nomadreader

The backstory:  Little Deaths , Emma Flint's first novel, is on the 2017  Baileys Prize  longlist. The basics:   "It's 1965 in a tight-knit working-class neighborhood in Queens, New York, and Ruth Malone--a single mother who works long hours as a cocktail waitress--wakes to discover her two small children, Frankie Jr. and Cindy, have gone missing. Later that day, Cindy's body is found in a derelict lot a half mile from her home, strangled. Ten days later, Frankie Jr.'s decomposing body is found. Immediately, all fingers point to Ruth." My thoughts:  When the Baileys Prize longlist was announced, the title I was most excited to see was  Little Deaths . It got a lot of pre-publication buzz, and it was billed as feminist literary crime fiction based on a true story. I love all of those things. It was the first longlist title I picked up, and as eager as I was to read it, I found the pace very slow. The title alerts us that Frankie and Cindy die, yet the...

I've been slowly working on this post for two weeks, but it's finally here: my 7th annual Women's Prize for Fiction U.S. Reader's Guide! Longtime readers knows this prize, known for most of its history as the Orange Prize, is my favorite literary prize. The longlist announcement is always one of my favorite moments of the year, and it shapes my reading for the months and years to come. I didn't make predictions this year, partially because the prize announced it was trimming the longlist from its traditional length of twenty titles to only twelve. (The judges ended up with sixteen titles on the longlist.) For the seventh year in a row, I'm offering my thoughts on the longlist along with information on when U.S. readers can access these titles (see my U.S. Reader's Guide for the longlists in 2016 , 2015 , 2014 , 2013 , 2012 , and 2011 . The Ones Available in the U.S. Now Hag-seed  by Margaret Atwood Little Deaths  by Emma Flint The Mare  by Mary Gaits...

narrated by Nancy Wu The backstory: A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding was longlisted for the 2016 Baileys Prize . The basics:  "When Amaterasu Takahashi opens the door of her Philadelphia home to a badly scarred man claiming to be her grandson, she doesn’t believe him. Her grandson and her daughter, Yuko, perished nearly forty years ago during the bombing of Nagasaki. But the man carries with him a collection of sealed private letters that open a Pandora’s Box of family secrets Ama had sworn to leave behind when she fled Japan."--publisher My thoughts: I started this book on audio but switched to print about half way through.The reader, Nancy Wu, was good, and I appreciated her pronunciations of the Japanese names and words, but she read relatively slowly. The book is less than 300 pages, but the audio is over 11 hours. I reached a point where I wanted to finish more quickly than the audio would allow. It's rare for me to listen to half of a book and read the o...

The backstory: The Book of Memory  is on the 2016 Baileys Prize longlist. The basics:  "Memory, the narrator of Petina Gappah’s The Book of Memory, is an albino woman languishing in Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison in Harare, Zimbabwe, after being sentenced for murder. As part of her appeal, her lawyer insists that she write down what happened as she remembers it. The death penalty is a mandatory sentence for murder, and Memory is, both literally and metaphorically, writing for her life. As her story unfolds, Memory reveals that she has been tried and convicted for the murder of Lloyd Hendricks, her adopted father. But who was Lloyd Hendricks? Why does Memory feel no remorse for his death? And did everything happen exactly as she remembers?"--publisher My thoughts: The Book of Memory  was one of the novels I most anticipated this year. The premise is downright beguiling. Gappah's background is as a lawyer, and I loved that she infuses law in this novel without ...

The 2016  Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction  Longlist is finally here! Longtime readers knows this prize, known for most of its history as the Orange Prize, is my favorite literary prize. The longlist announcement is always one of my favorite moments of the year, and it shapes my reading for the months to come. Last week  I predicted the twenty-one titles I thought would make the longlist . I correctly guessed six of the titles. For the sixth year in a row, I'm offering my thoughts on the longlist along with information on when U.S. readers can access these titles (see my U.S. Reader's Guide for the longlists in 2015 ,  2014 ,  2013 ,  2012 , and  2011 . The Ones I've Read The Green Road  by Anne Enright (4.5 stars) Girl at War  by Sara Novic (5 stars) My Name Is Lucy Barton  by Elizabeth Strout (4.5 stars) The Ones Available in the U.S. Now A God in Ruins  by Kate Atkinson Ruby  Cynthia Bond The ...