Brothers Joel & Emmett have returned home to rural Kentucky. On sabbatical from NYC, Joel is a Marxist scholar who writes essays about the destruction of the South. Emmett is a wannabe screenwriter drifting from job to job who lands a gig at the nearby Amazon-like package hub. Neither brother is happy. Nor is Joel's idealistic wife Alice who wants to buy land and garden. They all flounder trying to find a way to something better. A book about 👇

May's miserable weather 🌧️ 🌧️ meant a banging month for reading! I managed to read 10 books & these are my favourites.
Catherine Lacey's Nobody is Ever Missing blew me away. Jon Krakauer can write about things I don't care about (mountaineering) and I am GRIPPED!
Fanny Howe's memoir/philosophical treatise left me thinking.
Sour Cherry is a Bluebeard origin story.
South Riding is a 1930s Middle March
Open, Heaven ripped my heart open.

Gawd this book is beautiful & broke my heart. 😭
James is a teen in a small Irish village. Once he comes out as gay, he becomes isolated, cut off from his peers. At the same time, he is filled with desire to be loved. When a friendship with Luke develops, a world opens up to James that he thought was impossible. This is first love x1000. At times James's vulnerability was almost too much to bear. But the care, honesty & nuance in how these 👇

Another cold, rainy day this May 🙄 so the cats and I have opted for naps and reading. A former Litten sent this novel to me years ago, and today, I decided to read it. Hard to say why now! 🤷
The MC has left her life behind and flown to NZ to stay at a farm owned by a poet she met once. She is not okay! The story is moving between her present journey and the past events that led her to run away.
So far, so good.

A fun little novella about a woman who suddenly turns into a fox, and how her husband manages. Author was part of the Bloomsbury Group.
Although very different in style and tone, reminded me a bit of the recent memoir Raising Hare.
Both suggest humans can learn a lot from wild animals.
Another prompt complete for #192025!

Time travelling tales always get a bit wonky imo (and this was no exception) but I still enjoyed it. The novel flips back and forth between a circle of math intellectuals in early 1930s Vienna and an off-the-grid young woman who edits Wikipedia in CA in 2016. Slowly the connection between these two times is revealed. But what I enjoyed most was the attention to language's power to shape reality. Reminded me a bit of Ministry of Time but better.

Spent a week in London and came home with a stack of books, a mix of new and used. Was excited to find both a Persephone and Slightly Foxed edition.
Could have spent days perusing book stores but my family was less inclined. Just as well because my suitcase was pretty heavy!

This book is a must-read. It talks about how transformative pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood is -- physically, emotionally, biologically, spiritually. It talks about all the things we don't tell women about these experiences and all the ways society fails mother's in WEIRD (wealthy, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) countries. It is brilliant! And infuriating. I'm long past pregnancy & childbirth, but this book still 👇

Found this re-telling of The Grimm' s "Six Swans" to be compelling and evocative. There was beautiful world building and Sorcha, the heroine, was strong. I found the last few chapters dragged. The fairy tale was complete so they were dedicated to completing the love story and I'm not much of a romance reader.
Still, it was good. And I think I'll take a break from fairy tales for a while.

Finally read this battered copy I bought a few years back. These stories are about women and men AT love. That preposition matters. The settings are 1950s, urban, gritty. Think Marlon Brando yelling Stella! Single moms and deadbeat dads, wiley kids and absent parents, naive women and old lotharios, nymphets and crusty bachelors. The voice is strong in each. Paley has an ear for dialogue. Every story has a zinger sentence that rings with truth. 👇

I ordered some bookmarks from @shawnmooney and they arrived today. Aren't they delightful? 😁 I think the last one is my favourite!

Blame it on an upcoming trip to London, but this royal history about Richard II & Henry IV from the Women's Prize Nonfiction Longlist piqued my interest. Also helped that I've read the Shakespeare plays about these kings. At 20+ hours, it was a commitment. My interest waned near the end. But I was immersed for the first 3/4. War, intrigue, rebellion. Nothing was stable for long. Castor is THOROUGH & has a soft spot for Henry IV & his father 👇

Quite the epigraph!

Reminds me of The Dud Avocado but with a married protagonist. Its chaotic and messy and, at times, quite dry and witty. The letters from her mother are priceless.
First time reading Gallant who is known more for short stories so not sure where this novel ranks.
My plough through #Canlit continues. But chose this for the Ben's Read Good challenge: a book with 15 letters in the title.

This book was a challenge! It's filthy, disjointed, confusing & offensive to women. AND occasionally transcendent. It's mostly a pan but by the end I was somewhat won over. Like a tiny tiny bit. I would never tell anyone to read it. BUT it was an experience. 🤷 I won't pretend I understood it. 😂
Thank God he switched to songwriting!!

Loved!
Roy was a successful mid-century 🇨🇦 writer. Her novel Tin Flute still gets assigned in Canlit classes but otherwise her reputation has dimmed. Which, it turns out, is a shame because this is wonderful! A semi-autobiographical collection of linked stories told from the perspective of a young girl growing up in a large French family in Manitoba. Nothing flashy. Just lovely, rich insights into the complexity of people through innocent eyes.

Nice to see the river open again. And a duck!
More 🇨🇦 #Canlit 🇨🇦 for my #weekendreads.
Print: Streets of Riches (1957) by Gabrielle Roy
Audio: Beautiful Losers (1966) by Leonard Cohen. (This one is challenging. 😬)
@rachelsbrittain

I'm at odds about this book. On one hand it is gently interweaving multiple story threads with patience and care.
On the other hand it includes lines like this:
"His penis was more narrow than wide, more O Henry bar than chocolate slab, more spring rhubarb than autumn gourd, more canoe than motorboat." ?????
Which might be one of THE worst sentences I've ever read in a novel.
So...a real toss-up right now. ?

My bookspin for March, a Canadian #Canlit children's classic from the 1980s. Hope to start later today!

My #Canlit stack for March's #bookspin.

Happy Caturday from my favourite napping pals!
Started this 2007 Giller Prize winner today (for #192025 natch). One of those works of Canlit that everyone seems to have read except for me. Decidedly mixed reviews on Litsy including a definitive pan of Hay's writing style by @Lindy 🤨🙂 whose opinion I respect. So we shall see...

The joy of the second-hand book. 😆 Up till now it's been a few little X's in the margin.

A snowy long weekend meant I could immerse myself in this book. Now I have a serious book hangover.
I don't have much to add to my previous post. This book is an amazing feat of craft and storytelling. Fitzgerald (not quite sure I can call her Penny yet @Graywacke 😉) went for something strange and difficult, and she nailed it. Sure to be one of my favourite reads of the year!
Worth reading just for the Bernhard.
#192025 @Librarybelle

Started this book last night & am utterly hooked! How does she do it, indeed! Reminds me a bit of reading Lauren Groff's Matrix -- an intense character study of someone from a different time & place. In this case the German Romantic poet Novalis. The fact that I know nothing & care little about 18th century German Romanticism means squat. The story, the writing, the everything is so powerful! I get it @Graywacke !!

Was fun to escape to Corfu with the Durrell family for a while. Was surprised at how often I chuckled aloud while reading, also how well the TV miniseries (which I watched a few years ago) adapted it.
And ticked off another prompt for the #192025 challenge. @Librarybelle
Meanwhile more snow in the forecast for tomorrow. 😑

When the state of the world is brutal and winter is relentless, I buy books. And read fairy tales.

#currentread That cover is the energy I want to bring in 2025. 😆

A reading memoir that doesn't talk about novels in terms of plot, character or setting but instead spends time on how they evoke plants, painting, darkness, and so on. And how her reading experiences then shape her own writing. I found it quirky and thought-provoking. It helped that many of the works she discusses are by novelists I also like. (Claire-Louise Bennett, Rachel Cusk, Elena Ferrante, Virginia Woolf).

She was born Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee, Crown Princess of Kildenree, and she did not open her eyes for three days.
#firstlineFriday
@ShyBookOwl

Oh @LeahBergen what a wonderful parcel! Well worth the wait! 😉 Thank you so much! Thrilled with the books! (So pleased to have a Handheld Books edition as I eyed them for years but never purchased one!) Love the card, the post card, the bookmark, the whole kit'n'caboodle. ☺️ And curious if you would recommend visiting Mankato?

What a delightful #jolabokaflod package! Thank you so much Danielle!! I am so pleased to have the Hardwick collection (love a NYRB edition) and Toffifees are a favourite! Also loved the card & paper.
It is a very snowy Christmas eve day in my part of the world (40+ cms expected ❄️❄️❄️❄️). Guess I'll have to stay at home and read. 😀
@StillLookingForCarmenSanDiego @MaleficentBookDragon

Always exciting when my #jolabokaflod package arrives! 🎅❄️⛄🎄
@StillLookingForCarmenSanDiego @MaleficentBookDragon

Next up...no way I will finish by Dec 21st.

This mystery has been on my ebook shelf for a while. It's set on BC's Sunshine Coast where my sister-in-law lives. The first time we went I thought, this would be the perfect setting for a murder mystery. Turned out I was not the first to have that idea. 😉
A solid mystery, the killer is revealed on page 1. As the story unfolds, you follow RCMP staff sergeant Karl Alberg put it together. Good characters, good setting, good pace. Author was 👇

A collection of Santas to confirm that I have shipped off my #Jolabokaflod gifts. Unfortunately because Canada Post is on strike, I had to resort to Amazon and UPS to deliver them. (No pretty card or wrapping paper 😕). Thanks for understanding @curiousg

And thanks as always for organizing Michelle!! @maleficentbookdragon

Penelope sits in her role as magistrate while a man is tried for theft. At the same time, she puts her own life on trial as she reflects on her decision to leave her husband for her lover. A taut, well-written account of how we show up in relationships and what it means to be a 'good' person. Maude would approve. 😆
Published in 1976, it means I've completed my first decade for the #192025 challenge! @Librarybelle

Methinks Bea Arthurs as Maude inspired the cover art for this 1970s novel.

Coordinating book and cat on a lazy Saturday morning. This is new novel by Canadian writer who I (kinda) knew in high school. She was cool back then and is cool now. So far, so good.

Former sweethearts Warren and Sarah reconnect in their early 60s and fall in love again. But Warren is still married, and has to choose between Sarah and his family. A soft pick. It treads a very fine line between carefully observed & dull. It also has one of the most annoying characters I've experienced in a while. And having read the reviews on here, I went in prepared for a shocking ending. And actually, the ending worked for me. 👇

Rainy Saturday and managed to finish two books. Even better, they both fulfill a #192025 prompt. And they coordinate. 😀
Anais Nin's diary has been my morning coffee read and I've been making my way through the MacLeod collection for a few weeks. The stories reminded me a lot of his father's (Alistair MacLeod) writing. Quintessential Canlit.
Anyhoo feeling accomplished and grateful for an un-schdeduled Saturday.
@Librarybelle

Wallace's face might say otherwise, but I liked this book! Amy Shred is the younger sister. Her big sister Olly is magnetic, beautiful, & talented. She's also erratic, manic, dangerous & mentally ill. Amy grows up in her shadow as Olly appears & disappears from her family's life. Amy enters adulthood & tries to build a her own life & Olly continues to haunt her. Both sisters are frustrating but the story of their sisterhood is moving. #netgalley

An idealistic Ruth Reichl becomes a food critic. The growth of her writing career parallels the emergence of modern American cuisine in CA. (I recognized many of the young chefs she writes about as Top Chef judges.) At the same time as she talks food, Reichl weaves in her personal life: her father's death, extramarital affairs, the demise of her 1st marriage, moves, a failed adoption.
Overall an easy and engaging listen.
#192025 @Librarybelle

A hodge podge of books I bought this past week at the Habitat for Humanity Re-Store and the Boys and Girls Club book sale.
All for charity folks! For charity!! 😇😁
I absolutely bought the Martha Grimes mystery for the cover. Ditto for The Stone Angel.

My March through the Betsy-Tacy books continues. Enjoying the high school years!

What is the point of being an academic during late stage capitalism? What's the point of teaching classes, working on articles, attending conferences when the dream of life in the ivory tower is long dead? That's what Dorothy is struggling to figure out as she sees two therapists, copes with a unexpected miscarriage, and interacts with friends & colleagues who seem better prepared for life.
As a former academic, this book was HIGHLY relatable👇

Spent my weekend in the vegetable garden (check out my potatoes!! 😁) listening to the tagged book. Lively considers various topics: gardens as metaphor, time and the garden, garden style, etc. I enjoyed some chapters more than others but can agree with her overall premise that a life in the garden does affect how we engage with the world positively.
It also inspired me to grow more flowers and so I ordered a bunch of tulip & daffodils bulbs. 🙈

Thoroughly enjoyed this novel set in the literary salons of 17th century France that fostered fairy tales as we have come to know them. Charles Perrault features as one of the main characters. It's a fun mix of actual fairy tales, profiles of the various tellers of these tales, and the intrigue and politics of Louis XIV's court. When is a story ever just a story?

My stack of books from NYC. Sarah and I had so much fun! ❤️
The top one with faded spine is a collection of short stories by Cora Sandal (not in the database). Especially pleased with the 1st edition Laurie Colwin. (And grateful to @sarahbarnes for climbing the ladder to retrieve it at Westsider Books.)
Proud to report I've already read tagged book courtesy of a prolonged travel day home. So well done me! 😁

Road tripping to NYC, my partner and I listened to the tagged Murakami novel. . . and, we hated it. This is my second attempt at reading him (I bailed on IQ84) and I just do.not.get.it! 😳 Honestly it reminded me why I don't read many male authors. 🤷
But I'm in New York City for 5 days and I get to meet up with @sarahbarnes so life is pretty good. 😁

Maybe some books are better left remembered and not re-read. 😐