Truckee Books

I finished three books while on vacation:

Horrorstör (by Grady Hendricks) 

RHC category: A horror book published by an indie press. This is an enjoyable and darkly humorous horror novel. It's horror meets IKEA, and is a breezy (and creepily fun) read. I wasn't anticipating enjoying this category, because other than Shirley Jackson and the best of Stephen King, I'm not into horror. But this was fun.

All This Could Be Yours (by Jami Attenberg)

RHC: None; this is in the Tournament of Books. My first Attenberg! (She's a friend of a friend, so I've always felt vaguely guilty about not reading anything of hers.) This was just a pleasure to read. The Corrections meets Big Little Lies; super well-written literary entertainment.  It's a #2 seed in the Tournament, going up against the play-in winner. I think it has a good chance.

A Lady's Guide to Etiquette and Murder (by Dianne Freeman) 

RHC category: A mystery where the victim(s) is not a woman. This was recommended by Book Riot and sounded like the start of a fun series. And indeed it is super fun!  I enjoy Victorian England and the main character is delightfully self-actualized for a Victorian Countess. Needless to say, I'm already halfway through the next book in this series.

The Borden Murders: Lizzie Borden and the Trial of the Century (by Sarah Miller)

Category is: a YA nonfiction book. This didn't feel specifically young adult to me, it simply struck me (no pun intended) as a very readable account of the Borden murders and the evidence both for and against Lizzie's guilt. I keep going back and forth but my current theory is that she and the maid were in on it together somehow. Otherwise how could it even have been done?

Anyway, made me want to go back to the Borden house. (I was there 13 years ago and took this picture.) Definitely a fascinating crime, and a gripping read.

Yellow Face (by David Henry Hwang)

One of the Read Harder Challenges this year was to read a play by an author of color, so I chose Yellow Face by David Henry Hwang.

It's a comic, metatextual play about, among other things, the casting of Jonathan Pryce as an Asian man in a production of Miss Saigon, and it mixes real-life incidents and characters with fictional ones. I would love to see this performed, but reading it was hugely enjoyable as well.

Hwang also wrote M. Butterfly, which sticks in my head because of the movie version. I watched it when I was in high school so god knows how I oversimplified it, but I would love to experience more of Hwang's work.