Reading Challenge 2016: April

Books set outside of the U.S. 

She Weeps Each Time You’re Born by Quan Barry

This book spans the history of Vietnam through the second half of the twentieth century. It’s one of those novels that tells a larger story by honing in on a single village, or rather a single family group as they’re displaced. There are a couple of mythical elements that highlight the occasional surrealness, and dreamlike uprootedness of that time period in that region. There is a real conversation with superstition and the supernatural -- Rabbit who lost her parents and hears the stories of the dead, and Qui who loses her baby and never stops nursing. The landscapes are incredibly evocative, the novel infused with strength and beauty and hardship. True confessions: I picked it up because of its stunning cover. 

If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan

A coming of age story about two best friends in Iran. They’ve loved each other since they were very young, but when they hit adolescence, everything changes. Homosexuality is illegal in Iran, so when one of them is guided into an arranged marriage, the other one considers what she sees as her only option: posing as a transgendered person and going through sexual reassignment surgery. Although I wasn’t convinced by parts of it, I thought it did a good job of conveying the limited thinking of a teenager who has limited options and is straining against their confines every single day.

The 6:41 to Paris by Jean-Philippe Blondel

A novella of reminiscence, of looking back on young love and heartbreak, and of wondering what might have been. The two characters had a brief tryst in their early twenties that ended poorly after a disasterous trip to London. Now, they find themselves sitting next to each other on an early morning train to Paris. Will they recognize each other? Will they say anything? The chapters alternate between their interior monologues, how everything affected them then (or didn’t), and where they are now. Quite well done in the limited space, an hour and a half on the train...

Also read: 

The Red Parts by Maggie Nelson

Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter

First #corpuslibris photo of today's shift at @wordbookstores -- a little rusty but not bad!

2016 Reading Challenge: March

ROYGBIV 

This one was so fun! The challenge was to select a couple of books of each color, and you can’t move on to the next color until you’ve finished at least one of the two of the previous shade.  RED: Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life by Ulli Lust

Graphic memoir, coming-of-age european hitchhiking adventure. Some good bits, nice art. BUT my main problem with it was that it seemed like a lot of nonconsensual sex. Yes, Ulli stood up for herself sometimes and was a woman traveling alone, but it felt like men always had the upper hand and forced sex on her over and over again. It made me uncomfortable.

ORANGE: Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed

I recommended this book all the time at the bookstore without having read it (#booksellerconfessions). But it’s really kind of perfect, and it certainly has something for everyone who’s going through anything. Strayed manages this amazing balance between advice, empathy, and sharing her own stories, between tough love and enveloping you in her huge huge heart.

YELLOW: Let’s Take the Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell

A memoir of friendship and connection, seeking and finding and losing and loving. Oh, and dogs. And rowing (my second book with that in as many months). Several friends have recommended this over the years, and it was definitely worth it. Also, tearjerker warning: I’m not really a bawler, but the last 60 pages had me tear up three times in one day, in three different places (at lunch, on the train, in bed). You’ve been warned.

GREEN: Improvise, Girl, Improvise by Lilith Latini

Great poetry collection from Topside’s Heliotrope imprint of trans poets. Many of Latini’s poems are about the many different ways of coming into one’s own -- first against the contrasting backdrop of not fitting in, then through the actual physical changes, and finally growing in the nurturing soil of common experience and solidarity. I loved the pinecone as a metaphor for change -- “torch the damn thing so it grows.” And also the gradual nature of changes that may seem drastic to others: “They believed I charged like a train, bright light/ and steam that broke against their turned heads,/ but I’m not sudden or new. I’ve only been walking./ I told them noon. They should have been expecting me.”  

BLUE: Tanglewreck by Jeanette Winterson

I’ve read nearly everything Winterson has written -- her kids books are the ones I’ve avoided. This one was pretty good! Though it didn’t really remind me of what I love about her other works, or rather, it did, but only occasionally. This one involves a nefarious corporation who wants control and monetize time, time tornadoes and irregularities that swallow up entire school busses and deposit their inhabitants across the universe in the future thousands of years, and our heroine, Silver, the Child With the Golden Face, who just might save the Timekeeper.

INDIGO(ish): Jane: A Murder by Maggie Nelson

I love Maggie Nelson, so when I learned that she’s written two books that investigate the murder of her aunt, I thought they’d be right in my wheelhouse. Jane, the first book, is an examination in verse of her aunt’s life and tragic murder in 1969, several years before Nelson was born. In her characteristic style, it ebbs and flows between thought and emotion, between analysis and the visceral. She includes bits from her aunt’s diary and looks at the way Jane affected the family in the decades after her death.

VIOLET: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

I’m so glad that Morrison won the Nobel Prize -- I’ve been so impressed with each book of hers that I’ve read. There is just something that feels so...powerful…about her writing. This one looks at broken families and the cruelty of kids towards each other and the ways that race in America affect both of those things in different ways.

DEEP PURPLE: The Rogue Not Taken by Sarah MacLean

The final romance I wanted to fit into last month, and thankfully it fits here as well! As was the other MacLean book I read, this one is funny and episodic and female-pleasure-centered. It focuses on Sophie, a girl who grew up in a small town, and then her father came into money and they moved to London and became involved with all things aristocratic, which Sophie hated. When she flees the city after insulting a lord, she encounters all sorts of adventures, and, of course, the Marquess of Eversley. I’m liking the scandal rag framing devices. The one thing that hasn’t worked for me are these tongue-in-cheek asides insisting that they DON’T LIKE EACH OTHER, when clearly they do, and they don’t even really seem to be in denial about it. I know that the tension is really the point, but those asides detract a bit for me.

Also read: The Other Side by Lacy M. Johnson

And next up for April: books set outside of the United States!

March ROYGBIV Reading Challenge: Orange. (The rule is I have to finish at least 1 of the 2 before next color)

March ROYGBIV Reading Challenge: Red. #books

2016 Reading Challenge: February

Greetings, all you book-loving fiends (and friends)! For 2016, I’ve decided to give myself a different challenge each month. It may surprise you to hear that, booklover though I am, I’m not a particularly fast reader. I tend to hover around 60 books read a year, about a book a week with some palate cleansers -- graphic novels, YA/Chapter books, etc. However, I’ve been finding myself reading way more with my new job (and new commute), so I thought it might be good to challenge myself this year. January was just simply “How Many Books Can You Read?” I managed 9. (Princess in Black, She Left Me the Gun (audiobook), The Turner House, One of Us, An Age of License, The Assistants, Small Data, Of Walking In Ice, The New Jim Crow)

But more importantly, FEBRUARY! What with Valentine’s Day and all, I decided that it should be Romance Month. I wanted to touch on many different genres (manga, prose, gay, lesbian, straight, historical, contemporary, non-white characters, etc). I got advice from my favorite romance afficionados (Jenn, Maddie, Sarah), and here’s what I ended up reading.

Love Makes Everything Right by Sanae Rokuya -- this is a yaoi manga story (love between boys), and I wasn’t particularly impressed with the story or the characters. I haven’t read a lot of manga, so it could be a format issue. But I think it’s mostly not for me.

Huddle With Me Tonight by Farrah Rochon -- a contemporary romance wherein a blogger writes a scathing review of a pro football player’s book, and at first they butt heads. And then they surprise each other by being way more complex and interesting than either one expected.

Safe Harbor by Radclyffe -- a contemporary lesbian romance set in Provincetown. I’ve had bad luck finding lesbian romance and erotica I enjoy, so I was pleasantly surprised by award-winner Radclyffe’s novel. A butch sheriff’s deputy (and veteran) and a doctor who has had her heart broken have both built fortresses around their emotions. There is certainly drama and suspense and moments of uncertainty. But like any good romance, love finds a way through it all.

A Bollywood Affair by Sonali Dev - contemporary, Indian/Bollywood. Our main character was married when she was 4 and hasn’t seen her husband since that day, but she holds out hope that he will come for her. She comes to the US to study (in order to be a more interesting wife), and her husband’s Bollywood star brother finds her in hopes of getting her to sign divorce papers. And she ultimately finds him to be much more interesting than the husband she never met…

The Ruin of Gabriel Ashleigh by KJ Charles -- short story prequel to Society of Gentlemen series, historical gay romance. Gabriel loses everything in a night of gambling, and then gets one more chance. Win against Francis Webster or give up his clothes -- and body.

The Magpie Lord by KJ Charles -- gay historical magic romance. An absorbing tale of horrible families and an estranged son who breaks the mold. Lucien returns from exile after the mysterious deaths of his brother and father. Stephen Day (who holds a grudge against the family) agrees to help get to the bottom of the curse that made the other Vaudreys kill themselves and threatens Lucien as well. And eventually, Stephen and Lucien realize that their attraction may be more than simply physical.

The Duchess War by Courtney Milan -- historical. Though this had some typical elements (a smart girl with a hidden past, a young lord who is different from the rest of his family and his class), I very much enjoyed the way Milan wove those elements together. Another thing I liked about this was the realness of their interactions, the inner turmoil, the outer awkwardness of their first encounters (sexual and otherwise). It was refreshing that it wasn’t all flowers and unicorns, but was still romantic and sensual.

Topaz by Beverly Jenkins -- a historical african-american western. Katherine is a journalist who has gone undercover and gets in a bit of trouble. Her father has trouble of his own, and he promises her hand to a Black Seminole lawman to whom he owes a debt. Dix Wildhorse swoops in to rescue Katherine, and their lives entwine whether they want them to or not. Lots of action in this one, both in plot and in sexytimes.

Also read:

Malignant Metaphor by Alana Mitchell (nonfiction, cancer) 

Out of the Blues by Trudy Nan Boyce (fiction, police procedural)

And next up for the reading challenge...

ROYGBIV

Book rec: Kitchens of the Great Midwest

Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal (ebook available) Eva Thorvald is the focal point of this novel, but we get to watch her grow through the eyes of people who were affected by her during different stages in her life. Stradal captures the push and pull of family dynamics, the awkwardness and good intentions of a Midwestern adolescence, and the unique kind of drive that comes with an obsession for good food. The balance of flavors is just right. 

Great shot (and more where that came from) from Georgia in Sydney, Australia. Keep up the good work!

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Hi Emily, my name’s Georgia. I work for a bookshop in Sydney, Australia called Dymocks. For a while now we’ve been doing what I call “Bookface on Facebook” and I recently stumbled across your great blog and saw you were doing a similar kind of thing. I thought I would send one through to you to have a look at. 

This is one of the first we did for Bookface, there are plenty more on our Facebook page facebook.com/DymocksSydney

Would love it if you had a look! Cheers!

Book rec: Another Day

Another Day by David Levithan (ebook available) I lurved Every Day, and now David Levithan has shifted perspectives: we get to meet A through Rhiannon's eyes. Because A had woken up in a different body every day of their life, it was just kind of normal for them. But for Rhiannon, it sounded like something out of a sci-fi novel at first. We grow with her as she experiences love (and heartbreak) that just don't really make sense in the brain, but the heart goes there anyway. Such a treat to revisit A and Rhiannon's world.

Book rec: A Deadly Wandering

A Deadly Wandering by Matt Richtel (ebook available) This book addresses the science of attention and distraction and how it relates to technology and connectedness. Is it actually addictive, or just extremely compelling? Is your phone the first thing you touch in the morning? Richtel weaves stories of neuroscientists and their latest research with the story of one young man and the families of two rocket scientists who died because he was texting behind the wheel. It has the pull of a courtroom drama or a true crime narrative, but the criminal or victim isn't just Reggie or Jim or Keith -- it is all of us. He doesn't vilify technology so much as he sheds light on how it develops much faster than our brains (or our culture) can adapt to it.

Book Rec: Honor Girl

Honor Girl by Maggie Thrash

If you're itching for summer, or if you need a good dose of nostalgia, this is the book for you. My 15-year-old self would have identified with this book SO HARD. Maggie Thrash really captures the way that such little things can seem so huge in the context of camp, and of adolescence. Such excitement! Such reluctance! Will she ever kiss the girl? The art and the visual storytelling are phenomenal -- Honor Girl deserves a spot on your shelf right next to Mariko and Jillian Tamaki's award winning This One Summer and Liz Prinz's Tomboy. (Emily)

Thanks for the great submission, @jigsawcupcakes!

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Been wanting to try this since I first read about you on Viral News last year.

Finally I tried it and thought I’d share it with you!

Day 31 of #bowtiecountdown 2015! Have a safe and relaxing New Year's Eve (gosh, I'm such an adult), and see you in 2016!

Day 30 of the #bowtiecountdown 2015. Damn, this building is beautiful. #nyplselfie

Day 29, #bowtiecountdown 2015.

Days 25, 26, 27, and 28 of #bowtiecountdown 2015...

Happy Holidays from the @nypl #bowtiecountdown Day 24! #nyplselfie