It’s Monday, What Are You Reading? 5-1-23

We made our way back to the hotel where we had been staying after our flight was finally canceled last night after getting rebooked on a morning flight out of Dallas. Unfortunately, instead of the direct flight we had, we now have a five-hour layover in Louisville, KY before our connecting flight to Boston gets us in (we hope!) sometime before 10 tonight. Who knows where our checked bags will end up!? We never got them back last night, even though the flight was canceled.

Trying to make the best of a canceled flight and a wasted vacation day — here’s another airport post!

Currently Reading

I Meant It Once by Kate Doyle

Written with crystalline prose and sly humor, the stories in I Meant It Once build to complete a profoundly recognizable portrait of early adulthood and the ways in which seemingly incidental moments can come to define the stories we tell ourselves. For fans of Elif Batuman, Ottessa Moshfegh, Patricia Lockwood, and Melissa Bank, these stories about being young and adrift in today’s world go down easy and pack a big punch. — From the Publisher

This collection of short stories is an advanced reading copy from Algonquin Press via NetGalley. Just beginning it, but am enjoying it so far! Good for readers of Sally Rooney’s novels, I would say.

Recently Read

Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke

• Winner of the 2018 Edgar Award for Best Novel
• A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice
• A Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize
• Washington Post 10 Best Thrillers and Mysteries of 2017

Set in rural East Texas, Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke is a noir thriller about a Black Texas Ranger caught up in an existential crisis, as well as more than one murder investigation, each with the potential to explode with disastrous political and personal consequences.

45 Books About Texas from Flying Off the Bookshelf

I chose Bluebird, Bluebird from a list of books set in Texas to buy and read on my trip to the Dallas area this past weekend because it had been on my TBR list for a while (probably since 2015 or so when Attica Locke was first making a splash in the crime fiction world.)

The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt

“Bob Comet, a retired librarian . . . brings to mind John Williams’ Stoner and Thoreau’s chestnut about ‘lives of quiet desperation,’ but it is telling that deWitt chooses to capture him at times when his life takes a turn. A quietly effective and moving character study.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred)

The Librarianist was an advance reading copy from NetGalley; the book isn’t coming out until July. Loved this book!

Very different in many ways from the only other book by this author that I’ve read, which was also great — The Sisters Brothers — but I’d say both are deep dives into men’s central life relationships.

The Librarianist and I Meant It Once are both helping with a private challenge to myself to keep up better with review copies I receive.

An Elegant Defense by Matt Richtel

Very good book about the human immune system. Or, I should say, about the two immune systems each human has.

The Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times journalist “explicates for the lay reader the intricate biology of our immune system” – Jerome Groopman, MD, New York Review of Books

Currently Listening To

More Texas reading from the above-mentioned list from Flying Off the Bookshelves!

Recently Listened To

Elsewhere by Alexis Schaitkin

Richly emotive and darkly captivating, with elements of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and the imaginative depth of Margaret Atwood, Elsewhere by Alexis Schaitkin conjures a community in which girls become wives, wives become mothers and some of them, quite simply, disappear. — From the Publisher

This post is linked to “It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?” hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date. Check out the link-up party there for more book lists!