RidgewayGirl Reads in 2022, Fourth Quarter

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RidgewayGirl Reads in 2022, Fourth Quarter

1RidgewayGirl
Modifié : Déc 31, 2022, 4:59 pm

Autumn is nigh! Time to pull out the sweaters and make ourselves cozy inside.



As for reading plans, I remain committed to nothing but whim and inclination.



Currently Reading



Recently Read



Recently Acquired

6RidgewayGirl
Modifié : Déc 12, 2022, 2:10 pm

The Lists

Books by Author's Nationality

Australia
Jane Harper (The Dry) (country of residence)

Britain
Monica Ali (Love Marriage)
Kate Atkinson (Shrines of Gaiety)
Claire-Louise Bennett (Checkout 19)
Joanna Cannon (A Tidy Ending)
Jane Harper (The Dry) (country of birth)
Mick Herron (Slow Horses)
Mhairi McFarlane (Mad About You)
Sarah Moss (The Fell)
Anna Reid (Borderland: A Journey through the History of Ukraine)
Louise Welsh (The Cutting Room, The Second Cut)
Lucie Whitehouse (The Bed I Made)

Canada
Kate Beaton (Ducks)
Sylvia Moreno-Garcia (Mexican Gothic) (country of residence)
Emily St. John Mandel (Sea of Tranquility)
Nita Prose (The Maid)
Catriona Wright (Difficult People)

Chile
Lina Meruane (Nervous System)

China
Ling Ma (Bliss Montage: Stories) (country of birth)
Xuetao Shuang (Rouge Street)
Weike Wang (Joan is Okay) (country of birth)

Cyprus
Alex Michaelides (The Maidens)

Egypt
Alaa al-Aswani (The Yacoubian Building)

Finland
Pajtim Statovci (Crossing) (country of residence)

France
Anne Garréta (In Concrete)

Germany
Alina Bronsky (Broken Glass Park) (country of residence)

Iran
Shahriar Mandanipour (Seasons of Purgatory)

Ireland
Claire Keegan (Small Things like These)
Sally Rooney (Beautiful World, Where Are You)

Italy
Natalia Ginzburg (The Dry Heart)

Kosovo
Pajtim Statovci (Crossing) (country of birth)

Mexico
Sylvia Moreno-Garcia (Mexican Gothic) (country of birth)

Morocco
Meryem Alaoui (Straight From the Horse's Mouth)

Nepal
Tsering Yangzom Lama (We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies) (country of birth)

Netherlands
Janwillem van der Wetering (The Sergeant's Cat & Other Stories)

Oman
Jokha Alharthi (Bitter Orange Tree)

Russia
Alina Bronsky (Broken Glass Park) (country of birth)
Gary Shteyngart (Our Country Friends) (country of birth)

South Korea
Kwon Yeo-sun (Lemon)

Spain
Virginia Feito (Mrs. March)

7RidgewayGirl
Modifié : Déc 28, 2022, 2:40 pm

United States
Alexandra Andrews (Who is Maud Dixon?)
Elif Batuman (Either/Or)
Blair Braverman (Small Game)
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum (Likes)
Lan Samantha Chang (The Family Chao)
Dan Chaon (Sleepwalk)
Kate Christensen (In the Drink)
Eli Cranor (Don't Know Tough)
John Darnielle (Devil House)
Marcy Dermansky (Bad Marie)
Anthony Doerr (Cloud Cuckoo Land)
Jennifer Egan (The Candy House)
Louise Erdrich (The Sentence)
Jonathan Escoffery (If I Survive You)
Alison Espach (Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance)
Alison Fairbrother (The Catch)
Kali Fajardo-Anstine (Woman of Light)
Ellen Feldman (Paris Never Leaves You)
Bonnie Garmus (Lessons in Chemistry)
Xochitl Gonzalez (Olga Dies Dreaming)
Kaitlyn Greenidge (Libertie)
T. Greenwood (Rust & Stardust)
Lauren Groff (Matrix)
Jennifer Haigh (Mercy Street)
Gabino Iglesias (The Devil Takes You Home)
Julia May Jonas (Vladimir)
Stephen Graham Jones (My Heart is a Chainsaw)
Joseph Kanon (The Berlin Exchange)
Lily King (The Pleasing Hour)
Jean Hanff Korelitz (The Latecomer)
Erika Krouse (Tell Me Everything)
J. Robert Lennon (Subdivision)
Winnie M. Li (Complicit)
Rachel Lyon (Self-Portrait with Boy)
Ling Ma (Bliss Montage: Stories) (country of residence)
Sara Majka (Cities I've Never Lived In)
Cormac McCarthy (The Passenger)
Elizabeth McCracken (The Hero of this Book)
Derek B. Miller (How to Find Your Way in the Dark)
Lydia Millet (Dinosaurs)
Keith Lee Morris (Travelers Rest)
Leila Mottley (Nightcrawling)
Caitlin Mullen (Please See Us)
Joyce Carol Oates (Babysitter)
Stewart O'Nan (Ocean State)
Ruth Ozeki (The Book of Form and Emptiness)
Tom Perrotta (Tracy Flick Can't Win)
Jo Piazza (We Are Not Like Them)
Christine Pride (We Are Not Like Them)
Kelsey Ronan (Chevy in the Hole)
James Salter (Light Years)
George Saunders (Liberation Day: Stories)
Gary Shteyngart (Our Country Friends) (country of residence)
Karin Slaughter (Girl, Forgotten)
Amber Sparks (And I Do Not Forgive You: Stories and Other Revenges)
Leigh Stein (Self Care)
Simone St. James (The Sun Down Motel)
Susan Straight (Mecca)
Elizabeth Strout (Lucy by the Sea)
Justin Taylor (Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever)
Anne Tyler (French Braid)
Weike Wang (Joan is Okay) (country of residence)
Isabel Wilkerson (The Warmth of Other Suns)
Kevin Wilson (Now is Not the Time to Panic)
Ryan Lee Wong (Which Side Are You On)

10RidgewayGirl
Modifié : Déc 28, 2022, 2:44 pm

2022
Babysitter by Joyce Carol Oates
The Berlin Exchange by Joseph Kanon
Bliss Montage: Stories by Ling Ma
The Candy House by Jennifer Egan
The Catch by Alison Fairbrother
Chevy in the Hole by Kelsey Ronan
Complicit by Winnie M. Li
Devil House by John Darnielle
The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias
Dinosaurs by Lydia Millet
Ducks by Kate Beaton
Either/Or by Elif Batuman
The Family Chao by Lan Samantha Chang
The Fell by Sarah Moss
French Braid by Anne Tyler
Girl, Forgotten by Karin Slaughter
The Hero of this Book by Elizabeth McCracken
If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery
Joan is Okay by Weike Wang
The Latecomer by Jean Hanff Korelitz
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Liberation Day: Stories by George Saunders
Love Marriage by Monica Ali
Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout
Mad About You by Mhairi McFarlane
The Maid by Nita Prose
Mecca by Susan Straight
Mercy Street by Jennifer Haigh
Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley
Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance by Alison Espach
Now is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson
Ocean State by Stewart O'Nan
Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez
The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy
Rouge Street by Xuetao Shuang
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
Season of Purgatory by Shahriar Mandanipour
The Second Cut by Louise Welsh
Shrines of Gaiety by Kate Atkinson
Sleepwalk by Dan Chaon
Small Game by Blair Braverman
Tell Me Everything by Erika Krouse
A Tidy Ending by Joanna Cannon
Tracy Flick Can't Win by Tom Perrotta
Vladimir by Julia May Jonas
We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies by Tsering Yangzom Lama
Which Side Are You On by Ryan Lee Wong
Woman of Light by Kali Fajardo-Anstine

11RidgewayGirl
Oct 1, 2022, 2:50 pm

Welcome in to my thread, where I will attempt to write at least something about what I'm reading not too long after I've read it. At least that is the plan.

12labfs39
Oct 1, 2022, 3:34 pm

Such interesting reading so far this year, Kay! And I love the photos of the house.

13RidgewayGirl
Oct 1, 2022, 5:30 pm

>12 labfs39: Only the first is of my house, but it is of a chair everyone loves, but especially the cats. The second picture is a painting by Jim Holland, a Massachusetts artist who paints spare, empty rooms and landscapes.

Rather than joining me in sulking about missing the Decatur Book Festival, my friend has suggested we simply go to the Portland Book Festival instead and so we are. If anyone else is planning on being there, or who lives in the area and would want to meet up, let me know!

14lisapeet
Oct 1, 2022, 6:51 pm

Love your reading chair and the painting, and hope you're feeling better. The Portland Book Festival sounds like a good time—I was in Portland last March and it was great to be there (it was great to be anywhere after the preceding two years). The city itself has gotten a bit darker, it felt like. I was really taken aback at the homeless population, and I lived in New York in the 90s. Still, if I had a teleporter, I'd meet you out there.

15BLBera
Oct 1, 2022, 7:34 pm

Hooray for the Portland Book Festival! I'm heading to the Iowa City Book Festival next week.

16rocketjk
Oct 1, 2022, 7:40 pm

All hail whim and inclination!

17labfs39
Oct 1, 2022, 7:51 pm

>13 RidgewayGirl: Oh lucky you! The Portland Book Festival sounds fabulous. Robust lineup of authors. And then there is Powell's and Voodoo Donuts. Should be a blast. Get well quickly and stay well!

18dchaikin
Oct 1, 2022, 10:46 pm

Happy new thread. Enjoy Portland!

19avaland
Oct 2, 2022, 7:41 am

>13 RidgewayGirl: Yes, do enjoy Portland!

20RidgewayGirl
Oct 2, 2022, 1:30 pm

>14 lisapeet: Lisa, I'm just happy to go somewhere with Pattie again. We have been close friends since high school and covid put pause on our yearly trips to see each other. We'll be visiting Powell's, enjoying the festival, staying in a hotel with its own library and getting to be somewhere new.

>15 BLBera: Oh! Making note of that one. Iowa City is a reasonably easy drive from where I am. I'll have to go during a year that I don't have covid. That's a great list of authors presenting and it would be fun to visit Prairie Lights Bookstore.

>16 rocketjk: Absolutely! There is far too little of that these days.

And there's a store near the hotel selling Japanese stationary. And a post office, so I can mail books home if necessary.

& >19 avaland: Thanks, Daniel and Lois. I'm excited. Already I see that there are conflicting sessions I'll have to choose between.

21RidgewayGirl
Oct 2, 2022, 1:30 pm



A lonely married woman becomes obsessed with the woman who used to live in her house after she receives some of her mail. As she hunts for information about the woman, developing the fantasy that they would be best friends, a series of murders in the area put her neighborhood on edge.

The question in A Tidy Ending by Joanna Cannon isn't so much whether Linda is an unreliable narrator, but to what extent. Is she reporting honestly about events as she sees them, through the filters of her delusions and hopes, or is she willfully misleading the reader? This novel works so well in maintaining that tension, until the final chapters, which can't fulfill the promise of the rest of the book, as all the secrets are revealed. But the majority of the book is successful and my disappointment with the author being unable to pull of the impossible will not stop me from taking a look at her other work.

22dianeham
Oct 2, 2022, 5:34 pm

>6 RidgewayGirl: How do you find out everyone’s nationality. I want to present my books that way to.

23lisapeet
Oct 2, 2022, 8:41 pm

>20 RidgewayGirl: Oh, you'll absolutely have fun, and I didn't mean to wax negative. I had a really good time when I was there—good beer, voodoo donuts, and a little Thai food shack on 8th Avenue, a short walk from the convention center, which was sublime.

24RidgewayGirl
Oct 2, 2022, 10:31 pm

>22 dianeham: Diane, mainly just digging around. The author's website or Goodreads or wikipedia. And sometimes it's complicated, and I just put the author in however many countries they belong to by birth, or residence, or citizenship. And, as you can see, most are just Americans.

>23 lisapeet: No, I appreciated the information. And I suspect a few cups of coffee will be purchased as well. The festival is being held at the art museum and in other venues nearby. And there's a place near the hotel that sell a large selection of Japanese stationary.

25dianeham
Oct 2, 2022, 10:57 pm

>24 RidgewayGirl: you’re my role model

26RidgewayGirl
Oct 3, 2022, 12:52 pm

>25 dianeham: That's the scariest thing anyone has ever said to me, lol. But have fun setting up all sorts of ways of measuring your reading. It's so much fun. Who doesn't love a list?

27BLBera
Oct 3, 2022, 3:40 pm

If you decide to visit the Book Festival next year, let me know. We could maybe have a little meet up. I am going to see Angie Cruz for sure, haven't decided which others. I am only staying three nights, but it was hard to choose who I most wanted to see.

28RidgewayGirl
Oct 3, 2022, 4:59 pm

>27 BLBera: I will absolutely see if that's possible. It would be fun to meet up there.

29RidgewayGirl
Oct 3, 2022, 6:29 pm



Across the water, streetlamps blinked on, then hung unsuspended and haloed pink in the fog. Grainy daylight drained out slowly through the long kitchen window. This was the start of the devastating time of day, when, if you turned on the overhead, the texture of the walls and the edges of objects became too vivid and you found yourself straining to remember one thing that had ever brought you any joy, but if you didn't and just let the window continue to blacken, sick and slow, it felt like being lowered into a grave.

The Pleasing Hour is Lily King's first novel and it's baggy in the way of first novels, with entire chapters failing to tie into the rest of the novel and a certain unfocused meandering that is absent from her later work. That said, it is still recognizably King's work, with fine writing and a keen eye for detail. Here, Rosie, a young woman who recently gave her baby to her sister to raise, goes to work in Paris as an au pair, living in a boat moored on the side of the Seine with a family of five, including a daughter close to her own age. Rosie hasn't yet come to terms with recent events, which color her time in Paris. She has a tense relationship with the mother and an easier one with the father, that develops into a flirtation as the year progresses.

The novel stays primarily with Rosie's story, but has chapters devoted to individuals in the family she works for, some which tie to the larger story and others that do not. The chapter that least propels the story forward is also the best one, involving the young son and the family's visit to have tea with a priest. I suspect that were King to write this book today, it would be a tighter and better balanced work, but it was still a pleasure to spend time with King's writing and a melancholy young woman struggling to figure out the world around her.

30Nickelini
Oct 4, 2022, 12:00 pm

Your top post is so attractive! I'm inspired to copy it maybe . . . .

Anyway, still summer here in Vancouver, so no cozy reading for me

31RidgewayGirl
Oct 4, 2022, 2:48 pm

>30 Nickelini: Joyce, here is doing that thing where it's distinctly autumnal except for afternoons, which are still summery. No leaves changing color yet, which is what I'm waiting for.

32Nickelini
Oct 4, 2022, 5:58 pm

>31 RidgewayGirl: That's just like a meme I saw last week that said: "It's officially 'wear a sweater in the morning and regret it in the afternoon' weather"

33RidgewayGirl
Oct 7, 2022, 3:11 pm



Harriet has told her boyfriend that she doesn't want to get married. She hasn't told him that she wants to break up, but when he forces the issue by proposing at his parents' anniversary dinner, things go as badly as expected. Harriet rents a room sight unseen and attempts to move on with her life, but her ex-boyfriend's subsequent behavior, running into another ex at an event she was working at, and getting to know her landlord are forcing her into coming to terms with her past and maybe even taking dramatic action.

Mad About You, like Mhairi McFarlane, is Chick Lit, in that it's a breezily-written story about a young woman and there is a romance, but really this is a novel about domestic abuse and how its effects can be felt long after the abuser is gone. And, for all the heavy subject matter, this isn't a heavy read. Harriet has friends with full lives of their own and her own progress is made while also dealing with all the odd situations a wedding photographer can be put in and Harriet herself is a fiercely optimistic character who is as much fun to spend time with as any of McFarlane's other heroines.

Chick Lit doesn't exactly get much respect as a genre and while it is true (as it is for any genre) that most of what is published is badly written, there are a lot of good books being published in that genre. McFarlane remains one of the best authors writing Chick Lit and it's fun watching her work become more substantial even as she manages to keep the tone light and engaging.

34RidgewayGirl
Oct 8, 2022, 5:31 pm



He had asked me to give him something hot in a thermos bottle to take with him on his trip, I went into the kitchen, made some tea, put milk and sugar in it, screwed the top on tight, and went back into his study. It was then that he showed me the sketch, and I took the revolver out of his desk drawer and shot him between the eyes. But for a long time already I had know that sooner or later I should do something of the sort.

This happens on the first page of The Dry Heart by Italian author Natalia Ginzberg. The question isn't who but why and this novella carefully details the relationship between a naive young teacher, living in a boarding house and longing for a better life, and a reserved man in love with a married woman. First published in 1947, this novella is also a clear look at the choices available to women at that time.

35japaul22
Oct 8, 2022, 6:43 pm

>34 RidgewayGirl: Ooh, you got me with that one! On the wish list it goes.

36lisapeet
Oct 8, 2022, 8:31 pm

>34 RidgewayGirl: That's a great cover.

37labfs39
Oct 8, 2022, 9:54 pm

>34 RidgewayGirl: The only book by Natalia Ginzburg that I have read is The Things We Used to Say, and I didn't care for it. Have you read other books by her?

38dchaikin
Oct 8, 2022, 9:56 pm

Quite an opening. The tea was sounding really nice.

39Nickelini
Oct 9, 2022, 1:57 am

>38 dchaikin: Quite an opening. The tea was sounding really nice.


Loool. I was rather horrified by the blurb, but you put it in perspective.

40kidzdoc
Oct 9, 2022, 10:59 am

Hi, Kay! I'm glad that you and Pattie will attend the Portland Book Festival together. Please say hello for me when you see her.

41RidgewayGirl
Modifié : Oct 9, 2022, 5:38 pm

>35 japaul22: It's 88 pages long, so while I do think you'll like it, it's the kind of book that one can read in an evening.

>36 lisapeet: It is a good cover! It reminds me of this one (although I hated the book, the cover was good.)



>37 labfs39: No, this is the first book of hers I have read. I picked it up after the results of the recent Italian elections was announced -- Ginzburg was anti-fascist at a time and place when that was a dangerous thing to be.

>38 dchaikin: I know! I have to make my own tea.

>39 Nickelini: But it does grab one's attention, far more than if that had been left to the final pages of the book. I spent the book looking for the reasons.

>40 kidzdoc: Thanks, Darryl. I'll be sure to say hello to her for you and we'll raise a toast you and the Decatur Book Festivals of years past. I'm excited to finally visit Powell's bookstore too. Among the authors I'm most excited about are Leila Mottley (I'm reading Nightcrawling now), Lan Samantha Chang (a favorite author) and Kate Beaton (the author of the comic I had framed)

42lisapeet
Oct 11, 2022, 10:41 am

>41 RidgewayGirl: Ooh I'd love to hear Kate Beaton talk/read. I'm very stoked for Ducks. And I predict you will looooove Powell's, because how could you not.

43RidgewayGirl
Oct 11, 2022, 2:31 pm

>42 lisapeet: I've also taken note of where the nearest post offices are, just in case.

44BLBera
Oct 11, 2022, 2:44 pm

It sounds like a great line-up, Kay. Enjoy. I look forward to hearing about your experience.

45lisapeet
Oct 11, 2022, 2:45 pm

>43 RidgewayGirl: That's very wise.

46RidgewayGirl
Oct 11, 2022, 3:31 pm

>44 BLBera: I really enjoyed your comments on the Iowa City Book Festival. I will try to do the same.

>43 RidgewayGirl: Less "wise" and more "realistic."

47RidgewayGirl
Oct 11, 2022, 3:31 pm



Everyone thinks the South is, like, Flannery O'Connor. They think it's haunted. And maybe it is, deep down, in the soil, but I never saw it that way. We had a McDonald's. I don't know how else to say it. There were no bookstores, okay, fine. The museums we had were of the Old Jail Museum or Military Vehicle Museum or Railroad Museum variety. We had a Wal-Mart. I wore normal clothes.

Frankie is a teenager in a small Tennessee town in the nineties. She has three older brothers, triplets, who run wild, and an exhausted, hard-working mother. Her father left and now has a new wife and a new daughter who he has given Frankie's name. And she doesn't have any friends. Then she meets Zeke, in Coalfield for the summer. He's her age and just as artistic and dissatisfied. They quickly become friends and together make art together, she writing and he drawing. They make art together, combining her words and his sketches, and a little blood for effect, into a piece they then photocopy and post around the town as something to do in a quiet town during the summer. They expect some consternation, maybe annoyance on the part of some, but when there art project explodes in ways they never intended or dreamed of, they both have to grapple with the consequences.

Now is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson is, at heart, a book longing for those teenage years, after one learned to drive and gained some independence, but before the end of high school heralded in adult responsibilities. Frankie is an engaging narrator, sarcastic and incisive, as she looks back on those years as the ones that formed her, the ones she still thinks about every day. Her relationship with Zeke is lovely; two lonely young artists finding each other and finding in each other a way to belong that they hadn't found before. And that friendship is viewed through a veil of nostalgia, a combination of adult assessment and rose-colored glasses, so that she hesitates to recount that time to anyone else. Wilson has a talent at finding the weird in ordinary places and this novel is both wild and utterly believable, or at least, Wilson makes us believe it.

48kidzdoc
Oct 11, 2022, 9:00 pm

Great review of Now Is Not the Time to Panic, Kay.

49dchaikin
Oct 11, 2022, 9:28 pm

Enjoyed your review. My brain first only processed part of the title - Now Time Panic.

50RidgewayGirl
Oct 12, 2022, 5:57 pm

>48 kidzdoc: Thanks, Darryl.

>49 dchaikin: I'm not in love with this trend of just giant titles as covers, honestly. I know they work well for Booktok and social media, but I still prefer something a little more illustrative.

51RidgewayGirl
Oct 12, 2022, 5:57 pm

Look, I know nothing about poetry. But I did like this one by Sarah Russell.

52AnnieMod
Oct 12, 2022, 6:01 pm

>50 RidgewayGirl: If you do not put an illustration on your cover, you do not need to pay an illustrator or spend time finding a free to use image...

53RidgewayGirl
Oct 12, 2022, 9:49 pm

>52 AnnieMod: It's a novel published by a front-list author at a big five publisher. It's not a question of saving money on a cover designer, but on current trends in cover design. I'm just not a fan.

54AnnieMod
Oct 12, 2022, 10:01 pm

>53 RidgewayGirl: I was being somewhat tongue in cheek. Although even the big publishers love to make cuts if they can (although it is possible that they payed to a designer more than they would have paid an illustrator anyway). Not a fan of these either usually.

55BLBera
Oct 12, 2022, 11:48 pm

>51 RidgewayGirl: I love this.

56dianeham
Oct 13, 2022, 1:50 am

>51 RidgewayGirl: great poem. Thank you.

57RidgewayGirl
Oct 13, 2022, 12:16 pm

>54 AnnieMod: There are certainly a vast quantity of lazily-made book covers out there. But what I dislike most is how each trend is used until dead and there is far too little that's new and interesting.

>55 BLBera: & >56 dianeham: Yes, there's something about the lives we didn't live, even when we're happy with the one we have.

58Nickelini
Oct 13, 2022, 1:04 pm

>57 RidgewayGirl: There are certainly a vast quantity of lazily-made book covers out there. But what I dislike most is how each trend is used until dead and there is far too little that's new and interesting.

Yes! Part of this is that cover design is a code that speaks to potential readers. If the cover is sort of dark with a vague illustration and there are extra-large sans-serif type words in a neon colour over top, the reader can expect the book to be a current thriller or suspense. All without reading the title, author or reading the back cover. Different types of books have different cover language. At least we are seeing fewer headless women facing away (used predominantly in historical fiction, but not exclusively). And talking about trends, am I right in thinking there are fewer titles that follow the pattern of "The _____'s Daughter" or "The _______'s Wife"? I don't think we see them as often. Or maybe I just block them out

59RidgewayGirl
Oct 13, 2022, 2:02 pm

>58 Nickelini: Yes, the ___'s wife/daughter/niece trend seems played out, and now it's longer titles along the lines of "The Thing We Did" or "Wow, That Went Wrong."

60avaland
Oct 13, 2022, 3:10 pm


47 Oh, how interesting! The same Kevin who wrote a volume of short stories titled Tunneling to the Center of the Earth (which I gave 5 stars back in 2010) I very much enjoyed your review of this new one.

61RidgewayGirl
Oct 13, 2022, 3:33 pm

>60 avaland: I read Nothing to See Here a few years ago and loved it. I'm eager to read more by him and I suspect he writes a great short story.

62Nickelini
Oct 13, 2022, 6:33 pm

>59 RidgewayGirl: LOL I want to read "Wow, That Went Wrong"

63dudes22
Oct 14, 2022, 1:10 pm

I also dislike when a series with similar covers all of a sudden change. I'm thinking of the covers for the Charles Finch series as I write this but there are others out there too.

64RidgewayGirl
Oct 14, 2022, 2:39 pm

>63 dudes22: When I was organizing my books some years ago, I saw that my husband and I both had a certain trilogy, just different editions. I also had a third copy of the final book that had been given to me by a friend. So I ended up keeping a single copy of each book in the trilogy, each from a different edition.

So when a series changes styles and formats partway through, do you grimace and bear it, or do you buy all the previous books in the new editions so your shelves match? I know what the publisher hopes you do.

65dudes22
Oct 14, 2022, 3:07 pm

>64 RidgewayGirl: - Since I much prefer the older covers in that particular series, I'll just let it go. I don't keep a lot of books because of room - just those series I think I'd reread sometime.

66RidgewayGirl
Oct 16, 2022, 4:28 pm



There's a particular kind of character who just hits my sweet spot. A woman who makes a lot of bad decisions and ruins her own life is always interesting to read about; after all, what is fiction without conflict and what kind of conflict is more interesting than the stuff people bring on themselves? Self-Portrait with Boy by Rachel Lyon features that main character. Lu is a young woman living in a terrible loft apartment in a sketchy part of Brooklyn in the nineties, before gentrification. She works at an expensive grocery store that allows her to pay her rent (most of the time) and buy film as she works on becoming a photographer. She is working on a series of self-portraits when it happens, she takes a truly great picture. Lu is sure that this is the key to getting her foot in the door of the art world, but who will she have to hurt to get her chance?

The very act of recall is like trying to photograph the sky. The infinite and ever-shifting colors of memory, its rippling light, cannot really be captured. Show someone who has never seen the sky a picture of the sky and you show them a picture of nothing.

This is a well-written debut novel that really captures a time and place, when if you were willing to live in a run down and rodent-infested space where the landlord is desperate to get people out, you could afford to live in New York. Where your neighbors could be people with serious issues or they could be artists using the space to create art. Self-Portrait with Boy is also a wonderful depiction of a person who longs to be an artist, to support herself with her pictures and to find a place within that milieu. I'm eager to read whatever Rachel Lyon writes next, even if it probably won't be exactly this book.

67lisapeet
Oct 19, 2022, 8:36 am

>49 dchaikin: This always thinks me of Luis Alberto Urrea The House of Broken Angels, which always read to me as "House Broken Angels" (not a bad quality, I guess... even if they're angels, you still don't want them pooping all over the place).

68labfs39
Oct 19, 2022, 12:34 pm

69dchaikin
Oct 19, 2022, 8:47 pm

>67 lisapeet: 🙂 How does one housebreak an angel anyway, should it come up?

70RidgewayGirl
Oct 20, 2022, 2:07 pm



The Copy Editors decided not to pay back their student loans. This decision wasn't motivated by lack of funds--though between them their bank statements didn't read above four hundred dollars and their combined Visa bills were triple that--no, it was a matter of principle. Who would pay someone who sent a letter that read, please be advised that your balance are outstanding? Surely, the twins reasoned, such egregious subject-verb disagreement rendered any contract null and void.

Difficult People is a collection of short stories by Catriona Wright about difficult people, those who don't mind bending the rules or using a friend or blowing up their own lives to make a point. These are fantastic stories as long as you don't require your main characters to be likable or even tolerable. It's not that they are all bad people, it's just that they aren't good, necessarily, and might always prioritize their own wants and impulses. I wouldn't want most of them in my house, or even living in the same neighborhood, but they do make for a good short story. From a woman with a terrible job who contemplates the bonus she gets for recruiting friends, to a woman who fails to support a friend when she is most needed, each of Wright's characters betrays the people who love them most.

71RidgewayGirl
Oct 21, 2022, 9:00 pm



Had August Molloy not returned from the dead that morning in Detroit, the Molloy family line would've ended in the bathroom of a farm-to-table restaurant midway through lunch service.

And so opens Chevy in the Hole, a novel about August and how he moved back to Flint and met Monae at a small urban farm near the old General Motors plant. It's also a novel about earlier Molloys living in Flint during the sit-down strike in the thirties at that same plant and during the unrest of the sixties. These other storylines are given much less space than the one that follows August and Monae and despite this, much of the most interesting parts of their story happens between chapters. This is Kelsey Ronan's first novel and it shows. What is also evident is the author's real affection for Flint and her deep knowledge of local history, factors that make this book worth reading.

72lisapeet
Oct 22, 2022, 9:48 am

>70 RidgewayGirl: As you know, I really liked Difficult People—I thought the stories were well done and challenging, with a lot to think about on the reader side. Interested to see what she does next (that's probably a phrase that makes writers grimace, but I can't help it).

73RidgewayGirl
Oct 22, 2022, 4:39 pm

>72 lisapeet: I like short story collections and this one was outstanding. I'm glad I followed my impulse to just order a copy right after reading your review.

74wandering_star
Modifié : Oct 23, 2022, 2:13 am

>1 RidgewayGirl: Wonderful painting! And definitely gave me autumn-afternoon-reading vibes, so it's a great match with the thread.

ETA - I should have read your whole thread before starting to comment! Very jealous of the Portland Book Festival and the chance to hit Powell’s.

>33 RidgewayGirl: This sounds interesting. Marian Keyes also wrote an excellent book on a similar subject, This Charming Man.

>51 RidgewayGirl: This poem is wonderful. It's such a perfect encapsulation of an idea which is not easy to express.

75dchaikin
Oct 23, 2022, 9:43 am

>51 RidgewayGirl: it is a very powerful poem. It actually made me uncomfortable. 🙂 Not in a critical way about the poem. But in a way that’s either hard to express or hard for me to confront. (I read it closer to when you posted it and didn’t feel comfortable posting a response then.)

76RidgewayGirl
Oct 24, 2022, 3:57 pm

>74 wandering_star: I really like Marian Keyes's novels. Back around 2004 or so, she was one of three authors on a BBC Radio4 show. The premise of the show was that authors read each other's work and discuss. The other two authors were men who had written important works of non-fiction and the discussion was so fun, because both men had never read any chick lit and were absolutely delighted with her book. Kudos to the program planners who put that line up together.

>75 dchaikin: I can see that. It is interesting to contemplate the lives unlived, even when I'm pretty sure I got the best one on offer. But maybe not a thought to share with one's life companion.

77RidgewayGirl
Oct 25, 2022, 7:31 pm



The Yacoubian Building sits on a once prestigious street in Cairo, a lovely European-style building with retail on the ground floor, apartments on the floors above and, on the roof, a labyrinth of small sheds, housing the people who work for the apartment owners and those lucky enough to get a space. Alaa al-Aswani follows a diverse group of residents as they negotiate their lives in a quickly changing Egypt. Everyone from an elderly and very wealthy man involved in a feud with his widowed sister, to an educated newspaper editor, forced to hide his homosexuality, to a young woman who has to work to support her family and so becomes the target of increasingly blatant sexual harassment, and a young man whose dreams are destroyed by the ordinary corruption of bureaucrats.

This is a vivid snapshot of what life was like in Cairo, at a time before the demonstrations in Tahrir Square, but when a religious extremism was on the rise, a reaction to the lack of opportunity for those without money or connections. al-Aswany also looks at the treatment of women and how they are expected to keep themselves removed from public life, as well as the stark disparity between the wealthy and those who are struggling to get by. The author treats all his characters, even the most reprehensible, with understanding and a clear-eyed compassion that made me feel invested in even the characters I actively disliked.

78Nickelini
Oct 26, 2022, 1:59 am

>77 RidgewayGirl: that’s one I’ve had on my TBR for years. Still sounds great. I must find it in whatever box it’s in

79raton-liseur
Oct 26, 2022, 5:34 am

>77 RidgewayGirl: I read this book long ago and really enjoyed it. I don't know why I have not read anything by Alaa El-Aswany since then. I even own one book from him, J'ai couru vers le Nil (translated into English as The republic of False truths I think, what a title!).

80RidgewayGirl
Oct 26, 2022, 2:50 pm

>78 Nickelini: Joyce, it sat on my tbr for years. I picked it up at random as I'm trying to read more globally and it looked shorter than Palace Walk. I am glad I picked up a copy.

>79 raton-liseur: Yes, I liked his writing style and the compassion he has for his characters. I'll be keeping an eye out for more by him. I did run into this one at a book sale somewhere, so there must be more out there.

81RidgewayGirl
Oct 26, 2022, 6:19 pm



Nightcrawling isn't an easy book to read, but there's an immediacy to it, a raw honesty that makes it worthwhile. Leila Mottley writes well, I won't qualify that by saying she writes well for her age; her writing is good. And the story she tells here, about a teenage girl living in Oakland who runs out of options and ends up walking the street, only to be noticed by the police and forced to work for them. It's a story of desperation and resilience, hope and pragmatism. Kiara is a fantastic character and Mottley depicts her vulnerability and her ability to keep trying to take care of the people she loves despite insurmountable obstacles. There's a reason this first novel was long listed for the Booker Prize.

82dchaikin
Oct 26, 2022, 8:36 pm

>81 RidgewayGirl: great review

83BLBera
Oct 27, 2022, 3:44 pm

>81 RidgewayGirl: I was also impressed with this, even though it is a disturbing read.

84RidgewayGirl
Oct 27, 2022, 5:30 pm

>82 dchaikin: Thanks, Dan.

>83 BLBera: More disturbing was the author's comments about basing her novel on real events.

85RidgewayGirl
Oct 28, 2022, 2:50 pm



Lucy by the Sea left me conflicted. In this fourth book following the life of Lucy Barton, Lucy is hustled out of her apartment in New York by her ex-husband and taken to a remote house on the coast of Maine to wait out the pandemic with him. Elizabeth Strout has been writing about Lucy's life for awhile and here we see what kind of old woman she is. It's interesting to see how people change (or fail to change) over time and I'm on board for this project of Strout's. There's even a look at Olive Kitteridge in this novel, now living in a retirement home. Looking at how Lucy is thinking more than ever about her childhood and about her siblings that she left behind as she fought to be free of background of deprivation certainly fits with the elderly people I know. And Lucy's situation is exacerbated by the isolation of the pandemic and by being isolated with William, her strong-willed and not hugely communicative ex-husband. Which is to say, Lucy's tendencies toward worry have solidified into a querulous focus on all the things that upset her, past and present.

Which brings me to my conflict with this novel; I appreciate the project Strout is finishing up here, with this final book about Lucy, and I love the earlier novels in this sequence (Anything is Possible is brilliant), but Lucy is just not that fun a character to spend time with. By pairing this fussy woman who overthinks some things while entirely overlooking other more obvious things, with a focus on events we are arguably still living through ourselves, this novel is often more frustrating that illuminating. I'm on board for how Lucy, no matter how secure and loved she is, can't help but focus on the same uncertainties that blighted her childhood. But this older Lucy, inured to the real lives of those less privileged than herself, just doesn't see how the solutions her family finds to the problems posed by the pandemic, are solutions only open to those with ample resources, from extra homes waiting for when they are needed, to the ability to simply pay others to take the risks deemed too dangerous for themselves. It's an odd blind spot in a character consumed by assessing how she is perceived by others.

I'm curious how this book will be seen in years removed from the current moment. It also leaves me with the same question I've been thinking about since 9/11; when are we ready to read fictitious accounts about events we ourselves lived through? And which accounts do we want to read? I found myself unsympathetic to characters whose difficulties during the pandemic were the most minimal, sheltered as they were by wealth and a willingness to use that wealth to escape, but I think that I would have enjoyed a novel told from the point of view of someone who lacked the ability to distance themselves. Or maybe I just need more distance from events to be able to engage with them in novels.

I'm looking forward to Strout's next project, whatever form that takes.

86BLBera
Oct 29, 2022, 12:42 pm

>84 RidgewayGirl: Yes, that is chilling, but not surprising.

>85 RidgewayGirl: Great comments, Kay. You brought up some things, like Lucy's privilege, I didn't really think much about.

87RidgewayGirl
Modifié : Oct 29, 2022, 12:47 pm

>86 BLBera: There was a conversation going on in Club Read while I was reading that made me think about what I liked and didn't like. And I don't know if I want to read about the pandemic yet. I think that a little distance would be good before we start dissecting this very current event. I picked up the new book by Elizabeth McCracken and the first paragraph mentioned the pandemic and I set it aside in favor of a novel written in the 1970s. I'll get there, but not yet.

88cindydavid4
Oct 29, 2022, 12:53 pm

excellent review. I liked the first two lucy barton books and was uncertain if I want to read this one. I don't like living inside someones head who has the issues I do (see over thinking, focusing on the past) but it does sound interesting. we'll see over time if I get to it

there have been some books dealing with the pandemic but cant think off hand what they are. And when 9/11 comes up in a book, unless its used as a time marker, or is essential to the story, I roll my eyes; seems like one of those check marks for an author to include, esp if its not pertenent

89RidgewayGirl
Oct 29, 2022, 1:24 pm

>88 cindydavid4: Yes, 9/11 is another that I haven't seen in fiction in a way that feels right. It's rare for someone to be able to write about ongoing or very recent events with a clear lens. Of course there are exceptions -- Irene Nemirovsky, for example. But it's rare.

90labfs39
Oct 29, 2022, 4:17 pm

>80 RidgewayGirl: I picked it up at random as I'm trying to read more globally and it looked shorter than Palace Walk.

I hope you don't give up on The Palace Walk though. Despite its length, I liked it a lot and ended up reading the entire trilogy. I don't think it necessary to read the trilogy, and I did like PW the best.

91RidgewayGirl
Oct 29, 2022, 9:33 pm

>90 labfs39: Lisa, I'm eager to read Palace Walk, just given the option of two authors I've never read before, I will choose the shorter book every time.

92labfs39
Modifié : Oct 30, 2022, 10:58 am

>91 RidgewayGirl: I had avoided the Cairo Trilogy due to its length too, then Darryl and rebeccanyc read it, and I got sucked in.

ETA: I added The Yacoubian Building to my wishlist

93wandering_star
Modifié : Oct 30, 2022, 5:51 pm

>76 RidgewayGirl: That show sounds so fun!

I am reading Sea of Tranquility which I think is going to feature time travel, and I think this because in a scene set in 2020 one character refers to COVID-19 and then corrects himself - it's only January. I thought this was a really clever touch for now but something that won't have the same effect on readers in the future.

94LolaWalser
Oct 30, 2022, 11:21 pm

Hi, Kay, it's been a long time, but I finally watched Letter to Brezhnev (the write-up waits until I finish the extras) and had to thank you for putting it on the map for me. Really loved it--although who knew the mid-eighties would some day look almost utopian? So many regrets about roads not taken.

95lisapeet
Oct 31, 2022, 11:03 am

I loved Palace Walk, though it's been a zillion years since I read it.

Funny how personal current events in fiction get... probably so much to do with how a reader is personally impacted. I still struggle with 9/11 story lines, but pandemic-set stories don't bother me. Anything with an acknowledgedly Trump-like demagogue figure I will absolutely pass on, though.

96RidgewayGirl
Nov 1, 2022, 10:24 pm

>92 labfs39: I'm eager to hear your thoughts about The Yacoubian Building when you get to it.

>93 wandering_star: Going to keep an eye out for your review of Sea of Tranquility.

>94 LolaWalser: Isn't it a great movie? I loved it so much when I saw it in high school. I should watch it again soon.

>95 lisapeet: I've read a few novels with set in the recent past, and they work for me as long as the politics and current events are either in the background or the characters are not thinking deeply about them and drawing conclusions. Hoping the trend to write about the current moment is going to end soon, but I suspect there will be more, not fewer.

97RidgewayGirl
Modifié : Nov 9, 2022, 3:03 pm



Had a wonderful few days in Portland, at the book festival there. This is all the books I didn't buy at Powell's. Those are being shipped to me. The top three books are from a Japanese store called Kinokuniya, that had a good selection of Asian and Asian American books.

I was thrilled to meet Kate Beaton, who drew a duck in my copy of her book, and Lydia Kiesling. Leila Mottley is a very young woman who is so self-possessed and intelligent, she's one to watch. I also got to see Morgan Talty, Jess Walter, George Saunders, Ingrid Rojas Contreras and Carolina De Robertis speak and often read from their work. It was especially fun to attend an event at Tin House Publishing, where we were invited to go upstairs and grab a drink out of the fridge before the readings. Anyway, it was fantastic to explore a new city and to be excited about books with an old friend I haven't seen since before the pandemic.

98labfs39
Nov 9, 2022, 4:10 pm

>97 RidgewayGirl: I'm glad you had a great time in Portland. What did you think of Powell's? Can't wait to see the rest of your loot!

99RidgewayGirl
Nov 9, 2022, 5:33 pm

>98 labfs39: Powell's was lovely -- a mix of new and used, old and new. Pattie explored and found some interesting stuff and I spent all the time in the fiction section. Could have spent longer there. There was a preview night we went to and I got to see Tin House's stuff, but also a very small press called Propeller Books. One of my favorite small presses, Red Hen Books, had a booth but it was sadly unmanned during the preview and I didn't get back there on Saturday because I was too busy at the author events.

I've really missed book festivals.

100LolaWalser
Nov 9, 2022, 5:58 pm

Portland has a Kinokuniya? So very jealous. Did you by any chance have a gander at their impossibly gorgeous paper section?

101RidgewayGirl
Nov 9, 2022, 9:42 pm

>100 LolaWalser: I resisted the paper, but my friend ended up carting home some gorgeous stuff. I did pick up a selection of pens. And we spent a long time browsing.

102LolaWalser
Nov 9, 2022, 10:10 pm

Pens! That's not helping with the jealousy at all. Although the fact that I *still* have reams of pretty paper from 20 and + years ago should be a sobering factor... :)

Eh, I blame e-mail and all these newfangled things that made people abandon letter writing.

103RidgewayGirl
Nov 9, 2022, 10:15 pm

>102 LolaWalser: I bought some marbled paper when I was in Italy twenty years ago and I still have some of it. Honestly, I wish I bought more of it.

104LolaWalser
Nov 9, 2022, 11:16 pm

>103 RidgewayGirl:

I know the feeling. I never finished the sets of letter writing paper from Amalfi either and yet every time I go through that drawer and see the opened half-full folders I get the urge "oh no, must buy more!"

What do you use marbled paper for? I had marbled hardcover notebooks from Florence in the characteristic blue palette. Long used up...

105AlisonY
Nov 10, 2022, 3:26 am

Sounds like a great trip. Has Portland established itself as a bit of a book mecca?

106lisapeet
Nov 10, 2022, 9:50 am

>97 RidgewayGirl: Sounds like a really good trip, and great conference haul! A lot of those are in my virtual pile, which should inspire me to get reading so I can talk about them with you. I'm not familiar with the three from Kinokuniya, but I went to that one too when I was in Portland (even though we have one in NYC... but it was close to my hotel and I had some time to kill). What pens did you get?

>102 LolaWalser: Eh, I blame e-mail and all these newfangled things that made people abandon letter writing.
Hey, some of us never stopped! I actually ramped up my letter writing at the beginning of the pandemic and haven't really slowed down. I have a ridiculous amount of stationery, though I do use it regularly—it's my low-stakes consumer gratification sweet spot. Not quite as low-stakes, I also collect fountain pens ( and therefore fountain pen ink) and general letter-writing ephemera.

I already have one stalwart Club Read correspondent, but I'm always happy for more if anyone wants a letter... and if so, DM me.

107BLBera
Nov 10, 2022, 1:59 pm

>97 RidgewayGirl: It sounds like a great trip, Kay. I plan to attend next year. Nice book haul. I loved Night of the Living Rez and have liked what I've read by Rojas Contreras and De Robertis as well.

108cindydavid4
Nov 10, 2022, 9:10 pm

>97 RidgewayGirl: great trip! I could easily stay in Powells for days.

>105 AlisonY: Has Portland established itself as a bit of a book mecca?

yes, actually its been established a book mecca for years!!

109RidgewayGirl
Nov 11, 2022, 11:05 am

>104 LolaWalser: The paper was perfect for collages and small art projects.

>105 AlisonY: It certainly has a vibrant literary scene. And Powell's is impressive.

>106 lisapeet: Lisa, no pens that would impress you -- just some pens with unusual ink colors like a brownish rose and a vibrant teal. An inexpensive fountain pen for me and a few Japanese mechanical pencils for my son. I did pick up several short story collections -- I made a point of reading more of them this year and now am drawn to them automatically.

>107 BLBera: Someday we'll end up at the same book festival and I'm looking forward to that.

>108 cindydavid4: Cindy, I only managed to look at most of the blue room and nothing else. I could have spent days, and much more money. When the employee walking by me casually mentioned that they ship books inexpensively, I had a very hard time restraining myself.

110lisapeet
Nov 11, 2022, 11:27 am

>109 RidgewayGirl: Eh, I'm not really into pens as fancy objects... I'm more impressed with people enjoying them and finding neat ones. Those colors sound great, and I love the range of mechanical pencils out there lately.

111BLBera
Nov 11, 2022, 11:55 am

>109 RidgewayGirl: It will happen, Kay.

112RidgewayGirl
Nov 11, 2022, 8:24 pm

>110 lisapeet: There really is a lot of variety and ingenuity in the mechanical pencils I saw at Kinokuniya.

>111 BLBera: Excellent.

113RidgewayGirl
Nov 11, 2022, 8:24 pm



Lemon by Kwon Yeo-sun and translated from the Korean by Janet Hong is about the murder of a schoolgirl and the aftermath of that death, but it's less a mystery novel than it is an exploration of how a violent death affected several people, from the two boys who were suspected of the murder, to the murdered girl's younger sister and a girl who went to school with everyone involved. It's an exploration of how people deal with loss and adversity, told in a non-linear way. I really enjoyed this short novel once I let go of all the ideas about what I thought it was doing.

114RidgewayGirl
Modifié : Nov 21, 2022, 9:46 pm



I love stories about women who ruin their own lives, making mistake after mistake in ways that both baffle and make sense to the character. Bad Marie by Marcy Dermansky fits this beautifully. Marie willfully blows up the tentative beginning to a new life after finishing her time in prison, hoping for the bigger win of gaining both a child and a man of her employer, along with a new life in Paris. When things inevitably come out differently than she had anticipated, she scrambles to find a way to not be caught, only to compound her original errors. Despite her terrible life choices, Marie is impossible not to root for and the entire novel was tightly constructed and a lot of fun.

115lisapeet
Nov 21, 2022, 5:52 pm

>114 RidgewayGirl: I've had that on my shelf for ages! And I think Marcy is great... I need to dig it out and read it soon.

116RidgewayGirl
Nov 21, 2022, 9:47 pm

>114 RidgewayGirl: Yes, this sat on my shelf for ages, but then I wanted a book I was sure to like and Dermansky did not disappoint. I have her latest, Hurricane Girl, to read soon.

117RidgewayGirl
Nov 23, 2022, 2:41 pm



I'll be honest and admit that the entire reason I picked up Blair Braverman's debut novel is because her dogs are lovely and happy. Turns out, this may be an excellent way to choose a book. Small Game is the kind of thriller that takes its time, develops the characters along with a sense of rising dread and then delivers a punch that really delivers.

Mara grew up as the only child of parents intent on living off the grid, which prepared her well for her job at a wilderness school, delivering expensive "survival" weekends for wealthy people. When producers choose her for a reality show sending a group to an undisclosed wilderness location with the challenge of surviving together, she sees a way to improve her life and maybe even live somewhere with solid floors and a dishwasher. Her skills are stretched in an unfamiliar place early in Spring and her fellow contestants have their own motivations for being there, but all that is far less important than what happens with the producers and crew.

Braverman clearly spent time and effort in crafting a thriller in which the many parts hold together. This is a story that is terrifyingly believable and still it surprised me. And no dogs were harmed.

118RidgewayGirl
Nov 26, 2022, 8:03 pm



Cormac McCarthy has written a pair of novels that are being released just months apart. Years ago, I was given a complete set of this author's works and have felt the weight of them waiting for me to get to them ever since, which is why I picked up the first of these new novels instead. Let me tell you that the first third of The Passenger was fantastic. I was kicking myself for not reading him sooner, I was posting about the book on twitter and telling friends how good it was. And then, as the novel continued and left the promise of the first chapters behind, growing ever flabbier and more discursive, my enthusiasm waned and eventually I finished this book only through sheer force of will.

The beginning of the novel had plot, it had tension, it was going places. And then this was all forgotten in favor of the protagonist wandering around, thinking about math and various topics. I expect that the kind of person who will love this book is someone who likes long, rambling conversations about math and who has a hardcover edition of Infinite Jest on their bookshelf. I am not that person.

The writing in this novel is very, very good. I get why McCarthy has the reputation he has. He knows how to put a sentence together. He's also terrible at writing women. There's one actual manic pixie dream girl -- literally a beautiful younger girlwoman who is mentally ill and brilliant and conveniently dead for the protagonist to long for, and the rest of the women in this entire novel are contemptible sex objects, with especial vitriol saved for those over thirty, with imperfect bodies or less than docile personalities. The author pulls no punches when it comes to the way the characters in this novel speak about women. Yes, the book takes place in the 1980s among a group of men deeply invested in their own masculinity, but even so, I have rarely encountered such dedicated misogyny in a novel. It was a lot.

So I'm going to skip the companion novel.

119labfs39
Nov 26, 2022, 8:25 pm

>118 RidgewayGirl: Yikes. Hard pass on that one.

120RidgewayGirl
Nov 26, 2022, 8:47 pm

>119 labfs39: Yeah, I like to think that I have a fairly high tolerance for the reflexive misogyny of dude authors of a certain age, but it was such a constant theme and shared by several different characters, that it just took much of the enjoyment of the novel away from me.

121lisapeet
Nov 26, 2022, 9:56 pm

Oh dang. I really like McCarthy (in some instances—I've stayed away from Blood Meridian, but Suttree is a deep favorite). But that sounds unpleasant. I might dip into it just to read something new from him, but with the dispensation in advance that I may want to just put it down at any point.

122ursula
Nov 27, 2022, 7:00 am

>118 RidgewayGirl: Skipping the second novel is probably a good choice. I've read a couple of McCarthys and he is most definitely an author whose books are just deeply unpleasant for me.

123AudreyHoare
Nov 27, 2022, 7:03 am

Cet utilisateur a été supprimé en tant que polluposteur.

124BLBera
Nov 27, 2022, 10:52 am

I loved The Road, the only McCarthy I've read. Friends and colleagues who are fans rave about him but also tell me I would probably hate him, so, I will pass on his work. Although Lisa does tempt me with Suttree...

>118 RidgewayGirl: Great comments.

125RidgewayGirl
Nov 27, 2022, 1:13 pm

>121 lisapeet: This hasn't put me off reading McCarthy -- I don't think he'd have the reputation he does if this was what he'd always written. I wonder if taking over a decade to write it and being such a superstar that he probably doesn't get edited the way a less prominent author would caused this book to be what it is.

>122 ursula: I'd avoided him because of the reputation for being hard-edged, but then I realized that I actually like that once in a while. I'm a fan of both Kent Wascom and Donald Ray Pollack and they tend to linger on the grotesque. For me, it was the combination of being a rambling mess and the misogyny.

>124 BLBera: Arguably, he is one of our greatest living writers and I'm keeping his novels on my pile, just not Stella Maris. I'll see if his earlier work has more structure and direction, but not immediately.

126LolaWalser
Nov 27, 2022, 2:39 pm

Not sure that being a literary superstar goes against being a miserable misogynist even today. Granted this is based mostly on hearsay (I got interrupted by a huge move about two-thirds in Blood meridian and didn't fancy re-reading in order to finish to this day), but the sheer relish with which fanboys talk about his books almost wholly devoid of women marks him as a certain "type". (Whether "real" or "projected" and whether there is a difference, I care not.)

127lisapeet
Nov 27, 2022, 3:31 pm

>124 BLBera: Suttree isn't everyone's cuppa tea, and it's been at least 15 years since I last read it, so that's my caveat. I don't think any of the characters are particularly likable, and there's a lot of violence and grime—and not a ton of plot. That said, the writing is just gorgeous, and it worked for where my head was at a decade and a half ago. One of my very best reading friends hated it, though, so your mileage may definitely vary.

128RidgewayGirl
Modifié : Nov 27, 2022, 5:40 pm

>126 LolaWalser: I'll give an author of sufficient literary prominence a few tries before deciding that the misogyny is too pervasive to bother with more. If I could give Phillip Roth three solid attempts before giving up, I can do the same for McCarthy. And that also allows me to feel confident in entering into discussions about them. I will add that everyone has their own parameters for evaluating problematic lit and I absolutely intend mine as only suitable for me and not as a suggestion for anyone else.

>127 lisapeet: Would you suggest Suttree over All the Pretty Horses?

129LolaWalser
Nov 27, 2022, 5:46 pm

>128 RidgewayGirl:

Just to be clear, I said nothing whatsoever about not giving McCarthy or anyone else another chance.

130lisapeet
Modifié : Nov 27, 2022, 8:33 pm

>128 RidgewayGirl: All the Pretty Horses is a lot more accessible than Suttree, so you could give that a try first. I haven't read the rest of that trilogy The Crossing and Cities of the Plain, but I'd like to.

Suttree is kind of a challenging read for a lot of reasons—and when I dipped into the comments here I found quite a few noting his misogyny (I know, fancy that). I don't know if that would bother me more now, on a reread... I should dip into it sometime and see what I think.

131ursula
Nov 28, 2022, 1:20 am

>125 RidgewayGirl: I think I enjoy a lot of books that linger on the grotesque, as you put it. But yes, my problems with McCarthy are with the type of grotesque and the way he lingers on it. As a girl, I grew up reading a lot of books that weren't from my point of view, obviously, and it wasn't always/often a problem for me. McCarthy feels exclusionary - not intentionally, I don't think, because I don't get the impression he's ever thought about women as humans long enough to exclude them with consideration.

(Also, from your comments on Roth below - he's another one I just cannot with.)

132RidgewayGirl
Nov 28, 2022, 11:01 am

>129 LolaWalser: No, of course not. We are all just stating our personal reading opinions. :)

>130 lisapeet: It will be awhile, but I'll keep All the Pretty Horses at the top of the theoretical pile, then.

>131 ursula: ...I don't get the impression he's ever thought about women as humans long enough to exclude them with consideration. Very well put, that's it exactly.

133RidgewayGirl
Déc 1, 2022, 9:25 pm



Rust & Stardust by T. Greenwood is a fictionalized (and largely imagined) account of the 1948 kidnapping of Sally Horner, reporting on which is thought to be part of what inspired Vladimir Nabokov to write his most famous novel. Greenwood takes the known facts of Horner's story to imagine what her months being held captive were like and to tell the story from the points of view of Sally and the members of her family, as well as a few others who knew Sally during her time with Frank LaSalle.

This was a sensational case, but Greenwood takes care to focus on the emotional impact for all those affected and to explain why Sally believes LaSalle's lies. This is pretty straight-forward historical fiction and Greenwood isn't trying to do anything ground-breaking except to tell a story well and in this she largely succeeds, with a story that certainly held my interest throughout.

134RidgewayGirl
Déc 4, 2022, 5:22 pm



No one creates a sense of creepy dread like Joyce Carol Oates. In Babysitter, she leans on her strengths to tell the story of Hannah, the well-groomed wife of a wealthy businessman and mother of two small children in an upscale community north of Detroit during the 1980s. Hannah may be active in the kinds of volunteer opportunities available to well-off women and have a live-in nanny/housekeeper that allows ample free time and she may have a group of friends she meets for lunch, but she's still deeply insecure and lonely. Her marriage to a distracted and reactionary man who is likely sleeping with other women doesn't give her much in the way of support so when a powerful man indicates his interest in her, she finds herself trotting off to meet him in a Detroit hotel.

Which is where this story starts and quickly becomes, well, creepy in the most JCO way. Hannah lacks agency and when she does try to stand up against the men who order her around, she is quickly overwhelmed. There's a serial killer operating in the area as well, one who preys on children; although Hannah would rather not spend time thinking about that, the people around her, especially her husband, are fascinated. Hannah's behavior is frustrating throughout, with her inability to withstand even the slightest pressure. This is a book in which bad things happen, and then continue to happen, where the weak suffer and the powerful prey on those around them.

Joyce Carol Oates may not be breaking new ground with this novel published in her 84th year, but she's still writing novels that are worth reading and she's certainly playing to her strengths with this one.

135RidgewayGirl
Déc 5, 2022, 4:21 pm



Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands is Kate Beaton's graphic memoir of the time she spend after college working in northern Alberta, near Fort McMurray. After graduating, Beaton owes quite a bit on student loans and can't find a job in her native Cape Breton, an island off the east coast of Canada that is part of Nova Scotia. Following so many before her, she takes a job working in the oil industry, in an isolated place where the men often outnumber the women by fifty to one. It's not a good place for anyone, but it provides a way for people, often men without high school diplomas, a way to earn a good wage. While the job helps Beaton pay off her loans, the job and the environment grind her down.



This memoir, dealing with serious and sensitive issues is quite a departure from the author of the popular Hark! A Vagrant webcomics. But Beaton is a skilled storyteller and her account of those two years in Alberta is well-told and it will break your heart.

136wandering_star
Déc 6, 2022, 3:00 am

I am very jealous that Kate Beaton drew a duck in your book (I presume this latest one?) - but I am not sure that I am ready for the heartbreak - this sounds quite a tough read.

137torontoc
Déc 6, 2022, 9:44 am

I heard Kate Beaton interviewed on CBC Radio yesterday. It was a very grim take on the lives of those who worked in the oil sands.

138RidgewayGirl
Déc 6, 2022, 1:42 pm

>136 wandering_star: It is tough in places, but very, very good. And I was thrilled to meet her.

>137 torontoc: Yeah, not a cheerful topic by any means. But important to learn about. A lot of people, mostly men, work in industries and places that have a similar dynamic -- working in places isolated from families and community out of necessity.

139dchaikin
Déc 7, 2022, 8:54 am

Just catching the McCarthy conversation. I loved reading him, but he’s very male, and has been throughout his writing career. The only time the misogyny got to me was in Suttree, which is presented as a fictionalized memoir and unlike anything else he has written. Usually women are simply missing or under-explored (or, if you like, discounted or dispatched). My least favorite of his books focuses in a guy with a female corpse - if that says something. (But a lot of people like Child of God.)

I’m very interested in the new novels. What i’ve read seems to emphasize he got carried away with this philosophy and math. His previous books don’t do that. He can be fantastically plot driven, but when he isn’t, he has tended to make up for it in other readable ways. All the Pretty Horses is good stuff. Kay, personally, I wouldn’t recommend Suttree to you unless you have already read something else you like by him. Suttree is terrific, but needs a 1970’s-male-centric perspective pass.

>135 RidgewayGirl: I’m really interested. Great review

140RidgewayGirl
Déc 7, 2022, 8:56 pm

>135 RidgewayGirl: Thanks for the advice on McCarthy. All the Pretty Horses is the one I'll read when I'm ready. And I think you'd find Ducks interesting.

141RidgewayGirl
Déc 14, 2022, 12:22 pm



I've long enjoyed the "Amsterdam Cops" series of police procedurals by Dutch author Janwillem de Wetering. They lean more on the personalities of the investigating officers than on the mysteries themselves and are gentle in tone, and yet I love spending time with Grijpstra and de Gier and their associates. The series is set during the sixties and seventies and feature Amsterdam as a quiet backwater with an occasional tourist. I was in the mood for short stories and so picked up The Sergeant's Cat and Other Stories, which is a collection that spans the life of the series.

While the novels in the series allow the characters depth and nuance, short stories don't give the author enough time to develop the various miscreants, victims and dupes into full characters and given that the books were written a half century ago, many of the stories have aged badly. Some stories were fun -- the titular story involving a death threat to de Gier's cat was delightful, but too many involved foreigners behaving like cartoon stereo-types and the mysteries were too thin a scaffolding to make this book worth reading. Go read one of the novels in this series, and give the short stories a miss.

RebeccaNYC was also a big fan of this series, which is a far better reason to read one.

142LolaWalser
Déc 14, 2022, 1:19 pm

I started reading them in the mid-nineties and considered myself a fan (I suppose I still am, somewhat--I liked the old commissaris the best), then in 2017 I finally read Streetbird, which, as I recall them, is their nadir of racism and misogyny. I was even inspired to write a scathing review--and LT deleted it. (It was visible to me going from the link on my profile but it wasn't registering on the work page, and when I went to look for it now, it's gone even from my page. It contained a number of cusswords but anyone who reads the book and in particular the scene on the bridge I wrote about, should understand. (LT supposedly doesn't censor language, officially I was told they didn't know what could be the problem.)

Wetering (whose alter ego in the series is the swinging bachelor de Gier) was very much in love with the type of "Marlboro Man" mystique and his sexism in particular comes through even in his accounts of looking for enlightenment in Buddhist retreats in Japan. Certainly a man of the sixties/seventies!

143RidgewayGirl
Déc 14, 2022, 5:02 pm

>142 LolaWalser: I think the expression "a product of their time" certainly applies to this series. The author is very much enamored of de Gier's whole deal. It's kind of funny how everyone in the books comments on how handsome and stylish he is.

144RidgewayGirl
Déc 16, 2022, 9:57 pm



George Saunders has reached the point where he can no longer be considered a cult favorite, having reached a point where he is one of the best known living short story writers. It's a reputation that is well deserved, his short stories are both very good and unlike anything else. This newest collection of stories, Liberation Day: Stories, is what readers have come to expect from Saunders; there are odd scenarios involving bizarre theme parks and people who have limited agency over their own lives. The author writes about people who manage to make decisions and take action in environments where they should not be able to do so, even when the characters are very much ordinary guys just trying to get by. This is a solid collection that will make any George Saunders fan very happy and would also be a good introduction for anyone who has yet to read his work.

145RidgewayGirl
Déc 18, 2022, 12:56 pm



Set in the time between the world wars, Shrines of Gaiety centers on the underground dance halls of London, with a large number of characters running the halls, preying on their denizens or trying to shut them down. Kate Atkinson excels at these labyrinthine tales with frequent shifts in the point of view and it's clear she's having fun here. This was a good one to herald in the holiday season with. Now to wait for her next book.

146japaul22
Déc 18, 2022, 2:22 pm

>145 RidgewayGirl: I've seen pretty mixed reviews about this from Atkinson fans. Sounds like you liked it though. How does it stack up against her other books?

147RidgewayGirl
Déc 18, 2022, 3:22 pm

>146 japaul22: It's really similar in structure, with a bunch of different threads eventually turning into a coherent story. It did take awhile to get going, but it was a lot of fun. It's not serious literature and the brooding detective is not Jackson Brodie, but I liked the setting a lot.

148wandering_star
Déc 19, 2022, 2:17 am

>144 RidgewayGirl: Ooh, I didn't know George Saunders had a new book out!

149RidgewayGirl
Déc 20, 2022, 1:44 pm

>148 wandering_star: He does! And A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is finally out in paperback. If I don't get a copy for Christmas, I'll buy it in January. I get the feeling it's a book I'll want to mark up.

150RidgewayGirl
Modifié : Déc 20, 2022, 6:41 pm



There are the books that remain relevant and speak to readers decades, or even centuries after they were first published. There are books that sink quietly into obscurity a few years after they first appeared, and then there is Light Years by James Salter. First published in 1975, it was recently reissued and I ran into in an article, which described it as an example of very fine writing and a beautiful portrayal of a dying marriage. Reader, it is neither of those things. The writing is less fine than flowery, which is nice in small doses and less so when it serves to grind the story to halt. And the story begins after the relationship between Viri and Nedra had become one of co-parents and co-hosts only. The book instead details their lives from when their children are small and they are going through the motions, united only in their love of their children, in entertaining and in love for the very nice farmhouse they own near enough to Manhattan as make frequent short trips into town easy. I'm a little envious of the lifestyle they enjoyed on the salary of a single unsuccessful architect, with long trips to Europe and expensive wines routine, but the book is set sometime in the early sixties, when I guess no one worried about money. That it stays in that same time frame despite spanning decades in the lives of Viri and Nedra is something to just not worry about.

He was a Jew, the most elegant Jew, the most romantic, a hint of weariness in his features, the intelligent features everyone envied, his hair dry, his clothes oddly threadbare--that is to say, not overly cared for, a button missing, the edge of a cuff stained, his breath faintly bad like the breath of an uncle who is no longer well. He was small. He had soft hands, and no sense of money, almost none at all. He was an albino in that, a freak. A Jew without money is like a dog without teeth.

I'm fully in favor of judging a work by the standards of its time, and will give a lot of leeway to the novels of bygone times, but yikes. There's a lot to critique about modern society but the way non-white people and women were talked about in this book was jarring. There's a repeated theme that the best thing for girls (and the girls in question are still in high school) is to be "educated" by an older man, a belief spouted even by the mother of these children. There's also a sexual fascination for a girl beginning puberty and a related distaste for aging women. Because this is a book formed mainly of conversations at dinner parties and of various characters talking about their ideas, certain beliefs that tend not to be spoken of in public today are discussed in detail and brought up more than once.

"You've been married." He handed her a glass. "I can see it. Women become dry if they live alone. I don't think it needs explaining. It's demonstrable. Even if it's not a good marriage, it keeps them from dehydrating."

There's good things in this book. There are nice descriptions of what a good dinner party looked like for bohemian intellectuals, and descriptions of a very nice farmhouse. The bit set in Rome was interesting, although the plot-line of the old guy getting worshipped by a much younger and beautiful Italian woman was perhaps unlikely. Of course, the man described as having "the face of ancient politicians, of pensioners, the wrinkles looked black as ink" is forty-seven.

Anyway, Light Years is considered a "modern classic" and greater minds than my own think it's important as more than as an odd artifact of history.

151SassyLassy
Déc 20, 2022, 2:29 pm

>150 RidgewayGirl: All very odd, but great review.

152LolaWalser
Déc 20, 2022, 2:39 pm

Ahahahahaha! Thank goodness for the gallons of tea I imbibe, I guess, or I'd be drifting wispily around like an autumn leaf.

Someone recently lent me "Hill Street Blues" (I mentioned that and the Midsomer Murders were the only things when my dad and I sort of hung out together) and oh my were they different to my residual nostalgia... In the very first or second episode there's this white-haired sergeant (fifties?) whose marriage of 23 years ended but he recovered nicely--with a girl in high school. And everyone's like oh, congrats! She's the captain of the cheerleading squad and she manages to keep a straight B average. I kept waiting for the punchline, like is she a figment of his imagination, but no, they were bringing her up in subsequent eps. Eh, I lost interest somehow.

153cindydavid4
Déc 20, 2022, 4:57 pm

>150 RidgewayGirl: yikes!!!! modern classic? dont think so. Never read Salter, willl not now, certainly

154cindydavid4
Déc 20, 2022, 5:01 pm

>152 LolaWalser: Wha? that was one of my fav shows, but I don't think I saw the first few episodes. Remember the sargent and lots of other rather interesting and diverse characters and stories. Gosh that was decades ago... Do remember each episode had the chief in bed with his staff psychologst, talking about the days events. Felt very strange, but there were some really good moments there

155wandering_star
Déc 20, 2022, 5:03 pm

The first James Salter I read was The Hunters which is great, and I keep forgetting how much I don’t like his other stuff and starting books by him again.

156arubabookwoman
Déc 20, 2022, 5:50 pm

>150 RidgewayGirl: That's a great review--of a book I couldn't even finish (and up until this year I usually finished all books I started. Your review captured it perfectly!

157RidgewayGirl
Modifié : Déc 20, 2022, 9:23 pm

>151 SassyLassy: I don't think any of it would have been thought odd at the time it was written. Although calling a character "most elegant" and then describing a shabbily dressed guy with bad breath seems like standards were different back then.

>152 LolaWalser: It doesn't surprise me that Hill Street Blues didn't age well. And now I'm wondering how much more moisturizer, lotions and serums I'd have to coat myself in were I unmarried. The sexual attitudes in this book were certainly interesting. At one point, Nedra is described as having passed the time of being attractive and had settled into her declining years, then a few years later she dies in her forties and I guess it's astonishing that she managed to live to such an old age, being a woman and all.

>153 cindydavid4: I think that publishing is much improved by also including books not written by white dudes.

>155 wandering_star: If you accidentally read Light Years, I'd be very interested in finding out what you make of it.

>156 arubabookwoman: Oh, I'm glad you disliked it, too. All the reviews are so positive. The description of the Jewish character came very early in the book (and it's clear that the author is a little contemptuous of him later on) and it colored how I read it. The dubious passages just leapt out at me.

158LolaWalser
Déc 21, 2022, 9:37 pm

>154 cindydavid4:

I kid you not. We too missed the first seasons, in 1981 we were still in Syria.

Do remember each episode had the chief in bed with his staff psychologst

In the few eps I saw he was with the public defendant. Not sure about the ethics of that either...

>157 RidgewayGirl:

The worst of it is, even if women all died at forty, that still isn't any guarantee that the young ones would be flinging themselves at the old rotters. If anything, the idea we have so little time to live might make enjoying ourselves all the more important!

159LolaWalser
Modifié : Déc 21, 2022, 9:37 pm

eek, sorry, the dreaded double!

160cindydavid4
Déc 21, 2022, 10:13 pm

>158 LolaWalser: oh right it was the pub,ic defender, a situation that today would
probably cause a resignation or two. and i do believe you, mustve missed it

>157 RidgewayGirl: was this written before or after the movie Logans Run?

161RidgewayGirl
Déc 22, 2022, 5:19 pm

>158 LolaWalser: Are you saying that you wouldn't have been grateful to hear all the thoughts and opinions held by a mediocre white guy?

>160 cindydavid4: I never saw Logan's Run. I have no idea. Is it about bohemian New Yorkers throwing dinner parties and having tiresome conversations? For some reason, I always mix that film up with Smokey and the Bandit -- if that was the movie about the truck driver and his chimpanzee.

162RidgewayGirl
Déc 22, 2022, 5:19 pm



Reed returns to his parents' house in LA after a year at Columbia ready to tell them he's dropping out to devote himself to activism. But even with politically active parents, it's not so easy to get their approval and his modern, twitter-friendly activism isn't entirely compatible with his parents', and especially his mother's, way of working for change.

Set in Los Angeles' Korean community, Which Side Are You On by Ryan Lee Wong is an exploration of left-wing political activism, both current and in the past, specifically in aftermath of the unrest in the early nineties. This is a debut novel and it often leans too heavily into a caricature of twitter activism, with Reed often unable to think or speak outside of a narrow idea of what is right, but even as he behaves like a stereo-type, he's still somehow likable. And his parents are remarkable, especially his mother, who worked to improve relations between the Korean and Black communities during a time of high tension.

In addition to the discussions about how to work towards change, this novel is a picture of an Asian American family and of the Korean community in Los Angeles. It also provides another viewpoint on the LA riots of 1992 and the murder of Latasha Harlins. While it often felt ham-handed, it was well-written, and the setting and subject matter were fascinating enough to offset that flaw.

163cindydavid4
Déc 22, 2022, 5:26 pm

>161 RidgewayGirl: hhahahaha! no no, its about a society in the future where everyone lives in a paradise but must die when they are 30; they have a buzzer in their palm that tells them. One young lady tries to escape,when out hero in the film catchers her but decides to keep her alive. I remember it being great fun as well as food for thought.

164Nickelini
Déc 22, 2022, 5:56 pm

>161 RidgewayGirl:


I never saw Logan's Run either, but I do remember all the hub-bub about it because Farrah Fawcett was such a big star at the time

165KeithChaffee
Déc 22, 2022, 8:01 pm

>161 RidgewayGirl: I don't think there's a chimp in Smokey and the Bandit; that's the one with Burt Reynolds and Jerry Reed as truckers trying to outwit Jackie Gleason's sheriff. The trucker/chimp movie is probably Clint Eastwood's Every Which Way But Loose.

166avaland
Déc 23, 2022, 5:22 am

>134 RidgewayGirl: That's a great review. I've decided not to pick that one up (maybe I've had one too many serial killers :-)

167BLBera
Déc 23, 2022, 7:15 am

As always, great comments, Kay. I look forward to the Atkinson. I hope to get more great book recommendations from you in 2023. Happy holidays.

168RidgewayGirl
Déc 23, 2022, 3:35 pm

>165 KeithChaffee: Even with the excuse that I was a young child in the seventies, my recollection of the movies I didn't see is still very bad!

>166 avaland: Ha! Removing books with serial killers does remove a fair number of books from consideration.

>167 BLBera: Likewise, Beth. I look forward to following your reading again next year.

169dchaikin
Déc 23, 2022, 3:47 pm

>160 cindydavid4: >161 RidgewayGirl: >164 Nickelini: I read Logan’s Run in high school, one of the books my Sophomore language arts teacher allowed us to read for extra credit. It left an impression. But I never see that title being read ever. Interesting about the movie. There’s a memorable racy scene in the book that must have drawn Farrah Fawcett fans. Maybe that was part of the hubbub.

170lisapeet
Déc 25, 2022, 9:37 am

>150 RidgewayGirl: Thank you for taking one for the team, by which I mean me. Salter is an author I've meant to read for a while, and I have at least one writer/reader friend who thinks highly enough of A Sport and a Pastime that I picked myself up a copy. I'll still give it a go someday, but I'll happily skip Light Years.

171RidgewayGirl
Modifié : Déc 25, 2022, 12:12 pm

>170 lisapeet: Someone has told me that The Hunters is worthwhile. I've made note, but it will be some time before I try this author again.

172RidgewayGirl
Déc 25, 2022, 1:18 pm



Dinosaurs by Lydia Millet asks us to consider how we should live in the world, in relation to each other and to the world itself, at this moment when it feels as though humanity is winding down. But this isn't a tiresome or self-righteous sermon, but a genuine question filtered through the life of one man. Gil was born into wealth, but raised in both material and emotional austerity. As an adult, he struggles with how to behave toward others and what his purpose is, given that he will never have to earn a living. At the start of the story, he has sold his Manhattan apartment and walked to Phoenix, Arizona, where he has bought a house. The novel describes the work he has found for himself and the close relationship his forms with the family next door.

This is a quiet novel and a departure from Millet's last few novels, being without the Biblical allusions and drama. It's also beautifully written and a huge enjoyment to read.

173PaulCranswick
Modifié : Déc 26, 2022, 2:09 am



LT makes the world smaller and better. Have a good holiday, Kay.

174RidgewayGirl
Déc 27, 2022, 2:39 pm

So I somehow came home with these books. It was fun to see the local B&N packed to the gills.

175RidgewayGirl
Déc 27, 2022, 2:40 pm

>173 PaulCranswick: Thanks, Paul. It does, indeed.

176japaul22
Déc 27, 2022, 2:57 pm

>174 RidgewayGirl: oooh, good choices! I have read and loved several of those and have most of them on a wish list.

177RidgewayGirl
Déc 27, 2022, 3:07 pm

>176 japaul22: I took my college-age son, the one who used to laugh at the idea of reading for pleasure, and he picked out seven books for himself. I am really happy with the books, all of which were on my wishlist.

178SassyLassy
Déc 27, 2022, 3:21 pm

>174 RidgewayGirl: It's amazing how those books somehow seem to find their way to our homes!

Nice selection

179LolaWalser
Déc 27, 2022, 3:31 pm

>177 RidgewayGirl:

Love hearing that about the son! If you don't mind saying a bit about how the transformation happened...? Any watershed moments?

180RidgewayGirl
Déc 27, 2022, 3:42 pm

>178 SassyLassy: Thanks, SL. It was fun choosing them. Or, more accurately, stacking up books in my arms.

>179 LolaWalser: Studies show that the predictor of whether a child becomes a reader is simply the presence of books in the home. Not even children's books -- just having books around and seeing adults reading them. But I did read to him for years and now that he studying engineering, he's discovered that a book is a good way to take a break from his computer screen.

181LolaWalser
Déc 27, 2022, 4:21 pm

>180 RidgewayGirl:

Sadly, those studies tanked when it came to my niece and nephew! Although, she did text me recently about a book I gave her seven years ago (she's 20), so maybe there's hope yet.

I love the swerve from a screen to a book. Used to be we'd take a break from books by going to the cinema.

182RidgewayGirl
Déc 27, 2022, 5:38 pm

>181 LolaWalser: Give them time! My son's attitude just changed in the past year. And I didn't read much in my early twenties -- I was too busy out having fun.

183cindydavid4
Déc 27, 2022, 6:58 pm

>180 RidgewayGirl: another preditor is adults in the house reading. the get the idea that this is important to you, and want see whats it all about

184dianeham
Déc 28, 2022, 2:34 pm

>174 RidgewayGirl: looking forward to your review of Mouth to Mouth

185RidgewayGirl
Déc 28, 2022, 2:48 pm

>183 cindydavid4: And parents who are comfortable with books are more likely to be comfortable taking their kids to the library or a bookstore.

>184 dianeham: I'll read that soon as it's one of the books competing in the Tournament of Books. https://themorningnews.org/article/the-2023-tournament-of-books-shortlist-and-ju...

186Yells
Déc 28, 2022, 4:43 pm

I read Mouth to Mouth this year (it was nominated for the Giller Prize) and enjoyed it. I wrote: An odd book - the whole thing takes place in the first-class lounge at JFK airport. Two old friends bump into each other and decide to have a few drinks while they wait for their flight. As they begin to catch up, Jeff starts telling a story about how he once saved a drowning man. But the story doesn't end there. The events afterwards take a dark turn and cross over into obsession. Oprah Daily refers to it as a 'slow burn a la Patricia Highsmith' and for once, I agree with her.

187RidgewayGirl
Déc 28, 2022, 4:46 pm

>186 Yells: I'm happy to hear you liked it. I bought it entirely because of its inclusion in the Tournament of Books and had heard nothing about it.

188dianeham
Déc 28, 2022, 7:51 pm

I gave it 4 stars. It is really odd book.

189RidgewayGirl
Déc 30, 2022, 12:35 pm

>188 dianeham: I like an odd book.

190RidgewayGirl
Déc 30, 2022, 12:35 pm



A quiet novella about a woman walking around London while remembering her parents, especially her mother, is not what one usually expects from Elizabeth McCracken whose books and short stories are all so delightfully weird and off-kilter. But, of course, the upbringing the narrator describes is both normal and very odd.

The Hero of this Book does an excellent job of describing what it means to live with a disability and what it's like to live with a disabled parent. As the narrator walks around London, she remembers a previous trip with her mother and every place she goes is assessed for whether her mother would be able to access it. McCracken, as usual, writes very, very well and if you're in the mood for something quieter, you could do far worse than pick up this slender gem.

191cindydavid4
Déc 30, 2022, 12:47 pm

>190 RidgewayGirl: Ive loved her since the giants house will definitely go for this one

192RidgewayGirl
Déc 30, 2022, 5:24 pm

>191 cindydavid4: I love her writing, too.

193RidgewayGirl
Déc 30, 2022, 5:24 pm



If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery is the story of a Jamaican American family, primarily told through the experiences of Trelawney, the youngest son. Spanning decades, beginning with Hurricane Andrew, blasting through their family home and through the family's stability, through Trelawney's struggles to make his way in a world not eager to allow a Black man to succeed.

This is a novel about toxic family dynamics and a lonely boy who couldn't figure out where he belongs. I'm not sure this novel entirely succeeds; the effort being put into its writing sometimes shows, but Escoffery has a unique voice and a real talent and his writing career will be one to watch.

194RidgewayGirl
Déc 30, 2022, 6:43 pm



The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias is a noir set among hit men, drug dealers and Mexican cartels, with a very large helping of horror woven in. It's not a cheerful book, but it is a gripping and heartfelt one.

When Mario loses his family, he augments his income with a side gig as a killer for hire. When he's offered a job that pays enough for him to maybe get his wife back and start over somewhere else, he jumps on the chance. But he and his drug-addicted friend are walking into a situation they know nothing about and the forces at work are more than drug cartels and criminals.

This book is terrifying and emotional and scary as anything.

195stretch
Déc 30, 2022, 7:37 pm

>194 RidgewayGirl: Every review of Gambino Iglesias work sounds terrific I'll have to prioritize him next year.

196RidgewayGirl
Déc 30, 2022, 7:39 pm

>195 stretch: This was my first book by him and it will not be the last. I think you'll like him.

197RidgewayGirl
Déc 31, 2022, 3:00 pm

I'm not going to finish another book this year, so here's my end of the year assessment. It was a low reading year for me, but a good one.

My favorite books of the year:

Vladimir by Julia May Jonas
Either/Or by Elif Batuman
Tell Me Everything by Erika Krouse
In the Drink by Kate Christensen
Self-Portrait with Boy by Rachel Lyon
Ducks by Kate Beaton

73% of the books were by women authors.

I read 34 books by American authors, eleven by British authors, five by Canadians, three by authors born in China, two books by authors from Ireland and Russia, and a book by authors from Australia, Chile, Cyprus, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Kosovo, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, Oman, South Korea and Spain. I'm happy with that.

Most of the books I read were new, with 48 published in 2022 and eighteen published in 2021. What can I say? I like bright, shiny books. All but six books were published after 2000 and the oldest book I read was published in 1947.

And, with that, I'll say good-bye to all of you until next year. Come see what I'm up to over here:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/346871#