The latest on my stack of bails, I‘ve listened to a quarter of this and it‘s doing nothing for me. I swear there isn‘t any dialogue at all. So back it goes to the next person in line.

I loved the idea of this—a man‘s first encounter with a computer in the late 80s and there‘s already some kind of AI involved. Plus, translated from Uzbek? Sounded cool! But the execution just isn‘t working for me and just over 50 pages in I don‘t want to pick it back up. My first bail of the #NBAshortlist for translated lit (or any of the lists, for that matter).

Combining history and family memoir, Motherland starts around the Bolshevik Revolution and looks at the women attached to important moments of Russian history while telling the story of Ioffe‘s family. Near the end, it also explores the deep misogyny of the current Russian regime. I thought it was terrific.

#NBAshortlist, nonfiction

My father in law let me borrow this little book about dory fishing in Cannon Beach, OR, a now defunct practice due to depleted fishing stocks. Overall I enjoyed it but was disappointed by the casual killing of sharks for no good reason.

I was grabbed by the cover of this and went in blind. Early on, it seemed like it was going to be an exploration of language, but at the halfway point it‘s doing nothing for me, so I‘m out.

This is a fun creepy house YA Horror novel with lots of body horror (I‘ve never seen so many uses of the word “viscid”). It was a good palette cleanser for me between literary fiction reads. And the cover has some fun metallic elements.

I struggled with this one a little. It follows the wife of a preacher, her son, and her son‘s girlfriend. Aided by the always fantastic Bahni Turpin, the preacher‘s wife bursts with life and sass, but that exuberance is not maintained in the other chapters.

This book on female friendship follows 4 women across decades in non-linear fashion as they deal with life and their relationships with on another. I found the pacing a little uneven but overall really liked the book. Pictured with our pretty sunset the other night.

#NBAlonglist, fiction

I have mixed feelings about this one. She delves into a lot of injustices, some well known, others less so, so there‘s a lot of educating going on. But she doesn‘t accomplish what the subtitle suggests and at times presents some things as facts which may well be, but doesn‘t adequately support them with data. She also advocates for abolishing policing entirely without really addressing what that would mean.

This author‘s first book didn‘t quite work for me, but her follow up is superb. Following a small family across a week in Kolkata during significant food shortages, it looks at human depth and how we all carry both guardian and thief within ourselves. It is a literary read with the propulsive pacing of a thriller. It would be a very worthy winner of the National Book Award.

#NBAshortlist, fiction

I‘ve liked some of Klune‘s books and liked the premise of this, but ultimately it was not for me. As others have mentioned, it is repetitive and the central relationship was too problematic for me. Also, I found myself irritated by some of the writing. I probably should have bailed.

This #NBAlonglist book (nonfiction) was a mixed bag for me. The content, about a genderqueer Asian couple, their life together, and lives before meeting, is great. But the construction of one partner writing as the other felt gimmicky to me. The best section is Lam‘s childhood in Vietnam and escape from that country at 12.

I wanted to take a moment to pay homage to Portlanders who, instead of being cowed by a dictator, embraced their first amendment right to peaceful assembly and continued protesting, but in costume, to prove the lie to their city being “war ravaged.” I cannot think of a better response. I love their creativity and stance for their, and our, rights.

As a straight “person gets swallowed by a whale” book, found this too preposterous. But as an allegory for grief and struggling with a difficult relationship with a parent, I thought it worked really well. I do wish this had been marketed for a YA audience, as I think it falls into that space more than the adult space.

This is ostensibly about the next pandemic, the one that, as bad as COVID was, will be even worse. But really, it‘s about looking back at the COVID pandemic to parse everything we got wrong (which was a lot) and learn from that in the hopes of being more prepared next time. The author is an epidemiologist and therefore well situated to address this. It‘s good nerdy science for those like me who like that kind of thing. 😬

My #BOTM books have arrived and I finished the reading challenge, so the book sleeve came, too. I love the idea of the sleeve, but I wish they had made it just a tiny bit bigger, as you have to kind of cram to get a book in (it‘s tight on the top and bottom edges). And if the idea of a sleeve is to protect a book, why damage the book taking it in or out of the sleeve?

I love the idea of this, but I listened to about an hour of the audiobook and it is so dull. I thought maybe it was the format, but I‘m seeing other reviews calling it dry, so nope. So, I won‘t be trying it in print after all.

I have finally read Morrison‘s debut, my second read for #BannedBooksWeek. I listened to a couple podcasts about it thereafter, which helped me break it down. Child rape and incest do happen, and hiding that by removing books depicting it allows it to continue without being examined, which serves no one.

#ReadBannedBooks

I‘ve read and enjoyed books that take place on whaling ships before, but this one is really different. It starts largely as one might expect, but as it moves forward, there are fantasy elements I wasn‘t expecting and a sprinkling of horror as well. Parts of t the book are rather dreamlike There is some graphic animal death and dismemberment here, so be prepared for that.

#NBAshortlist, fiction

I meant to post this before. Oops! Here‘s my books for #ReadYourEbooks. I‘m hoping to at least get to the tagged, as I‘ve wanted to read it for a while and it keeps coming up (and I keep not reading it). But, with my focus still on the NBA books, we‘ll see‘

And here‘s the #NBAshortlist for fiction! I haven‘t cracked the Majumdar yet but am 2/3 through North Sun and really liking it, and have read the other 3. Today, my vote would go to Raja (tagged), as I absolutely loved it. I‘m very happy to see The Sisters not be here but am a little surprised Flournoy was left out, though I haven‘t read hers yet.

Here‘s the #NBAshortlist for nonfiction! I‘ve read all but the tagged and can attest they are all really good. Motherland was the one from the longlist that intrigued me most, so I have the audio preordered (it‘s out 10/20). Of the ones I‘ve read, I‘d most like to see One Day or Wards win.

It‘s National Book Awards shortlist day! Though they call them finalists, but whatevs. Here‘s the shortlist for translated literature! Though I have read half of the longlist, I‘ve only read the tagged from this shortlist. My hold for The Remembered Soldier literally came in while I was making this graphic. 😂

I somehow made it through public schooling in the US and almost to age 50 without reading this one. I have now corrected that! I did see one of the movies (the DiCaprio one), and I appreciate how much more subtle the book is. So subtle, in fact, that I missed a major event and had to go back a bit to catch it. Tim Robbins reads this one and is superb, and there‘s also some very interesting FSF letters included at the end.

To kick off Banned Books Week and in honor of our dear leader, I read the new GN version of Animal Farm, coming in November. It‘s drawn to excellent effect in only black, white, and red. All components of the novel are there, especially the messaging about the push into authoritarianism, benefiting the few to the detriment of the many. Huh, I wonder why they don‘t want us to read this one?

I stretched a bit to give this fantasy a try as the premise sounded fun, but it‘s actively bad. There are weird second person interludes early on that just kind of stop, giant plot holes, and a limp noodle main character that just does whatever a man tells her to, even if she met him 5 minutes ago. 🤮

I have mixed feelings about this one. On one hand, I found it overly sweet and was deeply irritated by it opening with a 50-something woman screaming because a toilet is about to overflow. (Really? At that age? Grow up.) On the other hand, there‘s some good humor in it and some topical moments. So I give it a low pick.

😂

Palaver is a quiet, spare, intimate story of a man‘s relationship with his mother. He now lives in Tokyo (a character in the book well explored in the interspersed photos) and his mother arrives in an attempt to reconnect. Their past is tempestuous, and the novel says as much with what it leaves out as what is on the page. It‘s well crafted and I think it‘ll stick with me for a while.

#NBAlonglist, fiction

This one just didn‘t quite come together for me. Despite being called “The Sisters,” much of the book centers a male character who seems intrigued by them but not really associated with them, and it felt fragmented to me. I also felt like the narrative tense didn‘t quite work in a way that was believable. I never would have made it through in print.

#NBA longlist, fiction

In the early 1960s, 2 dairy coops in Tillamook County, Oregon, went to battle. The coop of farmers felt they were being ripped off by the distribution coop and based on their story here, I think they were. They actually won several lawsuits but because of the actions of the distributors, lost the cheese war. Of course, this is just one side, but I found it really interesting, written by the adult daughters of the farmer leading the charge.

This is the design for next year‘s Independent Bookstore Day and I love it! Here‘s the link if you want to order a shirt:

https://www.bonfire.com/indie-bookstore-day-2026/?utm_source=copy_link&utm_mediu...

Here‘s my list for October #ReadYourEbooks. As I predicted, I read none of the picked books for September, although I did read one that wasn‘t picked, so that‘s a win! I‘m still pretty focused on the NBA lists this month, so we‘ll see how I do with this.

Homelessness is at once a complicated and simple topic. The simple part is that it is fundamentally a lack of adequate, affordable housing. And we are failing at that in so many places in the US. Mary Brosnahan ran a major homelessness organization in NYC for 30 years and delves here into the history and current reality of homelessness, breaking down myths as she goes. More dense than I was expecting, but superb.

HO. LY. CRAP. You think the Sacklers are bad? (They are.) Turns out, J&J is even worse. Harris brings the receipts and shows how the company buried data and lied to customers, patients, doctors, and the FDA for DECADES. All in the name of money. Quite frankly, I never want to use another of their products ever again. Tremendous narrative nonfiction.

I wasn‘t a Swamplandia fan and thus initially passed this one up, so I‘m glad the #NBAlonglist for fiction got me to read it. I found this unique Dust Bowl historical fiction with some fantastical components to be fully engrossing. The characters are great and I like that we hear rotating perspectives from them, which helps keep the book moving. I really liked it!

Gailey goes full horror in their latest, wherein a small, isolated research group brings an unusual specimen into their facility. Then they start to get sick. The creeping dread is so well done, but the main character has a sexual predilection that was too weird for me.

This book is such a mixed bag. It starts with such a hardcore pro-growth anti-regulation argument for the US that I almost stopped reading. Then there‘s a lot about China, which was interesting though a bit lacking in some necessary criticism. He also says US companies have gone too far into financialization to the detriment of process knowledge, and I think that‘s true. So, I‘m just going to take the good bits and leave the rest.

Today, my library had a local authors‘ event with a variety of local authors who brought their books for sale and were available to chat. I talked with some interesting folks and picked up these, several of which the authors were kind enough to sign for me. It was a small event but really cool!

This book I didn‘t want to pick up quickly became a book I could not put down, as Neige details her 7 years of sexual abuse and rape and the hands of her stepfather. The writing it superb and the balance is excellent, as she pulls in the aftermath, the trial, and evaluations of literary works dealing with child rape. I‘m halfway through the #NBAlonglist for translated lit and this is my clear winner thus far as well as on my best of the year list.

Said by Arundhati Roy on the Poured Over podcast while discussing the tagged book and her life. Something for those annoyed/bothered by those speaking out to keep in mind.

Like some others on here, I just seem to keep reading these! This is the longest one so far, yet still under 7 hours on audio. I enjoyed this one, but found it a little uneven. Great in places, dragging a touch in others.

This is the story of a German trans man just as Hitler is coming to power and just as WWII is ending. It‘s not a perfect book: the writing isn‘t great and it pushes too hard into melodrama, but it‘s such an important story to tell and a reminder trans people have always been here. We think of the end of WWII as a liberation, but for trans people, it was not—they were in just as much danger as before.

Maybe a tad heavy handed, but in our current war on trans people, it needs to be said.

The text uses “transvestite” for trans people, which I replaced in the quote. The book is looking for historical accuracy (which is good), but I feel the modern phrasing resonates more with our current moment.

Yahooooooooo!!!!!!!! Look what they let me have! When I requested it I just frankly expected a rejection and I‘m totally delighted to actually have this. More #NBAlonglist reading for me!

Raja is a 60-something teacher in Beirut and his 80-something mom has just moved in with him. Their relationship is absolutely hilarious, and through it we see a bit of Lebanon, especially as we get the backstory of Raja‘s gay awakening during their civil war. The tone is masterful, maintaining humor while never diminishing serious events. I absolutely loved this.

#NBAlonglist, fiction

In the 1960s, writer Mowat decided to get a boat and pilot it from Newfoundland to the Caribbean. Get a boat he did, but never made it that far, as he and the boat really had no business ever being on the water. Other than a bit too much of “isn‘t drinking heavily hilarious?!” (it‘s not), this is a funny, entertaining book about a temperamental boat and some of the inhabitants of maritime Canada.

I‘m happy to report Mary Roach‘s latest is a ton of fun! It‘s about human anatomy, specifically the parts we can or are trying to be able to replace. Think hair plugs, prostheses, organ transplant. I snort laughed in any number of places. Be aware this is not for the squeamish—she doesn‘t hold back on descriptions of surgical dissection.

Despite having the absolute best cover of any of the NBA longlists (according to me), this is so far the weakest read for me from the translated lit list. It‘s not a bad book, but it‘s mix of dreamy/fantastical with reality and the lack of clarity on which is which doesn‘t go far enough. It gives a good commentary on a state‘s decision to jail those making dissident statements, which is timely. Between pick and so-so for me.