nomadreader

The basics: Stretching from the 1970's to the early 2000's, Astonish Me  is the story of Joan, a young ballerina good enough to make the corps but not good enough to ever be a star. Joan's story is told in chapters and vignettes that move back and forth in time. My thoughts: As someone who has little coordination and even less grace, my fascination with ballet and dance truly stems from appreciation. Maggie Shipstead clearly shares my fascination with ballet, and the characters in this novel are at times both reverent and critical about ballet. These complicated feelings about ballet extend into the characters' lives too, and Shipstead's prose is astonishingly good. For so much interior insight, there is also a lot of action. Joan is at the center of this novel, but the secondary characters are actually more intriguing. From Joan's roommate and fellow dancer Elaine, to Russian defector Arslan Rusakov, to Joan's husband and son, as well as her neighbor...

The basics: This collection of essays takes its inspiration from Joan Didion's famous essay of the same name and invites a younger generation of writers to write about their love affairs with New York. My thoughts: I lived in New York City for only one summer, between my first and second years of college, but it was one of my favorite summers. I always imagined I'd end up living there, and when I met Mr. Nomadreader, a native upstate New Yorker, in Atlanta, we both figured we'd end up there. When we moved to Albany for me to go to graduate school, I still thought we'd end up in New York or Boston or somewhere nearby, but then reality charged in, and I realized the difference between academic librarian salaries varied little based on where you live, and as much as I love New York, I did not pick a job that would let me have any real quality of life if we lived there. Still: New York City is magical for me, and I knew this collection would be filled with people who s...

The backstory: I've previously enjoyed Emma Straub's short story collection, Other People We Married , which apparently I never reviewed, but the story "Fly Over State" remains one of my all-time favorites. Her debut novel, Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures , was a delightful audio experience , and I was eager to see what she would do next. Once again, it's something quite different from her previously published work. The basics: The Post family are off to spend two weeks in Mallorca. Franny and Jim are celebrating thirty-five years of marriage, but it may be coming to an end. Jim has also lost his job. Their daughter Sylvia is off to Brown in the fall. Their son, Bobby, and his older girlfriend, Carmen, live in Miami. Franny's best friend, Charles, and his husband, Lawrence, also join them. My thoughts: The Vacationers  is one of those books that enchanted me from its opening pages. It's the perfect combination of so many factors, and reading it g...

The basics: The Lobster Kings  is the story of the Kings family, who have lived and fished off of Loosewood Island, Maine for generations, beginning with Brumfitt King, a famous artist. The current generation of Kings, and the focus of most of the novel, are patriarch Woody and his three daughters, but mostly Cordelia, who loves the sea as much as her father. My thoughts: There's an ethereal quality to the writing and setting of this novel that captured me from the novel's first pages. Zentner's writing has a calm fluidity that perfectly matches the maritime setting and the novel's pace. Big moments happen in short, unassuming sentences, which I quite enjoyed, but it sets a specific tone for this novel. Despite the presence of many tragic and depressing events, the novel itself isn't marred by those emotions. Zentner's writing matches the demeanor of the Kings: there's an acceptance of how life is, which might be tragic by many standards, but is the no...

In celebration of the first day of this year's Armchair BEA , participants are asked to answer five questions (from a provided list of ten.) Here are mine: Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? How long have you been blogging? Why did you get into blogging? Where in the world are you blogging from? I'm Carrie. I live in Des Moines, Iowa, where I work as an academic librarian. As the name of my blog indicates, I'm a nomad and a reader. By my count, I've moved twenty-times in my thirty-three years, but Mr. Nomadreader and I bought a house last spring, and we both hope we're living in it until it's time to move to the retirement home. I started blogging in March 2007, and I've moved many times in those seven years. I started blogging when I started working temping as a receptionist when I was applying to graduate schools. I had a lot of time to browse the Internet, and I initially started the blog as a place to write about everything I ...

I'm already up and enjoying this leisurely, holiday Sunday! Memorial Day weekend is my favorite three-day weekend all year, mostly because I work in academia and welcome the first post-academic year reprieve with open arms. It's also the only three-day weekend--with the sometimes exception of July 4th when it falls on a weekend--not during the academic year, which means I can just relax and read, read, read. As I wait for the cinnamon coffee cake in the oven to finish baking, I'm gearing up for two exciting bookish events coming up: Armchair BEA and the World Cup of Literature. I haven't been to a BEA in person for years, but I always enjoy the opportunity to participate in Armchair BEA , which starts tomorrow. There are daily prompts, giveaways, an Instagram challenge, Twitter parties, and so many fun ways to connect. I'll be participating in some of the prompts, but I'll also be posting reviews this week because I've been reading like a woman who soon wo...

I've been tearing through Michael Connelly's lengthy backlist, and I often find myself with repetitive things to say about them, so I'll mostly be doing mini-reviews of his titles, unless one compels me to write more deeply. Find links to all my Michael Connelly reviews in my Book Review Database . Void Moon  is a stand-alone thriller featuring Cassie Black, a con artist. In that sense, it's quite a departure for Connelly to write from the point-of-view of the criminal. it's also a departure to have a female narrator. Connelly does both well. Cassie shares narration with a private investigator hired to recover what she steals. This approach was mostly successful, but it slowed down the fast-pace of this novel a bit. Overall, Void Moon  was a page-turning thriller more than a mystery, and while it lacked the jaw-dropping twists I've come to expect from Connelly, it did keep me on my toes until the last page. Rating: 4 out of 5 Source: library A Darkn...