What I'm Reading This Week (September 15, 2024)

 

I finished three books last week, two from the 2024 Booker Prize longlist and a collection of science fiction short stories. I was relieved to enjoy both the Booker nominees, easing my concern that this year's Booker list was going to be a bit of a dud (Orbital and This Strange Eventful History had me thinking that way). I've already posted reviews for both The Safekeep and Headshot if you are interested in learning a little more about those two. It turned out to be Cixin Liu's To Hold Up the Sky that disappointed me last week - more on that one in a few days.

Because of set-in-concrete due dates at my library, I did focus last week's reading primarily on Booker Prize nominees, but now the only Booker novel I have on hand is Tommy Orange's Wandering Stars so I'll likely be returning to some of the already partially read books I tabled in their favor. When I'm done with Wandering Stars, I will have read seven of the thirteen Booker nominees, and I'm fairly pleased to be this far along before tomorrow's shortlist announcement. I'm hoping that I'll have read at least two or three of the six finalists announced then. Can't wait to find out. 

Wandering Stars is both a prequel and a sequel to Tommy Orange's previous novel There There (as in "there's no there, there"). I read the prologue (a really emotional opening) and the first three chapters of the book this morning, and I can well understand its appeal to the nominating committee. I've heard that the prequel parts work best in this new one, and based on my experience with There There I can believe that. Perhaps Orange is a better writer of historical fiction than he is of contemporary fiction. I'm looking forward to answering that one for myself.

Just when I thought I had read just about everything published by Larry McMurtry, I learn about Literary Life, a second volume to his memoir. I've only read about ten percent of this one, and so far there's not a lot that's new or surprising to me. I am, however, enjoying McMurtry's understated sense of humor as he takes the reader on his journey from young cowboy trainee to a long life devoted to books, bookstores, and reading. McMurtry was one of the most passionate book-lovers I've ever heard about - at least from the modern era. This is a relatively short, almost conversational, kind of read, a nice change of pace.

And because I can never get enough Larry McMurtry, I've been ending each day by reading a chapter or two from Pastures of the Empty Page. That limits me to 15-20 pages a day from this collection of author memories of McMurtry's influence on them individually, so I'm surprised to see that I'm a bit over halfway through this one already. I've heard many of these stories before, so it's the ones from people who barely brushed shoulders with McMurtry at some point in their lives that I'm finding most interesting.

I decided to begin Marie Tierney's Deadly Animals last week because I didn't want to have to rush through it later as its publication date gets closer. The main character of Deadly Animals is an almost 15-year-old girl who is fascinated by...wait for it...road kill. She's always on the lookout for fresh kills she can study for the impact of environment and weather on their decomposition. This kid has her own Body Farm going on, and no one knows about it. And then one day she finds the stashed body of a neighborhood bully who's been missing for a couple of weeks. Now what will she do?

There's a possibility that I'll get my hands on My Friends (another Booker nominee) this week, and in fact, I thought I'd have it before now because it's officially been in "in transit" status at my library for a whole week now. Usually when that happens, something has gone wrong, and the book never shows up at all, though, so we'll see. I also want to get back to the French novel by Indrajit Garai, The Man without Shelter, that I started a few days ago...and I see that The Rich People Have Gone Away  is now shown as "in transit" by the library. That one might shake up the plan a bit, too, if it turns out to be as interesting as it looks from afar. 

What I'm most looking forward to are the ones that are not even in my world at the moment, the ones that always seem to come from nowhere. Have a great reading week, everyone!