Emily St. John Mandel’s “Sea of Tranquility“ is difficult to review because the less you know about it going in, the more impactful it will be when you read it.
Sea of Tranquility cover
Like “This is How You Lose the Time War” this book has time travel as major plot element. Unlike that book, “Sea of Tranquility” is less a work of sci-fi and more of an exploration of human connection, hope and dare I say it, ethics. It just happens to use time travel as a way to introduce the main ethical conflicts to the main character (and his sister).
In an ever more isolated and isolating world, where events beyond our control often tear us apart “Sea of Tranquility” asks what does it mean to care about others? To seek connections with other people despite differences of time, space and circumstance? What price would you pay to preserve that connection with humanity?
This is a beautifully written and carefully plotted novel that doesn’t sacrifice its characters on the alter of its ideas. It will leave you pondering its depths long after you’ve turned over the last page – a sublime novel if ever I read one.
My reading hit a bit of a slump in May, so when the New York Times came out with their summer reading challenge I decided to use it as an excuse to not only read more books, but also to read books that have been languishing on my shelves and my Kindle.
If you’re looking for a way to boost your attention span and get back to reading books and not just 3 minute social media posts, participating in a challenge such as this one is very beneficial. Since the challenge calls for you to make your own list of ten books to read during the summer, you can easily tailor it to your tastes. That means that you have a higher chance of both completing the challenge and enjoying it than if your would have been assigned a set list of books to read.
Inès Gradot
Here is the list of books that I selected and why I chose them:
Read a book published in the last year – I selected “The Faith of Beasts” by James SA Corey. It’s the second book in their new series, The Captive’s War, and though this will be a challenging book because it’s a dystopian sci-fi novel and it isn’t particularly short, I wanted to keep following this series to its conclusion. I expect good writing, a gripping plot, and some thought provoking ideas about human beings as a species.
Read a book in a genre you don’t typically read – I struggled a bit trying to decide which book to select for this category. I never read horror or romance, but I really don’t like these genres and I wasn’t willing to subject myself to them just for the sake of this challenge (if you love horror and romance that’s great! It’s just my personal taste that makes me avoid them). The NYT selected “Yesteryear” for their choice for this category, and since I very rarely read psychological thrillers I decided to select it too. This was just one of two books that I purchased for the sake of this challenge.
Read one of The New York Times’s Best Books of the 21st Century– The list is long so it took me a while to go over it and select a novel. I was debating whether to select “Bel Canto” or “Pachinko” and went with “Pachinko” in the end since I had already purchased it (it was part of the Tournament of Books a few years back). It’s on the long side, but so are most of the books that I had selected.
Read a really short, or a really long, book – since I have so many long books on my list, I selected to go with a short book for a change – James Stockdale’s “Courage Under Fire“. It’s a transcript of an address that he gave, and it’s less than 30 pages long – but a very impactful set of pages they are.
Read a classic you’ve been meaning to read (or revisit) – this one was easy – I was in the middle of reading “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius so I selected it for the classic I was reading. Of course my choice for audiobook also fits this category.
Read a book that takes place during the summer – this was hard to select, because it’s not a category that is easy to filter books by (unlike genre or length). Eventually I settled on “One Summer America 1927” which is a very long book (600 pages) but one that clearly fit the bill.
Read a book in translation – I debated whether to read “Breasts and Eggs” or “When the Cranes Fly South” and selected “Breasts and Eggs” because I had a feeling that it would be a more challenging book to read.
Read a book that’s been adapted for the screen – I’ve had the book “No Picnic on Mount Kenya” gathering dust on my shelf for years. I bought it at the legendary travel bookstore Standfords in London back when the store was a giant one at the end of Long Acre (it’s now not far from there, at Mercer Walk). It’s the story of three prisoners of war who escaped their camp just to climb mount Kenya, and it turns out that it’s been made into a pretty terrible film. I have no intention of watching the film, but this seemed like a good excuse to finally read this book, thus it was chosen.
Listen to an audiobook – I don’t listen to books – I read them, which made this one a serious challenge. Eventually I purchased “The Odyssey” audiobook, read by Sir Ian McKellen. It was the first audiobook that I’ve ever listened to, a 13 hour event. The book itself could have worked for the “(Re)read a classic” category of course, but I wanted to hear Ian McKellen’s rendering of this text – especially since it’s a work of poetry.
Check out and read a book from your local library – I went to the local library and after much debate picked up “Sea of Tranquility” even though I had never heard of it before. Emily St. John Mandel has written “Station Eleven,” which I have heard about and is considered to be a very good book, so I decided to give this book a try. It turned out to a real gem, so I’m glad that I found it and that this challenge pushed me to check it out.
The challenge officially ends at the end of August, but you can set your own rules and deadlines of course. I would recommend setting a deadline though, since they are useful motivators and will encourage you to read more every day.
As of writing this I have finished reading five out of the ten books that I’ve selected, and I’m almost three quarters through the sixth one. My secondary goal is to get back to reviewing books on this blog, so I will try and post a review for each of the books that I’ve read.
What do you think? Would you join such a challenge?
The last post I made was a month and half ago. My life has gone through quite a lot of turmoil in the interim.
I lost my job due to downsizing in the small startup that I was working in. This was a shock to the system that has still left me reeling. I’m good at my job and a dedicated worker, so I didn’t see it coming – but I’m also highly paid, and I guess that I should have seen the signs that the company wasn’t doing as well as it should have. I’m deep in the job search process, and learning a lot about myself and the industry as I go along. I enjoy the challenge of technical interviews and I enjoy meeting and talking to new people, but I wish that I could have done this under different circumstances. This is just a reminder that no, it doesn’t matter if you’re the best at what you do, and no, the company isn’t your family. It’s a business interest that sees you as a number, and it is your responsibility to ensure that your worth and your identity is never in their hands, but only in yours.
Cafe sketch
I lost my remaining grandparents – both my father’s mother and father died just three weeks apart. They were old and in poor health so it wasn’t a shock, but it’s still a “memento mori” sort of moment.
We’ve had more rockets, on-again off-again peace agreements, and are now in constant existential murk of “what does the future hold?” The only clarity from all this is that if we want a future here, we absolutely must have a new and better government come autumn.
My journaling practice has become patchy – the more stress I’m under the more I need it, and the more stress I’m under the less likely I am to pick up a pen and actually journal. I am still trying to figure out how to get back into the habit.
I got a cold, so the past two weeks my training has suffered. I only just got back to weight lifting, and I’ll see if my battered lungs can handle a bit of run and swim this weekend. Ever since my chemotherapy upper respiratory infections have been taking me longer to recover from (it’s a known long term side effect of the treatment), and as my mood is directly tied to how much exercise I manage to get in, it’s been rough.
I have been rucking more, to make up for not being able to run or swim. Rucking is just a fancy name for walking with weight on your back. As a treat for finishing my certification earlier in the year, I bought myself a GoRuck Basic Rucker and a 10lb ruck plate. I’ve been using it a few times a week to get more out of walks in my neighbourhood.
I’ve been using social media to numb some of these anxieties, and it’s not a good thing. It’s time for a “detox” and to get back to using my free time for things that actually benefit me and the world, not a group of billionaires.
Writing at Large 