And it was not received, but these were:
Quite a haul and all non-fiction, I just realized.
Anyway, I picked up a copy of Let Us Descend from a local bookstore so all is good.
I happily lost myself in The Heaven and Earth Grocery for a couple of days, caught up with some online reading, and am now pondering over Rosanna Xia’s California Against the Sea: Visions for Our Vanishing Coastline. It’s engrossing and disconcerting.
I’m going to try Social Justice Fallacies, but will save discussion for elsewhere!
ETA Four week wait from the library!
Homegoing / Yaa Gyasi
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida / Shehan Karunatilaka
I loved “Homegoing!” . I then read *Transcendent Kingdom".
I started it a while ago (actually met the author when it first came out too), then life got in the way.
Would love your thoughts on this; the story has stayed with me long after I closed the cover.
Random thought about The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, was how some of the elements tied into Timothy Egan’s A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them.
I finished California Against the Sea, which was quite thoughtful; definitely elements of The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World, Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore, and Charleston: Race, Water, and the Coming Storm. All of these are recommended, by the way.
Now onto Liliana’s Invincible Summer!
Eat Everything: How to Ditch Additives and Emulsifiers, Heal Your Body, and Reclaim the Joy of Food by Dawn Harris Sherling. It’s all in the title. I knew a bit about this before I started reading and it just reaffirms that mass manufactured stuff that sells itself as food just should not.
Might be interested in this essay/reading list, though it’s out-of-date:
I came across it looking for some information about Maaza Mengiste. I’d devoured The Shadow King and echos of the story have lingered in my mind. I’m currently reading The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat and the overlap with the novel (Ethiopia, Haile Selassie) had me pondering.
On the topic of pondering and the echoes of stories, Liliana’s Invincible Summer is one heck of a read, though emotionally distressing. So too, though not as discomforting, is the speculative fiction I read following Liliana, The Mountain In the Sea. The latter has me thinking much about consciousness and communication, along with environmental collapse.
Thank you! Those sound great!
Here’s something I found; it should be a gift link to Overlooked Black History, in Three New Novels
Your link didn’t work for me, so I’m also gift- linking to the NYT piece:
Nice! I can rarely make those work!
They’ve been hit or miss for me. Sure do appreciate them when they work!
I’m currently halfway through the very charming The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai.
“What’s the one dish you’d do anything to taste just one more time? Down a quiet backstreet in Kyoto exists a very special restaurant. Run by Koishi Kamogawa and her father Nagare, the Kamogawa Diner serves up deliciously extravagant meals. But that’s not the main reason customers stop by. The father-daughter duo are ‘food detectives’. Through ingenious investigations, they are able to recreate dishes from a person’s treasured memories - dishes that may well hold the keys to their forgotten past and future happiness. The restaurant of lost recipes provides a link to vanished moments, creating a present full of possibility. A bestseller in Japan, The Kamogawa Food Detectives is a celebration of good company and the power of a delicious meal.”
At first, I thought the language was a little stilted and simple, but I stayed with it and love it.
That sounds delightful! It’s now on my ever-growing list.
Has anyone read What’s Cooking in the Kremlin: From Rasputin to Putin, How Russia Built an Empire with a Knife and Fork or How to Feed a Dictator? I think I stumbled across a NYT review of the former and it sounded intriguing, as does the latter.
This was excellent, as expected. (One of my reading goals for this year is re/reading everything I can find by Ryszard Kapuściński.
This was followed by two meh-ish reads: Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2140 and Narcas: The Secret Rise of Women in Latin America’s Cartels.
With the Robinson book, I was fascinated by the science and ideas while very annoyed by many characters, especially his depiction of women. (This has been a consistent issue for me with his books, though I keep buying, reading, and recommending them with caveats. He makes the science accessible and the climate change future impacts plausible, but the characters are just not great.)
As for the Narcas book, the premise was excellent and the women discussed quite intriguing. But there wasn’t enough information about any of them. (Which actually proves the author’s thesis.) I wanted so much more! Additionally, I think the book needed a stronger editing, with multiple topics being explained and then re-explained even within chapters.
Now I’m reading When I Was Five I Killed Myself, which my partner loved and is enthusiastic that I read - I’m not sure if I want to keep with it, as it’s disquieting in an unpleasant way. Or maybe it’s just not the right story for me right now?
Just finished Parachute Infantry by David Kenyon Webster, one of the source books for the Band of Brothers series. Very interesting read – there’s very little actual combat. Webster was a good writer.
Has no one mentioned Piglet by Lottie Hazell ?
I thought I read about it here.
Here is a gifted NYT review .
Just finished Mrs. Quinn’s Rise to Fame by Olivia Ford. It’s perfect for fans of the British Bake Off. Very sweet, sometimes almost too much so, but I enjoyed it. Wish it had more recipes.
Gift link to NYT review: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/29/books/review/mrs-quinns-rise-to-fame-olivia-ford.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Y00.B_kI.msnfIcqBVYwY&smid=url-share
Just came across a reference to this:
