What I read in July
Catching up!
Hello!
Books
I Want You To Be Happy, by Jem Calder
A rare romance rec from me (except of course it’s messy, I’m-not-sure-they-really-should-end-up-together romance), I wolfed this in one sitting and went to sleep at 1am. It’s very, very good.
Chuck and Joey meet at a bar. It’s a few months after the breakdown of Chuck’s 12-year relationship, and the novel opens with him explaining the breakup to Joey, while she sips her drink and attempts to hear him over the music. Over the next few months, they dance around the idea of a relationship neither of them really knows how to navigate, with alternating chapters giving more insight to them both than they ever give each other.
N.b. - never ever print out a 20k word doc to give someone to read on the spot while you wait for their verdict.
City of Rats, by Copi (trans. Kit Schluter)
Ratatouille but dark.
Gouri is writing to the author, who is translating his letters from Rat to French (and then Kit Schluter is translating the French to English), after he is unceremoniously evicted from Copi’s apartment by a maid. In his updates, Gouri explains that he and his friend Rakä have gone into business together, selling worms to pigeons, and it’s going well. Gouri and Rakä have even met some girl-rats, and then found out that they’re actually princesses. This sets off a chain of events which sees Gouri, Rakä, and the Royal Rat Family off on an adventure down the Seine with the French police in pursuit.
More grotesque-surreal than ridiculous-surreal, be warned!
Paramatha, or, Story of my Mouth, by Maggie Nelson
Sigh. I loved BLUETS, and I loved THE ARGONAUTS, and I think JANE: A MURDER is an incredible feat of personal narrative non-fiction, but these little essays-as-books are just not it. We all want more! But if there isn’t actually any more, that’s ok.
It Will Come Back to You, by Sigrid Nunez
This is Nunez’ FIRST collection of short fiction. I know. I have more to say about it, but you’ll have to wait for the next issue of Mslexia to be out.
Said the Dead, by Doireann Ní Ghríofa
FINALLYYYYYY. I had been saving this, because I knew it would already feel like reading three books at once - it’s a mix of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, with some photography in for good measure. I read GHOST IN THE THROAT and Ní Ghríofa’s poetry collections, so I had high hopes for this. It didn’t disappoint.
When an abandoned Victorian mental institution is redeveloped into modern apartments, a woman finds the perfect new home for rent, which is an excellent start for horrible happenings, but somehow, Ní Gríofa makes her ghosts so real, so human, that they are never the frightening thing, but the things that have happened to them are. As the narrative moves along, women who lived (and died) at the hospital come in and out of focus, their archived medical records opened, their childhood portrait photographs reproduced, but then - as the woman reads the doctors casebook, and with the arrival of Lucia Strangman, the first woman qualified as a psychiatrist in Britain and Ireland, in 1896 - they come alive.
Beautiful. Glad I waited to give this one my full attention.
Also: GREAT EXPECTATIONS (I’m trying out the audiobook of this, narrated by Suzy Eddie Izzard, but I’m reading and post-it-noting at the same time because the audio is 22 hours long) // I’ve started COUNTRY PEOPLE by Daniel Mason but I’m not finished yet // NYMPH, by Sofia Montrone for book club - loved, excited to discuss // LIFE OF M, by Rachel Cusk // SONGSPIRALS, by Gay'wu Group of Women // Trying really really hard not to crack open THE ODYSSEY because it’s temptinggggg…
Online reads
Jia Tolentino wrote a sort-of update to her 2019 piece on Instagram Face for The New Yorker, Our Plastic-Surgery Nightmare. I have A LOT of thoughts and I want to discuss it!
Odyssey rabbit holes!
Sam Kriss’ MAFS dreaming:
What have you been reading?
Terri-Jane x
We’d love to see you!
The bookshop is open every day except Mondays. We’re at 969 Ann Street, 10-5 Tuesday-Friday, and 11-4 at weekends.
We have book clubs and writing workshops every month, and a classics club every other month (so you have longer to read bigger books!). There are also events with local creatives, from ink drawing to poetry nights. All of our events can be booked online, here.