thursday reads

[scientistsinistral]

Getting sick lead indirectly to my library book pile going down from 32 to 20, only 4 of which were actually finished. Most of those were from the library that I volunteer at, so I can just pick them up again when I get back, but one will need to be reserved again. And a £5 late book fine, which sucks, but at least I learned now rather than when I went away from my local library for a few weeks which meant I would have racked up more fines... anyway. Book time!


Books I Finished
The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui
An illustrated memoir of Bui's family through 20th century Vietnam, their flight to the US after the fall of Saigon, and how that impacted their dynamics and relationships in the modern day. Bui's art is haunting in a way you can't quite look away, and the links to my own history (which was not quite as scary as the fate of a lot of Vietnamese boat people, as my parents both emigrated after the war with their respective families when the war wasn't actively being fought and there had been a little time to settle) was very poignant.

The Girl and the Goddess by Nikita Gill
A novel in poems about a girl growing up through the Partition of India, navigating life and trauma and love and relationships, interwoven with tales of the Hindi gods and goddesses. For a book of poetry, it's definitely poetic, and whilst I think I should have read it slower to fully take in the words and the cadence (I think I read part of this whilst walking on a treadmill to see if I could multitask, which I could, but possibly not the right book for it), I did finish it quite quickly and loved how beautiful yet raw it was.

Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
A story about a woman named Gifty who loses her brother to an overdose and her mother to subsequent depression and studies neuroscience and rats as a result to discover the neural circuitries that underlie these things and if they can be prevented or abated, Gyasi's second novel is just as well written as her first. I liked the way the tale wove back and forth between past and present, so that neither could be forgotten and constant reminders of each was there when reading the other.

I did prefer Gyasi's first novel, Homegoing, but that's only because I've got a fondness for generational and dynastic stories and not every novel is going to be that. But that's definitely personal preference, rather than an objective fact.



Currently Reading
Prayer for the Living by Ben Okri



Up Next
I'll be bringing some books home with me, but as I only have a rucksack that's also gotta hold my keyboard and PC, I'm gonna make them thin ones. So I'll be bringing:
This is how you lose the time war by Max Gladstone & Amal El-Mohtar
Queer city : gay London from the Romans to the present day by Peter Ackroyd
Edward VI: the last boy king by Stephen Alford (this one is for fic research.)

Comments

[edwardianspinsteraunt]

Oooh, Transcendent Kingdom does sound very good-- I shall have to read it once I'm less tired, I loved Homegoing :D And I hope you enjoy the Edward VI biography and it's helpful for fic-writing!

[scientistsinistral]

I think you're gonna like the writing style at the very least - in that Gyasi is as good as Homegoing, as well as continuing the theme of complex familial relationships. And thank you! I figured I should at least make my attempt at a Jane Seymour & Edward VI fic somewhat contextualised, though admittedly both of them are dying in their respective narrative sections, so I get a bit of leeway aha.