Reading Envy 202: Jacket Flap with Chris and Emily of the Book Cougars

Chris and Emily, known fondly as Book Cougars, join me to discuss books we've read and liked recently. We address the controversy of one of the books selected, new books by well-loved authors, and authors that we're just discovering (and whose back files we need to read.) Links to Book Cougars are included at the end of the shownotes so check out their podcast too.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 202: Jacket Flap

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Books discussed:

 

All the Devils are Here by Louise Penny
Rage Baking edited by Kathy Gunst and Katherine Alford
Tides by Jonathan White
The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

Other mentions:

Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi
Book Cougars Goodreads Group - Sapphira and the Slave Girl discussion
Hurma by Ali Al-Muqri (book mentioned from Yemen)
Booktopia (at Northshire Bookstore)
Ann Kingman
Michael Kindness
Books on the Nightstand podcast (no new episodes)
Powells City of Books
Library of Congress - National Book Festival
Bloody Scotland Festival
Decatur Book Festival
Beowulf by Maria Dahvana Headley
The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson
Circe by Madeline Miller*
Emily's Lists
Tangerine Jones @ragebaking
Jenny's video playlist to accompany Tides
Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline
Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Bestiary by K. Ming Chang
Trumbull Park by Frank London Brown
Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman

*I kept referring to Madeline Miller as a translator. I do think she has the scholarly chops to translate, but her works that I've read and loved are novels that are retellings of myths. I know this, but misspoke during our discussion. Sorry!

Related episodes:

Episode 037 - Breakdancing to Bach with Juliane Kunzendorf
Episode 131 - Tartan Noir and More with Claire Duffy
Episode 133 - To Understand the World with Lauren Weinhold
Episode 157 - Joint Readalong of Gone with the Wind with Book Cougars
 

Stalk us online:

Jenny at Goodreads
Jenny on Twitter
Jenny is @readingenvy on Instagram and Litsy
Book Cougars website/podcast
Book Cougars are @bookcougars in Instagram

Reading Envy 167: Book Pendulum with Reggie

Reggie is a reading friend Jenny made in Litsy. Together we discuss coming back to reading, international postal book groups, plant blindness, and Reggie tries to talk Jenny into giving a book a second try.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 167: Book Pendulum with Reggie

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Books discussed:



Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hyomi Kawakami, translated by Allison Markin Powell
The Girl who Reads on the Métro by Christine Féret-Fleury
The Book of Night Women by Marlon James
Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor
The Saturday Night Ghost Club by Craig Davidson
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood


Other mentions:

Clive Barker
Anna Castillo
Julia Alvarez
For Real (Book Riot podcast)
Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes
The Fireman by Joe Hill
The Stand by Stephen King
Swan Song by Robert McCammon
A Boy's Life by Robert McCammon
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Haruki Murakami
Natsumi Sashimi
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori
The Overstory by Richard Powers
The Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (tv show)
Stray City by Chelsea Johnson
Chasing Amy (film)
Black Wave by Michelle Tea
The Troop by Nick Cutter
The Deep by Nick Cutter
Nobody Cries at Bingo by Dawn Dumont
Frankly in Love by David Yoon
Erosion: Essays of Undoing by Terry Tempest Williams


Related Episodes:

Episode 079 - Deliberately Silenced and Preferably Unheard with Rima Abunasser
Episode 080 - The Wild Things Helped with Jason Roland
Episode 086 - The Queen of Bailing with Shawn Mooney
Episode 101 - A Different Kind of Time Travel with Karen Acosta
Episode 105 - Best Reads of 2017 
Episode 112 - Reset Button with Eleanor Thoele
Episode 130 - All the Jennifers with Fern Ronay
Episode 161 - Women in Translation Month Recommendations with Lauren


Stalk us online:

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

Reading Envy 067: Rain and Readability

Ruth returns to the book-lined room of the Reading Envy pub, and we settle in to talk about books. We start off with some discussion of the titles we have read from the Man Booker Prize long list, and go from there.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 067: Rain and Readability.

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Books discussed:



PopCo by Scarlet Thomas
Memories from Moscow to the Black Sea by Teffi
Old Filth by Jane Gardam
Lady Susan by Jane Austen
Jane Steele by Lindsay Faye
The 6:41 to Paris by Jean-Philippe Blondel

Other mentions:

Man Booker Prize 2016
Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeline Thien
Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
The Sellout by Paul Beatty
Hystopia by David Means
Work Like Any Other by Virginia Reeves
The Many by Wyl Menmuir
His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet 
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
The Siege of Krishnapur by J. G. Farrell
The End of Mr. Y by Scarlet Thomas
Our Tragic Universe by Scarlet Thomas
Podcast discussing Teffi with the same passage - Open Book from BBC4
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
Serial Reader app
Mathilda by Mary Shelley
The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish
Love and Friendship (film)
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The Readers podcast
The Warden by Anthony Trollope
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
A Good Man is Hard to Find and other Stories by Flannery O'Connor
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee
24 in 48 readathon
An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Powells (Portland)
The Last Bookstore (Los Angeles)


Related episodes:
Episode 033 - An Undulating Thrum with guests Ruth and Elizabeth
Episode 023 - The Patron Saint of the Misfit Readers with guests Marco V. Morelli and Averi Dylan
Episode 061 - Never Do That to a Book with Elizabeth


Stalk us online:
Jenny at Goodreads
Ruth at Goodreads
Jenny on Twitter

New Books In, June 2016

June was a strange month where the books coming in were almost taller than my roses! I finally piled them all up today and made some tea (Thai osmanthus, thanks for asking.) More discussion and regions below the list.

Light Boxes by Shane Jones
Trains and Lovers by Alexander McCall Smith
The Good Life Elsewhere by Vladimir Lorchenkov
The 6:41 to Paris by Jean-Philippe Blondel, translated by Alison Anderson
Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea by Teffi
The Bug by Ellen Ullman
The Joys of Love by Madeleine L'Engle
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
The Colony by Jillian Weise
Summerlong by Peter S. Beagle
Enchanted Islands by Allison Amend
Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler
The Peripheral by William Gibson
Restless by William Boyd

Half this pile was from a trip to the used bookstore where I had credit to spend - Jones (because I loved the cover), Smith (because I wanted it in my collection), L'Engle (because I wanted to read more of her adult literature, although this doesn't qualify), the Hornby (to have in my collection), the Weise (because I had only read her poetry and know she's local), the Gibson (because I used to read all his novels and somehow never got around to this one), and the Boyd (because I enjoyed Any Human Heart.)

On Episode 061 of the Reading Envy Podcast, I discussed the book Some Day,a title from a publisher that was new to me. They contacted me and offered to send me a few more books, and I'm looking forward to the Lorchenkov (set in Moldova and the author is also from Moldova) and the Blondel. The Beagle is also a galley sent by a publisher, with the most beautiful cover! I only recently read The Last Unicorn for the first time and I'm looking forward to this one.

I ordered the Danler because it sounded right up my alley, the Teffi because a friend whose reading tastes are similar to mine demanded I read it right away, the Ullman because I had recently seen it on a list and then found it at a friends of the library bookstore in the NC mountains, and the Amend because I signed up for Book of the Month in a weak moment. All the readers in Litsy are doing it!

New Books In (all book club related!) for December 2015

Slight delay in this monthly post, due to all the year-end posting! This month has a tiny stack because I don't buy many books for myself in a holiday month.

Changeless (Parasol Protectorate #2) by Gail Carriger
The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It (P.S.) by Tilar J. Mazzeo
The Potbellied Virgin by Alicia Yánez Cossío

One of the online bookclubs I participate in, less so these days since I go to bed around the time they meet (10 pm est! I'm old and my dogs get up super early; by 10 I'm beat.) But once upon a time we read the first book of the Parasol Protectorate, and it was a lot of fun. I have been snagging other books in the series when I see them for under $3, but still didn't have #2. I did a little used bookstore hopping between Christmas and New Years and there it was, book #2, for around $2. 

My library's copy of the Mazzeo was checked out and I just knew I wouldn't find it before my in-person international book club meets (on the 4th of January), and was just going to skip this one. Used bookstore #2 had it, shiny and in great condition, in the food writing section. It was $4 but I had more than that in bookstore credit, so it was like a free little gift. 

The Cossío is for that same international book club, in April, but I am leading discussion that month so I wanted to have a chance to read it ahead of time. Amazon had a used copy for super cheap so I snagged it.

Did you get any books for the holidays? Do tell!

Jenny's Library Books Mid-August Edition

The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt
I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You by Courtney Maum
The Lady in Gold by Anne-Marie O'Connor
Orfeo by Richard Powers
History of the Rain by Niall Williams

This month is dominated by the Man Booker Prize longlist.  Half the books won't be available in the USA until after the shortlist is announced, but I wanted to read some of the longlist.  That explains the Hustvedt, the Powers, and the Williams.

The Lady in Gold is coming up for my International Club of the Upstate Bookclub in September, and the Maum was just for me.  I zipped through the Maum last weekend, and hope to at least start some of the Booker longlisted books this weekend.

Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan

Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It took a long time to get to this book. When it was nominated for the Booker, and then for the Giller prize, it still wasn't available for purchase in the USA.  (You can refresh your memory with my rant here.) Edugyan won the Giller prize for Half Blood Blues, and then was also included on the long list for the Orange Prize. I finally tracked a copy down, and I am so glad I did.

Half Blood Blues goes back and forth between 1939 in Berlin, 1940 in Paris, and 1992 in a handful of countries, circling around the world of jazz musicians from the Berlin scene and how their lives were impacted by World War II, particularly Nazi racial politics.

I don't usually gravitate towards war novels, but that is merely the background of the story. The way the author is able to combine dialects from Baltimore to the German-Africans to just the jazz culture - without it being grating - is laudable. More than anything, the characters are imperfect but incredibly likeable, and the ending was amazing.

Plus, it is about jazz in Berlin, which I simply don't know enough about. I would be completely shocked if this didn't end up on the Orange Prize shortlist, with its other accolades as well as my own positive experience.