On Black Sisters Street – Chika Unigwe

Four women leave Nigeria for Belgium where they live in one house under one madam. The death of one of the women leads the others to tell their stories of hardship and freedom.

Go, Went, Gone – Jenny Erpenbeck

A recently retired professor looks around Berlin and sees a world full of other people who had been invisible to him before. Not because they weren’t there, but because, like any of us, his life meant getting from A to B and thinking about his own things, not the hunger-striking refugees outside the S-bahn, or …

The Golden Compass – Phillip Pullman

Have you read this book already? I am really late to the game, but it came out during my “lost and pretentious” period, or shall I say my “drunk and dissociated” phase. In other words, 1995 and on. I wasn’t reading fantasy novels about kids who are disappeared by bureaucrats trying to maintain church control …

All the Light We Cannot See – Anthony Morra

No surprise this book won the Pulitzer. It’s a story set in WWII France and Germany about a young blind woman, a soldier, and the magic of the radio to bring us together (and aid in tearing us apart). It’s a very fast read, cutting back and forth between 1940 and 1944. We find our …

The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia – Masha Gessen

I went to Russia in 2001 and really loved it. It’s such a wild and interesting place, and the people were all open and kind. I tried to buy a pear at a little market and the old woman insisted on teaching me how to ask for the pear in Russian before letting me have …

Beside the Sea – Veronique Olmi

A very devastating little novella, translated from the French by Adriana Hunter. A mother takes her two boys to the sea. We all know it’s their last trip, but knowing the end doesn’t help having to watch.

Frog and Toad Are Friends – Arnold Lobel

I have always loved Frog and Toad. Haven’t you? I always thought they were British (maybe because my grandmother introduced me to them), but turns out Lobel was from L.A. I went to see the doctor and she had this in the waiting room. I had just enough time to finish all 64 pages. It …

The Disappearing Spoon – Sam Kean

Can I blame the holidays? It looks like I didn’t post my last book of 2021, either! I’ve had this book on my shelf forever and just waited to give it the time it needed. I never took chemistry in school (I missed a lot of shit it seems) and so all this is pretty …

The Children’s Hospital – Chris Adrian

I can’t believe I forgot to post this. Starting 2022 (!) off strong with an over 600 page book AND a dystopian future. Residents of the children’s hospital look up to find that they are floating on seven miles of new ocean and the rest of the world has been destroyed. Is it a work …

Breasts and Eggs – Mieko Kawakami

What is existence? Why have children? What is a family? A complicated group of topics for a simple story about a Japanese author trying to make it in Tokyo. Her days are just like yours: figure out what to eat, try to work, get distracted by rabbit holes, try to contemplate why any of us …