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Strega by Johanna Lykke Holm
I forgot to post about this one! I finished Strega in early April after a trip to my favorite local bookstore. I love this translator’s work (took the opportunity to order her newest, The Devil’s Grip, as well…). This book is eerie, cold, a little bit magical, but somehow soooo nourishing. It’s easy to fall…
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April Reads
I haven’t been a very good reader this month. My New Year’s Resolution was to read less in 2024 — and instead spend more time out with friends, hiking, and staying active. I think I’m doing alright so far, but seeing my short little book list is making me self-conscious. I started the month with…
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Ernesto by Umberto Saba
From the publisher: Ernesto is a classic of gay literature, a tender and complex tale of sexual awakening by one of Italy’s most admired poets. Ernesto is a sixteen-year-old boy from an educated family who lives with his mother in Trieste. His mother is eager for him to get ahead and has asked a local…
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SFF March
I sped through three books in early March. Not the same reading habits as previous months, but I was happy to have time to curl up and dig into books I really enjoyed. Oryx and Crake was pretty marvelous. I found it proof that one needn’t identify with characters in order to really adore a…
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Sci Fi in Spring
Three speculative books in the new season. Hoping to fix my reading habits just a bit. Maybe go back and finish some books I didn’t complete last month? Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may…
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The Details by Ia Genberg
YES. This was so very enjoyable. I was regularly reminded of The Red Book of Farewells by Pirkko Saiso. Somehow this book managed to have sparse, yet heavily emotional writing, with a strong sense of nostalgia and empathy. For example, the narrator describes her fever: “Like my current fever, that malaria infection installed sense of…
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Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark
I’m so glad I gave her another chance after The Driver’s Seat, which was almost too chilly to bear. This one is just hilarious. I kept cackling. The presumptuous main character who sees herself as a surveyor but is inextricably connected, part of the very disaster she judges… Snarky and literary and just good.
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Loneliness good and bad
I haven’t been reading the most recently, but I feel like I’m on familiar ground: literary fiction, international fiction, and wild magic. The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark This was a very strange start to Muriel Spark. I’m not sure why I did it—except that it was her only book available on Libby. A short,…
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The Love of Singular Men by Victor Heringer
I was blown away by Victor Heringer’s The Love of Singular Men, a hypnotizing story about a young boy and his teen love — a relationship cut short — and that same boy, now an aging man, as he returns to his childhood suburb of Quiem. [Spoiler]: The story moves easily between the landscape and…