Here is a roundup of books that I’ve been reading and loving since my last book post back in March.
If you can’t get to your local bookstore or library, I recommend buying used and new books via Alibris or Bookshop.
As ever, if you’ve read anything good this year, leave a recommendation at the bottom of this post. Books up!
The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel - From a remote hotel on Vancouver Island to Wall Street to a cargo ship in the middle of the ocean, this novel weaves together a strange cast of characters.
Cleanness by Garth Greenwell - A novel of interconnected stories, following a gay American teacher in Romania, as he finds sex and love, with some of the best written sex scenes I’ve ever read.
The Dominant Animal by Kathryn Scanlan - A collection of bizarre short stories, with a few animals, of course.
Strange Hotel by Eimear McBride - It was especially strange to read this novel during lockdown, as the protagonist moves from hotel to hotel, from Europe to the US, in search of a kind of respite.
This is Pleasure by Mary Gaitskill - This novella (find it here in the New Yorker) follows the sticky friendship of an older woman and man, during his fall from grace amid a series of allegations of sexual harrassment.
Missing, Presumed by Susie Stiener - Book one in the Manon Bradshaw detective series, will be back for the next two installments.
Sense and Sensibility the Screenplay and Diaries by Emma Thompson - I love Emma Thompson and thoroughly enjoyed reading her often hilarious journal entries about bringing the film Sense and Sensibility to life.
The Cutting Place by Jane Casey - The latest in Casey’s Maeve Kerrigan mysteries, this one dives into a secret gentlemen’s club in London.
Weather by Jenny Offill - Enjoyed reading this novel about the everyday in the middle of global crisis.
Untamed by Glennon Doyle - Her latest book chronicles her falling in love with Abby Wambach and ending her marriage, but I found a lot of the dilemmas about parenting, what it means to be a parent now to be the best bits.
Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino - Essays about this modern life. Amazing, everyone read this!
The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton - Late to the party with this one, but I’ve been enjoying Jessie Burton’s instagram for a while and realized I’d never read any of her books, so started at the beginning with her intricately woven novel set in 1600s Amsterdam.
Swallow the Air by Tara June Winch - Gorgeous and heartbreaking. Love Tara June Winch’s writing about a young aboriginal girl in Australia finding her way.
The Body Falls by Andrea Carter - Carter’s Irish mysteries follow a barrister who always ends up solving the crime in these small town dramas.
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett - Beautiful novel about twins that take dramatically different paths, and unwittingly meet up again, through their daughters. Recommending this to everyone I’ve chatted about books with this year. Read this one!
The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton - Inspired by the Secret Garden and (at least in the book) about a garden that inspires the Secret Garden, a mystery unravels in time, from Australia to a walled garden in England.
The Yield by Tara June Winch - Told in three parts, a young woman returns home to Australia after her grandfather’s death to try to save her family and the town’s land from a mining operation. August’s fight is interspersed sections of her grandfather’s missing book, and a letter from the man who set up the mission at the beginning of the century. Loved this book!!!
Actress by Anne Enright - A daughter puzzles through her complicated relationship with her mother, an actress, in Dublin.
Why We Swim by Bonnie Tsui - I was swimming mostly in pools while reading this one, as the ocean is too far away and travel is out this year, so I loved reading this book about all the reasons we return to the water.
The Dime by Kathleen Kent - Betty is a lesbian detective from Brooklyn, adjusting to life in Dallas, with a case gone haywire.
The Fixed Stars by Molly Wizenberg - I read both of Wizenberg’s other books about food and opening the Seattle restaurants Delancey and Essex and was really looking forward to this new memoir which takes a dramatic shift from her previous books, to tell her story of coming out as queer, ending her marriage, and finding love again.
How Do We Know We’re Doing It Right by Pandora Sykes - Another book of essays about our strange modern life, also amazing, from the host of The High Low podcast.
Swimming in the Sink by Lynne Cox - Reading Tsui’s book on swimming, as well as watching the documentary Fishpeople, made me dive into Lynne Cox’s books on her amazing swimming career. This book chronicles her recovery from a heart condition, where she quite literally swam in her sink as part of her physical therapy.
Grayson by Lynne Cox - This memoir goes back to Cox’s teenage years, swimming with a baby gray whale that had gotten separated from it’s mother.
My Mother Laughs by Chantal Akermann - Belgian film director Chantal Akermann’s memoir weaves back and forth between her mother’s illness and the end of a relationship.
That’s all for now! But I’m working my way through a new stack during this second lockdown. Are you reading anything good at the moment?