Jordan Mattox

1. The Dispossessed Ursula K. Le Guin

This one has been staring at me from my bookshelf for a while and finally picked it up this month. Left Hand of Darkness, which has incredibly prescient discussions of gender and sexuality for a novel published in 1969, left a big impression on me. This novel also had that kind of impact. The story takes place between two societies, one individualistic and capitalistic and one communal and seemingly utopian (at first). Between these two worlds is Shevek, a scientist from the communal world, who ventures to the individualistic world in order to learn, bridge the divide, and enhance his scientific career. There’s a lot going on here and to unpack. Highly recommended. 

2. Springtime: A Ghost Story Michelle De Kretser

Picked up this strange little novella on a whim just browsing the stacks. The story centers on Francis who meets Charlie, who is married with a son, at a party in Melbourne. The affair leads them to move to Sydney, a starkly different city with a more tropical climate. The story is full of mysteries and mirages, including a strangely ghost-like woman that Francis sees in a garden while she is walking her dog. This one probably needs a reread to catch everything going on in this subtle little book. 

3. Paradais Fernanda Melchor 

I loved Melchor’s book Hurricane Season, which is a strange verb to use given the content and language used in that novel. This story follows the friendship of two teenagers, Franco and Polo, the former a rich tourist in Paradais and the latter a groundskeeper, who is trying to escape his life of poverty and horrible family situation. The narrative centers around Franco’s obsession with an older woman, which ultimately leads to his destruction, and Polo’s temptation to follow his cousin into organized crime. Extremely graphic and fascinating novel. Melchor is the Cormac McCarthy of our generation!

4. Death in Venice  Thomas Mann 

This was Mann’s most famous work, until he published Magic Mountain, which garnered attention and reevaluation of a lot of his work. The novel is controversial because it centers the obsession of an older man on a teenage boy. The older man is an aging novelist who has entered creative decline and decided to abscond to Venice to breathe different air and perhaps reignite his creativity. Upon arriving, he discovers a boy visiting with his Polish family to be an idealized vision beauty. The older man is meant to represent decadence, but he also has connections to Mann himself. Towards the end of the novel, plague arrives and so does the denouement.  A lot to unpack and can only do so much in this blurb. 

5. Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught In Between Eric Nusbaum 

I interviewed Eric for my history of California podcast and couldn’t help but gush about how much I loved this story. Nusbaum spins a complex web of stakeholders, immigrants, idealist public housing advocates, corrupt newspapers, and more to explain how it happened that three neighborhoods were demolished in order to build a baseball stadium. More than baseball, you learn a lot about the history of Los Angeles and the connections between Mexico and baseball, how the red scare brought an end to a public housing project, and the complexity of trying to assign blame. Highly recommended.