The Trick

The Trick by Emanuel Bergmann, 375 pages.

Two parallel stories, one of the Great Zabbatini, a Jew performing in a European circus as World War II looms, and the second concerning a ten-year-old boy name Max in present day California. While the story of Zabbatini, his childhood, his fleeing towards the circus and his time trying to pass as a Persian magician while living in Nazi Germany was well done. The present day story lacked a  single sympathetic or likable character, Max and his parents seem not to posses a single redeeming feature between the three of them. Zabbatini is still haunted by the war, but this haunting manifests itself in his being a giant asshole to everyone he meets. The plot never really clicks either, Overall, not my favorite.

Long Way Down

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds, 305 pages.
Reynolds is a fascinating writer and his book length poem about a boy seeking to avenge the death of his brother is sad, moving and skillfully written. Will knows where his brother Shawn kept his gun. After Shawn's death, Will retrieves the pistol and boards the elevator to go out and seek his brother's killer. At each floor, as the elevator descends, Will is visited by someone from his past. I listened to the audio version of this book which is also narrated by the author. Really an excellent book (or audio).
One of the books I bought for teen gifts this past Christmas.

Florida

Florida by Lauren Groff, 288 pages.
Groff's brand new book of short stories is excellent in every way. Her characters are delicately drawn portraits of people in unusual circumstances. "The Midnight Zone" tells of a woman who insists her spouse leave her and their two young children at a remote cabin, with no car, despite a panther sighting in the area, and despite her self-described lack of competence. Her descriptions of injury and treatment are wickedly funny.
The account of the hurricane in "Eyewall" is intense and otherworldly, and the young woman struggling to find out who she is and where she belongs, in the story "Above and Below," is maybe the best of them. All of the stories in this collection shine.

The Ballad of Black Tom

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle, 151 pages
Charles Thomas Tester, living in  1930s Harlem,  recounts his journey from a hustler who is acquainted with the magic in and around the city, to a vengeful man at the nexus of the supernatural in New Yourk. As Tester grows closer to the center of the magic in New York, and closer to the Sleeping King, he adopts the title name, a name originally offered in insult. Along the way, as he learns more about the worlds around him, Tom fights with other New Yorkers seeking  power and with corrupt police. I really enjoyed this book and I'm looking forward to reading the author's much-acclaimed The Changling.

The Afterlife of Stars

The Afterlife of Stars by Joseph Kertes, 243 pages.
The relationship between Robert and his older brother, Attila is the heart of this book.  Attila, four years older, is angrier, funnier, and smarter than Robert. Robert's narrating this book, looking back to the time when he was 9.7 and Attila was 13.8, as their Jewish family fled Hungary and the Russian army in 1956. The boy's parents still have fresh wounds from the war and from the Holocaust which had killed many of their relatives. It's and interesting book and Attila is a great character, with his oversize sense of adventure and his half-mocking words of endearment towards Robert, "my tiny brother," mon petit chou," "my pumpkin loaf." There are a lot of strong moments in the book, but the ending is a bit of a disappointment, and the narrator's voice, sometimes a child of nine, sometimes an older man looking back, is a little uneven.

The Odyssey

The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson, 582 pages.
Wilson's new translation of this epic poem is eminently readable and enjoyable. Her introduction explains the poem, its history, its inconsistencies, and the probable history of Homer; not necessarily one poet from one time but a mixture of poets and transcribers over the years and centuries. She says of The Odyssey and The Iliad that, "[t]hese are written texts that display the legacy of a long oral tradition. In important ways the poems are a patchwork."

A great version of a timeless work, one that shows how people's ideas of hospitality, warfare, marriage, and faith have changed and stayed the same. Okay, mostly changed, raiding, the sacking of cities, killing, and raping, aren't considered heroic anymore, but even in the time of Odysseus it was considered somewhat rude to murder all of your guests.
Wilson's Iliad is still years away, but I can't wait. Meanwhile, it's time to go and reread Fagles and Lombardo and maybe explore an older translation or two.

Her Body and Other Parties: Stories

Her Body and Other Parties: Stories by Carmen Maria Machado, 245 pages

Machado is very exciting author to read or to listen to. The stories in this collection are weird, artful, and amazing. "Especially Heinous" gives an odd, disjointed, disturbing view of the popular TV show Law and Order: SVU. Episode titles are followed by synopses that give a fun-house-mirror continuity to the show, with alternate characters, absurdly grisly crimes, and victims that literally haunt the officers. "The Resident," tells of a writer who must defend her work against verbal attacks, self-doubt and mutilated bunny corpses. The author plays with your sympathies and expectations masterfully.
Reading this shortly after I read Saunder's Tenth of December gave me such a sense of happy wonder at the writers and their store that we are lucky enough to encounter.

Tenth of December: Stories

Tenth of December: Stories by George Saunders, read by the author. 251 pages.

What a collection of wonderful, weird stories. The opening story, "Victory Lap," feature so much internal monologue, even when all the characters are there together in a particular scene  that it's somewhat dizzying. I read this, or rather listened to it, after reading Lincoln in the Bardo a couple of times, and loving that.  I was still somehow surprised at how weirdly beautiful all of these stories were. Saunders is a great writer and each of these stories are well-crafted gems.

theMystery.doc

theMystery.doc by Matthew McIntosh, 1660 pages.
Long, and maybe intricate, maybe gnarled and knotted, this interwoven serices of narratives, conversations, reports, and transcriptions frequently involve characters named "M," Matt, Matthew, or McIntosh, just like the author. M's father is dying. One character has a beautiful wife, but is having an affair with his neighbor's high-school aged daughter, while he endlessly works on a mysterious book, but he remembers none of this. I found it fun and readable, but endlessly confusing. I have before read 1200 pages of a book and thought "there's only about 450 pages left in this book, I hope I figure out what the book's about soon" (I did not figure it out). Reminiscent of Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves if not in style, then at least in it's sense of typographical playfulness, with pages of pictures from old movies and pages of asterisks and other typographical symbols alternately moving the story along and adding to the confusion. Fun to read if you don't mind non-linear,experimental, or just plain odd fiction.

Chasing Space: An Astronaut's Story of Grit, Grace, and Second Chances

Chasing Space: An Astronaut's Story of Grit, Grace, and Second Chances by Leland Melvin, 241 pages. Narrated by Ron Butler.
Leland Melvin has lead an amazing and inspirational life. He has degrees in chemistry and in "materials science engineering," he played, briefly, in the NFL, and worked as a NASA astronaut, going on two shuttle flights. Along the way he also composed with Pharrell Williams, met the Obamas several times, and hosted a TV show.
He does a good job of sharing his inspirational story, emphasizing the roles of bot perseverance and serendipity in his life, and he gives a great deal of credit to his parents. A fun book to read or to listen to.

Autonomous

Autonomous by Annalee Newitz, 301 pages.

Jack, a pharma pirate in a dystopian future world, realizes that her life has changed for the worse when a bad batch of a  new proprietary drug she had reverse engineered seems to be behind a string of recent deaths. Jack makes her living stealing top-selling compounds of from big-pharma companies, and then figuring out how to manufacture those drugs herself. She focuses on popular new drugs like "Zacuity," a productivity enhancer. Once she can produce a copy, she sells them on the black market, and uses the rather large profits to fund the production of life-saving drugs for the poorer segments of the population.
A well-constructed world and a fast-paced plot make this a very good read. The audio is ably narrated by Jennifer Ikeda.

Stay with Me

Stay with Me by Ayobami Adebayo, 260 pages.

Yejide and Akin met in college. They're leading a modern sort of life in Ilesa, Nigeria, and are as in love as they can be. But as the years go by and the couple has difficulty having children, secrets, betrayal and the ideas held by Akin's family drive some significant wedges between the two. As the couple eventually welcome children into their lives, tragic events, and some of Akin's family members, conspire to drive them further apart.
Beautifully drawn characters and an excellent sense of place make this a riveting novel.
The audio is narrated by the always excellent Adjoa Andoh.

The Last Black Unicorn

The Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish, 278 pages.

Tiffany Haddish's account of her life is both amazing and unique. She has had a surprisingly large amount of pain in her life. The accident that almost killed her mother, that led to Tiffany's stint in foster care, may have been part of a murder plot. That is unusual, and you know, might mess you up a bit. Part of the continued surprise of this book is that, as the author says and her co-writer states in the acknowledgements, Tiffany tells all the stories. She doesn't name names, but she does tell what happened, whether the stories present her in the best light or not. She tells the story of her marriage to an abusive stalker-ish ex-policeman, how he mistreated her, how he beat her, and she does a good job of explaining why she went back to him. Her account of her relationship with her co-worker Roscoe is also devastating, sad and, because she is telling the story, it's funny. The story of what she refers to as her most messed up relationship, with long time boyfriend Titus, is also a hilarious train-wreck. Train-wrecks, of course aren't funny. They're tragic. But if Tiffany Haddish was to tell you the story of a very tragic train-wreck, you would be laughing. A very interesting book. You really want everything to continue to work out for the author.