard times since the father lost his job at the local air-compressor factory, although they have a plan to make some money by growing and selling cuttings from the climbing rose bush that grows in their backyard. Occasionally the father is hired to do odd jobs like mowing lawns; Primo spends most of his free time roaming in the fields of tall grass behind the houses on their street. He creates a tunnel there for himself, grass stalks meeting over his head, his thoughts his only companion. 

This is a book that seemed so deeply rooted in reality that I wondered if it was autobiographical, or at least partially so. I can imagine a young Hubert as Primo. Unfortunately, Mingarelli's brief Wikipedia entry doesn't answer that question.

I think my next French book is about teenagers and possibly full of slang, so that may be a challenge. We shall see.