Only 70 more pages to go in Alice Zeniter’s L’Art de Perdre which I borrowed from the library. A wonderful novel following three generations of a family from pre-Independence Algeria to present-day France. I’ll share more later. . . . just thought it would be good occasionally for this blog to feature what I’m reading along with the What I’ve Read. . . .
Speaking of which, I’m getting encouragingly closer to being caught up. Still no time to transcribe here or to augment my scratchings in my little paper journal, but if you’re interested enough to need help deciphering a word or phrase, I’m happy to help.
Continuing from where I left off last post, here’s Entry #50, for Tommy Orange’s There There. Highly recommended.
#51 is Slavenka Drakulić’s Cafe Europa: Life After Communism which broadened and added depth to my developing understand of Croatia.
#52-55, a run of mystery novels: Kate Atkinson’s Red Sky, Denise Mina’s The Red Road and her Blood, Salt, Water punctuated by Sue Gee’s Reading in Bed which (another) Sue recommended.
#56 Etaf Rum’s A Woman Is No Man, recommended by my daughter (that, I must tell you, is a particular pleasure — to have raised readers who return the favour by bringing good books to the table (or, rather, to the TBR list)
#57 Culling my bookshelves in September reminded me I hadn’t yet read Cherie Dimaline’s Red Rooms. I’ve been hearing good things about her later writing, and I have to say this earlier title is well worth reading.
#58 Elizabeth Gilbert’s City of Girls I a book you might like to give a girlfriend for Christmas. Maybe you’ll need to read it yourself first, turning the pages carefully — but if it’s less than pristine when you finally wrap it, just tell her you cared enough to make sure it was good enough for her. 😉
#58 Next post I’ll share the journal page I sketched in response to Carlo Levi’s Words are Stones (translated by Anthony Shugaar with an introduction by Anita Desai.
And then Viglis Hjorth’s A House in Norway, trans. Charlotte Barslund
and #61 Nell Painter’s Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over. Definitely recommending this one, especially to encourage those of us trying new things as old dogs. . .
Only three titles now, and I’ll be all caught up. Caught up with telling you What I’ve Read, that is. We will never be caught up with the reading, will we?!
And that’s a very good thing.
Okay, comments open now — I’m passing you the mic and going back to those last 70 pages. The present-day protagonist has just landed in Algeria, the first member of her family (disparaged in both Algeria and France as harkis, a term and a disparagement that Zeniter unpacks trenchantly — and humanely) to do so since they fled the country sixty years earlier. . . I need to know how the novel ends (as well as find out how the Elizabeth Bishop poem “The Art of Losing” featured in the title will show up, how it will signify).
So we’ll chat later. I’m looking forward to it.
I had had the great privilege, as a voting member of the NBCC and Leonard Prize reader, to vote for There,There…which won last year's Leonard Prize for best first book. It's extraordinary in structure and successful in all the other areas one hopes a book to shine. Anything else I would say would seem like fan-girling, so the only other thing I will say is I cannot wait to see what he writes next. #NYREADER
#NYReader, that was indeed a great privilege! And fan-girling would be completely acceptable here 😉 I agree: "extraordinary in structure" and satisfying in every way.
Hmm. Mostly new to me, although Old in Art School and City of Girls are both on my list, although I keep dithering over City of Girls. Perhaps you have pushed me a tad further forward on that one, and added more to the list At the moment I seem to be in a cycle of circling back. I read something, cycle back to a book I’ve read recently, move forward, like I am at an evolving dinner party that ebbs and flows. I haven’t decided if this slows my progress, not that speed matters, or enhances the entire experience. Makes it difficult to write abut the books though. My book notes keep circling back and changing as well
Mardel: City of Girls was another delightful surprise from Elizabeth Gilbert. More than a beach book, although it could be that or a depths-of-winter treat. Funny you're circling back — just met someone who wants to talk about Anna Burns' Milkman which I read at the beginning of the year, and I've bought myself a copy (last time read from a library edition) and am skimming it this morning so I can refresh my memory about it before a lunch date/ book talk. Ah, we book folk! 😉
Kate Atkinson is one author whose books I almost always purchase for that very reason, to be able to reread. Now when I reread Big Sky I'll pay more attention to the narrator and point of view!
This week's foray to the library yielded a Fred Vargas book that isn't part of the Adamsberg series – The Accordionist. I'm looking forward to reading it and of course now I can't get the words of the Edith Piaf song out of my head (what I remember of it at any rate!)
Frances in Sidney