What's just out or coming soon that's got you excited?

I never know until someone tells me.

Dava Sobel's The Glass Universe

http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780670016952

There was a review in last week's Times Book Review about a history of immigration to the U.S.-that sounds really interesting.

The Glass Universe looks good, Nicki.

It seems as if mystery writer Margaret Millar's books are being reissued. For the longest time you couldn't find them. I remember several people here raving about her work.

I am reading Sana Krasikov's The Patriots which I thought was going to be a big squishy feel-good historical novel about a family of Jewish immigrants and instead it's a bitterly funny and piercing story about an American woman who moves to Russia in the 1930s (I know - it's a big mistake), her son who grows up in part in a Soviet orphanage and her grandson who is trying his best to get into the Russian oil business as it privatizes. It's so unexpected - I am enjoying it much more than I should. It's so unromantic but it's not all misery porn either. Definitely a distinct voice.

I've been looking forward to that one too. She used to write for The New Leader sometimes when I was there and she was really sharp.

>6 laurenbufferd: that sounds fanstatic. Bitter and funny is right up my alley these days.

Lisa, I am so glad to hear that. I just bought her short stories. This is really an exciting read so far - sharp is the word. there is something very muscular about her prose style too and it's really a unique view of a time period we think we know really well.

I read a Krasikov story in The New Yorker years ago and it blew me away. Her collection is definitely on my wish list. I had no idea she has a novel out. Sounds great.

>2 southernbooklady: Oh that looks splendid! I didn't care for her last one very much (don't remember finishing it) but this looks like it has great possibilities

>2 southernbooklady: Oh I am excited about that one. I didn't care for her last book that much, but this one is so up my alley. Dec 6, not too long to wait!

So this showed up in my email, from George Gibson who has been an editor at Bloomsbury but is moving to become Executive Editor at Grove Atlantic. So this is a kind of "good bye" recommendation from him:

I’d like to sing out about one of them: Bill Hayes’ remarkable INSOMNIAC CITY, which Bloomsbury will publish on February 14th. Bill was Oliver Sacks’ partner for the last eight years of Sacks’ life, a relationship they both treasured. Bill is also a brilliant writer, whose columns about the ordinary people he has met in New York City have often graced the pages of the New York Times. In addition to being a beautiful piece of prose, INSOMNIAC CITY is, therefore, two things: a love letter to Oliver Sacks and an ode to the city for which they had huge affection.

Due out in February.

http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781620404935

>13 southernbooklady: " In addition to being a beautiful piece of prose, INSOMNIAC CITY is, therefore, two things: a love letter to Oliver Sacks and an ode to the city for which they had huge affection."

JFC, the only responses I seem to have to anything these days is either to sob or rage.

So here's a piece of great news. Tim Gautreaux has a new story collection coming out!

Signals: New and Selected Stories

http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780451493040

Ooooh: No Sleep: NYC Nightlife Flyers 1988-1999.

Oooooo indeed

I'm also keeping my eye peeled for this:

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren Contribute to a Progressive-Themed Essay Collection

Melville House announced plans to publish an essay collection entitled What We Do Now: Standing Up For Your Values in Trump’s America. The book will feature manifestos by liberal-minded political figures, famous journalists, and the heads of progressive organizations.

I'm really looking forward toThe Woman in Cabin Ten. It's been hyped as the next girl.......mystery.

>18 lisapeet: I definitely want that, as the news gets more dire each day.

>18 lisapeet: I dunno. I'm thinking all my radical feminist and lefty books from the sixities and seventies are what I should be going back to now. Fuck Trump and everything he represents.

I didn't think Woman in Cabin 10 was much of a mystery -- and I do like a locked-room kind of story, which it sort of is, set on a boat. The only interesting character is...well....you'll see. But it plays out kind of obviously simply because all the other characters are completely indistinguishable from one another.

Ok,I thought no one believes her that someone was in the cabin next to hers. Have you read Otto Penzler's big book of locked room mysteries? It is such an unusual genre.

Right, that's the setup, but YOU never doubt her, so that part isn't really part of the mystery. It's just annoying.

I have that Penzler omnibus but haven't cracked it yet.

That sounds like The Lady Vanishes.

I've never heard the term "locked room mystery."

I also thought The Woman in Cabin Ten sounds like The Lady Vanishes.
Locked-room mysteries are very strange but very very clever. I think the most famous is AA Milne's The
Red House. Definitely worth checking out.They are about a crime where it appears no one has entered the
room because the door was locked-so how did the person get killed?

"It seems as if mystery writer Margaret Millar's books are being reissued. For the longest time you couldn't find them. I remember several people here raving about her work."

Me me me, Alan. I have all her old paperbacks here but they're falling apart. Thanks for letting me know they're being reissued.

Millar's books are being reissued?? woo hoo! I really liked Beast in View which has been collected in a LOA 2-volume set - Women Crime Writers which overall is very good.

Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is practically the definition of a locked room mystery.

That was also the first time I read a book with an unreliable narrator.

Locked room mysteries are not my favorite aspect of the genre, but when they are done well, you have to admire them. One that always stuck with me was a Nevada Barr story, Firestorm. That was a "locked room" that was out of doors, in the middle of a national park!

Thanks for the heads up on Millar - I just bought a compilation of her mysteries (Collected Millar: The Master at her Zenith) as a Christmas gift for my mother.

I'm always buying people books I really want to read, but can't find at the library. So I never get to read them. It's also a bit risky because, duh, I haven't read them. Does this happen to anyone else?

(Obviously the Millar is another example of this.)

I had a long crush on those Nevada Barr Anna Pigeon mysteries for a while, largely because of my tendency to over-romanticize park rangers. They're all kind of terrible books, but I loved the idea of them. And I had a long talk with a NPS ranger once and he told me that he solves a lot fewer mysteries and cleans a lot more toilets than you might think.

That's museum work for you!

I think the Margaret Millar has also been releaed in ebook format. I know that many of the old Ed Mcbain's
are also available as eboks as are the Earle Stanley Gardners. I never heard of Margaret Millar before this site
and I'm really looking forward to reading her. Currently I'm trying to collect all of the Hard Case Crime in the order they were published. There is one Lawrence block duo that is insanely expensive-I think the cheapest
copy I found was 350.00. And if you are a fan of the Akashic Noir series they will sell you the whole lot. I inquired and because I don't live in the U.S. it would cost me 700.00. When you break down the price that is
actually very reasonable,but I just can't put out that much money at one point.

Speaking of which-does anyone have an absolute favourite Akashic noir book?

There are so many of them! Billions! I keep expecting them to release one about my neighborhood: Washington Acres Noir! Hughes Road Noir!

Earlier I was mentioning that the Margaret Millar books are being reissued. Well I just read in a crime year end wrap-up that her entire collected works are in the process of being published.
The first two volumes are out and the last five will be out by next summer. Sounds like we're in for a major reintroduction to her work which is great because I had never heard of her before
Book Balloon.

Sunday is my indie bookstore's annual 25% off everything sale. These two books are high on my list

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/26/books/review/glass-universe-dava-sobel-hidden-...

New ANdrew Sean Greer in July: Less

Oh, yes, please! I love him and that one sounds pretty good. I think Max Tivoli was the last time I got all swoony over a book. It was the perfect book to read at the beginning of a big relationship, when you're giddy and falling in love. Sigh.

I thought Max Tivoli and Story of a Marriage were a great one-two punch. The latter is one of my alltime favorite books.

Oh I loved Tivoli (and wished they had made a movie from that book instead of Benjamin Button. Greer had such a better story) Less looks like it could be just as good.

I dunno about Tivoli vs Benjamin Button. Though Fitzgerald is just impossible to adapt, I think. But the movie version also took....let's just say liberties.

American War: A novel
by Omar El Akkad
Link: http://a.co/aa7qMw9

"An audacious and powerful debut novel: a second American Civil War, a devastating plague, and one family caught deep in the middle—a story that asks what might happen if America were to turn its most devastating policies and deadly weapons upon itself."

Ohhh, plague!

The Gringo Champion by Aura Xilonen. It's a Europa edition and you know what that means.

A Book of American Martyrs: A Novel by Joyce Carol Oates
Link: http://a.co/bcjgpb3

I read about that Oates, it sounds really good.

Yes. I saw that Oates today. It does sound good. It's 752 pages.

And she still has three other books coming out in 2017!

The only Joyce I've read is "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been." I have The Accursed, Black Dahlia & White Rose, A Bloodsmoor Romance, and The Rescuer on my Kindle and We Were the Mulvaneys on my shelf. Which should I start with?

I haven't read it but I believe people were nuts about We Were the Mulvaney's....it was an oprah book (in this case not necessarily a bad thing) and I think it won some big prize. A Bloodsmoor Romance
I believe is one of her boddice ripper, mock historical novels...a very particular genre. I'm pretty sure people think We Were the Mulvaney's and Blonde-her book about Marilyn Munro are two of her best.Personally I am crazy about her short stories...she continues to blow me away with her short fiction..which she produces endlessly. I've also heard a more recent novel Carthage is very very good,
although Phil Klay who I really respect and who wrote about Afghanistan in his only collection of stories, said he really respects Oates but that her take on the military was embarassing.

"We Are..." is a good place to start. "Bloodsmoor" is very gothic historical. I also recommend "Blackwater" (unusually short for JCO) and "The Falls."

Thanks Kat and Alan. Much appreciated.

All They Will Call You
by Tim Z. Hernandez
Link: http://a.co/dZTQWAh

I really really really want a book called Huck Out West but I really really really wish it wasn't a Robert Coover book. So will someone else take that same idea and write it, please?

Getting an ARC of The Invention of Angela Carter and am really looking forward to reading that.

Lynn, I got that for Christmas and can't wait to read it.

Amiable with Big Teeth by Claude McKay

Thank you, DG.

It is almost LAUGHABLE how Kat-like it is! Communists in Harlem!

Don't you mean to say Communists in heaven?!

Yo, Kat > Get Well Soon: History's Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them.

Oh, clicky, thanky.

Meanwhile:

Ill Will: A Novel by Dan Chaon
Link: http://a.co/cedB8MC

Yeah, I want that one too. I'm a fan.

>65 Kat.Warren: Kat, Ill Will arrived through cyberspace. It's up when I finish Lincoln in the Bardo.

My (now not so) secret addiction are the Eve Dallas In Death novels. I have listened to all of them a few times. I am jonesing for the new one coming up, ironically called Secrets in Death by JD Robb.

I've been meaning to read those for eons. I have the first one or two, at least. I'm actually reading my first P.D. James right now (Death in Holy Orders) and enjoying it. A lot of big series I've never read.

I reread all the Pd James\Dalgleish books in order a few years ago and really enjoyed them. She was a real misanthrope though. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

>70 laurenbufferd: It's one of the things I liked best about her!

Howard Jacobson: Pussy. Very subtle cover.

"Pussy is the story of Prince Fracassus, heir presumptive to the Duchy of Origen, famed for its golden-gated skyscrapers and casinos, who passes his boyhood watching reality shows on TV, imagining himself to be the Roman Emperor Nero, and fantasizing about hookers. He is idle, boastful, thin-skinned and egotistic; has no manners, no curiosity, no knowledge, no idea and no words in which to express them. Could he, in that case, be the very leader to make the country great again?"

I have yet to get through a book by him.

heh. I thought of you instantly when I saw who wrote it.

A guy I follow on GoodReads just read and reviewed an advance copy of Laurent Binet's newest -- I'm looking forward to that. Although, I just realized, right now, that Laurent is a man's name and the writer is a man not a woman.

Does LibraryThing allow outside links? Do they use the traditional html code? What am I doing wrong?

The 7th Function of Language

>74 mkunruh: They allow basic html code, but not in square brackets, a la BB 1.0 or 2.0. Use standard html tagging.

Huh. I used standard html tagging -- I wonder what the issue is?

Thanks, btw, for the answer and for "tagging" which sounds significantly better and more accurate than "traditional."

I am ridiiiiculously excited about the new Arundhati Roy book -- FINALLY a new novel from her. And everyone is saying "in the style of Dickens and Tolstoy" (though I personally think those are two different styles) so that makes me even crazier for it, even though I think a lot of giant India-based novels get described that way. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. I don't even care if it's disappointing in that way that it can sometimes be when you wait a long time for a new book and it turns out to be a gigantic opus that's kind of terrible -- hi, Carolyn Chute and Merry Men.

Anyway: don't bother me after Tuesday!

There's a great Guardian piece about her - I think it's linked on my FB page.

>77 DG_Strong: On my list too. It's been what, 20 years?

DG, You got me really wanting to read Roy's first book. Went to Half Price Books, but their only copy was in bad shape. Then I thought, DUH, Library, dummy! So I was halfway to driving out to pick it up in the next town. And then I started thinking, 1. Do I already have this book somewhere in this house? (I don't think so, but you never know.) and 2. I don't need it right now, I'm not going to read it right now anyway, and 3. DG and I have pretty different taste in books, so what if I hate it? So...I dunno, it was really loved all around, I think, so I might just read it after I finish my book club read. :)

After devouring The Power of the Dog and The Cartel, I'm looking forward to Don Winslow's new one, The Force, which comes out later this month.

Julie, I don't think you'll hate it. It's a lovely book. I'm not the only person who liked it.

Thanks to the nice Coffee House Press publicist at Book Expo who, when I saw their copy of Stephen Florida, which I've been dying to get my paws (haha) on, and I asked if they had an extra copy, and she said no, and we chatted and I took a couple of other galleys and was about to go on my merry way, said, "Oh, you can take that one." This is why hitting BEA in its last two hours as a trade show is a good thing—everyone's packing up and wants to get rid of as much as they can (the blogger-centric BookCon was happening over the weekend, but a lot of smaller presses bypass it or have a cache of books specifically for bloggers).

I don't know if it's the cover or the hype or the fact that I haven't been able to get a galley or what, but I've been really been lusting after this one. I saw a woman reading an ARC on the subway last month and wanted to knock her down and steal it.

I also want to read the new Roy. Haven't seen a galley of it either.

Also there's a book that's getting very low-level but excellent buzz that I want to get hold of called The City Always Wins. There's been a tattered copy sitting on our book review editor's desk for a month and it's a good thing I'm not a thief. Or even a borrower. But it tempts me daily.

Jennifer Eagan has a new novel coming out in October -- Manhattan Beach -- I'm excited for that. Lisa, I'm not sure I'm interested in reading Stephen Florida but the cover is very attractive.

>82 DG_Strong: I know lots of people liked it, DG! But your descriptions when you really like something are so intriguing, I want to like everything you like. And I adore you, of course, but I just have to recognize that you're not my reading twin (I think that's April, though there are a few others with some similarities), no matter how much I want to grow up to be like you! ;)

LuAnn is my reading twin! Though maybe I'm a triplet.

Actually, you are my reading twin..... ;) That said, I have never read Roy but have just put the new one on hold at the library due entirely to your raves.

Oh, I meant April is my reading twin. But she gets a lot more read than I do. We just want and like the same stuff a lot.

In the coming months, A Suitable Girl will finally be upon us. This is a couple of months old, but here's a very good piece about the experience of reading A Suitable Boy the first time.

I think A Suitable Boy is a flawed book, but without hesitation I can say that it was the most thrilling long-term reading experience of my life. Shifts were called in sick to, dinners canceled, wrists collapsed from book-holding fatigue. I started reading it and eleven days later, I finished and nothing else was done in between. Needless to say, I am verrrry excited about the sequel.

Oh boy, oh boy:

Provenance
by Ann Leckie
Link: http://a.co/edPY2UD

The Party by Elizabeth Day

tons of great new Canadian stuff coming up as we approach the Giller long list-Kathleen Winter,
Wayne Johnston, Michael Redhill, Anne Michaels. Barbara Gowdy already came out with a new book three months ago which I hope to start tonight and Heather O'Neill who has the highest star
in our firmament and who I predict will win the Giller this fall had a new book out late in the winter which was received with raves. A first novel by Kevin Hardcastle is also forthcoming and it's supposed to be gritty and wonderful too. I look forward to reading all of them.

If you're a fan of Wayne Johnston's Colony of Lost Dreams series-the new book is I believe the third in the series-a recurring female character appears in this novel.

We Wear the Mask comes out in October and people, I think it's well worth reading. 15 very personal essays about all the different ways and reasons why people pass. Some of the essays are astonishing and they all made me stop and think. I really think this is a good collection.

94> Oh that sounds really good. I'll keep an eye out.

>94 laurenbufferd: you are hard on a girl's book budget, Lauren.

>92 alans: Keep me posted, please. I like to keep up with Canadian lit.

Me too.

The long wait will be worth it but I want it now:

The Shepherd's Hut by Tim Winton, April 2018

https://www.penguin.com.au/news/1724-new-novel-from-tim-winton

Did anyone read his little geo-memoir that came out in April, Island Home? It seemed to go super under-the-radar. I've got a galley, but haven't read it yet... those kinds of things can be either really great or really self-indulgent, and much as I like Winton I'm not 100% convinced that this will be the one and not the other. But I guess I'd have to read it to find out, wouldn't I?

What She Ate!

I'm stoked for Mr. Lear: A Life of Art and Nonsense. Out stateside in April 2018 from Macmillan... I do hope a finish copy shows up at work because at $45 it ain't showing up in my cart.

For those of you who are fans of Canadian lit-the great Heather O"Neill has a new masterpiece out and I'm betting she's going to win the Giller this year. I've read all of O'Neill's books (one is a collection of short fiction), they all take place in a very gritty, depressed part of Montreal and the latest-The Lonely Hearts Hotel is just sensational. Her imagination is hugely expansive in this work-it is heart-breaking and full of whimsy and very very sad things-prostitutes, evil Nuns, terrible poverty, women abused-it just goes on and on. O'neill has an amazing imagination and a fantastic empathy for
the downtrodden and this work just blew me away.
Other new books coming out in the next few weeks that are receiving a lot of early praise is a novel called Brother and a book by Kevin Hardcastle whose collection of short stories was very highly praised-I don't recall the title but it's expected to be one of the biggest books of the fall. I'm looking forward to reading all of them plus more-new Kathleen Winter, new Wayne Johnston, new Eden
Robinson which I just got off amazon.ca for 4.99 on the kindle. Lots of great reading ahead.

Thanks alan. All of those went on my very very long list!

Lauren, What She Ate has been my bedside book for a couple of weeks. What does it say about me that I like the Eva Braun chapter best?

Alan, have you read Michael Crummey? Wayne Johnston's book The Custodian of Paradise takes place in Newfoundland, which reminds me of Crummey. I haven't read the Johnston.

And oddly enough, speaking of the under-the-radar Winton Island Home I mentioned in #101, apparently it's a really pretty illustrated book:

How Our Books Are Made: Illustrating Island Home. Sometimes galleys are great, but sometimes they're soooo frustrating.

I started to read Crummy's Sweetland which everyone is crazy about and I found it very annonying so I gave up. But he is a very highly regarded writer and I will want to check his work out at some point down the road.

A Legacy of Spies: A Novel
by John le Carré
Link: http://a.co/1lKCLpG

>109 alans: Try Galore by Crummey. It's the only one of his I've read, but I liked it. I started Sweetland, but just didn't get very far into it, my own fault, not the book's.

Have you read any Johnston April? Colony of Unrequited Dreams is well worth reading.

Thanks for the list Alan. I'm looking forward to reading the new Robinson, and I'm intrigued by Dr. Edith Vane and the Hares of Crawley Hall.

Miriam, I've had Colony of Unrequited Dreams on my bookshelf since it came out in paperback. I really need to get to it!

The Ninth Hour: A Novel
by Alice McDermott
Link: http://a.co/3zkW9QC

The Women's Hour: The Last Furious Fight to Win the Vote
by Elaine Weiss

https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780525429722

The nail-biting climax of one of the greatest political victories in American history: the down and dirty campaign to get the last state to ratify the 19th amendment, granting women the right to vote.

Nashville, August 1920. Thirty-five states have ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, twelve have rejected or refused to vote, and one last state is needed. It all comes down to Tennessee, the moment of truth for the suffragists, after a seven-decade crusade. The opposing forces include politicians with careers at stake, liquor companies, railroad magnates, and a lot of racists who don't want black women voting. And then there are the "Antis"--women who oppose their own enfranchisement, fearing suffrage will bring about the moral collapse of the nation. They all converge in a boiling hot summer for a vicious face-off replete with dirty tricks, betrayals and bribes, bigotry, Jack Daniel's, and the Bible.

Following a handful of remarkable women who led their respective forces into battle, along with appearances by Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Frederick Douglass, and Eleanor Roosevelt, The Woman's Hour is an inspiring story of activists winning their own freedom in one of the last campaigns forged in the shadow of the Civil War, and the beginning of the great twentieth-century battles for civil rights.

Manhattan Beach: A Novel
by Jennifer Egan
Link: http://a.co/1G2B3WC

>116 Kat.Warren: I just got it from the library tonight and was surprised that no one had snagged it.

Logical Family: A Memoir - Armistead Maupin -- I wonder if he'll have the nerve to include all the Rock Hudson pool parties

Going Into Town: A Love Letter to New York - Roz Chast

Oh I am so getting that Chast book, and probably a copy for my sis as well!

re: Manhattan Beach - woot! woot! I forgot it was coming out today. That means it will be on my Kindle when I get home.

This Is How It Begins: A Novel
by Joan Dempsey
Link: http://a.co/8SDZulw

I'm thinking of spending some of the $34.04 credit I just got from Amazon as the result of some sort of class action suit against Apple (which I know nothing about, but, hey, I'll take it) on Grant by Ron Chernow.

But next up is: Paris in the Present Tense by Mark Helprin.

Damn, Pat! I only got a little over $4. Probably because I still refuse to buy any Kindle books over $9.99.

Smith’s Autumn was one of my favorites this year, so looking forward to Winter: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/oct/27/winter-by-ali-smith-review-second-...

The Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God's Holy Warriors
by Dan Jones
Link: http://a.co/7UpJdCl

Click

I’d love to read the Jan Wenner bio..one day.

February:

A Long Way from Home
by Peter Carey
Link: http://a.co/6NO7aPn

wrong thread, sorry

December

Vikings Series six.

Ice: 50th Anniversary Edition (Penguin Classics)
by Anna Kavan et al.
Link: http://a.co/d5VoEHV

I just followed the link, and "Ice" sounds very interesting, Kat. I confess I've never heard of this book or its author, so thanks.

It's on my kindle, Pat, but I haven't read it yet. Looks tasty.

Meanwhile, I'm waiting for this one:

Murder in the Manuscript Room: A 42nd Street Library Mystery (The 42nd Street Library Mysteries)
by Con Lehane
Link: http://a.co/i3mpbkE

Also:

Paris in the Present Tense: A Novel
by Mark Helprin
Link: http://a.co/04sdL59

The Last Ballad: A Novel
by Wiley Cash
Link: http://a.co/fhkhCVx

The House of Broken Angels
by Luis Alberto Urrea
Link: http://a.co/hxZKCu2

March 6

I always have to look ahead-next falls Bass is being guest-edited by Roxane Gay,mystery is Louise Penny and essays will be guest edited by Hilton ALS.

Did you get a chance to read this year's BASS yet, Alan?

A Long Way from Home: A novel
by Peter Carey
Link: http://a.co/f2IVzqE

I just tried to pre-order that for the second time, so obviously I'm excited about it too.

Miriam!!!

I started the latest edition of the BASS and enjoyed what I read so far, but when I got to the Lauren Groff I just got stuck and haven't returned. I do intend to read the entire collection sometime down the road. I find it interesting that when you look at the names submitted so many of them are now not the typical WASP, anglo-saxon names like a few years ago. The literary scene
has changed incredibly over the past few years-I would say even perhaps the last three or four years. The Adichie-the first story was very good-she's always wonderful-but it reminded me so much of the Athol Furgard play-Master Harold and the Boys. I wondered if she was familiar with that work because the ending is very similar. But I love the series and it's unquestionably one of the highlights of any given year.
Now I really can't wait for The Story Prize long list-another major event for me.

So far the reviews for Carey's new novel are quite positive.

To Throw Away Unopened

If an arc shows up in anybody's mailbox, and they do not want it, SEND IT TO ME

If it shows up in my mailbox I'm reading it first. And then sending it to you.

Ooooo. Great title, too.

It was written on an envelope Albertine found amongst her mother's things after she passed away.

Not 'til June, sigh:

The Melody: A Novel
by Jim Crace
Link: http://a.co/5uX6tGX

2018 Literary Calendar according to The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/06/2018-year-in-books

Oh goody. a Bill Clinton/James Patterson collaboration. I can hardly wait.

A new Jim Croce is something to look forward to!

Hmm, did one of you lovelies send me an arc of the Viv Albertine book? Cause it just showed up with no note or nothin'. Many thanks if you did and if you didn't, what an awesome mystery!

You know anything coming from me is going to have a letter or card attached, so nope. Lucky dog, you.

This is 'specially for alans.

The Most Anticipated LGBT Books of 2018. Some good things on this list.

http://bandofthebes.typepad.com/bandofthebes/2018/01/most-anticipated-lgbt-books...

Thanks Nancy, really interested in the list.

thanks Nancy, this is such a wonderful list . I've said this before-the Edgars lists all titles submitted and I think they're doing their readers an enormous service-just in the area of true crime I find out about many titles that I wouldn't have known about. I have no idea why the Lambda Book Awards doesn't do the same thing. All of the titles are submitted and then whittled down in nominations, why
can't they just tell us what is submitted so we get the entire scope of everything that is published or submitted for the previous year. It would serve book publishers and readers so well.

It is a good list. I really like the trend of upcoming books lists, especially when they have an indie sensibility. Now that catalogs are online and really accessible to everyone and the publishers aren’t the gatekeepers of all this info, it’s good for everyone. I enjoy those lists as much as year-end best-of lists.

Wow wow wow. I have a little thing for bearded ladies and hairy children and that book looks both gorgeous and fascinating. I have a feeling I'm going to be out $40 very soon:

An Artist Repatriates the Body of Julia Pastrana, an Indigenous Mexican Woman Exhibited as a “Freak”

A new book chronicles how artist Laura Anderson Barbata led the repatriation and burial of Julia Pastrana, a 19th-century indigenous Mexican woman exhibited in life and death for her excessive hair.

Got me an ARC of the Viv Albertine in return for an LJ review. One hand scratches the back of the other, as my old boss used to say.

In June:

The Shepherd's Hut: A Novel
by Tim Winton
Link: http://a.co/91qJgUq

The rumor mill has Vikram Seth's A Suitable Girl coming sometime in 2018 also, though we've heard it before.

The Friend: A Novel
by Sigrid Nunez
Link: http://a.co/4Ku6elP

I am a Nunez fan; clued into her by Katharine Weber. Love her novels which are not wildly fab so much as beautifully observed so as to set down the reader gently in the center of a story worth telling.

Read also her:

For Rouenna: A Novel
by Sigrid Nunez
Link: http://a.co/6XQ8XFV

The Last of Her Kind: A Novel
by Sigrid Nunez
Link: http://a.co/dzalrvf

Salvation City
by Sigrid Nunez
Link: http://a.co/gQpzSel

A Feather on the Breath of God: A Novel
by Sigrid Nunez
Link: http://a.co/gmHJaop

Mitz: The Marmoset of Bloomsbury
by Sigrid Nuñez
Link: http://a.co/eNnUCNg

Asymmetry: A Novel
by Lisa Halliday
Link: http://a.co/cuY4iLS

Oh, that one looks interesting. Not at NYPL yet. I have the Nunez, though, and I'm stoked for that. Can't beat a good literary dog story.

Boy howdy, Lisa.

I'm reading the Nunez now. It' was slow going and I couldn't quite get a bead on it. But I laughed @ p. 122 and things are better now.

>103 lisapeet: Well, no finish copy of Mr. Lear: A Life of Art and Nonsense at work yet, but a galley showed up and I said I'd review it, so now I have 600 pages read in the next three weeks. But 600 pages with lots of little drawings and limericks, so I'm guessing that's not going to be a big problem.

Lucky! I begged my bookpage editor to give me a copy if it showed up in the offices. It's not the kind of thing we review so I'm not hopeful.

did you read the Nunez yet?

>167 laurenbufferd: I got lucky because I saw it on the incoming book cart and said something to one of the Reviews editors along the lines of that I would totally review it if asked. She obviously passed that information along to the assigning editor because it showed up on my desk the next day. I do like the will-work-for-food aesthetic of getting the new books I want by asking to review them (as opposed to just asking, which I'm allowed to do but kind of hate doing... it just feels greedy).

Haven't read the Nunez. It's on the virtual pile, though, calling my virtual name.

Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer
by Barbara Ehrenreich
Link: http://a.co/e9fMCns

I'm looking forward to that one, too, Kat.

The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century
by Kirk Wallace Johnson
Link: http://a.co/4TJaB0F

Teaser:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/apr/07/barbara-ehrenreich-natural-...

I'm interested in that Ehrenreich too, and totally on board with the concept of less medicine wherever possible.

https://www.southernliving.com/culture/summer-books-2018

There are several on that list I'm drooling over -- including a new Kate Christensen...

That's a fun list. And i always enjoy a new Anne Tyler.

That's a really neat list. A lot of books that aren't the usual suspects.

With good reason. Margaret Millar worth seeking out. Not sure why this comment dropped to the bottom of the queue but remember that the most recent flash in the pan will probably be a complete waste of your precious time.

Agreed, Lisa.

Elizabeth George's newest in the Detective Inspector Lynley series, The Punishment She Deserves. I just love the whole series.

I love the Quebecois author Louise Penny and can't wait until a new Inspector Gamache novel comes out. I want to live in the small town of Three Pines!

I'd like to have dinner there.

I have had dinner there. Stayed a week last September.
https://www.manoirhovey.com/en

Oooo, brand new Stephen McCauley: My Ex-Life

From The Guardian, a nice meaty feature on The Best European Fiction Coming Your Way

Wasn't it though? I read (and reviewed) Small Country about Burundi. It's excellent.

I'm looking forward to this one:

Still Life with Monkey
by Katharine Weber
Link: http://a.co/3Rk5SXZ

Counting the minutes for this one: Who Is Vera Kelly?

Not coming out soon enough:

Knopf Wins Debut Novel About 'Dr. Zhivago' for Seven Figures

We Were Never Here is set during the Cold War, and explores the curious role the CIA played in trying to get Dr. Zhivago into the hands of more Russians, after the book was banned in the Soviet Union. Feeling that the novel presented a harsh picture of communism, the CIA translated the book into Russian and smuggled it into the country to, as Knopf put it, "orchestrate its use as a weapon of propaganda for the West."

Now I've got Kat excited too, I bet.

Fairly panting, Lisa.

Never Anyone But You
by Rupert Thomson
Link: http://a.co/4egbrAf

I had forgotten about Thomson. He's a wonderful writer.

I have this and started it but it left me cold. It feels like I should love it so I'm hoping it's just me and am willing to give another try.

Wow, let me know. It seems to have my name on it,

There There: A novel
by Tommy Orange
Link: http://a.co/1F1TPjM

The Shepherd's Hut: A Novel
by Tim Winton
Link: http://a.co/6mNxldM

Clock Dance: A novel
by Anne Tyler
Link: http://a.co/gPxPanv

I'm looking forward to that one too, Kat.

Coming in October

The Witch Elm: A Novel
by Tana French
Link: http://a.co/2PGtpnO

Damn, I need to catch up on her books. I adored the first 3 or 4, and I have bought more. Just need to read them!

Karen Joy Fowler on Katharine's new novel.

Huh, I thought the ending perfect.

Ruth Bader Ginzburg: A Life By Jane Sherron de Hart

Love Is Blind by William Boyd

Hanging out for Bohemian Rhapsody.

The Patch
by John McPhee
Link: http://a.co/d/58bmaES

>206 Kat.Warren: I'll get it, because it is McPhee and I worship the ground he walks on, but honestly, I much prefer his books about a single topic over the piecemeal essay collections.

Ditto, southernbooklady.

Anyone tackle the newest
BASS?

Yoohoo, DG:

Appointment in Arezzo: A friendship with Muriel Spark
by Alan Taylor
Link: http://a.co/d/eBP9jCS

You sent it to me last year!

And I just read it - it's fantastic!

The Feral Detective: A Novel
by Jonathan Lethem
Link: http://a.co/d/5pTrSVX

Alan, What's a BASS? Rick Bass?

Best American Short Stories.

Ahhhh. I was way off.

Lisapeet when do you reveal your best short fiction list?

>217 alans: I think December? I'll let you know. I just finished writing my half of the blurbs this week.

Yes, I must have this book porn for my coffee table.

The Art of Reading: An Illustrated History of Books in Paint
by Jamie Camplin et al.
Link: http://a.co/d/2HYKhyD

Lisapeet looking forward to your list,thanks!

>209 alans: I just screwed up my entire buy-nothing Black Friday by clicking on Best American Short Stories 2018 for $2.99. Oh well, now I can go buy a bunch of cat food without wondering whether that counts.

I read the first two stories and liked them quite a bit-although I wasn't sure how honest the first one was. Then I had to return it to the library. I now this big sale on Amazon is terribly tempting.

Kat, that book (Art of Reading) looks beautiful.

Memo from Turner by Tim Willocks

https://www.amazon.com/Memo-Turner-Tim-Willocks/dp/1538519615/ref

The Melody by Jim Crace

http://a.co/d/1MwNSw0

The Guardian lists seems different this year but I'm willing to go with it if everyone else is.

The two lists we use are:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2018/dec/09/best-books-of-2018

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/dec/03/best-books-of-2018-hilary-mantel-y...

So far, we have Nancy, Miriam, LuAnn and myself. Is this correct? I'll give it to the end of the week and then send out the list over the weekend. It can be the Epiphany book swap this year.

Miriam, Nancy, LUAnn,Cindy, DG, if you don't get an email from me in the next 24 hours, I don't have your correct contact info so please get it to me asap.

If anyone else wants to participate in the Guardian Epiphany swap this year, let me know, please.

Ha! Epiphany swap--I like that.

Wow, this looks nice:

From MIT Press, Atlas of Poetic Botany, by Francis Hallé, tr. Erik Butler

This Atlas invites the reader to tour the farthest reaches of the rainforest in search of exotic—poetic—plant life. Guided in these botanical encounters by Francis Hallé, who has spent forty years in pursuit of the strange and beautiful plant specimens of the rainforest, the reader discovers a plant with just one solitary, monumental leaf; an invasive hyacinth; a tree that walks; a parasitic laurel; and a dancing vine. Further explorations reveal the Rafflesia arnoldii, the biggest flower in the world, with a crown of stamens and pistils the color of rotten meat that exude the stench of garbage in the summer sun; underground trees with leaves that form a carpet on the ground above them; and the biggest tree in Africa, which can reach seventy meters (more tha 200 feet) in height, with a four-meter (about 13 feet) diameter. Hallé's drawings, many in color, provide a witty accompaniment.

Black Flags, Blue Waters The Epic History of America's Most Notorious Pirates by Eric Jay Dolin

MIT Press is kicking this year. They distributed the wonderful Shirley Collins book All on the Downs and published this Butch Heroes.

The Wall: A Novel by John Lanchester

http://a.co/d/1szZkhy

I lobbied hard to review that for Bookpage but didn't get it. Reading the new Peter Heller instead.

Amazon is offering a January First Reads Special for Prime customers. You can pick two off the list (rather than just one). The Snow Gypsy (about the trials and tribulations of an unlikely, female friendship created by The Spanish Civil War aftermath) might be a sleeper. I also picked up the Kindle version of Island of the Lost: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World for 1.99.

Here's a great list of international books to look out for in 2019, from the NYT. For the usual suspects, you know who you are:

Globetrotting: Your sneak preview of books coming out in 2019 from around the world

Ohhhhhhh ...

Oh god, I don't even want to look...……..

Bowlaway by Elizabeth McCracken

It's due to arrive on my doorstep this week!

Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James arrived just now. The paper is very thin (has anyone else noticed this lately?), but it has maps (Forest Lands, Hills of Enchantment, The Blood Swamp, The Ten and Nine Doors, Dolingo and The Sky Caravan, etc.), and I'm super excited about this one. I'll dive into it after Movie Tuesday (this afternoon's selection is The Book Shop based on Penelope Lively's book).

There's apparently a paper shortage for many reasons (Not sure if I read that here or on twitter . . ., so apologies if I'm repeating info and not crediting the source!)

I recently subscribed to Two Lines Press, which publishes books in translation. I received my first book today, Lord by João Gilberto Noll. It's a pretty little thing and looks interesting. I finally found a way to get books before they're published!!

>242 Nancy_Sirvent: What a great cover.

Pat, how are you liking the Marlon James? I keep thinking that's going to be my next book and then I get distracted by something else.

I'm waiting for Kat and DG to weigh in on BOWLAWAY.

It's about three down on the stack but I'll get to it!

Im not them, but I am halfway through and really loving it!

I have loved the books of hers that I've read, but when I was looking at Bowlaway, I realized she hasn't written that much, really. And not lately. I think her memoir was about losing a baby or a child, right? So maybe that kind of slowed her down, sadly. But I'm looking forward to reading this one eventually. Birthday is coming up, and I'm sure I'll get the inevitable Amazon gift card (because my dad can't be bothered to figure out what I might actually want), so I'll be buying that one, I'm sure.

I just got Bowlaway from the library. I didn’t love the Niagra Falls book so much but loved her other stuff. Her early short story collection was lovely. here’s your hat

And her last short story collection, Thunderstruck, was fabulous. It won The Story Prize a few years ago.

Wonderful article in the NYR about a forthcoming book on the radical feminism of Andrea Dworkin. I can't wait to read it. A lot of "old" feminists have kept her and her work at arm's length for a long time, and I understand that. I'm not even sure people other than old feminists remember who she was. It's time to revisit her life and her work--she really meant something. I also really love the old photographs of her.

I'll read that! I know exactly who she is. There's a lot I didn't agree with her about but I think she is very important.

I almost forgot the best part. The book title.

Did you read the article, Lauren? It's excellent. I linked it above.

Super important. And such a force. I'd read it. Thanks for the heads up.

That’s a fabulous title. I’ll have to check out the article—thanks for the link, Nancy.

Didn't she once have a sign above her desk that said something like "Dead Men Don't Rape" ?

That would come as no surprise. Also, the title of this new book was the title Dworkin originally wanted to use for her book Woman Hating.

That is a must read for me. I saw Dworkin speak once and it remains in my mind one of the single best presentations I've ever attended. It was around the time she was working with Catherine MacKinnon on that antiporn civil rights legislation, so I guess mid-80s?

What I remember most clearly was that in an auditorium filled with rabid, radical feminists (including me) willing to be whipped up into a frenzy she was passionate but never, ever simplistic. "What do we do about right-wing women?" someone yelled, (the phrasing creeps me out now) "Look," she said, "someone has to talk to them. It might not be you and it might not be me, but someone needs to. We have to talk to each other."

I've probably condensed that down in my memory, but I don't think I'm softening it at all. Dworkin has many opportunities to talk in terms of us vs. them during that event, and she consistently resisted doing so. Between her and Mary Daly I had an excellent lesson in the difference between radicalism and dogmatism. I hope I've never forgot it.

GREAT post, Nicki. Dworkin is complicated, especially in retrospect. The "lesbian sex wars" were so divisive at the time, and no one thought to put Dworkin in the perspective of her own experience but I guess that's not really possible in the moment. I am looking forward to reading her now that we understand so much more--much of which Dworkin understood at the time but could only (bravely) express through the lens of her own experience. She was not wrong, but she was not entirely correct.

oooooo, Mary Daly. There's voice that really spoke to me back in the day.

>260 LuRits: I was her student at Boston College, so she had a profound effect on me.

>261 southernbooklady: And you wrote a fantastic piece on her for Bloom.

>262 lisapeet: that was a fun piece to write. very personal.

Lisa, I've only read about 100pp as Dad's back in the hospital. Honestly, I'm kind of on the fence about it, so far. It took a couple starts and stops. The tribal sexuality, although presented matter-of-factly, is borderline offensive (and I'm no prude). It's full of origin myths and magical realism which is right up my alley, but the storyline is almost nonexistent. It feels disjointed. Tracker just discovered his real mother and the community of changelings she lords over, so the story might finally be coming together. I'm not giving up at 100-page mark in a 600+ page book, plus this is just the first of a planned trilogy, so I think he's setting us up with a lot of world building...we'll see.

Plus, I've been distracted by Andrew McCabe's book.

Pat, Are you talking about Bowlaway? I can't tell what post of Lisa's you're replying to.

Definitely not Bowlaway. Finished it - felt like the ending lost lots of steam; I cared much more for the characters in the beginning than I did for the next generation. Still, very well written, and interesting.

>265 Nancy_Sirvent: Pat's talking about Marlon James's new one, Black Leopard, Red Wolf. Which I haven't gotten to because I'm reading the enormous Frederick Douglass biography, which is very good but will keep me out of trouble for a while.

Thanks, Lisa.

In the Dworkin vein, there is this, also from the NYRoB:
https://www.nybooks.com/contributors/molly-jong-fast/

I lived in NYC and was politically active when Dworkin was all around the town. Ran into her multiple times, she was a presence to be sure. I helped edit and layout the "Women & Revolution" journal so we occasionally went head to head. She died much too young.

https://www.icl-fi.org/english/womendrev/index.html

Kat, I think that's the wrong NYRB link. Did you mean The Power of Andrea Dworkin’s Rage? It's a great article. (I thought I had posted it earlier, but it might have been on FB.) It influenced me to order the new book.

No, not wrong link -- I meant Jong as a contemporary of Dworkin in, more or less, the same business but from a different perspective.

Ah. Sorry for my idiocy!

Nancy, sorry I didn't specify. I clicked the "reply" link in Lisa's post, but I see now that doesn't really appear as a reply.

The Wall by John Lanchester

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1324001631/

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/08/books/review/janet-malcolm-essays-nobodys-loo...

Janet Malcom's essays.

I read the essay on the Asian pianist when it first appeared in The New Yorker and I was incredibly underwhelmed by it. Now that it appears in Malcolm's collection people are going on about how brilliant
it was. I agree the magazine sometimes hits it out of the park-the article about the Troubles that became the highly acclaimed book now was really a masterpiece, but this felt like a silly piece one would find
in People magazine. It was really nothing special at all.

She can be pretty hit or miss. I do want to at least dip into that collection, though, because she's usually worth reading... I don't even remember that piece.

Michael Dirda's article in the Washington Post was one I just don't see much, anymore, in newspaper/magazine Book sections. Not only is it a fine read, but it turned me on to a few unfamiliar classics.

1923 and me: A critic picks some favorite books now in the public domain

Big Sky by Kate Atkinson

https://www.amazon.com/Big-Sky-Kate-Atkinson/dp/0316523097/

The Firbank on that WaPo list -- Flower Beneath the Foot -- is delightfully unreadable, so of course I love it.

The Gulf by Belle Boggs. I can't wait for this to come out.

more info

Any relation to Lindy?

Just out:

Erased: The Untold Story of the Panama Canal
by Marixa Lasso

https://www.amazon.com/Erased-Untold-Story-Panama-Canal/dp/0674984447/

Since Overstory was my book of 2018, maybe this one will be my book of this year:



Hailed as "the great nature writer of this generation" (Wall Street Journal), Robert Macfarlane is the celebrated author of books about the intersections of the human and the natural realms. In Underland, he delivers his masterpiece: an epic exploration of the Earth's underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory, and the land itself.

In this highly anticipated sequel to his international bestseller The Old Ways, Macfarlane takes us on an extraordinary journey into our relationship with darkness, burial, and what lies beneath the surface of both place and mind. Traveling through "deep time"--the dizzying expanses of geologic time that stretch away from the present--he moves from the birth of the universe to a post-human future, from the prehistoric art of Norwegian sea caves to the blue depths of the Greenland ice cap, from Bronze Age funeral chambers to the catacomb labyrinth below Paris, and from the underground fungal networks through which trees communicate to a deep-sunk "hiding place" where nuclear waste will be stored for 100,000 years to come. "Woven through Macfarlane's own travels are the unforgettable stories of descents into the underland made across history by explorers, artists, cavers, divers, mourners, dreamers, and murderers, all of whom have been drawn for different reasons to seek what Cormac McCarthy calls "the awful darkness within the world."

https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780393242140

I will say that Macfarlane's The Old Ways was a remarkable book I still return to, often.

Cannot wait for this to come out:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42730332-the-starless-sea

I still read her Night Circus from time to time and never tire of it. Hoping this one has the same magic!

For Her Dark Skin by Percival Everett

A Summer with Monraigne by Antoine Compagnon

https://www.amazon.com/Summer-Montaigne-Antoine-Compagnon/dp/178770162X/

DAAAMN, May 7-May 14 is the hot zone according to my Amazon cart!

The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West by David McCullough
Rabbits for Food by Binnie Kirshenbaum
Orange World and Other Stories by Karen Russell
Disappearing Earth: A novel by Julia Phillips
The Deer Camp: A Memoir of a Father, a Family, and the Land that Healed Them by Dean Kuipers
The White Devil's Daughters: The Women Who Fought Slavery in San Francisco's Chinatown by Julia Flynn Siler
Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad by Gordon H. Chang

Those were all linked up touchstones when I typed it, huh. Oh well, y'all can type.

Curious about the Rabbit book. And I really like the two Russell collections I’ve read (Swamplandia and Vampires in yhe Lemon Grove) so Im up for her new one.

I was an enormous Swamplandia fan and it was robbed the year they declined to give a Pulitzer (it was one of the nominees).

>293 lisapeet: I loved the story "Orange World" in the New Yorker, and I'm looking forward to this one a lot. I've also had St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves forever, since Readerville days.

This is a good new book season, i think. That Disappearing Earth is on my pile, along with a few others. Right now I'm reading a bunch of forthcoming current events nonfiction for a panel, none of which I'm all that rah-rah about but it's interesting, anyway. And then I'll be ready for some good fat novels and short stories.

I will read the new McCoullough about pioneers in the west (because I read all that stuff) but I have lost respect for him. He employs a squadron of helpers to do his research (there likely was a time when he did most of it himself) and does not do due diligence on the product which is how he credibly came to be accused of plagerism. I can see how that can happen and how useful it is to employ researchers (after all I am one such) so that issue is one I am not passionate about but I do note it and take it into account.

What I am passionate about is McCoullough is a white man writing for middle-brow white men -- will be interesting to read his depiction of women in the new book -- how many, in what detail, any women of color, non-white pioneers, etc.

His "The Path Between the Seas" is a glorification of intrepid white men who create their very own Banana Republic in which to single-handedly build the Panama Canal. To say it is one-sided is a gargantuan understatement.

P.S.: no dings on DG for listing this.

I'm up for that Binnie Kirshenbaum book. I enjoy her work. I'm with Kat on the McCullough except that I won't be reading it. And I'm a bit overwhelmed by the offerings of this upcoming book season. What a year.

Henry, Himself by Stewart O'Nan
https://www.amazon.com/Henry-Himself-Novel-Stewart-ONan/dp/0735223041/

I've been simmering slowly with O'Nan and am come to see him as an outstanding American writer of great regard, not only for his craft and story-telling, but for the transfigurative impact on his readers.

I just got this one from the library. I really liked Emily, Alone so have high hopes for this one.

I was utterly gaga over Emily, Alone, it's on my Life List.

Here's the NYT on Henry, Himself:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/books/review/stewart-onan-henry-himself.html

It's a trilogy so far, beginning with Wish You Were Here, followed by Emily, Alone and then this new one.

In a small way, these three books are the spare bones of the Great American Novel of middle Middle Class white folk in middle America.

Also, that interstitial title comma in the last two titles? Slays me with small elegance.

I own Emily, Alone, but have not read it. Moving it up the stack. Thanks.

Oh my gosh, Nancy, it is soooo wonderful.

There needs to be a word for this phenomenon: when a friend comes virgin to a book you loved and you KNOW she will love it too.

Big Sky by Kate Atkinson

Disoriental by Negar Djawadi

>303 Kat.Warren: That one is high up on my pile.

I can't wait for November, when the new Erin Morgenstern Night Circus comes out The Starless Sea so hoping its worth the wait!

The Pandemic Century
One Hundred zyears of Panic, Hysteria and Hubris
by Mark Honigsbaum

My heart flutters.

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

And now something different.

'Hollow Kingdom'
Kira Jane Buxton
amazon.com
Release date: August 6, 2019

S.T. is a domesticated crow who leads a simple life: Hanging out with his owner Big Jim, verbally sparring with the wild crows in his neighborhood, and enjoying his favorite snack (Cheetos). But when Big Jim's eyes fall out of his head, none of S.T.'s usual remedies help his friend. He's got to venture out into the world, where he discovers humanity's day of reckoning has arrived, and he may be the only one who can save them. Pick up this delightfully weird book for a change from the usual — we promise it's like nothing you've read before.

Ohhh, another JCO novel (and I don’t mean mean that to be derisory).

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/04/books/review/joyce-carol-oates-my-life-as-a-r...

And, this one looks to be mighty tasty:

DEEP RIVER, by Karl Marlantes. (Grove, $30.) Marlantes, best known for the immersive Vietnam War novel “Matterhorn,” here offers a historical family epic about Finnish brothers working as loggers in the Pacific Northwest and their labor organizer sister.

Verniage from the current NYTBR.

Also Natalia Ginzburg’s newly translated “The Dry Heart.”

I've had Deep River on pre-order forever; it'll be here tomorrow!

Have passed the fifty-page mark and will be shooting the rapids to the end ... a lengthy book that seems almost written for me.

I get the impression that some readers don't like Dava Sobel because she doesn't write at their scientific "level," but I think that she writes science for those of us who don't have science backgrounds and all the same would like some exposure to the subject. I've enjoyed a number of her books for that very reason.

i call that level “lay science” and enjoy the category very much. Mostly in non-fiction: Quammen, Sachs, John McPhee, Stephen Jay Gould, Susan Hand Shetterly,

Sy Montgomery, Mary Roach, Michael Pollan

>314 Diane-bpcb: I fell in love with her writing while reading Longitude, went on to read Galileo's Daughter and then to Glass Universe Just noticed I missed a book that I must read A More Perfect Heaven. And I do like many so called lay science writers, in the same way I love many so called lay history writers - they do give those of us exposure to ideas and works we would not normally find.

BTW would you put Neil deGrasse Tyson in this category?

Yippee, clicky-clicky

The Body in Question by Jill Ciment

https://www.amazon.com/Body-Question-Novel-Jill-Ciment/dp/152474798X/

>314 Diane-bpcb: I get the impression that some readers don't like Dava Sobel because she doesn't write at their scientific "level,"

I've always found that sort of criticism a bit weird, to be honest. If she was writing at "a scientific level" her work would be found as abstracts in peer-reviewed journals because that is how science is written. It would be written in highly formalized and formulaic language because, like the law, that conformity and standardization is the first step in allowing the theory to be critically assessed against it competitors.

Sobel is a historian and a biographer. Quammen, McPhee and Gould are journalists. They all have an affinity for scientific subjects and a talent for making complex ideas and theories comprehensible without -- and this is key -- distorting them into something they are not. They also have a virtuoso grasp of the possibilities of the English language -- including things like similes, metaphors, and how to tell a good anecdote -- that is invaluable in conveying an idea but verboten when writing "science."

The last lay science book I read that was written by a practicing scientist was Lost in Math. It was a fascinating book with a valid cirticism of some of the assumptions and methodologies indulged in by the more out there theoretical physicists. But it took some determination to get through, even dumbed down as it was, and I'm pretty sure my account of it scared more people off than it convinced to pick it up.

In November, Michael Crummey’s new novel:

https://www.amazon.com/Innocents-Novel-Michael-Crummey/dp/0385545428/

>319 southernbooklady: I think of Sobel as more of a science-subject biographer than a science writer per se—along the lines of Jenny Uglow, though not as exhaustive and with more of an eye to American audiences (by which I guess I mean popular, though I don't think that's a reflection on her research or accuracy). I'm not sure I'd want a lot of scientific rigor in a book-length biography, honestly, where I'm looking for a life story with supporting details, rather than the other way around.

>321 lisapeet: I'm not sure I'd want a lot of scientific rigor in a book-length biography

It's an interesting division I haven't really thought too much about -- science writers vs. scientists-who-write. I'd put Dava Sobel, Steven Johnson, and David Quammen in the former, and people like Edward O. Wilson, Bernd Heinrich, and Brian Greene in the latter. But maybe, in the end, it's an arbitrary distinction except in so far as the latter are usually writing about the theories they've based their scientific careers on, whereas the former usually write about whatever happens to interest them.

Richard Holmes, too, in that first group?

and Oliver Sacks in the second?

Hoooo-wee, has there ever been a more DG-book-set-up? Dietrich, Anna May Wong...and Leni Riefenstahl!

Delayed Rays of a Star

calling PatD and all other Penman fans: the land beyond the sea comes out in March!! Takes place during the first crusade.

Waiting for another novel from Australian author Markus Zucak, author The Book Thief, his latest is Bridge Of Clay is new to the shelf, hanging out for another, Bridge of Clay took him 5 years to write, so I may have a long wait.

Oh good it came out in October, so its not so new i have to wait!!!

Faber & Faber: The Untold Story by Toby Faber

I'd read that!

Me too.

Excepted from the NYT:

SEMICOLON: The Past, Present, and Future of a Misunderstood Mark, by Cecelia Watson. (Ecco, $19.99.) “Style, I’d argue, is 90 percent punctuation,” our critic Parul Sehgal writes in her review of this “biography” of the semicolon. Cecelia Watson reveals punctuation, as we practice it, to be a relatively young and uneasy art. Her lively book tells the story of a mark with an unusual talent for controversy. “Watson covers impressive ground in this short book,” Sehgal writes, “skittering back and forth like a sandpiper at the shores of language’s Great Debates.”

WANT.

Also: Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented …

The Catholic School by Edoardo Albinati

https://www.amazon.com/Catholic-School-Novel-Edoardo-Albinati/dp/0374119252/

This might have been announced already but Atwoods sequel to Handmaid comes out Sept 10 There will be a simulcast on Oct 3

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=rm&ogbl#inbox/FMfcgxwDqnhfFkzNXWftQXlQ...

>335 cindydavid4:
Let's hope that this will lead to another TV Series!!

Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout I loved the first Olive, good reviews so far.

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

Agent Running in the Field by John Le Carre

Now We Shall Be Entirely Free by Andrew Miller

When I started the Zola Rougon/Macquart project a couple of months ago, I promised myself to not stray, to not read any other books until I read all twenty. But I made a little list of exceptions JUST IN CASE certain favorite authors came out with new books.

Well! Without my knowledge, the divine Cathleen Schine has a new book, The Grammarians. WHY WAS I NOT informed of this until the Amazon algorithm told me? So that's on the way. I really do think she's the best living comic novelist, even though she's edged towards a bit of tweeness in the last two books. Anyway! SCHINE!

It arrived at the Old Farts Home last week. Have it on Kindle as well. Saving it for a treat when my chaotic life permits.

Silver, Sword, and Stone: Three Crucibles in the Latin American Story by Marie Arana

Review of Atwood’s The Testaments

NYT Review:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/03/books/review/testaments-margaret-atwood-handm...

From across the pond:
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/testaments-review...

I'm wondering if they would have offered Atwood the Nobel had they not already offered it to a Canadian-
Munro just a few years ago.

And, Nobel Season is rolling around again. This year two lit prizes will be awarded due to last year’s scandal and chaos.

Still hanging out for Elizabeth Strout's new Olive Novel..Olive Again

Kat, have you read the new Crummey? I have it in my wish list, but am wondering if I need to order it immediately.

Oh, is it out now? Off I go to clicky-clicky.

>347 mkunruh: Mir, I have the Crummey on the pile for when I'm done with all my short story reading. If you don't get to it first, I'll report back.

K. Thanks. I'm poking my mom to pick it up, because she's a big fan too, so if I get my hands on it sooner, I'll also report back.

I'm reading it now and it's amazing. I can give it to you next month, if you don't want to pop for it.

ok, I'll cool my jets and wait.

So far Atwood’s “The Testaments” is delivering the goods. Whew.

Good to hear. I'm definitely going to read it. She's very unpopular with the young female literary set right now because of her response to a sexual harassment charge against one of her writing friends, but I trust her to take writing this novel seriously. She's no slouch.

Oooo. New Edna O'Brien: Girl

>355 Pat_D:
I am with you Oooo I have been waiting for Edna to write another novel her last was The Little Red Chairs 2015 this was a great read for me, I have read most of her novels, a favorite of mine is House Of Splendid Isolation

I love her short stories. HoSI was an enigmatic read, for me. I was never quite sure how I felt about it.

Akin by Emma Donoghue

uh-oh, that's trouble. You know near-forgotten mid-century lady writers are my big weakness!

Emily Dickinson’s Gardening Life: The Plants and Places That Inspired the Iconic Poet by Marta McDowell

https://www.amazon.com/Emily-Dickinsons-Gardening-Life-Inspired/dp/1604698225/

>361 Kat.Warren: The lost gardens of Emily Dickenson:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/17/science/emily-dickinson-lost-gardens.html

>359 SPRankin: >360 DG_Strong: SP/DG, I have a copy if one of you wants. You all duke it out and let me know.

Mine arrived on Sunday!

A trillion years ago I read Hale's Prodigal Women and really enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to more.

Thanks, Lisa. Mine is supposed to get here today.

You guys are so trigger happy. Lauren, you want?

Which book - the Nancy Hale? Ohmygod, yes! The Emily Dickinson not so much.

The Nancy Hale—you got it. I’ll do a PO run this week.

YUM. Thanks!!

Just(ish) out, Greenwood by Michael Christie. The book is pretty, so I picked it up in hardcover, something I rarely do. The reviews are very positive. I'll report back.

Oh, that looks good. Yes. Please report back, Mir.

NYT: 18 Books Coming out in October

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/26/books/new-october-books.html

I'm interested in the Ronan Farrow book.

Erosion Undoing by Terry Tempest Williams

https://www.amazon.com/Erosion-Undoing-Terry-Tempest-Williams/dp/0374280061/

Nancy, I zipped right through “Catch and Kill.”. Good writting, sardonic humor, some tenderness and reads a bit like an espionage thriller.

I'm just finishing up "She Said," and I think the Farrow book is a natural follow-up. Thanks, Kat.

Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative

https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781948226134

I'm cautious about lit crit/writing craft books but this one is by Jane Alison. The Nine Island Jane Alison. And really, with a title like that and the rave review of a good friend, I won't be able to resist.

oh! Big fan of The Love Artist here.

Big fan of Nine Island—don't know The Love Artist, though. And I have this one on my pile because I love craft books, even when I don't agree with them.

Starless Sea is out today going to pick up my copy later. Im giving it a try despite the horrid review it got in the NYT. So there.

Unless you're into "Dungeon Crawl Classics," I think you're link is wrong. No judgment if you're exploring new things in your retirement!

Ha! Didnt even check. Let me try this way Erin Morgenstern Should take you to her page :) And while I was there took a look at some LT reviews - oh my yes. This will be just fine.

You all missed Lauren's link, which provided me with my laugh for the day. Doubly funny, in a 13-year-old way, if you read "Parv" and "Perv", which I did.

OOPS! The Love Artist

Yay. Lucky Per finally arrived.

The Crummey comes out today. Finally.

Parisian Lives: Samuel Beckett, Simone de Beauvoir, and Me by Deirdre Bair

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/12/books/review-parisian-lives-samuel-beckett-si...

“American Dirt”
https://www.amazon.com/American-Dirt-Novel-Jeanine-Cummins/dp/1250209765/

Thank you, Kat. "A Grapes of Wrath for our times" is total clickbait for me.

Here's one that made me think of you. Nobber by Oisín Fagan review – "a bloody and brilliant first novel. Ireland in the 14th century, where greed, madness and the Black Death come together for a darkly comic debut."

Oh good god almighty, Pat, that is so me. Thankee.

Too funny, that one made me think of you Pat ...

Heh. You'd be right, Mir. Kat and I both have a thing for historical fiction, especially during that time. Plus, it's Irish. Plus, plus it's plague infested for Kat.

Plague!

That Nobber looks like it could be totally fun or a hot mess, but I for one would be game to find out. NYPL has it on order, so I'll put it on my watch list in the meantime.

Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy

https://www.amazon.com/Mirror-Light-Hilary-Mantel/dp/0805096604/

I know, I know. Two more months. It's been so long between books, I might have to start a reread of the first two.

I received an ARC of The Land Beyond the Sea two days ago. I'm sticking with my HC pre-order, of course, but that's not out until March, and I just couldn't resist.

There is a group on LT that is discussing all three in February! Think I know what I will be rereading to get ready for the new one!!

Thanks, Cindy. I'll check it out.

I also received a forgotten pre-order: Shadowplay ~ Joseph O'Connor

I interviewed him once, and he was so kind and forthcoming, but that has nothing to do with why he's on my pre-order-whatever-he-writes list. He has a truly insightful and observant bardic gift similar to Sebastian Barry and William Trevor. His period pieces are exceptional. This one's a reimagining of the friendship between Bram Stoker, Ellen Terry, and Henry Irving. Irving purchased the Lyceum Theater in London and wrangled Stoker into working as its General Manager. The Ripper's on the loose, Oscar Wilde's become a pariah, and Stoker's left his family to live at the theater.

I have a feeling 2020 is going to be a very good reading year.

I want both of these:

To Calais, in Ordinary Time by James Meek
and
The Corner that Held Them by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Thanks to NYRB:

Love In Plague Time

And, OK, that Nobber book.

Lynn R!!!! (and any other fans of this author) You might be interested in this one Hamnet Maggie O'Farrel. Comes out April 2

March is going to be crazy, with the new Sharon Kay Penman and Mantel's Mirror and Light.

Hoo-wee, this new Penguin Vitae series has me clearing off the shelves. So pretty! Though I think I have seventy different copies of The Awakening already.

>404 DG_Strong: there is something a little weird about a stylish and pretty version of The Yellow Wallpaper.

I'm about 3/4 through the new Penman. It's terrific. She's totally back in form with this one. I've been really busy with family stuff, but I'd be taking it slow anyway because I don't want it to end.

Roddy Doyle has a new book coming out!

Love this June!

"Shadowplay" by Joseph O'Connor (can't find the LT link). I'm a fan of his writing, plus I interviewed him once and he was lovely.

I was completely unaware of this story and pre-ordered it today:

Mayday 1971 ~ Lawrence Roberts

"They surged into Washington by the tens of thousands in the spring of 1971. Fiery radicals, flower children, and militant vets gathered for the most audacious act in a years-long movement to end America’s war in Vietnam: a blockade of the nation’s capital. And the White House, headed by an increasingly paranoid Richard Nixon, was determined to stop it.

Washington journalist Lawrence Roberts, drawing on dozens of interviews, unexplored archives, and newfound White House transcripts, recreates these largely forgotten events through the eyes of dueling characters. Woven into the story too are now-familiar names including John Kerry, Jane Fonda, and Daniel Ellsberg, leaker of the Pentagon Papers. It began with a bombing inside the U.S. Capitol — a still-unsolved case to which Roberts brings new information. To prevent the Mayday Tribe’s guerrilla-style traffic blockade, the government mustered the military. Riot squads swept through the city, arresting more than 12,000 people. As a young female public defender led a thrilling legal battle to free the detainees, Nixon and his men took their first steps down the road to the Watergate scandal and the implosion of the presidency.

Mayday 1971 is the ultimately inspiring story of a season when our democracy faced grave danger, and survived."

>409 Pat_D: Huh, I didn't know about the story or the book, and I like to think I know my U.S. history. I'm interested to hear what you think, Pat.

oh yes I remember this!!! Seen through the eyes of a 13 year old on the news so will be interested to read about it now.

Lisa, If I remember correctly, you're not big on historical fiction, but I saw this and thought of you immediately: The Lions of Fifth Avenue. I'm not familiar with that author, but the subject matter appeals to me. Reviews are very positive, especially about the level of research involved. I did not know there were living quarters in the library!

Peace talks and battle ground constant rabbit some very different takes on urban fantasy.

>412 Pat_D: I do like some historical fiction, though—it's hard for me to articulate what the dividing line is for me, but it has to do with what a contemporary author brings to an existing story, I think. And the writing quality—some of it just leans too hard on the backstory and not enough on craft. I've flirted a bit around The Lions of Fifth Avenue and will probably give it a shot at some point. I'm certainly always interested in a bit of library history (though lord knows I know a lot of it already).

The newest Emma Donahue,just out is getting very positive reviews-and it’s about the Spanish pandemic! Donahue was actually working on a theatrical version of Room last winter when covid hit and her publisher told her she had to finish the book. It was originally scheduled for 2021 but they wanted it out now.

I wonder what’s happening with the Vikram Seth a Suitable Girl? Wasn’t it due years ago?

I love Emma Donohue!!! ok off to see what it is

the pull of the stars

I'm going to continue this in a new thread because it's taking for-ever to load. See ya there!

Katharine has a new book coming in March, Jane of Hearts, and it's got a great cover.

Ooooo, short stories. Nice. Is that some of your art, deeg?

<deleted wrong thread>

>419 Pat_D: oh, no -- the folks at Paul Dry put it together for her. I'm long gone from the design game; no one wants to pay for it anymore.

I remember some of your stuff (for R'ville Journal? and you did a bird cover?). I might be off with those specific recollections, but I do recall how much I admired your classy fonts. What a shame about the market. I guess everyone just buys DYI apps now.

Katharine who?

Katharine Weber.

Just in case you were asking seriously, Nancy.

She was also a strong presence on R'ville.

Most know I am not a regular reader of short stories but I will be adding “Jane of Hearts” to my rota. And, to the New Books collection at the old farts home which I administer. Oops, current usage is “curate.”

DG designed exceptional covers for some of Marta Randall’s reissues, several years ago now.

Yes, I do remember you aren't a fan of short stories. But The Millions has a terrific feature just recently started: The William Trevor Reader, led by Adam O'Fallon Price. He's reading a story/week from the door-stop William Trevor The Collected Stories. Wonderful Irish stories and Adam's brief analyses are full of lovely insights.

Not a fan of non-fiction. Too much of it feels like published graduate papers (such as: Freedom Girls), but two that have piqued my interest are:

Sensational: The Hidden History of America's “Girl Stunt Reporters

When Women Invented Television

There's an article in the current New Yorker about the source novel for the Disney movie Bambi and it is just NUTS-sounding, that book.

There's a new translation coming The Original Bambi: The Story of a Life in the Forest and suddenly it's the only thing I want to read.

I am most of the way through The woods in Winter by Stella Gibbons and it's very much for the usual reading suspects - an idiosyncratic window inherits a cottage in the woods, steals an abused dogs and lights out for the country. It's like a gentler Lolly Willowes with more animals.

I have about 100 pages left of Carry Me Home and it's hard to know who to despise more - the Kennedys, George Wallace, the Klan or the FBI. The culpability is off the charts.

Over the weekend, I red Debts of Dishonor. I'm terrible with a mystery about finances but this was not overly complicated and reminded me a bit of Antonia Fraser's Jemima Shore detective novels.