“And the days, I write the days in green, and the things I need, the things I need – I write those in green too.” As I prepare for next year’s Booker season, let me go ahead and say that Claire-Louise Bennett’s Big Kiss, Bye-Bye (Riverhead 2025) stands alone at this point in time onContinue reading “BIG KISS, BYE-BYE – Claire-Louise Bennett”
Tag Archives: Riverhead Books
MINOR BLACK FIGURES – Brandon Taylor
I’m making an effort to read more Booker-eligible books prior to the longlist announcement – up today is Brandon Taylor’s Minor Black Figures. (Riverhead 2025) Taylor was previously shortlisted for the Booker in 2020 with Real Life. At that time, I was only reading selected works from the list, and I did not read RealContinue reading “MINOR BLACK FIGURES – Brandon Taylor”
WILL THERE EVER BE ANOTHER YOU – Patricia Lockwood
“A warm afternoon in winter, and Shakespeare’s wife was asking to see me. She wanted to buy my brain, but how to explain that is was no longer worth anything?” Y’all may recall the 2021 Booker season and my dark horse favorite, Patricia Lockwood’s No One is Talking About This. Her follow-up was published thisContinue reading “WILL THERE EVER BE ANOTHER YOU – Patricia Lockwood”
THE GOD OF THE WOODS – Liz Moore
“It came from the Greek god Pan: the god of the woods. He liked to trick people, to confuse and disorient them until they lost their bearings, and their minds.” “Something about her looks immortal…a spirit, an apparition, more god than child.” Liz Moore’s The God of the Woods (Riverhead Books 2024) is in myContinue reading “THE GOD OF THE WOODS – Liz Moore”
THE VANISHING HALF – Brit Bennett
“You could never know who might hurt you until it was too late.” I finally got around to reading Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half (Riverhead 2020) – it was likely the most hyped on my TBR that had just been sitting there for ages, and it was on my “Must Reads” for 2024. (Yes. IContinue reading “THE VANISHING HALF – Brit Bennett”
YOU DREAMED OF EMPIRES – Álvaro Enrigue
Álvaro Enrigue’s You Dreamed of Empires (translated by Natasha Wimmer – pub date 1/9/2024, Riverhead Books (thanks for the gifted advanced copy!)) is a fever dream of a reimagined meeting between Hernán Cortés and Moctezuma in 1519. Edgar Allen Poe once wrote “all that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream,”Continue reading “YOU DREAMED OF EMPIRES – Álvaro Enrigue”
THE END OF WORLD IS A CUL DE SAC – Louise Kennedy
I called Louise Kennedy’s Trespasses a “weeping wound of a novel about womanhood, love, and family” in my 3/30/2023 review, and her collection of stories, The End of the World is a Cul de Sac (Riverhead 2023, expected 12/5/2023; first published in Great Britain by Bloomsbury Publishing in 2021) is a series of festering woundsContinue reading “THE END OF WORLD IS A CUL DE SAC – Louise Kennedy”
THE LAST ANIMAL – Ramona Ausubel
Jane said, “If we go, we can visit the iceman. Which is as close as we can get to visiting your dad.” Vera was helpless against this. She looked at her hands, small and pale. She did not know what they would reach for in her life, what they would make or take apart. Now,Continue reading “THE LAST ANIMAL – Ramona Ausubel”
AGE OF VICE – Deepti Kapoor
Billed as India’s response to The Godfather, Deepti Kapoor’s Age of Vice (Riverhead Books 2023) is a gangster novel meets political commentary kissed with a romance wrapped in a family saga. In short, it’s a muddled, confusing thrill ride of extreme violence and unlikeable characters. Even though a bit sloppy at times and in seriousContinue reading “AGE OF VICE – Deepti Kapoor”
TRESPASSES – Louise Kennedy
“They were like a tag team, taking turns to fall apart.” Set in Ireland during “The Troubles,” Louise Kennedy’s Trespasses (Riverhead 2022) is a weeping wound of a novel about womanhood, love, and family with a violent backdrop of the politics that defined Northern Ireland in the early 1970s. Admittedly, it wasn’t on my radarContinue reading “TRESPASSES – Louise Kennedy”
A Girl Named Tommi 