Big book on campus, part 1
It’s the most! wonderful! time!
I’m back from the Berkshires, and I won’t bore you with my experience, except to say that the ladies at the gift shop at Edith Wharton’s The Mount thought it was weird my friend Ross and I had a running Ethan Frome joke. I repeat. The ladies. At the Edith Wharton gift shop. Thought. Broken sled. Never mind.
Also, my genius trip-planner friend Susy and I have now covered so many miles of Nerdville and know so much about Edilman Wharkinville and their families’ financial straits (Melville: not great to fair, Dickinson: fair to middling, Wharton: middling to outta site!)
Anyway, thank the heavens it is back to school season. The weather is better, the symphony’s back on, social engagements are engaging, and Noel is on his way. Sorry those of you who have to hit the books again—I do feel residual stress even though I have not attended any sort of school in a bit—but books about school are pretty fun. I have so many favorites of these that I’m splitting them up into two emails.
That was so much about me and Hermithly Dickvillton! Here’s more about books they didn’t write!
But what about YOUR Nerdville book pals? You know exactly who I’m talking about. Mightn’t they like EELS? Forward this to them or share on your socials and let’s find out!
Want to see what I’ve recommended in the past without thumbing through tedious and/or delightful archives? I get it! Who’s got time! Well, good news—there’s a handy spreadsheet out there with all sorts of helpful info to help you choose your next read, and if you’re an EELS subscriber, I’ll give you access to it.
🌳 Groundskeeping
Lee Cole, 2022
Ashley Webster, if you are reading this, you may remember that I commanded you to read Groundskeeping, and I continue to command it. It’s a good one for Liberals of the Southern United States, you know, those of you who stare grimly at people from other regions who come here and are like, “Let me say this slowly, do… you… have… a… wine… list… ?” Midwesterners, probably you get this a lot, too. Anyway, this debut novel is really calm and sad and nature-filled, about a humble guy working the grounds at an elite-ish Kentucky university, but also he’s a writer. He meets a visiting writer, but she’s Not From Here and has a lot of preconceived notions about what Kentucky is like and what people from Kentucky are capable of doing and thinking and producing. OK, this sounds really trite when I put it all that way but it’s very elegantly done.
Plus, there’s a lot about trees and fall.
Recommended to: Those who are Ashley Webster1. Or people who are not from Kentucky and plan to travel to Kentucky or any other place, really.
🪞 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Muriel Spark, 1961
This one takes us to a Scottish prep school for young ladies who are not yet in their prime! As Miss Jean Brodie will tell them over and over. Miss Brodie herself, girls, is in her prrrrrime! Gosh, it’s a real shame what happens to all in this book.
I mean it’s delightful, but pride goeth before a fall. Miss Brodie teaches her special gals a real education, as she puts it, and it sort of comes back and bites everyone in the ass. But you’ve all had an eccentric teacher, I imagine, and you’ve all had one that you suspected maybe could be capable of taking it a little too far, and you’ve all had one that you’ve looked back on and thought “In this day and age, would that have been allowed? What was really going on there?” It’s not really anything like that but it sort of maybe is something. It’s something. She’s in her prime. Anyway, the 1969 film starring a young, amazing Maggie Smith is something to see.
One could say Maggie was in her prime but that would be a lie because as we all know, Maggie Smith, who has been 85 for approximately 40 years, is one long prime.
Recommended to: Those who love a good gossipy drama with a big sense of irony.
🪢 Vladimir
Julia May Jonas, 2022
OK, this book is really what I’ve been getting at all along, today. Don’t be alarmed by the cover of the American edition—it’s a wink-wink thing and will make a lot of sense when you’ve finished the book, which I don’t know is the right way to make people pick up a book, but… I do not work in publishing!
Let me get into it just a little, tiny bit: A 50-something professor has a 50-something professor husband who has gotten into hot water via some affairs with undergraduate students, all of which the first professor (the wife) knew about at the time. There’s a little bit of a scandal, and he (the husband) may have to resign. She’s sort of tra-la-la-ing her way through this aftermath, while developing a very powerful crush on a new, much younger visiting professor named Vladimir.
Julia May Jonas typically writes plays, and—and I mean this in the best possible way—it shows. You do not realize the action that is sneaking up on you until it is tapping you on the shoulder with one hand and stealing your wallet with the other. This book changes direction on a dime, and it is just so clever with how it handles accountability.
Recommended to: Those who like Nabokov. Oh, and an obvious btw, coming in part 2: Nabokov.
And now, a bonus recommendation
🚌 The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test—Tom Wolfe 1953
This is an excerpt from my friend, former colleague, and storied food writer
really good Substack about all kinds of things (not just food) (but a lot of food). She happened to recommend two books in a surge of hippie fondness this week so I got her permission to put an excerpt here in hopes you will check out the full write-up, which I found fascinating, as her hippie ways charm me.The curse of the mad ones is that they eventually burn out. Like Neal Cassady on the railroad tracks, their journeys end in ways I would never choose for myself; but while they burn, the mad ones (Keruoac, Cassady, Kesey, Garcia) give us something brilliant and singular and honest. So which is better, to live a short, mad life or a long, safe one? Is it possible to live somewhere in between?
That was the twentieth EELS! I would be just so grateful if you’d share widely with your networks! As always, send any and all questions, feedback, and shouted book recommendations by hitting reply.
📚 Susan
Does not live in Kentucky.