Like
most writers, I love to read. Of course I read in my genre, but I
also read a lot outside of it.
This
year I joined a reading challenge, as a way to make myself prioritize
reading and because I enjoy working through lists. I'm just over
halfway through the
Popsugar Reading Challenge, a
series of 40 prompts ranging from vague—a book with a blue cover, a
book that's guaranteed to bring you joy—to more specific—a book
from Oprah's Book Club, a YA bestseller.
Here
are five books I've read and loved as part of
this challenge.
Get in Trouble by Kelly Link
Prompt:
A book published in 2016
Kelly
Link is the Doctor
Who of
the literary world. Most people who read her get obsessed and talk
about it non-stop, but there are a fair share of reviewers saying, “I
just don't get it, what's everyone so excited about?”
Get in Trouble by Kelly Link
Prompt:
A book published in 2016
Kelly
Link is the Doctor
Who of
the literary world. Most people who read her get obsessed and talk
about it non-stop, but there are a fair share of reviewers saying, “I
just don't get it, what's everyone so excited about?”
Either
you love it, or you don't. And I do. Kelly Link's been my favorite
writer since I first read her in 2008.
I've
tried to wrap other people up in my excitement but I've had mixed
results. Many people say she's too whimsical—which, in turn, is
what I feel about David Tennant, one of the most popular Doctors.
Get
in Trouble is a short story collection with Link's award-winning
control of language and all the classic Link themes—doubling, ghost
stories, unreliable narrators tapping at the border between dream and
reality—but with some of the whimsy honed down to leave precise and
beautiful weirdness.
 |
| Kelly Link, courtesy of her website |
A
personal favorite was the story Two Houses, with the crew of
an isolated space ship telling ghost stories that spiral into each
other.
*
Prompt:
A book that takes place during Summer
I
Called Him Necktie is a German novel set in Tokyo (the incredibly
talented author, Minea Michiko Flašar, is half-Japanese and
half-Austrian.
A
shut-in and an unemployed salaryman meet on a park bench every day,
sharing their stories in a slow-building and heart-breaking short
novel. It discusses the pressure to work every day and balance work
stress with the rest of life.
It's one
of those rare, exquisite novels that I read at exactly the right time
in my life. Sometimes the perfect book arrives just when you're in a
place to need it. You and the book sync up and create a perfect
resonance, which seems too unique even to justify recommending the
book to anyone else. This was such a book, but I'm still confident
that the theme and tone are universal.
*
River Monsters by Jeremy Wade
Prompt:
A book written by a celebrity
“With time now revealed as something finite, I was struck by how little I'd achieved, in any conventional sense, in my life. The weight of the things I had done was inconsequential when divided into the years.”
I
was
aware of the TV show River
Monsters but
had
never watched it—I love sea monsters but I have no interest in
fishing—so at first I suspected ghostwriting
in the
host's autobiography.
Apparently though, it's quite common for him to refer to fish as
“eldritch
abominations” live
on
camera, disproving
my prejudice that no one who wears cargo shorts could have access to
a broad vocabulary.
River Monsters is more than a book about fishing (which, I agree, sounds like a very boring book anyway). It's a story of struggle, failure and obsession, with a dose of biology and some fascinating philosophy.
 |
| This is a Pokémon screenshot |
Turns
out when you spend hours—or days—sitting by a river and waiting
for a
fish to bite, it gives you time to form deep opinions. Rock
on, you shorts-wearing philosopher.
*
Prompt:
A book about a culture you're unfamiliar with
Shobha
Rao's debut collection is emotionally heavy, but worth the
commitment. The stories center around the 1947 partition of the
Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan. The stories are often
devastating and brutal, but always incredibly well-crafted.
I
usually find short story collections easy to space out over a long
period of time, but once I started reading An Unrestored Woman
I couldn't stop. The collection took me through tears and anger and,
finally, to joy.
If you can handle the subject matter, the beauty in this collection is 100% worth the discomfort.
If you can handle the subject matter, the beauty in this collection is 100% worth the discomfort.
*
Prompt:
A science-fiction novel
The
inspiration for the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game, this modern
translation of a 1970's USSR novel came with a foreword by Ursula K.
Le Guin. If that isn't a recommendation, what is?
Roadside
Picnic is perfect
sci-fi
from start to finish. The world—Earth after a
brief alien invasion—is
built realistically, with few
awkward infodumps.
It
reminds me of Jeff VanderMeer's
Southern Reach trilogy
which rocked my world a while back. Lots
of exploration of weird phenomena and
unsolved mysteries, laced
with death and crime.
Even
the title—Roadside Picnic—is
weird and cool.
When I read the blurb,
I asked the friend who
recommend the book if the title referred to aliens using earth as a
picnic destination and leaving stuff behind.
 |
| From Gary Larson's Far Side |
My
friend said no. But, spoiler alert, it totally is.
