So much to check out! https://electricliterature.com/62-books-by-women-of-color-to-read-in-2022/
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So much to check out! https://electricliterature.com/62-books-by-women-of-color-to-read-in-2022/
pickComing late to this series; so much fun! Socially crippled necromancer and a swordswoman who‘s great at zingers and 2-handed sword fighting but equally inept in emotional expression, what‘s not to like? Followed immediately by Harrow the Ninth so feeling very pumped at the moment!
Illustration: surfing 🏄♀️ in Kanagawa, Japan.
From The Paris Review interview RIP Joan Didion
pickHallucinatory nightmare vision of the American West set in a vaguely contemporary and yet not, maybe an alternative post dystopian parallel time,freaking hope so.A woman is raped and left for dead, escapes; a posse is after her. Brutal, ultra violent to the point of WTF please don‘t go there but the writer does. Fearless and mythic scope, poetic and giving voice to the land and animals. Not for everyone. Reinforced why my boots stay on concrete.
I have the boxed unbound pages edition, saving having to cut up the pages. Can‘t make a dent, so heads and tails! The one winner took 4 months to solve; hope to try to make another start over the holidays❣️ https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/nov/27/cains-jawbone-how-novels-puzzling-...
Won for Young Adult category! https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/nov/18/national-book-awards-jason-mott-wi...
Dostoyevsky‘s original manuscript.
The odds are on The Promise. I love the bookmaking on literature prizes! https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/nov/02/damon-galgut-favourite-to-win-2021...
Coming up from under a bit of the blues. Helped by delivery of stack this Culture Day (national holiday in Japan.) Mystery, essays on Black performance and artistry, memoir, and popular music history!
Fantastic new prize! Ursula LeGuin prize upcoming!
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/oct/21/realists-of-a-larger-reality-wante...
Went to the bookstore for the first time in ages! Today‘s stack including the latest Vanity Fair, a real treat in Tokyo.unplanned color coordination🌟😎
Extract from first chapter of Silverview- One of my Dad‘s favorite authors and in remembrance, one of mine as well. So much on morality and betrayal of trust-link also includes link to audio reading! https://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2021/oct/09/they-told-me-i-was-...
Intriguing look behind the scenes of how the Booker Prize is judged! I didn‘t know it was televised. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/oct/05/arguments-anticipation-and-careful...
Congratulations on the award! https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/sep/27/laura-jean-mckay-wins-the-arthur-c...
pickSo excited, just started it but can tell it is primo! Latest in one of my favorite series! Bryant and May of the Peculiar Crime Unit on the case; the kind of book you read slow to keep it from ending.
pickThe Church of Old Souls in Manchester is very much like Mick Herron‘s Slough House; instead of housing a crew of spooks, the church houses the motley crew of editors and journalists of the Stranger Times, a weekly newspaper specializing in reports on strange happenings. If the news feed has you down, this is the perfect book to lighten the mood. Very funny Herron/ Pratchett mashup with a touch of Gaiman😎❣️
bailedLiked the cover and the blurbs sounded the book would be enjoyable de-stressor for these strange times. Dad always said that if you can‘t say anything nice about a person or thing, don‘t say anything at all. What I can say is this is a wonderful example of a very detailed script/story summary:descriptions of characters, how they relate, a breakdown on the story arcs, courtroom antics in boring legal brief-ese. 100% does not make you care.
Raining today and the rest of the week in Tokyo, can hear fall footsteps.
Harlem Shuffle on this list of recommended fall books from LiHub:
https://lithub.com/22-novels-you-need-to-read-this-fall/
pickI‘ve been a fan since Carrie and Firestarter, and l love everything he‘s written. He keeps raising the bar. There are writers you are thrilled to discover and then there are writers who you run and get the newest book because whatever they do it‘s Christmas.Billy is an assassin for hire on one last job. Character driven, betrayals, twists, and a young woman with her own demons who changes Billy. Colorado touches and boom out of the park ending.
I read about this, bought it, opened up the box of unbound pages-need to put into order, then figure out the right solution out of many to solve the murder! Intimidating yet entrancing, will have to set a start date and get a new notebook!
pickHere‘s a great link to the author and the book: https://crimereads.com/rediscovering-the-gin-soaked-screwball-mysteries-of-craig... In the meantime if you‘ve ever watched Nick and Nora and loved it, here‘s a great example of the peculiarly American louche, bantering, urban high styling mix of society and crime back in the golden age! Still hoping for an Asta to appear.
Asian women writers in translation list link!
https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/dispatches/article/11-translated-books-by-as...
pickI loved Matt Ruff‘s Fool on the Hill and still do, and decided to reread this trilogy (which is this 1 book.) We got Joan dealing with alligators in the sewers, her ex who is building the tallest skyscraper as well as “Electric Negro” androids which makes for intensely uncomfortable satire, a black captain of a submarine, an AI Ann Rand; an ambitious and only partially successful funny yet pointed social commentary. Also the talking VW.
pickMargery Benson is a lonely and increasingly diminished home economics teacher who impetuously walks out of her job. She‘s been fascinated since she was a child by tales of the search for a golden 🪲 beetle and gives herself a good shake to organize an expedition (advertising for a companion) to an island jungle. It‘s a wild journey of self discovery, female friendship, grit, betrayal, surprise, and hope. Grudging admiration turned to liking!
pickFun, furious, breakneck speed; nonstop over the top! Tutor and exam taker for scions of Indian helicopter parents ends up with perfect score result for a client. Instant fame, tv and social media stardom for the client as our hero ends up as his manager. Wild excess and unraveling and corkscrew twists. Just have to 😂 and go with the flow; calling Netflix! Just cries for a streaming adaptation.
pickLove letter to New York City, from all kinds of perspectives and detail that had me nodding yes, yes, yes I lived this, I saw that, I walked past there, I fell in love here and cried just on that corner and I miss it, always a New Yorker and some day I will return.
pickFairytale,fantasy, refracted horror from shards of lives spanning 1910 to the 1990‘s: gangsters, mediums, loners, a miner allergic to light, 6 red-haired sisters, a criminal Minister of Culture, and the devil‘s own daughter who curses number 10 Luckenbooth, Edinburgh. Plus William Burroughs in a cameo turn!
pickA generation spaceship, the Matilda, is a recreation of plantation slavery. The lower the decks, the darker your skin, and how you work for a living. Heroine is learning to be a healer while finding out how and why her mother disappeared. Which is the catalyst for a revolution 🔥of sorts. Stubbornness, smarts, hope, and searing sense of injustice for a revelation!
pickBlack diva and skinny white English songwriter team up;story of an ahead of the curve duo unveiled in oral history by the daughter of a key band member. Also shows you how old I am because I kept wanting to check what Ben Fong-Torres wrote about them! This story gets it right and true.
pickAlpha male fathers of a murdered gay couple realize they had rejected their sons for their sexuality and to prove their love too late they go after the killers with no mercy. I grew up watching revenge films and stories of samurai/bushido honor killings; the fathers don‘t care about honor; they want justice. Great interview: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jul/31/sa-cosby-the-holy-trinity-of-south...
pickA black box Is an opaque non-transparent system that uses information to produce a particular set of results, but that works in a way that is secret. Saori Ito was raped. She faced a black box that protected her rapist. She decided to fight back publically and write about it: lighting Japan‘s #MeToo moment. Just bought the English translation. Read it and stand with her.
Arrived today from Book Depository 5,713 miles away! Love Binet and so much fun ahead with alternate history; the Aztecs conquer Europe. Getting out the popcorn for this one😎
Mascot for Osaka Secondhand Books Association! Goats eat paper so a bit risky? Named Koshotan.
Rebel librarians https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/mar/16/words-have-the-power-to-heal-syrias...
Need a smile? This gave me much needed laugh 😆! https://lithub.com/50-very-bad-book-covers-for-literary-classics/
RIP Norton Juster. https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/09/norton-juster-author-of-the-phanto...
Interesting contrasting covers- UK and Japan https://www.spoon-tamago.com/2021/03/01/kazuo-ishiguro-klara-and-the-sun-book-co...
Library haul! Have two days of work to meet deadline then reading reward😎
Shortlist for BSFA Awards! https://bsfa.co.uk/the-bsfa-awards-2020-shortlist/
What‘s coming our way this year; great for TBR lists!
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jan/02/2021-in-books-what-to-look-forward...
Went to the bookstore after long hiatus because of pandemic, got a small stack for a treat: Dune to re-read, 3 new! Set for the weekend❣️😎
Gorgeous book cover art https://spinemagazine.co/articles/the-joy-of-illusion
New year, new start, and the list of all bookish in 2021 to plan TBRs❣️🌟 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jan/02/2021-in-books-what-to-look-forward...
Merry merry❣️🌟🎄Christmas crime novels! https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/dec/23/top-10-christmas-stories-peter-swa...
