September Reads
Insert very original 'someone wake up that guy from Green Day' joke here
Happy Spooky Season, everyone! Have you got your costumes, candy, and various accoutrements ready for the end of the month? My work is doing a group costume so I’ve got a few weeks to figure out what I’m going to wear as ‘contestant on Price is Right in the 1970s.’ I’ll share a picture next month of whatever we end up looking like.
September Books
The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies - Alison Goodman
We all know I’m a sucker for a historical woman solving a mystery. I glanced at this at first but wasn’t a fan of the cover so it wasn’t until it was time for it to be shelved and there wasn’t enough room for all the new books that I went “eh, I’ll try it.” Y’all, this is so much better than it has any right to be.
Instead of one mystery, it’s three, all centered around two “spinster” twins in their early forties who are using their position of being “old” noblewomen to help other women. What I appreciated about this book in particular is that while so many of these books are fun and silly (which this one definitely is, too), it’s also not scared to venture into some of the darker aspects of life. There’s talk of domestic violence, children in danger, women sent to sanitariums but the biggest one that hit for me was the discussion of breast cancer and mastectomy in the 1820s. There’s a description of it (ripped straight from the real Fanny Burney’s diaries) which is maybe the most horrific thing I’ve read but also incredibly eye opening.
All in all, I really enjoyed the characters in this, I think the concept is brilliant, and I love the depth of the storytelling. It was definitely setting up for a sequel and I’m looking forward to it.
This is another one I got to read early as this book doesn’t actually come out until January. It centers on a young woman whose sister went missing when they were teens. It’s been years, however, and when her father kills himself, she finds that he had been researching her sister’s case online for ages and slowly falls down the rabbit hole (see what they did there?) herself. I really enjoyed the riff on true crime in the internet age, with sections of fake reddit discussions that felt all too real.
I don’t know if I would describe this as a thriller, per se, but there is obviously mystery and twists and turns. Our main character slowly descends into madness, not knowing what is actually conspiracy and what is just regular life. In the last twenty or so pages, it becomes a little heavy handed and I didn’t like how the book ended but I was very much along for the ride for a good 90% of it so I’d recommend checking it out if it sounds interesting to you.
With two transatlantic flights on my schedule this month, I picked a couple of silly books as my travel companions and The Chateau was my main airplane book. And it was fun. Four friends who met while three of them were studying abroad in France as girls are called back to the home of one of their grandmother’s as they hit 40. Everyone has a secret, everyone loves each other very much, everyone is maybe a tiny bit secretly resentful. And then there’s a murder.
This is one of those books with short chapters from different points of view that keeps you on your toes, jumping from head to head and slowly putting together the bigger picture. There’s one plotline that actually made me tear up a few times which I was not expecting. The depiction of the types of friendship a twentysomething can make studying abroad really hit with me as I was lucky enough to do that and still have dear friends from the experience. And also, it’s just weird sometimes. I don’t know if I would say this book was good but I definitely enjoyed it and would recommend if you’re looking for a fun thriller.
The Decagon House Murders - Yukito Ayatsuji, translated by Ho-Ling Wong
I’d been meaning to read this book for years. It restarted the honkaku genre in Japan, a style of mystery fiction that I’ve been a big fan of since college and it felt right to finally read the genesis. And .. yeah.
The bones of a great story are in there. I can see how this revitalized the genre I know and love. But oh, the translation. It’s so rough. The language is so stilted and flows terribly. I’ve done translations from Japanese before and I recognize that that is kind of the style you automatically default to while you’re working but that’s draft one. Then you have to go over it and make it read more naturally in the second language. I have a freelance job where I “rewrite” Japanese translations of manga specifically to catch this so it’s always fresh in my mind.
In fact, there were moments as I was reading that I thought “this would translate better to a comic.” Which I googled and of course, it exists. I’ve started reading it and I’ll let you know if it works better in that format. There is one particular moment that I do not see how they could replicate in visuals (the only moment I gasped aloud while reading) so fingers crossed it’s good!
The Family that Couldn’t Sleep - D.T. Max
When I read about a family with a genetic condition that cursed them with fatal insomnia and that there was a book about it, I was all in. I could not even fathom how this was a thing. I needed to know everything.
Unfortunately, the book is very heavy on the actual science behind the phenomena which is interesting at first but not as many pages interesting as is devoted to it. I know so much about prions now. There are digressions into scrapie, kuru disease, and (of course) mad cow disease which would have been interesting in smaller doses. I think the most interesting thing I learned in those sections was recognizing that the scientist Gajdusek was clearly the inspiration for one of my favorite books, The People in the Trees. Looking forward to rereading that with new background info.
Everything in this book was interesting, it was just much more science-focused than anthropology-focused which I think I would have preferred. But that’s just personal preference and if this sounds interesting to you, definitely give it a try!
Is it just me or did September go quickly? I somehow managed to fit a whole overseas trip in there. I flew over to England mid-September for a long weekend and got to see lots of friends, both new and old. I had a three hour long dinner at Pizza Express with one group, a long weekend in Bristol with some very close online friends who are now in person friends, and then had dinner with one of my dearest friends of all who had moved out of the city and came in after work just to meet me at my beloved, Nandos. I’m blessed in my friendships, truly.
One thing that I have now experienced that I hadn’t before is being in a hotel when a fire alarm goes off. It was at 9 AM on Sunday which I think was the perfect time to really prove who was or wasn’t a morning person. There were folks out there fully clothed, ready for the world and there was our little trio, all still in glasses and pajamas. Yes, there was at least one person in a towel. There had been a fire in the laundry room and the whole hotel had to stand outside for an hour and a half. I realized halfway through that I had not grabbed my phone or my passport so I’m really glad the fire wasn’t worse.
I also got to have a really nice chat with my MA advisor who I hadn’t seen in probably ten years and it was lovely catching up with her. We discussed something I’ve been working on and I’m very excited about but it is very much still in the works. Hopefully I can talk a little more about it in next month’s newsletter. Everyone cross your fingers!
Thanks again to my subscribers! For $5/month or $35/year, you can support me and make me read any book you like and I’ll devote a whole newsletter to it. I am waiting for your suggestions, be they great or horrifying. I’m in it for the long haul. And remember, you can either comment on this post or reply to this email and it’ll go straight to me.
I hope you all have a great spooky season and I’ll see you in early November!
Hey!! Ngl I debated dming you but decided to dive in. Have you read the other Pushkin Press Honkaku novels that they've put out recently? I liked Decagon House Murders but think you're totally right on the translation front