Reading Envy 239: Gross but Subtle with Katie

Katie joins me for the first time from the far north to discuss her own reading, plus one very creative solution for reading short stories with a book club.

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Reading Envy 239: Gross but Subtle

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Books discussed:

Salt Slow by Julia Armfield
The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
Sufferance by Thomas King
Seek You: A Journey through American Loneliness by Kristen Radtke
Gutter Child by Jael Richardson

Other mentions: 

Well-Read Books
Coles Books
"The Great Awake" by Julia Armfield
Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire
Tournament of Books
Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich
The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King
Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese
The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline
The Break by Katherena Vermette
The Strangers by Katherena Vermette (forthcoming, hopefully)
Drawing Loneliness with Kristen Radtke (video)
Whatever Happened to Interracial Love?: Stories by Kathleen Collins
Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan
In Concrete by Anne Garrétta, translated by Emma Ramadan

Related episodes: 

Episode 077 - No One Messes With a Wolf with Shawn Mooney
Episode 181 - An Awkward Woman with Yanira Ramirez
Episode 190 - The Good Life with Alex
Episode 202 - Jacket Flap with Chris and Emily

Stalk us online:

Jenny at Goodreads
Jenny on Twitter
Jenny is @readingenvy on Instagram and Litsy
Katie is @katie_sikkes on Instagram


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.

Review: Putin's Russia: The Rise of a Dictator

Putin's Russia: The Rise of a Dictator by Darryl Cunningham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This comes out February 15th and I had a digital copy from Drawn and Quarterly via Netgalley - to read the story of Putin is to better understand the story of Russia, unfortunately. He was born in Leningrad/St Petersburg only eight years after the siege and clawed his way to positions of power and money. He's like the Dick Cheney of Russia, where for every shady situation, you pull back the curtain and there he is.

This is content that probably exists in biographies and other critiques of Putin and his policies, but for me, easier to consume in graphic form. It's really astounding how Putin can have such a high popularity rating when we know about the people he's had killed (goodbye, free press, goodbye, vocal opponents), the countries he's invaded or destroyed, but since we have a person who copies his playbook, it also feels familiar.

In my year of reading Russia I worry I lack the knowledge to understand the subtext of the literature I'm reading, and from that perspective this graphic non fiction book helps provide context about Russia's power and control from the fall of the Soviet Union to the present day. Putin has been there all along....

View all my reviews