Books and Commentary Archives - Brain Dumping in Retirement

What If I Had Known Elizabeth Finch and She Had Known Me?

By Jim Bauman December 25, 2025Books and CommentaryAmbition, Book Review, Happiness, History, Memory

Elizabeth Finch is a fictional creation with a talent for interpreting the past and teasing out it's lessons for the present. But as brilliant as she was, she put none of her energies into worrying about the future and any legacy she could hypothetically leave. It makes you want to have known her.

America At War With Itself and With Me

By Jim Bauman October 27, 2025Books and CommentaryCivil War, Omar El Akkad, Polarization, Predictions

Sci-Fi novels aim to be prophetic, the closer to the present time they're situated the greater the likelihood that the prophesies will come about. It's predictions that this piece is focused on, those that work out and those that don't.

He’s Different, But So What?

By Jim Bauman July 7, 2025Books and Commentary, Life and LivingDifference, Flamboyance, George Saunders, Grandfather, Kindness

It must be that George Saunders knows a lot of people and also knows much about the quirks that drive them. He gets people. Fortunately, he's bent to portraying his characters sympathetically, enough so that you can often read yourself into his stories

Scary Stuff

By Jim Bauman May 15, 2025Books and CommentaryBook Review, Domination, George Saunders, Liberation, Writing Life

George Saunders's story collection Liberation Day disguises his scary themes under his usual inventive and even amusing narratives. His characters are completely imaginary and yet completely believable. It's easy not just to see yourself in those characters, but to understand yourself better.

Difficult People You Can’t Help Loving

By Jim Bauman April 16, 2025Books and Commentary, Life and LivingBook Review, Death, Partners, Relationships, Restoration

Anne Enright's novel, The Gathering, concerns the death by suicide of the narrator's brother. The gathering refers to the mostly family mourners at the funeral. The suicide was conflicted, of course, but also described as the kind of person you search out for friendship. He reminded me also of my deceased partner.

Early Birthing and Later Consequences

By Jim Bauman April 6, 2025Books and Commentary, Life and LivingAging, Birth, Book Review, Howard Norman

An appreciation of Howard Norman's novel Come to the Window, with relevant tie ins to my own birth and disjointed trajectory into old age.

The Appeal and the Trap of Retirement

By Jim Bauman March 24, 2025Books and CommentaryAging, Book Review, Retirement, Tove Jansson

Tove Jansson's book Sun City takes place in St. Petersburg, FL, a place I've had some dealings with through my parents' retirement there. It got me reminiscing and then thinking about my own retirement.

Becoming and Being a Creative Person in Newfoundland

By Jim Bauman February 25, 2025Books and CommentaryBook Review, Howard Norman, Newfoundland, The Bird Artist

An appreciation of Howard Norman's novel The Bird Artist with a side note or two of additional appreciation for the real artists of Change Islands, Newfoundland, where I lived idyllically for a while.

A Mighty Little Bird

By Jim Bauman February 16, 2025Books and CommentaryAnne Enright, Book Review, Family Dynamics, Ireland, Irish Culture

Anne Enright's book The Wren, The Wren is a tale of modern Ireland's evolution from a country under the heavy thumb of the Catholic church to its current secular culture. She tells the story through the lives of a loving dysfunctional family.

On Reading Tana French’s In the Wood

By Jim Bauman February 4, 2025Books and CommentaryBook Review, In the Woods, Mystery, Tana French

Book review of Tana French's first Dublin Murder Squad series. A good read that offers up more than you'd expect from a murder mystery.

A Nobelist’s Not Best Work

By Jim Bauman February 4, 2025Books and CommentaryCriticism, Ishiguro, When We Were Orphans

The Nobelist Kazuo Ishiguro pegged his book When We Were Orphans as not his best book. The jacket blurbs though were heaped with praise. It was an interesting difference of opinion to explore.

A Half Century of Our Discontent

By Jim Bauman February 4, 2025Books and CommentaryBook Review, Capitalism, Steinbeck, The 1960's, Winter of Our Discontent

John Steinbeck published The Winter of Our Discontent in 1961. Like all his novels, it was rooted in the environment and in the time period in which he wrote it. It still speaks accurately, though, to the world of the mid 2020's.

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