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Vacation Book Haul!

From Susie's Stories (Rockport, MA):

Stoner by John Williams

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

From The Bookstore of Gloucester (Gloucester, MA):

Tripping Arcadia by Kit Mayquist

From Dogtown Books (Gloucester, MA):

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

The Children's Book by A. S. Byatt

The Italian by Ann Radcliffe

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Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie

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JOMP BPC || June 18 || Favorite Cover Art: Swordheart by T. Kingfisher

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As , the United States, potentially heads into another forever war I can only think of this quote.

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Just arrived- and my very first Calvino!

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"I shut my eyes ...", Razmik Davoyan (translated by Tathev Simonyan)

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MISTER FASHION.

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Someone has been playing with my Madame Bovary Collins Classics edition 🐾 ! :)

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JOMP Book Photo Challenge - June 17 - Female Author

I just re-read this book and it may be my favorite by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. A noir thriller set in a turbulent time in Mexico City, the book crackles as two people are caught in a deadly situation.

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Lone Women by Victor LaValle is a historical fiction/horror novel set in the old West. Using a seeming loophole in homesteading law, Black woman Adelaide Henry is able to claim land in rural Montana. She isn't alone; other women have come from afar to do the same. But she has a secret: something locked in a trunk, a family secret that forced her to leave her former home and her parents' bodies in flames.

The historical fiction aspect of this novel was superb. I didn't know about these women who were able to set out and build on their own, and the promise of hard-won independence that the prospect entailed. The characters are rich and their motivations make a lot of sense, whether heroes or villains.

However, I quibble with LaValle's writing and some of his choices. The monster is most effective when it's still in the trunk; without spoilers, the twist of the novel seems to operate on several puzzling assumptions that we are meant to take for granted. Two mysterious Latinx characters appear to have insight into the monster's identity; they explain little, disappear as quietly as they appeared, and feel overall wholly unnecessary except to hint to (but never confirm) the kind of monster we're seeing.

The realities of the novel took 2nd place to the metaphorical quality of a monster, a specter that sums up society's fears, the histories we feel we have to hide. The vagueness was often foiled by blunt explanations, and the two seemed to constantly fight for balance. All around, a good novel, and one I enjoyed, even if I sometimes had to just accept things or pass over questions in order to continue through the book.

Content warnings for violence, racism, transphobia/homophobia, Sinophobia, animal death, child death.

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spent my morning fixing this typewriter that i got from work ☆

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June Fun Day Book Photo Challenge

June 14: Family History Day

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Piranesi concept art!

I hadn’t seen anyone really tackle the drowned halls yet (as far as I know) so I thought I’d take a crack at it to practice painting environments

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Conquest of the Planet of the Apes - Mad Magazine art by Mort Drucker (1973)

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Literati Bookstore - Ann Arbor, MI