Another busy month of reading! This month I tried to focus on my gifted books from Random House with a few extras thrown in. Thank you Random House for gifting me these books, noted with a star!
Gods of Jade and Shadow*
Silvia Moreno-Garcia
This was an entertaining read about a young woman in Mexico in a sort of Cinderella situation playing maid to her family. She ends up entrapped in a magical contract with a Mayan god (like you do) and they go on an adventure. Ultimately it leads to her discovering personal freedom. This was a fun read and an interesting way to hear about some Mayan myths, but I don’t feel the need to own the book.
The Professor and the Madman
Simon Winchester
This was a super interesting microhistory of how the Oxford English Dictionary was invented. It focuses on the lives of two men, one in an insane asylum, and one intellectual, who were integrally involved. I had never thought about how the first huge dictionary was made and when you consider amassing that amount of knowledge by hand it’s INSANE. In fact it took all of England to do it. Fascinating read.
The Water Dancer*
Ta-Nehisi Coates
This is the latest book from acclaimed author Ta-Nehisi Coates (“Between the World and Me”). It recently got chosen for Oprah’s book club and with good reason! Coates is known for writing slave stories, plantation era novels that focus on the people of color and their experiences. This is a beautiful book that weaves fantasy and history and exams the ideas of freedom, heritage, and storytelling. Highly, highly recommend for everyone.
Thrall
Natasha Trethewey
I’ve had this book of poems on my shelf for years and finally got around to reading it. BOY was it worth the wait. It’s a lovely book of poems centered on being mixed race in the colonial era and the circumstances that lead to that. There are other themes as well but it’s such a beautiful, intimate way to examine those roots.
The Beekeeper of Aleppo*
Christy Lefteri
Warning: although beautifully written this book is super sad. As you may have guessed from the title it’s about Syrian refugees fleeing their war-torn country. Though it’s fiction, the author is writing from experiences she witnessed while volunteering in refugee camps and from refugee stories. It’s a heart wrenching book about the power of human endurance in the face of both physical and psychological violence. Sad, but well worth reading.
Ways to Disappear
Idra Novey
I can’t praise this book enough. In it a famous Brazilian author climbs into a tree and disappears. While attempting to find her, her children and her translator realize she owed money to a violent gang, and they’re now on the hook for the cash. It’s got both that enigmatic magical realism that we love Latin American lit for, and the fast paced tempo of an action adventure. A must read.
Live a Little*
Howard Jacobson
In this book an elderly woman with dementia who crochets morbid sayings onto pillows somehow falls in love with a dapper elderly man who remembers ever single painful memory of his childhood and obsesses over it. Oh and the man reads fortunes for a living. It’s basically everything I love in one book. It’s a very specific type of dark, British humor but if you’re into that then it’s an excellent read.
The Boston Girl
Anita Diamant
We read this for my book club this month and it was AMAZING. We’ve only read books by male authors and we were clearly starved for a female voice. I cried like six times. It’s a grandmother telling her granddaughter about her life. Her family immigrated from Eastern Europe and she grows up in Boston fighting for jobs, opportunities, love, and respect. It’s SO GOOD. So many women, so many amazingly multidimensional, full-spectrum of humanity women. A must read.
The Russian Debutante’s Handbook
Gary Schteyngart
Gary Schteyngart is an awesome writer, he’s got an excellent sense of humor and plays with space and time in a really interesting way. It follows the wild romps of young Russians both in New York City and the European city of Prava (Prague). Part satire, part coming of age story, part humors portrait of the Russian diaspora experience, it’s an excellent read.