Reading Envy 212: Subtly Fascinating with Vinny

Vinny is technically a new guest, although his voice may be familiar from a readalong episode. We talk about books strange and weird, translated, and an exciting memoir few have heard of.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 212: Subtly Fascinating.

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Books discussed: 

What You Have Heard is True: A Witness of Memoir and Resistance by Carolyn Forché
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link
Catherine the Great and the Small by Olja Knezevic, translated by Ellen Elias-Bursać and Paula Gordon
The Birds by Tarjei Vesaas; translated by Michael Barnes

Other mentions:

The Emigrants by W.G. Sebald
Claribel Alegría
The Country Between Us by Carolyn Forché
Get in Trouble by Kelly Link
The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell
Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell
Weeki Wachee State Park
Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi
Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam
The Changeling by Victor Lavalle

Related episodes:

Episode 137 - Reading Envy Readalong: The Golden Notebook
Episode 198 - Mood Reading with Robin
Episode 203 - Backlist with Marion

Stalk us online:

Vinny is @billypar 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.

Review: Mexican Gothic

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I waited on the hold list for this book for 16 weeks so I didn't quite read it during the season I'd hoped, but this is a decent Gothic novel set in the mountains/cliffs in a silver mining village in Mexico. Noemí is sent there by her father to check on her cousin, who married one of the men in that family.

I'd say this has some genuinely scary stuff and plenty of elements warranting content warnings so do your research, plus some general ick factor based around a plot point I will not reveal. I do believe the book and author deserve the attention this year; it's the second book by her I read in 2020.

View all my reviews

Reading Envy 206: Black Sheep with Tina Porubsky

Jenny welcomes a new guest - Tina - and we chat about reading more books from our own shelves and great books we've read recently. Jenny also asks about Tina's knitting, a new hobby she enjoys alongside reading.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 206: Black Sheep

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
Or listen via Stitcher
Or listen through Spotify 
New! Listen through Google Podcasts


Books discussed:

The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea
Silences So Deep by John Luther Adams
A River in Darkness by Masaji Ishikawa, translated by Risa Kobayashi
Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley
Two Wings to Fly Away by Penny Mickelbury
The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste

Other mentions:

#audioknitting
Rizzoli & Isles novels by Tess Gerritsen
I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong
The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee
2 Knit Lit Chicks (podcast)
Ravelry
RBG dissent sweater and Empower cowl
#yarnbombing
Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea
The Devil's Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea
The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea
Queen of America by Luis Alberto Urrea
PBS Reads July 2019
Urrea Facebook page
The Writer's Library edited by Nancy Pearl and Jeff Schwager
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori
Mimi Patterson books by Penny Mickelbury
Smart Podcast, Trashy Books - Beverly Jenkins, episode 421
Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi
Beneath the Lion's Gaze by Maaza Mengiste
Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli
Tell Me How it Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions by Valeria Luiselli
New York Society Library - Maaza Mengiste
Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi
Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman

Related episodes:

Episode 088 - Author Head Space with Sara Moore
Episode 133 - To Understand the World with Lauren Weinhold
Episode 160 - Reading Plays with Elizabeth
Episode 161 - Women in Translation Month Recommendations with Lauren
Episode 183 - Birthing Rabbits with Jessica
Episode 189 - Surreal Superpowers with Tim
Episode 203 - Backlist with Marion

Stalk us online:

Tina at Goodreads
Tina is @godmotherx5 on Instagram and 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.

Review: Spirit Run: A 6,000-Mile Marathon Through North America's Stolen Land

Spirit Run: A 6,000-Mile Marathon Through North America's Stolen Land by Noé Álvarez
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Noé Álvarez, a Mexican-American with Purépecha ancestry, participated in a 6,000-mile ultramarathon relay through North America in 2004 that sought to bring awareness and healing to indigenous peoples from Canada to Guatemala. The author also surrounds the run with more about his life - from his childhood in Yakima, Washington with parents who worked in backbreaking agricultural jobs, to flailing as a first-generation college student, to the places he created for himself after this journey. He follows up in the end with many of the other runners, and it seems to have been a transformative experience for all of them (or, these are people who are most likely to seek out such an experience.)

I liked experiencing the individual stories of the runners, the challenges of trying to pull it off for this higher purpose when individuals are not so high-minded, and various indigenous places and traditions they got to interact with along the way. (Did I watch all the videos on the internet about Purépecha language and history, mostly in Spanish? I did! They were never conquered by the Aztecs and from my limited understanding are the ancestors of the people who would attempt to reclaim land in the Zapatista movement.)

It was interesting to see North America through an indigenous, feet on the ground (literally) perspective. That lens connects to the natural world and the rich history more easily, but doesn't shy away from the tensions of borders, military movements, police presence, poverty, and control.

Side note, or personal note - the community in which I grew up in rural Oregon was heavily populated by seasonal workers, and I had several classmates who were only in school half the year until their parents were able to relocate more permanently. I grew up maybe 5 miles from at least one "migrant housing" situation. I did a project in high school where I interviewed a man who had grown up as a child of a seasonal workers and ended up going to college, etc., and was at that time working for the State of Oregon in the employment office, often assisting people who were new to the area for similar reasons. This is backbreaking work, but I never really saw it from the inside. Like most parents who hope their children will be in a better situation, both my parents didn't want us doing that kind of work. They both had to spend their summers working in agricultural jobs to help their families make ends meet, as soon as they were able, and until they either got better jobs or left home. My Dad picked beans and worked at a maraschino cherry plant. My Mom picked beans, cucumbers, and berries (but quickly found a fast food job instead!) We still picked fruit in the summer and canned/froze it for our own consumption but that is very different from the demands of the industry itself which only thrives if you can push your body to the limit as Álvarez describes his mother doing in this book. It sent me on my own path of reflection.

I believe the publisher sent this to me way back in the beforetimes, the author did a lot of virtual book talks, because it came out in March.

View all my reviews

Reading Envy 034: The Liminal Space Between

Jenny sits down with Paul Weimer who is no stranger to podcasts. In fact one of his podcasts was nominated for a Hugo Award in 2014!  We get together to talk about his personal reading challenge for the year, with some discussion on language and translation that happened on its own.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 034: The Liminal Space Between

Subscribe to the podcast via this link: Feedburner

Or subscribe via iTunes by clicking: Subscribe

Books featured:




Artemis Awakening by Jane Lindskold
The Wilds by Julia Elliott
The Just City by Jo Walton
Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera, translated by Lisa Dillman
Gemsigns by Stephanie Saulter
Minnow by James E. McTeer II

Also mentioned
Skiffy and Fanty blog and podcast
SF Signal
SF Signal Mind Melds
SFF Audio - Brave New World readalong discussion
SFF Audio - Philip K. Dick readalong discussions
K. Tempest Bradford
Charles Dickens
Mark Twain
Kate Elliott
Jaye Wells
Kristi Charish
Fran Wilde
Artemis Invaded by Jane Lindskold
SC Book Festival
Kij Johnson
Julia Elliott's Pushcart Prize win
Plato's Republic
Among Others by Jo Walton
Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another. by Robert Silverburg
The Philosopher Kings by Jo Walton
What Makes This Book So Great by Jo Walton
Tor.com
Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin
Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language by Douglas R. Hofstadter
Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas R. Hofstadter
Brooklyn College
The Children of Sanchez by Oscar Lewis
El Norte (film)
Snow by Orhan Pamuk
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Nalo Hopkinson
Tobias Buckell
Karen Lord
Binary by Stephanie Saulter
Nancy Kress
Hannu Rajaniemi
Ramez Naam
War for the Oaks by Emma Bull

Stalk us online:

Jenny at Goodreads
Jenny on Twitter
Paul on Twitter
Paul on Skiffy and Fanty
Paul on SF Signal
Paul on his blog

Library Books June 2015

 

This will be a short post! I typically post library books mid-month and we are staring into July right now.  I took the picture earlier but forgot to post. These are all from the public library, which is a rarity for me! I usually use our statewide academic library borrowing system if a book exists within it, or even request books from interlibrary loan more often than I go to the public library. It's about convenience, not that my public library doesn't do a good job (they do, mostly, except when they censor books.)

 

Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera

Your Personal Paleo Code by Chris Kresser

Daytripper by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá

Two out of three of the genres represented here make sense to be available at the public library but not found in any of the academic libraries in the state. Not many academic libraries have a strong graphic novel collection (Daytripper) and personal health/pop science/diet books are more of a public library thing. I have seen a few of the vegan bloggers I follow turn to paleo and start eating meat again after health problems, and one of them recommended the Kresser. I found it disappointing for several reasons - you really can't be a paleo vegetarian, so I'd really have to make a huge change, and all but 10% of the book is the same old stuff - sleep, drink water, move your body. 

The graphic novel I had on my to-read list a while but a review sent me to find it, it was glowing and effusive. I enjoyed it but perhaps not to that level.

The Herrera is a book I spied as I walked out of the library with one of the others. I loved the title and that got me to pick it up. The description of living along the border in Mexico sounded current and it looked like a quick read. It's sometimes difficult to find modern Mexican literature that has been translated (and isn't just the standard authors) so I was quite pleased to come across this one.

Around the World Readathon Wrapup

Well, that was fun.  No really, it was!  I set up the readathon for the Around the World group on a whim and a bunch of people participated.  Some of us tweeted our participation with a pre-agreed hashtag, and some just posted to the discussion thread, but we had a lot of people reading and talking about reading. That's the whole point! I just love reading in community. We didn't even have to be reading the same books for it to be interesting. I hope we can do one more event like this before 2012 is over.

I was able to make my way through five books - two in Australia, one in Japan, one in Mexico, and one in the country now known as the Czech Republic.  I started at midnight with The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman, an eBook of an ARC I received from NetGalley.  (My review)  I had actually made it halfway through this book prior to starting the challenge, but I stayed up from midnight to somewhere after 3 in the morning reading it (and drinking coffee, and checking my e-mail, and tweeting, anything to keep me awake).

A little before 8 am, I was awake again, and decided to go ahead and get up (I can sleep when I'm dead, or when the readathon is over!) and dive into another Australian book that I've been excited about for a while - Cocaine Blues. It was so much fun and got me excited about the readathon for the day. Not only that, I got to read about Melbourne, a city I've been really wanting to visit. (My review)

I may not have mentioned this before, but I am in a lot of online book groups.  Most of them came out of GoodReads.  It started with my involvement with the Sword & Laser group, which I joined to get the chance to read more science fiction and fantasy.  Now I am in around ten groups, all of which pick books to read every month.  I don't always make it to reading all of them, but when I do, greatly enjoy the discussions.  One of those groups is The World's Literature, which I found through some of the participants in the Around the World in 52 Books group. We have been working our way through several prominent modern Japanese novelists this summer, and I was feeling behind, so the next book I chose was A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro. This is a perfect book for a group discussion, because it is incredibly thought provoking!  (My review)

I didn't have a plan beyond that, so I snagged two books that I thought I could get through and decided to taste-test them. I read a few chapters of both Like Water for Chocolate and The Unbearable Lightness of Being   I decided the Esquivel would be the quickest to get through, and ended up still having the time for the Kundera.   Surprisingly, I didn't enjoy Like Water for Chocolate as much as I expected, having seen the movie years ago. (My review) The Unbearable Lightness of Being, on the other hand, is one of the few books to receive a five star rating from me in this entire challenge. (My review) I was so tired by 11:30 pm when I finished that I had to talk myself into walking upstairs to get into bed.  What a day of reading, and talking about reading! Let's do it again soon!