What I Read: Ghosts and Titans Edition

Every time I finish watching a really great series, I get into a Netflix slump. So is the current case after Fargo. I can’t seem to be able to motivate myself into starting anything new, even though I’m spoiled for choice. The good news is that means I have more time for reading.

This week, I read the excellent Spook by Mary Roach. I’ve loved her writing ever since I read Stiff, but at some point I lost track of her books. Spook was a good reintroduction; it’s well-researched and full of her usual witty asides. For some reason, I found myself oddly longing for Roach to actually find some scientific evidence of life after death; it’s something that has been on my mind lately, and I struggle with the unknownable-ness (oof, that’s an unwieldy non-word) of it all. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that many people strongly believe in an afterlife, because I can easily imagine how reassuring that would be. Damn my inner cynic/agnostic! I’ve actually been toying with the idea of writing some kind of ghost-based rom-com as a kind of feel-good substitute. Anyway, Spook is a great read, and you should grab all of Mary Roach’s books if you have the chance.

I also tried to read The Uncrowned King by Kenneth Whyte, a biography of William Randolph Hearst. Emphasis on “tried”. It’s a relatively thick tome that goes into a lot of detail about the newspaper business at the end of the 19th century/beginning of the 20th century. My interests being more in the line with the social aspects of the Gilded Age, I found it a hard slog. It doesn’t happen often, but I just couldn’t make myself read through the whole thing so this was a rare DNF for me. I’m planning to read Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance next, which promises to be an interesting contrast, both in terms of subject matter and readability. In the meantime, I might be in the mood for some more turn of the century drama, so if you have a favourite TV/movie adaptation of a Gilded Age novel (Henry James, Edith Wharton, etc.), leave me your recc’s in the comments – bonus if it’s available on Netflix.