Early April reading recap: Here, there and everywhere

The last two weeks have felt fragmented. First, there’s the anti-democratic chaos [waves arms wildly in all directions], which has been totally distracting, infuriating, and frightening. I've been working extra hours before I go on vacation. And I’ve had a pretty good cold for the past week.

The first week of the month I read Jennifer Haigh’s excellent Rabbit Moon (review to come). But for now, I’ll just say that you should read any (or all) of her books.

This week I’ve been reading Your Presence is Mandatory by Sasha Vasilyuk (Bloomsbury, 2024), which I’m loving. Kirkus Reviews provides a good synopsis: “A Ukrainian soldier survives World War II to face a lifetime of secrets . . . Chapters set during the war alternate with chapters set much later; to begin with, Yefim, as an old man, has just died, and among his papers, his wife has found a letter to the KGB that seems to indicate that much of what he has told his family about his wartime experiences was untrue. Vasilyuk, a journalist as well as a debut novelist, sets out to comb through all this with patience, subtlety, and finesse.”

I often read a novel and a work of nonfiction at the same time, choosing the one that suits my mood or the time available to read. My current reads have taken me back to the music of the 1960s and 1970s. David Hepworth’s A Fabulous Creation: How the LP Saved Our Lives (2020) is a witty and insightful examination of the impact of music on culture in a time of great change. For a couple decades, albums were more than just entertainment; they were an important cultural artifact. The sense of music as an object that you collect is, of course, long gone. Now it's just something that magically blasts out of your speakers/earbuds.

I’ve been going through a Beatles obsession phase that has led me down the rabbit hole (or should I say taken me under the Beatles rock?). I got pulled in by some of the countless Beatles-oriented accounts on Instagram and found myself enjoying early footage of their concerts and interviews, music producers/engineers deconstructing their songs to explore their brilliant songwriting and musicianship, and quick guitar lessons from a British guy (who shows why their songs were/are unique).

Someone recommended Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles by their engineer Geoff Emerick, which is a fascinating “fly on the wall” read. In perhaps the best case ever of “right place, right time,” Emerick started working at EMI Studios (later renamed Abbey Road Studios) at age 17, just as the young upstarts from Liverpool were about to record their first singles and album. He worked alongside producer George Martin for most of the Beatles’ albums and continued as engineer and producer for Paul McCartney & Wings in the 1970s.

Once I finish Your Presence is Mandatory, my TBR for late April and May includes The Red House by Mary Morris, Fifteen Wild Decembers by Karen Powell, Fagin the Thief by Allison Epstein, The Beauty of the End by Lauren Stienstra, Hymn to Dionysus by Natasha Pulley, and A Calamity of Noble Houses by Amira Ghenim. My wife and I will be spending the last week of the month in the Newport-Laguna Beach area, and I hope to check a couple of these books off while we’re enjoying some down time.