“I lay there for agonized hours as the miracle of being in bed at him was nibbled away by the heat and the hangover and the longing.” This year, I decided to get “a jump” on potential Booker books, and Alan Hollinghurst’s (a previous Booker winner) new novel, Our Evenings (Random House 2024) was aContinue reading “OUR EVENINGS – Alan Hollinghurst”
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THE PRETENDER – Jo Harkin
“Lambert isn’t sure if he’d remember to answer to the name Lambert, but he does, every time. What kind of soul does he have, that can tip itself out of a John Collan cup into a Lambert Simons cup, without spilling a drop.” In 1487, Lambert Simnel, a boy raised in obscurity and believed toContinue reading “THE PRETENDER – Jo Harkin”
TOLD BY STARLIGHT IN CHAD – Joseph Brahim Seid
Current installment of Tommi Reads the World – we are now in the C’s!!! Country: ChadTitle: Told by Starlight in ChadAuthor: Joseph Brahim SeidLanguage: FrenchTranslator: Karen Haire HoenigPublisher: Africa World Press 2007 (originally published in 1962) The options for English translations of works from certain countries are extremely limited, and I had very options for aContinue reading “TOLD BY STARLIGHT IN CHAD – Joseph Brahim Seid”
BURY OUR BONES IN THE MIDNIGHT SOIL – V.E. Schwab
“It is easy, isn’t it, in retrospect? To spot the cracks. To see them spread. But in the moment, there is only the urge to mend each one. To smooth the lines. And keep the surface whole.” Toxic lesbian vampires. That’s how V.E. Schwab’s Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil (2025 Tor) was marketed.Continue reading “BURY OUR BONES IN THE MIDNIGHT SOIL – V.E. Schwab”
WIZARD OF THE CROW – Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
“Nyawĩra and Kamĩtĩ drifted from group to group till they came to a crowd around a storyteller with a single-stringed violin.” Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o passed away on May 28, 2025. I didn’t know until recently, but perhaps that’s why Wizard of the Crow ( 2006 Random House) called out from my shelves of the unread.Continue reading “WIZARD OF THE CROW – Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o”
TWIST – Colum McCann
“We are all shards in the smash-up.” “Everything gets fixed, and we all stay broken.” As y’all know, I read the Booker longlist every year. Sometimes, I try to get a jump on things by reading eligible books that smell Bookery. (If you follow the Booker Prize, you’ll know what that means.) The buzz aroundContinue reading “TWIST – Colum McCann”
ANY TROPE BUT YOU – Victoria Lavine
I wanted a cute, candy read. A Hallmark movie in book form. Set in the remote wilderness of Alaska with a romance author from California and the hunky lumberjack son of the proprietor of the resort she’s staying at? That sounds like a delicious candy book. And Victoria Lavine’s Any Trope But You (Atria 2025)Continue reading “ANY TROPE BUT YOU – Victoria Lavine”
MY FRIENDS – FREDRIK BACKMAN
“Twenty-five years later he still wishes for the same thing, that he was fourteen years old and that the world was full of broken clocks. “As seventeen-year-olds they would sleep next to each other almost every night in the foster home, with ice cream stains on their clothes and each other’s laughter in their lungs,Continue reading “MY FRIENDS – FREDRIK BACKMAN”
RHYTHM OF WAR – Brandon Sanderson
“If we slow down,” Jasnah said, “the past catches up to us. History is like that, always gobbling up the present.” The year of Sanderson continues and while I may have had a rather slow month of reading in May, I did finish Rhythm of War (Tor 2020). Book four of The Stormlight Archivemay veryContinue reading “RHYTHM OF WAR – Brandon Sanderson”
THE MADWOMAN OF SERRANO – Dina Salústio
Current installment of Tommi Reads the World – we are now in the C’s!!! Country: Cape VerdeTitle: The Mad Woman of SerranoAuthor: tLanguage: PortugueseTranslator: Jethro SoutarPublisher: Spleen Ediçũes (1998), English translation Dedalus (2019) The Mad Woman of Serrano was the first novel by a female author to be published in Cape Verde, and the first toContinue reading “THE MADWOMAN OF SERRANO – Dina Salústio”
A Girl Named Tommi 