#AuldLangSpine #MLKday
At first I assumed (wrongly) that Clint Smith was a journalist: as he travels to different sites with a link to slavery in the U.S., he asks questions of other visitors and tour guides to hear their views on what the sites (including plantations, museums, a prison, graveyard) reveal about the legacy of slavery. His skill at posing the questions is clear: he neither shys away from creating discomfort nor courts it.👇

I'm not a #botm member but my sister got me a gift certificate, so I picked this bunch from past months. True Biz is one of my #AuldLangSpine picks, so I'll be trying that one pretty soon. Most of my shelves are paperbacks, so it's strange to pick up three hardcovers all of a sudden 📚
I'm looking forward to these - lots of buzz about two of them, but The Verifiers also sounded intriguing.
@ncsufoxes @monalyisha

Look, I appreciate the vote of confidence, Goodreads, but let it go already, IT'S NOT HAPPENING! 😑

Here's to a new year and opportunity for meeting our reading goals (or just being content with wherever we land). Happy New Year everyone! 🥳🎉

This is my first time trying the #jolabokaflod tradition. This is the first book up, and it opens with a knife-wielding maniac chasing a toddler after having just murdered his whole family 😨 Not very festive, but enough action to keep me awake, with the help of some gingerbread sandwich treats.

I love thinking about what made this novel such a runaway hit. You can enjoy the world of the novel or the philosophical questions it poses. Although I did enjoy thinking up theories, the world drew me in more than anything. It's got so little in it - two people, statues, large rooms, water, birds, fish, a couple skeletons - and that is somehow enough in combination with Clark's storytelling to make for a completely immersive reading experience.

Even if you're like me and love Jacqueline Woodson's writing, this slim novel from 1995 with a mere 149 ratings on Goodreads is easy to scroll past. But it's no less perfect than her more popular ones: she packs so much into a sentence. One example: in the title story, the narrator looks at an old family photograph and imagines words her sister will say as an adult "are there already, festering inside my sister's brain, waiting to explode."?

#AboutMe #AuldLangSpine
Here's a few things about me:
-I live with my fiancee of 7 years (yep, that's years not months 😄) in NJ.
-We've got two amazing 1-yr-old brother cats - Jem (middle right) and Scout (bottom right).
-The kids are my nephew and niece (ages 3 & 5).
-My partner and I love going to concerts & museums.
-Music is my favorite hobby next to reading - I love indie rock and hip hop most.
-Have gotten into birding in recent years 🐦‍⬛

#AuldLangSpine
Very excited to decide how to start off my 2023 reading year based on this excellent list courtesy of @ncsufoxes I might start with the ones pictured, though there are several fiction and nonfiction choices that appeal to me, so this could change. I didn't have the best reading luck in 2022 so I'm hoping these recommendations will get 2023 started off right.
Thanks @monalyisha for arranging this event once again!

#nyrbbookclub members I'm struggling with my first NYRB selection since the monthly picks. I like a challenge every now and then, but to give you an idea of what this one is like, this single sentence (which is too long to fit in its entirety) contains the phrases: "post-traumatic cicatrization", "passionate peroration", and "an extracting maieutics" ?‍? I'm torn about continuing - not exactly the murder mystery I was hoping for!

My Halloween read this year was a good one: a very spooky tale involving a vengeful elk spirit. While many horror tales co-opt Native American culture as almost an afterthought, having characters who are part of the same culture makes the novel richer and more interesting. I also enjoyed Graham Jones' dialogue - so good you forget you're reading and not watching a movie. I did have a tough time visualizing some of the lengthy action sequences. 👇

Each essay in this collection focuses on a famous animal, spanning from prehistoric times to present day. An essay collection on animals sounds like a light read, but this was easily my most challenging of the year. One reason is that the essays aren't 'about' the animals as much as the animals within the historical contexts they appear, and the entire spectrum of human responses that occur, from reverence to exploitation to downright cruelty 👇

#Fearfulfall #Happyhorror
I'm sorry I won't be joining the group read this time, but how could I not post a creepy playlist? I took some favorites from past Halloween playlists and added some new discoveries. I tried organizing by genre: classical, film scores, rock, hip hop, and electronic.
Happy Halloween all 🎃!
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0eVxzG07soO0ejYFlnMxOb?si=7ZCg1r2nTEycftP5Ff1f...
@Cinfhen @BarbaraBB

Take a standard Twilight Zone episode plot, give it an artistic makeover, and you have Subdivision. Things begin in dreamy fashion where a woman whose personal history is never mentioned rents a room from Clara and 'the Judge' (both retired judges named Clara in fact) who are hospitable and advise her on finding work and permanent housing in this unnamed 'Subdivision'. Yet they are also oddly intent on her assembling a mysterious jigsaw puzzle 👇

I really enjoyed the unique structure and concept - 618 short passages, some authored by Shields, while others are quotations, bits of interviews or other materials to fit each chapter's theme. Those themes also cover interesting intellectual topics on the fraught border between fiction versus nonfiction. But I kept hearing this implication that traditional fiction is tired and some new experimental fictive nonfiction is superior somehow 👇

Interesting structure where each story is about the main character Yolanda Garcia (Yo) as seen through the eyes of someone in her life. The first one is told from her mom about Yo as a child and they follow her forward into her life as a writer in adulthood. We meet a diverse array of voices throughout, but Yo's character shines in her eagerness to influence the lives of those around her, even while being thwarted by indecision in her own life 👇

#bookhaul
Some acquisitions from a first-time visit to Frenchtown Bookshop in New Jersey (formerly The Book Garden). Small shop with lots of interesting selections, and an NYRB bookshelf to top it off.
Not related to these three choices, but I'm always intrigued when I see an author who I haven't heard of with multiple novels in a tiny shop - there must have been six or seven from Rachel Cusk. Is anyone a fan of hers?

Saunders presents seven short stories from Russian authors and follows each with an essay that analyzes the story and discusses why stories work in general - what keeps us reading and why a good story ends where it does. I recommend the audiobook - each story has a different celebrity narrator, but I like Saunders' own narration of the essays best. They already have the right mix of scholar and superfan, and his own voice lends a personal touch.

Hi! My name is Nao, and I am a time being. Do you know what a time being is? Well, if you give me a moment, I will tell you.
Reading those opening lines in the book store, I imagined they were spoken by a cheerful alien rather than a suicidal teenager. But their immediacy struck me, and Nao's narrative has an urgency that compels us, just as it does for the fictional Ruth Ozeki who reads it. Magical in spite of large helpings of death and misery.

Had I never listened to Elena Passarello's podcast, I might have assumed this was just coincidental and not a Duran Duran reference dropped without comment into an otherwise entirely straight-faced essay. But knowing a little about the author's personality, this was 100% intentional. I've only just started the second essay and I'm hooked. I also recommend the podcast which is about the literary essay - linked in the comments.

Final NYRB Bonus Question!
We've read so many great novels during this book club - do you have a favorite? Or a top 3-5?

Q6: At the end of the novel, Clarence is depressed at being deceived about his role in Aziana and is reluctant to face the king (let alone put on clothes). Was his final meeting with the king what you were expecting? How did you interpret this encounter?

Q5: Clarence makes many references to odors that make him sleepy, first “the crowd‘s herd-like odor” and later in the forest “the terrible odor of flowers and decay.” When he further considers the forest‘s odor, he thinks, “it is not just an odor of decaying vegetation; it is subtlety itself, a seductive perfume, or rather the seductive mingling of a thousand perfumes […] all of them far too heady, disturbing, caressing, […] far too delectable.”

Q4: There is lots of dialogue concerning the difference between ‘favors‘ versus ‘rights‘. At one point, when Clarence asks why the beggar couldn‘t ask the judge to pardon him, he responds, “Can‘t you get it into your thick head that one cannot beg the favor of receiving something that is one‘s ‘right‘?” What is the novel‘s philosophy on justice when it comes to ‘favors‘ versus ‘rights.‘?

Q3: Clarence is constantly confusing one thing for another—faces look the same, a corridor in Aziana looks like one from the legal offices in Adramé, he believes the path the beggar leads them through the forest is going in circles. Why is Clarence perpetually confused?

Q2: Right from the novel‘s opening, Clarence has a belief in white supremacy that guides his actions and observations. How would you describe his journey throughout the novel when it comes to racism? What factors lead to his change?

Q1: In the Introduction, Toni Morrison notes that for previous novels by Western authors, “Africa was simultaneously innocent and corrupting, savage and pure, irrational and wise. It was raw matter […] to examine desire and improve character. But what Africa never was, was its own subject.” How does Laye use previous stereotypes about Africa to craft a novel about Africa itself?

Nothing more or less than a simple summary of the research and what we can expect under different scenarios. Could it have used another editing pass to get rid of some repetition? Sure. Does he spend a weird amount of time dismissing hydrogen fuel cell electric videos? Yeah, a bit. But it was refreshingly straightforward. I'm not sure I left feeling 'hopeful' exactly but informed and not as depressed as with most
#climatechange education.

#SummerHeat
I'm (once again) behind on my reading and posts so I'm on page 76 of the novel and have no steamy playlist created. So I'm going to cheat and recommend an artist called Stas THEE Boss (Stasia Irons). She is formerly one half of the Seattle-based duo THEESatisfaction and is an exceptional beat maker who really deserves a much wider audience. Her lyrical content is diverse, but when she does a steamier track, trust me, it is 🔥 🔥🔥

My favorite book I read last year that I never posted a review on and my new favorite poetry collection. I've still read so little poetry, and barely any complete collections, but this one has a perfect combination of potent imagery and a mix of ideas that run the gamut from satirical to bleak to comic. I discovered this author during a #ReadingEnvy readalong last year and Jenny recommended I read more of Natalie Diaz's work - very glad I did!

#nyrbbookclub
There's a certain kind of novel about a female heroine with mental health issues who sees the world differently and at first BBwP fits nearly into that literary box. When the novel opens with Shirley decoding messages from her spy lover, it seemed like par for the course. Yet, as it went on I started to question that assumption, almost like the opposite of a novel where you find at the end that a character hallucinated everything 👇

For anyone who was a fan of the #ReadingEnvy podcast and hasn't already heard, I'm sorry to report that Jenny Colvin recently passed away unexpectedly. If you knew her and listened to her show, then you already know how amazing of a human being Jenny was: there is a memorial wall on Goodreads that I have linked in the comments if you'd like to share your memories. If you haven't yet, I'd strongly recommend you try her show, also linked below:

#nyrbbookclub
I'm really enjoying this one so far! I'm not quite halfway through, but there's a scene involving this Bonnard painting in the Toronto gallery the main character visits that is pretty surreal and, without preempting our eventual discussion where we can dig into its meaning, I'm wondering if those who've read it can confirm if my reading of the basic 'what's happening' level is the same as yours. I'll summarize in the comments...

Here are the July #NYRB options. Hopefully it's not cheating to use two that were unchosen from the last time I facilitated, but I still really want to read them🙂

@arubabookwoman @BarbaraBB @batsy @catebutler @daena @emilyhaldi @GatheringBooks @LeahBergen @Leftcoastzen @Liz_M @merelybookish @mklong @quietjenn @readordierachel @Reviewsbylola @saresmoore @sarahbarnes @sprainedbrain @vivastory @youneverarrived

#nyrbbookclub @merelybookish @vivastory
Last month's pick allowed me to appreciate this reference in a Lorrie Moore story I'm reading. Good literary timing is always nice! 🙂

I'm so upset with this book! It feels like I just ended a dysfunctional relationship 😅 The beginning was so good that when it only got worse and worse, I felt weirdly betrayed. It opens with the narrator being witness to the death of a married woman whom he was just about to sleep with for the first time. He tries to quietly remove himself from the scene but after mysterious circumstances becomes obsessed with observing her family afterwards 👇

In All About Eve, an aspiring actress charms her way into the inner circle of star Margo Channing and exploits the connection to launch her career. Malcolm's chronicle of an odd moment in the field of psychology casts unknown Sanskrit scholar Jeffrey Masson in the Eve role as he courts famed psychoanalyst Kurt R. Eissler. Unlike Channing though, Eissler isn't suspicious in the least and takes Masson under his wing, with results that are...weird 👇

After realizing two of my current reads feature birds on the cover, I decided to do a little bookshelf birding. A fun activity I'd recommend to other bird and book lovers when it's a little chilly for the outdoor variety. #bookshelfbirding #birdsoflitsy #birds

"Two warring factions in the Department of Elevator Inspectors..." begins the back flap description, which should be enough to pick up this strange and wonderful blend of 'speculative noir'. In this society that looks a lot like Civil Rights era New York, elevators are an academic discipline of sorts and lie at the center of a conspiracy that our elevator inspector hero Lila Mae must unravel. A creative and hilarious spin on the detective novel.

I thought it might be interesting to document my current TBR shelf with the start of the New Year. 21 books doesn't seem like a lot but it also seems inevitable that some will be procrastinated on and unread by year's end. They strike me as a strong bunch though from what I've heard so I guess we'll see what happens!

#nyrbbookclub
Dreamy novel about an island in the East Indies during what may be the early 20th century but is absent of historical context. It reads like magical realism except we don't see the magic before our eyes - the island's lore is so vivid through the stories told by its inhabitants that we feel like we've witnessed what we haven't. The style was memorable: it made me feel as if I was reading this on a beach after getting too much sun.

One of my favorites this year was this collection of stories that may be lost from history: tales of runaway slaves or freedmen trying to survive, strange goings-on in monasteries and orphanages, and unexpected encounters with historical figures. They also take on styles that fit their historical settings so they felt extra immersive. I really enjoyed how varied they were: magical realism, satire, suspense - all excellent no matter the genre.

#Top21of21

Thanks for the tags @Centique and @Nute
There were certainly lots of great reads to consider. Unlike other years where I've had one favorite in particular, I think it was a three-way tie between Counternarratives, Written on the Body, and Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. Close behind are Gorilla My Love, The True Deceiver, and The Intuitionist.

Tagging any other fellow procrastinators on choosing their year-end picks!

Arizona Territory 1893. Missing family members. Drought. Outlaws. Journey. Ghosts. Camels. Those words should be enough to pick up Inland, especially if you've read Obreht's debut The Tiger's Wife. And if you haven't, you definitely should. I went in expecting to be disappointed as you do when you read an author's next book after one you love. But Inland landed pretty close: it's a magician trick of a novel that seems to hold more than its size.

#nyrbbookclub
Felix begins this novel arriving in Jerusalem to live with his aunt (Miss Bohun) after his mother's death and what unfolds is a coming of age story in the extreme. Felix is initially a teenager who acts more like a 10-year-old, but in witnessing his aunt's tendency to exploit her tenants (including Felix), he gets a crash course in greed and hypocrisy that makes his grief for his mother that much more heartbreaking.

#DecemberChill
My dad is cleaning out some old boxes and recently sent me the upper left pic, which shows my favorite place to chill as a kid: on vacation by the beach or pool (often with Agatha Christie novels). As an adult it's been a little different - an Airbnb in upstate New York, a park with a pond in New Jersey, hiking by a Brooklyn marsh, or birding in Cape May. But naturally, nothing beats the reading chair for day to day relaxation.

#DecemberChill #MusicalMatters
My favorite playlist when I'm looking for something chill has a mix of soul, jazz, and hip hop. It's a list of full albums, which doesn't lend itself to screenshots, so I created a version with one song from each of the 38 artists: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3goqyM1XPG1ldD1YKqRI22?si=3qeR4VBtTMuTPZYBGKep...

I read Vol 1 of My Struggle earlier this year and really liked Knausgard's style but wished it were shorter. As it turns out, Ditlevsen's trilogy of short memoirs is exactly what I wanted: hyper-conscious, yet carefully curated recollections. Ditlevsen is brilliant at knowing what moments to focus on and what is most fascinating about her perceptions of experiences with family, writing mentors, romantic partners, or her struggles with addiction.

😅 https://lithub.com/somebody-finally-fixed-the-ending-of-the-giving-tree/

A Halloween read about a missing girl and a nameless, watery horror terrorizing a tiny island town. Lindqvist is compared to Stephen King in eight blurbs, and although I haven't read enough King to judge the accuracy, it has a King-ish length of 500 pages. I would have enjoyed a shorter version more: the problem for me was all the flashbacks ruined the forward momentum. But the writing is excellent - it cultivates a great, haunted atmosphere.

@shawnmooney has a great new Booktube program I would recommend: "Bite-sized Book Chats". Shawn has a short conversation with four readers and talks with them about a book they recently read in fun half-hour episodes. They are great for expanding your TBR further via recommendations from readers around the world. I was excited to speak with Shawn in the most recent episode about the tagged book. Check it out here: https://youtu.be/TFC7mIg53Z4