I‘m giving away 5 signed copies of “The Sharp Hook of Love” on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/341234-the-sharp-hook-of-love-a-novel-of...

This book, my first by Madeleine L‘Engle, purchased because it was on sale, proves true the adage that you get what you pay for. Racist, ridiculous, and really not worth my time, or yours.

I give this book four thumbs up — including my big toes. I love family sagas and this is the best one yet: it chronicles a Black family‘s struggles in the U.S. over every generation starting with the Creek Indians, who sre ancestors to the protagonist. We see these hardships and trumphs from the women‘s points of view, written movingly and elegantly. This book is very long but I felt sad when it ended. A must-read!

This book shines when it explores the marriage between William Shakespeare and his wife, Agnes. But it moves ploddingly between their too-rare scenes together, relying on the magical powers the author has given to Agnes to flesh out a rather thin plot. Would that Agnes could, now, grant me the ability to avoid reading any more books using the cliched healer/midwife/witch trope. It has officially been done to death.

Helen Oyeyemi does it again! This marvelous book is a mixture of magic, whimsy, sorrow, and surprise — the story of a woman named Boy, a white woman who marries Arturo not realizing he‘s Black until their baby is born. Snow is her stepdaughter and utterly adored for her passing-as-white beauty; Bird, the dark-skinned daughter, is fierce and smart but never loved as Snow is. The book‘s end was a letdown but until then. It!s remarkable.

I‘ve just started listening to this and I already love it. How ingenious of Ishiguro to write a story from the point of view of an artificial intelligence children‘s companion. I only wish I‘d written it first! This book has made many best-of lists for 2021 including President Barack Obama‘s. :)

This book by the inimitable Annie Ernaux, credited with the invention of autofiction, is a devastating portrait of a young woman‘s marriage to a man whom she had thought would support equality in their roles but who gets caught up in the patriarchal system with all its expectations for him and for her. She portrays the ambiguities of motherhood with a deft and nuanced hand, and mourns the identity she must sacrifice to his privilege.

I am in complete awe of Haruki Murakami. A fantastical adventure tale about loneliness and love, this book is perfectly paced and with a complex story, unforgettable characters, and simple prose that lets the story shine. The book is long, which gave me pleasure as I luxuriated in the knowledge that I would be able to remain in Aomame and Tengo‘s world for a long time. This book has now become one of my favorites. Ten stars out of five!

In all the millennia since this 2270 BC text was written, so little has changed. Men still fight and kill, and lay waste to the environment, for no good reason. They continue to value women solely for sex. It‘s depressing.

But all this is what makes The Tale of Gilgamesh so amazing —it‘s an exquisite portrayal of human nature, which will never change. Very illuminating, as well, is the flood scene that predates Noah‘s Ark and prefigures it.

I am loving this book about a young woman who grew up as a Jehovah‘s Witness and a young man who ghostwrites a book by a teenage girl who grew up in a Japanese cult. There‘s so much suspense in the plot that I can‘t stop turning the pages. Murakami‘s clean style is deceptively simple, as always — there‘s so much to unpack in this marvelous book.

This amazing book not only tells the reader about slavery, it ingeniously makes you live it by transporting you with its modern-day heroine back in time. Because she is black, she is treated as a slave. Because she, and you, are free, you feel keenly the injustice and indignity of her enslavement. Each transport back to the present reminds you what has been taken away. Octavia Butler is a genius.

My early Christmas gift to myself. Volumes 1 and 2 arrived today! Squee!

I‘m excited to read this book as part of an online world literature course I‘m auditing through Harvard U. Written 3,700 years ago!

I thought it would never end — and end it does, most unsatisfactorily. None of the plots begun for its many protagonists gets seen through, just abandoned as if the author got tired. The book is about the appearance of a bright new star and the events in people‘s lives that don‘t necessarily connect. It ends in a lot of hanging plots. In analog, it‘s 666 pages — coincidence? Heed the warning and avoid this self-important tome.

I don‘t like how we pin labels on people these days and everything we obsess over or crave seems to be an “addiction,” but I listened to this book with an open and curious mind about my pattern of failed relationships and boy, did it speak to me. The author helps those of us who tend to give ourselves heart and soul to emotionally unavailable partners to understand why we do this and how to form healthy relationships, instead.

I‘ve just gotten this book because of a gushing New Yorker review. I hope it‘s better than Book One of “My Struggle,” which I found tedious and self-indulgent contrary to the New York Times‘s breathless adoration. Needless to say, I didn‘t read books 2-6. I‘ll keep you posted on this one. The cover is beautiful :)

This book offers a very comprehensive look at the swing-jazz era: the music and musicians, the black-vs-white elephant in the room; the media that developed around the craze; the dances; the city of New York during the 1920s-1940s, etc. It's great research for my forthcoming novel about Billy Tipton, a transgender male musician whose initial impetus for presenting as male was to get work as a musician in OK City.

This book is so imaginative it inspires me to take more chances in my own writing. It's so erudite that it confirms my decision to, after finishing my WIP, devote myself fully to a year or more of intense literary and philosophical study. Its transgender POV also reaffirms that we CAN write about those not like us - something I've been criticized for doing. And Winterson's observations about artificial intelligence are spot on. A riveting read!

This book is so beautiful and complex, I‘m seized with the desire to read it again as soon as I have finished. Anyone familiar with Edwidge Danticat‘s books will not be surprised to learn that the writing is stellar, the characters vivid, the story nuanced and true in its exploration of what it means to be human. Set in Haiti among heartbreak and much joy as Claire‘s father gives her away so she can escape the misery of their impoverished life.