I’ve got a pile of books on my desk and in my e-reader, so let’s take a look at what we’re hoping to get on the site in the near future.
Except for my good friend, JR, who prefers his realism of the non-magical variety, I defy anyone to read the opening chapter of Victory City by Salmon Rushdie and not want to keep going.
On the last day of her life, when she was two hundred and fort-seven years old, the blind poet, miracle worker, and prophetess Pampa Kampana completed her immense narrative poem about Bisnaga and buried it in a clay pot sealed with wax in the heart of the ruined Royal Enclosure, as a message to the future.
Really liking this from the start: War, mass suicides, fraudulent holy men, mute prophetesses, cities rising from the stone and dust…fun stuff.
Charmaine Craig’s My Nemesis should finally be hitting my Kobo via Overdrive any minute, so it falls into the queue. Miss Burma was fantastic, so I’m looking forward to the tense rivalry described by reviewer between the main characters. Here’s what Kirkus said:
“An intense portrayal of an intellectual affair as well as a private competition between two women with perfectly balanced moments of tension and introspection . . . Craig never lets her first-person narrator off the hook . . . Cerebral and tense.”
Sounds great. We’ll check back in on this soon.
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai might have been my favorite novels of 2018, so I’m thrilled that her new novel goes on sale next week. I Have Some Questions For You hits the street on Tuesday and goes to the top of the list. Forgotten pasts, boarding school murders, possibly unsolved mysteries, psychological rabbit holes; Feels like a classic literary mystery à la The Secret History.
Okay, its really a March book, but I keep writing and tweeting about Catherine Lacey’s Biography of X. Can you tell I’m excited? I read the first section, and I’ve been making notes and putting the early parts of the review together. No serious spoilers though. I’m waiting for that day (today?) when I’ll have a few uninterrupted hours to enjoy it. But I won’t do any press on it for about a month, I guess. JR says he’ll read it. Seems like his sort of book, too. The cynicism about the art world is <chef’s kiss>.
Thanks to the publishers on Netgalley and Edelweiss for making e-galleys available, and thanks to Overdrive for making library ebooks on my Kobo so easy. More soon…JC
