Thoughts on Three (More) Book of the Month Selections

October 23, 2019 by Christina

When I cancelled my Book of the Month subscription last month, the customer service representative asked why I was ending my membership after only one year. I hemmed and hawed, not quite sure how to explain that the monthly arrival of a new book was adding to my mountainous to-read pile rather than to my reading enjoyment. Despite making a point to try and read books as soon as they came into my apartment, I still had three unread books […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Caribbean, Chunkster, Crime, Danish, Europe, Fiction, New York, North America, ReadDiverse, Scandinavia, Translated, United States

The Sellout by Paul Beatty

October 18, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015. 305 pgs. Purchased. Beatty’s novel opens with the unnamed narrator – we later learn he is known as Bonbon – arriving at the United States Supreme Court for his case, Me vs United States. The case alleges that the narrator has violated a number of tenants of the United States Constitution, including the Thirteenth Amendment banning the practice of slavery within the country. Through his ambulance-chasing lawyer, the narrator-turned-defendant plans to […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Awards and Prizes, Fiction, North America, Pacific Northwest, United States • Tags: Paul Beatty

The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose

October 11, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Algonquin Books, 2018. Originally published 2016. 256 pgs. Purchased. What is art? How does it encourage people to form connections with others, to express their love towards those in their lives? These are the questions posed by Heather Rose in her fictional exploration of the very real Marina Abramović performance of The Artist is Present at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. Over 75 days, Abramović sat largely immobile in the MoMA atrium […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Art, Awards and Prizes, Fiction, New York, North America, Stella Prize, United States • Tags: Heather Rose

Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center

October 7, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – print. St. Martin’s Press, 2019. 320 pgs. Purchased. As a firefighter in Austin, Texas, Cassie Hanwell is accustomed to running into emergencies when others are running away. As one of the few female firefighters, Cassie is accustomed to people questioning her fitness for service during those tense moments. But there are two situations Cassie has always run away from: her estranged mother’s desire to spend time with her after leaving Cassie and her father for another man on […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Feminism, Fiction, New England, North America, United States • Tags: Katherine Center

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

October 4, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by Barrett Whitener. Blackstone Audio, 1997. Originally published 1980. 13 hours, 32 minutes. Library copy.  My public library’s catalog record for this novel describes Ignatius J. Reilly, the main character of Toole’s Pulitzer-winning novel, as “an obese, self-absorbed, hapless Don Quixote of the French Quarter, whose half-hearted attempts at employment lead to a series of wacky adventures among the denizens of New Orleans’ lower depths”. I first encountered Toole’s novel when Boston’s Huntington Theatre Company presented […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Audiobook, Awards and Prizes, Fiction, North America, United States • Tags: Barrett Whitener, John Kennedy Toole

The Alienist by Caleb Carr

September 25, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by George Guidall. Simon & Schuster, 2012. 20 hours, 3 minutes. Purchased.  On a cold March night in 1896, New York Times crime reporter John Schulyer Moore is summed to the East River of New York City by his friend, Dr. Laszlo Kreizler. As a psychologist – or, “alienist”, as the profession was then known – Kriezler has been brought in by the newly appointed police commissioner, Theodore Roosevelt, in examine the mutilated body and help […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Audiobook, Book Club, Chunkster, Crime, Fiction, New York, North America, United States • Tags: Caleb Carr, George Guidall

Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith

September 23, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. W.W. Norton, 2012. Originally published 1950. 292 pgs. Purchased.  On a cross-country train trip, Guy Haines makes the mistake of telling a stranger his business. Upon hearing how much Guy desires a divorce from his estranged, pregnant wife in small town Texas, Charles Anthony Bruno decides to murder the young woman and free Guy from her derailing his career as a budding architect. The offer originally sounds like a joke to Guy; something Bruno offers as […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Book Club, Classics, Classics Club, Crime, Fiction, New York, North America, United States • Tags: Patricia Highsmith

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane

September 9, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – print. Scribner, 2019. 390 pgs. Purchased.  Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope both work as police officers in the New York City Police Department (NYPD), meeting first as trainees and then working together as partners on their first beat. It is Brian who tips first Francis off to a small, suburban community north of the city, but Francis and his wife, Lena, are the first to move there. After the birth of their second child, the Lena Gleeson is […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Fiction, New York, North America, United States • Tags: Mary Beth Keane

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

September 6, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by Grover Gardner. Blackstone Audio, 2011. Originally published 1906. 13 hours, 17 minutes. Purchased. Immigrating from Lithuanian to Chicago, Jergis Rudkus is eager to live out his own American dream with his wife, Ona, and her stepmother and stepsiblings. Jergis takes a job at Brown’s slaughterhouse in Chicago, expecting to make enough to support his wife and their extended family. But the family, including the children, are all sent out to find work as the family […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, AP Literature, Audiobook, Classics, Classics Club, Fiction, Food, North America, United States • Tags: Upton Sinclair

The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi

September 4, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – print. Knopf, 2015. 371 pgs. Library copy. Set in the not-too-distant-future, Bacugalupi’s novel finds the southwestern United States desolate and abandoned after a series of Category 6 hurricanes – a new categorization on our 1 to 5 scale – flattens coastal Texas and a massive, continuous drought has stopped the Colorado River from flowing downstream at the rate required by the Colorado River Compact of 1922. The details are sketchy as the story largely takes place in the […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Book Club, Dystopia, Fiction, Mountain West, North America, Science Fiction, United States • Tags: Paolo Bacigalupi

Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

August 30, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Random House, 2016. 401 pgs. Purchased. In the fall of 2007, a Cameroonian man named Jende Jonga is living in New York City and attempting to provide a better life for his wife, Neni, and their six-year-old son. Jende, who has a temporary work visa while his asylum case makes its way through the courts, is thrilled when he lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers. Readers, of […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Africa, Fiction, New York, North America, ReadDiverse, United States • Tags: Imbolo Mbue

The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

August 19, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – print. Persephone Books, 2011. Originally published 1924. 288 pgs. Purchased.  Evangeline Knapp threw herself into motherhood, obsessively monitoring the food her three children eat and keeping every spec of dirt out of the family’s home. Her eldest son, Henry, is unable to eat foods cooked by his aunt because they don’t match the delicate balance his mother has made to aid his delicate constitution. Her youngest son, Stephen, screams, hid, and is generally considered an unruly child. When […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, 20BooksofSummer, Feminism, Fiction, North America, Persephone Books, United States • Tags: Dorothy Canfield Fisher