Bright

I really don’t know where I first heard of this book, but somehow I knew, when I saw it on the used book shelf at my local indie bookstore, that it was the first novel by a Thai woman to appear internationally in English translation. These are the pluses and minuses of being on #bookstagram.…

The Little Paris Bookshop

I picked this novel up at a used bookstore a few years ago and never got around to reading it. It just sounded sweet and the cover is super cozy looking, but for some reason it never called out to me as my “next read.” During the last meeting for my long-distance book club, I…

Celestial Bodies

In my goal of working to read more diversely, I’m attempting to also diversify my diversity… That sounds confusing, but basically, I’m just trying to cast my reading net ever wider. So when I heard about this 2019 winner of the International Man Booker, the first novel translated from Arabic to win this prize, in…

Things We Lost in the Fire

This was my choice for the August Just One More Pa(i)ge Reading Challenge prompt: Women in Translation month. It was a great chance to both read something totally different and, in this case, to work on my side goal of reading more books by Latinx/Spanish-speaking authors. And this was such a good choice. Completely different…

Convenience Store Woman

A few months ago, this tiny book was everywhere and, while it really didn’t sound like anything particularly striking, people seemed to be really enjoying it. And, I am, as ever, a sucker for hype. Long story short, I added it to my TBR and, when it became available at my local library, I was…

My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry

Confession - I read this book almost two years ago now and I haven't had a chance to reread it since then. But as I was sitting and thinking of the right book to post about to end the year, this one popped into mind almost immediately. And conveniently enough, we were going to visit…