Reading Envy 117: Bonus Episode, Book Speed Dating Round 2

As promised, I am back with another round of book speed dating, and all of them are galleys. Most came out in April so you can read them right away if they are up your alley but one will wait until June. I think even the books I didn't love might be perfect for someone else. I also have an announcement about summer reading.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 117: Bonus Speed Dating 2018-2

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Click here to read about Reading Envy Summer Reading

Books Discussed:

Eventide by Therese Bohman, translated by Marlaine Delargy
Acid West: Essays by Joshua Wheeler
The Linden Tree by César Aira, translated by Chris Andrews
West by Carys Davies
Rough Animals by Rae DelBianco
Godforsaken Grapes: A Slightly Tipsy Journey through the World of Strange, Obscure, and Underappreciated Wine by Jason Wilson
The Changeling by Joy Williams
Screwnomics: How Our Economy Works Against Women and Real Ways to Make Lasting Change by Rickey Gard Diamond
Pearls on a Branch: Oral Tales by Najla Jraissaty Khoury, translated by Inea Bushnaq
The View from Flyover Country: Dispatches from the Forgotten America by Sarah Kendzior
Shunned: How I Lost My Religion and Found Myself by Carol A. Curtis



Other Mentions: 

Ema, the Captive by César Aira
JennyBakes
The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It by Tilar Mazzeo
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
The Original Reading Envy Speed Dating Project (with rules)
Speed Dating Round Two
Speed Dating Round Three
Speed Dating Round Four


Related Episodes:

Episode 035 - Speed Dating Books
Episode 047 - Sex with Elvis: Bonus Book Speed Dating Episode
Episode 059 - Are you Inspired Yet? bonus book speed dating 
Episode 063 - Desolation Road (book speed dating and books on grief) 
Episode 076 - Borderlands (Reading Goals 2017) - includes speed dating rounds 5-6 of 2016
Episode 113 - Speed Dating 2018, round 1

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Jenny is @readingenvy on Instagram and Litsy   

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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