Wednesday Reading Recommendations
January 17, 2024
Alrighty, as pledged, a sufficient backlog of recommendation requests have accumulated in my inbox compels me to get busy recommending some books in the middle of the week.
For those who are relatively new to the newsletter or might be curious as to the rationale behind my method of asking for the five most-recently read books and then offering a recommendation, I walked through my thinking in a post in the early days of the newsletter:
Usually by Wednesday, the first inklings of what I’m going to write about in the Sunday newsletter will have appeared, but as of yet, nothing has sent the Biblioracle senses tingling. If there’s anything going on in the world of books and reading you’re finding interesting, please share in the comments.
On to the recommendations.
Recommendations
1. Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward
2. Stay True by Hua Hsu
3. The City of Palaces by Michael Nava
4. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
5. Deacon King Kong by James McBride
Melissa L. - Washington, DC
I’ve always had a warm feeling for the work of Jesmyn Ward because her book Salvage the Bones came out around the same time as my novel and because of our last names they’d be next to each other on bookstore shelves. She has gone on to win multiple National Book Awards. My novel is out of print. Clearly there was no transference of genius from the proximity of books on the shelf. Melissa’s recommendation is Infinite Country by Patricia Engel.
1. The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi
2. The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
3. Eve by Cat Bohannon
4. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
5. Butcher's Crossing by John Williams
Jane W. - Indianapolis, IN
My recommendation is a book that was huge in its moment, but is maybe not as prominent as it once was, so perhaps it wouldn’t be on Jane’s radar: Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier.
1. Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane
2. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Murder, and Mutiny by David Grann
3. The Gotti Wars by John Gleeson
4. Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson
5. America Fantastica by Tim O'Brien
Michael R. - Chicago, IL
For Michael, I’m going with the literary grit of James Elroy, and a book I consider an all-time classic, American Tabloid.
1. Novelist as Vocation by Haruki Murakami
2. Long Chills and Case Dough by Brandon Sanderson
3. The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin
4. The Narrow Road Between Desires by Patrick Rothfuss
5. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders
Ash M. - Mountain View, CA
There’s nothing in this list that directly suggests this recommendation, but sometimes you gotta just listen to the vibes the universe is sending you. Those vibes are pointing me towards Seth Fried’s The Municipalists.
1. North Woods by Daniel Mason
2. Wellness by Nathan Hill
3. All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby
4. Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
5. Don’t Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones
Jim K. - Seattle, WA
I’m recommending a book that I don’t know I exactly enjoyed, but the experience of reading it was indelible, and this list suggests that Jim is the kind of reader who will appreciate that kind of book: Hawk Mountain by Connor Habib.1
If you missed Sunday’s newsletter, it’s on the imperative of learning how to develop and honor your own taste.
I’ll be seeing you all on the weekend.
JW
The Biblioracle
All books linked throughout the newsletter go to The Biblioracle Recommends bookstore at Bookshop.org. Affiliate proceeds, plus a personal matching donation of my own, go to Chicago’s Open Books and an additional reading/writing/literacy nonprofit to be determined. Affiliate income is $27.80 for the year.
Oh my God ok I'm now really embarrassed by how long that is. Im still not used to writing on this phone and on Substack. Sorry. I guess im wondering, are all entertainments driven by the youth market? Even book publishing?
Can't believe no one's commented yet! Im gonna use that as an excuse to write a lot...
So I know nothing about what's happening in the world of books really, but I sporadically read blog posts from Chuck Wendig and I loved reading his book Gentle Writing Advice, and he has posted about how the publishing genre of the moment seems to be "romantasy." Apparently. He then reminded people that writing to the hot trend of the moment was risky because in trad publishing by the time your manuscript sees print it's at least a year later and the trend may have passed already, quite apart from things like, how people's best work tends to be driven by their own quirks of the heart, not by aiming ruthlessly to demographic targets.
I googled romantasy and found a few trend articles on the subject, all of which seemed to mention books about romance and fantasy, but a lot was either "young adult" or largely in genres that could also be called "high school" or maybe "fantasy characters go to high stakes sword college." I can't have been the only one to wonder about this because a suggested search prompt was "romantasy for adults." I wonder if the trend in sexy romance for shape shifters qualifies?
The only romantasy book I felt moved to read was one I saw recommended on Instagram (by someone who dyes knitting yarn to match her fave books.) The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy, by Megan Bannen. And I enjoyed it immensely. Described by blurbs as a "romance that's also like Howl's Moving Castle" or "a charming mix of whimsy and the macabre" it also features characters who are not only adults of at least thirty, but have recognizable jobs. One is an undertaker and one is essentially a park ranger. And it skewers the supposed romance of the immortality fantasy, having a character be afraid he's immortal, with all the pain that would bring with it, to the point where he starts to be afraid to live at all. There is also a lot of philosophy about death.
All of this has me wondering, why are so many of us still obsessed with high school, or university, or young love? And why do we still write so many books where the protagonist is royal, or a wizard, or a swordsperson? Why are we always wanting those particular forms of escape, or reliving? I like how YA has been an area where authors could write genre work without being ghettoised, and I guess people can understand books about people younger than themselves more than books about people older than themselves maybe, but I'm wondering, is this just our society's obsession with youth mixing with a general up trend in fantasy? I'm tired of high school romance, but is there a large number of adults who loved high school and went on to such pedestrian lives that they choose to read about it forever after, even with dragons? Why do so many trends centre around young people, either as consumers or characters?
And are people a bit too nostalgic for a feudal past? It has been noticed that some people vote in democracies while spouting slogans and philosophy that belong to an autocratic past, like the Trump supporter heard shouting "Defend the king!" Surely someone can write a fantasy democracy with plenty of political intrigue, potentially more than an absolute monarchy could offer?