This Week in Study Hall: Sad & Luminous

This year, I have a study hall in the library.  It's an arrangement I enjoy, because no matter what time of day I am here, the light in the library is amazing.  Plus: books.  Lots and lots of books.  In addition to all the books I might read, there are also books whose titles amuse me.  This week's fascinating title:  Sad & Luminous Days. 

Great title for a book.....though the book subject itself disappoints.  It's about Cuba after the Missile Crisis.  The title is a reference to a speech Castro made after that crisis, as Cubans were coming to terms with their new life as a superpower chess piece and.....blah, blah, blah.  Sad & Luminous Days sounds like a poem about heartbreak and loss.  Maybe some dark work of British Victorian fiction.  Maybe the alternate title for Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking.  I'm just not sold on this title for a book about such an oft-analyzed (dare I say overdone?) subject.  In fact, I'm a little sad about it.  I am not luminous, however, and rather doubt that I ever have been.