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: Catherine the Great and the Small

Catherine the Great and the Small by Olja Knezevic
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This year in my Around the World reading I'm tackling Europe - the countries I've never read anything from and deepening my knowledge of others. I posted a list to Twitter and got great suggestions so I jumped into this book from Montenegro author, Olja Knežević. It is translated by Paula Gordon & Ellen Elias-Bursac and came out in 2020 from Istros Books (who seem to be a good resource for translated literature from the Balkans.)

Catherine is coming of age in Titograd in the 1980s (which becomes Podgorica by the end of the novel,) and the book follows her life before and after the Balkan Wars. A lot of the political conflict and economic crises take place in the background of her life and her family and community. It looks at isolation and separation from home more than it tries to look at history and war.

"We each sit on the clean soft grass of our new countries, alone. Alone in a crowd, alone even when we’re with our new friends, who don’t hear the roar of the wild mounting inside us. Always at the start of summer we pine for the pungent smell of home."

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