Quick Lit: What I’ve Been Reading Lately

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Nora Seed feels like a failure. She’s not even good at living. After trying to take her life, Nora finds herself in the Midnight Library, a place where she can view her own Book of Regrets and try on countless other lives — as many as there are books in the library. All the things she thought she wanted — a career as a scientist, a marriage to an old boyfriend, a chance as an Olympic swimmer, a life as a famous a rockstar — she gets to experience. As her lives change, so does her perception of living, of regret, of fear, and failure and satisfaction and meaning and love.

I really, really loved this book. It was creative, thought provoking, and kind. I’d read another of Matt Haig’s books years ago, which made the things he wrote about here feel more hard won and profound. I sensed where this story was going and enjoyed it even more because of it. This book addresses a lot of the topics I seem to circle back to in my mind and my writing. It reminded me of the Frederick Buechner quote I love (the same one I mentioned when reading Float Up, Sing Down over the summer): “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the Civil War by DeAnne Blanton and Lauren M. Cook

Did you know that hundreds of women were documented to have fought in the American Civil War? Almost all disguised themselves as men. Some served alongside their husbands, lovers, brothers, or cousins. Some fought because they strongly supported the North or South. Some wanted to earn money for their families. Some simply wanted adventure or a chance to escape the confines of cultural norms during the Victorian era.

I shared so many anecdotes with my family as I read, like the women who were promoted within their regiments, the six women who were only discovered when they gave birth (!!), the women who were dismissed once discovered only to turn around and join other regiments (one woman did this almost a dozen times). Interestingly, when a woman was discovered, she was often admired by her fellow soldiers who had known her as a friend. A number of women soldiers were able to quickly spot other women in uniform while their fellow soldiers usually didn’t — an interesting statement on how assumptions can be blinding.

What I find fascinating is that during this era many people were aware of these female soldiers. Whether through letters written from the battlefield, newspaper or magazine articles written after the war, or from memoirs the soldiers penned, the stories were widely circulated. When the generation alive during the war passed away, these stories largely died with them.

Northwind by Gary Paulsen

I am a huge Gary Paulsen fan. Hatchet influenced my first novel, May B. Brian’s Winter (and May B.) influenced my novel releasing next year, The Burning Season. Northwind was Paulsen’s last novel (he died in October 2021), and it’s a shining example of what he did best: sparely written survival stories with an eye on the wonders and dangers of nature.

We’re never told when or exactly where Northwind takes place, though it’s a medieval Nordic story (as Norse mythology is peppered in). When an terrible illness strikes, Leif is the only survivor left from his fish camp. He takes a canoe and heads north with the “moon currents” to “the heartbeat of the ocean.” The jacket copy says Northwind “does for the ocean what Hatchet does for the woods.” I agree wholeheartedly.