I spent a good part of an hour searching for a copy of George Eliot’s novel Daniel Deronda. Not a pristine Penguin paperback but something used and readable. Clare Carlisle writes about the classic in her new nonfiction Transcendence for Beginners. She explores the characters and themes in a chapter called “Incarnations,” and similarly the characters and themes of Eliot’s Middlemarch in the chapter, “Life Writing.”
Searching for Daniel Deronda is one of those rabbit holes I tend to fall into, reading one book that leads me to wanting to read or reread another, and searching for the “right” copy. That could be a first edition (as a collector) or a beat-up vintage paperback (for the soft feel of the pages and the cover illustration) or a borrowed library book (for uncertainty concerning whether or not I really do want to read it).
Carlisle is a professor of philosophy at King’s College London and a biographer. She wrote The Marriage Question: George Eliot’s Double Life and Philosopher of the Heart: The Restless Life of Søren Kierkegaard. Her new book intertwines her two professions as she explores the many facets and the significance of a life. She writes in the last chapter:
In this book, I’ve returned to that glimpse of one whole life — which came to me only as I finished my first biography — and tried to understand it better. A whole life, elusive yet expressive, is utterly singular. It is the centre of a milieu that never entirely coincides with another life’s world, and is never entirely separate from it either.
I love this book. It gave me much to think about. After reading it early mornings, it set the day on a good foot.
I was surprised Break Room by Miyee Lee (translated by Sandy Joosun Lee) grabbed and delighted me. I recorded a review about it last week and will post that here soon. This slim, new novel imagines villainous behaviors of employees that are boiling beneath calm office atmospheres. Its premise centers on the filming of a reality TV show in an office break room where participants compete to identify a mole planted by the production team. Starting off, the day they show up on the set, they learn something shocking and quite disarming about the selection process of how they were chosen for the show. It turns out to be more significant to the narrative than the competition. The story cleverly spotlights the pettiness of disliking someone without first trying to understand them. Miye Lee is the bestselling author of The Dallergut Dream Department Store. I’m now curious to look into it.
This May book release (originally scheduled for April), Cherry Beach by Don Gillmor, is a literary mystery that takes place in Toronto. It features a detective, who’s a law school dropout “chronically at odds with his colleagues and perpetually on the brink of being terminated,” and his partner Davis, who’s the department’s one female officer of color. I’m only a few pages in, and the smart dialogue, lively characters, and so far intriguing plot have me reaching for it. From the book’s description: “…when the details of [a] murder go public at the start of an excruciatingly hot summer, they find themselves thrust into the center of a front-page investigation that will bring to a head the city’s long history of shady real estate deals and racist disenfranchisement.”
Finally, some bookstore shopping. I purchased Willy Vlautin’s new novel published this month, The Left and the Lucky. I wasn’t aware of it. That’s not surprising to me anymore: According to Publishers Weekly, one million books were published in 2025, and that doesn’t include self-published books. The story’s protagonist is Eddie Wilkins, a workaholic house painter “ruled by a guilt that he has carried for nearly twenty years.” A woman moves in next door to him with her two sons, eight and 15, and an aging mother. As life gets overwhelming for her, she can’t control the oldest son’s cruelty, and the youngest finds refuge with Eddie. I’m hoping this novel sings with hope and warmth, as did Vlautin’s wonderful novel The Horse.
The Longest Chapter 