Love Your Library, September 2023
Thanks, as always, to Elle for her participation, and to Marcie for sharing some of her latest library borrowing on Twitter – I mean X. (Can’t get used to that change.)
Thanks also to Jana for posting about the books she has out, and what is new for the autumn at the library where she works.
I’ve been stocking up on books for upcoming challenges and buddy reads (R.I.P., 1962 Club, L.M. Montgomery readalong, Margaret Atwood Reading Month, etc.), with a big novella stack to be borrowed later in the week.
My reading and borrowing since last time:
READ
- The Three Graces by Amanda Craig
- Uncle Paul by Celia Fremlin
- Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
SKIMMED
- Wild Fell by Lee Schofield
CURRENTLY READING
- The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
- The Whispers by Ashley Audrain
- The Seaside by Madeleine Bunting
- Penance by Eliza Clark
- The Year of the Cat by Rhiannon Lucy Coslett
- By the Sea by Abdulrazak Gurnah (for book club)
- Reproduction by Louisa Hall
- Weyward by Emilia Hart
- Findings by Kathleen Jamie (a re-read)
- Milk by Alice Kinsella
CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ
University library stack at left.
RETURNED UNREAD
- The Fascination by Essie Fox – Turns out the gorgeous sprayed edges were not enough to get me to read this (the bottom book pictured below is Weyward).
What have you been reading or reviewing from the library recently?
Share a link to your own post in the comments. Feel free to use the above image. The hashtag is #LoveYourLibrary.
September Focus on Short Stories, with Reviews of Bloom and de Kerangal
This is the eighth year in a row in which I’m making a special effort to read short stories in September; otherwise, story collections tend to languish on my shelves (and Kindle) unread. In September 2021 I read 12 collections and in September 2022 it was 11.5; let’s see how many I get to this year!
As someone who doesn’t claim to love short stories, I was surprised to see that I’ve already read 19 collections this year. Some of the highlights have been Old Babes in the Wood by Margaret Atwood, How Strange a Season by Megan Mayhew Bergman, What We Talk about When We Talk about Love by Raymond Carver, Games and Rituals by Katherine Heiny, and Sidle Creek by Jolene McIlwain.
I have a whole shelf of short story options set out for me and will make my selections from there. For now, I have brief reviews of two collections I read during a quick trip to the USA.
A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You by Amy Bloom (2000)
My second collection by Bloom this year, after Where the God of Love Hangs Out; somewhat confusingly, the latter reprints two of this volume’s Lionel and Julia stories, so there were actually only six stories here that were new to me (5 x first-person; 3 x third-person). However, they’re all typically great ones. The title story has a mother accompanying her daughter to the medical appointments that will transform Jessie into Jess, her son, and also taking a chance on romance. “Rowing to Eden” explores the dynamic between best friends, one lesbian and one married to a man; the one has already been through breast cancer treatment so can counsel her friend from experience.
In “Stars at Elbow and Foot,” a woman whose baby died goes back to the children’s hospital to volunteer with the disabled. “Hold Tight” also reflects on loss and accidents (but is probably the throw-away story if I had to name one). “The Story,” which closes the book, had me hunting for autobiographical correlations what with its mentions of “Amy.” By far my favourite was “The Gates Are Closing,” in which D.M. is having an affair with the synagogue president’s husband, who has Parkinson’s disease. As Yom Kippur approaches, he gives his mistress an ultimatum. The minor assisted dying theme in this one felt ironically prescient of Bloom’s own experience accompanying her husband to Dignitas (the subject of In Love). As always, Bloom’s work is sensual, wry and emotionally wise.
Canoes by Maylis de Kerangal (2021; 2023)
[Translated from the French by Jessica Moore]
These eight stories are all in the first person; although I tend to prefer more diversity of narration, the plots are so dissimilar that it makes up for that homogeneity. In an author’s note at the end, de Kerangal writes that her overall theme was voices, especially women’s voices; perhaps ironically, then, the collection uses no speech marks. In “Mountain Stream and Iron Filings,” the narrator’s friend Zoé is on a mission to lower her voice to make it more suitable for radio. “Nevermore” has a woman contributing a recording of herself reading Edgar Allan Poe’s epic poem “The Raven” to an audio library. “A Light Bird,” which I found particularly poignant, is about a widower and his daughter deciding what to do about their late wife’s/mother’s voice on the answering machine.
“After” has a school leaver partying and figuring out what comes next, “Ontario” revolves around a trip to Canada, and “Arianespace” has an investigator visiting an elderly woman who has reported a UFO sighting. The longest story (billed as a novella), “Mustang,” focuses on a French family that has relocated to Colorado in the 1990s. The mother, recently bereaved, learns to drive their rather impractical American car.
Like Painting Time, the collection is in thrall to questions of deep time. This is clearest in “Bivouac,” in which a woman undergoes a procedure while the dentist tells her about an ancient human jawbone found deep under Paris. Prehistory is even present in the metaphorical language: “the first foothills of the Rockies sketched the backbone of a sleepy stegosaurus who’d escaped extinction” (from “Mustang”). Each story also mentions a canoe, if only in passing (e.g., the dentist’s necklace charm in the first story).
As was my main quibble with Mend the Living, though, de Kerangal is all too fond of arcane vocabulary. I mean, she uses “alveolar” twice in this very short book; there’s also “sagittal slices” and “sinuous mnemic circuits.” Some sentences stretch to fill two-plus pages. So overwriting is a recurrent issue I have with her work, but I would certainly recommend that her fans read her short fiction, which I found more accessible than her novels. 
With thanks to MacLehose Press for the free copy for review. Canoes will be published on 28 September.
Currently reading: Revenge of the Lawn by Richard Brautigan; I Meant It Once by Kate Doyle; The Best Short Stories 2023: The O. Henry Prize Winners, ed. Lauren Groff; Why I Don’t Write by Susan Minot; Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro; The Human Origins of Beatrice Porter and Other Essential Ghosts by Soraya Palmer (linked stories); Small, Burning Things by Cathy Ulrich.
Resuming soon: The Secrets of a Fire King by Kim Edwards; If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery (I read the first two stories ages ago, but its longlisting for the Booker Prize is the impetus I need to pick it back up); Hey Yeah Right Get a Life by Helen Simpson.
Are you a short story fan? Read any good ones recently?
Love Your Library, August 2023
Thanks to Elle and Jana for participating this month!
My reading and borrowing since last time:
READ
- Loved and Missed by Susie Boyt
- One Midsummer’s Day: Swifts and the Story of Life on Earth by Mark Cocker
- Protecting the Planet: The Season of Giraffes by Nicola Davies
- Rhubarb Lemonade by Oskar Kroon
- August Blue by Deborah Levy
- La Vie: A Year in Rural France by John Lewis-Stempel
&
Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop by Alba Donati (2022; 2023)
[Translated from the Italian by Elena Pala]
My final #WITMonth selection (I’m pleased with my total of nine, after these four and those four!) and a perfect choice for readers of Shaun Bythell’s bookshop diaries. Instead of a lovable grump in Wigtown, you get a tiny town in the Tuscan hills and a stock of mostly women’s literature and bluestocking gifts curated by an outspoken feminist poet in her sixties. She relied on crowdfunding to open the shop in 2019 – and again to rebuild it after a devastating fire just a couple of months later.
Set during the first five months of 2021, this gives lovely snapshots of a bookseller’s personal and professional life without overstaying its welcome or getting repetitive. Donati has an adult daughter and a 101-year-old mother who was only just losing independence. Although she generally feels supported by the people of Lucignana, some 30% are naysayers, she estimates, and not everyone shares her opinions – she’s outraged when the council cuts down all the trees in the central square.
While keeping the focus on books, she also manages to give a sense of her family’s convoluted wartime history, local politics, and shifting Covid restrictions. I especially enjoyed hearing about her 25-year career in publishing; Edward Carey, Michael Cunningham, and Daša Drndić were ‘her’ authors and she has juicy stories to tell about all three.
Each entry ends with a list of that day’s orders. It’s fascinating to see which are the popular authors in translation – Maeve Brennan, Emily Dickinson, Fannie Flagg, Kent Haruf, Jenny Offill, Vita Sackville-West, Ali Smith – as well as plenty in various European languages. Sometimes, no doubt, the stock reflects Donati’s own taste. [A couple of the English titles are rendered incorrectly: “Longbourne House” by Jo Baker and “Woman, Girl, Other” by Bernardine Evaristo should have been caught before this went to print.]
In short, she’s a bookish kindred spirit (“I like books that make you discover other books – a virtuous cycle that should never be broken. The only eternity we will ever experience here on earth”) and I thoroughly enjoyed reading about her fairly uneventful yet rewarding days. This, too, was perfect (summer) armchair travel reading.
SKIMMED
- The Orchid Outlaw by Ben Jacob
CURRENTLY READING
- The Year of the Cat by Rhiannon Lucy Coslett
- The Three Graces by Amanda Craig
- Reproduction by Louisa Hall
- Milk by Alice Kinsella
- Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
- Wild Fell by Lee Schofield
CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ
RETURNED UNFINISHED
- The Other Side of Mrs Wood by Lucy Barker – I read the first 82 pages. This was capable hist fic but without the spark that would have kept me interested.
- King by Jonathan Eig – Requested after I’d only read two chapters. It’s a massive biography, so I’ll have to get it back out another time when I can give it more attention.
What have you been reading or reviewing from the library recently?
Share a link to your own post in the comments. Feel free to use the above image. The hashtag is #LoveYourLibrary.
Book Serendipity, June to July 2023
I call it “Book Serendipity” when two or more books that I read at the same time or in quick succession have something in common – the more bizarre, the better.
Are all of these pure coincidence? Or, as a character says in The Year of Pleasures by Elizabeth Berg, maybe it’s true that “Sometimes serendipity is just intention, unmasked.”
This is a regular feature of mine every couple of months. Because I usually have 20–30 books on the go at once, I suppose I’m more prone to such incidents. The following are in roughly chronological order.
- A deadbeat boyfriend named Andrew in Yellowface by Rebecca F. Kuang and The Legacy of Elizabeth Pringle by Kirsty Wark.
- A partner’s piano playing is by turns annoying (practice) and revelatory (performance) in The Happy Couple by Naoise Dolan and The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor.
- Frequent meals of potatoes due to poverty, and a character sneaking salt in, in Music in the Dark by Sally Magnusson and How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C Pam Zhang.
- Getting close to a seal even though the character knows it might bite in Salt & Skin by Eliza Henry-Jones and one story in High-Wire Act by JoeAnn Hart.
- Rev. Robert Kirk’s writings on fairies are mentioned in The Archaeology of Loss by Sarah Tarlow and The Legacy of Elizabeth Pringle by Kirsty Wark (and were also a major element in Sally Magnusson’s previous novel, The Ninth Child; I happened to be reading her most recent novel at the same time as the above two!).
- Menthols are smoked in Death of a Bookseller by Alice Slater and The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor.
- Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking is mentioned in Death of a Bookseller by Alice Slater and The Archaeology of Loss by Sarah Tarlow.
An ant farm as a metaphor in The Happy Couple by Naoise Dolan and The Wild Delight of Wild Things by Brian Turner.
- The main character, in buying a house, inherits the care of a large, elaborate garden from an older woman who kept it immaculate, in The Year of Pleasures by Elizabeth Berg and one story in High-Wire Act by JoeAnn Hart.
- A widow, despite her feminist ideals, wishes she had a man to take care of DIY and other house stuff for her in The Year of Pleasures by Elizabeth Berg and The Archaeology of Loss by Sarah Tarlow.
- A spouse’s death in 2016 and a description of cremation in The Archaeology of Loss by Sarah Tarlow and The Wild Delight of Wild Things by Brian Turner.
- A character deliberately burns a sexual partner’s cheek with a cigarette in Death of a Bookseller by Alice Slater and The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor.
- Counting down the days, then hours, until a wedding, in The Year of Pleasures by Elizabeth Berg, The Happy Couple by Naoise Dolan, and Crudo by Olivia Laing.
- Similar sentiments – about reading to find our own experiences expressed in a way we never would have thought to put them – in passages I encountered on the same day from A Life of One’s Own by Joanna Biggs (“I want to have that moment of recognition, finding something on the page I’ve felt but haven’t put into words”) and The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt (“the reader says to him or herself, Yes, that’s how it is, only I didn’t know it to describe it”).
- I encountered mentions of “Believe” by Cher in The Country of the Blind by Andrew Leland and House Gone Quiet by Kelsey Norris on the same evening.
- Calculating how old a newborn child will be on a certain date in the future – and fearing what the world will be like for them then – in Matrescence by Lucy Jones and Milk by Alice Kinsella.
- Moving with twin sons is a key part of the setup in Dirt by Bill Buford and Speak to Me by Paula Cocozza.
- I read scenes of a mother’s death from brain cancer in The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt and One Last Thing by Wendy Mitchell in the same evening.
- There’s a mint-green house, and a house with a rope banister (the same house in one case, but not in the other) in both Speak to Me by Paula Cocozza and The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt, two 6 July 2023 releases.
- Connective tissue in the body is compared to the threads of textiles in Cross-Stitch by Jazmina Barrera and Floppy by Alyssa Graybeal.
- The metaphorical framework of one day is used as the structure in One Midsummer’s Day by Mark Cocker and The Farmer’s Wife by Helen Rebanks.
- I’ve read two chef’s memoirs this summer with a scene of pig slaughter: A Cook’s Tour by Anthony Bourdain and Dirt by Bill Buford.
- A character who lost an arm in the First World War in The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt and Haweswater by Sarah Hall.
I read descriptions of fried egg residue on a plate, one right after the other in the same evening, in The Dead Are Gods by Eirinie Carson and The Wren The Wren by Anne Enright.
What’s the weirdest reading coincidence you’ve had lately?
Love Your Library & Miscellaneous News, July 2023
Thanks, as always, to Elle for her faithful participation (her post is here).
Today happens to be my 10th freelancing anniversary. I’m not much in the mood for celebrating as my career feels like it’s at a low ebb just now. However, I’m trying to be proactive: I contacted all my existing employers asking about the possibility of more work and a few opportunities are forthcoming. Plus I have a new paid review venue in the pipeline.
Tomorrow the Booker Prize longlist will be announced. I haven’t had a whole lot of time to think about it, but over the past few months I did keep a running list of novels I thought would be eligible, so here are 13 (a “Booker dozen”) that I think might be strong possibilities:
Old God’s Time, Sebastian Barry
The New Life, Tom Crewe
Fire Rush, Jacqueline Crooks
The Wren, The Wren, Anne Enright
The Vaster Wilds, Lauren Groff
Enter Ghost, Isabella Hammad
Hungry Ghosts, Kevin Jared Hosein
August Blue, Deborah Levy
The Sun Walks Down, Fiona McFarlane
Cuddy, Benjamin Myers
Shy, Max Porter
The Fraud, Zadie Smith
Land of Milk and Honey, C Pam Zhang
See also Clare’s and Susan’s predictions. All three of us coincide on one of these titles!
Back to the library content!
I appreciated this mini-speech by Bob Comet, the introverted librarian protagonist of Patrick deWitt’s The Librarianist, about why he loves libraries … but not people so much:
“I like the way I feel when I’m there. It’s a place that makes sense to me. I like that anyone can come in and get the books they want for free. The people bring the books home and take care of them, then bring them back so that other people can do the same. … I like the idea of people.”
I recently added a new regular task to my library volunteering roster: choosing a selection of the month’s new stock (30 fiction releases and 9 fiction) and adding them to a PDF template with the cover, title and author, and a blurb from the library catalogue or Goodreads, etc. The sheets are printed out at each branch library and displayed in a binder for patrons to browse. I was so proud to see my pages in there! There are three of us alternating this task, so I’ll be doing it four times a year. My next month is October.
On my Scotland travels last month, I took photos of two cute little libraries, one in Wigtown (L) and the other in Tarbert.
I’m currently on holiday again, with university friends in the Lake District for a week (Wild Fell, below, is for reading in advance of a trip to, and on location in, Haweswater), and you can be sure I brought plenty of library books along with me.
My reading and borrowing since last time:
READ
- The Happy Couple by Naoise Dolan
- Yellowface by Rebecca F. Kuang
- Death of a Bookseller by Alice Slater
- The Archaeology of Loss by Sarah Turlow
- The Legacy of Elizabeth Pringle by Kirsty Wark
- Sunburn by Andi Watson
- How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C. Pam Zhang (for book club)
+ 3 children’s picture books from the Wainwright Prize longlist:
- Blobfish by Olaf Falafel: Silly and with the merest scrape of an environmentalist message pasted on (the fish temporarily gets stuck in a plastic bag).
- The Zebra’s Great Escape by Katherine Rundell: Loved this super-cute, cheeky story of a little girl whose understanding of animal language allows her to become part of a natural network rescuing a menagerie held captive by an evil collector.
- Grandpa and the Kingfisher by Anna Wilson: Nice drawings and attention to nature and its seasonality, but rather mawkish. (Adult birds don’t die off annually!)
SKIMMED
- A Life of One’s Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again by Joanna Biggs – The backstory is Biggs getting divorced in her thirties and moving to NYC. Her eight chosen female authors are VERY familiar, barring, perhaps, Zora Neale Hurston (thank goodness she chose two Black authors, as so many group biographies are all about white women). Do we need potted biographies of such well-known figures? Probably not. Nonetheless, it was clever how she wove her own story and reactions to their works into the biographical material, and the writing is so strong I could excuse any retreading of ground.
CURRENTLY READING
- One Midsummer’s Day by Mark Cocker
- King by Jonathan Eig
- Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett
- Milk by Alice Kinsella
- Wild Fell by Lee Schofield
CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ
Lots of lovely teal in this latest batch.
RETURNED UNFINISHED
- Undercurrent by Natasha Carthew – This was requested after me. I read 21% and will either pick it up on my Kindle via the NetGalley book or get it out another time.
- The Gifts by Liz Hyder – I’ll try this another time when I can give it more attention.
- Music in the Dark by Sally Magnusson – I loved The Ninth Child, but have DNFed her other two novels, alas! I even got to page 122 in this, but I had little interest in seeing how the storylines fit together.
- The Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L. Sayers – I’m awful about trying mystery series, usually DNFing or giving up after the first book. I just can’t care whodunnit.
What have you been reading or reviewing from the library recently?
Share a link to your own post in the comments. Feel free to use the above image. The hashtag is #LoveYourLibrary.
Love Your Library, June 2023
Thanks, as always, to Elle for her participation, and to Laura and Naomi for their reviews of books borrowed from libraries. Ever since she was our Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award shadow panel winner, I’ve followed Julianne Pachico’s blog. A recent post lists books she currently has from the library. I like her comment that borrowing books “is definitely scratching that dopamine itch for me”! On Instagram I spotted this post celebrating both libraries and Pride Month.
And so to my reading and borrowing since last time.
Most of my reservations seemed to come in all at once, right before we left for Scotland, so I’m taking a giant pile along with me (luckily, we’re traveling by car so I don’t have space or weight restrictions) and will see which I can get to, while also fitting in Scotland-themed reads, June review copies, e-books for paid review, and a few of my 20 Books of Summer!
READ
- Rainbow Rainbow: Stories by Lydia Conklin
- The Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden
- Under the Rainbow by Celia Laskey
- Scattered Showers: Stories by Rainbow Rowell
- A Cat in the Window by Derek Tangye
- Cats in Concord by Doreen Tovey
CURRENTLY READING
- The Happy Couple by Naoise Dolan
- The Gifts by Liz Hyder
- Milk by Alice Kinsella
- Yellowface by Rebecca F. Kuang
- Music in the Dark by Sally Magnusson
- Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L. Sayers
- Death of a Bookseller by Alice Slater
- The Archaeology of Loss by Sarah Turlow
- The Legacy of Elizabeth Pringle by Kirsty Wark
CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ
RETURNED UNREAD
- Pod by Laline Paull – I wanted to give this a try because it made the Women’s Prize shortlist, but I looked at the first few pages and skimmed through the rest and knew I just couldn’t take it seriously. I mean, look at lines like these: “The Rorqual wanted to laugh, but it was serious. The dolphin had been in some physical horror and had lost his mind. Google could not bear his mistake. The sound he raced toward was not Base, but this thing, this creature, he had never before encountered.”
What have you been reading or reviewing from the library recently?
Share a link to your own post in the comments. Feel free to use the above image. The hashtag is #LoveYourLibrary.
Book Serendipity, Mid-April through Early June
I call it “Book Serendipity” when two or more books that I read at the same time or in quick succession have something in common – the more bizarre, the better. This is a regular feature of mine every few months. Because I usually have 20–30 books on the go at once, I suppose I’m more prone to such incidents. The following are in roughly chronological order.
- Fishing with dynamite takes place in Glowing Still by Sara Wheeler and In Memoriam by Alice Winn.
- Egg collecting (illegal!) is observed and/or discussed in Sea Bean by Sally Huband and The Jay, the Beech and the Limpetshell by Richard Smyth.
- Deborah Levy’s Things I Don’t Want to Know is quoted in What I’d Rather Not Think About by Jente Posthuma and Glowing Still by Sara Wheeler. I then bought a secondhand copy of the Levy on my recent trip to the States.
- “Piss-en-lit” and other folk names for dandelions are mentioned in The House of the Interpreter by Lisa Kelly and The Furrows by Namwali Serpell.
- Buttercups and nettles are mentioned in The House of the Interpreter by Lisa Kelly and Springtime in Britain by Edwin Way Teale (and other members of the Ranunculus family, which includes buttercups, in These Envoys of Beauty by Anna Vaught).
- The speaker’s heart is metaphorically described as green in a poem in Lo by Melissa Crowe and The House of the Interpreter by Lisa Kelly.
- Discussion of how an algorithm can know everything about you in Tomb Sweeping by Alexandra Chang and I’m a Fan by Sheena Patel.
- A brother drowns in The Loved Ones: Essays to Bury the Dead by Madison Davis, What I’d Rather Not Think About by Jente Posthuma, and The Furrows by Namwali Serpell.
A few cases of a book recalling a specific detail from an earlier read:
- This metaphor in The Chosen by Elizabeth Lowry links it to The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell, another work of historical fiction I’d read not long before: “He has further misgivings about the scalloped gilt bedside table, which wouldn’t look of place in the palazzo of an Italian poisoner.”
- This reference in The Education of Harriet Hatfield by May Sarton links it back to Chase of the Wild Goose by Mary Louisa Gordon (could it be the specific book she had in mind? I suspect it was out of print in 1989, so it’s more likely it was Elizabeth Mavor’s 1971 biography The Ladies of Llangollen): “Do you have a book about those ladies, the eighteenth-century ones, who lived together in some remote place, but everyone knew them?”
- This metaphor in Things My Mother Never Told Me by Blake Morrison links it to The Chosen by Elizabeth Lowry: “Moochingly revisiting old places, I felt like Thomas Hardy in mourning for his wife.”
- A Black family is hounded out of a majority-white area by harassment in The Education of Harriet Hatfield by May Sarton and Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe.
Wartime escapees from prison camps are helped to freedom, including with the help of a German typist, in My Father’s House by Joseph O’Connor and In Memoriam by Alice Winn.
- A scene of eating a deceased relative’s ashes in 19 Claws and a Black Bird by Agustina Bazterrica and The Loved Ones by Madison Davis.
- A girl lives with her flibbertigibbet mother and stern grandmother in “Wife Days,” one story from How Strange a Season by Megan Mayhew Bergman, and Jane of Lantern Hill by L.M. Montgomery.
- Macramé is mentioned in How Strange a Season by Megan Mayhew Bergman, The Memory of Animals by Claire Fuller, Floppy by Alyssa Graybeal, and Sidle Creek by Jolene McIlwain.
- A fascination with fractals in Floppy by Alyssa Graybeal and one story in Sidle Creek by Jolene McIlwain. They are also mentioned in one essay in These Envoys of Beauty by Anna Vaught.
- I found disappointed mentions of the fact that characters wear blackface in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little Town on the Prairie in Monsters by Claire Dederer and, the very next day, Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe.
- Moon jellyfish are mentioned in the Blood and Cord anthology edited by Abi Curtis, Floppy by Alyssa Graybeal, and Sea Bean by Sally Huband.
- A Black author is grateful to their mother for preparing them for life in a white world in the memoirs-in-essays I Can’t Date Jesus by Michael Arceneaux and Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe.
- The children’s book The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark by Jill Tomlinson is mentioned in The Jay, the Beech and the Limpetshell by Richard Smyth and These Envoys of Beauty by Anna Vaught.
- The protagonist’s father brings home a tiger as a pet/object of display in The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell and The Memory of Animals by Claire Fuller.
- Bloor Street, Toronto is mentioned in Jane of Lantern Hill by L.M. Montgomery and Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson’s thinking about the stars is quoted in Jane of Lantern Hill by L.M. Montgomery and These Envoys of Beauty by Anna Vaught.
- Wondering whether a marine animal would be better off in captivity, where it could live much longer, in The Memory of Animals by Claire Fuller (an octopus) and Sea Bean by Sally Huband (porpoises).
Martha Gellhorn is mentioned in The Collected Regrets of Clover by Mikki Brammer and Monsters by Claire Dederer.
- Characters named June in “Indigo Run,” the novella-length story in How Strange a Season by Megan Mayhew Bergman, and The Cats We Meet Along the Way by Nadia Mikail.
- “Explicate!” is a catchphrase uttered by a particular character in Girls They Write Songs About by Carlene Bauer and The Lake Shore Limited by Sue Miller.
- It’s mentioned that people used to get dressed up for going on airplanes in Fly Girl by Ann Hood and The Lights by Ben Lerner.
- Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn is a setting in The Lights by Ben Lerner and Grave by Allison C. Meier.
- Last year I read Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, in which Oregon Trail re-enactors (in a video game) die of dysentery; this is also a live-action plot point in “Pioneers,” one story in Lydia Conklin’s Rainbow Rainbow.
- A bunch (4 or 5) of Italian American sisters in Circling My Mother by Mary Gordon and Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano.
What’s the weirdest reading coincidence you’ve had lately?
20 Books of Summer 2023 Plan
It’s my sixth year participating in Cathy’s 20 Books of Summer challenge, which starts today and runs through the 1st of September. In previous years I’ve chosen a theme.
2018: Books by women
2019: Fauna
2020: Food
2021: Colours
2022: Flora
Only in 2018, I think, was I strict enough with myself to only read books that I own, but every year that’s been my main goal: to clear things from the print TBR.
So, that means: no library books, no review copies bar the long-neglected backlog or the set-aside ones, and Kindle books only if I purchased them. Though I won’t be prescriptive about it, I’d like to prioritize hardbacks, recent acquisitions or longtime shelf-sitters, and books by women.
I thought about having no theme, or multiple mini ones, this year. However, I’ve amassed so many foodie reads that I could easily fill my 20 just with that topic (fiction and nonfiction pictured below, with some supplementary summery reads at left), so I’ll see how I go.
Below is my set-aside and review backlog area, which takes up much of the top two shelves. The bottom shelf is books I’m keen to reread. I could easily select some of my 20 from here.
I hoped to get ahead by reading one or two relevant books on the plane back from America, where I’ve been for the last 10 days for my sister’s nursing school graduation and some sadmin for my mom. Did I manage it? After I get over the jet lag, I’ll report back with my first read or two.
Are you joining in the summer reading challenge? What’s the first book on the docket?
Love Your Library, May 2023
Thanks to Elle for her monthly contribution, Laura for her great reviews of two high-profile novels, Birnam Wood and Pod, borrowed from her local library, and Naomi for the write-up of her recent audiobook loans, a fascinating selection of nonfiction and middle grade fiction. I forgot to link to Jana’s post last month, so here’s her April reading, another very interesting set.
My biggest news this month is that we now have a Little Free Library in my neighbourhood. This project was several years in the making as we waited for permissions and funding. The box (and a wooden bench next to it) were hand-crafted by my very talented neighbours, and the mayor of Newbury came to officially open it on the 7th. There are also a few planters of perennials and a small cherry tree. It really cheers up what used to be a patch of bare grass next to a parking area.
I’m the volunteer curator/librarian/steward so will ensure that the shelves are tidy and the stock keeps turning over. I try to stop by daily since it’s only around the corner from my house. We’ve ordered a charter sign to link us up with the organization and put us on the official map. Anyone visiting Newbury might decide to come find it. (I, for one, look out for LFLs wherever I go, from Pennsylvania to North Uist!)
My library reading and borrowing since last month. I’m back in the States for a visit just now, so don’t currently have any library books on the go. It felt prudent to clear the decks, but I’ll have a big stack waiting for me when I come back!
READ
- I Can’t Date Jesus: Love, Sex, Family, Race, and Other Reasons I’ve Put My Faith in Beyoncé by Michael Arceneaux
- Shadow Girls by Carol Birch
- The Cats We Meet Along the Way by Nadia Mikail
- Jane of Lantern Hill by L.M. Montgomery
- My Father’s House by Joseph O’Connor
- The Boy Who Lost His Spark by Maggie O’Farrell
- Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor
- Glowing Still: A Woman’s Life on the Road by Sara Wheeler
- In Memoriam by Alice Winn
SKIMMED
- Fire Rush by Jacqueline Crooks
- You Are Not Alone by Cariad Lloyd
CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ
RETURNED UNFINISHED
- All the Men I Never Married by Kim Moore – I hadn’t heard of the poet and had never read anything from the publisher, but took a chance. I got to page 16. It’s fine: poems about former love interests, whether they be boyfriends or aggressors. There looks to be good variety of structure. I just didn’t sense adequate weight.
- The Furrows by Namwali Serpell – My apologies to Laura! (This started off as a buddy read.) I pushed myself through the first 78 pages, but once it didn’t advance in the Carol Shields Prize race there was no impetus to continue and it just wasn’t compelling enough to finish.
What have you been reading or reviewing from the library recently?
Share a link to your own post in the comments. Feel free to use the above image. The hashtag is #LoveYourLibrary.
Love Your Library, April 2023
Cheers to Elle and Laila for participating this month! Thanks also to Laura for her review of The Marriage Portrait and Naomi for a write-up of her recent Atlantic Canada reads, all from the library.
Last month Jana mentioned the non-media items that her library lends out. This reminded me of some interesting kits my library system offers: “wellbeing bags” (a joint venture with the local council) that contain an identical assortment of colouring sheets, card games, short self-help books and language learning tools; and “Reminiscence Collection” boxes specific to a particular decade or experience, geared towards the elderly. I wonder if they have been found to be helpful when working with people with dementia.
Yesterday was the start of National Library Week in the USA. Book banning and censorship are, alas, perennial news items in relation to libraries there. This week the Washington Post’s Ron Charles featured the Llano County, Texas counter-protests in his newsletter (so often my source of bookish news). The list of books banned is ridiculous. A federal judge in Austin paused the bans, prompting county commissioners to float the idea of closing down the library system entirely. Many turned out to support keeping the libraries open. You can read more about the case here.
As for my own library reading since last time (some great stuff this month!):
READ
- Old Babes in the Wood by Margaret Atwood
- Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry
- Children of Paradise by Camilla Grudova*
- Two Sisters by Blake Morrison
- The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell
- Rain by Don Paterson
- Of Mutability by Jo Shapcott (a re-read)
- Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog by Dylan Thomas
*My first-ever e-book loan! I couldn’t figure out how to get the file to open on my e-reader, so I read it on my PC screen, 10 pages or so at a time, as a break between doing other things.
CURRENTLY READING
- I Can’t Date Jesus: Love, Sex, Family, Race, and Other Reasons I’ve Put My Faith in Beyoncé by Michael Arceneaux
- Shadow Girls by Carol Birch
- Fire Rush by Jacqueline Crooks
- The Cats We Meet Along the Way by Nadia Mikail
- All the Men I Never Married by Kim Moore
- The Boy Who Lost His Spark by Maggie O’Farrell
- The Furrows by Namwali Serpell
- Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor (a re-read for book club)
- Glowing Still: A Woman’s Life on the Road by Sara Wheeler
- In Memoriam by Alice Winn
SKIMMED
- This Is How Your Marriage Ends: A Hopeful Approach to Saving Relationships by Matthew Fray
- Cuddy by Benjamin Myers
- Between the Chalk and the Sea by Gail Simmons
- The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale (a re-read for book club)
RETURNED UNFINISHED
- How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water by Angie Cruz – I read the first 40 pages. A voice-driven novel about a middle-aged immigrant re-entering the work force, it has a certain charm but also (the Spanglish!) a slightly irksome quality.
- Milk by Alice Kinsella – I was enjoying this a lot and had gotten to page 116 before it was requested on an interlibrary loan. I’ll pick it back up as soon as it returns to West Berkshire.
RETURNED UNREAD
- The Book of Eve by Meg Clothier – The first few pages didn’t grab me, but maybe I’d try it another time.
- The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid – This seems like it would make a good holiday read, so I’ll wait until the demand for it dies down and try it later on.
- A Complicated Matter by Anne Youngson – This was requested; I was also doubtful that I felt like reading yet another WWII novel just now.
What have you been reading or reviewing from the library recently?
Share a link to your own post in the comments. Feel free to use the above image. The hashtag is #LoveYourLibrary.
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 