Bookwormish, 1st quarter of 2018
Apr. 1st, 2018 08:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starfishstarI'm posting this from a train, on increasingly rattling, wobbly tracks as we make our way further up into the sparsely populated far north of Scotland, so let's see how this goes...
Here are some books I recommend, from my reading in the first quarter of this year!
VERY TOP BOOKS:
The Folk Keeper by Franny Billingsley – This slim little book bowled me over with its creativity and intricately crafted plot built around its own folklore. One I’d like to own and reread, because every tiny thing turns out to have a importance later. It’s a great coming of age story, too, all about sense of self and mental resilience and what to do when the survival skills that have kept you alive are now holding you back and it’s time to outgrow them. Wow, yeah, actually I want to reread this already.
Bone Gap by Laura Ruby – Ooh, this was great. A rich story about love of all kinds (romantic, familial, friendship) that blends real-world small-town concerns with a bit of magic/fantasy, around compellingly flawed and lovely characters.
A Hundred Thousand Worlds by Bob Proehl – I was not expecting to get this caught up in a book about an ex-sci-fi-TV-star (think the X-Files) touring the fan convention circuit with her 9-year-old son in tow. But this is one of those books I wanted not to end, so I could keep living in these characters’ world. This book was so full of heart.
In the Woods by Tana French – Wow, yeah, I’d heard Tana French was good. She’s indeed very good. It had been a while since a book kept me up all night reading. It’s a murder mystery, but like the best murder mysteries, it’s at least as much about the characters solving the murder. It’s an old-sounding premise – detective takes a case that turns out to have uncanny resonances with his own traumatic past – but I found she did something surprising and new with it.
Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor – I’d been hearing this recommended for ages, and I don’t know why I waited so long! The magical, gorgeous story of a daydream-y librarian who gets to visit the mysterious city he’s always longed to see. The ending was a bit off-kilter, especially compared to how carefully crafted the rest of it was, but I still liked the book a lot.
What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi – Helen Oyeyemi continues to be strange and brilliant. One review I read described her ideas as “protean”; another called hers a “restless imagination harnessed to a smooth and propulsive prose style.” Strange threads of magic weave through narratives both folkloric and contemporary; I am always up for finding out what fascinating thing Oyeyemi crafts next.
MORE TOP BOOKS:
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro – Like the other Ishiguro book I’ve read (Never Let Me Go), the pacing here is contemplative, deliberate, carefully unfolded, in this story of a butler so committed to the perfection of his craft that he’s spent his life deluding himself about even his own emotions.
More Than This by Patrick Ness – Another recommended book I should have gotten to sooner! The plot summary vaguely put me off (basically: a boy drowns, then inexplicably wakes up despite unequivocal memories of having died) but the book is so much more than that. It asks what’s real and what matters, and refuses to give simple answers, while also being a blend of sci-fi adventure and post-apocalyptic survival story.
Tenth of December by George Saunders – Everybody swoons over George Saunders; when I read Lincoln in the Bardo, I certainly thought it was good, but I didn’t swoon. This collection of short stories, though, these are excellent: thoughtful, dark yet comic, and surprisingly tender.
Blasphemy by Sherman Alexie – Sherman Alexie, as always, is a master of breaking your heart even as he’s making you laugh. Or maybe it’s the reverse? This is a massive compendium of Alexie’s stories of all lengths and kinds.
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi – Gyasi’s much-lauded novel of slavery and its effects on both sides of the Atlantic. I think what I appreciated most was how much I learned about Ghana, the Akan people and West Africa as a whole, which is shown in all its multicultural complexity, not the vaguely monolithic place North Americans tend to imagine, if we think about West Africa at all.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth – For a story about a girl surviving major bereavement, small-town homophobia, and an ultra-Christian “de-gaying camp”, this is a surprisingly tender, hopeful and often funny coming-of-age story. (And it’s going to be a movie later this year! OMG!)
Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman – About a boy suffering a schizophrenic breakdown, interspersing his real-world experiences at the hospital with the fantastical world he believes he’s in when his delusions take over. This is based on the real experiences of the author’s adult son, and it’s lovely. (I know that sounds like a strange thing to say of a book about a stay in a mental hospital, but I promise it’s true! This is what everybody’s mental health story should look like, where the main character and his parents and his doctors all realize there’s something going wrong, and work to get him the help he needs.)
EVEN MORE GOOD BOOKS:
Swing Time by Zadie Smith – Again with Zadie Smith’s fiction, I didn’t find myself particularly connecting with the characters, but I’m certainly impressed by Smith’s examinations of race and class. (Maybe this is why I actually prefer her nonfiction – zeroes straight in on her brilliant ideas!)
Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon – I read this because people told me it was THE novel of northeast Scotland (where I’m currently living), and I indeed gained insight into Aberdeenshire’s history and culture and language. It actually reminded me in some senses of Independent People (which I read because people told me it was THE novel I had to read to understand Icelanders), both being stories of people deeply, deeply wedded to their land.
Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore – New book by the author of Graceling and Fire! It’s a fascinating concept, one story that splits into five different alternate universes, each told in the style of a different genre.
Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour by Kate Fox – I’d heard of this anthropological study of English culture before, but it was never so relevant as now, when I’m living in the UK! (And yes, despite the author’s protestations that there’s no such thing as “Britishness” – only Englishness, Scottishness, and so on – I do find a lot in this book applicable to Scotland as well, though of course not everything.) It’s full of fascinating cultural details and analysis into the patterns of what actually makes up the English character, though it’s also depressing to see pointed out over and over to what degree everything in England links in some way to social class and its barriers. I mean, I knew that about England, but still. Yikes.
Dead Letters by Caite Dolan-Leach – A clever book about twins from a dysfunctional, alcoholic, wine-making family. One twin is dead (or is she?) and the other is left to solve her disappearance (or death?), in the form of alphabetical-order clues her sister left behind. The book itself is also something of an alphabetical puzzle.
The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli – Well, this isn’t quite Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda (let’s be honest, NOTHING will ever quite manage to be Simon!) but it’s a sweet story of growing up and first love and figuring out how to live despite an anxiety disorder. (Also, can we just mention that Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda is now a movie??? I don’t usually watch movies of books I love, for fear they’ll mess it up, but I am definitely going to see this one.)
On the Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis – 16-year-old Denise is trying to keep her family together, in the near-future post-apocalyptic Netherlands. Denise also happens to be autistic – it doesn’t mean she’s incapable of being the hero of the story; it also doesn’t mean she has some kind of magical special otherness that solves her problems. It’s just who she is. I have to say I found the story itself only fine, not great, but I really, really appreciated how good it was at the portrayal of its main character.
.
Here are some books I recommend, from my reading in the first quarter of this year!
VERY TOP BOOKS:
The Folk Keeper by Franny Billingsley – This slim little book bowled me over with its creativity and intricately crafted plot built around its own folklore. One I’d like to own and reread, because every tiny thing turns out to have a importance later. It’s a great coming of age story, too, all about sense of self and mental resilience and what to do when the survival skills that have kept you alive are now holding you back and it’s time to outgrow them. Wow, yeah, actually I want to reread this already.
Bone Gap by Laura Ruby – Ooh, this was great. A rich story about love of all kinds (romantic, familial, friendship) that blends real-world small-town concerns with a bit of magic/fantasy, around compellingly flawed and lovely characters.
A Hundred Thousand Worlds by Bob Proehl – I was not expecting to get this caught up in a book about an ex-sci-fi-TV-star (think the X-Files) touring the fan convention circuit with her 9-year-old son in tow. But this is one of those books I wanted not to end, so I could keep living in these characters’ world. This book was so full of heart.
In the Woods by Tana French – Wow, yeah, I’d heard Tana French was good. She’s indeed very good. It had been a while since a book kept me up all night reading. It’s a murder mystery, but like the best murder mysteries, it’s at least as much about the characters solving the murder. It’s an old-sounding premise – detective takes a case that turns out to have uncanny resonances with his own traumatic past – but I found she did something surprising and new with it.
Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor – I’d been hearing this recommended for ages, and I don’t know why I waited so long! The magical, gorgeous story of a daydream-y librarian who gets to visit the mysterious city he’s always longed to see. The ending was a bit off-kilter, especially compared to how carefully crafted the rest of it was, but I still liked the book a lot.
What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi – Helen Oyeyemi continues to be strange and brilliant. One review I read described her ideas as “protean”; another called hers a “restless imagination harnessed to a smooth and propulsive prose style.” Strange threads of magic weave through narratives both folkloric and contemporary; I am always up for finding out what fascinating thing Oyeyemi crafts next.
MORE TOP BOOKS:
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro – Like the other Ishiguro book I’ve read (Never Let Me Go), the pacing here is contemplative, deliberate, carefully unfolded, in this story of a butler so committed to the perfection of his craft that he’s spent his life deluding himself about even his own emotions.
More Than This by Patrick Ness – Another recommended book I should have gotten to sooner! The plot summary vaguely put me off (basically: a boy drowns, then inexplicably wakes up despite unequivocal memories of having died) but the book is so much more than that. It asks what’s real and what matters, and refuses to give simple answers, while also being a blend of sci-fi adventure and post-apocalyptic survival story.
Tenth of December by George Saunders – Everybody swoons over George Saunders; when I read Lincoln in the Bardo, I certainly thought it was good, but I didn’t swoon. This collection of short stories, though, these are excellent: thoughtful, dark yet comic, and surprisingly tender.
Blasphemy by Sherman Alexie – Sherman Alexie, as always, is a master of breaking your heart even as he’s making you laugh. Or maybe it’s the reverse? This is a massive compendium of Alexie’s stories of all lengths and kinds.
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi – Gyasi’s much-lauded novel of slavery and its effects on both sides of the Atlantic. I think what I appreciated most was how much I learned about Ghana, the Akan people and West Africa as a whole, which is shown in all its multicultural complexity, not the vaguely monolithic place North Americans tend to imagine, if we think about West Africa at all.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth – For a story about a girl surviving major bereavement, small-town homophobia, and an ultra-Christian “de-gaying camp”, this is a surprisingly tender, hopeful and often funny coming-of-age story. (And it’s going to be a movie later this year! OMG!)
Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman – About a boy suffering a schizophrenic breakdown, interspersing his real-world experiences at the hospital with the fantastical world he believes he’s in when his delusions take over. This is based on the real experiences of the author’s adult son, and it’s lovely. (I know that sounds like a strange thing to say of a book about a stay in a mental hospital, but I promise it’s true! This is what everybody’s mental health story should look like, where the main character and his parents and his doctors all realize there’s something going wrong, and work to get him the help he needs.)
EVEN MORE GOOD BOOKS:
Swing Time by Zadie Smith – Again with Zadie Smith’s fiction, I didn’t find myself particularly connecting with the characters, but I’m certainly impressed by Smith’s examinations of race and class. (Maybe this is why I actually prefer her nonfiction – zeroes straight in on her brilliant ideas!)
Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon – I read this because people told me it was THE novel of northeast Scotland (where I’m currently living), and I indeed gained insight into Aberdeenshire’s history and culture and language. It actually reminded me in some senses of Independent People (which I read because people told me it was THE novel I had to read to understand Icelanders), both being stories of people deeply, deeply wedded to their land.
Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore – New book by the author of Graceling and Fire! It’s a fascinating concept, one story that splits into five different alternate universes, each told in the style of a different genre.
Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour by Kate Fox – I’d heard of this anthropological study of English culture before, but it was never so relevant as now, when I’m living in the UK! (And yes, despite the author’s protestations that there’s no such thing as “Britishness” – only Englishness, Scottishness, and so on – I do find a lot in this book applicable to Scotland as well, though of course not everything.) It’s full of fascinating cultural details and analysis into the patterns of what actually makes up the English character, though it’s also depressing to see pointed out over and over to what degree everything in England links in some way to social class and its barriers. I mean, I knew that about England, but still. Yikes.
Dead Letters by Caite Dolan-Leach – A clever book about twins from a dysfunctional, alcoholic, wine-making family. One twin is dead (or is she?) and the other is left to solve her disappearance (or death?), in the form of alphabetical-order clues her sister left behind. The book itself is also something of an alphabetical puzzle.
The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli – Well, this isn’t quite Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda (let’s be honest, NOTHING will ever quite manage to be Simon!) but it’s a sweet story of growing up and first love and figuring out how to live despite an anxiety disorder. (Also, can we just mention that Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda is now a movie??? I don’t usually watch movies of books I love, for fear they’ll mess it up, but I am definitely going to see this one.)
On the Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis – 16-year-old Denise is trying to keep her family together, in the near-future post-apocalyptic Netherlands. Denise also happens to be autistic – it doesn’t mean she’s incapable of being the hero of the story; it also doesn’t mean she has some kind of magical special otherness that solves her problems. It’s just who she is. I have to say I found the story itself only fine, not great, but I really, really appreciated how good it was at the portrayal of its main character.
.
