pickThis is a book of poems from my #tbrexplode project and is the poet's debut collection (she has more, which is good news to me!) I like how she talks about the body, relationships, rural life and how it effect the body and relationships, politics and more. The poet now teaches in eastern Oregon.
pickI've been accompanying major home cleaning projects with audiobooks so my dogs and I both listened to this one, a novel of connected stories from different points of view, most of them from the traditionally Mexican neighborhood of Echo Park, displaced by Dodger Stadium and surrounding gentrification. Strong voice, great in audio, a few racist terms that are uncomfortable.
This is on my January #tbrexplode list and I listened in #hoopla
so-soMemoir 6 of my #nonfictionnovember project - this one was a book on my #tbrexplode list for the month so I found the audio in hoopla. .
It was the first time I could hear Anthony's voice since his death. Some of the sections in this book feel even more spot on nine years later about food and restaurant trends; some of it hasn't aged as well. But it definitely demonstrates a maturity and clear understanding of his place in the order of things.⤵️
pickAt 29, Yancey Stirling is unmarried and is facing a lifetime of mundane conversations with her controlling family, who want her to be the butt of their jokes but don't think activities like reading or daydreaming are appropriate. So she takes her life into her own hands! A little pre-world war I feminist empowerment from the author of Anne of Green Gables.
Another title from my #tbrexplode project that I was enjoying enough to finish.
pickThis 1993 collection of short stories has been on my to be read list since 2010, and once I started it for my #tbrexplode project, I couldn't put it down. All stories are focused on relationships, sometimes groups of stories from different perspectives, some are unusual types. Just like I'm used to from later works by this author, she has realistic insight into the inner workings of her characters.
pickAnother one from my #tbrexplode project, added in 2009. A few years before that, I read Gulley's other non-fiction religion titles (If Grace is True; If God is Love), wrote him a letter, and he invited me to have lunch. I was in the midst of leaving church and wanted to understand how/why he stayed. So this was actually a pretty interesting follow-up. I just wish he read the audio!
pickOne of the books from my #tbrexplode project for June - I loved this year-long meditation on staying put, through memories and watercolor, drawings and observation.
so-soThis is supposed to be the story of two friends 20 years later, told through the lens of the female character's memoirs, but it's almost as if the author forgot his own conceit because it doesn't always read with that framing in mind. There are a lot of typical male MFA tropes but it was a quick read, easy to cross off my TBR from ten years ago. #tbrexplode
pick(Taking pictures of glossy library books is hard.) This collection from Haruki Murakami was on my #tbrexplode list for March, and I only meant to flip through it. But after reading "The Year of Spaghetti" he pulled me in. Other favorites include "Birthday Girl," "Crabs," and "Chance Traveler."
pickIn February and March of my #tbrexplode project, where I started at the beginning of my "want to read" list in Goodreads from 2009 and decide whether I still want to read those books, I hit a wall of Murakami. This book of short stories made the cut, all slightly related to the Great Hanshin, or Kobe, Earthquake that occurred in 1995. I did not understand the Frog story but was very moved by Thailand.⤵️
