Imbolo Mbue – Books On The Go

I’m doing Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge 2017 for the first time this year, with some of the (always-inspiring) London Book Clubbers.

We have 24 tasks to complete, so it equates to two per month (although one book can cover more than one task). Like DiverseAThon, it’s great way to expand my reading. Fantasy and comics will be new to me, and Roxanne Gay has set a task to read a book published by a micropress, which will be fun to seek out.

17f28821eaf37b2fec24e920a223f711 — Read Harder Challenge 2017 tasks

Here is my progress so far…

Read a debut novel: several of my 2017 reads have been debuts: Shelter, The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, The Nix and The Dry by Jane Harper

I really enjoyed The Dry, a thriller set in rural Australia. A smart protagonist and some realistic local characters, with a strong, well-paced story. Harper does a wonderful job of creating the atmosphere of a small country town, both the landscape and a community on edge. Recommended.

Read a book by an immigrant or with a central immigration narrative: both The Good Immigrant and Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue qualify – I reviewed The Good Immigrant (excellent selection of essays) in an earlier DiversAThon post.

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Behold the Dreamers is a warm, engaging story about Cameroon immigrants to New York. The characters are sympathetic and Mbue does not shy away from the difficulties they face, the stress of job insecurity and the strain this puts on a marriage. For me, it lacked dramatic tension, as we know what happened to Lehman Brothers, and it was a little too earnest, but I liked having Jende and Neni’s perspectives. Thought-provoking and good, honest writing.

Read a book published between 1900 and 1950: Fantastic Night by Stefan Zweig.

A wonderful collection of Stefan Zweig’s stories. His writing is elegant, philosophical and humane. Zweig was extremely erudite but wore his knowledge lightly. He conjures up beautiful turn-of-the-century European settings and a time when people travelled, for leisure and then necessity. The bittersweetness of past loves, the fears of war and a reverence for forgotten greats (a bibliophile, an actor) drive these tales, told with warmth and style.

Read a YA or middle-grade novel by an author who identifies as LGBTQ+. I have to thank Jamie Klingler of the London Book Club for this one: the audiobook of Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, read by Lin Manual Miranda.

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An excellent book – poignant, true and funny. I laughed, I cried and absolutely loved Miranda as a narrator. A winner!

Read an LGBTQ+ romance novel: Nightwood by Djuna Barnes. I’ve had this on my TBR for years, ever since I read about Djuna Barnes in a biography of Peggy Guggenheim, so in between the 1,000+ pages of Infinite Jest I thought I’d do this as a ‘quick’ read and tick it off my list. Wrong! Only 208 pages but oh so dense! My review below…

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Sublime but elusive, the story of the doomed love between two women, told in vivid prose. Paris is seedy, the characters flawed and Gothic. Barnes’ writing gleams: her poetic wordplay and wit reminded me of Shakespeare; the confessional tone pre-dates Camus’ The Fall, and the Woolf comparisons are apt too. Strong, dense, it refuses to be matter-of-fact, but feels searingly honest.

Read a book where all point of view characters are people of colour. I have something quite different for this one. Our Adelaide Book Club is going to Hong Kong in June, so in preparation this month we have read Crazy Rich Asians (about to be made into a movie).

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This has been called Dynasty on steroids and the next 50 Shades of Grey. If you’re a fan, you’ll love it. Some of the praise is overblown (it’s no Pride and Prejudice or Evelyn Waugh), but Kwan meticulously describes the lives of the super-rich in Asia, and the materialism and prejudices of those places, with accuracy and humour. One-dimensional characters, every luxury brand name-checked. A bit superficial for me, but very good for what it is.

And here is my Read Harder TBR stack! I’ll leave you to guess what tasks these relate to. Next, I’ll be immersing myself in Japanese books for our trip to Tokyo in April. Yay! Sayonara for now…

I’m playing catch-up today with a long overdue post. I joined DiverseAThon in January – a great prompt for me to read more books by diverse voices. I do read widely, including many books in translation, but when I looked at my shelves I realised these are mostly European (and mostly men). Here’s to broadening my reading horizons.

So, what diverse reads did I have on my shelves at home?

Still pretty mainstream, but a good start. I’m going to aim for more diverse reads this year and keep reading in translation (books in translation perhaps a blog post in itself).

Some quick reviews:

Shelter by Jung Yun: A pity I can’t show you this one because the cover was beautiful! (different to the one in the link). This was a drama centering on a Korean-American family. It was challenging as I did not warm to the characters, but real and compelling: I wanted to know what would happen next. I must say, I didn’t enjoy it, but it has stayed with me as an honest, strong, well-written book.

The Sellout by Paul Beatty: I absolutely loved this. Strong, fizzing, inventive prose and on-point commentary about racism and Amercia. Beatty skewers, subverts and glorifies in race issues and America’s uncomfortable past and present. I laughed out loud, stopped to think and otherwise just enjoyed the ride. Highly recommended.

The Good Immigrant edited by Nikesh Shukla. An excellent collection of essays – fresh writing, highly readable. An important book if for no other reason than to open our minds, remind us what a diverse world we live in but bring home that things like humour, wanting to connect and the magic of a good haircut are universal. But mostly just a great read! Darren Chetty writes a wonderful essay on teaching children to write using characters from their own background – the resulting stories are stronger with more emotional engagement. Varaidzo, Miss L (on being cast as ‘the wife of a terrorist’) and Salena Godden were also highlights. A shout-out to the London Book Club for this winning Secret Santa gift!

Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue: this is where my DiverseAThon went off the rails … I was 40 pages in and really enjoying this – it’s warm, engaging and transports you to New York with some lively characters. Then I saw that Litsy was doing an Infinite Jest buddy read (excellently hosted by Jen P of the Reader’s Room) – this has long been on my TBR, so I jumped at the chance to read it in the company of friends. Starting a week late, I dived in and … wheee yo mamma! That’s for another post…

I’m also doing Book Riot’s Read Harder challenge – who wants to join me? Another fun excuse to read out of my comfort zone and find new authors to fall in love with. Although at the rate I’m going, I’ll have to make Infinite Jest fit into all of the categories. 😉

And yes, I know, I have not updated on my holiday reading from December/January. Yikes! While I think about how many blog posts I need to catch up on and all the books I’ve read over summer, and all the books still to read, here is a photo of Carrickalinga Beach.

What have you been reading? Do you have any diverse or Read Harder recommendations?