Sunday, December 31, 2023
Thursday, December 21, 2023
Possible library reserve (from Publisher's Weekly, 12/11/23)
★ Twice Lived
Joma West. Tordotcom, $26.99 (256p) ISBN 978-1-250-81032-8
West (Face) uses parallel worlds to explore the pain of coming of age in this deeply emotional fantasy. Lily and Canna alternately share one body that randomly shifts between two alternate Earths. Shifters normally settle into one or the other in their toddler years but Lily/Canna is 16 and still shifting. As each identity begins to feel uncomfortable in her own skin and the duo’s memories become increasingly blurred, they learn that if they don’t settle soon, they risk psychological fracturing. Racing against time, Lily and Canna each fight to stay in their own world yet prepare their separate families for the worst-case scenario. West does an admirable job portraying the tug-of-war between individuals as they grapple with issues of family, identity, and friendship. Readers young and old will appreciate the notes of tenderness amid the conflict and will find it difficult to choose a side. Replete with a shocking yet satisfying ending that showcases West’s cleverness, this is an impressive feat. (Feb.)
Sunday, December 10, 2023
QUOZ: A FINANCIAL THRILLER by Mel Mattison
From Publisher's Weekly, 11/27/23:
Fintech executive Mattison puts his cryptocurrency expertise to good use in his chilling debut, which imagines a near-future threat to the global economy. In 2027, financial experts have developed "a groundbreaking quantum AI platform": the International, Central, and Automated Regulation of the Universe of Securities, or ICARUS. During its brief existence, ICARUS has delivered on its promise to create a more stable global economy and made "bank runs, bailouts, and volatile share prices" things of the past. But just before the platform’s latest upgrade goes live, Kota Nakazawa, one of ICARUS’s chief designers, detects some disturbing anomalies in market trading patterns. He seeks advice from his disgraced former colleague, Rory O’Connor, who’s lived in Caribbean exile since he suffered a breakdown a year earlier. As the two dig into the anomalies, they unearth a vast financial conspiracy orchestrated by America’s foreign enemies that’s designed to collapse global markets. Mattison heightens suspense by cluing in readers to certain details of the book’s central conspiracy before his characters unearth them, and his knowledge of international finance lends weight and authenticity. Joseph Finder fans should check this out. (Jan.)
Monday, November 13, 2023
THE QUIET TENANT by Clémence Michallon
Read about this novel months ago. For some reason, it just popped in my head this morning, even though the reviews (I think one was in The New York Times) didn't sell it well. Memory is so weird.
Sunday, November 12, 2023
Saturday, November 4, 2023
A MORBID TASTE OF BONES by Ellis Peters
Reserved at library because it's in Molly Young's Read Like the Wind newsletter:
“A Morbid Taste for Bones,” by Ellis Peters |
Fiction, 1977 |
The place: Shrewsbury Abbey. The time: late spring of the year 1137. The person: Brother Cadfael, a monk with a torrid past, a penchant for herb-gardening and a knack for solving crimes. |
This is the first book in a once wildly popular series that follows the adventures of a shrewd yet pious amateur sleuth. As plotlines go, the one driving this novel is almost comically boring in summary, so I’ll cover the basics quickly; you’ll just have to trust me on its spine-tingling potential: |
A chief administrative monk becomes upset that his abbey doesn’t have any cool relics or miracle-working saints that he can leverage to draw visitors. (The abbey lacks an “It factor,” you could say.) Soon the greedy monk discovers the existence of a neglected martyr in a faraway town and — thinking, “I can work with this” — sends a crew of flunkies to fetch the martyr’s body and claim it for their own. Brother Cadfael, having a bad feeling about the whole business, gets himself conscripted for the journey and thus finds himself on the scene when a dead body shows up! His holy mission, which he indeed chooses to accept, is to puzzle out whodunnit. |
Read if you like: Porridge, cozy (or “cosy”) mysteries, herbaria, the British television series “Prime Suspect” starring Helen Mirren, wholesome fun |
Saturday, October 21, 2023
SHAKESPEARE WAS A WOMAN AND OTHER HERESIES by Elizabeth Winkler
For centuries, Christianity had exerted a pacifying influence on the population, encouraging values of meekness and self-sacrifice, and unifying all classes, from the richest congregant to the pious peasant, under a single ideology.
Sunday, October 15, 2023
SAHA by Cho Nam-joo, translated by Jamie Chang
B&N wish list.
Town, a city-state that is “not quite company or country,” enforces a multi-tiered class system. Laboring under it are the citizenship-less, referred to by the name of the decrepit apartment complex where they live. The Saha Estates are where authorities turn when a doctor is murdered, and where Jin-kyung decides to fight back, for her missing brother, her neighbors and herself.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/10/13/books/new-paperbacks-nam-joo.html
Sunday, October 8, 2023
LAND OF MILK AND HONEY by C Pam Zhang
<<There’s an ornateness to this prose that is missing from much contemporary fiction, which is arguably obsessed with holding the attention of a “typical” reader, one often imagined to have a short attention span and an interest only in the progression of plot.>>
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/21/books/review/c-pam-zhang-land-of-milk-and-honey.html
https://newrepublic.com/article/176022/chef-end-world-c-pam-zhang-land-milk-honey
Monday, September 25, 2023
PEOPLE COLLIDE by Isle McElroy
B&N wishlist because not available yet at library.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/24/books/people-collide-isle-mcelroy.html
Sunday, September 24, 2023
Wednesday, September 20, 2023
DIFFICULT MEN: BEHIND THE SCENES OF A CREATIVE REVOLUION by Brett Martin
10th anniversary edition. B&N wishlist.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/19/arts/television/difficult-men.html
Sunday, September 17, 2023
REYKJAVIK by Ragnar Jonasson & Katrin Jacobsdottir; and BEYOND THE WALL: A HISTORY OF EAST GERMANY by Katja Hoyer
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/14/books/review/9-new-books-we-recommend-this-week.html
Though, I also saw reviews of Beyond the Wall a week or two ago. Can't remember if it was in The New York Times, The Guardian, and/or The Washington Post.
Wednesday, August 23, 2023
Wednesday, August 16, 2023
Sunday, August 13, 2023
Wednesday, August 9, 2023
SEA OF TRANQUILITY by Emily St. John Mandel
Edwin is capable of action but prone to inertia.
There are words you encounter all your life without knowing what they mean.
p. 137
.
Sunday, August 6, 2023
Sunday, July 30, 2023
Wednesday, July 19, 2023
AUGUST BLUE by Deborah Levy
...some of us are creators...and the rest of us are performers.
Nietzsche rightly believed...that music was the highest art, the essence of being.
Sunday, July 16, 2023
Sunday, July 9, 2023
Sunday, July 2, 2023
Wednesday, June 28, 2023
Tuesday, June 27, 2023
Sunday, June 25, 2023
Monday, June 12, 2023
Sunday, June 11, 2023
Wednesday, June 7, 2023
Wednesday, May 31, 2023
Sunday, May 28, 2023
Sunday, May 21, 2023
library holds
All the Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/19/books/review/new-paperbacks-lytle-hernandez.html
August Blue by Deborah Levy
Sunday, May 7, 2023
THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY by Matt Haig
Unsure if I'm going to get the large print or regular edition.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/05/books/review/new-paperbacks-haig.html
EVEN IF EVERYTHING ENDS by Jens Liljestrand
B&N wishlist because it's only available for pre-order.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/03/books/review/new-this-week.html
Wednesday, May 3, 2023
B&N wishlist & library reserve
B&N wishlist: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/01/the-lost-album-of-the-beatles-review-daniel-rachel-deeply-researched-what-ifs
library reserve: The Ferryman by Justin Cronin: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/01/books/new-may-books.html
Sunday, April 23, 2023
Sunday, April 9, 2023
library reserve
This was actually in today's New York Times book review: Owen King's The Curator. I'll give it a shot.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/06/books/review/owen-king-the-curator.html
Sunday, April 2, 2023
Sunday, March 26, 2023
library reserve
The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/09/books/review/the-writing-retreat-julia-bartz.html
Saturday, March 18, 2023
Sunday, March 5, 2023
Sunday, February 19, 2023
B&N wishlist
Empty Theatre: A Novel or, The Lives of King Ludwig II of Bavaria and Empress Sisi of Austria (Queen of Hungary), Cousins, in Their Pursuit of Connection and Beauty... by Jac Jemc
Sunday, February 12, 2023
Katherine Duncan-Jones' SHAKESPEARE: AN UNGENTLE LIFE
Some seventeenth-century writers estimated that barely one in 500, or even one in 1,000, lived to be sixty.
. . . more rival than enemy . . .
Sunday, January 29, 2023
in New York Times: book review of Deepti Kapoor's AGE OF VICE
People say the two saddest words in the English language are “What party?” But “planned trilogy” cannot be far behind.
library reserves
- Vampire Weekend by Mike Chen
- The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz (also in Washington Post)
- The Drift by C.J. Tudor
Monday, January 23, 2023
Fred Hampton quote
“We don’t think you fight fire with fire best; we think you fight fire with water best. We’re going to fight racism not with racism, but we’re going to fight with solidarity.”
Sunday, January 22, 2023
SPLINTERLANDS by John Feffer
...physicians can't operate on themselves, therapists can't cure their own neuroses, and intellectuals are blind to the very knowledge that can set then free.
Empires, like adolescents, think they'll live forever. In geopolitics, as in biology, expiration dates are never visible. As a result, it can be hard to distinguish growing pains from death rattles. When the end comes, it's always a shock.
Wednesday, January 18, 2023
Saturday, January 14, 2023
WINTERLAND by Rae Meadows
She couldn't even hate him because what was the use: he'd lost his humanity long ago.
...the present contains the past...
Sunday, January 8, 2023
library reserve
The Deluge by Stephen Markley
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/01/06/deluge-book-markley/