Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott
The House is on Fire by Rachel Beanland
Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City by Andrea Elliott
I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself by Marisa Crane
The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré
Endpapers by Jennifer Savran Kelly
Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa
Lavender House by Lev A.C. Rosen
-Linnea
If you’ve been putting off writing that novel, November is the time to hunker down and get started. National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) takes place during the whole month of November. The organization began in 1999 and has grown to have over 400,000 participants. The challenge is self-directed but if you’re interested in winning any of the prizes, you’ll have to follow the rules:
Whether you’re ready for the challenge or just want to use NaNoWriMo as the perfect time to put pen to paper, check out these books for inspiration:
No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-stress, High-velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days by Chris Baty
Letters to a Writer of Color by Deepa Anappara
Bushwhacking: How to Get Lost in the Woods and Write Your Way Out by Jennifer McGaha
Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life after which Everything was Different by Chuck Palahniuk
Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
-Linnea
We’re nearing the end of spooky season and if you haven’t gotten your fill of scary stories, here are some to keep you in the spirit of witches, hauntings, and monsters:
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
“An 80-year-old mansion harboring dark secrets comes to menacing life in this classic spine-tingling tale from Shirley Jackson. Anthropologist and ghost hunter Dr. John Montague invites three strangers to stay in haunted Hill House for the summer. One of the guests is 32-year-old Eleanor, for whom three months in a haunted house is preferable to caring for her invalid mother. Soon, Eleanor begins to see and hear things that the other guests cannot. Is it all in her imagination, or is she the only one who can perceive the evil that lurks in Hill House?”
A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand
“Hand’s new novel revisits the infamous haunted house from Shirley Jackson’s classic The Haunting of Hill House. Holly, a struggling playwright looking to flesh out her witchy comeback, thinks that Hill House, the eerie mansion she’s stumbled across in Upstate New York, would be the perfect place to finish her play. She rents the house and takes her partner Nisa, a singer; their friend, sound guy/actor Stevie; and theater legend Amanda along, despite warnings and a disturbing first visit. The house rapidly reveals itself to be a malevolent force, playing on the past traumas and insecurities of its guests with typically devastating consequences.”
I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
“It’s snowing, and the unnamed narrator is traveling with her new boyfriend Jake to visit his parents at the family farm. The novel’s vague title seems to become clearer as the narrator repeatedly ponders calling off their relationship. While this revelation may not have arrived at the best of times, it’s quickly apparent that a failed relationship is the least of her problems. When the couple arrives at their destination, Jake’s parents are awkward, and the evening goes from strange to unsettling as the narrator explores the setting of Jake’s childhood. When the pair drive home, the weather takes a turn for the worse. Jake turns off the highway and parks by an empty high school. He goes inside, leaving the narrator alone and frightened. When she enters the building, her vague sense of foreboding turns into outright terror. Interspersed throughout are snatches of conversation about some unknown act of violence that only heightens the feeling of unease.”
“When the Creed family’s beloved cat, Winston Churchill, dies, Dr. Louis Creed — on the instructions of his elderly neighbor — buries the animal not in the “Pet Sematary” where local children inter their deceased pets, but rather in the haunted Indian burial ground behind it. The next day, a changed Churchill comes back, a little smellier and more vicious than before. What will happen when a person dies and is buried in the same area?”
Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw
“Four friends gather at a Heian-era mansion in the Japanese countryside to celebrate the elopement of two of their group. From the start, something is off. There’s no paper trail of their rental, for reasons the owner makes vague; more unsettling is that this house has a haunted history. A thousand years ago, a bride awaited her groom at the site; he never arrived. She made her guests bury her alive under the building’s foundation so she could await him forever. Every year since, it is said, a young woman is sacrificed to help the lost groom find his way back to his beloved. This short novel, immersed in unease and oozing menace, is engrossing and methodically paced. The atmosphere, the characters, and their strained, complicated relationships are carefully constructed and slowly revealed, until the group finds itself in the middle of a nightmare, stalked by a faceless woman in white as they fight to leave the mansion alive. The conclusion will leave all unsettled, haunting both characters and readers.”
“In 1915, Montana allows unmarried, Black women the opportunity to claim a homestead, so, having lived her entire life in a California farming community with her parents, Adelaide Henry, 31, sets off. But before she leaves, Adelaide places her murdered parents in bed and burns the house down. Taking only an overnight bag and a heavy, securely locked trunk containing her family’s curse, one that she is now solely responsible for controlling, Adelaide will attempt to flee her past while still shackled to it, thus setting LaValle’s latest, a pervasively uneasy and brilliantly plotted horror-western hybrid, in absorbing motion. Readers are led to Big Sandy to meet its marginalized and outcast citizens, feel the wide open, unforgiving landscape, and watch the captivating drama, both real and supernatural, unfold. Told with a pulp sensibility, this masterfully paced tale, with short chapters, heart-pounding suspense, a monster that is both utterly terrifying and heartbreakingly beautiful, and a story line focused on the power of women, bursts off the page.”
-Linnea
Today is the great novelist’s John le Carré’s birthday! Le Carré briefly served in British Intelligence during the Cold War, which no doubt informed his writing. Best known for his espionage novels, he is considered one of the greatest novelists of the postwar era. If you haven’t yet explored his works, here are a few to start with (and the movies based off them as well!):
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (DVD)
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (DVD)
-Linnea
The week of October 4-10 is World Space Week, an international celebration of science and technology, and how those have contributed to the betterment of humanity. The dates were chosen to commemorate the anniversary of the launch of the first human-made Earth satellite, Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957, and the signing of the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies on October 10, 1967.
To celebrate, enjoy this list of space themed books, whether you like true accounts or imaginative tales, hopefully you find something that sparks a sense of wonder.
Nonfiction
Rocket Boys: A Memoir by Homer H. Hickam
Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration by Buzz Aldrin
Space 2069: After Apollo: Back to the Moon, to Mars, and Beyond by David Whitehouse
Off-Earth: Ethical Questions and Quandaries for Living in Outer Space by Erika Nesvold
Fiction
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
-Linnea
Today marks the official beginning of autumn and I, for one, couldn’t be happier! Now’s the time for cozy blankets, pumpkin spice lattes, and apple picking. Bring out the flannels and sweaters, the boots and scarves, and let’s curl up with the perfect fall-themed book.
“England is at a turning point. Brexit has just passed and xenophobia and electric fences are dividing the nation. At 32, Elisabeth is still trying to decide what her future holds, and the widespread national uncertainty has left her feeling unsettled. As the nation erupts around her, she looks to her past for comfort, visiting her mother and Mr. Gluck, the neighbor who helped raise her. Daniel Gluck, now more than a century old, was once a constant friend to Elisabeth, but now he lies in a deep sleep that might be his last. Visiting weekly to read to him, Elisabeth realizes how little she knows about the man who was once her devoted companion. With a strong nod to British pop culture, its eponymous art movement, and mid-century feminism, the reluctantly revelatory nature of this story creates a well-rounded allegory symbolic on many levels. The start of Smith’s Seasonal quartet, this is delightfully cerebral and relevant.”
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
“Anne, an eleven-year-old orphan, is sent by mistake to live with a lonely, middle-aged brother and sister on a Prince Edward Island farm and proceeds to make an indelible impression on everyone around her.”
Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler
“A year in the life of a beguiling young woman in the wild world of a famous downtown New York restaurant follows her burning effort to become someone of importance through a backwaiter job that enables her indulgences in culinary and intellectual interests.”
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
“A transfer student from a small town in California, Richard Papen is determined to affect the ways of his Hampden College peers, and he begins his intense studies under the tutelage of eccentric Julian Morrow.”
“When the body of Jane Neal, a middle-aged artist, is found near a woodland trail used by deer hunters outside the village of Three Pines, it appears she’s the victim of a hunting accident. Summoned to the scene, Gamache, an appealingly competent senior homicide investigator, soon determines that the woman was most likely murdered. Like a virtuoso, Penny plays a complex variation on the theme of the clue hidden in plain sight. She deftly uses the bilingual, bicultural aspect of Quebecois life as well as arcane aspects of archery and art to deepen her narrative. Filled with unexpected insights, this winning traditional mystery sets a solid foundation for future entries in the series.”
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
“Discovering a magical manuscript in Oxford’s library, scholar Diana Bishop, a descendant of witches who has rejected her heritage, inadvertently unleashes a fantastical underworld of daemons, witches and vampires whose activities center around an enchanted treasure.”
The October Country by Ray Bradbury
“The “Undiscovered Country” of the author’s imagination is revealed in a collection of stories that chronicles an underground city where drowned lovers are reunited, a carnival where a miniature man has his dreams fulfilled every night, and a glass jar that hold memories and nightmares.”
The Inn at Tansy Falls by Cate Woods
“When the death of her best friend sends her halfway across the world, Londoner Nell Swift must decide if she’s ready to step outside of her comfort zone and grab a second chance at life. Nell and Megan have been best friends since university, and when Megan dies young at 37, Nell is devastated. What Nell doesn’t know is that before she died, Megan wrote Nell a last request to spread her ashes in Tansy Falls, Vermont, where Megan spent idyllic summers during her childhood. Megan also set up a two-week itinerary that will have Nell visiting Megan’s favorite spots and seeing her favorite people. During the two weeks in Tansy Falls, Nell falls for the small-town charm, plus the charms of a handsome forester named Jackson. At the end, Nell must decide if stepping away from her safe life in London is worth the magic of Tansy Falls. Set against a lush Vermont backdrop and featuring characters that readers will feel like they have known forever, The Inn at Tansy Falls is a heartfelt contemporary about life, loss, and love that will utterly charm and delight readers and leave them clamoring for a follow-up.”
-Linnea
Winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction, and a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, Jennifer Egan has certainly made a name for herself in the book world!
Probably most known for her book A Visit from the Goon Squad, Egan doesn’t play by typical novel rules: she likes to incorporate all sorts of genres and storytelling tricks. From chapters set up as PowerPoints, chapters in tweets and texts, disjointed storylines, and multiple points of view, Egan uses it all to pull the reader in.
To celebrate her birthday, check out a book!
“Model Charlotte Swenson returns to Manhattan after recovering from a devastating car accident in her Illinois hometown. She finds that she can’t restart her career and floats invisibly through the New York fashion world.”
“Two decades after taking part in a childhood prank whose devastating repercussions changed their lives forever, two cousins are reunited to work on the renovation of a medieval castle in Eastern Europe, a remote, eerie site profoundly influenced by its bloody past, where the two are cut off from the outside world and doomed to reenact the horrific event from their past.”
A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010)
“Working side-by-side for a record label, former punk rocker Bennie Salazar and the passionate Sasha hide illicit secrets from one another while interacting with a motley assortment of equally troubled people from 1970s San Francisco to the post-war future.”
“Years after she is placed in the hands of a stranger vital to her family’s survival, Anna takes a job at the Brooklyn Naval Yard during the war while meeting with the man who helped them and learning important truths about her father’s disappearance.”
“Told through lives of multiple characters, this electrifying, deeply moving novel, spanning 10 years, follows “Own Your Unconscious,” a new technology that allows access to every memory you’ve ever had, and to share every memory in exchange for access to the memories of others.”
-Linnea
It’s late August which, aside from confusion because of how quickly the summer is slipping by, means back to school! For some of us that may mean packing lunches and figuring out morning routines. For others, we can just choose to read about school rather than live through it. And if that’s the case, here are some books to enjoy about school without having to step foot in one:
The St. Ambrose School for Girls by Jessica Ward
“Relentlessly bullied by St. Ambrose’s queen bee, Greta Stanhope, Sarah Taylor finds an ally in her roommate Ellen, a cigarette-huffing, devil-may-care athlete, and determined not to let Greta break her, finds her world unraveling in ways she could never have imagined when a scandal unfolds, resulting in murder.”
Welcome to the School by the Sea by Jenny Colgan
“At Downey House, a charming English boarding school on the sea, new teacher Maggie is determined to make her mark, which jeopardizes her relationship with her safe, dependable boyfriend, while new student Simone tries to fit in and fellow student Fliss tries to get out.”
School Days: A Novel by Jonathan Galassi
“When the Leverett School’s headmaster asks him to help investigate an abuse charge, English teacher Sam Brandt, a former student, embarks on a quest to get to the heart of Leverett where his assumptions about his own life are shaken.”
The School for Good Mothers: A Novel by Jessamine Chan
“After one moment of poor judgment involving her daughter Harriet, Frida Liu falls victim to a host of government officials who will determine if she is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion.”
The Finishing School: A Novel by Joanna Goodman
“When she is invited as a guest to her former finishing school, Lycee International Suisse, best-selling writer Kersti Kuusk—who is determined to, once and for all, find the truth surrounding her best friend Cressida’s death long ago—probes the cover-up, unearthing a frightening underbelly of lies and abuse at the prestigious establishment.”
“Becoming prime suspects in the murder of their principal known for doling out extreme discipline, three Urban Promise Prep School students team up to catch the real killer and clear their names.”
-Linnea
On August 17, 1959, American novelist and essayist Jonathan Franzen was born. An accomplished author with quite a few novels and nonfiction works under his belt, Franzen has won numerous awards including the National Book Award in 2001 for The Corrections and the Thomas Mann Prize in 2022.
Franzen tends to write multilayered works, often centered around familial relationships and their daily American lives. He’s a divisive author: some call him contrived, others praise everything he publishes.
If you’re curious to see what all the chatter is about, here are a few works to try:
A small Midwestern town during the height of the Vietnam era is the setting for Franzen’s masterful, Tolstoyan saga of an unhappy family. Members of the dysfunctional Hildebrandt clan are deeply flawed, insecure, cringe-inducingly self-destructive, and, in Franzen’s psychologically astute rendering, entirely authentic and human. This masterpiece of social realism vividly captures each character’s internal conflicts as a response to and a reflection of societal expectations, while Franzen expertly explores the fissions of domestic life, mining the rich mineral beneath the sediments of familial discord.
The End of the End of the Earth (2018)
A compulsive need to find order, and a love of birding, represent two of the central threads of this stimulating collection of previously published essays from novelist Franzen. Throughout the essays that follow, Franzen muses about writing, Edith Wharton, climate change, Antarctica, the photographs of Sarah Stolfa, and birds, always birds. Whether observing the eerie beauty of Antarctica or dispensing “Ten Rules for the Novelist,” Franzen makes for an entertaining, sometimes prickly, but always quotable companion.
Pip (Purity) Tyler is burdened with college debt, a minimum-wage job, and a needy yet withholding mother who lives as a recluse under an assumed name. The identity of Pip’s father is a taboo subject. Enter the shadowy, Julian Assange-like CEO of the Sunlight Project, Andreas Wolf, purveyor of all the Internet’s hidden truths. With less than pure objectives, Wolf offers Pip a researcher position at his South American headquarters. The cathartic power of tennis; the debilitating effects of jealousy; the fickle, fleeting nature of fame; and the slow death of youthful idealism are all beautifully captured.
“Use Well Thy Freedom”: this motto, etched in stone on a college campus, hints at the moral of Franzen’s sprawling, darkly comic new novel. The nature of personal freedom, the fluidity of good and evil, the moral relativism of nearly everything—Franzen takes on these thorny issues via the lives of Walter and Patty Berglund of St. Paul. Granola moms, raging Republicans, war profiteers, crooked environmentalists, privileged offspring, and poverty-bred rednecks each enjoy the uniquely American freedom to make disastrous choices and continually reinvent themselves. Franzen reveals a penchant for smart, deceptively simple, and culturally astute writing.
Ferociously detailed, gratifyingly mind-expanding, and daringly complex and unhurried, Franzen’s novel aligns the spectacular dysfunctions of one Midwest family with the explosive malfunctions of society-at-large. At once miniaturistic and panoramic, Franzen’s prodigious comedic saga renders family life on an epic scale and captures the decadence of the dot-com era. Each cleverly choreographed fiasco stands as a correction to the delusions that precipitated it, and each step back from the brink of catastrophe becomes a move toward hope, integrity, and love.
And if you already enjoy Jonathan Franzen, here are some read-a-likes:
Joyce Carol Oates
In this collection of macabre short stories, Oates extends the traditions of Edgar Allan Poe and Shirley Jackson in her own unique arias performed by characters assailed by mental illness and intent on destruction.
After her husband comes down with a mysterious illness, Michaela contemplates widowhood at age 37 and refuses to surrender her love. Fecund with fear and anguish, and driven by raw, breathless narration, this hallucinatory tale will not disappoint.
David Foster Wallace
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
In his startling and singular new short story collection, David Foster Wallace nudges at the boundaries of fiction with inimitable wit and seductive intelligence. Venturing inside minds and landscapes that are at once recognizable and utterly strange, these stories reaffirm Wallace’s reputation as one of his generation’s pre-eminent talents, expanding our ides and pleasures fiction can afford.
The Pale King: An Unfinished Novel
Partially written before his death, author David Foster Wallace presents a fictitious version of himself as the protagonist in his final novel. When Wallace arrives for training at the IRS Regional Examination Center in Peoria, Illinois, everything appears normal. However, as Wallace quickly learns, normal just isn’t the case. From the bizarre boredom-survival training to the wild personalities among his co-workers, Wallace is convinced the IRS is determined to dehumanize and humiliate him.
Anne Tyler
In the Garrett family, each person is an island, mysterious and self-contained, yet, as Tyler reveals so deftly, all are inextricably connected. Her latest Baltimore-anchored, lushly imagined, psychologically intricate, virtually inhalable novel is a stepping-stone tale, with each finely composed section jumping forward in time, generation by generation. It’s a characteristically homely, resonant metaphor from a writer who understands that the domestic world can contain the universe.
Redhead by the Side of the Road
A fastidious everyman weathers a spate of relationship stresses in this compassionate, perceptive novel from Tyler. Her warmly comedic, quickly read tale, a perfect stress antidote, will delight her fans and provides an excellent “first” for readers new to this master of subtle and sublime brilliance.
-Linnea
If you haven’t made s’mores yet, there’s still plenty of time to enjoy this quintessential summer treat. Whether you make a fire, use a microwave, burn your marshmallows, or get a slight singe, just make sure you indulge in one of summer’s simplest, yummiest pleasures. And what better way to enjoy a gooey s’more than being in the great outdoors?
While s’mores may be the best part of a camping trip, certainly there are many other aspects involved that can add to the enjoyment of one’s experience. Below are a few books to peruse before setting out for a night underneath the stars, from what to cook, where to go, and how to camp if you’ve never camped before.
Campfire Cooking: Wild Eats for Outdoor Adventures by B. A. Hoena
50 States, 500 Campgrounds: Where to Go, When to Go, What to See, What to Do by Joseph R. Yogerst
-Linnea
Read it or Weep 