Review: Second Place

Second Place by Rachel Cusk
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

**This entire review might be a spoiler** 

I read some of this, I put it aside. I'm used to this initial response to Cusk, and usually feel gratified I've gone back to it. I'm not sure I'm feeling that yet about this one, but my feelings could change.

I went to Instagram first and pleaded for people who had already read it to discuss it with me. Before I even finished, I listened to the interview with the reviewer for the New York Times Book Review on the NYTBR Podcast talk about her approach and she let slide that this is all based on Cusk reading this memoir and then imagining that author's experience and then reimagining it into a different landscape and slightly different details and writing it from that perspective... but the reviewer also said that she saw all other reviews mentioning that detail up front, and feeling that the author kept it until the end for a reason. I listened to the author's interview with Michael Silverblatt on the KCRW Bookworm Podcast, where he started with the "spoiler." That's why this whole review is listed as a spoiler - it's hard to talk about with the book without knowing that the author read this obscure memoir about the time D.H. Lawrence came to stay with this artist in Taos. Once you know that, you can really see the author's wheels turning, and this book is the grain or the chaff. Maybe both.

If it's a spoiler, though, it's also the thing that helped me think it through and understand it, even if I still don't really know if I think it worked. It's interesting that she relocated it too. Cusk is someone who was born in Canada, grew up different places, lives in the UK... I think I thought she was American but she might as well be anything. The book is set in a marsh but we don't know which country, so few details are really there. Some read apocalypse narrative into the background but I wasn't sure that was there or if the people have just separated themselves from a sense of daily life. And she writes! with a lot of exclamation points! to someone named Jeffers! who is never explained.

Part of me felt it was the Barefoot Contessa who always is making everything "for Jeffrey" which might come across a bit loony if you didn't know better.

And all along she is dealing with a poor self image, or maybe just aging as a woman when your former power, if you ever had it, starts to wear thing, especially in comparison to the woman the artist brought with him when he came to visit. And her daughter is young 20s, a difficult age for mothers, I think.

I will keep mulling it over. Five-star mulling success, three-star success as a book... for now.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me access through Edelweiss. This came out May 4th, 2021.

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Review: The Galaxy, and the Ground Within

The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

At this point, the last book.in the Wayfarers series, if you know, you know. Nothing much happens, just a handful of aliens trapped for a few days on a boring planet that's mostly a galactic gas station, and the friends (and children) they made along the way.

There is this one section where the (all non-human) characters discuss humans and their weird obsession with cheese, and how it's made, and how they eat it, it is hilarious.

I'm looking forward to what Becky Chambers does next but I'll be sad to never visit her creative, found-families, literal universe again.

I had a copy of this from the publisher through Edelweiss and NetGalley (love her so much, requested it twice, whoops) - it came out in the United States on April 20, 2021.

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Review: A Very Punchable Face

A Very Punchable Face by Colin Jost
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I started reading this when the publication date was still listed as April, but now it has been pushed to July. (I think this is going to happen a lot while so much is shut down.)

If you know Colin Jost from Saturday Night Live, then you are familiar with the tone of this book - in fact we've seen a few of the SNL from Home episodes and if you've watched that version of Weekend Update, the funny without the laughter, just kind of sent out into the universe - that's how this book feels to me.

The last few chapters are about what it's like to be a writer or Weekend Update co-host on SNL, but the majority of the book is about his life before that, including childhood. It's like a mixture of Rescue Me (Staten Island version) and... male Gilmore Girls maybe? Small town smart kid has to go to the big city and ends up at Harvard, only to turn towards career paths like small town newspapers, stand-up, and writing for television. Colin Gilmore.

But I enjoyed it. Honestly if Rescue Me hadn't already done it, I think his family's story is compelling enough for its own book or tv series (especially his mother, who has the most holy shit story of the entire book) - and when I thought Colin had leishmaniasis I started swearing so I'm glad he threw some of those tangent chapters in. His description of the Staten Island Ferry is probably award worthy. He humble-brag downplays some of his accomplishments in the way a white Catholic-raised male has to these days, but they really are quite significant. His descriptions of speech & debate tournaments are spot on (but then you realize he went to freaking nationals, hello.) He is comfortable making fun of himself, a brand that he has carried with him into SNL.

Now this comes out in July, the 14th last I saw, so keep your eyes out!

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Jenny's Books Added April and May 2015

Somehow I forgot to do this in April but here I am, talking about the books I've added in April and May.

• The Wilds : Stories by Julia Elliott
• Queen Sugar by Natalie Baszile
• Serpent in Paradise by Dia Birkett
• The Girl in the Road by Monica Byrne
• Minnow by James E. McTeer II
• The Wet Collection: A Field Guide to Iridescence and Memory by Joni Tevis
• The World Is on Fire: Scrap, Treasure, and Songs of Apocalypse by Joni Tevis
• Miss Hazel and the Rosa Parks League by Jonathan Odell
• Bake Happy: 100 Playful Desserts by Judith Fertig
• The Familiar, Volume 1: One Rainy Day in May by Mark Z. Danielewski
• Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
• Where All Light Tends to Go by David Joy
• Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Elliott, Baszile, McTeer, Odell, and Joy are purchased and signed during the SC Book Festival. I should probably still post about that day.

When I went to Powells in March, I bought two books - the Byrne and the Birkett. The Birkett is for my Oceania reading project and the Byrne I always intended to buy. After I bought it I found out that my review is quoted inside.

The two Tevis books are books I'd read already but wanted to own, and I went to her signing last month.  This is the same Joni Tevis from the podcast, episode 029.

I got the Laura Ingalls Wilder book as a gift from my step-mother-in-law. She had intended to get it for me for Christmas but the first print run sold out and it was hard to find for a while. It is gorgeous and I'm looking forward to reading it, because Little House on the Prairie was a major part of my chidhood.

The Danielewski and Stephenson were purchased on the same day; I'm currently 200 pages into the Danielewski.  Another gorgeous, beautiful book. I've heard the audio makes for an immersive experience along with the print, so I need to check it out.

The cookbook was sent to me because of my JennyBakes blog presence.

I also went on a few galley/ARC request sprees after finishing most of what I had previously been approved to review. There are a lot of great books coming out in the next year and I always appreciate the opportunity to read them early.

• The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler (Netgalley)
• The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald (Netgalley)
• Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal(Netgalley)
• Music for Wartime: Stories by Rebecca Makkai (Netgalley)
• Dark Wine by Beth Tashery Shannon (Netgalley)
• The Star Side of Bird Hill by Naomi Jackson (NetGalley)
• Book of Numbers by Joshua Cohen (NetGalley)
• Words Without Music: A Memoir by Philip Glass(Edelweiss)
• The New and Improved Romie Futch by Julia Elliott (Edelweiss)
• The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth) by N.K. Jemisin (Edelweiss)
• Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome: A Memoir of Humor and Healing by Reba Riley (Edelweiss)
• We Dream of Water by Srdjan Smajić (Edelweiss)
• Sea Lovers: Selected Stories by Valerie Martin (Edelweiss)
• You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost): A Memoir by Felicia Day (Edelweiss)
• Fates and Furies by Lauren Goff (Edelweiss)
• Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert (Edelweiss)
• Writing Across the Landscape: Travel Journals 1950-2013 by Lawrence Ferlinghett (Edelweiss)
• Insomnia: Poems by Linda Pastan (Edelweiss)
• Bream Gives Me Hiccups by Jesse Eisenberg (Edelweiss)
• Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living with Books by Michael Dirda (Edelweiss)
• The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman (Edelweiss)
• Voracious: A Hungry Reader Cooks Her Way through Great Books by Cara Nicoletti (Edelweiss)
• The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr (Edelweiss)

I have some reading to do! I won't comment on all of these but I will point out that I met Julia Elliott at the SC Book Festival, so she is on this post twice! I used to work with Srdjan Smajić , and this is his first novel, published by Underland Press and mentioned in Episode 21 of the Reading Envy podcast. Three of the books - Karr, Pastan, and Jemisin - are by authors I have read before. One of my work-related reading goals this summer is to read about creativity, and the Gilbert is coming along just in time.

Jenny's Books Added January 2014

This has been a great book month, with quite a few titles coming in the mail and another full set in electronic format, most of those titles for review.  But they count because I have access to them and I may read them.  So I'll do this in two chunks. First, the physical items! 

Justine by Lawrence Durrell (audiobook)
Balthazar by Lawrence Durrell (audiobook)
Clea by Lawrence Durrell (audiobook)
The Sharpshooter Blues by Lewis Nordan
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
Growing Up in New Guinea by Margaret Mead
The Butterfly Mosque by G. Willow Wilson

Justine, Balthazar, and Clea are three books out of four of the Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell.  I actually think this may be the fourth copy of Justine to come into my house, but I've never tried listening to them in audio.  I'm missing one and it might be coming in a separate box. I love the covers on these, black and white photos. I've never made it past the second book, more because I was savoring them than I couldn't read them. I'm hoping they are fantastic in audio!  I did get these from Brilliance Audio to review, just full disclosure.

The Mead and the Jones are for my Oceania reading project. The Nordan is for my southern book group and Wilson is a book club pick for the ACRL Conference I'll be attending in March.  G. Willow Wilson is one of our keynote speakers and I'm looking forward to that! I need to track down copies of her Marvel comics and Alif the Unseen, a book I loved but had read from the library.

One of the great perks of being both a librarian and a blogger/podcaster is that publishers are interested in sending you review copies of books.   After the initial understandable reaction of READING ALL THE THINGS, I now only request books I have a specific interest in.  Apparently this month that has been quite a few titles. I use both NetGalley and Edelweiss.

Digital review copies:



At the Water's Edge by Sara Gruen (NetGalley)
The Fire Sermon by Francesca Haig (NetGalley)
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson (Edelweiss)
The Glittering World by Robert Levy (NetGalley)
Our Only World: Eleven Essays by Wendell Berry
Words Without Music: A Memoir by Philip Glass


I do have reasons for requesting all of these! The Gruen? Cold weather island. The Haig? New post-apocalyptic series. The Atkinson? Follow-up to the very intriguing, very successful Life After Life. The Levy? Dark fantasy that I may or may not connect with considering who they claim it is similar to (Gaiman, Mott, etc.) The Berry? I need to read more of him and I've only read fiction. Glass? Only one of the most interesting living composers of our time. Can't wait!