Spring reading Forecast: 100 percent chance of awesome

How about that terrible title? The blizzard of fabulous new books springing up on library shelves this month will hopefully make up for my silly jokes*.

*Maybe I'm writing a dystopian novel in which people can only communicate in clickbait-style puns due to...some kind of  draconian law? zombie bacteria? (haven't fleshed that part out yet)...so consider this blog a viral marketing campaign. Keep an eye out for Ten Best Ways to Die on bookshelves someday!

I have so many books checked out right now I could turn them into a Sweet Sixteen bracket (with alternates to spare). So many that I'm jotting down bullet-proof excuses to use to get out of social obligations in favor of reading. For example: my nail polish is too chipped; I can't find my keys; I am having an existential crisis; I don't know where I am; It might snow/rain/ice/mist/locust.

I hear they're calling for snow again. Bring. It. On.

Finally, the book forecast. Nonfiction first:

So You've Been Publicly Shamed
by Jon Ronson

I'm so looking forward to getting my hands on this one. Perhaps it's the great title, or the awesome cover, but I'm all in.

Public shaming really never goes out of style, does it? Is it the public square beheading of the digital age? Anyone who has ever regretted a Facebook post or tweet might fear the onslaught of public scorn. It could happen to you!

Check out Esquire here for an excerpt, and keep an eye out for this book due out at the end of March.

H is for Hawk
by Helen Macdonald

As a child I briefly lived on the Air Force base in Colorado Springs. I remember little about that experience aside from snow, mountains, and the guy with a falcon at the Air Force hockey games. It perched perfectly still gripping the trainer's sturdy leather glove in its rather fearsome talons. So, naturally, wild packs of small children would come up to pet it, myself included. Somehow we were not ripped to pieces and ever since then raptors have fascinated me. H is for Hawk looks to be an outstanding piece of nature writing about one woman's quest to tame a hawk.

From the text: "To train a hawk you must watch it like a hawk, and so gain the ability to predict what it will do next. Eventually you don't see the hawk's body language at all. You seem to feel what it feels. The hawk's apprehension becomes your own. As the days passed and I put myself in the hawk's wild mind to tame her, my humanity was burning away."

Now on to the fiction:
Welcome to Braggsville
T. Geronimo Johnson

This dark and provocative satirical novel about UC Berkeley students heading to the south to stage a dramatic "performative intervention" in protest to a Civil War reenactment in one student's hometown. Reviewers of this disturbing and timely book compare T. Geronimo Johnson to Ralph Ellison, Don DeLillo, and H.L.Mencken and promise his second novel will challenge your assumptions about everything in it.

The Buried Giant
Kazuo Ishiguro

Booker Prize-winning author, Kazuo Ishiguro, has kept us waiting ten years for a new novel since Never Let Me Go. Elderly couple Beatrice and Axl live in an imagined Briton village somewhere in Arthurian England. There is an amnesia inducing mist, and a female dragon. That's about all I know. I hear this is getting mixed reviews so I'm avoiding them until I read the book. Sometimes I just want to experience a book for myself before hearing how everyone else felt about it. If you want my initial, haven't-even-opened-it-yet review: the book itself it aesthetically pleasing. The edges of the text block are black and the cover has a neat texture. Even if you don't read it, give it a quick feel.

Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances
Neil Gaiman

Don't you just love Neil Gaiman? Grimmer than Bros. Grimm, he does twisted grown-up fairy tales so well he may have invented them. Neverwhere is a fantastic read and I really enjoyed his gruesome little novel last year, The Ocean at the End of the Lane. If you're a fan, you'll want to check out his collection of short fiction that just hit library shelves.

Fair warning from the author's introduction: "We each have our little triggers ... things that wait for us in the dark corridors of our lives." And "Many of these stories end badly for at least one of the people in them. Consider yourself warned."

Oooo!

The Sellout
Paul Beatty

One NPR reviewer has hailed this a "comedic masterpiece" and not "just one of the most hilarious American novels in years, it also might be the first truly great satirical novel of the century."

Paul Beatty tackles some big and difficult subjects with humor (that's satire for ya) in this novel about a race trial that sends a young man to the Supreme Court.

The Descent
Tim Johnston

This thriller of a mystery came out in January and I've already seen it check out quite a few times so get in line to reserve your copy. On a family vacation a brother and sister go out for a run together, but only one returns. The devastating search for missing 18-year-old Caitlin tests the limits of what holds a family together. (I'm hoping for something like a sneaky Scott Smith thriller with this one.)

A Bad Character
Deepti Kapoor

I snatched up this debut the minute it walked in the door. The first page totally grabbed me and wouldn't let go but I was already reading a book so now I keep cheating on that book, stealing little moments with this book whenever the other isn't looking. The first page, for you:

"My boyfriend died when I was twenty-one. His body was left lying broken on the highway out of Delhi while the sun rose in the desert to the east. I wasn't there, I never saw it. But plenty of others saw, in the trucks that passed by without stopping and from the roadside dhaba where he'd been drinking all night.

Then they wrote about him in the paper. Twelve lines buried in the middle pages, one line standing out, the last one, in which a cop he'd never met said to the reporter, He was known to us, he was a bad character."

Find Me
Laura Van Den Berg

This post-apocalyptic chiller is next on my to-read list (looming large at this point). It  just wouldn't be one of my forecast lists without at least one book about the collapse of society, right?

Cough syrup addicted Joy finds herself immune to a pandemic sweeping America--people are suddenly afflicted with memory loss, the mysterious disease eventually leading to death. Joy becomes a test subject at a Kansas hospital and then goes on the run to Florida, encountering a bizarre, changed country on her way.

File this one under Black Moon, California, and Station Eleven, but hopefully better than California.

The Lesser Dead
Christopher Buehlman

Vampires! In a gritty late-70s New York City! I know, right?! This book comes highly recommended by a trusted source and the jacket copy reads like "Lost Boys" meets "The Warriors". I couldn't be happier about that marriage of pop culture favorites. I have this one checked out in print AND audio so I'm completely covered.

Fresh Book Club suggestions for when it's your turn to pick (from a new book clubber)

I find myself tongue-tied and self-conscious when it comes to discussing books out loud; for some reason writing about them is fine but the prospect of hearing my voice talk about them is intimidating. I read a lot and I read quickly, so I tend to not get much deeper into any sort of literary analysis than "Like" or "Dislike" or "yes I read that and vaguely recall liking it but couldn't recall the plot if my life depended on it". This is perhaps why I have avoided book clubs -- until now. I now belong to a secret literary coterie of five women who love reading, and like to talk to people about the things they are reading, and to share recommendations, and so on, therefore it seemed logical to organize this somehow--for efficiency's sake?--into a monthly gathering of souls who have read the same book and vow to talk about the experience (with drinks, snacks). My hope for book club? To try to slow myself down and to savor what I read, and to really take in what others have to say about the books we read. And to have fun, of course.

Ali Smith's How to be Both

Critically-acclaimed, Booker-finalist, bicameral* How to be Both is Ali Smith's 6th novel and comes with a peculiar feature: two different versions of the book were published. Half of the books begin the story from the perspective of Francescho, a 15th century Italian painter, the other half from the POV of Georgia, a 21st century teenage girl in London. While the two versions are identical in words and page count, the only difference being that part I and part II are reversed, how their stories will intertwine is affected by the switch, giving the reader quite a different experience depending on the version they happen to end up with. (I had to compare it to those "Choose your own adventure" books so popular when I was a kid.) One couldn't do better for a discussion book really. The obvious question "which version did you get?" makes for a good ice breaker. I knew nothing about the book when I first read it based on fellow book clubber/blogger, Ellen's recommendation. I just picked it up and enjoyed the heck out of it, only to find out later that there was much more to discover, especially the real artist and artwork behind the story. It turns out that Ellen recommended it after reading the first half, which for her was George's story, but I got the version beginning with Francescho and fell in love. So there we were, both raving about two totally different books at the same time.

*having two branches or chambers!

Michel Faber's The Book of Strange New Things

People often come in to the library to ask for book club recommendations, hence this post. Picking a book club selection can be as anxiety inducing as talking about the book afterward. What if they all hate it, and me? Should it be something I have  read, or want to read? Can it be science fiction? There's really only one way to find out the answers to those questions. When I read The Book of Strange New Things I immediately wanted to talk to people about it. I felt like I missed something big in it, like I just couldn't put my finger on something the author wanted to say. I sped through it to get to find out the ending, but often the end isn't the point and you have to back up a little. So I took a chance and suggested it for book club.

This book is and isn't science fiction. It is in the sense that it's in space, there's some light space travel briefly mentioned, and there are space beings involved. ("Aliens" seems inappropriate since the humans in this case would be the aliens I suppose.) It is not really sci-fi in the sense that it doesn't involve the kind of world building and fantastic technology that the more zealous fans of the genre enjoy. Robert Heinlein he ain't. I would recommend it to people who read Kurt Vonnegut, China Miéville, and Margaret Atwood, but also say they "don't like science fiction".

The basics: Peter is a Christian missionary sent into space by a shadowy corporation to proselytize an alien civilization that is curiously receptive to his message. He lives in a human settlement with a complacent and tight-lipped group of engineers and workers and ventures off the compound by day to minister to the locals. Meanwhile, his wife is back home dealing with the catastrophic decline of human society on earth. Peter becomes dangerously absorbed in his work, physically and mentally, widening the already enormous distance between him and his wife. There is mystery surrounding the beings who have requested his presence, the purpose and presence of the USIC corporation, and what is happening back on earth.

Duplex by Kathryn Davis

This would be a good pick if you want to be difficult, or you want to make sure your group vetoes all your future picks. Just kidding!  It's terrific, but it is surreal and quite odd, with a non-linear narrative operating in multiple dimensions. Many questions, much to discuss, and one could almost guarantee somebody would hate it, somebody would love it, and everybody would have something to say about it it--whether they "got it" or not.  It's also short, which your book club will probably appreciate.

A fun challenge for your book group: everyone attempt to describe the plot from memory. Good luck!

Threats by Amelia Gray

I could say almost the exact same thing about Threats. It's also weird and non-linear, weaving in and out of reality so that the reader has to scan back a few sentences like "wait, what?" before moving on. This is a dark and creepy mystery with an abstract love story at its heart. David, a man who was recently a dentist and seems to be losing his grip on reality, may have just killed his wife, or somebody else did, maybe? But is she really even dead? And what are these strange, threatening messages he keeps finding hidden all over the house, behind the wallpaper and in bags of sugar--messages like "I will lock you in a room much like your own until it begins to fill with water"? Your group might really enjoy trying to parse out this bizarre story.

And look: Amelia Gray shouts passages from her book while riding on the back of a moped, because.

Cold enough for you? You've got plenty milk and bread, make sure you have enough books to read!

I was briefly without electricity this week so naturally I began contemplating the end of everything, up to and including me. Fortunately it was sunny enough to read so I made it through but I came up with a list of dire winter reads for those stuck indoors with a snow day who might like to compound a wintry situation.

In the Kingdom of Ice: the grand and terrible polar voyage of the USS Jeannette by Hampton Sides

This was my hottest (hah!) no-fail nonfiction to recommend last year. So far everyone has raved about it. Forget "cabin fever"!  Try getting "Arctic fever" and join a team of late 19th-century Arctic explorers marooned a thousand miles north of Siberia without taking off your slipper socks.  If "grand and terrible polar voyage" doesn't grab you, well, then you might not be that into it.

The Indifferent Stars Above: the harrowing saga of a Donner Party bride by Daniel James Brown

Did you raid your neighborhood market last weekend in preparation for the snow? Hoarding bread, milk and eggs? Lock your doors and look out for hungry neighbors--you're probably tender and delicious by now! Sorry, cabin fever breeds corny cannibalism jokes. Most people are familiar with the near mythical saga of the Donner Party and their ill-fated journey over the Sierra Nevada Mountains. But how much do you really know?

Pilgrim's Wilderness: a true story of faith and madness on the Alaska frontier by Tom Kizzia

This is one of those crazy stories that stick with you. A charming, musical family with 15 children, modern homesteaders in a way, settle in tiny McCarthy, Alaska. Papa Pilgrim, as the the family's patriarch is known, begins a battle with the National Park Service, revealing his dark past and the troubled and terrifying home life of his family.

Into Thin Air: a personal account of the Mt. Everest disaster by Jon Krakauer

Adventure journalist Jon Krakauer's personal account of the ill-fated Everest climb that left eight people dead. This is one of my go-to nonfiction recommendations when asked for "something really good?", right next to Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

Alive: the story of the Andes survivors by Piers Paul Read

A straightforward, unsentimental account of what happened when an amateur rugby team and family and friends crash landed in the Andes mountains. Some were killed in the crash, others survived in the harsh cold and snow for 70 days, resorting to cannibalism to stay alive.

The World Without Us by Alan Weisman

Ever ponder what your street would look like if everybody stopped shoveling their walks or raking the leaves, every pothole was left to reach its full potential, the weeds went unplucked, houses unpainted, roofs untended, and so on? This thoughtful puzzler explores the inexorable breaking down of the man-made world if man were to suddenly cease.

I wonder what Richmond will look like once we thaw out.

Found in Translation: new, recent, and upcoming foreign fiction to fall in love with

Recently we read this Daily Beast piece that asks "why don't Americans read more foreign fiction?" Good question! Perhaps you're now wondering the same thing. Maybe you're asking yourself "But how can I discover more literature from abroad?" If you're reading this blog you're already on the right track. You could also ask a librarian (a person? in person? Yes!). Don't run off just yet though. I've combed though my Read, Reading, and To-Read lists for a teeny tiny ten title* sampling of some of the best under-the-radar new, upcoming, and recent finds in fiction to land on US shelves. This list is by no means inclusive, and I left off more well known authors like Karl Ove Knausgaard, Aravind Adiga, Haruki Murakami, and Elena Ferranti (to name just a few recent best-sellers and award-winners) in the interest of keeping this list under control, but if you have something outstanding to suggest, please, please, contribute in the comments section!

*or eleven?

Those I've Read:

The Seventh Day by Yu Hua

English translation published 2015, originally published in Chinese 2013

I just finished this sweet novel in one big swallow and all I can say is "sigh". I smiled and/or teared up at every page turn of this tender, otherworldly tale of Yang Fei's life and afterlife in rapidly changing contemporary China. Dentist turned award-winning novelist Yu Hua is the author of a number of books, most if not all of which you can now find in English in the US.

Mr. Gwyn by Alessandro Baricco
English translation published 2014, originally published in Italian 2011

Beautiful, charming, and peculiar, this mystery about an author who makes a career change and then disappears, and his assistant who discovers the truth, was one of my absolute favorite reads in 2014. 

F: a novel by Daniel Kehlmann
English translation published 2014, originally published in German 2013

Another of my most favorite reads of 2014, F is a compelling and complicated drama about a family in crisis*.

*Right next to "multi-generational family sagas", tense, European style "family-in-crisis" dramas are often at the top of my favorites.  

Second Person Singular by Sayed Kashua

English translation published in 2012, originally published in Hebrew 2010

A suspenseful and engrossing mystery, this story of love and betrayal in a divided society has lots of twists and turns.

Every Day is for the Thief by Teju Cole

Originally published abroad in English in 2007, released in the US 2014

Readers of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie will also enjoy this story set in Lagos, Nigeria. Apropos to this post, the narrator longs for a woman who he sees reading a novel by Michael Ondaatje on a city bus. 

Pro-tip to our readers: Broad literary tastes make one more attractive. Just sayin'.

Talking to Ourselves by Andrés Neuman
Originally published in Spanish in 2008, English translation published in the US in 2014

Deeply moving and unsentimental, this is a story of loss, love, and family told from three perspectives, and three ways of talking to oneself.

Still To Read:

The Man Tiger by Eka Kurniawan
Indonesian, 2004, expected publication in US March 2015

A tale of two families with elements of magical realism that should appeal to fans of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

You also should read this brief piece by 2013 PEN/Heim foundation grant winning translator Annie Tucker on translating Eka Kurniawan. 

My Documents by Alejandro Zambra 
Spanish edition published in 2013, to be published 2015 in English in the US

Another offering from McSweeney's (see also Mr. Gwyn above), this collection of short stories from the Chilean author of Ways of Going Home should be a real treat.

Dendera by Yuya Sato
Japanese edition 2014, English translation to be published 2015

A utopian society of abandoned elderly women face a hungry bear. 

Intrigued?

Jami Attenberg (The Middlesteins) said "...it's as if Elena Ferrante and Stephen King collided on a Japanese mountaintop." 

OMG.

Lagoon by Nnendi Okorafor
Published in Great Britain in 2014, expect to see it on US shelves in July of 2015 

This book sounds so cool: it's got aliens, it's set in Lagos, it's magical realism and hip-hop. Keep an eye out for a review in my Summer of Sci-Fi, 2015 post later this year. 

Bonita Avenue by Peter Buwalda

Just hit US shelves in January 2015, originally published in the Netherlands in 2010


This Dutch novel also features a family in crisis, and could be one for fans of Hermann Koch (The Dinner, Summer House with Swimming Pool).

Decadent Heroes: Resolve to kick back like Oblomov this winter

Are you buried in ice? Is it getting harder and harder to leave the comforting confines of your many blankets? Thinking of joining your cat all curled up under the radiator? I'm not going to tell you to get out of bed and exercise or anything, so don't worry. I'm just here to offer some literary inspiration for those long winter naps. Allow me to introduce you to our titular hero, Oblomov. No, no, please don't get up. This satirical 19th century Russian novel follows affable, decadent nobleman Oblomov, who seldom gets out of bed. In fact, he spends the first 50 pages of the novel entirely in bed in his dusty room receiving visitors who try to coax him to a party. His refrain in response, "How awful", feels familiar of late. If you are looking for a companion to your seasonal apathy, there's no better friend than him. Laughter could even count as exercise so you may want to think about some light stretching before reading this or either of the following.

Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

One of my all-time favorite books, Toole's hilarious, and unfortunately posthumously published novel follows eccentric and hungry failure-to-launch Ignatius Reilly on his comic adventures through the French Quarter. Speaking of hungry, there is a restaurant in Chicago responsible for an extreme gastronomic creation known as the "Ignatius R.", so named for our decadent hero. Why this sandwich ended up in Chicago when our hero never leaves New Orleans is beyond me but there is no need to make travel plans to try it out. Stay warm and safe indoors and assemble the following cold leftovers between some sturdy bread: fried chicken, steak, bacon, mozzarella, lettuce, vinegar, fried shrimp, fried green tomato, mortadella, country ham, pickled okra, American cheese, lettuce, tomato, and mayo. Or you can dine as our hero does and just eat lots and lots of Paradise Hot Dogs.

Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart

Misha Vainberg, gregarious and corpulent son of the "1,238th-richest man in Russia" desperately wants to return to his South Bronx sweetheart, Rouenna, but finds himself stuck trying to save the fictional republic of Absurdsvani.  Misha is clearly something of a modern-day Oblomov and he *heavily* (sorry) references the book. If you feel the need to get out and move around for the sake of your health and sanity, Absurdistan is available as an audiobook and the voice actor, Arte Johnson, does a marvelous job not only of achieving multiple accents but also totally nailing the comedic delivery.

So there you have it. Grab a sandwich and a warm drink, or summon a man-servant à la Oblomov/Misha Vainberg, and kick back with some good books until Spring arrives.

Speaking of cold weather binge-reading, I have entirely too many books* checked out right now. Can I please get a snow day? Off the top of the stack currently threatening to collapse my night stand: The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, a thriller I've been told is fantastic so I will let you know how it turns out; How to be Both by Ali Smith, which I've also been told is fantastic; Amnesia by Peter Carey; 2 AM at the Cat's Pajamas by Marie-Helene Bertino, which is funny and charming, and a much needed palate cleanser following Richard Flanagan's harrowing, Man Booker winning, The Narrow Road to the Deep North.

*not possible!

What are YOU reading to keep warm and cozy? Tell us in the comments!

Best of The Best Fiction of 2014: unsung heroes edition

So you've seen just about all of the "Best of 2014" lists you can handle but you're still a little...hungry? Was there something missing from those lists? Did you notice, like we did, that they all seemed to rave over the same books, over and over and over again? I mean, sure, Fourth of July Creek was OUTSTANDING and also one of our favorites (definitely rush right out and get a copy) but what about the unsung literary heroes of 2014 fiction? Those little guys that may not have been on your radar, or the critics', but should have been lauded? Hunger no longer, readers. We at the blog have discussed and emailed and compiled and debated to come up with this list of a top five picks the critics missed in 2014.*

The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing is a comedic debut from Mira Jacob spanning three decades about an immigrant family’s move from India to Albuquerque, New Mexico and how they transition through the limbo of grief. We follow the deeper transition of Amina and her self-realizations within the lovingly chaotic embrace of family and tweaked traditions. Jacob creates magic from heartbreak in this first-rate, heartily satisfying story.

(*OK, so some critics did pick this book but not nearly enough in our humble opinions. We were shouting from the rooftops about it, and think you will too.)

With her debut novel, Emma Healey does something truly remarkable. Elizabeth is Missing puts the reader inside the mind of a woman who is attempting to solve the mystery of her missing friend while suffering from progressive memory loss. In less capable hands a narrator this unreliable would fall apart; the repetition would feel awkward and the whole device, gimmicky. However, Maud's sleuthing and sliding is riveting. You feel frustrated with her and terrified for her, and as Maud's obsession reveals another unsolved mystery buried deep in her past you'll think: ah, brilliant. 

The Hundred-Year House would make a fantastic book club selection. It's a bit of a mystery, a bit of a ghost story, a bit of a multi-generational family saga, and a lot of a page-turner discussion generator. Not that it lacked resolution, but the book seemed to leave us all with questions we had to share, and we do love a book that gives us lots to talk about.

(Perhaps worth noting, this novel is the only non debut on our list. It it Makkai's second novel, her first being The Borrower, which I have not read *yet* but it sounds like a bit of a love-letter to librarians. This fact in no way influenced our decision to add Hundred-Year House to our esteemed list.)

Previously raved about on this blog and worth raving over again, The Bees tells the story of Flora 717, a big awkward sanitation worker bee who dares to bee (sorry) more than her prescribed station in life. She is special, somehow not like the other bees, and we follow her on an exciting, suspenseful, unbelievably compelling journey of self discovery. This book, quite frankly, should have been silly, but I haven't connected with an anthropomorphic bug protagonist in such a visceral way since Charlotte's Web. And for the purists out there: people who know far more about these things than we do have reported that the bee science in the book is pretty darn accurate and quite well-researched.

Knee-slappingly, spot on, deliriously hilarious,* How to Build a Girl is Caitlin Moran's first fiction and we hope she hurries up with the sequel to it (allegedly this is to be a trilogy, news of which I accepted as a late Christmas gift). Joanna Morrigan is an awkward teenage girl, but determined and resourceful, shockingly self-aware and honest, she is hell-bent on a mission to create herself in the way she wants to be. 

(*We can show you the bruises from all the knee slapping if you don't believe us.)

Also worth noting: all of our top 5 are authored by women. Perhaps this post should be sub-titled "unsung heroines"?  We hope you find something new to add to your New Year "to reads" from this list. Keep an eye on the blog this year for all of our favorite books.

Happy New Year (reading)!

Your Bloggers,

Natalie, Ellen, and Tonya