BOOKS
What to do when there’s ‘nothing’ to do... n ON EARTH WE’RE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS — OCEAN VUONG
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he title of Ocean Vuong’s debut novel gives away the young writer’s ability to craft riveting prose, imbued with emotion and beauty. Written as a letter to his illiterate mother, the story centers around Little Dog, the son of a Vietnamese refugee and a nameless G.I. It explores the nuances of immigraiton, family, mental health and sexuality through sweeping poetic language. A coming of age story like no other.
n HOMEGOING — YAA GAYSI
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his is ambitious story-telling at its finest as Gaysi’s writing enraptures the reader in a world of generational stories linked by whispers from the past, symbols of eras gone by. Starting sometime in the late 18th century, the story follows the family lines of two half-sisters born in West Africa. One marries a British official and remains in Africa, while the other is enslaved and shipped to America. As the novel progresses, each chapter represents another story down their respective generational lines until we reach present day. It’s a captivating read.
n NORMAL PEOPLE — SALLY ROONEY
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ALBUMS
ike any good setlist, let’s start this one off with a banger. Unlike the warmer sounds he last offered under his alias Against All Logic, Nicholas Jaar goes hard for 2017-2019. After a fairly dreamy opening featuring a sample of Her Royal Flyness Queen Bey, Jaar quickly grows antagonistic with tracks like “If You Can’t Do It Good, Do It Hard” and “Alarm.” Even when he brings the temperature down, he keeps it at a simmer. n HEAVY LIGHT — U.S. GIRLS
eghan Remy has an obsession with truth and vulnerability, which is why M her project U.S. Girls makes such vital
music. Heavy Light is a personal album for Remy, using a deceptively poppy 21st century girl-group sound to explore her own physical abuse, but also institutional abuse. The track “4 American Dollars” is a finger-snapping discourse against vast accumulations of wealth. The track “And Yet It Moves / Y Se Meuve” begins with a question as timeless as it is of the moment: “Nos mienten sobre todo, no?” — They lie to us about everything, don’t they?
BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE
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unker down and follow along as amateur sleuth Flavia de Luce must pull herself away from her beloved chemistry lab to clear her father of murder. Flavia is as endearing as a protagonist can be, even as she torments the housekeeper and plots revenge against her two older and equally quirky sisters. Set in the British countryside of the 1950s, this 2009 murder-mystery is witty, engaging and thoroughly enjoyable. Plus, its the first book in a 10-part series. This is only the beginning.
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riveting memoir following a young girl as she searches for herself by racing in the 1,000 kilometer Mongolian Derby. Prior-Palmer demands the attention of her readers, torn between digesting the story quickly to find out what happens, and slowly drinking in the profundity of each line. The story starts with Prior-Palmer from her home in the U.K. as she decides to enter the derby ill-equipped and untrained. It then follows her across the Mongolian Steppe on myriad spirited Mongoloian ponies as she seeks to win the race and settle her soul.
SOME OF 2020’s BEST ALBUMS… SO FAR L
n THE SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE — ALAN BRADLEY
n ROUGH MAGIC — LARA PRIOR-PALMER
e’re not sure what it is about Sally Rooney’s Normal People that makes us care so much about a high school love story, but there it is. This novel found a way to suck us in and hold us there until we finished, as it brilliantly illuminates modern intimacy, love, family and social class.
n 2017-2019 — AGAINST ALL LOGIC
BY ANGELA K. EVANS
BY CAITLIN ROCKETT
n WE ARE SENT HERE BY HISTORY — SHABAKA & THE ANCESTORS
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illennial British saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings teamed up with a similarly aged group of South African musicians to create the genre-redefining jazz found on We Are Sent Here by History. “We need to start articulating our utopias, articulating what needs to be burned and what needs to be saved,” Shabaka told The New York Times. The album explores how toxic masculinity begets violence and authoritarianism, but it focuses on how vulnerability and truth can set us free.
n EVERY BAD — PORRIDGE RADIO
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n the Brighton four-piece’s second album, lead singer Dana Margolin opens with a feeling many of us might be experiencing at this precise moment in virus-panicked time: “I’m bored to death, let’s argue / What is going on with me?” The rest of the album goes on to explore just what might be wrong with Margolin — or any of us, for that matter — vacillating between whispers and screams, fluctuating between emotional extremes.
n THE NEON SKYLINE — ANDY SHAUF
ndy Shauf knows how to take the mundanities of life and mine them for every ounce of humanity. The Neon Skyline A tells the story of a man who goes to his local bar, hears that
his ex is back in town, then watches as she enters the bar. The power of Shauf’s music lies in his ability to find the beauty in lost love, drunken conversations and dive bars.
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MARCH 19, 2020
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