The next Books & Beyond (BAB) meeting will be Tuesday,
September 30th at 6:30pm https://www.oneallibrary.org/event/11282327
and it’s time for our annual author study!
This year, we’ll be chatting about all things Agatha Christie. There is a display at the 2nd
floor service desk and on the Shelf Care page of our website: https://oneallibrary.org/adults---reading-recommendations
This week, BAB met to celebrate Women in Translation
month. This includes books written in
other languages by women that have been translated into English and books
translated into English by women.
The Night Guest by Hildur Knutsdottir, translated by Mary
Robinette Kowal
Iðunn is in yet another doctor's office. She knows her
constant fatigue is a sign that something's not right, but practitioners
dismiss her symptoms and blood tests haven't revealed any cause. When she talks
to friends and family about it, the refrain is the same ― have you tried eating
better? exercising more? establishing a nighttime routine? She tries to follow
their advice, buying everything from vitamins to sleeping pills to a
step-counting watch. Nothing helps. Until one night Iðunn falls asleep with the watch on, and wakes up to find
she’s walked over 40,000 steps in the night…What is happening when she’s
asleep? Why is she waking up with increasingly disturbing injuries? And why
won’t anyone believe her?
We’ll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida, translated by E.
Madison Shimoda
Tucked away in an old building at the end of a narrow alley
in Kyoto, the Kokoro Clinic for the Soul can only be found by people who are
struggling in their lives and genuinely need help. The mysterious clinic offers
a unique treatment to those who find their way there: it prescribes cats as
medication. Patients are often puzzled by this unconventional prescription, but
when they “take” their cat for the recommended duration, they witness profound
transformations in their lives, guided by the playful, empathetic, occasionally
challenging yet endearing cats.
Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo, translated by Cathy Hirano
Japanese decluttering guru Marie Kondo has revolutionized
homes—and lives—across the world. Now, Kondo presents an illustrated guide to
using her acclaimed KonMari Method to create a joy-filled home that works the
way you need it to.
Jawbone by Monica Ojeda, translated by Sarah Booker
When Fernanda, Annelise, and their friends from the Delta
Bilingual Academy convene after school, Annelise leads them in thrilling but
increasingly dangerous rituals to a rhinestoned, Dior-scented, drag-queen god
of her own invention. Even more perilous is the secret Annelise and Fernanda
share, rooted in a dare in which violence meets love. Interweaving pop culture
references and horror concepts drawn from from Herman Melville, H. P.
Lovecraft, and anonymous “creepypastas,” Jawbone is an
ominous, multivocal novel that explores the terror inherent in the pure
potentiality of adolescence and the fine line between desire and fear.
Variations on Silence by Nadia Mifsud, translated by Miriam Calleja
"Variations on Silence is Calleja first
translated poetry book from the Maltese. The collection by Nadia Mifsud is
the prize-winning Varjazzjonijiet tas-Skiet (EDE Books, 2021),
handmade by Kotba Calleja (no relation). It is the collection that
made Mifsud the Poet Laureate of Malta in 2022." Read more about the collection here.
Reeds in the Wind by Grazia Deledda, translated by Martha
King (not available in JCLC, contact the library to request a copy from Interlibrary Loan)
The rugged landscape of Baronia on Sardinia sets the scene
for this novel of crime, guilt and retribution. This novel presents the story
of the Pintor sisters - from a family of noble landowners now in decline -
their nephew Giacinto, and their servant Efix, who is trying to make up for a
mysterious sin committed many years before. Around, below, and inside them the
raging Mediterranean storms, the jagged mountains, the murmuring forests, and
the gushing springs form a Greek chorus of witness to the tragic drama of this
unforgiving land.
The Governesses by Anne Serre, translated by Mark Hutchinson
In a large country house shut off from the world by a gated
garden, three young governesses responsible for the education of a group of
little boys are preparing a party. The governesses, however, seem to spend more
time running around in a state of frenzied desire than attending to the
children’s education. One of their main activities is lying in wait for any
passing stranger, and then throwing themselves on him like drunken Maenads. The
rest of the time they drift about in a kind of sated, melancholy calm, spied
upon by an old man in the house opposite, who watches their goings-on through a
telescope.
The Perfect Nanny by Leila Slimani, translated by Sam Taylor
When Myriam decides to return to work as a lawyer after
having children, she and her husband look for the perfect nanny for their son
and daughter. They never dreamed they would find Louise: a quiet, polite,
devoted woman who sings to the children, cleans the family’s chic Paris
apartment, stays late without complaint, and hosts enviable kiddie parties. But
as the couple and the nanny become more dependent on one another, jealousy,
resentment, and suspicions mount, shattering the idyllic tableau. Building tension
with every page, The Perfect Nanny is a compulsive, riveting,
bravely observed exploration of power, class, race, domesticity, motherhood,
and madness—and the American debut of an immensely talented writer.
The Woman in the Purple Skirt by Natsuko Imamura, translated
by Lucy North
Almost every afternoon, the Woman in the Purple Skirt sits
on the same park bench, where she eats a cream bun while the local children
make a game of trying to get her attention. Unbeknownst to her, she is being
watched--by the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan, who is always perched just out of
sight, monitoring which buses she takes, what she eats, whom she speaks to. Studiously
deadpan and chillingly voyeuristic, and with the off-kilter appeal of the
novels of Ottessa Moshfegh, The Woman in the Purple Skirt explores
envy, loneliness, power dynamics, and the vulnerability of unmarried women in a
taut, suspenseful narrative about the sometimes desperate desire to be seen.
Out by Natsuo Kirino, translated by Stephen Snyder
A young mother who works the night shift making boxed
lunches strangles her abusive husband and then seeks the help of her coworkers
to dispose of the body and cover up her crime. The coolly intelligent Masako
emerges as the plot’s ringleader but quickly discovers that this killing is
merely the beginning, as it leads to a terrifying foray into the violent
underbelly of Japanese society.
The Vanishing by Tim Krabbe, translated by Claire Nicolas White
When Saskia Ehlvest, a young Dutch girl, disappears from a
rest stop along a highway in rural France, her lover, Rex Hofmann, cannot
accept her disappearance and embarks on an obsessive search for her that spans
years.
The Vanishing (Dutch, 1990, 1h 46m)
Rex (Gene Bervoets) and Saskia (Johanna Ter Steege) are
enjoying a biking holiday in France when, stopping at a gas station, Saskia
disappears. Confounded, Rex searches everywhere, but to no avail. Three years
later, he's still obsessed with finding her, pleading his case on television,
putting up posters and ruining his new relationship in the process. Eventually
an unassuming chemistry teacher, Raymond (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu), approaches
Rex, intimating that he knows what happened.
The Vanishing (Hollywood, 1993, 1h 50m)
Barney (Jeff Bridges) is a disturbed man intent on abducting
a woman. After numerous failed attempts, he manages to kidnap young Diane
(Sandra Bullock), who is on vacation with her boyfriend, Jeff (Kiefer
Sutherland). As time passes, Jeff remains determined to find out what happened
to Diane. When Barney unexpectedly confronts Jeff, it leads to a tense
life-or-death situation. Meanwhile, Jeff's current girlfriend, Rita (Nancy
Travis), manages to follow him in hopes of keeping him out of harm.
FURTHER READING:
Mariana Enriquez's books
1)
Our Share of Night, translated by Megan McDowell
A woman’s mysterious death puts her husband
and son on a collision course with her demonic family in the author’s first
novel to be translated into English.
2)
The Dangers of Smoking In Bed, translated by
Megan McDowell
“The beautiful, horrible world of Mariana
Enriquez, as glimpsed in The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, with
its disturbed adolescents, ghosts, decaying ghouls, the sad and angry homeless
of modern Argentina, is the most exciting discovery I’ve made in fiction for
some time.”—Kazuo Ishiguro, The Guardian
3)
A Sunny Place for Shady People: Stories, translated
by Megan McDowell
Lyrical and hypnotic, heart-stopping and
deeply moving, Enriquez’s stories never fail to enthrall, entertain, and leave
us shaken. Translated by the award-winning Megan McDowell, A Sunny
Place for Shady People showcases Enriquez’s unique blend of the
literary and the horrific.
The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories
From an award-winning team of authors, editors, and
translators comes a groundbreaking short story collection that explores
the expanse of Chinese science fiction and fantasy.
The Lost Village by Camilla Sten, translated by Alexandra
Fleming
Documentary filmmaker Alice Lindstedt has been obsessed with
the vanishing residents of the old mining town, dubbed “The Lost Village,”
since she was a little girl. In 1959, her grandmother’s entire family
disappeared in this mysterious tragedy, and ever since, the unanswered
questions surrounding the only two people who were left―a woman stoned to death
in the town center and an abandoned newborn―have plagued her. She’s gathered a
small crew of friends in the remote village to make a film about what really happened.
But there will be no turning back. Not long after they’ve set up camp,
mysterious things begin to happen. Equipment is destroyed. People go missing.
As doubt breeds fear and their very minds begin to crack, one thing becomes
startlingly clear to Alice: They are not alone.
Confrontations by Simone Atangana Bekono, translated by
Suzanne Heukensfeldt Jansen
Raw and unsentimental yet lyrical, Confrontations captures
the paradoxical demands society makes on Black women, the way communities,
schools, and the prison system perpetuate racism, and the cost of Black female
defiance.
PEN America Women in Translation Month Reading List
Legends of Sardinia by Grazia Deledda, edited by Carlos
Mulas
Grazia Deledda (1871 - 1936) was the first Italian
woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, “for her idealistically
inspired writings which with plastic clarity picture the life on her native
island and with depth and sympathy deal with human problems in general”. Sardinia
is a land of legends and mysteries. Every country church, every castle or
monastery ruin, every village, every cussorgia (region or area),
every cave, every cliff, every mountain… every valley has its own legend.
Tristan and the Classics podcast
The podcast specializes in creating book reviews of classic
books and literature with in depth analysis of themes and characters.
Descriptions from Amazon and Rotten Tomatoes, unless otherwise noted.
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