Kazuo Ishiguro's A Pale View of Hills, his debut! about a Japanese woman living in the UK whose oldest daughter recently committed suicide, and she's recalling memories from life in Japan after the bomb dropped (jaw-dropping twist in this one); Kayla Maiuri's Mother In the Dark, dual-timeline debut lit fic about a mother-daughter relationship, mental health, family, childhood etc, set in nyc and boston; and Annie Ernaux's The Years, a nobel prize-winning work of autofiction about one woman's life against backdrop of french history and culture from end of ww2 until now
Apr 29, 2024
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title: time is a mother
author: ocean vuong
publisher: vintage digital
year published: 2022
format: ebook (borrowed from university library on libby app)
rating: 3.5
quick read with some really gorgeous language and writing
Jan 23, 2025
A tense, slow burning, gripping read.
βIt's been raining for a long time now, for so long that the lands have reshaped themselves and the cities have retreated to higher storeys. Old places have been lost. Arcane rituals and religions have crept back into practice. Sisters Isla, Irene and Agnes have not spoken in some time when their estranged father dies. A famous architect revered for making the new world navigable, he had long cut himself off from public life. They find themselves uncertain of how to grieve his passing when everything around them seems to be ending anyway.β
King Lear meets the climate crisis. Just as stunningly written as Our Wives Under the Sea. I cried when I finished it this morning, mostly at it being over.
Aug 13, 2024
This surreal and existential Japanese novella packs a sensory punch that will leave you wanting more.
Oyamada crafts an eerie and frightening exploration into loneliness and the many holes it casts us into. We follow our dazed and dreaming narrator Asa who has just dutifully joined her emotionally distant husband back in his small hometown, where the cicadas drone like fighter jets and mysterious animals slink the streets at night. We join her as she tries to parse through her new reality, be it factual or a series of anomalies.
This one is for everyone who has ever felt like a stranger in their own life, and pairs amazingly with sidewalk cafes and springtime.
Mar 20, 2024
Top Recs from @notebook
full of admiration for the woman i saw outside the grocery store this afternoon
Mar 21, 2024
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helps me relax when making big and small decisionsβ everything in life leads to the next thing, no such thing as a wrong decision, etc.
Mar 5, 2024
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And eating them with butter and crunchy nutella and strawberries
Feb 4, 2024