nomadreader

These days, I tend to listen to NPR in slow bursts, mostly while I'm in the kitchen cooking or cleaning. I've started relying on the NPR One app, which predicts what stories you're interested in, but it also lets you search by topic and show, as well as mark the stories you think are interesting (and skip those you don't.) I also welcome the ability to rewind and fast forward. After using the app for several months, it finally seems to get that I really like stories about fiction (big surprise, right?), but it's been such fun this week to hear interviews with three authors whose books I've enjoyed this month. I read a lot of interviews with authors, but there's something so fascinating to me about hearing them speak. Here are links to those interviews in case you want to take a listen to: Tessa Hadley,  Family Bonds Are Never Bland In 'The Past'  ( my review of The Past) Helen Ellis,  Frisky, Subversive 'American Housewife' Practices S...

Need a last minute holiday gift for a bookish friend or family member? I suggest Last Night's Reading! The backstory: I've enjoyed Kate Gavino's Tumblr, Last Night's Reading, for years. Warning: if you don't live in New York but love books and authors, it will inspire an extraordinary amount of envy. The basics: Artist Kate Gavino lives in New York City and goes to a lot of book readings, festivals, and author events. While there, she draws the author and adds a memorable quote from the event. My thoughts: Gavino's drawings are deceptively simple. She does each one in a single color in what appears to be marker. But the quality of the drawings are amazing. Seriously: scroll through her Tumblr and find an author you know. Amazing, right? Her choice of quotes and emphasis turns her work into something quite powerful. The verdict: I first read this book in a single sitting and was wowed, but it's also a great book to give (or receive) as a gift, beca...

I listen to a lot more audiobooks than I used to. In January, audiobooks comprised half of my reading. A lot of this change is due to the nomadbaby. I don't have as much time to read as I used to, so I've consciously transitioned most of the time I used to spend listening to music or NPR and now listen to audiobooks. I listen while I'm feeding him. I listen while I'm cleaning. I listen while I'm driving (and sometimes driving is an activity we'll spend an hour doing just for fun--and the opportunity to listen to an audiobook.) Perhaps because the nomadbaby has only known a life in which his mom is often listening to audiobooks, he enjoys them. He is a very verbal child, which is no surprise given who his parents are. And while I feel like I talk to him all the time, I noticed early on that I had very little to narrate while feeding him, washing dishes, etc. When we're walking around the house, I talk to him. But the rest of the time, I like to think it...

The backstory: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry  is one of my book club's November picks. The other is We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves  by Karen Joy Fowler , which I LOVED. (My book club meets every other month and reads two books.) The basics: A.J. Fikry is a widowed book store owner on Alice Island, a fictional Martha's Vineyard-like place. His prized possession is a valuable and rare copy of very early Poe poems has been stolen, and he is rather miserable all around. My thoughts: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry  is a story for book lovers. It's filled with recommendations and inside jokes: "He wants Maya to read literary  picture books if such a thing exists. And preferably modern ones. And preferably, preferably feminist ones. Nothing with princesses. It turns out that these works most definitely do exist. He is particularly fond of Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Emily Jenkins, Peter Sis , and Lane Smith."   At times the novel gets somewhat meta, and I f...

narrated by Jeff Harding The basics: When his mother Mary Anne is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, Will Schwalbe accompanies her to her chemotherapy appointments. They form a two-person book club during these appointments, as they share their thoughts on life and literature. My thoughts: A book about a mother dying might seem a peculiar choice to read while pregnant, but instead of it depressing me, I found it inspiring and filled with parenting advice. Will and his mother Mary Anne already had a close relationship before her diagnosis; the premise of this book is not a memoir gimmick. They share a life-long love of reading, but their discussions about what they're reading took a different turn as Mary Anne fought cancer. While this book is largely about their relationship with one another and with books, it's also a testament to Mary Anne, who was a truly extraordinary woman. I was first drawn to Will recounting how his mother shaped his love of reading when he was a ...

The backstory: History of the Rain is on the 2014 Booker Prize longlist. The basics: Ruthie Swain is home from college after a medical issue arose. She lives in the attic of her family's home, along with over 3000 of her father's books, and she plans to read all of them. My thoughts: Ruthie is a delightful narrator. She's quite precocious, and at times early in the novel I had to remind myself how young she is, as she also tells her story with the wisdom of an older woman. There's also a boldness as she addresses the reader directly. Perhaps it's why I felt so connected to Ruthie--she speaks right to me in this novel. I adored Ruthie's view of the world. It was both humorous and filled with truths: "Irish people will read anything as long as it's about them. That's what I think. We are our own greatest subject and though we've gone and looked elsewhere about the world we have found that there are just no people, no subject as fascinat...

This holiday season I find myself craving Christmas and wintery books. I've been saving Strangers at the Feast by Jennifer Vanderbes to read during the week of Thanksgiving, when the book is set, and I'd like to continue that tradition for Christmas. I'm not the kind of reader who wants to read a book simply because it's about Christmas. I want to stick with the genres that work for me: literary fiction, literary mysteries and historical fiction. I began asking around, and the one suggestions I keep hearing is Wally Lamb's Wishin' and Hopin' ,which I requested from the library. There have to be other books out there, right? I'm hoping you all will wow me with wonderful suggestions. Here's what I'm looking for: The books don't necessarily have to be about Christmas or include Christmas in the title, but if part of the story happens to take place around Christmas, I'm in favor of it. As a Midwesterner turned Northeasterner, Christmas is...

The backstory: I've been having a wonderful year reading more deliberately in terms of reading award-winning literature, but I haven't followed through on my goal of reading the classics. When I heard about the Meiji-era Japanese Classics tour, I decided to sign up. With the choice to pick anything written in Japan between 1868 and 1912, I chose Natsume Soseki's The Tower of London: Tales of Victorian London. My thoughts: The edition I read, which was translated by Damien Flanagan opens with a lengthy introduction and biography of Soseki. I found it incredibly helpful, as I knew very little about him in general or where this work fell in his chronology. While I probably would have enjoyed this work without the background knowledge, I wouldn't have understood nearly as much of it without Flanagan's introduction. Soseki was one of three writers hand-picked by the Japanese government to spend two years in England. Soseki was not excited to go to London, and had t...

The backstory:  How to Escape from a Leper Colony was one of the 5 Under 35 selections from the National Book Foundation this year. My thoughts: This book is dubbed a novella and stories, but I would classify it as including two novellas. As always with collections, however, it's difficult to describe. The common themes among the stories are their Virgin Islands setting and ideas on colonialism. I found overtones of ideas from Monique Roffey's White Woman on a Green Bicycle ( my review ), which looked at an ex-patriot British couple living in Trinidad. I don't mean to equate colonial literature about two different countries, but there were some thematic similarities. Regular readers know I am not a huge fan of short story collections, but I do often enjoy them. I adored Tiphanie Yanique's writing, and she skillfully evoked strong characters and a setting, which was especially impressive in the shorter stories. "Movies are like so much art. They can start a ...

The backstory: I've read and enjoyed all of Tracy Chevalier's historical fiction novels about real people ( Falling Angels ,  the story of Emmaline Pankhurst and the British suffrage movement is my favorite), so I was excited to read her most recent novel. The basics: Remarkable Creatures is the story of two female fossil collectors in the 1800's: Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot. The two women become friends after Elizabeth and her two other single sisters move from London to Lyme, England when their brother marries. My thoughts: Tracy Chevalier makes history come alive. I knew nothing of Mary of Elizabeth when the novel began, but I quickly became engrossed in their stories. The women take turns narrating alternating chapters, but I found myself enjoying Elizabeth's story so much more than Mary. I enjoyed Mary more in the chapters Elizabeth narrated than when I saw the world through her eyes. While the novel is the story of these two women, it's also a fasc...

The basics: The Stuff That Never Happened is the story of Annabelle and Grant, who have been married for over thirty years. They live in New Hampshire, where Grant is a professor and Annabelle illustrates children's books. My thoughts: The novel starts off well. I adored the first chapter; it was smart, funny and a good introduction to the character. I really enjoyed Annabelle. Then the novel begins flipping back and forth between 2005, when Anabelle and Grant's marriage is floundering with their children now grown, and 1977, when they met. Initially, this alternation helps build suspense and provide an interesting take on the characters. I'm fascinated by tales of marriage, and its shifts over time (I am a newlywed, afterall!) As the novel progresses, however, it starts to fall flat because it becomes more obvious what must happen. The past chapters became dull, as it was clear the action was leading to something. The present chapters started to seem almost dishonest, a...

The backstory: I really enjoy mysteries, and when I read my first Laura Lippman novel last year, Life Sentences ( my review ), I didn't really love it because I didn't think it was much of a mystery. I did think she was a good writer, though, and when I heard about her latest stand-alone mystery, I'd Know You Anywhere, I wanted to give her another try.   The basics: When Eliza was fifteen, she was kidnapped and held captive for weeks by a man who raped and killed young women. He let her go. He's now on death row, and she receives a letter from him that shatters her present world. She changed her name from Elizabeth to Eliza, took her husband's name and never speaks of the event. My thoughts: Once again, I read a Lippman novel I wouldn't describe as a mystery. The central mystery, if you can call it that, is the lingering effect of kidnapping. The novel is told in alternating chapters of the summer of 1985, Elizabeth's summer with Walter, and the pre...

The backstory: I so enjoyed reading Ana Menendez's most recent novel, The Last War ( my review ), I was eager to read her first novel, Loving Che . Menendez also wrote a collection of short stories entitled In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd . The basics: Loving Che takes place in contemporary Miami, as a young woman longs to uncover her past. Once she receives a package of letters and photographs, the narrative shifts to her mother's voice recalling the years of the Cuban Revolution and her love affair with Che Guevera. Then, the narrative shifts back to modern day as the unnamed narrator seeks to use the clues from letters and photographs to fill in the details of her life. My thoughts: I'm a huge fan of historical fiction featuring real people, and Che Guevera is someone I've been fascinated with quietly  for years. Loving Che is a unique piece of historical fiction. It's events are intricately linked to actual events in the very public life of Che Guevera an...

The basics: The Art of Devotion , Samantha Bruce-Benjamin's first novel, is told through the voices of four women: two mothers and two daughters. The lives of these families criss-cross in a variety of ways on a beautiful Mediterranean island. My thoughts: I really wanted to like this book. I adore novels told from multiple points of view. I like stories of family secrets and interconnected generations. I like historical fiction (it's set in the first half of the 1900's.) I like books set in exotic locations. What kept me from loving this book? It was oh so very melodramatic. Bruce-Benjamin was so busy having the four narrators tell us what they were thinking and feeling the characters never actually thought or felt anything. The pacing was bizarre and unsuccessful for me. All of the narration read like a memoir; each woman's emotions were presented, but for most of the book, the reader didn't actually know what events they vaguely referred to. There was an omen o...

The basics: The Financial Lives of Poets is the story of Matthew Prior, a newspaper reporter who quit his job to start a financial website written in poetry. Seriously. Not surprisingly, this venture has failed, and Matthew now finds his marriage less happy than it once was, his father (in the early stages of dementia) living with them, his sons wishing for electronics, their house on the verge of foreclosure, and himself increasingly desperate. My thoughts: This novel took me on a roller coaster of a reading experience. I absolutely adored the first few chapters. I was reading it in public and could not stop myself from laughing out loud. The narrative began smart, funny and fresh, as when he describes the uniforms his sons wear to Catholic school: I think these uniforms wouldn't be so bad if they didn't make the kids all look like bank tellers on casual Friday or the employees of a discount airline or--like me... Throughout the book, the hilarious observations share...

  The backstory: I thoroughly enjoyed Charles Todd's first Bess Crawford novel, A Duty to the Dead ( my review ), so I was eager to read the second mystery in this series. The basics: An Impartial Witness is once again narrated by British World War I Army nurse Bess Crawford, a delightfully independent, intelligent, feminist woman. Granted, Bess is developing quite a habit of finding herself in the midst of murder investigations, but she's relatively smart about it. My thoughts: Simply put, I enjoyed this novel even more than the first one. It's also refreshing to discover a mystery series that doesn't need to be read in order. There are a few mentions to the Britanic sinking, but the other events from the first novel (the mystery parts) aren't alluded to. The family and friends of Bess return, but their brief descriptions are helpful reminders for readers of the first book and adequate descriptions for those new to the series. Bottom line: it doesn't m...

The backstory: February, Lisa Moore's second novel (she also has a book of short stories), is on the 2010 Man Booker Prize longlist. The basics: The novel is written in short vignettes that jump back and forth through time. Each vignette has a descriptive title and year to guide the reader. The center of the story is Helen, who lost her husband Cal in the 1982 sinking of the Ocean Ranger . Most of the events happen between 1982 and 2008, but Moore also jumps to the early days of Helen and Cal's relationship. My thoughts: I have rather ambivalent thoughts on this novel. Moore's writing is lovely. I tend to enjoy character-driven novels, but this one never fully captured me as a reader. When I was reading it, I was engaged in both the writing and the characters, but it wasn't a novel I pondered much when I wasn't actively reading it. The pacing was slightly off for me. I'm curious how much thought Moore put into the ordering of the vignettes. At times, the n...

The backstory: I've enjoyed Ayelet Waldman's essays in the past, and she's one of my favorite authors to follow on Twitter because she's funny, kind and passionate. When I was presented with the opportunity to read her new novel, I jumped at the chance to experience her fiction, and I'm so glad I did. The basics: Red Hook Road  is the story of two families united by marriage and the tragedy of the bride and groom being killed en route from their wedding to the reception. The story spreads out over four summers in Red Hook, Maine, where the bride's family summers and the groom's family are long-time, working class residents. There's a cultural divide as these families lives intersect. My thoughts: Tragedy strikes early in this novel, and it didn't affect me very deeply because I wasn't yet invested in the characters. It certainly affected me, but it didn't resonate with me. I was curious how Waldman would treat a story with tragedy at i...

The backstory: Other Press has quickly become a publisher I look to and expect to like all of their titles. When I stopped by their booth at BEA, I knew I wanted to snag a copy of this novel, and I was thrilled when I got it. The basics: The Quickening is the story of Enidina and Mary, two women with little in common except geography. Both live on a farm and they live near one another in a unnamed Midwestern state in the early 1900's. My thoughts:  Michelle Hoover was born in Ames, Iowa, where my grandmother grew up and where I spent much of my childhood visiting my great-grandmother. She's the granddaughter of four longtime farming families. My roots may not run as deep in farming, but I'm proud to be a sixth-generation Kansan. The Midwest is in my blood, and it shapes my cultural identity. I trace my family to Kansas and Iowa, and enough generations have called those states home that I truly don't think of the countries those first immigrants came from. All of t...

The backstory: I've read and adored Ana Menendez's essays in Vogue  in the past, but I had not read her novels. I had the intention of reading her novels since college, when I worked in a bookstore and got an ARC of In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd , which I moved an embarrassing number of times without ever reading it. I was thrilled to participate in this TLC tour for her latest novel, The Last War.  The basics: The Last War  is the story of Flash, a photojournalist married to a war reporter. The two have lived in wartorn areas throughout their marriage. This passage from early in the novel beautifully encapsulates both Menendez's writing and the characters: "We were the war junkies: Eros and Chaos, endlessly drawn to the ragged margins where other people hated and died. It was as if we believed constant movement would deliver us finally from the disappointments of ordinary life." (pg. 2) My thoughts: I loved this novel. I was captivated as muc...