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Book review: Breasts and Eggs

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 02:09:53 GMT

Posted by: rocky41_7

Title: Breasts and Eggs
Author: Mieko Kawakami
Translator(s): David Boyd, Sam Bett
Genre: Literary, fiction

Once again managed to time things so that I finished both of my books on the same day…no idea how this keeps happening. Hours after wrapping up Sarah Gailey’s The Echo Wife, I also finished Mieko Kawakami’s Breasts and Eggs, translated from Japanese by David Boyd and Sam Bett.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part, which is roughly a third of the novel, takes place over only three days. Natsuko Natsume is in her early thirties and lost for direction when her older sister arrives to spend a couple of nights with Natsuko, bringing along her twelve-year-old daughter Midoriko, who has refused to speak a word to her mother for the last six months.

The Asexual Rep

I didn’t expect for this book to be a part of this segment, because I didn’t know it could be. Natsuko and the narrative never use the word “asexual” to describe her, but when she talks about her feelings on sex, I recognized so much of my own there it was impossible not to feel that she is.

( Read more... )

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RIP (Read In Progress) Wednesday

Wed, 26 Aug 2026 17:22:02 GMT

Posted by: silversea

It's the last Wednesday of August!

What are you reading?

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RIP (Read In Progress) Wednesday

Wed, 19 Aug 2026 20:10:06 GMT

Posted by: silversea

It's already Wednesday? Jeez, time go by fast.

What are you reading this week?

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Book review: Her Neighbor's Wife

Thu, 13 Aug 2026 23:32:42 GMT

Posted by: rocky41_7

Title: Her Neighbor's Wife: A History of Lesbian Desire within Marriage
Author: Lauren Jae Gutterman
Genre: Nonfiction, sociology

I follow the queer-reads-bracket on tumblr and this summer they did a poll bracket of queer nonfiction, which gave me the opportunity to add quite a few queer nonfiction reads to my TBR. Last night I finished the first of these, which was Her Neighbor’s Wife: A History of Lesbian Desire within Marriage by Lauren Jae Gutterman.

First, to dispel any fears of polysexual erasure—the book is not exclusive of bisexual women, but more on that below.

This book is an exploration of a history of female same-sex desire within seemingly-heterosexual marriages in America. It begins in the 40s and 50s and uses interviews, correspondence, and queer literature of the time to chronicle this sociological phenomenon.

( Read more... )

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RIP (Read in Progress) Wednesday

Wed, 12 Aug 2026 15:10:13 GMT

Posted by: silversea

Happy Wednesday!

What are you reading this week?

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[Promotion] Promo Images for the October Review-A-Thon!

Fri, 07 Aug 2026 06:43:01 GMT

Posted by: quillpunk

I've made promo images for booknook for the first time in two years. They're not very elaborate, I know. But they exist, and that's better than nothing!

If others want to make promo images for booknook, that's welcome (and would be very cool), too <3

Feel free to re-use, remix and recycle. And hey, if you're up for it, why not sign up for the Review-a-Thon?

Version 1

Version 2: Extra Glowy

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RIP (Read In Progress) Wednesday

Wed, 05 Aug 2026 18:04:07 GMT

Posted by: silversea

Happy Wednesday (for real this time)! What are you reading this week?

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(Storygraph) Book Club recs

Wed, 05 Aug 2026 14:03:06 GMT

Posted by: vamp_ress

I've recently switched from Goodreads to Storygraph. Now, in theory I like Storygraph's community features, but in reality I haven't really been able to figure them out.

I thought I was just stupid, but now I realise that while Storygraph has book clubs, they aren't searchable. Which basically means you have to have an invite/link to a book club to participate. Who came up with something like this? It's ... it's ... well, basically it's stupid.

Anyway, are there any Storygraph users here who are a member of certain book clubs and could point me in the right direction? I found a reddit thread reccing different clubs, but about 80% of those are for fantasy. And that's not my genre. I'd be interested in the following:

classics
English and American literature
rare picks, forgotten books, hidden gems
literary fiction
NO bestsellers, NO hyped books
dystopian fiction
vampire lit (apart from anything romance+romantasy)

Do clubs like these exist? Do you have links? I'd love to check them out!

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Reading Wrap-up 7/26

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 06:39:22 GMT

Posted by: vamp_ress

Here we go again. July saw some middle-of-the-road books, something really good and the first 1-star of the year. I listened to a lot of audio, because I spent quite a while on the road.

Broderick, John: The Pilgrimage. Tantor. 2025.
This is - on the plot-level - a book about a married woman in Ireland of (I think) the 1960s. She has a husband stricken with chronic illness in a bedroom upstairs that she married for whatever reason. And while the husband is conveniently stuck in bed, she has several affairs, recounts affairs she's had in the past and is pretty much a pest to all of the people around her. (Because being sexually promiscuous isn't actually empowering, it's just annoying.) What I really liked about this was Broderick's masterful characterisation. He never looks down on his characters, even though it would be very easy to look down on these people. Personally, I don't think this book will stick with me, but I can appreciate that Broderick had things to say and knew how to say them.

Maupassant, Guy de: Ausgewählte Novellen. Harenberg. 1984. (German)
I read Bel Ami a few years ago and liked it so much that I made a grab for this collection of novellas (more like short stories) when I came across it in a little library (in Germany, little libraries are usually old, disfunct telephone booths). Maupassant is quickly turning into a favourite for me. He's simply a great storyteller. There's a lot on war or post-war times here and on societal expectations and on people aiming higher than they should. There are also a lot of whores to be found on these pages. But while his tales tend to be moralist, he subverts your expectations of what you think the moral of a 19th century tale would be. (Spoiler: It won't be condemning the whore.)

Kraus, Daniel: Angel Down. Simon & Schuster Audio. 2025.
I read this because I have a reasonably good track record with the Pulitzer (and this novel won this year's prize) and because the plot idea for this is absolutely fantastic: We're in the trenches in France during WWI. There's someone screaming in the no man's land between German and (in this case) American troops. The protagonist (whose name I conveniently forgot already) is tasked, together with a few other losers, to "take care" of the screamer - who turns out to be an actual, honest-to-god angel. Of course I was hooked reading this! But Kraus does absolutely nothing with this amazing idea. The angel is nothing but a mostly mute plot device getting lumped around by those set of losers. There's no plot to speak of (I could summarise the whole plot of the book in one sentence, it's that thin) and the annoying gimmick of the book - THIS IS TOLD ALL IN ONE SENTENCE - which has everyone's knickers in a twist is of course only that: a gimmick. Because let me tell you - just because you're allergic to full stops and use "and" real often, doesn't mean it's all one sentence. I think Thomas Mann and Herman Hesse would strongly object to such childish assumptions - because these guys wrote actual tapeworm-sentences! I'm sorry, I'm ranting. But this book infuriated me so very much. That this garbage won the Pulitzer and gets lauded left, right and center has me seriously doubting these people's critical thinking skills. Also, why is this listed as fast-paced on Storygraph? Did these people not notice that Kraus spends endless amounts of time with certain scenes without moving the plot or the characters in any sense? He actually spends a whole chapter describing the guys playing rock, paper, scissors - and I kid you not!

Gardam, Jane: Crusoe's Daughter. Europa Editions. 2012.
Full disclosure: I've been a Jane Gardam fan ever since her Old-Filth trilogy hit in Germany. Ever since then I've been slowly working my way through her translated backlist. I think I've now almost reached the end of her books available in German, so I'll switch to English sometime soon, I guess. I'm never really sure where to place her. She tends to write young/teenage (usually female) protagonists, but I wouldn't call her books young adult. Very dark and adult things tend to happen in her plots, so she's basically writing novels for adults, but with young characters. This one tells the life story of a young girl (we meet her at age six) who is an orphan and who is sent to live with her two strange (and unmarried) aunts. I loved not only the story Gardam tells her, but how she tells it. A lot of terrible stuff happens in this one, but it's all told in this quaint language that seems to discard most of what happens as unimportant. That juxtaposition was fascinating.

Foster Wallace, David: The Planet Trillaphon as it stands in Relation to the Bad Thing. tacheles. 2015.
It seems this was only published on its own in German, so I would guess you can find it in some essay collection if you want to get a hold of this in English. Whenever I have a few minutes left of my monthly audiobook subscription I try to fill it up with an essay by Foster Wallace. This is one of his earliest works and it shows. He has some good ideas and you already get glimpses of his fantastic prose and wit, but for the most part it shows its age.

Comyns, Barbara: Who was Changed and Who was Dead. Saga Egmont. 2023.
This was my second outing with Comyns and I'm now ready to admit that she's simply not for me. I enjoyed this slightly more than The Vet's Daughter, but her plots just don't come together for me. This one actually was two books in one (despite its relative shortness). And what's worse, I didn't understand why she was telling me any of this. I should like her plots - they're weird, a little like magical realism on acid. But it doesn't work for me. No hard feelings.

Lovett, Charlie: The Lost Book of the Grail. Penguin. 2017.
Lovett is a mid author I usually pick up during my summer vacation. He writes fast-paced and entertaining novels with a literary angle (in this case King Arthur). This one didn't disappoint. It was a classic puzzle where the heroes had to find clues and decipher old texts to find their prize. I would recommend his books if you need a good, quick summer read. I wouldn't recommend if you're looking for good characterisation and well done love stories. (His romance plots suck, frankly.)

Mitchell, David: The Bone Clocks. Random House. 2014.
Oh wow, this was such a disappointment. Listening to this on (German) audio was actually 26 hours of pure torture. I was seriously re-considering all my life choices ... He's rehashing a similar idea to Cloud Atlas insofar as The Bone Clocks is told in parts. It consists of several novellas (or even short novels), all with a different narrator. The focal point is Holly Sykes and we move chronologically through the plot with her from the 1980s up to the 2030s. Problem is: Holly is a wet blanket. She is extremely bland and I don't know why Mitchell wrote such a massive book about such a boring character.

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RIP (Read In Progress) Wednesday

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 18:21:21 GMT

Posted by: silversea

It's still Wednesday somewhere! In my heart maybe?

What are you reading this week?

ICYMI, signups for this year's Review-A-Thon is open now.

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Book review: Asunder

Wed, 29 Jul 2026 00:14:44 GMT

Posted by: rocky41_7

Title: Asunder
Author: Kerstin Hall
Genre: Fiction, fantasy, adventure

After two renewals, I've finally managed to make it through Kerstin Hall's fantasy adventure Asunder. This book concerns Karys Eska, a young woman who bound herself to an efferit (demon) in exchange for the power to speak to the dead. She has somewhat unintentionally bound herself to a dying young man, Ferain, who now exists as her shadow. The main plot is trying to separate them without killing either of them.

Please excuse misspellings of names, places, and terms--I listened to the audiobook so I'm guessing here.

Asunder starts from a relatively strong place, and its world-building is very interesting. I think it does a neat thing with the competing sources of magical power, which gives real weight to the opposing schools of magic. The OG magical powers-that-be, the bhatuma, have been overthrown in Karys' home country, and folks like Karys can now compact with and draw power from the new kids on the block, the efferete. You all know I don't care much for hand-holding in SFF, and Hall does make you learn as you go with her complex world, but I think it works and I never felt truly lost or unable to understand the plot. There are lots of fun fantasy things, like the giant hand elevators, and the dimension-warping spiders, that are simply never explained, and I enjoy that. What's fantasy if everything is explained? That's just science!

However, there are a lot of other things that just fell flat for me.

( Read more... )

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[Sign-Up Post] Review-A-Thon 2026

Mon, 27 Jul 2026 20:40:10 GMT

Posted by: quillpunk

Let's do this again! <3

This is the sign-up post for the 2026 October Review-A-Thon I’m hosting here on booknook! To sign up, simply comment on this post with what day(s) you’re claiming.

Each day claimed equals one distinctive review, so if you’re claiming three days, you’re signing up to post three different reviews. You can claim up to five days, until October starts. After that, you can freely claim as many more you want (useful if you want to pinch hit for unclaimed days).

You can claim a day that’s already claimed, but you must claim different days for each review. You do not need to mention what book(s) you intend to review. You can claim more days up to the max at any time (until October, when you can loose all inhibitions and claim everything, should you so desire), simply make a new comment with your new claim. You can un-claim a day at any time.

Sign-ups are open until Oct 30.

Good luck!

Claimed Days

( Days to Claim )

Posting Guidelines (click the arrow!)

We’re not doing any specific rules regarding the reviews for the events. Your post just needs to adhere to any General Posting Guidelines that applies: this means including a clear header with information regarding the book’s title, author, and any applicable content warnings.

Any spoilers (no matter how old the book is) need to be behind a cut or an accordion (this is an accordion!)

If your review is not suitable for all ages, adjust the age restriction of the post.

The subject line should clearly state that it’s a review. Please tag for at least format, age group, and genre.

The review needs to be posted in its entirety, don’t just go ‘and you can keep reading on…’

You need to be a member to post to the comm.

Questions and Concerns

I will make a top comment on this post, please leave any questions and concerns about the event as a reply to that comment to easily keep everything in one place. This post will not be sticky, as I think we’re already on max on that, but I will link it in the sidebar under the new ‘Quick Navigation’ heading.

What if I don’t make it to my claimed day?

If you don't post a review on the day you signed up for, nothing will happen :D This is intended to be a low-pressure, fun event, and not meant to put undue pressure on you. Again, booknook is always open to reviews! You can post it later, or not at all. You also would not be required to mention in your sign-up which book you intend to review so you can change your mind until the very last second. There are no repercussions for not posting anything on your claimed day!

What if I’m not signed up but I want to post a review in October?

booknook is open to reviews 24/7 and that would not change. You’re absolutely still allowed to post a review during this month (even on a claimed day) without signing up!

What kind of books can I review?

Any kind of books! Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, webnovels, short stories, etc. If you think it counts, it counts. Likewise, it doesn't matter how old the book is; a 200-year-old book is just as welcome as one that was just published two weeks ago. Here, it's just all about the books! :D

How does reviews work?

In general, a review should contain an introduction of the book and what you think about it and whether it's something you would recommend to others. Here's a few quick links I found searching (if you've got resources for tips on writing reviews, you're welcome to share them and I can add them to the list):

https://reedsy.com/discovery/blog/book-review-examples

https://thewritepractice.com/how-to-write-a-book-review/

https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/book-reviews/

It's time for the Fake Internet Deadlines to shine! :D

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Recommendation: The Rifter by Ginn Hale

Mon, 27 Jul 2026 20:26:24 GMT

Posted by: florianschild

I'm promo-ing a favorite of mine in the hopes that someone might be interested in reading it and fangirling over it with me (and a very small group of lovely, dedicated fans).

I just posted on ginnhale about how The Rifter series is being revised and re-released this year. It's a great time to pick it up if you've never read it before, or if you have and you wanted to own it in print. Where to Find The Rifter by Ginn Hale explains the best way(s) to get it.

And what exactly is this *Rifter* series, anyway? I'm going to copy a bit from my fandom promo from an old Snowflake Challenge post:

Elevator Pitch for the Series

The Rifter is an epic portal fantasy featuring dual POV gay MCs, slow-burn romance, incredibly creative world building, and a mysterious plot full of twists and questions that will keep you confused but very interested.

PLUS!

10 Reasons to Read The Rifter

1. You enjoy being dropped into the middle of a plot that's a little confusing but you trust the author to make it work.
2. You want slow-burn romance that features lots of conflict with the world around them but never with each other.
3. You like it when your faves get put through the absolute ringer - suffering abounds.
~~4. If you collect books, the paperbacks are out of print and hard to find. It's a rewarding experience to snag one when they do occasionally go up for sale.~~ Technically no longer true, but you could hunt for the old 3-volume set editions.
5. You enjoy super creative world building that includes a fictional language and marsupial weasels.
6. You'd like to support a wonderful lesbian indie author who's entire social media presence consists of beautiful pictures of nature.
7. You like reading survival stories with hyper-competent protagonists. John is not Bear Grylls, but he is a rugged outdoorsman and it helps him survive in the very crapsack world he ends up in.
8. If you enjoy a friendship-version of Grumpy/Sunshine, John and his best friends have that kind of vibe going.
9. The quality of the writing, especially given that this is basically self-published, is incredible. Ginn Hale is just so talented and criminally unknown.
10. The fandom is truly one of the nicest and most welcoming and fun I've ever been a part of. It's obviously very tiny, but it feels big because the fans are so lovely and passionate and have so much to say about this series. I've made my best fandom friends in this fandom and I really want more of us to have that same experience!

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RIP (Read In Progress) Wednesday

Wed, 22 Jul 2026 20:36:08 GMT

Posted by: silversea

Wednesday's here once again! What are you reading this week?

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RIP (Read In Progress) Wednesday

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 22:05:56 GMT

Posted by: silversea

Happy Wednesday! What are you reading this week?

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RIP (Read In Progress) Wednesday

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 18:09:46 GMT

Posted by: silversea

Happy Wednesday again! What are you reading this week?

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Reading Wrap-up 6/26

Thu, 02 Jul 2026 18:12:39 GMT

Posted by: vamp_ress

After reading a ton of books in May, the numbers are down again in June. But that makes sense since I read a lot of shorter stuff in May and I picked longer books in June. So let's look at the books.

Bulgakov, Mikhail: The Master and Margarita. Penguin Classics. 2016.
This one was - mostly - a dud. I should probably preface this by telling you that I have a very complicated relationship with Russian literature. Well, actually it's not at all complicated. I just don't seem to like the Russians. I did like Bulgakov's Heart of Dog a few years back, so I thought The Master and Margarita would be a safe bet. And it surely is a great book, but it's so entrenched in its time and political and societal situation that it's basically impossible to take much away from the novel without putting in some serious effort, twenty non-fiction titles about the Soviet Union and a university course.

Setterfield, Diane: Bellman & Black. Orion. 2013.
After The Thirteenth Tale (which I didn't like much) and Once upon a River this was now the third Setterfield novel I read. And I enjoyed this a lot! In a way, it's the coming-of-age story of William Bellman during the industrial revolution in England. He first works in a spinning mill and then becomes the owner of said mill. In the end, he envisions and builds a huge department store. The story follows his whole life from his youth to his deathbed. Entrenched in this plot is a very subtle ghost story (the Black of the title). The story played to Setterfield's strength, I think, and wasn't bored one minute.

Jenkins Reid, Taylor: Atmosphere. Ballatine. 2025.
I don't even remember why I picked up The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, but ever since then I'm a fan of the author. So of course I picked up her newest. This was a lot of fun again. I just like how Reid surpasses the romance genre and simply writes good stories that also happen to have a romance in them. This was a great book, but the ending made it a favourite.

Macaulay, Rose: The Towers of Trebizond. Naxos Audio. 2024.
Gosh, I love Macaulay's writing. I really have to get my hands on as many of her books as I can. This one, says the all-knowing internet, is her most successful novel. And I agree, it's so far the best I've read from her. It's an autobiographical novel told from the perspective of young Laurie who travels through Turkey with her aunt Dot. The prose is quick-witted and funny, the humour is right up my alley and the audiobook was a delight. I admit, the story dragged a bit when Laurie is back in England. But apart from that detail, this was marvellous. I highly recommend trying Macaulay!

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RIP (Read In Progress) Wednesday

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 15:36:21 GMT

Posted by: silversea

Happy July! What are you reading this week?

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Book review: The Rediscovery of America

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 01:56:34 GMT

Posted by: rocky41_7

Title: The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History
Author: Ned Blackhawk
Genre: History

On yesterday’s commute home I concluded The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History by Ned Blackhawk. This is a history novel which focuses on the relationship between Native Americans and the United States, from the initial colonization efforts of Europeans to modern day.

I think the thing this book does best, and I think what it was trying to do, is make indigenous Americans active participants in history. Everyone knows that they were victims of countless atrocities, first at the hand of European invaders and later by the United States government, but they are often reduced to the role of passive victim: people to whom things simply happened. Not so, says Blackhawk. Native Americans were shapers of history as much as anyone else, and he brings their role and influence to the forefront here.

One of the things this pushes back on hard is the idea of inevitability: that what happened to the indigenous people of North America was always going to happen. We can see, throughout this book, so many moments when things could have been different if the right people had chosen differently.

It also is very revealing as to the sources of anti-indigenous violence in the decades before and after the American Revolution. It was in many cases, the settlers who were pushing hardest for violence and dispossession of the native peoples, not the government. Of course, the government agreed in the end, but both the British and later the American government initially wanted more diplomatic relationships with Native American tribes—but the settlers, fueled by bigotry, greed, and fear, lobbied hard for a more severe approach, and in the end, they won.

It’s also an incredibly detailed chronicle of native resistance to colonization and how hard Native Americans have fought for centuries to preserve their cultures and be allowed to simply exist as they wish. The breadth and variety of techniques they have employed to this end are truly remarkable. Knowing more about the modern legal struggles of the tribes is also a useful tool for looking at where to go next.

Some reviews found the book dry; personally, I can’t disagree that it was dry, but I did not find its dryness a problem. It is a historical chronicle, not a novel, and it does its job very well. It is well-researched and a thorough survey. I think it does well balancing covering a large swath of history with many different peoples and conflicts while also digging in a bit to certain specifics. I found it deeply engaging and I think the country would be better off if everyone had a better understanding of this material.

My only complaint is that it does end a little abruptly, but it had to stop somewhere.

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Reading Wrap-up 5/26

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 06:28:39 GMT

Posted by: vamp_ress

Wow, I read a lot of books in May. However, most of them were short, so it's actually not like I read more than I normally do. It just seems that way.

Mann, Thomas: Death in Venice. Penguin. 1991
After Buddenbrooks, this was my second Mann. It was not as addictive as Buddenbrooks, but certainly still a very good novella. I feel like Mann is so very good at describing the "summer vibe" - that very distinct feeling when you're on vacation and time seems somehow suspended. He does that both in Buddenbrooks and in Death in Venice. I've never seen that particular feeling described anywhere else so poignantly.

Taylor, Peter: A Summons to Memphis. Vintage. 1999.
Not a very successful outing as I felt I should have gotten more out of this book than I actually did. There is lot going on under the surface, but somehow I didn't connect with that subtext.

DeLillo, Don: The Silence. Scribner. 2020.
Mhm, no. This is only 100 pages long and tries to be philosophical and dystopian, but it never spends enough time with any of the many topics and themes that get mentioned to feel in any way rewarding. And the dialogues were just ... baaaaaad. Oh, my.

Richardson, Kim Michele: The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. Sourcebook Landmarks. 2019.
After Jojo Moyes' The Bringer of Stars my second novel about the Kentucky Pack Horse Library, which is an absolutely fascinating topic, but apparently no one is able to put that into a good novel. Any Americans here who could recommend something worthwhile on the subject of the Pack Horse Library? Is there a good non-fiction book where I could learn more about it? Novels don't seem to cut it.

Kopetzky, Steffen: Damenopfer. Rowohlt. 2023 (German)
Kopetzky writes interesting historical novels that are a little off the beaten path. This one is about an actual historical figure (Larissa Reissner), but most importantly it's about the cultural and political shift in Europe (Soviet Russia and Germany in particular) that took place in the 1920s. Very interesting if you like a good panorama - lots of name-dropping from Stalin to Nabokov included!

Lewis, Herbert Clyde: Gentleman Overboard. Boiler Press. 2021.
This was the highlight of the month, I enjoyed this a lot! It's a short novel about a gentleman (that detail is important) who goes on a sea voyage and falls off the ship. Instead of screaming for help he decides instead to not inconvenience anyone. Things will sort themselves out ... yeah, sure. This was half satire, half psychoanalysis. And the authorial voice was to-die-for.

Forster, E. M.: The Longest Journey. Penguin. 2006.
Apperently, this was Forster's favourite amongst his novels. However, it feels a bit disjointed and never turned into a cohesive narrative for me. It had strong moments and scenes, but it smelled a little of Hardy to me in the sense that the plot was so terribly ill-fated. But again: Forster has a knack for really strong endings!

Mina, Denise: Rizzio. Polygon. 2021.
Not worth your time if you have even a passing knowledge of the Mary Stuart and Rizzio story. Denise Mina doesn't add anything new (apart from alluding to something going on between Rizzio and Darnley, because apparently we can't do without a queer angle nowadays). This read like barely fictionalised non-fiction. Or it read like gapfiller fanfic from someone just starting out in a fandom and trying something safe. Forgettable.

Brautigan, Richard: The Hawkline Monster. Canongate. 2017.
Absurd and funny. Quite possibly written while the author was either drunk or high or even both. But I was amused and laughed out loud several times, so that was a win. Also, it's short and therefore doesn't overstay its welcome. (Always a problem with humour - oftentimes it simply goes on for too long, which sucks the fun out of it.)

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RIP (Read In Progress) Wednesday

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 18:34:22 GMT

Posted by: quillpunk

It's Wednesday! What are you reading?

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Book Review: A Handful of Dust

Tue, 02 Jun 2026 02:10:42 GMT

Posted by: got_quiet

Title: A Handful of Dust
Author: Evelyn Waugh
Genre: Satire
Content Warnings: Racism, including slurs and native savage stereotypes.

A Handful of Dust is a social satire originally published in the 1930s by Evelyn Waugh. The plot revolves an affair that Brenda Last has with John Beaver, as Brenda's husband Tony is completely oblivious and all of their society friends look on.

With one massive caveat I enjoyed it a lot. It's a caustic satire and on a superficial level fits neatly into the genre of Everyone Fucking Sucks. The absurdity of the plot and the playful way that Waugh lets the characters represent themselves as reasonable while the reader thinks, nah, you also suck, elevates it from that cliche.

( Spoilerish Review )

Big Ending Spoiler here

And then there's the ending. WTF was that ending? Again, spoilers for a 90+ year old book, but in the end Tony finds himself at the edge of death and disaster multiple times while being led deeper into the wilderness by someone who has no right to be leading anything. I was on the edge of my seat wondering how they’d fare, if the disease would kill him, or the constantly provoked locals, or some thing else entirely, and every time it seemed like things were getting better they’d just get worse, until in the end he stumbles, delirious with fever, into a literal horror scenario and becomes the permanent captive of a fucked up European who tricks a rescue party into thinking Tony is dead so that he will stay forever and read him Dickens. The implication in the end is that he ends up dying there, eventually, but perhaps of old age 30 years into the future, who knows.

I read this book while on a plane, and the last few scenes had me worked up enough that I was dying to get up and pace and couldn’t, which compounded the emotional reaction. I desperately wanted to turn to the person sitting next to me and ask, "Have you read this book, and if so, can we please commiserate about the ending?" But I did not do this and instead stewed in place. I felt like I was simply out of the habit of reading books that do not get tied up in the way that feels obligatory for genre fiction.

I will admit that I have a strong stomach for the bigotry that permeated literature from this time period. It also helps (???) that for the most part, you don't get jump scared with the blunt stuff until the very end of the story. I haven't read any other Waugh to know if this is one of his best as the introduction says, but I would say that it was better than 90% of what I end up reading nowadays.

(This is also crossposted on my blog)

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RIP (Read in Progress) Wednesday

Wed, 27 May 2026 16:55:27 GMT

Posted by: silversea

Happy Wednesday! The season of beach reads is here (where I am anyway), so what are your favorite beach reads? Any planned reads this summer?

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Book review: Pink Slime

Sat, 23 May 2026 01:22:07 GMT

Posted by: rocky41_7

Title: Pink Slime
Author: Fernanda Trias
Translator: Heather Cleary
Genre: Literary fiction

Last night I finished book #18 from the “Women in Translation” rec list, which was Pink Slime by Fernanda Trias, translated from Spanish by Heather Cleary. Pink Slime is a dreamy nightmare of a novel set in the aftershocks of an ecological disaster as one woman struggles to hold onto her life.

Nothing is as it once was: society has been upended by the “red wind” that kills anyone caught in it; the narrator is divorced from the husband she first met in childhood; and she has left her job in journalism to work as a caretaker for a disabled young boy.

This is a reflective book; there is very little plot. It drifts between the narrator’s present, her memories of the past, and in some cases, a future-tense look at the next few minutes. She observes the ways the government tries to cover for the damage the red wind continues to do, and the way society continues to fracture. She continues to visit her ex-husband in the hospital, although his condition never changes. She continues to fight with her mother.

In some ways, Pink Slime is a story about someone trying to hold onto a life that is already gone. The narrator clings to the past, for obvious reasons—it was better than her present. And yet, nothing new can be made until she releases that hold.

The thing that will stick with me most about this book is the birds. In the narrator’s world, the birds have gone. Where, no one knows. It is a topic of frequent discussion among the townsfolk. Will the birds come back? It reminds of a line from a Florence + The Machine Song: “What if one day there’s no such thing as snow?” Ecological disaster brings with it a poignant grief. How do you explain birds to a child who’s never seen them but in picture books? What is lost for each of us when an animal or plant or phenomenon is destroyed?

I enjoyed the morose, grief-stricken mood of the book, but it does feel directionless at times in a way that’s not wholly captivating. I can’t say what I take away from it on the whole. I would be curious to read more from this author.

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Warning: Expiring Paid Account

Fri, 22 May 2026 20:20:26 GMT

Posted by: quillpunk

booknook's Paid Account expires on 2026-06-05. It will then revert to the default, free account type. I received the notification via email and thought some people might appreciate the warning. I'm not the one that upgraded booknook. I also don't know who did (but am very grateful!). So this post is in case anybody is depending on booknook's Paid Account features. I hope this isn't too disruptive to anybody's use of booknook.

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