My humble reading list for June 2026:
Of Human Bondage – W. Somerset Maugham This was a good read that I may have never gotten around to if it weren’t for a friend. Maugham has an unusual style in that he does much telling but somehow, he makes it work. He’ll drop an insight into human nature that seems both original and self-evident. My favorite parts of the book were the three times Philip hit a crisis in his life and had a paradigm shift. One was when the art teacher in Paris gave him some straight talk (solicited by Philip) into the life of an artist and whether Philip had what it takes. Another was when Philip had run out of money and was homeless and hungry. Maugham’s understanding of how poverty operates on the human psyche was profound. The third was when Philip realized that there is no inherent meaning in life. And I really like Sarah.
Cold Mountain – Charles Frazier This was a read for class. I don’t think I’ve read a book this poetic and cosmic in a long time. The imagery was beautiful, and the spiritual reality of the main male character well handled. I also liked the two female characters, though I am convinced that Frazier felt out of his element with them, though he did try. And his description of Stobrod’s music was transcendent. The best part, though, is Frazier’s pacing. Everything develops so slowly that you think what you knew was going to happen won’t. And then it does.
Station Eleven – Emily St John Mandel This was another “homework” read (recommended by a friend). While I have some reservations about this book, the fact is that I was pulled into it. I liked the pacing in this book, too, in the way certain plot elements were revealed. This was partly due to the non-linear structure, with two different worlds and their relationship to each other (pre and post apocalypse). I also thought the role the comic books played in the belief systems of the stories helped make the plot more intricate, especially since Mandel showed restraint by not developing it too far.
All Hallow’s Eve – Charles Williams This was my second Williams book (an Inkling). I thought this was better than the other (War in Heaven) though that might be different if I were to read it again now, knowing what to expect. The best part of this book was Williams’ handling of the two separate Londons and how they interface. I would also say I liked that the ending was much less overblown than I’d feared, with an emphasis on the characters rather than on action. Reading this, and the ideas presented in it with his idiosyncratic syntax and style, I was convinced that Williams was not just taking them on as a literary device, but was a True Believer. These were ideas he’d spent his life developing. I’m glad I read this.
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting – Milan Kundera Kundera might be one of my more favorite writers. Thirty-five years ago I read everything he’d published so far, and while I did enjoy them, I decided I’d move on. I wasn’t (and I’m not) that interested in philosophy (there are no answers to those burning questions, even though they seemed so important in my youth). But somehow, I returned to him anyway, and I think the books are even better now. His style (like Maugham’s!) is about telling. But the beauty of it is that the books are always about something else beside the characters. And his personal philosophy is really a series of ruminations, and they generally take a form that is anything but orthodox. Now his style reminds me of Vonnegut in that way. And his characters can be terrible people, but just when I start to feel scandalized, Kundera turns them into absurd caricatures, and then I can see just how pathetic they are, in the sense that they inspire pathos. Life is inherently absurd.
