#camille bordas

[quillandqueer]

✨ Interesting New Releases | 11th June

The Afterlife of Mal Caldera by Nadi Reed Perez: While her fellow ghosts party their afterlives away at an abandoned mansion they call the Haunt, Mal is determined to make contact with her younger sister from beyond the grave.

All Friends Are Necessary by Tomas Moniz: An anthem to both queer and platonic love, All Friends Are Necessary evinces the wonder of friendship and the joy of giving yourself up to the essential force of community.

The Art of Vanishing by Lynne Kutsukake: Reminiscent of Elena Ferrante and the NYT magazine feature “Who is the Bad Art Friend?”, The Art of Vanishing is an intimate, explosive story of creativity and friendship between two young Japanese women in 1970s Tokyo.

The Material by Camille Bordas: A single momentous day transforms the lives of students and professors at a school for stand-up comedy in a novel that explores the humor and tragedy of everyday existence.

Mouth Stories by Puloma Ghosh: Exploring grief, intimacy, sexuality, and bodily autonomy, Mouth leans into the bizarre and absurd while reaching for the truth.

Private Rites by Julia Armfield: From the bestselling author of Our Wives Under the Sea, a haunting novel of three sisters navigating queer love and faith at the end of the world.

Running Close to the Wind by Alexandra Rowland: It's about Queer Pirates just trust me it sounds great

The Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei: From the acclaimed author of The Deep Sky comes a thrilling anti-colonial space heist to save an alien civilization.

The Stars Too Fondly by Emily Hamilton: part space odyssey, part sapphic rom-com—Emily Hamilton tells a tale of galaxy-spanning friendship, improbable love, and found family.

The Wilderness of Girls by Madeline Claire Franklin: a troubled teen who discovers a pack of feral girls in the woods and is swept up in the ensuing mystery: Are the Wild Girls of Happy Valley lost princesses from a faraway land, as they believe, or are they brainwashed victims of a deranged kidnapper?

[wanlittlehusk]

things i like lately

the material by camille bordas, the quick and the dead by joy williams, twin peaks the return, the past is still alive by hurray for the riff raff, the fashion brand company cute fish print linen set, smitten kitchen pasta recipes but with instant ramen, always having a picnic bag packed, rewatching the righteous gemstones, asking men where they buy their shorts, vintage kid's book illustrations on instagram

[lesliecafferty]

Ghost mom.

We spent a lot of Sundays discussing what we would do if we became ghosts ourselves, who we would mess with. She told me that, if she ever died, she would come haunt me, but not in a scary way, just to hang out, to watch ghost movies with me on Sundays and explain what the movies had got right and wrong about the afterlife. It had sounded fun, the idea of watching ghost movies with a ghost, but then my mother got ill, and, on top of fearing that she'd die, I became scared that she'd die and follow up on her haunting plans. I spent the last weeks of her life wanting to ask her not to come back after her death, but not asking for fear of hurting her feelings. What ten-year-old didn't want his mother to come back from the dead to watch movies with him on Sundays? —"Chicago on the Seine," Camille Bordas

[blogdavania]

A Loucura e a Lucidez

Talvez para sermos boas escritoras, pintoras, escultoras, cientistas, tenhamos que transitar pelo fio da navalha, quase despencando pelas suas bordas em direção ao abismo.

Talvez tenha sido esse o fardo que carregaram tantas mulheres que por vários, e não tão diferentes motivos, se equilibraram entre a loucura e a lucidez.

Virginias, Silvias, Camilles, Maries, Fridas, tantas e tão talentosas, sofridas e angustiadas.

Quem sabe a genialidade seja uma exclusividade dos loucos, ou quase loucos...

Mas, afinal, o que é ser louco?

[bulls-inlove]

2022 in books

this year i got back into reading regularly and i LOVE IT so idk here's a recap of the books i read. there are a few that i started that just weren't for me so i didn't finish them but i found books that did hit just right and made me excited to read again. these are in the order in which i read them:

The Vanishing Half by Britt Bennett

¡Hola Papi!: How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons by Juan Paul Brammer

Belly Up: Stories by Rita Bullwinkle

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Meaty by Samantha Irby

I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy

Tell Me How To Be by Neel Patel

Paradaís by Fernanda Melchor

How to Behave in a Crowd by Camille Bordas

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

highlights & standouts

if i had to pick a favorite... i couldn't lol i thoroughly enjoyed all of the books i read this year. i think standouts though were Detransition Baby and The Vanishing Half for me; interestingly enough, they are both slice of life stories that go back and forth from past to present between various characters. i won't spoil much but tagging it just in case.

The Vanishing Half follows two Black twin sisters who have split up and led entirely different lives, one as a Black woman and the other as a white one. the story explores colorism, identity, assimilation, and survival as it relates to each twin, and eventually their children. it's a beautifully written story with so many takeaways, but i think the one i keep coming back to is that – while we all can only do what we feel we need to in order to survive, being able to carve out a life in which we can safely live authentically is the most freeing.

Detransition, Baby walks us through an impending shared parenthood through the perspectives of three people – a trans woman, a cis woman, and a former trans woman who has since detransitioned. i loved that the premise and themes interwoven throughout the book are less-than-often-discussed topics even among parts of the queer community, but they're real and important nonetheless. and each character is written so thoughtfully; though each has their flaws and frustrations, they are written with such empathy and nuance that i found myself wanting the best for all of them. but the premise presented does not have a simple solution.

i also have to single out the chapter My Mother, My Daughter in Meaty because it completely wrecked me. i'd read Irby's work before but i still felt completely blindsided by this. the way she so simply, elegantly, and painfully writes about this trauma of caretaking her disabled mother under the crushing weight of poverty and childhood will stay with me. "My mother became my daughter when I was nine years old."

currently reading

You Are Here (*For Now) by Adam J. Kurtz i gifted this to myself with the intention of starting it in the new year but i couldn't help but start it now lol. i'm glad i did because it's so timely and perfect for the winter blues.

it may not be a lot of books but it's way more than i've read in a long time and i feel really good about that :) here's to reading more words and stories that make us feel things in 2023

recommend more stuff to read pls!

[authorstalker]

I’m 50 pages in and loving it. For fans of The Royal Tenenbaums.☺️

[treesandmorgana]

Books of August:

Korku Kitabı, Emine Naskali ed, 2014.

Holes, Louis Sachar, 1998.

Report from Planet Midnight, Nalo Hopkinson, 2012.

La Casa de los Espiritus, Isabel Allende, 1999.

Ces jours qui disparaissent, Timothe Le Boucher, 2017.

O sırada, Erman Çağlar, 2019.

Bence Katil Öldürdü, Kurtcebe Turgul, 2019.

El Túnel, Ernesto Sabato, 1946.

Isidore et les autres, Camillen Bordas, 2017.

Unpopular opinion: Bordas's book How to Behave in a Crowd is another overrated hype.

Final thoughts: This month the number of female writers has been higher. There is one graphic novel by Le Boucher, which is beyond excellent; one dystopia by the Jamaican writer Hopkinson. There are two masterpieces from Latin America, one by Allende and one by Sabato. The Turkish books were ok this month but I'm planning to read better Turkish books in September.

[fkathedjf]

One thing I didn’t understand was how my mother could’ve read so many novels and still take anything anyone ever said at face value.

Bordas, Camille. “Only Orange”. The New Yorker; December 23rd, 2019.

[paperbacksunday]

Boys never believe a girl when she says she never cared. He would think it's pride or something.

Camille Bordas, How To Behave In A Crowd

[nazlimdumlu]

Birlikte Yaşamanın Yolları - Camille Bordas - How to Behave in a Crowd, Siren Yayınları

[nathanabhaltersmith-shelf]

[lecturesdefemmes]

JOUR 260 - Isidore et les Autres, Camille Bordas // Chronique de Mlle Mel

Chronique originellement paru sur le blog Les Histoires de Mel : merci beaucoup à Mélanie de nous permettre de partager cette chronique coup de coeur sur Lectures de femmes !

Isidore et les autres, c'est un roman psychologique qui dissèque le fonctionnement d'une fratrie, et c'est passionnant. Isidore, c'est le benjamin du groupe, qui arrive après Jérémie, Léonard, Aurore, Bérénice et Simone. Et c'est à travers lui que tout arrive au lecteur, que tout nous. arrive. Si Isidore a 11 ans, et se sent décalé, non seulement par rapport à sa fratrie mais aussi par rapport au monde qui l'entoure, le lecteur découvre un jeune garçon attachant, seul de sa famille à effectuer un parcours scolaire 'classique', sans sauter de classe, mais à l'intelligence émotionnelle acérée et fine. Il est attentif aux autres malgré des fugues répétées, et cherche avant tout à rendre les gens heureux, par opposition à ses frères et soeurs, coincés dans leur bulle intellectuelle.

La langue de Camille Bordas est à la fois simple et riche, complexe' comme ses personnages, mais d'une fluidité douce-amère, comme la soif de réussite, de justice, mais surtout d'amour de cette fratrie. Une évolution, un chemin, un mûrissement à la fois caustique et poétique, c'est ce qui attend Isidore et les autres, qui d'une certaine façon prennent le lecteur à témoin. Camille Bordas réussi avec brio à nous plonger dans les affres de l'adulescence, de la quête de soi, à travers le prisme d'une famille presque comme les autres.

« Le prélude était sur le point de s'achever. La lin était facile à reconnaître : les dernières mesures étaient strictement les mêmes que celles qui ouvraient le morceau, le même motif répété, sauf qu'il n'y avait plus la légèreté du début, l'insouciance, vu qu'entre-temps, il y avait eu cette partie-plus sombre, au milieu du morceau, plus dramatique, qui effaçait tout espoir, qui alourdissait et qui ternissait tout. »

Mais n'est-ce pas justement la quête de l'existence, retrouver cette légèreté dans l'entonnoir de la vie ? Demandez à Simone... 


Mlle Mel

Découvrez ses autres chroniques sur son blog, Les Histoires de Mel.   ©Mélanie Blondel - Tous droits réservés 

Isidore et les autres, Camille Bordas. Editions Inculte, 2018. 

Camille Bordas est née à Lyon, en 1987. Elle a passé son enfance au Mexique et vit maintenant à Chicago. Elle a fait des études d’histoire de l’art et de photographie. Elle a publié deux romans en français aux éditions Joëlle Losfeld, Les treize desserts en 2009 et Partie commune en 2011. Ses nouvelles en anglais ont paru dans le New Yorker. Isidore et les autres, son troisième roman, originellement écrit en anglais, a déjà été publié en sept langues et dans dix pays.