The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna
Publisher/Year: Penguin, 2010
Format: Paperback
Pages: 194
Source: Library
What it is: While he’s on assignment with a colleague, a journalist named Vatanen realizes he’s tired of his life. The two hit a hare while driving down a road in the middle of nowhere, and Vatanen gets out of the car walks into the woods to check on the hare. He finds it, but rather than returning to the car, he prefers to stay on his own and walks off on a year-long journey around Finland with the hare. Meanwhile, his wife and co-workers have no idea where he went.
Why I read it: I was looking for a book by a Finnish author in preparation for my trip. This one won out because it includes a stop in Helsinki, where I had a day-long layover.
What I thought: This is one of those cases of, “It’s not you, it’s me.” This book is an international bestseller. It’s charming and distinctly Scandinavian. But more than anything, this book brought Anton Checkov’s Dead Souls to mind because of the humor and over-the-top scenarios. Mix that in with a small pinch of some Confederacy of the Dunces humor, plus a solid dose of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, and you have this book. And the thing is, I liked those first two books — sometimes a lot — but I could only take them in small doses. Same here.
I Remember Nothing: And Other Reflections by Nora Ephron
Publisher/Year: Vintage, 2011
Format: eBook
Pages: 137
Source: Personal copy
What it is: A collection of memoir-ish essays — some of them very very short — about getting older.
Why I read it: I love Nora. She was great. I had this book for a long time and went back and forth on reading it when she passed away, but I ultimately held off. I read this on my flight back to the U.S. this summer.
What I thought: There were some essays in this collection that I really loved, including one that gave an interesting little back story related to When Harry Met Sally. I liked the humor and I’ll admit to liking the name-dropping. But. For such a short book, it pains me that the collection as a whole was so uneven! For every essay I loved, there were one (or two) throwaways that were either kind of pointless or just…dumb. It’s like she had half a solid book and then had to dig around for some filler. And that makes me sad because this was her last book.
Feminist Texican Reads 