Reading Envy 212: Subtly Fascinating with Vinny

Vinny is technically a new guest, although his voice may be familiar from a readalong episode. We talk about books strange and weird, translated, and an exciting memoir few have heard of.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 212: Subtly Fascinating.

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Books discussed: 

What You Have Heard is True: A Witness of Memoir and Resistance by Carolyn Forché
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link
Catherine the Great and the Small by Olja Knezevic, translated by Ellen Elias-Bursać and Paula Gordon
The Birds by Tarjei Vesaas; translated by Michael Barnes

Other mentions:

The Emigrants by W.G. Sebald
Claribel Alegría
The Country Between Us by Carolyn Forché
Get in Trouble by Kelly Link
The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell
Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell
Weeki Wachee State Park
Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi
Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam
The Changeling by Victor Lavalle

Related episodes:

Episode 137 - Reading Envy Readalong: The Golden Notebook
Episode 198 - Mood Reading with Robin
Episode 203 - Backlist with Marion

Stalk us online:

Vinny is @billypar on Litsy
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.

New Books In, January 2016

Heart of the Original by Steve Aylett
Year's Best Weird Fiction, Vol. 2 edited by Kathe Koja
Eleanor by Jason Gurley
The Sunlit Night by Rebecca Dinerstein

This month's piles includes two review books and two books I bought brand new! The Aylett came to my work mail, unrequested. It appears to be a book on creativity by a science fiction author; I hadn't heard about it but I'm always interested in that topic so I'm looking forward to it. The Gurley was on the Blogging for Books list and I had not done one of those in a while. I should get to that one soon.

I bought the Koja because it included a Nathan Ballingrud story I had not yet read (I interviewed him for Episode 041 of the podcast). I've already read the entire volume. The Dinerstein has been on my radar for a while and I just went for it.

On a more personal, unpublished and unavailable note, my Grandma passed away at the beginning of December. I was unable to go to the memorial service, as were several of my cousins. My family made sure I got a copy of the updated memoir, which two of my cousins had worked with my grandma to update. I'm lucky in that I got to see her twice in the past two years, despite living across the country from her. I feel even more lucky that I have her story in her own words.

One memorable tidbit - finding out that her parents made liquor in the basement during prohibition. A little rebellion streak goes through both sides of my family.

Reading Envy 021: Amoebic Borders

Jenny and writer/editor/designer Darin Bradley sit down on a cold afternoon in the Reading Envy pub to discuss reading from a variety of perspectives. Get ready to add some books to your to-read lists!

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy Episode 21

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Darin is the author of three novels—Noise (2010), Chimpanzee (2014), and Totem (2016)—as well as co-editor of the literary fringe journal Bahamut and editor-in-chief of the experimental ezine Farrago's Wainscot. With a Ph.D. in Literature and Theory, he works as an acquisitions and production editor at Resurrection House, having previously spent a number of years teaching writing and literature at several universities. He has also worked as the principal video game writer at id Software and has served in various editorial and design capacities for a number of independent presses and journals. He lives in Texas with his wife, where he dreams of empty places.

Credits: Darin Bradley (bio), Erin Rambo (photo)

This episode is not sponsored by Microsoft. We swear!

Books and authors mentioned:
 
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
Light Years by James Salter
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
The Names by Don DeLillo
Afterparty by Daryl Gregory
Kelly Link
Jeffrey Ford
Jonathan Lethem
China Mieville 
Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel
Trampoline: An Anthology edited by Kelly Link
Alfred Bester
Underworld by Don DeLillo
Falling Man by Don DeLillo
Totem by Darin Bradley (forthcoming)
Archangel by Marguerite Reed (forthcoming)
King of Shards by by Matthew Kressel (forthcoming)
We Dream of Water by Srdjan Smajic (forthcoming)
Chimpanzee by Darin Bradley - the audio play
Ready Player One by Ernst Cline
Word Made Flesh by Jack O'Connell
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey

Other mentions:
Farrago's Wainscot - a quarterly journal of the literary weird in fiction and poetry
Bahamut Journal -  a biannual journal of the progressive fringe in transnational literature
University of North Texas English Department - Special Events (includes information on Darin's reading)
Texas Book Festival

Stalk us online:
Darin Bradley 
Jenny at GoodReads
Jenny on Twitter