What Hunger by Catherine Dang; Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong; Book Reviews, and a Hobby

 Crocheting

A new venture for me, for those times I'm not in a book. I borrowed this Get Started Crochet book, bought two balls of yarn and two different sizes crochet needles, and started joining crochet and knitting groups at the library and senior center. The experienced crochet people were very helpful in showing simple stitches to this newbie. 

From the book, Get Started Crochet: Learn Something New, I learned from both descriptions and pictures how to hold a hook, how to thread the yarn through your fingers so you could grab the thread with the hook using simple stitches.

I am still doing simple single stitches for my two projects: a cotton potholder, and a pale green acrylic scarf. Pictures later, when I have done more than an inch and a half of crochet stitches!

Currently reading

I'm enjoying the thoughts, personality, and observations of the main character in Who Knows You By Heart by C.J. Farley (Nov. 11, 2025, William Morrow, NetGalley). The novel is described as a social thriller and romance. It's set in the world of modern technology and artificial intelligence.

Finished Reading

Mrs. Endicott's Splendid Adventure by Rhys Bowen (Aug. 5, 2025), NetGalley

I enjoyed the bravado of Ellie Endicott, who takes her husband's beloved Bentley car as part of her share after his affair and their subsequent divorce, drives the car to parts unknown, namely under the English channel and towards the south of France. She takes along her housekeeper turned friend, Mavis, and an elderly friend, Dora. They land up in a little town near the Riviera, and like it enough to try to settle there.

Romance, adventure, a new environment follow, only marred by the threat of WWII and how it may affect them in this tiny hidden village in France. I followed Ellie's adventures and felt satisfaction when she discovers a new place to call home, and meets the challenges and misfortunes of the times she lives in.

Evil Genius by Claire Oshetsky (not yet published, Feb. 17, 2026), Ecco, NetGalley  

Celia Dent is only 19 years old, but the term "evil genius" lives in her mind after a coworker Randall survives an affair after the woman's husband shoots her and then himself, leaving a terrified but alive Randall cowering and hidden under the marital bed. Celia thinks Randall is the evil genius who planned it all as a way to get rid of the husband.

Celia dreams of getting out of her marriage to her controlling and mentally abusive husband, Drew, and considers how she herself can become an evil genius, smart but considered too simple and bumbling to be capable of planning any retribution herself.

Told in the first person narrative, the novel is interesting because of the personality that is Celia, who does manage to be an evil genius in spite of her simple outlook on life. Her job in billing and collecting on the phone leads to all kinds of evasive and demanding customers, some of whom she wishes to avoid ever meeting in person.

The job circumstances figure prominently in how Celia's dream of an evil genius solution to her problems. An excellent read because of an unlikely character.

Want to Read

Aug. 12, 2025; Simon and Schuster, NetGalley

A haunting coming-of-age tale following the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, Ronny Nguyen, as she grapples with the weight of generational trauma while navigating the violent power of teenage girlhood. What Hunger is a visceral, emotional journey through the bursts and pitfalls of female rage. Ronny's Vietnamese lineage and her mother's emotional memory play a crucial role in this tender ode to generational trauma and mother-daughter bonding.

May 13, 2025; Penguin Group

The hardest thing in the world is to live only once…

One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to transform Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community on the brink.

Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Ocean Vuong’s writing—formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness—are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance.

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday, Book Blogger Hop

Booker Prize Longlist 2025

I was glad to find I have three ebooks from NetGalley that are on The Booker Prize 2025 Longlist

A novel tracing a father’s disappearance across time, nations, and memory, from the author of Trust Exercise.

One summer night, Louisa and her father take a walk on the breakwater. Her father is carrying a flashlight. He cannot swim. Later, Louisa is found on the beach, soaked to the skin, barely alive. Her father is gone. She is ten years old.

Flashlight spans decades and continents in a spellbinding, heartgripping investigation of family, loss, memory, and the ways in which we are shaped by what we cannot see.

Description:

A radiant, intimate novel of the longing that blooms between two boys over the course of one summer—about family, desire, and what we inherit.

When his grandfather dies, Jay travels south with his family to the property they’ve inherited, a once flourishing farm that has fallen into disrepair. The trees are diseased, the fields parched from months of drought.

Jay’s father, Jack, sends him out to work the land, or whatever land is left. Over the course of these hot, dense days, Jay finds himself drawn to Chuan, the son of the farm’s manager, different from him in every way except for one.

Out in the fields, and on the streets into town, the charge between the boys intensifies. Inside the house, the other family members begin to confront their own secrets and regrets.

Description: 

Late one night on a Yorkshire farm, in the midst of an illegal rave, a young man is nearly bludgeoned to death with a solid gold bar.

An ambitious young journalist sets out to uncover the truth surrounding the attack, connecting the dots between an amoral banker landlord, an iconoclastic newspaper columnist, and a radical anarchist movement that has taken up residence on the farm. She solves the mystery, but her viral exposé raises more questions than it answers. Through a voyeuristic lens, and with a simmering power, Universality focuses on words: what we say, how we say it, and what we really mean.

The books I wish I had, on the Booker List

Description

What's left when your kids grow up and leave home?

When Tom Layward's wife had an affair he resolved to leave her as soon as his youngest daughter turned eighteen. Twelve years later, while driving her to Pittsburgh to start university, he remembers his pact.

He is also on the run from his own health issues, and the fact that he's been put on leave at work after students complained about the politics of his law class – something he hasn't yet told his wife.

So, after dropping Miriam off, he keeps driving, with the vague plan of visiting various people from his past – an old college friend, his ex-girlfriend, his brother, his son – on route, maybe, to his father's grave in California.

Pitch perfect, quietly exhilarating and moving, The Rest of Our Lives is a novel about family, marriage and those moments which may come to define us.

I love books set in Greece. I must read this one.

Description

On losing her father, Teresa returns to a small town on the Greek coast – the same place she visited when grieving her mother nine years ago. She immerses herself again in the life of the town, observing the inhabitants going about their business, a quiet backdrop for her reckoning with herself. An episode from her first visit resurfaces vividly – her encounter with John, a man struggling to come to terms with the violent death of his nephew. Soon Teresa encounters some of the people she met last time around: Petros, an eccentric mechanic, whose life story may or may not be part of John's; the beautiful Niko, a diving instructor; and Xanthe, a waitress in one of the cafés on the leafy town square. They talk about their longings, regrets, the passing of time, their sense of who they are. Artfully constructed, absorbing and insightful, One Boat is a brilliant novel grappling with questions of identity, free will, guilt and responsibility.

Are you planning on reading the Booker List 2025 novels this year? 

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday, Book Blogger Hop

Historical Fiction, Magic, and High Fantasy; and Other Books

 Re-reading

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang, May 1, 2018; Harper Voyager

Genre: historical fiction, fantasy, high fantasy, magic 

I had started this historical fantasy but not finished. Now, I'm in the mood for fantastic martial arts, magic, Chinese mythology, fantastic creatures, gods,  and feats, and a female main character who went from a poor village to the highest military academy and honors. It's a mistake, I find, to try to link the events and wars and places to real Chinese history and places, as they have been so changed for the purposes of fiction. 

(post reprinted from Book Bird Dog ( Book Dilettante), my other book blog.) The Poppy War is an epic historical military fantasy, inspired by the bloody history of China’s twentieth century and filled with treachery and magic. I had to read this to see why it received all the awards and accolades. Apart from being a Goodreads Choice Award for 2018, the first book received 

Nebula Award Nominee for Best Novel (2018), Locus Award Nominee for First Novel (2019), World Fantasy Award Nominee for Best Novel (2019), Compton Crook Award (2019), British Fantasy Award Nominee for Best Newcomer (Sydney J. Bounds Award) (2019), and several other award nominations

The other books in the fantasy trilogy are

The Dragon Republic and 

The Burning God. All three books won the Goodreads Choice and the last two were also nominated for awards.

R. F. Kuang is also the author of Babel, Yellowface 

Also reading

Set in the Toronto neighbourhood of “Little Jamaica,” Frying Plantain  (June 4, 2019) follows a girl from elementary school to high school graduation as she navigates the tensions between mothers and daughters, second-generation immigrants experiencing first-generation cultural expectations, and Black identity in a predominantly white society.

ZALIKA REID-BENTA, a Canadian writer, whose debut novel RIVER MUMMA has been shortlisted for the 2024 Trillium Book Award and  received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist Magazine. RIVER MUMMA is an Amazon Books Editors' Pick for Best Science Fiction and Fantasy and was selected a Best Book of the Month for Apple Books in February 2024. It has been listed as one of the best fiction books of 2023 on platforms, including CBC Books, Indigo Books, Kobo Books and The Walrus.

Reid-Benta's debut short story collection FRYING PLANTAIN won the Danuta Gleed Literary Award and the Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for Literary Fiction in 2020. It was longlisted for the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and shortlisted for the 2020 Toronto Book Award, the 2020 Trillium  Book Award, the 2021 White Pine Award and the 2020 Evergreen Award.

In 2025, Tundra Books will publish Zalika's first picture book, TWELVE DAYS OF JAMAICAN CHRISTMAS.

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday, Book Blogger Hop

The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh, a review

 Book post reprinted from my other book blog, BookBirdDog (Book Dilettante)

The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Published June 11, 2020; Mariner Books

Genre: Indian literature, historical fiction, award winning novel

A young Indian marine biologist, Piya Roy, travels to the remote Sunderbans area of West Bengal, India near the border with Bangladesh, to find and study the habits of two rare river dolphins, one of them the Irawaddy dolphin. She gets help from an illiterate yet knowledgeable boatman, Fokir, who knows and understands the extensive mangroves, the shifting tides of the river, and the multiple small islands that make up the marshland area. He is able to take her to where the dolphins regularlly gather to feed.

I loved the extensive and detailed descriptions of the Sunderbans islands, the poetic vision of man and nature and their interactions. The tenacious and determined personality of Piya and her bravery and courage in her research fits well with the astute and competent boatman Fokir, and their attraction to each other does not come as a surprise.

The force of nature and its effects on humans and their frail habitations in a wilderness of wood and water is made over and over again when the incoming tides completely cover many of the islands each day. The main event for the inhabitants is when a cyclone threatens their lives and houses in the Sunderbans. The mangroves are also home to ferocious tigers, crocodiles, and snakes.

The main character is the land - the land of wood, water, and the tides that swallow them up at will. The love story between Piya and Fokir is also heart breaking. But the redemption of having environmental groups fund Piya's further study of the Sunderbans is a reward for her efforts.

 

AMITAV GHOSH was born in Calcutta, and grew up in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka; he studied in Delhi, Oxford and Alexandria. He is the author of several acclaimed works of fiction and non-fiction including the Booker-shortlisted Sea of Poppies, the first novel in  The Ibis Trilogy, The Glass Palace and The Hungry Tide. His non-fiction writing includes The Great Derangement, The Nutmeg’s Curse and Smoke and Ashes: Opium’s Hidden Histories, which was shortlisted for the Cundill History Prize.
Amitav Ghosh’s work has been translated into more than thirty languages. He was a finalist of the Man Booker International Prize and was the first English-language writer to be the recipient of the Jnanpith Award, India’s highest literary honour. In 2024 Amitav Ghosh was awarded the Erasmus Prize. 

Historical Novels, Fantasy, Mystery

Historical Fiction 

Not yet published

A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing by Alice Evelyn Yang, Jan. 27, 2026; William Morrow, NetGalley

Genre: literary, fantasy, historical fiction

A dark, magical realist debut family saga that moves through the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, the Cultural Revolution, and the present day to explore the effects of intergenerational trauma, the legacy of colonialism, and the inescapability of fate.

 I am interested in the history of China from the 1930s and onward.

Not yet published 

Eureka by Victoria Chang, publication Jan. 27, 2026; Macmillan Children's Publishing; NetGalley

Genre: children's historical fiction

Description: Eureka is a gorgeous and emotionally resonant novel-in-verse by multiple-award-winning poet Victoria Chang that sensitively and lyrically renders the tragic events surrounding the 1885 expulsion of Chinese Americans from Eureka, California.

I wanted to know more about this event in 1885 California.

Soft Burial by Fang Fang, March 18, 2025; Columbia University Press, NetGalley

Genre: historical fiction, mystery, amnesia

Soft Burial begins with a mysterious, nameless protagonist. Decades earlier she was pulled out of a river in a state of near-death; upon regaining consciousness, she discovered that her entire memory had been erased. The narrative follows her journey through recovery. Intergenerational trauma from the Land Reform Campaign in China, late 40s to early 50s.  

Amnesia cases, fictional or real, have been fascinating for me.

State of Emergency by Jeremy Tiang, published June 3, 2025; World Editions, NetGalley

Genre; literary, historical fiction

Jeremy Tiang's debut novel dives into the tumultuous days of leftist movements and political detentions in Singapore and Malaysia. It follows an extended family from the 1940s to the present day. 

The history of the Chinese in Southeast Asia is  equally intriguing. 

A Telegram from Le Touquet by John Bude, May 20, 2025; Poisoned Pen Press, NetGalley 

Genre: historical mystery, first published in 1956

Nigel Derry finds himself on a vacation cut short by murder as a cold shadow of suspicion eclipses the sunny beauty of the Côte d'Azur. Enter Inspector Blampignon of the Sûreté Nationale, the formidable French detective who embarks on a thrilling race to discover the truth. 

My dream vacation spot is the Cote d'Azur.

I enjoy historical fiction and also love a good mystery. 

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this week? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves, Mailbox Monday, Book Blogger Hop