Little books, lotta steps

Three short books with a lot of walking around.

Jul 21, 2023

Big news this week!

🧠 I’ve created the EELS Book Recommendation Archive. It’s a Google spreadsheet that you can request access to, and if you’re a subscriber, I’ll grant it!

Herein, ye shall find every book I’ve mentioned in a positive way, some other helpful info about that book (including a sort of subjective description of length) and a link to the EELS in which it was mentioned, so you can find out more. On another tab exists every recommendation mentioned here by someone who is not me!

Get the archive!

Who might like EELS? Your friends, probably! Forward this to them and remind them that subscriptions are free and now come with a helpful archive!

When it is the Dismal Times of summer and I cannot walk around without factoring in two hours of rest and rehydration after, I like to read about other people having deep thoughts while purchasing pastries in European cities and interacting with passersby.

I accidentally read TWO of these this week, so I roped in a third from memory. And in honor of these books using zero unnecessary words, I’ll try to keep it even briefer.

🎹 August Blue

Deborah Levy, 2023

Elsa hit a humiliating wall during her career as a concert pianist and is using her aimless late-pandemic confusion time to walk around, figuring it all out. Is someone following her? Is it just in her head?

Levy’s writing is spare yet luxurious—yes, I heard myself say this just now and felt gross. But this is a five-star literary book that you can read in two days and then spend the next day pleasantly wondering about.

Recommended to: Those who like Whereabouts (see below). Classical fans. Poetic prose fans. Greece, Paris, or London fans.

🍝 Whereabouts

Jhumpa Lahiri, 2018

The writer (and then disavower) of The Namesake wrote this little gem in her adopted Italian. It also involves an “are they following me or not” and also some swimming pools and also a lot of cafés. On second thought, I should probably be mad at August Blue for all the similarities, but heck with it. Why not both. Summer rules.

Wait, is August Blue written to maybe follow this book around on a walk??? I so want this to be a puzzle I was clever enough to solve instead of just a thing I made up while writing this.

Recommended to: Those who like August Blue (see above). Writing fans. Poetic prose fans. Italy fans.

🌜 Night Walks

Charles Dickens, between 1852 and 1869

I’m annoyed I didn’t read this before my latest trip to London, because you better believe I’d have followed some of the paths laid out in this little essay collection Dickens wrote about walking around in London.

A lot of these are so pegged to current events of the time that I had to stop and Google things, but the main subject dear to him is achingly familiar—a serious poverty problem that a mighty empire ignores out of convenience. This is Dickens’s favorite topic in fiction, of course, but his fiction is so colorful that the characters almost don’t seem real. But this! This is the closest thing to time travel I think I’ve ever done. No one does sentences like Dickens.

Recommended to: Those with some patience to read each sentence carefully. The payoff is such a delight.

A watching recommendation: Why walk when you can run?

You know who eschews walking? Tom Cruise! That dude sprints around tons of cities in the latest Mission: Impossible movie, Dead Reckoning, Part 1.

I just tried thrice to write an explanation for why I love this franchise so much, but the heart just wants what the heart wants. Of the several movies I have made my husband watch this week, three involved butlers and three involved Ethan Hunt. People contain multitudes, I guess!

And now, no bonus recommendation

I didn’t get it together enough this week to bark at people to give me some words about their latest faves, but it did remind me to remind YOU that if you read a book and you loved it and want to tell the world, just hit reply (or leave a comment on the web version). I am very friendly, I promise.

That was the fifteenth EELS! Again, 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