The Book Hunter's Guide to Blogs about Books

It's winter. You need to have a pile of books on every surface to keep you busy while you hide under all of your blankets, riding out snow storms, bitter winds, and icy sidewalks. There are many blogs by readers, for readers, to help you decide how best to supply your stacks. Check out a few of my go-to blogs for the best recommendations for all tastes of books from the past, present, and future.

For the best in lists, enjoyable writing, and great, diverse book selections, Book Riot is one of my favorites. "Book Riot is dedicated to the idea that writing about books and reading should be just as diverse as books and readers are. So sometimes we are serious and sometimes silly. Some of our writers are pros. Many of them aren’t. We like a good list just as much as we like a good review. We think you can like both J.K. Rowling and J.M. Coetzee and that there are smart, funny, and informative things to say about both and that you shouldn’t have to choose." I think you'll love reading the Meyers-Briggs types of 202 literary characters.

The Millions is staffed by some outstanding new authors including Garth Risk Hallberg, author of City on Fire, and Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven so you can expect some high-quality writing from these guys. I always look forward to adding to my to-read list from their "most anticipated" feature on GoodReads.

The Indie View is devoted to reviewing the best in self-published books. Don't dismiss the self-published book! Publishers can be quite fusty and a lot of good writing is turned down for supposed lack of marketability. Consider The Martian by Andy Weir which was originally self-published, only to be picked up later by Crown Publishing after tremendous online success, and eventually turned into a box office smash starring Matt Damon.

Io9's book reviews are written by devoted superfans of science-fiction and fantasy. If you really love sci-fi or fantasy, make Io9 your first stop for what's coming out and what you may have missed.*

Omnivoracious, from Amazon, The Page Turner from the New Yorker, The Guardian, and NPR Book Reviews are all trusted standbys for quality book reviews. Check out this post from The Guardian in their Food in Books feature: mushroom, bacon and leek pie from The Fellowship of the Ring

The Mookse and the Gripes is one I sometimes forget to look at but I'm always glad when I remember it. "The Mookse and the Gripes is a website dedicated to literature and film, from any part of the world and from any era. It was created in July 2008. In October of 2012, The Mookse and the Gripes podcast, a podcast primarily dedicated to the books published by NYRB Classics, was born."

For reviews of graphic novels, check out Shelf Abuse, "a site devoted to comic books and graphic novels, specifically indie titles and small press releases. Occasionally, a movie or video game review also makes its way here."

Try the Bookrageous Podcast for funny and thoughtful discussions among true book lovers.

Don't forget about Novelist!
Use your library card to access this helpful service used by professional librarians to tailor recommendations based on books and authors you know and love.

*P.S. All the Birds in the Sky by Io9 editor-in-chief Charlie Jane Anders is ALL OVER the blogs lately so you might want to add it to your to-read pile.

New non-fiction audio books to take for a listen

This week we're recommending two marvelous audio books by two inimitable women, read in their own uncommon voices:

M Train by Patti Smith

This lyrical memoir by a creative and fascinating woman is an ode to reading, traveling, staying in to watch detective dramas on TV, writing, memory, and coffee--cup after cup of black coffee--all narrated in her warm and familiar New Jersey accent.

Experiencing this book feels like contemplating the contents of a treasured box of mementos: letters, journals, beloved books, photographs, and all of those items we squirrel away, imbued with so many memories. It's less linear than Just Kids, and makes for fantastic listening.

Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell

Sarah Vowell is a crazy funny writer of American history, and her voice is weirdly wonderful. Vowell deftly weaves present into past, and her digressions to marvel at the many absurd manifestations of nostalgia throughout our history, including some particularly humorous observations at Colonial Williamsburg, make for laugh-out-loud listening.

The Marquis de Lafayette was the first American celebrity. In New York in 1824, a crowd of 80,000 adoring Americans greeted the return of the beloved French hero of the American Revolutionary War. At a contentious period in American politics, the civil war already looming, Americans welcomed the reminder of the ideals and bravery of the generation past that Lafayette's return brought. Vowell tells the story of how Lafayette came to be America's favorite Frenchman, and follows his journey to the Revolution and back, and the impact he had on a young country.

How Do You Do, Newbie?: What's new in debuts!

Having just reached my goal of reading 100 books this year I can safely say that I've read a whole lot of books this year. When one (one being me) is maintaining an endlessly growing list of things, it makes sense to break that long list down into meaningful categories--categories such as "WOW!!!", "Really Great!", "Meh", "books by women", or "Debut Novels". I'm SO not sharing my Best of 2014 list yet, sorry. You're going to have to wait for the RPL Blog Best of the Best of 2014 post (TBA). Until then you can whet your appetite with the big best of lists over at Slate, the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Millions Year in Reading, NPR, etc. (I will slip in how happy I am to see Dept. of Speculation on so many "best" lists). Feel free to ask for book recommendations in the comments! Go ahead and try to stump us. We will blind you with library science.

I will, however, share with you the highlights of my list of debuts. If you happen to be a compulsive fiction junkie like me you know that a first book by a young new author is super thrilling uncharted reading territory, and you feel a little like Lewis and Clark, but without having to pack a bag. Jacket reviews use phrases like "searing debut" or "shattering debut" or "darkly riveting debut novel", always somehow working "debut" into the first line of the description, evidently as a selling point, but perhaps also as a subtle disclaimer. So, hopefully without repeating past or future reviews on this blog, the following are the Really Good!, the Pretty OK!, and the Better Luck Next Time! of 2014 debuts in fiction (that I read).

First, the Really Good! news:

The Transcriptionist
Amy Rowland

OK, I know I'm already repeating myself here since I briefly declared this book a totally awesome debut somewhere else on this blog. Goodreads proclaims it a "powerful debut", and it IS powerful! Rowland brings up a lot in a compact space: ethics in journalism and the decline of newspapers, language and technology, existential stuff, alienation, and a gruesome death under bizarre circumstances. The protagonist, Lena, is a loyal lone transcriptionist, a woman in a nearly extinct occupation within a struggling industry. She is shocked to find out that a blind woman she talked to on the bus just a few days earlier has met a terrible end after climbing into a lion's cage at the zoo. As Lena begins a search for the truth she uncovers much more, threatening the reputation of the paper and her own future. I am anxiously awaiting Amy Rowland's next book.

Cutting Teeth
Julia Fierro

I liked this so much more than the other folks on Goodreads. What can I say? I like a good mean girl and this book is full of 'em. A cast of privileged young parents and their children embark on a weekend playdate at the shore that starts messy and gets messier. If you like Meg Wolitzer, Tom Perotta, Megan Abbott, and Susan Coll you'll be on the lookout for what's next from Julia Fierro.

In brief but also firmly in the Really Good! sub-category are Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing by Mira Jacob, Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson, and Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey (more on these coming soon). For now I will just say "total swoon". Also The Bees (Laline Paull), The Girl in the Road (Monica Byrne), Wolf in White Van (John Darnielle), were already mentioned at their respective links, and are all outstanding debuts worth your while.

Now for the Pretty OK!:

Ancient Oceans of Central Kentucky
David Connerly Nahm

Told in non-linear, stream of consciousness prose, this exhausting petite debut clocks in at around 225 pages and I gotta say it took me a while to finish it. The author really gets Central Kentucky (he's from there), and crafts a compelling, though somewhat obfuscating, narrative using small town Kentucky as an effective backdrop for a story about a troubled woman operating a non-profit while dealing with resurfacing memories of her brother's disappearance when they were children. The giant Sense of Place sledgehammer employed so often in Appalachian and Appalachian-adjacent literature can get a little tiresome (see Silas House) and Nahm does his best not to abuse it. It really is quite haunting, and you might find yourself re-reading some of the particularly stunning passages to mull them over and let them really sink in. So, no, it's not a page-turner. I think that in another book or two he will have worked out his need to prose the reader to fatigue and create some pretty powerful fiction. I'll be keeping an eye out for his next book.

I am Having So Much Fun Here Without You
Courtney Maum

I liked this book. I did! But I did not LOVE it like I thought I would--like I wanted to. It was funny and entertaining and light and cute and France meets England by way of New York. In Paris there is a whiny English artist, Richard Haddon, married to a French woman and he's having an affair with an American woman who ends up leaving him for a cutlery designer (forgot his nationality). Richard's grief over losing his lover drives his wife away...and you know what? I really hated that Hugh Grant Christmas movie, Love Actually (2003) and typing this plot synopsis is starting to remind me of that. "Whiny philanderer loses everything due to own selfishness, wants to be forgiven, is sad." Maybe that's why I couldn't love it love it? All the same, it had me laughing out loud and I'll happily consider Maum's next book.

And finally, the Better Luck Next Time!, in which I disagree with the critics:

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
David Shafer

WTF. W. T. F. (Get it?) This book's heart is in the right place but it needed an editor. You were too darn long, book! Too much time is spent being ambiguous about phony, ambivalent, hipstery non-people in this "ooh look at me I'm so cool I can drop in all these winks to David Foster Wallace and Thomas Pynchon and William Gibson and Chuck Palahniuk but not be all geeky fanboy about it " way. Trimmed down to its good parts it would be a solid paranoid techno-thriller-comedy and the reviewers would probably have hated it. As it is the reviewers LOVED it and it is on all kinds of the aforementioned "best of 2014" lists--but not mine. Better luck next time, Shafer!

An Untamed State
Roxanne Gay

A beautiful, young, upper-class woman is kidnapped and held hostage in Haiti. The story jumps back and forth between a childish, cringe-worthy description of her fairy tale romance and privileged life (perfect, perfect, perfect), and the brutal, almost prurient description of her torture and degradation at the hands of her captors over 13 days. The narrator's voice is completely baffling. Based on the reviews I was expecting something literary but the whole narrative is very melodramatic Lifetime TV movie of the week. Remember those? I couldn't even handle it but I still kinda want to read Gay's book of essays also out this year: Bad Feminist.

Hey! Wait! One more to look for!
Miranda July's debut novel, The First Bad Man, will be out sometime in January and I can't wait. I mean, I really can't wait. Yes, she has books out, but this is her first novel and I'm so excited I just can't even. January is so far away! So, if you love her films or her stories you'll surely be in for a treat now that the inimitable and odd Miranda July has finally made her way into novels. Me and You and Everyone We Know is one of my all-time favorite movies so I have high hopes for the literary version of that experience.

Packing Light: 9 lightweight novels that pack a punch

All weighing in at under 300 pages, these slender novels are no less powerful for their diminutive size and they fit perfectly in your carry-on luggage while keeping you pinned to the very edge of your airplane seat. Put up your tray table and put down Capital, Summer's "least read" monster, then grab a handful of these little guys hot off the new books shelf. 

Your Fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? by Dave Eggers

Mr. Eggers brought us the pretty darn long The Circle last year (which was great and you should read it too). This year I guess he just decided to go with a pretty darn long title.  Your Fathers, [etc.], written entirely in dialogue, is the humorous and suspenseful story of a man kidnapping people and holding them hostage on a decommissioned Naval base because he just wants to ask them some questions.  I read it on a weekend hiking trip so I can confidently recommend it as vacation-friendly.

The Scent of Pine by Lara Vapnyar


A Russian woman now living in the United States remembers  the Soviet summer camp of her youth as she embarks on a sudden and unexpected affair, and discovers how unreliable memory can be.

The Transcriptionist by Amy Rowland


I had to read this in one sitting, pausing only to recommend it to a friend 2/3 of the way through. Lena, a lone transcriptionist with a large and reputable New York City newspaper, becomes obsessed with a story of a blind woman who apparently committed suicide by climbing into a lion's cage at the zoo. In her quest for the truth about this peculiar story she uncovers much more.   

Chop Chop by Simon Wroe


Sharp, mordantly funny, and sometimes horrifying and gross, this witty story of one man's brief career in restaurants might make you think twice about going out to eat while on vacation.

The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham


I am going to get around to reading you, Snow Queen, I swear! Michael Cunningham, who brought us The Hours,
now brings us this gorgeous story that follows the divergent paths of the Meeks brothers as they each seek their own meaning in life. Highly recommended by a trusted source, and Goodreads, who seldom steers me wrong, described it as "beautiful and heartbreaking, comic and tragic". Sounds pretty good to me.

Next Life Might be Kinder by Howard Norman


In Next Life Might be Kinder, Sam Lattimore is a widower recalling his brief marriage to his wife, and her tragic murder and its aftermath, as he visits with her spirit on the beach in Halifax, Nova Scotia. You might want to grab the tissues for this tender and melancholy little romance.

Sleep Donation by Karen Russell


Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove, is out with a new novella that promises to be every bit as unsettling and entertaining as those were. Sleep Donation is another novel about sleep deprivation--the other being the terrific Black Moon by Kenneth Calhoun--so maybe this is a trend forming. There are about a billion zombie stories out there so the literary market can probably handle a few more insomnia themed tales. This one is on my "to read soon" list, which never seems to get any shorter.

Every Day is for the Thief by Teju Cole


This one is also on my "to read soon" list. Cole's unnamed narrator returns to visit Lagos after 15 years abroad and rediscovers his hometown, and himself. Originally published in Nigeria in 2007, this novella is now available in the United States and just sounds really lovely.

All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld


For once I beat the New York Times review of books and read this before they reviewed it. All the Birds, Singing was originally published in the UK in 2013 and finally released in the US in 2014. Told in reverse, this book is riveting and eerie with a complicated central character. Jake Whyte lives an isolated life as a sheep herder and grapples daily with scars from her difficult past while a threatening predator attacks her flock at night.

It's almost Mother's Day! (Did you make a present for your mom yet?)

It's almost Mother's Day!  Mom loves handmade gifts that come from the heart, right?  You could bake her some fantastic cookies, invent some ridiculous new mimosa to serve at your Mother's Day brunch, sew her a darling new apron from a vintage Hawaiian shirt...yeah, I'm on this.  You know where you can find scads of books, resources, and even classes on everything from container gardening to crafting to crochet to cooking?

I think you know where.

Anyway, there are some scrumptious looking new finds for would-be and committed crafters on the shelves this Spring.  Allow me to introduce you to a few.

Upcycling

by Danny Seo

Mom hates waste.  There are starving children somewhere and finishing your peas matters.  Danny Seo also hates wasting things, including things you may still be using for their intended purpose.  He wants you to make pretty, functional wares and decorations out of "stuff you already have".  For some of the projects, "stuff you already have" only applies if you happen to live in an Ace Hardware, but in a craft book of 200 pages with nearly a craft per page, one can forgive a little stretching of the made-up term "upcycle".  I mean, there has to be some filler, like the crafts that are less "trash to treasure" and more "trip to Lowe's to trash".  I personally LOVE the faux bear skin rug made from another, non bear-shaped, rug (is this just "cycling"?) and the *darling* bird cage chandelier made out of fake birds, a cannibalized IKEA paper lantern and chicken wire. Namely, stuff I definitely do not already have (except a bunch of fake birds--of those I have plenty).  The Starry-Sky Artwork project is a really cool way to make your collection of ugly hotel landscape paintings really *pop* (yes, I'm serious). He even has a 10 second project to use that tangled wad of Christmas lights you swore you'd store neatly this time but didn't. Hoarding mason jars and river rocks?  Mom, I'm looking at you.  Danny Seo has a project for that and you only need strong glue.

Upcycling has a bunch of really cool projects, and a few head-scratchers, but everything is well styled and photographed, and there are some cute crafts for kids to do too.  Definitely worth checking out if you love projects and hate throwing things away.

Eat & Make

by Paul Lowe

Sweet Paul is sweet. And I mean sweet. My mom would love him. This book is just charming! Cover, styling, author, and all.  What is it about those Northern Europeans that they have such photogenic homes?  I am admittedly a sucker for vintage clothing, vintage linens, vintage dishes, etc, but for some reason when I put it together it looks more like Wes Anderson got drunk and went blindfolded to a flea market and then got into a fist fight with Rachel Ashwell (of Shabby Chic--the original upcycler) over the perfect ashtray. *Ahem*  Eat & Make is primarily a cookbook but with complimentary crafts, mostly for table settings, thrown in.  The book is divided by time of day with a slant toward brunch-y foods and lighting, the recipes being a sort of "quick Swedish fusion" that goes well with vintage speckled enamel crocks and quirky "upcycled" aprons. I literally can't get enough of the creamy, yummy photography, the clean and bright white interiors, and just the general, Scandinavian-wooden-wheel barrow-natural-farmer's market-ness of it.   And I can't wait to make his Morning Biscuits, Snug Eggs, and Merry Marys.  I don't even care if his idea of "upcycled" candlesticks are just tapers crammed haphazardly (fire hazardly!) into big metal nuts.  They look so off-beat romantic when photographed in extreme close-up on his rough-hewn barn door table!  Check this book out for the menus and the pictures.  Don't make any of his candles unless you want to burn down your kitchen.  Mom would NOT approve.  She will however approve of the gorgeous grapefruit, red cabbage, and goat cheese salad on the cover.  She thinks you should eat more fruits and veggies.

Freakin' Fabulous on a Budget
Clinton Kelly

This book is a kick.  It provides simple instructions about how to quickly and cheaply transform your boring life into an instant cocktail party. Picture this: Anne Hathaway starring in a romantic comedy about a girl who has to pretend to be the sort of ad executive who throws effortlessly fabulous cocktail parties all the time when in fact she is a temp who can barely afford her communal studio apartment, ramen noodle dinners, and 4 cats. "Sally", played by Ms. Hathaway, frantically dashes around her 200 square foot apartment wearing curlers in a montage of dip-dyeing her grubby white bathmat into a designer ombre masterpiece and whipping up some goat cheese and red pepper mousse (on a budget), wrapping her drab, white lampshades with burlap, and altering her ill-fitting thrift store rags into hot off the runway looks tailored to her perfect body. Hilarity and romance ensues. Roll credits. That's the upcoming film adaptation of Clinton Kelly's Freakin' Fabulous on a Budget.  Don't believe me?  Check it out.  You'll see.  And mom loves to be fabulous.  You know what else mom loves?  Thrift.


What we take away from most craft books now is "NEVER. THROW. ANYTHING. AWAY." What they don't tell you is what to do with the stuff you mustn't ever throw away until you have enough (fill in the blanks) to fashion into a new thing.  To answer this question I propose a pre-craft interior decorating book.  I'll call it "decor-cycle" and it will be nothing but well-styled, super close-up photographs of vintage-modern interiors decorated *tastefully* with old tires painted white and filled with wine corks--wine corks just hanging out *tastefully* until I have enough for a bulletin board, trivet, dog bed, bathmat, and miniature refrigerator magnet succulent gardens.  And if I never happen to get around to the bulletin board, trivet, dog bed, bathmat, and miniature refrigerator magnet succulent gardens, I still have a *totally chic and tasteful* arrangement of wine corks in my living room.  I am *not*, however, sitting on my charming vintage sofa (old futon) sipping wine and chucking the corks into an old tire. I will *not* end up on Hoarders. To all the moms out there, including my own mom who taught me to love making stuff out of other stuff and took me to the library every week to check out craft books, Happy Mother's Day!