Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Bookish Distractions: What's New On the Shelf

Well it's time for a new edition of "What's New on the Shelf." This month I've added a cookbook, two novels and a memoir.

2084 is the latest from Boualem Sansal, of Harraga and The German Mujahid fame. It's an homage to 1984 and a dystopia set in a country called Abistan. I'm looking forward to reading it soon. I'm a big fan of Sansal's and always love to see what he's up to.

The Asian Slow Cooker, by Kelly Kwok, is a cookbook that does more or less what it says- Asian food in your slow cooker. The recipes are sweet but more or less healthy versions of takeout staples and homecooked fare. I've made a couple of things from it already and enjoyed them. And I look forward to trying more!

The Girl from the Metropol Hotel is the short memoir of Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, Russian short-story writer extraordinaire and author of volumes in English such as There Once Was a Mother Who Loved Her Children, Until They Moved Back In, and There Once Was a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby. Her stories are tough and magnificent; I'm looking forward to this and plan to read it the next time I finish a bedside book.

Visitation, by Jenny Erpenbeck, is a book a customer at work sold to me, about the history of a German house and its inhabitants over the course of the 20th century. Looks great. I love it when customers sell me on a book!