Ordinary Light: A Memoir

Ordinary Light: A Memoir by Tracy K. Smith, 349 pages
The Pulitzer-Prize winning poet recounts the death of her mother from cancer, and then loops around to tell the story of her childhood, her home, and her family. Smith's voice is so clear and precise; both listening to her read her memoir and reading the book itsel, are a joyful experience. Smith is adept at telling the story at one remove, at looking at her younger self with understanding and wry humor; realizing that even the smartest among us are foolish at times, especially when we are young. Her recounting of her almost-affair with her high-school English teacher, and the judgement she was subjected to several years later by members f her mother's church, are well-crafted, tinged with nostalgia and somehow sad and funny.
The book is moving, lyrical and beautifully written, I enjoyed it.
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Tales from the Loop

Tales from the Loop by Simon Stalenhag, 126 pages.
This Swedish book is fascinating. The paintings are of a sort-of everyday rural Sweden, but they  are transformed into extraordinary landscapes by the addition of a variety of unusual objects, the debris left behind after the building of an imaginary particle accelerator, strange space-junk, superannuated robots, and ancient beasts that have wandered in through a tear in the fabric. Lots of fun.
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A little life

A little life / Hanya Yanagihara 720 pgs.

The story of four friends who meet in college, this is a hard book to read.  Each of the friends have some "issues" but no one as much as Jude, whose childhood was hopefully something you can only read in a fiction book. Pain and suffering are Jude's hallmarks.  Even when he is happy, he feels like he doesn't deserve to be.

A hefty book at 720 pages, this follows the group from college through their 50's. They fight, get back together, stage interventions for each other when necessary, and become successful.

This book has gotten a lot of attention and it is pretty amazing. Filled with insights into people's true feelings and ideas, their worries and self loathing.  It is difficult to read at times when we learn about Jude's childhood but even more so when he confesses that he feels like he didn't merit any better treatment.

love in lower-case / francesc miralles, trans. by Julie Wark, 224 pp.

A light love story, set in Barcelona and featuring a self-isolated language professor, a cat, a conspiracy theorist, and others.  Sweet, with loads of literary and classical music references.  The Barcelona setting is distinctive.

A Load of Hooey

A Load of Hooey: A Collection of New Short Humor Fiction by Bob Odenkirk, 139 pages

Former SNL writer and Mr. Show co-creator Bob Odenkirk presents a collection of humor sketches in A Load of Hooey. The topics range from a man explaining how he got each one of his impressive ab muscles to an imagined conversation between Jesus and Lazarus to a series of "unabridged" famous quotes. As you might imagine, these are hilarious. My favorites were Odenkirk's "transcript" of Martin Luther King Jr.'s worst speech ever, the aforementioned conversation between Jesus and Lazarus, and the Seussian poem about a man finding a Jackson Pollock painting in his grandma's basement. It's great fun, particularly if you listen to the audiobook, which features Odenkirk, David Cross, and Brian Posehn, among others.

The Private Eye

The Private Eye by Brian K. Vaughan, Marcos Martin, and Muntsa Vicente,
A very imaginative, colorful, and fully-realized tale of a semi-dystopian future wherein the internet has been abandoned, everyone leads a masked existence with their own secret identity, and journalists have taken the place of government authorities.
A private investigator (now an illegal occupation) reluctantly seeks to uncover the truth of the murder of a former client. Aided by the victim's sister, his own grandfather, and a gung-ho assistant, P.I. becomes involved in something much larger than a simple murder, and must confront his own secrets as well as those of the society in which he lives.
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The Invitation-Only Zone: The True Story of North Korea's Abduction Project

The Invitation-Only Zone: The True Story of North Korea's Abduction Project by Robert Boynton, 271 pages.
Boynton, a journalist who has worked for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The New York Times Magazine, among other publications, tells a fascinating story Japanese citizens who were kidnapped and spirited away to North Korea during the 1970s. Boynton's telling of the tale is a little flat, and does not quite make a fascinating read. He was able to interview several of the abductees after their return, and he was able to talk with many government officials in Japan and South Korea. The narrative itself bogs down a bit, with a fair amount of speculation that leaves the reader wanting more detail, more confirmation (of some of the stories), and more spark. A decent book and an interesting subject.

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Nimona

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson, 266 pages.
A fun, funny, and engaging graphic novel about two graduates of the local  institution of law enforcement. They had been great friends, more than that even, but then their was an incident and their paths split. Lord Ballister Blackheart chose (or was forced onto by circumstance) the path of villany, while Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin is the hero of the kingdom.
They clash often, they are adversaries, but the situation between them is somewhat stable. When Nimona arrives on the scene the dynamic shifts. Ostensibly Blackheart's sidekick, Nimona is far more than she seems, and soon becomes the story's center.
A satisfying tale with great art. Highly recommended.
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A Wizard of Earthsea

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin, 320 pages

LeGuin's first book in the Earthsea series focuses on the training and self-discovery of the great mage Ged. His journey takes him from a small poor hamlet to a school of magical training, where he unleashes a dark power that threatens to take over Ged, and possibly all of Earthsea. Throw in some dragons and the obligatory quest, and you've got a classic high fantasy tale.

This had long been on my to-read list, and I'm glad I finally picked it up. I'm curious to see how the rest of this series shakes out, and I'm equally curious to see the Studio Ghibli film adaptation, which, I suspect, is excellent. This story seems like an excellent fit for Goro Miyazaki's storytelling style.

Avenue of Mysteries

Avenue of Mysteries by John Irving  460 pp.

This is the richly detailed, convoluted tale of Juan Diego Guerrero, who was raised a "dump kid" in Oaxaca, Mexico with his younger sister, Lupe, a mind reader with a speech impediment who thinks she knows the future. Juan Diego teaches himself to read in both Spanish and English from books he salvages from the flames of the dump and ultimately becomes a rather successful author. The story jumps between Juan Diego's life as a boy in Oaxaca, the accident that left him with a crippled foot, to his trip to the Philippines as an old man with a few stops in his brief encounter with a circus and his life in Iowa after being adopted by Eduardo, a former priest wanna-be and his transgendered partner. Then there are the two mysterious women who take control of Juan Diego and interrupt his visit with a former student in the Philippines. Throughout the novel there is much discussion and argument about various facets of the Catholic religion and the worship of Mary/Our Lady of Guadalupe along with a "miracle" or two. Much of the story of Juan Diego's childhood is in the form of the dreams he has when he doesn't take his beta-blocker prescription. He also gets much use from his Viagra prescription with the mysterious mother and daughter. Irving has filled this novel with a wide assortment of characters all of which add to the tale of Juan Diego. The book got mixed reviews but I liked it.