There’s no cure for a rotten morning like buying three new books and three new magazines on your lunch break.
I’ve been enjoying stories of Indian Americans since I discovered Jhumpa Lahiri, and this collection, Karma and Other Stories by Rishi Reddi, looks very promising.
From a Booklist review:
This excellent debut collection is deceptively easy to read. The stories of Indian Americans navigating their way through two cultures can be read in one or two sittings, but they deserve to be pored over slowly. Each story manages to include information about Indian culture, without seeming remotely pedantic or expository. The details make the stories specific to Indians, but the emotions and characters make the stories universal. A teenager tries to gain his father’s protection, while also asserting himself. A devoted wife and mother struggles to find her own identity. A hip twentysomething copes with her best friend’s upcoming marriage and her own failed relationship. A great recommendation not only for fans of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake (2004) but also for fans of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s elegant studies of a culture that is both familiar and foreign.
I’ve been very into short story collections lately.
The other two books I purchased were the two Salingers I haven’t read:
-Raise High The Roof Beam, Carpenters & Seymour – An Introduction
-Nine Stories
I also left the store with InStyle Homes, Better Homes and Gardens, and House and Garden – because, well, what can I say – sometimes I just want to look at pretty rooms in magazines.
Needless to say my day got better after this.
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