Posted 10:30 a.m. Friday, April 4, 2025
Man of Leisure, Volume Two: Part One
“Each morning comes along and you assume it will be similar enough to the previous one—that you will be safe, that your family will be alive, that you will be together, that life will remain mostly as it was. Then a moment arrives and everything changes.”—Anthony Doerr, Cloud Cuckoo Land
Excuse me, can I tell you a story? I promise it won’t take up too much of your time. I can? Awesome. So where do I begin? I guess at the beginning is as good as anywhere else, even though the beginning is an ending. Lost? Don’t be. It’ll all make sense. I swear.
Now where was I? The beginning. Of course. Well to know where we’re going, it’d be helpful to know where we’ve been. I used to divide my life into two neat sections: before and after Man of Leisure. Before I embarked on this reading project, reading a selection of books from the Murphy Library Leisure Reading Collection in one summer, people’s main concern about me stemmed from my extensive collection of bow ties. Intermissions at La Crosse Community Theatre, shopping the aisles of Festival Foods, or walking around the UWL campus, people would stop me to ask about them, and those questions usually fell into one of three categories:
“How many did you own?” (Too many to count).
“Do you tie them yourself?” (Not if I can help it).
“Would you want one as a present?” (Always).
After Man of Leisure and its 101 book reviews came out summer 2024, the questions kept coming, but now they were the following:
“What book number are you on?” (Who can even be sure).
“How many books are you going to read this summer? (A sensible 50).
“How do you choose your books?”
That last question was difficult to answer for me. There are as many reasons to pick up a book as there are books on the shelves of Murphy. A captivating title on the spine of the book. An enticing book cover facing out on the shelf. A particularly glowing review in the New York Times Book Review (read thanks to the Murphy Library subscription to the newspaper, naturally).
So again, reasons-a-plenty to read a book, but in my second year of doing this project I found myself faced with a unique reason, namely a dare. You hear all the time about books being challenged, but I had never been challenged to read a book. Yet that was what mother did mid-July as she plopped a book rather unceremoniously in my lap.
“Here,” she said. “You read this.”
People often like to boast that they never forget a face. I have that same talent but about book covers. As I looked down at this heavy tome, I recognized it immediately from its color scheme of cool white and sky blue with its name, Cloud Cuckoo Land, emblazoned in black lettering.
“I’ve read it,” my mother explained. “My book club read it. Even my doctor read it. None of us could make heads or tail of it.”
“Well, if I find time I’ll read it,” I told her, turning the 640-page book over in my hand, now intrigued by this book stumping all these smart people.
“Good luck,” my mother laughed.
I didn’t know it then how much luck I would need and how much time I would have.
“How’s the book going?” she asked.
“Good,” I said, “I’m like halfway through it.”
“Already?” she marveled, standing at her computer station.
“Yeah,” I said, shifting around in my hospital bed. “I’ve got nothing but time on my hands.”
“I suppose so,” the nurse said as she came around the bed to check at the IVs running up from my hand and elbow up the machine next to the bed. “All done here. I’ll check on you later.”
She left, closing the door behind her, as I went back to my book.
“Now where was I?” I asked myself then.
That’s what you’re probably asking yourself now.
I had almost died. And then I didn’t.
It was the final book of Man of Leisure Volume Two.
It was the end of summer.
It is the start of this story.
1. The Woman in Me by Britney Spears
Synopsis: It’s Britney’s book. In this blistering memoir, pop icon Britney Spears discusses her pop music ascension, the rise and fall her relationship with fellow pop singer Justin Timberlake, the horrors of living under a conservatorship, and the fan-led fight to #FreeBritney.
Review: She’s a pop icon, a tabloid staple, a cautionary tale, a survivor of the entertainment industry. All of these different sides of Britney’s legacy are touched upon in this a memoir, a no-frills approach that fits Britney’s down-home persona and really brings the reader into her often-surreal world. Whether you like her music or not, this memoir will give you a fascinating glimpse into the star making machine that creates and destroys with impunity.
2. The Cloisters by Katy Hays
Synopsis: Recent New York City Ann Stilwell is not doing well. She moved to the city to be at the Metropolitan Museum of Art but instead ended up at The Cloisters and now finds herself contending with a tarot-obsessed boss, the machinations of an enigmatic coworker, and the romantic yearnings of the property’s gardener. Oh, and maybe murder? Just all in a day’s work.
Review: “Plucky young woman moves to the Big Apple to carve out a career with romance and intrigue ensuing” is the logline for a whole slew of books. On its surface The Cloisters fits neatly into that tradition before you realize you’re going to experience a lot more twisty fun on this museum tour. It’s a book that gleefully revels in the cutthroat nature of the intelligentsia and the high stakes associated with historic institutions as greed, lust, envy are the main exhibits in this wild tale that will keep you guessing until literally the very last page.
3. A Haunting in Venice: A Hercule Poirot Mystery by Agatha Christie
Synopsis: In this mystery, a Halloween party ends up being more trick than treat when a young party guest is murdered but thankfully for all Hercules Poirot has RSVPed yes to solving the crime.
Review: Shakespeare once wrote that a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet. One could ponder if that sentiment would extend to book titles, especially ones that end up confusing readers who did not read the foreword (me, I’m readers). The original book was Hallowe’en Party but was changed to A Haunting in Venice to tie in with the 2023 Kenneth Branaugh film adaptation, a film I had incidentally watched prior to reading the book.
So, imagine my surprise/confusion when midway through the book I realized that 1. There were no hauntings and 2. The book is not set in Venice at all. I went back and read the foreword, penned by the film’s screenwriter Michael Green, who detailed how the film only took the concept (a murder at a Halloween party and some of the characters) and crafted a wholly new story.
With that out of the way, how was this book? It was the usual Christie mix of quirky characters, macabre murders, and our intrepid Poirot trying to solve the murder(s) that happen. Consider this a light spoiler but one of Christie’s chief strengths as a writer is her boldness when it comes to who her murder victims will be. Nobody, of any age, is spared from potentially being Poirot’s next case to solve so this novel is as much a fun who’s-gonna-get-it as well as a whodunnit.
4. The Brothers: A Hmong Graphic Folklore by Sheelue Yang, illustrations by Le Nhat Vu
Synopsis: A retelling of a classic Hmong folktale in graphic novel format, The Brothers follows the misadventures of two brothers hunting together in the jungle, communing with animals, and finding a new depth to their brotherly bond.
Review: A beautifully drawn graphic novel that tells a stirring story of the bonds and sacrifices between two siblings.
5. Pearl by Siân Hughes
Synopsis: A woman reckons with the trauma over her mother’s unsolved disappearance many years prior and how her absence still affects her family.
Review: The premise sounds like a twisty crime novel; the execution veers far closer to an emotionally impactful meditation on family, grief, loss and making peace with the past to have a future. The protagonist Marianne’s grappling with how the disappearance of her mother continues to have reverberations in her family is at the heart of the story as opposed to this being a whodunnit. In some ways, this is a ghost story of a different kind on how the past is a specter we all must eventually have to reckon with.
6-8. Inward; Clarity and Connection; The Way Forward by Yung Pueblo
Synopsis: Through poetic verse, Yung Pueblo offers advice on self-love, trauma, intentionality and all other matters that make us human.
Review: Here’s the thing about books that dole out advice: one person’s deep insight is another person's empty platitude and vice versa. Yung Pueblo’s books of poems are brimming with useful advice within his poems, written in an easily digestible and quotable social media form. Yung Pueblo’s poetry has superficial similarities to the work of Rupi Kaur with the same restrained style of writing with usually only a couple statements per page. The similarities aren’t helped that the two have the same publisher so aesthetically they do seem to be of the same wheelhouse. But it would be unfair to say one is a knock-off of the other as they both bring their own perspective to some of the same subject matter. They would be a great companion pieces.
9. Others Were Emeralds by Lang Leav
Synopsis: In this coming-of-age story set in 1990s Australia, an Asian teenager juggles new young love, the highs and lows of friendships, and the injustices of a racist society.
Review: Adolescence is its own special kind of hell. The acne. The homework. The parents. And if you grew up in the 90s, dial-up internet could be your biggest bully. Young adult author Leav makes the leap to the adult section with this bright novel that deals with all those dramas of growing up along with navigating being a POC in Australia. What could’ve been just a fun exercise in “Hey! Remember that?!” nostalgia is instead a moving story of friendship and growth while still trying to make it home before curfew.
10. Western Lane by Chetna Maroo
Synopsis: After the death of her mother, Gopi has become squash-playing dynamo at the tender of age of 11. Now she just must win over her jealous siblings, her father’s demands for perfection and the newfound friendship of her squash rival.
Review: Clocking in at a scant 160 pages, Western Lane manages to make every page count as it follows Gopi’s journey to become a supreme squash player at the insistence of her father in the wake of her mother’s death. What could’ve felt a little too precious in less capable hands, Western Lane never verges into cloying cuteness as it remains firmly grounded in the characters, their grief, their complicated family dynamics.
Want more "Man of Leisure"?
Volume One, Column One: Once Upon a Time...
Volume One, Column Two: Life, Death and the Pages In-Between
Volume One, Column Three: The Summer I Turned Pretty Sober
Volume One, Column Four: (101) Books of Summer
Volume One, Column Five: Ever After
Volume Two, Part Two: The Good Book
Volume Two, Part Three: Scary Essays to Tell in the Dark