It’s Wednesday. Whatever.
Top 10 Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and The Bookish which is now hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s topic:
January 29: The Last 10 Books I Added to my TBR
1. Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff
I feel like I frequently mention how much I love Jennifer @ Insert Literary Pun Here’s booktube channel, but for those of you who missed it the first thirty times, I absolutely love Jennifer’s channel. (Should I make a post about my favorite booktubers?) Anyway, in the video I just linked to she talked about Cleopatra: A Life and it sounded absolutely delightful. I need to read more biographies and I’ve always been decently interested in Ancient Egypt (though it wasn’t quite as developed of an obsession as my Ancient Greece thing), so this definitely interests me.
2. The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
pub. date: February 26, 2019
I was on the fence about this one for a good while, because 900 page fantasy is… obviously not my favorite thing in the world, but then Elle’s review convinced me. And the other thing that excites me about this is that it’s a standalone! I am not a big series fan and would read so much more fantasy if standalones were more common for the genre. I didn’t read Shannon’s first series… Bone something? I have a couple of friends who hate those books so that makes me a little nervous, but it’s been a while since they were published so here’s hoping this book is more polished than those seemed to have been.
3. Faber short stories
Specifically: Dante and the Lobster by Samuel Beckett, Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom by Sylvia Plath, Terrific Mother by Lorrie Moore, The Country Funeral by John McGahern, The Shielding of Mrs Forbes by Alan Bennett, The Victim by PD James, The Forester’s Daughter by Claire Keegan.
I think this is self-explanatory. I ordered 4 of these, read and reviewed 2, and the other day I went through the list and added most of the ones that piqued my interest.
4. Amongst Women by John McGahern
Again, probably self-explanatory: while I was looking up those short stories I was looking up the authors as well, and though I hadn’t heard of John McGahern before this one jumped out at me. Apparently this was nominated for the Booker in 1990. The summary, according to Goodreads: Moran is an old Republican whose life was forever transformed by his days of glory as a guerilla leader in the War of Independence. Now, in old age, living out in the country, Moran is still fighting – with his family, his friends, even himself – in a poignant struggle to come to terms with the past.
5. No Country for Young Men by Julia O’Faolain
I cannot find a good quality image of this cover, so hopefully that doesn’t speak to how difficult it will be to find this book, but anyway, I just read a short story by Julia O’Faolain that I liked but didn’t love, and it made me want to read more from her. This sounds very Irish which obviously works for me. Sister Judith Clancy is told that she must leave the protection of her convent and return to her family. So begins the unravelling of community ties which form this brilliant and devastating story of human and political relations in twentieth-century Ireland.
6. Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
pub. date: September 10, 2019
I know, I know, this does not seem like my kind of book in the slightest. But, I was talking to a friend/former roommate recently who reads almost exclusively SFF and has an idea of the kind of SFF I like, and she thinks I would like this book. So I’m going to just put my reservations aside and trust her judgement on this one.
7. Cala by Laura Legge
pub. date: March 7, 2019
I saw this on Netgalley and the cover caught my eye for whatever reason (alas, it’s wish only in the U.S. right now), but I looked up the summary and it sounds like it could be incredible.
Cala, a stone farmhouse on the edge of Pullhair in the Outer Hebrides, is home to four women – witches the locals say – who scratch out a living on its land. But after ten years of relative harmony, fractures are beginning to appear among them.
Eighteen-year-old Euna is tired of Cala’s rigid hierarchy and arbitrary rules – the women may only speak in Gaelic, must wear plain dress, attend strict rituals and consume only what they grow or gather with their hands. Sick of scavenged seaweed and thin soup, Euna decides to go in search of a different way of living.
8. A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
pub. date: May 2, 2019
I mean. In A Thousand Ships, broadcaster and classicist Natalie Haynes retells the story of the Trojan War from an all-female perspective. I MEAN…?! This is kind of the book I secretly wanted to write but I suppose I’ll just content myself with reading it. I haven’t read anything else by Haynes but this quickly became my most anticipated book of the year and if it is anything short of brilliant I will cry.
9. Edinburgh by Alexander Chee
Someone I follow on bookstagram was talking about this book (I can’t remember who), and it sounds incredibly painful and hard-hitting and I am all about that. I haven’t actually read anything else by Chee, though a couple of his other books are on my TBR already, but for whatever reason I hadn’t heard of this one until the other day.
10. Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe
pub. date: February 26, 2019
This is a true crime book about a mother murdered in Belfast by the IRA in the 70s, so that sounds very relevant to my interests. I’ve been trying to read more Northern Irish fiction recently (largely thanks to Milkman – before that I hadn’t realized how much of the Irish lit I’ve read is from the ROI), so I figured I should also throw some nonfiction into the mix.
Have you guys read any of these books, or are you looking forward to any of them? I thought it would be fun to post this list since it’s a rather eclectic mix, we’ve got everything from fantasy to biographies to short stories to literary fiction to true crime. Please let me know which of these I should reach for first!
The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara. I think I’ve waxed eloquent about A Little Life on here enough (side note: check out my friend Patrick’s brilliant 
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. The Secret History has been one of my all-time favorite books for years, but it’s still the only novel I’ve read by Donna Tartt. I own her other two, The Goldfinch and The Little Friend, but I think I’ve been putting them off because I’m not convinced they could begin to compare to The Secret History. But, The Goldfinch in particular I really do want to read soon, especially after 
The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan. This is probably the book I’ve carried with me to the most places without ever having read it. I think it came to Houston with me both times. This seems to have been at the top of my TBR for about two years now, but it never seems like the most pressing thing I need to read. But, I absolutely adored Ryan’s All We Shall Know and From a Low and Quiet Sea, so I really do need to get to The Spinning Heart soon.
Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro. I’ve read every single one of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novels, meaning his short story collection Nocturnes is the only thing I have left to read by him. And I’ve actually read half of it. I started it I think back in 2015, and never ended up finishing it for some reason, and now I’m torn between starting over and picking up where I left off… I actually have a bizarrely good memory so I feel like I’d be fine to just start in the middle, but I’m worried I’ll have forgotten some finer details. And I did really like the first few stories I’d read.
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne. I feel like the last person on earth who hasn’t read this. I remember one of my roommates telling me about this book senior year of college because I’d actually never heard of it or the author; fast forward four years and John Boyne is now one of my favorite authors and I’ve read four of his novels, but not this one. I’m a little apprehensive because I don’t read middle grade, at all, but I feel like I need to just devote an hour of my life to reading this at some point and see how it goes.
The Surface Breaks by Louise O’Neill. I feel like the only person in the world who failed to get excited at the prospect of a YA Little Mermaid retelling, but, nothing about YA Little Mermaid retelling exactly screams my name. But even so, I really adore Louise O’Neill, and having read and loved Asking For It and Almost Love earlier this year, I really want to read everything she’s written at some point.
Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel. I’ve read Station Eleven twice which is huge for me as I’m not a big re-reader, but it got selected as a book club pick after I’d already read it, and I loved it so much that I felt no hesitation in picking it up again. But I actually haven’t read anything else by Emily St. John Mandel. I own a couple of them, including Last Night in Montreal, which sounds simply brilliant.
The Good People by Hannah Kent. Kent’s debut Burial Rites is one of the most devastating and beautiful and atmospheric things I’ve ever read, so it only stands to reason that her sophomore novel set in Ireland would be even more up my alley. I have heard from some people whose opinions I trust that The Good People isn’t quite as excellent as Burial Rites, but I’m still really hoping it will work for me.
Ariel by Sylvia Plath. Despite the fact that The Bell Jar is one of my absolute favorite novels, I don’t think I’ve read any of Sylvia Plath’s poetry. I mean, aside from Lady Lazarus and Daddy and all the individual poems that everyone knows. But I really do want to read her collection Ariel at some point in the hopefully not too distant future. It’s actually one I keep an eye out for when I’m in bookstores, but I can never seem to find a copy out in the wild.
Theatre by W. Somerset Maugham. I don’t think I’ve read a single Somerset Maugham novel since I started book blogging, which is a shame as he’s one of my all-time favorites. I’ve read Of Human Bondage, The Razor’s Edge, The Moon and Sixpence, and The Painted Veil, but I’d like to read all of his novels at some point. I own this one as well as Cakes and Ale, but Theatre calls to me a bit more so I’ll probably be starting here.
Savitha – Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao. Suffice to say, I did not like this book. What could have been a really hard-hitting reading experience suffered for the sake of a lot of gratuitous violence that did nothing for the narrative or for character development. (e.g., When a character has already been raped repeatedly, what’s the point of adding in another graphic rape scene at the end of the book?) That said, I did care for the two girls who were at the heart of this story, Savitha in particular – I admired her resilience and idealism.
Catherine – Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. I thought this book was rather tedious and I did not get on with the writing style and I found most of the characters rather one-dimensional, but I have to admit, I do quite like Catherine. I’m such an advocate of female characters who are allowed to be flawed and not necessarily very nice people, and Catherine is pretty much the embodiment of that. She’s kind of awful, in a way that you don’t see with a lot of female characters in Victorian and Gothic lit, so ironically I like her all the more for that.
Farrah – Unbury Carol by Josh Malerman. Maybe my expectations were too high after the perfection that was Bird Box, I don’t know, but Unbury Carol did nothing for me. Probably also because I don’t like westerns, and this did nothing to change my mind about that. I was thoroughly bored by the characters, too, I didn’t care about Carol or her evil husband or her outlaw love interest or the main villain. Who I did like though, was Carol’s housemaid, Farrah, who was entirely too nice for this book.
Helene – War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. There are actually a lot of characters I could have chosen for this book. I love Anatole for how awful he is, and I love Natasha (until her entire character was destroyed by the epilogue but whatever), but I think I’ll go with Helene… she’s one of those characters who I believe has gotten a bad rap, due mostly to misogyny. I mean, was anything she did that awful? I think she deserved better and I can’t wait until one day 
Jojo – Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward. This is a book that I really wanted to love, but it would be a little disingenuous to pretend that I did… I ultimately found the whole thing a bit too heavy-handed, and didn’t leave much for the reader to chew on – we were just sort of… told exactly what to think, and that sort of thing bores me. But it would be hard to read this book and not fall in love with Jojo, the boy who’s basically been forced to care for his younger sister due to his mom’s unreliability and drug addiction.
That one musician guy who was writing the Antigone musical with Lotto – Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff. Sorry, I cannot for the life of me remember this guy’s name. And I hated this book. Passionately. As in, it’s a very strong contender for my least favorite book of all time. The only thing that made it bearable was that brief section where Lotto went to this retreat or something and wrote an opera based on Antigone with this character whose name I cannot remember. I liked that guy. He deserved a better book.
Monty – The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzie Lee. I wouldn’t say I disliked this book… but it was a sort of unenthusiastic 3 stars. And without Monty, it definitely would not have gotten that high of a rating. Monty is my favorite kind of antihero for YA lit – I’m a sucker for the ‘guy who acts like an asshole because he’s masking some seriously deep-seeded insecurities’ trope. Unfortunately nothing else about this book really enchanted me.
Peilan/Polly – The Leavers by Lisa Ko. If this whole book had been from Peilan’s perspective, it would have been an easy 5 stars. I thought she was such a brilliant character, and her chapters broke my heart. But the point of view of her son, Deming, bored me so much and I ultimately wasn’t able to get invested in his character in any way.
Quinn – Don’t You Cry by Mary Kubica. This is the only Kubica book I’ve read, and I can’t say it left a terribly strong impression… there were a lot of very strange twists and the resolution was rather odd. And it was sort of boring up until that point. But I did quite like Quinn, the narrator who’s searching for her missing roommate. She felt very real and vulnerable and flawed, which I like in protagonists.
Clara – The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. This book is misogyny central… the treatment of female characters as a whole is pretty deplorable, but Clara in particular had one of the most frustrating narrative arcs of all time. I’m still mad about how the author basically told us that this young woman was to blame for rejecting the affections of our teenage protagonist, as if she owed him something…??? Anyway, Clara deserved better.
American War by Omar El Akkad. This is one of those books that I had to really push myself through, and when I finished it, I felt nothing but relief that it was finally over. I wanted to love it because the premise is fascinating and seems relevant, but I struggled with El Akkad’s world building and narrative structure. It wasn’t compelling, it didn’t feel half as tragic as he meant for it to be, it was just an overwhelmingly bland reading experience. Some people love this book, so if it hooks you from the onset, you are probably good to go. But if you struggle with the beginning, you should probably just put it down, because it doesn’t get any better.
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. Okay, I’ll admit it. I didn’t get it. And it’s not a case of me reading the book when I was too young, I don’t think, seeing as I read it last year when I was 24. It still completely went over my head. This is I think the first and only book I’ve read in my adult life where I’ve needed to consult Sparknotes to make sense of what the heck I was reading. The Sparknotes analyses made it sound interesting… but I would be lying if I said I got any of that from the text itself. Another one that I’d suggest putting down if you’re struggling early on. I may give Woolf another try at some point, but I have to admit, this one was pretty rough going for me.
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. I never know how to explain my experience with this book. It was… difficult. It’s a very, very, very, very long-winded satire about the American military during WWII, and while I found some of the humor absolutely hilarious, a lot of it totally missed the mark. Basically, here’s the bottom line with Catch-22: if you’ve started it and you’re finding it challenging but rewarding, keep going. If you’re hating every second of it, put it down immediately, because it’s just going to be more of the same. But I can never decide which of those sides I’m on. Maybe a bit of both.
A Dance With Dragons by George R.R. Martin. I love the A Song of Ice and Fire series. I’m very invested in these characters and this narrative. But this book… while I devoured the first four books in this series in a matter of days or weeks, I was slogging through ADWD for months. The fourth and fifth books were initially meant to be one massive novel which GRRM’s editors suggested splitting into two books along geographical regions, and it just so happened that all of my favorite POV characters ended up in A Feast For Crows and all of my least favorites ended up in A Dance With Dragons. Is it worth it to push through this book? I don’t know. The next book in the series famously has not been published yet, so it’s hard to say if the struggle with ADWD was worth it. It entirely depends on the direction that the series takes from here. But I’m crossing my fingers. I want to continue loving these books. I’m hoping this was a random blip.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. I know I keep talking about this one lately, but that’s only because it’s so good. There’s no denying that this is a difficult book to read, but it is 100% worth the effort to persevere. This book is a fascinating look at youth violence, toxic masculinity, the relationship between the state and the individual, and ultimately, the question of whether it’s better to choose to be evil or to be forced to be good. My advice is to just stick it out, and don’t look up literally every single Nadsat word in the glossary, because that will start to drive you insane – just hone in on the ones you see the most often, and it will all start to make sense sooner than you think.
King Lear by William Shakespeare. I’m not a Shakespeare expert by any means, but I think this is one of his more difficult plays, both in terms of accessibility of language and depth of themes. But it is one of the most fascinating and tragic things I’ve ever read. Advice: just take it slow, get an edition like Folger (pictured here) that translates some of the trickier phrases on the opposite side of the page, read it aloud when you need to, and just enjoy it.
The Iliad by Homer. While it’s often overlooked for its more accessible peer, The Odyssey, I prefer The Iliad a thousand times over. I don’t even know how to explain what it is about this book… the epic scope of it and the larger than life characters and the tragic and fascinating conflict between the Greeks and the Trojans – everything about this story is gorgeous and cinematic and compelling. My advice: SKIM (OR JUST SKIP) THE ‘CATALOG OF SHIPS’ CHAPTER. As we all know, The Iliad started out as an oral poem, and the infamous ‘Catalog of ships’ was basically the Homeric equivalent of being at a rock concert and the band going ‘any fans from Toronto? from Los Angeles? from Boston?’ and the crowd cheers in response. Don’t read through it and try to memorize names or places, because you will lose your mind and they ultimately don’t matter very much to the narrative. But once you’re through this chapter, it’s smooth sailing.
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. This book isn’t difficult to read, at all, it’s just long. My advice is to choose an accessible translation (my favorite is the Signet classics Fahenstock & McAfee translation, pictured here, which is also the most famous and easiest to find) and just go for it. This is my favorite book of all time – the story is gorgeous and heartbreaking and immersive and wonderful and I guarantee that you will not regret the time you put into this incredible book.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. I only read this recently (review 
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie. It’s one of her more famous novels, admittedly, but often gets eclipsed by And Then There Were None and Murder on the Orient Express. As good as both of those novels are, Roger Ackroyd is one of the most unique mystery novels I’ve ever read. If you’re able to guess who murdered Roger Ackroyd, I’d like to buy you a drink.
White Noise by Don Delillo. It was published in 1985, so it’s a more recent classic, but a classic nonetheless. White Noise is a bizarre post-modernist literary exercise in coming to terms with one’s own mortality. It’s funny and unsettling and weird. It took me longer to read than it should have, because there was something I found rather draining about thinking about mortality at the end of a long day, but I ultimately found this very fascinating and satisfying.
Maurice by E.M. Forster. This novel is flawed, especially stylistically as it was published posthumously and didn’t undergo the kind of rigorous editing that it needed, but that doesn’t stop me from singing its praises. Maurice is Forster’s gay romance that he wrote in 1913, so it’s really remarkable that this is a novel we have access to. I haven’t read any other Forster, so I can’t comment on how it compares to some of his better known novels, but it’s a delightful book that everyone should read.
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. I love Fahrenheit 451 as much as the next person, but it’s a shame to not read any Bradbury beyond that. The Martian Chronicles is a series of vignettes that are loosely linked together, about the future colonization of Mars. It’s a very odd and disturbing book, and while some of the stories make a stronger impression than others, this whole collection is a relevant allegory on imperialism that’s not to be missed.
The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham. I adore everything I’ve read by Somerset Maugham, none more than Of Human Bondage, but an oft-overlooked brilliant novel by him is The Razor’s Edge, about a group of friends in postwar London and Paris. Not a whole lot happens in this book, but at the same time, it covers so much. Somerset Maugham’s writing is absolutely stunning, and if you haven’t read anything by him you should amend that immediately.
Poetics by Aristotle. I think Plato’s Republic is really fascinating, but Aristotle’s Poetics is perhaps more accessible and interesting reading, for those looking for a good introduction to Greek philosophy. It’s basically a short analysis of Greek tragedy and how plot and language come together to elicit certain reactions from the viewers – how we basically use theatre as a form of catharsis in seeing such dramatic emotions portrayed on stage. As a fan of theatre and philosophy, I found this fascinating.
Fire From Heaven by Mary Renault. Renault’s epic Alexander the Great trilogy isn’t to be missed by historical fiction fans who like a heavy emphasis on the historical. There isn’t much of a fast-moving plot, here, but Renault’s writing is gorgeous and the sheer amount of research she put into these novels is admirable. This isn’t the kind of book you can read in a quick weekend, but if you’re interested at all in Alexander the Great, it is an amazing novel to devote several weeks or months to.
A View From The Bridge by Arthur Miller. People usually think they can call it a day with Miller after reading The Crucible and Death of a Salesman, but A View From The Bridge I think is one of his masterpieces. It’s a play about a Brooklyn family who take in two Italian cousins who are looking to find work in America so they can send money home to their starving families. Like The Crucible, A View From The Bridge deals with themes of perception and honor, just on a more intimate scale.
The Betrothed/I promessi sposi by Alessandro Manzoni. Since it’s usually assigned high school reading, most Italians I know hate this book. I didn’t. Okay, granted, it’s a bit long, but it’s also an epic whirlwind romantic adventure of a novel, and I can’t help but to love this story a lot. Sorry, my Italian lit degree is completely useless if I can’t recommend an obscure 700 page long Italian classic on my blog every now and then.
pace, amore, libri 