From the TBR Shelf #18: The Secret History by Donna Tartt

The Secret History (1992) by Donna Tartt

Oh. My.

Seriously- I had only two words left in my brain after finishing this novel cause IT. WAS. BRILLIANT.

Now, if you've been reading this blog for a while, you'll know that I don't normally praise books like this- just the really fantastic ones. I could tell early on that The Secret History would suck me in and deprive me of sleep, as all really great books do. Tartt offers us a narrative at once gripping, anxiety-inducing, and fascinating, all at the same time. After all, "murderous Classics students" is an intriguing phrase, no?

Rachel's Random Recommendation #34: Native Son by Richard Wright

Native Son (1940) by Richard Wright

I've read this book twice and taught it once, but I believe that I could re-read it once a year and still find something new in it because it's that fantastic.

I first came to Richard Wright through Black Boy (1945), and I was hooked. Wright just knows how to draw you in, no matter what he's writing about. His description, for instance, of how he found his way to books while a young boy and read as many as he could made me think about how much of him I saw in myself, despite our different time-periods, religions, geographies, and ethnicities. I felt like Wright was a friend, taking me through his life step-by-step and describing the hardships he endured, as if he had known me for years.

Genre Kryptonite: Opera in Fiction

Once upon a time, I spent most of my waking hours researching and writing about opera in turn-of-the-20th-century American literature for…you know…reasons. Anyway, I found a surprising number of novels from this period that included opera scenes or focused on the lives of opera singers. Actually, it shouldn’t have been too surprising because during the last third of the 19th century, people went kinda cu-RAZY for the operas of Charles Gounod and Richard Wagner. They packed the opera houses night after night cause for some reason they didn’t feel like listening to these performances on their iPods?? Whatever…

But really, 1870-1920 is the most interesting time period, in my humble opinion. And the writers of the time capitalized on that. Trust me, these novels that are all about opera are some of the funkiest and most fascinating you’ll ever pick up. So look, I’m gonna give you a list of some of ‘em (if you reeeeally want more, though, just hit me up).

This one goes out to all my opera homies and anyone interested in cool, old, crazy novels. Enjoy:

20 Bookish Twitter Parody Accounts That Should Exist

Many of you know just how much fun Twitter can be, especially for us cool bookish folk. One of the things that makes it so much fun is the existence of the bookish parody account. These things can really unleash the hilarity…

For example, if you’ve been following @IsTheNovelDead, you’ve probably been rolling around on the floor clutching your stomach cause you’re laughing so hard. Because, seriously, with all the “is the novel/reading/writing/publishing dead?” articles out there, this account was just waiting to be created.

Well, we at Book Riot decided to come up with a list of our own bookish parody accounts that should definitely exist. Please add your own in the comments!

Books to Look For (May): Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Humor

Science Fiction

Artemis Awakening by Jane Lindskold (Tor Books, 304 pages, May 27)

Two words: SO COOL. (Lemme 'splain). So there's this technologically-advanced human empire that created a "pleasure planet" for fun times, but then CRASH goes the human empire and the cool planet has become a myth. Until, of course, an archaeologist centuries later gets all "I'm gonna find that cool pleasure planet." Next thing you know, you've got the start of a great new scifi series.

Rachel's Random Recommendation #33: Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis

Arrowsmith (1925) by Sinclair Lewis

Ok, so we all know that Sinclair Lewis novels are pretty great novels because Lewis writes like he means it amiright?

What struck me about Arrowsmith was how frankly Lewis exposed the culture of scientific research and education in early-20th century America, just as "professionalization" was becoming mainstream.

And I'm using "exposed" here in the sense of a scientist slicing something open to dissect it- exposing the innards, if you will; looking at everything with an objective eye, seeking knowledge, not jumping just yet to any conclusions.

Review: Authority by Jeff VanderMeer

Authority by Jeff VanderMeer (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 352 pages, May)

This second book in the Southern Reach Trilogy...I can't...really...oh man...no words...

*pulls herself together*

Ok, let me try that again.

Authority continues the story begun in Annihilation of an unexplained Event that has completely erased all human traces from a piece of land in the southern U. S. Thing is, it's a little too pristine there, and all expeditions sent to investigate have failed to understand it. Oh, and all kinds of terrible things have happened to those expeditions...

Books to Look For (May): History, Comics/Graphic Novels, & Travel

History

Forgotten Foundations of Bretton Woods: International Development and the Making of the Postwar Order by Eric Helleiner (Cornell University Press, May 27)

I hear you saying "Bretton what? Development who?" but I had to highlight this book because I've been to Mount Washington, New Hampshire and it is beautiful. The mountain soars up into the clouds and the road that leads to the top of it is a lot of fun, if a bit frightening (no guardrail...). And the Mount Washington Resort is one of  those old, early-20th-century hotels where the old-timey-ness has been well-preserved. If you take the tour of the hotel, they'll give you a lengthy dissertation on the Bretton Woods Conference of 1944, where the Allied countries met to fix up a new international economic order for after the war. Anyway, there's all kinds of cool stuff in here, so be sure to check it out.

From the TBR Shelf #17: How to Escape From a Leper Colony by Tiphanie Yanique

How to Escape From a Leper Colony (2010) by Tiphanie Yanique

I must admit that I've read very few Caribbean writers (I have read Jean Rhys, V. S. Naipal, and Jamaica Kinkaid, but that was back in college...). Yanique's collection of stories in How to Escape From a Leper Colony makes me want to read so much more by writers from this part of the world.

While the term "Caribbean" fails to convey the vibrant multitude of peoples and cultural practices from Haiti to Jamaica, the Virgin Islands to Trinidad, and beyond, Yanique offers us stories that reveal the richness and diversity of the region. Moving from 1930s Trinidad to the Virgin Islands of the present day, and from Florida to England, these stories of interracial relationships, coffin-shop owners, Carnival participants, and artists are fully-imagined worlds. 

In Translation: May Fiction

 So I hear that there aren’t only two countries on this planet (1. America, 2. everybody else), but nearly 200! Two hundred countries! With all sorts and kinds of languages. Even multiple languages in many of them! And lots of those people write books. Holy bookstacks!

But can you guess how many books from all of those countries are translated into English and made available to the English-speaking, book-buying American public? Yeah, that would be 3%. Where did I get that number? Well, from a web resource devoted to translated lit appropriately named “Three Percent,” which claims in its description that “reading literature from other countries is vital to maintaining a vibrant book culture and to increasing the exchange of ideas among cultures.”

Buy, Borrow, Bypass: WWII + Vampires Edition

Cryptonomicon (1999) by Neal Stephenson

 

This is one of those novels that you don’t want to read while you’re lying down, cause if it falls on your face it’ll be 1100+ pages of hurt. But what a wild ride it is. You’ve got your cryptography and proto-computers, your WWII submarines and stacks of gold bars, your Alan Turing and General MacArthur (yes, you read that right). Cryptonomicon swings back and forth between the 1940s and the 1990s, between brilliant mathematicians building complex computing machines and the building of a data haven in the Philippines, and between two generations of Waterhouse men involved in these projects. It’s not until the last third of the novel that the three story lines converge, and larger questions of security, bureaucracy, and world finance become clearer. Even with the many characters packed into the book, Stephenson managed to make me care about them all. A fun and intelligent read.

Verdict: Borrow because you’ll know about 50 pages in if you want to keep going or not. If you’re really digging it by page 50, then by all means, go and buy it!

In Translation: Last Train to Istanbul by Ayşe Kulin

Last Train to Istanbul (2002) by Ayşe Kulin

As you may know, I've been reading a LOT of WWII fiction lately, and not on purpose. It's just that all of these writers/books I've been meaning to read have fallen into my lap at once, and it's pretty fascinating to compare them.

Like Suite Francaise, Last Train is one of those novels that speeds up your heart rate and unapologetically raises your blood pressure. Most likely, this is because both are about events that took place during the war (a frantic exodus from the cities as the Germans invaded, the rounding-up of Jews and anybody else the Nazis didn't like the look of). Another thing these two books have in common is that they were recently translated, thus giving English-speakers a window onto how the war affected Europeans from their own perspective.

Books to Look For (May): Autobiography, Literary Fiction, & Mystery

Autobiography

Stand Up Straight and Sing! by Jessye Norman (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 336 pages, May 6)

You don't have to be an opera buff to love the sound of a beautiful voice, and Jessye Norman is known for hers, that's for sure. Descended from generations of enslaved and free Georgians, Norman developed her voice in her community church, launching into an opera career after being inspired by Marian Anderson. Spirituals, blues, and jazz also feature in Norman's repertoire. This is the story of a remarkable, inspiring life.

From the TBR Shelf #16: Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell

Vampires in the Lemon Grove (2013) by Karen Russell

The eight stories that make up Vampires in the Lemon Grove are at times beautiful, strange, haunting, and hilarious. Here, Russell has created compelling mini-worlds populated by human and non-human characters who struggle with desire, regret, terror, and...well, you get the picture. Reminiscent at times of Stephen King and Ray Bradbury (who explored the comingling of "reality" and "fantasy"), Russell's stories are eclectic enough to make me wonder how many hours of research went into writing them because the level of detail and knowledge is outrageous.

But what are these stories about?? Well...

Rachel's Random Recommendation #32: The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene

The Ministry of Fear (1943) by Graham Greene

Despite having read this, my only Greene novel, about 15 years ago, I've always remembered it as one of the strangest and yet most interesting and even thrilling books I've ever read.

In fact, because of its setting in war-torn London during the blitz and its surreal plot, The Ministry of Fear reminds me of another WWII/bombs-dropping-on-London text: "Chard Whitlow" by Henry Reed (one of my all-time favorite poems).

Studies Show: Fewer People Reading Scrolls

[The following fragment (once part of a scroll) was recently discovered when construction workers were razing a timeless architectural wonder somewhere in Greece.]


Move over, scroll; it’s codex time.

“But the scroll,” you say, “the scroll has been around for millennia! How could people just abandon it? It’s the ONLY WAY to read!”

The times are a-changin’, though, as several recent studies show.

Apparently, one out of every three readers uses a codex, rather than a scroll, to get their daily literature fix.

In Translation: Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky

Suite Française (2004) by Irène Némirovsky

I remember hearing about this book (and how fantastic it was) when it was first published in English in 2004 (yes, it took me this long to get around to reading it. Sigh). Némirovsky, a well-known, respected, and prolific Russian-French author, had written Suite Française while trying to stay one step ahead of the Nazis as they invaded France in 1940. Despite having lived in France for years and converting to Roman Catholicism, Némirovsky was nonetheless targeted because of her Jewish heritage. The letters included in the Vintage edition reveal the desperate attempts of the writer's husband and publisher to release her from the concentration camp to which she was confined. She died, though, in 1942, before any help could come.

Rachel's Random Recommendation #31: East of Eden by John Steinbeck

East of Eden (1952) by John Steinbeck

Steinbeck novels seem to find me, rather than the other way around. I've picked up some of his lesser-known works at library book sales, garage sales, and used book stores. Usually, I'm like, "hey, a Steinbeck I've never heard of before. MUST GET IT."

Well, that's what happened with East of Eden. Actually, I don't remember where or when I picked it up, but it was sitting in my TBR bookcase a couple of years ago and I decided to dive in.

Teaching Literature With Music

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I was given the opportunity to lecture on American Literature. It was a daunting challenge: I was expected to stand on a stage, face hundreds of students, and talk about literature in a way that was both entertaining and informative. But as I had seen during my time as a TA, many college students didn’t get my brand of humor. My jokes would fall flat, my literary puns would dissolve into nothingness, and my guffaws over hilarious scenes would send my students scurrying under their desks.

So I thought about how to make my lecture fun for all of us without scaring everyone away and then it hit me: MUSIC! Almost everyone loves music. Why not pair the texts I’m assigning with appropriate musical selections?* I’d play the music as the students filed into the lecture hall, and then again when they left. It would serve as a kind of soundtrack to the class, and perhaps introduce students to music that they never knew they liked.

Review: Love & Treasure by Ayelet Waldman

Love & Treasure by Ayelet Waldman (Knopf, 352 pages, April 2014)

Because my mom is into World War II novels and histories, and because we swap books frequently, I've read a tonnn of WWII fiction. I can safely say, though, that Love & Treasure is one of the best I've read in a very long time.

Taking as her central element the true story of the Hungarian Gold Train (which carried items stolen from Hungary's Jews during the Holocaust), Waldman weaves a complex fictional tapestry involving characters from three different eras. Jack Wiseman, an American soldier ordered to guard and take inventory of the train's contents at the end of the war, is ultimately burdened with the knowledge that the items will never and can never be returned to their rightful owners, since nearly all of them were murdered in the camps. 

Books to Look For (April): Shakespeare

(April has SO VERY MANY Wednesdays, so here's an extra BtLF post, in honor of Willy Shakespeare's birthday)


Historical Fiction

The Secret Life of William Shakespeare by Jude Morgan (St. Martin's Press, 448 pages, April 1)

We don't know much about Shakespeare, but why should that stop us from imagining what he was like before he became playwright-extraordinaire?? Jude Morgan does just that, offering us a different kind of glimpse into Shakespeare and his world. And Morgan's done this kind of thing before in his historical novel about the Brontë sisters, Emily and Charlotte. So turn off Shakespeare in Love and dive into The Secret Life.

From the TBR Shelf #15: Emily Post by Laura Claridge

Emily Post: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mistress of American Manners (2008) by Laura Claridge

I'm not really sure why I requested this audiobook from the library a few months ago, but request it I did, and listen to it I most certainly did, and I'm here to say that it was worth it- every minute of it.

Emily Post: to me, that name conjures up a hazy impression of something-something-table-manners and something-or-other politeness. And something about advice. Other than that, I knew nothing about the woman whose name has become synonymous with those nouns I just mentioned. But then the book jogged my memory- I remembered having heard that she and I share a birthday. What I hadn't known, though, was that we also share a birthplace: Baltimore. I know- freaky.

Rachel's Random Recommendation #30: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Middlesex (2002) by Jeffrey Eugenides


I read this wonderful novel fairly recently, even though I had wanted to read it for years. And I have to tell ya, folks- IT'S PRETTY OUTSTANDING.

Now, if you've read Eugenides before, you'll know this "outstanding" thing already. If you haven't yet read Eugenides, well- I've only read Middlesex so far, but I imagine his other books are also pretty great.

The Dorothys of Crime Fiction

It’s April, and as many of you know, I spent the previous month immersing myself in crime fiction. (Now I’m immersed in the 1100+-page novel that is Cryptonomicon, but that’s a different story…).

Aaaanyway, while I was bringing myself up to speed (speedily) on the history of American crime fiction, I noticed something…interesting. Lots of detective/crime/mystery writers were named “Dorothy.”

And like I said, it’s April, and the Dorothy in my life (my Grandma Dorothy) would be 99 this month if she were alive today. She was vivacious, she was dynamic, she commanded attention and was loved by friends and family alike. And she loved a good story.

So, in honor of my Grandma Dorothy and her April birthday, I hereby introduce you to six Dorothys of crime fiction:

Books to Get You in the Passover Spirit

It’s that time again, ladies and gents: that’s right, the Passover and Easter season. Easter bunnies everywhere, Manischewitz wine flying off the shelves- you know the drill.

We’ll be celebrating both in my house, and I’m the one in charge of the Passover seder, but boy am I not prepared this year because it kind of snuck up on me. So along with thinking about all the things I have to buy for the seder and everything I have to cook, I started thinking about some books that could help get us in the mood for this holiday.

After all, Passover is quite the bookish tradition since everyone sits around a table and, you know, READS FROM A BOOK (this particular book is called a “haggadah”). The haggadah recounts the story of the Jewish exodus from Egypt.

Books to Look For (April): Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Humor

Science Fiction

Shipstar by Gregory Benford & Larry Niven (Tor Books, 416 pages, April 8)

I read Larry Niven's crazy and fun adventure that was Ringworld several years ago, and Shipstar looks similarly awesome. A sequel to Benford and Niven's Bowl of Heaven, Shipstar is about a human ship-on its way to colonize another planet-that encounters a huge bowl cupping a star, with a massive habitable area. Of course, the humans go exploring and all kinds of bad things go down. Add this one to your TBR list.

From the TBR Shelf #14: Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

Cryptonomicon (1999) by Neal Stephenson

First of all, this is a long book. A VERY long book. As in, 1130 pages. Every one of which I enjoyed.

So if you're into cryptography, computers, World War II history, submarines, the Philippines, or engineering, you'll love this book. And even if you are only interested in one or two of those things, and know little of the others, you'll still enjoy the story (i.e. I know some WWII history and a little bit about the Phillipines during the Spanish-American War and beyond, but all I know about computers and cryptography is what happened to stick in my mind when people have tried to explain it to me).

Books to Look For (April): History, Comics/Graphic Novels, & Travel

History

Hotel Florida: Truth, Love, and Death in the Spanish Civil War by Amanda Vaill (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 464 pages, April 22)

I don't know about you, but I always connect the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) to writers like Hemingway, Orwell, and Auden- probably because that's the only time I learned about that conflict. Vaill, though, takes us deeper into the background of those who joined the Spanish Republican side: writers, journalists, and photographers who shaped how we think about truth in reporting and the rise of photojournalism.

Breaking Into Crime Fiction

In the spirit of a “reading challenge,” I decided earlier this year to devote the entire month of March to crime fiction (mostly American). Why that particular genre? It had been beckoning to me furiously after I devoured five Agatha Christie novels in one gulp a couple of years ago, but there were always other books claiming my attention. After all, 90% of my TBR shelf is literary fiction or history; I simply didn’t own any contemporary crime fiction. Now, I had read Capote’s In Cold Blood, Poe’s mysteries, Collins’s The Moonstone, and all of the Sherlock Holmes stories and novels, but I wanted to get a better sense of the 20th-century American scene (basically beginning with Hammett in the 1930s). I wanted to understand what “noir” was really like on paper (since I had seen plenty of it on film and tv).

So I asked my fellow Rioters and bookish twitter buddies for some recommendations and whittled them down to seven novels. I chose them based on the following criteria:

Rachel's Random Recommendation #29: The Moon and Sixpence by W. S. Maugham

The Moon and Sixpence (1919) by W. Somerset Maugham

This lovely novel by Maugham (who also wrote the autobiographical masterpiece Of Human Bondage [1915]) takes its inspiration from the life of French artist Paul Gauguin. Charles Strickland, a middle-aged English stockbroker, decides one day to abandon his banal life in order to devote himself to painting. Leaving his wife and career for an unknown future, Strickland embraces an existence fully devoted to creativity, and while his abrupt renunciation of his past life may seem callous, his courage to pursue something socially deemed "impractical" for something he loves is also inspiring.

And if you're into novels about painters, also see Émile Zola's The Masterpiece (1886), which is based on the life of Paul Cézanne.

Haunting Beauty: Apex Magazine's Cover Art

Alright, guys, you know that I'm a major lover of vivid and funky sci-fi/fantasy cover art (refresh your memory here if necessary). So you won't be surprised when I fall all over myself to show you some of the beautiful images recently (and not so recently) featured on the cover of Apex Magazine.

Like great literature, great art invites you to make connections across time and space, recognizing older, influential works in newly-painted landscapes or portraits. This is what happened when I looked at recent Apex covers, particularly those featuring solitary female figures. Below are four of my favorites:

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Review: Black Moon by Kenneth Calhoun

Black Moon (2014) by Kenneth Calhoun

At just under 300 pages, Black Moon is like a fast-moving train glimpsed through a window. (Sorry if that sounds strange, but I find it helpful to think visually about a book I've just finished).

Let me explain. Imagine glancing out of a window at night and seeing a train rushing by, but you can't see either end of it. You hear it and see the flashing lights, and you know that it's moving, but that's all the information you have. Your first question might be, "How long is this train?" or "Where is it going?"

Books to Look For (April): Biography, Literary Fiction, & Mystery

Biography

Updike by Adam Begley (Harper, 576 pages, April 8)

Dare I even admit that I haven't yet read John Updike? Oh wait, I guess I just admitted it. Well, now I really want to read his novels, especially the Rabbit tetralogy, after checking out this new biography. Updike strove to "transcribe middleness with all its grits, bumps and anonymities," like a modern-day Naturalist writer, allowing him to dissect and analyze suburban America in a multitude of novels, poems, short stories, and critical essays. Looks awesome.