Tag: Literary Fiction

  • The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver

    This took me by surprise — Kingsolver’s first book, published in 1988, and every bit as relevant today. She targets white privilege, racism and how society treats the poor, the racialized, women. But overall it’s about how family finds you, even if there’s no blood relation. And it’s terrific.  It’s a much smaller story, but…

  • 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster by Mirinae Lee

    “…the biggest deception of all, and the kindest there is, is to be deceived. That could mean invaluable comfort to the other.” The only criticism I have for this book is that it was too short. In the hands of another author this would have been a monster 900-page generational epic. Mirinae Lee isn’t here…

  • Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter

    This was readable, and there was building tension that I was drawn in by, but I don’t imagine it’s going to stay with me (for obvious reasons). I’m not the target demographic, but I also felt that this book doesn’t do much to distinguish itself from other current MFA-lit. Style over substance in a big…

  • Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

    I like to read about the books I read, when I like them or feel like there is more to them than I’m picking up. This is one of those books. But it was published in 1998, which is a weird time for culture. There’s a gap in the 80s and 90s that a lot…

  • Our Share of Night by Mariana Enríquez

    “Ghosts are real. And the ones who come aren’t always the one you’ve called.” This book is like nothing else I’ve ever read. A family drama that spans 3 generations, but also the family is a bunch of literal monsters. Enriquez’s writing (and Megan McDowell’s translation) is so straightforward and matter-of-fact that it amplifies the…

  • The Only Story by Julian Barnes

    Julian Barnes is a new favourite author. I hadn’t read anything by him until The Sense of an Ending a couple months ago, and I haven’t been able to get that book out of my head since. This one might even be better. It’s one of the saddest things I’ve ever read. Even so, I was absolutely…

  • Biography of X by Catherine Lacey

    Just astonishing. This book is the most ambitious and layered thing I’ve read in a long, long time. The style of writing is kind of like Rachel Cusk, meditative and conversational, kind of highbrow, but often shockingly direct. It’s full of ideas about history, politics and art, identity, relationships, and a whole lot more. At…

  • Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

    Julian Barnes never really crossed my radar until recently. In the Sutherland House newsletter (essential reading IMO) Ken Whyte described something as “What Julian Barnes would call a nickel fucker.” Which resulted in me buying this book. It’s great, if you’re a certain demographic. It’s full of things like this: …this may be one of the differences…

  • Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton

    I had no expectations for this book and I think that’s the right way to approach it. I’d seen that it received some good press and it was available at the library so I dove in. What an outrageously good surprise. This is kind of a crime thriller, but way smarter. The author uses the…

  • A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

    I could have read a thousand more pages of this. Opening this book was like curling up with a dog and a blanket and a warm beverage. It was so warm and charming and comforting. Towles can write. The story itself was somewhat small in scope, but it didn’t matter. Almost every page had a sentence…