Read Like The Wind: Zoology and Org Charts
“Lezende jongen,” by Frans Hals
Our critic recommends old and new books.
By Molly Young
Originally published in the New York Times “Read Like the Wind” newsletter
Greetings, booklings.
A reader of the previous newsletter (hello, @RidgewoodJoe!) commented that copies of one of the books recommended, Liza Cody’s “Dupe,” were now going for $50 on eBay. This was a curious development. Mere weeks earlier, I had purchased my own copy on eBay for $19.90, which isn’t cheap for a used book — but it’s not $50! I had to wonder whether the recommendation had led to an eBay price hike. This was not my intention.
A sinister thought then occurred to me. “If I were an unsavory person, I could make a big lump of dough by recommending old books and then turning around and selling copies on eBay for exorbitant prices under a false user name.” Don’t worry; I’m not evil, and I don’t want to get fired from my job for executing an easily traceable pump-and-dump scheme. (Not YET, at least.)
But @RidgewoodJoe did raise a valuable point. One problem with recommending “hidden gems” is that they can be … hard to find. My hope is that these books can be unearthed at libraries, where gems often linger in the dust. A second hope is that a savvy publisher might take note of such titles and move quickly to reissue the book in question. (This happened once before, and it was very exciting!) A third option would be to put that $50 book on your back-burner list and wait until the market cools down.
I wish I could craft a system wherein my own copy of each book, complete with self-incriminating marginalia, might be mailed free to the first person who comments with a request. But I live a mile away from the nearest post office, and as much as I cherish that institution, my patience for standing in 90-minute lines is nearing an all-time low.
All of which is to say, if anyone has ideas for making out-of-print books more widely obtainable: I’m all ears. Meantime, I’ll try to stick to books that won’t destroy your wallet.
—Molly
“Winter Love,” by Han Suyin
Fiction, 1962
This rec goes out to all my lesbian zoologists. Make some noise, ladies! Before the rest of you skip forward, I should quickly offer myself as proof that you needn’t meet the above description to savor this silvery, suggestive novella of love and friendship.
The year is 1944, the place is London, and all the young men are at war. We find ourselves at Horsham Science College with a group of women who spend their time dissecting mammals and navigating material privations (bombs go off, pipes freeze) and emotional detonations (ruptured affairs, thwarted tête-à-têtes).
It’s a bleakly cinematic book, full of unkempt gardens and smoky cafes. The author, a physician of Chinese and Belgian descent, became famous after publishing “A Many-Splendored Thing,” which was adapted into the William Holden movie. But I think this little novella, which she wrote 10 years after her megahit, is much better!
Read if you like: Sally Rooney, E.M. Forster, the Todd Haynes film “Carol”
Available from: McNally Editions
Molly Young is a book critic for The New York Times, a contributing writer to The Times Magazine and the author of the newsletter Read Like the Wind. She was previously the book critic for New York magazine.