This is the first installment in a monthly feature to help Readers Roundtable members stay in touch and to help come up with some ideas for possible future books once we're able to meet in person again (whenever that is).
So far we have suggestions and commentary from Linda, Lola, and Lee.
From Linda
First ones are from my Jane Austen book club, who wanted to explore reading JA homages from different cultures. I’ve read all of these & liked them:
The Jane Austen Project by Kathleen A. Flynn
ENGLAND, 1815: Two travelers--Rachel Katzman and Liam Finucane--arrive in a field, disheveled and weighed down with hidden money. They are not what they seem, but colleagues from a technologically advanced future, posing as wealthy West Indies planters--a doctor and his spinster sister. While Rachel and Liam aren't the first team from the future to "go back," their mission is by far the most audacious: meet, befriend, and steal from Jane Austen herself.
Carefully selected and rigorously trained by the Royal Institute for Special Topics in Physics, disaster-relief doctor Rachel and actor-turned-scholar Liam have little in common besides the extraordinary circumstances they find themselves in--circumstances that call for Rachel to stifle her independent nature and let Liam take the lead as they infiltrate Austen's circle via her favorite brother, Henry.
But diagnosing Jane's fatal illness and obtaining an unpublished novel hinted at in her letters pose enough of a challenge without the continuous convolutions of living a lie. While her friendship with Jane deepens and her relationship with Liam grows complicated, Rachel fights to reconcile her true self with the constrictions of nineteenth-century society. As their portal to the future prepares to close, Rachel and Liam struggle with their directive to leave history intact and exactly as they found it . . . however heartbreaking that may prove.”
Pride by Ibi Zoboi
“Zuri Benitez has pride. Brooklyn pride, family pride, and pride in her Afro-Latino roots. But pride might not be enough to save her rapidly gentrifying neighborhood from becoming unrecognizable.
When the wealthy Darcy family moves in across the street, Zuri wants nothing to do with their two teenage sons, even as her older sister, Janae, starts to fall for the charming Ainsley. She especially can’t stand the judgmental and arrogant Darius. Yet as Zuri and Darius are forced to find common ground, their initial dislike shifts into an unexpected understanding.
But with four wild sisters pulling her in different directions, cute boy Warren vying for her attention, and college applications hovering on the horizon, Zuri fights to find her place in Bushwick’s changing landscape, or lose it all.”
Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin
“Ayesha Shamsi has a lot going on. Her dreams of being a poet have been set aside for a teaching job so she can pay off her debts to her wealthy uncle. She lives with her boisterous Muslim family and is always being reminded that her flighty younger cousin, Hafsa, is close to rejecting her one hundredth marriage proposal. Though Ayesha is lonely, she doesn't want an arranged marriage. Then she meets Khalid, who is just as smart and handsome as he is conservative and judgmental. She is irritatingly attracted to someone who looks down on her choices and who dresses like he belongs in the seventh century.
When a surprise engagement is announced between Khalid and Hafsa, Ayesha is torn between how she feels about the straightforward Khalid and the unsettling new gossip she hears about his family. Looking into the rumors, she finds she has to deal with not only what she discovers about Khalid, but also the truth she realizes about herself.”
Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal (P&P in Pakistan)
“A scandal and vicious rumor concerning the Binat family have destroyed their fortune and prospects for desirable marriages, but Alys, the second and most practical of the five Binat daughters, has found happiness teaching English literature to schoolgirls. Knowing that many of her students won’t make it to graduation before dropping out to marry and have children, Alys teaches them about Jane Austen and her other literary heroes and hopes to inspire the girls to dream of more.
When an invitation arrives to the biggest wedding their small town has seen in years, Mrs. Binat, certain that their luck is about to change, excitedly sets to work preparing her daughters to fish for rich, eligible bachelors. On the first night of the festivities, Alys’s lovely older sister, Jena, catches the eye of Fahad “Bungles” Bingla, the wildly successful—and single—entrepreneur. But Bungles’s friend Valentine Darsee is clearly unimpressed by the Binat family. Alys accidentally overhears his unflattering assessment of her and quickly dismisses him and his snobbish ways. As the days of lavish wedding parties unfold, the Binats wait breathlessly to see if Jena will land a proposal—and Alys begins to realize that Darsee’s brusque manner may be hiding a very different man from the one she saw at first glance.”
Those Pricey Thakur Girls by Anuja Chauhan
“In a sprawling bungalow on New Delhi's posh Hailey Road, Justice Laxmi Narayan Thakur and his wife, Mamta, spend their days watching anxiously over their five beautiful (but troublesome) alphabetically named daughters. Anjini, married but an incorrigible flirt; Binodini, very worried about her children's hissa in the family property; Chandrakanta, who eloped with a foreigner on the eve of her wedding; Eshwari, who is just a little too popular at Modern School, Barakhamba Road; and the judge's favourite (though fathers shouldn t have favourites): the quietly fiery Debjani, champion of all the stray animals on Hailey Road, who reads the English news on DD and clashes constantly with crusading journalist Dylan Singh Shekhawat, he of shining professional credentials but tarnished personal reputation, crushingly dismissive of her state-sponsored propaganda , but always seeking her out with half-sarcastic, half-intrigued dark eyes.”These are two non-Jane Austen books I’ve read:
A Wreath for the Enemy by Pamela Frankau
I’ve been following a podcast from England called Backlisted, where they read forgotten novels and comment on them. What I found even more of interest are the books that are mentioned as asides during the podcast. This one was described as similar to I Capture the Castle & it’s one of my new favorites.
“When Penelope Wells, precocious daughter of a poet, meets the well-behaved middle-class Bradley children, it is love at first sight. But their parents are horrified by the Wells’ establishment—a distinctly bohemian hotel on the French Riviera--and the friendship ends in tears. Out of these childhood betrayals grow: Penelope, in love with an elusive ideal of order and calm, and Don Bradley, in rebellion against the phillistine values of his parents. Compellingly told in a series of first-person narratives, their stories involve them with the Duchess, painted and outre; the crippled genius Crusoe; Crusoe's brother Livesey, and the eccentric Cara, whose brittle and chaotic life collides explosively with Penelope's.”
Pale Rider by Laura Spinney
I liked this one because it looked at the 1918 flu not just from a Western perspective.
“In 1918, the Italian-Americans of New York, the Yupik of Alaska, and the Persians of Mashed had almost nothing in common except for a virus -- one that triggered the worst pandemic of modern times and had a decisive effect on twentieth-century history.
The Spanish flu of 1918-1920 was one of the greatest human disasters of all time. It infected a third of the people on Earth -- from the poorest immigrants of New York City to the king of Spain, Franz Kafka, Mahatma Gandhi, and Woodrow Wilson. But despite a death toll of between 50 and 100 million people, it exists in our memory as an afterthought to World War I.
In this gripping narrative history, Laura Spinney traces the overlooked pandemic to reveal how the virus travelled across the globe, exposing mankind's vulnerability and putting our ingenuity to the test. As socially significant as both world wars, the Spanish flu dramatically disrupted -- and often permanently altered -- global politics, race relations and family structures, while spurring innovation in medicine, religion and the arts. It was partly responsible, Spinney argues, for pushing India to independence, South Africa to apartheid, and Switzerland to the brink of civil war. It also created the true "lost generation." Drawing on the latest research in history, virology, epidemiology, psychology and economics, Pale Rider masterfully recounts the little-known catastrophe that forever changed humanity.”From Lola
Claire of the Sea Light by Edwidge Dantcat is haunting and intriguing at the same time. An unusual seven-year-old child disappears from her home in Haiti. It is densely written and on many levels fleshes out both the good and bad qualities of humanity.
The Braid by Laetitia Colombani is an engaging tale of three different women from different geographical parts, different economic circumstances whose lives become intertwined like a braid. It is memorable; a quick read of bravery and hope.
The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman a fascinating tale of what it is like to be different. Coralie, a young girl, is the central character and ruled by a strange controlling father. The setting is 1911 Coney Island Brooklin, The Museum is a show of living wonders. Coralie was born with webbed fingers and her father forces her to swim in a tank. There are many aspects to this novel nonetheless is love.
From Lee
My reading has been a little haphazard.
I did enjoy The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel. Not as intriguing to me as Station Eleven was, but I like her writing and she creates a contrast between the land of the monied and not monied that is interesting.
Louise Erdrich is an author I will always read and I enjoyed her latest The Night Watchman as well. She describes another incident of attempted US land grabbing, this time from the Turtle Mountain band of the Chippewa.
My neighbor recommended Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. I was reading about an essay a day and was very much taken with it, but have put it aside now for awhile. Kimmerer is a botanist and a member of Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She weaves science with mythology and writes beautifully. Last year, I read The Overstory: A Novel by Richard Powers, who also has a background in science and technology. If you read this book you will never look at a tree again in the same way. These two works complement each other very well.
