Reading Envy 233: Get Into Trouble with Ruth

Jenny starts off the episode by announcing a big project for 2022! Ruth teaches her a new word and we discuss a recent Tournament of Favorites, plus as always, books we've read and liked lately.

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Reading Envy 233: Get Into Trouble

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Books discussed: 

 

Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters
Bewilderment by Richard Powers
Dissolution by C.J. Sansom
The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

Other mentions:

Tournament of Books' Tournament of Favorites
Booker Prize
National Book Award
The Animators by Kayla Rae Whitaker
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
Version Control by Dexter Caldwell
Amelia Peabody series
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Overstory by Richard Powers
Orfeo by Richard Powers
Hillary Mantel
Dissolution (play)
Patricia Cornwell
The Heartbreaker by Susan Howatch
The Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer

Related episodes: 

Episode 012 - Some Bookers and Some Madness
Episode 033 - An Undulating Thrum with guests Ruth and Elizabeth
Episode 067 - Rain and Readability with Ruth(iella)
Episode 130 - All the Jennifers with Fern Ronay
Episode 134 - A Pastiche Romp with Ruth(iella)
Episode 169 - Simulacrum with Jon Sealy
Episode 178 - Precarious Pile with Ruth(iella)

Stalk us online:

Jenny at Goodreads
Jenny on Twitter
Jenny is @readingenvy on Instagram and Litsy
Ruth at Goodreads



All links to books are through Bookshop.org, where I am an affiliate. I wanted more money to go to the actual publishers and authors. I link to Amazon when a book is not listed with Bookshop.

Reading Envy 216 - Eloquent and Elegant with Kala

Kala and Jenny meet again about a year after our previous conversation to chat about books we've read lately, from presidential memoirs to romance to books that haven't had enough attention. We tackle backlogs and bookstacks along the way.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 216: Eloquent and Elegant.

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Books discussed: 

 

A Promised Land by Barack Obama
Xeni by Rebekah Weatherspoon
The Rib King by Ladee Hubbard
Telephone by Percival Everett
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Other mentions:

Becoming by Michelle Obama
Dreams from my Father by Barack Obama
Hard Choices by Hillary Rodham Clinton
We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Rafe: A Buff Male Nanny by Rebekah Weatherspoon
The Talented Ribkins by Ladee Hubbard
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw
Long Bright River by Liz Moore
Untraceable by Sergei Lebedev, translated by Antonina W. Bouis

Related episodes:

Episode 096 - Not Without Hope with Yanira Ramirez
Episode 143 - Reading the Pain with Kala
Episode 151 - The Stories They Tell with Karen
Episode 184 - Theme Night at Book Club with Kala
Episode 213 - Funicular Reads with Bianca

Stalk us online:

Kala on Twitter
Jenny at Goodreads
Jenny on Twitter
Kala on Facebook
Kala's blog, Reader then Blogger
Kala is @ReaderthenBlogger on Instagram
Jenny is @readingenvy on Instagram and Litsy

All links to books are through Bookshop.org, where I am an affiliate. I wanted more money to go to the actual publishers and authors. I link to Amazon when a book is not listed with Bookshop.

Reading Envy 215: Lovely Pile with Lola

I hope you have been enjoying our string of new guests, four out of the last five. Lola talks about her life as a "serial book clubber" and shares books she's read and loved lately.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 215: Lovely Pile.

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Books discussed: 

The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne
Home is Not a Country by Safia Elhillo
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Days in the Caucasus by Banine, translated by Anne Thompson-Ahmadova
Deacon King Kong by James McBride

Other mentions:

Elizabeth Acevedo
Make Me a World imprint
Pet by Akwaeke Emezi
Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson (memoir mentioned)
Normal People by Sally Rooney
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Lisa Dillman
The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
We the Animals by Justin Torres
Santino Fontana
Armie Hammer
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene; read by Colin Firth
Ladder to the Sky by John Boyne
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Schaffer
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah
Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
The January Children by Safia Elhillo
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
Bahni Turpin
Rosamund Pike
Thandi Newton
Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell
Rich & Pretty by Rumaan Alam
The Need by Helen Philips
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam
The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins
The Push by Ashley Audrain
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
Long Bright River by Liz Moore
Beneath the Keep by Erika Johansen

Related episodes:

Episode 051 - Dreaming in Books with Karen
Episode 067 - Rain and Readability with Ruth(iella)
Episode 147 - Bonus Poetry Recommendations with Lauren
Episode 202 - Jacket Flap with Chris and Emily

Stalk us online:

Lola at Goodreads
Lola is @ferociousreader on Instagram and @Lola on Litsy
Jenny at Goodreads
Jenny on Twitter
Jenny is @readingenvy on Instagram and Litsy

All links to books are through Bookshop.org, where I am an affiliate. I wanted more money to go to the actual publishers and authors. I link to Amazon when a book is not listed with Bookshop.

Reading Envy 211: Rereads and Romance with Kim

The first regular episode of 2021 kicks off with a new guest - Kim. She talks about how she made it through 2020 by doing a lot of rereading books with disaster magnets, rich brothers, and fire cats. Jenny pitches in with one recent and one deep backlist title. We may fawn over Portland a little as well.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 211: Rereads and Romance.

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Books discussed: 

Arrows of the Queen by Mercedes Lackey
We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry
Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor
The Blue Jay's Dance: A Birth Year by Louise Erdrich
Neanderthal Seeks Human by Penny Reid

Other mentions:

Powell's Books
Annie Bloom's Books
Silvia Moreno-Garcia (the book referenced is Mexican Gothic)
Book Riot - Get Booked Podcast
Currently Reading Podcast
From the Front Porch Podcast
Home Cooking Podcast
Pop Sugar Reading Challenge
Book Riot Read Harder Challenge
Valdemar Series by Mercedes Lackey
Quan Barry makes a powerpoint
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis
The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich
Willa Cather
Knitting in the City series by Penny Reid
Winston Brothers series by Penny Reid
Truth or Beard by Penny Reid
Winds of Fate by Mercedes Lackey
Burke's Law by Brian Burke
The City of Brass by S.A. Charkaborty

Related episodes:

Episode 119 - Bread and Butter Writing with Paula
Episode 181 - An Awkward Woman with Yanira Ramirez
Episode 184 - Theme Night at Book Club with Kala
Episode 190 - The Good Life with Alex

Stalk us online:

Kim at Goodreads
Jenny at Goodreads
Jenny on Twitter
Jenny is @readingenvy on Instagram and Litsy

All links to books are through Bookshop.org, where I am an affiliate. I wanted more money to go to the actual publishers and authors.

Review: Want

Want by Lynn Steger Strong
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the story of a woman juggling two jobs and two kids while she and her husband are filing for bankruptcy; one of her oldest friendships keeps coming to mind for reasons that become more clear. It's kind of like Severance without the zombies, with the added responsibility of children, but the same daily grind feeling.

I actually enjoyed it, a very strong capture of the 2010s especially in more expensive places like NYC. I read it because it is on the Tournament of Books long list, it was short, and I could get it from the library without a wait. I feel like there is a lot to discuss with Want but that people who hate relationship novels are going to hate it. (I, on the other hand, love a good relationship novel!) We'll see.

View all my reviews

Review: Interior Chinatown

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I know this just won the National Book Award and I finally read it because that included it on the Tournament of Books long list, but I really did not enjoy reading this book. The entire structure and setup is satire? allegory? and the characters aren't real in the sense that characters are, they stand in to play a didactic role about how Asians, particularly the Chinese most of the time but also all Asians, are seen in America. As this was not news to me, I did not particularly enjoy the four hour audiobook lecture about it.

I have liked other books by Charles Yu but experimental fiction will always carry the risk of people liking it or not. I mean, I feel pressured to give it three stars because I like him otherwise and it's winning awards and other people find it very clever but cleverness is not enough to sustain a novel for me and it will never be. I'm a substance over style person.

One thing I noticed in listening to the audiobook is how much the rhythm of his writing feels like George Saunders. I challenge anyone who cares to go back and listen to Tenth of December as read by the author and see if you can hear what I mean. The audiobook narrator of this does not have George's accent, so that's not it, it's something about how the words and sentences fall. (George is also someone who I prefer when he isn't experimenting, funny....)

I listened to this in the Random House Audio Volumes app, where they have given me access to most of their new audiobook titles. I chose to listen since I was interested in this book due to its placement in the ToB, but honestly would not have been drawn to reading it otherwise, and only selected it because it is rather short and could accompany me while working on Thanksgiving prep. Therefore I'm not sure I'd exactly call it a review copy except to say that if they hadn't provided it I would have purchased it just the same, and then ended up even more disappointed that I'd spent an Audible credit on a book that was short yet not enjoyed. It came out way way back in January 2020, when the world felt very different, and I wonder if I would have enjoyed it more at that point in time. But even so, that was around when there were all these great Asian-American forward movies and tv shows coming out (at long last) so is this historical fiction?

View all my reviews

Reading Envy 183: Birthing Rabbits with Jessica (ToB2020)

Jessica and I are superfans of the Morning News Tournament of Books, and have participated as readers for several years. We are not official partners of the Tournament, nor does it belong to us, but we are hopeful that all involved will take this as a fancast and that readers who haven't heard of it will participate next time. Both of us have encountered books through the Tournament we would never have read otherwise. In this bonus episode, we focus on the books from this year's Tournament (both the long and shortlist) but also end up talking about some highlights from previous years. Ready your brackets, this is the only madness happening in March!

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 183: Birthing Rabbits with Jessica.

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Listen via Stitcher
Listen through Spotify

Books discussed:

Most books will be best viewed here on the Tournament of Books site
2020 bracket
ToB 2020 Shortlist
ToB 2020 Longlist (this is your 2020 reading list!)


Other mentions:

Cantoras by Carolina di Robertis
The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose
City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert
The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt
White Tears by Hari Kunzru
May We Be Forgiven by A.M. Homes
Hill William by Scott McClanahan
Crapalachia by Scott McClanahan
The Sarah Book by Scott McClanahan
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
Stephen Florida by Gabe Habash
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson
Bangkok Wakes to Rain by Pitchaya Sudbanthad
A Girl Returned by Donatella di Pietrantonio
Sabrina & Corina: Stories by Kaji Fajardo-Anstine
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout
My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
Very Nice by Marcy Dermansky
Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn
Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellman
A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum
Save Me the Plums by Ruth Reichl
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett


Related episodes:

Episode 110 - The Accidental Love Episode with Casey Stepaniuk
Episode 150 - Rife with Storytelling with Sara
Episode 163 - Fainting Goats with Lauren
Episode 166 - On Brand with Karen
Episode 167 - Book Pendulum with Reggie
Episode 175 - Reading on Impulse with Marion Hill
Episode 178 - Precarious Pile with Ruth(iella)


Stalk us online:

Jenny at Goodreads
Jessica at Goodreads
Jenny on Twitter
Jenny is @readingenvy on Instagram and Litsy
Jessica is @the bluestocking on Litsy

Library Books Mid-December 2015

These piles represent the second half of (New Zealand) November and the beginning of the last month of the year, where I know I will have more time to read over the holidays but the interlibrary loan deadlines happen early. So get ready. I actually had to take pictures in batches because I checked out and finished so many already, and then got a bunch more.

The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera
Potiki by Patricia Grace
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
Far Eastern Cookery by Elinor Burt
The Adventures of Vela by Albert Wendt
When Sun And Moon Collide by Briar Grace-Smith
The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco
Sam Choy's Polynesian Kitchen by Sam Choy
The Ethnomusicologists' Cookbook by X Williams

The Williams, Choy, and Burt were research for cooking baking in Oceania, to coincide with my reading. The Burt was useless, more like mid-19th century processed food recipes with a few Polynesian ingredients like canned pineapple. I loved the Williams and will probably need to own it - each featured country also has a bibliography of recommended readings (usually ethnographies) and music to listen to. It was a great connection to my former life in an ethnomusicology grad program.

I went to the stacks to pull a few books from New Zealand. If you know the Library of Congress system at all, you know that literature is shelved first by country and then by author. I grabbed the Grace-Smith and Ihimaera but then just a few shelves away found the Wendt. I had a brief lapse where I forgot I wasn't including Southeast Asia in this year's big reading project; Ilustrado has been returned to the library and will wait for another year. I requested the Grace through interlibrary loan after the recommendation from a Goodreads friend.

I wanted to read the Dick before watching the television series, although now that I have finished the book and started the show, I know that they are vaguely related. One does not necessarily need to be consumed before the other. Ah well. It wasn't my favorite Philip K. Dick novel but it was fine. I finished the Nelson this weekend - this book I got through interlibrary loan after Carrie Brownstein mentioned it in the Q&A of her audiobook recording for Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl.

 
Sons for the Return Home by Albert Wendt
Dear Thief by Samantha Harvey
The Spell of the Pacific by Stroven & Day
Fortune Smiles: Stories by Adam Johnson
African Kitchen by Josie Fison
The Soul of a New Cuisine: A Discovery of the Foods and Flavors of Africa by Marcus Samuelsson

The bottom two cookbooks give a clue about next year's regional reading project. The Wendt and Stroven are both for reading Oceania - the large tomb is a result of reading a mention of it in a book I recently finished - Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All.  The Harvey was one of the many books listed in the Tournament of Books Longlist for 2016, and sounded interesting. I also hadn't heard of it yet, while many of their books were known to me.