Hello, my Tuesday friends! I hope you are all having a great start to your week. It has been a very busy one here in Maine, and I have been padding my spare moments with comics and children’s books. I read an upcoming picture book called The Baby Who Stayed Awake Forever by Sandra Salsbury, and it delighted me to no end. It’s out in March (sorry), but mark it down now! It’s a riot. I am also a new fan of the Batpig series and the Grumpy Monkey books. I don’t know how I have managed to miss out on Grumpy Monkey until now, but I am glad I finally read some, because I discovered his name is actually Jim Panzee, and that is amazing.
Today I have novels of messy family drama in a mother’s life, a young Black veteran’s struggles upon his return home from war, and a sparse, sharp story of art and identity. As for this week’s other new releases, at the top of my list of today’s books that I want to get my hands on are Bird Milk & Mosquito Bones: A Memoir by Priyanka Mattoo, 1974: A Personal History by Francine Prose, and The Memo by Rachel Dodes and Lauren Mechling. You can hear about more of the fabulous books coming out today on this week’s episode of All the Books! Emily and I talked about books we are excited about, including We Used To Live Here, Little Rot, and One-Star Romance.
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Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo
For fans of messy family drama (and really, who isn’t?), Claire Lombardo is back with a new novel about motherhood, maturation, and life’s surprises. At 57, Julia Ames is finally starting to feel like she has a good handle on her life. But when you think it’s all going well is when the universe will getcha! Julia’s children both throw her curveballs, and the past has decided it isn’t ready for Julia to forget about it. As she tries to navigate current events without resorting to past behaviors, readers are treated to a realistic tale of what it means to be a parent with their own hopes and dreams, and problems. P.S. Good luck getting the Talking Heads song out of your head. (Read this while you get ready for Reese to adapt Lombardo’s first novel, if you haven’t already read that one!)
Backlist bump: The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo
God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer by Joseph Earl Thomas
I had the privilege of seeing Joseph Earl Thomas talk a few years ago, and he was such a compelling speaker! He had been talking about his incredible memoir then, and now he also has a novel — it is SO GOOD. It’s about a young Black man in Philadelphia trying to figure out his life after returning from service in the Iraq War. Joseph Thomas is working as an EMT and taking classes, but his time overseas has changed him in ways that not everyone in his life can understand. Not even Joseph Thomas is sure he understands, but Joseph Earl Thomas has certainly captured the nuances and complications of his character’s situation. Joseph Thomas’s observations, struggles, and heartbreaks drive this powerful debut about the life of a young Black man in America, and it is sure to be nominated for a gazillion awards.
Backlist bump: Sink: A Memoir by Joseph Earl Thomas
Parade by Rachel Cusk
And last, but not least, if you want to read an author all your favorite authors love to read, pick up a book by Rachel Cusk! Her latest is a format-bending story of a painter named G, who achieves great success in his midlife. It’s also about a painter named G in her twenties. There’s also the story of an attack on a woman in Paris, and one of children contemplating their mother after her death. But are these things all related or separate? And when did they happen? Cusk’s storytelling is deliciously cerebral and challenges the reader to decide what form the novel is taking, and what they believe art to be. I don’t mind putting in a little work when the writing is this good. (Be sure to also check out the Outline trilogy!)
Backlist bump: Second Place by Rachel Cusk
This week, I am reading The Swifts: A Gallery of Rogues by Beth Lincoln and illustrated by Claire Powell, and Invisible Kitties: A Feline Study of Fluid Mechanics or The Spurious Incidents of the Cats in the Night-Time by Yu Yoyo and translated by Jeremy Tiang. For viewing, the NBA Finals are still going on, and my husband and I also started watching Bodkin and the new game show The 1% Club. The song stuck in my head this week is “Pa Pa Power” by Dead Man’s Bones, which happens a lot. It’s just so catchy! (Also, if you didn’t already know, it’s Ryan Gosling’s band.) And here is your weekly cat picture: I recently picked up an adorable picture book called Cats Are a Liquid by Rebecca Donnelly and Misa Saburi, because they’re not wrong. Here, Zevon is seen sloshing over the sides of his bowl!
That’s all for this week! I appreciate you more than I can say, friends. Thank you for joining me each Tuesday as I rave about books! I am wishing you all a wonderful rest of your week, whatever situation you find yourself in now. And yay, books! See you next week! – XO, Liberty
“I’ve seen the life on this planet, Scully, and that’s exactly why I’m looking elsewhere.”—Fox Mulder, The X-Files (A great quote from one of the worst episodes, IMO. What a waste of M. Emmet Walsh!)