Tag: childhood
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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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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…
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Just Finished: Silver Repetition
After an extremely tough start with terrible metaphors and aggravating characters, this became a sparse, sad exploration of an immigrant family. What happened with that first 40 pages!? I do not recommend simply on the basis of that lopsided introductory section. From the publisher: In Silver Repetition, Lily Wang’s endless, perfect loops of memory and dream,…
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Blackheart Knights by Laure Eve
A hard departure into my other love, queer science fiction with Medieval themes! Sometimes I feel a bit self-conscious, torn as I am between melancholy, homoerotic, midcentury European fiction and underground urban fantasy. I have a weak sense of my own taste, torn as it is between “high brow” and “low brow.” Terms that make…
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Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
From the publisher, awkward and incomplete descriptions that make me wonder if anyone read the book. VERSION ONE: England, 1580: The Black Death creeps across the land, an ever-present threat, infecting the healthy, the sick, the old and the young alike. The end of days is near, but life always goes on. A young Latin…
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Slow River by Nicola Griffith
After a dud attempt with John Darnielle’s newest (sadly), and waaaaaay too much reading on the internet, I figured the best way to break my reading slump was with a tried and true favorite. Nicola Griffith is currently touring for her newest book in the Hild sequence, and I just read Spear, so why not…
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Chrestomanci Continues
Three more Chrestomancis! Of course. I have since taken a slight interlude, but I definitely plan on finishing these. The Lives of Christopher Chant Conrad’s Fate Witch Week Soon to be followed by Magicians of Verona. I don’t feel that Conrad’s Fate and Witch Week have as powerful world building or plots as the first…
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Absurdity and History
Just finished two fantastic novels now that I’m back in town. Couldn’t have wished for a better duo. Earthlings by Sayaka Murata As I may have mentioned previously, Convenience Store Woman got me out of a desperate, grief-induced reading block, so I’ve been thinking about reading this one since I heard about it. Believing she’s…
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Currently Reading: Stork Mountain and Henry and June
New to me: Stork Mountain by Miroslav Penkov. From the publisher: In Stork Mountain, a young Bulgarian immigrant returns to the country of his birth in search of his grandfather, who suddenly and unexpectedly broke contact with the family three years earlier. The trail leads him to a village on the border with Turkey, a…
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Growing Up
Really, really happy with the two books I just read, which represent two utterly different experiences of girlhood and growing up. My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein I thought this book was utterly marvelous. It made me re-download The Heart is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers — that’s the sort…