Maxwell's bookshelf: all

Maxwell's bookshelf: all en-US Sun, 27 Apr 2025 15:22:49 -0700 60 Maxwell's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Woman Hollering Creek: And Other Stories]]> 18438536 A collection of stories, whose characters give voice to the vibrant and varied life on both sides of the Mexican border. The women in these stories offer tales of pure discovery, filled with moments of infinite and intimate wisdom.]]> Sandra Cisneros 1299485812 Maxwell 0 to-read 4.14 1991 Woman Hollering Creek: And Other Stories

Woman Hollering Creek: And Other Stories

author: Sandra Cisneros
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Augustus 20697542 Augustus, his third great novel, John Williams took�� on an entirely new challenge, a historical narrative set in classical Rome, exploring the life of the founder of the Roman Empire. To tell the story, Williams turned to the epistolary novel, a genre that was new to him, transforming and transcending it just as he did the western in Butcher’s Crossing and the campus novel in Stoner. Augustus is the final triumph of a writer who has come��to be recognized around the world as an American master.]]> 336 John Williams 1590178211 Maxwell 0 to-read 4.44 1972

author: John Williams
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1972
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Middlemarch 24612058 ��
A triumph of realist fiction, George Eliot’s A Study of Provincial Life explores a fictional nineteenth-century Midlands town in the midst of sweeping change. The proposed Reform Bill, the new railroads, and scientific advances are threatening upheaval on every front. Against this backdrop, the quiet drama of ordinary lives is played out by the novel’s complexly portrayed characters—until the arrival of two outsiders further disrupts the town’s equilibrium. Every bit as powerful and perceptive in our time as it was in the Victorian era, Middlemarch ��displays George Eliot’s clear-eyed yet humane understanding of characters caught up in the mysterious unfolding of self-knowledge.��

In this elegant Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, Rebecca Mead introduces the novel that shaped her life and reflects on its joys and its timeless relevance.

For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500��titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the��series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date��translations by award-winning translators.]]> 786 George Eliot 0143107720 Maxwell 0 to-read 4.33 1872 Middlemarch

author: George Eliot
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1872
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Death of the Author 214283593 The future of storytelling is here.

Life has thrown Zelu some curveballs over the years, but when she's suddenly dropped from her university job and her latest novel is rejected, all in the middle of her sister's wedding, her life is upended. Disabled, unemployed and from a nosy, high-achieving, judgmental family, she's not sure what comes next.

In her hotel room that night, she takes the risk that will define her life - she decides to write a book VERY unlike her others. A science fiction drama about androids and AI after the extinction of humanity. And everything changes.

What follows is a tale of love and loss, fame and infamy, of extraordinary events in one world, and another. And as Zelu's life evolves, the lines between fiction and reality begin to blur.

Because sometimes a story really does have the power to reshape the world.]]> 448 Nnedi Okorafor 0063391147 Maxwell 0 to-read 4.10 2025 Death of the Author

author: Nnedi Okorafor
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Night of the Living Rez 56648158 How do the living come back to life?��

Set in a Native community in Maine, Night of the Living Rez is a riveting debut collection about what it means to be Penobscot in the twenty-first century and what it means to live, to survive, and to persevere after tragedy.

In twelve striking, luminescent stories, author Morgan Talty—with searing humor, abiding compassion, and deep insight—breathes life into tales of family and community bonds as they struggle with a painful past and an uncertain future. A boy unearths a jar that holds an old curse, which sets into motion his family’s unraveling; a man, while trying to swindle some pot from a dealer, discovers a friend passed out in the woods, his hair frozen into the snow; a grandmother suffering from Alzheimer’s projects the past onto her grandson, and thinks he is her dead brother come back to life; and two friends, inspired by Antiques Roadshow, attempt to rob the tribal museum for valuable root clubs.��

In a collection that examines the consequences and merits of inheritance, Night of the Living Rez is an unforgettable portrayal of a Native community and marks the arrival of a standout talent in contemporary fiction.

Burn
In a jar
Get me some medicine
Food for the common cold
In a field of stray caterpillars
The blessing tobacco
Safe harbor
Smokes last
Half-life
Earth, speak
Night of the living rez
The name means thunder]]> 285 Morgan Talty 195353418X Maxwell 0 to-read 3.89 2022

author: Morgan Talty
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dead Man's Walk (Lonesome Dove, #3)]]> 54804 Dead Man's Walk is the first, extraordinary book in the epic Lonesome Dove tetralogy, in which Larry McMurtry breathed new life into the vanished American West and created two of the most memorable heroes in contemporary fiction: Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call.

As young Texas Rangers, Gus and Call have much to learn about survival in a land fraught with perils: not only the blazing heat and raging tornadoes, roiling rivers and merciless Indians but also the deadly whims of soldiers. On their first expeditions--led by incompetent officers and accompanied by the robust, dauntless whore known as the Great Western--they will face death at the hands of the cunning Comanche war chief Buffalo Hump and the silent Apache Gomez. They will be astonished by the Mexican army. And Gus will meet the love of his life.]]> 464 Larry McMurtry 0684857545 Maxwell 0 to-read 4.00 1995 Dead Man's Walk (Lonesome Dove, #3)

author: Larry McMurtry
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)]]> 214331246 When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.

Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.

When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.]]> 387 Suzanne Collins 1546171460 Maxwell 0 to-read 4.62 2025 Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)

Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)

author: Suzanne Collins
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.62
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Emily Wilde, #1)]]> 60657589
Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is good at many things: She is the foremost expert on the study of faeries. She is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world's first encyclopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people. She could never make small talk at a party--or even get invited to one. And she prefers the company of her books, her dog, and the Fair Folk.

So when she arrives in the hardscrabble village of Hrafnsvik, Emily has no intention of befriending the gruff townsfolk. Nor does she care to spend time with another new arrival: her dashing and insufferably handsome academic rival Wendell Bambleby, who manages to charm the townsfolk, get in the middle of Emily's research, and utterly confound and frustrate her.

But as Emily gets closer and closer to uncovering the secrets of the Hidden Ones--the most elusive of all faeries--lurking in the shadowy forest outside the town, she also finds herself on the trail of another mystery: Who is Wendell Bambleby, and what does he really want? To find the answer, she'll have to unlock the greatest mystery of all--her own heart.]]> 336 Heather Fawcett 059350013X Maxwell 0 currently-reading, fantasy 3.99 2023 Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Emily Wilde, #1)

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Emily Wilde, #1)

author: Heather Fawcett
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/25
shelves: currently-reading, fantasy
review:

]]> Goodnight Tokyo 201072367 A symphony of interconnected lives that offers a compelling reflection on life in modern-day metropolises at the intersection of isolation and intimacy.

Set over several nights, between the hours of 1:00 a.m. and 4:30 a.m., in and around Tokyo, this mind-blowingly constructed book is an elaborate, energetic fresco of human nocturnal existence in all its mystery, an enigmatic literary mix of Agatha Christie, Teju Cole, and Heironymous Bosch.

On this journey through the labyrinthine streets and hidden corners of one of the world’s most fascinating cities, everybody is searching for something, and maybe searching in the wrong places. Elements of the fantastical and the surreal abound, as they tend to do in the early pre-dawn hours of the morning, yet the settings, the human stories, and each character’s search are all as real as can be.

Goodnight Tokyo offers readers a unique and intimate take on Tokyo as seen through the eyes of a large cast of colorful characters. Their lives, as disparate and as far apart as they may seem, are in fact intricately interconnected and as their fates converge against the backdrop of the city’s neon-lit streets and quiet alleyways, Yoshida masterfully portrays in captivating, lyrical prose the complexities of human relationships, the mystery of human connection, and the universal quest for meaning.]]> 176 Atsuhiro Yoshida Maxwell 3 translated, short-stories 3.5 stars]

Set in the early morning hours all across Tokyo, this collection of short stories details various intersections of the lives of its characters. The magical and mysterious nature of the evening brings about chance encounters and changed lives.

From a taxi cab driver to a movie set decorator, a diner owner to a crisis hotline operator, these characters are all searching for something whether literal or metaphorical.

There’s a really strong atmosphere to these stories. The late night setting lends itself to a quiet and nostalgic town. And the way these characters lives almost impossibly overlap is fun to piece together.

I do wish the stories had been a little deeper because on their own each chapter isn’t necessarily a complete story, but rather a small piece in a larger puzzle. I did like the ending in how it came together, though it wasn’t quite enough to pull this into the favorites category. ]]> 3.55 2018 Goodnight Tokyo

author: Atsuhiro Yoshida
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/24
date added: 2025/04/24
shelves: translated, short-stories
review:
[3.5 stars]

Set in the early morning hours all across Tokyo, this collection of short stories details various intersections of the lives of its characters. The magical and mysterious nature of the evening brings about chance encounters and changed lives.

From a taxi cab driver to a movie set decorator, a diner owner to a crisis hotline operator, these characters are all searching for something whether literal or metaphorical.

There’s a really strong atmosphere to these stories. The late night setting lends itself to a quiet and nostalgic town. And the way these characters lives almost impossibly overlap is fun to piece together.

I do wish the stories had been a little deeper because on their own each chapter isn’t necessarily a complete story, but rather a small piece in a larger puzzle. I did like the ending in how it came together, though it wasn’t quite enough to pull this into the favorites category.
]]> The Pilgrimage 220237870 224 John Broderick 1946022950 Maxwell 5 ireland
The story revolves around a cast of main characters in a wealthy Irish home in the mid 20th century. Michael is arthritic and bedridden, cared for by his nephew & doctor, Jim, and his wife, Julia. There’s also Stephen, their manservant and the occasional visit from the local priest. It is rural Ireland after all and Catholicism reigns supreme, even if not taken very seriously by its observers. In an effort to seek a miracle to cure Michael’s ailments, the family plans a pilgrimage to Lourdes. But when mysterious letters start showing up detailing a secret that Julia would rather remain in the dark, things begin to unravel in ways that are deliciously readable and thought provoking in equal measure.

I don’t want to say too much about this book’s plot because it is SO FUN, and the book is barely 200 pages so it’s perfect for a binge read.

What I will say is that I loved how this book explored so many facets of love, sexuality, and human connection. It was sort of tongue in cheek, while also being very sincere, balancing the comical and the tragic expertly. These are characters who seem a bit cartoonish at first, but fill out as the story goes on until you’re left with an almost laugh at loud (at least for me) ending. It was delightful. ]]> 4.05 1961 The Pilgrimage

author: John Broderick
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1961
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/22
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: ireland
review:
Now this is a Novel with a capital “N��! Juicy, addictive, layered, well plotted, brilliant character work. And a debut from 1961?! Banned at the time in Ireland. Republished now by McNally editions. It’s deceptively complex. What seems like a simple page-turner lends much more to the mind than is immediately apparent.

The story revolves around a cast of main characters in a wealthy Irish home in the mid 20th century. Michael is arthritic and bedridden, cared for by his nephew & doctor, Jim, and his wife, Julia. There’s also Stephen, their manservant and the occasional visit from the local priest. It is rural Ireland after all and Catholicism reigns supreme, even if not taken very seriously by its observers. In an effort to seek a miracle to cure Michael’s ailments, the family plans a pilgrimage to Lourdes. But when mysterious letters start showing up detailing a secret that Julia would rather remain in the dark, things begin to unravel in ways that are deliciously readable and thought provoking in equal measure.

I don’t want to say too much about this book’s plot because it is SO FUN, and the book is barely 200 pages so it’s perfect for a binge read.

What I will say is that I loved how this book explored so many facets of love, sexuality, and human connection. It was sort of tongue in cheek, while also being very sincere, balancing the comical and the tragic expertly. These are characters who seem a bit cartoonish at first, but fill out as the story goes on until you’re left with an almost laugh at loud (at least for me) ending. It was delightful.
]]> The Stranger 43497327 THE STRANGER (L'etranger), has had a profound impact on millions of American readers. Through this story of an ordinary man who unwittingly gets drawn into a senseless murder on a sun-drenched Algerian beach, Camus explored what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd."

Now, in an illuminating new American translation, extraordinary for its exactitude and clarity, the original intent of THE STRANGER is made more immediate. This haunting novel has been given a new life for generations to come.]]> 123 Albert Camus 0679720200 Maxwell 5 short-novels, translated 4.00 1942

author: Albert Camus
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1942
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/20
date added: 2025/04/20
shelves: short-novels, translated
review:
I can’t believe it took me so long to finally read this one. A classic. I flew through it but had it go back and reread whole sections because it was so dense and layered but also so very readable?? I can definitely see myself returning to this one again in the future.
]]> Sweet Bean Paste 33376821
Until, that is, Tokue comes into his life. An elderly woman with disfigured hands and a troubled past, she makes the best sweet bean paste Sentaro has ever tasted. The unlikeliest of friendships blossoms, but it will take all of their resolve �� and plenty of pancakes �� to protect themselves when Tokue's dark secret comes to light.]]> 216 Durian Sukegawa 1786071959 Maxwell 4 translated
If you like Fredrik Backman's books I think you'd really enjoy this one. It balances the serious and the sentimental in a way that doesn't come across as cheesy. It's driven by a beautiful message that perfectly unfurls over the course of Sentaro's story, and Tokue is an unforgettable character. The setting is strong, and perhaps because I just got back from Japan, this transported me there in all the ways I wanted.

But what I also liked about this book was that it tackled deeper themes and had more serious conversations than I expected. This went to places I never would have guessed based on the cover and description, but still captured the sweetness I craved. I really liked this one and would recommend whether you need a little break from the horrors of the world or from more heavy literature (but grab some tissues because this one still might make you feel a bit).]]> 4.07 2013 Sweet Bean Paste

author: Durian Sukegawa
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/18
date added: 2025/04/19
shelves: translated
review:
Sentaro has a criminal past and now works to pay off his debts at a small dorayaki shop in Tokyo. He's basically just getting by in life when one day an older woman named Tokue shows up at the store looking for work. She's insistent that Sentaro hire her to improve his sweet bean paste recipe, hers having been perfected over the last 50 years. While Sentaro is reluctant for a few reasons, Tokue burrows her way into his life, and heart, and opens him up to the world in ways he never expected.

If you like Fredrik Backman's books I think you'd really enjoy this one. It balances the serious and the sentimental in a way that doesn't come across as cheesy. It's driven by a beautiful message that perfectly unfurls over the course of Sentaro's story, and Tokue is an unforgettable character. The setting is strong, and perhaps because I just got back from Japan, this transported me there in all the ways I wanted.

But what I also liked about this book was that it tackled deeper themes and had more serious conversations than I expected. This went to places I never would have guessed based on the cover and description, but still captured the sweetness I craved. I really liked this one and would recommend whether you need a little break from the horrors of the world or from more heavy literature (but grab some tissues because this one still might make you feel a bit).
]]> The Berry Pickers 123036004 A four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a tragic mystery that haunts the survivors, unravels a community, and remains unsolved for nearly fifty years.

July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come.

In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.

For readers of The Vanishing Half and Woman of Light, this showstopping debut by a vibrant new voice in fiction is a riveting novel about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma, and the persistence of love across time.]]> 307 Amanda Peters 1646221958 Maxwell 4 indigenous
This ended up being a much more character driven and slow paced story than I anticipated, but I didn’t mind. It’s pretty clear from early on what happened, so the rest of the story unpacks how it affects the characters and ultimately why it happened. I thought Amanda peters did a really great job at portraying a realistic response to trauma and the many ways families experience child loss, especially. For that, it can be a difficult book to read at times, but that also makes it very important and touching. It avoids being melodramatic or cheesy, rather lending gravitas to these very real experiences of indigenous people. But it’s a story I think many people can relate to even in some small way.

I loved both Joe and Norma, even if there were times when I wanted to scream at them, but at other times, I wanted to give them a hug. The sign of a well written character. ]]> 4.04 2023 The Berry Pickers

author: Amanda Peters
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/16
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves: indigenous
review:
This was an incredibly moving story about two people dealing with loss. Joe is haunted by the loss of his younger sister when she was only four years old while Norma is a woman disconnected from her early childhood. They both grow up with ghosts that follow them around, impacting the way they move through the world and in relationships. The story beautifully balances their two tales in culminates in a touching and memorable ending.

This ended up being a much more character driven and slow paced story than I anticipated, but I didn’t mind. It’s pretty clear from early on what happened, so the rest of the story unpacks how it affects the characters and ultimately why it happened. I thought Amanda peters did a really great job at portraying a realistic response to trauma and the many ways families experience child loss, especially. For that, it can be a difficult book to read at times, but that also makes it very important and touching. It avoids being melodramatic or cheesy, rather lending gravitas to these very real experiences of indigenous people. But it’s a story I think many people can relate to even in some small way.

I loved both Joe and Norma, even if there were times when I wanted to scream at them, but at other times, I wanted to give them a hug. The sign of a well written character.
]]> Heart Lamp: Selected Stories 227863434 243 Banu Mushtaq 1916751172 Maxwell 2 short-stories, translated 2.5 stars]

Sadly I found this collection of stories to be lackluster. They all started to feel very similar by the end, both in what they were saying and how they were written. It’s cool to see a book written in Kannada get translated and recognized for a major prize, I just wish I had connected with the stories a bit more. Not bad but not my type of story collection. ]]> 3.62 Heart Lamp: Selected Stories

author: Banu Mushtaq
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.62
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/15
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: short-stories, translated
review:
[2.5 stars]

Sadly I found this collection of stories to be lackluster. They all started to feel very similar by the end, both in what they were saying and how they were written. It’s cool to see a book written in Kannada get translated and recognized for a major prize, I just wish I had connected with the stories a bit more. Not bad but not my type of story collection.
]]> Severance 36348525
Candace won’t be able to make it on her own forever, though. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob. They’re traveling to a place called the Facility, where, Bob promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. But Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit. Should she escape from her rescuers?

A send-up and takedown of the rituals, routines, and missed opportunities of contemporary life, Ling Ma’s Severance is a quirky coming-of-adulthood tale and satire.]]> 291 Ling Ma 0374261598 Maxwell 0 to-read 3.90 2018

author: Ling Ma
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Book of Disappearance 209141112 What if all Palestinians vanished from their homeland overnight?

Alaa, a young Palestinian, is haunted by his grandmother’s memories of being displaced from Jaffa and becoming a refugee in her homeland. Ariel, Alaa’s neighbour and friend, is a liberal Zionist, critical of the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza yet faithful to the project of Israel. When he wakes up one morning to find that all Palestinians have suddenly vanished, Ariel begins searching for clues to the secret of the collective disappearance; that search, and his reaction to it, intimately reveal the fissures at the heart of the Palestinian question. Between the stories of Alaa and Ariel are the people of Jaffa and Tel Aviv against whose ordinary lives these fissures and questions play out.

Critically acclaimed in Arabic, spare yet evocative, intensely intelligent in its interplay of perspectives, The Book of Disappearance is an unforgettable glimpse into contemporary Palestine.]]> 224 Ibtisam Azem 1916751024 Maxwell 0 to-read 4.24 2014

author: Ibtisam Azem
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Twist 215361877
Anthony Fennell, an Irish journalist and playwright, is assigned to cover the underwater cables that carry the world’s information. The sum of human existence—words, images, transactions, memes, voices, viruses—travels through the tiny fiber-optic tubes. But sometimes the tubes break, at an unfathomable depth.

Fennell’s journey brings him to the west coast of Africa, where he uncovers a story about the raw human labor behind the dazzling veneer of the technological world. He meets a fellow Irishman, John Conway, the chief of mission on a cable repair ship. The mysterious Conway is a skilled engineer and a freediver capable of reaching extraordinary depths. He is also in love with a South African actress, Zanele, who must leave to go on her own literary adventure to London.

When the ship is sent up the coast to repair a series of major underwater breaks, both men learn that the very cables they seek to fix carry the news that may cause their lives to unravel. At sea, they are forced to confront the most elemental questions of life, love, absence, belonging, and the perils of our severed connections. Can we, in our fractured world, reweave ourselves out of the thin, broken threads of our pasts? Can the ruptured things awaken us from our despair?

Resoundingly simple and turbulent at the same time, Twist is a meditation on the nature of narrative and truth from one of the great storytellers of our times.]]> 256 Colum McCann 0593241738 Maxwell 0 review-copies 3.76 2025 Twist

author: Colum McCann
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: review-copies
review:

]]> The Book Censor's Library 175678711
The new book censor hasn’t slept soundly in weeks. By day he combs through manuscripts at a government office, looking for anything that would make a book unfit to publish―allusions to queerness, unapproved religions, any mention of life before the Revolution. By night the characters of literary classics crowd his dreams, and pilfered novels pile up in the house he shares with his wife and daughter. As the siren song of forbidden reading continues to beckon, he descends into a netherworld of resistance fighters, undercover booksellers, and outlaw librarians trying to save their history and culture.

Reckoning with the global threat to free speech and the bleak future it all but guarantees, Bothayna Al-Essa marries the steely dystopia of Orwell’s 1984 with the madcap absurdity of Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, resulting in a dreadful twist worthy of Kafka. The Book Censor’s Library is a warning call and a love letter to stories and the delicious act of losing oneself in them.]]> 272 Bothayna Al-Essa 1632063344 Maxwell 4 translated 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, a censor charged with reading and determining the acceptability of certain books under the totalitarian regime within which he resides falls in love with reading one fateful day and is set on a course of life-altering, eye-opening adventure.

Not only does this book pay homage to its predecessors, it sneakily intertwines particular elements from some other classic tales in a way that is both endearing and surprising. As the book censor 'falls down the rabbit hole' he uncovers the truth at the center of his world that shatters everything he knows or thinks he knows, just like a good book reveals something latent within the reader.

I had such a fun time reading this. It was like reading a classic children's adventure story with the profundity and timeliness of a story about book banning and the importance of imagination. I was constantly delighted by the turns the story took and particularly impressed by the ending. While a few moments throughout felt a bit repetitive, the story ultimately won me over with its satire and charm. Plus who doesn't love a book about books?!]]> 3.93 2019 The Book Censor's Library

author: Bothayna Al-Essa
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/27
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves: translated
review:
In this clever modernization of classics such as 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, a censor charged with reading and determining the acceptability of certain books under the totalitarian regime within which he resides falls in love with reading one fateful day and is set on a course of life-altering, eye-opening adventure.

Not only does this book pay homage to its predecessors, it sneakily intertwines particular elements from some other classic tales in a way that is both endearing and surprising. As the book censor 'falls down the rabbit hole' he uncovers the truth at the center of his world that shatters everything he knows or thinks he knows, just like a good book reveals something latent within the reader.

I had such a fun time reading this. It was like reading a classic children's adventure story with the profundity and timeliness of a story about book banning and the importance of imagination. I was constantly delighted by the turns the story took and particularly impressed by the ending. While a few moments throughout felt a bit repetitive, the story ultimately won me over with its satire and charm. Plus who doesn't love a book about books?!
]]> Perfection 214985934 A scathing, provocative novel about contemporary existence by a rising star in Italian literature.

"One of Europe’s most talented young writers, Latronico has written the great Berlin novel we’ve all been waiting for." —Gideon Lewis-Kraus, New Yorker staff journalist

Millennial expat couple Anna and Tom are living the dream in Berlin, in a bright, plant-filled apartment in Neukölln. They are young digital creatives, freelancers without too many constraints. They have a passion for food, progressive politics, sexual experimentation, and Berlin’s twenty-four-hour party scene. Their ideal existence is also that of an entire generation, lived out on Instagram, but outside the images they create for themselves, dissatisfaction and ennui burgeon. Their work as graphic designers becomes repetitive. Friends move back home, have children, grow up. An attempt at political activism during the refugee crisis proves fruitless. And in that picture-perfect life Anna and Tom feel increasingly trapped, yearning for an authenticity and a sense of purpose that seem perennially just out of their grasp. With the stylistic mastery of Georges Perec and nihilism of Michel Houellebecq, Perfection, Vincenzo Latronico’s first book to be translated into English, is a brilliantly scathing sociological novel about the emptiness of contemporary existence, beautifully written, impossibly bleak.]]> 125 Vincenzo Latronico 1681378736 Maxwell 4 short-novels, translated 3.88 2022 Perfection

author: Vincenzo Latronico
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/09
date added: 2025/04/09
shelves: short-novels, translated
review:

]]> Scattered All Over the Earth 163481412
Hiruko soon makes new friends to join her in her travels searching for anyone who can still speak her mother tongue: Knut, a graduate student in linguistics, who is fascinated by her Panska; Akash, an Indian man who lives as a woman, wearing a red sari; Nanook, an Eskimo from Greenland, first mistaken as another refugee from the land of sushi; and Nora, who works at the Karl Marx House in Trier. All these characters take turns narrating chapters, which feature an umami cooking competition; a dead whale; an ultra- nationalist named Breivik; Kakuzo robots; uranium; and an Andalusian bull fight. Episodic, vividly imagined and mesmerising, Scattered All Over the Earth is another sui generis masterwork by Yoko Tawada.]]> 224 Yōko Tawada 1783789123 Maxwell 0 to-read, translated 3.04 2018

author: Yōko Tawada
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.04
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read, translated
review:

]]> <![CDATA[An Artist of the Floating World]]> 36379344
Now, as the mature Ono struggles through the aftermath of that war, his memories of his youth and of the “floating world”—the nocturnal world of pleasure, entertainment, and drink—offer him both escape and redemption, even as they punish him for betraying his early promise. Indicted by society for its defeat and reviled for his past aesthetics, he relives the passage through his personal history that makes him both a hero and a coward but, above all, a human being.]]> 7 Kazuo Ishiguro 0385362587 Maxwell 4 audiobook Review to come! 3.64 1986 An Artist of the Floating World

author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1986
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: audiobook
review:
Review to come!
]]> Vanishing World 219300660 From the author of the bestselling literary sensations Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings comes a surprising and highly imaginative story set in a version of Japan where sex between married couples has vanished and all children are born by artificial insemination.

Sayaka Murata has proven herself to be one of the most exciting chroniclers of the strangeness of society, x-raying our contemporary world to bizarre and troubling effect. Her depictions of a happily unmarried retail worker in Convenience Store Woman and a young woman convinced she is an alien in Earthlings have endeared her to millions of readers worldwide. Vanishing World takes Murata’s universe to a bold new level, imagining an alternative Japan where attitudes to sex and procreation are wildly different to our own.

As a girl, Amane realizes with horror that her parents “copulated�� in order to bring her into the world, rather than using artificial insemination, which became the norm in the mid-twentieth century. Amane strives to get away from what she considers an indoctrination in this strange “system�� by her mother, but her infatuations with both anime characters and real people have a sexual force that is undeniable. As an adult in an appropriately sexless marriage—sex between married couples is now considered as taboo as incest—Amane and her husband Saku decide to go and live in a mysterious new town called Experiment City or Paradise-Eden, where all children are raised communally, and every person is considered a Mother to all children. Men are beginning to become pregnant using artificial wombs that sit outside of their bodies like balloons, and children are nameless, called only “Kodomo-chan.�� Is this the new world that will purify Amane of her strangeness once and for all?]]> 240 Sayaka Murata 0802164668 Maxwell 3 arc, translated
In a world nearly devoid of sex as humans almost exclusively reproduce through artificial insemination, Amane is an outsider. Her parents created her the ‘old-fashioned�� way and for that she feels beholden and nearly cursed by an outdated way of thinking. As she grows up and explores her sexuality while trying to fit into the evolving society she lives in, she struggles to balance her compulsions with expectations put on her by her family, friends, and lovers.

This story was so interesting and I loved so much of what it was digging into around how at the end of the day, humans are another animal species on earth and so much of our culture that we think is “normal�� is really just made up.

But I felt the style of this book which relied heavily on dialogue to explain things and repeated itself quite frequently, just didn’t live up to the concept. The last 1/3 was probably the most interesting part…and that ending?! I’m a bit disturbed by it, not gonna lie, but I kind of expect that with her. And it does raise some questions even if I felt that the novel didn’t always have a clear focus.

I wanted to love this but it was probably my least favorite of her novels I’ve read. Still worth a read if you like her stuff, but probably not one to win her fans like Convenience Store Woman. ]]> 3.51 2015 Vanishing World

author: Sayaka Murata
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/29
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves: arc, translated
review:
If you can say one thing about Sayaka Murata is that she creates very original material that is sure to provoke you. And I don’t think she does it just to be provocative. Her stories always have some deeper idea about humanity, especially how odd it is to be a human, at their core. In this one she especially explores the ideas of gender in relation to sexuality and reproduction.

In a world nearly devoid of sex as humans almost exclusively reproduce through artificial insemination, Amane is an outsider. Her parents created her the ‘old-fashioned�� way and for that she feels beholden and nearly cursed by an outdated way of thinking. As she grows up and explores her sexuality while trying to fit into the evolving society she lives in, she struggles to balance her compulsions with expectations put on her by her family, friends, and lovers.

This story was so interesting and I loved so much of what it was digging into around how at the end of the day, humans are another animal species on earth and so much of our culture that we think is “normal�� is really just made up.

But I felt the style of this book which relied heavily on dialogue to explain things and repeated itself quite frequently, just didn’t live up to the concept. The last 1/3 was probably the most interesting part…and that ending?! I’m a bit disturbed by it, not gonna lie, but I kind of expect that with her. And it does raise some questions even if I felt that the novel didn’t always have a clear focus.

I wanted to love this but it was probably my least favorite of her novels I’ve read. Still worth a read if you like her stuff, but probably not one to win her fans like Convenience Store Woman.
]]> <![CDATA[Good and Evil and Other Stories]]> 222683966 A haunting, unforgettable collection of tales from the 2022 National Book Award for Translated Literature winner and three-time Booker finalist, Samanta Schweblin.

Once a decade a story collection rips a hole in the sky and we remember how it feels to have a spell cast upon us. From Jamaica Kincaid’s At the Bottom of the River to Denis Johnson’s Jesus’s Son to the earthquake stories of Haruki Murakami, these books are often short, but unforgettable. Samanta Schweblin’s Good and Evil is such a book. Sculpted and lucid, strange and uncanny, here is a masterpiece of suggestiveness. Step by step these six stories lure us into the shadows to confront the monsters of everyday life—ourselves.

In one tale, a mother surfaces from the depths of the lake behind her house, where she saw something awful yet alluring, to go home to her family, only to wish she could go back. In another, a sorrowful father finds himself unable to communicate with his son after a life-changing misfortune occurs under his supervision. In yet another, a dying woman calls a friend she hasn’t spoken to in thirty years—not since an accident which forever changed them both.

Guilt, grief, and relationships severed permeate this collection—but so do unspeakable bonds of family, love, and longing, each sinister and beautiful. When something seismic happens in our lives, the waves keep coming for years after, with warning or without. Sometimes, all we can do is wait around the corner, ear pressed to the phone receiver, for them to arrive.

Fantastical and subtly terrifying, these stories draw on magical realism, psychological fiction, and the dark side of fairy tales inherited from literary predecessors like the Brothers Grimm and Jorge Luis Borges. Yet, far from antiquated or closed off, Schweblin’s worlds invite us in, like quicksand or a strong river’s current. These stories will insinuate themselves into your heart, and your bloodstream.]]> 192 Samanta Schweblin 0593803108 Maxwell 0 4.47 2025 Good and Evil and Other Stories

author: Samanta Schweblin
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: review-copies, short-stories, translated
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Edgedancer (The Stormlight Archive, #2.5)]]> 36538478 From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson, a special gift edition of Edgedancer, a short novel of the Stormlight Archive.

Three years ago, Lift asked a goddess to stop her from growing older--a wish she believed was granted. Now, in Edgedancer, the barely teenage nascent Knight Radiant finds that time stands still for no one. Although the young Azish emperor granted her safe haven from an executioner she knows only as Darkness, court life is suffocating the free-spirited Lift, who can't help heading to Yeddaw when she hears the relentless Darkness is there hunting people like her with budding powers. The downtrodden in Yeddaw have no champion, and Lift knows she must seize this awesome responsibility.

]]> 7 Brandon Sanderson Maxwell 4 audiobook, fantasy
Note: only read this if you've read the first 2 Stormlight novels. ]]> 4.06 2016 Edgedancer (The Stormlight Archive, #2.5)

Edgedancer (The Stormlight Archive, #2.5)

author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: audiobook, fantasy
review:
Such a fun addition to the series. While not required reading, it adds a bit of background on a character and continues to flesh out the world of the Stormlight Archive in a fun and exciting way. I listened to the audiobook which was only 6.5 hours and excellently narrated by Kate Reading!

Note: only read this if you've read the first 2 Stormlight novels.
]]> <![CDATA[Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, #2)]]> 17332218 From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson, Words of Radiance, Book Two of the Stormlight Archive, continues the immersive fantasy epic that The Way of Kings began.

Expected by his enemies to die the miserable death of a military slave, Kaladin survived to be given command of the royal bodyguards, a controversial first for a low-status "darkeyes." Now he must protect the king and Dalinar from every common peril as well as the distinctly uncommon threat of the Assassin, all while secretly struggling to master remarkable new powers that are somehow linked to his honorspren, Syl.

The Assassin, Szeth, is active again, murdering rulers all over the world of Roshar, using his baffling powers to thwart every bodyguard and elude all pursuers. Among his prime targets is Highprince Dalinar, widely considered the power behind the Alethi throne. His leading role in the war would seem reason enough, but the Assassin's master has much deeper motives.

Brilliant but troubled Shallan strives along a parallel path. Despite being broken in ways she refuses to acknowledge, she bears a terrible burden: to somehow prevent the return of the legendary Voidbringers and the civilization-ending Desolation that will follow. The secrets she needs can be found at the Shattered Plains, but just arriving there proves more difficult than she could have imagined.

Meanwhile, at the heart of the Shattered Plains, the Parshendi are making an epochal decision. Hard pressed by years of Alethi attacks, their numbers ever shrinking, they are convinced by their war leader, Eshonai, to risk everything on a desperate gamble with the very supernatural forces they once fled. The possible consequences for Parshendi and humans alike, indeed, for Roshar itself, are as dangerous as they are incalculable.]]> 1088 Brandon Sanderson 0765326361 Maxwell 4 fantasy
The first 50-60% (of a book that’s over 1000 pages!!) really dragged for me. I mean I was never tempted to stop but it’s all just so much setup that does pay off in the end but feels really slow when you’re reading it. And the last 20-30% fly by and are so gripping but it feels weightless compared to the beginning and then you’re left wanting more.

Idk if that’s a success or failure tbh haha. It makes me wonder if I’ll ever love one of these books though I can see myself appreciating and enjoying the series as a whole.

And for anyone who doesn’t like Shallan, what’s wrong with you!?]]> 4.76 2014 Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, #2)

Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, #2)

author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.76
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/25
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: fantasy
review:
I’m not even gonna properly review this because it’s book 2 in an epic series and enough has already been written about it. I really liked this one, more than book 1, BUT I still have issues with the length and pacing of these books.

The first 50-60% (of a book that’s over 1000 pages!!) really dragged for me. I mean I was never tempted to stop but it’s all just so much setup that does pay off in the end but feels really slow when you’re reading it. And the last 20-30% fly by and are so gripping but it feels weightless compared to the beginning and then you’re left wanting more.

Idk if that’s a success or failure tbh haha. It makes me wonder if I’ll ever love one of these books though I can see myself appreciating and enjoying the series as a whole.

And for anyone who doesn’t like Shallan, what’s wrong with you!?
]]> Palaver: A Novel 222376682 A life-affirming novel of family, mending, and how we learn to love, from the award-winning Bryan Washington.

In Tokyo, the son works as an English tutor, drinking his nights away with friends at a gay bar. He’s entangled in a sexual relationship with a married man, and while he has built a chosen family in Japan, he is estranged from his family in Houston, particularly his mother, whose preference for the son’s oft-troubled homophobic brother, Chris, pushed him to leave home. Then, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, ten years since they’ve last seen each other, the mother arrives uninvited on his doorstep.

Separated only by the son’s cat, Taro, the two of them bristle against each other immediately. The mother, wrestling with memories of her youth in Jamaica and her own complicated brother, works to reconcile her good intentions with her missteps. The son struggles to forgive. But as life begins to steer them in unexpected directions�� the mother to a tentative friendship with a local bistro owner, and the son to cautiously getting to know a new patron of the bar—the two of them begin to see each other more clearly. Sharing meals and conversations and an eventful trip to Nara, both mother and son try the best they can to define where “home�� really is—and whether they can find it even in each other.

Written with understated humor and an open heart, moving through past and present and across Houston, Jamaica, and Japan, Bryan Washington’s Palaver is an intricate story of family, love, and the beauty of a life among others.]]> 336 Bryan Washington 0374609071 Maxwell 0 saved 3.86 Palaver: A Novel

author: Bryan Washington
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.86
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: saved
review:

]]> Kitchen 42952153 Kitchen, the dazzling English-language debut that is still her best-loved book, the literary world realized that Yoshimoto was a young writer of enduring talent whose work has quickly earned a place among the best of contemporary Japanese literature. Kitchen is an enchantingly original book that juxtaposes two tales about mothers, love, tragedy, and the power of the kitchen and home in the lives of a pair of free-spirited young women in contemporary Japan. Mikage, the heroine, is an orphan raised by her grandmother, who has passed away. Grieving, Mikage is taken in by her friend Yoichi and his mother (who is really his cross-dressing father) Eriko. As the three of them form an improvised family that soon weathers its own tragic losses, Yoshimoto spins a lovely, evocative tale with the kitchen and the comforts of home at its heart.

In a whimsical style that recalls the early Marguerite Duras, "Kitchen" and its companion story, "Moonlight Shadow," are elegant tales whose seeming simplicity is the ruse of a very special writer whose voice echoes in the mind and the soul.
]]> 153 Banana Yoshimoto 0802190464 Maxwell 4 rtc! 3.91 1988 Kitchen

author: Banana Yoshimoto
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1988
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: owned, short-novels, translated
review:
rtc!
]]> A Woman of Pleasure 185767238
In 1903, a fifteen-year-old girl named Ichi Aoi is sold to the most exclusive brothel in Kumamoto, Japan. Despite her modest beginnings in a southern fishing village, she becomes the protégée of an oiran, the highest-ranking courtesan at the brothel. Through the teachings of her oiran, Shinonome, Ichi begins to understand the intertwined power of sex and money. And in her mandatory school lessons, her writing instructor, Tetsuko, encourages Ichi and the others to think clearly and express themselves.��

Based on real-life events in Meiji-era Japan, award-winning and critically acclaimed veteran writer Kiyoko Murata re-creates in stunning detail the brutal yet vibrant lives of women in the red-light district at the turn of the twentieth century—the bond they share, the survival skills they pass down, and the power of owning one's language. By banding together, the women organize a strike and walk away from the brothel and into the possibility of new lives.]]> 320 Kiyoko Murata 1640095799 Maxwell 4 owned, translated
This was an engaging, easy to read, and informative historical fiction novel. I typically don't read a lot of historical fiction because I find it can be bogged down in the details, but this one blended the setting and facts of the time period with a fictional story that flowed very naturally. I felt for Ichi and enjoyed seeing her learn and grow as she sought her independence of both mind and body along with her fellow prostitutes.]]> 3.81 2013 A Woman of Pleasure

author: Kiyoko Murata
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: owned, translated
review:
Set at the turn of the 20th century, we follow 15 year old Ichi as she is sold into prostitution to pay off her father's debts. She's taken from her home on the island of Iojima and employed by an exclusive brothel in Kumamoto, Japan. There she learns the tricks of the trade from her mentor, an 'oiran' or high-ranking courtesan, as well as from her teacher, Tetsuko, where the prostitutes learn to read, write and calculate their incomes and debts.

This was an engaging, easy to read, and informative historical fiction novel. I typically don't read a lot of historical fiction because I find it can be bogged down in the details, but this one blended the setting and facts of the time period with a fictional story that flowed very naturally. I felt for Ichi and enjoyed seeing her learn and grow as she sought her independence of both mind and body along with her fellow prostitutes.
]]> Reservoir Bitches: Stories 205668497
“Life’s a bitch. That’s why you gotta rattle her cage, even if she’s foaming at the mouth.�� In the linked stories of Reservoir Bitches, thirteen Mexican women prod the bitch that is Life and become her. From the all-powerful daughter of a cartel boss to the victim of transfemicide, from a houseful of spinster seamstresses to a socialite who supports her politician husband by faking Indigenous roots, these women spit on their own reduction and invent new ways to endure, telling their own stories in bold, unapologetic voices. At once a work of black humor and social critique, Reservoir Bitches is a raucous debut from one of Mexico’s most thrilling new writers.]]> 192 Dahlia de la Cerda 1558613110 Maxwell 3 short-stories, translated 3.5 stars]

A chorus of strong voices exploring the trials and tribulations of womanhood in Mexico, especially in regards to violence, trauma, and vengeance. Each story takes on a new lens of what it means to be a woman and navigate such a tumultuous environment. These many 'I's blend together to create a powerful narrative, considering their varied backgrounds and experiences.

While I did find some of the stories to blend together so much that they started to be a bit too similar, each was incredibly readable, with a clear tone of voice and moments of humor and horror. The first story was a gut punch and the last story in particular was a beautiful and harrowing denouement.]]> 4.21 2019 Reservoir Bitches: Stories

author: Dahlia de la Cerda
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/13
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: short-stories, translated
review:
[3.5 stars]

A chorus of strong voices exploring the trials and tribulations of womanhood in Mexico, especially in regards to violence, trauma, and vengeance. Each story takes on a new lens of what it means to be a woman and navigate such a tumultuous environment. These many 'I's blend together to create a powerful narrative, considering their varied backgrounds and experiences.

While I did find some of the stories to blend together so much that they started to be a bit too similar, each was incredibly readable, with a clear tone of voice and moments of humor and horror. The first story was a gut punch and the last story in particular was a beautiful and harrowing denouement.
]]> Things in Nature Merely Grow 220770070 A remarkable, defiant work of radical acceptance from celebrated author Yiyun Li as she considers the loss of her son James.

'There is no good way to say this,' Yiyun Li writes at the beginning of this book.

'There is no good way to state these facts, which must be acknowledged. My husband and I had two children and lost them Vincent in 2017, at sixteen, James in 2024, at nineteen. Both chose suicide, and both died not far from home.'

There is no good way to say this �� because words fall short. It takes only an instant for death to become fact, 'a single point in a timeline'. Living now on this single point, Li turns to thinking and reasoning and searching for words that might hold a place for James. Li does what she including not just writing but gardening, reading Camus and Wittgenstein, learning the piano, and living thinkingly alongside death.

This is a book for James, but it is not a book about grieving or mourning. As Li writes, 'The verb that does not die is to be. Vincent was and is and will always be Vincent. James was and is and will always be James. We were and are and will always be their parents. There is no now and then, now and later, only, now and now and now and now.' Things in Nature Merely Grow is a testament to Li’s indomitable spirit.]]> Yiyun Li 0008753865 Maxwell 0 non-fiction, review-copies 4.38

author: Yiyun Li
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.38
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: non-fiction, review-copies
review:

]]> Exit Zero 211934921 Twelve delightfully strange, haunting stories from the acclaimed, oracular author of Beautyland.

Death-shaped entities—with all of their humor and strangeness�� haunt the twelve stories in Exit Zero. Vampires, ghost girls, fathers, blank spaces, day-old peaches, and famous paintings all pierce through their world into ours, reminding us to pay attention! and look alive! and offering many other flashes of wisdom from the oracle and author of Beautyland, Marie-Helene Bertino.]]> 208 Marie-Helene Bertino 0374616477 Maxwell 0 review-copies, short-stories 3.80 Exit Zero

author: Marie-Helene Bertino
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.80
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: review-copies, short-stories
review:

]]> On a Woman's Madness 61244744 A classic of queer literature that’s as electrifying today as it was when it originally appeared in 1982, On a Woman’s Madness tells the story of Noenka, a courageous Black woman trying to live a life of her choosing. When her abusive husband of just nine days refuses her request for divorce, Noenka flees her hometown in Suriname, on South America's tropical northeastern coast, for the capital city of Paramaribo. Unsettled and unsupported, her life in this new place is illuminated by the passionate romances of the present but haunted by society’s expectations and her ancestral past.

Translated into sensuous English for the first time by Lucy Scott, Astrid Roemer’s intimate novel—with its tales of plantation-dwelling snakes, rare orchids, and star-crossed lovers—is a blistering meditation on the cruelties we inflict on those who disobey. Roemer, the first Surinamese winner of the prestigious Dutch Literature Prize, carves out postcolonial Suriname in barbed, resonant fragments. Who is Noenka? Roemer asks us. “I’m Noenka,�� she responds resolutely, “which means Never Again.”]]> 265 Astrid H. Roemer 1949641430 Maxwell 0 dnf
I wanted to give this a fair shot so I read the first ~60 pages or so and can tell it’s just not for me. The writing style and structure were way too chaotic, I just had no idea what was happening. It did make me do a Google deep dive on Suriname though which I didn’t know much about before this book, so that was interesting. ]]> 3.34 1982 On a Woman's Madness

author: Astrid H. Roemer
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.34
book published: 1982
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: dnf
review:
DNF @ 20%

I wanted to give this a fair shot so I read the first ~60 pages or so and can tell it’s just not for me. The writing style and structure were way too chaotic, I just had no idea what was happening. It did make me do a Google deep dive on Suriname though which I didn’t know much about before this book, so that was interesting.
]]> A Leopard-Skin Hat 88564033 122 Anne Serre 0811234517 Maxwell 3 short-novels, translated 3.5 stars]

I didn't quite get on with the loose structure of this. It made it hard to feel grounded in any sort of narrative, and perhaps that's the point. But I found aspects of this incredibly moving and tender. There's so much compassion for the characters, especially Fanny, which makes sense in light of the author's own experience with losing her little sister and writing this book to contend with those circumstances.

The idea of the other main character being called The Narrator but not being the actual narrator made more sense as the story went on, but I don't think it quite worked for me fully. Perhaps if I re-read this now in light of the last 2 chapters, I would appreciate it even more. I think she's a skilled writer and the translation is flawless, but for me there wasn't quite *enough* to this book to blow me away. Still, there were quite a few very beautiful moments sprinkled throughout and it does an excellent job giving you perspectives of both parties: the one struggling with mental illness and the ones who carry the weight of caretaking.

"It's not that he's spineless, he's simply made in such a way that his life began with a question, and along the way all the things he has seen, read, heard and experienced have given him part of the answer, but over the years, of course, these answers have grown more and more meager, warped, swollen, and grayed, and he's so enamored of this perpetual back and forth between edification and composition that he keeps on toiling away."]]> 3.56 A Leopard-Skin Hat

author: Anne Serre
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.56
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/10
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: short-novels, translated
review:
[3.5 stars]

I didn't quite get on with the loose structure of this. It made it hard to feel grounded in any sort of narrative, and perhaps that's the point. But I found aspects of this incredibly moving and tender. There's so much compassion for the characters, especially Fanny, which makes sense in light of the author's own experience with losing her little sister and writing this book to contend with those circumstances.

The idea of the other main character being called The Narrator but not being the actual narrator made more sense as the story went on, but I don't think it quite worked for me fully. Perhaps if I re-read this now in light of the last 2 chapters, I would appreciate it even more. I think she's a skilled writer and the translation is flawless, but for me there wasn't quite *enough* to this book to blow me away. Still, there were quite a few very beautiful moments sprinkled throughout and it does an excellent job giving you perspectives of both parties: the one struggling with mental illness and the ones who carry the weight of caretaking.

"It's not that he's spineless, he's simply made in such a way that his life began with a question, and along the way all the things he has seen, read, heard and experienced have given him part of the answer, but over the years, of course, these answers have grown more and more meager, warped, swollen, and grayed, and he's so enamored of this perpetual back and forth between edification and composition that he keeps on toiling away."
]]> Antarctica 208582682
The compassionate, witty, and unsettling short stories collected here announced Claire Keegan as one of Ireland’s most exciting and versatile new talents and earned comparison to the works of Joyce Carol Oates, Alison Lurie, Raymond Carver, and others. From the titular story about a married woman who takes a trip to the city with a single purpose in mind—to sleep with another man—Antarctica draws readers into a world of obsession, betrayal, and fragile relationships.

In “Love in the Tall Grass,�� Cordelia wakes on the last day of the twentieth century and sets off along the coast road to keep a date, with her lover, that has been nine years in the waiting. In “Passport Soup,�� Frank Corso mourns the curious disappearance of his nine-year-old daughter and tries desperately to reach out to his shattered wife who has gone mad with grief.

Throughout the collection, Keegan’s characters inhabit a world where dreams, memory, and chance can have crippling consequences for those involved. A Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2001, and recipient of the prestigious Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the William Trevor Prize, Antarctica is a rare and arresting debut.]]> 224 Claire Keegan 0802163742 Maxwell 3 ireland, short-stories
She has trouble ending her stories, I find, and for me the end of a short story in particular is critical to my enjoyment. It doesn't have to tie everything up but it has to feel thematically like a climax or saying something, and a lot of these just ended without any sort of resolution or without anything to keep you thinking. So while I never had issues enjoying the reading of the story itself, by the time the end came around I often felt a bit underwhelmed.

My favorites were probably the title story, as well as "Men and Women" and "Sisters".]]> 3.84 1999 Antarctica

author: Claire Keegan
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1999
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/09
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: ireland, short-stories
review:
A hit or miss collection for me unfortunately. I think her sentence-level writing is so amazing; her attention to detail, the musicality of the language, and the dialogue is all great. But these stories felt a bit all over the place and definitely varied in terms of enjoyment. I would say there were only about 3 of them I truly loved, the rest were all good or fine.

She has trouble ending her stories, I find, and for me the end of a short story in particular is critical to my enjoyment. It doesn't have to tie everything up but it has to feel thematically like a climax or saying something, and a lot of these just ended without any sort of resolution or without anything to keep you thinking. So while I never had issues enjoying the reading of the story itself, by the time the end came around I often felt a bit underwhelmed.

My favorites were probably the title story, as well as "Men and Women" and "Sisters".
]]> <![CDATA[Woman Running in the Mountains]]> 57321632
Woman Running in the Mountains is a profoundly atmospheric novel, attuned to place, light, and weather. A porousness of self and surroundings attends Takiko’s first year as a mother, filled with the intense bodily pleasures and pains that come from caring for a newborn, learning how to make room for Akira, how to accommodate him physically, emotionally, and psychologically. At first Takiko seeks refuge in the company of other women, in the maternity hospital, in her son’s nursery; but as he grows, her life becomes less circumscribed, expanding outwards into previously unknown neighborhoods in her city, and then beyond, into the countryside, toward a mountain that captures her imagination and feeling for a wilder freedom. First published in Japan in 1980, Woman Running in the Mountains is as urgent and necessary an account today of the experience of the female body and of a woman’s right to self-determination.]]> 275 Yūko Tsushima 1681375974 Maxwell 0 to-read, translated 4.00 1980 Woman Running in the Mountains

author: Yūko Tsushima
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1980
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves: to-read, translated
review:

]]> Under the Eye of the Big Bird 203162267 From one of Japan's most brilliant and sensitive contemporary novelists, this speculative fiction masterpiece envisions an Earth where humans are nearing extinction, and rewrites our understanding of reproduction, ecology, evolution, artificial intelligence, communal life, creation, love, and the future of humanity.

In the distant future, humans are on the verge of extinction and have settled in small tribes across the planet under the observation and care of "Mothers." Some children are made in factories, from cells of rabbits and dolphins; some live by getting nutrients from water and light, like plants. The survival of the race depends on the interbreeding of these and other alien beings--but it is far from certain that connection, love, reproduction, and evolution will persist among the inhabitants of this faltering new world.

Unfolding over fourteen interconnected episodes spanning geological eons, at once technical and pastoral, mournful and utopic, Under the Eye of the Big Bird presents an astonishing vision of the end of our species as we know it.]]> 255 Hiromi Kawakami 1593766203 Maxwell 5 short-stories, translated
This felt so different! And I’m not sure if it’s because of a different translator or because it’s an entirely different type of book than the other two I read. I’m so glad I gave this a shot and that the International Booker prize put it on the long list so that it was brought to my attention.

If you like speculative, sci-fi short stories, I think you’ll really like this one. You definitely have to just trust the process because at the beginning they feel very disconnected and disorienting. But as the book goes on, you will begin to see how it all connects and it is so satisfying.

Kawakami explore some really interesting ideas about humanity, about love and hate, about creation and destruction, the cycles of life, technology versus nature, and so much more in these 14 very distinct but connected tales.

Even as satisfying as the end was, do I fully understand everything I read? No. But it doesn’t take away from my enjoyment of the experience, especially because I know this is a book I will revisit in the future. Reading it a second time, I can only imagine, will reveal things I did not understand at first.

If you like Sequoia Nagamatsu’s How High We Go in the Dark or Simon Jimenez’s The Vanished Birds, I think you will really enjoy this collection.]]> 3.86 2016 Under the Eye of the Big Bird

author: Hiromi Kawakami
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/07
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves: short-stories, translated
review:
Hands-down, this is one of my new favorite collections of interconnected short stories. It feels like every year I find a new one that really jumps out and surprises me, this one, especially because I have read two other books by this author before and didn’t particularly love them.

This felt so different! And I’m not sure if it’s because of a different translator or because it’s an entirely different type of book than the other two I read. I’m so glad I gave this a shot and that the International Booker prize put it on the long list so that it was brought to my attention.

If you like speculative, sci-fi short stories, I think you’ll really like this one. You definitely have to just trust the process because at the beginning they feel very disconnected and disorienting. But as the book goes on, you will begin to see how it all connects and it is so satisfying.

Kawakami explore some really interesting ideas about humanity, about love and hate, about creation and destruction, the cycles of life, technology versus nature, and so much more in these 14 very distinct but connected tales.

Even as satisfying as the end was, do I fully understand everything I read? No. But it doesn’t take away from my enjoyment of the experience, especially because I know this is a book I will revisit in the future. Reading it a second time, I can only imagine, will reveal things I did not understand at first.

If you like Sequoia Nagamatsu’s How High We Go in the Dark or Simon Jimenez’s The Vanished Birds, I think you will really enjoy this collection.
]]> The Unmapping 216601229 Intimate and spellbinding, The Unmapping is a character-driven, literary speculative exploration of a city’s descent into chaos and confusion, perfect for fans of Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel and Exit West by Mohsin Hamid.��

4 a.m., New York City. A silent disaster.��

There is no flash of light, no crumbling, no quaking. Each person in New York wakes up on an unfamiliar block when the buildings all switch locations overnight. The power grid has snapped, thousands of residents are missing, and the Empire State Building is on Coney Island—for now. The next night, it happens again.��

Esme Green and Arjun Varma work for the City of New York’s Emergency Management team and are tasked with disaster response for the Unmapping. As Esme tries to wade through the bureaucratic nightmare of an endlessly shuffling city, she’s distracted by the ongoing search for her missing fiancé. Meanwhile, Arjun focuses on the ground-level rescue of disoriented New Yorkers, hoping to become the hero the city needs.��

While scientists scramble to find a solution—or at least a means to cope—and mysterious “red cloak�� cults crop up in the disaster’s wake, New York begins to reckon with a new reality no one recognizes. For Esme and Arjun, the fight to hold the city together will mean tackling questions about themselves that they were too afraid to ask—and facing answers they never expected. With themes of climate change, political unrest, and life in a state of emergency, The Unmapping is a timely and captivating debut.��]]> 408 Denise S. Robbins 1964721067 Maxwell 0 review-copies 3.72 2025

author: Denise S. Robbins
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/05
shelves: review-copies
review:

]]> <![CDATA[On the Calculation of Volume I]]> 208511270
Balle is hypnotic and masterful in her remixing of the endless recursive day, creating curious little folds of time and foreshadowings: her flashbacks light up inside the text like old flash bulbs.

The first volume’s gravitational pull―a force inverse to its constriction―has the effect of a strong tranquilizer, but a drug under which your powers of observation only grow sharper and more acute. Give in to the book's logic (its minute movements, its thrilling shifts, its slant wit, its slowing of time) and its spell is utterly intoxicating.

Solvej Balle’s seven-volume novel wrings enthralling and magical new dimensions from time and its hapless, mortal subjects. As one Danish reviewer beautifully put it, Balle’s fiction consists of writing that listens. “Reading her is like being caressed by language itself.”]]> 160 Solvej Balle 0811237257 Maxwell 3 3.5 stars] Very cool concept. Wonderfully written and excellently translated. I just think it being the start of a series made me feel like, by the end, I wanted more (a good thing! I will continue) but that this one didn't satisfy as much as a 1st book in a series should, in my opinion. It's making me question whether this whole concept needs to be broken out into more volumes or could be instead one large volume or maybe 2-3 bigger ones. We shall see! Maybe I'll eat my words and see, in hindsight, why she ended this one where she did. But for now I liked, didn't love, and hope subsequent volumes provide a bit more meat.]]> 3.89 2020 On the Calculation of Volume I

author: Solvej Balle
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/04
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: short-novels, translated, owned
review:
[3.5 stars] Very cool concept. Wonderfully written and excellently translated. I just think it being the start of a series made me feel like, by the end, I wanted more (a good thing! I will continue) but that this one didn't satisfy as much as a 1st book in a series should, in my opinion. It's making me question whether this whole concept needs to be broken out into more volumes or could be instead one large volume or maybe 2-3 bigger ones. We shall see! Maybe I'll eat my words and see, in hindsight, why she ended this one where she did. But for now I liked, didn't love, and hope subsequent volumes provide a bit more meat.
]]> Audition 216247518 One woman, the performance of a lifetime. Or two. A mesmerizing Mobius strip of a novel that asks who we are to the people we love.

Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an elegant and accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, and young—young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In Audition, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day—partner, parent, creator, muse—and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us best.]]> 208 Katie Kitamura 059385232X Maxwell 4 arc
I have not been so enamored by a story like I was for the first half of this book in a long while. I LOVE Kitamura's writing. It's just my brand of slightly pretentious literary fic and I mean that in the best way! It's so interior and cagey and you can't quite trust what you are reading, but it's also very clear and sharp and full of wonderful run-on sentences that you somehow never lose track of. I ate it up.

The 2nd half takes a slight turn that I found completely disorienting and kept me wanting to read it all as fast as I could. I still don't fully know if I know what happened, but I think it's incredibly smart and exciting and one that is worth sitting with and thinking about. It would make a fascinating book club discussion! I can see myself revisiting this and even maybe bumping up my rating to a 5. She has so many interesting things to say about roles and performance and stories we tell each other and ourselves.

This comes out in April 2025 and I hope people pick it up and don't read too much about it before they do! It's best to go in with little knowledge and no expectations. Enjoy!]]> 3.58 2025 Audition

author: Katie Kitamura
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/03
shelves: arc
review:
Two parts. Two stories. How do they connect? Are they connected? What does the gap between the reality they present and the reader's interpretation mean for the story as a whole?

I have not been so enamored by a story like I was for the first half of this book in a long while. I LOVE Kitamura's writing. It's just my brand of slightly pretentious literary fic and I mean that in the best way! It's so interior and cagey and you can't quite trust what you are reading, but it's also very clear and sharp and full of wonderful run-on sentences that you somehow never lose track of. I ate it up.

The 2nd half takes a slight turn that I found completely disorienting and kept me wanting to read it all as fast as I could. I still don't fully know if I know what happened, but I think it's incredibly smart and exciting and one that is worth sitting with and thinking about. It would make a fascinating book club discussion! I can see myself revisiting this and even maybe bumping up my rating to a 5. She has so many interesting things to say about roles and performance and stories we tell each other and ourselves.

This comes out in April 2025 and I hope people pick it up and don't read too much about it before they do! It's best to go in with little knowledge and no expectations. Enjoy!
]]> Hunchback 214986269 A bombshell bestseller in Japan, a provocative, defiant debut novel about a young woman in a care home seeking autonomy and the full possibilities of her life.

Born with a congenital muscle disorder,��Shaka spends her days in her room in a care home outside Tokyo, relying on an electric wheelchair to get around and a ventilator to breathe. But if Shaka's physical life is limited, her quick, mischievous mind has no boundaries: She takes e-learning courses on her iPad, publishes explicit fantasies on websites, and anonymously troll-tweets to see if anyone is paying attention (“If I were to live again, I’d want to be a high-class prostitute��). One day, she tweets into the void an offer of an enormous sum of money for a sperm donor. To her surprise, her new nurse accepts the dare, unleashing a series of events that will forever change Shaka's sense of herself as a woman in the world.

Hunchback has shaken Japanese literary culture with its skillful depiction of the physical body and��unrepentant humor. Winner of the prestigious Akutagawa Prize, it's a feminist story about the dignity of an individual who insists on her right to make choices for herself, no matter the consequences. Formally creative and refreshingly unsentimental, Hunchback depicts the joy, anger, and desires of a woman demanding autonomy in a world that doesn't aways grant it to people like her. Full of wit, bite, and heart, this unforgettable novel reminds us all of the full potential��of our lives, no matter the limitations we experience.]]> 112 Saou Ichikawa 0593734718 Maxwell 3 translated, short-novels, arc 3.51 2023 Hunchback

author: Saou Ichikawa
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/28
date added: 2025/03/03
shelves: translated, short-novels, arc
review:
A very short, very strange little novel that follows a woman who lives in a care home and pushes the edges of societal expectations especially for those living in bodies with disabilities. It's quirky and wry and also a bit charming at times. But I just felt that it wasn't quite enough material for me to love it. It was only 90 pages and explored some interesting ideas around inner peace, the physical versus spiritual, and the roles we play in a larger context. I just wish it had been a bit meatier to allow us to sit with character longer and continue to push these themes further.
]]> <![CDATA[One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This]]> 213870084 From award-winning novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad comes a powerful reckoning with what it means to live in the heart of an Empire which doesn’t consider you fully human.

On Oct 25th, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.�� This tweet was viewed over 10 million times.��

One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This chronicles the deep fracture which has occurred for Black, brown, indigenous Americans, as well as the upcoming generation, many of whom had clung to a thread of faith in western ideals, in the idea that their countries, or the countries of their adoption, actually attempted to live up to the values they espouse.��

This book is a reckoning with what it means to live in the west, and what it means to live in a world run by a small group of countries—America, the UK, France and Germany.�� It will be The Fire Next Time for a generation that understands we’re undergoing a shift in the so-called ‘rules-based order,�� a generation that understands the west can no longer be trusted to police and guide the world, or its own cities and campuses. It draws on intimate details of Omar’s own story as an emigrant who grew up believing in the western project, who was catapulted into journalism by the rupture of 9/11.��

This book is his heartsick breakup letter with the west. It is a breakup we are watching all over the U.S., on college campuses, on city streets, and the consequences of this rupture will be felt by all of us. His book is for all the people who want something better than what the west has served up. This is the book for our time.]]> 208 Omar El Akkad 0593804147 Maxwell 5 arc, non-fiction 4.68 2025 One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This

author: Omar El Akkad
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.68
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/28
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: arc, non-fiction
review:
This should 100% be required reading.
]]> Bel Canto 1039414 An alternate cover for this isbn can be found here.

In an unnamed South American country, a world-renowned soprano sings at a birthday party in honor of a visiting Japanese industrial titan. His hosts hope that Mr. Hosokawa can be persuaded to build a factory in their Third World backwater. Alas, in the opening sequence, just as the accompanist kisses the soprano, a ragtag band of 18 terrorists enters the vice-presidential mansion through the air conditioning ducts. Their quarry is the president, who has unfortunately stayed home to watch a favorite soap opera. And thus, from the beginning, things go awry.

Among the hostages are not only Hosokawa and Roxane Coss, the American soprano, but an assortment of Russian, Italian, and French diplomatic types. Reuben Iglesias, the diminutive and gracious vice president, quickly gets sideways of the kidnappers, who have no interest in him whatsoever. Meanwhile, a Swiss Red Cross negotiator named Joachim Messner is roped into service while vacationing. He comes and goes, wrangling over terms and demands, and the days stretch into weeks, the weeks into months.

With the omniscience of magic realism, Ann Patchett flits in and out of the hearts and psyches of hostage and terrorist alike, and in doing so reveals a profound, shared humanity. Her voice is suitably lyrical, melodic, full of warmth and compassion. Hearing opera sung live for the first time, a young priest reflects:

Never had he thought, never once, that such a woman existed, one who stood so close to God that God's own voice poured from her. How far she must have gone inside herself to call up that voice. It was as if the voice came from the center part of the earth and by the sheer effort and diligence of her will she had pulled it up through the dirt and rock and through the floorboards of the house, up into her feet, where it pulled through her, reaching, lifting, warmed by her, and then out of the white lily of her throat and straight to God in heaven.

Joined by no common language except music, the 58 international hostages and their captors forge unexpected bonds. Time stands still, priorities rearrange themselves. Ultimately, of course, something has to give, even in a novel so imbued with the rich imaginative potential of magic realism. But in a fractious world, Bel Canto remains a gentle reminder of the transcendence of beauty and love. --Victoria Jenkins]]> 336 Ann Patchett 0060188731 Maxwell 4
And at times it does feel a bit gimmicky and flat, the Peruvian setting never being named specifically for some reason and a bit of tone-deafness regarding Western 'exceptionalism' when it comes to art and culture. I think Patchett of 2025 would likely write things differently here (in fact, last year she published an annotated version of this with margin notes I'd love to take a look at some day to see if she agrees with my assessment).

All in all, her sentence level writing is so strong; her ability to tie themes and characters into the plot which is perfectly paced, for me at least and didn't drag like it did for some. While it has its flaws and might be my least favorite of her novels I've read so far, despite being her most acclaimed, I still admire Patchett's vision even when her reach exceeds her grasp.]]> 3.86 2001 Bel Canto

author: Ann Patchett
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/26
date added: 2025/02/26
shelves:
review:
Ann Patchett is such a skillful writer. This is, to date, the oldest book of hers that I've read and I can see how she's grown since this was released in 2001 and become more skilled at creating well-rounded, nuanced characters. This story which centers around an opera singer at times feels like a stage production itself, moving scene to scene between characters in an omniscient 3rd person POV.

And at times it does feel a bit gimmicky and flat, the Peruvian setting never being named specifically for some reason and a bit of tone-deafness regarding Western 'exceptionalism' when it comes to art and culture. I think Patchett of 2025 would likely write things differently here (in fact, last year she published an annotated version of this with margin notes I'd love to take a look at some day to see if she agrees with my assessment).

All in all, her sentence level writing is so strong; her ability to tie themes and characters into the plot which is perfectly paced, for me at least and didn't drag like it did for some. While it has its flaws and might be my least favorite of her novels I've read so far, despite being her most acclaimed, I still admire Patchett's vision even when her reach exceeds her grasp.
]]> The Guest Cat 17574849 The Guest Cat, by the acclaimed poet Takashi Hiraide, is a subtly moving and exceptionally beautiful novel about the transient nature of life and idiosyncratic but deeply felt ways of living. A couple in their thirties live in a small rented cottage in a quiet part of Tokyo; they work at home, freelance copy-editing; they no longer have very much to say to one another. But one day a cat invites itself into their small kitchen. It leaves, but the next day comes again, and then again and again. Soon they are buying treats for the cat and enjoying talks about the animal and all its little ways. Life suddenly seems to have more promise for the husband and wife �� the days have more light and color. The novel brims with new small joys and many moments of staggering poetic beauty, but then something happens��.

As Kenzaburo Oe has remarked, Takashi Hiraide’s work "really shines." His poetry, which is remarkably cross-hatched with beauty, has been acclaimed here for "its seemingly endless string of shape-shifting objects and experiences,whose splintering effect is enacted via a unique combination of speed and minutiae."]]> 140 Takashi Hiraide 0811221504 Maxwell 4 short-novels, translated 3.60 2001 The Guest Cat

author: Takashi Hiraide
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/21
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: short-novels, translated
review:
The definition of no plot, all vibes. Descriptive writing evokes strong images of a Japanese garden tucked away in a backyard in Shinjuku, home to a bohemian couple of writers who inadvertently 'adopt' their neighbors cat. Over the years in which the cat treats their guesthouse on the property as a sort of second home, they develop an attachment to her that fundamentally changes them. It's simple, sweet and beautifully written. Told in vignettes that mostly revolve around the cat, but also the couples' life and vocations, the story unfolds slowly and with ease, taking you on a journey that, while confined in space to this walled garden and guesthouse, transcends time and barriers for anyone that's ever had a pet or experienced that unconditional connection between human and animal.
]]> Vernon God Little 15733903 This is an alternate cover edition for ISBN 0571215165.

The surprise winner of the 2003 Man Booker Prize, DBC Pierre's debut novel, Vernon God Little, makes few apologies in its darkly comedic portrait of Martirio, Texas, a town reeling in the aftermath of a horrific school shooting. Fifteen-year-old Vernon Little narrates the first-person story with a cynical twang and a four-letter barb for each of his diet-obsessed townsfolk. His mother, endlessly awaiting the delivery of a new refrigerator, seems to exist only to twist an emotional knife in his back; her friend, Palmyra, structures her life around the next meal at the Bar-B-Chew Barn; officer Vaine Gurie has Vernon convicted of the crime before she's begun the investigation; reporter Eulalio Ledesma hovers between a comforting father-figure and a sadistic Bond villain; and Jesus, his best friend in the world, is dead--a victim of the killings. As his life explodes before him, Vernon flees his home in pursuit of a tropical fantasy: a cabin on a beach in Mexico he once saw in the movie Against All Odds. But the police--and TV crews--are in hot pursuit.

Vernon God Little is a daring novel and demands a patient reader, not because it is challenging to read--Pierre's prose flows effortlessly, only occasionally slipping from the unmistakable voice of his hero--but because the book skates so precariously between the almost taboo subject of school violence and the literary gamesmanship of postmodern fiction. Yet, as the novel unfolds, Pierre's parodic version of American culture never crosses the line into caricature, even when it climaxes in a death-row reality TV show. And Vernon, whose cynicism and smart-ass "learnings" give way to a poignant curiosity about the meaning of life, becomes a fully human, profoundly sympathetic character. --Patrick O'Kelley

]]> 279 D.B.C. Pierre Maxwell 0 owned, dnf
This book, to me, has not aged well. It’s also not my style really at all. If this wasn’t a Booker Prize winner I probably wouldn’t have tried to read it. I gave it a shot after it sat on my shelf for over a year, but 1/4 of the way in (after finishing all of part 1), I’m just not engaged or interested. ]]> 3.53 2003 Vernon God Little

author: D.B.C. Pierre
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/20
shelves: owned, dnf
review:
DNF @ 25%.

This book, to me, has not aged well. It’s also not my style really at all. If this wasn’t a Booker Prize winner I probably wouldn’t have tried to read it. I gave it a shot after it sat on my shelf for over a year, but 1/4 of the way in (after finishing all of part 1), I’m just not engaged or interested.
]]> Clear 176443690
Against the rugged backdrop of this faraway spot beyond Shetland, Carys Davies's intimate drama unfolds with tension and tenderness: a touching and crystalline study of ordinary people buffeted by history and a powerful exploration of the distances and connections between us. Perfectly structured and surprising at every turn, Clear is a marvel of storytelling, an exquisite short novel by a master of the form.]]> 196 Carys Davies 1668030667 Maxwell 0 to-read 3.85 Clear

author: Carys Davies
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.85
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Night Masquerade (Binti, #3)]]> 34386617 Binti.

Binti has returned to her home planet, believing that the violence of the Meduse has been left behind. Unfortunately, although her people are peaceful on the whole, the same cannot be said for the Khoush, who fan the flames of their ancient rivalry with the Meduse.

Far from her village when the conflicts start, Binti hurries home, but anger and resentment has already claimed the lives of many close to her.

Once again it is up to Binti, and her intriguing new friend Mwinyi, to intervene—though the elders of her people do not entirely trust her motives—and try to prevent a war that could wipe out her people, once and for all.

Don't miss this essential concluding volume in the Binti trilogy.]]> 208 Nnedi Okorafor 0765393131 Maxwell 0 to-read 3.96 2018 The Night Masquerade (Binti, #3)

author: Nnedi Okorafor
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Ms Ice Sandwich 52147406
But life keeps getting in the way �� there’s his beloved grandmother’s illness, and a faltering friendship with his classmate Tutti, who she invites him into her private world. Wry, intimate and wonderfully skewed, Ms Ice Sandwich is a poignant depiction of the naivety and wisdom of youth, just as it is passing.]]> 96 Mieko Kawakami 1782276726 Maxwell 3 short-novels, translated 3.5 stars]This was an incredibly sweet and sentimental story about growing up and learning to accept changes in life.

It follows a 4th grade boy who becomes somewhat infatuated with the deli worker at his local grocery store who he dubs 'Ms Ice Sandwich.' She wears cool blue eye shadow and has a frosty demeanor that he, as a kid with nerves and anxiety (possibly on the autism spectrum as well though it's never explicitly stated) seems to admire. Over the course of this novella he befriends a girl at his school named Tutti and deals with his dying grandmother who he and his mother live with and care for.

It's a beautifully translated little book that takes a snapshot of one ordinary life to remind you about its precious and fleeting nature. It manages to balance profundity with mundanity and avoids cliche. I really enjoyed this!]]> 3.81 2013 Ms Ice Sandwich

author: Mieko Kawakami
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/19
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: short-novels, translated
review:
[3.5 stars]This was an incredibly sweet and sentimental story about growing up and learning to accept changes in life.

It follows a 4th grade boy who becomes somewhat infatuated with the deli worker at his local grocery store who he dubs 'Ms Ice Sandwich.' She wears cool blue eye shadow and has a frosty demeanor that he, as a kid with nerves and anxiety (possibly on the autism spectrum as well though it's never explicitly stated) seems to admire. Over the course of this novella he befriends a girl at his school named Tutti and deals with his dying grandmother who he and his mother live with and care for.

It's a beautifully translated little book that takes a snapshot of one ordinary life to remind you about its precious and fleeting nature. It manages to balance profundity with mundanity and avoids cliche. I really enjoyed this!
]]> The Buffalo Hunter Hunter 214565614 A chilling historical horror novel set in the American west in 1912 following a Lutheran priest who transcribes the life of a vampire who haunts the fields of the Blackfeet reservation looking for justice.

A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits. This is an American Indian revenge story written by one of the new masters of horror, Stephen Graham Jones.]]> 448 Stephen Graham Jones 1668075083 Maxwell 4 arc, indigenous Frankenstein, the latest outing from horror master Stephen Graham Jones revisits the true events of with a speculative twist.

We begin with Etsy Beaucarne in 2012, a struggling academic in her early 40s fighting for tenure. When a lost journal from her great-great-grandfather, a Lutheran Priest named Arthur Beaucarne, is discovered on a construction site, she sees the chance to develop something compelling enough to cement her place at the university. Much of the narrative itself is Arthur's journal entries from 1912, which in turn include transcriptions of a 'confession' of sorts, given to him by a man from the Blackfeet nation of events that occurred in 1870. These stories layer on one another to examine the effects of westward expansion, 'Manifest Destiny', and the lingering effects this ideology had on indigenous peoples.

But of course since its a SGJ novel, there's a supernatural twist that takes this beyond just a simple historical fiction. I'll leave you to discover that for yourself, but all I will say is that SGJ's creativity continues to impress and surprise me novel after novel after novel. He has truly become one of my favorite authors to follow.

This book was SO clever. It also packed a punch in both the creep factor as well as the way he handled the historical aspect that illuminated a dark spot in American (especially white American) history. I wasn't aware of the Marias Massacre before reading this, and it wasn't until I'd finished the novel that I learned just how much of this 'fictional story' is far from made up. SGJ utilized a lot of the events and individuals involved in that horrific massacre in this book, while still creating a mesmerizing and addictive tale of vengeance and grief.

The only complaint I have with this book is that I think it was a bit too long. The middle 1/3 or so is a bit repetitive with some of the narrative elements, and I think if that had been cut down by 50-75 pages it would've maintained the overall power of what he is exploring without bogging down the story with too much of the same thing. Regardless, reading SGJ's prose and seeing how he crafts a story is still always a pleasure, even if it tended to go on a bit longer than necessary.

I can't wait for people to pick this up when it comes out in March! I think if you already love historical fiction and want something with horror elements, and if you like stories within stories and things that come full circle narratively, you will love this one. SGJ, you can do no wrong!]]> 4.24 2025 The Buffalo Hunter Hunter

author: Stephen Graham Jones
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/17
date added: 2025/02/18
shelves: arc, indigenous
review:
Using a frame narrative à la Frankenstein, the latest outing from horror master Stephen Graham Jones revisits the true events of with a speculative twist.

We begin with Etsy Beaucarne in 2012, a struggling academic in her early 40s fighting for tenure. When a lost journal from her great-great-grandfather, a Lutheran Priest named Arthur Beaucarne, is discovered on a construction site, she sees the chance to develop something compelling enough to cement her place at the university. Much of the narrative itself is Arthur's journal entries from 1912, which in turn include transcriptions of a 'confession' of sorts, given to him by a man from the Blackfeet nation of events that occurred in 1870. These stories layer on one another to examine the effects of westward expansion, 'Manifest Destiny', and the lingering effects this ideology had on indigenous peoples.

But of course since its a SGJ novel, there's a supernatural twist that takes this beyond just a simple historical fiction. I'll leave you to discover that for yourself, but all I will say is that SGJ's creativity continues to impress and surprise me novel after novel after novel. He has truly become one of my favorite authors to follow.

This book was SO clever. It also packed a punch in both the creep factor as well as the way he handled the historical aspect that illuminated a dark spot in American (especially white American) history. I wasn't aware of the Marias Massacre before reading this, and it wasn't until I'd finished the novel that I learned just how much of this 'fictional story' is far from made up. SGJ utilized a lot of the events and individuals involved in that horrific massacre in this book, while still creating a mesmerizing and addictive tale of vengeance and grief.

The only complaint I have with this book is that I think it was a bit too long. The middle 1/3 or so is a bit repetitive with some of the narrative elements, and I think if that had been cut down by 50-75 pages it would've maintained the overall power of what he is exploring without bogging down the story with too much of the same thing. Regardless, reading SGJ's prose and seeing how he crafts a story is still always a pleasure, even if it tended to go on a bit longer than necessary.

I can't wait for people to pick this up when it comes out in March! I think if you already love historical fiction and want something with horror elements, and if you like stories within stories and things that come full circle narratively, you will love this one. SGJ, you can do no wrong!
]]> Water Moon 211479192 A woman inherits a pawnshop where you can sell your regrets, and then embarks on a magical journey when a charming young physicist wanders into the shop, in this dreamlike and enchanting fantasy novel.

On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawnshop, but not everyone can find it. Most will see a cozy ramen restaurant. And only the chosen ones—those who are lost—will find a place to pawn their life choices and deepest regrets.

Hana Ishikawa wakes on her first morning as the pawnshop’s new owner to find it ransacked, the shop’s most precious acquisition stolen, and her father missing. And then into the shop stumbles a charming stranger, quite unlike its other customers, for he offers help instead of seeking it.

Together, they must journey through a mystical world to find Hana’s father and the stolen choice—by way of rain puddles, rides on paper cranes, the bridge between midnight and morning, and a night market in the clouds.

But as they get closer to the truth, Hana must reveal a secret of her own—and risk making a choice that she will never be able to take back.]]> 384 Samantha Sotto Yambao 0593724992 Maxwell 3 owned 3.5 stars] A whimsical tale that looks at our destiny versus the choices we make and the impact that has on our lives.

Hana is now the owner of a magical pawnshop in Tokyo, taking over for her recently retired father. The pawnshop appears only to those who need it, allowing them to trade their regrets for a cup of tea that will take the memory of those regrets away. Keishin is a physicist recently returning to his home country of Japan for a new job but filled with longing for a past he didn't get to in experience in the way he'd hoped. One day, their worlds collide and they are set off on an epic adventure to rescue Hana's father and a stolen regret from the pawnshop.

As you might be able to imagine, the creativity of the world Samantha Sotto Yambao has created is so strong. It's filled with such unique elements that truly feel like a grown-up fairytale. The biggest comparison I've seen is that it reminds people of a Studio Ghibli movie, and I 100% agree with that comparison. This too would make a great animated film! I loved the world and the way the plot wove all of these elements together into a really engaging, exciting and plot-twisting story. I was genuinely caught off guard by a few plot elements that came up, which is rare for me.

So while the world building and plot were extremely creative and strong, I thought the characters and writing were lacking. Both Hana and Keishin felt a bit one-note to me, like cardboard cutouts. They had the elements of real, raw characters but it just wasn't expressed in a way that made them very believable. I think as the story goes on and you learn more about them and their situation, it begins to make more sense, but there could've been more done to make them well-rounded from the start. I also thought the dialogue was somewhat unnatural at times, coming across as wooden and not as warm and inviting as the rest of the story. I listened to a bit on audio and I think it translated better there than on the page.

Although I had a few issues with it that brought my rating down, I did overall have a great time with this one and would recommend it to people keeping in mind my few criticisms. If you want a really creative story you can get lost in for a bit and enjoy magical realism and fantasy mixed with contemporary settings, this one would be worth checking out!]]> 3.79 2025 Water Moon

author: Samantha Sotto Yambao
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/11
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves: owned
review:
[3.5 stars] A whimsical tale that looks at our destiny versus the choices we make and the impact that has on our lives.

Hana is now the owner of a magical pawnshop in Tokyo, taking over for her recently retired father. The pawnshop appears only to those who need it, allowing them to trade their regrets for a cup of tea that will take the memory of those regrets away. Keishin is a physicist recently returning to his home country of Japan for a new job but filled with longing for a past he didn't get to in experience in the way he'd hoped. One day, their worlds collide and they are set off on an epic adventure to rescue Hana's father and a stolen regret from the pawnshop.

As you might be able to imagine, the creativity of the world Samantha Sotto Yambao has created is so strong. It's filled with such unique elements that truly feel like a grown-up fairytale. The biggest comparison I've seen is that it reminds people of a Studio Ghibli movie, and I 100% agree with that comparison. This too would make a great animated film! I loved the world and the way the plot wove all of these elements together into a really engaging, exciting and plot-twisting story. I was genuinely caught off guard by a few plot elements that came up, which is rare for me.

So while the world building and plot were extremely creative and strong, I thought the characters and writing were lacking. Both Hana and Keishin felt a bit one-note to me, like cardboard cutouts. They had the elements of real, raw characters but it just wasn't expressed in a way that made them very believable. I think as the story goes on and you learn more about them and their situation, it begins to make more sense, but there could've been more done to make them well-rounded from the start. I also thought the dialogue was somewhat unnatural at times, coming across as wooden and not as warm and inviting as the rest of the story. I listened to a bit on audio and I think it translated better there than on the page.

Although I had a few issues with it that brought my rating down, I did overall have a great time with this one and would recommend it to people keeping in mind my few criticisms. If you want a really creative story you can get lost in for a bit and enjoy magical realism and fantasy mixed with contemporary settings, this one would be worth checking out!
]]> The Accidentals: Stories 211004813 The Accidentals��is the brilliant new book from International Booker-shortlisted duo Guadalupe Nettel and Rosalind Harvey.]]> 144 Guadalupe Nettel 1639734929 Maxwell 0 4.05 2023 The Accidentals: Stories

author: Guadalupe Nettel
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/10
shelves: review-copies, short-stories, translated
review:

]]> <![CDATA[They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us]]> 33947154
In the wake of the nightclub attacks in Paris, he recalls how he sought refuge as a teenager in music, at shows, and wonders whether the next generation of young Muslims will not be afforded that opportunity now. While discussing the everyday threat to the lives of black Americans, Abdurraqib recounts the first time he was ordered to the ground by police officers: for attempting to enter his own car.

In essays that have been published by the New York Times, MTV, and Pitchfork, among others—along with original, previously unreleased essays—Abdurraqib uses music and culture as a lens through which to view our world, so that we might better understand ourselves, and in so doing proves himself a bellwether for our times.]]> 291 Hanif Abdurraqib Maxwell 5 black-authors, non-fiction 4.57 2017 They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us

author: Hanif Abdurraqib
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/10
date added: 2025/02/10
shelves: black-authors, non-fiction
review:
if you're not reading Hanif Abdurraqib, what are you doing???
]]> The Lola Quartet 25489146
The last thing he wants is to sell foreclosed real estate for his sister Eilo’s company in their Florida hometown, but he’s in no position to refuse her job offer. Plus, there’s another reason to go Eilo recently met a ten-year-old girl who looks very much like Gavin and has the same last name as his high-school girlfriend, Anna, who left town abruptly after graduation.

Determined to find out if this little girl might be his daughter, Gavin sets off to track down Anna, starting with the three friends they shared back when he was part of a jazz group called “The Lola Quartet.�� As Gavin pieces together their stories, he learns that Anna has been on the run for good reason, and soon his investigation into her sudden disappearance all those years ago takes a seriously dangerous turn.

Look for Emily St. John Mandel’s bestselling new novel, Sea of Tranquility !]]> 288 Emily St. John Mandel 1101911999 Maxwell 0 to-read 3.65 2012 The Lola Quartet

author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Universality 214269374 Remember—words are your weapons, they’re your tools, your currency: a twisty, slippery descent into the rhetoric of truth and power from a "powerful new voice in British Literature�� (The Sunday Times).

Late one night on a Yorkshire farm, in the midst of an illegal rave, a young man is nearly bludgeoned to death with a solid gold bar.

An ambitious young journalist sets out to uncover the truth surrounding the attack, connecting the dots between an amoral banker landlord, an iconoclastic columnist, and a radical anarchist movement that has taken up residence on the farm. She solves the mystery, but her viral exposé raises more questions than it answers, Who wrote it? Why? And how much of it is true? Through a voyeuristic lens, and with a simmering power, the book focuses in on what we say, how we say it, and what we really mean.

The thrilling novel from one of the most acclaimed and incisive young novelists working today, Universality is a compelling, unsettling celebration of the spectacular, appalling force of language. It dares you to look away.]]> 176 Natasha Brown 0593977300 Maxwell 3 arc, black-authors
I think it had good ideas and an interesting concept. I think it fell into the “too smart for its own good�� space from time to time, meaning it stopped feeling like fiction and felt more like a place to talk about big ideas with all tell & no show (think the emails in Beautiful World Where Are You).

But she’s a good writer and has a strong voice. I just don’t necessarily vibe with this brand of fiction. I didn’t love her debut novel either, but at least enjoyed this one a bit more? Not sure I’ll continue picking up her books though.

Thanks to Random House for the early review copy!]]> 3.44 2025 Universality

author: Natasha Brown
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/08
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: arc, black-authors
review:
Some people will say this book is genius and others will say it’s trash. And here I am in the middle ¯\_(��)_/¯

I think it had good ideas and an interesting concept. I think it fell into the “too smart for its own good�� space from time to time, meaning it stopped feeling like fiction and felt more like a place to talk about big ideas with all tell & no show (think the emails in Beautiful World Where Are You).

But she’s a good writer and has a strong voice. I just don’t necessarily vibe with this brand of fiction. I didn’t love her debut novel either, but at least enjoyed this one a bit more? Not sure I’ll continue picking up her books though.

Thanks to Random House for the early review copy!
]]> Still Born 95696897
When complications arise in Alina’s pregnancy and Laura becomes attached to her neighbour’s son, both women are forced to reckon with the complexity of their emotions, in Nettel’s sensitive and surgically precise exploration of maternal ambivalence.

Still Born was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2023, announced on April 18, 2023.

In prose that is as gripping as it is insightful, Guadalupe Nettel explores maternal ambivalence with a surgeon's touch, carefully dissecting the contradictions that make up the lived experiences of women.]]> 224 Guadalupe Nettel 1639730044 Maxwell 5
We follow our narrator Laura as she tells the story of her friend, Alina, who, as she gets older, wants to become a mother, something the two in their younger years seemed to swear off. While Laura goes and gets her tubes tied, Alina does IVF with her partner Aurelio and is met with a pregnancy that ends up becoming more challenging than expected. Laura, in a new apartment complex, falls into a friendship with her neighbor Doris, who has her own son, Nicolas, from an abusive ex-husband. These three women circle each other, with occasional appearances from Laura's own mother as well as a nanny that Alina later employs, to weave together a tapestry of varied experiences of womanhood.

I thought Nettel explored the complications of femininity so well. It's not only a thought-provoking story but also one that is beautifully written, putting complicated feelings down on the page in a way that I think many can relate to. I also appreciated how it didn't come from a judgmental attitude; the decisions each woman makes feels considered and respected. Even though the narrator starts out with her reservations about motherhood, she is challenged along the way to look at things from a new perspective, without it ever feeling like she has to abandon her convictions or beliefs.

I was so surprised by this book and happy to have read this with few preconceptions. It came highly recommended by a few friends and I can see why! I know this was shortlisted for the 2023 International Booker Prize (before I started following that one more closely), and I am glad that seems to have gotten it into more readers hands. I will definitely be recommending this more, especially to people considering becoming parents themselves. And I can't wait to read more of Nettel's work!]]> 4.09 2020 Still Born

author: Guadalupe Nettel
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/05
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves:
review:
I so appreciated this nuanced and multilayered view of womanhood, especially through the lens of reproduction and motherhood. Guadalupe Nettel (and Rosalind Harvey's translation) crafted a story with so much to unpack in just over 200 pages, without it ever feeling like it was doing too much.

We follow our narrator Laura as she tells the story of her friend, Alina, who, as she gets older, wants to become a mother, something the two in their younger years seemed to swear off. While Laura goes and gets her tubes tied, Alina does IVF with her partner Aurelio and is met with a pregnancy that ends up becoming more challenging than expected. Laura, in a new apartment complex, falls into a friendship with her neighbor Doris, who has her own son, Nicolas, from an abusive ex-husband. These three women circle each other, with occasional appearances from Laura's own mother as well as a nanny that Alina later employs, to weave together a tapestry of varied experiences of womanhood.

I thought Nettel explored the complications of femininity so well. It's not only a thought-provoking story but also one that is beautifully written, putting complicated feelings down on the page in a way that I think many can relate to. I also appreciated how it didn't come from a judgmental attitude; the decisions each woman makes feels considered and respected. Even though the narrator starts out with her reservations about motherhood, she is challenged along the way to look at things from a new perspective, without it ever feeling like she has to abandon her convictions or beliefs.

I was so surprised by this book and happy to have read this with few preconceptions. It came highly recommended by a few friends and I can see why! I know this was shortlisted for the 2023 International Booker Prize (before I started following that one more closely), and I am glad that seems to have gotten it into more readers hands. I will definitely be recommending this more, especially to people considering becoming parents themselves. And I can't wait to read more of Nettel's work!
]]> <![CDATA[Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture]]> 134119018 A history and investigation of a world ruled by algorithms, which determine the shape of culture itself.

From trendy restaurants to city grids, to TikTok and Netflix feeds the world round, algorithmic recommendations dictate our experiences and choices. The algorithm is present in the familiar neon signs and exposed brick of Internet cafes, be it in Nairobi or Portland, and the skeletal, modern furniture of Airbnbs in cities big and small. Over the last decade, this network of mathematically determined decisions has taken over, almost unnoticed—informing the songs we listen to, the friends with whom we stay in touch—as we’ve grown increasingly accustomed to our insipid new normal.

This ever-tightening web woven by algorithms is called “Filterworld.�� Kyle Chayka shows us how online and offline spaces alike have been engineered for seamless consumption, becoming a source of pervasive anxiety in the process. Users of technology have been forced to contend with data-driven equations that try to anticipate their desires—and often get them wrong. What results is a state of docility that allows tech companies to curtail human experiences—human lives—for profit. But to have our tastes, behaviors, and emotions governed by computers, while convenient, does nothing short of call the very notion of free will into question.

In Filterworld, Chayka traces this creeping, machine-guided curation as it infiltrates the furthest reaches of our digital, physical, and psychological spaces. With algorithms increasingly influencing not just what culture we consume, but what culture is produced, urgent questions What happens when shareability supersedes messiness, innovation, and creativity—the qualities that make us human? What does it mean to make a choice when the options have been so carefully arranged for us? Is personal freedom possible on the Internet?

To the last question, Filterworld argues yes—but to escape Filterworld, and even transcend it, we must first understand it.]]> 290 Kyle Chayka Maxwell 0 review-copies, non-fiction 3.66 2024 Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture

Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture

author: Kyle Chayka
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves: review-copies, non-fiction
review:

]]> Three Days in June 213243949 A new Anne Tyler novel destined to be an instant classic: a socially awkward mother of the bride navigates the days before and after her daughter's wedding.

Gail Baines is having a bad day. To start, she loses her job—or quits, depending on whom you ask. Tomorrow her daughter, Debbie, is getting married, and she hasn’t even been invited to the spa day organized by the mother of the groom. Then, Gail’s ex-husband, Max, arrives unannounced on her doorstep, carrying a cat, without a place to stay, and without even a suit.

But the true crisis lands when Debbie shares with her parents a secret she has just learned about her husband to be. It will not only throw the wedding into question but also stir up Gail and Max’s past.

Told with deep sensitivity and a tart sense of humor, full of the joys and heartbreaks of love and marriage and family life,��Three Days in June��is a triumph, and gives us the perennially bestselling, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer at the height of her powers

]]> 165 Anne Tyler 0593803485 Maxwell 4 arc 3.61 2025 Three Days in June

author: Anne Tyler
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/02
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: arc
review:
A delight! As always, Anne Tyler has captured a mildly eccentric but relatable character on the page so fully that you can imagine her walking right off and into the streets of Baltimore. I loved this slice-of-life story that follows a woman in her 60s on the day before, of, and the day after her daughter's wedding. This event calls up past events in the protagonists life and causes her to consider her habits, her behaviors, her state of being, her choices. It puts her in close proximity to her own ex-husband and a stray cat. It's heartwarming and nuanced and full of Tyler's signature observations that make her one of my favorite and the most consistent of writers!
]]> <![CDATA[Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell]]> 176823067
In Traveling, Powers seeks to understand Mitchell through her myriad journeys. Through extensive interviews with Mitchell's peers and deep archival research, she takes readers to rural Canada, mapping the singer’s childhood battle with polio. She charts the course of Mitchell’s musical evolution, ranging from early folk to jazz fusion to experimentation with pop synthetics. She follows the winding road of Mitchell’s collaborations with other greats, and the loves that emerged along the way, all the way through to the remarkable return of Mitchell to music-making after the 2015 aneurysm that nearly took her life.]]> 448 Ann Powers 0062463721 Maxwell 5 non-fiction
"I'm not a biographer, in the usual definition of that term; something in me instinctively opposes the idea that one person can sort through all the facts of another's life and come up with anything close to that stranger's true story. Instead, I'm a critic. A kind of mapmaker, as I see it, setting down lines meant to guide others along the trajectories of artists who are always one step ahead of me."

This is a work of music journalism, of criticism, a kaleidoscopic look at a cultural figure who, over decades in the public eye and endless adulations, has taken on almost a mythic status. It seems nearly impossible to look at Mitchell with a critical eye these days, though she's still with us her legacy is cemented as one of the 'greats' and the term 'genius' is basically a nickname hers at this point. I don't disagree with those labels, by any means. I'm a huge fan! I have loved Joni Mitchell for nearly half my life at this point. I was lucky enough to attend Joni 75 in 2018 (something Powers references in the book) and be in the room with Joni herself while a dozen or so performers paid homage to her immense career. I can go to my death bed saying I sang 'Happy Birthday' to THE Joni Mitchell.

But she's not without her faults, and any artist with this immense influence is worth looking at closely. The biographies have been written, and she's shared stories of her life in her own words to others. We don't need more facts. What Powers brings to the table is the eye of a seasoned music journalist who can synthesize vast amounts of information with a deep knowledge of music history into something that brings a new side to Joni's story.

As the title suggests, this book takes us on paths throughout Mitchell's career, especially ones that are often ignored or under-explored. Though told chronologically, the book's chapters are also thematic. Powers is able to balance this biographical information with broader themes of the culture in which Mitchell worked and lived, as well as contemporary thought. Perhaps other readers who decry Powers being too present in the book were just uncomfortable with the fact that the 'golden age' of folk music wasn't as idyllic as it seems in the photos. I appreciated immensely how this book brought to the table new things to consider about an artist who has been written and talked about endlessly since she splashed onto the scene.

I don't really have anything bad to say about this book. It's bold and imperfect, like any good piece of art, but most importantly it's thought-provoking. Someone said they think Mitchell would hate this book, while the author herself says:

"Some, maybe Mitchell herself, may consider my charting revisionist. I have tried to resist or at least question common assumptions about an artist whom so many believe they know so well. On occasion, I hope I've transgressed. That's what a self-made original like Mitchell would respect, I tell myself."

I can't say for sure who is right. It doesn't matter. I sit here only appreciating even more the power of an artist like Mitchell, flaws and all, and the discourse her art engenders as only great art can.]]> 3.76 Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell

author: Ann Powers
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.76
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/31
date added: 2025/01/31
shelves: non-fiction
review:
This is NOT a biography of Joni Mitchell, as the author clearly states in the introduction. It seems like other readers who hold negative opinions about this book either skipped the introduction or didn't grasp what Powers meant when she says:

"I'm not a biographer, in the usual definition of that term; something in me instinctively opposes the idea that one person can sort through all the facts of another's life and come up with anything close to that stranger's true story. Instead, I'm a critic. A kind of mapmaker, as I see it, setting down lines meant to guide others along the trajectories of artists who are always one step ahead of me."

This is a work of music journalism, of criticism, a kaleidoscopic look at a cultural figure who, over decades in the public eye and endless adulations, has taken on almost a mythic status. It seems nearly impossible to look at Mitchell with a critical eye these days, though she's still with us her legacy is cemented as one of the 'greats' and the term 'genius' is basically a nickname hers at this point. I don't disagree with those labels, by any means. I'm a huge fan! I have loved Joni Mitchell for nearly half my life at this point. I was lucky enough to attend Joni 75 in 2018 (something Powers references in the book) and be in the room with Joni herself while a dozen or so performers paid homage to her immense career. I can go to my death bed saying I sang 'Happy Birthday' to THE Joni Mitchell.

But she's not without her faults, and any artist with this immense influence is worth looking at closely. The biographies have been written, and she's shared stories of her life in her own words to others. We don't need more facts. What Powers brings to the table is the eye of a seasoned music journalist who can synthesize vast amounts of information with a deep knowledge of music history into something that brings a new side to Joni's story.

As the title suggests, this book takes us on paths throughout Mitchell's career, especially ones that are often ignored or under-explored. Though told chronologically, the book's chapters are also thematic. Powers is able to balance this biographical information with broader themes of the culture in which Mitchell worked and lived, as well as contemporary thought. Perhaps other readers who decry Powers being too present in the book were just uncomfortable with the fact that the 'golden age' of folk music wasn't as idyllic as it seems in the photos. I appreciated immensely how this book brought to the table new things to consider about an artist who has been written and talked about endlessly since she splashed onto the scene.

I don't really have anything bad to say about this book. It's bold and imperfect, like any good piece of art, but most importantly it's thought-provoking. Someone said they think Mitchell would hate this book, while the author herself says:

"Some, maybe Mitchell herself, may consider my charting revisionist. I have tried to resist or at least question common assumptions about an artist whom so many believe they know so well. On occasion, I hope I've transgressed. That's what a self-made original like Mitchell would respect, I tell myself."

I can't say for sure who is right. It doesn't matter. I sit here only appreciating even more the power of an artist like Mitchell, flaws and all, and the discourse her art engenders as only great art can.
]]> A Pale View of Hills 12388468 183 Kazuo Ishiguro Maxwell 4 owned
Etsuko, our narrator, does just that when her second child, Niki, visits her in her English countryside home. Her arrival prompts her mother to reflect on decades prior, when she was pregnant with her first daughter, Keiko, who would eventually take her own life in England, unhappy and unsettled with the uprooting from Japan she experienced.

Etsuko particularly recalls one summer when she met a woman named Sachiko and her daughter, Mariko, who moved into an old cottage near the rebuilt apartment complex Etsuko lived in with her then husband Jiro after the bombing of Nagasaki. At the same time, Jiro's elderly father comes to visit and instigates discussions within the household that reflects larger issues of nationalism and intergenerational conflict.

Ishiguro seems so confident from the start. As a debut, this is extremely measured and sure of itself. It has all the hallmarks of his later work: a shrouded mystery, a haunting atmosphere, sharp dialogue, and many layers to peel apart, demanding a re-read.

For such a short novel (my edition has only 183 pages) it's incredibly dense, and though it can be read quickly, it's something that demands attention. It's the kind of story that would greatly reward revisiting because of the 'mystery' you uncover as you continue to read; I'm sure there are hints to something lurking beneath the surface I missed all throughout.

I find most fascinating Ishiguro's obsession with memory and experience. His narrators are often somberly reflective of questionable pasts. You can't always trust what they say, or at least the total veracity of their claims. But they don't seem purposefully deceptive. It's a human trait to want to construct the narrative of our lives in a way that puts us at ease, and Ishiguro doesn't seem to condemn his characters for that desire, but instead looks at what that need for storytelling has on them and those around them.

Is the view that of pale hills, distant reminders of a past rather to be forgotten, or is the viewing pale and dubious, leaving out what clarity and truth would put in stark relief?]]> 3.87 1982 A Pale View of Hills

author: Kazuo Ishiguro
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1982
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/29
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves: owned
review:
'View' is both a noun and a verb. You can look forward, look backward, look inward, look outward. The narrator, and other characters in this story, spend a lot of time looking out of windows. They spend time looking back at their nation's history, and their own experiences during and after WWII, as well as looking forward to better things. They see things they'd rather forget, images that stay with them into the present day. Things that are recalled by new landscapes that propel them into the past to deal with their trauma, or at least try and face it as it may or may not have happened.

Etsuko, our narrator, does just that when her second child, Niki, visits her in her English countryside home. Her arrival prompts her mother to reflect on decades prior, when she was pregnant with her first daughter, Keiko, who would eventually take her own life in England, unhappy and unsettled with the uprooting from Japan she experienced.

Etsuko particularly recalls one summer when she met a woman named Sachiko and her daughter, Mariko, who moved into an old cottage near the rebuilt apartment complex Etsuko lived in with her then husband Jiro after the bombing of Nagasaki. At the same time, Jiro's elderly father comes to visit and instigates discussions within the household that reflects larger issues of nationalism and intergenerational conflict.

Ishiguro seems so confident from the start. As a debut, this is extremely measured and sure of itself. It has all the hallmarks of his later work: a shrouded mystery, a haunting atmosphere, sharp dialogue, and many layers to peel apart, demanding a re-read.

For such a short novel (my edition has only 183 pages) it's incredibly dense, and though it can be read quickly, it's something that demands attention. It's the kind of story that would greatly reward revisiting because of the 'mystery' you uncover as you continue to read; I'm sure there are hints to something lurking beneath the surface I missed all throughout.

I find most fascinating Ishiguro's obsession with memory and experience. His narrators are often somberly reflective of questionable pasts. You can't always trust what they say, or at least the total veracity of their claims. But they don't seem purposefully deceptive. It's a human trait to want to construct the narrative of our lives in a way that puts us at ease, and Ishiguro doesn't seem to condemn his characters for that desire, but instead looks at what that need for storytelling has on them and those around them.

Is the view that of pale hills, distant reminders of a past rather to be forgotten, or is the viewing pale and dubious, leaving out what clarity and truth would put in stark relief?
]]> The Singer's Gun 25430696
Everyone Anton Waker grew up with is corrupt. His parents dealt in stolen goods, and he was a successful purveyor of forged documents until he abandoned it all in his early twenties, determined to live a normal life, complete with career, apartment, and a fiancée who knows nothing of his criminal beginnings. He’s on the verge of finally getting married when Aria—his cousin and former partner in crime—blackmails him into helping her with one last job.

Anton considers the task a small price for future freedom. But as he sets off for an Italian honeymoon, it soon becomes clear that the ghosts of his past can't be left behind so easily, and that the task Aria requires will cost him more than he could ever imagine.

Look for Emily St. John Mandel’s bestselling new novel, Sea of Tranquility !]]> 272 Emily St. John Mandel 1101911972 Maxwell 4 owned
This one is a more simple and smaller scale story of crime and retribution, of instability and fear in a society that teeters on the edge of collapse. What does it take to 'make it out'?: for Anton, that's out of the family business; for Aria, out of poverty and isolation; for Elena, out of her country and into a better life. These characters circle each other and make the moves necessary to get ahead in life, or at least get to where they want to be, beyond their current selves. Added into the mix is a detective we learn very little about, with her own ambitions and motivations.

It's a sort of noir/crime drama with Mandel's signature clarity and sophistication. Not your typical thriller, but thrilling nonetheless. It's clever, character-driven, but equally as compelling in form, with pacing that keeps you going with ease. A perfect book to get me out of my foggy head and focus on another life for a bit, and a lovely addition to the author's body of work.]]> 3.88 2010 The Singer's Gun

author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/26
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: owned
review:
Working my way back through Emily St. John Mandel's earlier work, I'm impressed, but not surprised, to see how consistent she has been as a writer and storyteller for so long.

This one is a more simple and smaller scale story of crime and retribution, of instability and fear in a society that teeters on the edge of collapse. What does it take to 'make it out'?: for Anton, that's out of the family business; for Aria, out of poverty and isolation; for Elena, out of her country and into a better life. These characters circle each other and make the moves necessary to get ahead in life, or at least get to where they want to be, beyond their current selves. Added into the mix is a detective we learn very little about, with her own ambitions and motivations.

It's a sort of noir/crime drama with Mandel's signature clarity and sophistication. Not your typical thriller, but thrilling nonetheless. It's clever, character-driven, but equally as compelling in form, with pacing that keeps you going with ease. A perfect book to get me out of my foggy head and focus on another life for a bit, and a lovely addition to the author's body of work.
]]> <![CDATA[Marginlands: A Journey into India’s Vanishing Landscapes]]> 209784594 280 Arati Kumar-Rao 1571315985 Maxwell 0 review-copies, non-fiction 4.41

Marginlands: A Journey into India’s Vanishing Landscapes

author: Arati Kumar-Rao
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.41
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/22
shelves: review-copies, non-fiction
review:

]]> Lonely Castle in the Mirror 125077742 Seven students find unusual common ground in this warm, puzzle-like Japanese bestseller laced with gentle fantasy and compassionate insight.

Bullied to the point of dropping out of school, Kokoro's days blur together as she hides in her bedroom, unable to face her family or friends. As she spirals into despair, her mirror begins to shine; with a touch, Kokoro is pulled from her lonely life into a resplendent, bizarre fairytale castle guarded by a strange girl in a wolf mask. Six other students have been brought to the castle, and soon this marvelous refuge becomes their playground.

The castle has a hidden room that can grant a single wish, but there are rules to be followed, and breaking them will have dire consequences. As Kokoro and her new acquaintances spend more time in their new sanctuary, they begin to unlock the castle's secrets and, tentatively, each other's.

Lonely Castle in the Mirror is a mesmerizing, heart-warming novel about the unexpected rewards of embracing human connection.]]> 384 Mizuki Tsujimura 1645660745 Maxwell 3 3.5 stars] At once a charming, magical story in the vein of The Chronicles of Narnia or Hans Christian Andersen, while tackling heavy themes of childhood bullying, abuse, and the perils of being an outsider.

Set in Tokyo over the course of one academic year, the story follows Kokoro who observes 'futoko' (or school refusal) due to relentless bullying at her new middle school. While at home one day the mirror in her bedroom begins to glow and brings her into a fairytale castle with six other children and a Wolf Queen who sets them on a mission to find the Wishing Key before the school year runs out. Along the way the children learn more about one another, and themselves, and develop bonds to last a lifetime. But whoever finds the Wishing Key and makes a wish risks erasing the castle and the events of the last year from all of their minds in order to see it come true. Who will find and the key, and what will become of their fates?

I had a lot of fun reading this book. Of course, due to the subject matter, at times it is quite sad to see how relentless the bullying ('ijime') is and how it affects Kokoro's mental health. I appreciated that the author wrote this book to address something it seems is not openly discussed as much in Japan as it might be here in the states. And through that I found the characters, from our main one Kokoro, to all of the side characters--Ureshino, Aki, Fuka, Rion, Subaru, and Masamune--to be extremely memorable. Their story arcs and contribution to the plot were well conceived and they made for a great ragtag team of awkward middle schoolers.

While the pacing is a bit all over the place in this book, the final 1/3 or so is extremely exciting and page-turning and really elevated the story for me. I loved the ending; this is one of those novels with quite a slow, character-focused start, and a jampacked ending. It worked for me!

However, I found the writing style, and particularly the translation, to be lacking. It was super clunky with odd word choices and awkward phrasing that consistently took me out of the story. I truly think if this book were translated differently, it would be a lot stronger. There were so many instances of decisions made, I can only assume by the translator, that didn't come off naturally. This caused me to wonder what was just poorly written prose or dialogue by the author or what was attributed to the translation. It almost felt like the novel was never edited again after being translated to ensure the flow of the prose. In our group discussion of this someone commented on this being something they've experienced particularly with books translated from Japanese into English, and while I do think Japanese writers have a different cadence to their writing, the awkwardness I felt from the text seemed more attributed to specific choices rather than an overall aura that might be unfamiliar to Western readers.

All in all though I am glad I've finally read this one! It's been on my radar for years and it had some great plot twists and moments that I didn't see coming, with a beautiful ending to a heartwarming and compelling narrative. Despite its flaws, it's a story I still recommend and the perfect novel to escape into just like the kids in the mirror.]]> 4.20 2017 Lonely Castle in the Mirror

author: Mizuki Tsujimura
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/21
date added: 2025/01/22
shelves: fantasy, translated, owned, well-done-books-club
review:
[3.5 stars] At once a charming, magical story in the vein of The Chronicles of Narnia or Hans Christian Andersen, while tackling heavy themes of childhood bullying, abuse, and the perils of being an outsider.

Set in Tokyo over the course of one academic year, the story follows Kokoro who observes 'futoko' (or school refusal) due to relentless bullying at her new middle school. While at home one day the mirror in her bedroom begins to glow and brings her into a fairytale castle with six other children and a Wolf Queen who sets them on a mission to find the Wishing Key before the school year runs out. Along the way the children learn more about one another, and themselves, and develop bonds to last a lifetime. But whoever finds the Wishing Key and makes a wish risks erasing the castle and the events of the last year from all of their minds in order to see it come true. Who will find and the key, and what will become of their fates?

I had a lot of fun reading this book. Of course, due to the subject matter, at times it is quite sad to see how relentless the bullying ('ijime') is and how it affects Kokoro's mental health. I appreciated that the author wrote this book to address something it seems is not openly discussed as much in Japan as it might be here in the states. And through that I found the characters, from our main one Kokoro, to all of the side characters--Ureshino, Aki, Fuka, Rion, Subaru, and Masamune--to be extremely memorable. Their story arcs and contribution to the plot were well conceived and they made for a great ragtag team of awkward middle schoolers.

While the pacing is a bit all over the place in this book, the final 1/3 or so is extremely exciting and page-turning and really elevated the story for me. I loved the ending; this is one of those novels with quite a slow, character-focused start, and a jampacked ending. It worked for me!

However, I found the writing style, and particularly the translation, to be lacking. It was super clunky with odd word choices and awkward phrasing that consistently took me out of the story. I truly think if this book were translated differently, it would be a lot stronger. There were so many instances of decisions made, I can only assume by the translator, that didn't come off naturally. This caused me to wonder what was just poorly written prose or dialogue by the author or what was attributed to the translation. It almost felt like the novel was never edited again after being translated to ensure the flow of the prose. In our group discussion of this someone commented on this being something they've experienced particularly with books translated from Japanese into English, and while I do think Japanese writers have a different cadence to their writing, the awkwardness I felt from the text seemed more attributed to specific choices rather than an overall aura that might be unfamiliar to Western readers.

All in all though I am glad I've finally read this one! It's been on my radar for years and it had some great plot twists and moments that I didn't see coming, with a beautiful ending to a heartwarming and compelling narrative. Despite its flaws, it's a story I still recommend and the perfect novel to escape into just like the kids in the mirror.
]]> Small Worlds 59634120 An exhilarating and expansive new novel about fathers and sons, faith and friendship from Caleb Azumah Nelson, the no.1 bestselling, award-winning author of Open Water

The one thing that can solve Stephen's problems is dancing. Dancing at Church, with his parents and brother, the shimmer of Black hands raised in praise; he might have lost his faith, but he does believe in rhythm. Dancing with his friends, somewhere in a basement with the drums about to drop, while the DJ spins garage cuts. Dancing with his band, making music which speaks not just to the hardships of their lives, but the joys too. Dancing with his best friend Adeline, two-stepping around the living room, crooning and grooving, so close their heads might touch. Dancing alone, at home, to his father's records, uncovering parts of a man he has never truly known.

Stephen has only ever known himself in song. But what becomes of him when the music fades? When his father begins to speak of shame and sacrifice, when his home is no longer his own? How will he find space for himself: a place where he can feel beautiful, a place he might feel free?

Set over the course of three summers in Stephen's life, from London to Ghana and back again, Small Worlds is an exhilarating and expansive novel about the worlds we build for ourselves, the worlds we live, dance and love within.]]> 260 Caleb Azumah Nelson 024157434X Maxwell 3 4.29 2023

author: Caleb Azumah Nelson
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/04
date added: 2025/01/22
shelves: black-authors, owned, well-done-books-club
review:

]]> Demon Copperhead 75678204 A masterpiece of contemporary American fiction, Demon Copperhead captures the heart as it evokes a young hero's unforgettable journey to maturity in the mountains of southern Appalachia.
Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenage single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing his epic novel to her own place and time, Kingsolver has enlisted his anger and compassion, and, above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story.

Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.]]> 548 Barbara Kingsolver Maxwell 4 owned, well-done-books-club
I thought Damon/Demon was such a vivid main character and narrator, one I won't forget for a long time.

The writing was strong and pulled me into the story, though the pacing dragged a bit in the middle and the relentless sadness of his life was palpable, making it a rather difficult reading experience.

But ultimately I thought Kingsolver did a fantastic job bringing it all to life on the page!]]> 4.41 2022 Demon Copperhead

author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/11
date added: 2025/01/22
shelves: owned, well-done-books-club
review:
A compelling and fully realized character study that takes into consideration themes of big pharma and political divides.

I thought Damon/Demon was such a vivid main character and narrator, one I won't forget for a long time.

The writing was strong and pulled me into the story, though the pacing dragged a bit in the middle and the relentless sadness of his life was palpable, making it a rather difficult reading experience.

But ultimately I thought Kingsolver did a fantastic job bringing it all to life on the page!
]]> Dune Messiah (Dune, #2) 8117883 Book Two in the Magnificent Dune Chronicles—the Bestselling Science Fiction Adventure of All Time

Dune Messiah continues the story of Paul Atreides, better known—and feared—as the man christened Muad’Dib. As Emperor of the known universe, he possesses more power than a single man was ever meant to wield. Worshipped as a religious icon by the fanatical Fremen, Paul faces the enmity of the political houses he displaced when he assumed the throne—and a conspiracy conducted within his own sphere of influence.

And even as House Atreides begins to crumble around him from the machinations of his enemies, the true threat to Paul comes to his lover, Chani, and the unborn heir to his family’s dynasty...]]> 350 Frank Herbert Maxwell 3
I liked the political maneuvering of this story and didn't even mind that it wasn't a ton of action in the traditional sense, but things happened so quickly and without the same gravity that they held in book one.

By the end I felt like a silent, distant observer rather than sucked into the story like I did with Dune. I rarely say this but I think this book actually could've been a lot longer and I would've enjoyed it more.]]> 4.08 1969 Dune Messiah (Dune, #2)

author: Frank Herbert
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1969
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/18
date added: 2025/01/18
shelves:
review:
The whole book felt like an abridged version of a much longer, more interesting and full story. So many things happen off page and we only hear about them after the fact, when those events could have been shown and raised the stakes or been utilized to develop the characters and our connection to them more.

I liked the political maneuvering of this story and didn't even mind that it wasn't a ton of action in the traditional sense, but things happened so quickly and without the same gravity that they held in book one.

By the end I felt like a silent, distant observer rather than sucked into the story like I did with Dune. I rarely say this but I think this book actually could've been a lot longer and I would've enjoyed it more.
]]> We Do Not Part 205436018 Han Kang’s most revelatory book since The Vegetarian, We Do Not Part tells the story of a friendship between two women while powerfully reckoning with a hidden chapter in Korean history.

One winter morning, Kyungha receives an urgent message from her friend Inseon to visit her at a hospital in Seoul. Inseon has injured herself in an accident, and she begs Kyungha to return to Jeju Island, where she lives, to save her beloved pet—a white bird called Ama. A snowstorm hits the island when Kyungha arrives. She must reach Inseon’s house at all costs, but the icy wind and squalls slow her down as night begins to fall. She wonders if she will arrive in time to save the animal—or even survive the terrible cold that envelops her with every step. Lost in a world of snow, she doesn’t yet suspect the vertiginous plunge into the darkness that awaits her at her friend’s house.

Blurring the boundaries between dream and reality, We Do Not Part powerfully illuminates a forgotten chapter in Korean history, buried for decades—bringing to light the lost voices of the past to save them from oblivion. Both a hymn to an enduring friendship and an argument for remembering, it is the story of profound love in the face of unspeakable violence—and a celebration of life, however fragile it might be.]]> 256 Han Kang 0593595459 Maxwell 4 translated, arc 4.5 stars] One could say We Do Not Part is an amalgam of Han Kang’s previous works: the surrealism of The Vegetarian, the examination of traumatic historical events in Human Acts, and the poetic starkness of The White Book. Here she dips into autofiction and shines a light on the atrocities committed on Jeju Island in 1948.

The book begins with a dream. Evoking woodcut prints, the white snow falls on bent and blackened tree stumps evoking the image of human form. The dark sea rolls in, threatening the trees (or are they people?) as Kyungha, our narrator, anxiously watches. She awakens to a sweltering day in Seoul, a sharp contrast in both weather and mood. Her nightmares have haunted her since she began researching a book she published four years prior about an uprising that resulted in countless deaths. But she feels unsure if these dreams are connected to that event, or something else...

Kyungha's longtime friend Inseon texts her asking for help, immediately. She's in a hospital in Seoul after an accidental while woodworking, coincidentally on a project the two had conceived together years ago but never saw to fruition. Inseon asks Kyungha to return to her Jeju Island home to feed her pet bird who was left behind in the wake of Inseon's accident. Kyungha arrives on the island in the midst of a snowstorm that obscures not only her vision but the story's grasp on reality. From there we move into an almost dreamlike state with the characters as past and present unfold together, woven into a tale that attempts to illuminate and reflect on the harsh realities of their nation.

Kang has explored the human body throughout her oeuvre. She seems to have a fixation on how the human form can both bring forth life and quickly snatch it away. The remnants of humans lost to acts of violence permeate this story. But so too do the shallow breaths, the radiant heat from blushed cheeks, the crunch of snow under feet. These vivid images pull the reader along, like stills in a slideshow.

There also seems to be a fascination with recording history, a theme I notice popping up in many novels I've read in the last year or so. From newspaper clippings, documentary films, journal entries, letters, and novels (such as this one), there's an attempt through the characters, and seemingly Kang herself, to put a pin in history in some way. To fix the eye on something we so easily can look away from, or refuse to ever see at all. Many times our narrator forces herself to look, at wounded fingers, unfathomable separations, in the name of remembering.

At one point a character says something about love being an agony. That to love is to make oneself vulnerable: physically, emotionally, spiritually. And yet there seems to be no other option. Humans continually seek out love in all its various forms. Those are on display here: from mother and daughter, to brother and sister, friend to friend. The partings we experience in life don't seem to be as tangible as they feel. Perhaps there's something more threading us together, across time and space, through history and the present, in blood and snow.]]> 3.87 2021 We Do Not Part

author: Han Kang
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/16
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves: translated, arc
review:
[4.5 stars] One could say We Do Not Part is an amalgam of Han Kang’s previous works: the surrealism of The Vegetarian, the examination of traumatic historical events in Human Acts, and the poetic starkness of The White Book. Here she dips into autofiction and shines a light on the atrocities committed on Jeju Island in 1948.

The book begins with a dream. Evoking woodcut prints, the white snow falls on bent and blackened tree stumps evoking the image of human form. The dark sea rolls in, threatening the trees (or are they people?) as Kyungha, our narrator, anxiously watches. She awakens to a sweltering day in Seoul, a sharp contrast in both weather and mood. Her nightmares have haunted her since she began researching a book she published four years prior about an uprising that resulted in countless deaths. But she feels unsure if these dreams are connected to that event, or something else...

Kyungha's longtime friend Inseon texts her asking for help, immediately. She's in a hospital in Seoul after an accidental while woodworking, coincidentally on a project the two had conceived together years ago but never saw to fruition. Inseon asks Kyungha to return to her Jeju Island home to feed her pet bird who was left behind in the wake of Inseon's accident. Kyungha arrives on the island in the midst of a snowstorm that obscures not only her vision but the story's grasp on reality. From there we move into an almost dreamlike state with the characters as past and present unfold together, woven into a tale that attempts to illuminate and reflect on the harsh realities of their nation.

Kang has explored the human body throughout her oeuvre. She seems to have a fixation on how the human form can both bring forth life and quickly snatch it away. The remnants of humans lost to acts of violence permeate this story. But so too do the shallow breaths, the radiant heat from blushed cheeks, the crunch of snow under feet. These vivid images pull the reader along, like stills in a slideshow.

There also seems to be a fascination with recording history, a theme I notice popping up in many novels I've read in the last year or so. From newspaper clippings, documentary films, journal entries, letters, and novels (such as this one), there's an attempt through the characters, and seemingly Kang herself, to put a pin in history in some way. To fix the eye on something we so easily can look away from, or refuse to ever see at all. Many times our narrator forces herself to look, at wounded fingers, unfathomable separations, in the name of remembering.

At one point a character says something about love being an agony. That to love is to make oneself vulnerable: physically, emotionally, spiritually. And yet there seems to be no other option. Humans continually seek out love in all its various forms. Those are on display here: from mother and daughter, to brother and sister, friend to friend. The partings we experience in life don't seem to be as tangible as they feel. Perhaps there's something more threading us together, across time and space, through history and the present, in blood and snow.
]]> All My Rage 57899793 Lahore, Pakistan. Then.
Misbah is a dreamer and storyteller, newly married to Toufiq in an arranged match. After their young life is shaken by tragedy, they come to the United States and open the Cloud’s Rest Inn Motel, hoping for a new start.

Juniper, California. Now.
Salahudin and Noor are more than best friends; they are family. Growing up as outcasts in the small desert town of Juniper, California, they understand each other the way no one else does. Until The Fight, which destroys their bond with the swift fury of a star exploding.

Now, Sal scrambles to run the family motel as his mother Misbah’s health fails and his grieving father loses himself to alcoholism. Noor, meanwhile, walks a harrowing tightrope: working at her wrathful uncle’s liquor store while hiding the fact that she’s applying to college so she can escape him—and Juniper—forever.

When Sal’s attempts to save the motel spiral out of control, he and Noor must ask themselves what friendship is worth—and what it takes to defeat the monsters in their pasts and the ones in their midst.

From one of today’s most cherished and bestselling young adult authors comes a breathtaking novel of young love, old regrets, and forgiveness—one that’s both tragic and poignant in its tender ferocity.]]> 376 Sabaa Tahir 0593202341 Maxwell 3 ya 3.5 stars] Noor and Salahudin are teenagers growing up in a small desert town in California. Noor, brought over by her uncle from Pakistan after her entire village including her parents are killed in a deadly earthquake when she was six, longs to get out of Juniper. Salahudin, the only son of Pakistani immigrants, wants nothing more than to save his sick mother, his addict father, and their failing motel. After months of cooling off after a fight in which Noor professes her love to Salahudin, the two are brought back together under dire circumstances. How they choose to move forward, seeking out the fulfillment of their own dreams while honoring the legacies from which they come, will force them to reconcile and brave the storm together or risk losing everything they've known and loved.

I've never read anything from Sabaa Tahir before, but I've heard wonderful things about her fantasy series and this National Book Award winning novel. I found her writing, especially her attention to more intense themes, to be compelling and lend itself to easy reading without lacking depth. The book is obviously geared toward younger readers than myself, and I felt she captured their voice and mindset well, albeit falling from time to time into tropes or cliches of the YA 'genre.' A particular highlight for me were the interstitial chapters from the point-of-view of Salahudin's mother, Misbah. She recounts her betrothal to his father up to the beginning of the novel's events, and offered a refreshing look at coming of age and the very life-altering decisions we do or do not make.

My biggest complaints about the book don't quite outweigh what I think works really well here. While the final section is quite rushed, a bit unrealistic, and resolves in a way that felt like it catered more to the reader than to the truth of the characters (by that I mean not ending in a devastating way like I'm used to in literary fiction hah), there are tender, honest moments that do shine through. Perhaps some of the messaging and delivery of it was a bit on the nose or stereotypical, which you could argue plays, again, to the main readership, but I think it could have retained its moral statements without having to be so obvious at times by what it wants to say. Kids are a lot smarter than are given credit, and the more harrowing themes addressed in this book show they can handle more than we often expect; I appreciate when the medium honors that same intellect.

All in all, while it's not a book I'd typically read (this was picked by my wife for a challenge I'm doing to read books from her shelf in 2025), I'm happy to have read it and that it exists for the perfect reader to find!]]> 4.48 2022 All My Rage

author: Sabaa Tahir
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/13
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves: ya
review:
[3.5 stars] Noor and Salahudin are teenagers growing up in a small desert town in California. Noor, brought over by her uncle from Pakistan after her entire village including her parents are killed in a deadly earthquake when she was six, longs to get out of Juniper. Salahudin, the only son of Pakistani immigrants, wants nothing more than to save his sick mother, his addict father, and their failing motel. After months of cooling off after a fight in which Noor professes her love to Salahudin, the two are brought back together under dire circumstances. How they choose to move forward, seeking out the fulfillment of their own dreams while honoring the legacies from which they come, will force them to reconcile and brave the storm together or risk losing everything they've known and loved.

I've never read anything from Sabaa Tahir before, but I've heard wonderful things about her fantasy series and this National Book Award winning novel. I found her writing, especially her attention to more intense themes, to be compelling and lend itself to easy reading without lacking depth. The book is obviously geared toward younger readers than myself, and I felt she captured their voice and mindset well, albeit falling from time to time into tropes or cliches of the YA 'genre.' A particular highlight for me were the interstitial chapters from the point-of-view of Salahudin's mother, Misbah. She recounts her betrothal to his father up to the beginning of the novel's events, and offered a refreshing look at coming of age and the very life-altering decisions we do or do not make.

My biggest complaints about the book don't quite outweigh what I think works really well here. While the final section is quite rushed, a bit unrealistic, and resolves in a way that felt like it catered more to the reader than to the truth of the characters (by that I mean not ending in a devastating way like I'm used to in literary fiction hah), there are tender, honest moments that do shine through. Perhaps some of the messaging and delivery of it was a bit on the nose or stereotypical, which you could argue plays, again, to the main readership, but I think it could have retained its moral statements without having to be so obvious at times by what it wants to say. Kids are a lot smarter than are given credit, and the more harrowing themes addressed in this book show they can handle more than we often expect; I appreciate when the medium honors that same intellect.

All in all, while it's not a book I'd typically read (this was picked by my wife for a challenge I'm doing to read books from her shelf in 2025), I'm happy to have read it and that it exists for the perfect reader to find!
]]> <![CDATA[We Love You, Bunny (Bunny, #2)]]> 223478303
When We Love You, Bunny opens, Sam has just published her first novel to critical acclaim. But at a New England stop on her book tour, her one-time frenemies, furious at the way they’ve been portrayed, kidnap her. Now a captive audience, it’s her (and our) turn to hear the Bunnies�� side of the story. One by one, they take turns holding the axe, and recount the birth throes of their unholy alliance, their discovery of their unusual creative powers—and the phantasmagoric adventure of conjuring their first creation. With a bound and gagged Sam, we embark on a wickedly intoxicating journey into the heart of dark academia: a fairy tale slasher that explores the wonder and horror of creation itself. Not to mention the transformative powers of love and friendship, Bunny.

Frankenstein by way of Heathers, We Love You, Bunny is both a prequel and a sequel, and an unabashedly wild and totally complete stand-alone novel. Open your hearts, Bunny, to another dazzlingly original and darkly hilarious romp in the Bunny-verse from the queen of the fever-dream, Mona Awad.]]> Mona Awad Maxwell 0 saved I’m sat 4.59 2025 We Love You, Bunny (Bunny, #2)

author: Mona Awad
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.59
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves: saved
review:
I’m sat
]]> The Master and Margarita 25716554
Nothing in the whole of literature compares with The Master and Margarita. One spring afternoon, the Devil, trailing fire and chaos in his wake, weaves himself out of the shadows and into Moscow. Mikhail Bulgakov’s fantastical, funny, and devastating satire of Soviet life combines two distinct yet interwoven parts, one set in contemporary Moscow, the other in ancient Jerusalem, each brimming with historical, imaginary, frightful, and wonderful characters. Written during the darkest days of Stalin’s reign, and finally published in 1966 and 1967, The Master and Margarita became a literary phenomenon, signaling artistic and spiritual freedom for Russians everywhere.]]> 412 Mikhail Bulgakov 0143108271 Maxwell 5 translated, classics
So I read this book, as one does, and I just didn't really 'get' it. The first half especially confused me, keeping track of the dozens of characters (and their many Russian names), the random bits about Pontius Pilate, and what the heck was even happening. Then the book takes a sort of turn at its midpoint and from there I at least was more easily able to follow the narrative even if I wasn't grasping the layers beneath what I was reading. By the time I came to the end I felt bereft of the reading experience I expected or wanted to have with it, and I felt like I owed the book more than that. Thus, I fell down a YouTube rabbit hole (as I tend to) and found that completely unlocked the book for me.

After finishing the video, which provided great historical insight into the headspace Bulgakov was in while writing the novel as well as the state of artists in Stalinist Russia of the early 20th century, I decided to go back to the begin and just read through the first chapter or two to see if I felt differently about the book at all. And then I didn't stop reading. I read the whole book twice in a row! The first time felt like a slog, not because the book is bad (I mean, it's very VERY good) but because I lacked the deeper understanding of what the book was satirizing, what was being said between the lines. And once I understood that, it shifted my whole perspective and reading experience with this story.

I won't recap the plot or share what's in the video linked above because it would definitely take too much time and space here, however I will say that this book is so clever and worth every second of reading it, even if it's a bit of a challenge at first. The translation I read by Pevear & Volokhonsky was fantastic; really beautiful prose that flowed along, witty dialogue, and a great capture of the subtext of the novel.

This is a book that demands to be not just read, but studied closely. But the fun in the book is paying attention to the layers of the novel, from the romantic elements of the master & Margarita, to the historical and political of Pontius Pilate, to the comic and tragic satirization of then contemporary Russia. There's so much to unpack, while simultaneously being a gripping and surprisingly fun story to read.]]> 4.17 1967 The Master and Margarita

author: Mikhail Bulgakov
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1967
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/10
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves: translated, classics
review:
This is bound to be one of my top books (and reading experiences) of 2025. I have so much to say about it, mainly about my journey with this book and why I think it's worth the effort to read this.

So I read this book, as one does, and I just didn't really 'get' it. The first half especially confused me, keeping track of the dozens of characters (and their many Russian names), the random bits about Pontius Pilate, and what the heck was even happening. Then the book takes a sort of turn at its midpoint and from there I at least was more easily able to follow the narrative even if I wasn't grasping the layers beneath what I was reading. By the time I came to the end I felt bereft of the reading experience I expected or wanted to have with it, and I felt like I owed the book more than that. Thus, I fell down a YouTube rabbit hole (as I tend to) and found that completely unlocked the book for me.

After finishing the video, which provided great historical insight into the headspace Bulgakov was in while writing the novel as well as the state of artists in Stalinist Russia of the early 20th century, I decided to go back to the begin and just read through the first chapter or two to see if I felt differently about the book at all. And then I didn't stop reading. I read the whole book twice in a row! The first time felt like a slog, not because the book is bad (I mean, it's very VERY good) but because I lacked the deeper understanding of what the book was satirizing, what was being said between the lines. And once I understood that, it shifted my whole perspective and reading experience with this story.

I won't recap the plot or share what's in the video linked above because it would definitely take too much time and space here, however I will say that this book is so clever and worth every second of reading it, even if it's a bit of a challenge at first. The translation I read by Pevear & Volokhonsky was fantastic; really beautiful prose that flowed along, witty dialogue, and a great capture of the subtext of the novel.

This is a book that demands to be not just read, but studied closely. But the fun in the book is paying attention to the layers of the novel, from the romantic elements of the master & Margarita, to the historical and political of Pontius Pilate, to the comic and tragic satirization of then contemporary Russia. There's so much to unpack, while simultaneously being a gripping and surprisingly fun story to read.
]]> Strange Weather in Tokyo 37368176
As Tsukiko and Sensei grow to know and love one another, time’s passing comes across through the seasons and the food and beverages they consume together. From warm sake to chilled beer, from the buds on the trees to the blooming of the cherry blossoms, the reader is enveloped by a keen sense of pathos and both characters�� keen loneliness.]]> 192 Hiromi Kawakami 1640090169 Maxwell 3 translated, short-novels "But of course, if I really paid attention, there were plenty of other living things surrounding me in the city as well. It was never just the two of us, Sensei and me...And I never really acknowledged that any of them were alive in any way. I never gave any thought to the fact that they were leading the same kind of complicated life as I was."

Tsukiko is a 38 year old lonely woman who wanders into a local bar one day and runs into her high school Japanese teacher, whom she continues to refer to as Sensei. They develop a sort of stilted companionship, inhibited by their large age gap, but bonded over their shared love of food and beer. They leave their encounters up to chance mostly, running into one another at the bar or walking around their neighborhoods. However, as time progresses, they start to develop feelings for one another, though their awkward natures and lack of confidence draws the process of love, the antidote to their loneliness, out for quite some time.

"I, on the other hand, still might not be considered a proper grown-up. I had been very much the adult when I was in elementary school. But as I continued on through junior high and high school, on the contrary, I became less grown-up. And then as the years passed, I turned into quite a childlike person. I suppose I just wasn't able to ally myself with time."

The story is quite short, told in small vignettes rather than one continuous narrative. We encounter them mostly sharing drinks at the bar, though they go on some small adventures together that reveal bits and pieces of their characters. However, I felt the context for the novel was lacking for me. I think there's an intentionally to their opaqueness; they hardly know themselves very well so the reader can't get to know them beyond the page either. Much like the haikus they work on together in one chapter, their descriptions are brief and momentary, focusing more on the process than the product.

I also found the dialogue to be quite awkward, and for me it wasn't in a way that fed into their characterization. I think many times it just sounded unnatural and strange, not sure if that's a translation issue, or just a personal preference. Perhaps others would read that and feel the characters even more illuminated, but for me I felt kept in the dark from their authentic selves.

The food descriptions and nature writing in this, when it occurred, was beautiful. There's a meditative and melancholy atmosphere that pervades the book that makes this definitely more of a mood or vibes type of read. Perhaps someday if I were to revisit this in a different time and place, I might feel more strongly towards it. By no means a bad book, but one that felt every so lackluster in the end and didn't give much for me to chew on.]]> 3.79 2001 Strange Weather in Tokyo

author: Hiromi Kawakami
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2001
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves: translated, short-novels
review:
"But of course, if I really paid attention, there were plenty of other living things surrounding me in the city as well. It was never just the two of us, Sensei and me...And I never really acknowledged that any of them were alive in any way. I never gave any thought to the fact that they were leading the same kind of complicated life as I was."

Tsukiko is a 38 year old lonely woman who wanders into a local bar one day and runs into her high school Japanese teacher, whom she continues to refer to as Sensei. They develop a sort of stilted companionship, inhibited by their large age gap, but bonded over their shared love of food and beer. They leave their encounters up to chance mostly, running into one another at the bar or walking around their neighborhoods. However, as time progresses, they start to develop feelings for one another, though their awkward natures and lack of confidence draws the process of love, the antidote to their loneliness, out for quite some time.

"I, on the other hand, still might not be considered a proper grown-up. I had been very much the adult when I was in elementary school. But as I continued on through junior high and high school, on the contrary, I became less grown-up. And then as the years passed, I turned into quite a childlike person. I suppose I just wasn't able to ally myself with time."

The story is quite short, told in small vignettes rather than one continuous narrative. We encounter them mostly sharing drinks at the bar, though they go on some small adventures together that reveal bits and pieces of their characters. However, I felt the context for the novel was lacking for me. I think there's an intentionally to their opaqueness; they hardly know themselves very well so the reader can't get to know them beyond the page either. Much like the haikus they work on together in one chapter, their descriptions are brief and momentary, focusing more on the process than the product.

I also found the dialogue to be quite awkward, and for me it wasn't in a way that fed into their characterization. I think many times it just sounded unnatural and strange, not sure if that's a translation issue, or just a personal preference. Perhaps others would read that and feel the characters even more illuminated, but for me I felt kept in the dark from their authentic selves.

The food descriptions and nature writing in this, when it occurred, was beautiful. There's a meditative and melancholy atmosphere that pervades the book that makes this definitely more of a mood or vibes type of read. Perhaps someday if I were to revisit this in a different time and place, I might feel more strongly towards it. By no means a bad book, but one that felt every so lackluster in the end and didn't give much for me to chew on.
]]> Territory of Light 43894695 Territory of Light is the luminous story of a young woman, living alone in Tokyo with her three-year-old daughter. Its twelve, stand-alone fragments follow the first year of her separation from her husband. The novel is full of light, sometimes comforting and sometimes dangerous: sunlight streaming through windows, dappled light in the park, distant fireworks, dazzling floodwater, desaturated streetlamps and earth-shaking explosions. The seemingly artless prose is beautifully patterned: the cumulative effect is disarmingly powerful and images remain seared into your retina for a long time afterwards.]]> 128 Yūko Tsushima Maxwell 0 saved 3.59 1978 Territory of Light

author: Yūko Tsushima
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.59
book published: 1978
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves: saved
review:

]]> Dream Count 209166121 A publishing event ten years in the making��a searing, exquisite new novel by the best-selling and award-winning author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists��the story of four women and their loves, longings, and desires.

Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until �� betrayed and brokenhearted �� she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America �� but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve.

In Dream Count, Adichie trains her fierce eye on these women in a sparkling, transcendent novel that takes up the very nature of love itself. Is true happiness ever attainable or is it just a fleeting state? And how honest must we be with ourselves in order to love, and to be loved? A trenchant reflection on the choices we make and those made for us, on daughters and mothers, on our interconnected world, Dream Count pulses with emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations on the human heart, in language that soars with beauty and power. It confirms Adichie’s status as one of the most exciting and dynamic writers on the literary landscape.]]> 320 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 0593803477 Maxwell 0 3.95 2025 Dream Count

author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: black-authors, review-copies, arc
review:

]]> The Heart in Winter 199795387 Award-winning writer Kevin Barry’s first novel set in America, a savagely funny and achingly romantic tale of young lovers on the lam in 1890s Montana.

October 1891. A hard winter approaches across the Rocky Mountains. The city of Butte, Montana is rich on copper mines and rampant with vice and debauchery among a hard-living crowd of immigrant Irish workers. Here we find Tom Rourke, a young poet and ballad-maker of the town, but also a doper, a drinker, and a fearsome degenerate. Just as he feels his life is heading nowhere fast, Polly Gillespie arrives in town as the new bride of the extremely devout mine captain Long Anthony Harrington. A thunderbolt love affair takes spark between Tom and Polly and they strike out west on a stolen horse, moving through the badlands of Montana and Idaho, and briefly an idyll of wild romance perfects itself. But a posse of deranged Cornish gunmen are soon in hot pursuit and closing in fast. With everything to lose and the safety and anonymity of San Francisco still a distant speck on their horizon, the choices they make will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

In this love story for the ages—lyrical, profane and propulsive—Kevin Barry has once again demonstrated himself to be a master stylist, an unrivalled humourist, and a true poet of the human heart.]]> 256 Kevin Barry 0385550596 Maxwell 4 ireland
Tom Rourke is a layabout and letter writer for his fellow Irish emigres to Butte, Montana circa 1891. He waxes poetically and wins the hearts of women back east to come marry his brethren, while he remains destitute and lovelorn in the dusty mining town.

Polly Gillespie arrives by train one day to marry one of Rourke’s lonely compatriots, but fate has other plans for these two.

When the two set out for San Francisco, Gillespie’s scorned husband sends some trackers on their tail and sets off a classic Western caper that can only end in either heartbreak or happiness.

I admired Barry’s writing from the get-go. It’s playful and snarky, but with a ton of heart. Rourke is a sympathetic, though sometimes just pathetic, character that begins to find his way in the world when he falls for Polly. And she, though remains mostly a mystery, comes alive on the page.

Though the book lost me a bit in the middle with POV switches, I also did appreciate how the author gave us a chorus of voices and made some creative storytelling/narrative choices here and there. It took this from a cliche Western storyline to something more profound. And I loved the ending! ]]> 3.80 2024 The Heart in Winter

author: Kevin Barry
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: ireland
review:
A Western following an Irishman? Star-crossed lovers? Lyrical writing? Coen Brothers-esque humor? Sign me up.

Tom Rourke is a layabout and letter writer for his fellow Irish emigres to Butte, Montana circa 1891. He waxes poetically and wins the hearts of women back east to come marry his brethren, while he remains destitute and lovelorn in the dusty mining town.

Polly Gillespie arrives by train one day to marry one of Rourke’s lonely compatriots, but fate has other plans for these two.

When the two set out for San Francisco, Gillespie’s scorned husband sends some trackers on their tail and sets off a classic Western caper that can only end in either heartbreak or happiness.

I admired Barry’s writing from the get-go. It’s playful and snarky, but with a ton of heart. Rourke is a sympathetic, though sometimes just pathetic, character that begins to find his way in the world when he falls for Polly. And she, though remains mostly a mystery, comes alive on the page.

Though the book lost me a bit in the middle with POV switches, I also did appreciate how the author gave us a chorus of voices and made some creative storytelling/narrative choices here and there. It took this from a cliche Western storyline to something more profound. And I loved the ending!
]]> We Used to Live Here 199798006
As a young, queer couple who flip houses, Charlie and Eve can’t believe the killer deal they’ve just gotten on an old house in a picturesque neighborhood. As they’re working in the house one day, there’s a knock on the door. A man stands there with his family, claiming to have lived there years before and asking if it would be alright if he showed his kids around. People pleaser to a fault, Eve lets them in.

As soon as the strangers enter their home, inexplicable things start happening, including the family’s youngest child going missing and a ghostly presence materializing in the basement. Even more weird, the family can’t seem to take the hint that their visit should be over. And when Charlie suddenly vanishes, Eve slowly loses her grip on reality. Something is terribly wrong with the house and with the visiting family—or is Eve just imagining things?

This unputdownable and spine-tingling novel “is like quicksand: the further you delve into its pages, the more immobilized you become by a spiral of terror. We Used to Live Here will haunt you even after you have finished it�� (Agustina Bazterrica, author of Tender Is the Flesh).]]> 312 Marcus Kliewer 1982198788 Maxwell 3 3.67 2024

author: Marcus Kliewer
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/22
date added: 2024/12/26
shelves:
review:
I read this whole book in one sitting on my flight and it was such a journey! but honestly I’m gonna need to read some Reddit threads about that ending because huh????
]]> The Vaster Wilds 175740717 A servant girl escapes from a colonial settlement in the wilderness. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds in this terra incognita is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief in everything that her own civilization has taught her.

Lauren Groff’s new novel is at once a thrilling adventure story and a penetrating fable about trying to find a new way of living in a world succumbing to the churn of colonialism. The Vaster Wilds is a work of raw and prophetic power that tells the story of America in miniature, through one girl at a hinge point in history, to ask how—and if—we can adapt quickly enough to save ourselves.]]> 256 Lauren Groff 0593715861 Maxwell 4
This is a tale of survival and reckoning with colonialism told through one small speck of life, and yet. It’s a much bigger tale of humanity. She balances the big and small, the infinite and everyday in a way that forces contemplation and sympathy.

I felt so deeply for our main character and just wanted the best for her! It reminded me a bit of The Wall by Marlen Haushofer which I read recently in terms of survival stories and isolation. But this is a deeply American novel and one with a lot to say without forcing it on the reader. It’s just a good, well told story. ]]> 3.68 2016 The Vaster Wilds

author: Lauren Groff
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2024/12/26
shelves:
review:
What an ending! Lauren Groff is such an excellent writer. She captures physical being / senses so well. Her descriptions of the land and the effects of survival on a young girl’s body are so visceral.

This is a tale of survival and reckoning with colonialism told through one small speck of life, and yet. It’s a much bigger tale of humanity. She balances the big and small, the infinite and everyday in a way that forces contemplation and sympathy.

I felt so deeply for our main character and just wanted the best for her! It reminded me a bit of The Wall by Marlen Haushofer which I read recently in terms of survival stories and isolation. But this is a deeply American novel and one with a lot to say without forcing it on the reader. It’s just a good, well told story.
]]> Orbital 123136728 207 Samantha Harvey 0802161545 Maxwell 4 Updated Review:
I don't know whether it's my headspace or just the fact of reading this from a perspective of someone who has read it before, but this was so much better the 2nd time around! Obviously she is a fantastic writer, but the structure and themes of the novel tied together much more for me on a re-read, and it really connected with me on a more emotional level than I anticipated. I think this is a book I could see myself revisiting every few years; it offers a good perspective on life and doesn't give straight answers but instead gives you dozens of little moments of reflection to consider. It's a book you can take your time with or read in one big gulp and take something different away from it each time, which I appreciate. This is why I love re-reading!!

Original Review: 3 stars
Samantha Harvey's Orbital offers a unique perspective on Earth as it follows six astronauts over the course of tweny-four hours as they complete sixteen orbits of earth—one every 90 minutes.

The novel's portrayal of our planet from afar is breathtaking and meditative. Harvey manages to capture a sense of wonder over the smallness of life in contrast with the vastness of space that resonates throughout the narrative. However, as the book progresses, I found some of these descriptions beginning to feel somewhat repetitive, losing some of their initial impact.

The characters in Orbital are intriguing but remain at a distance, almost like they are orbiting the story rather than grounding it. We get glimpses into their lives that hint at deeper layers, and while it seems intentional to keep them somewhat remote, as a reader who prefers more character-driven narratives, I found myself wanting more depth and connection with them.

Harvey's writing is undeniably skillful, and the novel reads almost like philosophical poetry in its contemplations on existence, life forms, and the universe. Her reflections are thought-provoking and beautifully written, making the novel more about the experience of reading her prose than about the story itself.

Overall, I appreciated Orbital for its meditative quality and the sheer skill with which Harvey writes. However, I found myself more impressed by the craft than emotionally invested in the narrative.]]> 3.56 2023 Orbital

author: Samantha Harvey
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/21
date added: 2024/12/21
shelves:
review:
Updated Review:
I don't know whether it's my headspace or just the fact of reading this from a perspective of someone who has read it before, but this was so much better the 2nd time around! Obviously she is a fantastic writer, but the structure and themes of the novel tied together much more for me on a re-read, and it really connected with me on a more emotional level than I anticipated. I think this is a book I could see myself revisiting every few years; it offers a good perspective on life and doesn't give straight answers but instead gives you dozens of little moments of reflection to consider. It's a book you can take your time with or read in one big gulp and take something different away from it each time, which I appreciate. This is why I love re-reading!!

Original Review: 3 stars
Samantha Harvey's Orbital offers a unique perspective on Earth as it follows six astronauts over the course of tweny-four hours as they complete sixteen orbits of earth—one every 90 minutes.

The novel's portrayal of our planet from afar is breathtaking and meditative. Harvey manages to capture a sense of wonder over the smallness of life in contrast with the vastness of space that resonates throughout the narrative. However, as the book progresses, I found some of these descriptions beginning to feel somewhat repetitive, losing some of their initial impact.

The characters in Orbital are intriguing but remain at a distance, almost like they are orbiting the story rather than grounding it. We get glimpses into their lives that hint at deeper layers, and while it seems intentional to keep them somewhat remote, as a reader who prefers more character-driven narratives, I found myself wanting more depth and connection with them.

Harvey's writing is undeniably skillful, and the novel reads almost like philosophical poetry in its contemplations on existence, life forms, and the universe. Her reflections are thought-provoking and beautifully written, making the novel more about the experience of reading her prose than about the story itself.

Overall, I appreciated Orbital for its meditative quality and the sheer skill with which Harvey writes. However, I found myself more impressed by the craft than emotionally invested in the narrative.
]]> Colored Television 201102398 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780593544372

A dark comedy about second acts, creative appropriation, and the racial identity–industrial complex

Jane has high hopes her life is about to turn around. After years of living precariously, she; her painter husband, Lenny; and their two kids have landed a stint as house sitters in a friend’s luxurious home in the hills above Los Angeles, a gig that coincides magically with Jane’s sabbatical. If she can just finish her latest novel, Nusu Nusu, the centuries-spanning epic Lenny refers to as her “mulatto War and Peace,�� she’ll have tenure and some semblance of stability and success within her grasp.

But things don’t work out quite as hoped. In search of a plan B, like countless writers before her, Jane turns her desperate gaze to Hollywood. After she meets with a hot young producer to create “diverse content�� for a streaming network, he seems excited to work with a “real writer.�� She can create what he envisions as the greatest biracial comedy to ever hit the small screen. Things finally seem to be going right for Jane—until they go terribly wrong.]]> 277 Danzy Senna Maxwell 4 black-authors
It’s also nice to read a litfic with a page turning pace; while Jane was sort of a train wreck and you couldn’t look away, you also couldn’t help but understand her and at least see WHY she made the choices she did. ]]> 3.53 2024 Colored Television

author: Danzy Senna
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/20
date added: 2024/12/20
shelves: black-authors
review:
This book balanced plot and character really well. It was funny and thought-provoking in equal measure. I haven’t read any Danzy Senna before this but I definitely want to check out more of her work. I liked what she had to say about the lies we are fed and what we choose to believe.

It’s also nice to read a litfic with a page turning pace; while Jane was sort of a train wreck and you couldn’t look away, you also couldn’t help but understand her and at least see WHY she made the choices she did.
]]> In Memoriam 179546799
It’s 1914, and World War I is ceaselessly churning through thousands of young men on both sides of the fight. The violence of the front feels far away to Henry Gaunt, Sidney Ellwood and the rest of their classmates, safely ensconced in their idyllic boarding school in the English countryside. News of the heroic deaths of their friends only makes the war more exciting.
Gaunt, half German, is busy fighting his own private battle—an all-consuming infatuation with his best friend, the glamorous, charming Ellwood—without a clue that Ellwood is pining for him in return. When Gaunt's family asks him to enlist to forestall the anti-German sentiment they face, Gaunt does so immediately, relieved to escape his overwhelming feelings for Ellwood. To Gaunt's horror, Ellwood rushes to join him at the front, and the rest of their classmates soon follow. Now death surrounds them in all its grim reality, often inches away, and no one knows who will be next.
An epic tale of both the devastating tragedies of war and the forbidden romance that blooms in its grip, In Memoriam is a breathtaking debut.]]> 400 Alice Winn 0593467841 Maxwell 3 romance, owned
And while for all intents and purposes this is a very well executed and written novel, I never connected with it. I guess I can see why people enjoy this one so much, but I am a bit baffled by the shear adoration it receives.

It’s a perfectly fine depiction of the effects of war on young men, paired with a sweet, forbidden romance. But I don’t think it has anything particularly new or profound to say. Perhaps because I simply didn’t connect with the characters from the very start, I went through the whole novel quite detached from the events unfolding.

Mostly like a case of right book, wrong reader. I would keep an eye on what Winn does next because she’s skilled and has a good eye for plotting / structure. Maybe if she writes on a topic I feel more invested in I’ll enjoy it more. ]]> 4.53 2023 In Memoriam

author: Alice Winn
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/17
date added: 2024/12/17
shelves: romance, owned
review:
Alice Winn, it’s not you, it’s me. I just don’t think I care much for literature around WWI as I had a similar experience with a story set on the frontlines that I read back in 2017.

And while for all intents and purposes this is a very well executed and written novel, I never connected with it. I guess I can see why people enjoy this one so much, but I am a bit baffled by the shear adoration it receives.

It’s a perfectly fine depiction of the effects of war on young men, paired with a sweet, forbidden romance. But I don’t think it has anything particularly new or profound to say. Perhaps because I simply didn’t connect with the characters from the very start, I went through the whole novel quite detached from the events unfolding.

Mostly like a case of right book, wrong reader. I would keep an eye on what Winn does next because she’s skilled and has a good eye for plotting / structure. Maybe if she writes on a topic I feel more invested in I’ll enjoy it more.
]]> Lifeform 208209822
What happened was this: Jenny Slate was a human mammal who sniffed the air every morning hoping to find another person to love who would love her, and in that period there was a deep dark loneliness that she had to face and befriend, and then we are pleased to report that she did fall in love, and in that period she was like chimes, or a flock of clean breaths, and her spine lying flat was the many-colored planks on the xylophone, but also she was rabid with fear of losing this love, because of past injury. And then what happened was that she became a wild-pregnant-mammal-thing and then she exploded herself by having a whole baby blast through her vagina during a global plague and then she was expected to carry on like everything was normal—but was this normal, and had she or anything ever been normal? Herein lies an account of this journey, told in five phases—Single, True Love, Pregnancy, Baby, and Ongoing—through luminous, laugh-out-loud funny, unclassifiable essays that take the form of letters to a doctor, dreams of a stork, fantasy therapy sessions, gossip between racoons, excerpts from an imaginary olden timey play, obituaries, theories about post-partum hair loss, graduation speeches, and more. No one writes like Jenny Slate.]]> 240 Jenny Slate 0316263931 Maxwell 5 non-fiction, owned 3.72 2024 Lifeform

author: Jenny Slate
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/14
date added: 2024/12/14
shelves: non-fiction, owned
review:
Jenny Slate, no one gets you like I do.
]]> Bibliophobia: A Memoir 212806663 “A wise, tremendously moving exploration of what it means to seek companionship and understanding, in books and in life.”—Hua Hsu, author of Stay True

“A must for the obsessive reader.”—Elif Batuman, author of Either/Or and The Idiot

Books can seduce you. They can, Sarah Chihaya believes, annihilate, reveal, and provoke you. And anyone incurably obsessed with books understands this kind of unsettling literary encounter. Sarah calls books that have this effect “Life Ruiners��.

Her Life Ruiner, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, became a talisman for her in high school when its electrifying treatment of race exposed Sarah’s deepest feelings about being Japanese American in a predominantly white suburb of Cleveland. But Sarah had always lived through her books, seeking escape, self-definition, and rules for living. She built her life around reading, wrote criticism, and taught literature at an Ivy League University. Then she was hospitalized for a nervous breakdown, and the world became an unreadable blank page. In the aftermath, she was faced with a question. Could we ever truly rewrite the stories that govern our lives?

Bibliophobia is an alternately searing and darkly humorous story of breakdown and survival told through books. Delving into texts such as Anne of Green Gables, Possession, A Tale for the Time Being, The Last Samurai, Chihaya interrogates her cultural identity, her relationship with depression, and the intoxicating, sometimes painful, ways books push back on those who love them.]]> 240 Sarah Chihaya 059359472X Maxwell 0 review-copies 3.74 2025 Bibliophobia: A Memoir

author: Sarah Chihaya
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/13
shelves: review-copies
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau]]> 58470896

This is the first of six journeys taken by Shattuck, each one inspired by a walk once taken by Henry David Thoreau. After the Cape, Shattuck goes up Mount Katahdin and Mount Wachusett, down the coastline of his hometown, and then through the Allagash. Along the way, Shattuck encounters unexpected characters, landscapes, and stories, seeing for himself the restorative effects that walking can have on a dampened spirit. Over years of following Thoreau, Shattuck finds himself uncovering new insights about family, love, friendship, and fatherhood, and understanding more deeply the lessons walking can offer through life’s changing seasons.

Intimate, entertaining, and beautifully crafted,��Six Walks��is a resounding tribute to the ways walking in nature can inspire us all.]]> 280 Ben Shattuck 195353404X Maxwell 5 non-fiction, owned The History of Sound , which weaves together stories that mine the depths of history while staying deeply personal, interwoven with beautiful writing about nature, the past and present, artifacts, and longing.

So of course, I had to go back and read his 2022 memoir which follows him across about 10 years as he took 6 different walks previously taken and written about by Henry David Thoreau.

This sort of pilgrimage Shattuck set out on was an effort to make space in nature to reflect, be delighted and surprised, and hopefully come to some understanding greater than himself. He says it much more eloquently and sounds less self-indulgent than my description. And with any book about pilgrimage, it is so much more about the journey than the destination.

Needless to say, I LOVED this book. It felt tailor made for me. I delighted in spending each morning with a cup of coffee, reading about another of his walks, the quirky characters he meets along the way, the animals he encounters, the nature he observes, and how he interweaves quotes and summaries of Thoreau's own journeys in a blend of past and present. It flowed so well, never feeling like a forced revelation but letting his nature walks unspool in front of him and his understandings unfold later upon reflection.

I can see myself revisiting this again, if not just for the beautiful descriptions of nature, but also for his wisdom, his wonder at the unknowability of things, and how it put me in a headspace that forced me to reflect and consider my own feelings about the things he discussed. It made me want to go on a long hike in the hills or sit on a foggy beach at morning. It made me want to say a silent prayer each day to the universe for the magic of existence.]]> 3.83 Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau

Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau

author: Ben Shattuck
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.83
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/11
date added: 2024/12/11
shelves: non-fiction, owned
review:
One of my favorite books of 2024 is Ben Shattuck's newest short story collection The History of Sound , which weaves together stories that mine the depths of history while staying deeply personal, interwoven with beautiful writing about nature, the past and present, artifacts, and longing.

So of course, I had to go back and read his 2022 memoir which follows him across about 10 years as he took 6 different walks previously taken and written about by Henry David Thoreau.

This sort of pilgrimage Shattuck set out on was an effort to make space in nature to reflect, be delighted and surprised, and hopefully come to some understanding greater than himself. He says it much more eloquently and sounds less self-indulgent than my description. And with any book about pilgrimage, it is so much more about the journey than the destination.

Needless to say, I LOVED this book. It felt tailor made for me. I delighted in spending each morning with a cup of coffee, reading about another of his walks, the quirky characters he meets along the way, the animals he encounters, the nature he observes, and how he interweaves quotes and summaries of Thoreau's own journeys in a blend of past and present. It flowed so well, never feeling like a forced revelation but letting his nature walks unspool in front of him and his understandings unfold later upon reflection.

I can see myself revisiting this again, if not just for the beautiful descriptions of nature, but also for his wisdom, his wonder at the unknowability of things, and how it put me in a headspace that forced me to reflect and consider my own feelings about the things he discussed. It made me want to go on a long hike in the hills or sit on a foggy beach at morning. It made me want to say a silent prayer each day to the universe for the magic of existence.
]]> The Door 22357838
Len Rix’s prizewinning translation of The Door at last makes it possible for American readers to appreciate the masterwork of a major modern European writer.

An NYRB Classics Original]]> 262 Magda Szabó 1590177711 Maxwell 0 translated, owned, dnf
I think I’m just not in the mood for this right now. There were some moments I enjoyed, but it has been quite uninteresting to be honest and I just don’t get the point.

I think I might return to this someday, but for now I’m going to put it aside. ]]> 4.17 1987 The Door

author: Magda Szabó
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/09
shelves: translated, owned, dnf
review:
DNF @ 48%.

I think I’m just not in the mood for this right now. There were some moments I enjoyed, but it has been quite uninteresting to be honest and I just don’t get the point.

I think I might return to this someday, but for now I’m going to put it aside.
]]> <![CDATA[Among the Burning Flowers (The Roots of Chaos, #0.5)]]> 222376983 With the awakening of fire-breathing dragons, Among the Burning Flowers sees the first sparks of danger that threaten to consume the world in The Priory of the Orange Tree.

Take your first steps into the epic.
Yscalin, land of sunshine and lavender, will soon be ablaze.

It has been centuries since the Draconic Army took wing, almost extinguishing humankind.

Marosa Vetalda is a prisoner in her own home, controlled by her cold father, King Sigoso. Over the mountains, her betrothed, Aubrecht Lievelyn, rules Mentendon in all but name. Together, they intend to usher in a better world.

A better world seems impossibly distant to Estina Melaugo, who hunts the Draconic beasts that have slept across the world for centuries.

And now the great wyrm Fýredel is stirring, and Yscalin will be the first to fall . . .

A story of human resilience in the face of dire circumstances, Among the Burning Flowers leads readers through the gripping and tragic circumstances that pave the way for the opening of the million-copy bestseller The Priory of The Orange Tree.

Richly illustrated with magical artwork by Rovina Cai (@rovinacai).]]> 304 Samantha Shannon 1639736018 Maxwell 0 saved 4.41 2025 Among the Burning Flowers (The Roots of Chaos, #0.5)

Among the Burning Flowers (The Roots of Chaos, #0.5)

author: Samantha Shannon
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/08
shelves: saved
review:

]]> Enon 40019326 The next novel by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Tinkers, in which a father's grief over the loss of his daughter threatens to derail his life.

Powerful, brilliantly written, and deeply moving Paul Harding has, in Enon, written a worthy successor to Tinkers, a debut which John Freeman on NPR called "a masterpiece." Drawn always to the rich landscape of his character's inner lives, here, through the first person narrative of Charlie Crosby (grandson to George Crosby of Tinkers), Harding creates a devastating portrait of a father trying desperately to come to terms with family loss.]]> 257 Paul Harding Maxwell 5
I read the first 70 pages two times before moving on because it was that compelling and I wanted to absorb it thoroughly before journeying with Charlie through the stages of his grief. I loved how Harding wove in the past, of Charlie's memories with his grandfather (who is the lead character in Tinkers which I *must* go back and read) as well as with his daughter, Kate. It was all so beautifully real and raw, but felt like emotional whiplash going from the honey-hued memories of his past to the dark and bitter reality of his present.

This book deserves so much more praise than it has. I suppose people dislike it purely for how upsetting it can be at times and perhaps because Charlie makes some pretty stupid choices in the midst of his grief, understandably so; but if you are a reader who values character over cleanliness in the narrative, you might appreciate what Harding has done here.]]> 3.52 2013 Enon

author: Paul Harding
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/06
date added: 2024/12/06
shelves:
review:
An astonishing character study on grief. Watching the undoing of a man in the wake of his teen daughters' tragic death as he grapples with this overwhelming loss, Harding puts you in his headspace so acutely. It's not an easy read, by any means, but the precise nature of the prose and how it unspools over the course of Charlie Crosby's narrative is impressive.

I read the first 70 pages two times before moving on because it was that compelling and I wanted to absorb it thoroughly before journeying with Charlie through the stages of his grief. I loved how Harding wove in the past, of Charlie's memories with his grandfather (who is the lead character in Tinkers which I *must* go back and read) as well as with his daughter, Kate. It was all so beautifully real and raw, but felt like emotional whiplash going from the honey-hued memories of his past to the dark and bitter reality of his present.

This book deserves so much more praise than it has. I suppose people dislike it purely for how upsetting it can be at times and perhaps because Charlie makes some pretty stupid choices in the midst of his grief, understandably so; but if you are a reader who values character over cleanliness in the narrative, you might appreciate what Harding has done here.
]]> The Most 201763137 From “one of our most thrilling and singular innovators on the page�� (Laura Van Den Berg), a tightly wound, consuming tale for readers of Claire Keegan and Ian McEwan, about a 1950s American housewife who decides to get into the pool in her family’s apartment complex one morning and won’t come out.

It is an unseasonably warm Sunday in November 1957. Katheen, a college tennis champion turned Delaware housewife, decides not to join her flagrantly handsome life insurance salesman husband, Virgil, or their two young boys, at church. Instead, she takes a dip in the kidney-shaped swimming pool of their apartment complex. And then she won’t come out.

A consuming, single-sitting read set over the course of eight hours, THE MOST breaches the shimmering surface of a seemingly idyllic mid-century marriage, immersing us in the unspoken truth beneath. As Sputnik 2 orbits the earth carrying Laika, the doomed Soviet dog, Kathleen and Virgil hurtle towards each other until they arrive at a reckoning that will either shatter their marriage, or transform it, at last, into something real.]]> 131 Jessica Anthony Maxwell 3 short-novels
More like a 3.5 stars.]]> 3.41 2024 The Most

author: Jessica Anthony
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/01
date added: 2024/12/04
shelves: short-novels
review:
I love a book that plays with structure and builds tension; this did that so well and delivered a slam dunk of an ending for such a short book. However, I found the characters to be a bit cartoonish at times, feeling more representative of a concept than a real person. Anthony's writing is sharp, though, and I did like how each alternating chapter revealed more and more about their backstories and secrets. It leans a bit toward soap opera, but then the nuanced ending causes you to reconsider how you feel about these characters and their choices. Deceptively smart, though maybe not the most impactful or memorable story ever.

More like a 3.5 stars.
]]> No Longer Human 200171556 No Longer Human, this leading postwar Japanese writer's second novel, tells the poignant and fascinating story of a young man who is caught between the breakup of the traditions of a northern Japanese aristocratic family and the impact of Western ideas. In consequence, he feels himself "disqualified from being human" (a literal translation of the Japanese title).

Donald Keene, who translated this and Dazai's first novel, The Setting Sun, has said of the author's work: "His world �� suggests Chekhov or possibly postwar France, �� but there is a Japanese sensibility in the choice and presentation of the material. A Dazai novel is at once immediately intelligible in Western terms and quite unlike any Western book." His writing is in some ways reminiscent of Rimbaud, while he himself has often been called a forerunner of Yukio Mishima.

Cover painting by Noe Nojechowiz, from the collection of John and Barbara Duncan; design by Gertrude Huston]]> 177 Osamu Dazai 0811204812 Maxwell 0 to-read 3.78 1948 No Longer Human

author: Osamu Dazai
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1948
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive, #1)]]> 9188338 From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings, Book One of the Stormlight Archive begins an incredible new saga of epic proportion.

Roshar is a world of stone and storms. Uncanny tempests of incredible power sweep across the rocky terrain so frequently that they have shaped ecology and civilization alike. Animals hide in shells, trees pull in branches, and grass retracts into the soilless ground. Cities are built only where the topography offers shelter.

It has been centuries since the fall of the ten consecrated orders known as the Knights Radiant, but their Shardblades and Shardplate remain: mystical swords and suits of armor that transform ordinary men into near-invincible warriors. Men trade kingdoms for Shardblades. Wars were fought for them, and won by them.

One such war rages on a ruined landscape called the Shattered Plains. There, Kaladin, who traded his medical apprenticeship for a spear to protect his little brother, has been reduced to slavery. In a war that makes no sense, where ten armies fight separately against a single foe, he struggles to save his men and to fathom the leaders who consider them expendable.

Brightlord Dalinar Kholin commands one of those other armies. Like his brother, the late king, he is fascinated by an ancient text called The Way of Kings. Troubled by over-powering visions of ancient times and the Knights Radiant, he has begun to doubt his own sanity.

Across the ocean, an untried young woman named Shallan seeks to train under an eminent scholar and notorious heretic, Dalinar's niece, Jasnah. Though she genuinely loves learning, Shallan's motives are less than pure. As she plans a daring theft, her research for Jasnah hints at secrets of the Knights Radiant and the true cause of the war.

The result of over ten years of planning, writing, and world-building, The Way of Kings is but the opening movement of the Stormlight Archive, a bold masterpiece in the making.

Speak again the ancient oaths:

Life before death.
Strength before weakness.
Journey before Destination.

and return to men the Shards they once bore.

The Knights Radiant must stand again.]]> 1005 Brandon Sanderson Maxwell 4 fantasy
I don't really need to say anything that hasn't already been said about this book. It's epic, it's long (my biggest complaint, and concern for future installments), and it's incredibly rich in characters, setting, and plot. I loved Shallan the most and I particularly liked how her story contrasted with Kaladin and Dalinar's POVs on the Shattered Plains to give us a bit more context of the world. I am excited to see how the world continues to expand in future installments. Also Wit was funny and a great little Cosmere cameo. The supporting characters are all very solid too. There's quite the ensemble in each storyline which fleshed it out further.

All in all, I do get the hype though I don't see this as a perfect book. I think the 1st book in an epic series like this though is inevitably going to drag a little bit because it has to do the heavy-lifting of introducing you to the characters and world, as well as contain its own plot. Sanderson does all that very well, but he's wordy! It's not that serious that we need 1,100 pages (though watch me take this all back someday when I read it again solely because of how I feel about the characters and the world after reading the rest of the series). It's like we got ALL the deleted scenes that could have been cut that solely focused on developing the characters but didn't necessarily service the plot or world in any way; diehard fans are gonna love it and I get it, but my personal opinion and critical eye says it *could* be edited down without losing anything of substance.]]> 4.66 2010 The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive, #1)

The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive, #1)

author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.66
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/30
date added: 2024/11/30
shelves: fantasy
review:
My relationship to this book is rocky. I tried reading it back in 2015 (let's not talk about how that was almost a DECADE ago!) and made it to about 75% before I gave up because I was so bored. Trying again now, not sure if it's because I'm older & wiser (hah!), have more books read under my belt, or just in the mood, but I enjoyed this WAY more than I did back then. I mean, I finished it so that's something.

I don't really need to say anything that hasn't already been said about this book. It's epic, it's long (my biggest complaint, and concern for future installments), and it's incredibly rich in characters, setting, and plot. I loved Shallan the most and I particularly liked how her story contrasted with Kaladin and Dalinar's POVs on the Shattered Plains to give us a bit more context of the world. I am excited to see how the world continues to expand in future installments. Also Wit was funny and a great little Cosmere cameo. The supporting characters are all very solid too. There's quite the ensemble in each storyline which fleshed it out further.

All in all, I do get the hype though I don't see this as a perfect book. I think the 1st book in an epic series like this though is inevitably going to drag a little bit because it has to do the heavy-lifting of introducing you to the characters and world, as well as contain its own plot. Sanderson does all that very well, but he's wordy! It's not that serious that we need 1,100 pages (though watch me take this all back someday when I read it again solely because of how I feel about the characters and the world after reading the rest of the series). It's like we got ALL the deleted scenes that could have been cut that solely focused on developing the characters but didn't necessarily service the plot or world in any way; diehard fans are gonna love it and I get it, but my personal opinion and critical eye says it *could* be edited down without losing anything of substance.
]]> Blue Sisters 195430687 Three estranged siblings return to their family home in New York after their beloved sister's death in this unforgettable story of grief, identity, and the complexities of family.

The three Blue sisters are exceptional—and exceptionally different. Avery, the eldest and a recovering heroin addict turned strait-laced lawyer, lives with her wife in London; Bonnie, a former boxer, works as a bouncer in Los Angeles following a devastating defeat; and Lucky, the youngest, models in Paris while trying to outrun her hard-partying ways. They also had a fourth sister, Nicky, whose unexpected death left Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky reeling. A year later, as they each navigate grief, addiction, and ambition, they find they must return to New York to stop the sale of the apartment they were raised in.

But coming home is never as easy as it seems. As the sisters reckon with the disappointments of their childhood and the loss of the only person who held them together, they realize the greatest secrets they've been keeping might not have been from each other, but from themselves.]]> 342 Coco Mellors 0593723767 Maxwell 0 review-copies, owned 3.93 2024 Blue Sisters

author: Coco Mellors
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves: review-copies, owned
review:

]]> The Tie That Binds 126862 Eventide,��The Tie That Binds��is a powerfully eloquent tribute to the arduous demands of rural America, and of the tenacity of the human spirit.

Colorado, January 1977. Eighty-year-old Edith Goodnough lies in a hospital bed, IV taped to the back of her hand, police officer at her door. She is charged with murder. The clues: a sack of chicken feed slit with a knife, a milky-eyed dog tied outdoors one cold afternoon. The motives: the brutal business of farming and a family code of ethics as unforgiving as the winter prairie itself. Here, Kent Haruf delivers the sweeping tale of a woman of the American High Plains, as told by her neighbor, Sanders Roscoe. As Roscoe shares what he knows, Edith's tragedies unfold: a childhood of pre-dawn chores, a mother's death, a violence that leaves a father dependent on his children, forever enraged. Here is the story of a woman who sacrifices her happiness in the name of family—and then, in one gesture, reclaims her freedom.]]> 246 Kent Haruf 0375724389 Maxwell 4 owned, westerns 4.06 1984 The Tie That Binds

author: Kent Haruf
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1984
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/24
date added: 2024/11/24
shelves: owned, westerns
review:
What an impressive debut novel. Set in Haruf’s fictional town of Holt, Colorado that would go on to be the setting for all of his other works, this story chronicles the 80ish years of Edith Goodnough’s life. It’s narrated by a man who knew her for his whole life and is written to “you�� as he tells the story on a Sunday afternoon in the local diner. I loved that way he would occasionally directly address the reader and pull you into the narrative. I’m a sucker for anything small town like this and he captures the early 20th century American plains so well.
]]> The Singularity 195830893 The Singularity, Ermanno Ismani, an unassuming university professor, is summoned by the minister of defense to accept a two-year, top-secret mission at a mysterious research center, isolated from the world among forests, plunging cliffs, and high mountains. What’s he supposed to do there? Not clear. How long will he be there? No saying.

Still, Ismani takes the mystifying job and, accompanied by his no-nonsense wife, Elisa, heads to the so-called Experimental Camp of Military Zone 36, wondering whether, in the midst of the Cold War, it’s some sort of nuclear project he’s been assigned to. But no, the colleagues the couple meets on arrival assure them, it’s nothing like that. It’s much, much more powerful.

At the center of the research complex is strange, shining, at times murmurous, white wall. Behind it, a deep gorge drops away, full of wires and radio towers and mobile sensors and a host of eccentric structures. A question begins to dawn: Could this be the shape of consciousness itself? And if so, whose?

Buzzati's novella of 1960, a pioneering work of Italian science fiction, is published here in a brisk new translation by Anne Milano Appel. In it, Buzzati explores his favorite themes of love and longing while offering a startlingly prescient parable of artificial intelligence.]]> 136 Dino Buzzati 1681378000 Maxwell 0 3.65 1960 The Singularity

author: Dino Buzzati
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.65
book published: 1960
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/23
shelves: to-read, short-novels, translated
review:

]]> Where You Once Belonged 843792
Deftly plotted, defiantly honest,�� Where You Once Belonged ��sings the song of a wounded prairie community in a narrative with the earmarks of a modern American classic.��In prose as lean and supple as a spring switch, Haruf describes a high school football star who wins the heart of the loveliest girl in the county and the admiration of men twice his age. Fun-loving, independent, Burdette engages in the occasional prank. But when he turns into a man, his high jinks turn into crimes--with unspeakable consequences. Now, eight years later, Burdette has returned to commit his greatest trespass of all. And the��people of Holt may not be able to stop him.]]> 176 Kent Haruf 0375708707 Maxwell 4 owned, short-novels, westerns
This one follows the story of Jack Burdette, who reappears in Holt one day after being gone for 8 years. We learn about his upbringing and his connection to the narrator who recount/ the story and fills in the gaps of Jack’s missing years.

For such a brief book, it’s full of life. The daily routines of the small towns citizens, the coffees sipped at the local diner, the drives down Main Street: it’s also vividly rendered.

If you like the acquaintance of Elizabeth Strout, with the western tinges of Cormac McCarthy, and the examination of humanity seen in many of Stephen King’s works, Haruf and this novel are not to be missed.
]]> 3.94 1990 Where You Once Belonged

author: Kent Haruf
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1990
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/21
date added: 2024/11/22
shelves: owned, short-novels, westerns
review:
I love a book about a small town, and I love that all of Kent Haruf’s books are set in the same fictional small town of Holt, Colorado.

This one follows the story of Jack Burdette, who reappears in Holt one day after being gone for 8 years. We learn about his upbringing and his connection to the narrator who recount/ the story and fills in the gaps of Jack’s missing years.

For such a brief book, it’s full of life. The daily routines of the small towns citizens, the coffees sipped at the local diner, the drives down Main Street: it’s also vividly rendered.

If you like the acquaintance of Elizabeth Strout, with the western tinges of Cormac McCarthy, and the examination of humanity seen in many of Stephen King’s works, Haruf and this novel are not to be missed.

]]> Young Skins 22571882 The Sunday Times and The Guardian, Colin Barrett’s Young Skins is a stunning introduction to a singular voice in contemporary fiction.

Enter the small, rural town of Glanbeigh, a place whose fate took a downturn with the Celtic Tiger, a desolate spot where buffoonery and tension simmer and erupt, and booze-sodden boredom fills the corners of every pub and nightclub. Here, and in the towns beyond, the young live hard and wear the scars. Amongst them, there’s jilted Jimmy, whose best friend Tug is the terror of the town and Jimmy’s sole company in his search for the missing Clancy kid; Bat, a lovesick soul with a face like “a bowl of mashed up spuds�� even before Nubbin Tansey’s boot kicked it in; and Arm, a young and desperate criminal whose destiny is shaped when he and his partner, Dympna, fail to carry out a job. In each story, a local voice delineates the grittiness of Irish society; unforgettable characters whose psychological complexities and unspoken yearnings are rendered through silence, humor, and violence.

With power and originality akin to Wells Tower’s Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned and Claire Vaye Watkins�� Battleborn these six short stories and one explosive novella occupy the ghostly, melancholic spaces between boyhood and old age. Told in Barrett’s vibrant, distinctive prose, Young Skins is an accomplished and irreverent debut from a brilliant new writer.]]> 211 Colin Barrett 0802123325 Maxwell 4 ireland, short-stories 4.02 2013

author: Colin Barrett
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/20
date added: 2024/11/21
shelves: ireland, short-stories
review:
A gritty collection of short stories and a novella set in the fictional Irish town of Glenbeigh. Mainly following young characters (hence the title) in economically unfavorable positions, resorting to theft and drug-dealing, chain-smoking and loitering at the local pub, these stories dig deeper than the aforementioned stereotypes. Barrett excels at setting the scene, with vividly sharp images that contribute to, rather than distract from, the main narrative. I truly enjoyed all of these stories, but believe they are best read in quick succession to get the full effect, rather than savoring each story slowly. The whole feels greater than the sum of its parts in this case, and I'm eager to check out more Barrett in the future.
]]> The Wall 59468837
Allegorical yet deeply personal and absorbing, The Wall is at once a critique of modern civilization, a nuanced and loving portrait of a relationship between a woman and her animals, a thrilling survival story, a Cold War-era dystopian adventure, and a truly singular feminist classic.]]> 239 Marlen Haushofer 0811231941 Maxwell 4 owned, translated I Who Have Never Known Men. We follow a woman who wakes up one day to discover an invisible barrier has set her apart from the rest of the world. Alone in the country, she is left to survive with only a plot of land, a dog, a cat, and a cow. The novel deftly explores isolation, humanity and hope in a world devoid of meaning other than what we make of it. I thought Haushofer did an excellent job of putting you in the mind of the character, following her daily and seasonal tasks as she kept up the farm, explored the terrain around her home, and sought answers that didn't exist. Asking questions like "why am I here?" and "why did this happen to me?" makes the novel as relevant as ever in a world filled with half-truths and few answers.]]> 4.12 1963 The Wall

author: Marlen Haushofer
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1963
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/17
date added: 2024/11/21
shelves: owned, translated
review:
For fans of I Who Have Never Known Men. We follow a woman who wakes up one day to discover an invisible barrier has set her apart from the rest of the world. Alone in the country, she is left to survive with only a plot of land, a dog, a cat, and a cow. The novel deftly explores isolation, humanity and hope in a world devoid of meaning other than what we make of it. I thought Haushofer did an excellent job of putting you in the mind of the character, following her daily and seasonal tasks as she kept up the farm, explored the terrain around her home, and sought answers that didn't exist. Asking questions like "why am I here?" and "why did this happen to me?" makes the novel as relevant as ever in a world filled with half-truths and few answers.
]]> <![CDATA[More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop (Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, #2)]]> 199295788 In this charming and emotionally resonant follow up to the internationally bestselling Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, Satoshi Yagisawa paints a poignant and thoughtful portrait of life, love, and how much books and bookstores mean to the people who love them.

Set again in the beloved Japanese bookshop and nearby coffee shop in the Jimbocho neighborhood of Toyko, More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop deepens the relationship between Takako, her uncle Satoru , and the people in their lives. A new cast of heartwarming regulars have appeared in the shop, including an old man who wears the same ragged mouse-colored sweater and another who collects books solely for the official stamps with the author’s personal seal.

Satoshi Yagisawa illuminates the everyday relationships between people that are forged and grown through a shared love of books. As time passes, Satoru, with Takako’s help, must choose whether to keep the bookshop open or shutter its doors forever. Making the decision will take uncle and niece on an emotional journey back to their family’s roots and remind them again what a bookstore can mean to an individual, a neighborhood, and a whole culture.]]> 176 Satoshi Yagisawa 0063278715 Maxwell 0 to-read, translated 3.90 2011 More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop (Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, #2)

More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop (Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, #2)

author: Satoshi Yagisawa
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/17
shelves: to-read, translated
review:

]]> Creation Lake 207300960 416 Rachel Kushner 1982116528 Maxwell 4 owned
The narrative voice is so strong; 'Sadie Smith' our pseudonymous main character is independent, cool, hard to read, and definitely unlikeable at times. Think Ottessa Moshfegh if she had written Birnam Wood. And there's a lot of talk about Neanderthals, so there's that.

Glad this one got put on the Booker shortlist to make me prioritize it! The same thing happened many years ago with Kushner's The Mars Room which I also greatly enjoyed. Guess I gotta read more Kushner now! ]]> 3.35 2024 Creation Lake

author: Rachel Kushner
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/20
date added: 2024/11/16
shelves: owned
review:
I forgot to review this one when I finished it a month ago! I really enjoyed this book. It definitely won't be for everyone. It's a bit of a weird mish-mash of spy thriller (but not your conventional genre-y page-turner), literary fiction, and philosophical musing on humanity. But that's exactly what I loved about it!

The narrative voice is so strong; 'Sadie Smith' our pseudonymous main character is independent, cool, hard to read, and definitely unlikeable at times. Think Ottessa Moshfegh if she had written Birnam Wood. And there's a lot of talk about Neanderthals, so there's that.

Glad this one got put on the Booker shortlist to make me prioritize it! The same thing happened many years ago with Kushner's The Mars Room which I also greatly enjoyed. Guess I gotta read more Kushner now!
]]> <![CDATA[The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration]]> 59366223 ��The Great Displacement is closely observed, compassionate, and far-sighted.�� —Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Under a White Sky

The untold story of climate migration in the United States—the personal stories of those experiencing displacement, the portraits of communities being torn apart by disaster, and the implications for all of us as we confront a changing future.

Even as climate change dominates the headlines, many of us still think about it in the future tense—we imagine that as global warming gets worse over the coming decades, millions of people will scatter around the world fleeing famine and rising seas. What we often don’t realize is that the consequences of climate change are already visible, right here in the United States. In communities across the country, climate disasters are pushing thousands of people away from their homes.

A human-centered narrative with national scope, The Great Displacement is “a vivid tour of the new human geography just coming into view�� (David Wallace-Wells, New York Times bestselling author of The Uninhabitable Earth). From half-drowned Louisiana to fire-scorched California, from the dried-up cotton fields of Arizona to the soaked watersheds of inland North Carolina, people are moving. In the last few decades, the federal government has moved tens of thousands of families away from flood zones, and tens of thousands more have moved of their own accord in the aftermath of natural disasters. Insurance and mortgage markets are already shifting to reflect mounting climate risk, pricing people out of risky areas.

Over the next fifty years, millions of Americans will be caught up in this churn of displacement, forced inland and northward in what will be the largest migration in our country’s history. The Great Displacement compassionately tells the stories of those who are already experiencing life on the move, while detailing just how radically climate change will transform our lives—erasing historic towns and villages, pushing people toward new areas, and reshaping the geography of the United States.]]> 368 Jake Bittle 1982178256 Maxwell 4 non-fiction, owned, audiobook
I found each chapter and story to be gripping, as Bittle often leads with a human interest examination of what happened and puts you in the midst of their life and the events that unfolded. Then he uses these examples to look at the broken systems, both economically (such as in the housing market) or governmentally, that shape the response to these disasters. He also looks not only at reactive responses but proactive or planned relocation, and managed retreat.

Sadly, there's no real resolution to this issue as its on-going and will likely continue in years, decades to come. Even since the publication of this book in 2023 we've seen an increase in climate disasters and insufficient answers, reactions and responses to those deeply affected by them. ]]> 4.27 2023 The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration

The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration

author: Jake Bittle
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/16
date added: 2024/11/16
shelves: non-fiction, owned, audiobook
review:
A compelling and complicated look at the lives affected by climate change and the forced migration many undergo in the wake of natural disasters. Across these 8 chapters, Bittle shares the stories of real people and real events that span everywhere from the Florida Keys to suburban Arizona. From flood to drought, hurricane and wildfire, the narrative shows the huge economic and humanitarian effects the coming decades will have on hundreds of millions of Americans and what responsibility for preventing and responding to these events looks like.

I found each chapter and story to be gripping, as Bittle often leads with a human interest examination of what happened and puts you in the midst of their life and the events that unfolded. Then he uses these examples to look at the broken systems, both economically (such as in the housing market) or governmentally, that shape the response to these disasters. He also looks not only at reactive responses but proactive or planned relocation, and managed retreat.

Sadly, there's no real resolution to this issue as its on-going and will likely continue in years, decades to come. Even since the publication of this book in 2023 we've seen an increase in climate disasters and insufficient answers, reactions and responses to those deeply affected by them.
]]> Ballad for Sophie 56705963 A young journalist prompts a reclusive piano superstar to open up, resulting in this stunning graphic sonata exploring a lifetime of rivalry, regret, and redemption.

1933. In the small French village of Cressy-la-Valoise, a local piano contest brings together two brilliant young players: Julien Dubois, the privileged heir of a wealthy family, and François Samson, the janitor's son. One wins, one loses, and both are changed forever.

1997. In a huge mansion stained with cigarette smoke and memories, a bitter old man is shaken by the unexpected visit of an interviewer. Somewhere between reality and fantasy, Julien composes, like in a musical score, a complex and moving story about the cost of success, rivalry, redemption, and flying pianos.

When all is said and done, did anyone ever truly win? And is there any music left to play?]]> 320 Filipe Melo 1603094989 Maxwell 3 graphic-novels, owned 4.53 2020 Ballad for Sophie

author: Filipe Melo
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/09
date added: 2024/11/09
shelves: graphic-novels, owned
review:
The artwork in this is phenomenal. Such beautiful & rich full color illustrations. But the story was kind of basic and predictable and didn’t allow enough time to really connect with the characters. I felt like it moved SO quickly and the main character didn’t feel fully fleshed out because of that. It hit all the major beats of this kind of story. If you’re interested I’d say check this one out from the library.
]]> Stone Yard Devotional 219321311
A woman abandons her city life and marriage to return to the place she grew up, finding solace in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of the Monaro.

She does not believe in God, doesn't know what prayer is, and finds herself living this strange, reclusive life almost by accident. As she gradually adjusts to the rhythms of monastic life, she ruminates on her childhood in the nearby town. She finds herself turning again and again to thoughts of her mother, whose early death she can't forget.

Disquiet interrupts this secluded life with three visitations. First comes a terrible mouse plague, each day signalling a new battle against the rising infestation.

Second is the return of the skeletal remains of a sister who left the community decades before to minister to deprived women in Thailand - then disappeared, presumed murdered.

Finally, a troubling visitor to the monastery pulls the narrator further back into her past.

With each of these disturbing arrivals, the woman faces some deep questions. Can a person be truly good? What is forgiveness? Is loss of hope a moral failure? And can the business of grief ever really be finished?

A meditative and deeply moving novel from the Stella Prize-winning author of The Natural Way of Things and The Weekend .]]> 297 Charlotte Wood 1399724347 Maxwell 4 owned Stone Yard Devotional is an intimate exploration of grief, spirituality, and the quiet beauty of an untethered existence.

Set in a small rural town with a tranquil monastery at its core, the novel follows an unnamed woman escaping from her everyday existence. She retreats (an interesting word with multiple meanings here) to the confines of the religious center to experience solitude and peace for a brief moment. But her stay extends into something life-altering, causing her to reflect on her past actions and beliefs and confront how they've brought her to the present.

The setting feels almost dreamlike—hovering between the mundane and the mystical. The landscape the author paints is both grounded and ethereal, a place where time seems to slow and dissolve, allowing the protagonist’s reflections to sink deeper. Every detail of the environment, from the sandstone monastery to the eucalyptus-dappled light, serves as a mirror to the inner life of the unnamed narrator, creating a sense of place so strong it feels like another character in the story.

The narrative unfolds in a diaristic and deeply personal style, drawing readers into the heart and mind of the main character as she grapples with her past and the aftershocks of profound loss. The first-person narration gives the novel an immediacy that feels both raw and restrained. It’s as though we’re reading a private diary, filled with unspoken fears and quiet epiphanies, bringing us into close communion with her contemplative journey. The structure of the story, almost like a meditation itself, allows the reader to experience the ebb and flow of her reflections, creating a powerful connection that lingers well beyond the final page.

The book heavily focuses on themes of existence, belief, and the search for meaning which are interwoven with more contemporary threads, such as climate change, immigration, and the call for inclusivity in a fractured world. Wood doesn’t shy away from these complex topics but instead lets them seep in subtly, much like the encroaching mice plague that haunts the novel’s setting. The monastery, a symbol of faith and tradition, stands in contrast to the broader societal changes that the narrator contemplates—questions of who belongs, what we owe to each other, and what remains sacred in a world in flux. This tension between old and new ways of thinking enriches the narrator’s musings on love, belonging, and her place in a community she is both part of and apart from.

What elevates the novel is its strong ending, which ties the narrative together in a satisfying way. The final pages offer a sense of clarity and closure that feels earned, yet not forced. Upon finishing, I found myself reflecting back on the novel’s beginning, noticing the subtle parallels that bring the story full circle. It’s a novel that invites a second reading, where the echoes of its opening chapters deepen the emotional impact of its conclusion.

Ultimately, Stone Yard Devotional is a quiet but profound novel that invites readers to sit with their own discomforts and questions about life’s purpose. Through the lens of one woman’s spiritual and emotional pilgrimage, Charlotte Wood offers a narrative that is as generous as it is introspective, challenging us to find grace in the fleeting moments of connection and clarity amidst the uncertainties of our time. It’s an understated yet powerful read that left me with much to ponder, even after the final page was turned.]]> 3.75 2023 Stone Yard Devotional

author: Charlotte Wood
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/04
date added: 2024/11/09
shelves: owned
review:
Charlotte Wood’s Stone Yard Devotional is an intimate exploration of grief, spirituality, and the quiet beauty of an untethered existence.

Set in a small rural town with a tranquil monastery at its core, the novel follows an unnamed woman escaping from her everyday existence. She retreats (an interesting word with multiple meanings here) to the confines of the religious center to experience solitude and peace for a brief moment. But her stay extends into something life-altering, causing her to reflect on her past actions and beliefs and confront how they've brought her to the present.

The setting feels almost dreamlike—hovering between the mundane and the mystical. The landscape the author paints is both grounded and ethereal, a place where time seems to slow and dissolve, allowing the protagonist’s reflections to sink deeper. Every detail of the environment, from the sandstone monastery to the eucalyptus-dappled light, serves as a mirror to the inner life of the unnamed narrator, creating a sense of place so strong it feels like another character in the story.

The narrative unfolds in a diaristic and deeply personal style, drawing readers into the heart and mind of the main character as she grapples with her past and the aftershocks of profound loss. The first-person narration gives the novel an immediacy that feels both raw and restrained. It’s as though we’re reading a private diary, filled with unspoken fears and quiet epiphanies, bringing us into close communion with her contemplative journey. The structure of the story, almost like a meditation itself, allows the reader to experience the ebb and flow of her reflections, creating a powerful connection that lingers well beyond the final page.

The book heavily focuses on themes of existence, belief, and the search for meaning which are interwoven with more contemporary threads, such as climate change, immigration, and the call for inclusivity in a fractured world. Wood doesn’t shy away from these complex topics but instead lets them seep in subtly, much like the encroaching mice plague that haunts the novel’s setting. The monastery, a symbol of faith and tradition, stands in contrast to the broader societal changes that the narrator contemplates—questions of who belongs, what we owe to each other, and what remains sacred in a world in flux. This tension between old and new ways of thinking enriches the narrator’s musings on love, belonging, and her place in a community she is both part of and apart from.

What elevates the novel is its strong ending, which ties the narrative together in a satisfying way. The final pages offer a sense of clarity and closure that feels earned, yet not forced. Upon finishing, I found myself reflecting back on the novel’s beginning, noticing the subtle parallels that bring the story full circle. It’s a novel that invites a second reading, where the echoes of its opening chapters deepen the emotional impact of its conclusion.

Ultimately, Stone Yard Devotional is a quiet but profound novel that invites readers to sit with their own discomforts and questions about life’s purpose. Through the lens of one woman’s spiritual and emotional pilgrimage, Charlotte Wood offers a narrative that is as generous as it is introspective, challenging us to find grace in the fleeting moments of connection and clarity amidst the uncertainties of our time. It’s an understated yet powerful read that left me with much to ponder, even after the final page was turned.
]]> The Safekeep 204902984 An exhilarating tale of twisted desire, histories and homes, and the unexpected shape of revenge - for readers of Patricia Highsmith, Sarah Waters and Ian McEwan's Atonement

It's 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the war is well and truly over. Living alone in her late mother's country home, Isabel's life is as it should be: led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother Louis delivers his graceless new girlfriend, Eva, at Isabel's doorstep-as a guest, there to stay for the season...

Eva is Isabel's antithesis: sleeps late, wakes late, walks loudly through the house and touches things she shouldn't. In response Isabel develops a fury-fuelled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house-a spoon, a knife, a bowl-Isabel' suspicions spiral out of control. In the sweltering peak of summer, Isabel's paranoia gives way to desire - leading to a discovery that unravels all Isabel has ever known. The war might not be well and truly over after all, and neither Eva - nor the house in which they live - are what they seem.]]> 262 Yael van der Wouden 0241652308 Maxwell 3 The Safekeep, Yael Van Der Wouden crafts an evocative and atmospheric narrative that immediately pulled me in. The writing is lush, with a strong sense of place that gives the story an intense quality. I found she excelled at setting a mood, creating a world that feels both intimate and unsettling in the best way. The prose shines and immerses you in the quiet tensions and small mysteries that permeate the book.

However, while the style and tone are undoubtedly strong, the plot and pacing left something to be desired. The narrative unfolded in a way that felt a bit too neat, with a structure that follows a predictable rhythm. The third-act twist, while well-written, didn’t deliver the impact I was hoping for, as it was hinted at heavily throughout the story and lacked a surprising or subversive element.

Overall, The Safekeep is a solid read with beautiful writing and a haunting atmosphere. If you enjoy books that focus on mood and setting over intricate plot developments, this one might work better for you. Despite the tidy execution, it’s a well-crafted novel that would appeal to readers looking for a more atmospheric literary experience. I don't expect it to win the Booker Prize, but I am glad they nominated her, especially as a debut novelist, and am interested in seeing what she comes out with next.]]> 4.19 2024 The Safekeep

author: Yael van der Wouden
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/02
date added: 2024/11/09
shelves:
review:
In her debut novel, The Safekeep, Yael Van Der Wouden crafts an evocative and atmospheric narrative that immediately pulled me in. The writing is lush, with a strong sense of place that gives the story an intense quality. I found she excelled at setting a mood, creating a world that feels both intimate and unsettling in the best way. The prose shines and immerses you in the quiet tensions and small mysteries that permeate the book.

However, while the style and tone are undoubtedly strong, the plot and pacing left something to be desired. The narrative unfolded in a way that felt a bit too neat, with a structure that follows a predictable rhythm. The third-act twist, while well-written, didn’t deliver the impact I was hoping for, as it was hinted at heavily throughout the story and lacked a surprising or subversive element.

Overall, The Safekeep is a solid read with beautiful writing and a haunting atmosphere. If you enjoy books that focus on mood and setting over intricate plot developments, this one might work better for you. Despite the tidy execution, it’s a well-crafted novel that would appeal to readers looking for a more atmospheric literary experience. I don't expect it to win the Booker Prize, but I am glad they nominated her, especially as a debut novelist, and am interested in seeing what she comes out with next.
]]> Midnight Companions no. 1 202169418
It's 1993. Another Saturday night in Southern California. Four teenagers trade their scariest stories in a room where shadow and candlelight give off the look and smell of an old crypt. Before the sun rises, they'll find themselves in an actual crypt, and its keeper will make sure they stay there for good.

STAY AWHILE...

It's 2022. An American woman has just moved to London with her English husband. All would be well if her deceased ex-boyfriend didn't live in the cellar and visit her at 4:44 AM every morning.]]> 91 Luke Flaherty 1792395965 Maxwell 3 horror, short-stories
The stories are fun, if not particularly mind-blowing. The title story is reminiscent of Goosebumps with a spooky house, kids on bicycles, and a late night escapade. The 2nd story follows a woman dealing with the trauma of her lost love from childhood as she settles into her new London home with her husband that descends into bloody (ha!) madness.

All in all a good Halloween read!]]> 4.09 2022 Midnight Companions no. 1

author: Luke Flaherty
name: Maxwell
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/31
date added: 2024/10/31
shelves: horror, short-stories
review:
A delightfully spooky collection of 2 short horror stories in a neat package. The design work on this book is outstanding. Every detail feels so intentional and well thought out. From the retro cover to the illustrations throughout, even down to the font choice. I loved the experience of spending an hour or two with this little book!

The stories are fun, if not particularly mind-blowing. The title story is reminiscent of Goosebumps with a spooky house, kids on bicycles, and a late night escapade. The 2nd story follows a woman dealing with the trauma of her lost love from childhood as she settles into her new London home with her husband that descends into bloody (ha!) madness.

All in all a good Halloween read!
]]> Harlequin Butterfly 176729912
But how does the elusive author move from one place to the next, from one language to the next? Ingenious and dazzling, Harlequin Butterfly unfurls one puzzle after another, takings us on a mind-bending journey into the imagination.]]> 105 Toh EnJoe 1782279776 Maxwell 4 short-novels, translated
Basically this book is sort of about an author named Tomoyuki Tomoyuki who is able to go to a place and quickly learn the language and write a story in that language. Then they leave and are nearly impossible to track down. Sort of like a literary Banksy. No one really knows who the author is and where they are at any given time. But A.A. Abrams is trying to track the author down and will go to great lengths to try and collect all of their scattered works and piece together the puzzle of who this author is.

But really the book is about so much more than that. It's about language, translation, the malleability of our minds, travel, creativity, ideas and more.

I feel like people just have to experience this book for themselves, and try to not cling too hard to conventions of what a novel is and instead experience this book for what it is: a journey. If you like short weird little books, especially translated books and Japanese fiction, I'd give this one a shot! I think I'll revisit it someday and see if I uncover more from within its labyrinthine pages.]]> 3.32 2012 Harlequin Butterfly

author: Toh EnJoe
name: Maxwell
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/31
date added: 2024/10/31
shelves: short-novels, translated
review:
I'm gonna be honest: I kind of have no clue what I just read. But I liked it? I think this book would be even better on a re-read (and it's only 100 pages so that's totally doable). It reads like a little puzzle and each chapter you get a new piece but you aren't quite sure where it goes until you finish and even then it takes some effort to put it all together. Maybe the point isn't to try and even piece it all together but enjoy the process, the struggle, the ideas, the creativity.

Basically this book is sort of about an author named Tomoyuki Tomoyuki who is able to go to a place and quickly learn the language and write a story in that language. Then they leave and are nearly impossible to track down. Sort of like a literary Banksy. No one really knows who the author is and where they are at any given time. But A.A. Abrams is trying to track the author down and will go to great lengths to try and collect all of their scattered works and piece together the puzzle of who this author is.

But really the book is about so much more than that. It's about language, translation, the malleability of our minds, travel, creativity, ideas and more.

I feel like people just have to experience this book for themselves, and try to not cling too hard to conventions of what a novel is and instead experience this book for what it is: a journey. If you like short weird little books, especially translated books and Japanese fiction, I'd give this one a shot! I think I'll revisit it someday and see if I uncover more from within its labyrinthine pages.
]]>