Book Your Stocking with Regi Claire

Book Your Stocking: December 15

Every day of December, readers of all stripes and literary inclinations are sharing their To-Give and To-Read lists. Please welcome today's reader, Regi Claire.

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My Reading Wish-List

Bark by Lorrie Moore (stories) 
Stone Mattress: Nine Wicked Tales by Margaret Atwood
The Girls by Emma Cline
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
Dalila by Jason Donald
Robicheaux: You Know My Name by James Lee Burke

 

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My Reading Give-List 

I hardly ever read non-fiction, but The Girl with Seven Names: Escape from North Korea by Hyeonseo Lee held me spellbound. Life truly is stranger than fiction, almost unbelievably so in Hyeonseo’s case. I have bought a stocking copy for my mother.

Nora Chassler’s Madame Bildungsroman’s Optimistic Worldview is the perfect gift for anyone who appreciates reading between the lines: a near-poetic sequence of fragments and aperçus – witty, moving and searingly intelligent. I purchased an extra copy for just such a friend.

T. C. Boyle's The Relive Box and Other Stories is a wild, funny and deadly serious collection of futuristic fictions I got for my husband, with an ulterior motive (I’ve already made room for it on one of my bookshelves…).

Talking of my husband (Ron Butlin), his new YA novel Steve and FranDan Take on the World appeals to all those who can’t help indulging their inner child. I have set aside a copy for an eighty-seven-year-old lady with a sense of fun and adventure.

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About today's reader:

Regi Claire, photo by Dawn Marie Jones,
used with permission

Regi Claire is a Swiss-born novelist (The Waiting, The Beauty Room) and short story writer (Fighting It, Inside~Outside) based in Scotland. Her work has twice been shortlisted for a Saltire Scottish Book of the Year award and longlisted for MIND Book of the Year and the Edge Hill Prize (for best collection). She is the recipient of several writers’ bursaries and a UBS Cultural Foundation Award.
Her work has appeared in Best British Short Stories and numerous other anthologies and literary journals in the UK, Europe, Australia and the USA.
Regi is an alumna of Château de Lavigny International Writers’ Residence in Switzerland and a former Royal Literary Fund Fellow and RLF Lector for Reading Round Scotland.
She is an experienced creative writing tutor (eg National Galleries of Scotland, Universities Scotland, Zurich University for Teacher Training) and runs her own writing and reading groups in Edinburgh, where she lives with her husband and their golden retriever.
She is currently completing her third collection of stories. www.regiclaire.com

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Want to grow your own reading wish-list? More recommendations from Book Your Stocking contributors, here: http://www.erinpringle.com/p/book-your-stocking.html

WSJ reviews The Whole World at Once: Words with the "strength of tempered steel"

So, here's some good news that all of us missed in May: The Whole World at Once received a write-up in The Wall Street Journal. And a good write-up, to boot:

(excerpt from "Shelf Help" 

by Sam Sacks, 5/19/17)

 Cheers!

Book Your Stocking with Christie Grimes

Book Your Stocking: December 14

Welcome back today's Book Your Stocking, a new holiday series this December, in which readers share their Reading Wish-lists or Give-Lists. 

Please welcome today's reader, Christie Grimes.

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To Give and To Read

Nonfiction
To Give:

• The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert
• The Mad Feast: An Ecstatic Tour Through America's Food by Matthew Gavin Frank
• Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us about Ourselves by James Nestor
• Writing Poetry To Save Your Life: How To Find The Courage To Tell Your Stories by Maria Gillan

To Read:

• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
• Life Reimagined The Science, Art, and Opportunity of Midlife by Barbara Bradley Hagerty

 

Mystery/Thriller
To Give:

• books (like Relic) from the Agent Pendergast Series by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
• The Salt Line by Holly Godard Jones

 

Fiction
To Give:

• Oryx and Crake trilogy by Margaret Atwood
• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
• When the English Fall by David Williams
• Shotgun Lovesongs by Nicholas Butler 
• Lexicon by Max Barry

To Read:

• Artemis by Andy Weir 
• Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich
• Hollow by Owen Egerton

 

Short Story Collections
To Give:

• Vampires in the Lemon Grove Karen Russell
• Volt by Alan Heathcock
• Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club by Benjamin Alire Saenz
• The Miniature Wife and Other Stories by Manuel Gonzales
• The Subway Stops at Bryant Park by N. West Moss

To Read:

• A Lesson in Manners by Misty Urban
• The Whole World at Once by Erin Pringle

Poetry
To Give:

• The House of Blue Light by David Kirby
• All That Lies Between Us by Maria Gillan

YA to read: Warcross by Marie Lu

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About today's reader:

Christie Grimes,
used with permission

Christie Grimes writes fiction and poetry. Her fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has been a noted finalist in contests held by Gulf Coast, Glimmer Train, and the Cincinnati Review. Her poems have been published in journals, as well as in two anthologies. Her narrative poetry collection, Finding Fruit Among Thorns, was published in 2016 by Jane’s Boy Press. Find out more at www.christiegrimes.com

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Check out more recommendations from Book Your Stocking contributors: 

http://www.erinpringle.com/p/book-your-stocking.html

Book Your Stocking with Stephanie Noll

Book Your Stocking: December 13

All month long, readers are sharing their Book Lists: To Give, To Read. We're over halfway to Christmas, and my own reading list has doubled, if not tripled, in size thanks to all the wonderful discoveries. And here's another day of additions, thanks to today's reader, Stephanie Noll.

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Giving List

 

1.  Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward. National Book Award winner. Stunning sentences and a story that is a page-turner. 
2. The Mothers by Brit Bennet. I loved this book so much that I only allowed myself to read a little bit at at time because it was so good and I didn't want it to end.
3. Hollow by Owen Egerton. An incredible book that asks:  how do you live a life when the unthinkable happens? I thought about this book for a long, long while after finishing it--I'm thinking about it still.
4. Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson. Damn, this woman can write. This book takes the "coming of age" story to a whole new level. Gorgeous, gorgeous book and compelling story.
5. Wait Till You See Me Dance by Deb Olin Unferth. An incredible collection of stories that will delight those who enjoy more experimental fiction and those who appreciate more traditional form--Unferth masters both, sometimes at the same time. 

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About today's reader:

Stephanie Noll,
used by permission

Stephanie Noll is a writer, teacher, and storyteller living in Austin, Texas. Her work has appeared in Modern Loss, Motherwell, and is forthcoming in The Ocotillo Review.

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Check out more recommendations from Book Your Stocking contributors: 

http://www.erinpringle.com/p/book-your-stocking.html

Book Your Stocking with John Kenny

Book Your Stocking: December 12

Well, December keeps moving along, and with it a new edition of Book Your Stocking, a new holiday reading series in which readers of all sorts share their Reading Wish-Lists and/or Give-Lists. (All titles are linked to their publishers or IndieBound/your nearest bookstore.) 

Please welcome today's reader, John Kenny.

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My Reading Wish-List:

1. A Natural History of Hell by Jeffrey Ford. Had the privilege of meeting Jeff here in Dublin last Summer for a couple of drinks. Really nice guy. I've read isolated short stories by him over the years and really liked them. Time I investigated his work properly.
2. The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro. Loved his The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go. I'm told The Unconsoled is the other must read.
3. Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan. Been meaning the read this guy for years and a friend has been extolling his virtues to me recently, so I really should take the plunge.

 

My Give-List:

1. The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem. This novel blew me away because the time and interests of the main character really resonated with me. It's a largely autobiographical novel and the author is the same age as me, so I guess that's part of the reason I found it so affecting.
2. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. A tour de force novel that covers a forty year span of time and really brings the New York of the 40s to 70s to life.
3. Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson. A collection of linked stories featuring a supremely unreliable narrator.

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About today's reader: 

John Kenny,
photo used by permission

Winner of the 2014 Independent Literary Industry Award for Best Editor, John Kenny works as a freelance writer, editor and creative writing tutor in Dublin, Ireland. His short stories have appeared in Revival Literary Journal, The Galway Review, The World SF Blog, Jupiter, First Contact, Woman's Way, Emerald Eye (an anthology of the Best of Irish Imaginative Fiction), Transtories, Fear the Reaper and many other venues. John has been co-editor of Albedo One since its inception in 1993. Prior to that, he wrote extensively for Stargate, the magazine of the Irish Science Fiction Association, and was editor of FTL, the successor to Stargate. He is editor of original horror anthology Box of Delights for Aeon Press, Writing4All: The Best of 2009, and Decade 1: The Best of Albedo One. 

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Check out more recommendations from Book Your Stocking contributors: 

http://www.erinpringle.com/p/book-your-stocking.html

Book Your Stocking with Donna Miscolta

Book Your Stocking: December 11

Welcome back to Book Your Stocking, a new series this holiday season, in which readers of all stripes share their Reading Wish-Lists and/or Give-Lists. (All titles are linked to their publishers or to Indiebound/your nearest bookstore.)

Please welcome today's reader, Donna Miscolta, author of Hola and Goodbye.

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Gift-Giving List

 

Novel: The Veins of the Ocean by Patricia Engel, who brings the reader directly against the beating hearts of her characters.

Story collection: In the Country by Mia Alvar, whose powerful and moving stories about the diaspora of Filipino migrants and asylum-seekers I’m constantly recommending.

Poetry: Killing Marías: A Poem for Multiple Voices by Claudia Castro Luna, whose commitment to social justice and art are beautifully rendered in this book.

Non-Fiction: Lolas' House: Filipino Women Living with War by M. Evelina Galang, who provides
a grim, but fearless and necessary look at women’s lives that must not be forgotten.

Also, these novels: 

A book I’m enjoying now is Pretend We Are Lovely by Noley Reid about family, its fragility and tenacity, and about the bonds of sisterhood.

A book I look forward to reading is Daughters of the Air by Anca Szilagyi, whose writing I admire.

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Donna Miscolta, photo by Meryl Schenker
(used with permission)

About today's reader: Donna Miscolta’s short story collection Hola and Goodbye was selected by Randall Kenan for the Doris Bakwin Award for Writing by a Woman and publication by Carolina Wren Press in 2016.  It won the Independent Publishers gold medal for Best Regional Fiction and an International Latino Book Award silver medal for Best Latino Focused Fiction in English. She is also the author of the novel When the de la Cruz Family Danced (Signal 8 Press, 2011). Her work has appeared in a variety of journals, most recently in Moss and Blood Orange Review. She lives in Seattle with her husband, their daughters having left to make their way in the world, one in Los Angeles and the other off to Ecuador soon.

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Check out more recommendations from Book Your Stocking contributors: 

http://www.erinpringle.com/p/book-your-stocking.html