Dogs, Bears, and Kin

Hi Bookworms. How was your week?  We’ve hit the official start of summer  and I’m sure it’ll be cooking soon. Wherever you are — break out the sunscreen and take a dip in the water. We’ll probably take the dogs for a swim at the river later this week when it hits 80. They love to swim. And Stella has her 14th birthday coming up on July 3rd, so we’re doing everything we can for her as she ages. When we got her as a puppy this blog had been going for a few years, so it spans her life and I’ve posted many photos of her over the years. She is very special and has been a joy to our lives. Here is a photo of Stella in December 2012 just after we had her for a few months. She was sweet then and is bossy now, lol … but still a love.

Meanwhile I’ve been invited to a Western art auction today by a local artist named Jan Roenisch. I have not been before so I’ll check it out and report back on the various artists and their work. I like Jan’s paintings of wildlife and rural landscapes and I hope to buy one if I can. I plan to meet Jan there. I saw her art in a museum and contacted her. She told me about the auction where some of her paintings will be for sale. Do you like her grizzly bear? She also has paintings of dogs, horses, cattle, deer, and much more. See her art is here.

In book news, I’m off to a slow start on my 2026 Summer List — only on Book #2 — but I got waylaid by reading a long fall novel for PW. At nearly 700 pages, this undisclosed novel took too many weeks (from May to June) to finish and review, and it wasn’t as nearly good as I had hoped. After that, my reading took a hiatus. So I need to get back on the wagon. What about you — have you ever hit a reading slump and what did you do to get it back?

In good news, I saw the announcement on Kirkus Reviews that Japanese-British author Kazuo Ishiguro will be releasing a new novel in March 2027 titled: Miss Lambert Steps Aboard Danger. Whoa, this is major news. I repeat: Ishiguro will release a new novel in 2027! Apparently the new novel is “part caper, part spy novel, and part Wodehousean comedy of manners.” Ishiguro is one of my very favorite authors of all time. He’s a master who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2017. I loved his novels Remains of the Day (1989), Never Let Me Go (2005), and Klara and the Sun (2021). But there’s others to read. Which is your favorite? 

And now I’ll leave you with the first book I finished on my summer list. 

Kin by Tayari Jones / Knopf / 368 pages / 2026

4.5 stars. While I liked Tayari’s last acclaimed novel American Marriage in 2018, I think I like her new novel even better. She’s a great storyteller and this one is told very conversationally and lyrically with many notable lines and descriptions in it. Set in the 1940s and ’50s, it’s about two “cradle friends” — both motherless African American girls raised in rural Louisiana — whose paths diverge and later come back together. 

Vernice, whose mother was violently killed when she was a baby, is raised by her colorful Aunt Irene, and goes off to Spelman College in Atlanta, while Annie, raised by her grandmother, heads out on a road trip with friends to Memphis to try to find her long-lost mother. 

Both Niecy and Annie come of age away from home … though are tied together by their childhood and their experience of being motherless. Later they find themselves in relationships that play out in defining ways. They write letters to each other of their partners in Atlanta and Memphis … and each comes to life as they narrate alternating chapters. Niecy has a strong group of friends at Spelman and a wealthy roommate Joette who becomes close … before she meets Franklin, and Annie works in a bar and dates Bo.

You want to see these close friends through … as Niecy goes through much soul searching about whether to marry her affluent, crippled beau; and Annie is poor and struggles with love while becoming obsessed with finding the mother who abandoned her. Later their paths cross. I can’t say too much more or I’ll give too much away … but I recommend reading it.  

Tayari Jones is an impressive writer and you can see she was influenced by the late great Toni Morrison. I hope it doesn’t take her another eight years to write her next book. Oprah picked Kin for her book club in February – as well as American Marriage back in 2018. Both are good.

That’s all for now. What about you — have you read her and what did you think? Have a great week.