Books Read April 2021: 82-113

My major project for National Poetry Month is a book I haven't finished yet, so it's weird to not have posted as much about poetry as I usually do. And most of the poetry I picked up otherwise wasn't poetry I connected with well. Some years are like that! I removed the book covers from the one book I reread twice from the image so I could get a better square, but they are in the list below.

A gentle reminder that all reviews can still be seen on my Goodreads profile (the review will be with the book; the format will be specified unless it's in print.) And the books with green outlines are my 5-star reads for the month!

 

82. The Girl from the Channel Islands by Jenny Lecoat ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
83. Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
84. Act Your Age, Eve Brown Talia Hibbert ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
85. The Weather That Kills by Patricia Spears Jones ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
86. We Trade Our Night for Someone Else's Day by Ivana Bodrožić, translated by Ellen Elias-Bursać ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
87. Exhibitionist by Molly Cross-Blanchard ⭐️⭐️⭐️
88. I Would Leave Me if I Could Halsey ⭐️⭐️⭐️
89. No Friend but the Mountains by Behrouz Boochani, translated and transcribed by Omid Tofighian ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
90. Nightwood by Djuna Barnes ⭐️⭐️⭐️
91. The Actual True Story of Ahmed and Zarga Mohamedou Ould Slahi by Larry Siems and Mohamedou Ould Slahi ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
92. God of Nothingness by Mark Wunderlich ⭐️⭐️⭐️
93. Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass by Lana Del Rey, read by Lana Del Rey ⭐️⭐️⭐️
94. The Ensemble Aja Gabel ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
95. The Baddest Girl on the Planet by Heather Frese ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
96. Brood by Jackie Polzin ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
97. Mona by Pola Oloixarac, translated by Adam Morris ⭐️⭐️⭐️
98. The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
99. The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune, narrated by Daniel Henning ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
100. Understory: a life with trees by Inga Simpson, narrated by Inga Simpson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
101 An Inventory of Losses by  Judith Schalansky, translated by Jackie Smith ⭐️⭐️⭐️
102. Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
103. At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop, translated by Michelle Moschovakis ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
104. The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
105. In My Own Moccasins by Helen Knott ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
106. Safe Area Gorazde by Joe Sacco ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
107. Broken by Jenny Lawson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
108. Permafrost by Eva Baltasar, translated by Julia Sanches ⭐️⭐️⭐️
109. The Viscount who Loved Me by Julia Quinn, narrated by Rosalyn Landor ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
110. The Scapegoat by Sara Davis ⭐️⭐️⭐️
111. Nancy by Bruno Lloret, translated by Ellen Jones ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
112. If You Kept a Record of Wrongs by Andrea Bajani, translated by Elizabeth Harris ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
113. Exhalation by Ted Chiang, narrated by Edoardo Ballerini, Dominic Hoffman, Amy Landon, and Ted Chiang ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 

 Total Books Read: 32

Reread: 2

audio: 5
eBook: 18
print: 9

library: 8
personal copy: 9
review copy: 13
subscription: 2

Around the World: 14
Europe 2021: 5

Fantasy: 3
Science fiction: 2
Memoir: 5
Music: 1
Poetry: 5
Romance: 2
Translated: 8
Women in Translation: 3

Review: If You Kept a Record of Sins

If You Kept a Record of Sins by Andrea Bajani
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lorenzo's mother dies after he hasn't seen her in many years, and he travels to Romania for her funeral. He meets his mother's former partner (business and love) and others from her life. There are memorable moments and characters like the driver, the new young lover of his mother's former partner, the coffin maker, and a funeral in the middle of a church under construction, attended by the workers. The novel is written in 2nd person, as in Lorenzo addressing his internal thoughts to his dead mother.

This is an outsider view, of Romania, of his mother. One is probably better than portrayed - Romania. There are multiple characters talking about how Romanians "don't want to work" and a lot of negative stereotypes along those lines. Ceaușescu Palace looms in the background as a reminder of recent oppression, which the characters seem to feel in their bones, while at the same time trying to separate from it. Lorenzo is also an outsider to his mother, since she left him with his Dad in Italy when he was a child, and came back less and less as she took her "weight loss egg" to the world. Except I get the sense that either her business flopped or it was never a success to begin with, and she was in Romania for different reasons. He seems to know nothing about her decline and how she was living when she died.

Another side note - I know a Romanian who had to travel to that country after her mother died and it took months to work through the bureaucracy. Lorenzo must have better connections, because in under one week he has a funeral, cleans out her home, and deals with the business.

One more side note, the title is a Biblical reference, Psalm 130:3, included in many Lenten and funeral rites as well. "If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?" A priest reads this at the mother's funeral and it leads into a confrontation between the son and former partner that felt very smart.

Thank you Archipelago Books for bringing books and authors to us through your translations and publications! I had a copy of this from the publisher through Edelweiss. It came out March 3, 2021.

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Review: Nancy

Nancy by Bruno Lloret
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Nancy by Bruno Lloret, translated by Ellen Jones, is about Nancy, her childhood, her long marriage that ends badly, returning to Chile with a cancer diagnosis, etc. The childhood part comes after her adulthood and fills in some gaps about her negligent parents. The physical book has an interesting layout with X marking punctuation sometimes, but sometimes it's more visual. I am a Two Lines Press subscriber so they also sent a letterpress print of a page of the book, pretty unexpected and cool.

I like when an author does something I haven't seen before, and even more when someone manages to translate it. The X on the page feels like found poetry, or my just poetry, also like a symbol. I have talked before on the podcast about how infrequently we see Mormon characters (perhaps more appropriately LDS characters) in books outside of "inspirational" titles but this plays a major part in at least one character's story. It showed a Chile that was more of a conglomeration of other places' remnants, a bit bleak, more current than other books I've read placed there.

One of my goals this year is to be more immediate in reading subscription books so gold star for me as I've had it only a month or less.

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Review: Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia, 1992-1995

Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia, 1992-1995 by Joe Sacco
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I can't remember who recommended this to me (sorry!) but I'm glad I was able to find this at the library, a journalist's account of the war in Bosnia, specifically Gorazde, from 1992-95, as well as the immediate aftermath. I appreciated the point of view of the Muslims left in the city when their Serbian neighbors left suddenly and then became their enemies, and the graphic treatment captures the wide ranging emotions from bewilderment to betrayal. And then trying to understand the decisions made by the UN and Nato, and the worry about being "traded" in the final resolution. The image focus allows for extras like maps, which aids in my understanding for sure. How Gorazde connects to Sarajevo, or doesn't, is really important.

This story connects directly to The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andric, which is on my shelf but maybe should be my follow-up read. The author also recommends some nonfiction reads in the back that look helpful in providing some broader context.

I once worked at a bakery with one Bosnian refugee and one Serbian refugee and they refused to interact...I'm starting to get it.

This is for my Europe2021 project, and of course CW for all war related topics, possibly more disturbing because they are portrayed and brains might remember images differently.

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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: At Night All Blood is Black

At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an incredibly violent book but I imagine it will be included in the Booker International shortlist (I was right,) because the language is vivid and tight, the story is not one I've read before (Senegalese soldiers fighting for France in World War I,) and it has this underlying rhythm with short chapters and repeated phrases that serve to whip it up to the frenzy of the end. But then it's like you as the reader are a part of what happens, and this is not a good feeling.

"Yes, I understood, God's truth, that on the battlefield they only wanted fleeting madness. Madmen of rage, madmen of pain, furious madmen, but temporary ones. No continuous madmen. As soon as the fighting ends, we're to file away our rage, our pain, and our fury. Pain is tolerated, we can bring our pain home on the condition that we keep it to ourselves....Before returning home, we must denude ourselves of rage and fury, we must strip ourselves of it, and if we don't we are no longer playing the game of war. Madness, after the Captain blows his whistle to retreat, is taboo."

CW for war, murder, dismemberment, rape, racism. The trench is referred to repeatedly as female anatomy, and since the author uses repetition as a tool, if something is going to bother you once, it is likely to repeat. I mean, would it kill translators to select a book about an old lady planting a garden? Reading a lot of translated lit takes you into some dark places.

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Review: Crying in H Mart: A Memoir

Crying in H Mart: A Memoir by Michelle Zauner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Michelle Zauner writes about losing her Mom to cancer, what it was like to grow up Korean-American, how she connects to her family through food (and discovers this while caring for her mother.)

Near the end of the book she talks about finally finding success as a musician, which she never expected, in her band called Japanese Breakfast. The cover of Psychopomp has her mother reaching a hand out.

I was expecting something a bit lighter, maybe a bit more snappy, but I also enjoy grief memoirs, so even though it was slower paced than I expected, I felt a true sense of the author by the end. I also liked hearing her stories about Eugene, Oregon, since that's not too far from where I grew up. I may have spent some time watching the food YouTube videos she mentions, and reading articles about the many H Marts in Oregon. My youngest sister took me to a Korean market in Beaverton that had Koreans upstairs and a kimchee tasting table, but I don't think it was an H Mart.

Thanks to the publisher for providing access to this title through NetGalley. It came out April 20, 2021.

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