Americanah

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah is an epic tome that spans three continents, across 55 chapters in seven parts. I read the 10th anniversary reissue, which has an interesting introduction by the author reflecting on what America means to her and how living there made her aware that it is possible to be judged above all else for the colour of your skin.

The Corrections

In Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections, we meet the Lamberts, an American Midwestern family with a whole raft of issues. Or not, if you take the view that to be flawed is to be human, and if you’re in the habit of questioning who makes the rules anyway. Set in the second half of the 1990s, heading towards a new century, Franzen riffs on the economic turbulence of the time. The novel’s title refers to the economic corrections attempted by governments to stave off a global recession, applying the principle to the lives of the book’s characters.

Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street

Bartleby the Scrivener is a classic short story by Herman Melville concerning an unnamed lawyer and his team of scriveners, or clerks, plus an office boy. His two existing clerks, Turkey and Nippers, are chalk and cheese, switching temperaments halfway through the day so that there is always one irascible man in the office, while the office boy, Ginger Nut, is the son of a man who wants a better life for his boy. When the narrator advertises for a third scrivener to help with an increase in work, he brings into this setup the inscrutable Bartleby.

The Lincoln Highway

Read 18/05/2022-28/05/2022

Rating 4 stars

The Lincoln Highway follows 18 year old Emmett Watson from the middle of the United States to its East Coast along the Lincoln Highway. It is June 1954, and Emmett has just been released early from an eighteen month sentence at a juvenile work farm in Kansas, due to his father dying. With an 8 year old brother, Billy, to look after, Emmett wants to leave his childhood home in Nebraska behind to start a new life somewhere else. Duchess and Woolly, two friends who have escaped from the work farm, stowing away in the boot of the car that carries Emmett home, have other ideas about that.

Six Degrees of Separation: From Rules of Civility to Daisy Miller

It’s 2022, so a Happy New Year to you. 1 January was also the first Saturday of the month, making it time for Six Degrees of Separation, hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best.

Our starting book this month is one that I included in my January chain two years ago – Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. This is a book I read before I started this blog. It was recommended to me by a good friend in New York, and I loved it.

Six Degrees of Separation: from How to do Nothing to The Word Exchange

It’s not only the first day of August, it’s the first Saturday in August. That means it’s time for this month’s Six Degrees of Separation. We’re starting with a book I’ve heard of this month – Jenny Odell’s How to do Nothing.

Beastie Boys Book

Read 17/05/2020-24/05/2020

Rating 5 stars

Beastie Boys Book opens with Adam Horovitz (Ad-Rock) talking about the best Beastie Boy – Adam Yauch (MCA). I loved MCA. He was a renegade. He seemed to live life at a million miles an hour, curious about everything, folding his experiences into his creative output. Horovitz knows Yauch was the best Beastie Boy, too. It’s a beautiful tribute to Yauch.

Beastie Boys Book is a collection of reminiscences by Horovitz and the other surviving Beastie Boy, Michael Diamond (Mike D), with essays by music critics, famous fans and musical collaborators mixed in.

Swing Time

Read 11/04/2020-20/04/2020

Rating 3 stars

Zadie Smith’s Swing Time is a sprawling tale of how two girls’ lives intersect and separate over the years. It’s about growing up poor but aspirational, a tale of friendship and rivalry, and of the inadequacies of adulthood.

Six Degrees of Separation: from Daisy Jones and the Six to Revolutionary Road

Happy New Year! And I’m starting 2020’s book blogging with 6 degrees of separation because I haven’t quite finished the book I started before Xmas.

I don’t do New Year resolutions, so it’s untrue for me to say I’ve resolved to do all of 2020’s 6 degrees of separations. I’m going to try my best to remember to, though.

January’s chain begins with a book I haven’t heard of.

This Way to Departures

Read 04/10/2019-06/10/2019

Rating 5 stars

This Way to Departures is Linda Mannheim’s second collection of short stories for Influx Press. It’s the follow up to Above Sugar Hill, which I loved.

This Way to Departures spreads its net wider than NYC, both geographically and emotionally. If Above Sugar Hill is about the identity of a particular place and its influence on those who are entwined in its arms, then Departures is about the nomads who have no place of their own and find it impossible to become entwined, no matter where they go.