thought-provoking

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

Portable WonderlandLeave a comment

PREMISE: Constantinople, 1453:
An orphaned seamstress and a cursed boy with a love for animals risk everything on opposite sides of a city wall to protect the people they love.

Idaho, 2020:
An impoverished, idealistic kid seeks revenge on a world that’s crumbling around him. Can he go through with it when a gentle old man stands between him and his plans?

Unknown, Sometime in the Future:
With her tiny community in peril, Konstance is the last hope for the human race. To find a way forward, she must look to the oldest stories of all for guidance.

Bound together by a single ancient text, these tales interweave to form a tapestry of solace and resilience and a celebration of storytelling itself. 

Weirdly (or not…I don’t know) I’ve not read All The Light We Cannot See and went straight to this as I liked the sound of it. Man, Anthony Doerr can write. Got absolutely lost in this and that’s exactly why I read. Fantastic book.

Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Portable WonderlandLeave a comment

PREMISE:  By placing ordinary characters in extraordinary situations, Adjei-Brenyah reveals the violence, injustice, and painful absurdities that Black men and women contend with every day in this country.

These stories explore urgent instances of racism and cultural unrest, and the ways we fight for humanity in an unforgiving world. In “The Finkelstein Five,” Adjei-Brenyah reckons with the brutal prejudice of our justice system. In “Zimmer Land,” we see a far-too-easy-to-believe imagining of racism as sport. And “Friday Black” and “How to Sell a Jacket as Told by IceKing” show the horrors of consumerism and the toll it takes on us all.

My second book of 2024, which I picked up after reading the jaw-droppingly great Chain-Gang All Stars. A collection of dark-as-fuck stories which are well worth reading. Top notch.