First Monday Book Day

First Monday Book Day – Labor Day “Get to Work” Edition

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The Olympics always mess up my reading schedule quite a bit, so in honor of not really reading all that much this month, here are a dozen short stories that I have not read yet from my bookmarked "Stories to Read" Folder.

SCI-FI

Charlie Jane Anders - The Time Travel Club (audio)
I loved Anders other short fiction, so it was completely on the reputation of the author that I picked this one.

Desirina Boskovich - The Island
I have no recollection of bookmarking this.  It appears to be a horror short story.  I'll have to read it and get back to you.

Chen Qiufan - The Mao Ghost
Translated by Ken Liu, who I love as an author and I've loved his choices for translated sci-fi work as well.

Aliette de Bodard - Prayers of Forges and Furnaces
I will read anything by de Bodard ... eventually.

Yoon Ha Lee - Combustion Hour
I feel like so many of these are "this author is awesome - I just haven't got around to this yet."  And that's exactly what this one is.

Sofia Samatar - Those
Sofia Samatar - Tender
Samatar's "Selkie Stories are for Losers" was a wonderful story and one that convinced me to read her first novel, which I really liked.

NON SCI-FI

Kobo Abe - The Magic Chalk
Abe is always surreal, but I've never read any of his short work.

Leopoldine Core - Historic Tree Nurseries
She won a Whiting Award last year, and every time I've read a book by someone who won that award, I've really enjoyed it - her collection "When Watched" is on my to-read list as well.

Clarice Lispector - Clandestine Happiness
Lispector (the most famous Brazilian woman author) is going to be my 2017 reading project, which includes her recently released complete collection of short stories.  I'll probably just pick this one up when I read that.

Tade Thompson - The Monkey House
The fun part about going through this list is finding stories that I have no clue where they came from or why I bookmarked them.  This must have been recommended somewhere, but I can't for the life of me remember where it came from.

Colin Winnette - Ghost Mountain Murder Mystery
I love Colin Winnette - "Giant Panda" is one of my favorite short stories of all time.  There's no good reason that I haven't already read this.

Anne Marie Wirth Cauchon - Wait Anywhere
Cauchon got me invested in a novel ("Nothing") with a cast full of self-absorbed twenty-somethings, which is kind of remarkable, so I marked this one to see what her other writing is like.

35 thoughts on “First Monday Book Day – Labor Day “Get to Work” Edition”

  1. On vacation, I read City of Thieves (D. Benioff) a romp in WW2 Leningrad for two young soldiers who have to find a dozen eggs in 3 days to get out of big trouble.

    Also The Dust That Falls From Dreams(L. de Bernières) a post WW1 English saga about two family's soldiers and their flying machines. LDB a great writer (also Birds Without Wings and Captain Corelli's Mandolin).

    And The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, (A. Barrows), German occupied WW2 Guernsey Island and how the citizens cope.

    And just finished this morning, Queen of the South (Arturo Pérez-Reverte) about a Mexican drug runner and her rise to wealth and power in the Mediterranean. I first ran into APR with his Cap'n Alatriste series and like everything he produces.

  2. I read Drew Magary's "The Hike". I thought it was a pretty good read, much like his "Postmortal". He built a fairly engrossing world. It's nothing like his Deadspin columns, if you're worried about that.

  3. I read the translations of Three Body Problem and The Dark Forest, then found out book three translation wouldn't be out until mid-month. Very intriguing ideas put forth in both.

    1. Loved TBP. I have Dark Forest on my shelf and Death's End on pre order. I noticed that Ken Liu is publishing a collection of stories he's translated from Chinese, which is kinda cool.

      1. I think of Liu's writing much like I do Kurosawa's movies -- you have to overlook some of the emotions and actions that the characters take as they definitely reflect a decidedly Chinese POV.

        While I didn't find the second book quite as as compelling (many readers intentionally avoid it for some reason), there are a couple things I found to be very interesting ideas, particularly

        for those who've read Three Body Problem SelectShow

        I did have a couple problems with later in the book, especially

        'Spoiler' SelectShow

  4. Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler. Novel. A 22-year-old college grad moves to New York City, gets a job at a restaurant that closely resembles the Union Square Cafe, and drama ensures. There's nothing incredibly new about the premise of this novel, but I loved it anyway. It's well written and keenly observed. While it's an intelligent novel, it also captures the physical sensations of this kind of work--the soreness of developing new muscles, a hand on a coworker's back as you pass by in a narrow corridor. It almost--almost--made me want to taste an oyster.

    I can see readers finding Tess, the main character, immature and annoying, but hey, she's 22. The book involved more drinking and cocaine use that I would have preferred, but when characters make bad choices, you kind of have to go along for the ride. For a while I was annoyed with Tess's ongoing infatuation with Jake, a bartender at the restaurant, partially because it was based on almost nothing and their conversations were brief and uninteresting. The book didn't seem to need that plot element, but then I remembered that Tess is a 22-year-old making bad choices, so of course she's obsessing over a guy when she shouldn't be. The majority of the book takes place in the restaurant, and it was refreshing to read a book where a character's place of work was so central.

    The chef Gabrielle Hamilton wrote an excellent review of the book here. And in another review, Dwight Garner made an observation that really stuck with me, "Once upon a time, this sort of aspirational, young person’s novel was written about writers and artists. Food workers are climbing the status ladder. Now these novels are about chefs or even, in this case, servers." (Confession: If I finish a book and can't get it out of my head, I'll start looking for reviews of it.)

    Along with everything else I mentioned, the novel does a great job of exploring class in the context New York City.

    not really about the book SelectShow

    1. Oysters are a gift from the gods. Fresh gulf oysters char grilled with butter and garlic and parmesan sprinkled over top? youbetcha.

  5. RIP Anna Dewdney, author/illustrator of the Llama Llama books.

    She requested that in lieu of a funeral service that people read to a child instead. Last night I read one of the peperoncino's favorites, Llama, Llama Misses Mama.

    1. My kids like to jokingly change her rhymes to words that make no sense. Llama, Llama, Holiday Pizza is a favorite year-round.

  6. I read The Roommate's book Custer's Trials. I found the first half (through the Civil War) to be very good, but the second half was a little disorganized. Stiles's thesis that Custer straddled the "old" and "new" Americas was very persuasive in some ways and very strained in others, but I really liked how he wrote the epilogue relying upon the testimony of the subsequent hearings into what happened.

    I also read Marlon James's A Brief History of Seven Killings. It was my rare foray into modern fiction, but I found it to be really good once I got the rhythm down. A few of the strains seem a little unnecessary, but overall it provided a fantastic portrait of Jamaica in the late 70s.

    2. A Brief History of Seven Killings was pretty amazing, I thought. The scope of the novel was so huge and it was so brutal and so ... dexterous? I don't know how else to say it, but I was really impressed with the book.

      1. A brief history is making the rounds in my circle. Dr. Chop is half way through and has, uh, enjoyed(?) it.

  7. I'm finally getting around to writing up my notes on the non-Sweetbitter reading I've done lately.

    Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys     by Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson. Nonfiction. Two child psychologists talk about boys. I got this book from the library because seeing my boys roughhousing night after night made me want more insight into growing up as a boy. I’m not sure this book quite offered what I was looking for. I found a few chapters to be good, but most were filled with anecdotes that didn’t really go anywhere about boys who were struggling because their needs weren’t being met. The book talked about the importance of discussing emotions with boys and not buying into macho stereotypes, which both seemed like useful (though very basic) takeaways.

    The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father by Kao Kalia Yang. Memoir/nonfiction. This is a new book from the author of The Latehomecomer, which I’ve heard of (my mom read it for her book club) but not actually read. This book focuses on the author’s father, Bee Yang. He grew up in a Hmong village in the mountains in Laos, escaped into the jungle when Communists started persecuting the Hmong after the end of the Vietnam War, spent years living at the Ban Vinai Refugee Camp in Thailand, and finally came to Minnesota as a refugee with his wife and daughters. The first 4 chapters of the book are stunningly written and absolutely heartbreaking. While I knew in the abstract what had happened to the Hmong people, seeing up close all that Bee Yang has to leave behind and the ways in which a whole way of life was destroyed by war and its aftermath was devastating. I found myself near tears multiple times while reading this. After the family arrives in Minnesota, the narrative meanders some. The second half of the book is told from the point of view of Kalia, and it didn’t have quite the power for me as the portions of the book told from her father’s point of view, though it was all still interesting material.

    once again, not really about the book SelectShow

  9. Finished Xenocide by Orson Scott Card - pretty much just, "woah!" I'll definitely pick up Children of the Mind, but I'm not sure I'll delve into Ender's Shadow anytime soon. I would like to expand the sci-fi universe I've been playing in.

    Iron Lake by William Kent Krueger - Neighbor lent this to me and I read it in about 3 days. It was an entertaining read, set in northern Minnesota (and accurate in those depictions) though the plot is not what anyone would consider "believable." I guess I don't suppose that's really the point.

    The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King - not sure how I overlooked this one (published in '99) as it's about a girl who is lost in the wilderness, utilizing her affinity for a baseball player as a method of coping/survival. I thoroughly enjoyed it; both the premise and execution were phenomenal.

    Just started The Drawing of the Three (also by King - #2 in The Dark Tower series). The Gunslinger was not what I expected, but in a really good way (was expecting The Stand-like I guess?). I'm excited to see where Roland goes next.

      1. Holy hell, I did not know that was actually happening. I better hurry up with the next 6 books if I want (continue) to avoid spoilers.

        1. From what I've read, I believe the movie will be more of a sequel to the books, so no rush.

          I've read through Wolves of the Calla, but I've heard some not great things about the last couple books that I haven't picked up the next one yet. (I also travel less, which hasn't helped.) I'll probably just get a wikipedia spoiler, then see the movie.

          This all also reminds me to reread American Gods since the show is in production.

          1. I am so disappointed that there is only 1 American Gods ... For me, that is one of my all-time favorite WGOM recommendations that turned out immensely better than the citizen recommendation intimated.

              1. I did. I've worked through nearly everything else he's written I liked Gods so much. Could just be that feeling of discovery, but that one's still tops for me.

                2. Now that I have a more than passing familiarity with southern Wisconsin, American Gods is that much more fun. The best so far is a reference to Muscoda, which is where the company I currently work for has our manufacturing facility.

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