At age 22, Suleika is diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. What follows are three years of brutal treatments: extensive chemotherapy, an experimental clinical trial, and a bone marrow transplant. The second half of this honest and insightful book details her “survival”, the transition back to the real world. Her coping strategy is to undertake a 15,000-mile road trip to visit those who sustained her when she was very ill. Cancer forces people to face mortality, and emotions are complicated and often conflicted because suffering makes you selfish. Suleika has to imagine a future that includes anger and fear; her writing is brutally honest and courageous. Thanks Sarah, for this recommendation.
Category: Genre
The Mermaid Of Black Conch – Monique Roffey
Aycayia was once an indigenous Taino woman in the Caribbean. What curse transformed her into a mermaid? If she is captured, will she re-transform into a woman? What will be her fate? How are the island lives changed by this phenomenon? This is a great story, no surprise since it is a Heather O’Neill recommendation.
Good Moms On Paper – Edited by Stacy May Fowles and Jen Sookfong Lee
Twenty essays about motherhood by (obviously) women authors: struggles with work-life balance, feeling fraudulent as both mother and writer, and creative compulsion – powerful themes with insightful thoughts. Essays cover both biological and adoptive parenting, new mothers, and relationships with the essayist’s mother. Heather O’Neill writes “being a single mother working on a novel is like asking a clairvoyant to book a ticket on the Titanic – it’s a bad idea”! Highly recommended.
Silverview – John Le Carre
This is Le Carre’s 26th and final novel; he died on 2020-12-12. The story is a reflection on the disillusionment of spies in a fragmented intelligence service. As always, the prose is elegant: “the Avon clan .. was united, not in the secrets they shared, but in the secrets they kept from one another”. Overall, an insightful glimpse into the lonely, secret world of spies by a masterful author.
Fifty-Four Pigs – Philipp Schott
Mystery-crime stories are influenced markedly by context (time and place) and the “amateur sleuth” (think Miss Marple and Jessica Fletcher) is a special genre. This intriguing first novel is about a crime-solving veterinarian in Manitoba who uses logic and his dog Pippin’s remarkable nose to investigate when a swine barn explodes, revealing a murder victim. Totally charming.
Circus of Wonders – Elizabeth Macneal
In Victorian England, the circus featured “human curiosities”, aka the freak show. The “performers” are exploited and objectified but also experience fame as someone no longer relegated to the shadows. There is also an interesting back-story of the Crimean War. A richly detailed historical novel, an enthralling slice of Victoriana.
Let Me Tell You What I mean – Joan Didion
First, a confession: the only Didion book I have read is The Year Of Magical Thinking. This short book contains 12 essays, written from 1968-2000. The best essays are the early ones, describing Didion’s initial lack of success which is revealing since she became such an iconic and influential writer. Indeed, her writing is a joy to read. Thanks Amy, for giving me this book.
Sweet Land Stories – E.L Doctorow
Generally, I don’t read short stories because they are … too short to be engaging (with Alice Munro stories a notable exception). This collection of five stories is also an exception: varied narratives with different times and locations, but with remarkable insight into who we are as a people and how we live. Thanks Hilary and Gerry, for the loan.
The Employees – Olga Ravn
This is a fascinating and original story. The Six Thousand spaceship has both a human and humanoid crew. The ship removes strange objects from the planet New Discovery. The story is told as a series of statements, like an HR debrief. Is this part of an investigation? What causes tension among the humanoids? Is this an existential nightmare? Much is left to our imaginations; very entertaining.
What David Read 