The Booker Prize Longlist is quickly losing its fascination as a personal reading challenge. Really, I have so many other books I really want to read that the longlist is seeming like a chore. Next year I'm going to do things differently, I think. Then there are all of the pre-orders, especially the NYRB classics edition of Young Man With a Horn, by Dorothy Baker -- for that one I'll drop everything and read it the minute it hits my mailbox. And I seriously miss the crime fiction!
Here's how things shook out this month:
crime fiction
No Sale, by Patrick Conrad
Goat Song: Murder and Mayhem in Montmartre, by Chantal Pelletier
The Minotaur's Head, by Marek Krajewski
odd/weird fiction
A Book of Horrors, (ed.) Stephen Jones (read, not yet discussed)
fiction
The Good Muslim, by Tahmima Anam
Swimming Home, by Deborah Levy
Communion Town, by Sam Thompson
The Devil in Silver, by Victor LaValle (read, not yet discussed)
The Devil in Silver, by Victor LaValle (read, not yet discussed)
******
other book-related stuff:
1) The book group starts again at the end of this month with The Orphan Master's Son, by Adam Johnson
2) Added to the Amazon wishlist this month:
God Carlos, by Anthony C. Winkler
The Eyes of Lira Kazan, by Eva Joly
Limousine, by Patrick Conrad
Tropic Moon, by Georges Simenon
Three Bedrooms in Manhattan, by Georges Simenon
Butterfield 8, by John O'Hara
The Stammering Century, by Gilbert Seldes
3) Books bought this month (likely going on the tsukundo pile for a while)
Seven Houses in France, by Bernardo Atxaga
All the Stories of Muriel Spark, by Muriel Spark
Generation Loss, by Elizabeth Hand
The Crime of Julian Wells, by Thomas H. Cook
The Wettest Country in the World, by Matt Bondurant
Vertigo, by Ahmed Mourad
The Hashish Waiter, by Khairy Shalaby
Alif the Unseen, by G. Willow Wilson
Harmattan, by Gavin Weston
Pacazo, by Roy Kesey
The Discovery of America by the Turks, by Jorge Amado
The Tyrant by Jacques Chessex
4) Currently reading:
Telegraph Avenue, by Michael Chabon
The Lighthouse, by Alison Moore
A Private Venus, by Giorgio Scerbanenco
****5) Book on offer for US readers (free, I'll pay postage)
The Greatcoat by Helen Dunmore -- just be the first to leave a comment that you want it and it's yours. It's a ghost story, not available in the US yet
that's everything, I believe...I have soooo much reading to do!
I just read about the book, and the author mentions her inspirations being Tom's Midnight Garden, which I love, and Turn of the Screw which scared me when I read it years ago. But my love of the first book will overcome the fear of the second so I would love to try it.
ReplyDeleteIt's yours, Nan. If you could please send an email I'll get it out to you. I liked it actually, but it's one of those you have to let settle in your head awhile after you read it to realize just why you feel so uneasy after you've finished it!
DeleteThanks! Looking forward to it.
ReplyDelete