“The Empusium” by Olga Tokarczuk

This book was billed as a health resort horror story. It took place in 1913 in a TB sanatorium in a part of Germany that now belongs to Poland. The primary horror turned out to be the misogyny of the men, to the extent that they thought women might not even be fully human. I found out that even my hero Darwin thought women were inferior beings, because they didn’t have to struggle to survive. Sheesh. Nature, of course, took revenge on men in this village, demanding an annual sacrifice.

The protagonist turned out to be intersex, and at the end, adopted their female persona. WWl started, and a reset occurred. The book was filled with mostly useless conversations by pompous men, and yet I enjoyed it. It felt like a lived experience.

“The Internet of Animals” by Martin Wikelski

 This book was much too wordy so I mostly skimmed it. It was about the development of the Icarus project which will use satellites to retrieve data from tagged animals, which will help us track what is happening on our planet. My favorite part was the author’s reference to Western civilization’s biggest failure… ignoring the world of animals in its philosophical systems, concentrating only on physical sciences. 

“Rosemary’s Baby” by Ira Levin

 I enjoyed this book more than I expected. It really is well done. No need to repeat the plot. It’s well known.

“Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus” by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

As I read it, I began to think of this book as a comedy. One after another, Frankenstein’s dearest died, and he experienced overwrought passions yet again. 

I liked the idea of the book being a comedy because the deaths were actually very sad. And I was failing to see why this book is so popular and a classic. Then I read the monster’s soliloquy at the very end, and I suddenly loved the book. The monster was despised for what he looked like, by people who were no better than he was. In fact, the Monster was a refined being with deep feelings. This ending turns the entire book over on its head.

“Stone Blind” by Natalie Haynes

 This book about Medusa was choppy, and some of the mythology was unknown/forgotten by me, making parts a bit tricky to follow. For example, I don’t know if Perseus did as much killing as Medusa’s head states. Also, what was it with the weird ending, where a lonely Athena commits suicide by looking at Medusa, whom she herself created into a monster.

On the other hand, the book had a pleasantly ironic sense of humour, which made me laugh in parts. And making Medusa’s head sentient was quite clever, but it took a bit long to get there.

“The Librarianist” by Patrick deWitt

 I quite enjoyed this novel, and found it quite riveting in parts. I must admit, though, that the chapters with the thespian women were a bit too artificially whimsical, and that I was slightly irritated by the chronology. 

The book starts in the present. Bob, the retired, book loving librarian protagonist led a lost, somewhat comatose woman back to a seniors home, where he started volunteering. He found out that she was the wife who had abandoned him for his best friend, and with that big revelation, the book suddenly started going backwards to Bob’s childhood and marriage, ignoring the present day implications of the big revelation.

I’ve just realized an additional layer of depth in the book. Bob’s addled ex wife Connie helped him a lot by causing him to discover the seniors’ home, where Bob made friends and built a nice life for himself. He eventually met up with Connie’s son, and was able to tell him about his father, who had been killed in a hit and run soon after marrying Connie. 

This book has left me with a nice feeling of completion.

“In the Woods” by Tana French

 The author has a great gift for meaningful dialog and complex psychology. As a result, I enjoyed this book despite the fact that the traumatized protagonist/detective turned out to be a great jerk after he slept with his partner/friend, we never found out what happened to his friends in the woods decades earlier, and the psychopathic girl who arranged for her sister’s murder got off scott free. 

The book is brimming with intelligence, but is also frustrating, for the reasons above. Apparently the later books in the series are each about different characters and have better endings, but I have no interest in finding out. The Irish setting was interesting to me, of course.