Perfect Summer Reads!

As my first book of 2024, I picked up Divine Might by Natalie Haynes, which I originally thought was a short story collection. But instead of short stories, I found it to be a brilliant essay collection about Greek goddesses and the stories society has told about them. Six months later, I felt it was time to pick up Haynes’ first essay collection, Pandora’s Jar, which looks at some of the most prominent mortal women featured in Greek myths. She discusses figures like Jocasta, Helen, and Medusa, detailing the different versions of their stories and how these women have been featured in popular culture. With each woman, Haynes has this masterful way of highlighting how much of these women’s stories have been constructed through a sexist patriarchal lens. Haynes challenges those ideas and encourages readers to think outside of these constraints. Plus, her prose is engrossing and incredibly funny. In particular, the audiobook, which she reads herself, showcases her wit and charming sense of humor.

Jhumpa Lahiri is one of my favorite authors, so when I heard she was learning to write in Italian, I felt incredibly sad that I couldn’t read it. But I shouldn’t have worried. Elena Ferrante’s translator, Ann Goldstein, translated In Other Words into English. If you’re like me, you’re probably wondering why Lahiri didn’t translate the text herself, but Lahiri has stated that she wants readers to get a more accurate perception of her skills in Italian. This book is cleverly formatted to include the English translation on one side and the original Italian on the other. The topics of the essays mostly focus on Lahiri’s relationship with the Italian language and her motivation for learning it. This book is perfect for any language nerd.