Hi all. It’s been a while. I hope everyone is well. I want to thank all those who left kind comments and their condolences on my last post about my father’s passing. It was very helpful to see your notes. I appreciate each one of you over these years that I’ve gotten to know while discussing books. You’ve made it fun and a positive experience. And we have a very good and caring community here in this book blogging world, so thanks much.
I know my Dad was a fan of the Cue Card and reading and would want me to continue on, so here I am again.
Now I’m back from California rather dazed and sad but trying to continue on. What have you been reading? I look forward to visiting your blogs again over the next few days to catch up. Here’s a picture of my current library loot. I still have The Frozen River on the pile, lol, it’s been there for a long while.
For the week ahead, I sort of want to focus on Frozen River along with Stone Yard Devotional, and the classic Brideshead Revisited, which Tina at the blog Turn the Page and I have started. Emily Feng book’s is a nonfiction book about China that looks good too. And Tim Winton’s novel Juice is a post-apocalyptic tale of suspense and survival. As always there’s much to read.
And you might have seen that the shortlists of various book prizes recently came out. The Women’s Prize for Fiction is a big one, and it appears I have read three on the shortlist including: Tell Me Everything, The Safekeep, and the debut novel Good Girl. I have no idea which of the six books the judges will pick as the winner on June 12, but I think I need to read Miranda July’s strange-ish novel All Fours sometime. Not sure its premise seems appealing to me, but it certainly has received some critical acclaim, so I’ll likely check it out. Apparently it’s about a mid-40s aged woman who’s a semi famous artist set to embark on a cross-country road trip but instead drives to a nearby motel and becomes obsessed with a local man. The character seems sort of out there but is trying to reinvent herself and find fulfillment as she faces menopause and mortality. (I say … just wait till your 50s and 60s, lol).
The novel All Fours also recently made the shortlist for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction (see the five pictured), but I’m sort of pulling for Aube Rey Lescure’s debut novel River East, River West, since I’ve read and liked that one. The prize winner will be announced on May 1, so there’s not a lot of time to read these beforehand. I don’t know the other novels, but I have read Sarah Manguso before with her prior novel Very Cold People. Her books are pretty bleak, so I’m sort of avoiding Liars, which apparently “paints an excoriating portrait of a marriage,” but it received starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Kirkus. Though I wonder if All Fours might be the favorite?
Also the shortlist for the International Booker Prize came out and these are translated into English works that I don’t know as well. Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix is a French novel about a dingy full of migrants that capsizes in the English Channel; On the Calculation Of Vol. 1 by Solvej Balle is a Danish novel about a bookseller in France who finds herself trapped in a time loop reliving the same day; Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami is a Japanese dystopian novel about AI mother beings who oversee isolated tribes of almost extinct humans; Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico is an Italian novel about an expat couple living in Berlin who feel increasingly trapped in their picture-perfect life; Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq includes 12 stories that captures the lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India; and lastly A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre is a French novel about a mentally ill woman who is helped by the male narrator and her father to endure life’s challenges. Hmm which book you pick up to read? The winner will be decided on May 20.
Meanwhile I didn’t get a chance to do my April Preview post at the beginning of the month as usual, so I’ll put forth these five novels coming out this month that look appealing to me.
I was a fan of Katie Kitamura’s earlier novels — A Separation and Intimacies — and so I plan to get to her new novel Audition (out April 8), which according to Kirkus is about an older woman and a younger man who “struggle to grasp who they are to each other in a slippery and penetrating tale.” Kitamura’s quiet, chilly (psychological) tales might not be for everyone, but I think her writing is not to be missed. Kitamura recently spoke at Politics & Prose bookstore in D.C., which you can hear here.
Also I liked Amity Gaige’s last strong novel Sea Wife, so I will check out her new novel Heartwood (out April 1), which apparently takes you on a “gripping journey as a search and rescue team race against time when an experienced hiker mysteriously disappears on the Appalachian Trail in Maine.”
It’s said to be part thriller-ish as well as a moving exploration of the complexities of mother-daughter bonds. Publishers Weekly calls it a mixed bag due to its unfocused plot, while Kirkus calls it a “winning portrait of a woman, and community, in peril.” With Amity Gaige, I need to get to it regardless. Her books are a go.
Then Kate Folks’ debut novel Sky Daddy (out April 8) seems an unusual funny story about a woman who has an obsession with airplanes. She doesn’t simply love them she’s apparently in love with them. She flys on them when she’s not working and going about her mundane life.
Author Gary Shteyngart says the novel is the “craziest, funniest book I’ve read in a while” and Electric Lit calls it “a zany, charming, and unexpectedly poignant portrait of a woman who feels herself to be unassimilable to the world of normal people.” I’m not sure what to think about it, but we could use something funny about now, so I’ll put my name in for it at the library.
Meanwhile The Death of Us (out April 15) by Abigail Dean looks like an engaging intense literary thriller about a London couple that struggles with the aftermath of a violent crime and an upcoming trial. Thirty years ago a couple endured a violent break-in — they survived but their marriage never recovered. Now the invader’s been caught and the former couple are in their 50s and are preparing to deliver victim statements before his sentencing, which describes their lives and what they’ve been through.
I don’t read many thriller-type books anymore, but this one has received high praise (from Stephen King and Mick Herron) and starred reviews from PW and Kirkus for its storytelling and focus on the victims, so I’m curious.
Lastly is Jennifer Haigh’s new novel Rabbit Moon (out April 1) about an American woman in Shanghai who winds up in a coma after a hit-and-run. Her estranged divorced parents fly to be by her side and the story alternates between their perspectives and their troubling questions about their daughter’s life there and then later the perspective of the woman’s adopted sister. It sounds like a family in turmoil. Haigh’s novels have been a bit hit-and-miss for me over the years — I liked Faith (2011) but not so much Heat and Light (2016) but this one’s setting of Shanghai entices me, so it’s a go.
That’s all for now. What about you — have you read any of these authors and books and if so, what did you think?
Good to hear how you are coping!