Bookish Chatter | Two backlists titles; two French translations; one readaloud; + slow & steady updates and what I’m reading now

Happy Wednesday, friends! I skipped my blog on Monday because I woke up feeling anxious about our first day of school. That morning I got up to journal and sketch out a plan to prepare for our busy day, responded to a few emails, and then got straight to work printing out more activities and studying my lesson plans. And the first two days of the week couldn’t have gone any better despite some unanticipated wrenches thrown into the mix. So I am feeling pretty good about summer school this year!

And you know that books are my number one source of self-care, so I’ve managed to keep several in the rotation over the last week. I have four finished books plus one chapter book readaloud to chat about today. Plus, I’ll be sharing what I’m reading now and two books that I’ve broken up into smaller chunks and will be reading slowly but steadily. Here we go!

Finished This Week:

I am kicking myself for waiting so long to read Pachinko! This story stretches from 1910 through 1989 and takes us from Korea to Japan. It mostly follows Sunja, a young girl who grew up in Korea and became pregnant by a married man. When Isak arrives at her family’s boarding house and offers to marry her, it’s a relief for everyone. As life becomes unbearable in Korea as Japan’s colonization of the country presses on, Sunja and Isak move to Japan to be closer to his family.

I learned so much about Korea and Japan from this novel, including how horrible Koreans were treated in the 1900s. It’s not even something that occurred to me before reading this book! The second half of the book felt different than the first and I think that had a lot to do with how different the world was in the second half of the twentieth century. Pachinko was a great summer read and fit in so well with the other books I’ve been reading this summer.

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Where the Line Bleeds is the third book in the Bois Sauvage series by Jesmyn Ward, three loosely connected novels all set in the Mississippi Delta. This book is about twin brothers just out of high school and looking for work. One is offered a job and the other isn’t so these inseparable brothers set out on two very different paths.

Ward has as a unique ability to use the humidity of the Mississippi Delta to create a book seeped with dread and discomfort. In all three of these books, I found myself worrying for the safety of the characters, dreading what was to come. Have no fear, Ward knows that life is devastating enough and she nurtures her readers throughout her novels, while giving us a glimpse of reality in rural Southern communities.

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The Postcard is one of the most highly anticipated novels of the summer! In 2003, a family receives an anonymous postcard in the mail that only includes the four names of the author’s grandmother’s family members – all of whom were murdered in concentration camps. Anne and her mother spend the rest of the book uncovering their family’s history, which takes us all over Eastern Europe. Eventually, Anne’s family settled in France where they thrived until Germany invaded the country.

Through this novel, I caught a glimpse of what life was like for survivors of concentration camps after the war. I also learned how quickly people’s sympathy for the Jewish people dissipated once the occupation ended. This book explores what it means to be Jewish today and the generational trauma that many families have experienced since the Holocaust. It’s a wonderful addition to the vast amount of WWII literature out there and these characters are seared into my brain!

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Three is Valérie Perrin’s, author of Fresh Water for Flowers, newest effort. It follows three friends who meet as ten year olds and are inseparable throughout adolescence. Perrin expertly moves back and forth through time to tell their story and uncover their heartbreaking secrets. Just as with Fresh Water for Flowers, there’s an underlying mystery lurking in the background that is continuously referenced but isn’t fully discovered until the end. Several times I found myself asking out loud, what happened??!! I love that about this author.

I spent the first half of this book confused by the narrator; I couldn’t figure out who was telling this story. As the book went on, it was clear that this confusion was intentional and meaningful to the reader’s experience. Trust the voice you’re hearing and sit with your confusion. It will be worth it.

(if you’re keeping track, this makes two French translations in a row for me!)

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Bronwyn and I finished the very first Ivy and Bean book this week! This is how Ivy and Bean meet – these two strange creatures. It’s definitely the funniest one we’ve read and I spent the last two chapters laughing so hard that I could barely read it aloud.

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Slow & Steady:

I am slowly making my way through The Luminaries with the goal of reading 15-30 pages a day. I’m currently about 230 pages in and have to admit that I’m finding it very difficult to understand what’s happening! But I’ve been assured that it will all come together and that my mind will be blown. That is carrying me through these difficult waters! This is set in New Zealand and I feel like I’ve spent a lot of time in Australia and New Zealand this spring and summer, thanks to the books I’ve been reading. It’s almost like a vacation!

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I am rereading Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears with a friend. I read this in 2012 and 2019 and am always happy to revisit any of Pema Chödrön’s work. The essays are short and I’m only aiming to read 1/2 or 1 of them per day so this isn’t a big reach. I’m finding it most helpful to read it before my morning journaling and then let my thoughts/confusions/confessions/doubts spill into my journal. Visting Gampo Abbey is one of my most deeply held wishes but I’m not holding my breath!

Reading Now:

I was so excited to get The House of Doors from Blackwell’s last week! I couldn’t wait for its US release in October after I finished The Garden of Evening Mists earlier this summer. I’m about halfway through it and am liking it so far. The structure is a lot of like Evening Mists – it’s about an older woman reflecting on her life in Malaya in the first half of the twentieth century. This woman is very different from the protagonist in Evening Mists — and the racism exhibited by the British colonists is much more front and center in this novel.

I will say that I’m not as taken by The House of Doors as I was with The Garden of the Evening Mists but I was expecting that. Evening Mists felt like it was written just for me and will very likely be a lifetime favorite!

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And that’s it for this week! I don’t expect to have such a robust list of books next week now that we’re back in homeschooling mode and that is one hundred percent okay. But I do hope to be back on Friday with a little update on life around here. Until then – take good care!

(PS – 13 days until the Booker longlist announcement.)