Currently reading: Ghostwritten by David Mitchell 📚
Finished reading: What Could Be Saved: A Novel by Liese O’Halloran Schwarz 📚I loved it and I hated it. Child abuse, and in general, adults behaving badly. Deeply felt descriptions of siblings and how they relate. Protagonist exactly my age, DC and foreign service in common.
Currently reading: The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery by Ross Douthat 📚
Finished reading: Black Swan Green by David Mitchell 📚There’s a quote on the cover from Pub Weekly saying something like “the best memories of boyhood!” No, that is not what this book is. It’s beautiful with gorgeous characters but it’s a lot about how badly we treat each other.
Currently reading: What Could Be Saved: A Novel by Liese O’Halloran Schwarz 📚
Finished reading: The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton 📚I don’t know what genre to put this in. Mystery? Fantasy? It’s elegantly crafted and in a way is about writing: what does it mean to be in a character’s head? I liked it.
Currently reading: Black Swan Green by David Mitchell 📚
Finished reading: Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor 📚I enjoyed it just as much as the first one in this series. A teenage “witch” growing up in Nigeria, fighting evil and developing self-awareness.
Currently reading: The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton 📚
Currently reading: The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton 📚
Currently reading: Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor 📚
Finished reading: Slade House by David Mitchell 📚Loved it, even though it verges on horror. I had the experience that happens to the characters – losing myself in time while the story/orison was told, but luckily the author didn’t steal my soul, I think.
Finished reading: Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor 📚a fun YA read with great characters
Finished reading: Morningside Heights by Joshua Henkin 📚I could not grasp the point of this novel. Lots and lots of exposition but why?
Currently reading: The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell 📚
Finished reading: Cloud Atlas: A Novel by David Mitchell 📚I did love it, to the point of slowing down in order to make it last longer. I was saddened by the end, which seemed hopeless as we are all consigned to a word of violence and inequality. Still thinking about it, though.
Currently reading: The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2021 (The Best American Series ®) edited by Ed Jong 📚
Currently reading: Cloud Atlas: A Novel by David Mitchell 📚
Finished reading: Matrix: A Novel by Lauren Groff 📚I loved this book. Very different from her other novels. Semi-historical fiction about an abbess in the 12th century. Beautiful, lyrical, and tied to the present day in many subtle ways.
Quit reading: Creatures of Passage by Morowa Yejidé 📚While I liked the characters, the writing and the setting (DC in 1977 when I was in high school there), there was far too much child abuse so I had to quit at about half-way through.
Currently reading: Matrix: A Novel by Lauren Groff 📚
Finished reading: Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson 📚I have mixed feelings. I loved the language (a Caribbean influenced patois) and the world building. I hated the child abuse.
Currently reading: Creatures of Passage by Morowa Yejidé 📚
Finished reading: Actress by Anne Enright 📚Possibly an unreliable narrator. I actually like when I’m not sure whether I can trust the story teller. An excellent book about some of the bad things that happened in the 50s, 60s and 70s.
Finished reading: The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism by Naoki Higashida 📚I don’t have much to say. It was quite “preachy” but also had some interesting insights.