The Books I'm Reading Now
I'm reading Anthony Doerr's upcoming literary fiction tale of interconnected characters that spans centuries, Cloud Cuckoo Land; I'm listening to Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner's memoir about growing up Korean-American, her mother, their relationship, and losing her; and I'm reading Somebody's Daughter, Ashley C. Ford's memoir about growing up while her father was incarcerated and the complicated childhood that shaped her adult self.
Which books are you reading and enjoying these days, bookworms?
01 Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
In this upcoming book by Anthony Doerr (author of All the Light We Cannot See), young Anna lives in fifteenth-century Constantinople, stitching priests' robes and secretly learning to read stories from the past.
In twentieth-century Idaho, Zeno is directing a children's play based on the stories Anna read five centuries earlier.
And in the future, Konstance is in a vault on the spaceship Argos, copying information onto old editions of the same stories--stories that connect these characters across space and time.
I received a prepublication digital edition of this book, which will be available September 28, courtesy of NetGalley and Scribner.
02 Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
I'm listening to this memoir by Michelle Zauner of the band Japanese Breakfast, which feels like a complicated, layered love letter to her mother, who is dying of colorectal cancer over the course of the book.
Crying in H Mart is also an exploration of the author's Korean-American heritage, her feelings of being caught between two cultures, and her intense love for Korean food--the complex flavors, the frequently time-consuming and sometimes meditative preparations required, and her many emotional associations with certain dishes.
“For the rest of my life there would be a splinter in my being, stinging from the moment my mother died until it was buried with me.”
This is beautiful, painful, and evocative. Zauner's story is compelling whether or not you're familiar with her or her indie band.
03 Somebody's Daughter by Ashley C. Ford
Ashley C. Ford wishes she could know her father more fully, but he's been in prison since before she could remember, and she's not entirely sure how he ended up there.
In her memoir Somebody's Daughter, Ford explores her complicated relationship with her mother, her endless loyalty to her younger brother, her complex feelings about her father and the idea of him returning home, and more.
As Ford examines her anxiety, her sometimes unhealthy relationships, and the circumstances of her childhood and upbringing, she considers her ties to the man who is her father and how significantly she may have been shaped by the people who made her, the people who raised her. She feels an intense desire to be her own person, someone both of and separate from her challenging beginnings.