The Eternal Question: What Are You Reading? 9 / 2022

Newish year, new thread. What are you reading?

Last week I read Rachel Pastan's In the Field, a Kat recommendation—very nicely played science historical fiction. The protagonist, Kate Croft, based on geneticist Barbara McClintock, is a good character in her own right—prickly, obsessive, impulsive—and the book takes on a lot without being didactic: gender disparities in the scientific community during the first half of the 20th century, what is gained and lost in single-minded dedication to work, the ways that power structures in academia are entangled in personal relationships, and a tantalizing glimpse into the actual science. Not that I understood much of the last, but it's always fun to read bits in what's essentially a different language, just for context. Altogether a very interesting, smooth read, and definitely recommended to anyone who likes this sort of thing.

Now reading Clarice Lispector's The Hour of the Star for my book group and... it's a strange one, though I'm only a couple of pages in and had to put it down because I don't think it's a reading-late-at-night-in-bed kind of book.

The Bastard of Istanbul was wonderful - highly recommend it to you all.

Currently reading:
Slouching Toward Bethlehem by Didion
The Fool of God

!somehow I got unstarred from the last thread, wondered where everyone had gone! hope all is well with you and yours

recent reads
Island of Missing Trees
five thousand and one nights
a strangeness in my mind
the white ship

books Im reading now
spinning silver
chasing spring
The Silence of Scheherazade
I shall not hate

all for various LT themes and RL groups

I am loving Good Evening Mrs Craven the stories are superb. Brief vignettes of home life during war time and the essays in People love Dead Jews are continuing to blow my mind. I am also reading Broken Harbor which is a lot to wade through for a police procedural but I do like Tana French.

cindy, I thought I Shall Not Hate was really powerful.

Im eager to get to it. And I also have the Dara Horn book to read as well. Have you read any of her fiction? She a marvelous writer

The White Ship piques my interest. I'm still amazed Matilda (Maude) hasn't been the subject of a limited series for TV. She's one of history's most fascinating characters.

Also, adding "In the Field" to my 2022 reading list.

I've just started A Net for Small Fishes.

Oh I so agree.

The White Ship starts with the history of norman conquest through the beginning of the war between stephen and matilda and all the events in between with quite a bit of detail I didn't know tho At times rather confusing with all the dukes and followers etc to keep track of. I got shivers down my spine when he writes about the sinking itself. The fight for the crown pretty much covers what we know, but I still found it an intersting account

>8 cindydavid4: That sounds right up my alley. Putting The White Ship on my list.

I am reading four things which I don't recommend. Err, I recommend the books but not how I'm reading them. Each one deserves a full attention span.

The Hour of the Star I am admittedly struggling with this very slim novel but I am intrigued by the attempt to replicate another person's consciousness.

The Ballerinas This was on the 7th day loan shelf at the library and I grabbed it. It made someone's best of list year - it's not quite a thriller and not quite a me too story - it's a mishmash actually but it's ballet and Paris so i'm not complaining much.

People Love Dead Jews Horn is continuing to blow my mind but I think she missed the boat on Varien Fry. I think the fact that he was a closeted gay man was a huge part of who he was.

Chatterton Square I had low expectations of this but it's very engaging and very Howard's End like. Delicious. DG, this is for you!

>10 laurenbufferd: I'm still chewing on The Hour of the Star. It's definitely not like anything I've read in a long time.

For something completely different, I'm reading The Long Ships, which is all Vikings sailing and plundering and fighting and boasting, and it's just so much fun.

>11 lisapeet: I LOVED The Long Ships. Every single wonderful word of it.

OOH, I have that on my NYRB shelf. It just moved closer to the top of the heap.

It is so, so great. When you need a break from literary fiction, but something absolutely fun and rollicking, this is it.

Last Resort: A Novel. It's a pretty provocative little book about authorial ethics and it has a (to me) pleasing mean streak. Good book club talker if you have talkers instead of wine drinkers.

finished more than I thought I would the last few weeks
spinning silver excellent premise, take on Rumplestilskin but got really bogged down in the end.

chasing spring the author takes a road trip across country up through alaska to find spring. Not so much a journey, as a scientific exploration of whats happening to spring with climate change. The fact that he wrote this book in 2006 makes lots of his data obsolete- things of course have gotten much worse in 25 year. Good writing and very sobering

The Silence of Scheherazade about the destruction of Smyrna aftre WWI Excellent read , based on the true events, that had me in tears at the end

I shall not hate Lauren you are right, very powerful book

Ok so needed some breathing room from all the gloom and doom. Now rereading queen of hearts by Wilkie Collins, think its my fav of his. Plus, heads up Pat, Edward Carey has a new book The Swallowed Man absolutely loving it.

just finished queen of hearts by wilkie collins; this time around i actually read all of the stories, some of them quite dire, but they served their purpose. Fun story, excellent writing

I absolutely love E.H. Young and Chatterton Square was lovely. Have you read Miss Mole, Lauren?

now reading Memories of Eden: Jewish Life in Iraq and Wrong end of the telescope I loved Unecessary Woman and this one is just as good.

Not yet, LuAnn. I thought Chatterton Sq was amazing - so frank about marriage, attraction, passive aggression and such a mix of not terribly likable characters. I was fascinated by it.

I'm reading a new bio of Lorraine Hansberry and a goofball mystery Fortune Favors the Dead.

the unnecessary woman by Rabih Alamedding was one of my favorite books from few years back. Happened upon The wrong end of the telescope I knew I had to read this. I was hoping it would be as good and oh my - what a beautiful, powerful and redeeming read that strikes so many chords: the Medittaranian refugee crisis, leaving home behind, transgender, NGOs, volunteer tourism, sibling bonds and the kindness of others, even in this refugee camp. Forgive me for using the back flap comment that speaks for me "cunningly weaving stories of other refugees with her own....a bedazzling tapestry of both tragic and amusing portraits of indomitable spirits facing a humitarian crisis" Its one of those books that at the end you wanted to have more. Highly recommended 5*

I did have a few difficulties with parts of this book, and its not the book, its me. In one chapter a magnificent home filled with birds and song is destroyed by an Israeli missle. Like so many other similar, I felt so angry about it, and remorse, that a place that I lived in and loved continue to do so much harm to so many. I feel guilty; its not my fault, but want to say I am so sorry this happened and continues to happen. And I wish I could do more than send checks

Which brings up the second issue: people who come to help are characterized as idiots, clueless, tactless 'using the problems of others to make themselves feel better'. Its called 'volunteer tourism'. I laughed and moaned at some of the situations, but I wonder if wanting to help in some way is nec a bad thing. I went into teaching because it called to me, i had a passion for it, and I was good at it, and yes it made me feel good to help others. But is it all self serving? Can it be possibly altruistic? That might make for an interesting discussion. But none of this takes away from the book.

I haven’t posted in a while and I have to go back and look up the touchstones. I read The Pumpkin Eater in an NYRB edition which I’ have had forever. It’s very good and I was able to watch the movie very soon afterward. Also read the Clarice Lispector that others have read. it was quite a challenge.

Happy No More F-Month! My spirits are always lifted a bit when it's no longer February.

>22 karenwall: Ah, Clarice. I thought it was such an interesting book about writing, about how much of a life your characters take on, and about the life force in general. I think it's one of those books that you could look for all sorts of things in and find them. It's short and beautifully written, and definitely deserves a reread at some point in my life.

I just finished The Long Ships, which I adored with all my heart. Now I'm reading Maud Newton's upcoming Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation, plus dipping in and out of The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020, which I checked out of the library for one story but it's fun to jump around a bit while I'm there.

Fortune Favors the Dead was fun but in the end, didn't really add up to much. I am very much enjoying the Lorraine Hansberry bio and am reading the new novel by Kali Fajardo-Anstine. I loved her short story collection Sabrina & Corina. The novel is a little over written - every noun has an adjective but it's the kind of multi-generational saga that I like Woman of Light.

just finished Beryl Bainbridge's Winter Garden which was OK....set in Moscow during the Cold War, rather funny and awful all at once. At Lauren's suggestion have just started Good Evening Mrs. Craven: The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter Downes and the first few have been marvelous.

Oh and I recently read Sing Me Who You Are which was my first by Elizabeth Berridge and I just loved the writing. I'd never heard of her until I stumbled on it in a used bookstore. Also read Rachel Joyce's The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fryafter the BBC did its book club podcast on it. Despite a few quibbles I really enjoyed it and found it very sweet. It was nice to read something kind for a change.

Aren't they amazing!!! That Berridge looks up my alley.

I was a bit disappointed in Woman of Light but I'm letting it percolate a bit because I need to write a review and I don't want to react right away. But it felt a bit forced.

I am reading another Tana French - this one at girls boarding school which is a giant YES and another Persephone title Few Eggs and no Oranges which is a war time diary kept by a woman during the London blitz. It's very matter of fact and totally compelling.

I found the Lorraine Hansberry bio to be solid, a bit workmanlike, with not much illumination, except that I imagine that her husband Robert Nemiroff was a right shit and that her family's involvement in slum real estate in Chicago was even more complicated than it appears. I wouldn't have minded a little editorializing on the part of the biographer Charles Shields one bit.

I just finished the most amazing book Damnificados (funny that its subtitled Spectacular Fiction instead of Speculative Fiction because it is both) Its a cross between Steinbecks Cannery Row, and the Milangro Bean war and for those who read it Observatory Mansions. I just cant describe it except to say I started it in the morning and just came up for air. and wish there was a sequel. would like to find more from this author.

BTW do you all know about Fashion Orphans? Apparently one of the authors is MJ Rose! Flash from the past

I was in Portland, OR, last week for the Public Library Association conference, which was excellent—it made me realize how much of a vacuum I've been performing a very public-facing job in, and how much I really do love my job. Plus REALLY good to get out of dodge for a bit... not just New York but my kitchen.

I also read a bunch of stuff. Before Portland I read Maud Newton's Ancestor Trouble, which is this fabulously structured French braid of a book, deftly bringing together many lines of inquiry: stories of her eccentric family, apocryphal and researched; her interest in genealogy; the legacy of white supremacy running down her ancestral lines; epigenetics—the study of how (or whether) environment can alter genes and inherited traits; spirituality; how we relate to our ancestors and what, if anything, we owe them; and the way all those strands come together to form each and every one of us. It’s both cerebral and heartfelt—she’s got wonderful control of language and tone, and can talk about matters of faith and ephemerality without getting mired in new-ageyness. I try to stay away from reviewer-speak but the phrase that comes to mind here is tour de force, so I’m going to stick with that. Fascinating stuff; I’ll be featuring Maud on Bloom in the next couple of weeks.

Now I'm reading for another LJ author panel. First up, Jamie Ford's upcoming The Many Daughters of Afong Moy—nicely done multi-generational historical fiction—weirdly, the second book in a row I read discussing epigenetics and ancestor wellness, which I had never heard of prior to the previous book—a cool convergence. This one was strange and fun, a little bit Cloud Atlas–y, and very entertaining—the story of the generations of descendants of Afong Moy, the (allegedly) first Chinese woman to set foot in the United States in the early19th century, and how her trauma and harsh treatment reverberated down matrilineal lines into an imagined mid-21st. There’s a little magical realism, but it worked—an offbeat concept executed well, and I enjoyed it.

I finished my previous book on the plane to Portland and didn’t have the next one downloaded, so I read a quickie, Karen Russell’s Sleep Donation, a dystopian novella about a global insomnia epidemic, with a hefty dose of medical (and other) ethics. It kept me right up until the end, when it didn’t quite stick the landing… but it was fun going, anyway. Russell’s style is so, so tight, but—especially in a shorter work—it still does it for me.

Now I'm reading Otessa Mosfegh's upcoming Lapvona—dark, dark fable, lots of squicky bits, but entertaining.

Finished a thousand ships which is probably my fav of the recent takes on Homer's classic. Now reading a book on my shelve that has been sitting there a few decades unread at the entrance to the garden of eden whi h I hope to use for the Asian challenge. Interesting so far

Few Eggs and No Oranges is VERRRRRRY long but it's really interesting. More reporting than rhapsodizing - its amazing how life just carries on while the bombs rain down.

The Secret Place was fine but so unnecessarily long - very repetitious, which just makes me annoyed. Where are the editors?

I read Landscape in Sunlight for a book group - very slight and not the level of amusement I was promised. There is a Church fete and a rocky road to romance between two young people and enough annoying neighbors to shake a stick at but it lacked any kind of edge. I don't think I'll be pursuing more Ms Fair.

I do sound grumpy, don't I?

reading city of brass for my sci fi fan group, and hitchikers guide to the galaxyomnibus edition. Read these hundreds of times, great comfort read right now. On the third book which isn't my fav but enjoyable nonetheless

I am still reading the Hodgson - American just joined the war. There's a lot about food and availability. It's quite enjoyable!

I am also reading Patrick Modiano's Pedigree which is horrifying and blessedly short but really puts his fiction into perspective and a new novel by Leyna Krow called Fire Season. I loved her short story collection which was quirky and playful. The novel is about three intersecting lives in 19th century Spokane - all three people are pretending to be something or someone they are not.

my husband Simon which you would love, Lauren. Prewar novel. Also just finished French Braid and am still pondering. Very good Tyler. Reread Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont for today’s book club. It’s still wonderful but quite a different experience at 68 than it was at 38!

All of those are on my list, LuAnn. I am due a reread of the Taylor.

Finished Jocastas Children the story of Oedipus through the eyes of Jocasta and Ismene. Like in A Thousand Ships Haynes does a good job of play with the myths and making everything through the womens eyes. Think her latter book was better but this was a good read(Watched my big sis play Antigone at her hs. I was about 8 and it really stuck with me. Interesting how she is portrayed in this book)

I finished the Hodgson with a little tear. I really felt close to her about 600 pages and 4.5 years of wartime eating and bomb site tourism. All kidding aside though, it was a very informative, interesting read that truly offered the reader a sense of what life was like in the British homefront. Highly recommend if you are into that sort of thing.

I am still reading Pedigree which is a scant 120 pages but the level of neglect is so upsetting, I can't read more than 10 or 15 pages at a time.

Fire Season was nutty but I liked it if only for the way it played around with tropes of the frontier novel - the con man, the grifter, the hooker with a heart of gold.

I am reading The Door for book group and I love it. I also started reading Good Things in England which is strangely riveting. This morning, I read all about toast.

Oh I loved the Door!

I finished up Young Mungo - it's not quite the thunderclap that Shuggie Bain was, though it's still a fantastic book. About half of it is quite similar to Shuggie (alcoholic mother, queer child, though in this case the child is older) and the other half is about what can only be called the camping trip from hell. It's a lumpy mix, but lumpy batter still makes a delicious cake.

I needed something lighter after that, so I'm whizzing through Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, which I've had forever but never tackled.

As predicted, Lapvona was dark, dark, darkly philosophical and funny—a tale of a medieval fiefdom whose residents are locked in endless, often pointless, competition for the love of a god they fear, hate, love, and misunderstand. There's a craven lord, a misshapen shepherd's boy, his angry father who only loves his lambs, a blind midwife/sorceress who still nurses the town's men, and a bunch of other wonderfully blackhearted folks, all of them venal and abject as the day is long. Not recommended for those easily squicked out by what you'd expect to find in a poor, dirty village in the Middle Ages (violence, abuse, nonconsensual sex, tyranny, dishonesty, murder, and cannibalism come to mind). I liked it.

Also read Anthony Marra's upcoming Mercury Pictures Presents. Sprawling, cleverly wordy—sometimes a little too self-consciously clever, though you do get into the swing of it after a point, and then it's fun. The book treks from Italy to Hollywood during the U.S.'s leadup and then involvement in WWII. There's a lot going on, but Marra does a good job moving the story along. There's a lot of good insider baseball (not literally—there's no baseball) that keeps it fantastic but believable, including—but not limited to—a hyperrealistic model of six blocks of 1940s Berlin built in the Utah desert to test incendiary devices.

I started a reread of Magda Szabó's The Door for my book group, didn't finish, but got far enough in to remember why I loved this book—and to see how it improves and deepens on a second read, so I'm going to keep going with it in and around work reading.

Speaking of work reading, I'm now on Monique Roffey's The Mermaid of Black Conch, which is... a mermaid story, but definitely nowhere near Disneyfied, so we shall see.

just finished memories: from Moscow to the Black Sea Teffis description of her flight and those around her remind us of what is happening in the Ukraine and Syria. It was a page turner - read it in two days and realized when I finised I had to read more by her.

oh my, pass the insulin. our modern fiction book group is reading a book by beth duke The title is It all comes back to you: a book club recommendation. The plot looks way over twee for me, but i might have read it except for the sub title. Shes making sure her book sells, by people who arent asking who is recommending

Think Ill have other plans for that evening. or do you guys think Im being too hard on a new writer?

That would be a hard pass for me Cindy. I'd be having emergency gall bladder surgery that evening. Teffi, on the other hand, has been on my radar for ever.

Run, don't walk to The Door. It was superb.

I am reading one of the few Viragos I didn't read back in the day. Winter Sonata. Edwards was a kind of hanger-on to the Bloomsbury crowd, though she came from Wales and was interested in class politics and the labor movement. Winter Sonata was her one novel. What I like about it is that it ranges across three classes, a bit like Howard's End, but it really doesn't have much momentum. Waiting for something to happen.

Oh Lauren I think you'd love Teffi!

Is anyone reading anything??

Nothing ever happened in Winter Sonata and as much as I usually like that kind of thing, this one left me definitely underwhelmed.

I am still reading Good Things in England Did you know there are not usually plums in plum pudding?

I had to review Adam Langers' book which is set in 1980s suburban Chicago where the high school drama club is performing The Diary of Anne Frank. That's pretty much every sweet spot I have The novel a bit all over the place but I loved it.

Now I'm reading Mercy Street which is very good and upsettingly timely.

And you?

finished sea of tranquility which I liked, and am now reading sovietistan an outstanding travelogue and history of the five former ussr regions after independence. Reading it for the asian challenge; I was expecting a slog but its anything but. Its been my only read for days, . She weaving in the culture, the land and history of each one and has very frank interviews with a lot of the people, Talks a lot about of famine and forced migration that happened in the 50s, effect on the populations and as well as the nuclear testing, tyrants, and bride kidnapping.
Only slow part was the section on the 'great game' between russia and britian, that still has revelence for whats happening today. Almost done, but I am sure this is going to be one of m y top non fiction reads this year

I finished The Mermaid of Black Conch, which I liked more than I expected to. I mean... mermaids are cool, or the idea of them, but I'm never sure how much I'm going to love reading about that kind of magical realism. And they're such a freighted symbol at this point, so I'm always a bit wary of how they're going to be handled as a story element. But this one was good, and grew on me as it went—a bit dark, but not overly weighty with anything the mermaid stood for. She was herself, and a good character without being overly humanized. There's also nice friendship between her and a young deaf boy, very gentle and refreshing. It's a pretty straightforward tale of xenophobia and wonder, but good in the telling.

Also read Ian McEwan's Lessons, which is coming out in September. A good social novel about one boy's/man's life with the politics and events of 20th-century Europe as a major overlay—Suez Canal, Bay of Pigs, fall of the Wall, Covid, etc. Very well done and just jam packed full of everything, including some major side-eye at big literary writers. I liked it, though it covered so much ground that it ran fast and slow.

I just now signed off of the author panel I read the last five books for, and everyone was great. Maybe especially nice to talk to McEwan, whom I've been reading all my life, but really they were all on message and interesting. So, done with that for another year, but I always really love doing those events, and this was a particularly engaging bunch of novels.

I also did my first movie review in oh, ages—I think my last one was for Karen during Readerville days. This was a little film that just premiered here in NYC, Hello, Bookstore. There is literally nothing about it not to like, unless you just hate small-scale films built around books and quirky bookstore proprietors. For everyone else, go see it. It's refreshingly uncynical, and very very bookish.

Now I'm reading A Hard Place to Leave: Stories from a Restless Life, by Marcia DeSanctis, for a Bloom interview.

And after that I plan to read something just for the hell of it, no work or final products attached.

Ian McEwan - color me starstruck.

>49 laurenbufferd: I know, I was a little bit too. He was lovely.

Although hmm, I see one of my Day of Dialog 2019 panelists hasn't done too shabbily either. I think she's the only one of my panelists who ever hugged me afterward.

I found Good Things in England to be a delightful read, full of fun little facts and flummeries, frumenties and parkins. At first I was disappointed that the book didn't have an introduction like Persephone's usually do but White's personality came out so strongly that I felt I quite knew her by the end. And who knows, someday I might make my own elderflower wine or chutney or bake something even though there aren't really measurements. Color me charmed.

I thought Mercy Street was a little over ambitious. Multiple characters on both sides of the abortion debate - WHY is this even a debate, I don't know!!!!! - and its interesting how it all ties together but it just don't quite work. But the way she writes about urban and rural poverty is A+++.

I LOVED Cyclorama which hit all my sweet spots - Chicago in the 1980s, drama kids in high school and The Diary of Anne Frank. I am a fan of Adam Langer since Crossing California.

Reading Everything Happens for a Reason about what happens when a Div School professor whose specialty is the prosperity gospel gets stage 3 colon cancer in her 30s. It's very good and surprisingly funny.

I've been reading Portraits and Observations by Truman Capote. I've read almost everything in it before, but it's interesting to read them all one right after another. One of my most worst-kept secrets is that I'm not big on the Capote novels (other than The Grass Harp, which is perfect), but his real strength - like his nemesis Vidal - is in his essays. Having a sharp observational ability isn't the rarest thing on earth, but being able to nail down a person in just a line or two - where no additional detail is required - really is quite something.

"If a visitor is invited to tea, the Baroness serves a very high one: sherry before, afterward a jamboree of toast and varied marmalades, cold pâtés, grilled livers, orange-flavored crâpes. But the hostess cannot partake, she is unwell, she eats nothing, nothing at all, oh, perhaps an oyster, one strawberry, a glass of champagne. Instead, she talks; and like most artists, certainly all old beauties, she is sufficiently self-centered to enjoy herself as conversational subject."

It's funny when he's writing about someone he clearly admires - like Isak Dinesen in the above quotation, say. They undo him completely and he manages to make something prickly and borderline savage sound like the highest compliment.

This book also contains The Muses are Heard, his account of a "Porgy and Bess" tour of Russia. It remains his single best bit of writing, I think.

I'm also reading the John Waters novel, Liarmouth. It's exactly what you expect (you will know within three pages if it is for you or not) but I am surprised at how some of it feels sort of worn-out - there's a talking penis in it, for example, and a verrrry long-running thing in it is a group of trampoline-enthusiasts who bounce everywhere (even in their van or when they're standing in line at a convenience store) and call non-bouncers "statics," and it's a joke that goes absolutely nowhere, and it goes nowhere over and over and over and over.

Still, I have laughed a lot because however it all turns out, it's fun to envision John Waters sitting at home typing out a scene featuring a tickle-fetishist with a thing for Tickle Me Elmo portraits. I mean...he's a full grown man.

I am reading another Tana French mystery The Trespasser and enjoying it greatly and Her Country: How the Women of Country Music Became the success they Were Never Supposed to Be which is a terrible title but a really interesting book.

On my vacation/conference I read Priestdaddy which kind of snuck up on me - I don't like such self-consciously humorous memoirs, I always feel like I'm being forced to laugh but at some point, Lockwood totally won me over. I wish she hadn't leaned in to the whimsey so hard but parts of the book were honestly so beautiful and so deep, I was just filled with gratitude at her skills as a writer. Go figure.

I also read Latchkey Ladies which is a all but forgotten novelist Marjorie Grant whose one claim to fame seems to be that she was a friend of Rose Macaulay's. It's about a group of women in London during WWI who are all working as the men are at war. It cuts kind of a wide swathe at first but the story gradually focuses on one character who quits her clerical job to become a teacher and also starts a relationship with a married man. There are some unexpected elements, such as a same -sex relationship and an unwanted pregnancy, and as workmanlike as the writing is, I was quite invested.

Reading the dictionary of lost words and enjoying it very much

>55 laurenbufferd: Handheld Press is putting out a lot of really interesting things. Marjorie Grant was new to me but I'll have to explore.

I think you'd like. My book group that I don't really like read it and we had a great discussion. I think the novel is very worth reading - lots of taboo subjects that she manages to address without saying anything too overtly.

now reading red earth and pouring rain and the way of wanderlust I think I can thank Lisa for the Don George intro.

Ohhh, I loooooove that Vikram Chandra book, even with the typing monkey in it, which would normally be an automatic no for me. His later Sacred Games is an absolute whopper (almost a thousand pages) one of the best "thrillers" I've ever read, even though it isn't really that at all. It was also turned into a spectacularly detailed two-season Netflix series - in Hindi! - that met with a mystifyingly muted response in America. Maybe it was the Hindi, I dunno. But it makes The Sopranos look like Heidi.

I loved Sacred Games and I can still say motherfucker in Urdu.

I am reading The Group and it is EVERYTHING.

>61 laurenbufferd: I loved Sacred Games and I can still say motherfucker in Urdu.

This is the best thing I've read all week!

Hello! Right now I'm reading four books: How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu, La gravité de l'amour by Catherine Chalier, La banalità del bene by Enrico Deaglio, and Fuori dal silenzio by Various Authors

Hi Reading Pal - looks like you are multilingual. How many languages can you read in?

>64 laurenbufferd: My mother tongue is Italian, but I also read in English and French and I'm learning Hebrew and Dutch. Gave up on German for a while

I read Double Fudge and The Wizard Of Oz. They are my favourite books.

I love the Fudge books. So fun.

I really enjoyed Her Country: How the Women of Country Music Became the Success they were Never Supposed to be. I thought this was really interesting, especially because I live in Nashville and am interested in gender, race and music. And though I listen to very little contemporary country, I thought Moss did a splendid job connecting the careers of Maren Morris, Kasey Musgraves, and Mickey Guyten to current industry issues. Whiteness and systemic racism and heteronormativity flourish when they are allowed to grow unimpeded and that's precisely what's happened in Nashville. It was great to have a mainstream book with a mainstream, readable critique of the country status quo. I won't be buying any contemporary country any time soon but I may try to listen a bit more.

I also read The Marriage Portrait. It's beautiful but even Maggie O'Farrell can't make me want to read a book about a husband murdering his wife.

I am currently reading Angela Davis and a very stodgy mystery called Mr Pottermack's Oversight

And y'all?

I also read A Pin to see the Peepshow which I loved not least because it contains a brilliant description of a back alley abortion the same week that the supreme court took away the federal right to a safe and legal abortion.

This is based on a real crime - a love triangle gone wrong but it's Jesse's approach that has me marveling because it's so thoughtful - as much about class, wealth, gender and sexuality and the crime itself is almost tucked in at the end. And of course, I loved reading about Julia's experience in the fashion business just after WWI. I'm going to look for more of her work.

My beach vacation book this year was Marrying the Ketchups, which I had high hopes for going in because I think restaurant novels are few and far between, but it's a little bit of a Trojan horse - it's really kind of just a book about family and lovelife problems. Oh, but maybe all books are those things? I dunno, I felt a little tricked. It might have suffered because I was watching Hulu's "The Bear" at the same time, which is *MOST DEFINITELY* a restaurant show and gets a lot of that tension and anxiety and just right.

It's set in Oak Park, which lends it some versimilitude; it does seem occasionally very specific in its Oak Parkness, but since I don't live there, it's detail wasted on me.

I'm being harder on it than I really should be; it's a pretty good book (and occasionally quite funny) - just not what I wanted. Which is almost exactly what my mother says when she eats at a restaurant. "Just not what I wanted."

I finished listening to No One is Talking about This and feel like I didn't hear it because my mind kept wandering. Perhaps it was the reader, whose tone didn't catch me. I'm reading The Book of Evidence by John Banville (my third Banville in the past few months). Some fine writing there.

Laurene, I'm interested in that - I just read Priestdaddy which I kind of fell in love with despite itself.

I am very reluctant to say goodbye to all this but I think if I am the only person posting, I might allow it to die a dignified death.

That said, I read The Caretakers which I thought was going to be a creepy nanny story and instead was a very thoughtful novel about au pairs in Paris - mothers, daughters, caregivers. There's a bit too much backstory but it was very well written and interesting.

I read some nifty short stories Difficult People which I am going to pass on to Lisa P because we are having a RL face-to-face this weekend - boo-ya! - and Heat and Light which is amazing. I don't know how she does it - Haigh - all that plot and it seems so effortless.

Wait wait, I'm still here. Been super busy, and I've got a backlog of stuff.

I read Mina Seçkin's The Four Humors was, on the surface, one of those tales of feckless introspective 20-somethings that's not quite my thing, but I liked this one—there's a bit more going on than just that. The book follows Sibel, a Turkish American 20-year-old premed student (sort of), in Turkey for a summer with her boyfriend to ostensibly help out her grandmother, who's in the early stages of Parkinson's disease.
There's a lot of family drama in addition to her own, which I think makes it interesting. It's about matriarchy more than anything else—Sibel, her grandmother, mother, and sister—and the most important male character is Sibel's recently deceased father, whose death doesn't leave so much of an absence in her life as it leaves a lot of questions: family secrets, inheritance (personality-wise, not stuff), and how she should be in the world. All of which looks like it's going to be too much for her, that she's too diffuse and neurasthenic to grapple with them. But in the end she rallies, which is a good payoff for having stuck with her.

Also Claudia Piñeiro's Elena Knows was short and dark. Well done, but so bleak... this is the second novel in a row I've read with an elderly woman character who has Parkinson's disease, but in this one it's more of a sentence, a punishment. There are a few big topics in play here, including bodily autonomy (abortion, illness) and emotional autonomy, the perils of withholding, what makes a bad mother. It was interesting to read this up against a reread of Tillie Olsen's "I Stand Here Ironing," thinking about all the different ways to write that enormous subject of motherhood. There's also a mystery, but not really of the "aha" variety in the end.

Also Mary McCarthy's The Group for my Zoom book club. Rather, it was a reread—I think I first read it when I was in my early 20s, but so much of what makes it a really meaty novel just went right over my head. Which makes me marvel at how truly oblivious I must have been at that age, despite having been raised in a reasonably aware liberal household and living in NYC. I just wasn't a political animal, I guess, because the big themes she shifts around with her eight or so main characters—class and sexism, mainly, with a little anti-Semitism and racism thrown in—did not weigh in my mind at the time, as I remember.

This time around I found it all fascinating and horrifying, as well as an entertaining read, a slow burn of amusing, annoying, satirical, and then appalling—kind of a rear-view-mirror dystopia, published the year I was born and all the more unsettling for that intersection into my own time line. Especially given the recent Supreme Court rollback of Roe... it's not as far back in the rear-view mirror as I'd like it to be, these days.
Anyway, too much going on in the book (Vassar grads in the 1930s moving through young adulthood, trials both of the time and timeless, and some really awful men) to describe, but it's worth a read for sure. And it made for a very good discussion.

Battles in the Desert by José Emilio Pacheco is a novella in translation—a tale of first, adolescent love, misplaced (a friend's mother), but the repercussions are harsh and dissonant beyond that. It's set in Mexico, just after WWII, and the story packs a lot in—class and money, family dynamics, corrupt politics. I suppose there's a lot of allegory buried in it, but it's also a good, wrenching little fable at face value.

Dan Baum's Nine Lives: Mystery, Magic, Death, and Life in New Orleans is an oral history of of nine New Orleans residents, bracketed by hurricanes Betsy, in 1965, and Katrina, in 2005—a solidly entertaining, (Big) easy read. Baum was reporting on Katrina for the New Yorker when he met and interviewed these folks, so it's a fairly eclectic bunch, from a rich white uptown guy to the city coroner to the wife of Mardi Gras Indian royalty to a transgender bar owner, and a few more. But he seems faithful to the voices, and patches together enough from other sources to keep it hopping. A good slice of time and place.

Now I'm reading Dan Chaon's newest, Sleepwalk, which sucked me in from page one (as his books generally do).

And oooh I have a good Lauren B pick coming too. Not to mention a good Lauren B date!

I'm so jealous of your meeting!

I'm currently reading A Pin to See the Peepshow as recommended here and elsewhere by Lauren B so while I may mostly lurk your presence is noted and appreciated!

>72 laurenbufferd: I am very reluctant to say goodbye to all this but I think if I am the only person posting, I might allow it to die a dignified death.

Oh, I'd be very sad if this happened. I haven't been posting much, but I check in several times a week to see what everyone's reading and to keep up on members' personal news.

This quiet period seems to happen every summer, and posts always pick up as the autumn turns temps cooler.

I'll keep going if y'all do.

Yep, I saw Lisa and Kat too which was unexpected and really fun!

I also read a few things -

Though I appreciated the shout out to the Brontes and Shirley Jackson I thought Tangerine was pretty lame. It's terribly under-edited for one - twice people walk until their feet crack and bleed. It's barely a gothic novel and honestly, using Tangiers and the liberation of Morocco as a backdrop to your story about two mentally ill white women in 2022 made me a little queasy. Also a predatory lesbian?? Epic fail.

I was also floored by Heat & Light. I really think Haigh might be a genius. I can't figure out how she does it but she's written a thoughtful, well conceived social issue novel with a vast cast of characters that is well paced and flows beautifully. This one is about fracking on land already devastated by coal mining.

My editor gave me the new Kamila Shamsie because whoever was reviewing it got sick and couldn't finish. I love Shamsie so I'm sorry for the other reviewer but still happy to get dibs.

Still reading Angela Davis and marveling about her smartness.

Oy, The Book of Goose. Beyond the beyond, as my mother would say. .

I was okay with most of Tangerine - it really leans haaaard into Highsmith territory, which a lot of books try to do, and with that comes a lot of the built-in problem stuff. It would have been more interesting had she tried it all on as a Highsmith *corrective* instead (predatory lesbian is basically the ink in Highsmith's pen).

But if you didn't like Tangerine, you should avoid her next book - Palace of the Drowned - though. But, Venice.

I'll probably avoid it, dg, if only for the writing which I found a bit painful.

Just read the new Kamila Shamsie about two childhood friends who take different paths and find themselves in political opposition. I thought it was good, not great. There's something about her style that it is so claggy - but I like her plots and I also like that she writes about upper class Pakistanis.

Y'all, I am reading my first Dawn Powell and the voice in my head is girl, what took you so long???
A Time to be Born. It's the kind of funny that you makes you snort and it throws major major shade on Clair Booth Luce.

Powell denied for years that she'd written a novel about CBL...until she found an old entry in her own diary suggesting that she do that very thing. Prompting her to write "Who can I believe? Me or myself?”

At the beginning of the summer, I put all the mysteries I wanted to read on reserve at the library and they've all come due at once, every last bright candy stripey-patterned cover of 'em.

I'm not wild about the new look of book jackets right now.

so far, I've read Little Nothings which was perfect summer fluff - wealth disparity, summer in Crete, bad behavior and an totally unreliable narrator. I thought the ending fell a little flat but I enjoyed the plotting and Blood Sugar which totally puzzled me - first person narrator accused of killing her husband which she didn't do but she was responsible for three other deaths. She's painted very sympathetically and I truly couldn't figure out if I was being conned or if I was supposed to think that she was a person of good intent even though she was a murderer and showed very little remorse, you know, like a psychopath.

I also read a book about women folklorists which was dry as a bone.

Currently reading a very good book of linked short stories Light Skin Gone to Waste which is coming out from University of Georgia press.

Sleepwalk was fun, kind of a shaggy-dog dark-but-good-natured noir. Also read a new collection of linked short stories by a Bloom author, Tom McNeely, called Pictures of the Shark, which was well done but sad—all the ways the small hurts accumulate in a life. And then a great, prickly book of short stories that Lauren gave me when we were in Boston, Difficult People by Catriona Wright. The stories were all about exactly what the title advertises, but not in a gimmicky way—we all know someone who's at least a little bit like every one of Wright's difficult folks. They push you more in the direction of compassion than derision, and encourage a little thought about the calibration of your own social-emotional gyroscope. Good stuff.

Now reading Hotbed: Bohemian Greenwich Village and the Secret Club that Sparked Modern Feminism, because why wouldn't I read a book like that?

Oh, I want to so bad, Lisa!

I thought you'd like the Wright short stories. I thought they were great- the right length and just the right tone.

>84 laurenbufferd: I know—I'm not doing so well on my "no library books for a while" idea. I just checked and that one was available, so as they used to say on RV, "click!" And yeah, the Wright was a good call for me. It's all about her tone, that dispassionate voice that leaves all this space the reader to have their own fairly complex thoughts about these difficult people. That was so well done.

I finished up another Martin Walker Bruno book; they all have the same kind of name, so something something, Last Something that Did Something. I always think they're going to be mysteries, but they're not really, they're what? Procedurals, I guess? Anyway, that little tiny French village rivals Cabot Cove when it comes to the murder rate. Also, it is clearly the epicenter of all terrorist plots.

ok Im here! somehow destarred this thread but Im back! Been reading lots of books in translation for the Asian Challenge including the island of missing trees, A sadness in my mind Orahn Pamuk, the silence of Scheherazade, the wrong end of the telescope, by the sea,Day of honey, my father's notebook,the days last more than a thousand years ,red earth and pouring rain,the monkey king and the convenience store worker

Also got hooked on Teffi, the russian journalist who emigrated to Paris during the revolution, and natalie haynes work on women in greek mythology esp a thousand ships, erika fatland books on travel through russian and china

Zorrie a book that reminds me of marilyn robinson, when women were dragonsperfect book to read right now, and dictionary of lost words all three are perfect readerville books!

yes it is good to be retired!

>80 laurenbufferd: omg Deeg turned me on to Powell back in readerville, read all of her work, as well as her bio by Tim Page. I liked her NYC books best, but appreciated her books about Ohio. Time to be Born is probably my fav

Good to see you, cindy.

Just read The Wild Hunt which takes place on a Scottish island over run by crows just after WWII. It's a bit underbaked and overstuffed with a dollop of ye olde gaelic-whatever but I ended up kinda liking where it went. More psychological than actual horror although there's definitely a The Birds element as well.

In my attempt to read my Persephone books (in order of course because I am giant nerd) I've been read Nicholas Mosley's biography of Julian Grenfell. A bit of a headscratcher for a number of reasons, including why republish this but about 100 pages in, it's really grabbed me. Grenfell came from a posh family and died in WWI and Mosely uses his family as an example of why England was so hellbent to go to war and ideas about patriotism, sacrifice and though he doesn'
t call it this, toxic masculinity. The book seems a bit dated in the conclusions Mosley draws - is it really all the mother's fault? might Grenfell have been neurodivergent? but I am finding myself fascinated nonetheless. Another book I'd never have read had the dove gray covers not called to me.
Light Skin Gone to Waste is really good. I can't get it to link but its a University of Georgia book that Roxanne Gay has been promoting. Linked short stories about an African American family that moves to suburban NY in the early 1960s. The husband is a philanderer, the mother seems bipolar and the daughter - the only kid of color in her neighborhood and her school) suffers as much from their negligence as from the hundreds of microaggressions lobbed her way. It's almost too painful too read but it isn't pity porn. The 70s touches - tab, the Stillman diet, the hustle, Barry Manilow - are just right. Everybody here should read it.

Finished Joanna Scutts's Hotbed: Bohemian Greenwich Village and the Secret Club that Sparked Modern Feminism, which was a really interesting overview of women's (and others') social movements in the 1910s and '20s. Lots of information about the issues in play at the time woven together skillfully—labor rights, civil rights, access to birth control, pacifism—all under the umbrella of women's suffrage, and the Greenwich Village Heterodoxy club, which brought a range of (mostly white, well off) women together to debate and advocate. Scutts makes a point of acknowledging the conflicts and areas where class and race constrained their activism to their particular lanes—particularly, but not limited, to—the gaps between white and Black women's suffrage. There's a lot to be learned here even if you know your history of the period, and plenty that has resonance in today's political climate. Not a quick read, but very rewarding, and I enjoyed getting some background on the women I've only known as names in my reading.

Now reading Ali Smith's Companion Piece, which sucked me in right away with that spiky narrative voice.

I'm getting that Joanna Scutt book for myself for my birthday.

Well heck, I'll tell you what I've been reading -
I am halfway through It's Hard to Be Hip Over Thirty which for some reason Persephone reissued. My mom had this and a copy sat on the table in the sun parlor for years so I read it often, not really getting it but loving all the details. Oh, I get it now - some of the poems still feel super relevant even though the details may be dated. Viorst wrote one of the greatest kids books of all time, in my opinion, about how some days are just crap but you need to get up again the next day and do it all over again. I am enjoying myself. The poems have a wonderful rhythm.

I read a super novel by Rose McCauley What Not - a slim dystopian novel, very arch but also quite effective and went back to reread The Towers of Trebizond which was even better than I remembered it. It has a very funny first line and is quite humorous, but the humor masks a real sadness and the very basic question of how doing wrong can feel so good.

I also reread The Stone Angel. As the great Kat Warren used to say. Boy Howdy. What a fantastic book.

I have fallen deeply into The Latecomer and can barely put it down.

Finished the great passage for the Asian Challenge Japan; About a bookish socially challenged young man that helps develop a new dictionary. There is a love interest and I absolutely love the love letter he writes in the end

now reading we never talk about my brother for sept rtt Harvest moon theme, crying in H mart and my brilliant life for the sept AC Korea. also the private lives of trees, and paul mccartney the life just for my own self.

After a very long spell not being able to read in any format, I've started listening to audio books. My current book is The Princess Spy, a nonfiction story of an American woman in WWII. I want to like it, but the author included a lot of narrative with long conversations and people's physical reactions to the comments. I prefer nonfiction that doesn't imagine details to tell the story. Also, mybe there's not enough of the woman's story to fill a book, because I'm learning a lot more about Spanish bullfighting than I would have expected.

Hi Lyddie! Too bad about the style—The Princess Spy looked promising.

Ali Smith's Companion Piece was terrific—super cerebral and full of puzzles and threads to tease out—the kind of book you can think about for a while after finishing. The plot is minimal: a 50-60ish painter who lives alone is contacted by an old grad school acquaintance, Martina, about an experience she had while in a stressful situation, hearing voices that said “Curfew or Curlew. You choose.” Martina remembers the narrator, aptly named Sandy Gray, as being a clever interpreter—in grad school, of an e.e. cummings poem—and thinks she can help. The narrative then spirals out of linear form—there’s an intersecting story line of a 16th-century Black Death–era young woman metalworker; Sandy’s father, whose hospital stay for a heart attack is complicated by Covid restrictions; and Martina’s two very weird 20-something daughters, who muscle their way into Sandy’s house and life. It’s surreal and yet makes sense if you read carefully. As the middle of the three chapters makes clear, everything in the book is some kind of binary (there is a nonbinary character, one of twins—a bit of wordplay in itself): there are the plague/Covid eras, the aforementioned twins, and the contrast of artistry/craftsmanship vs. the superficiality of Gen-Z mores and speech. If this is Smith’s Covid-era “kids-these-days” indulgence it’s a fun one, though I found the craziness of the two daughters a bit more heavy-handed than the rest of her storyline. To balance that out is a surprisingly sweet and very apropos through line of kindness, how being decent to people and forging connection is problematic, yes, but also necessary, and that being kind to animals is an unambiguous good and will always serve you well in life.

There’s lots going on in this novel that rewards a thoughtful read. Now I’m really motivated to start her seasonal quartet—I have Autumn through Spring—even though I’ve heard they were better read closer to the time they were written. But if they’re as much fun as this one I can live with that.

Also read Curtis LeBlanc's Sunsetter, which comes out next spring—a small town tale of teenagers, drugs, carnies, and corrupt cops. Solid if unexceptional literary noir with a good county fair/rodeo setting that ramps up the menace. No spoilers, but it's super dark.

And, like Lauren, I read Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel, which was wonderful. She managed to get a fantastically nuanced portrait of a prickly, complex woman and her long life all through very close first-person narrative, which is not easy. Totally engrossing book, although please remind me not to buy any more used mass market paperbacks—such tiny print! I'm getting old.

Now I'm reading Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah Chain Gang All-Stars, which is absolutely harrowing—a not-too-distant future dystopia where the death penalty system feeds right into a cult-of-personality death sports industry. Hard to take because it's believable, and also what feels like a very modern writing style takes some getting used to, but super compelling.

>95 lisapeet: that Ali Smith quartet has been one of my "I want to get to that" projects for ages. Katy Hessel has a great interview with her about the different artists whose work is the spine of each book:

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/ali-smith-on-barbara-hepworth-pauline-boty...

or

https://soundcloud.com/thegreatwomenartists/ali-smith-on-barbara-hepworth-paulin...

Just started Autumn this morning and just about finished (it is good to be retired) really enjoying it;will have to get Winter soon as well

I seem to lack the Ali Smith gene - I just can't get into her at all.

I read Margaret Lawrence's The Jest of God which was just a perfect novel. Margaret Atwood in the afterward compares it to an egg and I concur - simple, elegant, beautifully shaped, nothing extraneous. Like The Stone Angel, it's very interior, you are in Rachel's head the whole time. It's also extremely frank and in some places, funny.

I really enjoyed The Latecomer - it's a very NYC novel with some college antics at Cornell, bad behavior, in vitro triplets, unhappy families, Cy Twombly, and a pretty awesome reveal. There is one character that seems like they might be a magical negro which ALWAYS irks me but I'm overlooking it. It's the kind of novel you just fall into. I also liked the new Emma Straub which is both clever and thought provoking and unlike most time travel novels, did not give me a headache.

I am reading The Deerslayer and On The Noodle Road.

Absolustely loved Autumn! Eager to read the others (lauren I tried to read her years ago and didn't get the hype I do now. but I so understand not liking a book everyone does. got several of those!)

Now reading my brilliant life a really lovely sad book that reminds me of Marilyn Robinson. Im bringing it to the hospital today, hope to finish before surgery (have a hiatal hernia that is far into the chest and Ive been putting this off for a while. Until now. be in the hospital a few days. thinking i should bring another book with me but david can always bring me another. Oh and they now have visitor hours! so my friends can come and we can party, right?

I'd heard that The Deerslayer was Cooper's worst book and I think that may be right. I'm on page 150 and nothing has happened which usually isn't an issue for me but the sentences are soooo convoluted. I've put it to the side.

On the Noodle Road was really fun. It's a little navel-gazing-y but it's also food, food, food. Cindy, you might like it since it's basically eating and travel.

I am interviewing Nora McInerny next week and reading her book Bad Vibes Only which is the most entertaining thing I've ever read about cancer, widowhood, depression and addiction. She's a podcaster and TED talker so I doubt I'll be doing more than being decorative, but at the same time, doing my homework as to be ready. Honestly, though, shes very smart and has an engaging way of talking about some pretty tough stuff.

I read the the first Dalziel/Pascoe mystery The Clubbable Woman because it's been on my shelf forever and it's eyeball level when I'm doing a downward dog in zoom yoga class so I see it 3x a week. There was kind of a creepy misogynist thread but I still enjoyed it.

I slowly read Galore by Michael Crummey, which was (for me) immersive. I found myself vocalizing -- gasps and grunts and sighs -- as I hadn't done since reading Robert Gipe's novel Trampoline. I'm not usually a fan of magical realism or supernatural creatures in novels, but Crummey pulled me deep into the world he created here. I love a spare, cold coastal setting, though, so that may have gone a long way toward pulling me in.

Our missing hearts is another amazing work by celest ng.

Now reading book of illusions for some reason I had trouble finding this book then just happened upon it in a used bookstore. Anything having to do with silent pictures has my attention

>101 LaureneRS: Oh I looooved Galore. Also one of the best (very brief) sex scenes I've read.

Chain Gang All-Stars was just gutting, not least because I completely bought it. It's a huge indictment of the penal system, and I 100% applaud Adjei-Brenyah's fury and inventiveness. Not easy going, though.

Also for this upcoming panel, I read Eleanor Catton's Birnam Wood, which I liked up to the last two pages, and I can't go there without major spoilers so I'll just leave it here.

For the same panel, Ling Ling Huang's Natural Beauty, another dystopia—this one a takedown of the beauty industry. Body horror isn't my thing, brrrr... I'm getting squeamish in my old age.

Reading the last of the panel authors now, Brandon Taylor's The Late Americans (doesn't even have a touchstone here, its pub date is so far out in the future). A lot of grad school age tormented young queer guys, and whatever else I may end up thinking of that I do think his writing is so fine.

I'm also dipping into a bunch of short stories for work, and will be going back to quite a few of them. Good short fiction collections being published this year!

I loved Galore and I really loved The Innocents which is an extraordinary book about incest in a very unexpected and even beautiful and heartbreaking way. I don't usually recommend it to people because the subject matter is really challenging and I respect that it isn't for everyone. But i loved it.

I am reading Nights of the Living Rez and wishing I liked it more. There's something really flat about the writing and it even feels a bit misery porn-y. Has anyone read this?

>104 laurenbufferd: I haven't, but I've got a galley on my virtual shelf. I still want to read it, even with the misery porn rating.

>100 laurenbufferd: Oh that will go along with my read of crying in H mart think Ill check that out.

I'm reading (listening to) The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. The title character argues with the devil about the meaning of freedom, and while he has a point, I'd pass.

Now reading terry pratchett: a life with footnotes and enjoying it quite a bit

I've kept this under wraps until all the treatment stuff got settled on, but my mom is dealing with a pretty serious bout of lung cancer. Things are underway and so far, so good, but it's still scary and weird, not least because we're together more than we have been at any point in the past twenty-five years.

The upside of that (I won't even mention the downside; you all have or have had moms, you know) is that we're talking a lot about books again, like we used to. Her side of it is mostly about how much she's making on eBay selling all her first edition Harry Crews novels, and my side of it is telling her what to buy to put on her kindle for attention bursts when she's in the chemo chair and then I read them (or in most cases, reread them) so we can talk about them.

She read (and I reread) Less and I was surprised she liked it - she's not famous for being a fan of comic novels, or really appreciating any humor other than her own, honestly, so that was interesting. She's reading much faster than me now, though - she's ahead of me with Less is Lost, but I'll finish it up by the time they're dousing her again and I've decided to just gaslight her - "we talked about that last week, Mom. That's worrisome! I'll go talk to Josh about upping your meds, my goodness!"

And then on my own time, I'm reading Steve Stern's The Village Idiot. I still say he's the best unknown writer we have (he took the crown from TC Boyle a few books ago). I think Stern came along too late - he's a Bellow and Garcia Marquez and (especially) Malamud sort of writer and all of that is just woefully out of fashion right now. But it's a humdinger of a novel, which opens with Soutine and Modigliani in Paris in 1917, the latter in a bathtub pulled by ducks up the Seine. It only gets more heavenly.

Oh DG.

I am finally reading O Caledonia and Shy and I'm pretty much as happy as reading could ever make me.

Lisa, I ended up really not liking Nights of the Living Rez so please call me when you've read it because I feel like a right asshole disliking it as much as I do.

I also read The Island which is a weird choice for someone who likes mysteries that take place in cozy villages with Belgian detectives . It's a crazy violent thriller set in rural Australia but the main character is such a bad ass. Totally implausible but hopefully about to be made into a TV series on HBO.

{{{{DG}}}}

Finished terry pratchett life with footnotes the first part, talking about his childhood through writing his first book was excellent as was the last section after his diagnosis until his very untimely death, was even more (and required several kleenex to get through.) In between was lots of talk about books, selling book, times when Pratchett behaved very badly, various anectdotes from various people, things that the author of the bio was involved in, and some parts of Pratchetts personality which led me to rather dislike him somewhat (tho understood why he did the things he did). Very little surprisingly about the actual writing of books, some here and there that were interesting. But more than the awards and accolades and such, thats what I wanted to know the most. so... I started out with 5 stars went down to three. still not sure. I remember meeting him, and loving his work. Maybe I should just start rereading Discworld. That might help

then I happened upon this review "I had to take a star off my rating, because the main character dies. Surely a mistake. With the familiarity of deep friendship, and obvious respect, Rob Wilkins shares with us Sir Terry's irascible views, easily kindled curiosity, and unfailing satisfaction with tinkering. the biography is told with a deft hand, never hiding the fact that this is *not* being written as an unbiased account of a literary figure. It is instead a loving reminiscence of a life lived large.

Mind how you go."

>109 DG_Strong: As I read DG's sad news, it struck me how many life changes our small group has been through together (some of us since TT at Salon).

A gentle suggestion, deeg: keep a journal.

I've been reading some good historical fiction The End of Drum-Time about the indigenous Sami (Lapp) community in Finland and the encroaching settler culture and Lutheran church. Lots about reindeer. Loved it. Now reading the new Emma Donoghue Haven about the early Christian church in Ireland and the monastery on Skellig Michael. The writing is really beautiful.

What are you reading??

Ah DG, I'm sorry to hear. Glad you and your mom can do some book talk... having a project helps give a frame to those long days of waiting, I think. I've got The Village Idiot on the virtual pile—looking forward to it even more after your comments.

I liked The Late Americans a lot, even as it felt slightly diffuse—a lot of characters coming and going, and perhaps my quibble with that is that Taylor is really good at making you care about them, so if they drift out of the frame and don't return it's a bit of a letdown. But then again that's how life is, and Taylor's so adept at capturing those quirks and ambiguities... he's a terrific writer, and I need to go check out his backlist.

I also read Silvia Moreno-Garcia's The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, which was lightweight but fun horror with enough of a historical overlay to nudge it toward being more serious, and two short story collections, Chelsea Bieker's Heartbroke—very good collection about women making bad choices, which goes from funny with an edge to sad with an edge—and Leigh Newman's debut collection Nobody Gets Out Alive—sisters, daughters, wives, lone wolves, and a few anxious husbands navigating complicated relationships and the gravitational pull of Alaska (Newman’s home state), where everyone is running to or from something. Great collection, full of compassionate, totally muscular writing.

Also a gorgeous big old coffee table sized art book, Duke Riley: Tides and Transgressions, which I reviewed for LJ. Some friends and I saw his fabulous exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum and all lusted after the catalog, which was a little too rich for all of our bloods, but then I checked with our art editor and nobody had reviewed it yet, and since the show is up until next April they were fine with doing it four months after the pub date. So Rizzoli sent me a copy and it was nicer than I'd even hoped—always a good outcome when you beg for a book, though not always a given—so it got a glowing review. Hey, I work for my perks. And I absolutely encourage anyone who's coming to NYC between now and April to catch the show, because it's a zinger.

Now I'm reading Kelly Link's Magic for Beginners because I've heard a few authors sing its praises in the past few weeks. That kind of weird magical realism isn't my automatic go-to, but I'm in the mood.

I just read Lavender House and it was super fun. All the noir tropes, set in San Francisco in the 1950s, with a detective kicked out of the SFPD for being gay. It has so many great details including a rat imbedded in a bar of soap. LOVE.

I read a few more Daziel/Pascoe mysteries. They haven't aged particularly well, they have a kind of musty misogyny but they are very well written and I'm committed.

I'm loving Lisa's recommend Nobody Gets Out Alive. The voice is so strong, the details are aces, and it's such a darkly funny book, I'm in awe. I'm 3 stories in.

The stories in Nobody Gets Out Alive were fantastic - funny, poignant, shocking. A few of the stories are linked, some stand alone, all about young girls, mothers, girlfriends, wives and widows in Alaska. Newman's voice is so strong and her use of metaphor so creative, the words just leap of the page. I loved these and "AlCan: An Oral History' blew my mind.

I just finished my third Dalziel/Pascoe mystery Ruling Passions - 3rd time is the charm. My favorite of the ones I've read so far - it's like Hill really committed to the characters and handles his leads with more empathy and less sarcasm. I really appreciated the background on both detectives.

I'm reading Young Man with a Horn and it's super.

Nobody Gets Out Alive Two BB rave reviews? That's a Christmas gift to me.

It's so good Pat! I just gave it to a friend for Christmas.

Reading or read

Young Man With a Horn Stupid good. Everyone should read this. Some of the best writing about music ever.

Therese Raquin ennui, money, lust. The scene in the morgue is terrifying.

I Have Some Questions for You - Rebecca Makkai's newest. A silent scream of frustration and disgust disguised as a whodunnit. Worked for me.

Currently reading the W. S. Merwin translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Night which is lovely and kind of seasonal since it's set between Christmas and New Years and a mystery set in Colorado with a Muslim cop Blackwater Falls and I hope to be reading Miss Mole by Christmas.

I wish you all a beautiful holiday and lots of reading in 2023. Come tell us about it here.

I jussssst put the Makkai in my cart to pre-order, even though I wasn't a big Great Believers fan.

just did a reread of Lolly Willowes and still love it Dipping in and out of Atwoods latest burning questions. Probably will start haven today

I did like great believers, may take a look at this new one.

hope everyone has a relaxing holiday and a a great reading new year!

I really liked Haven.

And speaking of Emma Donoghue, I just watched the film adaptation of The Wonder with Florence Pugh. It was very good.

>123 laurenbufferd: did it help explain the ending better?

I thought it was pretty clear.

First book of 2023 was Tom Stoppard's play Leopoldstadt which was really moving. Am incredible distillation of 6 decades in the life of an Austrian family with a devastating final scene. I'm hoping to see it in NYC in March.

I'm about half way through Shrines of Gaiety. Not sure what it's going to all add up to but it's awfully swell reading.

I started reading Consequences and it's mighty sad and angry. What an indictment of the Victorian upper class family.

Haven will be my first 5 star book of the year

It's good, isn't it, cindy?

>123 laurenbufferd: I agree, Lauren. I thought it was very well done.

I started Nobody Gets Out Alive but I'm only 3 stories in, so I'll hold off opining until I'm done.

I'm also rereading The Warlord Chronicles. I read the series is being adapted for cable (forgot which channel), and if it's half as good as the books I'll be happy.

oops, missed this, Yes very well done Monastary/Convent stories are iffy, but this is one of the best Ive read.