😅 https://lithub.com/somebody-finally-fixed-the-ending-of-the-giving-tree/

A Halloween read about a missing girl and a nameless, watery horror terrorizing a tiny island town. Lindqvist is compared to Stephen King in eight blurbs, and although I haven't read enough King to judge the accuracy, it has a King-ish length of 500 pages. I would have enjoyed a shorter version more: the problem for me was all the flashbacks ruined the forward momentum. But the writing is excellent - it cultivates a great, haunted atmosphere.

@shawnmooney has a great new Booktube program I would recommend: "Bite-sized Book Chats". Shawn has a short conversation with four readers and talks with them about a book they recently read in fun half-hour episodes. They are great for expanding your TBR further via recommendations from readers around the world. I was excited to speak with Shawn in the most recent episode about the tagged book. Check it out here: https://youtu.be/TFC7mIg53Z4

This is definitely resonating now that the summer weather is on the verge of disappearing.

My favorite mysteries are the weird ones. Why have a detective investigate when it could be an elderly woman who takes care of her neighbor's homes during the brutal winters of a remote Polish town? And one who loves astrology, prefers animals to people, gives others names like Oddball or The Gray Lady, and obsesses over William Blake. That's Janina and she's on the case when her neighbor 'Bigfoot' turns up dead. Lively, dark comic perfection.

There's a lot that could be said about a post-apocalyptic novel set in a Russia populated by a society of mutants who subsist on mice and are raised to fear books and a mysterious creature who steals your sanity. But my favorite thing was how Tolstaya created a novel of ideas that still lets itself get carried away by poetic descriptions, no matter how weird things get. I was happy not understanding everything and just hanging on as a passenger.

There's a lot packed into the less than 100 pages of this novella. The story of an undocumented Salvadoran immigrant in New York is told through the voices of everyone she encounters: her aunt, cousin, co-workers at the series of jobs she works, and...a stone wolf, crystalline dog, motmot bird...you know, the usual NYC crowd. A transfixing story told almost entirely through dialogue that switches from unvarnished realism to odd fantasy on a dime.

Dialogue is something that can make or break a story for me, and Bambara shines in this area. These stories are filled with memorable characters from New York or the American South, many of them strong-willed girls and teens. At the same time, they and the stories they inhabit are all very different. Bambara isn't content to revisit old terroritory: the styles, themes, and ideas shift in brilliant ways in each of these 15 perfect stories.

I love this: it's a character explaining her ambivalence about befriending writers 🙂

When a 464-page mockumentary novel goes off the rails before the end of Chapter 1, where can it go from there? When its subject is Hollywood excess in the 1970s and 80s, having no limits when it comes to violence, sex, and general lack of decency, works surprisingly well. This novel mirrors the horrendous B-movies that its controversial filmmaker subject produces, and even when the films get better, it's still Mommie Dearest behind the scenes 👇

#nyrbbookclub
Sorry to have missed the discussion, but it was great to read what everyone thought. I was ambivalent: on the one hand, I loved the voice of Galla, sarcasm, bitterness, and all. She was allergic to hypocrisy in adults and even with all of the misfortunes she faced, she still maintained a resilient spirit. I only wished the narrative moved a little more: it had the feel of an overlong short story rather than a short novel.

@Reggie
Such a great gag 😅

I love the dark humor in this passage and 'dull sofas ' cracked me up 😆

#nyrbbookclub
The Go-Between's portrayal of a 12-year-old's thought process in its protagonist Leo is so good, it's almost eerie. It made me remember what it was like to be that age: how much you want the respect of adults and feel compelled to trade your child's imagination for obeying rigid social signals (which, honestly, is a pretty bad deal!) And for such a sensitive book, it's got a fair amount of action and mounting suspense.

#currentread
It's not that I'm not enjoying it, but I assume everyone who reads this or the later volumes has moments of disbelief that there is still so much more left...

Take love poetry that is passionate and desperate, mold it into a novel, and you have Written on the Body. The result isn't exactly romantic. Love is under a microscope in some ways: we witness the main character's obsession in a new light, not even knowing their gender. This choice distinguished it from any other love story I've seen, removing the distraction of male-female or female-female dynamics. It's daring, uncomfortable, brilliant stuff.

I'm a week late to getting to this #HolidayEscape pick, and after reading the discussions, I'm in agreement with the consensus viewpoint. Even though Sackville's prose casts a mysterious spell that could have worked well for the subject matter, it wasn't enough to compensate for the lack of any real plot development. We're just left with a creepy narrator's obsessive behavior and no way to contextualize it, besides an offstage fantasy theme.

Feminism, witches, repressive 1926 society - the pieces suggest a novel we don't even have to read -- we get the gist from the blurb on the back flap. Except that's just not the case with this novel. It's neither the fantasy novel nor the satire you might expect. The title character spends most of the novel in a realistic world and doesn't spend it fighting against the oppressive forces of a patriarchal society 👇

This had the feel of five linked short stories about a family rather than a novel. At first, so much plotless observation left me a bit bored, but the fascinating characters won me over in the end. The complex verbosity of Libby, Elinore, Gram, and Neil is captured perfectly through the collective eyes of the young narrators, and so are the more muted presences of the other members. I've never seen family arguments viewed in quite the same way.

#nyrbbookclub
I didn't finish in time for yesterday's discussion unfortunately, but I enjoyed reading everyone's thoughts. It reminded me of other classics where women cope with the reality of dwindling chances for marriage, except it took the parents' perspective. I thought it nicely dramatized how the family hid from social scrutiny without even realizing it. It struck me as a quiet story that is content with being sad rather than tragic.

#currentread
Background image is courtesy of: https://eidetictraces.wordpress.com/

There's a kind of older novel about mental institutions that muses over who is more 'insane', the residents or the doctors. This novel began in a similar vein, but morphed into something that might have been written by Umberto Eco on hallucinogenics. I liked seeing the fantastic imagery from her canvasses come to life and how the bizarre events are observed with a deadpan humor, even if I was mystified by the ultra-weird, apocalyptic ending.

This absorbing novella is a kind of literary Twilight Zone episode. A fugitive hides out on a deserted island that contains a museum, swimming pool, chapel, and not much else besides a tree-ravaging disease. He's surprised to find he suddenly has visitors, and things get stranger from there. Casares has a gifted storytelling capacity for intriguing the reader with mysteries and resolving them in a way that is surprising but not too complicated.

I got this book for my sister to read to my niece and nephew. She left it on the couch and then caught my nephew spontaneously having a moment with it 💛

#nyrbbookclub
Carr created a world that I truly enjoyed being inside. An old church in the English countryside with a medieval painting being restored? It was like an incredible vacation. I savored the descriptions and the characters were so richly developed that they seemed like friends. But my sense of curiosity began fading after Birkin's routine was established. I wanted more mystery or ambiguity, but I don't think it was that kind of book.

"Throughout the Caribbean, under different names, you'll find stories about people who aren't what they seem. Skin gives these skin folk their human shape. When the skin comes off, their true selves emerge." I love this premise for a story collection - the skins and what's underneath varies a great deal. Some are inspired by folk tales involving mythical creatures and others have speculative or sci-fi themes. Dreamy and weird in the best way.

You can love bad movies - Lindy West won't judge you, she'll even join you in some cases. But you should appreciate just how full of sh🎬t they are. Sometimes for benign suspension of disbelief reasons but often due to massive amounts of misogyny and fat-shaming. She had me cracking up at some of her plot descriptions of popular Hollywood blockbusters. I didn't enjoy the millennial-speak shtick which was a little grating but otherwise I was a fan.

Kendi's focus on the details of how trends in racist thought evolved over U.S. history is important given the absence of its coverage in our education system. He connects some patterns of racism to the present, even if the form changes. Examples of well-intentioned anti-slavery advocates like William Lloyd Garrison nevertheless spreading racist ideas are particularly critical to grasp. A meticulously researched history that everyone should read.

One of my favorite things about this novel is the idea at its core - what happens when you follow a group of eight friends after college graduation, but focus on each separately as individuals? I struggle with long novels that lack a central plot but McCarthy's vivid characterizations kept me engaged. It was revealing to witness the seeds of modern feminism in the 1930s, even as all the negative "-isms" were thriving in New York high society.

#nyrbbookclub
The calculating and impassive Katri moves in on innocent artist Anna, eyeing her poorly managed wealth. The setup made me think a grim duel was ahead. I wasn't ruling out violence. But it slowly morphed into this weird, fascinating interplay between the clashing personalities. It made me think how people try to ward off loneliness in radically different ways, but neither making art nor rigid pragmatism really does the trick.

I was excited to have the opportunity to talk books with Jenny from the Reading Envy podcast - you can check out the episode here:
http://readingenvy.blogspot.com/2021/01/reading-envy-212-subtly-fascinating.html...
If you're new to ReadingEnvy, it's fantastic: Jenny and her guests trade off in discussing recent reads - a perfect podcast for readers basically. There's also readalongs and other themed activities and challenges to try.
@ReadingEnvy

LaValle's take on the 'modern fairytale ' restores some of the original purposes of the traditional variety: reenvisioning a societal problem using a story that seamlessly blends reality, fantasy, and horror. Our hero is Apollo, a young parent who joins the ranks of modern, involved fathers, even as his personal history of fatherly abandonment and the U.S. history of racism and patriarchal dominance threaten his family's survival in varied ways 👇

#bookhaul
Haven't been out very much since moving to New Jersey due to covid, but with the #MLK holiday, I thought it was a good opportunity to try a bookshop/community center in Newark that specializes in Black authors and African art. The owners were so friendly - they loved talking books, and hand-sold us the bottom two of the stack. I've been starved for a bookstore experience like this: looking forward to that changing this year.

@batsy
My pace slowed a little after a busy week, but here are some reactions to Parts 4 & 5:
-I was surprised at the events behind Apollo getting sent to Rikers. Given the strange circumstances of the loss, I was expecting more of a shocked/depressed reaction than vengeance. But as things unfold, seems like there may be a reason for this choice.
- I enjoyed watching the paranoid mystery build: lots of unexpected turns!
Part 5 spoilers below 👇

@batsy Here are a few reactions I had to parts 1-3:
- LaValle has that storyteller expertise of knowing how to hook his audience. Between the short chapters and mounting suspense, it was tough to put down.
-I liked the large time jumps in the opening chapters: most books would have started at Ch 6 and worked in the backstory, but this had more of an air of mystery.
-I never read Outside Over There but I may have to pick up a copy - so creepy! 👇

LaValle has a brilliant way of transforming an event as mundane as a phone registering a text into something deeply sinister.
@batsy

Starting my stroll into the woods...😨 @batsy

In true procrastination form, I'm finally declaring my top 25 reads of 2020. The year wasn't good for much else, but my reading certainly didn't suffer. Most surprising was what took the top spot: this is the first time I've had a non-fiction #1 pick. Carolyn Forché's 'What You Have Heard Is True' is unlike any memoir I've ever read. It was a strong year for non-fiction reads overall, in spite of my craving for fictional escapes more than ever.

I just started this and it is dense with references I either don't know because they're British or from the early eighties (or both). But I have a question about this one. I recently picked up a box of Alpen to try, never having heard of it before (I actually just finished a bowl right before reading this sentence). For those of you in the UK or Europe, is this a cereal that is universally known? Or was it popular awhile ago but not so much now?

Is there a better time to review one of my favorite books of the year than Christmas day? Well, possibly, but I think this qualifies as a Christmas post in a year like 2020...
This one is best to go in knowing as little as possible, so I won't spoil anything. Although it's definitely a strange book, I thought from the title it might be completely nonsensical, without any clear narrative, but that's not the case 👇

I found this on a Book Riot list of Egyptian authors to try, and seeing only one Litsy post, I thought maybe it wasn't so well-known. Then I looked at Goodreads...over 40,000 ratings 😮 I can see why it's so popular: Ashour's tale of a Granadan family at the end of the 15th century captures the fraught interactions between family members during a time of upheaval. With Muslim rule recently ended by the Castilians, 👇

It's not just the stuff in Kelly Link's stories -- the mysterious pajamas, the cat skin suits, the storytelling phone sex line, or the characters named Soap, Gordon Strangle Mars, and 'The Witch's Revenge'. Any story can have zombies, ghosts, or "an enchanted ___" but Link has a genius for nesting stories within stories, without losing the forward motion of the main narrative. She does all this playfully, without any boring parts sneaking in ?

Mattis lives happily with his sister Hege, enjoying nature in the Norwegian woods. The only trouble is other people: they taunt him with the name 'Simple Simon' and he can't keep a job. This is a partly a character study about not fitting in, but not entirely. There's something about how he looks for signs in nature and with people that was fascinating, like the odd way Mattis does it made me more aware of how I do a version of the same thing.

It's hard to describe Woodson's style. 'Dreamy' comes to mind, but it's not quite right because it's more like the way memory is than dreams. Haunting? Lyrical? But it's also very warm writing. You feel very close to the characters and the scenes have the right sort of sensory detail, maybe not like you're there, but like you're the one remembering this past. 👇

QUESTION 5
@BarbaraBB @catebutler @merelybookish @sprainedbrain @batsy @Leftcoastzen @emilyhaldi @mklong @vivastory @Liz_M @arubabookwoman @LeahBergen @daena @quietjenn @KVanRead @youneverarrived @GatheringBooks @readordierachel @saresmoore @sarahbarnes @sisilia @Reviewsbylola @Suet624 @Tanisha_A @Theaelizabet

QUESTION 4
@BarbaraBB @catebutler @merelybookish @sprainedbrain @batsy @Leftcoastzen @emilyhaldi @mklong @vivastory @Liz_M @arubabookwoman @LeahBergen @daena @quietjenn @KVanRead @youneverarrived @GatheringBooks @readordierachel @saresmoore @sarahbarnes @sisilia @Reviewsbylola @Suet624 @Tanisha_A @Theaelizabet

QUESTION 3
@BarbaraBB @catebutler @merelybookish @sprainedbrain @batsy @Leftcoastzen @emilyhaldi @mklong @vivastory @Liz_M @arubabookwoman @LeahBergen @daena @quietjenn @KVanRead @youneverarrived @GatheringBooks @readordierachel @saresmoore @sarahbarnes @sisilia @Reviewsbylola @Suet624 @Tanisha_A @Theaelizabet

QUESTION 2 @BarbaraBB @catebutler @merelybookish @sprainedbrain @batsy @Leftcoastzen @emilyhaldi @mklong @vivastory @Liz_M @arubabookwoman @LeahBergen @daena @quietjenn @kvanread @youneverarrived @GatheringBooks @readordierachel @saresmoore @sarahbarnes @sisilia @Reviewsbylola @Suet624 @Tanisha_A @Theaelizabet

QUESTION 1
@BarbaraBB @catebutler @merelybookish @sprainedbrain @batsy @Leftcoastze @emilyhaldi @mklong @vivastory @Liz_M @arubabookwoman @LeahBergeb @daena @quietjenn @KVanRead @youneverarrived @gatheringbooks @readordierachel @saresmoore @sarahbarnes @sisilia @reviewsbylola @suet624 @Tanisha_A @Theaelizabet