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Holidays ! Summer has definitely set in .. and you’re still wondering what to read ? Here some ideas of books you might find interesting !
Meet Early “Trenchmouth“ Taggart, a man born and orphaned in 1903, a man nicknamed for his lifelong oral affliction. His boyhood is shaped by the Widow Dorsett, a strong mountain woman who teaches him to hunt and survive the taunts of others. In the hills of southern West Virginia, a boy grows up fast. Trenchmouth sips moonshine, handles snakes, pleasures women, and masters the rifle – a skill that lands him in the middle of the West Virginia coal wars. A teenaged union sniper, Trenchmouth is exiled to the backwoods of Appalachia’s foothills, where he spends his years running from the past. But trouble will sniff a man down, and an outlaw will eventually run home. Here, Trenchmouth Taggart’s story, like the best ballads, etches its mark deep upon the memory.
How can you resist one story like this ?
Virgil Caudill has never gone looking for trouble, but this time he’s got no choice — his hell-raising brother Boyd has been murdered. Everyone knows who did it, and in the hills of Kentucky, tradition won’t let a murder go unavenged. No matter which way he chooses, Virgil will lose.
The Good Brother, Chris Offutt’s finely crafted first novel, is the story of Virgil’s struggle to find his real self in the wake of an impossible choice. Traversing the American landscape from the hollows of Eastern Kentucky to the plains of Montana, Offutt explores the hunger for belonging that drives our most passionate beliefs, and in the process shows himself to be one of our most powerful storytellers. I’ve got this book for my birthday and I plan to read it this summer 
Once or twice a decade, an unknown short-story writer blazes onto the literary scene with work that is thrilling and new. Scott Wolven is such a talent, and his raw, blistering tales of hard-bitten convicts, dodgy informers, and men running from the law make for “the most exciting, authentic collection of short stories I have read in years” says George Pelecanos.
Brooding, edgy, and sometimes violent, Controlled Burn’s loosely linked stories are each in some way a distillation of hard time – spent either in prison, the backwoods of Vermont, or the badlands of the American West. Peopled by boxers, drunks, truck drivers, murderers, bounty hunters, drifters traveling under assumed names, and men whose luck ran out a thousand miles ago, these stories feel hard-won from life, and if they are moody and stark, so too are they filled with human longing. Controlled Burn is divided into two sections: “The Northeast Kingdom” and “The Fugitive West” In each, Scott Wolven reveals a broken world where there is no bottom left to hit.
In the haunting “Outside Work Detail” convicts stoically dig graves for their fellow prisoners yet reserve their deepest grief for the senseless death of a deer. “Crank” introduces Red Green, a maniacally brilliant addict who brews his own crystal meth in a backwoods lab, and whose high-energy antics inspire both cautious admiration and mortal fear in his business associates. In “Ball Lightning Reported” Red Green’s ultimate fate is revealed. In “Atomic Supernova” a revenge-obsessed sheriff deputizes a known cop-killer to help him hunt down a counterfeiter and drug lord. The unexpectedly tender and heartbreaking “The Copper Kings” concerns a father facing the dark truth behind his son’s disappearance. And in “Vigilance” a hunted man struggles to escape his past, always yearning for an honorable yet perhaps unreachable future.
This book is on my to-read list – it looks so good it can’t be real !!!! I have to get it one way or the other. Also, a reminder for y’all : I love short stories
Canadian novelist Joseph Boyden to new and exciting heights. This is the story of two immensely compelling characters: Will Bird, a legendary Cree bush pilot who lies comatose in a remote Ontario hospital; and Annie Bird, Will’s niece, a beautiful loner and trapper who has come to sit beside her uncle’s bed. Broken in different ways, the two take silent communion in their unspoken kinship, revealing a story rife with heartbreak, fierce love, ancient feuds, mysterious disappearances, murders, and the bonds that hold a family, and a people, together. From the rugged Canadian wilderness to the drug-fueled glamour of the Manhattan club scene, this is thrilling, atmospheric storytelling at its finest.
You may not know, but Joseph Boyden is one of my favorite authors and I’ve read this book and loved every little piece of it ! It’s a masterpiece so please don’t think twice if you see it in any good bookstore (easy to find in second-hand bookstores, I’ve seen it at least five times during my stay in Montréal).
The Barracks Thief is the story of three young paratroopers waiting to be shipped out to Vietnam. Brought together one sweltering afternoon to stand guard over an ammunition dump threatened by a forest fire, they discover in each other an unexpected capacity for recklessness and violence. Far from being alarmed by this discovery, they are exhilarated by it; they emerge from their common danger full of confidence in their own manhood and in the bond of friendship they have formed.
This confidence is shaken when a series of thefts occur. The author embraces the perspectives of both the betrayer and the betrayed, forcing us to participate in lives that we might otherwise condemn, and to recognize the kinship of those lives to our own.
It’s a short book, 112 pages but the reviews are great and the story itself makes it very appealing (you can find it for less than a $0.01) – it’s on my to-buy fast list 😉
And you, any good books you have in mind for me ? My to-read list is actually pretty gigantic ..but I can’t resist listening to you ! If not, happy holidays and see you soon !