The Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction lodged in my mind because I really loved its inaugural winner: Kadija Abdalla Bajaber’s The House of Rust when I first read it. Bill and I read it again earlier this year, while anticipating the announcement of this year’s shortlisted books.
Just a few pages into Jessica J. Lee’s Dispersals, I was wholly hooked (the mention of “belonging” in the subtitle got me part way there). One of those reading experiences where you feel as though you are connecting not-so-much with a book but with a way of seeing, a
“I am speaking now of a July in the early 1970s and it is in the morning just after the sun has risen following a night of heavy rains.” The summer schedule for these stories is more crowded, so this story would fall near July and the next later
How anxious I was, about rereading this story; I had confused it with “In the Fall”, a heart-breaking story about Scott, a horse (you know the rule about spoilers and animal stories, eh?) who was once all black but became grey around the eyes by the time that story
Before I post about the new reading year, there are a few memorable reads from my 2020 log that I haven’t mentioned yet. Like Pourin’ Down Rain, Cheryl Foggo's memoir about growing up in 1960s Calgary, in a small and tight-knit Black community. When she was young, she heard
