In our monthly book club, we discuss whatever we happen to be reading and ask everyone in the comments to do the same. What Are You Reading This Month?
The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin
N.K. Jemisin’s new novel has an irresistible premise: When cities reach a critical mass of culture and history, they become living things, embodied by a human avatar with special powers. In the opening chapter, a newborn New York has joined São Paulo as the only living cities in the Western hemisphere (Chicago’s exclusion is borderline unforgivable). But hours after its birth, New York’s avatar is attacked by an otherworldly entity responsible for the collapses of Pompeii, Atlantis, and New Orleans. So New York picks five additional avatars — one for each borough—to fight the ensuing battle. It’s too long and never subtle, but The City We Became absolutely nails New York’s sense of place, and Jemisin’s sense of humor gets a chance to shine. [Adam Morgan]
Bubblegum by Adam Levin
Bubblegum, the long-awaited sophomore novel by Adam Levin, author of the as-inventive-as-it-was-massive 2010 novel The Instructions, is a comparatively slim 784-page book about a world obsessed with little robotic pets called Curios. Its narrator is Belt Magnet, a novelist working on a memoir who was also among the first to test Curious and has the ability to communicate with inanimate objects. His Curio, cuter than the rest, is something he keeps to himself and treats with great care and respect, a serious contrast to others’ barbaric behavior. Magnet’s quirks isolate him and also lead him to too easily trust those who act kindly toward him, something he is repeatedly burned by. Levin writes in swirls, circling around an idea for paragraphs at time. This can be a recipe for profound insight, or it can feel like stalling for time, and too often in Bubblegum it’s the latter, undercutting the external tension of the novel with a half-baked internal one. Levin loves a long sentence with repeated verbs, but he rarely gets the rhythm quite right, and leading the reader to stumble instead of being in the flow. Levin is a writer of demonstrated skill and ambition who has earned the benefit of the doubt, but I’m a smidge past halfway through, and Bubblegum so far lacks the focus and verve that gave his past work its spark. [Bradley Babendir]
The Walking Dead: Compendium Two by Robert Kirkman, illustrated by Cliff Rathburn and Charlie Adlard
The world is a crazy place right now, with news footage seeming like something from the prologue of a horror movie. So what better way to calm your fears than by picking up a collection of comics centered on a group of survivors in a zombie apocalypse? Fans of AMC’s The Walking Dead will find the hefty source material (the fourth and final compendium was released last October) a welcome bit of nostalgia as well as an intriguing alternate reality where some of their favorite characters live far beyond their time on the TV series, others meet an earlier demise, and some don’t exist at all. Robert Kirkman’s stories are at their best when they require none of his words, relying on Cliff Rathburn and Charlie Adlard’s black-and-white visuals to convey an entire conversation in one frame. Just make sure your bookshelf is sturdy—each compendium weighs about five pounds. [Patrick Gomez]
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I’m reading and rereading a work book from work for work because even in the Apocalypse they won’t let me have any fun.
Read Jemisin’s The Hundred Thousand Kingdom’s fairly recently and that book has maybe three kingdoms, four max, the title is flagrant false advertising. But I liked its erotic and openly horny take on myth, this was my first book of hers and I’ll check out more.Revisited Cogan’s Trade by George V. Higgins after being let down again by a rewatch of Killing Them Softly, despite a slightly baggy middle the book still rules. ‘”He made two mistakes,” Cogan said. “The second mistake was making the first mistake, like it always is. That’s all you get, two mistakes.”’ The mark of a good adaptation is knowing when to cut brilliant dialogue like this and insert your own horseshit pulled from a Roberta Flack song instead.And zipped through Heartstones by Ruth Rendell, a 90-page novella that can be (and was) read in an increasingly creeped-out night, it’s the story of a young woman going deeper and deeper into egomania and delusion that draws explicitly from Poe and Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived In The Castle. These are less influences than elemental forces but Rendell, who is a precise and chilly writer (a creepy lawyer is referred to by our arrogant lead as a “censorious leech”), spins them into her own story, which is told in a way I haven’t encountered before, it’s a double boil. A great tale for a long dark night, highly recommended.
Read Jemisin’s The Hundred Thousand Kingdom’s fairly recently and that book has maybe three kingdoms, four max, the title is flagrant false advertising. You might even say it’s the most blatant case of false advertising since The Never-Ending Story—[Gets viciously beaten and curb-stomped by a rampaging mob]
Emily St. John Mandel’s new book, The Glass Hotel, maybe better than her previous, Station Eleven. Damn good. The usual Jennifer Eganesque cast of characters intersecting all over the place, but done very well.
I’m reading Damoren, about demon hunters with special weapons. The obsessive detail over said weapons is a bit much, but I’m enjoying all the different mythological creatures. I also just started (finally) How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe.
Erik Larsen’s new book ‘The Splendid and the Vile’. Larsen is a stunning writer who specialises in telling history in a near literary style. This book is about the appointment of Winston Churchill as Prime Minister shortly after the outbreak of World War II just before the collapse of France and the Battle of Britain. Churchill is central of course, but the collection of characters around him are extraordinary.For a bit of relaxation; Ragnar Jonasson’s ‘Dark Iceland’ series of novels set in Siglufjördur in the very far north of Iceland. I was there about six weeks ago (my how the world changes) and it is fascinating to see the town in another light. (A bit of a diversion, but the superb RUV TV series ‘Trapped’ is also set in Siglufjördur – it’s available on Amazon Prime streaming).
Rereading NOS4A2. It’s still as good as I remember and much better than that AMC adaptation.
Great book. But Zach Quinto was an odd choice for Manx.
Yeah. That’s a hard character to cast, but I wouldn’t have picked him.
I think you needed someone pale, with crazy eyes, like a Paul Bettany type or maybe one of the Skarsgards.
Currently reading The Wonder of Birds by Jim Robbins. I’m already a total bird nerd so maybe biased, but it’s a very interesting read and I’m learning a lot. Just finished The Passion by Jeanette Winterson. I adore her but this wasn’t my favourite. Also recently read Underland by Robert Macfarlane, which like everything he’s written is absolutely breathtaking, and reread Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant, a spectacularly fun B-movie-esque story about killer mermaids in the Mariana Trench. Does anyone here use Goodreads? I only recently joined and I’m always looking for more folks to follow!
I have that Jemisin book on my list. I’ve never read her before, so I’m looking forward to it. Currently I’m reading Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie, the April section of my “1 year, 12 female writers” project, and listening to The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman on audio.Other books read in April:Hollywood’s Eve by Lili AnolikSeverance by Ling MaMurder in the Mews by Agatha Christie
Half of a Yellow Sun is so damn good! I liked it so much I got one of her other books, “Purple Hibiscus” and I just read it last month. HoaYS is a lot better, and benefited from having multiple POV characters given the scope of the civil war, but if you like Half of a Yellow Sun you’ll probably like Purple Hibiscus. Kainene is my favorite character.
So you might almost say that in The City We Became, New York itself is practically a characte—[Gets viciously beaten and curb-stomped by a rampaging mob]
I’m currently reading Titus Groan the first Gormenghast book which I’ve been meaning to get around to for about 20 years. Not as abstruse and I expected but it does require some patience as so far there has not been a lot of plot. Next will be Strong Poisons by D L Sayers as part of my ongoing read of the Lord Peter Wimsey books.