It's Monday: What Are You Reading?

 I won this book from Emma at Words and Peace after the end of the July in Paris 2023 Challenge 

L'Origine: The Secret Life of the World's Most Erotic Masterpiece by Lilianne Milgrom

Publisher: The riveting odyssey of one of the world's most scandalous and sexually explicit works of art.

In 1866, maverick French artist Gustave Courbet painted one of the most iconic images in the history of art...

L'Origine is an entertaining and superbly researched work of historical fiction that traces the true story of the painting's unlikely tale of survival, replete with French revolutionaries, Turkish pashas, and nefarious Nazi captains.

 But L'Origine is more than a riveting romp through history-it also sheds light on society's complex relationship with the female body. (publisher)

I had never heard of this work of art by Courbet until now, and looked up the artwork in question online. It is shockingly revealing of the feminine sexual parts of the body and I am curious about the background of this painting and the reason he painted it. 

Bought at the thrift store: 

Musical Chairs: A Novel by Amy Poeppel

Published July 21, 2020; Atria

Genre: contemorary fiction, romance, chick lit

Publisher:

A hilarious and heartfelt new novel about a perfectly imperfect summer of love, secrets, and second chances.

Amy Poeppel crafts a love letter to modern family life with all of its discord and harmony. Musical Chairs is an irresistibly romantic story of role reversals, reinvention, and sweet synchronicity. (publisher)

I bought Musical Chairs as I had really enjoyed the author's most recent book - a very funny romantic comedy and family drama, The Sweet Spot.

The Sweet Spot by Amy Poeppel, January 31, 2023,  See that review here.

I hope Musical Chairs will be just as good.

Did you get any new books this week?

Memes: It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Mailbox Monday

A Subscription to the New Yorker: Sunday Salon

 

Cover: "Peak Season" by Victoria Tentler-Krylov

I got a fantastic introductory (six month) offer from Conde Nast to get the New Yorker Magazine plus digital access for a fraction of the true cost. Of course, I jumped at the amazing offer. Now I must remember in six months to cancel unless I want to pay the full, enormous amount of regular subscription.

So far, I've been reading the cartoons online and in the magazines - very entertaining - and discovered the short stories, one published per issue. Here is the title of the latest, which I found both intriguing and very well written. 

“The True Margaret,” by Karan Mahajan

. I.

Meera moved to London from India only to discover that her new husband already had a wife in the city.

I went back to a previous edition of the magazine and read that short story on a very different topic, but one which I found very moving and also very good.  "Yogurt Days" is about a dying man who only likes to eat frozen yogurt, and about the women who take care of him. 

I have about two more back issues of short stories to go through.  Eventually, I'll read all the other essays on current issues, politics, current culture, etc. which I've only skimmed through so far. And did I forget to mention the poems scattered throughout each edition of The New Yorker? 

So now I will have a pile of magazines to read as the mood hits me. Can't say I regret subscribing.

Current books

Hope by Anthony Ridker 

Yesteryear, a memoir by Kathleen Burt

I hope to finish and review them shortly.

What's on your reading schedule this week and/or the rest of the month?injuly202

3Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves

Sunday Salon: Hope, Hunger, First Lie Wins: Three Books

First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston

Publication: January 2024, Penguin Group Viking; NetGalley

Genre: mystery, thriller 

My comments:

The title of this thriller was so intriguing that I wanted to read and finish it right away!

Evie Porter lives a lie every day, under aliases provided by her unknown but powerful boss, Mr. Smith. Her risky but lucrative full time job is to secretly act like a spy, get compromising information on targeted individuals that Mr. Smith uses to his advantage. 

Evie's real name lives only in her memory though she hopes one day to leave Smith, reclaim it, and be honest about her past growing up poor. 

The suspense in the novel comes from the risky ways Evie has to get people's private information. Luckily, she has her own secret - a helper named Devon who is tech savvy and totally loyal to Evie. Suspense is heightened when Evie thinks Smith is targeting her for removal, which means she has to find ways to survive.

I found the plot unusual and the characters well developed. 

Currently reading

Hope by Anthony Ridker

Pub Date 11 Jul 2023

PENGUIN GROUP Viking; NetGalley

Genre: general fiction, adult

A hilarious and heartfelt novel about a seemingly perfect family in an era of waning American optimism, from the acclaimed author of The Altruists

The year is 2013 and the Greenspans are the envy of Brookline, Massachusetts, an idyllic (and idealistic) suburb west of Boston. Scott Greenspan is a successful physician with his own cardiology practice. 

But when Scott is caught falsifying blood samples at work, he sets in motion a series of scandals that threatens to shatter his family.

From Brookline to Berlin to the battlefields of Syria, Hope follows the Greenspans over the course of one tumultuous year as they question, and compromise, the values that have shaped their lives. But in the midst of their disillusionment, they’ll discover their own capacity for resilience, connection, and, ultimately, hope. (publisher)

Hunger: A Novella and Stories by Lan Samantha Chang

Published January 1, 2000, Norton and Company

Genre: short stories, novella, Asian American fiction

Not since Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan has a fiction writer explored with such powerful intensity the experience of being Asian American. The characters are caught between the burden of their past history and the fragility of their unchartered future.

 Hunger illuminates how first-generation immigrants from China, culturally and emotionally uprooted from their homeland, mistrust connection even as they hunger for attachment ― and how the past affects and shapes their children. (publisher)

My comments:

I've just finished  "Hunger," a novella about a violinist from China, Tian, who sacrifices loyalty to his family in China to come to the United States to pursue his craft, but failure to get a coveted job after finishing music school, leads him to make demands that devastate his family, himself, and his children.  His hunger for music drives him to demand from his younger daughter, Ruth, the same passion for artistic perfection and performing, with unhappy results. 

The second story in the collection, "Water Names," focuses on the mother of three young girls, and a hint of a yearning for a past love left behind in China.  

I'll be reading the other short stories in this collection soon.

Finished reviewing: WWII historical fiction. Click on titles for my goodreads reviews:

The Last Masterpiece by Laura MorelliThe Forgotten Bookshop in Paris by Daisy Wood

What's on your reading schedule this week and/or the rest of the month?injuly202

3Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday. Paris in July 2023

WWII Novels: The Last Masterpiece and The Forgotten Bookshop of Paris

 TBR List

I couldn't resist these WWII historical novels, since I love Morelli's other historical novels on art and any novel with the word Bookstore in the title 

The Last Masterpiece by Laura Morelli

Publication, August 1, 2023 by William Morrow & Company

Genre: WWII, historical fiction, art history novel, Italy

In a race across Nazi-occupied Italy, two women—a German photographer and an American stenographer—hunt for priceless masterpieces looted from the Florentine art collections.

In 1943, Eva Brunner is taking photographs of Nazi-looted art hidden in the salt mines of the Austrian hinterland. Across the ocean in Connecticut, Josephine Evans is working as a humble typist at the Yale Art Gallery.

When both women are called to Italy to contribute to the war effort, neither imagines she will hold the fate of some of the world’s greatest masterpieces torn from the Uffizi Galleries and other Florentine art collections in her hands.

My review of The Last Masterpiece on Goodreads and NetGalley.

The Forgotten Bookshop in Paris by Daisy Wood

Published October 22, 2022, Avon Books UK

Genre: historical fiction, WWII, Paris

From an exciting new voice in WWII historical fiction comes a tale of love, loss and a betrayal that echoes through generations…

Paris, 1940: War is closing in on the city of love. With his wife forced into hiding, Jacques must stand by and watch as the Nazis take away everything he holds dear. Everything except his last beacon of hope: his beloved bookshop, La Page Cachée.

But when a young woman and her child knock on his door one night and beg for refuge, he knows his only option is to risk it all once more to save a life…

See my review of The Forgotten Bookshop in Paris on Goodreads. 

Post WWII

The Wide World by Pierre Lemaitre

To be published December 5, 2023; Little Brown and Company

Description

The sweeping saga of one prominent French family in postwar Paris, Beirut, and Saigon—an electrifying novel of passion, greed, murder, and revenge....Epic in scope, a vivid depiction of French life in the booming postwar years. (publisher)

What's on your reading schedule this week and/or the rest of the month?injuly202

3Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday. Paris in July 2023

Sunday Salon: Soon to be Published Asian Literature

 What I'm reading

Nails and Eyes by Kaori Fujino

Publication: September 12, 2023; Pushkin Press

Genre: horror, novella and short stories, Japan

Description

Tense, subtly disturbing Japanese literary horror perfect for fans of Tender is the Flesh and The Vegetarian

An unforgettably creepy child narrator weaves uncanny tales about her new stepmother in this feminist horror novella + short story collection that introduces a unique new voice in Japanese literature. (publisher)

This is not my usual genre to read, but I'm curious about what a Japanese author has written for a "feminist horror novella."

Songs of Endless Repeat: Essays and Outtakes by Anthony Veasna So

Publication: December 5, 2023; Ecco

Genre: Cambodian-American literature, essays, stories

A collection of sharply funny, emotionally expansive essays and short fiction exploring family, queer desire, pop culture, and race. Author So explores community, grief, and longing with inimitable humor and depth. (publisher)

“one of the most exciting contributions to Asian American literature in recent years” (Vulture) "An astonishing final expression by a writer of “extraordinary achievement and immense promise” (The New Yorker).

I read his short story collection, Afterparties,  and was very impressed by his vibrant and vivid depiction of the Cambodian community in a Southern California town.

Anthony Veasna So was a graduate of Stanford University and earned his MFA in fiction at Syracuse University. His writing has appeared in the New Yorker, n+1, Granta, and ZYZZYVA.

 

What's on your reading schedule this week and/or the rest of the month?prisinjuly2023

#parisinjuly2023

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday.

Mastering the Art of French Murder by Colleen Cambridge

 For Paris in July 2023 Reading Challenge 

Mastering the Art of French Murder by Colleen Cambridge, audiobook narrated by Polly Lee

Published April 25, 2023; Kensington

Genre: mystery, historical

I was so delighted with this audiobook about a post-WWII murder mystery in Paris, that I gave it five stars. First of all, the narrator was excellent; her French accents were perfect, as was her American accents. And the story's interest includes budding chef, Julia Child, during her early days in France taking cooking lessons at Le Cordon Bleu.

Julia, along with her fictional friend, Tabatha, and Tabatha's French grandfather and uncle, all collaborate, if only by offering tips, to solve the murder of a woman found murdered in the cellar of Julia's building. Tabitha does most of the sleuthing and investigating, taking risks to discover the truth about the murdered woman, whom she had met briefly after Julia's dinner party.

The plot of the story is also very well thought out. The setting of Paris and the time period just after the war are all important in this mystery. In addition, stories of Julia's cooking and her efforts to perfect her homemade mayonnaise add interest to this French mystery novel. (Hint: use warmed bowls to make the mayonnaise.)

I don't have a Julia Child cookbook, but I did learn how to make a simple omelet, French style, with butter and herbs. I tried it and it was delicious. What a difference cooking with butter makes!

Murder Visits a French Village by Susan C. Shea: Sunday Salon and July in Paris Challenge

 

Murder Visits a French Village by Susan C. Shea, published March 7, 2023, Severn House

Genre: cozy mystery, France, Burgundy

About: Ariel Shepard is devastated by the sudden loss of her husband, but nothing could have prepared her for inheriting the rundown French château they'd visited on their honeymoon four years ago. With finances tight she has no choice but to swap her Manhattan apartment and city lifestyle for a renovation project in a peaceful French village. (publisher)

I was in the mood for a cozy mystery and found this one on my ebook shelf. It's a good choice as it also is set in France, which makes it a candidate for the July in Paris 2023 Challenge.

I enjoyed the book, even though much of it has to do with renovations and rebuilding, as so many stories of expats in France do. The chateau is old, but Ariel's husband secretly bought it for her some time before he died, leaving her to do all the changes by herself. She finds it a refreshing challenge, nevertheless.

Of course, there are other expats and many French people who work on the chateau. But this book is a mystery, not a travel memoir, and  there is a murder on the chateau grounds that Ariel has to solve. The mystery also involves the French laws of inheritance, which gives any offspring of the owner, legitimate or otherwise, the right of inheritance. The question remains whether or not Ariel legally owns the chateau, or if there is a son or daughter somewhere who would be the rightful owner. 

As she is a widow, Ariel had me waiting for a new romance to show up, but it turns out her real loves are the chateau and the memory of her deceased husband.

An enjoyable cozy, overall, but the wrap up takes some time. A four-star read overall. 

What's on your reading schedule this week and/or the rest of the month?#prisinjuly2023

#parisinjuly2023

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon, Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday. Paris in July 2023