The City We Became: A Novel by N. K. Jemisin is my first science fiction and urban fantasy novel in quite some time. It is a story of culture, identity, magic, and myths in contemporary New York City. Jan and I had lived in New York City, and the book brought back fond memories.

Every great city has a soul. Some are ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children.

But every City also has a dark side. A roiling, ancient evil stirs beneath the earth, threatening to destroy the City and her five protectors unless they can come together and stop it once and for all.

As Jemisin writes:

A city is never alone, not really — and this city seems less solitary than most. More like a family: many parts, frequently squabbling … but in the end, against enemies, they come together to protect one another. They must, or die.

The challenge is when evil forces threaten the City; the entire community needs to unite, and the City’s avatars for each of the five boroughs.

Initially, this is supposed to be one for each borough and one for the entire City. In the end, one of the avatars for the five boroughs chooses not to unite with the others. Without all six, they stand no chance to defeat the forces of evil.

How do they solve this? By adding the sixth borough – Jersey City.

I recommend this book without reservation.

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Today, I dove into Charlotte Wood‘s captivating novel, “Stone Yard Devotional.” I couldn’t resist picking it up after discovering a glowing review by Joumana Khatib. She expressed her fondness for the book in the New York Times Book Review Newsletter, saying, “I’m still so enamored of Charlotte Wood’s novel.” It’s impressive that this work was a finalist for the Booker Prize last year! I’m eager to read the book to determine if it is a “love story,” as Ms. Khatib believes.

Burnt out and needing a retreat, a middle-aged woman leaves Sydney to return to her childhood home, taking refuge in a small religious community hidden away on the stark plains of rural Australia. She does not believe in God and is unfamiliar with the concept of prayer, finding herself living this strange, reclusive existence almost by accident.

However, her secluded life is disrupted by three significant events. First, a terrible mouse plague marks a new battle against the growing infestation daily. Second, the skeletal remains of a sister who disappeared decades ago and was presumed murdered return. Finally, a troubling visitor brings her further into her past.

Meditative, moving, and finely observed, “Stone Yard Devotional” is a seminal novel from a writer of rare power. It explores the meaning of retreating from the world, forgiveness’s true nature, and grief‘s lasting effects on the human soul.

When you purchase a book through one of my links, I earn a small commission that helps support my passion for reading. This contribution allows me to buy even more books to share with you, creating an incredible cycle of discovering great reads together! Your support truly makes a difference!

Today, I started reading Cloud Atlas: A Novel by David Mitchell, one of The New York Times’ 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary, voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins treating him for a rare species of brain parasite.

The novel careens, with dazzling virtuosity, to Belgium in 1931, the West Coast in the 1970s, an inglorious present-day England, a Korean superstate of the near future where neo-capitalism has run amok, and, finally, a postapocalyptic Iron Age Hawaii in the last days of history. But the story doesn’t end even there. What sets Cloud Atlas apart is its unique narrative structure, which boomerangs back through centuries and space, returning by the same route, in reverse, to its starting point. This journey reveals how the disparate characters connect, how their fates intertwine, and how their souls drift across time like clouds across the sky.

As wild as a video game, as mysterious as a Zen koan, Cloud Atlas is an unforgettable tour de force that, like its incomparable author, has transcended its cult classic status to become a worldwide phenomenon. The novel’s diverse settings and cultures, from 1850 Chatham Isles to a postapocalyptic Iron Age Hawaii, appeal to readers across the globe, offering a rich and varied reading experience.

“Look What You Made Me Do” by John Lanchester is a darkly comedic tale that delves deep into the intricate web of love, trust, resentment, and entitlement. The narrative weaves the lives of two women from contrasting generations, drawing them into a thrilling conflict where wits and wills are tested to the limit. As tension mounts and secrets unravel, only one will rise to claim victory in this captivating showdown.

“Every successful marriage has its own private language.” So it is for baby boomer Kate and her beloved architect husband Jack, thirty years into their seemingly idyllic life in metropolitan North London. And so it is for spiky millennial screenwriter Phoebe and her charming loafer of a partner, Tony.

But when Phoebe’s steamy television series, Cheating, becomes the year’s most talked-about show, Kate thinks she sees details and intimacies of her marriage in it that only she and her husband could have known. Who has betrayed whom? Who has stolen whose story―and why?

John Lanchester is the author of five novels, including the best-selling *The Debt to Pleasure* and *Capital*. His works have received several accolades, including the Hawthornden Prize, the Whitbread First Novel Award, and the E. M. Forster Award. His books have also been longlisted for the Booker Prize and translated into more than twenty-five languages. Lanchester is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books. He resides in London.

Discover your next favorite book and dive into a world of curated, exciting reads by purchasing through my links. You’ll have access to a diverse selection of books I’ve personally vetted for quality and enjoyment. Supporting these selections not only helps me continue to provide you with personalized recommendations but also ensures you have access to meaningful stories that enrich your life. Your support truly makes a difference in helping me share more books and insights with you!

I recall reading portions of Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl at various times, but I never completed the book. However, recently, eight and a half months after Jan’s passing, my wife and I were discussing in one of my groups. Frankl’s theory of logotherapy, which derives from the Greek word for “meaning,” centers around the idea that the primary human drive is not pleasure, as Freud believed, but rather the search for what gives life meaning. I now have a framework for my life without Jan.

For those like me who are widows, Frankl understands suffering,

In some ways, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.

Jan and I lived meaningful lives. My challenge now is to continue to find meaning in my life without Jan.

As Frankl writes,

Those who have a ‘why’ to live can bear with almost any ‘how.

The love Jan and I shared was one of my primary sources of meaning. In addition, I stopped working full-time at the end of 2018 and struggled to replace the purpose I had gained from repairing the world. After Jan died, I suffered the “provisional existence of an unknown limit, ” which Frankl experienced when he was in the concentration camps.

I have replaced the loss of meaning and purpose with a series of activities:

1. Planning to celebrate Jan Day on her birthday this year.
2. Writing my random thoughts on Jan, love, grief, life, and all things considered;
3. Reading more than ever, including my Goodreads 2022 Reading Challenge; and
4. Walking more than I probably should.

I am also beginning to serve on the board of a few non-profits. It is time to transition from hands-on work to providing leadership in a different way.

Will this be enough to give my life meaning?

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life, and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life, he can only respond by being responsible.

I must continue to focus on my search for meaning, as life will inevitably change over time.

My grief journey has taught me that love never dies,

For the first time in my life, I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry, thought, and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.

My path forward is to keep Jan’s love alive and continue to share it with others.

I recommend this book without reservation.

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I started reading Monica Wood‘s “How to Read a Book: A Novel” today. It’s a heartfelt and uplifting story about a chance encounter at a bookstore—the novel delves into themes of redemption, unlikely friendships, and the life-changing power of sharing stories. With Monica Wood’s characteristic heart, wit, grace, and understanding, the novel illuminates the decisions that shape a life and the kindnesses that make life meaningful.

The story revolves around three characters: Violet Powell, a twenty-two-year-old from rural Abbott Falls, Maine, who is being released from prison after serving twenty-two months for a drunk-driving crash that killed a local kindergarten teacher; Harriet Larson, a retired English teacher who runs the prison book club and is facing the prospect of an empty nest; and Frank Daigle, a retired machinist who is struggling to come to terms with the complexities of his marriage to the woman Violet killed.

Their lives unexpectedly intersect one morning in a bookstore in Portland, Maine. Violet buys the novel she read in the prison book club before her release, Harriet selects the following title for the remaining women, and Frank fulfills his duties as the store handyman. Their encounters set off a chain of events that will profoundly change them.

How to Read a Book“ is a candid and hopeful story about releasing guilt, embracing second chances, and the profound impact of books on our lives.

Originally written in Spanish by Cristina Rivera Garza, Death Takes Me is a thrilling masterpiece of literary fiction that turns the traditional crime narrative of gendered violence on its head. As sharp as the cuts on the bodies of the victims, the story unfolds with the dreamlike logic of a surreal experience, transitioning from the police station to a professor’s classroom and through the intricate worlds of Latin American poetry and art. It invites readers to explore the unstable terrains of desire and sexuality.

A city is always a cemetery.

In the narrative, a professor named Cristina Rivera Garza stumbles upon the corpse of a mutilated man in a dark alley and promptly reports it to the police. When shown a crime scene photo, she discovers a stark warning written in tiny print with coral nail polish on the brick wall beside the body: “Beware of me, my love / beware of the silent woman in the desert.”

The professor becomes the primary informant in the case, which is led by a detective who is newly obsessed with poetry and haunted by a list of past failures. But what has the professor truly witnessed? As more bodies of castrated men alongside lines of verse, the detective attempts to decipher the meaning of the poems in hopes of stopping the spreading violence throughout the city.

Cristina Rivera Garza is an acclaimed author known for works such as The Taiga Syndrome and The Iliac Crest. Her memoir, Liliana’s Invincible Summer, won the Pulitzer Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award. She has received the MacArthur Fellowship and the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize. Currently, Rivera Garza holds the Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Chair and serves as director of the PhD program in Creative Writing in Spanish at the University of Houston.

Sarah Booker is a teacher and a literary translator. Her translations include novels by Mónica Ojeda, Cristina Rivera Garza, and Gabriela Ponce. She is also an associate editor at Southwest Review.

Robin Myers is a poet and translator. Her translations encompass Andrés Neuman’s Bariloche, Claudia Peña Claros’s The Trees, Isabel Zapata’s In Vitro, Eliana Hernández-Pachón’s The Brush, and Cristina Rivera Garza’s The Restless Dead: Necrowriting and Disappropriation.

Discover your next favorite book and dive into a world of curated, exciting reads by purchasing through my links. You’ll have access to a diverse selection of books I’ve personally vetted for quality and enjoyment. Additionally, by supporting these selections, you’ll help me continue to provide you with more personalized recommendations. I earn a small commission from your purchase, which allows me to buy and share even more books with you. Your support truly makes a difference!