Fresh Complaint

I was in Austin this past weekend doing a panel for Nasty Women, but I had the first day of the festival all to myself. One of the big events I’d been dying to attend was the panel with Jeffrey Eugenides and Claire Messud. It’s a six hour drive from South Texas up to Austin,

Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was

Máni Steinn is a queer sixteen-year-old living in early twentieth century Reykjavik. He is a loner who lives with his great-aunt and spends most of his time at the cinemas. He occasionally makes some extra cash prostituting himself to men, although he also finds himself drawn Sóla, a pretty girl who rides a motorcycle around town and

Nonfiction Quickies: Carsick & Console Wars

Carsick: John Waters Hitchhikes Across America by John Waters Publisher/Year: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014 Format: Audiobook Narrator: John Waters Length: 8 hours, 8 minutes Source: Purchase What it is: A couple of years ago, John Waters hitchhiked across the country as the basis of this memoir. Technically, only a third of this is nonfiction because only a third of it

From the Mouth of the Whale

Greetings from Reykjavik! For the next month, I’ll be blogging from Europe! Infused with magical realism, the superstitions from centuries past, and grim Icelandic history, Sjón’s From the Mouth of the Whale is a book that defies categorization. Beginning in 1635, the book that follows the life of Jónas Palmason the Learned. Palmason is a

Quickies: The Orphan Master’s Son & When Women Were Birds

The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson Publisher/Year: Random House Audio, 2012 Format: Audiobook Narrator: Tim Kang with Josiah D. Lee & James Kyson Lee Length: 19 hrs, 22 minutes Source: Library What it is: Growing up in a North Korean work camp for orphans, Jun Do manages to rise from the humblest ranks in life to one of the highest,