March reading 2024
Here's what I read this month
I’ve had a really good month of reading with a nice mixture of novels, book lengths and diverse authors. I read a total of 3 books during March. So far i’m reading through 3 books a month and the aim was to try and read 4 for March. I’m about 75% through on this 4th book as I write. With it being a long Easter weekend here in the UK which usually means being busy with tasks around the house as well as going to see family I didn’t want to rush finishing the book for the sake of fitting it into this months post. I’ll continue to read it at my usual pace and it will be included in Aprils newsletter.
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
As soon as I heard some book reviewers talking about this book I felt the need to add it to my TBR and try to read it as soon as possible. At first it was the cover that I really liked, specially the American version where the text is a heavy all caps, paper cut out style, but that’s not to say the UK version is not as appealing.
I ended up getting a copy of the book from my lovely partner
as a birthday present and once I was done with my current read I moved straight onto this.The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store is about a community in Pottstown ‘Chicken Hill’ Pennsylvania when in 1972 a body was found in a well whilst development was happening in the area.
Although we start off in 1972 the book takes us back to the 1930s to the lives of the residents of Chicken Hill and the lead up to how a body ended up in the towns well. We stay in the 30s for the majority of the story, experiencing what life was like in America, Chicken Hill a poor neighbourhood that feels purposely detached from its surrounding towns and is home to mostly Jewish immigrants and African Americans. Immediately we get a sense of tension in the community, the clash of cultures that are each trying to establish a piece of home in a foreign place but within this divide theres characters that try to unite people and stand together as a community and realise they share a lot of similarities.
We start to see some of immigrants in the story lose who they are in the process of trying to become American, trying to fit in and no longer be classed as a poor outsider.
“He had money now. He was an American.” – James McBride
James McBride writing and tone brings these characters to life by writing in the various dialects you are put right into the heart of this community. You feel the grit, the anger, the lack of trust, racial tension but you also feel hopeful, that over time and understanding people will come together to help each other.
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
Out of Emily’s books I think most people would read or have read Station Eleven first and that was the plan for me too. However i’m not a huge fan of Station Eleven’s cover and I believe there was waiting list for it at the library. Still wanting to read her books as the former had gotten much praise and widely spoken about when it comes to end of the world and dystopian literature I was immediately drawn to Sea of Tranquility both for it’s cover and the plot.
This book is about traveling through time and how a group of characters in the book are connected in someway to one another over centuries.
We start of with our first protagonist in 1912 a remittance man making his way to Canada. Edwin is the first one we’re introduced to that discovers this unusual event take place, a forest in northern Vancouver. Fast forward to 2020 and we get another reference to this same unusual moment but this time from a different person experiencing it. Sea of Tranquility time hops you back and forth through centuries, meeting new and old characters as you start to string together all these interconnecting layers that piece the story together.
“What if it always is the end of the world?” […] “Because we might reasonably think of the end of the world,” Olive said, “as continuous and never ending process.” – Emily St. John Mandel
There was some early moments when we’re transported to the future, the year of 2203 and we follow the lives of our other protagonists go about their day. In one moment one of them enters a taxi with a human driver, at first this felt a little odd given how much technology has advanced already in the present time I would assume almost all vehicles, especially taxis and public transport would be automated by then. There’s a similar moment in the year 2401 again mentioning people working in a post office on the moon colonies.
Again this got me thinking about todays fear of AI already feeling like it’s taking over the world and replacing human interaction the thought of 400 years into the future the need for physical humans in environments that almost feel automated already. The book got me reflecting a lot on the past and future. How the world might be with continued climate change, technological advancements and humans curiosity for space and the need for other planets to call home.
The Sanctuary by Andrew Hunter Murrary
I had heard zero things about this book when I picked it up earlier in the year during a book haul (heres a previous post about that) but the blurb sounded interesting and on the front cover was a quote from Richard Osman who’s podcast The Rest Is Entertainment with Marina Hyde i’ve been listening to recently so maybe that also swayed me to pick it up.
The Sanctuary follows a man named Ben, a portrait painter who’s been away from his partner Cara for sometime now. Cara’s work takes her places for long periods of time. This time Cara appears to be devoted to her current job placement and writes to Ben to tell him she won’t be coming home yet. Ben can’t see his future without Cara so decides to locate this somewhat secrete location to find her and talk her into coming back home.
Very early on we get a sense of things not feeling right, the plot has a eerie present to it with there not being any mention of the current time period or the country which I believe is not mentioned but hinted at to be the UK which is divided between the cities being these poorer places to live in compared to these compound exclusive utopian villages. If I was to guess I would say it was set a little into the future but not by much maybe 20-40 years, with the plot referencing heightened changes with our climate due to global warming making our cities unbearable to live in with extreme heat and flooding.
Before even diving to deep into the book you already get the sense that these utopian villages and this promised island has the makings of some cult following. The author keeps the tension, the constant thinking of what happens next really well even though there’s some moments that are a little predictable there’s a healthy amount of twist, turns and surprises along the way. I really liked how the the book ended and it’s got me wanting to read more. I think a sequel could work well, but either way I enjoyed it’s ending.
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