From time to time, I will share some books that I have recently read. (If you follow me on goodreads, these titles will be familiar.)
Magic for Liars – Sarah Gailey
Ivy Gamble isn’t magical, her sister is. Well, she was. She’s been murdered. And it’s up to Ivy to find out who did it and why.
Feels like a classic noir mystery novel, but the protagonist is female, and it takes place on the campus of a magic school.
I love a good detective story, (I am constantly reading mystery novels, especially with lady detectives) and this book ticked so many boxes. It was a creative and original mystery. It had an original (but still classic) detective (drinking problem, embittered, barely making ends meet.) And it didn’t succumb to any pitfalls of the magical school setting. And I totally didn’t see the twist at the end! Which is what one wants in a mystery story.
Just. Fucking. Great.
Sarah Gailey is brilliant queer author whose magical stories are just that. Magical. And gritty.
Marriage of a Thousand Lies – S. J. Sindu
Oof. I liked this in the way a sad smile is still a smile. I’m not spoiling the story by saying that Lucky, the protagonist, is gay, but married to a man. Her husband is gay too, an arrangement they came up with to please their traditional Sri Lankan-American parents, who do not know about their sexual identities. Lucky’s first love, Nisha, is getting married to a man, thinking she can handle it because Lucky did, not knowing that Lucky’s marriage was a sham.
From there, I won’t reveal more, but this book is about family and being true to one’s identity, when those things are mutually exclusive.
Turning Darkness into Light – Marie Brennan
Who doesn’t like a dragon novel? I do, which is why I read Brennan’s series on the study of dragons. But this book takes place decades after the original series, and follows the granddaughter. A translator. This novel, despite being fantastical, is about (draconian) academia and archeology. I pick up books with linguist protagonists whenever I can, and for what it was, it didn’t disappoint.
The series it’s based on was as grand, adventurous and sweeping as the dragons themselves. This book was a smaller relative, wearing glasses, and whispering because it is in a library.
Man Without a Country – Kurt Vonnegut
A collection of thoughts from Vonnegut’s later life. I enjoyed some more than others, but his voice, hopeful and cynical, humorous and gloomy, encapsulates the weirdness and breadth of Vonnegut’s work. Give it a read, but take it in sips. It tastes better and lasts longer that way.
The Thirteen Clocks – James Thurber
Please read this. Aloud.
This is such an enchanting topsy-turvy story. Somewhere between Norman Juster’s Phantom Tollbooth and Grimm’s fairy tales, it is charming in its absurdity, and surprisingly dark with its whimsy. I have it on audio, too and I listen to it probably once a month. In fact, I think it goes on my list of all time favourites.
The Revolution of Birdie Randolf – Brandy Colbert
I liked the themes in this book, how it gently addresses race, sex and sexuality, coming of age, drugs, etc. But the story itself is average. Not a bad thing! I kind of liked that it was average. That these stories don’t have to be presented in a way that seems to say “THIS IS A VERY SERIOUS BOOK ABOUT VERY IMPORTANT STUFF.” It’s just another coming of age story, that includes all those things, and well. If this is the sort of stuff kids are casually reading as they grow up, hurrah!
The Sound Inside – Adam Rapp
A neat little short I got for free on Audible about a dying creative writing teacher. I enjoyed the conceit, but you shouldn’t feel like your missing out if you give this a pass.
Dispossession – Tayari Jones
You are missing out if you don’t read this. Another free short from Audible but sooo good. A story about Cheryl, a woman who picks up a job at a moving company in order to make ends meet. Her first house is a dispossession, a forced eviction., of a fellow black family in her own neighbourhood. It brings back memories and stirs up questions about why her son never comes to visit her. Race, family, and decisions we make for the best, but have far reaching and unintended consequences.
My Brother Michael – Mary Stewart
Thunder on the Right – Mary Stewart
These two are ‘romantic’ suspense (the romance is barely there, which is just how I like them, and back in the 60s when these were written, a novel written by a woman had to be categorised as romance, it seems. Mary Stewart is the pioneer of this genre, (though I would call it Woman travels abroad and there runs into trouble, with a garnish of romance. Granted, that is much longer and more difficult to say. So we will stick with Romantic Suspense for now.) What I love about Mary Stewart is her description. She can make anywhere feel real and immediate, especially her descriptions of nature.
Full confession. I want to be a modern day Mary Stewart. My ‘chic-lit’ novellas will be odes to her and the genre she created.
Night Boat to Tangier – Kevin Barry
Kevin Barry, a much touted author of Ireland creates an atmospheric trip here, which is appropriate, as drugs and confronting/rejecting/not understanding reality seems to be a theme here. I picked it up because I thought it sounded great. Ageing Irish gangsters/drug runners go back over their lives while sitting at at a ferry port, waiting for an estranged daughter to arrive from Tangiers.
The language was evoking. The way the old gangsters talked to each other was just fun. But, I confess, I didn’t really like the story. We are supposed to feel sympathetic towards them in the end. I felt like shrugging. My sympathies were with the daughter.
Definitely a book for a certain type of people. Just not me.
What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat – Aubrey Gordon
Definitely do pick this up this book of essays of cultural criticism. Not only is readable and accessible, Gordon is unflinching in her story-telling, about her own experiences and others’, of the how society has failed fat people. Not just failed, but persecuted, and what we can do to stop fat-phobia and fat-shaming, and how being fat can be yet another layer of intersectional discrimination (ex. of being a woman and fat, a person of colour and fat, being a woman of colour and fat, queer and fat, etc.
I think everyone should read this, especially ‘straight-sized’ people who have no idea what it is like to live in a fat body. Even if you don’t think you are fat-phobic, you might still learn something not just about fat-phobia in general, but about yourself and things that you do that are, indeed, fat phobic. I was ashamed several times reading this, and thought, “Oh god, I am afraid of that,” or “I have said that to myself.”
So, I’m sharing this book in the hopes that everyone reads it, learns how pervasive and harmful fat-shaming is, and do what they can for fat justice.
I read (and reread) other books but this post is long enough already and I think I included a good selection.
Next one of these I do will take the more interesting ones from April and May combined.
What are you reading? What have you read recently (or not so recently) that you would recommend to me (or to anyone)? I am always taking suggestions.