Review: Burnt Sugar

Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I am grateful to the publisher for granting me access to this book early since it doesn't come out in the USA until January but was on the Booker Prize shortlist. I very much wanted to read it since it has to do with an ashram, a mother-daughter relationship, and as one Instagram friend called him, a "Mr. Big" character.

Well this book was excruciating. A mother who raised her child poorly, inflicting endless bodily trauma on her through neglect while she pursued a guru in an ashram is now old and forgetful and that same daughter is faced with having to care for her. I found the details almost too much as a reader. For me there is far too much bodily horror between incredible digestive issues relayed to trauma, to regular old weight gain and not being beautiful and being viewed with disgust, to other forms of abuse I don't even want to get into. The writing also went in circles and I swear some of the story lines were left incomplete. Definitely not my pick to win the prize- I'm still rooting for Brandon Taylor and Maaza Mengiste.

View all my reviews

Reading Envy 154: Is If If with Paula

Jenny and Paula discuss what might be lost in translation, and navigate different accents and time zones to chat books. Paula brings one book that was perfect for the date we recorded - ANZAC Day! And Jenny brings one she read after a listener submitted it as one of their favorite reads of 2018.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 154: Is If If with Paula

Subscribe to the podcast via this link: Feedburner
Or subscribe via Apple Podcasts by clicking: Subscribe
Or listen through TuneIn
Or listen on Google Play
Listen via Stitcher
Listen through Spotify



Books discussed:

All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries) by Martha Wells
Make Your Home Among Strangers by Jennine Capó Crucet
Tu by Patricia Grace
Bright by Duanwad Pimwana, translated by Mui Poopoksakul
Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz
A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza


Other mentions:

Becky Chambers
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

Two Lines Press
Sightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap
The Sad Part Was by Prabda Yoon
Tilted Axis Press
Cairo Trilogy
Salman Rushdie
Karnak Cafe by Naguib Mahfouz
The Fry Chronicles by Stephen Fry
Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell by Nathan Ballingrud
Wounds (film(
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman

Related Episodes:

Episode 041 - Grotesque Beauty with Nathan Ballingrud
Episode 119 - Bread and Butter Writing with Paula
Episode 139 - Stocking Stuffer (Best Reads of 2018)


Stalk us online:

Jenny at Goodreads
Jenny on Twitter
Jenny is @readingenvy on Instagram and Litsy
Paula is @centique on Litsy

Reading Envy 121: Love, Lust, Loss, and Longing

This is Casey's first time as a guest on the podcast, although his voice may sound familiar from the Best of the Year episodes. Our original conversation was over three hours long, so Jenny is hoping the holes aren't super obvious, but that you enjoy our chat about northern lit and what we look for in books.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 121: Love, Lust, Loss, and Longing.

Subscribe to the podcast via this link: Feedburner
Or subscribe via Apple Podcasts by clicking: Subscribe
Or listen through TuneIn
Or listen on Google Play
Listen via Stitcher


Books Discussed:



I Heard the Owl Call My Name by Margaret Craven
Two in the Far North by Margaret Murie
Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift
Jaws of Life by Laura Leigh Morris
Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson
Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao

Picture of the carving Casey mentions:

Other Mentions: 

Kwakiutl, self-name Kwakwaka'wakw
Frank Muller, audiobook narrator 
The Home Front by Margaret Craven
One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey by Richard Proenneke
Waterland by Graham Swift
Iris Murdoch
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
Downton Abbey (tv series)

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Scott McClanahan
Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, 2018 West Virginia episode
The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
The Complete Stories by Clarice Lispector
Circe by Madeleine Miller
Only Human by Sylvain Neuvel

Related episodes:
Episode 070 - Words Like Weapons with Yanira Ramirez
Episode 105 - Best Reads of 2017 


Stalk us online:

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

Reading Envy 046: Books for Your Kitty Party (Best of 2015)

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 046: Books for Your Kitty Party.

Subscribe to the podcast via this link: Feedburner
 
Or subscribe via iTunes by clicking: Subscribe

Or listen through TuneIn (new!)



Books discussed:

Kim by Rudyard Kipling
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh
Flood of Fire by Amitav Ghosh
The Death of Vishnu by Manil Suri
The Age of Shiva by Manil Suri
The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall (Vish Puri, Most Private Investigator #1)
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
Men of Salt: Crossing The Sahara On The Caravan Of White Gold by Michael Benanav
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
The Martian by Andy Weir
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Tenth of December: Stories by George Saunders
The Brothers K by David James Duncan
The Leopard by Giuseppe Di Lampedusa
The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis by Jose Saramago
10:04 by Ben Lerner
Cain by Jose Saramago
How to be both by Ali Smith
Ready Player One by Ernst Cline
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
Framley Parsonage by Anthony Trollope
One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes
Lucia's Progress (Lucia & Mapp #5) by E.F. Benson
Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple
The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
Career of Evil (Cormoran Strike #3) by Robert Galbraith
The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions by Karen Armstrong
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Armada by Ernst Cline
Etta and Otto and Russell and James by Emma Hooper
Court of Fives by Kate Elliott
Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson
Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Me Before You by JoJo Moyes
You by Caroline Kepnes
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
The Girl Who Never Was and The Boy With The Hidden Name by Skylar Dorset
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemison
The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Carry On, Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life by Glennon Doyle Melton
The 158-Pound Marriage by John Irving
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church by Rachel Held Evans
Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes!
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing
The American Lover by Rose Tremain


My Best Books of 2015:



Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest by Carl Hoffman
The World Is on Fire: Scrap, Treasure, and Songs of Apocalypse by Joni Tevis
Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Stoner by John Williams
Euphoria by Lily King
The Tsar of Love and Techno: Stories by Anthony Marr
Us Conductors by Sean Michaels
Kindred by Octavia Butler
The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman
North American Lake Monsters: Stories by Nathan Ballingrud (2013, ep. 41)


Other mentions:

Monsoon Wedding (film)
Charulata (film)
Jaipur Literary Festival
Fernando Pessoa

Persephone Books

Related episodes:

Episode 001 - Episode the First! (discussion of Yanagihara)
Episode 004 - Home, Frightening and Banned with guest Karen Acosta
Episode 008 - Gone Rogue with guests Steve Richardson, Libby Young, and Mike Winiski
Episode 022 - Gods and Cannibals with guest Chris (discussion of the Abbey)
Episode 024 - The Attention of Humanity with guests Seth Wilson and Barret Newman
Episode 025 - Mule and Plow with guest Jason Roland (discussion of "Us Conductors")
Episode 027 - A Conference of Librarians with a bunch of guests (including Ruth Szpunar)
Episode 028 - The Room of Requirement with guest David Galloway
Episode 029 - Joni Tevis and the Secret Shape with guest Joni Tevis
Episode 033 - An Undulating Thrum with guests Ruth and Elizabeth (and discussion of Williams)
Episode 034 - The Liminal Space Between with guest Paul Weimer
Episode 037 - Breakdancing to Bach with Juliane Kunzendorf (discussion of Laura Ingalls Wilder)
Episode 039 - Paranoid Squint with Fred (Coates discussion near end)
Episode 041 - Grotesque Beauty with Nathan Ballingrud
Episode 043 - Librarian Time Capsule for SCLA's 100th Anniversary (including Libby Young)
Episode 045 - Worlds Collide with Ross O'Brien (and discussion of Butler)