what I’ve been reading lately:
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The Dark is Rising by Susan CooperCollier Books (Macmillan), 1986 (Originally 1973)
The last time I read The Dark Is Rising was more than ten years ago, in summer, and while I always love this book, there’s an extra magic in reading it during the time of year in which it’s set, in the dark and cold days of midwinter, with the festive pleasures of Christmas all
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The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann WyssTranslated by William H.G. KingstonPuffin Books, 2009
The Swiss Family Robinson was originally published in German in 1812; the English translation I read is from 1814, but (as I learned from a “Did You Know?” section at the back of the book) some of it is based on sections added by the French translator, Baroness Isabelle de Montolieu: one of the most
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All the Dirty Parts by Daniel HandlerBloomsbury, 2017
All the Dirty Parts was an extremely fast and extremely fun read for me. The day I started it, I was reading it on the elevator en route to work, and a woman who I don’t know/who works elsewhere in the building asked what I was reading and how it was. I think I said
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Everywhere I Look by Helen GarnerText Publishing, 2016
I picked up Everywhere I Look at the library on the strength of its really lovely/well-designed cover: the author’s name in bold black sans serif, the title beneath in the same font but smaller and red, and then a color photo that spans the front, spine, and back: the author in the center, looking at
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Startup by Doree ShafrirLittle, Brown and Company, 2017
I’m not sure I would have enjoyed Startup as much as I did if I didn’t a) live in NYC and b) know people who work in tech, but I found it to be a very fun, funny, and quick read, even though none of the characters are particularly sympathetic. There’s Mack McAllister, the 28-year-old
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Made for Love by Alissa NuttingEcco (HarperCollins), 2017
I saw Alissa Nutting read from Made for Love at Brooklyn Bridge Park over the summer: the scene she read is a hilarious bit where the protagonist, Hazel, who has moved in with her septuagenarian father after leaving her evil-tech-genius-billionaire husband, gets her arm stuck in the mouth of her dad’s new purchase, a highly
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Arbitrary Stupid Goal by Tamara ShopsinMCD (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), 2017
I loved Tamara Shopsin’s Mumbai New York Scranton when I read it a few years ago, so I was super-excited when I learned she had a new book out this year, and Arbitrary Stupid Goal did not disappoint. It’s an illustrated memoir that’s more a series of vignettes, but with some unifying elements; a lot
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I Hate Everyone But You by Gaby Dunn and Allison RaskinWednesday Books, 2017
I Hate Everyone But You is an epistolary novel that takes the form of emails and text messages between two best friends, Ava and Gen. It’s their first semester of college and they’re across the country from one another: Ava’s in film school at USC (they grew up in LA); Gen’s studying journalism at Emerson.
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Ruin of Angels by Max GladstoneTor.com/Tom Doherty Associates, 2017
I think Max Gladstone’s Craft books are the only series I’m fully on top of these days, the only series where, when I hear there’s a new book out, I place a hold on it at the library immediately and drop everything when it arrives. I’m currently a few issues behind on the New Yorker,
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The First Rule of Punk by Celia C. PérezViking (Penguin Random House), 2017
I basically devoured The First Rule of Punk over the course of two days, and aw, it’s such a great middle-grade novel. Our narrator Malú is twelve, almost thirteen, and at the start of the book she’s sad about having to move from Gainesville to Chicago for two years because of her mom’s new temporary