CATCHING UP ON ATKINSON

Charming, mysterious, irregular bookstore,
along the tourist path in Edinburgh; perfect for
browsing at leisure through the Kate Atkinson titles!

Armchair Books right next door to the
Afrin Barber, where Gerry got a shave

Scholarly, spell - binding, prize - winning,
can you ask for more than that?
The family sagas are filled with mystery,
the mysteries are filled with family drama.
Atkinson novels read to date:

~ 1995 ~ & ~ 1997 ~

In One Volume
Behind the Scenes at the Museum is a multi - generational novel, ranging from pre - WW I to the present, about all the women in a typical British family, containing lots of coincidences (in manner of Charles Dickens), centering around Bunty, who lost 2 of her 4 daughters in tragic accidents, narrated by one of her twin girls, starting in-utero.

Human Croquet is similar in scope and style, but a different family, with its own secrets, kept through the decades and slowly revealed to the reader, amidst the mysterious imagery of autumnal reverie, sleeping cats, and delicious babies.

[And: "How's my treasure? . . . He's edible, don't you think?" (p 78)
from the novel When Will There Be Good News?]

Next come the Scottish mysteries. If you don't already admire Kate Atkinson (b 1951) as one of the most literary authors on the shelf, then you've got to love her for creating Jackson Brodie (humble, lovable, cantankerous, heroic, damaged, striving) and Louise Monroe (independent, introspective, despondent, determined).

1. Case Histories

"She felt like someone who'd lost her way and ended up in the wrong generation. . . . She had read too much James and Wharton. No one in Edith Wharton's world really wanted to be there but Amelia would have got along fine inside an Edith Wharton novel. In fact, she could have happily lived inside any nineteenth - century novel. . . . she, in turn, wanted no one -- apart from men in nineteenth - century novels, which put a whole new spin on the idea of 'unattainable'" (130, 185).

2. One Good Turn
"Everything was connected.
Everything in the whole world" (463).
(see this & more)

Near the end of One Good Turn,
Jackson recalls some lyrics from Cowboy Junkies:
"good news always sleeps till noon."
Bringing us to the next mystery in the series . . .
3. When Will There Be Good News?: All the major characters -- Jackson, Louise, Reggie, Joanna -- are readers themselves, carrying their own extensive frames of reference from which Atkinson allows them to make connections and share quotations. [Carnival ~ Carnage]

Numerous overlapping and leap - frogging memories tie the novels one to another: "'A coincidence is just an explanation waiting to happen,' Jackson Brodie had said to her once." When Louise makes this recollection in Good News (163, 319), I was delighted to flip back through Good Turn and reread the very conversation (343 - 44) to which Louise refers. Summarized here for you!

4. Started Early, Took My Dog

"Jackson's new pastime. Trains, coins, stamps, Cistercian abbeys . . . all part of the semi-autistic male impulse to collect -- a need for order or a desire to possess, or both. . . . the ruins had touched his soul in some inarticulate and melancholy place, the nearest thing to holiness for an atheistic Jackson. He missed God. But then who didn't? As far as Jackson was concerned, God slipped out of the building a long time ago and he wasn't coming back, but like any good architect, he had left his work behind as his legacy. North Yorkshire had been designed when God was in his pomp and each time that Jackson came here he was struck anew by the power that landscape and beauty had over him these days" (51).
More on photographs & lost youth
See poem by Emily Dickinson ~ in comments below

5. Big Sky

~ 2013 ~ & ~ 2015 ~
After the mysteries, Atkinson returns to her previous strength, another British family saga, spanning the world wars. These two novels are very good but sometimes almost too intriguing; and you can't expect the same sweetness as Behind the Scenes. Perhaps the nostalgic charm has been displaced by a graver, keener loss of innocence.

Both novels follow the impact of war upon each member of the Todd family, particularly Ursula in Life After Life and Teddy in A God in Ruins. Each novel is a companion to the other, though not necessarily a prequel or a sequel -- which would be unnecessary in any case, considering the ease with which these characters move through time. Not quite so easy for the reader, however, who must adjust to the timeless reality that past, present, alternative present, future -- all are one.

Also about WW2, but different characters: Transcription

Thanks to my sister - in - law Tina for highly and repeatedly recommending these books and to my friend Jonnie for jumping right in and reading everything by Atkinson at lightning speed; to my cousin - in - law Jonny for sharing his extra copy of One Good Turn and to Auntie Jan for the permanent loan of Started Early, Took My Dog.

P.S. Previous Catch - Ups

Bryson ~ Lamott ~ Sedaris

Freedom's Just Another Word

Free Speech by xkcd

Thanks to my son Sam for coming to visit for
Memorial Day Weekend and bringing along a
couple of books that everyone should read:
#1 The War on Normal People ~ published 2018
by Andrew Yang (b 1975)

Yang's central thesis is to promote the Freedom Dividend, which has received his mother's vote of confidence -- "If you think it's a good idea Andy, I'm sure it's a good idea" (endearing!) -- plus a thumbs up from my son Sam. And if Sam thinks it's a good idea, I'm sure it is! As Yang explains it:

"With the Freedom Dividend, money would be put in the hands of our citizens in a time of unprecedented economic dislocation. It would grow the consumer economy. It’s a stimulus of people. The vast majority of money would go directly into the economy each month, into paying bills, feeding children, visiting loved ones, youth sports, eating at local restaurants, piano lessons, extra tutoring help, car repairs, small businesses, housing improvements, prenatal vitamins, elder care, and so on. . . . most of the money would be spent locally and quickly" (168, 172).

"When I was a kid I just wanted to belong. As a smart person I was taught to leave others behind. We have to snap out of it and start remembering our own humanity. We're all the same people we were before we got sorted and socialized. We're all mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers above all who want the same things for ourselves and our families. We're running out of time. In coming years it's going to be even harder to forge a sense of common identity across different walks of life. . . .

One could argue that it is essential for any democracy to do all it can to keep its population free of a mindset of scarcity in order to make better decisions. A culture of scarcity is a culture of negativity. People think about what can go wrong. They attack each other. Tribalism and divisiveness go way up. Reason starts to lose ground. Decision - making gets systematically worse. Acts of sustained optimism...all go down." (99, 108).

Similarly, from Sam Harris: "Speaking from personal experience, I think that losing the sense of free will has only improved my ethics -- by increasing my feelings of compassion and forgiveness, and diminishing my sense of entitlement to the fruits of my own good luck. . . . My hopes, fears, and neuroses seem less personal and indelible. There is no telling how much I might change in the future" (Free Will 45 - 46).

“You don't need free will
to determine that twice two is four.
That's not what I call free will.”
~ Dostoevsky ~
Notes From Underground

***************
#2. Free Will ~ published 2012
by Sam Harris (b 1967)

Harris is sure that "Free will is an illusion. Our wills are simply not of our own making. . . . We do not have the freedom we think we have" (5).

I was prepared to resist this concept and felt unconvinced by a number of the dilemmas that Harris uses to indicate a lack of free will: to write a book or not, to exercise or not, to have coffee or tea, one cup or two, to maintain a healthy diet or not. E.g., "The soul that allows you to stay on your diet is just as mysterious as the one that tempts you to cherry pie for breakfast" (12). Okay, that made me laugh! But, really, do any of these things matter much?

Then a couple of his examples gave me pause:

A. "We are conscious of only a tiny fraction of the information that our brains process . . . utterly unaware of neurophysiological events . . . By merely glancing at your face or listening to your tone of voice, others are often more aware of your state of mind and motivations than you are" (7).

B. "From the perspective of your conscious awareness, you are no[t] responsible . . . for the fact that you were born into this world. . . . You did not pick your parents or the time and place of your birth. You didn't choose your gender or most of your life experiences. You had no control whatsoever over your genome . . . Where is the freedom in this?" (34 - 35, 41).

True! I had to admit -- on both counts! Thus, as I finished the book (really just a 75 - page essay that you can easily read and should reread in one setting) that's what I kept coming back to. Whenever I started to feel skeptical or defensive, I simply reminded myself that I had not chosen to be born, and suddenly Harris's insights, of which there are many, made a lot more sense. Here are a few of my favorites:

Sam Harris: "If the laws of nature do not strike most of us as incompatible with free will, that is because we have not imagined how human behavior would appear if all cause - and - effect were understood" (11).
Similar to
James Morrow:
"Science does have all the answers . . .
we [just] don't have all the science"
(from the novel, Only Begotten Daughter, 90, 187).

[Nor do we have all the imagination,
but we may, at some point in the future!]
Sam Harris: "You are not controlling the storm, and you are not lost in it. You are the storm" (14).
Similar to
William Stafford:
"COMFORT:
We think it is calm here,
or that the storm is the right size."
Sam Harris: "There is no question that our attribution of agency can be gravely in error. I am arguing that it always is" (25).

Similar to
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.:
"We just can't seem to help feeling so entitled to free will,
but what does that really mean?"

"You sound to me as though you don't believe in free will,"
said Billy Pilgrim.

"If I hadn’t spent so much time studying Earthlings,"
said the Tralfamadorian,
"I wouldn’t have any idea what was meant by 'free will.'
I've visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe,
and I have studied reports on one hundred more.
Only on Earth is there any talk of free will"
(from Slaughterhouse Five, Chap 5, p 86).

***************
Coronavirus tie - in: Yang's editors need to update his text for 2020, emphasizing that an emergency version of his Freedom Benefit (aka UBI) has indeed been distributed in the United States.

Harris, writing in 2012 about the use of punishment in our criminal justice system, acknowledges the power of pandemics: "If we could incarcerate earthquakes and hurricanes for their crimes, we would build prisons for them as well. We fight emerging epidemics -- and even the occasional wild animal -- without attributing free will to them. . . . Of course, if punishing bacteria and viruses would prevent the emergence of pandemic diseases, we would mete out justice to them as well" (56, 59).

The Story of a Book

'Tis the season for
sorting through reams of musty old family papers
and sharing all manner of amazing discoveries.
For my book blog, it had to be this essay,
written by my mother in 1941 (age 10, 5th grade)
and published in her school paper!

The Story of My Life
(A story of a book, by Mary Lindsey)
The first thing that I can remember was that I was being neatly printed in a printing press in New York City, New York. I was so pleased when I found myself enclosed in a pretty bright red cover. Soon I found myself nicely wrapped, placed in a box with a number of other books and traveling by train to a book-store in Kansas City, Missouri.

In Kansas City I was delivered to my destination. I was placed among the children's books on a shelf middle way to the front of the store. I was dusted every day, and handled by men, women, boys, and girls. And there I sat, fearing my leaves would yellow before I would be sold. Because I had so few pictures, no one cared much about me. Finally a school teacher who had promised some prizes to several of her pupils looked me over carefully. Decided I that was suitable for either boy or girls readers.

I really think the store-keeper was glad to dispose of me, and I was glad to get farther into the world. Again I was wrapped but this time I was tied with a bright colored cord. Then dropped in a shopping bag with the other prizes that had been purchased.

The little school-mom took me to her home and laid me on her study table. The days were quiet and lonesome and I had much time to think and wonder how I would be received in my new home. At last I was made ready to be presented to the little prize winner. After being placed in a pretty gift box with the reward card, I thought I looked nice enough to be appreciated by anyone.

I was carried off to school by the teacher who was very much pleased with me, for she knew I would carry a good lesson to the one who would receive me. At the close of the program I was given to a studious little girl who thanked her teacher kindly for me. I was sure that I would like her as soon as I saw her. She seemed so glad to receive me, and handled me very carefully. As soon as she reached home, I was taken from my box and she was delighted at my appearance. After looking over my contents, she began reading me at once. She screamed with delight after finding I was the book she had wanted.

She read and re-read me and loaned me many times to her little friends. I soon began to show my age by my leaves growing loose and my back broken. I hope I did a great deal of good during my life.

I was put in the bottom of the trunk of my little owner, who now is an old lady, but still treasures me. ~ Mary Beth Lindsey

************

Concluding note from the teacher:
"A-
A well written story.
It has excellent content."

************

One of my mother's
grade school reading books

Books to Make You Laugh

Roz Chast can always make us laugh
. . . no matter what!

Thanks fellow fan Katie Field
for this addition to my humor library!
A month or so go, librarian and blogger Gale Charlotte sent out a query for books that will make us laugh. What do you recommend? I'll start: Eleanor Oliphant is Perfectly Fine and Amy Poehler's Yes, Please!"

At the time, I was re - reading Annie Choi's Happy Birthday or Whatever: Track Suits, Kim Chee, and Other Family Disasters (2007) in preparation for her follow - up collection: Shut Up, You're Welcome: Thoughts on Life, Death, and Other Inconveniences (2013). I can only read Choi's wry insightful essays with a constant smirk on my face, so I contributed these titles to Gale's running list of over 50 choices.

I knew Annie and her hilarious mother ("Mommy so confuse!) would have me chortling through quarantine, but things took a more ironic turn midway through Shut Up. Her essay "When Disaster Strikes" opens with a few typical fear dreams -- you know, the roller coaster comes to a precipitous halt, the car goes off the bridge -- but, the author confides, "None of these things have actually ever happened to me." She goes on to analyze her obsession with imaginary emergency situations:

"While meditating on disasters, I've come up with a lot of tough questions. Could I start a campfire without matches if I were lost in the forest? Could I build a shelter in an ice storm? Could I cut off my own foot if it got caught under something? The answer to those questions is no. I'm not very handy. I don't have a good grip on physics, and I tend to avoid sharp objects. It would take me five minutes to perish if I were stranded in the Australian outback. . . . I'm ill - prepared to help during a true emergency. I don't know CPR, I'm too squeamish to put a dislocated shoulder back into its socket, I don't know how to leap out of a moving vehicle, and I can't lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk. . . . I'm just not the kind of person who'd survive a catastrophe. . . .

"I think this is why I enjoy thinking about disasters. I live a very low - adrenaline and low - carb lifestyle. I vacuum regularly. I like salad. My life is pretty mundane. Of course, I am grateful that my life is blissfully uneventful and stable. I have food and clean water and access to health care . . . But these daydreams help me realize how little control I have over my life. I can get up in the morning, make my coffee exactly how I like it, and plan exactly where I'll for go for dinner. I know what book I want all the spots where I can buy it. I know where to get the best spanakopita in the city. But all that can change with a shift of the tectonic plates or a cyclone or a pandemic." (141 - 42, emphasis added)

How ironic to be reading these words in April 2020 when, in fact, you cannot go for coffee or breakfast or dinner. When spanakopita is not to be had and the bookstores are shuttered against coronavirus. Indeed, Choi predicted the future: all that changes with a pandemic.

A little Jane Austen anyone?

P.S.
And how strange to watch movies these days,
peopled with individuals and crowded groups engaging
in pre - corona behavior: shaking hands, hugging, and
spitting all over their birthday cakes at office parties!
No, thanks!

In Time of Plague & Pestilence

For Fun:

The First Lines of 10 Classic Novels,
Rewritten for Social Distancing

Famous Lines of Poetry
Revised for the Age of Coronavirus

To Watch:

The Exterminating Angel (1962, by Luis Bunuel)

The Plague (1992, with William Hurt, Raul Julia, Robert Duvall)
Based on the 1947 novel by Albert Camus
Compared to COVID - 19

In 1947, Camus reflected on Nazism and authoritarianism,
using the plague as a metaphor of misery and suffering.
His observations remain true:

"The evil in the world comes almost always from ignorance, and goodwill can cause as much damage as ill-will if it is not enlightened. People are more often good than bad, though in fact that is not the question. But they are more or less ignorant and this is what one calls vice or virtue, the most appalling vice being the ignorance that thinks it knows everything and which consequently authorizes itself to kill. The murderer's soul is blind, and there is no true goodness or fine love without the greatest possible degree of clear-sightedness."

**************

Additional Classics

Death in Venice (1912) & Magic Mountain (1924)
both by Thomas Mann (1875 - 1955)

The Decameron (1492)
by Giovanni Boccaccio (1313 – 1375)

A Journal of the Plague Year: 1665 (1722)
by Daniel Defoe (1660 - 1731)

Pale Horse, Pale Rider (1939)
by Katherine Anne Porter (1890 – 1980)

Fever 1793 (2000)
by Laurie Halse Anderson


Recent Discoveries

The Fatal Eggs (1925)
by Mikhail Bulgakov (1891 - 1940)

The Fatal Eggs and Other Soviet Satire
Translated by Mirra Ginsburg


Non - Fiction

The Great Influenza:
The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History
by John M. Barry


On the Quotidian Kit

from
A Litany in Time of Plague
alternately entitled:
In Time of Pestilence, 1593
by
Thomas Nashe (1567 - 1601)

Beauty is but a flower
Which wrinkles will devour;
Brightness falls from the air;
Queens have died young and fair;
Dust hath closed Helen's eye.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

*****************

Our favorite local book store Von’s!

Thanks to my friend Nancy for sharing this
charming photo from her miniature light - up village.

Advising Alma

Many thanks to my friend Pam for sharing this fun pic of the
perfect hoodie to wear while working on your book blog! If your
Superpowers are Reading & Writing, you could use one of these!

*******************
The title of this month's post ~ Advising Alma ~ is in honor of the fact that I just finished reading A Gentleman in Moscow, in which all of the words in all of the chapter titles begin with "A": An Anglican Ashore; Advent; An Actress, an Apparition, an Apiary; Arachne's Art; Absinthe; America; Achilles Agonistes; And Anon; and so forth.

As the author asserts:

What’s with All the A-Words in the Chapter Titles?
As you’ve probably noted, all of the book’s chapters are titled with words beginning in A. Why is that so? To be perfectly honest, I don’t have a good answer. Early in the drafting of the novel, I had the instinct that I should follow the rule, and I trusted that instinct. One reader has suggested that it was my own version of playing “Zut”; another has suggested it was a tribute to the first letters in the names Alexander and Amor; a third has suggested it was because the book is about new beginnings. All of these answers strike me as excellent!
~Amor Towles

So, back to advising Alma, my sweet friend
& helpful translator when I visited Medellin ~ Colombia,
who wrote to me a few months ago:

A: I wanted to ask you if you’ve read anything from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie?

K: I read Americanah and would say that it's good, not great. However, I know it was wildly popular. Maybe I'm in a small minority who didn't find it appealing; but, to me, it did not seem novelistic; so many characters were introduced but never developed, which I always find disappointing. I suppose I should read more by her but I probably won't. Life is so short, one has to pick and choose.

A: So I've been reading Americanah for about two weeks now. If I had read it in a different time of my life, I might not have liked it as much; but currently I've related in some way to her story as an immigrant in the U.S.

Earlier this year I wanted to read all of Jane Austen's books, and got all the way to Mansfield Park, but struggled a lot with the female characters.

K: Yes, I can see that.

A: So I was looking to read something with a strong female, and hopefully immigrant, character; and that's when I found Americanah.

K: I'll try to think of some more for you!

A: Please do! I'm about to finish it and am looking for my next book for the train rides.

K: Oh fun! Where are you headed?

A: Well, on my daily commutes.

K: I see what you mean! I thought maybe you were taking Amtrak coast to coast!

A: I wish!! Just to NYC!

*******************
K: Alma, not to disrespect Jane Austen, but you might have a little more fun with these two novels that I have greatly enjoyed in the last year or so -- both written by women:

1. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry ~ by Gabrielle Zevin
A.J. is man, who owns a bookstore, but he shares the lead with
Amelia, a traveling book agent, and his surprising daughter, Maya.
So, plenty of strong women to keep you inspired on your commute!
No spoilers here, here, or here!

2. The Truth According to Us ~ by Annie Barrows
Lots of amazing women and a lot of interesting U.S. history.

"Jottie's mind flicked over her own heedless childhood, recalling the protection and authority she hadn't even known she enjoyed. How light and lordly she'd been, how free, how certain that her happiness was the product of her own virtues and powers. How wrong she'd been. How foolish. And how very, very lucky.

"If only Willa could have what I had, Jottie mourned. If only she could be so certain and proud. It was an illusion every child should have. And Willa was losing it, right before her eyes" (83).

"So the story wasn't over. No story was ever really over" (155).

"Let the history commence . . . " (217).

A: Thank you! I started The Truth According to Us and am loving it!
I’m so curious about what’s going to happen!

. . . a few weeks later . . .
A: I was thinking about you today, as I finished The Truth According to Us. What I thought was super funny, was that at the end of the edition that I have, there's an interview with the author where they ask her what she thinks the book is about, and she doesn't mention what I think it's about! Haha!

K: So happy to hear you liked it and curious to hear more about your favorite aspects!

*******************
K: I might have already mentioned this book awhile back; if so please forgive duplication. It's a memoir rather than a novel, but one of the best immigration narratives EVER:

Stealing Buddha's Dinner ~ by Bich Nguyen

And of course I want you to read
The History of Love ~ by Nicole Krauss
because it's about a girl named Alma!

"MY NAME IS ALMA SINGER: When I was born my
mother named me after every girl in a book my
father gave her called The History of Love" (35).

"As soon as you finish this one, you will immediately want to begin reading it again! It's that good -- and that mysterious! A teen - aged girl named Alma Singer narrates her personal, literary quest to understand her name and her family history. Reading about reading; writing about writing."

Additional Suggestions: Does Nanny Have a Line?

Tolstoy Imagined You

Leo Tolstoy in His Study, 1891
by Ilya Repin, 1844 - 1930

"Tolstoy thought well of you
– he believed that his own notions
about life here on earth would be
discernible to you, and would move you.

"Tolstoy imagined you generously,
you rose to the occasion."
~ George Saunders ~

*************

"Books are the way that we communicate with the dead.
The way that we learn lessons
from those who are no longer with us . . ."
~ Neil Gaiman ~

*************

Nikita:“The thought that he might, and very probably would die that night occurred to him, but did not seem particularly unpleasant or dreadful. It did not seem particularly unpleasant, because his whole life had been not a continual holiday, but on the contrary an unceasing round of toil of which he was beginning to feel weary. And it did not seem particularly dreadful . . .

Vasili: “'I'm coming!' he cried joyfully, and that cry awoke him, but woke him up not at all the same person he had been when he fell asleep. He tried to get up but could not, tried to move his arm and could not, to move his leg and also could not, to turn his head and could not. He was surprised but not at all disturbed by this. He understood that this was death, and was not at all disturbed by that either.”

~ Leo Tolstoy ~
"Master and Man"

*************
George Saunders:
from What writers really do when they write

4
What does an artist do, mostly? She tweaks that which she’s already done. There are those moments when we sit before a blank page, but mostly we’re adjusting that which is already there. The writer revises, the painter touches up, the director edits, the musician overdubs. I write, “Jane came into the room and sat down on the blue couch,” read that, wince, cross out “came into the room” and “down” and “blue” (Why does she have to come into the room? Can someone sit UP on a couch? Why do we care if it’s blue?) and the sentence becomes “Jane sat on the couch – ” and suddenly, it’s better (Hemingwayesque, even!), although … why is it meaningful for Jane to sit on a couch? Do we really need that? And soon we have arrived, simply, at “Jane”, which at least doesn’t suck, and has the virtue of brevity.

But why did I make those changes? On what basis?

On the basis that, if it’s better this new way for me, over here, now, it will be better for you, later, over there, when you read it. When I pull on this rope here, you lurch forward over there.

This is a hopeful notion, because it implies that our minds are built on common architecture – that whatever is present in me might also be present in you. “I” might be a 19th-century Russian count, “you” a part-time Walmart clerk in 2017, in Boise, Idaho, but when you start crying at the end of my (Tolstoy’s) story “Master and Man,” you have proved that we have something in common, communicable across language and miles and time, and despite the fact that one of us is dead.

Another reason you’re crying: you’ve just realised that Tolstoy thought well of you – he believed that his own notions about life here on earth would be discernible to you, and would move you.

Tolstoy imagined you generously, you rose to the occasion. [emphasis added]

We often think that the empathetic function in fiction is accomplished via the writer’s relation to his characters, but it’s also accomplished via the writer’s relation to his reader. You make a rarefied place (rarefied in language, in form; perfected in many inarticulable beauties – the way two scenes abut; a certain formal device that self-escalates; the perfect place at which a chapter cuts off); and then welcome the reader in. She can’t believe that you believe in her that much; that you are so confident that the subtle nuances of the place will speak to her; she is flattered. And they do speak to her. This mode of revision, then, is ultimately about imagining that your reader is as humane, bright, witty, experienced and well intentioned as you, and that, to communicate intimately with her, you have to maintain the state, through revision, of generously imagining her. You revise your reader up, in your imagination, with every pass. You keep saying to yourself: “No, she’s smarter than that. Don’t dishonour her with that lazy prose or that easy notion.”

And in revising your reader up, you revise yourself up too.

*************
I'm guessing that when George Saunders envisions the authors of the past "thinking well of us and imagining us generously," he means the same thing as Marilynne Robinson when she says that the best teachers and poets help us "to assume our humanity."

I have long had a certain shelf of books, not organized by alphabet or genre but grouped together by a sense of specialness that I could never define very accurately until I encountered the words of Robinson and Saunders. Now I can see that the unifying element of these titles is the way in which each has helped me over the years "to assume my humanity." Thanks to Saunders for the profound realization that, in one way or another, across time and distance, these authors "have imagined me generously and I have risen to the occasion."

Here is a partial list,
with some obvious overlap to previous lists & posts,
such as the Must Reads & the Not Too Lates & Does Nanny...?:
It seems only fair to begin with
Home and Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

Coming of Age
The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger
The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man - in - the - Moon Marigolds, Paul Zindel

Loose Change, Sara Davidson
How to Save Your Own Life, Erica Jong
Memoirs of an Ex - Prom Queen, Alix Kates Schulman

Last summer (2019) I re-read Davidson, Jong, and Schumann for old time's sake. Wow, did that ever bring back the 1970s! Most interesting, it came to my attention that two passages that I have been ascribing to Erica Jong for the past 40 years actually come straight from Alix Kates Schulman:

"My life looked like a repeating decimal." (122)

Frank: "I'm due at the library now, but I'll be back later. Please excuse me."
Sasha: ". . . he embarrassed me so. Due at the library! -- like an important book." (183)

Cute But Deep
Love, Loss, And What I Wore [and all the rest], Ilene ~ Beckerman
The Tao of Pooh & The Tee of Piglet, Benjamin Hoff
Talk to the Hand, Lynne Truss

Later Coming of Age
It's Called A Breakup Because It's Broken
& He's Just Not That Into You, Greg Behrendt & Liz Tuccillo
Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, Ariel Levy
The Fat Girl's Guide to Life, Wendy Shanker
Girl With Glasses, Marissa Walsh

Fiction & Memoir
84 Charing Cross Road & Q's Legacy, Helene Hanff
The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston
The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
A Walk to the Hills of the Dreamtime, James Vance Marshall
Edwin Mullhouse, Steven Millhauser

Peace or Light?
The Master & Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
The Gospel According to the Son, Norman Mailer
The Greatest Salesman in the World, Og Mandino
God: A Biography, Jack Miles
Another Roadside Attraction & Still Life With Woodpecker, Tom Robbins
Our Lady of the Lost and Found, Diane Schoemperlen
Candide, Voltaire
from Expecting Adam
by Martha Beck
"I did, at long last, realize that it didn't really matter
what anyone else's opinion of my decision might be.
What mattered was that I had made a choice that felt as though,
in the end, it would bring me to the place I needed to go."