18. “Narrate the impossible things, turn them into a story, and they can be controlled.”
Story Sunday #7 and June reading wrap up
Dear reader,
Another month draws to a close, another reading wrap-up to share. This month’s been a good one for it too, though let the book count not fool you since most of what I read this month were novellas.
Before I get into the mini-reviews, I wanted to let you all know that the newsletter will be going on a break, for the most part, until September. I say for the most part because there might be an issue in between to share some writing-related news that can’t wait until later. We’ll see how it pans out! Keep an eye on my subscriber chat for any updates and/or messages during the break 😊.
What I read: June edition
Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa
Twenty-five-year-old Takako is dealing with the heartbreak of her boyfriend marrying someone else. Enter her uncle Satoru, who manages the second-hand bookshop that has been in her family for three generations. He offers her a rent-free room above the shop to recover and heal, and all she has to do in return is help out a little with the store whenever needed. I’ve been to Tokyo once many years ago and didn’t know of the Jimbōchō book town which is home to many second-hand bookstores and publishing houses. This book has many ingredients that I love: the healing power of books and community, the joy of reading, the importance of family and of interpersonal human connection. But it sadly didn’t work for me. I enjoy slow and quiet narratives; here I missed that vital ingredient that pulls you into the story and makes you care. I have been coming to the conclusion that this kind of healing fiction isn’t really my cup of tea.
*Buy print (India) | Buy ebook | Bookshop.org (US)
How to Forget by Meera by Meera Ganapathi
Meditative, observant, and gorgeous. We embark on fifty-five walks across timelines and cities, following Ganapathi as she traces the lines of love, loss, longing, memory, nostalgia, family—life, really—through carefully crafted quiet poems, prose, and the in-betweens. There is a lot more that I want to say about this book, but it needs time to simmer.
My Friends by Fredrik Backman
I’m reviewing this for a publication, so won’t write too much here. This is about four friends and the last summer of their childhood which births a painting that will, twenty-five years later, be one of the world’s most famous. Louisa, an aspiring foster kid artist, will find her path crossing with it, and the story of how it got made. Here’s an excerpt from my review: My Friends has all the hallmarks of a Fredrik Backman novel—the omniscient narrator, the heart, the wisdom, the laughter, the joy, the brutality (yes, it is much more intense than even Beartown), the keen insights into human nature, the observations sweeping and mundane. But it also feels, dare I say it, overdone and overblown; trying too hard to be profound while bludgeoning you with its message in a way its many charming predecessors didn’t.
*Buy print (India) | Buy ebook | Bookshop.org (US)
The Wayward Children series by Seanan Mcguire
This is an award-winning series of portal fantasy books by an award-winning author. I had the first novella from the series, Every Heart a Doorway, on my shelves since August 2022, on my sister’s recommendation (courtesy the then-new Hummingbird Books in Chestnut Hill). I finally read it this month and it, and the subsequent novellas, were such a delight. We’ve all heard the stories of children who fall through portals into other worlds. But what happens when they’re somehow thrown back out? What happens to those lost children in a world no longer familiar, with family or peers who don’t understand and feel like they’re delusional or troubled? Well, in this universe, they find themselves enrolled in Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children where Miss West, a portal traveller herself, understands all too well the continuing pull these worlds have on these kids who want nothing more than a way to return there, where they felt like they could be completely themselves, and accepted, even cherished and loved, for who they are. These fairytale-esque stories, which don’t necessarily have to be read in order beyond the first, are a wonderful mix of whimsy, humour, sarcasm, darkness, tenderness, and heart. I’m enjoying taking my time as I make my way through the series. Novella 11 is out next year. This is definitely not the last time you’ll hear me talk about these books!
Every Heart a Doorway
*Buy ebook | Bookshop.org (US)
Down Among the Sticks and Bones
*Buy ebook | Bookshop.org (US)
Beneath the Sugar Sky
*Buy ebook | Bookshop.org (US)
Come Tumbling Down
*Buy ebook | Bookshop.org (US)
Skeleton Song (short story)
*Buy ebook | Bookshop.org (US)
In Mercy, Rain (short story)
*Buy ebook | Bookshop.org (US)
Minor Mage by T. Kingfisher
Twelve-year-old Oliver is only a minor mage, as his familiar (an armadillo), likes to remind him. Multiple times a day. In fact, Oliver knows only three spells, one of which is to control his armadillo dander allergy. But minor or not, he’s the village’s only mage and so the one who must embark on a journey to the distant Rainblade Mountains to end the village’s drought. This was, if I were to classify it, more YA than middle-grade in its themes and tone. A supremely enjoyable adventure in the capable hands of T. Kingfisher; and one with surprising depth and complexity in its themes (it also has strong horror elements, for those of you who need that trigger warning). She hasn’t lead me wrong so far!
*Buy print (India) | Buy ebook | Bookshop.org (US)
Story Sunday #7: Chocolate milk with a pinch of salt by Anushree Nande
Bhavika Govil’s Hot Water, with its young protagonists, put me in mind of this story that I’d written from the POV of a young boy. It was published in Foliate Oak Magazine on October 30, 2015 and I hope you enjoy reading it now!.
Happy reading!
Chocolate milk with a pinch of salt
Tim had told his first lie. And now his parents weren’t getting back together. This knowledge followed him home from school, at a distance of course. Mrs. Morris, their neighbour, had come to pick him up instead of his mother, who was having one of her headaches. Tim knew what that meant. The curtains would be drawn in the living room even though Mum was asleep upstairs. He wouldn’t be allowed to watch cartoons on the telly, and would have to pretend to smile when she asked him how his second day at primary school had been. At least Tim could tell her that the spaghetti and minced meatballs she’d packed in his lunch box were awesome—and know it was the truth.
Yesterday as he played with his new Lego set, he had heard his mother vacuum Beth’s room for the second time in three days. She wanted everything to be perfect for when his sister returned in a few days. As she came out into the corridor, she was humming. When was the last time she had done that? Tim was wondering what to do when he heard her tell Aunt Susan that she and Mark (it took a while for Tim to remember that was what everyone else called his father) were going to give it one last shot. He wasn’t sure what that meant exactly, but he knew it would involve talking in person. And Dad had to move back home for a while at least for that to happen. Tim wanted that very much. Even though all they had done for the past year was argue. They tried not to do it in front of the kids, but Tim was six, not stupid. He could always feel the tension, like an uninvited visitor who had plonked himself on Tim’s favourite comfy chair in the living room. So he had swallowed the confession with a glass of plain milk as punishment.
Mrs. Morris gave him his milk (again, he refused the chocolate powder to take away the milky flavour) and a few of the special oatmeal raisin bites that she always kept on hand for emergencies. Before leaving, she told him to play quietly like a good little boy and not disturb his mother. She would be right next door if he needed anything, and he knew the button to press on their phone to call her. There was a note on the table in his mother’s loopy handwriting. It had the flight details for Beth the next morning. Tim couldn’t help notice that the details for his dad had been scribbled over.
In the morning, Mum hadn’t cried into her cereal for the first time in three months. But it was all a mess again, and Tim was sure that the universe was punishing his lie. He was also worried about not being able to stop lying now that he had started. What if it was just like the urge to pick away at a scab when you knew you shouldn’t?
People lied all the time. There was even something called a white lie—a concept his parents had explained to him when his great-aunt Sophia, his grandma’s younger sister, had knitted him a too-big Christmas jumper. It itched and made him want to sneeze, but as a thank you, he had sent her a card he had drawn and a photo of him wearing it. Tim knew all about not wanting to hurt people’s feelings or how sometimes good intentions mattered more than the final result. But they also said that you should never lie and always tell the truth. All of this thinking made Tim’s head hurt. Who were these “they”? He wanted to meet them and ask them in person why they made things so complicated.
But most of all he wanted things to go back to the way they had been yesterday. Surely that counted as a good intention? Tim finished his homework and turned to the Lego fort he had been building for the past week. He could hear his mum through the wall. Low voices with the occasional sob in her throat that he knew as a sign of things not being okay. He also recognised the sharp tones in her speech that signaled his father’s presence on the other end of the line. As he fixed a watch-tower on his fort, there was a sudden silence. Followed by padded feet on their carpeted floor, and the slammed bathroom door.
When Tim walked downstairs for dinner, he felt like he was about to throw up. He couldn’t even enjoy his favourite tomato soup with croutons. That was when his mother narrowed her red-rimmed eyes and tilted her head.
‘What’s the matter with you? Are you sickening for anything?’
So Tim told her, the words spilling out of him and over the sides of the bowl of soup in front of him. About how he knew she’d been sad about Beth leaving for the summer to join Dad’s archaeological dig in France, about how he’d lied about her chicken and leek pie being delicious and much better than the ones from the stores, when in fact he had swapped with his best friend, Bryan, whose mother always made him macaroni with lots of cheese and homemade tomato sauce on Mondays. And how he was sorry that his punishment meant that she couldn’t be with Dad again.
He felt so giddy about coming clean that he didn’t immediately notice his mum trying really hard not to laugh despite herself—he could tell by the way the left corner of her mouth twitched—as she told him that it wasn’t his fault and that sometimes adults had to make difficult decisions. Tim wanted to tell her that he understood; he’d felt so crummy about the indecision of the last two days. Instead he just hugged her and took in her freshly showered blueberry smell. Over a special glass of her chocolate milk with just a pinch of salt and a spoonful of whipped cream, Tim told her all about his day, his happiness leaking out with the bubbles he blew through the straw while his mother washed up.
Later, when Mum kissed him goodnight and told him that she loved him, he said it back, but didn’t tell her that he was sad that his father wouldn’t be living with them anymore. She switched off the light and closed the door. It was only then that he allowed the twinge he’d been feeling to climb out from under the covers. Was it wrong to feel a bit disappointed that he lying or telling the truth made no tangible difference to the universe? The adult world was a strange place. Only two days into the school year, Tim already felt like one of the big boys.
From the archives
Taking it very literally today by sharing the newsletter’s entire archive for you to peruse during the break!
https://anushreenande.substack.com/archive
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Anu
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