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Welcome to In The Club, a newsletter of resources to keep your book group well-met, well-read, and well-fed. This week, your girl is back in San Diego wrapping up loose ends. I’m counting down the days until I’m no longer living out of a suitcase while also trying not to cry when I thinks of moving away from her nephew. So many feelings!
On a less weepy note, August is Women in Translation month! I’ll be talking about some awesome translated titles written by women for you to add to your club rotations. Tirzah Price and I will also be recommending works by women in translation on the next episode of the Read Harder podcast (airing Tuesday, August 20). If you’re participating in Read Harder or just want to read more translated work, we’re making it super easy for ya.
Ready? To the club!!
So why do we celebrate women in translation this month? First: because they’re awesome. Second: because there is still a huge disparity in publishing between the number of translated works by men and those by women. Shocking! As Rioter Rebecca Hussey states in her recent post on WIT month, “Translated books by men get more review coverage and critical attention as well. We need more books by women in translation and we need to give these books more attention!”
Here are some suggestions to get you started.
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel, translated from Spanish by Carol and Thomas Christensen – I’m going to recommend this book until someone grabs me by the shoulders and tells me to stop. Tita is the youngest daughter in the De la Garza family; that means she’s bound by Mexican tradition to remain unwed and to care for her tyrannical mother Mama Elena until she croaks. As luck would have it, Tita falls helplessly in love with Pedro and wants to marry him. Mama Elena is like, “Nah, girl,” so Pedro marries Tita’s sister Rosaura instead to at least be close to Tita. Excellent plan with zero flaws! This heartbreaking love story and work of magical realism (Tita cooks her feelings into her food!) is a Mexican classic set during the revolutionary war.
- Book Club Bonus: The format of this book is my fave: it’s split into twelve chapters, each of which starts with a recipe that is essential to the plot of said chapter. Make a Mexican feast with these recipes (quail in rose petal sauce!!!!) for book club and unpack how tradition can both be a beautiful set of customs and a cruel trap & killjoy.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones – I’m about halfway through this 2019 Booker prize nominee from the author of Flights. It’s a literary murder mystery about Janina, a reclusive woman in a remote Polish village who minds the homes of bougie, well-to-do Warsaw residents when she’s not translating poetry or studying astrology. When a neighbor’s suspicious death leads to the discovery of several other bodies, Janina finds herself the object of everyone’s suspicion.
- Book Club Bonus: From what I’ve gathered so far, this book is less concerned with the who and more with the why: it’s not as much about finding out who committed the crime as it is a study of human behavior, of empathy in particular. Dig into these ideas in book club: is the why just as important as the who, perhaps even moreso? Why we should care about other people?
The First Prehistoric Serial Killer and Other Stories by Teresa Solano, translated from Spanish by Peter Bush – This is such a slept-on little book! It’s a darkly humorous collection of short stories, the second half of which are linked and explore the city of Barcelona’s darker underbelly. The stories are all kinda weird and super funny, and yes: the titular tale does indeed involve a caveman trying to solve a murder. The twist made me go, “HA!” out loud at the register of the bookstore.
- Book Club Bonus: One of the things I enjoyed most about this quirky little book is how it depicts the darker side of Barcelona. I won’t say too much to avoid giving away bits from the linked story portion, but discuss how the stories connect and overlap and what lessons there are to be learned from the narrative on the whole.
Another resource for WIT Month:
15 Discounts and Giveaways for Women in Translation Month
Suggestion Section
NPR recently published a cool piece about silent book clubs. All the bookish communion, none of the pressure to be “on.”
A piece about book clubs where discussion is never about the book; it be like that sometimes! It turns out that’s ok.
If you’re in the UK and looking for a local book club, Bustle is here for you.
Oh boy, this Dear Abby letter made me chuckle: a concerned book club member wants to know how to handle the know-it-all smarty pants in the group (see the second question). Raise your hand if you’ve been there!
Thanks for hanging with me today! Shoot me an email at vanessa@riotnewmedia.com with your burning book club questions or find me on Twitter and the gram @buenosdiazsd. Sign up for the Audiobooks newsletter, get it on the Read Harder podcast, and watch me booktube every Friday too.
Stay bad & bookish, my friends.
Vanessa
More Resources:
– Our Book Group In A Box guide
– List your group on the Book Group Resources page