Welcome to Litsy!

This is a different kind of biography, telling the story of Mexican writer Elena Garro and really giving an idea of her personality and personal life. We get a peek at her writing as well, but I like the shifted focus and the telling of her life more in snippets than a narrative. We also get a little of Barrera‘s experience with research for the book, which works.

#NBAlonglist, translated literature

I‘m glad I read this so I could finish out my reading of the #NBAlonglist for fiction, but it just didn‘t work for me at all. The stories just gave me nothing to hang onto. I‘m a bit disappointed that other books I read this year weren‘t on this list and this one was.

This really lovely book is by a woman who has been a shepherdess for over 20 years focusing on pastoralism in Vermont. It‘s meditative and delves into her deep connection with the land. It reminds me totally of Raising Hare. I loved it.

#NBAlonglist, nonfiction

This starts on a sad note, with a young boy losing his father, then follows him through life to see his relationship with his own son. It‘s quite funny in places and a perfectly fine book overall, but ultimately forgettable. I‘m surprised to find it on the #NBAlonglist for fiction, as it‘s a bit thin. A low pick for me.

This book on female friendship follows 4 women across decades in non-linear fashion as they deal with life and their relationships with on another. I found the pacing a little uneven but overall really liked the book. Pictured with our pretty sunset the other night.

#NBAlonglist, fiction

This #NBAlonglist book (nonfiction) was a mixed bag for me. The content, about a genderqueer Asian couple, their life together, and lives before meeting, is great. But the construction of one partner writing as the other felt gimmicky to me. The best section is Lam‘s childhood in Vietnam and escape from that country at 12.

Palaver is a quiet, spare, intimate story of a man‘s relationship with his mother. He now lives in Tokyo (a character in the book well explored in the interspersed photos) and his mother arrives in an attempt to reconnect. Their past is tempestuous, and the novel says as much with what it leaves out as what is on the page. It‘s well crafted and I think it‘ll stick with me for a while.

#NBAlonglist, fiction

I wasn‘t a Swamplandia fan and thus initially passed this one up, so I‘m glad the #NBAlonglist for fiction got me to read it. I found this unique Dust Bowl historical fiction with some fantastical components to be fully engrossing. The characters are great and I like that we hear rotating perspectives from them, which helps keep the book moving. I really liked it!

This book I didn‘t want to pick up quickly became a book I could not put down, as Neige details her 7 years of sexual abuse and rape and the hands of her stepfather. The writing it superb and the balance is excellent, as she pulls in the aftermath, the trial, and evaluations of literary works dealing with child rape. I‘m halfway through the #NBAlonglist for translated lit and this is my clear winner thus far as well as on my best of the year list.

Yahooooooooo!!!!!!!! Look what they let me have! When I requested it I just frankly expected a rejection and I‘m totally delighted to actually have this. More #NBAlonglist reading for me!