Massive Book Haul: 40+ Literary Fiction, Short Stories & Translations

[00:00:00]Hi everyone, last week I mentioned an NGO called  Fight for Right and today I wanted to highlight   a group called Safe Bow, I will link their  website in the description box down below.   I've been talking about them over on Instagram,  they were started by Rain and essentially they   are an ever ever-growing network of people  who are helping especially LGBTQ+, BIPOC   and disabled people evacuate Ukraine, help  with border crossings, getting people trains,   taxis drivers, resources and food if they're stuck  places. The network they've created is incredible,   they're on the ground there now as  well as organizing things online,   all of the money that they are raising is going  towards buying food, resources, paying drivers,   all that stuff. I just wanted to mention  them, they're linked in the description box   down below if you want to go find out more and  support, thanks. On with the rest of the video.

[00:00:48]Hi everyone, my name is Jen, I'm an author and  a book reviewer and today I am here with what I   am pretty sure is the biggest book haul I have  done on this channel in the eight years that I   have been here, so let's just dive in. As usual  all the books will be listed in the description   box down below if you want to go find out more,  so at the top of the pile we have three books   that I purchased for a reading vlog which will  have gone up a few days ago if you want to check   it out I'll link it down below where I was reading  books recommended by algorithms specifically story   graphs algorithm I'd already purchased two and  then I bought three more in that video and then   read them so the three that I bought were Never  Have I Ever by Isabel Yap, Shut Up, You're Pretty   by Tea Mutonji and Nothing But Blackened Teeth by  Cassandra Khaw. I have now read these there were   mixed results, if you want to go hear my thoughts  as I said the video will be linked down below.   Then a couple of weeks ago I also did a reading  vlog where I read other booktubers’ favourite   books of 2021 and one of the books that I read in  that was Ring Shout by P Djèlí Clark, which was   a recommendation from Tori and I loved that book  so I decided I wanted to purchase another of his   so I bought this which is a tiny little thing and  it's called The Black Gods Drums obviously by P   Djèlí Clark. I've had to bring you over from the  window because suddenly the sun is very much here   so this is a novella about a young girl called  Creeper who really wants to leave the streets of   new orleans and gain safe passage on a spaceship,  an airship, a smuggler airship which is run by   someone Called captain Anne-Marie, but Creeper has  a secret because Oya who's the African orisha of   the wind and storms speaks inside her head, so it  seems like a lot to cram into this little book but   Ring Shout was like that too and that was  successful so I'm excited and I may do another   reading vlog in the future where I read lots  of short books that are on my shelves and I'll   definitely include that one if I do that. Next  we have one of my most anticipated books of the   short story collection called How to Gut a Fish  by Sheila Armstrong and it's just ticking all of   my boxes, let me find a bit of the blurb for you  “on a boat offshore, a fisherman guts a mackerel   as he anxiously awaits a midnight rendezvous;  villagers one by one disappear into a sinkhole;   a nameless girl is taped, bound and put on  display in the countryside market, and a man   returns home following the death of his mother and  finds something disturbing amongst her personal   affects.” I'm not sure if these are interconnected  short stories all focused around one particular   village, I'm quite excited by that potential but  equally excited about it these characters have   nothing to do with each other. Next I've got this  book which is a new edition of a 1976 novel which   was dubbed the most controversial novel to ever  be published in Canada it's called Bear by Marian   Engel and it's about a woman who enters into a  sexual relationship with a bear it sounds quite   fable like, I don't know if it's going to pull  from things like East of the Sun, West of the   Moon, but I'm intrigued nevertheless. Then we've  got a proof, this one is coming out next month   in April it's called Wet Paint by Chloe Ashby and  I'm going to be reviewing this in April for TOAST   so I'll definitely be talking about it next month  and this is a novel about a 20 something, I think,   woman called Eve whose best friend Grace has died,  so it's about female friendship, grief, sadness,   mental health, I will report back on that one  soon. Then we have six? One, two, three… yeah six   books from Charco press and these are books that  I bought in their sale, I did speak about these   when I bought them because I filmed the video, I  didn't think was it live… I can't remember… was I   live book shopping with you? I don't know but I'll  link that video in the description box down below,   it was mainly a video that was talking about  um hospital appointments and stuff and wigs   and styling wigs but also at the end there was  there was a book… not haul but book shopping,   a sharing of book shopping experiences online  and Charo Press had something ridiculous like 50%   off all of their books so I bought a few and their  book Elena Knows which is my favorite book so far   of this year by Claudia Pinero has just been  long-listed for the Man Booker International   Prize and I am so thrilled by that um so anyway I  would recommend that but let's check out these six   that I've also purchased. First we have this  book by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara and this is the   Adventures of China Iron translated from the  spanish by fiona macintosh and iona mcintyre,   this is an Argentinian novel and it's a subversion  retelling of Martin Fierro and I think it's queer.   Then we've got Dead Girls by Silva Armada and this  is translated from the Spanish by Annie McDermott,   this one is a non-fiction book this book is  about gender violence in Argentina and it says   it's written in the style of Truman Capote’s  In Cold Blood and it's following the lives   of three teenage girls who were met in the  early 1980s this is The President's Room by   Ricardo Romero translated by Charlotte Coombe,  this one is definitely the smallest of the six   and it's a strange world where everybody has to  have a room in their house that is dedicated to   the president just in case he happens to need  it, no one can remember when this rule initially   began but everyone has just been following  it, it sounds great! Next is this novel from   Uruguay which is by Fernanda Trías and it's called  The Rooftop translated by Annie McDermott again,   it says ‘ “This world is the house,”  says Clara, barricading herself inside   a crumbling apartment with her father her baby  daughter Flor and an ailing canary.’ It's about   their house representing the wider surroundings  and the house crumbling around them as the   world outside in a political sense falls  around them, as well, it was selected as   one of El Pais’s best books of the year, it's  a claustrophobic foray into freedom paranoia   and motherhood Byobu by Ida Vitale translated by  Sean Manning the title of this is a Japanese word   which means …I've forgotten, let me remind myself,  oh, it means wind wall, it’s one of the folding   screens in Japan. I really don't know very much  about this apart from it's also from Uruguay and   it's very poetic and experimental so I wanted to  give it a go, and then finally before we move on   to the other books this is A Perfect Cemetery  by Federico Falco translated by Jennifer Croft,   oh yes, I just remembered when reading the  beginning of the blurb, I bought this one because   it reminded me a little bit of Shelter by Jung  Yun, because it begins in the middle of a blizzard   a widow watches the ruin of her late husband's  garden until suddenly she sees a woman running   naked in the falling snow and I just really wanted  to know what was going to happen next. Next on my   pile is something rather different this is Poems  for Seven Year Olds, edited by AF Harold, it has   lots of poems for kids in here including a poem  by me so if you would like a book of silly fun and   also moving poems for a young person in your life  then may I recommend this one the poem of mine   that's in here is called Welcome to the Bookshop  and if I can find it I will read it to you,   here we go, it's got some little illustrations  throughout as well. Welcome to the Bookshop Hello, explorer.  Hello, time traveller. Hello, wordsmith and translator.

[00:08:04]Hello, learner and watcher. Hello, listener and grower.

[00:08:09]Hello, librocubicularist. (That’s those who like to read in bed.)

[00:08:13]Here’s a map. Mind the gap.

[00:08:16]On the first floor, there be dragons. On the second, flying lessons.  On the third floor there’s a forest. On the fourth, a choir of sonnets.  On the fifth, if you’re quick, you can discuss politics  with any character from history. On the sixth, let’s solve a mystery.  When you’re done, pull up a seat, we’ll have some cake and drink some tea.

[00:08:38]Check for crumbs, crack that spine, choose which words to underline.

[00:08:42]Hello, you.

[00:08:44]Hello, reader. Welcome home.

[00:08:48]I miss bookshops so much! Okay next we have  another collection of short stories this is   a book by Kim Fu, I read For Today I Am A Boy a  few years ago and enjoyed it this one is called   Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, and can  we have a moment for this cover which is designed   by Jaiya Micelli and isn't it just beautiful?  Again it's ticking all my boxes, it's about a   girl who grows wings on her legs, a bug infested  house becomes an impossible Kafkaesque nightmare,   each story builds a new world all its own, a  group of children still a haunted doll (yes!),   a runaway bride encounters a sea monster (yes!),  a vendor sells toy boxes that seemingly control   the passage of time… yes, yes and yes, if  I don't love this book I'm going to be so   so disappointed. Next we have another short  little novel this is a proof that I requested   it's actually a finished copy but it's still an  arc so this is Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au   and this is about a mother and daughter who meet  up in Tokyo and try and connect with each other,   it says that it questions whether any of us speak  a common language, which dimensions can contain   love and what claim we have to truly know each  other's inner worlds. Again, I may read this in   a reading the shortest books on my tbr vlog. The  next book that I purchased is this novel and I   bought it because I saw Holly Exley talking about  it I'll link her down below it's got a brilliant   title: You Are Eating an Orange. You Are Naked  by Sheung-King and this is about a translator   who goes from his hometown in Toronto then on to  Hong Kong and Prague and Tokyo and other places,   his unnamed lover comes with him; in restaurants  and in hotel rooms they entertain each other with   comic and enigmatic folk tales, and I was sold  by Holly's description of it, her love for it,   and also the beginning of that blurb. Then  I've got a few books here …how many? Five books   on disability and disfigurement that I bought  recently and I featured these in my updated books   on disfigurement and disability talking about  books I've read and recommended and books that   are on my tbr, so these are some that are on my  tbr this is a new collection of essays called On   Being Ill and it's based on Virginia Woolf's essay  of the same name but also has extracts in it from   Audrey Lorde as well, we've got essays in here  by Lucia Osborne Crowley and Sinead Gleeson and   other people, then we've got three anthologies but  these two go together so this is Defying Doomsday   and this is Rebuilding Tomorrow; this one imagines  disabled people in many different apocalypses all   written by different writers, and then this is  disabled people rebuilding the world after an   apocalypse and just centering lots of different  lives and I am just so, so thrilled that these   exist, and likewise this is Accessing the Future,  which is speculative fiction looking at technology   and disability and space. Then this anthology is  called What Meets the Eye: The Deaf Perspective   and I bought this one because it contains work by  Lynn Buckle who wrote What Willow Knows which was   the winner of this year's Barbellion Prize and  again one of my favourite books of this year.   This is by Arachne Press who I don't think I've  read anything from before, but that's lots of own   voices writers, then we have a few proofs. This is  Vladimir by Julia May Jonas which is coming out in   May, I don't want to read the blurb because I  don't want to find out too much but I think it's   about the wife of a professor who has been accused  of sexually assaulting lots of his students, I   think this is going to be one of the big releases  this summer and likewise this is The Dance Tree   by Kiran Millwood Hargrave who's the author of  The Mercies and lots of middle grade fiction too   and this is set around the 1518 dancing plague  that swept through Europe where lots of people   danced until they died, and I'm sure this is going  to be very moving as all of her work is. I should   say The Dance Tree is also coming out in May. Then  I bought this short story collection called Your   Ad Could Go Here by Oksana Zabuzhko, and this is  translated from the Ukrainian by loads and loads   of different people, about seven different  people it says that she's Ukraine’s leading   public intellectual and this is a collection of  short stories that manages to shock the reader   by juxtaposing things as they are in arguable  visible to the naked eye with how things could be,   weaving myth and fairy tale into pivotal moments,  just as we weave a satisfying narrative arc into   our own personal mythologies. Then I bought  this novel here by Rios de la Luz because I   read Itza this month and absolutely loved  it and wanted to read more of her writing   this one is called The Pulse Between Dimensions  and the Desert, this is a collection of short   stories which has martians in it as time travel  agents who save lost children, and many other   different things, her writing was exquisite in  Itza, so I'm excited to read more of her work.   Then I purchased this novel in translation this is  he Factory by Hiroko Oyamada and it's translated   from the Japanese by David Boyd and  I'm hoping that this is going to be   what I hoped There’s No Such Thing As An Easy Job  was going to be, it's also giving me Severance   vibes, is anyone watching Severance at the moment  because I'm just obsessed? This is a novel about   three people who work at a factory and are just  intently doing the thing that they have been told   to do, so one of them shreds paper, one of them  proofreads documents, and one of them watches   moss grow and the boundaries of reality start  to shift, it says where does the factory end   and the rest of the world begin? What's going on  with the strange animals here? And after a while   it could be weeks or years the three workers  struggle to answer the most basic question:   what am I doing here? I'm always here for magical  realism dissolving capitalism sounds great and   then another Japanese novel in translation is  this one by Yoko Tawada and this is a new book   that's coming out this summer on the 2nd of  June so this is a proof that I have been sent   and it's called Scattered All Over The Earth,  this is a novel about climate crisis, it says   welcome to the not too distant future, Japan has  vanished into the sea and is now remembered as   the Land of Sushi and it's focused on Haruku who  is a former citizen and climate refugee who has   a job teaching immigrant children in Denmark with  her invented new language. This also just sounds   brilliant. Why are there so many books in so  little time? Okay so those are all the books that   I wanted to talk to you about today, the books  that I've purchased and been sent for review,   I would love to know if you have read any of these  or if any of the new releases are on your radar   or things that you want to check out. Leave  me a comment down below, let's have a chat,   if you like my channel and would like to stick  around please do subscribe and if you enjoy my   content and would like to consider supporting  me on Patreon which allows me to continue making   free content for everyone then that would  also be very kind, links are down below,   there's some extra stuff over on Patreon  as well for those who are interested.   I hope you're all doing as well as you  can be and I'm sending lots of love, bye.