Elliott Turner's Blog - Posts Tagged "to-read"
Four Books to Read
Hey friends,
I know this is an author blog so I'm supposed to write about writing or something, but here's the deal: NOTV is being submitted to a bunch of awards - some are national, others are regional. If NOTV gets longlisted come Spring 2018, I'll be sure to blog about it. Ditto for book festivals.
My second novel - in Spanish - is "concursando" an award in Spain, but there will be no news on that front for a long time. I'm also not allowed to try to sell the novel to other publishers as part of the award criteria, and the judging/evaluation has to be 100% anonymous.
I am a little under halfway down on a super large and long domestic novel meets travelogue that deals with three generations of a family: a decade living in Central America, and another decade living in rural Kansas. I know both these terrains like the back of my hand and it's fun to write something with a light pacing and moderate volume.
I also have some short stories I've written, but I usually scribble these, sit on them for a year to two, edit them again, and then see if they stink/are submittable.
SOOOOOOOOO, I'm reading more than I'm writing. And here are four good books you should check out:
1) Exit West
This was a relatively short, powerful story about a young couple fleeing their homeland during a violent civil war between religious militants and the oppressive government. Their trail of escape takes them to Greece, then London, and eventually California. They live in refugee camps and squat in shantytowns.
The trauma forces the couple into a close friendship as they witness horrors and grow to depend on one another, but their thread of passionate love unwinds slowly and then suddenly.
2) The Lucky Ones
This novel had a really neat structure: basically, the author showed the groundlevel horrors of the FARC's guerilla war to "liberate" Colombia. However, you see the war from the perspective of a FARC leader, a FARC prisoner, a pet rabbit, a middle class "hija de papy", and many others.
3) Salt Houses
This is an inter-generational family tale that starts in Palestine during the 6 day war as a family flees the violence. A brother disappears during the fighting and is never heard from again, leaving a scar a mile wide. The family lives in Kuwait, Boston, and finally Lebanon. They were always affluent, and conscious of how their privilege has shielded them but also drawn them to the West in a sense. This causes both external and internal conflict.
Each chapter is told from a different family member's point of view and the book is too humanist to get bogged down in the politics and passions that swirl around the 6 day war. You will be sad when the grandma dies. You will also feel what any family member does when a young male sibling starts to get brainwashed by violent strangers.
4) The End We Start From
This was a cool end-of-the-world spec fic story about motherhood. Basically, a young woman has a child at the worst possible time: global warming and rising sea levels have come to London, England. The family lives in their grandparents' house in the mountains, then they live in a refugee camp, then she lives on an island for a spell, before returning to a "revitalized" London.
During that spell, her father's child ran off. The vague details about the general setting - apocalypse - contrast wonderfully with the detailed excitement about watching her child grow and being a mother for the first time.
I know this is an author blog so I'm supposed to write about writing or something, but here's the deal: NOTV is being submitted to a bunch of awards - some are national, others are regional. If NOTV gets longlisted come Spring 2018, I'll be sure to blog about it. Ditto for book festivals.
My second novel - in Spanish - is "concursando" an award in Spain, but there will be no news on that front for a long time. I'm also not allowed to try to sell the novel to other publishers as part of the award criteria, and the judging/evaluation has to be 100% anonymous.
I am a little under halfway down on a super large and long domestic novel meets travelogue that deals with three generations of a family: a decade living in Central America, and another decade living in rural Kansas. I know both these terrains like the back of my hand and it's fun to write something with a light pacing and moderate volume.
I also have some short stories I've written, but I usually scribble these, sit on them for a year to two, edit them again, and then see if they stink/are submittable.
SOOOOOOOOO, I'm reading more than I'm writing. And here are four good books you should check out:
1) Exit West
This was a relatively short, powerful story about a young couple fleeing their homeland during a violent civil war between religious militants and the oppressive government. Their trail of escape takes them to Greece, then London, and eventually California. They live in refugee camps and squat in shantytowns.
The trauma forces the couple into a close friendship as they witness horrors and grow to depend on one another, but their thread of passionate love unwinds slowly and then suddenly.
2) The Lucky Ones
This novel had a really neat structure: basically, the author showed the groundlevel horrors of the FARC's guerilla war to "liberate" Colombia. However, you see the war from the perspective of a FARC leader, a FARC prisoner, a pet rabbit, a middle class "hija de papy", and many others.
3) Salt Houses
This is an inter-generational family tale that starts in Palestine during the 6 day war as a family flees the violence. A brother disappears during the fighting and is never heard from again, leaving a scar a mile wide. The family lives in Kuwait, Boston, and finally Lebanon. They were always affluent, and conscious of how their privilege has shielded them but also drawn them to the West in a sense. This causes both external and internal conflict.
Each chapter is told from a different family member's point of view and the book is too humanist to get bogged down in the politics and passions that swirl around the 6 day war. You will be sad when the grandma dies. You will also feel what any family member does when a young male sibling starts to get brainwashed by violent strangers.
4) The End We Start From
This was a cool end-of-the-world spec fic story about motherhood. Basically, a young woman has a child at the worst possible time: global warming and rising sea levels have come to London, England. The family lives in their grandparents' house in the mountains, then they live in a refugee camp, then she lives on an island for a spell, before returning to a "revitalized" London.
During that spell, her father's child ran off. The vague details about the general setting - apocalypse - contrast wonderfully with the detailed excitement about watching her child grow and being a mother for the first time.
