Books Read March 2022: 33-48

Overload check: last March I read 28 books. This March, 16. Plus 680 pages of Pandora's Star. I looked at the 450 remaining pages tonight and decided there was no chance I'd finish it before April so I might as well work on my Books of March list instead! 

Not counted: Pete the Cat books, dinosaur books, and a new favorite, Swim, Swim, Sink.

A gentle reminder that all reviews can still be seen on my Goodreads profile (the review will be with the book; the format will be specified unless it's in print.) And the books with green outlines are my 5-star reads for the month!

33. Nervous System by Lina Meruane; translated by Megan McDowell ⭐️⭐️
34. Stuck with You by Ali Hazelwood; narrated by Meg Sylvan ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
35. Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
36. The Fell by Sarah Moss   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
37. Truly, Devious by Maureen Johnson   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
38. If You Ask Me by  Libby Hubscher   ⭐️⭐️⭐️
39. Heaven by Mieko Kawakami; translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
40. Free Love by Tessa Hadley   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
41. The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
42. Zuleikha by Guzel Yakhina; translated by Lisa Hayden ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
43. Light Years from Home by Mike Chen   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
44. Recitatif  by Toni Morrison; narrated by Bahni Turpen; introduction by Zadie Smith ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
45. Love After the End by Joshua Whitehead, ed.   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
46. Love Beyond Body, Space, & Time by Hope Nicholson, ed.   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
47. The Time of Women by Elena Chizhova; translated by Simon Patterson and Nina Chordas ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
48. Good Talk by Mira Jacob   ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Books read: 16

Audiobook: 2
Ebook: 10
Print: 4

Library: 6
TBR: 0
Purchased 2022: 1
Review copy: 7
Subscription: 1

Around the World: 4
Booker International Prize: 1
Indigenous Reading Circle: 1
Indigenous Reads otherwise: 1
Melanated Reader's 20 Books by Black Women: 1
Mid-Century Women: 1
Reading Envy Russia: 2
Sword and Laser: 0
Tournament of Books: 1
Women's Prize: 0

Review: Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations

Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've had this book on my TBR forever and finally got it from the library. I didn't really even know what it was about and went in cold. Mira Jacob writes about what it is like to be brown (for her, Indian with darker skin than her other family members) in the America post 9/11 up through Trump's election win. Not only that but married to a Jewish (white) man whose parents refuse to see the harm in voting for Trump, and mother of a young mixed race boy with Questions.

What I love is her very frank tone. In all the "talks" in the book she shows how she navigates difficult situations where people want her to make them feel better about racism, often their own, and what happens when she doesn't. This includes one very difficult conversation with her husband! The art is hand-drawn people often cut out (or the appearance of being cut out) and laid over stock photos, which adds a dimension of reality to what is happening (although to Mira it's only too real.)

I'd love to see her take on our current situation, and I hope she continues writing in this form.

View all my reviews

Reading Envy 243: Russian Novel Speed Date

It's been a while since I've done a speed dating bonus episode, and this one is all about Russian novels for the Reading Envy Russia novel quarter. I discuss books I tried, what I think of them, and books I read previously. We might be moving on to non-fiction officially, but that doesn't mean we have to leave Russian literature behind forever.

Download or listen via this link:
Reading Envy 243: Russian Novel Speed Date

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Books discussed:

An Evening with Claire by Gaito Gazdanov, translated by Bryan Karetnyk
The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
First Love by Ivan Turgenev, translated by Richard Freeborn
Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin, translated by Leo Tolstoy
Oblomov by Ivan Goncherov, translated by Stephen Pearl
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Zuleikha by Guzel Yakhina, translated by Lisa C. Hayden
The Time of Women by Elena Chizhova, translated by Simon Patterson and Nina Chordas
Untraceable by Sergei Lebedev, translated by Antonina W. Bouis
Oblivion by Sergei Lebedev, translated by Antonina W. Bouis
Brisbane by Eugene Vodolazkin, translated by Marian Schwartz
Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin, translated by Lisa C. Hayden
Anna K.: A Love Story by Jenny Lee
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Constance Garrett
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, translated by David McDuff
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra
City of Thieves by David Benioff
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
The Bookworm by Mitch Silver
A Terrible Country by Keith Gessen
Fardwor, Russia! by Oleg Kashin, translated by Will Evans

Related episodes:  

Episode 228 - Full of Secrets with Audrey
Episode 135 - Speed Dating 2018, Round 5
Episode 113 - Speed Dating 2018, round 1
Episode 117 - Speed Dating 2018, round 2
Episode 120 - Summer Reading; Speed Dating 2018, round 3   
Episode 128 - Poetry and Whale Guts (Bonus episode; Speed Dating 2018, round 4)
Episode 063 - Desolation Road (book speed dating and books on grief)
Episode 059 - Are you Inspired Yet? bonus book speed dating
Episode 047 - Sex with Elvis: Bonus Book Speed Dating Episode
Episode 035 - Speed Dating Books 

 

Stalk us online:

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: Recitatif: A Story

Recitatif: A Story by Toni Morrison
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I listened to the audio edition of the only short story Toni Morrison ever wrote, narrated by Bahni Turpen. If you get the audio, which is under two hours, the story doesn't start until 59:21, because the entire first half is an essay on the story by Zadie Smith. I'm of the personal opinion that one should read the work before reading commentary on said work, and continue to skip intros, prefaces, and more.

The story is "an experiment in the removal of all racial codes from a narrative about two characters of different races for whom racial identity is crucial" - so either the reader knows this going in and goes looking for clues, or doesn't know this and makes a lot of assumptions and then is forced to confront themselves with their biases.

Twyla and Roberta meet as 8 year olds at a school for orphans, and then several more times as they move through time.

View all my reviews

Review: Light Years From Home

Light Years From Home by Mike Chen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"The Shao family had become a textbook case study in trauma. But with aliens."

I first heard of Mike Chen on the Reading Glasses podcast, as he's a friend of their show. This book is a different sort of read because it really is more about this one family than it is a more traditional science fiction novel, and even the idea of whether it is a science fiction novel depends on which character you find most trustworthy.

It's been 15 years since Jakob disappeared on a family hike at a lake, and 14 years since the father died trying to look for him. Kass, the self proclaimed responsible one, is caring for her mother who has dementia, while Evie has become the host of a show about alien abductions. Evie and Jakob are twins and she's convinced he was abducted. Kass is pretty sure he is dead or being irresponsible, probably on drugs in some foreign country. Then Jakob returns, dot dot dot.

I received a copy from the publisher through NetGalley. The book came out January 25, 2022.

View all my reviews

Review: Zuleikha

Zuleikha by Guzel Yakhina
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This 21st century Russian novel, by a woman and about a woman, rose to the top of the novels I was considering for Reading Envy Russia - it is set in the 1930s as the Red Army is moving through rural regions of the country, removing people from land they owned and had worked while moving toward collectivism for all farming.

I had the mistaken impression that Communism was pro-peasant class but learned that landowning people, referred to as kulak, were treated as enemies. Many were killed outright, as Zuleikha's husband is, and many were sent to work camps in Siberia, as Zuleikha is. Neither of these are really spoilers although they take some time to happen. This period is referred to as the kulakization.
Other parts of interest - Zuleikha and her husband are Muslim, something I haven't seen much of in Russian literature so far. She also is in service to her mother in law, a terrible woman. The underlying premise seems to be that her life improves in Siberia. There are other memorable characters like a doctor, the commandant, a female soldier, even an artist. But the real star is Zuleikha.

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Reading Envy 242: Dark and Gloomy with Claire

I was happy to sit down and talk to Claire, a reader from the upcoming generation. She likes dark and gloomy books! Jenny also took the opportunity to read a few YA books she had not yet gotten to, and went dark and gloomy too.

Download or listen via this link:
Reading Envy 242: Dark and Gloomy

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

Books discussed:

 

Took by Mary Downing Hahn
Truly, Devious by Maureen Johnson
Prisoner B-3087 by Alan Gratz
Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Other mentions: 

Wait Till Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn
Maus by Art Spiegelman
The Hunger Games series
Divergent series
Maze Runner series
Dangerous by Shannon Hale
A Map of Days by Ransom Riggs
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Related episodes: 

Episode 010 - YA Literature: Death and Mayhem with guests Alex and Carissa
Episode 022 - Gods and Cannibals with guest Chris
Episode 173 - Expecting a Lot from a Book with Sarah Tittle
 

Stalk us online:

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.