Today, I started reading Tana French's The Searcher: A Novel. Last week, I read The Hunter by the same author. I should have read The Searcher first, as it is the prequel to The Hunter, but reading in reverse order helped my enjoyment. Despite knowing some of the suspenseful twists and turns the story would take, I found it a page-turner.
by Tana French
Today, I started reading Tana French‘s The Searcher: A Novel. Last week, I read The Hunter by the same author. I should have read The Searcher first, as it is the prequel to The Hunter, but reading in reverse order helped my enjoyment. Despite knowing some of the suspenseful twists and turns the story would take, I found it a page-turner.
The story follows Cal Hooper, a retired Chicago police officer who seeks a fresh start in a tranquil Irish village. However, when a local boy approaches him to investigate his missing brother, Cal discovers that the town has its share of dark secrets. The book raises thought-provoking questions about distinguishing right from wrong in a complicated world and what we risk when making that decision.
Tana French is a highly acclaimed crime novelist who skillfully creates a captivating and suspenseful atmosphere throughout the book.
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by Alexander Chee
Today I read The Weddings by Alexander Chee. It is the fifth and last book in Inheritance, a collection of five stories about secrets, unspoken desires, and dangerous revelations between loved ones. For Jack Cho, a fortysomething gay man, being able to marry someone he loves is so unfamiliar it’s terrifying. Then a wedding invitation from a college friend brings about a collision with those fears—and his secret history.
I have always enjoyed weddings. I attended the last one when my younger son married in July 2021. Not sure if I will ever participate in another wedding.
I have attended many diverse weddings but never one with as many secret histories. To avoid revealing the secrets, I will state that The Weddings is well written, each moment is precise, and the mysteries are neither shocking nor disruptive to the story.
I highly recommend The Weddings.
Each Inheritance piece can be read or listened to in a single setting. By yourself, behind closed doors, or shared with someone you trust. The Weddings is the fifth one in the series I have read.
The previous four were:
I have enjoyed all five books.
The Goodreads summary provides an overview,
Jack and his new boyfriend, Caleb, are attending the wedding of Jack’s estranged straight friend Scott. No sooner do the guests start to mingle than questions arise about relationships, tradition, Jack’s feelings for the groom, and what’s at stake as he navigates daunting territory, both new and old. In this wry and surprising short story, award-winning author Alexander Chee extends an invitation to the party—and awakening—of a lifetime.
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by Jennifer Croft
I began reading “The Extinction of Irena Rey” by Jennifer Croft today. The novel is about eight translators searching for a world-famous author, Irena Rey, who has gone missing in a primeval Polish forest. The translators have come from eight different countries and share a deep admiration for Irena Rey. Their mission is to translate her masterpiece, “Gray Eminence,” but their task takes an unexpected turn when Irena disappears within days of their arrival.
The translators begin to investigate where Irena may have gone while continuing to work on her book. They explore the ancient wooded refuge, with its intoxicating slime molds and lichens, and study Irena’s exotic belongings and layered texts for clues. However, their search reveals secrets and deceptions that they are unprepared for. As they grow increasingly paranoid in this isolated and obsessive fever dream, the translators are forced to confront their differences, and their rivalries and desires threaten not only their work but also the fate of Irena Rey herself.
This debut novel is a brilliant exploration of art, celebrity, the natural world, and the power of language. It is a thought-provoking narrative blends humor and adventure, taking readers on an unforgettable journey with a small yet diverse cast of characters. These characters, shaken by the shocks of love, destruction, and creation, find themselves in one of Europe’s last great wildernesses, where the fate of their beloved author hangs in the balance.
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Today, I dove into “Dream Count” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and I couldn’t be more excited! A decade in the making, this novel promises to be a captivating journey. Known for her bestselling works like “Americanah” and “We Should All Be Feminists,” Adichie brings her trademark brilliance to this story of four women exploring their loves, longings, and desires. I can’t wait to see how their lives unfold!
Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. During the pandemic, feeling alone, she reflects on her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Her best friend Zikora, a successful lawyer, faces betrayal and heartbreak, leading her to turn to the person she thought she needed the least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold and outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she truly knows herself. Meanwhile, Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, proudly raises her daughter in America yet must confront an unimaginable hardship that threatens everything she has worked to achieve.
In “Dream Count,” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie focuses on these women’s lives in a captivating and profound novel that explores the very nature of love. Is true happiness ever attainable, or is it merely a fleeting state? How honest must we be with ourselves to love and be loved? The story profoundly reflects on our choices and those made for us, mothers and daughters, and our interconnected world. “Dream Count” resonates with emotional urgency and provides poignant, unflinching observations of the human heart, all conveyed in beautifully powerful language. This work reaffirms Adichie’s status as one of contemporary literature’s most exciting and dynamic writers.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie grew up in Nigeria. Her work has been translated into more than fifty-five languages. She is the author of the novels “Purple Hibiscus,” which won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize; “Half of a Yellow Sun,” which was the recipient of the Women’s Prize for Fiction “Best of the Best” award; Americanah, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award; the story collection “The Thing Around Your Neck” and the essays We Should All Be Feminists and Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions. Her most recent work is an essay about losing her father, Notes on Grief, and Mama’s Sleeping Scarf, a children’s book by Nwa Grace-James. A recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, she divides her time between the United States and Nigeria.
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by Liane Moriarty
Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty is a novel that looks at marriage, siblings, and how the people we love the most can hurt us the deepest. The Delaney family love one another dearly—it’s just that sometimes they want to murder each other.
If your mother was missing, would you tell the police? Even if the most obvious suspect was your father? The four grown Delaney siblings face this dilemma.
This book is a page-turner. With all of the characters having issues unrelated to their mission mother, they have a life with many mysteries and rivalries. I sometimes wanted to know more about their lives instead of the missing mum.
Although I will not reveal the conclusion, it is clear how a missing parent could appear to be the crime of the century.
According to Goodreads,
The Delaneys are fixtures in their community. The parents, Stan and Joy, are the envy of all of their friends. They’re killers on the tennis court, and off it, their chemistry is palpable. But after fifty years of marriage, they’ve finally sold their famed tennis academy and are ready to start what should be the golden years of their lives. So why are Stan and Joy so miserable?
The four Delaney children―Amy, Logan, Troy, and Brooke―were tennis stars in their own right, yet as their father will tell you, none of them had what it took to go all the way. But that’s okay, now that they’re all successful grown-ups. In addition, there is the beautiful possibility of grandchildren on the horizon.
One night a stranger named Savannah knocks on Stan and Joy’s door, bleeding after a fight with her boyfriend. The Delaneys are more than happy to give her the small kindness she sorely needs. If only that were all, she wanted.
Later, when Joy goes missing and Savannah is nowhere to be found, the police question the one person who remains: Stan. But for someone who claims to be innocent, he, like many spouses, seems to have a lot to hide. Two of the Delaney children think their father is innocent. Two are not so sure―but as the two sides square off against each other in perhaps their most important match ever, all of the Delaneys will start to reexamine their shared family history in a very new light.
I recommend this book.
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by Benjamín Labatut
Today, I began reading When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut, translated by Adrian Nathan West. This book, listed on The New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, promises to be thought-provoking as it delves into the intricate connections between scientific and mathematical discovery, madness, and destruction.
In a world where scientific advancements often involve ethical dilemmas and societal implications, this book offers a unique perspective on the lives of scientists who have shaped our understanding of the world. Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, and Erwin Schrödinger are some of the luminaries whose troubled lives Benjamín Labatut deeply explores in his fictional examination. Labatut shows how these scientists and thinkers grappled with profound questions of existence, experiencing strokes of unparalleled genius, alienating friends and lovers, and descending into isolation and insanity. Their discoveries, some of which significantly improved human life, while others led to chaos and unimaginable suffering, continue to shape our world.
With a breakneck pace and a wealth of disturbing detail, Labatut uses fiction’s imaginative resources to tell the stories of the scientists and mathematicians who expanded our notions of the possible.
by Sayaka Murata
Today, I began reading Sayaka Murata‘s Vanishing World, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori. This novel, from the author of the bestselling literary sensations Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings, presents a surprising and highly imaginative story set in an alternate version of Japan where sexual relations between married couples have disappeared, and all children are conceived through artificial insemination.
Sayaka Murata has established herself as a remarkable observer of society’s peculiarities, delving into our contemporary world with bizarre and unsettling insights. Her portrayals of a contentedly unmarried retail worker in Convenience Store Woman and a young woman who believes she is an alien in Earthlings have resonated with millions of readers globally. In Vanishing World, Murata takes her vision to a bold new level, envisioning an alternative Japan where attitudes toward sex and procreation diverge significantly from our own.
As a girl, Amane is horrified to learn that her parents “copulated” to conceive her rather than using artificial insemination, which became the norm in the mid-twentieth century. She seeks to escape what she perceives as her mother’s indoctrination into this peculiar “system.” Despite her efforts, Amane’s attractions to both anime characters and real people carry an undeniable sexual weight.
As an adult in a suitably sexless marriage—where sex between married couples is regarded as taboo, akin to incest—Amane and her husband, Saku, decide to relocate to a mysterious new town called Experiment City, or Paradise-Eden. In this community, all children are raised collectively, and every person is considered a mother to all children. Men are beginning to experience pregnancy through artificial wombs that exist outside their bodies, resembling balloons, and children are nameless, referred to simply as “Kodomo-chan.” Will this new world finally cleanse Amane of her strangeness?
Sayaka Murata is the author of several books, including Convenience Store Woman, which won the Akutagawa Prize, Earthlings, and Life Ceremony. Freeman has recognized her as a “Future of New Writing” author, and Vogue Japan has honored her as a Woman of the Year.
Ginny Tapley Takemori has translated works from more than a dozen Japanese writers, including Ryu Murakami. She resides at the foot of a mountain in Eastern Japan.
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