Monday, September 11, 2017

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Last week I finished Hunger, by Roxane Gay, and Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant, by Roz Chast, so things can only get better from here. Each of those books was agonizing in its own way, and yet also essential reading.
I'm still enjoying The Golem and the Jinni, by Helene Wecker, which is a great fantasy-tinged fable I think I'll be able to recommend to lots of readers. Set in Manhattan in the early 20th century, it's a somewhat familiar immigration-era story whose mythical elements distinguish it. Also distinguishing is the whipped-cream writing, so easy to lap up.

On my nightstand is Lisa Riggin's The Queen of Vice: The Strange Career of Abortionist Inez Brown Burns, about San Francisco's leading lady abortionist, a fun and fascinating portrait of a woman, a city and a time in history that I certainly hope never comes again. I always enjoy San Francisco history and this book, set in the 1940s and 50s, has an appropriately colorful cast of folk heroes, swindlers, hustlers and villains. I'll let you decide who's who among its roster of cops, abortion practitioners, prostitutes, hangers-on, society high rollers and everyday people just trying to get by. It comes out in October and I expect to be done reading it this week.

And still slowly reading The Possessed, Elif Batuman's light and enjoyable memoir about studying Russian literature. It's fun. I don't have another audiobook picked out right now but I'd love to hear your suggestions.

What about you? What are you reading this week?

2 comments:

Tea said...

I would like to read The Golem And The Genii. I like your list of books.

Mystica said...

Different genres at the same time. Must be interesting reading!