Reading Envy 151: The Stories They Tell with Karen (bonus memoir recommendations)

Karen reads memoir for connection; Jenny reads memoir to live her alternate lives. We discuss favorite memoirs, memoirs we've read recently, and memoirs we are excited to read. It's all memoir, and we hope we can recommend something for you! (Please leave a comment to tell us which memoirs are your favorites.)

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 151: The Stories They Tell with Karen

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Books featured:



Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas
Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir by Ruth Reichl
Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death and Jazz Chickens by Eddie Izzard
Love, Loss, and What We Ate: A Memoir by Padma Lakshmi
After Visiting Friends: A Son’s Story by Michael Hainey
Becoming by Michelle Obama


Also discussed:

The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
Interview with Dani Shapiro on the New York Times Book Review Podcast
Not My Father’s Son by Alan Cumming
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal by Jeanette Winterson
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
My Kitchen Year by Ruth Reichl
Chocolate Cake with Mascarpone and Praline (Ruth Reichl)
Monsoon Mansion by Cinelle Barnes
Dumb: Living without a Voice by Georgia Webber
The Honey Bus: A Memoir of Loss, Courage and a Girl Saved by Bees by Meredith May
How to Forget by Kate Mulgrew
The Wrong End of the Table: A Mostly Comic Memoir of a Muslim Arab American Woman Just Trying to Fit In by Ayser Salman
Hotbox: Inside Catering, the Food World's Riskiest Business by Matt Lee and Ted Lee
Wild Horses of the Summer Sun: A Memoir of Iceland by Tory Bilski
No Walls and the Recurring Dream: A Memoir by Ani DiFranco
Notes from a Young Black Chef: A Memoir by Kwame Onwuachi


Related Episodes:

Episode 004 - Home, Frightening and Banned with guest Karen Acosta
Episode 015 - The Time for Exclaiming Over Costumes with Jean and Karen
Episode 051 - Dreaming in Books with Karen Acosta
Episode 066 - When Time Stops with Karen Acosta
Episode 100 - 100 Reasons Why 
Episode 101 - A Different Kind of Time Travel with Karen Acosta
Episode 114 - Raised by Wolves with Karen Acosta 
Episode 145 - Things Get Dark with Bianca Escalante
Episode 146 - Complicated, Crazy, and Loud with Karen 


Stalk us online:
Jenny at Goodreads
Jenny on Twitter
Jenny is @readingenvy on Instagram and Litsy

Review: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What an incredible read! A clash of Western medicine with Hmong culture, exasperated by a lack of translators, cultural understanding, and education on both sides. Anne Fadiman shows how the situation involving one very sick child went wrong and makes suggestions as to more effective ways to communicate and provide care. I really enjoyed learning about the Hmong family in particular, and their own methods of parenting and treating the sick. The author suggests that millenia of Hmong people refusing to be assimilated effects the challenges facing Hmong refugees in their new environments, so she covers quite a bit of Hmong history, particularly in Laos, and how that intersects with American history thanks to "The Secret War." This is going to be a great book club discussion!

The edition I read had a new afterword by the author providing some updates and discussion of the impact of the book. She also talks about how it would have been impossible to write now, at least not in the same way.

View all my reviews

Review: Brute: Poems

Brute: Poems by Emily Skaja
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This powerful debut collection deserves multiple readings and I've read most of them out loud as well. The end of an unhealthy relationship comes with damage and these poems reflect all of it. Some reposition the narrative to defend the person who finally got out, some are confrontational, some speak to the shared experience many women have. When I marked favorites to share it was practically every poem but my two top poems are probably "Brute / Brute Heart" (read in Crab Orchard Review) and "No, I Do Not Want to Connect with You on LinkedIn" (also posted on The Rumpus.)

This past year has been my first subscribed to the Graywolf Galley Club, and they sent this debut collection as a gift for a debut donor. Neat idea and I'm glad this is the collection they chose.

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Review: Bright

Bright by Duanwad Pimwana
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Kampol is a child left behind by his parents at a young age and has to fend for himself with the help of various friends and characters in his community. This is the first novel by a Thai female author to be translated into English and it was a delight to read. Where other authors would craft this story as a trauma narrative, this is much more about his daily life and the people he interacts with along the way.

In the same month I read Bright, I finally read The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures. Early on the author mentions a Hmong folktale:

"One of the recurring characters in Hmong folktales is the Orphan, a young man whose parents have died, leaving him alone to live by his wits... he is clever, energetic, brave, persistent.... "

Sounds familiar, right? I couldn't find any evidence of the author being anything other than Thai, but folktales do travel. It puts it in a different light if this might be a modern day telling of a traditional myth, at least for me. It would be a reference that local audiences would get immediately while those of us reading it in translation may not. If you've read this one, do you think I'm on to something?

View all my reviews

Celebrate Independent Bookstore Day in Western North Carolina!

Independent Bookstore Day is this Saturday, April 27, 2019. If you live in or near Western North Carolina, please get out to support one of our fantastic booksellers! Links go to more information for the day.

Adventure Bound Books 
134 N. Sterling St., Morganton, NC

Giveaways, while supplies last, to every customer who spends $50 or more (excluding gift certificates) in a single purchase this Saturday (April 27th). Supplies are limited, and once they’re gone, they’re gone - don’t miss out! In addition, every $10 purchase increment earns you an entry into drawings for more free stuff - t-shirts, tote bag, books. And everyone who has an account with LibroFM by or on Saturday, gets free audiobooks! 

City Lights Bookstore
3 East Jackson St., Sylva, NC 28779

Celebrating with storytime, a storewide sale, giveaways, and exclusive merchandise sure to delight readers.  Also offering exclusive day-of merchandise created especially for Independent Bookstore Day by major publishers and authors. 

Beware: Shares a day with Greening Up the Mountains, a spring festival in Sylva

Firestorm Bookstore & Co-op
610 Haywood Rd, Asheville, NC

Highland Books
36 West Main Street, Brevard, NC

Main Street Books
126 S. Main St., Davidson, NC

• 9:30 a.m. — Free Donut with purchase (while supplies last)
• 10 - 10:30 a.m — Special story time hosted by Davidson Mayor Rusty Knox
  • This special story time will be part of Currents Kids series, for which MSB partners with Lake Norman Currents
• 10:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. — Craft activity stations with Queen Girls authors Claire Tomkinson and Sol Gonzalez-Fe
• 1 - 2:30 p.m. — Puzzle swap
  • Main Street Books will be accepting puzzle donations starting April 15th.
  • Receive a ticket for each puzzle you drop off. Spend a ticket on a new puzzle at the Swap.
  • There will be a $5 fee to shop the swap for folks who have not brought puzzles to swap (maximum of one puzzle per $5 shopper); entry fee will be donated to a local nonprofit.
• 3:30 - 4:30 p.m. — Teas and bees with Jodi Helmer
  • Jodi Helmer is the author of Protecting Pollinators, an exploration of the survival outlook of bees and the critical role they play in ecosystems, and Growing Your Own Tea Garden, which offers practical instructions for producing your own teas. Join her at Main Street Books for a tea tasting, insect hotel construction activity, and book signing! This event is free but guests must RSVP by end-of-day Monday, April 22nd.

RSVP

• 5 - 7 p.m. — Literary cocktails and live entertainment
  • Join the Main Street Books staff in celebrating another Independent Bookstore Day with free literary cocktails, plus performances from Davidson College’s slam poetry group FreeWord and the ever-lovely musical stylings of Jamie Hofmeister-Cline.

Malaprop's Bookstore/Cafe
55 Haywood St. Asheville, NC

Special items for sale just for IBD, no reservations taken.

Park Road Books

4139 Park Road, Charlotte, NC 28209

Sassafras on Sutton

108 Sutton Avenue, Black Mountain, North Carolina 28711

Celebrate Independent Bookstore Day in Upstate SC!

Independent Bookstore Day is this Saturday, April 27, 2019. If you live in or near the upstate of South Carolina, please get out to support one of our fantastic booksellers! Links go to more information for the day.

As the Page Turns
21 Plaza Dr D, Travelers Rest, SC 29690

While not an official participant, this bookstore is offering a BOGO sale for all books, April 26-27.

Fiction Addiction
1175 Woods Crossing Rd. #5, Greenville, SC 29607 (in the Shops by the Mall center behind Haywood Mall, alongside Jimmy John's) 

-Exclusive signed editions of Adjustment Day, an Indie Bookstore Day special printing of Chuck Palahniuk’s first novel in four years
-A ‘Fight Evil, Read Books’ enamel pin, the perfect accessory to face our world
-Exclusive signed editions of Why Don’t You Write My Eulogy Now So I Can Correct It? by Roz Chast and Patricia Marx, featuring an exclusive Indie Bookstore Day-only book jacket
–What to Eat With What You Read, a companion to last year’s Indie Bookstore Day bestseller The Bookclub Journal, featuring reading lists, recipes, and menu suggestions from 25 of our favorite authors
-Literary Luminary Pins, the perfect way to show off your favorite authors with these laser-cut wooden pins. An Indie Bookstore Day exclusive from Letter Craft!
-Signed prints from Maggie Steifvater
-Exclusive signed editions of The Girl Who Drank the Moon, featuring exclusive high quality vinyl stickers

Items free with a purchase-
-“Overheard on the Titanic” print, a clever blackout poem from Austin Kleon’s newest book, Keep Going
–Poems to Keep in Your Pocket, a hardcover mini-book of classic poems by Kipling, Wordsworth, Pope, Shakespeare, Dickinson, and more
-The Flora of Middle Earth postcard by Graham Judd, a frame-worthy large postcard, featuring the natural landscape that is so vital to Tolkien’s works

Also, all Libro.fm account holders will receive a free audiobook!

Hub City Bookshop
186 W Main Street, Spartanburg, SC 29306

10am-2pm: Sidewalk Sale of Used Books
Get a deal on all of our used books!

11am-Noon: The Great Gatsby Mimosa Hour
Browse around the bookshop with a mimosa in hand. We will be offering select hardbacks at 35% off during this hour as well!

Noon-2pm: Blind Date with a Book
With every purchase of a new book, customers will get to choose a wrapped "blind date" pick of not-yet-released galley books.

2pm-3pm: Southern Fiction Cocktail Hour with George Singleton
Southern Fiction books will be 10% off and local author George Singleton will be signing books, including his new short story collection STAFF PICKS. Guests will get a staff-made Southern cocktail with the purchase of a book during this hour!

4pm-5pm: Poetry Hour
All poetry is 10% off and every customer who buys a book will receive a one line poem from a local poet!

In addition:
--> Every fifth customer will receive a free Independent Bookstore Day tote bag with the purchase of new book while supplies last.
--> One lucky customer will win a READ WRITE SOUTH tote full of 2019 popular titles in galley version.
--> There will also be a treasure chest full of goodies on hand for young readers all day.
--> We will be giving away free copies of Jason Reynold’s Ghost to visiting middle readers while supplies last!

M. Judson Books 
130 South Main Street, Greenville, SC

A day just for us and people like us!  Huzzah! Come down to M. Judson on Saturday, April 27 to celebrate Independent Book Store Day!  We'll have special stuff going on all day long (9 am - 9 pm.) Here's a sample of some of the amazing people who will help us celebrate.  We hope you will, too!

• Author Stephanie Morgan will host story time, sharing from her Tails from the Trail series.
• Beth Ables will be here with her cookbook/magazine, A Place Here, thoughts and recipes for gathering at the table.
• Our very own Ashley Warlick will be here with her book, The Arrangement.

Also you can get exclusive IBD items only available on the day! A bookish tote illustrated by the amazing Jane Mount is *free* with purchases over $100! 

Disclaimer:
I am not an official promoter of IBD or any of these bookstores. I just thought it would be nice to help promote their fun events.  

Reading Envy 150: Rife with Storytelling with Sara

Jenny and Sara combat humidity and allergies to get together to chat books. We cover escapes and intergalactic refugees, snakes and fish, serial killers and out of print reads. Jenny can't decide on a third book so discusses three more books, and Sara has a word bleeped out from a story too funny not to include.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 150: Rife with Storytelling with Sara

Subscribe to the podcast via this link: Feedburner
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Listen via Stitcher
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Books discussed:

The Girl with Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee and David John
The Vela by Yoon Ha Lee, Becky Chambers, Rivers Solomon, and SL Huang
The Man Who Spoke Snakish by Andrus Kivirähk, translated by Christopher Moseley
The Deeper the Water, the Uglier the Fish by Katya Apekina
Hotel by Arthur Hailey 
The Pisces by Melissa Broder
Praise Song for the Butterflies by Bernice L. McFadden
My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite 


Other mentions:

Emily Rosko
Magical Negro by Morgan Parker
758 Books (St. Lucia)
Airport by Arthur Hailey
Just Kids by Patti Smith
iHotel by Karen Tei Yamashita
The Paragon Hotel by Lyndsay Faye
James Michener
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Sara's hospitality shelf in Goodreads
The Women's Prize for Fiction
The Shape of Water (film)
BBC Trokosi documentary
The Tournament of Books
News of a Kidnapping by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikabu
The Silence of the Girls by Pat Parker


Related Episodes:

Episode 069 - Evil Librarian/SFBRP Crossover Episode with Luke Burrage and Juliane Kunzendorf
Episode 122 - A Cylon Raider Shaped Hole in Your Heart with Sara Burnett
Episode 144 - For the Fans with Thomas of Hogglestock
Episode 147 - Bonus Poetry Recommendations with Lauren


Stalk us online:

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

Review: The Salt Path

The Salt Path by Raynor Winn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A middle-aged couple in the UK, facing bankruptcy and a terminal illness diagnosis, decides to take off and walk the South West Coast Path in the United Kingdom, from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall. Most identity crisis take-a-walk memoirs are from younger, healthier people who still struggle physically, emotionally, and financially, but all of those elements are worse here. They are frequently mistaken for vagrants, asked to leave, and sometimes given food for free (and they really need it in these moments, so the kind strangers are not wrong!)

There is a bit of desperation in the pages. The path is almost insurmountable, but they do not have any way to make a living or any place to live. So they walk. It almost intersects more with books like Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century than with your typical sojourning books.

I enjoyed reading about the landscape of the cliffs of this region and definitely spent some time looking up images on the internet. It is a shame that so many of these communities seem actively opposed to travelers coming through, when clearly the path has a long history.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.

View all my reviews

Review: Where the Crawdads Sing

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This novel had so much hype, between its listing as a pick for Book of the Month and a monthly pick for Reese Witherspoon's book club, that I almost didn't want to read it. But I was headed to a long weekend in Beaufort, SC, with a landscape similar to that of the book, and decided to listen to it on the way there. We got about 10% in listening at 1x speed. After returning home and finishing up some podcast listening, I returned to the book at 1.75x speed and finished it in a few days.

The central story in the novel is that of Kya, a girl who lives in the isolated marshes of North Carolina in the 1950s. Due to several family situations, she is forced to largely raise herself, learning to cook, clean, and navigate a boat long before she learns to read. At some point a 1969 storyline steps in with the occasional chapter, introducing a murder mystery in the closest town to Kya.

I loved this book for its landscape, and for the survival narrative. I liked the idea of Kya developing a deep understanding of the marsh and its creatures, and being able to represent that artistically. I enjoyed the light mystery of the murder/death. I liked that she created a small found family of sorts with the people of color and a few other real marsh dwellers that had an overall positive impact on her life, probably saving her life. I found it harder to fully give myself over to the idea of Kya learning to read and then going on to master high levels of learning without any other expert guiding her understanding. It tastes a little of the kind of narrative where a person is redeemed by their extra goodness rather than just letting them be average or uneducated but still valuable because they are human, but this is so entrenched in American lit I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

View all my reviews

Review: Calling a Wolf a Wolf

Calling a Wolf a Wolf by Kaveh Akbar
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

These poems are full of desire and alcoholism, identity and guilt, God and words. I love his use of space on the page because it makes you take a pause along with him.

Some of my favorites are

Do You Speak Persian?

Some Boys Aren't Born They Bubble

Desunt Nonnulla

Thirstiness is Not Equal Division

River of Milk

God

So Often the Body Becomes a Distraction

(I read this from a print copy via interlibrary loan but it is available in Hoopla, if you have access.)

View all my reviews

Reading Envy 149: TBR Explode!

Jenny kicks off a short bonus episode with a joint readalong announcement, and covers three months of her TBR Explode project.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 149: TBR Explode!

Subscribe to the podcast via this link: Feedburner
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Just a few of the books in the TBR Explode Project!

Books mentioned:

Sapphira and the Slave Girl by Willa Cather
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: A Memoir, A History by Lewis Buzbee
The Suicide Collectors by David Oppegard
Standing in the Light by Sharman Apt Russell
My Life at First Try by Mark Budman
When Fox is a Thousand by Larissa Lai
Karnak Cafe by Naguib Mahfouz
The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas
Maps and Legends by Michael Chabon
Extraordinary Engines: The Definitive Steampunk Anthology by Nick Gevers
South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami
The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne
The Vegan Monologues by Ben Shaberman
Ask the Dust by John Fante
Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life by Neil Strauss
Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli
Lady Vernon and her Daughter by Jane Rubino and Caitlen Rubino-Bradway
Omega the Unknown by Jonathan Lethem
After Dark by Haruki Murakami
After the Quake by Haruki Murakami
Children of God by Mary Doria Russell
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
Ghost Train to the Eastern Star by Paul Theroux
Symmetry by Marcus du Sautoy
A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami
A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg
City of Golden Shadow by Tad Williams

Other mentions:
Book Cougars Episode 73
Book Cougars Goodreads discussion board
Margaret Mitchell House in Atlanta
Reading Envy Readers in Goodreads (for weekly discussions of readalong)

Related Episodes:

Episode 090 - Reading Envy Readalong: East of Eden
Episode 099 - Reading Envy Readalong: The Secret History
Episode 118 - Reading Envy Readalong: To the Bright Edge of the World 
Episode 137 - Reading Envy Readalong: The Golden Notebook 


Stalk us online:

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

Review: Mars

Mars by Asja Bakić
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

These stories from Bosnian writer Asja Bakic, translated by Jennifer Zoble, run a gamut of speculative and satirical situations (so don't expect Mars as a setting for most of them.) These stories capture a bit of bizarre combined with complex characters but all with a larger commentary on the world. (They reminded me of Julia Elliott (The Wilds) in the way there are elements that sneak up on you and take a story in an unexpected direction.)

I had a copy of these stories from the publisher through Edelweiss. The collection came out March 19, 2019, and this is a good one to earmark for Women in Translation month!

View all my reviews

Review: Kaddish.com

Kaddish.com by Nathan Englander
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Larry is an atheist in a family of orthodox Memphis Jews. When his father dies, it is his responsibility as the surviving son to recite the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, every day for eleven months. He hatches an ingenious if cynical plan, hiring a stranger through a website called kaddish.com...."

This novel is a quick read and not as dense as the last one from this author, but Larry is a likeable fool of a character who is still able to go on a deeper journey of self-examination, in what he owes to his family, how much of his identity comes from being Jewish and what that should ultimately mean for his life.

My rating is more like 3.5 stars. It's very readable and Larry is a good character, but there is a major character shift that the author doesn't take the reader through but rather makes a big time jump, and I can't help but think the best novel would have at least included that story.

I had a digital copy from the publisher through Edelweiss. It came out March 26, 2019.

View all my reviews

Review: The Chef's Secret

The Chef's Secret by Crystal King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I first learned about this author from Catherine on the Sarah's Book Shelves podcast, episode 2 - I was intrigued by the concept of historical foodie fiction so I requested an eARC of The Chef's Secret from Edelweiss (this came out February 12, 2019.)

Even though it took me a while to read, and I read it between other things, there are a lot of itches scratched by this novel. First is the food, of course. The two main characters are the Pope's chef in Renaissance Italy, so there is a lot of discussion of incredible feasts and elaborate dishes. On top of that is the story of a chef and his master teacher, a chef who leaves his property and possessions to him (including his last name!) when he dies. His journals are written in code, so there are elements of mystery and codebreaking and secrets. Everything is couched in deep historical research that doesn't bog down the story but really adds a lot to it. (I loved the author note at the end which points out which pieces she took from history and which she made work for the story, and the sources she relied on.)

The author also has some historical recipes to accompany the book and anything Renaissance Italy on her website. There is a tart that accompanied a major plot point, and I'm tempted....

View all my reviews

Review: Cape May

Cape May by Chip Cheek
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is one of the first books from the new Celadon imprint, so I've had it for a while but was waiting to read it until closer to its publication date. A quick weekend trip to the rainy coast was the perfect setting.

It's 1957 and Henry and Effie are newlyweds, headed to Cape May (NJ) in late September for their honeymoon. Of course they are practically the only people there in the off season and the weather is miserable. Effie grew up going to Cape May in the summers, but didn't realize what it would be like in the fall.

The narrative perspective is largely that of Henry, a somewhat naive goody two shoes kind of virgin, who assumes his new wife is as inexperienced as he is. When one of her old summer nemeses shows up down the street, all sorts of drama and shenanigans start to play out.

I couldn't put it down, I read it all in a day. This reads like really gossipy dishy contemporary romance of the steamy variety but written by a man (this is really obvious because of the number of times bowel movements are mentioned, ha!)

I would almost call it "women's fiction" but I think it has more sex than most "women's fiction" does. The author captures the complete awkwardness of brand new marriage when all of the sudden it's just the two of you with a lifetime ahead of you, and then uses that to the advantage of the story and the conflicts/encounters with the other people who show up. It was a very visual story and I could easily see it translating to film as well.

I received access to this title from the publisher through NetGalley. It comes out April 30!

View all my reviews

Review: Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation

Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation by Ken Liu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ken Liu openly states in his introduction that these stories are selected based on his tastes. There is a variety of some known Chinese science fiction writers, and some new voices. Most of them were new to me as I'm woefully behind on books like the Three Body Problem, among others. There is also an earlier volume of Chinese science fiction in translation that is probably worth the read.

Not only are there stories in this anthology, but three essays about the current state of Chinese science fiction. I was fascinated to find out that contemporary acceptance of the genre in its home country is very recent, as the genre was widely disregarded up until just a few years ago (and I'm guessing not everyone is on board yet.)

There are some stories focusing on technology in this anthology, but honestly not as many as I would have expected if I'd had to guess. Many are time travel or have time travel components, or are taking a part of known Chinese history and tweaking it, falling almost to alternate history, although sometimes these elements are merely the backdrop. This means you will enjoy the stories even more if you know about Chinese history and aren't just reading them cold. One story had a connection to a well-loved British science fiction novel, a reference even I understood.

I did like how for the most part, these are not just copies or versions of stories from the west. These are inherently Chinese, and I'm so glad to see more of this type of work being translated into English.

Length wise I felt there were too many on the novelette length size, with different numbered sections. Ken Liu must like his stories a bit longer.

Thanks to the publisher for providing access to the title through Edelweiss, even though it took me a while to get to. The collection came out in February 2019.

View all my reviews

Review: The Honey Bus: A Memoir of Loss, Courage and a Girl Saved by Bees

The Honey Bus: A Memoir of Loss, Courage and a Girl Saved by Bees by Meredith May
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When Meredith was 5, her parents separated and she moved with her mother and brother to her maternal grandparents' home. Her grandfather the beekeeper introduces her to the world of honeybees. It is a comforting, rural memoir and bees have great metaphor potential that the author utilizes through her Grandpa's voice. Research on bees runs throughout with a somewhat sad epilogue combining her grandfather's aging with the bee crisis.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. It came out April 2, 2019.

View all my reviews

Review: The Sad Part Was

The Sad Part Was by Prabda Yoon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Finally back on my ASIA 2019 reading project, this book of short stories by Prabda Yoon (Thailand) plays with words in different ways (one story takes place completely inside one set of parentheses, in a sentence about picking a piece of paper off the floor.) Some of the writing reads a bit awkwardly but it's always hard to tell if that's translation or the original (one was a death story told in a weird tense that must have been difficult to translate!) Overall the stories are very modern and very urban (most are set in Bangkok.)

I like to support small presses like Tilted Axis but really disliked seeing the print from other pages through the page I was trying to read. They are very new and hopefully they will work it out.

View all my reviews

Review: The Cook

The Cook by Maylis de Kerangal
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm going to join the chorus of perplexed readers who say this is not really a novel, but we don't know what to call it. It's a novella-length narration of a fictional chef's life, and while you get some peeks into his personality, there is not really much of a story, per se. Just descriptions of his work life as he moves from place to place. You can see he is gaining in knowledge, passion, and reputation, but you don't really get much farther. It's rather like a documentary film crew following a career, but with words.

I mean, I enjoyed it. But this is nowhere near the beauty and depth of the previous novel I so loved by this author, The Heart. This is a great example of descriptive writing but really that should be a component of something larger for readers to make any meaning of the details.

Thanks to the publisher for providing access to this title through Edelweiss. It came out March 26, 2019.

View all my reviews

Reading Envy 148: Multiple Lives with Jeff Koeppen

Jeff talks about visiting the actual place where his novels took place, and Jenny discovers Jeff has an entire shelf for a subgenre he's really into. Jenny experiences some weird moments while she's reading weird short stories, and they seem related. We discuss fascinating people and historical fantasy before we're through.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 148: Multiple Lives with Jeff

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:




The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by Susan Bernofsky
After the Quake: Stories by Haruki Murakami, translated by Jay Rubin
Grass by Sheri S. Tepper
The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein
Rocket Men by Robert Kurson
The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson


Other mentions:

Grassic Gibbon Centre
Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon
Grey Granite by Lewis Grassic Gibbon
Go Went Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
Russian Doll (tv show)
The Versions of Us by Laura Barnett
Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
Uncle Hugo's Science Fiction Bookstore
Apollo 11 (film)
Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson
Ms. Marvel by G. Willow Wilson
The Butterfly Mosque by G. Willow Wilson
The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders
Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction translated by Ken Liu
Mars by Asja Bakic
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Z by Therese Anne Fowler


Related Episodes:

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 116 - Make Margaret Atwood Fiction Again with Jeff Koeppen


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