Things to Read - Three Awesome Short Story Books for Summer

1. ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE

Elizabeth Strout's novel - My Name is Lucy Barton - was one of the best books I read this year. So when I learned that Strout wrote a follow-up short story collection centered on the small, Illinois town where Lucy grew up, I couldn't wait to read it. And the stories are wonderful. You learn about Lucy and the childhood poverty she endured, as well as more about several of the minor characters in the first novel.

Some critics have called the characters sad and lonely, but I found the collection hopeful - full of moments of surprise and beauty.

One of my favorite passages - "As Dottie thought about this, going back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room, she saw Shelly Small as a woman who suffered only from the most common complaint of all: Life simply had not been what she thought it would be. Shelly had taken life's disappointments and turned them into a house. A house the, with the clever use of the right architects, had managed to stay within the legal code yet became a monstrosity as large as Shelly's needs . . . but it had not been enough. What Dottie had not said to her, because it was not her place, was that Shelly had a husband who would break into song at the breakfast table with her in a room full of strangers sitting nearby, and that was no- excuse me, Dottie though - small thing."

2. GRACE PALEY - THE COLLECTED STORIES

I first read Grace Paley a few months ago and since then I've become obsessed. How have I never heard of her before? She's like a surreal, feminist, John Cheever. Despite the fact that Paley wrote these stories in the 1960s and 1970 many of the characters are still relatable today.

One of my favorite passages -

"He said, Tell me again. He was in a good mood. He said, You can even tell it to me twice.

I repeated the story. They all said. What?

Because it isn't usually so simple. Have you known it to happen much nowadays? A woman inside the steamy energy of middle age runs and runs. She finds the houses and streets where her childhood happened. She learns as though she was still a child what in the world is coming next."

3. MEN WITHOUT WOMEN

One of my favorite authors ever is Haruki Murakami, though in general I like his short stories more than his novels (but Norwegian Wood and Sputnik Sweetheart are so so good too). And this is the first collection he's released in the last ten years.

As described in this New Republic article, "Like Murakami’s novels, the best of these stories are beautifully, delicately unsatisfying. They shy away from resolution, leaving the reader suspended in midair. . . . The unknowability of Murakami’s characters is most effective when it hints at the mysteries of our world, when it reminds us that everyone we meet contains so many depths and contradictions that we can never fully know them."

. . . .

"Do we really need another book about men without women? I’d say that the answer is no. Even leaving Hemingway aside, at least half the literary canon is about men without women already. But stories about loneliness, about estrangement, about lack: There our appetite is endless, and Murakami offers up a new and striking way to feed it. Where Men Without Women tries to make a statement about, specifically, men and women, it fails: too self-conscious, too glib. But for people intrigued by the many facets of loss, the rest of the collection offers classic Murakami—refreshing, unusual, lustrous, with a vacancy at its heart."

Things to Read - Four Great (and Totally Different) Books

Remember a few weeks ago when I mentioned that in 2016 I read some duds? Well, so far 2017 has been way way better - there are so many books that I can't say enough good things about. So even if the country is falling apart, at least the diversions listed below will keep you entertained during America's demise.

1. Walk Through Walls by Marina Abramovic (memoir)

I've been intrigued by Abramovic ever since watching The Artist is Present - a documentary about her retrospective at MOMA - and her memoir doesn't disappoint. I loved Abramovic's vivid descriptions of growing up in Communist Yugoslavia, as well as how she became a performance artist and the inspirations behind many of her key works.

Though I find some of Abramovic's work bizarre - such as "[s]omeone stuck pins into me. Someone else slowly poured a glass of water over my head. Someone cut my neck with the knife and sucked the blood. I still have the scar." - I admire her dedication and creativity. Plus, whenever I walk in a museum, I always wonder about each artist's path to fame, so I enjoyed how Abramovic takes you through her years as a starving artist performing in galleries to an icon.

2. Patience by Daniel Clowes (graphic novel)

As you've probably realized, lately I'm a little obsessed with graphic novels. Patience is odd and quirky and over-the-top - time-travel, murder, true love, weird blue people from the future, etc. But I couldn't put it down. Literally, I read it straight through in one (long) sitting.

3. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (fiction)

This novel begins in late-1700s Africa with the separation of two half-sisters - one who leaves for America on a slave ship and one who becomes the wife of a white slave trader. Each chapter of Homegoing continues the family tree by telling the story of a new generation (the novel spans seven generations in total). While some chapters are stronger than others, most of the characters are so real that I felt sad when their stories ended and a new generation was introduced. All in all a fantastic book.

4. The Bitch is Back: Older, Wiser, and (Getting) Happier (essays)

My friend Carolyn compared this book to "sitting down for long lovely chats with friends over coffee or wine and chocolate, and listening to their stories." I was a little nervous the essays would be negative or spiteful, but instead they are so varied and diverse (and, for the most part, positive) that reading them makes me feel like part of a community - one that I didn't even know I needed, but that I'm so glad I found.

Things to Read - 10 Books I Want to Read This Winter

So I read some bad books in 2016, but this year will be different. I think. Here's the list. Fingers crossed it is a good one!

1. Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets - Because the Nobel Prize. And Russia.

2. Pond - Because unusual. From Buzzfeed, "Pond provides one of the great pleasures of fiction: really getting into someone else’s mind and finding it both mundane and weirder than imaginable. Narrated by a woman living alone in a small, bucolic town, Pond concerns itself with the stuff of daily life—gardening, oven knobs, dinner parties, neighbors — yet renders these things strange, new, and bewitching through the fascinating perspective of the narrator."

3. Blankets - Because this graphic novel looks so so pretty.

4. The Bitch Is Back: Older, Wiser, and (Getting) Happier - Because "25 women discussing love, sex, work, family, independence, body-image, health, and aging" sounds incredible!

5. The Vegetarian - Because weird. From Amazon, "Before the nightmares began, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary, controlled life. But the dreams—invasive images of blood and brutality—torture her, driving Yeong-hye to purge her mind and renounce eating meat altogether. It’s a small act of independence, but it interrupts her marriage and sets into motion an increasingly grotesque chain of events at home. As her husband, her brother-in-law and sister each fight to reassert their control, Yeong-hye obsessively defends the choice that’s become sacred to her. Soon their attempts turn desperate, subjecting first her mind, and then her body, to ever more intrusive and perverse violations, sending Yeong-hye spiraling into a dangerous, bizarre estrangement, not only from those closest to her, but also from herself."

6. Walk Through Walls: A Memoir - Because Marina Abramović's performance art is so unique (have you seen the documentary about her on Netflix?)

7. The Mothers - Because several critics listed this as one of the best books of the year. Plus, my friend Deb said it was good and her recommendations are always the best.

8. Between the World and Me - Because I'm embarrassed I haven't read this yet.

9. Rolling Blackouts: Dispatches from Turkey, Syria, and Iraq - Because I loved Jerusalem so I want to read more graphic novels about far away places.

10. An Association of Small Bombs - Because critics loved it. And hopefully they're right.

Things to Read - Jerusalem

Lately I've read/attempted to read a string of bad books. I'm not sure what the problem is - whether age is making me more finicky or whether publishing standards just aren't what they used to be. But all in all, I've been less than thrilled.

So when I stumbled across Guy Delisle's Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City in the library one day, my only goal was to remove myself from the boring fiction comfort zone I'd fallen into and hopefully break my book rut. Instead, I sort of fell in love with this book.

I've always been somewhat fascinated by Jerusalem (isn't everyone?), but also incredibly confused by it (so. many. people. not. getting. along.). And as someone who doesn't practice organized religion, it felt like a place where I didn't belong (spoiler alert - it still feels this way).

Luckily for me, Delisle is also a non-believer. Rather than arrive for religious or political reasons, he lived in Jerusalem because his girlfriend, an employee of Doctor's Without Borders, worked there (hence the book is also a great memoir of Delisle's life as a stay-at-home parent of two children/writer).

Delisle's beautifully illustrated memoir showcases the city's beauty, frustrations, and conflicts (SO MANY CONFLICTS!). Especially all of his drawings of the wall. And it's a pleasure to read. The kind of book that makes you cancel your afternoon plans in order to spend a few more hours on the couch.

Delisle has also written other memoirs about his time in North Korea and Burma, which I can't wait to read as well.

Things to Read - 10 Books I Want to Read This Summer

1. The Romanovs: 1613 - 1918 - On the way back from NYC, I listened to an interview with the author on NPR and was immediately entranced. According to Antony Beevor's review, this is "[a] story of conspiracy, drunken coups, assassination, torture, impaling, breaking on the wheel, lethal floggings with the knout, sexual and alcoholic excess, charlatans and pretenders, flamboyant wealth based on a grinding serfdom, and, not surprisingly, a vicious cycle of repression and revolt. Game of Thrones seems like the proverbial vicar's tea party in comparison."

2. The Girls - The New Yorker gave The Girls, Emma Cline's first novel, a huge write up. The book takes place in Northern California at the end of the 1960s and centers on a teenage girl's obsession with a Charles-Manson-like cult.

Apparently the characters, at times, seem a little removed (according to the review, "Cline has a habit of reaching for glamorous phrases, even if the glamour blinds the meaning. When she writes that 'the air was candied with silence' or that Evie’s father’s breath was 'notched with liquor,' she evokes little, except an anxiety to be stylish), but the writing is amazing.

3. Diane Arbus: Portrait of a Photographer - I always have mixed feelings about Arbus's amazing, but oh so creepy photographs. I think I prefer happier things (or, I believe, that life really is mostly happy). But this biography sounds fascinating.

For example, Arbus "once said that she had sex with any man who asked for it, and described a pool party at which she worked through the various men, one after the next, as if they were canapés." According to the New Yorke article, "[w]hat’s remarkable is that such liberty extended to her pictures. An orgy counted as work and leisure alike. Look at a contact sheet of young lovers, a black man and a white woman, from 1966, and you notice that the naked figure sprawled across him, in frame five, is Arbus."

4. The Little Red Chairs - Edna O'Brien has been written a lot of great books, but several critics are calling this her masterpiece. The novel centers on a small Irish town learning that a notorious war criminal and mass murderer is living among them.

5. Before the Fall - I learned about Before the Fall through the Book of the Month website. Judge Liberty Hardy summarizes the plot:"[o]n a foggy summer night, a small private plane departs Martha's Vineyard bound for New York City. Sixteen minutes later, the plane is in the ocean. Nine lives are lost. The only survivors are a four-year-old boy, now the sole heir to a huge fortune, and a down-on-his luck painter named Scott. Immediately, there are questions: What caused the crash? How did a poor artist end up on the private plane of a wealthy media mogul? Does he know what caused the crash? Did he cause the crash?"



6. Another Brooklyn - Jacqueline Woodson is one of F's favorite young adult authors, so when I learned she recently wrote an adult novel about childhood friendships, I knew I had to read it.

7. The Nest - Another Book of the Month club recommendation the Book of the Month website. Judge Ellie Kemper describes the Nest as a book that "does not meander gently through the paths of four troubled siblings and their various problems; it flies." Kemper goes on to rave, "I apologize for the bird pun in the very first sentence of this review, but what can I say? I'm giddy. I could not put this book down. The Plumb family is a messed-up, dysfunctional, self-obsessed unit full of messed-up dysfunctional, self-obsessed members – much like your family or mine. What makes their journey a delight to read is the way that Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney seamlessly and artfully weaves their stories together."

8. My Family & Other Animals - I learned about this memoir through Miss Moss, as the story was recently adapted as a TV show (doesn't it look awesome)? The book tells the story of a family who moves from Britain to Corfu, Greece in the 1930s. And nothing says summer like a book about Greek island life.

9. Sex Object, A Memoir - I'm on a feminist reading kick lately, so this seems right up my alley. "A memoir that Publishers Weekly calls “bold and unflinching,” Valenti explores the toll that sexism takes on women’s lives, from the everyday to the existential. From subway gropings and imposter syndrome to sexual awakenings and motherhood, Sex Object reveals the painful, embarrassing, and sometimes illegal moments that shaped Valenti’s adolescence and young adulthood in New York City."

10. The Tin Drum - Because this is the classic novel that Gunter Grass basically won a Nobel Prize for and I haven't read it.

Things to Read - Feminist Fiction (for Adults)

Ever since I finished Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan series (which I reviewed here), I've felt like I just lost a good friend. I miss the main characters, I had hoped to grow old with them.

So in a quest to "relive" Ferrante's magic, I've been reading feminist fiction like crazy.

What is feminist fiction?
Honestly, I have no idea. But if you google enough, certain titles start to reappear.

Why feminist fiction?
Basically, I wanted to read novels about women. And I didn't want them to be funny or silly or to make fun of themselves. As much as I love (and I do love) Bridget Jone's Diary, I hoped to spend a few weeks discovering stories about female friendships and female thoughts and female problems and I did not want any of it dumbed down. I wanted REAL.

Here's what I found:



1. The Women's Room - This book, published in 1977, was a huge bestseller at the time. Forty years later some of the main character's problems seem dated. Does anyone feel the need to marry right out of high school anymore? Nevertheless many of the characters' problems are disturbingly current - for example, the rape scene in which they blame the girl sounds shockingly familiar in today's world, as does the endless need to balance children and a career.

What I liked best - The author's descriptions of women's friendships.

What I liked least - Some parts drag. In an effort to tell the story of several different women, the book often loses focus and tends to meander.
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2. The Country Girls Trilogy - This novel centers on two Irish girls in the 1950s. And if The Women's Room made things seem bad, the girls in this book are often little more than chattel. You just keep waiting for someone to love them as much as you do or, at the least, to acknowledge them as human beings. It's a tough read.

As summarized on Wikipedia, "O'Brien's works often revolve around the inner feelings of women, and their problems in relating to men, and to society as a whole.[3] Her first novel, The Country Girls, is often credited with breaking silence on sexual matters and social issues during a repressive period in Ireland following World War II.[4] The book was banned, burned and denounced from the pulpit, and O'Brien left Ireland behind."

What I liked best - The writing is stellar. And, yet again, the portrait of this complicated friendship is wonderful to read.

What I liked least - It's a sad book. Perhaps too sad.
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3. Beloved - I can't believe I turned 40 without reading this classic about a former slave haunted by her baby's ghost.

What I liked best - Morrison's wording and descriptions are like nothing I've ever read. Words seem to dance off the page. No wonder she won the Nobel Prize.

What I liked least - Certain sections are slow. The beginning is confusing (REALLY confusing), though if you keep reading, it all comes together.
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4. The Golden Notebook - Every feminist reading list includes this book. It's like THE BOOK. Which makes sense as Lessing won the Nobel Prize. The novel's storyline revolves around Anna, the main character's, four notebooks. "In one, with a black cover, [Anna] reviews the African experience of her earlier years. In a red one she records her political life, her disillusionment with communism. In a yellow one she writes a novel in which the heroine relives part of her own experience. And in a blue one she keeps a personal diary. Finally, in love with an American writer and threatened with insanity, Anna resolves to bring the threads of all four books together in a golden notebook."

What I liked best - The main character's struggle to live independently in a world where such independence is constantly judged.

What I liked least - The final 100 pages are just boring. Lessing describes (in detail) a tumultuous relationship, but reading about this relationship makes you hate both the participants, you just want out.
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5. The Fifth Child - Once I read one Doris Lessing book, I had to read another. The Fifth Child is COMPLETELy different from the Golden Notebook. For starters, it's a much easier read (lots of suspense). Further, the main characters of both novels have almost nothing in common.

The Fifth Child tells the story of a couple who wants to have a large family. Despite some ups and downs, everything goes pretty well until the fifth child is born. He's not quite Rosemary's Baby, but he's close.

How do you mother a child whose every instinct involves inflicting pain on others? And how do you protect your other children from such a creature. In a world where parents are blamed for every little thing they do wrong, this book is a MUST READ. After reading it, you can't stop thinking - but what is right? what would I do?

What I liked best - This book will be with me forever. The moral quandary presented haunts me at night.

What I liked least - There's a certain coldness to the book. As if you feel more empathy for the mother than the author does. I'm still not sure how I feel about this as a writing technique.

Things to Read - On the Bookshelf (August 2015)

Lots of travel books from June and July, an attempt to prepare for our European vacation. As always, my favorites are starred.

***1. Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World - Before traveling to Rome, I wanted to read a book that would excite me for our trip. Thrilled by the possibilities. This is that book. It's also a really great rumination on life with young children. Random trivia - throughout the memoir, Doer tries to work on a novel about Nazi occupied Paris, but finds it hard to make much progress given the distractions of Rome. I assume this is the novel that became, All the Light We Cannot See, considered one of the best books of 2014 (I haven't read it yet).

2. Honeydew: Stories - I didn't love the first few stories in this collection and almost quit, but then, slowly, gradually they became better. The story about the random houseplant that thrives in neglect is probably my favorite.

3. Italian Ways: On and Off the Rails from Milan to Palermo - This memoir discusses the hassles and nuisances of traveling on Italy's railways. The writing is solid and the stories are (often) funny, in a frustrating after-the-fact way. But after I reached the book's half-way point, I realized that reading about Tim Parks' misfortunes and adventures had me in a constant state of anxiety regarding our upcoming vacation. So I stopped reading and became a happier person.

4. Paris to the Moon - In 1995, the New Yorker sent Adam Gopnik to Paris to report on city life. This collection of essays resulted. Some are funny, for example when Parisians tried to open a "NYC style" health club and nobody wanted to sweat. Some are boring (really boring), I could care less whether Gopnik likes European football (i.e. soccer). But almost all of them are snarky and, since summer reading = happy reading, after awhile reading this book felt like a chore.

***5.Girl in a Band: A Memoir - In high school I read Sassy magazine and listened to Sonic Youth, which is probably the closest I've ever come to rebelling in any form. I thought Kim Gordon radiated cool, but I found her music complicated and unnecessarily loud. The lyrics went over my head, but I listened anyways, trying to figure out the identity of Mildred Pierce(so goes life before the internet).

Anyways, when Gordon's autobiography came out a few months ago, I was eager to read it, but didn't expect to "get her" anymore than I did as a teenager. So I'm a little in shock about how much I liked this book. Gordon's life obviously moves in a direction way different than my own and a lot of the book reminded me of Patty Smith's Just Kids in that both memoirs are also love stories of New York city. But Gordon herself comes across as honest and real; she discuss hard topics, like child rearing and divorce, without resorting to cheesy cliches and easy answers. Anyways, I still find Gordon the epitome of cool, but no longer do I find her unreachable. Really a great read.

Things to Read - Displacement, A Travelogue

I'm not usually a fan of graphic novels (though my kids all love them), for me it seems somewhat odd to try to immerse yourself in a plot while looking at pictures, too much multi-tasking. But after A Cup of Jo gave Lucy Knisley's Displacement a wonderful write-up, I decided to check it out.

And now I'm a little enamored with this book/novel/short story, in which the 20-something narrator/author goes on a cruise with her elderly grandparents. The book confronts a lot of subjects that society chooses to shy away from (i.e. Grandpa peeing his pants), yet it does so in a way that seems raw and personal. Never flippant. Never overly dramatic.

Modern media spends so much time and energy chronicling the complexities of life with kids (okay, so maybe not THAT much time and energy, but still, based on my facebook feed, it seems like this is all Huffpost Parents ever writes about). Displacement brings out that dealing with the aging is also full of moments of frustration and unconditional love. Moments that are harder to talk about because of the possibility of offense.

Anyways, this was a sad novel, but not in a traditional way. My grandparents all died way before I reached my twenties, so we never had the chance to cruise together. Yet I still wish I would have spent more time with them in their later years. Even though, much like Displacement's narrator, I never knew quite what to talk with them about.

Things to Read - On the Bookshelf (Februrary 2015)

For some reason, pretty much every novel I've read recently has centered on family relationships, often through the perspective of depressed middle-age women. Interestingly enough, most of these books about unhappy middle age women are written by men. Why is this?

1. This Is Where I Leave You - This book is funny/sad with quirky, witty sentences that makes it hard to put down (Trooper's prose reminds me of David Sedaris, but fictional). Sort of predictable and not entirely original. But still a great easy read about about four siblings sitting shiva after their father's death.

2. Freedom - This is the best book I've read in a long time and even though I finished a few weeks ago, I can't get this novel out of my head. It's about families and relationships and all of the random things that pull and push people apart (i.e "freedom"). Almost every character in the book does something vaguely awful. And almost everyone goes through severe periods of unhappiness. I hope life really isn't really this bleak (it hasn't seemed this bleak so far). But still you should read it. Now.

3. Wonderland - I tried to enjoy this book. The plot sounded interesting enough - a middle age female rockstar's comeback tour. And I liked the writing - a very poetic internal dialogue. But every time I went to pick up Wonderland I found myself doing random chores instead (emptying the dishwasher, cleaning the floors, etc.). So I never ended up finishing this book, even though I didn't actively dislike it.

4. Yes Please - I love Amy Poehler and I loved reading her book. Not that this surprises me or anyone else.

5. We Are Not Ourselves - Warning - this book is sad. And it's another book about a strong, yet depressed middle aged woman written by a man. And about how sometimes life hands you circumstances that are entirely beyond your control. You do your best. They did their best. It's a good read.
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Okay, I'm finally running out of books from my post-broken foot Amazon shopping spree. Any suggestions for some new reads?

Things to Read - On the Bookshelf (January 2015)

Almost all my reading usually comes from the library. But since I can't drive, I decided to treat myself to an Amazon shopping spree (also, since many of books made "best of 2014" lists, the library hold lists were long, long, long).

I originally planned to post on my upcoming reads, but within a week I had finished almost everything I ordered (being (mostly) couch bound has allowed me to spend A LOT of time reading).

By the way, if you're obsessed with "best of lists" like I am, this website integrates several of them to give you the best of the best.

1. The Paying Guests - This novel made several critics' "best of" lists, so of course I had to read it (plus it's a long book and I needed a long book). The writing is excellent and the storyline is suspenseful (I couldn't put it down). But I didn't particularly like any of the characters and nothing about the plot will stick with me for years to come. Basically, a long, easy read.

2. Gilead - Gilead tells the story of an elderly preacher's late marriage (which results in a young son) and his struggles with questions of faith and doctrine. It's somewhat of a slow read, but beautiful. And after I finished it, I immediately read (and devoured) Lila (a companion novel, which is written from the perspective of the pastor's young wife). Both books, taken together, probably make up the best love story of our time (I could not stop crying during Lila).

3. An Untamed State - I keep meaning to read this, but it sounds so depressing that I continually put it off ("an endless siege of rape and torture").

4. Euphoria - As a child, I was somewhat obsessed with Margaret Mead. I dressed up as Mead in second grade and the teacher had to call my parents to figure out who she was (apparently anthropologists didn't get a lot of play in the 1980s grade school curriculum). Anyways, this book is a fictional account of the fall of Mead's second marriage, which occurs while while she and her then husband were studying native tribes in New Guinea. I found it riveting. As in, I COULD NOT PUT THIS BOOK DOWN. Afterwards I had to immediately read With a Daughter's Eye: Memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson in an attempt to learn how much of novel was true. And even that wasn't enough. Luckily, there's google.

5. American Innovations: Stories - These stories are quirky - best friends who disappear, furniture that "walks out" in the middle of the night; a random breast that appears on one's back; a mother daughter relationship summarized through financial arguments. I liked them. A lot.

6. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage: A novel - Murakami is one of my favorite authors, but I've found his last few novels underwhelming (1Q84, Kafka on the Shore). Luckily, he's back on track. Tsukuru Tazaki is just weird enough, while also having a lot to say about memory and friendship and the passage of time. Definitely, Murakami's best novel in years.

Things to Read - Three Books About Families (For Adults)

I haven't reviewed books in awhile. Book reviewing seems easy enough, but I find it hard to talk about reading without reducing everything to a cliche. Oh well, I'll try my best (actually, that's not really true either, as I'm typing this late on Wednesday night).

I realized last week that most of my recent reads have involved "family" in one sense or another. I didn't exactly plan this, but it seems like a good reason for a blog post.



What Ends - This book starts off simple enough - documenting the daily life of a small family who owns a guest house on an island off the west coast of Scotland. The writing is basic, but beautiful. And I soon found myself entranced by this nice, easy story, despite not quite knowing where the plot was headed. So the end sort of hits like a punch in the stomach. I started crying in the middle of P's soccer practice. The book serves as a strong lesson on what can happen when we put our individual aspirations first; even seemingly non-selfish desires, such as the need to forge one's own path in life. I loved that all of the characters are somehow flawed, but also relatable. Despite the tears, I really loved this book, and will keep thinking about its "lesson" for years to come.



The Goldfinch - Okay, so I'm stretching a little here, as the Goldfinch really is more about the absence of family, then about blood relations. It's long. And hard to summarize - disaster, stolen art, the meaning of "masterpiece", drunk kids in Vegas, furniture restoration, rich people in NYC, etc. But at the novel's core the book deals with creating one's own family and finding a home. At times I found Donna Tartt's prose a little wordy, but still, she writes well (there's a reason she won the Pulitzer) and the characters stick with you (especially Boris).



Big Breasts and Wide Hips - A few years ago, after the Nobel Committee granted Mo Yan the 2014 Prize for Literature, I read his novel the Garlic Ballads and really enjoyed it (if "enjoys" is the right word for an incredibly depressing book (critics have labeled the novel China's Grapes of Wrath)). So this year, I decided to dive into one of Yan's other novels - Big Breasts and Wide Hips, which centers around the matriarch of a peasant family of 8 girls and 1 boy (the youngest), trying to keep everyone fed and alive during the upheavals that define twentieth century China. The book is quirkier and more bizarre that the Garlic Ballads, but also a great history lesson of the last 100 years. The end is also somewhat odd, but then again so is capitalism in a communist country. I'm not sure I can easily recommend this book (it's a tricky read), but if you're sick of slick, page turners and want to try reading something slightly outside the norm, then this is the perfect place to start. Plus, at its core, the book deals with women's power to endure and build and hold things together.

So help me out, what have you all been reading lately?