Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
Books You Can't Read Yet
Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2003 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.
Finished Crescent (April) by Diana Abu-Jaber, which is very good. The blurb calls it an Arab-American Like Water For Chocolate, and though I haven't read Like Water that seems right. I laughed and cried and hoped and gasped and there were almost no hints of magical realism, so I'm happy.
Now reading Ellen Ullman's The Bug (May), which at every page reveals itself as the novel I wish I were good enough to write. Various Indian diaspora writers have already written The Great Indian-American Novel, and now it looks like Ullman has the Great American Girl Geek Novel title locked. Excellent, suspenseful, evocative, emotionally accurate. It's bad for my health, since it tempts me to read rather than sleep. I'll go to sleep now anyway.
