Buzzy 2024 titles for good reading and great discussion

Plus the books the NYT list left out and my beach vacay uniform

Hey readers!

I’m enjoying the last few days of vacation with my family so I’m going to get straight into the books today!

This week in books.

This week I read…

• The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. This was the FictionMatters Buzzy Book of the Month for July and I’m so glad we chose it. The book itself was fun, quirky, and highly imperfect, and the conversation was richer than I could have imagined. The story follows an agent in the enigmatic Ministry of Time who’s tasked with being a “bridge” or companion and guide to Graham Gore—a Victorian era Naval Commander recently brought into the future by new time travel technology. The first part of the book follows the day-to-day lives of Graham and his bridge and is filled with temporal and cultural collisions that provide a lot of humor and some deeply moving observations about humanity. The final third is a whirlwind mashup of romance, science fiction, thriller, and espionage—it was a lot and it all happened fast. As I was reading, I couldn’t help but feel like this was a story with a great idea of a situation (people from the past adjusting to modern life) but the story itself (the romance and thriller aspects) felt kind of tacked on and rushed. I also struggled a bit with the writing—especially the frequent use of odd similes that took me out of the book. But at our book club discussion, a lot of readers loved the things I struggled with and felt like it added to the quirky charm of the novel overall. I’m not sure that’s my reading, but I loved hearing that perspective and it did make me appreciate the book more. All in all, this was a fun book for me, reminiscent of Outlander and some TV shows I love like Beforeigners and Dark. It was a nice and odd little break in a slew of literary fiction reader and it was all made better by smart readers to discuss it with. Amazon | Bookshop | Libro.fm

• Intermezzo by Sally Rooney. I finished. I’m still mulling over my final thoughts so rather than a cohesive review, I’m going to give you little lists of what I did and didn’t like about this book. What I liked: Sally Rooney creates such real feeling characters who are broken but trying, and that’s done well here. I like the shift she made towards examine the dynamics between brothers rather than focusing on romantic relationships (don’t worry—those are here too). The depiction of grief felt very real. I liked some of the nitty gritty details about the world of chess. And the title is perfect! In chess, an intermezzo or in-between move is “an unexpected move that poses a severe threat and forces an immediate response.” This title is working on so many levels in this novel, and I thought that was brilliant. What I didn’t like: The novel is told in the distinct close third person perspectives of the two brothers Peter and Ivan with occasional close narrative glimpses of some of the romantic interests. I loved Ivan’s sections, but I didn’t enjoy Peter’s nearly as much. His story itself was harder to enjoy, but mostly I did not like the style Rooney chose for these sections. The prose is written in fragments and sentences with no pronoun subjects. I can’t quote from my early copy, but imagine a much more literary version of “Sat at my computer. Typed out my newsletter. Hit send.” etc, etc. I’ve read books with experimental and abrupt prose styles before and I generally like it when author’s take stylistic risks, but for whatever reason, it really really did not work for me this time. I’m not exaggerating when I say I never settled into this style over the course of the book’s 450 pages. Was there a purpose for this? Yes. What it worth the disruption of the flow? Not for me personally. The book had other issues (can we chill with the waifish women with heavy breasts and Marxist ideals?) and other successes (I personally enjoy some of the pretentious philosophizing), but mostly that single stylistic choice really irked me and got in the way of my appreciation of the book as a whole. This bothered me even more because this is my favorite story in any of her novels since Conversations with Friends and every time the prose got in the way, I found myself incredibly frustrated. That won’t be the case for every reader so if you love Rooney, you’ll want to give this one a try. But if you start and find yourself struggling to settle into the style, you might want to put this one aside as it unfortunately remains throughout. Preorder on Amazon | Preorder on Bookshop | Preorder on Libro.fm

Now I’m reading…

• The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead. This is the FictionMatters Book Club pick for July and I’m loving it. Amazon | Bookshop | Libro.fm

New on my TBR…

• Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt. My sister-in-law spent a few days in Savannah this week and so much of her trip was tied to memories of this book and movie. Now I really want to read it! Amazon | Bookshop

Links I love.

Readers shared their best books of the 21st century and the similarities and differences between last week’s list are pretty interesting. (NYT, gift link)

This older list of the 100 best books of the 21st century has a lot more translated books and fiction I’m unfamiliar with. (The Guardian)

What the New York Times Missed: 71 More of the Best Books of the 21st Century (Lit Hub)

The Great Summer 2024 Preview came out a few weeks ago. I missed it initially and maybe you did too! (The Millions)

The Guardian’s summer reading list is 50 books deep and includes some books I haven’t seen around elsewhere. (The Guardian)

Five of the best body horror novels of all time (The Guardian)

The beachworthy books lovers of queer lit are devouring this summer (NBC)

The shortlist for the Ursula K. Le Guin prize has been announced. (Electric Lit)

8 hot new love stories from a stellar lineup of Black authors (NPR)

13 literary podcasts for every type of reader (Electric Lit)

End notes.

This week in views, listens, eats, and moments of joy.

• Recording this bonus episode of The Stacks with

  Traci Thomas
  ,
  Lupita Reads
  , and
  Hunter Mclendon
  was the highlight of my week.

• Audiobook beach walks might be one of my favorite things on this planet.

• I’m living in these tank tops and these pants at the beach.

• We took Louise to play putt putt for the first time and it was a blast. I thought she’d get bored after 2 minutes but she was really into it!

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Happy reading!

Sara