The Cue Card

Hi. I hope everyone is having a lovely spring weekend. It’s great to officially say that now: spring! I’ve been off the blog for a while since I was in Southern California visiting my parents, which was wonderful to see them. It was an excellent trip, and they are okay. I took these two photos there and you can see a bit of green in the California landscape, which is nice to glimpse for such a drought-ridden place. Though it could always use a lot more rain. 

Now I’m back in Canada trying to finish chores and get organized. It’s nice to be reunited with the dogs and the hub. My reading has taken a bit of a hit lately but hopefully I can get back on the ball. I was just busy with other things for a while and other projects. You know how it goes.

Meanwhile this Sunday is the Academy Awards. So here are the movies I’ve seen: Belfast, CODA, Don’t Look Up, House of Gucci, King Richard, Being the Ricardos, Spencer, Dune, and Passing. I still haven’t seen the other nominated films, but it’s too late now before the show. Do you have any predictions on what will win Best Picture? And do you plan to watch the Oscars? I guess I plan to, and I wouldn’t mind if CODA and Belfast take home something, but I’m not sure whether the little indie film CODA will be able to take home the big prize. Hmm. But that would be something. 

Speaking of movies, I noticed that the trailer came out of the upcoming film based on the bestselling novel Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. The “marsh girl” named Kya is being played by Daisy Edgar-Jones, who I don’t know yet, but she’s a British actress who’s been in the TV series Normal People among other things.

I read the Crawdads novel back in 2018, which is about an abandoned girl who raises herself, living isolated in the marshes of North Carolina from 1952 to 1969, and then runs into trouble. I liked its setting and the natural world it espouses, though the plot I thought gets a little wobbly as it goes on, but we will see how it is. The movie, which comes out July 15, was actually shot in Louisiana and not N.C. So what do you think — will it be a good movie, or not half as good as the book?  

And now I’ll leave you with a review of what I finished lately. 

The Days of Afrekete by Asali Solomon / Farrar Straus / 208 pages / 2021

What It’s About: The main character is a black woman named Liselle in Philadelphia who is hosting a dinner party at the beginning for the people who helped with her (white) husband’s political campaign for the state legislature … even though he lost and she’s been contacted by an FBI agent who tells her that her husband is being investigated for corruption. 

Liselle’s mother who she calls to ask advice on whether or not to cancel the party is a piece of work, and Liselle begins to wonder if her marriage is over. Meanwhile as the party goes on, there’s alternating chapters of Liselle’s much earlier days at Bryn Mawr college as a literature major and a lesbian … with her lover Selena, in particular. 

But after college they go their own ways over a decade or so, and the story goes into Selena’s life and mental troubles along with her job working for an abortion-enabling nonprofit. It also tells of Liselle’s life marrying and having a child and working as a teacher. They meet up once or twice over the years, then later in the present Liselle and Selena both start wondering about the other … as the party, which started at the novel’s beginning, plays out.

My Thoughts: Apparently this relatively short book was inspired in part by Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway, which also features a consequential party. Its title Afrekete is taken from a character in an Audre Lorde book, which Liselle and Selena relate to. I thought the writing was well done and the author a new talent to me. The novel delves mostly into the characters relations with one another, their various life stages, and the ongoing party. There’s not a lot of action per se to the plot, but there’s observations and much dialogue about gender, race, sexuality, and the socioeconomics of the times. Some of it is satirical and a bit funny. I thought the telling was bold and a bit edgy. If you’re squeamish about lesbian themes stay clear. I listened to this novel as an audiobook narrated expertly by actress Karen Chilton. 

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read this one and what are you reading now?  

Hi. I hope everyone is doing well. Are you ready for spring break? Well I’m getting there. I’ll be flying to Southern California tomorrow to visit with my parents. It should be beautiful in the desert areas right about now.

Meanwhile my husband will be holding down the fort while I’m away and taking care of the dogs. Things are starting to warm up and the snow is melting. It’ll likely be mud season when I return in 10 days, and we’ll have to get out the doggy towels to wipe the girls’ paws. 

In book news, I see that the Audie Awards recently announced that Andy Weir’s novel Project Hail Mary won Audiobook of the Year. Wow, who knew. Did any of you listen to it? It’s narrated by actor Ray Porter. My husband read and liked the book, but I haven’t picked it up yet. Perhaps the audio is the way to go.

Also the Audie Award for Best Fiction book went to Dawnie Walton’s novel The Final Revival of Opal & Nev, which is narrated by a full cast. I just put my name on the library wait list for it. In the memoir category, Ashley Ford won for her book Somebody’s Daughter about her dysfunctional family, which she wrote and narrated. If you like audiobooks as much as I do, here’s the full list of Audie Award winners.  And now I’ll leave you with a couple reviews of what I finished lately. 

These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant / Minotaur / 288 pages / 2021

What It’s About: An Iraq/Afghanistan war vet (Cooper) and his young daughter (Finch) have been living out in the woods off the grid for 8 years … with only one other neighbor out there (Scotland) who keeps an eye for them … as well as Jake, a friend of Cooper’s from the war days who brings them food and supplies once a year. But then on the one day Jake doesn’t show and that leads them to take some risks getting groceries … as well as contending with a couple strangers who come into their neck of the woods. Over the course of the story, you learn why Cooper is hiding out there in the first place and whether it’s time for him to face up to real life again. 

My Thoughts: This slow-burn suspense novel, which I listened to as an audiobook, is done well and is fairly gripping. I liked how the story made me feel some sympathy for Cooper even though he has faults and has made mistakes in the past. But you’re not all together sure of him, or Scotland, or the others — and what they’ve done or might do, so it adds a bit of uncertainty along the way to what will happen. But there also seems an earnestness about Cooper and his young daughter Finch that makes you care about them, and the woods provides a beautiful refuge, which is all Finch has ever known. 

How the story is paced made me just want to rush to the end to see what would happen, but the author holds off the reckoning — making you anticipate or want it more — and doesn’t let you know the outcome till the very end. Unfortunately the only trouble I had with the novel was the ending, which seemed too farfetched or unlikely to me and felt somehow anticlimactic. I guess I was expecting a big bang but no — it was more a quietly resolved ending.

Recitatif (1983 story) by Toni Morrison / Knopf /96 pages /reprinted 2022 

This short story, which was recently published as a stand-alone book, is one that author Toni Morrison called an “experiment” for not identifying whether the two main characters in it are Black or White, yet making race an integral part of the story. I listened to it twice as an audiobook and then heard Zadie Smith’s lengthy introduction to it, which is best heard after you finish. 

It’s a story about two girls in poverty — Twyla and Roberta — who meet when they are 8 years old at a state orphanage in the 1950s. They are the only ones there that are dropped off not as orphans but because one’s mother is sick and the other’s mother dances for a living. There the girls bond over their failures and similarities and eventually both leave the orphanage. Then over the decades into the late ’60s and near 1980, Twyla and Roberta run into each other at various places as their lives change and their friendship does too. Along the way, it’s interesting to think about their different perspectives on things, especially what happens to Maggie, the mute kitchen worker at the orphanage, who has something you’re unsure of happen to her. 

The way Morrison writes it, she seems to mix the characters’ traits, some perhaps stereotypical Black and others more White without revealing which girl is which, leaving the reader to ponder (or try to guess) these things, though often I was busy following the story of their lives and not what skin color they were. After all both are humans with similar emotions and flaws, which perhaps is one point of the story. 

It’s interesting food-for-thought about Twyla’s and Roberta’s various perspectives (especially on what happens to Maggie) and how race and attitudes towards race play a part. I was actually expecting the story to go on when it abruptly ended. So I think I was expecting to get a bit more about Twyla and Roberta. So perhaps I thought the experiment could’ve been a bit more. 

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read either of these and if so, what did you think? Happy spring and time change everyone.

Hi. I hope everyone had a great week. We had a snowstorm last night and woke up to about six to eight inches of new snow, which is nice for skiing and the scenery. The dogs love it too. Though I hear temperatures are going to plunge this week for here and much of North America so hunker down and stay warm if you can.

Next month, I am planning to fly to Palm Springs and visit my parents, so I might have to wait till then to feel some real heat. The desert is usually beautiful this time of year and I have tickets one day to see the upcoming Indian Wells pro tennis tournament there, so I’m looking forward to that. 

Meanwhile the Olympics has ended and I’m glad to have seen various parts of it. Nathan Chen’s free skate was probably one of the highlights for me. I also liked the pairs skating and ice dancing as well as the cross-country skiing and biathlon.

I missed seeing the entire hockey games, but congrats to the Canadian women who continue to be a powerhouse in the sport. Now I’ll likely have some sports-action withdrawals, but we’ll probably get back to seeing some of the Oscar nominated films in the evenings. So far, I’d recommend the movies of Belfast and CODA. Have you seen those?

And now I’ll leave you with a review of what I finished lately.

Swimming Back to Trout River by Linda Rui Feng / Simon & Schuster / 2021

What it’s about: The story follows four main characters whose lives weave together and apart and later back together in interesting ways. There’s Momo, a man from the small Chinese village of Trout River who wins a scholarship to university in Beijing in the late 1960s, and Dawn, a friend and violinist he meets there who dreams of being a musician but must hide her aspirations during China’s Cultural Revolution. They make a pact after a date together but then part ways after graduation, and Momo meets Cassia, a nurse who helps him at a dentist office. 

Both Momo and Cassia are affected by a loss they experience during the Revolution, and later they marry and have Junie, who’s born without full legs. At age 5, Junie begins living with her Grandparents in Trout River — for reasons made clear later in the story — and then when her parents move at separate times to the U.S. Junie stays behind, and they plan to bring her to the States and reunite when she’s 12, but things begin to happen that none of them can foresee.  

My Thoughts: I’m so glad I finally got to this novel. It’s the best debut I’ve read in a while and there’s a lot to think about in it. I listened to both the audio and read the novel afterwards … because my book club was discussing it, so I needed to recall all the particulars. It’s a story that takes place from the 1960s into the 1980s and from China to the U.S. and back, touching on immigrants, history, music, word translations, and the culture of both countries. Whoa it’s chock full, yet still is very readable and alluring. 

Quite a bit of sad things happen in it, but it’s written and interweaved so interestingly that it transports and grabs you from the beginning and takes you along. And since I’m intrigued by novels that deal with the Cultural Revolution and protagonists that try to escape and heal from it, this novel was was a win-win for me. I will look for whatever this author puts out next … though since she’s a professor of Chinese cultural history at the University of Toronto, I’m not sure she’s focusing solely on writing fiction these days. We’ll see.

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read this one, or others like it, and if so, what did you think? 

Hi. I hope everyone is doing well. We had a nice hike Sunday morning in the nearby mountains along the river with the dogs. It was not too strenuous, which is good because unfortunately my knees are not too good anymore. I’ve been told I will need knee replacements in a couple years. Ugh. It’s hard to believe but something I have to deal with. I’ve been playing sports and running most of my life so now in middle age things fall apart, which is a bummer. I’m still able to play competitive tennis (doubles) three times a week wearing knee sleeves, but we’ll see how long I can continue. 

Meanwhile, did you watch the Super Bowl out somewhere? Or just stay at home? Maybe you skipped the game for the Puppy Bowl or just watched the half time show. What was that half time stage, like a doll house? We watched the game at home, and have been watching the Olympics most other nights. The cross-country skiing has been awesome and some of the figure skating too, particularly Nathan Chen’s performance (Wow), though I’m surprised and dismayed that they decided to let the young Russian skater (Kamila Valieva) compete after testing positive for a banned substance on Dec. 25. That’s the big news lately. Good grief, what does that say to others in the future? Or others who’ve been thrown out in the past? Most athletes want to keep the Games clean, so this will be an affront I think. It’s too bad too because obviously the girl can skate like a dynamo, but cheating shouldn’t be overlooked, or else it just diminishes the whole competition’s worth.

On the reading side this past week, I finished one novel for PW and one audiobook & read combo for me. I’ll leave my thoughts below. 

These Precious Days by Ann Patchett / Harper / 320 pages / 2021  

Perhaps it’s just me but I’ve always liked Ann Patchett’s nonfiction more than her fiction. Her first essay collection This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage (from 2013) I remember liking a great deal, and this new one has some memorable moments as well. I loved the audio version of These Precious Days read by the author, Wow.

And I’m still wondering how Ann got through reading the title essay — without losing it — about Tom Hank’s assistant Sooki, an artist, who becomes her friend and is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and comes to stay at their house while receiving treatment in Nashville during the pandemic. I’ll never know. It gutted me. It was like a wave that took me to its peak and threw me down onto the beach with great force. Though despite the terrible sadness of the situation, it’s told very well and beautifully. I also read parts of the hardback copy too and liked Sooki’s paintings on the book’s front and back cover. 

Ann talks about various things in this collection: her family, her schooling and Catholic upbringing, her trips and friends, her love of books and her bookstore in Nashville, her husband’s flying, her knitting and writing. Some chapters went by me without a huge connection or interest. Then there were others chapters that really hit me. My favorites of the bunch: Three Fathers, Sisters, There Are No Children Here, Two More Things I Want to Say About My Father, and of course the ones about Sooki: These Precious Days and A Day at the Beach. It was these six essays out of the 23 that really sealed the deal for me, though other ones had their moments too. 

Her essays about her father and mother are very poignant and moving, and I loved her essay talking about being a motherless person and all the flak she’s received because of that. People will say some of the craziest or harshest things or give advice if you’re a motherless person, despite if you’re unable to, or whatever your personal reasons might be for not having, or wanting children, and Ann captures that so well. She’s pretty straightforward about it in one of her more lengthy chapters. 

And once again, as with the last collection, I was a bit stunned how open and honest Ann is in writing about her life and personal life. She just lays it out there. It’s obvious in these many essays (most of them are pretty short) that she’s a very gracious person, who adores animals and is very close to her family, friends, and dogs (past and present). She seemingly does so much for her friends and has a goodness about her and also some fun wry humor. Various times she made me laugh out loud. Other times she writes about the sad deaths of those she’s lost, such as her father and friends. But the touching tributes she gives them are also filled with light. Maybe that is how she got through reading the audio. All in all, I found her words and grace beacons to savor. 

That’s all for this week. What about you — have you liked Patchett’s books and what do you think … about “this, that, and the other”?  (A Seinfeld-ism). Happy Valentine’s Day!

Hi all. We arrived home from our road trip after visiting my sister and brother-in-law in Idaho. It was great fun and very scenic. We enjoyed skiing together and going on walks with our Labrador dogs in the winter wonderland. They have good snow there. Much better than we do here in Alberta, where windstorms have turned things to icy conditions. On the way back, we drove through beautiful areas in Idaho and Montana and saw elk, big horn sheep, pronghorn antelope, and many bald eagles. It was cool. There’s also a moose and calf in my sister’s neighborhood so we were on guard not to get in the way. All in all, it was a great trip and fun visit and I stayed completely unplugged from my laptop, which is quite rare but was a nice break. 

Now we’re home and I need to get back on the ball. I haven’t had time yet to post my February Preview so that will have to come next week. But I have done a few reviews below of what books I finished lately. I plan to visit others’ blogs this week to see what I missed and what you all are reading. I hope the new year is treating you kindly and that your reading is going well. 

Joan Is Okay by Weike Wang / Random House / 224 pages / 2022

This tale, about a mid-30s ICU doctor in New York who seems to be going through a bit of a crisis, snuck up on me as it went along. 

Joan is an American-Chinese workaholic who is so capable at her job that she eagerly assumes extra work shifts to fill up her time. But after the death of her father in China, her life goes a bit adrift … and she begins reflecting on the “gulfs within her family, the migrations they’ve made [her parents brought Joan and her brother to the U.S. as kids and went back to China after they were grown] and the cost of love.”

It’s true Joan is sort of an odd and lone duck. She has few friends, prefers to work all the time, has a sparsely furnished NY apartment, and has some problems seeing eye-to-eye with her mother, brother, and sister-in-law. But she studied hard at Harvard and became a successful doctor, though now her family has other wishes or expectations of her. 

While the story is a bit scattered, I liked quite a few of Joan’s observations about her life, being a doctor, and their family … and also the pandemic as it comes into play towards the end of the book. You want to see how it will affect her and her relations, and by the end it seems Joan turns a bit of a corner. It’s a subtle character-kind of story — mostly of Joan’s inner thoughts without a lot of plot action — but still it comes off a bit meaningful.

Thanks to the publisher Random House for providing me with a copy of the e-book to review.

O Beautiful by Jung Yun / St. Martin’s Press / 320 pages / 2021

When I picked up the audiobook of this, the plot seemed enticing to me about a woman, who was a former model in NY and is returning to her home state of North Dakota to write a magazine article on the oil boom’s effects on a town. Her journalism prof, whom she had a relationship with, gave her the story, but while there some bad things start to happen her, including being abused on the plane, having to endure racist and misogynist language against her, and being kicked out of her hotel. 

Much of the story deals with the evils of the oil fracking biz, the misogyny and racism of the people it employs and attracts, the pollution, and the violence that has risen during the boom. All of which seems valid to raise, even if it feels a bit heavy-handed at times. 

My qualm was that I found the main character Elinor Hanson quite unappealing to spend hours with. I get that she has some substance issues and is grappling with her past and present and trying to write the story and get an angle on it, but she seems such a negative unhappy person toward everyone and everything (even with her sister who lives there) that I had a hard time with her. The story itself is very negative and on top of that she is too. It was just the combination of both endlessly that felt oppressive and made me lose some interest. I also wanted to know how her article goes … but at the end you don’t really find out, though you assume she’s well on her way with the material she’s able to gather.

A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal / 384 pages /2014 

We listened to the audiobook of this nonfiction book on our long road trip, and holy smokes it’s quite the true story of friendship and deception. I went into it pretty blind — not knowing too much about the events surrounding this British traitor — and was appalled by what MI6 officer Kim Philby did and got away with spying for the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1963.

Good grief the events detailed will turn your stomach inside out … not only because of what Philby did — blowing the cover of agents and handing over classified information and missions to the Soviets — but also because of the old-boys snobby network of the British MI6 that refused to believe that one of their own was involved in doing this. They let Philby off the hook after his colleagues defected to the Soviet Union in 1951, and he was able to continue on as a spy till 1963, when information finally came to light that the intelligence agencies could no longer refute. 

The book follows Philby’s long close friendship mainly with fellow British MI6 officer Nicholas Elliott (but also to a lesser extent CIA operative James Angleton) as they go about various spy missions. Elliott particularly trusted Philby and shared with him his intelligence info for decades … without ever questioning this man who apparently charmed the socks off of the clan at MI6 and was a well-liked hard-core drinking buddy and a close family friend of Elliott’s. Later Elliott and Angleton stood up for Philby in the 1950s when he was being investigated for being a spy, helping him to become exonerated of the charges. 

Good grief it’s an exasperating story. Philby’s now known as one of the worst (most effective) spy traitors in history, and the fact that he pretty much got away with it all then was able to disappear is cringe-worthy stuff. Philby certainly duped his intelligence friends and wives along the way, who come off looking foolish and negligent. It’s quite a tale — well told, suspensefully by Ben Macintyre, though he sometimes goes off on tangents that you wish he wouldn’t, so you could get back to the main story. Still he infuses the book with many fascinating details and leaves you with little confidence in the 1950s intelligence community … who come off looking like heavy drinkers, partiers, and incompetent nits who bore little accountability for the damage Philby left in its wake.

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read these books or authors and if so, what did you think? And how’s life?

Well it’s too cold here currently to take a photo outside so instead I will post a photo of the twin pandas on display this past week at the zoo in Tokyo. Adorable bears, born in June. The twin girl and boy are on view only three days due to Omicron concerns. Hopefully the pandas will stay safe!

Thousands have signed up to see them. They’re rock stars already. Years ago I was lucky to see pandas at the National Zoo in D.C. They’re wonderful to watch as they climb and roll around, and seem to have an uplifting effect. I’m sure if the Tokyo Zoo put a panda cam on the twins, I’d probably hardly get anything done. 

I hope your reading is getting off to a great start in 2022. I’m on target but not moving that quickly. And the novel that I picked for “first book of the year” didn’t alas turn out to be my first read of the year. I finished three others before it. … Oh well, that’s the way it goes sometimes. I guess I’m a bit scattered already about my reading. Are you? 

Anyways this week, we’re supposed to be going on our “first road trip” of the year with the dogs to meet up with family in the mountains of Idaho. But I’m still inquiring if I have the right documents to cross the border and get back in. So we will see if we can go (our dog Willow at left wants to). It’s a bit complicated because I have my virtual Canadian Citizenship Ceremony this week (Wow!!), but then afterwards they mail you the certificate, which will take weeks, so I need to figure out if I can go without it, or if I can get a document in the interim. Hmm. But I’m very excited to become a citizen and take the oath in Canada. It’s a great honor and I’ve been working towards it for quite a while. Meanwhile below are a few reviews of what I finished lately. 

Intimacies by Katie Kitamura / Riverhead Books / 240 pages / 2021 

This was one of the last novels I read in 2021, but it made a solid impression on me. 

The story follows an unnamed woman interpreter at The Hague in the Netherlands who becomes unmoored by life in her new city as she starts work translating testimonies at the International Court. The case is against a Head of State of an African nation who is charged with atrocities. Meanwhile she finds the boyfriend she’s seeing there, who is separated from his wife, might not be leaving his wife after all. She also learns that a friend’s brother, a bookstore owner, is mugged in a wave of violence across the city. Little by little, you get a sense through the woman’s observations around her that it’s having a detrimental effect on her psyche. 

It’s a novel where not a whole lot happens but somehow I was pulled in from the beginning … wanting to see what working in The Hague is like for such an interpreter, who’s fluent in several languages. The story is effectively subtle and simmers below the surface. It’s written coolly and its undercurrent feeling is not too unlike Kitamura’s first novel A Separation, which I liked as well. I guess I’m officially a Kitamura fan so I will eagerly read whatever she puts out next.

The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada / New Directions / 112 pages / 2020 

I read this novel for the Japanese Lit challenge going on over at the blog Dolce Bellezza and found it well done. 

It’s about a young wife who agrees to quit her job in the city and move with her husband, whose job is transferred to the countryside, where they plan to take up residence next door to the husband’s parents and grandpa.

The husband is gone mostly at work, and the wife, who tells the story, is trying to get her bearings after leaving her working life to move. She tries to explore their surroundings a bit and is feeling aimless and awkward with her in-laws, then weird things begin to happen on her walks, including falling into a hole. Are they real or is she losing her sanity? It’s all a bit mysterious and unsettling, but is told in an everyday manner that you really believe that such things are happening. 

I’m still unsure if I fully understand what the ending meant in light of the odd things that happened, but I found that okay. I like how not totally knowing made it a bit more disconcerting. I will add the author’s first novel The Factory to my list now. She seems quite a young talent. 

Good Company by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney / Ecco / 320 pages / 2021

A lot of bloggers have read this author so I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, especially since Marin Ireland, who is one of my favorite audiobook readers, narrates it. 

I missed the author’s first novel The Nest, which I know was popular, so perhaps that one is better than this. Though I liked the novel okay — it’s about two couples Julian/Flora and Margo/David and a betrayal of sorts … but I found it just needed something a bit else or more to happen.

I liked that it’s about Julian’s acting troupe Good Company and that Julian, Flora, and Margo are all actors who meet working there, while David is a doctor who meets them at a performance. The story focuses on an affair that seems to upend them all in ways. But around and around it goes. And Ruby is Julian and Flora’s daughter, who is getting ready to go off to college, and she is shielded a bit from what is going on. 

The five of them have backstories that come out as it moves along. I wanted to know a bit more about Margo and David’s marriage, which takes a hit after he has a stroke while operating on a child. I almost thought the story would go more into that incident and the lawsuit, but instead most of the focus is on Julian and Flora’s marriage. There’s also a bit about the end of Margo’s acting job on a long-time popular TV series. I liked the moments where the story is funny or spoofing a bit about the LA and NY acting biz. I could have used a bit more of that. 

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read these and what did you think? 

Hi. I’m finally getting on the ball about posting about my favorite books from last year as well as some stats on what I read. To tell you the truth, last year was a bit of an off year for me. My goal was to finish 70 books, but I ended up with 63, which I know is a small amount compared with many other bloggers. I had a couple slumps or downtimes in which I was either busy with travel, or needed to clear my head, so that is one reason I had lower results … as well as the fact that I was writing separate fiction reviews for Publishers Weekly, which took a lot more of my time.

That certainly slowed my reading down. When I read for them I practically have to  memorize all the book’s details and write copious notes about them in order to write a cogent review in the style of PW’s publication … whereas with my own blog posts I can just wing whatever I want to say and my thoughts of the book, which is nice and less timely. 

Anyways, below are my stats and the 10 books that sort of stood out to me. You can probably see where I need more work in balancing what I’m reading and which authors. I’m still primarily a female fiction reader who looks to diversify more geographically and racially. I improved though from last year so I am making progress in reading authors from different backgrounds and countries.

The titles that I read for Publishers Weekly unfortunately can’t be divulged as they are meant to be anonymously reviewed on PW’s site. It’s just one of PW’s rules that I have to follow, which is too bad. But I’ve listed my 10 favorite novels that I completed this year for this blog below. If I was pushed to say which one I liked best … I might say Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun … though I know others didn’t like it half as much as I did. There were just some scenes of Klara’s feelings to do right by her ill human Josie and her uniqueness and observations as an Artificial Friend (or robot) that made it seem special and poignant to me … especially the scene where Klara goes into the shed to ask the sun’s help to heal Josie, ahhh. No doubt I have a soft spot for Ishiguro’s novels, whose Never Let Me Go and The Remains of the Day are still favorites.

• 63 books completed
• 35 print or e-books
• 28 audiobooks 
• 49 female, 14 male 
• 54 fiction, 9 nonfiction
• 23 for Publishers Weekly 
• 40 for The Cue Card 
• 44 white authors, 19 non-white authors
• 31 American authors
• 14 U.K. authors 
• 6 Asian born/raised authors
• 5 Canadian authors
• 4 Africa born/raised authors
• 3 Australian authors

1) Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro (2021) – I was a sucker for the character of Klara (the Artificial Friend) and how she tried her best — along with Rick – to help the ill Josie.

2) Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell (2020) — This novel opened up a whole new world of Shakespeare’s real life to me. How the author captured the family and their times was amazing.

3) A Burning by Megha Majumdar (2020) — This debut novel set in India about a bombing and its arrests is quite tragic in how it upends the three lives of the main characters, but I found it so well done. The talented author is one to watch.

4) Petra by Shaena Lambert (2021) — This novel by a Canadian author took me by surprise with its grip. It’s about a real life person – a Green Party founder and activist – whose life took a tragic turn.

5) Who Is Maud Dixon? by Alexandra Andrews (2021) — This debut was devious fun and a clever spoof of the publishing/writing world. Another very talented author to watch.

6) Passing by Nella Larsen (1929) — This classic (both the novel and movie) hit me hard with its story’s predicament and the harsh times the characters were living through.

7) The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris (2021)— Although the first half of this debut novel worked better for me than the last section, I found it sharp, ambitious, and its tension well done. It’s darkly funny and scathing in parts. The author seems a talent to watch.

8) A Calling for Charlie Barnes by Joshua Ferris (2021) — This novel starts out quite amusing and takes a creative twist in the second half. I was impressed by the author and need to try a couple more of his books.

9) Intimacies by Katie Kitamura (2021) — This is a subtle novel but a bit alluring and affecting all the same. The woman’s psyche is going through a crisis of sorts and it simmers below the surface. In some ways it is like Kitamura’s debut novel A Separation, which I liked as well.

10) The Elephant of Belfast by S. Kirk Walsh (2021) — This historical WWII debut novel enticed me from the get-go and was something I didn’t know about Ireland during the war. It was also special since I got to do a Q&A with the author, which was fascinating.

That’s all for now. What did you think of any of these? I can’t wait to read a whole new batch of great novels in 2022. Onward we go.