I loved this book set in the height of The Troubles in Northern Ireland. Everything about this book was perfect.

A woman in Berlin lives her life. She's both Black and German and the weight of needing to be constantly alert and of living with everyday racism is stretching her to her breaking point. She struggles to find a way to be in the world as she thinks about her past, her brother's suicide and her mother's life as a single mother to Black children in the DDR. Told in a fragmented series of vignettes, this novel functions far better than I expected.

Intending to just read a few chapters this morning, I ended up reading the entire thing. It's that kind of book.

A man runs into an old college acquaintance and invites them to join him in the lounge as they wait for their delayed flight. There, he tells the story of the life he saved and what happened next. There's nothing superfluous in this tightly-told story.

Qualified pick. Began like gangbusters; like Ottessa Moshfegh was reimagining Mrs. Bridge. It was a fascinating look at a woman‘s unraveling, but the time in which this story was set was weirdly elastic and the characters were oddly opaque. Still, I liked this odd story.

Despite this being told in short snippets, I liked this novel, one that reflects the Trump years on twitter accurately, but than goes into a more human and heart-breaking family story. A qualified pick.

Abandoned. Between the present tense, being told in the first person plural and characters pulled from central casting, it felt good to let this one go.

Look what I read! It took me months, but it was like nothing I'd read before, immersive, frustrating, amazing and worthwhile. The thoughts of a shy Ohio woman as she cares for her family and bakes pies and cinnamon rolls and lives her life.

I've never encountered a book of short stories where they were ordered from weakest to strongest. Swamy concentrates on moments of discomfort or crisis. An alcoholic artist meets Krishna, a woman watches a forest fire approach her home, a woman works as a laughter artist.

...a thriller, a horror, a memoir, a noir....

What does it mean when the worst happens and you don't remember it?

Just a wonderful examination of what it means when you don't control the story of your own life. Petty uses elements from different genres and formats to fantastic effect. This reminded me of Dana Spiotta's Innocents and Others. One of the best books I've read this year.

I keep going back and forth between being utterly immersed in this book, and finding it a slog. A side effect has been that I've been baking a lot more since I started this one.

The topic is difficult, but Luiselli‘s writing makes this easy to read as she alternates between the stories of the children she listened to as she helped them fill out a questionnaire that will determine whether or not they get legal representation and the complex factors that led them to take on the dangerous journey to the USA. Highly recommended!

Now to reread Lost Children Archive.

Melmoth insisted in being included in the picture.

My first library book since March!

So excited to find this in my mailbox!

Jaquira Diáz‘s memoir of growing up in Puerto Rico and in Miami is both gut-wrenching and hopeful. Diáz focuses much more on her friendships and the hopeful moments then on the bleak reality of poverty and severe family disfunction.

Gorgeous, intricate and confounding. I can‘t believe it took me so long to discover this brilliant novel!

I was so well-behaved at the big booksale today. I managed to leave with only eight books, which is a record for me.

The weekend his wife, Prue, is giving a talk that is expected to cement her tenure, Ivan is stuck ferrying his Father-in-Law down for the event, as well as caring for his niece. But with his FIL off his meds and Prue‘s lecture landing like a bombshell, Ivan desperately tries to hold his marriage and his life together. This debut novel was slight but well-written and fast paced and reminded me Anne Tyler‘s novels.

How great was this book, guys? I love how myths are kept alive by the act of reimagination and this retelling of the story of Achilles through the woman given to him as a slave. Lovely counterpoint to The Song of Achilles.

Just a stellar collection of short stories by a new author. Brinkley excels at writing from the point of view of children living in insecure circumstances.

A highly enthusiastic thumbs up for this excellent noir. Set in 1963, a mobster goes on the run after realizing that his boss is getting rid of anyone connected with that November day in Dallas. A single man is conspicuous and so when he encounters a woman traveling with her two daughters, he hatches a plan. But Charlotte, who has just left her alcoholic husband and her suffocating small town in Oklahoma, is nobody‘s patsy.

This is an odd, atmospheric dystopian novel. Lia and her sisters have been raised isolated on an island. Their parents have told them that the world hurts women and that the land itself is toxic. They protect themselves with constant tests and appeasements. Then their father disappears and two men and a boy appear on their shore.

Since the reader knows only what Lia does, much remains unexplained about the world this book is set in.

I‘m about halfway through this book and although I should be eating it up, I‘m just finding it fine. I don‘t dislike it, but I‘m not excited to pick it up. I do like the parts set in Paris in the 1930s, where Ivory, the main character, hangs out with artists and has a lover who is just the worst.

Weird and unsettling, the stories in this collection often set the scene and then leave the reader to fill in the blanks.

I loved this book. It‘s fast-paced and almost breezy, while also dealing with serious issues, all set in Lagos, Nigeria.

Found this waiting for me on the dining room table this morning. My husband does know me.

And here are a few more...

I spent the weekend reorganizing my bookshelves. They are now lovely and arranged alphabetically. Here are a few of the shelves.

What‘s with these colorful, but unimaginative covers, publishers? They say nothing of the story and don‘t even try to lure the reader in. The tagged book is too good to deserve this treatment. I‘m about to start the other.

Starting this one. It sounds right up my alley, so my expectations are high.

This book is worth rereading. I liked it more the second time and I‘m looking forward to discussing it in my book club tomorrow night.

Nathaniel is piecing together his memories of the time, just after the end of WWII, when his parents left he and sister in the care of a man they called The Moth, and who Nathaniel was sure was a criminal. The truth was much more complicated than that.

This book has a cloudy feel to it and the writing is very fine.

I‘m about fifty pages in and I‘m not sure about this one. Either the author will pull everything together and the book will be brilliant, or it will continue to be people, including the main character, behaving bizarrely.

Fascinating story about the crime that helped Nabokov write Lolita, or the crime that he was at least aware of and mentions in the novel.

Enjoying a few minutes reading before the day gets going. Tarzan is always willing to join me. #CatsofLitsy

This novel, about a man who returns to Russia to care for his Grandmother, is wonderful so far.

Beginning this as my first book of 2019.

This was listed on a Best Crime Novels of the Year list somewhere and It was definitely that — a well-plotted, well-written crime novel with interesting and flawed characters.

Here is my collected #TournamentofBooks reading. The two vertical books are the ones I‘m reading now.

Fascinating, optimistic and very readable. I learned so much about this troubled and contradictory place I call home, not just the extraordinary food.

This book is the real thing. A debut thats takes a stab at the Great American Novel. Really impressive.

This is a collection of short stories set in a small rural town in east Texas where the debris from the space shuttle Columbia came down. While the Columbia isn‘t the centre of the novel, it is present in the background as the members of this struggling community live their lives. The writing is reminiscent of Alice Monroe and Elizabeth Strout.

Up next, as soon as the kitten wakes up!

So I met this author today.

Excellent discussion in my bookclub tonight about this book. We discussed how marriages vary, whether Celestial was a sympathetic character and how refreshing it was to read a book where all the characters were black. My book club is the best one because we have wine AND cupcakes.

Kitten contemplates leaving home to join Jack Reacher on the road. She already has the requires battle scars and she is fearless. #CatsofLitsy

Book is a typical Reacher novel, impossible to not read just one more chapter.

Megan Abbott is one of my favorite writers and this book does not disappoint.

Utterly fantastic! There are Moshfegh‘s usual unpleasant characters doing unpleasant things, but there‘s also a lovely arc to this story of a woman determined to sleep for a year.

These stories about genius and disfunction are intelligent and well-written, but they were uneven, with several relying on cleverness rather than heart.

A book with great promise that was brought down by odd nouns, lazy plotting and an ending that delivered neither suspense nor answers.

Beautifully written historical novel about Lorena Hickok and her long relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt.

At M Judson, Booksellers tonight, David Joy discussed his writing process, Southern Gothic, Laura Lippman and his new book. Bonus, there was beer.