Current Reading and Things To Read In the Future

I am currently about two thirds of the way through Zack Loran Clark's novel The Lock-Eater. Betsy Bird, -- a person worth reading if you have an interest in middle grade books because she is a great writer on the topic* -- in her review, starting by describing the story this way:

Imagine, if you will, what would have happened in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz if Dorothy had ditched the Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion and traipsed off with the Tin Man to defeat the corrupt Wizard and witches of the world. That’s not a perfect description of what you get with The Lock-Eater by Zack Loran Clark, but I also don’t think it’s the worst way to explain what’s going on here.

The Lock Eater is a middle grade novel, that is, a book written for twelve year old readers and people close to that age. I think that writing a good novel for this age group requires a considerable amount of skill to create a compelling age appropriate book for children. I do not read a lot of middle grade novels, but I do enjoy reading a good one from time to time.

Of course, the satisfaction in reading a good book comes with the slight sense of dread at the end that you have to find something else to read and the question of whether or not the next book will be as good as the current one.

Related to this idea of finding the next great book to read, let me share a few thoughts on books I am thinking about in the near future.

Yesterday the Pulitzer Prizes were announced and the winner for fiction is Joshua Cohen's The Netanyahus: An account of a minor and even negligible episode in the history of a very famous family.

I listened to an interview with the author about this book on the Bookworm radio show/podcast and had forgotten about it. Now that I remember the interview I remember that I was interested. The Bookworm website summarizes the book as 

It’s funny and tragic both at the same time. Cohen wants to make you laugh and then fear that you shouldn’t be laughing. In this story Benzion Netanyahu, historian, crank, madman father of the Netanyahus, is right in all the wrong ways. He and his family land in a Western New York snowbound college town. They trash the home of protagonist Ruben Blum (a pseudo-Harold Bloom), insult him, insult his university, insult the general ideals of American academia, and trash his entire family. A humorous meeting between a zealot and liberalism, an Israeli and an American.

I put my name on the list and see that I am number four to check the item out at the public library.

When thinking about the Pulitzer winner I thought about the National Book Award winning book by that I had not heard about before the prize announcement: Jason Mott's Hell of a Book. Mott's book is something of an experimental novel about an author on a book tour promoting his own book, but it is also a novel that has something new and interesting to say about the African-American experience. So, I realized, after thinking about Mott's book, that sometimes the winner of a major prize is a book that I really enjoy.

There are four other books I have heard that I have from the library that I am trying to decide which to read next. Plus there is a fifth book that I was intrigued by after hearing an interview with the author.

1. The first book is Justin Fenton's We Own This City. This book is the basis for the new HBO miniseries about corruption in the Baltimore police department produced by David Simon. Simon's most famous work is the television show The Wire. I am currently watching We Own This City on HBO and curious to see how the book and show are different.
2. The second book is Lily King's Euphoria. The Times picked the book as one of the ten best in 2014. 
3. The third book is Ian McGuire's The North Water. Some have described this book as Jack London in a bad mood. One reviewer on goodreads said "This novel contains foul language, horrific gore, rape, murder, animal cruelty, and other examples of total moral bankruptcy and I absolutely loved it...." And Martin Amis wrote a blurb praising the book; I have a lot of respect for him.
4. The fourth book is Jennifer Egan's The Candy House. I thought her earlier book A Visit from the Goon Squad was worth reading. Egan's book has many positive reviews.
5. The fifth book is one I heard an author interview with but one I do not currently have access to. That book is Hernan Diaz's Trust. I heard an interview with the author in the New York Times Book Review podcast as was impressed by what I heard about this book that is both an experiemental novel and a book that explores the role of wealth in American society.

I am sure I will enjoy my time when I read any one of these books. Of course, I might pick another book not even listed here.

*Here is the bio statement from Betsy Bird's website:

Betsy Bird is the Collection Development Manager of Evanston Public Library, and the former Youth Materials Specialist of New York Public Library. She blogs frequently at the School Library Journal site A Fuse #8 Production, and reviews for Kirkus and the New York Times on occasion. Betsy is the author of the picture books GIANT DANCE PARTY and THE GREAT SANTA STAKEOUT, she a co-author on the very adult WILD THINGS: ACTS OF MISCHIEF IN CHILDREN'S LITERATURE, editor of the middle grade anthology of funny female writers FUNNY GIRL, and author of her upcoming debut middle grade novel LONG ROAD TO THE CIRCUS, illustrated by Caldecott Award winning illustrator David Small. Betsy hosts two podcasts, Story Seeds, which pairs kids and authors together to write stories, and the very funny Fuse 8 n' Kate where she and her sister debate the relative merits of classic picture books.