Review: Jaws of Life: Stories

Jaws of Life: Stories by Laura Leigh Morris
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If Scott McClanahan has a corner on certain areas of rural Appalachian West Virginia, then Laura Leigh Morris might have her own territory marked out in a neighboring small town. Here is the place an old woman starts a revolution against the company she sold her land to after they keep her up at night. Here is where a man has a relationship with the woman who drove through the window of his auto parts store. Children take on new responsibilities and inmates live on in legends.

The characters are the most memorable part, but I also found myself interested in the basic economic landscape that forms the major conflict for most of the stories. The transition from mining jobs to the shiny new promise of fracking jobs has not occurred and people are even less employed than they were before. Central West Virginia even has its own Aging Cervices employment office, which is relevant to a few of the stories in this collection. What does the future hold? Hopefully another collection of stories.

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Review: Banthology: Stories from Unwanted Nations

Banthology: Stories from Unwanted Nations by Sarah Cleave
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This short anthology contains one contemporary story from each country on the Trump administration banned list. These stories are neither comprehensive nor fully representative, and don't set out to be, they are merely 7 captures of 7 small stories that happen to come from an author from each country and possibly about that situation. One takes place entirely in an airport (probably my favorite) where the rules keep changing and the woman literally has no way of winning. Very 21st century, very of the now, just normal people from countries deserving of respect. Thanks to Deep Vellum for pulling this together and getting it all translated into English.

I received a review copy of this through Edelweiss; it came out 24 April 2018.

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Review: The Changeling

The Changeling by Joy Williams
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I can't believe how many books I've read recently that feel like this book made me feel, and it's got to just be coincidence seeing as this book is 40 years old. (Die, My Love, from the Man Booker International Prize longlist, which I hated/loved/couldn't stop thinking about and The Chandelier, which was too oppressive and I quit, for now).... The similarities have to do with motherhood and being trapped and in this case, Pearl has escaped her husband only to lose him in a plane accident, and to be left to raise a child she's not sure is really her child, back on the island of crazy situations and feral children that her dead husband's brother seems to run. Nobody is normal, nobody is healthy, as a reader it is hard to know what is real, and just when you think you get it, BAM that ending! Plus she is drinking throughout everything, so her grip on reality is suspect.

Gorgeous cover, clearly I need to read more Joy Williams (I felt tepid about her flash fiction 99 Stories of God and never tried anything else), and clearly that was a wrong move.

Thanks to the publisher for providing early access to this title through Edelweiss. The 40th anniversary edition came out April 10, 2018.

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Review: The View from Flyover Country: Dispatches from the Forgotten America

The View from Flyover Country: Dispatches from the Forgotten America by Sarah Kendzior
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Originally published in 2015 and republished in 2018 with a new forward and an epilogye by the author, this collection of essays focuses on topics faced by the majority of Americans in the early 2010s - poverty and economic disparity, the rising cost of education, the diminishing value of that education, racism, who decides whose humanity matters, and more. I found them a bit repetitive because they were almost all essays that had been previously published in different places, so the author was following similar themes in multiple settings.

She lives in St. Louis and speaks to the topics from a personal place too, not just a journalist, but someone whose children attend school here, who experiences the same kind of legislation, etc. That added a layer that made the essays much more real.

A lot of attention has been given to Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis to "understand Trump voters." I think this book is more steeped in facts and numbers, doesn't stereotype all Trump voters or everyone in flyover country to the most extreme racist white guys who lost their manufacturing jobs (Kendzior exhibits far more nuance than that), and is probably a better picture of what has been going on for normal people trying to make it in America, and overall really not making it.

Thanks to the publisher for providing access to this title. It came out in updated form on April 17, 2018.

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Review: West

West by Carys Davies
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you are new to Carys Davies, I will please beg you to read her short story collection, The Redemption of Galen Pike, which is a standout on numerous levels. I was less interested in the story of this short novel, but it was still good. A man leaves his daughter with his sister after his wife dies, in search of the creatures described in travel accounts from men traveling west. The daughter Bess seems to be the focus of the novel, but unfortunately she is also the focus of leering men in her life (two seemed like overkill here; it seemed strange for her to have no allies) and her aunt is not aware enough of what is going on.

The ending left me unsatisfied; it feels either too long or incomplete.

Thanks to the publisher for providing access to this title through Edelweiss. It came out April 24, 2018.

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Review: A Distant Center

A Distant Center by Ha Jin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ha Jin moved to the United States from China in 1985, and wrote these poems in English, but they do feel like they are of more than one place, or maybe sometimes no place (in a way I really liked.) Some are motivational, like some of my favorites from Mary Oliver, where the poet is speaking directly to the reader, reminding them to have space and acceptance. They might be good as part of a mindfulness practice, whether or not that was how they were intended.

My favorites:

-The Long-Distance Traveler
"Keep going: the farther you go,
the smaller you grow
in the eyes of those
who can't walk anymore...."

-Talent
"...Keep in mind your talent also includes patience and endurance.
Get up, move quietly, and leave all the clamor behind."

Thanks to Copper Canyon Press for providing access to this title through Edelweiss. It comes out 24 April 2018.

-Acceptance
"...You must learn to be content
to inhabit your own space -
news from far away
can no longer disturb you..."

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Review: Pearls on a Branch: Arab Stories Told by Women in Lebanon Today

Pearls on a Branch: Arab Stories Told by Women in Lebanon Today by Najla Khoury
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this collection of stories very much. Reading the introduction prior to the stories is what I would recommend (I'm a person who usually saves an intro until I've finished a book due to spoilers and wanting to form my own opinions, but in this case, it provided a lot of context and understanding of the texts I was about to encounter.)

These stories were collected from actual women living in Lebanon and Syria, and Najla Khoury often visited the women multiple times, because she found that the telling of the story changed based on who the audience happened to be. This was particularly the case if the audience was of mixed company, because some of these stories are really more for women, with innuendo and teasing that wouldn't be as appropriate in front of men (in these households.) So some of the stories should be seen as conglomerate rather than transcriptions, but I do think they benefit from this treatment.

I loved the pre-story that is often told in rhyme, the blessing, the rote "true or not true" statement (it made me think about when I studied Turkish and there is an entire storytelling tense to allow for fictional "truths.") Many of the stories have to do with marriage, and often deception, changing the appearance, and Sultans or Princes who marry for the wrong reasons. I was pleased to see stories where the ending was a woman getting to marry who she wanted to in the first place. There are a lot of animal stories (anthropomorphic) but one story also has a singing turd, so there is a lot of humor too.

I understand that only 30 were translated into English for this collection, and I hope they do a second volume.

Thanks to Archipelago Press who provided an eARC of this title through Edelweiss. It came out April 17, 2018.

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Reading Envy 116: Make Margaret Atwood Fiction Again

Jeff Koeppen returns to the Reading Envy Pub, stamping the snow from his boots so we can chat books. We cover poetry for National Poetry Month, science in tribute to his first episode, North Korea, Scotland, apocalypse, and a new modern classic.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 116: Make Margaret Atwood Fiction Again.

Subscribe to the podcast via this link: Feedburner
Or subscribe via Apple Podcasts by clicking: Subscribe
Or listen through TuneIn
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I have just a few spaces left for the second half of 2018! If you are interested in appearing on the podcast: FAQ

Books Discussed:



Women in Science by Rachel Ignotofsky
When My Brother Was An Aztec by Natalie Díaz
Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon
Red Clocks by Leni Zumas


Other Mentions: 

Sally Ride: America's First Woman in Space by Lynn Sherr
Forgotten Superheroes of Science podcast episodes
The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
What Should I Read Next? podcast
Modern Mrs. Darcy
Stoner by John Williams
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner
Flowers of the Forest (song)
Cloud Howe by Lewis Grassic Gibbon
Gray Granite by Lewis Grassic Gibbon
Farewell Navigator by Leni Zumas
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
The Wilds by Julia Elliott
St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell
Idaho by Emily Ruskovich
Syncing Forward by W. Lawrence
Apocalypse Whenever Goodreads Group


Related Episodes:

Episode 086 - The Queen of Bailing with Shawn Mooney  
Episode 090 - Reading Envy Readalong: East of Eden with Ellie and Jeff
Episode 093 - Spewing Science with Jeff Koeppen
Episode 099 - Reading Envy Readalong: The Secret History
Episode 111 - Emotional Dipsy Doodles with Shawn Mooney
Episode 112 - Reset Button with Eleanor Thoele


Stalk us online:

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

Review: Eventide

Eventide by Therese Bohman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

On the surface, this book seemed to be yet another middle-aged professor has relationship with student narrative, with the flipped gender script. But I'm glad I read to the end, because I felt like it was much more than that.

Karolina is an art professor, recently divorced, and living in a tiny apartment. She starts to question what she is doing with her life, and along the way there are some encounters that felt very real, even the conversation with the colleague down the hall who can barely give her the time of day because his ego takes up so much of the room. She enters into a fling with a PhD student with very little thought, just an impulse really, and then realizes why that might have happened (and it isn't as flattering as one would hope; if you were looking for a steamy professor-student romance this is not your book)....

I appreciated the exploration of where women truly are in society now. Has feminism freed us? Are we still tied to whether or not a man wants to have babies with us? What is feminism in art? Is it focusing on obscure female artists or is it something more? Can a female art professor have a focus other than that and what would that be? What is her value and how do others see her? Should she entertain the blue collar boy from her childhood and give up on the life she has created? Where would the meaning be found? Where is satisfaction?

Hmm, I feel I've given a lot away, but not how she discovers these questions, or how she answers them. It was a resonant read for me.

Thanks to the publisher for providing access to this title through NetGalley. It came out April 10.

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Review: Brown: Poems

Brown: Poems by Kevin Young
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is my favorite collection from Kevin Young yet!

Publisher blurb: "Divided into “Home Recordings” and “Field Recordings,” Brown speaks to the way personal experience is shaped by culture, while culture is forever affected by the personal, recalling a black Kansas boyhood to comment on our times."

Kansas boyhood= baseball poetry
Our times= moving, devastating tributes to young black men killed needlessly.

My favorites include all the parts of "De La Soul is Dead," which quotes a different 90s song in each one, and "Hive."

I received an advanced reader copy of this from the publisher through Edelweiss. It comes out April 17, 2018.

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Review: The Little Clan

The Little Clan by Iris Martin Cohen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A debut novel!

I loved this in the beginning, when it was about an awkward twenty-something working in a private library of a dusty club in New York City. When her "best friend" returns and causes havoc, the entire book shifts to focus on everything about that situation, masking the underlying story of identity and discovery that really felt like the heart of the novel. Ultimately I was left feeling the pacing was off, and I would have preferred a longer ending, and a lot less Stephanie.

Thanks to the publisher for allowing me to view this title early through Edelweiss. It comes out April 17, 2018.

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Review: Death by Dumpling

Death by Dumpling by Vivien Chien
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a fun little debut cozy set in a Chinese neighborhood in Cleveland. I liked that the amateur detective, Lana Lee, is a bit of a failure at life, recently moving back in with her parents and waitressing at the family restaurant. Because of this she gets pulled into a murder-by-poison situation, and decides to take things into her own hands.

I can't ever say much about mysteries because the uncovering of details is the pleasure of the book, but I was never bored.

Thanks to the publisher for providing access to this title through Edelweiss. The book came out March 27, 2018.



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Reading Envy 115: Quote, Unquote

Jenny sits down in the Reading Envy pub with a friend known to many Litsy buddy reads and challenges - Scott Eaton, aka vivastory. We chat about true crime, vampires, character studies, and more.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 115: Quote, Unquote.

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

I have just a few spaces left for the second half of 2018! If you are interested in appearing on the podcast: FAQ

Books Discussed:



The Slynx by Tatyana Tolstaya
Virgin by Analicia Sotelo
I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara
The Hunger by Alma Katsu
Stephen Florida by Gabe Habash
Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs by Molly Harper

Other Mentions: 

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
NYRB Classics
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
Graywolf Press
The Loft Literary Center
Robert Bly
Eileen Miller
Marlon James
The Terror by Dan Simmons
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
Marlena by Julie Buntin
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
What We Do in the Shadows (film)
The Golden Ass translated by Robert Graves
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams
Gods of Howl Mountain by Taylor Brown
Refuge by Dina Nayeri


Related Episodes:

Episode 092 - Reading Friends Sarah and Preston

Stalk us online:

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

Review: New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set

New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set by Kwame Dawes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have read all the New-Generation African Poets chapbook sets from Akashic, and always find poets I had not heard of, leading to long rabbit holes in YouTube and elsewhere on the internet. I was very excited to see a new set and jumped into it as soon as National Poetry Month hit. This grouping has some poets from and still living in Africa, some born to African parents but living elsewhere, and some who have never lived in Africa, but their heritage comes from African parents. I was noticing more fragmentation even in the layout of these poems than what I remember in previous sets, and I think that resonates with the feelings of dislocation that many of these poets write about. Many have been displaced by conflict, war, rape, murder, independence; some have had the experience of returning "home" only to discover that they no longer feel the same sense of belonging. There is a lot of recent violence here, and it is painful, but the poems capture it, hold space for it, both soothing and not stepping away from the horrors that have been some of these poets experiences.

There are also poems about nature, family, love, longing, etc. The parts I picked out are not representative of the works as a whole but simply moments that caught me as I read through them. Each poet has their own chapbook with its own cover, and an introduction written by a poet, many whose names I recognized from their own previous chapbooks. I love the continuity this series feels like it has.

Favorite bits:

Thurible by Yalie Kamara (first generation Sierra Leonean-American)

Non-Compliance by Alexis Teyie

Fasting in Tunis by Leila Chatti (Tunisian American)

Time by Saddiq Dzukogi (Nigeria)

Insignia by Saddiq Dzukogi
"Keep your body
like a neighboring country
close to mine...."

We Don't Know Where We Belong by Rasaq Malik (Nigeria)

Gay Boy History by Romeo Oriogun
"What they want is for me to say I'm sorry
but I'm beautiful like a museum...."

Denial by Romeo Oriogun

Thanks to the publisher for providing early access to this title via Edelweiss. It is available April 10, 2018.

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Review: American by Day

American by Day by Derek B. Miller
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After I notoriously did not care much for Norwegian by Night, unlike the rest of my book club, I was a bit hesitant to pick up the sequel. But I was interested in the idea that it was about a periphery character in the first novel, one I didn't like all that much, the female Norwegian cop, but focusing on her journey to upstate New York to try to find her brother. It's lucky she did because he is a suspect in a murder case and people are closing in. (Also lucky because he is an adjunct professor and could never afford to defend himself.)

I liked her personal journey, questioning herself about the man she shot and killed, which of course in Norway is hugely rare. I liked the discussions about police shootings in the United States but it all had a distasteful tinge of white people sitting around talking about race instead of actually including anyone they're talking about (except as victims of shootings) so ... I am not sure that is helping anything. There's some in here about mental health and privilege too.

If this series continues I'm guessing the American sheriff might be the next main character, as he has some complexities to him, such as wearing cowboy boots so people make the wrong assumptions, but really he has degrees in theology and other things like that. The setting is ripe for more stories, a small upstate town with no major industry anymore, lots of poverty and drugs. It would be nice to see this play out through characters who actually live there rather than these random Norwegians that the author keeps wanting to write about.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing an eARC; this book came out April 3 and I'm a bit behind.

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Books Read March 2018: 49-73

Note: I forgot to add A Wrinkle in Time when I was adding up February, so that is the missing book between February and March.


Pictured: 5-star reviews for March

49. The Break by Katherena Vermetta **** (eARC from Edelweiss; my review)
50. This Will Be My Undoing by Morgan Jerkins **** (audiobook from Hoopla; my review)
51. The Adulterants by Joe Dunthorne **** (eARC from Edelweiss; my review)
52. Trick by Domenico Starnone **** (eARC from Edelweiss; my review)
53. The Hunger by Alma Katsu **** (eARC from Edelweiss; my review)
54. Another City: Poems by David Keplinger **** (eARC from Edelweiss; my review)
55. Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance by Fady Joudah **** (eARC from Edelweiss; my review)
56. Buttermilk Graffiti by Edward Lee ***** (eARC from Edelweiss; my review)
57. Apocalypse Child: A Life in End Times by Flor Edwards (eARC from Edelweiss; my review)
58. Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs by Molly Harper **** (personal copy audiobook; my review)
59. In a Day's Work by Bernice Yeung **** (eARC from NetGalley; my review)
60. Heart Berries by Terese Mailhot **** (Hoopla audiobook; my review)
61. Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi **** (Hoopla audiobook; my review)
62. Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner ***** (personal copy; my review)
63. Every Note Played by Lisa Genova **** (eARC from NetGalley; my review)
64. The Path of Insight Meditation by Jack Kornfield **** (eARC from Edelweiss; my review)
65. Comfortable with Uncertainty by Pema Chodron **** (eARC from Edelweiss; my review)
66. Gods of Howl Mountain by Taylor Brown **** (eARC from NetGalley; my review)
67. The Sky Unwashed by Irene Zabytko **** (personal copy; my review)
68. Palace of Treason by Jason Matthews *** (Audible audiobook; my review)
69. Hurts to Love You by Alisha Rai **** (eARC from Edelweiss; my review)
70. The New Farm by Brent Preston **** (physical review copy; my review)
71. Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Abertalli **** (Hoopla audiobook; my review)
72. To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey ***** (personal copy; my review)
73. Red Clocks by Leni Zumas ***** (personal copy; my review)