After a summer packed to the brim with reading (July and August), September with its return to school schedules and fall activities was much slower paced. I did, however, return to my yearlong reading challenges with intention which was satisfying. I have now plotted out how to complete the challenges. We’ll see if it works out as planned.
Coincidentally, all three books this month took place in the 1980s – a memoir from South Africa, crime fiction set in Iceland, and literary fiction set in the art world. That was a unique experience!
What have you been reading lately?
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah (2016)
Narrated by Trevor Noah 🎧
This was a captivating account of comedian Trevor Noah’s childhood in South Africa as he navigated life during Apartheid. He was born in 1984 to a White father and Black mother, at the time an illegal interracial relationship, and had a challenging childhood in many ways. Even though it’s in the subtitle, I did not realize this was a collection of stories. The stories jumped back and forth in time a little bit, which was sometimes jarring since he re-introduced aspects and people from earlier years later on as if they were new. The book was an eye-opening look at Apartheid and, at the same time, a moving tribute to his mother. Hearing Trevor Noah narrate it himself was exceptional. ⭐️⭐️⭐⭐️
- Book Voyage: Read Around the World: Africa (South Africa)
- #DiversityAcrossGenres: Black / Nonfiction
- #sakprosaseptember: Biography or memoir
- Read My Own Shelf: Owned
Reykjavík: A Crime Story by Ragnar Jónasson & Katrín Jakobsdóttir (2022)
Translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb (2023) 📖
Ragnar Jónasson is a prolific and best-selling Icelandic crime fiction writer. I really enjoyed his Hidden Iceland trilogy, aka The Hulda Series. Reykjavík was written in partnership with the then-current prime minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir (2017-2024) so I was intrigued.
This is the story of a 15-year-old girl’s disappearance in 1956 when she took a summer job as a maid in a prominent couple’s home on a remote island and disappeared without a trace. On its 30th anniversary in 1986, an eager journalist revisits the case and new information comes to light. This coincides with Reykjavik’s 200th anniversary and Reagan and Gorbachev’s summit meeting in Iceland. I felt the book was trying to have a strong sense of time and place, but for me it was just a lot of place names that I didn’t know. And unfortunately, the story was not as engaging as I’d hoped and the translation was somewhat awkward at times. ⭐️⭐️⭐
- Nordic Literature Reading Challenge: Iceland / Nordic Noir
- Book Voyage: Read Around the World: Western Europe (Iceland)
Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochilt Gonzalez (2024) 📖
Narrated by Stacy Gonzalez, Jonathan Gregg, and Jessica Pimentel 🎧
I really enjoyed the author’s debut Olga Dies Dreaming (Reading Lately, April & May 2022) and was quick to select this title as my Book of the Month selection, especially after reading, “From campus to galleries, this engrossing tale of two female artists paints a complex portrait of power and privilege.” Also, I’m all in for a nonlinear timeline, multiple perspectives, and a glimpse into a world unfamiliar to me, in this case the art world. I wish I had known in advance that Anita in this story was based on a real Cuban performance artist, Ana Mendieta, who had a very similar life (NY Times article).
This story follows art history student Raquel in 1998 and artist Anita in 1985. While researching Anita’s famous artist husband for her thesis, Raquel discovers Anita, who had largely been erased from the art world. Initially, I started with the audiobook but was quickly turned off by the overly dramatic narration for Anita. I pivoted to reading which was much better. However, soon after I got immersed in the story, Anita came back as a ghost after her untimely and questionable death and this caught me off guard as I was not expecting this element in the story. I powered through and enjoyed the resolution, though I wished Raquel could have sorted out her personal and academic challenges a bit sooner. ⭐️⭐️
- #DiversityAcrossGenres: Latinx / Fiction
- Book Voyage: Read Around the World: USA (Rhode Island)
- Read My Own Shelf: Unread BOTM selection
What have you been reading lately?
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With summer now upon us, I am back on track with my reading. My goals for the summer are to catch up on reading challenges, play along with a summer reading bingo that is happening at work, and prepare and participate in 
Last year I read the author’s debut novel Salt Houses, which I really enjoyed, so when her second novel was 
I needed a light and easy audiobook that I could wrap up before our summer trip, and what better choice than one that would take me to the Amalfi Coast in Italy. Sadly, this book wasn’t for me. Yes, I escaped to Positano and vicariously enjoyed delicious food and fabulous views, but I was not a fan of the storyline. Thirty-something Katy’s mother, who was her best friend, just died of cancer and Katy decides to take the trip that they had planned to do together anyways. She’s distraught and lost, and on top of that, questioning her marriage. While in Positano she meets two Americans, Carol, who is just like her mother, and Adam, who is totally unlike her husband. There’s a lot of self-reflection and I’m not sure whether time travel or mental breakdown, but she finds herself actually with her mother as a 30-year-old. At that point, I almost stopped listening, but curiosity and the fact that it was a short listen got me to finish it.
I needed a book that would jump start my summer reading so I finally read the third and latest English language installment in this Norwegian duo’s crime series. Like the others, it took place in Oslo and there were many places I recognized and knew, but the structure was very different, at least for the first half. It alternated between the interrogation of police office Alexander Blix about why he had shot someone, the interrogation of journalist Emma Ramm who saw what had happened, and the storyline of how the person was killed, so a lot of telling with jumps to actual action. The second half returned to a more traditional structure, but with a change in the focus of the investigation and a change in role for Blix. Unfortunately, the book was a bit of a disappointment for me. I wasn’t a fan of the structure of the first half and I didn’t like the new role for Blix.
This is the third in a series of four about Ingrid, an independent woman born, raised, and living on a remote island in Northern Norway in the 1900s. This installment takes place just after World War II. Ingrid leaves the island with her baby girl and travels throughout Norway on foot/train/bus to track down the father, a Russian prisoner of war who spent a short while on the island towards the end of the war as Ingrid nursed him back to health after he had survived 
March was quite the mixed bag in regards to the setting and genre of my books which made for a great month of very interesting and engaging reading. I also made good progress on my 
