Review: Margreete's Harbor

Margreete's Harbor by Eleanor Morse
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This novel unfolds slowly and not a lot happens but I took my time and enjoyed it. In Maine, Margreete almost burns her house down so her adult daughter decides to move her family in to help. Liddie, a cellist, has to abandon her string ensemble, and her husband Henry has to find a new teaching job. They have several kids who grow up somewhat through the novel, which spans from 1955-1968, and touches on the political events of the time in small ways.

The book came out April 20th, and I had a copy from St. Martin's Press through Edelweiss.

I wanted to add a few examples of the writing but this is not from final copy:

"On his way out, he said, 'You know, you don't have to do what you're doing?'
'And what do you think I'm doing?'
'Making a habit of discontent.'"

"She felt sad for him, felt he deserved someone who loved him all the way. She did her best that night, but she was watching herself, the way people who return from the dead describe seeing their bodies laid out below."

"She said that Eva probably wouldn't understand one other thing until she was older but she would say it anyway. 'Some people think that playing is all about themselves. They roar through a piece thinking, Look at me! Look how fast my fingers are going, listen to how much noise I'm making! If you're thinking like that, you're not making music. You have to make yourself small enough to disappear inside it. Then you can make music that makes other people feel something."

"Music, for him, was entertainment, relaxation. For her, as she'd told him the other day, it was beyond necessary. How do you describe that feeling to someone who can't feel it for himself? It was like explaining the smell of the ocean."

"Eva found her teacher's playing accurate and pinched and sad. Why would you be a musician if it didn't make you happy?"

"It seemed Brahms had preferred longing to marriage. The state of longing is not something often celebrated, he thought, but look at the music it created."

"It's not safe to love. There's no way to make love safe. Every time you love someone, you risk losing them. But living in safety is no way to live."

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Review: Crying in H Mart: A Memoir

Crying in H Mart: A Memoir by Michelle Zauner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Michelle Zauner writes about losing her Mom to cancer, what it was like to grow up Korean-American, how she connects to her family through food (and discovers this while caring for her mother.)

Near the end of the book she talks about finally finding success as a musician, which she never expected, in her band called Japanese Breakfast. The cover of Psychopomp has her mother reaching a hand out.

I was expecting something a bit lighter, maybe a bit more snappy, but I also enjoy grief memoirs, so even though it was slower paced than I expected, I felt a true sense of the author by the end. I also liked hearing her stories about Eugene, Oregon, since that's not too far from where I grew up. I may have spent some time watching the food YouTube videos she mentions, and reading articles about the many H Marts in Oregon. My youngest sister took me to a Korean market in Beaverton that had Koreans upstairs and a kimchee tasting table, but I don't think it was an H Mart.

Thanks to the publisher for providing access to this title through NetGalley. It came out April 20, 2021.

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Review: Nobody Ever Talks About Anything But the End: A Memoir

Nobody Ever Talks About Anything But the End: A Memoir by Liz Levine
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It might sound crazy, but I find books on grief comforting. Liz Levine is so experienced with it that people know to go to her for obituaries, memorial speeches, and more (joke, maybe.) But the two dearest losses in her life are her childhood best friend (to cancer) and her sister (to mental illness leading to suicide.) She takes an alphabetical journey through concepts surrounding grief and death that allow her to approach them in a gentle way.

For more grief book recommendations, check out the 63rd episode of the Reading Envy Podcast. I also have a "grief-and-death" shelf in Goodreads because when you know, you know!

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Reading Envy 063: Desolation Road

Jenny does another round of book speed dating to meet her 2016 reading goals, and decides to go with the #scifijuly theme. Then she shares books on grief, death and dying, a theme she has been following through literature lately. Jenny is visited in her office at the very end by a future guest!

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 063: Desolation Road.

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Part 1: Book Speed Dating Project #4 of 2016

Books discussed:

Nekropolis by Maureen F. McHugh
Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson
The Bug by Ellen Ullman
The Colony by Jillian Weise
Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge
The Shards of Heaven by Michael Livingston
Desolation Road by Ian McDonald
The Peripheral by William Gibson
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

Other mentions:
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
Reamde by Neal Stephenson
Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson
The Dervish House by Ian McDonald
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

Part 2: Books on Grief

Books discussed:

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter
Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times edited by Neil Astley
The Ark by Ed Madden
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death by Joan Halifax
When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron
The Holders and The Seers by Julianna Scott (I called her Julianna Holden on the recording)
The Parasol Protectorate by Gail Carriger
Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Other mentions:
"How to Lift Him" TED Talk with Ed Madden
Book Riot: "How to Read when the World is Terrible"
"Late Fragment" by Raymond Carter

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Library Books Mid-June 2016

I resurfaced from teaching my reading class on June 1, and went overboard at all the libraries! I need to get through these soon or I will have to return them unread, especially the interlibrary loan titles.

A General Theory of Oblivion by Jose Eduardo Agualusa

Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller

Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter

The Book That Changed My Life: Interviews with National Book Award Winners and Finalists edited by Diane Osen

Walking with Abel: Journeys with the Nomads of the African Savannah by Anna Badkhen

The Secret Lovers by Charles McCarry

Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett

The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee

Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand

The Visiting Privilege: New and Collected Stories by Joy Williams

Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling by Ross King

Two of these novels are for my Africa 2016 reading project - the Agualusa is from Angola and was also a nominee for the Man Booker International Prize this year. The Badkhen is non-fiction and looked good. I can't remember where I saw it mentioned, but I requested it from the library immediately.

I had pulled the King off the shelf when I was contemplating books in genres I don't usually read (and ended up with Amish romance and sports), and this is a book that comes up often in my book club. They read it before I joined them, but it stuck. I'm sure I'll like it once I get into it (why is non-fiction so hard to start?) I'm not sure I'll end up really reading the Osen but will definitely skim it for the titles. That was one that was near another book in the library and came home with me.

Some books were because of frequent mentions - Williams, Chee (also the June pick of one of my Goodreads groups), and Fuller. Fuller was also recommended by Nathan Ballingrud, the Hand (and maybe the Bennett) was recommended by Jeff VanderMeer, and the McCarry is just the next Paul Christopher book in my attempt to work through those spy novels.