Weekly Reading Wrap-Up: Community, Memory and Awkward Campus Moments

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]Hello, I'm Bob the Bookrarian, and welcome to my channel. And today I wanted to talk about the books that I have been reading this week. Um, I hope you are keeping really well, and uh, yeah, I hope your week is treating you well, as well.

[00:00:12]So, let's get started with those books.

[00:00:14]So, first up, continuing on with a, uh, a set of books that I have been really, really greatly enjoying, um, we have On the Calculation of Volume, Volume 4, by Solveig Baller and translated by, where are they? Uh, Sofia Hersey Smith and Jennifer Russell. Um, and so this book continues on with a path of this, and I I absolutely get it. For some people the first book or two didn't necessarily work, so they might not necessarily be here at book four. Totally fine. Uh, feel free to skip to the next book if that is the case. Um, but for me, I think the series just keeps on taking new and unexpected turns. Um, so the the whole premise of the book, at least from the first book, was that we have a character, Tara Salter, who wakes up one day and realizes that she is trapped in the day of November the 18th.

[00:01:01]And, um, in the first book she very much is just staying in her local area and is trying to understand a little bit more about what it might mean to be stuck forever in that day. She starts having these philosophical conversations. She starts thinking a bit more broadly about what this might mean for her for her future life and for the world and for many other things. Um, [snorts] in the second book she starts to travel a bit more. She starts to get to a place where she is, um, exploring the world and seeing how that repetition of the day works in different places, and she also has a craving to see the snow and to see the heat. Um, book three she starts to meet other people who are like her. And book four she's a lot more enmeshed in being around those people. Um, this is a book that has a surprising amount of committee meetings, but it's surprisingly funny. Um, so she spends a lot of time with people who are also trapped in the same day.

[00:01:52]Um, and they start to essentially form a society for what that might mean for them going forward. If they are to to stay forever in this time, what does it mean for life and death? And this book discusses quite a lot around life and death.

[00:02:09]Particularly a really harrowing part where about pregnancy. And it's a really I think it's really beautifully handled in this book, but it's incredibly tricky, I think, in the way it's presented. It's incredibly powerful and gut-wrenching in many, many ways.

[00:02:24]But this book also then looks at things around life and death with growing vegetables, for example, or how a group of people can maintain a society where they are a special kind of person almost trapped outside of this. They start creating language that makes sense for them within this world. And lots of other things kind of go into that.

[00:02:43]>> [snorts] >> And I found this really interesting because I think in many ways this book in volume four feels like we are really examining some of the world-building elements that came up in the first two books uh first three books, rather. Um and so, whereas in the first and second books and third book, really, there were these sort of discussions that sort of hinted at certain things, the fourth book starts to really land discussions on those. Because if she's not alone and other people are doing that, then it opens up questions. Are all people um who are repeating the day, do they all start on the same day? Do they You know, are some people 100 days ahead or whatever? And are some people um how are some people experiencing this?

[00:03:25]Because for some people, November the 19th, the day after, is one that they were terrified of and now don't have to deal with. But maybe they will. Maybe that will now come up um at some point in the future and they have to reset back into that life. Um for some people, November 18th was a horrible day and now they're looking at this as a time of freedom.

[00:03:44]For some of them it was a joyous time.

[00:03:45]And And this book really starts going into a lot of characters um around it.

[00:03:49]And I was very uh fortunate to be asked to be part of a little podcast about this recently and I'll put the the link um underneath um about this in the bio for this because I think um it was a really lovely discussion. We spoke for about an hour and a half or 2 hours, I think, about the end and just about this book and about the series as a whole.

[00:04:06]So, if you do want to hear a bit more about that, please do check that out there. But, I think this book starts to really delve into some things that makes me think that the next three books, cuz this is a septology, are going to be really powerful and dynamic in their their exploration of this this concept and this theme um as well. Next up, we have To Rest Our Minds and Bodies by Harriet Armstrong. Um and this is a debut novel that is sort of based around campus or it's kind of a campus novel in its way.

[00:04:35]Um but, it does some quite interesting and quite inventive things, I think. So, the book starts with somebody essentially being trapped in some kind of unrequited love situation.

[00:04:45]But, it takes several dark and quite odd turns um on her to she's obsessed with this man called Luke, I think he's called. And so many things seem to be about how she is going to be the right person for him or for him to finally see her. And in the process, she is essentially exploring who she is as well at university um but, is also having a lot of um really putting herself in quite risky situations. She has uh sex with a number of people who she really doesn't like and it's incredibly uncomfortable and horrible sex for her. It's not something she really enjoys, but at the same time she there's something she finds sort of an element of curiosity about it that is fulfilled by this. But, at the same time it almost feels like a self-destructive drive for her. And so, she goes through all of these things happening with that.

[00:05:39]Um at the same time she's also trying to kind of understand who she is. There's this real sense of the future being both um a thing that could be interesting for her, but also something utterly um depressing because it's so suffocating and and all these other things. So, it's quite a weird and complex book. But, there's something about the writing style of this that really got me. Um I found it just really intriguing for the way that it does this It has this um this way of moving that is slightly detached. She feels almost cold and cut off from her from her emotions. Whilst we're reading some of these really quite horrendous things for her. And so, it does feel in some ways either a trauma response or some kind of disengagement, sort of disembodiment from herself. And she even talks about this. She at one point uh speaks about how, you know, she really likes Luke and he talks about things that he likes and she realizes that the things she likes are novels by disembodied women. And so, that's kind of her thing where she realizes that that's kind of what she's drifting towards as well. And she name-checks quite a few musicians and albums and novels as well that that have that sense of disembodiment, including some of my favorites actually. She mentions Fiona Apple a few times who I love. Um she mentions um uh on No, what is it called? Uh I don't know Years of My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Ottessa Moshfegh as well. So, there's this kind of going on as well that she is kind of finding herself through particular women um and particular women whose stories are quite disembodied, but not really seeing potentially that she could be part of something quite difficult here because quite a few characters around her comment on this and basically say, "We either feel like we don't know you or we feel like you've given up or we feel like you're so divorced from your sense of self that it's really quite difficult to be around you." And so, all these sorts of things happening. Um but, it's just a really interesting novel psychologically, I think. Um, and I just I think I I'm really excited to see what else Harry Armstrong writes in future cuz this feels like a really promising debut, I think. And last but not least, we have I Remember by Joe Brainard. Um, and this is a non-fiction piece of writing uh from the '70s and it's really interesting for capturing a very specific type of writing and time.

[00:08:07]Um, so the book is called I Remember and every sentence basically starts with I Remember. And these are all uh well, section at least. They're kind of these mini paragraphs. So, as you will see, let me find a page. So, as you'll see, they are kind of split almost in these like little mini paragraphs or mini parts. And um, they just say sort of things that he remembers and sometimes they connect together and so sometimes you've got this beautiful feeling of something unfurling where he remembers one thing which helps him remember another thing which help helps him remember something else. But then sometimes it feels really kind of distant from each other and there's something quite interesting too about that. Um, and he will talk for for example about childhood memories of things but also memories of his body and his sexuality and then he'll remember a TV program that was on and a film that was on. He'll remember a horrible event.

[00:08:58]Um, it's also worth saying he does sometimes say things that are quite uncomfortable particularly for a more modern audience now because I think there are moments where he is really off the cuff about things particularly things that read as quite racist or as quite um, uncomfortable in other ways.

[00:09:18]Um, and it's difficult sometimes to tell if the narrative voice is critiquing that or just saying a memory of something that has happened in a neutral way that you know, is he having a neutral reflection on the racism of the time um, of you know, the the sort of when he was a child or is he just espousing it? It's difficult sometimes to to understand with that, but um I it's just a really interesting book in the kind of meditative quality that it takes, and it's had such a big impact, I think, on many other writers um because it's sort of a way of accessing memory in a very particular way. I know that I've done a writing workshop before where this where I remember blank blank blank was used as [snorts] a as a writing prompt um and I hadn't realized it was from this. Um so, for example, uh I remember selling blood every 3 months on Second Avenue. I remember a boy I once made love with, and after it was all over, he asked me if I believed in God. I remember when I thought that anything old was very valuable. I remember Black Beauty. I remember when I thought that Betty Grable was beautiful.

[00:10:18]I remember when I thought that I was a great artist. I remember when I wanted to be rich and famous. And I still do.

[00:10:23]And it sort of goes on like this, and sometimes you'll get these longer passages, these longer stories, and sometimes it'll just be I remember Black Beauty, like the the book or the film, for example. Um and so, it's just these really odd musings that actually collectively make something really quite beautiful and quite profound. But it's just it's such a weird thing in some ways in its own way, and I kind of enjoy that about this book is that it's just a bit offbeat um but really quite engaging in its own way. So, those are the books that I've been reading this week. Um I hope you are keeping really well. I hope things are going well on your end. Take care and have a fabulous week. Bye-bye.