Liz’s (almost) annual semestral postings (Eliz_M)

I love reading and list-making and book buying (approaching 1200 books in a small Brooklyn studio apartment!), but I do not enjoy writing and am perpetually behind on reviewing. The way I organize my reading may be more suited to the category challenge, but I tend to follow more Club Read members and receive more comments when in this group.

For many, many years I have been reading primarily from the 1001-Books-to-Read-Before-You-Die list. Other reads are chosen through reading challenge prompts, especially the ReadingAfrica2022 challenge on Litsy and my newly created global challenge. Now that my real-life book club (alternating contemporary literary fiction with non-fiction) is on zoom I am less inclined to read the chosen books, and more often now read contemporary novels found on one of your threads or on Litsy (https://www.litsy.com/web/user/Liz_M).

Aside from reading, my weekdays are spent working for a large performing arts organization in NYC and my weekends are for eating brunch out, walking around my Brooklyn neighborhood/Prospect Park/Greenwood cemetery, visiting the Met Museum or MoMA, and cooking vegetarian meals for myself and/or baking the occasional treat for the office.

Currently Reading:

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LT/Litsy adds to the TBR:
The Blue Sky by Galsang Tschinag (recommended by pamelad)
Subdivision by J. Robert Lennon (recommended by Simone2)
The Unseen by Roy Jacobsen (recommended on Litsy by arubabookwoman)
Born Into This by Adam Thompson (recommended on Litsy by Leftcoastzen)
Last Night in Nuuk by Niviaq Korneliussen (recommended by Nickelini)
Conversations with People Who Hate Me (recommended by Bragan)
Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting (recommended by qebo)
Defenestrate by Renee Branum (recommended on Litsy by sarahbarnes)

2021 Stats

Books read: 106
total pages read: 27,837
ave. # pages: 263

1001-list-books: 29 (27%)
Female Authors: 64 (60%)
In Translation: 41 (39%)
Non-fiction: 7

Pre-1800: 5
1800s: 5
1900-1949: 12
1950-1999: 29
2000s: 55

Libe books: 51 (48%)
Owned-pre-2021: 28 (26%)
Bought & read: 27 (25%)

New-acquisitions in 2021: 171 (ooops)

2022 Goals

At least 60% of books from the owned-tbr
At least 40% of books written by women or poc
At least 33% of books translated into English
At least 33% of 1001 list books
Read at least 6 non-fiction books

Reading Africa 2022

Algeria: The Meursault Investigation, Assia Djebar, A Bookshop in Algiers
Egypt: The Queue, Open Door, The Yacoubian Building, Distant View of a Minaret and Other Stories, Zayni Barakat
Libyan Arab Jamahiriya: Gold Dust
Mauritania:
Morocco: Straight from the Horse's Mouth, Sand Child
Sudan: The Wedding of Zein
Tunisia: The Italian, A Tunisian Tale

Benin
Burkina Faso
Cape Verde: The Last Will & Testament of Senhor da Silva Araújo
Côte d’Ivoire: Allah is Not Obliged
Gambia
Ghana: The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, Changes
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Liberia
Mali
Niger
Nigeria: The Death of Vivek Oji, Black Sunday, Song for Night, The Bride Price, Efuru, The Stillborn, Yoruba Girl Dancing
Senegal: The Beggars' Strike, The Abandoned Baobab Tree, Ambiguous Adventure
Sierra Leone
Togo

Angola: Transparent City, General Theory of Oblivion
Burundi
Cameroon: The Amputated Memory, The Old Man and the Medal, How Beautiful We Were
Central African Repubic
Chad
Congo, Republic of: Black Moses
Democratic Republic of the Congo: The Shameful State, King Leopold's Ghost
Equatorial Guinea
Gabon
Rwanda
Sao Tome and Principe

Comoros
Djibouti: Passage of Tears
Eritrea: My Fathers' Daughter, The Conscript
Ethiopia: The Shadow King
Kenya: Dust
Madagascar
Malawi
Mauritius: The Last Brother, Silent Winds, Dry Seas; Kaya Days;
Mozambique: Paulina Chiziane, Dumba Nengue
Seychelles
Somalia: Maps
South Sudan
Tanzania: Paradise, Born Into This
Uganda: Waiting, Kintu
Zambia: The Old Drift
Zimbabwe: This Mournable Body

Botswana: Collector of Treasures
Eswatini (Swaziland)
Lesotho: Singing Away the Hunger
Namibia
South Africa: The Expedition to the Baobab Tree, Agaat, And They Didn't Die, Fiela's Child

Food and Lit 2022



Possibilities:

Egypt: The Queue, Open Door, The Yacoubian Building, Distant View of a Minaret and Other Stories, Zayni Barakat
Argentina: Heartbreak Tango, Zama, The Scent of Buenos Aires
Greece: The Daughter, The Third Wedding, The Last Temptation of Christ
Cuba: Havana Year Zero
Afghanistan: Earth and Ashes
Columbia: The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll, The Shape of the Ruins
France: Nana, Life: A User's Manual
Japan: Breasts and Eggs
Kenya:
Haiti:

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Cookbooks:

. . . .

Women Authors 2022 (~18 prompts)

__________ 1. An Anisfield-Wolf Book Award winner
__________ 2. A book by a Pacific Islander author
__________ 3. A book about gender identity
__________ 4. A genre novel by an Indigenous, First Nations, or Native American author
__________ 5. A book with a differently abled protagonist
The Queue - 6. A non-European novel in translation
__________ 7. A #Litsy recommendation
__________ 8. A book by a Latinx author
__________ 9. A book by an immigrant author
_________ 10. A non-fiction book by a BIPOC author
Migrations - 11. A book featuring a man-made disaster
_________ 12. Read a graphic novel
_________ 13. A classic written by a BIPOC author.
_________ 14. A book with a Muslim protagonist
_________ 15. A book by with a non-Western LGBTQIA+ author or protagonist
_________ 16. A Sapphic book
_________ 17. A book about or set in a nonpatriarchal society
_________ 18. A book set where you live
_________ 19. A book by author whose first novel was published after age 40
_________ 20. A book about a "found family"
_________ 21. A different book by an author you read in 2021
_________ 22. A book set in the 1980s
The Vanishing Half - 23. A book with two or more POVs
84, Charing Cross Road - 24. A book you can read in one sitting

1982: Baltasar and Blimunda
1983: Fado Alexandrino, The Sorrow of Belgium
1984: The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, Larva: Midsummer Night's Babel
1985:
1986: Extinction
1987: The Radiant Way, The Enigma of Arrival
1988:
1989: Obabakoak
1990: The Daughter, Stone Junction
1991: The Laws
1992: Triple Mirror of the Self, The Discovery of Heaven
1993: The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll
1994: The Life of Insects
1995: The Unconsoled
1996:
1997:
1998: Another World, The Heretic, Garnethill
1999: In Search of Klingsor, Everything You Need, The Ground Beneath Her Feet
2000: Celestial Harmonies, The Romantics, Earth and Ashes
2001: Don't Move, Schooling
2002: In the Forest
2003: The Colour
2004: 2666
2005:
2006:
2007: The Last Brother
2008:
2009: Passage of Tears
2010: Freedom
2011: Havana Year Zero
2012: The Queue
2013: A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing, Ms Ice Sandwich
2014: H Is for Hawk, Outline
2015: The Story of the Lost Child
2016:
2017: H(A)PPY
2018: Moon of the Crusted Snow
2019: Girl, Woman, Other, Night Boat to Tangier
2020: The Vanishing Half
2021: Subdivision
2022: How High We Go in the Dark

52 Reading Prompts
This is a compilation of two different 52-books challenges from two goodreads groups -- Around the Year in 52 Books and The 52 Book Club
I will attempt to fill in about 26 prompts.

1. A book that has a title starting with the letter "E"
2. A book connected to a book you read in 2021 The Vanishing Half (2021 book: My Time Among the Whites)
3. A book with 22 or more letters in the title
4. A book where the chapters have titles The Queue
5. A book based on a real person 84, Charing Cross Road

6. A non-fiction bestseller The Soul of an Octopus
7. A book involving the art world
8. 3 books set on three different continents - Book 1: The Last Brother (Africa)
9. 3 books set on three different continents - Book 2: Heartbreak Tango (South America)

10. 3 books set on three different continents - Book 3: The Daughter (Europe)
11. A book from historical fiction genre: New Grub Street
12. A book set on at least two continents
13. A book about a woman in STEM

14. A book with less than 2022 goodreads ratings: In the Company of Men
15. A book picked based on its spine
16. A book related to Earth Day: To Be Taught, If Fortunate
17. A book from NPR's Book Concierge

18. A book by an Asian or Pacific Islander author
19. A book that involves alternate reality, alternate worlds, or alternate history: Basic Black with Pearls
20. A fiction or nonfiction book that is set during 1900 -1951
21. A book related to the word "gold": Lady Susan
22. A book with a Jewish character or author

23. A book that features loving LGBTQIA+ relationship
24. A book that addresses a specific topic: The Loneliest Americans
25. A book over 500 pages long: The Old Drift
26. 2 books with the same word in the title - Book 1

27. 2 books with the same word in the title - Book 2
28. A book that won an award from Powell's list of book awards: Interior Chinatown
29. A book that includes a map.
30. A book related to mythology

31. A book published at least 10 years ago
32. A book that has a character with superhuman ability
33. A book that intimidates you
34. A book with an academic setting or with a teacher that plays an important role
35. A book with a bilingual character

36. A books from the villain's perspective
37. A book that has an alternate title
38. A book by a Latin American author
39. A book recommended by a favorite author

40. A book with photographs inside
41. A book that has an "Author's Note"
42. A book with a language or nationality in the title
43. A book set in a small town or rural area
44. A book published by an independent press

45. A book by an author who's published in more than one genre
46. A book with a non-human as one of the main characters
47. A book with handwriting on the cover
48. A book with a person of color as the main character

49. Redo one of this year's prompts but with a different genre
50. A book that involves aging, or a character in their golden years
51. A book published in 2022
52. A book with a time-related word in the title

First Quarter Reading Ideas:

January:
Real-life book club: The Vanishing Half
nyrb-Litsy: In the Freud Archives
ReadingAfrica: The Queue
LT 1001 Book: Tyll
BookSpin: Migrations*, Passage of Tears*
RT Buddy Read: My Struggle: Book One*
Litsy Buddy Read: The 1619 Project*
NYWD: Girl, Woman, Other*, Migrations*
Shakespeare: The Two Gentlemen of Verona*

February:
Real-life book club: The Soul of An Octopus
nyrb-Litsy: Katalin Street
ReadingAfrica: The Last Brother*, Waiting
LT 1001 Book: The Crow Road
Litsy Buddy Read: The 1619 Project*
BookSpin: H(A)PPY*, The Last Brother*

March:
Real-life book club: Our Country Friends
nyrb-Litsy: Turtle Diary*
ReadingAfrica: The Death of Vivek Oji*
LT 1001 Book: New Grub Street*
Litsy Buddy Read: The 1619 Project*
BookSpin: The Trusting and the Maimed*, Blonde* (3)

.

Second Quarter Reading Ideas:

April:
Real-life book club: South to America
nyrb-Litsy: School for Fools*
ReadingAfrica: In the Company of Men*, The Expedition to the Baobab Tree*
LT 1001 Book: The Wars
Litsy Buddy Read: The 1619 Project*
BookSpin: South to America, 1619 Project*

May:
Real-life book club: Piranesi
nyrb-Litsy: Basic Black with Pearls*
ReadingAfrica: The Wedding of Zein*
LT 1001 Book: The Shipyard
BookSpin: Basic Black with Pearls*, The Wedding of Zein*

June:
Real-life book club: The Loneliest Americans
nyrb-Litsy: Good Behaviour
ReadingAfrica: People of the City*, The Old Drift*
LT 1001 Book: The Sea, the Sea
BookSpin: In Search of Klingsor*
CampLitsy: True Biz, How High We Go in the Dark

Victorian: Agnes Grey, Shirley, Hard Times, Mary Barton, New Grub Street, Marius the Epicurean, The Real Charlotte, or Dr. Thorne.

RebeccaNYC: Ambiguous Adventure (Senegal), The Amputated Memory (Cameroon), Waiting (Uganda), High Tide (Latvia), Duplications and Other Stories (Panama), Navidad & Matanza (Chile)

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Key:
strike through book linked - A book I read this year
strike through - A book I have read before and don't plan to reread
book linked - A book I am thinking of reading for the relevant group/challenge/theme
book title - A book that I haven't read and currently don't plan to read
* - A book I own (paper copy)

Third Quarter Reading Ideas:

July:
Real-life book club: n/a
nyrb-Litsy: The Radiance of the King
ReadingAfrica: The Old Drift*, The Shadow King*
LT 1001 Book: The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll*
BookSpin: Memoirs of My Nervous Illness*, Life: A User's Manual
CampLitsy: You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty, This Time Tomorrow

August:
Real-life book club: Emma
ReadingAfrica:
LT 1001 Book: The Enormous Room
BookSpin:
CampLitsy: Our Wives Under the Sea, Either/Or

September:
Real-life book club: An Immense World
ReadingAfrica:
LT 1001 Book:
BookSpin:

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Key:
strike through book linked - A book I read this year
strike through - A book I have read before and don't plan to reread
book linked - A book I am thinking of reading for the relevant group/challenge/theme
book title - A book that I haven't read and currently don't plan to read
* - A book I own (paper copy)

Hi Liz--I'm glad you started a thread this year, and I will be following along.
I recently made a list of 1001 books I own, but have not read yet, and I have quite a few. I should get back to my 1001 reading. I used to have an app on ipad to keep track, but somehow the app was discontinued, and it all went away.
I am planning a trip to NYC in April to visit my kids (if covid cooperates), and perhaps we could get a coffee or something. Two of the kids live in Queens, and one in Brooklyn. He recently purchased an apartment near Grand Army Plaza at the top of Prospect Park, so that might be near you. His son, age 3 thinks Prospect Park is his playyard.

Happy New Year, Liz. I look forward to following your reading this year.

Hi Liz. Glad I found you! I will be particularly interested to see what you select for Reading Africa 2022.

Happy New Year, Liz. I’m hoping to see some more pictures from your museum trips this year.

hi. Happy to have a thread to follow. >7 ELiz_M: and >8 ELiz_M: look fun. (I had to look it up. Last year I got 21 of those 40 years. I was little disappointed with only half.)

>12 arubabookwoman: I've always been fond of the spreadsheet, myself. I own 82 unread 1001-books.

A NYC meet would be lovely. Maybe if we get coffee in Manhattan we can coax lisapeet down from the Bronx or get Kidzdoc to make a trip in from Philadelphia...

>13 BLBera: Happy New Year! Thanks for stopping by -- I usually collect a few recommendations from your thread, so I hope to return the favor.

>14 Linda92007: Hello and welcome! I hope to fill out possibilities for African novels soon, but it looks like I have to restructure the post first. Oops.

>15 NanaCC: I do still have a life-long goal of visiting every room in the Met museum. The problem is that in the past few years, due to several renovations, they are creating more rooms than I visit each year!

>16 dchaikin: It's good to "see" you here Dan!

As for >7 ELiz_M: One of my favorite reading challenges was created by the Reading Women podcast (I never listened, just found the challenge on the internet), but it looks like the podcast has been discontinued. So I created my own patterned on the 2021 prompts.

Such fun challenges! I look forward to seeing your Africa choices, as well as your women authors.

Good to see you here. I look forward to your Africa & #foodandlit choices this year.

Happy New Year! Looking forward to following your thread again. That's a lot of reading plans! I'll definitely be interested in your Africa project.

Happy New Year, Liz! Will be following along again in 2022. Good luck with those reading plans!

>22 labfs39:, >24 DieFledermaus:, >25 AlisonY: Happy New Year and Welcome! Luckily, I have a relaxed approach to reading challenges -- I use them more as prompts to decide on the next book and do not feel compelled to complete them all!

>23 markon: Thanks for stopping by! I will be following your Food and Lit progress on Litsy, as well. :)

>9 ELiz_M: I may be anti–reading plan but I'm pro prompt. And hey, I'm 1 for 1 so far on this one, reading Empire of Pain right now. Anyway, I like your lists and reading and I'll be checking in.

Yay, Liz is back! I look forward to your literary endeavors, and, of course, your recipes.

>28 lisapeet: nice!

>29 kidzdoc: Thanks for stopping by! I will try to keep up with your cooking and reading -- your thread moves so fast!

I shouldn't be posting too many book-haul pictures (as a goal this year is to read twice as many books as I buy -- you can stop laughing now). But these past few pandemic years it has become a ritual to walk to a half dozen Brooklyn bookstores as a birthday treat. I visited Cafe con Libros, The Park Slope Community Bookstore, McNally Jackson - Downtown Brooklyn, Barnes and Noble, Cups and Books, Greenlight Bookstore (two locations), and my favorite bookstore, The Center for Fiction.

>31 ELiz_M: beautiful. I'm really curious about the 1619 project, which gets a lot of mention in NYTimes.

>31 ELiz_M: Wonderful haul. I would love to be able to walk to bookstores. Not possible in rural Maine. Sigh.

>31 ELiz_M: Great haul! And borough bookstore envy... we have exactly one bookstore in the entire Bronx, and it's not within walking distance unless I was feeling very ambitious.

>31 ELiz_M: - Enjoyed the book pile. What are the top four books?

Happy new year, Liz! I've starred your thread, so I don't lose you. I hope we can get together this year, germs permitting...

>31 ELiz_M: - Love this! No Books are Magic stop, or is it out of the way? (I've never been, but I love Emma Straub.)

Happy new year! You have so many interesting titles :-)

Happy New Year, fellow bookspinner. Good luck with your reading.

Oh wow, look at your gorgeous lists and challenges. I'll be coming back to take notes. I enjoy this sort of thing too, but most of mine are in my book journal.

>33 labfs39: It helps that NYC is a little warmer, as well (an unseasonable 57 degrees last week!)

>34 lisapeet: My ambitious goal is to someday walk to the cluster of bookstores in Williamsburg/Greenpoint....

>35 DieFledermaus: Havana Year Zero (I have read three Cuban authors, all male, all.....well... let's say none left a good impression. I thought maybe I needed a different point of view)
84 Charing Cross Road I realized I didn't own a copy and I wanted to.
Passage of Tears was found on McNally Jackson's African shelves. An author from Djibouti!
The Diesel was part of The Center for Fiction's small press display (ANTIBOOKCLUB). The author is from the United Arab Emirates.

>36 katiekrug: I was going to encourage you to come see a show but, omicron. :(

Books Are Magic is within range (about a 10 minute walk from B&N). I just don't have good luck there. Maybe my taste is too different from the staff that creates the display tables and decides which books get front-facing shelf placement? It's close to my best friend's house, so I'll probably stop by later in the month. And likely will find _something_ to buy.

>37 Dilara86: Thank you for stopping by! I hope the plot is as interesting as the titles....

>38 majkia: And a Happy new Year to you!

>40 ELiz_M: Djibouti and UAE, nice...

Interesting to note that there is a playlist of the music mentioned in Havana Year Zero here. This book goes on my list of possibilities for a Cuba read in March with #foodandlit on Litsy.

Great book (and champagne) haul, Liz! Most of the titles are books that I'm very interested in, particularly Transparent City, Telephone and The 1619 Project, so I look forward to your thoughts about them.

>31 ELiz_M: Nice haul, Liz. Good luck with your goal of reading more than you buy.

Happy New Year, Lisa.

Lucky you to be surrounded by so many good bookstores! (Maybe a bit unlucky too, financially I mean).

Great prompts and challenges! I look forward to following your reading this year.

>42 markon: Thanks for that! I will most likely be reading Havana Year Zero in the same month, for the same reason/challenge :)

>43 kidzdoc: The 1619 Project is a 5-month long group read over on Litsy. I hope I don't get distracted and am able to stick with it.

>44 BLBera: Thanks. I have actually run out of shelf space so that will make it a little easier to avoid buying books I can get from the library at least.

>45 PaulCranswick: And a Happy New Year to you too, Pauly! ;)

>46 arubabookwoman: It is lucky! And planned (I decided my current neighborhood was an okay place to move to when I noticed that Greenlight Bookstore was opening a new store a few blocks away....)

>47 MissBrangwen: Thanks for stopping by!

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff, pub. 1970
Finished 5-Jan-2022

I needed something to read in the bath and since the other 5 books I have going are either ebooks or too heavy, I grabbed this slim, recently purchased book for a quick re-read.

It is as charming as ever, but so much slighter than I remembered! Only 87 pages and there are clearly gaps -- several letters are clearly responding to a letter that was not included, that I did spend a bit of time poking around to see if I had accidentally purchased an abridged version.

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, pub. 2020
Finished 6-Jan-2022

Twin Girls, Desiree and Stella, grow up in a Louisiana town so small it's not even on the map, but the limitations of that 1960s small-town southern life drives them first to New Orleans. There, their lives diverge as one twin passes and disappears.

Bennett writes about a complicated situation simply. The story of Desiree and Stella is told through many different viewpoints, not just their own but also their daughters and those close to them. The plot could have been soap-opera dramatic, but instead the story feels true (albeit with some incredible coincidences) and is just very well-done. But, the problem with a multi-view, multi-generational work such as this is how to end. In this case, the ending sort of just petered out; it stops rather than concluding, which I appreciated and yet was a tad disappointed.

I suspect this book was over-hyped, because I wanted/expected a little more - I wanted it to make me feel more, think more, to surprise me.

>49 ELiz_M: “ that I did spend a bit of time poking around to see if I had accidentally purchased an abridged version. 🙂 that’s a little funny.

>50 ELiz_M: this reminds me I should read Passing. I’m less drawn to this though, because most reviews I have read imply it’s a bit mixed.

>50 ELiz_M: - Having read Passing last year, I keep thinking I should read this but it doesn't call out to me. Maybe someday...?

Wow Liz, I love all your planning and choices. I must return here to keep track of your Reading Africa choices. And your 1982-2022 list looks great too. Happy to follow along!

>51 dchaikin: Yes you should read Passing. And it's short!

>52 katiekrug: A lot of people loved it. 🤷

>53 Simone2: Hopefully I'll be posting ReadingAfrica on Litsy as well.

The Queue by Basma Abdel Aziz, pub. 2012
Finished 11-Jan-2022

The atmosphere of this novel was based on post-Arab Spring Egypt. Shortly after "the Disgraceful Event", Yehia, who was shot during the event, is seeking treatment from Tarek. But without a permit from the government, Tarek cannot operate to remove the bullet. So Yehia joins the line waiting outside The Gate to apply for the necessary permit. The Gate hasn't opened since the Event and the line grows longer and longer as daily decrees require citizens to apply for permission for an ever-increasing number of mundane aspects of life.

The story is not quite linear -- it opens with Tarek reading Yehia's file and thinking back to Yehia's arrival in the ER on the day of the Disgraceful Event. The rest of the story unfolds from multiple viewpoints, mostly Yehia and Tarek, but also Yehia's girlfriend, other citizen's waiting in line, and so on. It is a clever blend of dystopia, absurdism and Kafka, but it is mostly conveyed dispassionately. We hear the character's thoughts, but do not feel their emotions. (except for one powerful passage that strongly reminded me of the climax of 1984). An intriguing, if not compelling read.

>55 ELiz_M: never heard of the book or the author, but I enjoyed your review. Where are all those books on the Arab Spring?

>55 ELiz_M: - You do make it sound interesting! I've read a couple queue-based books (The Line by Olga Grushin and The Polish Complex by Tadeusz Konwicki; The Queue by Vladimir Sorokin is on the list) and usually think of them as a Soviet-era genre.

>56 dchaikin: She's having a moment in CR -- Dilara read another of her books (https://www.librarything.com/topic/338000#7730565) and Simone2 also read this one (https://www.librarything.com/topic/338035#7725978). I think we all read this author for Litsy's #ReadingAfrica2022 and/or #FoodandLit - Egypt. :)

Perhaps all the books on the Arab spring are in Arabic and haven't been translated yet.

>57 DieFledermaus: How was the Sorokin? I have it and was tempted to read it immediately after the Egyptian queue.

Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy, pub. 2020
Finished 15-Jan-2022

Once again I have waited too long to review a book -- needing to think about it more, but still reading, until the details are forgotten and I have even less to say.

Franny Stone is as damaged as the world in which she lives. In the near future, the Earth's environment has been irreparably ruined and the extinction of all large animals has taken place and more and more species are vanishing. Franny has a deep, almost mystical, connection to nature and birds and is on a mission to observe what might be the last migration of the Arctic terns from Greenland to Antarctica. But to do so, she must convince a fishing vessel to take her and her mission on board.

The journey and Franny's tumultuous past are told in fragments, quick scenes flashing back and forth in time. Revealing glimpses of both worlds, withholding information and building tension. It should feel manipulative, but it doesn't, as Franny is withholding information from herself. Throughout it all, McConaghy brilliant describes the environment, the people, adding a couple of words to a physical description of a person that illuminates an aspect of their personality too. I found it utterly compelling.

>59 ELiz_M: - I just picked this one up in a Kindle sale. Everyone who's read it seems to love it.

Ulirát: Best Contemporary Stories in Translation from the Philippines by various, pub. 2021
Finished 17-Jan-2022

I've been slowly reading this collection for several months and will have to come back to add notes for some of the individual stories. But I am a little disappointed in myself in that the stories I enjoyed the most were the ones that were familiar, told in a "Western" style.

>58 ELiz_M: - I actually haven't read the Sorokin--on the wishlist--so I'll be interested if you get around to reading it.

>59 ELiz_M: - That one sounds good, and I love the cover. Very wintry.

Passage of Tears by Abdourahman A. Waberi
Finished 22-Jan-2022

This is a book where blurbs and publisher reviews really are a disservice to the reader. I suppose it is possible to read it as a "spy novel" or "political thriller", but only by overlooking the lack of plot and momentum. Instead, it is a multilayered story told through three different texts. The first is from the notebooks of Djibril, an ex-pat who has made his life in Quebec, returning to his birth-country on assignment for his employer, a security-consultant specializing in location scouting. The second text is letters written on scraps of paper by a Muslim inmate of a remote island prison, following and reacting to Djibril's movements. And the prisoner's letters are written on a text by Walter Benjamin, a favorite author of Djibril and whose writings influence the other two narrators in formative ways.

Through the structure and the mentions or hints of other works of literature and art the novel encourages the reader to make connections, especially as it does not provide context. The reader is dropped into the world, not really understanding what Djibril is doing there, or the role of the Muslim prisoner. Context is only slowly provided through disjointed memories or religious-influenced monologues. Overall, I found it to be intellectually interesting but emotionally flat and bereft of tension.

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
Finished 28-Jan-2022

A novel of interconnected stories encompassing different ways to be British-African. Each chapter has three sections, each of which focuses on a character ruminating on her/their life. Through these twelve vignettes, the author explores everything from the immigrant experience, to their privileged daughters, from lesbianism to gender non-conformity, from those who are proudly black to those that did not know of their African heritage.

The stories reward close reading – there are many connections besides the obvious ones and details from one character play out in another's story. However, the downside of connected stories is that not all readers will be drawn to all the characters and the vignettes, all structured similarly, began to feel repetitive. As well as the unusual narrative structure, the author also plays with form, each story has moments where the prose is fractured and breaks down into fragments of poetry. It reads better as a book than ebook (which loses some of the formatting).

The Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare
Finished 5-Feb-2022

As always, I find Shakespeare and other well-know classics difficult to write about on anything other than a personal level. I found this to be in some ways a bit of a mess, an enjoyable mess, but still a mess. There are faithful lovers, unfaithful lovers, disguises, a damsel locked in a tower, escapes, betrayal, deceit, wooing, bandits, attempted rape, saucy servants, dim-witted servants, and a dog.

The two gentleman are Valentine and Proteus, both sent to attend the Duke of Milan. Valentine, unencumbered, looks forward to the adventure but Proteus is devastated to leave behind his love. Valentine, as his name implies, falls in love at court and Proteus, also as suggested by his name, abandons his love for another's love. This main story is interrupted by all the other story lines, particularly the several scenes of low-humor and witty dialogue between the servants.

I enjoyed the female characters more than many other Shakespeare plays. Julia, the first beloved of Proteus, has a fantastic scene with her waiting woman as she admits her love of Proteus and resolves to follow him to Milan. But, while she has a role in the rest of the play with some clever asides, the rest of her role doesn't seem to match the boldness of her scene. Silvia is also shown as more clever than her lover, creating a letter-writing trick that befuddles Valentine (and is explained by the astute servant).

I would like to see this staged, very much as I always have trouble with humor on the page. The scene with the Duke of Milan foiling the escape plan is probably played for laughs, but I found it rather dumb.

And there there is the final scene with the baffling multiple changes of heart taking place faster than the turning of cards in a game of slap-jack where the strength of brotherly love overcomes betrayal and women's agency to result in "happy endings".

Aside form the messiness and the problematic climax, I did enjoy this very much. The language is beautiful in places, wonderfully clever in others, and more accessible than I expected -- I hardly had to refer to the footnotes at all.

>65 ELiz_M: Three wonderful reviews. I'm intrigued by the idea of Passage of Tears, but will probably skip since the execution is flat. I like the covers of both it and the Shakespeare.

>66 labfs39: Thanks! I think PoT is a book where expectations matter -- if you go in expecting the traditional building of tension of a plot-driven novel it doesn't work. But if you expect more of an intellectual puzzle, it might be quite good.

>65 ELiz_M: Enjoyed reading your thoughts on Two Gentlemen of Verona It is a funny, humorous play, not to be taken too seriously. The humour is verbal rather than slapstick. I read it a couple of years ago and found it delightful and relatively easy to follow. I also watched the film of the BBC production and this is what I wrote about that:

"The BBC film of the play shown in 1983 certainly did make me laugh and I thought the two main stage settings: The court in Milan and the Forest of Mantua were brilliantly set up. The first half of the play with all its wit and repartee had an innocence about it, especially as the actors were mainly young people. It was frothy, light and just right. The second part of the play which has all the drama of the lovers betrayals was darker, but still with some lighter touches, there was a lovely setting of the song "Who is Sylvia" Overall a very good film of the play and proof positive that it can be made to work and to entertain."

>65 ELiz_M: I also enjoyed your review of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and also of Girl, Women, Other, an audiobook I had trouble with. I thought your comments about the repetitive aspect was insightful, maybe plays into what I didn't like about it.

I enjoyed your comments, Liz. I loved Girl, Woman, Other but agree that not all characters are equally compelling.

>68 baswood: Thanks, I'll have to see if I can find the BBC production.

>69 dchaikin: >70 BLBera: Thanks for the comments!

The Last Brother by Nathacha Appanah, pub. 2007
Finished 5-Feb-2022

The frame story, an old man being driven by his son to visit a grave, lends the rest of the novel a tinge of melancholy as the narrator recalls a pivotal relationship. His story begins with a tragedy that prompts a move from their small, remote village into a town where his father finds work as the lowest of the guards for a prison.

Raj delivers his father's lunch one morning and, fascinated by this new world, hides to observe the innates. Contrary to his imagination these are emaciated, thin, harmless-looking people. In retrospect, Raj knows that the prisoners were a group of Jewish refugees escaping Nazi-occupied Europe that were refused entry to British-controlled Palestine and ended up in the prison on Mauritius.

Through glances and gestures exchanged through the fence and a later stay in the prison's infirmary, Raj develops a bond with a blond boy about his age. Despite an language barrier, they share a grief and aloneness that feels like kinship. As the reminiscences unfold, mostly in chronological order with an occasional flash-forward for illumination, Appanah uses lush and descriptive language to unfold a little-known moment in her island country's history, shown through the eyes of a young boy who has every reason to be deeply connected to and impacted by the presence of these strangers.

duplicate

The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery, pub. 2015
Finished 10-Feb-2022

Chosen by my real life book club, this was a fun and chatty popular science book. While I did learn quite a bit about the physical characteristics of octopuses, the discussions of "soul" and "wonder of Consciousness" was mostly the author's speculation, based on observations of a few specimens. I don't remember much, if any, supporting documentation from scientific studies. It felt anecdotal, as if the author was trying to be the next Mary Roach but with less research. The author is personable and it was an easy read, but the book may have been done a disservice by the publisher's choice of title/subtitle.

H(a)ppy by Nicola Barker, pub. 2017
Finished 12-Feb-2022

“the Old were completely awash with facts and non-facts. They asked a question and it was promptly answered. A fountainhead of information was released. But was the water clean? Did it quench, revive or simply deluge? Did it not often threaten to saturate and drown?”

Humanity has finally found a way to be happy. They have developed a system that monitors and avoids experiences of excess emotion, allowing individuals to remain "in balance". Mira A, one of the Young, is a musician and in her research about a new instrument she is learning to play, she stumbles upon a snippet of real information, a specific that snags on her consciousness, throwing her out of balance. Mira A's awareness that she is out of balance further disrupts her Graph, visibly marking her as a disruptive force. As she falls out of step with the perfect society she inhibits, the typography of the book reflects her turmoil in a beautifully wildly imaginative visual representation:

. . .

The initial world building is phenomenal, as is the graphic layout of the book. This creativity is almost enough to overcome the strictures necessary in creating a world without emotion, but as the text is more visual the story suffers -- Barker does not quite manage to cultivate the necessary dread or horror to propel the narrative. It is ironic for a novel depicting a world without stories? Or is it intentional?

Nice to see some posts from you, Liz! Did you really read those all last year, or are the years oopsies?

>76 katiekrug: ~waves hello~
I am way behind in my posts, but not quite that far behind!

Hi Liz - Great comments. H(a)ppy sounds interesting. The photos of the pages intrigue me. I'll have to look for this one.

>78 BLBera: It's a little harder to find than her other works -- I don't think it was ever released as a paperback (probably due to the multiple colors of ink and graphics required?) I hope you can locate an affordable copy!

>74 ELiz_M: I read a different book by Sy Montgomery called The Good Good Pig, which was about her life on her farm with her pig. That was a better book, because although she clearly loved her pig, it didn't wander off into the metaphysical.

>80 labfs39: Sounds like a better bet.

Waiting: A Novel of Uganda's Hidden War by Goretti Kyomuhendo, pub. 2007
Finished 17-Feb-2022

This novella depicts a conflict in Africa as it is felt by one rural village. As Amin's defeated fighters rush through in a chaotic retreat, they perpetuate random violence and vandalism. They are followed by the liberating army in a more measured, respectful march. But it is an army that still requires supplies and disrupts lives.

For Alinda's family, war is just a series of hardships visited upon them, from the killing of one family member to the amputation needed by a neighbor to the disappearance of some family members and the addition of others. All of these events are shown through 13-year-old Alinda's eyes and while there seems to be a momentum in the series of events described, there is no meaning. It is a well-told story of an adolescence lived in anticipation of unpredictable, uncontrollable events and adjusting to circumstances as best as one can.

Katalin Street by Magda Szabó, pub. 1969
Finished 26-Feb-2022

As can be surmised from the title, this is a novel about place. Katalin Street was the home of three families whose children were bound by friendship and then tragedy. Iren Elekes is the elder daughter of a headmaster, she is the good child, serious and eventually elegant. Her younger sister, Blanka, is impulsive and spontaneous. Henrietta Held is the newest neighbor; she is shy, reserved and delicate. and as a young Jewish girl in 1930s Hungary, needs protection. The other neighbor child, Balint is intelligent and handsome and loved by all the girls, each in their own way, but he chooses Iren. However, a terrible event binds the families together even as the guilt and memories pull them apart.

Katalin Street is a novel about memory and regret and possibly the consequences of choosing to live in the past. It is dreamy and fluid, frequently shifting timelines and point of view and Szabo takes her time revealing the special circumstances of one of the narrators. It is a novel that requires closer reading than I was able to give.

>83 ELiz_M: I really need to get to Szabó ; I've had The Door on my wish list forever, and this is the second good review of Katalin Street that I've read recently.

>84 labfs39: Iza's Ballad was my favorite so far (of the three)

Reviewed in my 1001-Books thread (click the picture to read the full review):



New Grub Street by George Gissing, pub. 1891
Finished 6-Mar-2022

Taking place among the literary set of London, it had a more modern feel -- the characters are all flawed and rather than being a moralistic story where good is rewarded or a tragic story where good is punished, Milivan seems more of a modern day anti-hero.

My Struggle: Book One by Karl Ove Knausgård, pub. 2009
Finished 10-Mar-2022

I trust that this book, this author needs no introduction. Indeed, I fully expected to either love or loathe this work, but surprisingly have fallen into a "it was fine" camp. The sections of the novel where a memory is recounted rather fully, as a story with an arc and KOK's commentary on the process of writing was fairly interesting, but there were large swaths of the incessant detail that I found boring. Perhaps this was the intent; judging from the reviews the litany of detail early on presupposes the power of the detailed description of the state of his dead father's house and the painstaking process of cleaning it. I thought I was weird for finding this section engrossing, but apparently it is also a reflection of the author's skill.

Stylistically, it is an interesting accomplishment. The writing feels much a more realistic representation of thought processes than the carefully curated stream of consciousness of the early 1900s, but as I an not familiar with the geography of Norway and Sweden, the frequent shifts in time and place were not always apparent to me and I frequently felt lost. I suspect, like many other multi-volume, experimental works, the impressiveness of the narrative will only grow in power as further volumes are read.

>87 ELiz_M: Will you read on?

>88 labfs39: Yes, eventually (I own all six volumes).

Reviewed in my 1001-Books thread (click the picture to read the full review):



The Daughter by Pavlos Matesis, pub. 1990
Finished 16-Mar-2022

An irreverent, vulgar and quite self-conceited narration by the protagonist of her life from a young girl in WWII to old age in Athens.

>82 ELiz_M: Noting the Uganda novel for my dad. He's devoted a lot of time to charity work in Uganda and has travelled there several times, so I think he might enjoy that one.

Reviewed in my 1001-Books thread (click the picture to read the full review):



The Trusting and the Maimed by James Plunkett, pub. 1955
Finished 19-Mar-2022

Exquisitely written, and yet with one exception also forgettable, short stories of 1950s Ireland.

>91 AlisonY: If your dad reads the novel, I hope he enjoys it!

Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban, pub. 1975
Finished 21-Mar-2022

A quiet novel about two middle-aged Londoners. William has been merely existing since his wife divorced him, taking the children with her. He left an advertising job and is subsisting as a bookseller, living alone in a bed sit. Neaera is a spinster, suffering from writer's block and searching for inspiration for her next children's book. Both have reached a "Is this all there is" point in their lives. Their stories, thoughts, are told in alternating diary entries that reflect and mirror each other in intriguing ways, providing momentum until their lives intersect in an odd way -- separately, they become fascinated with the turtles in the London Zoo and individually hatch plots to free them. As co-conspirators and because they are taking concrete actions in their lives, they are forced, in different ways, to connect (but not necessarily in the way one would expect), open up their lives, and let go of the past. William says it best: "I'd always assumed that I was the central character in my own story but now it occurred to me that I might in fact be only a minor character in someone else's."

I just reviewed Turtle Diary on my thread and used that exact same quote from William. I think we had similar reactions to the book.

>95 arubabookwoman: Yes, but your review was much better worded than mine! :)

The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi, pub. 2020
Finished 23-Mar-2022

The title and the first sentence tells the ending. The story, set in southern Nigeria, describes the how and the why. The main characters are the cousins Vivek and Osita and their stories are mostly narrated in the first person. However, the plot is driven by Vivek's mother. She continues to ask why, why why was her son killed The rest of the novel is in third person, conveyed the various viewpoints of Vivek's friends and relatives as they look back on his life and tragic end.

It is a lazy spiral, slowly closing in on the many events and contributing factors, detailing the oppression and indued shame thwarting the ability of the young people to become who they truly are. The author expertly conveys the details showing how much Vivek was loved and also how unknown and the emotional/psychological damage resulting from forcing oneself into conventions. But there is also joy in the moments when Vivek and Osita and their friends defy social strictures, a joy that almost makes the tragic end worthwhile.

Just realized whose thread this was, so happy to "see" you again. Interesting reviews as always - looking forward to more, but I know that perpetually behind on reviewing all too well.

Interesting that both you and >97 ELiz_M: have read Turtle Diary recently, so I'm now contemplating it based on your reviews.

>98 SassyLassy: Welcome, thank you for stopping by! There are a handful of people on CR that make the valiant effort to add reviews once woefully behind (you, arubabookwoman, and AnnieMod) that are the inspiration for my slow catch-up here. :)

Only 31 more reviews to go! I am (mostly) limiting myself to reading 500+ page books until I am caught up.

As for >94 ELiz_M:, it was a book club read for the #nyrbbookclub on litsy:

https://www.litsy.com/web/post/2386522
https://www.litsy.com/web/post/2386523
https://www.litsy.com/web/post/2386526
https://www.litsy.com/web/post/2386527
https://www.litsy.com/web/post/2386528
https://www.litsy.com/web/post/2386529

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters, pub. 2021
Finished 30-Mar-2022

Another title that is the plot. This is a messy, exuberant, overstuffed book. Ames has been in a clandestine relationship with his recently divorced boss, Katrina. When she discovers she is pregnant, he panics. Ames not too long ago lived as Amy, a trans woman. For complicated, fraught reason revealed in the course of the book, Ames detransitioned and is not wholly comfortable in the gender role of a man. especially the role of "father" as defined in traditional families. He needs a new way to be a parent. Enter Reese, Ames' ex-partner who is also a trans woman who desperately wants to be a mother. As the three enter discussions about whether and how it would work to co-parent in this unusual triad, the book careens back and forth through different times in their lives revealing how flawed they all are.

Through their discussions and memories the novel touches on all sorts of issues relating to gender identity, parenthood, privilege, and class. Some is done in a natural way through the character's conversations with Reese and Katrina calling each other of various forms of bullshit, as well as through situational drama, usually caused by Reese. It does get to be a bit too much and the pacing is weird. A fascinating, uneven read.

Lots of interesting reading!

>74 ELiz_M: - Too bad about this one--I have it on the pile. I still want to read it, but yeah, discussions about the soul seem like they would be out of place.

>83 ELiz_M: - Good to see a positive review--I loved The Door and this one is also on the pile. Sounds like I'll have to get Iza's Ballad also.

>86 ELiz_M: - I am hoping to read something by Gissing this year--tempting review!

>101 DieFledermaus: Hello DieFledermaus! While you're in CA, I'll be in Seattle touristing.

Of the three Szabó books I've read, Iza's Ballad was my favorite.

>102 ELiz_M: - Oh, fun! What will you be doing in Seattle? I hope the heat didn't interfere with your plans. It almost never gets above 90 in Seattle so we're not prepared to deal with it. This coming week should be back to normal temperatures.

I also heard good things about her Abigail--it seems like that is the one everyone knows in Hungary. Glad NYRB has been reissuing her books.

>103 DieFledermaus: A friend and I are going on vacation, staying with her cousin. I've never been to the PNW, so am excited to do all the touristing and eating oysters and salmon. I see there is a production of Elixir of Love, but am not sure how comfortable we all are with seeing a show indoors. I'm sad that there are no theater shows at ACT or Seattle Rep in August.

Oh the talk of Seattle is making me homesick.
I'm sorry you won't be able to to ACT. My husband was the architect when it was renovated (probably 15-20 years ago now). It was a difficult project for many reasons. One is that it is a historic building, so the facade had to be maintained exactly as it is. It is a historic building because FDR signed the Social Security Act into law in the basement. In addition, a portion of the building is dedicated to retirement housing for members of the fraternal order of Eagles (or something like that) and the two parts of the building had to be strictly separated. During the renovation, the entire interior of the building was gutted with just a narrow ledge around the exterior walls to walk on. It was really something to see. He was also the architect on another theater which I think is the SEattle Rep. He called it the "Leo K." but I think that is the nickname for the Seattle Rep. I will have to check. It's located in the Seattle Center.
Hope this didn't bore you!

Enjoy Seattle! Such a great city. I'd like to go back.

Have a great vacation, Liz. Seattle is a great city, lots to do.

And great comments on your reading. I loved The Death of Vivek Oji and have both Turtle Diary and Detransition Baby on my list.

Loving the Seattle love, makes me homesick too.

>105 arubabookwoman: I used to work for a company that installed permanent theater systems and the craziness of theater renovations and new construction is fascinating!

>106 katiekrug:, >107 BLBera: Thanks! So far so good. A chill first day (it was 90 degrees) so today is the first tourist day at, where else, Pike Place.

In the Company of Men by Véronique Tadjo, pub. 2017
Finished 5-Apr-2022

This slim volume tells the story of the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Because it is the story of an epidemic, it is not a typical novel. It is told in brief vignettes, loosely following the spread of the virus, narrated by the people effected. The opening paragraph is compelling - a father telling his daughter to leave the curse village. This is followed with the stories of two boy among the first infected, the slow response of the medical team. There are stories narrated by doctors and nurses treating the sick and stories of the patients fighting the disease - some successfully, but most not. There are stories of mothers refusing to leave their sick children and gangs of starving children orphaned by the disease. There are the stories of a famous African doctor that gets sick and is unable to get treatment and the foreign doctor that is evacuated and saved.

With so many narrators and brief glimpses into so many lives, Tadjo is able to touch on the many issues contributing to the severity of the outbreak -- the lack of money and resources in the hospitals, the differential amenities and pay offered to NGO employees versus Africans, the initial disregard for working with the local customs and authorities. Finally, albeit a little heavy-handedly, Tadjo frames the story with the narration from a Baobab tree detailing the modernization of the African villages and the view of the Ebola virus and a bat detailing how humans have caused their own destruction.

Subdivision by J. Robert Lennon, pub. 2021
Finished 7-Apr-2022

A woman arrives at a guesthouse, as a first step in moving to the town. But why exactly is she moving…? The owners insist she work on a puzzle in the lobby and somebody does, but who….? Is the reappearing crow watching her…? The town is isolated, and something odd happens on the outskirts…. As you cab see, I can't even begin to summarize the plot -- it's too ethereal and follows dream-logic. While there are only the barest hints of the reality the narrator might be escaping and the reader does not know more than the narrator, there are some hints, open to different interpretations, that might explain what has happened to the narrator.

I am not sure what I read, but I loved it and found it mesmerizing as the story slowly develops the surreal landscape.

Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, pub. 2019
Finished 10-Apr-2022

I don't think I can review this work properly. I don't get on with graphic novels as I tend to be so text oriented that I don't absorb the visual information and am mostly left feeling that the stories are insubstantial. So, while I appreciate that this work exists and I enjoyed reading a different viewpoint, on the whole I didn't connect with the form.

>112 ELiz_M: I rarely get on with books that are surreal and 'dreamy,' as you've described Subdivision, but a rare 4 1/2 star review from you makes me think I ought to give this a try. I've put a library hold on it.

Great review of In the Company of Men, Liz. I'll have to get a copy of it, and read it alongside Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds: Ebola and the Ravages of History by Paul Farmer.

>114 arubabookwoman: If you liked Fever Dream, this has the same sort of story logic, but stranger and less fearful.

>115 kidzdoc: I hope you enjoy it if/when you get around to reading it!

The Expedition to the Baobab Tree by Wilma Stockenstrom, pub. 1981
Finished 11-Apr-2022

I think this is a book that requires context. Narrated by an enslaved woman, it is an interior monologue and the reader is thrown into her thoughts mid-discussion. The woman has been brought on an expedition, dreamed up by the son of her former owner, to find a route to a rumored city of immense wealth. Ignoring the known trade routes and with an unknown destination, it is not surprising the expedition failed. All that is left, the supplies and the men having been stolen, killed, or just disappeared, is this one women. She has taken refuge in a hollowed out Baobab tree in the middle of the South African veld. Barely surviving, she seamlessly narrates both her present condition and her past live as a slave.

Unfortunately, the combination of not understanding her current situation, not knowing the history of the time period, and the complex literary language in which it is written made it a more frustrating than enjoyable read.

To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers, pub. 2019
Finished 21-Apr-2022

Chambers' novels are beloved and well reviewed in CR, so I was delighted when this became available a day before a trip, hoping for something as engrossing as the Murderbot books. However, it was less focused on character and action, instead it had grandeur, more inventive ideas ideas and sweeping descriptions. It is a novella detailing the survey of four planets by a small crew of astronauts: an engineer, biologist, meteorologist. The first planet is a world of ice and iridescent creatures. The second has fantastical life-forms. The third is a world of water and clinging, screeching creatures, and the fourth a desert. Meanwhile back on Earth, much time is passing and monumental events have jeopardized the continuity of the mission, ending with an uncertain outcome, in almost a "lady or the tiger" fashion. A pleasant, if not compelling, read.

Havana Year Zero by Karla Suárez, pub. 2011
Finished 22-Apr-2022

It is 1993 and Cuba is suffering its worst economic crisis in generations. In a desperate world where store shelves are empty, fuel for transportation almost non-existent and housing nearly impossible to come by, Julia, a young math professor whose career has stalled, hears of a scientific document proving the telephone was invented in Cuba. In her quest to learn more about the inventor and to find the paper, Julia becomes involved with a cast of characters each of whom finds hope in the document. It was hard to buy into the characters’ world as the central plot device is ridiculous -- everyone is looking for the document and the character's expectations of how it's discovery will magically transform their lives is beyond credulity.

It is a complicated novel, the narrator purports to be solving the case mathematically, and while some critics did find a pattern in the structure all i saw was something closer to chaos theory. All that said, I was intrigued by this novel. Having only read unpleasant, very male, and borderline misogynist novels by Cuban writers before, I was interested to see another perspective. Suárez did an impressive job setting up the world and introducing the characters. I hope her next work has a better plot device

I have nothing of worth to say about your recent reading, but I do love the word "baobab." It's one I learned from doing the NYT Spelling Bee :)

Are you back from Seattle?

>117 ELiz_M: I wonder at a white Afrikaan woman writing, during apartheid, about the inner life of a Black enslaved woman. Did that feel weird when you were reading?

>111 ELiz_M: I also liked In the Company of Men, Liz.

I'm not much of a graphic novel reader, either, but there are some really good ones available now. I did like Gender Queer.

Havana Year Zero sounds interesting.

>120 katiekrug: Yes, I was in Seattle for the first week of August and have since returned to NYC and work.

>121 labfs39: Honestly, I was too busy grappling with "what the heck is going on?" to consider this aspect.

>122 BLBera: I think it was your review of Gender Queer that brought it to my attention.

Outline by Rachel Cusk , pub. 2011
Finished 23-Apr-2022

I had heard many positive things about this book, and knowing it begins on a plane I borrowed it to read on a trip to visit family. I have little memory of the novel, but I do remember being underwhelmed. It seemed like a book I would love from the reviews:

"Outline explores both the way people present themselves and the act of storytelling. On one level an absorbing series of confessional tales, it is also a deft, multi-layered commentary on the nature of narrative and the effects of a listener's bias and filter."
-- Heller McAlpin, NPR review

and

" The most exhilarating works of fiction are surely those that leave you both satisfied and a little stirred up – and this has to be one of the oddest, most breathtakingly original and unsettling novels I've read in a long time."
-- Julie Myerson, The Guardian review

What I found to be a readable, if slightly dull, recounting of monologues delivered to the narrator by the people she encounters, others found to be complex, multilayered and discused, in a meta-fashion way, how revolutionary it is. I think this might just be the book equivalent of Duchamp's "found object" sculptures. It's brilliant in it's use of ordinary objects in a new context (and one might need to be steeped theory/criticism to "get it".).

>124 ELiz_M: I read Outline at the end of last year and can't remember a single thing about it which I think sums up my feelings on the book. Even when I reread my review just now it didn't ring any bells for me at all - have totally mentally put it in the 'forget' part of my brain.

>124 ELiz_M: I too found Outline very underwhelming, but your comments on why others have liked it are interesting!

>124 ELiz_M: I read it five years or so ago, and really liked it at the time—but don't remember anything about it now, other than the narrator being a bit of negative space for the rest of the characters to try and fill in. I think I enjoyed what she was doing formally, but at this point I have no idea exactly why.

>125 AlisonY: :)
>126 wandering_star: Thank you!
>127 lisapeet: Had I understood that much, I probably would have enjoyed it more.

Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell, pub. 1848
Finished 26-Apr-2022

This was Gaskell's first novel and as such, not too surprisingly has some pacing problems. Most notably, there seems to be almost two different kinds of stories in this novel. In the first half is about a beautiful and poverty-stricken young woman who has caught the eye of the son of a wealthy factory owner. She is determined to catch him and lift herself and father out of misery. As her life is backgrounded, the focus is on the working class, the day-to-day poverty and the tension between the unions and factory owners. Then, there is a murder and the novel becomes more of a law and order drama as Mary works to protect those she loves. This section of the novel seems more focused on morals and personal virtues as Mary interacts with more good and pious characters. Also, there is a sudden shift in Mary's feelings and character that wasn't believable to me.

Overall though, the writing and characterization is quite good and the over-the-top melodramatic climax is rather fun.



As a random digression and also relevant to North and South discussions, Gaskell here, too, seems to think that labor and management just need to understand each other better. Which apparently upset the ruling classes if this review is any indication:

Can the authoress believe this to convey a truthful impression of Manchester life? It is a libel on the workmen of Manchester.... It is a libel on the masters, merchants and gentlemen of this city, who have never been exceeded by those of any other part of the kingdom in acts of benevolence and charity, both public and private.

In a truthful "tale of Manchester, or factory life," it appears very strange that no notice whatever is taken of what has been done by the masters for improving the condition of the workmen - for instance, of the day and Sunday schools attached to many mills, and where this is not the case, of the inducements held out for their becoming subscribers to extensive libraries founded expressly for their benefit, or to mechanics' institutions.

Nothing is said of the parks which have been purchased, and laid out exclusively for their recreation and enjoyment, where thousands of happy and intelligent faces may be seen on Saturday afternoons and on holidays, delighting themselves in innocent games or athletic exercises, nor (when the mills are stopped for the want of a market) of the many instances in which the masters advance their work people a weekly sum for their subsistence. Not one word of all these is there in this "true tale of Manchester life."

Ah yes, a living wage is not necessary; all it takes are some nice libraries and public parks to provide food and medicine for their children and to restore the health of the mill workers ruined by breathing in the dust...

Garnethill by Denise Mina, pub. 1998
Finished 27-Apr-2022

A perfectly adequate plane book that did exactly what I needed - provide distraction for a day of travel. I don't remember anything about it, but have a lingering feeling that it was slow and plodding to start but was engrossing enough.

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw, pub. 2020
Finished 2-May-2022

A mostly brilliant collection of short stories. All of them are narrated by black women, most are coming to term with family relationships, religion, sexuality or a combination of all three. Some of the stories seem to be more experimental, playing with voice and or form, so as is usual with a story collection, there is some unevenness. However, the author expertly uses a minimum of words to convey the characters and her use of dialogue is very good. Some of my favorite stories are:
"Eula" two 40ish women friends on the verge of spinsterhood are celebrating New Years Eve, as always done in years past, with activities best kept on the down-low.
"Dear Sister" four half-sisters write a letter to a newly discover fifth daughter of their recently passed deadbeat dad. The descriptions of the family relationships and the women's interactions is exquisite.
"Jael" is fairly long and told in alternating narratives. One is the voice of the great-grandmother who is raising Jael, her orphaned great-grand daughter. The other narrative is Jael's diary. At first it seemed overly long and with too much friction and detail, but the juxtaposition builds wonderfully to a realization that had me near tears and a deliciously dark twist.
"Peach Cobbler" is very well done, a little saggy and long. But then there is "Instructions for Married Christian Husbands" which hints that it is the same narrator. Written in the second person it is a fantastic character study of one woman's approach to relationships. So cleverly done.

And that is almost half the book.

Lady Susan by Deesha Philyaw, pub. 1871
Finished 7-May-2022

This slim novella is one of the first things Austen wrote. Written as a collection of letters it is the story of the most accomplished coquette in England. Lady Susan, recently widowed and short on cash, has been making the rounds staying with various friends and acquaintances. Her conquest of the married Mr Manwaring, as well as the flirtation with Miss Manwaring's fiancee has necessitated her retreat to her brother-in-law's country estate.

Here, Lady Susan writes to her particular friend Alicia about her further schemes regarding Manwaring, young Reginald De Courcy and the ridiculous Sir James Martin are deliciously vicious. Austen then cleverly contrasts these with the sister-in-law's increasingly hysterical correspondence with her mother regarding the awfulness of Lady Susan and the enchantment of her younger brother Reginald.

While I found the epistolary style delightful, in order to convey the plot it does occasionally lead to some oddities and in the end Austen had to abandon the form in order to conclude the story properly. Between the format and the plotting of villainous characters, it is quite reminiscent of Les Liaisons dangereuses but with a overtones of Wharton's gentle skewering of the wealthy.

>132 ELiz_M: - I thought that one was great fun.

I loved The Secret Lives of Church Ladies; I'll never think of peach cobbler the same way again. I don't think I've read the Gaskell, but have enjoyed other work by her. Thanks for the nudge. Austen is always great.

>133 katiekrug: And posting about it reminded me that I should watch _Love and Friendship_ which is also fun. :)

>134 BLBera: I love Gaskell's work, but understand some of the reservations about her strong point of view.

The Wedding of Zein and Other Stories by Tayeb Salih, pub. 1969
Finished 11-May-2022

"The doum tree of Wad Hamid" is a short story, about 20 pages. It is narrated by a villager talking to a visitor to the town. The visitor's purpose is unclear, but the narrator takes it for granted that the visitor will only be staying a short while, only a night, and must be interested in the towns only object of significance -- a tree. So he narrates the stories of the tree, how it led to the founding of the town, it's miraculous properties, how the defense of it has led the villagers to forego modern improvements. While interesting, I found the point of view off putting.

"A handful of dates" is a very short story, just six pages. But in those six pages the author is able to describe the relationship/balance of power between two individuals and the moment a grandson becomes aware of this. A perfect ending.

"The Wedding of Zein" is a novella, about 90 pages. It's set in the same small town as many of Salih's works and, obviously, is centered around Zein. Zein is an unusual being, entering the world laughing instead of cry like most newborn babies. He is a kind of holy fool, described as grotesque in appearance and simple of thought, but is beloved by most of the town. He wanders anywhere and talks with just about anyone. He is known for his appetite and his ability to fall in love in an instant. It comes as a shock when the villagers find out he is to actually be married.

The novella is told almost in a series of gossiping stories. The narrative starts with the spread of news of the impeding marriage and then digresses into a series of stories about Zein, other villagers, and incidents that lead up to the momentous event. In this manner, the reader gets to know many different stories and characters and the author is able to depict the tensions between the different communities.

>136 ELiz_M: I liked Salih's novel, Season of Migration to the North even more than The Wedding of Zein. Have you read it, or might you?

>137 labfs39: Yes, I read it several years ago.

The film L&F is an adaptation of Lady Susan. Why they did that with the title, I have no idea.

(Forgive me if you already knew this!)

Earth and Ashes by Atiq Rahimi, pub. 2000
Finished 15-May-2022

This novella is an intense portrait of grief. An old man waits by a dusty road with a young boy and gradually through his thoughts and conversation with other, in simple, almost poetic language, the author reveals the horrific circumstances leading to the current predicament. The most intriguing aspect is the use of voice. It is clearly the old man's story, his thoughts and waking dreams, and conversation. But there is an omniscient voice detailing the action in the second person:

It's not you who are passing them. No. It's as if they are passing you. You're not moving. It's the world that's moving. You've been condemned to exist and watch the world pass,..."

At first it is off putting, but as the narrator focuses less on the minute actions he is performing and becomes more introspective, the use of second person develops a mesmerizing rhythm.

>140 ELiz_M: I read three novels by Atiq Rahimi, including Earth and Ashes, earlier this year and enjoyed them all.

The 1619 Project edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones, pub. 2021
Finished 18-May-2022

I can't begin to write a proper review of this work. It was first published as a special issue of the NYT Magazine, conceived by Nikole Hannah-Jones. At some point in her education, she learned that the first African slaves were brought to America in 1619 and it blew her mind that slavery was established in the US before the pilgrims landed and even more that this was yet another aspect of slavery, of black history that is not taught.

The book was publish two years after the magazine, to expand on some of the ideas/essays and to correct the missteps made in the magazine. It is divided into 18 chapters, each focused on a particular issue and written by a scholar or journalist that specializes in that issue. Additionally, each chapter is concluded with two works of literature by an African-American. As a collection of essays, some are better than others and there is also some overlap -- there is a chapter on medicine and a chapter on health and so one of them felt "weak" to me because the aspects I was interested in were covered in the other section.

I read this slowly, over a period of 5 months. It started as a group read on Litsy, but I kept a different pace and didn't often participate in the discussions. The sections I read from my hardcover copy have so many underlines and exclamations that I couldn't choose a significant passage without quoting half the book. A phenomenal, enlightening read.

Basic Black with Pearls by Helen Weinzweig, pub. 1980
Finished 19-May-2022

“Lola” is living her best life. Having left a husband and two children, she travels the world as directed by coded messages interpreted from magazines for assignations with her spy lover. But does she? As she waits in Toronto, she reminisces about past meetings and her past life. The narrative is fully interior and dreamy, with a nebulous timeline and hints that not is all as it might seem and the narrator might be even more unreliable than most. The one thought that I kept getting stuck on and pulling me out of the narrative was "how is she paying for all this travel!?%??". But her dreamy recollection of past meetings and her past life, touching on art (a painting by Bonnard), music (Bartók’s Bluebeard’s castle), and literature (V. Woolf), dwelling on narratives of women trapped and endangered by men they love, always drew me back in.

Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice, pub. 2018
Finished 1-Jun-2022

A wonderfully concise telling of the fracturing and disintegration of an Anishinaabe community in Northern Ontario after the collapse of "civilization" in the south. The narrator is a respected member of the community, trying to live in a manner that blends the native traditions with modern conveniences. When phone service cuts out and then the electricity fails, he is more prepared than some to survive the oncoming winter. But there are many in the community that likely won't, including his younger brother and possibly his parents. As the winter deepens and food supplies dwindle a trio of white survivalists arrive. Their charismatic leader slowly corrupts the altruism that has been holding the community together.

I was impressed by the authors ability to express the essential character of the antagonist in so few words in his first appearance and ability to create a growing sense of dread without "showing" the horrific events, knowing the less described the more likely the reader is going to fill in the missing picture with something worse than could be put into words. However, the events at the end could have used a little more story, more context.

>143 ELiz_M: assignations with her spy lover In Toronto? Definitely not the place I would picture for a romantic rendezvous! Perhaps Montréal?

Seriously though, it does sound like an interesting read, although your query re travel is a good one, though as you say, distracting.

Great comments, Liz. I enjoyed The Moon of the Crusted Snow as well, and I've added the Rahimi, Weinzeig, and The 1619 Project to my list, especially the later.

>145 SassyLassy: Regarding your teasing of Toronto I did say she was a more unreliable narrator than most. 😉

>146 BLBera: Mission accomplished!

Three good books on my list now!

>144 ELiz_M: I quite enjoyed Moon of the Crusted Snow too. Given your feelings about the ending, you might be pleased to hear he's writing a sequel:

He’s currently at work on a sequel to Moon of the Crusted Snow, to be published in spring 2023 by Penguin Random House Canada. The book will pick up some of the primary characters some years later as they face new challenges in a much-changed world.

Three great reviews. The 1619 Project interests me a lot. I’ve been thinking about it.

>142 ELiz_M: Thanks for that review. I read the original NY Times supplement a few months after it was first published, and I've been doing a lot of reading on the topics of African American history and racism in the U.S. over the past few years. Can you give a brief idea of what the missteps made in the magazine were? If so, thanks. If not, I'll do my own darn research! :)

>151 rocketjk: I believe it was mentioned in the introduction to the book, so you might be able to read an ebook "sample" that includes that bit.

ETA, from the preface, page xxviii:

After the special issue's publication, as people across the political spectrum debated the 1619 Project, we began to think about turning it into a book. With more time, we knew, we could create a more fully realized version of the project, with additional contributors exploring a broader range of subjects. We wanted to learn from the discussions that surfaced after the project's publication and address the criticisms some historians offered in good faith, using them as road maps for further study. For example, we expanded the essay on slavery and American capitalism to include important material on the constitutional bases of property rights. We added more nuance to a section on the evolution of President Lincoln's racial views in my opening essay, and we included more information in other chapters about slavery elsewhere in the Americas that predated 1619. We also added seven new essays by historians, on subjects ranging from slavery and the Second Amendment to settler colonialism and the expansion of slavery to how the Haitian Revolution helped to deeply embed fear of Black Americans in the national psyche. And we substantially expanded, revised, and refined the project's original ten essays and added a final essay, written by me, on the subject of economic justice, which brings the book to a close with a look to future solutions. The literary timeline that imagines moments in the history of slavery, anti-Blackness, resistance, and struggle has also been expanded. It now consists of thirty-six original works of fiction and poetry by some of this nation's most profound Black writers, which through a chorus of voices try to tell a story of the past four hundred years.

Emphasis added by me. "missteps" might have been too strong of a word, but there was a lot of criticism of the NYT magazine and the book, with all the above-mentioned additions, was the response.

Reviewed in my 1001-Books thread (click the picture to read the full review):



Obabakoak by Bernardo Atxaga, pub. 1989
Finished 1-Jun-2022

A collection of richly detailed short stories that meander into endings that have a surprising or unsettling twist.

>153 ELiz_M: I have not read anything translated from the Basque. Noting.

>152 ELiz_M: Thanks for adding that excerpt. Most helpful and informative. Hope you're having a good autumn in New York.

>155 rocketjk: I now have Billie Holiday on the brain for some reason...

https://youtu.be/xuzltUeITpw

>156 kidzdoc: I love Billie Holiday desperately, but when I think of "Autumn in New York," I generally think Ella:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50zL8TnMBN8

>157 rocketjk: Ooh...no argument here! Listening to Ella and Louis Armstrong performing together is always a special treat.

>154 labfs39: I hope you enjoy it, if you get around to reading it.

>155 rocketjk: Welcome!

>156 kidzdoc:, >157 rocketjk: Thank you for the lovely review-writing music.

People of the City by Cyprian Ekwensi, pub. 1954
Finished 3-Jun-2022

Amusa Sango, like many others, has been drawn into the city and unlike many, has managed to do relatively well. He is a crime writer for a local paper with a good nose for a story and in line to become editor. He is a popular musician, performing most nights in a club. He has a decent apartment, a servant, and liaisons with countless women. But the city is relentless. A woman he slept with become obsessed with Amusa and she and her mother cause trouble for him. A friend’s scheme gets him evicted from his apartment. The nightclub is sold and the new owner refuses to hire his band. His reporting, while truthful, is judged to be too controversial and he is fired.

Throughout it all, Amusa remains upbeat, hustling, sure things will go his way while the author delights in offering glimpses into the lives, hopes, aspirations of a multitude of city dwellers. Although the pacing is uneven and many characters don’t have much character, it is overall a good read.

Reviewed in my 1001-Books thread (click the picture to read the full review):



In Search of Klingsor by Jorge Volpi, pub. 1999
Finished 10-Jun-2022

An oddly paced book with layers of narrative and unreliable characters used to recount the personal lives and groundbreaking discoveries of various European scientists and mathematicians involved in the race to develop atomic weapons.

Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë, pub. 1847
Finished 11-Jun-2022

Anne's first novel is the story of a minister's family that has fallen on hard times. Agnes, tired of being treated as a silly girl and desperately wanting to help the family, finds a situation as a governess. Thus follows 50 tedious pages of how awful the children are, how the parents undercut her efforts, how put upon she is. Thankfully, the situation ends and Agnes finds a new position. These children are older, but still awful and through no fault of Agnes' they fail to improve, let alone learn anything. But Agnes finds consolation in visiting the poor in town and admiring the new young parish priest from afar. Of course, this situation must also end. There is yet another 50 pages or so before Agnes' life meets the expected happily-ever-after.

I found the novel uneven in writing -- at first the characters are so one-dimensional and Agnes does not come off well. But once Anne gets Agnes away from being a governess, the writing and the story improve.

The Loneliest Americans by Jay Caspian Kang, pub. 2021
Finished 19-Jun-2022

Purporting to be a look at Asian-Americanness through both memoir and history, it doesn't quite deliver. While the writing in individual chapters is excellent and the real-life answer to issues facing AAPI is “it‘s complicated”, it does not make for a coherent book. it‘s a problem when chapter 6 (of 8) is titled “What are We Talking About?”. It‘s thought-provoking, but should have been a fantastic book of essays instead of mushing it all together.

>162 ELiz_M: this is a really entertaining review. 🙂

>162 ELiz_M: I reread this about a year ago and "first novel" seemed to cry out all over it. Then I thought, well given the limited experience Bronte had with the world at that stage, how could it be otherwise?

If you're tempted to read her again The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a much different novel, and much more developed.

>164 dchaikin: Thank you 😊

>165 SassyLassy: I have read Tenant, but it was a long time ago and would probably be improved on a reread, now that I have read many more Victorian novels.