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.

Followers (by Megan Angelo) plus bonus

I read This Is How You Lose the Time War last year, and realized I completely forgot to blog it or put it on my list, so here it is now: this sci-fi novella by Amal-El Mohtar and Max Gladstone is an amazing, strange, beautiful, romantic story about warring time travelers. It's strange but great.

And Followers is also strange and great; speculative fiction featuring storylines from 2016 and 2051 that ultimately intersect. It's funny and wise about the ways in which technology controls our lives and relationships. I'm not sure how I feel about the ending but I keep turning it over in my mind

I may as well also toss in here that I started Oval for the Tournament of Books, a speculative fiction novel that did not compel me, so I gave it up. It's in the play-in against two books I liked better, so I feel good about my choices there.

Cleveland Reads

Time for another roundup of things I read on a trip, this time during a long weekend in Cleveland.

Sleeping Murder (by Agatha Christie)

This was for the "last book in a series" category of the Read Harder Challenge.  I vastly prefer Poirot to Miss Marple, so I haven't read many of these, but I enjoyed the young couple at the center of the mystery, who were amateur detectives in this case. Also, the ending fooled me, and I love being fooled! (Note, this is Agatha Christie, so there is some casual racism. Sadface emoji.)

Ash (by Malinda Lo)

This was for the "retelling of a fairytale by an author of color" category of the RHC.  It's a retelling of Cinderella where the main character falls in love, not with the handsome prince, but with the beautiful huntress - and the "fairy godmother" is kind of a semi-malevolent fairy spirit. It was published over a decade ago, and it was interesting to read the interview with Lo where she said she regrets not adding more Chinese influences, but at the time she thought a lesbian Cinderella would already be impossible to publish. Anyway, it's fabulous, and the ending is so moving. Highly recommend.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous: A Novel (by Ocean Vuong)

This is a Tournament of Books 2020 entry, and I know a lot of big fans of this novel. (I believe this is a roman a clef, or at least in reading about Vuong's life, it seems like it.) It's stunningly written, but I was trying to figure out why I didn't love love it, and then I saw Roxane Gay's comment that it needed more plot, and I totally agree. I can understand why it's so beloved, for sure.

Poking a Dead Frog: Conversations with Today’s Top Comedy Writers (by Mike Sacks)

This was for no category of anything and actually was maybe my favorite of these books, to my surprise! It's interviews and snippets of advice from comedy writers, but it's impressive in both its breadth and its depth. The interviews are well-researched and candid, and it covers ground from Ethel and Albert to Cheers to The Onion. I thought the interview with George Saunders was particularly brilliant, and I didn't even know Saunders wrote humor! Really fabulous.

We Cast a Shadow (by Maurice Carlos Ruffin)

A satire of racist American culture, somewhat in the vein of The Sellout. I feel uniquely unqualified to "review" this, so I will direct you to Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's piece in the New York Times, which captures the book well. I found it extremely thought provoking and discomfiting (in a good way; white people should definitely be discomfited by this book. Another solid pick from the Tournament of Books this year!

Christmas Vacation Reads

Finished three books over Christmas vacation, the first two from the Tournament of Books, bringing me to 7/19 Tournament books read so far.

Girl, Woman, Other (by Bernardine Evaristo)

Vignettes of interconnected women or nonbinary characters, many of whom are in the LGBTQ community. Loosely organized around a premiere of a play written by one of the characters. I found all the narratives compelling and vividly human. The ending gave me a very personal gut punch. Booker Prize winner. Excellent novel!

Normal People (by Sally Rooney) 

Compelling coming-of-age read about a man and woman whose emotional lives are deeply intertwined. Feels unresolved at the end, which is undoubtedly the point. Entertainment Weekly named it the best book of the year, which I would quibble with, but still a good read.

The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of September 11 (by Garrett Graff) 

I had to read this in chunks but ultimately I'm glad I did. It is gripping. The political stories are hard to read with hindsight (Rumsfeld and Cheney come off like assholes; George W. Bush fares better. Almost impossible to remember Rudy Giuliani ever was non-evil.) But the narratives about the events themselves are the reason to read the book. Hard to believe it's almost been 20 years. 

Fleishman Is in Trouble (by Taffy Brodesser-Akner)

This was the only way to get someone to listen to a woman—to tell her story through a man; Trojan horse yourself into a man, and people would give a shit about you.

I had a false start with this book last time it popped into my library loans list, but then I read this wonderful Tom Hanks article by Taffy Brodesser-Akner and on the strength of that, I decided I should give Fleishman another shot. Initially I dismissed it because I didn't want to read about another nebbishy man having problems (he is in the process of an acromonious divorce), but slowly this novel unfolds, and the Trojan horse (as referenced in the above quote) becomes apparent.

The narrator, we gradually learn, is a friend of Toby's named Elizabeth. As the novel progresses, we learn more about her and more about Rachel, Toby's wife, who initially is catalogued as a neglectful mother and a "total bitch." But what Brodesser-Akner ends up unfolding is a metatextual, compelling examination of the roles of men and women as workers, as parents, as upper middle-class New Yorkers. I ended up loving this in the end!

And as I was selecting my next book today, the shortlist came out! Fleishman indeed made it, as did four other books I've read: Golden State, The Testaments, Optic Nerve, and Trust Exercise.  I gave Optic Nerve my zombie vote, but Fleishman is great too, and is a last-minute contender for my top 5 books of the year.

Queenie (by Candice Carty-Williams)

This novel is described as Bridget Jones's Diary meets Americanah, and I see where the comparisons are coming from. Queenie is a Jamaican-British woman in her 20s who makes a lot of questionable life choices, many stemming from past trauma and present-day racial politics.

It felt a bit light to be a Tournament of Books novel to me, but in the end the lightness starts to feel deceptive. There's more here than it initially appears. Most of all you can't help but love Queenie as she bumbles through her life, leaning on her friends and trying to do her best.

And oh, I hope there's a sequel!

Optic Nerve (by Maria Gainza)

Oh, this is wonderful.

Maria Gainza is an Argentinian writer and art critic who weaves memoir-like vignettes with stories of the lives and works of various artists. At every chapter I would stop to look up the artist and their work, and it enhanced my reading to have the visual in front of me. This is so assured, so confident, so beautiful. I can't recommended it highly enough, especially if you're interested in art and art criticism. I have to also give kudos to the translator; I love the style of the writing and I'm sure a bad translation could have flattened it.

For my "will this make the shortlist" pondering, I would say I am not sure. I think it should, it's easily one of the best books I've read this year, but maybe it's one of those books that speaks to me more than others. So who can say?

Say, Say, Say (by Lila Savage)

When I'm reading off the longlist, I often read through the lens of Will this make the shortlist and in this case I am guessing no. It's a short meditation from the point of view of Ella, who is a caregiver for Jill, a wife with dementia, and in the process a friend to Bryn, the husband that cares for her. She also has a girlfriend, Alix, and Ella's relationships with all these characters are pondered at length.

The writing is lovely and interior, reminiscent of James and Wharton, and this loveliness was enough to push me past a really grotesque caricature of an obese person that almost made me quit. Ultimately this book has no plot, is an exploration of Ella's feelings about her relationships and about caring for others. But it didn't work for me in the end. It added up to less than the sum of its parts, somehow. But Lila Savage can write, for sure.

Rules for Visiting (by Jessica Francis Kane)

This was the first (new) book from the 2020 Tournament of Books longlist that popped up in my library app, so here we go!

This is another book where the summary of it misled me. "When [May Attaway] is unexpectedly granted some leave from her job, she is inspired to reconnect with four once-close friends. So she goes, one by one, to each of them." This sounds like it's a book about these four visits, but actually the visiting doesn't start until almost 40% into the book and some of it is quite glossed over. It's more like a quiet character study.

 It all comes together at the end, when May talks about what she's been trying to tell and what she's been writing around the whole time. It ends in a quietly powerful way that feels right, and also takes us by surprise. I wasn't sure about this book, but I ended up really liking it. Not sure if it will make the shortlist, but very glad I read it.

Sydney Books

Read some books over the past two weeks in Sydney. Here now are those books!

The Testaments (by Margaret Atwood)
I went to go add the "2020 tob" label to this and realize I forgot to write about The Testaments! I felt like something was missing. This book is so good. I thought it would be more depressing than entertaining, but it's not. It's amazing.

How Could She (by Lauren Mechling)
Breezy but heartfelt and comedic meditation on the complexities of female friendship. 

Not Working (by Lisa Owens)
Breezy but heartfelt and comedic meditation on family, love and identity. Written in delightful vignette style. My favorite of these four novels!

Early Riser (by Jasper Fforde)
Not quite as enjoyable as Shades of Gray or the Thursday Next series, primarily because I didn't enjoy the world as much as Bookworld or the color world, but a still a "Ffun" read. Ha!

Fall; or, Dodge in Hell (by Neal Stephenson)
Augh, this one was so frustrating. Started out great, but it's the usual Stephenson thing where it's about 400 pages too long. It turns from speculative fiction about digitally uploaded consciousness (yay) into a fantasy quest novel with so much scenery description (boo) and is super heteronormative to boot. Ultimately we are expected to root for one white billionaire cis man with a God complex over another white billionaire cis man with a God complex. You'd think the author of Seveneves would do better than that.

Vacation Reads: PNW Road Trip Edition

Somehow a "vacation reads" post with only two books in it feels paltry, but I haven't finished my other two reads (Library Book and The Fifth Season) yet so here we are. Fortunately I'm the only person on earth who cares about the format of these book reviews.

Golden State (by Ben Winters)

I love the work of Ben Winters, even if his speculative fiction sometimes goes a bit off the rails, as it does here.  It's always interesting at the very least. This is about a near-future where truth is regulated and lying is punished by exile. A noirish detective story with a good twist and a strange ending. Didn't love it as much as Underground Airlines or the Last Policeman trilogy but I honestly will read whatever he writes.

An Extraordinary Union (by Alyssa Cole)

For the Read Harder Challenge category "historical romance by an author of color." This is about a free black woman posing as a slave to spy for the Union, and the man posing as a Confederate officer who becomes her ally. I'm not typically a romance reader but I really enjoyed this, found it well-researched and sexy. I loved the character of Elle and was thrilled to find she was loosely based on a real person. If you like historical romance you will probably enjoy this and bonus: it's the first book of a series!