The best books of blah, blah, blah. Surely, many of them are very good books. But most of them have big publicity machines churning behind them. There is so much fine writing that doesn’t get that push and goes unheralded. I just picked up again Howard Norman’s I Hate to Leave this Beautiful Place (2013) and, turning to the next to last chapter, read of a summer in Vermont – fevers, owls, a new well, calls from a wayward brother, viewings of Ken Burns’ Civil War – and was riveted. No fireworks, no hype, just an intelligent man (who appreciates the absurd) trying to make sense of this life through the everyday.
