A story is never an answer. A story is always a question.’
Here we are in extraordinary times. Is this history?
What happens when we cease to trust governments, the media, each other? What have we lost? What stays with us? What does it take to unlock our future?
Following her astonishing quartet of Seasonal novels, Ali Smith again lights a way for us through the nightmarish now, in a vital celebration of companionship in all its forms.
‘Every hello, like every voice, holds its story ready, waiting.’
My thoughts: It’s just a joy to read Ali Smith creative usage of language and wordplay and then suddenly there’s the a tale of a young blacksmith her bird and it’s just pure, magnificent storytelling. Ali Smith is a wondrous writer, I only wish this book would have been longer so I could read more of her thoughts on art, the state of the world and the letter V.
A powerful novel about the LGBTQ rights movement and gay love in Japan and Taiwan, from the most important queer voice of East Asia’s millennial generation.
Cho Norie, twenty-seven and originally from Taiwan, is working an office job in Tokyo. While her colleagues worry about the economy, life-insurance policies, marriage, and children, she is forced to keep her unconventional life hidden—including her sexuality and the violent attack that prompted her move to Japan. There is also her unusual fascination with death: she knows from personal experience how devastating death can be, but for her it is also creative fuel. Solo Dance depicts the painful coming of age of a gay person in Taiwan and corporate Japan. This striking debut is an intimate and powerful account of a search for hope after trauma.
My thoughts: “No matter how far she traced the threads of memory, she couldn’t place the exact moment when that vast darkness had seeped over her, nor identify its source.”
Li Kotomi’s Solo Dance (translated by Arthur Reiji Morris) is a short, sad novel about a lesbian woman living in Japan, struggling with depression, thoughts of suicide and her sexuality because of her traumatic past in Taiwan. It’s a sad, tough novel at times, but definitely worth it for the cultural insights and queer literary references, specially to Notes of a Crocodile by Qiu Miaojin. I’d be interested in reading more from this Author.
Thomas Quinn is having a hard time. A failed novelist, he’s stuck writing short stories and audio scripts for other people’s characters. His wife, Imogen, is working on a remote island halfway around the world, and talking to her over the webcam isn’t the same. The bills are piling up, the dirty dishes are stacking in the sink, and the whole world seems to be hurtling towards entropic collapse. Then he gets a voicemail from his father, who has been dead for seven years.
Thomas’s relationship with Stanley Quinn—a world-famous writer and erstwhile absent father—was always shaky, not least because Stanley always seemed to prefer his enigmatic assistant and protégé Andrew Black to his own son. Yet after Black published his first book, Cupid’s Engine, which went on to sell over a million copies, he disappeared completely. Now strange things are happening to Thomas, and he can’t help but wonder if Black is tugging at the seams of his world behind the scenes.
Absurdly brilliant, wildly entertaining, and utterly mind-bending, Maxwell’s Demon triumphantly excavates the ways we construct meaning in a world where chaotic collapse looms closer every day.
My thoughts: Angels and letters, entropy and the end of the world!
This is a wild book, a literary treasure hunt mixed with philosophical ideas, bible discourse and the second law of thermodynamics (and we do not argue with the second law of thermodynamics… or do we?). There are twist and turns and turns and twists, yet Steven Hall never loses sight of characters and manages to make it feel deeply personal. A fantastic book about words, connections, loss and hyperlinks.
Description ‘One of the most compulsive psychological mysteries since Donna Tartt’s The Secret History’ THE TIMES
Cal Hooper thought a fixer-upper in a remote Irish village would be the perfect escape. After twenty-five years in the Chicago police force, and a bruising divorce, he just wants to build a new life in a pretty spot with a good pub where nothing much happens.
But then a local kid comes looking for his help. His brother has gone missing, and no one, least of all the police, seems to care. Cal wants nothing to do with any kind of investigation, but somehow he can’t make himself walk away.
Soon Cal will discover that even in the most idyllic small town, secrets lie hidden, people aren’t always what they seem, and trouble can come calling at his door.
Our greatest living mystery writer weaves a masterful tale of breath-taking beauty and suspense, asking what we sacrifice in our search for truth and justice, and the dangers of finding what we seek.
My thoughts: I loved spending time with this book, perfect for reading on dark winter nights in front of a warm fire. A calm book about how the right thing to do is not chasing bad guys but staying home and deal with the trauma the bad guys left behind.
Description Discover Ali Smith’s dazzling, once-in-a-generation series, SEASONAL, a tour-de-force quartet of novels about love, time, art, politics, and how we live right now
The final instalment in the Seasonal quartet is out in August 2020. Catch up with Autumn now – Summer is coming…
SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017
Chosen by the Guardian as one of the Best Books of the 21st Century
SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER
‘Undoubtedly Smith at her best. Puckish, yet elegant; angry, but comforting’ The Times
A breathtakingly inventive new novel from the Man Booker-shortlisted and Baileys Prize-winning author of How to be both
Daniel is a century old. Elisabeth, born in 1984, has her eye on the future. The United Kingdom is in pieces, divided by a historic once-in-a-generation summer.
Love is won, love is lost. Hope is hand in hand with hopelessness. The seasons roll round, as ever . . .
‘Terrific, extraordinary, playful… There is an awful lot to lift the soul’ Daily Mail
‘Bold and brilliant’ Observer
My thoughts:
Absolutely adored this book, initial worry about it being pure stream of consciousness quickly put to rest. I really loved following Elisabeth Demand on her journey through a post referendum vote Britain. There is so much beautiful writing about art and the human condition and politics. A wonderful book
Description One of the Most Anticipated Books of Summer 2020 Vogue, Elle, Time, The New York Times, Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, Vulture, Parade, USA Today, Literary Hub, Buzzfeed, Electric Literature, Refinery29, The Rumpus, Book Riot, Thrilllist, Domino, PopSugar, New York Amsterdam News, Bookshop.org
“Exacting, hilarious, and deadly . . . A writer of exhilarating freedom and daring.” —Zadie Smith, Harper’s Bazaar
“Impossible to put down.” —Ling Ma, author of Severance
No one wants what no one wants. And how do we even know what we want? How do we know we’re ready to take it?
Edie is stumbling her way through her twenties—sharing a subpar apartment in Bushwick, clocking in and out of her admin job, making a series of inappropriate sexual choices. She is also haltingly, fitfully giving heat and air to the art that simmers inside her. And then she meets Eric, a digital archivist with a family in New Jersey, including an autopsist wife who has agreed to an open marriage—with rules.
As if navigating the constantly shifting landscapes of contemporary sexual manners and racial politics weren’t hard enough, Edie finds herself unemployed and invited into Eric’s home—though not by Eric. She becomes a hesitant ally to his wife and a de facto role model to his adopted daughter. Edie may be the only Black woman young Akila knows.
Irresistibly unruly and strikingly beautiful, razor-sharp and slyly comic, sexually charged and utterly absorbing, Raven Leilani’s Luster is a portrait of a young woman trying to make sense of her life—her hunger, her anger—in a tumultuous era. It is also a haunting, aching description of how hard it is to believe in your own talent, and the unexpected influences that bring us into ourselves along the way.
My thoughts:
“Between his abrupt cancellations, I realize that I need him, too. In a way, that makes my dreams delirious expressions of thirst—long stretches of yellow desert, cathedrals hemmed in dripping moss. By the time we set our first real date, I would’ve done anything. He wanted to go to Six Flags.”
Description For two teens, falling in love is going to make a world of difference in this beautifully translated, bold, and endearing novel about love, loss, and the pain of racial discrimination.
As a Korean student in a Japanese high school, Sugihara has had to defend himself against all kinds of bullies. But nothing could have prepared him for the heartache he feels when he falls hopelessly in love with a Japanese girl named Sakurai. Immersed in their shared love for classical music and foreign movies, the two gradually grow closer and closer.
One night, after being hit by personal tragedy, Sugihara reveals to Sakurai that he is not Japanese—as his name might indicate.
Torn between a chance at self-discovery that he’s ready to seize and the prejudices of others that he can’t control, Sugihara must decide who he wants to be and where he wants to go next. Will Sakurai be able to confront her own bias and accompany him on his journey?
My thoughts: “But to me, all the stories about the legendary Kim Il Sung were lacking. There was nothing appealing about them. Or exciting. And that’s how I came to this realization that day in third grade: Our stories are better.”
Excellent coming of age story. A great inside into the Zainichi thematic.
A man follows another man’s trail of lies in a compelling psychological story about the search for identity, by Japan’s award-winning literary sensation Keiichiro Hirano in his first novel to be translated into English.
Akira Kido is a divorce attorney whose own marriage is in danger of being destroyed by emotional disconnect. With a midlife crisis looming, Kido’s life is upended by the reemergence of a former client, Rié Takemoto. She wants Kido to investigate a dead man—her recently deceased husband, Daisuké. Upon his death she discovered that he’d been living a lie. His name, his past, his entire identity belonged to someone else, a total stranger. The investigation draws Kido into two intriguing mysteries: finding out who Rié’s husband really was and discovering more about the man he pretended to be. Soon, with each new revelation, Kido will come to share the obsession with—and the lure of—erasing one life to create a new one.
In A Man, Keiichiro Hirano, winner of Japan’s prestigious Yomiuri Prize for Literature, explores the search for identity, the ambiguity of memory, the legacies with which we live and die, and the reconciliation of who you hoped to be with who you’ve actually become.
My thoughts:
“The dead cannot call out to us. All they can do is wait for us to call to them. Except for the dead whose names are unknown. Uncalled by anyone, they sink ever deeper into solitude.”
I loved Keiichiro Hirano’s novel A Man, I was engrossed in its story of identity and transformation, past and present from the start. The additional insight into the life of Zainichi was of great interest to me. I will definitely add Keiichiro Hirano to my list of Japanese authors I want to read more translated works from.
Description The author of the acclaimed novel The Brief History of the Dead now gives us one hundred funny, poignant, scary, and thought-provoking ghost stories that explore all aspects of the afterlife.
A spirit who appears in a law firm reliving the exact moment she lost her chance at love, a man haunted by the trees cut down to build his house, nefarious specters that snatch anyone who steps into the shadows in which they live, and parakeets that serve as mouthpieces for the dead–these are just a few of the characters Kevin Brockmeier presents in this extraordinary compendium of spectral emanations and their wildly various purposes in (after) life. These tales are by turns playful, chilling, and philosophical, paying homage to the genre while audaciously subverting expectations. The ghosts in these pages are certain to haunt you well after you’ve closed the book.
My thoughts: I read The Brief History of the Dead 12 years ago and still fondly remember it which made me want to read The Ghost Variations. I enjoyed finding out that the afterlife seems to still be a big theme in Kevin Brockmeier’s writing. These Ghost stories are fun, sad, scary, puzzling and beautiful, I liked how they were grouped in different categories like Ghosts and Nature, Ghosts and Friendship etc. But you can just pick up this lovely collection and just read a story whenever the mood strikes you.
Description A story of desire, love and language – and the meaning of home – told through conversations between two lovers
A Chinese woman comes to London to start a new life, away from her old world. She knew she would be lonely, adrift in the city, but will her new relationship bring her closer to this land she has chosen, will their love give her a home?
A Lover’s Discourse is an exploration of romantic love told through fragments of conversations between the two lovers. Playing with language and the cultural differences that her narrator encounters as she settles into life in a post-Brexit Britain, Xiaolu Guo shows us how this couple navigate these differences, and their romance, whether on their unmoored houseboat or in a stifling flatshare in east London, or journeying through other continents together…
Suffused with a wonderful sense of humour, this intimate and tender novel asks universal questions: what is the meaning of home when we’ve been uprooted? How can a man and woman be together? And how best to find solid ground in a world of uncertainty?
My Thoughts: Very much feels like an updated version of A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers. Very interesting East-West dynamic at play and thoughts about identity, culture and language. I always enjoy reading Xiaolu Guo’s book and this one was no exception.
Jago's NetGalley 