The Book Blog

Beach reads are sometimes wrongly written off as meaningless filler or viewed as less important than more “serious” literary genres. But I'm here to correct the record and celebrate these sun-drenched tales for what they really are: entertaining, thought-provoking, and unexpectedly poignant. They provide insightful perspectives on human connections, resiliency, and the beauty of simplicity in addition to being a great source of escape.

In a world that can sometimes feel heavy with obligations and uncertainties, beach reads offer a refreshing oasis. They invite us to relax, unwind, and indulge in the simple pleasure of a captivating story. These books are like a vacation for the mind, allowing us to explore new places, meet intriguing characters, and experience adventures we might never have in our everyday lives.

While beach reads are often light and easy to read, that doesn’t mean they lack substance. Many beach reads tackle important themes like love, friendship, self-discovery, and resilience.  These novels are lovely because they strike the right balance between complexity and lightness, which makes them ideal for lounging while also providing food for thought. It’s like getting your recommended daily serving of veggies, but in the form of a yummy smoothie. You get the nutrients without the effort—sign me up!

Beach reads are a celebration of the joy and inspiration that come from stories, not just light reading. They serve as a gentle reminder to stop, unwind, and savor the present. The next time someone writes off beach reads as meaningless filler, keep in mind that they can provide the ideal balance of profundity, escape, and positive emotions.

Here are some recommendations waiting for you at SJR! 

CONTENT WARNING: Mentions of suicide and characters struggling with their mental health.

In the first episode of the second season of Hulu and FX’s hit TV series The Bear, Richie Jerimovich talks about his struggle to find purpose.

Richie is 45 years old. His best friend Mikey recently died by suicide and left the family-owned sandwich shop they worked in to his younger brother, a world-famous up-and-coming young chef named Carmy who hopes to turn the shop into a fine-dining establishment. Richie’s wife also divorced him around this same time and is now engaged to another man. He doesn’t know what role he’s meant to play in his five-year-old daughter’s life now that she has a cool new stepdad. He feels lost, and implies in his conversation with Carmy that he’s contemplating ending his own life because he’s “been here [alive] a long time” and doesn’t know what his purpose is.

It’s a heavy scene, but in this moment, Richie also tells Carmy about a book he’s been reading that he’s hoping can help him. He doesn’t name the title or author of the book, but he says it’s about a man who used to have an amazing group of friends who all seemed to be amazing at something, while the man himself didn’t feel like he was really good at any one thing. One day, the man’s friends tell him without warning or explanation that they don’t want to be friends with him anymore, and they cut all contact with him. The man feels lost after that, and he finds himself unable to make any deep, lasting connections with anyone after the loss of his friend group, so he just sits around watching trains. Carmy asks Richie how the book ends, and Richie tells him he isn’t sure because he hasn’t gotten that far.

It’s evident from this scene, though it’s never explicitly stated, that Richie feels very much like the character from this book, and from this point on, trains become a motif in The Bear, especially in connection with Richie. They appear regularly in scenes where he feels alone, when he misses an opportunity to say something he knows he should say, or when it’s clear he’s lacking purpose and is simply wandering through life aimlessly and just going through the motions.

After doing a little research, I found award-winning Japanese author Haruki Murakami’s 2015 novel Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, which I am almost certain is the book Richie was describing in his discussion with Carmy about purpose.

This book follows the journey of a 36-year-old man named Tsukuru Tazaki, who had an amazing friend group when he was in high school who suddenly decided to stop talking to him when he was 20 years old. For about six months following the breakup of this friend group, Tsukuru lived an aimless life. He was still doing well in college, still got up every morning and brushed his teeth and showered, still ate when he was hungry, and still went to his part-time jobs. But in his free time, he would sit around and watch trains, and then he would go home and sit in the dark, drink a glass of whiskey, and contemplate death, weighing the pros and cons of suicide.

Then, suddenly, one day, he decided he didn’t want to die anymore. He stopped drinking, started eating healthier, picked up swimming as a hobby and a form of exercise, and made friends with a boy his age who frequently swam at the same public pool where he swam. This friendship was close, but it wasn’t as close as his friendship with his four schoolmates had been, and after a while, this boy left him without warning, too.

Then, after sixteen years of wondering why his friends had all abandoned him and what he did wrong—unable to recall anything he had done or said to any of them that could have caused offense—Tsukuru started seeing a woman named Sara, who was the first person he had truly loved since his high school friend group. As their relationship became more serious, Sara began to recognize that Tsukuru was carrying an immense amount of emotional baggage, and she insisted that he needed to assess it and begin to let go of some of it before their relationship could progress in a healthy manner. She helped him track down his four high school friends, and encouraged him to find and speak to them all to find out why they had abandoned him the way they did. And so he does, and that’s what the book is about. It’s an excellent story, and I would highly recommend it.

Anyone, of course, can read this book, but as a fan of The Bear, it is a particularly fascinating read because as you go through Tsukuru’s journey with him, you will encounter a variety of people and scenarios that read the same way as characters and dynamics that exist within the world of The Bear.

For instance, Tsukuru’s friend from the pool, a boy his age named Haida, feels like a combination of Carmy and Mikey, which makes me wonder if, perhaps, the writers of The Bear read this book and decided to split the character of Haida in two in order to create Carmy and Mikey, two unique characters whose professional experiences and mental health struggles often mirror one another.

The character of Sydney Adamu, Carmy’s (eventual) business partner, also seems to be inspired by a character from Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki: Sara, Tsukuru’s girlfriend who encouraged him to seek the closure he needs to move forward in life. Sydney, like Sara, is very level-headed and introspective when compared to Carmy. Each woman acts as a solid landing place for her partner while also making it very clear to him that she is not there to be his mother or his babysitter; she just needs him to work through his problems so they can move forward with their goals. Fascinatingly, Sydney also mirrors and runs parallel to Carmy, just as Sara does to Haida.

But back to Richie— Did he ever find his purpose? Has he stopped watching the trains? Well, I’m not about to spoil anything for you. If you want to know the answers to those questions, you’ll have to watch the show and find out for yourself. I will tell you, though, that by the end of season two, he has made an unbelievable amount of progress, and he’s well on his way in his own Pilgrimage.

The Bear’s third season was released on Hulu and FX almost a month ago, and just last week they were nominated for a record-breaking 23 Emmy awards. If you’re like me and have already watched (and rewatched, and rewatched again, and again…) The Bear and are hungry for more content, or just want a deeper insight into a piece of inspiration for the show as you begin the long wait for season four, I would highly recommend this book.

In an interview following the release of his brilliant James, Percival Everett reimagined Mark Twain’s quote about heaven and hell. Twain once quipped: “Heaven for the climate; hell for the company.” Everett, showing off his love and respect for Twain said: “Heaven for the climate; hell for my long-awaited lunch with Mark Twain.” Everett, in 2023, wrote a love letter to Twain with James, a re-telling of Huck Finn where Jim is the central character and narrator. The book is difficult to summarize, but I’m gonna try. As in Huck, Jim realizes that he is going to be sold away from his family and endure a harsh(er) owner, so he decides to run. His hope is to earn some money up North and buy his family. Huckleberry wants to run, too, to escape his mean and abusive Pap. Along the way on the Mississippi, the two runaways have “adventures,” that are dissimilar to the original tale. Huck leaves Jim’s story early in Everett’s version, and James negotiates the South managing to avoid death through stealth and smarts. There are several reveals that I won’t share because they are amazing, especially if you are familiar with the original story. 

Did you know how popular Huck Finn was in the past and is today? Published in March of 1884, by May of 1885 it had sold over 57,000 copies. Pretty darn good for the time. A google search revealed asking prices of $10,000.00 for leather-bound first editions. Did you also know that Huck Finn has been challenged by parents (because of the N-word) in various school districts every year since the novel became required reading in English classes? A publisher in Alabama revised Twain’s masterpiece to placate the uncomfortable masses. I wish Twain were alive to tell that publisher what it can do with its perverted version. 

In 2011 on “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart and Larry Wilmore discussed New South Book Publishing replacing the N-word with what Wilmore jokingly referred to as a “promotion” for Jim: “Slave,” citing teachers’ discomfort with reading the novel where Twain wrote 219 instances of the N-word. Wilmore decried the decision saying that eventually the Jim character might be removed completely. And a 1950s movie did just that! Here’s the exchange between Stewart and Wilmore. Remember that “The Daily Show” often employs satire to make a point: 

STEWART: You know what, you're very passionate in your defense of the character Jim. 

WILMORE: I have to be, Jon, otherwise they'd take the brother out of the book completely. 

STEWART: Well, I don't think they'd take him out.... 

WILMORE: No, believe me, they already tried.  They made a TV movie version in the 1950s that did away with the Jim character completely! 

Huck Finn 1955 TV Movie. Where's Jim? 

WILMORE: Look, that's just Dennis the Menace on a raft!  What the [#@%*], 1950s? 

Too bad that Twain’s works are in public domain, because replacing the word commonly used to describe Black people in 1884 when Huck was published would have the author rolling in his grave.   

Here are some other notable ideas about Huck: 

1. 14: Number of films and/or television shows based on Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. 
2. 3: Number of those films and/or television shows that eliminated the Jim character. 
3. And now, as far as I know, 1: Version where Jim is the narrator and protagonist. 

Everett wrote James, a reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, to give Jim, er, James, a voice. And what a voice James possesses and uses with aplomb…but not in front of white folk.  

James starts out similarly enough to Twain’s Huck, but I knew I was in for a true adventure when James tutors his children in code switching—the ways in which a member of an underrepresented group (consciously or unconsciously) adjusts their language, syntax, grammatical structure, behavior, and appearance to fit into the dominant culture—to hide James and his family’s education. James steals, er, borrows books from Judge Thatcher’s library and learns to read and write. But demonstrating those skills will get them killed; hence, the lessons in hiding one’s education.  

Everett also takes a swipe at James’ owner’s hypocritical religiousness. When Rachel, James’ daughter, asks “’Why did God set [slavery] up like this? “With them as masters and us as slaves?’” James’ answer is brilliant:  

“There is no God, child. There’s religion but there’s no God of theirs. Their religion tells that we will get our reward in the end. However, it apparently doesn’t say anything about their punishment. But when we’re around them, we believe in God. Oh, Lawdy Lawd, we’s be believin.’ Religion is just a controlling tool they employ to adhere to when convenient.” 

How refreshing it was for this reader to discover an alternate portrayal of how slaves might’ve felt about a god who created a program that forced on them “grueling labor” where “enslaved men and women were beaten mercilessly, separated from loved ones arbitrarily, and, regardless of sex, treated as property in the eyes of the law.” Oxford University graduate Noel Rae outlines Christians' justification for slavery in The Great Stain (2018). She cites two sections, from both the Old and New Testaments, of The King James Bible that slaveowners often referred to claiming the right to own and oppress human beings. You can read the text from KJV here: Genesis IX, 18-27 and Apostle Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, VI, 5-7. And famous orator and author of the speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” Frederick Douglass was taught the alphabet, some simple words, and eventually the bible by his owner, Sophia Auld. He also taught other slaves to read the New Testament. But when he was fed up with fruitlessly praying for freedom, Douglass famously asserted: “I prayed for freedom for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.” Douglass ran. I wonder if he, akin to James, saw the perverted double standard laid out in the good book when prayers were ignored.

Everett's title character doesn't find solace in the bible; it is with philosophers that James' ideas are challenged. After James is bitten by a snake, he has fever dreams where the reader is privy to his conversations with Voltaire, Locke, and Rousseau. Voltaire enters his sleep and reminds James of the Candide character Cunegonde, who is a “symbol for the futility of human desires.” Did I know this reference before consulting Google? Heck, no! But what a lovely little Easter egg! Is Voltaire warning Jim to stay where he is and be sold off to the highest bidder because his own “human desires” are futile? That’s what I gleaned from the dream. In another dream James and John Locke discuss the hypocrisy of the [U. S] constitution that justified slavery.

Everett also plays with the original narrative in clever ways that show off his erudition. Huck looks to James for advice and genuinely cares for him. James genuinely cares for Huck, but for different and surprising reasons that I’ll leave out here. When James cries out in his dreams in a standard dialect that confounds Huck’s understanding of who Jim is, he presses him for answers: 

"Jim," Huck said.

"What?"

"Why you talkin’ so funny?"

"Whatchu be meanin'?" I was panicking inside.

"You were talkin'—I don't know—you didn't sound like no slave."

James can’t reveal the truth of his ability to speak standard English, to read, and write to Huck, even though he obviously loves James saying, as he does in the original text, that “I’ll go to Hell, then!” when he realizes that not turning James in will surely be against his religion. It is through James that Huck, as in the original text, discovers his humanity. 

The novel is filled with arcane, beautiful, and deft allusions. If you’ve read Richard Wright’s Black Boy (American Hunger): A Record of Childhood and Youth, you might notice another connection when Miss Watson asks Jim if he was in Judge Thatcher’s library room because some books were off the shelves. Jim laughs and employs the code switching he teaches his children, “What I gone do wif a book?” In the same way, Wright worked for a man who often sent him with a list of books to check out of the library. Wright—who was self-taught to read and write despite his grandmother who burned any book he brought into the house that wasn’t the bible—would add titles to the man’s list and head to the “Whites Only” library. Noticing the difference in handwriting on the list, the librarian accused him of adding the titles for himself to which Wright replied, “I don’t know [why the titles at the end are in another handwriting]. I can’t read.” Another clever Easter egg…if, dear reader, you can find it hidden amongst Everett’s astute prose.  

The book has other interesting changes, too. Because Huck disappears early in James, his absence allows Jim to become James. In a repugnant reminder of the price of knowledge, an enslaved man is lynched when his master realizes that the man stole a pencil for Jim to write in a notebook that he stole from Huck’s deadbeat, abusive dad. And in a comic/satiric turn, Jim is bought by the Virginia Minstrels, a blackface singing troupe, which counts as a member Howard who is an enslaved man passing as White. No Black man can be on stage, so they cover Jim in blackface. Huh? You ask. James explains the ludicrousness: “one Black man passing for white and painted black, and me, a light brown, Black man painted black in such a way as to appear like a white man trying to pass for Black.” The troupe heard James singing and his tenor voice was magical, so they slapped white, then black shoe polish on his black face and fooled white audiences. James performs only one time before he and Howard take off in the middle of the night. 

You don’t need to read Twain’s novel to appreciate Everett’s take on the classic novel. And like Larry Wilmore who is passionate about the Jim character in Twain’s Huck Finn, Everett is passionate about providing James with a voice, an identity, a life. And I'd like to be a fly on the wall at Twain and Everett's “long-awaited lunch." And like Huck, “I’ll go to hell” to witness it!

Watch for Everett’s James to come to a movie theater near you with Stephen Spielberg to executive produce and Taika Waititi to direct. 

Percival Everett with pups Harry and Banjo 

Good afternoon everyone, everyone good afternoon!

The book I have chosen to discuss this week means a lot to me. Whenever anyone asks me about a book that impacted my thinking, this book is my answer. Please enjoy my brief description, and if you decide to read this book, you will be rewarded with quite a story.

"Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn is a philosophical novel that explores the relationship between humans and the natural world through a unique narrative framework. The story centers on a disillusioned narrator who responds to an ad from a teacher seeking a pupil interested in saving the world. This leads him to Ishmael, a telepathic gorilla who becomes his mentor. (I know that is a bit of a stretch, but rewarding if you can stay with it!)

Ishmael divides human societies into two categories: the "Takers" and the "Leavers." The Takers represent modern, industrialized societies that exploit the environment, while the Leavers are traditional societies that live in harmony with nature. Through their dialogues, Ishmael challenges the narrator to reconsider the common assumptions about civilization, progress, and human destiny.

A central theme is the Takers' cultural mythology, which began with the Agricultural Revolution. This mythology promotes the idea that humans are the pinnacle of evolution and have the right to dominate the earth. Ishmael argues that this mindset leads to environmental destruction and the potential collapse of human civilization.

Ishmael also introduces the concept of "Mother Culture," an invisible force shaping beliefs and behaviors within Taker society. This narrative perpetuates the false notion that human well-being is separate from the well-being of the planet. Ishmael highlights the interconnectedness of all life and the need for a new cultural mythology that respects the natural world. Ishmael also delves into how organized religion has played a role in our culture.

Ultimately, "Ishmael" challenges readers to question their cultural assumptions and consider the ethical implications of their relationship with the environment. The novel advocates for sustainable, ecological principles and a rejection of exploitative practices, encouraging a deeper reflection on humanity's place in the world and the choices shaping our future.