Tag: online reading challenge

Online Reading Challenge – August

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Welcome Readers!

This month the Online Reading Challenge is focusing on classics. Our main title for August is Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:

In the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence, a young man finds himself caught between desire and conventional morality.

David is a young American expatriate who has just proposed marriage to his girlfriend, Hella. While she is away on a trip, David meets a bartender named Giovanni to whom he is drawn in spite of himself. Soon the two are spending the night in Giovanni’s curtainless room, which he keeps dark to protect their privacy. But Hella’s return to Paris brings the affair to a crisis, one that rapidly spirals into tragedy.

David struggles for self-knowledge during one long, dark night—“the night which is leading me to the most terrible morning of my life.” With a sharp, probing imagination, James Baldwin’s now-classic narrative delves into the mystery of loving and creates a deeply moving story of death and passion that reveals the unspoken complexities of the human heart. – Vintage

Looking for some other classics? Try any of the following.

As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!

Online Reading Challenge – July Wrap-Up

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Hello Fellow Challenge Readers!

How did your reading go this month? Did you read domestic fiction? Share in the comments!

I read our main title: All This Could Be Yours by Jami Attenberg. When I was picking out a domestic fiction title to read for this month, All This Could Be Yours caught my attention as it was described as ‘Big Little Lies meets Succession‘. Intriguing, right? Jami Attenberg was also described as ‘the queen of dysfunctional families,’ which also caught my eye! Let’s get into what the book was about and my thoughts.

Alex Tuchman has been summoned by her mother to her father’s deathbed. He has suffered from a heart attack and the results aren’t good. As she travels to New Orleans to be with her family, Alex reflects on her life growing up. She decides that now is the time to confront her tight-lipped mother Barbra about her father Victor, his secrets, and why they stayed together for so long. Barbra is not ready to answer Alex’s questions, but her questions force her to reflect on the tumult she and Victor went through. Barbra and Alex are left picking up the pieces because Alex’s brother Gary has disappeared. He’s gone quiet and is across the country in Los Angeles working on his movie career. Gary’s wife Twyla is left behind in New Orleans dealing with his family. This family is incredibly dysfunctional. Each family member, plus some outside people, are dragged into dealing with Victor’s complicated history. Even though they are not close, each person will have to figure out how they will move on after Victor eventually passes.

All This Could Be Yours is a multi-generational drama told through flashbacks in time. Each member of the family tells their story, plus some random side characters that are also somehow connected to the family. At times I was confused about why certain people were talking and how their stories were relevant. I also found myself wanting to learn more about the family dysfunction and how they ended up the way they are. I spent most of the book wondering what the point was because even though you learn about each family member and their lies, there isn’t a real plot. This title felt on the verge of greatness, but didn’t quite make it there for me.

Next month, we will be reading classics!

In addition to following the Online Reading Challenge here on our Info Cafe blog, you can join our Online Reading Challenge group on Goodreads and discuss your reads!

Online Reading Challenge – July

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Welcome Readers!

This month the Online Reading Challenge is focusing on domestic fiction, also known as domestic realism. This genre focuses on everyday lives of ordinary people, particularly the domestic sphere that focuses on families and communities. It strives to show a realistic portrayal of ordinary life in a straightforward way. Our main title for July is All This Could Be Yours by Jami Attenberg. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:

“If I know why they are the way they are, then maybe I can learn why I am the way I am,” says Alex Tuchman of her parents. Now that her father, Victor, is on his deathbed, Alex—a strong-headed lawyer, devoted mother, and loving sister—feels she can finally unearth the secrets of who Victor is and what he did over the course of his life and career. (A power-hungry real estate developer, he is, by all accounts, a bad man.) She travels to New Orleans to be with her family, but mostly to interrogate her tight-lipped mother, Barbra.

As Barbra fends off Alex’s unrelenting questions, she reflects on her tumultuous life with Victor. Meanwhile Gary, Alex’s brother, is incommunicado, trying to get his movie career off the ground in Los Angeles. And Gary’s wife, Twyla, is having a nervous breakdown, buying up all the lipstick in drugstores around New Orleans and bursting into crying fits. Dysfunction is at its peak. As family members grapple with Victor’s history, they must figure out a way to move forward—with one another, for themselves, and for the sake of their children.

All This Could Be Yours is a timely, piercing exploration of what it means to be caught in the web of a toxic man who abused his power; it shows how those webs can entangle a family for generations, and what it takes to—maybe, hopefully—break free. With her signature “sparkling prose” (Marie Claire) and incisive wit, Jami Attenberg deftly explores one of the most important subjects of our age. – Ecco

Looking for some other domestic fiction? Try any of the following.

As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!

Online Reading Challenge – June Wrap-Up

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Hello Fellow Challenge Readers!

How did your reading go this month? Did you read queer fiction? Share in the comments!

I read our main title: Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters. This national bestseller has won many awards, was featured on many publication lists, and was longlisted for other prizes. With these high accolades, this was an easy queer fiction pick for June.

Here’s a short summary before I discuss my thoughts. Detransition, Baby is the story of Reese and Amy and what they each want out of life. Reese has created the life that she has always dreamed of: a gorgeous apartment in New York City, a job she enjoys, and a loving stable relationship with Amy. As a trans woman, this life is full of things that she never thought herself worthy of, but one thing has always been missing: a child. Just when Amy and Reese start the process to have a child, their relationship explodes. Amy detransitions and become Ames and the life they know is over. Flash forward and neither Ames nor Reese are happy. When Ames’ partner, his boss Katrina, announces that she’s pregnant, Ames realizes that this baby is the way to get Reese back into his life. Ames, Reese, and Katrina start an awkward dance to figure out if this unconventional family will work.

The exploration that the author makes into each characters’ life was eye-opening. Each character is forced to confront their thoughts about sex, motherhood, and gender, to examine the messy corners of what it truly means to be a woman. The author isn’t afraid to discuss the uncomfortable, which I enjoyed. When I started Detransition, Baby, the writing and pacing hooked me. I could tell that the author was sincere in their writing, that nothing was written without a lot of thought, although some sections were a bit wordy. While I loved certain characters, others were unlikeable, which is honestly true of most books. The book’s ending also caught me completely off guard. If you read this book, I would love to know your opinion! Please let me know in the comments.

Next month, we will be reading domestic fiction!

In addition to following the Online Reading Challenge here on our Info Cafe blog, you can join our Online Reading Challenge group on Goodreads and discuss your reads!

Online Reading Challenge – June

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Welcome Readers!

This month the Online Reading Challenge is focusing on queer fiction. Our main title for June is Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:

Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn’t hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.

Ames isn’t happy either. He thought detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that decision cost him his relationship with Reese—and losing her meant losing his only family. Even though their romance is over, he longs to find a way back to her. When Ames’s boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she’s pregnant with his baby—and that she’s not sure whether she wants to keep it—Ames wonders if this is the chance he’s been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of unconventional family—and raise the baby together?

This provocative debut is about what happens at the emotional, messy, vulnerable corners of womanhood that platitudes and good intentions can’t reach. Torrey Peters brilliantly and fearlessly navigates the most dangerous taboos around gender, sex, and relationships, gifting us a thrillingly original, witty, and deeply moving novel. – One World

Looking for some other queer fiction? Try any of the following.

As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!

Online Reading Challenge – May Wrap-Up

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Hello Fellow Challenge Readers!

How did your reading go this month? Did you read a graphic novel? Share in the comments!

I read our main title: Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. (Actually this was a re-read for me.) Personally, I feel Persepolis should be required reading for all people as it deals with difficult subjects, but also bears witness to history that should never be ignored.

Marjane Satrapi is the daughter of radical Marxists and the great-granddaughter of Iran’s last emperor. Her childhood is threaded through with the history of her country, Iran. Satrapi grew up in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution. In Persepolis, she talks about the Iranian experience from the 1950s through the late 1970s. The overthrow of Mossadeq and the seating and unseating of the Shah take place during this time. She also witnesses the triumph of the Islamic Revolution and the effects of war with Iraq. Satrapi’s parents aren’t afraid to sit her down to give a lesson on history especially when she asks questions or says something that catches them off guard. In addition to the history talks, Satrapi details daily life in Iran and the many contradictions between her home life and public life.

Persepolis is told in black-and-white comic strip images which add to the harshness of her stories and to the seriousness of war and political repression. The first time I read this book, I remember being struck by the vivid descriptions of her childhood and her family. This graphic novel was first published in English in 2003, so I was just starting my teens when I read it for the first time. I was close in age to Satrapi (she is ages six to fourteen in this book), but our childhoods were incredibly different. It’s difficult for me to distill my feelings about Persepolis into a couple paragraphs. Please pass this graphic novel to someone in your life. Maybe they’ll get something out of it that will change their lives just like it changed mine.

Next month, we will be reading queer fiction!

In addition to following the Online Reading Challenge here on our Info Cafe blog, you can join our Online Reading Challenge group on Goodreads and discuss your reads!

Online Reading Challenge – May

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Welcome Readers!

This month the Online Reading Challenge is focusing on graphic novels. Our main title for May is Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:

In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the coming-of-age story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah’s regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran’s last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country.

Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran and of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life. Marjane’s child’s-eye view of dethroned emperors, state-sanctioned whippings, and heroes of the revolution allows us to learn as she does the history of this fascinating country and of her own extraordinary family. Intensely personal, profoundly political, and wholly original, Persepolis is at once a story of growing up and a reminder of the human cost of war and political repression. It shows how we carry on, with laughter and tears, in the face of absurdity. And, finally, it introduces us to an irresistible little girl with whom we cannot help but fall in love. – Pantheon

Looking for some other graphic novels? Try any of the following.

As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!

Online Reading Challenge – April Wrap-Up

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Hello Fellow Challenge Readers!

How did your reading go this month? Did you read a coming of age, or bildungsroman, novel? Share in the comments!

I read our main title: The Topeka School by Ben Lerner. I went into this book not knowing much about it, other than it was a coming of age book, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and one of the New York Times 10 best books of the year. When I was selecting books for the Online Reading Challenge, I wanted to pick books that were outside the norm of what I would normally read and this sure fit that mold. The Topeka School won many accolades and awards, but I can honestly say that I would not have picked this book up on my own had it not been for the Online Reading Challenge.

Set in the American Midwest, this family drama begins in the 1990s with Adam Gordon, a senior at Topeka High School, the class of 1997. His parents both work at a psychiatric clinic in Topeka, Kansas that attracts patients from all over the world. His mother Jane is a famous author, while his father Jonathan is known for his ability to get lost young boys to open up. Jane’s book angers some members of the public who take out their outrage on Jane and her family by harassing them. Outside of school, Adam is a debater, who people expect to win a national championship. Despite his status on the debate team, Adam is one of the cool kids. He and his friends are told by their parents to be friendly to Darren Eberheart, a loner who also happens to be a patient of Adam’s father. Darren is awkward and his entrance into their social circle ends in a catastrophe.

While the summary I laid out above seems pretty straight-forward, the formatting of this book is anything but. The Topeka School shifts between time periods, perspectives, and narrators, which turned confusing. While I enjoyed the multiple perspectives, the jump in timelines made it difficult to know just where we were at in the story. The plot did end up making sense towards the end, but honestly I was so turned around in the middle that at parts I contemplated giving up. This book covers heavy topics: toxic masculinity, marital transgressions, abuse, public speech, and struggle for identity. Lerner isn’t afraid to pile on more and more topics within the changing timelines, but honestly the writing was so dense that I had trouble picking through to find the bones of the story. The characters are complex, somewhat dysfunctional, and written with an introspective feel. To me, this book was a complex web of stories, characters, and topics presented with dense language that I had trouble paying attention to for long periods of time. My main tip for reading this book: read small pieces at a time. Doing so made this book easier for me, even though it took me much longer to read it! All in all, I’m glad I read it, but it’s a 3 of 5 stars.

Next month, we will be reading a graphic novel!

In addition to following the Online Reading Challenge here on our Info Cafe blog, you can join our Online Reading Challenge group on Goodreads and discuss your reads!

Online Reading Challenge – April

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Welcome Readers!

This month the Online Reading Challenge is focusing on coming of age, also known as bildungsroman. Our main title for April is The Topeka School by Ben Lerner. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:

Adam Gordon is a senior at Topeka High School, class of ’97. His mother, Jane, is a famous feminist author; his father, Jonathan, is an expert at getting “lost boys” to open up. They both work at a psychiatric clinic that has attracted staff and patients from around the world. Adam is a renowned debater, expected to win a national championship before he heads to college. He is one of the cool kids, ready to fight or, better, freestyle about fighting if it keeps his peers from thinking of him as weak. Adam is also one of the seniors who bring the loner Darren Eberheart—who is, unbeknownst to Adam, his father’s patient—into the social scene, to disastrous effect.

Deftly shifting perspectives and time periods, The Topeka School is the story of a family, its struggles and its strengths: Jane’s reckoning with the legacy of an abusive father, Jonathan’s marital transgressions, the challenge of raising a good son in a culture of toxic masculinity. It is also a riveting prehistory of the present: the collapse of public speech, the trolls and tyrants of the New Right, and the ongoing crisis of identity among white men. – Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Looking for some other coming of age or bildungsroman? Try any of the following.

As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!

Online Reading Challenge – March Wrap-Up

- Stephanie Leave a comment

Hello Fellow Challenge Readers!

How did your reading go this month? Did you read a biographical fiction novel? Share in the comments!

I read our main title: The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris. This book has been on my to-read list since its publication in 2018.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz is based on interviews that were conducted with Ludwig (Lale) Sokolov, a Holocaust survivor and Auschwitz-Birkenau tattooist. Lale’s voice is present throughout this book, something that I felt added to the depth, despair, and hope. Based on the true story of Lale and Gita, Heather Morris weaves the stories of two Slovokian Jews who survived the Holocaust with great care. As someone who has read dozens of Holocaust stories, both fiction and nonfiction, this book stands out to me. The emotions radiated through the pages, pulling me into their lives as they struggled to survive. Readers follow Lale as he is forced to Auschwitz-Birkenau in April 1942. His ability to speak multiple languages lands him a job as the tattooist, forced to permanently mark his fellow prisoners. Lale witnesses horrors for almost three years in the camps, but those horrors are also accompanied by acts of bravery and compassion. He uses his unique position to help his fellow prisoners, risking his life to secure food and medicine. While tattooing new prisoners in July 1942, Lale helps a young woman named Gita, a woman who Lale vows to marry once they survive the camp. The Tattooist of Auschwitz was a devastating, yet hopeful, read. This piece of biographical fiction is a good stepping stone to learn more about Lale and Gita Sokolov.

In addition to being the March Online Reading Challenge pick, this title was also made into a Peacock Original Series starring Harvey Keitel and Melanie Lynskey. I have plans to watch this series in the future to see how well it relates.

Next month, we will be reading a coming of age, or bildungsroman, novel!

In addition to following the Online Reading Challenge here on our Info Cafe blog, you can join our Online Reading Challenge group on Goodreads and discuss your reads!