"it made all the blood in her veins suddenly writhe and coil"

Dear Reader,

As you may have guessed from previous posts, I’m a fan of the epistolary novel – even if it does sound like some sort of hair-removal device.

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova didn’t disappoint. The narrator, the motherless daughter of a diplomat, begins the tale with a packet of old letters and even older book found in her father’s study. She then recounts the story her father shares with her on how the book – blank except for a woodcut of a dragon – found him. Letters from his advisor, Professor Rossi, Rossi's daughter Helen, Carpathian monks, and Crescent Guards of the Sultan all add their voices to this complex tale of the hunt for Vlad Dracula’s tomb.

Part travelogue, part thriller, Kostova takes the reader into a world in which librarians are brutally attacked and books hold the darkest secrets. From Istanbul to Budapest, back through Amsterdam and Paris, mouth-watering pastries, luscious scenery, sinister monks, and tons of libraries, this story will have you turning on the light at twilight and stocking up on garlic, just in case.

Judging from the reviews on Goodreads, this one may not be to your taste. If not, here are some other novels to note. 

Yours, Morningstar

Callithumpian Activities

Dusted off this post from December 2018 because, well, keep reading. 

Pick up any women’s magazine this month and chances are there’s an article about how to handle the stress of Christmas. I always assumed this to be a modern phenomenon until I picked up The Battle for Christmas by Stephen Nissenbaum.

 In it he writes, “The Ladies’ Home Journal actually published an article in 1897 that acknowledged [women experiencing stress at Christmas] as a cultural problem.” Although I couldn’t find the actual article, I did come across this gem that reminded me the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Throughout the book, Nissenbaum also makes the case that a commercial Christmas is also not a product of modernity, but was an integral part of the transformation of Christmas from a rowdy, drunken celebration of the annual slaughter to a more domesticated affair that included women and children. As he writes, “there never was a time when Christmas existed as an unsullied domestic idyll, immune to the taint of commercialism…indeed, the domestic Christmas was itself a force in the spread of consumer capitalism.”

If you’re curious to read more about the origins of American Christmas traditions - Santa Claus, Christmas trees, and “personalized” mass-produced presents - add The Battle for Christmas to your list. You know you have one.

Read Harder

So this year’s challenge is complete. Looking back over the list, I can easily spot (the many places) where a book I was already planning to read fit nicely into a category. But as it turns out, several of the most memorable books that I read came from the Read Harder recommendations for the challenge. Success!

Darius the Great is Not Okay by Adib Khorram

Sitting Pretty by Rebekah Taussig

Peter Darling by Austin Chant

Even though they encompass widely differing genres, these books all focus on characters seeking belonging in a world that has set up very narrow parameters for doing so. 

Looking for a challenge? Here’s one for 2022.

Books We Love 2021

 Looking for your next read? Gift idea? Go to Books We Love at NPR and click on the filters that appeal. Here’s what I’m looking forward to reading from the 2021 list.

Family Matters/Rather Short/Seriously Great Writing

Real Estate by Deborah Levy

"Three bicycles. Seven ghosts. A crumbling apartment block on the hill. Fame. Tenderness. The statue of Peter Pan. Silk. Melancholy. The banana tree. A love story."

Names for Light by Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint

“I do not like to make decisions, to take risks, to assert or involve myself. … I prefer to … keep myself to myself.”

Funny Stuff/Love Stories/Realistic Fiction

Hell of a Book by Jason Mott

“Reality as a whole—past or present—just isn’t a good place to hang out.”

Ghosts by Dolly Alderton

“Jethro's flat was in a warehouse that, even from the outside, looked very pleased with its own conversion.”

The Liar’s Dictionary by Eley Williams

“With its symmetry and little dashed isthmus between the two words, ‘hour-glass’ on the page is like the object itself, lying on its side or balanced mid-spin.”

Nudge

Last month, Washington State implemented the Plastic Bag Ban which prohibits single-use bags and charges a fee for bags if you fail to bring your own. During the pandemic, when bringing your own bag into the store was prohibited, I got lazy. But the prospect of paying 8 cents per bag was enough of an incentive for me to start bringing my own bags into stores again. Am I just cheap or is this a case for behavioral economics? I started with this list to try and find some answers.  

I ended up with Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein mainly because my library app had it available. It turned out to be a good pick.

As with any book of this genre, I’m most taken with the real-world examples. I was fascinated by the choice architects chapter which focuses on how design meshes or messes with our human tendencies in decision making. Ever pull on a door that opens out? Ever turn on the wrong burner on your stove? I’m also amazed at how simple changes in things like metro maps or boarding passes can make big differences in efficiency and outcome. The authors also bring up our tendency to make big decisions through elimination by aspects. I recently saw this at play when I, I mean, my daughter was curating her college list.

Ultimately, I’m not sure how legislators decided on 8 cents as a tipping point. But for me, it was the nudge I needed. 

Vampires Suck

When the Twilight books first came out, my sisters were in their early teens. I remember they were so excited, they made t-shirts for the book release party at our local Barnes and Noble. One of them said something like “Bite me, Edward.”

Vampire stories have come a long way since 2005, as evidenced by the anthology Vampires Never Get Old by Natalie C. Parker and Zoraida Córdova. The stories in this collection feature a diverse cast of characters, united in their desperation to seek the possibility of escape through eternal death. At turns creepy and funny, this is one to enjoy not only in October, but anytime you need something to make your heart beat a little faster.

"Even his griefs are a joy"

I usually try to buy used books, but when I found out Amor Towles had a new book coming out, not only did I buy it in hardback, I pre-ordered it so long ago that its arrival was like an early Christmas present. Last Sunday morning, I finally found time to start on its 592 pages at breakfast. By bedtime, I was relying on a booklight to finish the last few chapters.

The Lincoln Highway, as you might suspect, is a road trip tale. After the singular setting of his last novel A Gentleman in Moscow, Towle’s scope of story (and cast of narrators) can at first be a bit disorienting. Emmett has arrived home after his sentence at a juvenile work farm to find out his family’s farm has been foreclosed upon. So he and his younger brother decide to make a new start in California. 

Before they can head west, however, what was supposed to be a brief detour turns into a destination. For in the best adventure stories, it’s the dragons to be slayed, not the princess to be saved, that keeps the reader hooked. 

Literary Executioners

Occasionally I think back to an essay prompt our teacher gave us in high school about measuring time. Some people might reference an event by who was president or pope, others might mark its relation as occurring before or after a traumatic experience (pre-COVID, anyone?). For me, I’ve always thought about time, both as a student and teacher, and even now as a parent, as a school year. September brings beginnings; May conveys closure.

I was pleased then, by the structure of Maggie Pouncey’s novel Perfect Reader which begins, as things should, in the fall. Flora Dempsey’s life in the city comes to a halt when her father dies, leaving her the executor. She returns to her childhood home of Darwin, where her father was president of the local college as well as a renowned literary critic. Just before his death, he’d bequeathed her a folder of his poems, which she hasn’t had the courage to read. As she tries to get his affairs in order, she can’t help but remember her childhood, and the move that prompted her parents’ divorce.

“On the day they moved to Darwin, Flora’s mother went shopping. She bought a rough-wooled cardigan and a white bumpy bedspread. She bought them, not liking them, because it’s easier to focus on disliking small, specific things than your life in general.”

Pouncey not only captures the spirit of each season in this small college town, but the various ways people cope with grief. Over the course of the book, Flora seems unmoored by the task ahead of her. But bolstered by renewed friendships, mornings spent reading poetry, and walking her father’s dog in the commons, she begins to see how life might just recommence.

we know where the boys live

When #metoo appeared on the scene, my daughter confided in me that she is always conscious of her surroundings, planning her escape route, how loud she would need to scream. Although I’m glad she can articulate that awareness, I’m devastated that her fears seem grounded in something much more concrete than the nebulous stranger offering candy from a van we were warned about when I was a kid. 

Revisiting that time in Vendela Vida’s new novel We Run the Tides, I realized navigating a teen girl’s friendship might have been more harrowing than our fears of kidnapping. Eulabee and her best friend Maria Fabiola attend an all-girls’ school in the Sea Cliff neighborhood of San Fransisco. They watch The Breakfast Club, wear Laura Ashley, play Centipede, and scale the cliffs of their local beach. When the girls disagree on an incident involving a man in a white car, Eulabee finds herself on the outside of her clique. When Maria goes missing, reports of her kidnapping rock the enclave. But Eulabee suspects the whole thing is a hoax and goads the police officers interviewing her:

“Have they ever made you feel uncomfortable?”

“Everyone makes me feel uncomfortable,” I say. “I feel uncomfortable right now.”

From adults who take advantage to awkward solutions to unwanted body hair, We Run the Tides captures the discomfort, and yes, even trauma, of being a teenager.

In the final chapter, Eulabee, now almost fifty, randomly encounters Maria at a seaside resort. She reminds us that we all still carry that thirteen-year-old inside. Along with her insecurities, fabrications, and longing to grow up.

Bookmobiles

The other day I came across a notice that our local library has an outreach service to deliver books to the homebound. This reminded me of a previous post from 2018 about other librarians going to great lengths to ensure their neighbors have books to read. 

Way back in September, this story caught my ear. It was about a group of librarians who ventured into the mountains of Kentucky to deliver books to families on horseback during the 1930s.  

Wanting to read more, I went to my local library (by car) and found three informative picture books, not only about those librarians in Kentucky, but about people all over the world dedicated to delivering books to those without easy access to a library.

My Librarian is a Camel: How Books are Brought to Children Around the World by Margriet Ruurs

From Australia to Zimbabwe, this 2005 book pairs photographs and maps with descriptions of books being delivered by boat, mail, bicycle, and elephant to remote areas.

That Book Woman by Heather Henson, pictures by David Small

Told from the perspective of an Appalachian teenager, this book shows how his attitude changes from cynical bemusement to gratitude for the passel of books the book lady brings.  

Waiting for the Biblioburro by Monica Brown, illustrations by John Parra

Also based on a true story, this book magically captures one little girl’s excitement when she sees two burros carrying “so many cuentos!” to her isolated village.

A Push

For the life of me I can’t remember any cutesy names for classes we took in high school. English in college was Lit Trad and the science classes for non-science majors were called names like Baby Bio. So I think it’s quite charming when my junior refers to her AP US History class as “Apush.”

Of course, junior year is a push. A push to start thinking about college. So when I’m not perusing college websites and helicoptering my daughter to start coming up with “the list,” I’ve been reading books about the admissions process, both fictional and real.  

Admission by Julie Buxbaum

Chloe is a senior, excited about her admission to her dream school. Sure, she did miraculously better on the SAT than she would have thought. Yeah, her essay was kind of meh. And maybe she shouldn’t have used that picture where she was really tan. When the FBI arrives one morning, she realizes all wasn’t on the up and up. Her mom, a B-list celebrity, may be headed to jail, and now Chloe’s a pariah on social media and at school. The question driving the action - Was Chloe complicit?

Blind Sight by Meg Howrey

Luke spends the summer in California getting to know his biological father. When he’s not running or going to celebrity parties, (yes, his dad is also a Hollywood actor) he’s crafting the perfect college essay.

The Admissions by Meg Mitchell Moore

Angela, a high school senior, wants nothing more than to be accepted to her dad’s alma mater, Harvard. Her mother Nora loves the adrenaline rush of her high-end real estate job, but doesn’t have enough hours in the day to attend to the stress of her oldest, the orthodontia of her middle, and the reading problems of her youngest. But slowly the secrets the parents have been keeping are revealed and the perfect life is no longer sustainable – if it ever was.

Unacceptable by Melissa Korn and Jennifer Levitz

If the plot of Admission (see above) seems familiar, it’s because it comes straight from the true college admissions scandal promulgated by Rick Singer. Korn and Levitz explain how the parents, coaches, and teens themselves all play a role in exploiting the system. Following how the individual strands get woven together is almost as fascinating as watching how they unravel.

"peaches eaten over the sink"

 

As Labor Day approaches, you may have time to get one last beach read in. 

Like all good beach reads, these feature a fabulous summer home by the water, delicious meals procured from the farmer’s market, witty romantic banter (and, um, encounters), and at least one surly teenager that merits opening up another bottle of wine on the deck.

Summer on the Bluffs by Sunny Hostin

The High Season by Judy Blundell

What's the best beach read you discovered this summer?

"they lived in a world of superlatives"

When one doesn’t have air conditioning, the temps rise about 90, and the wildfire smoke descends from Canada, what else to do but turn on the fan, grab an iced tea, and cool off with a book like The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford.

“Life is sometimes sad and often dull, but there are currants in the cake, and here is one of them."

Linda Radlett longs to marry the Prince of Wales. Growing up in the country with parents who disparage difference, a brood of younger siblings, and beloved cousin Fanny (who narrates the tale), Linda whiles away the hours playing solitaire or chatting in the airing cupboard waiting to meet the man of her dreams. And eventually, over the course of the novel, she meets three. The first supports her lifestyle as a bright young thing, the second dashes her hopes of being a do-gooder, and the third lavishes her with clothes and laughter. When the war begins, she flees Paris. When her house in Chelsea is destroyed in an air raid, she reluctantly finds refuge with the Radletts.

“We had never learnt to dance, and, for some reason, we had supposed it to be a thing which everybody could do quite easily and naturally. I think Linda realized there and then what it took me years to learn, that the behaviour of civilized man really has nothing to do with nature, that all is artificiality and art more or less perfected.”

This satire artfully captures the artificiality of not only the British upper class, but well, of all of us who live with privilege. Thanks to Emily Mortimer, this work from 1945, has been made into a Prime miniseries. If Sofia Coppola directed an episode of Downton Abbey written by Wes Anderson, it couldn’t be more charming than Mortimer’s adaptation. 

I think it had a star on the cover?

I recently saw a meme (see #3) that brought back memories of working at Taylor’s bookstore during college. Whenever a customer mentioned they’d seen a book on Oprah, we’d pull out our microfiche (remember those?) and search for books mentioned on a recent show.

These days, you’d think finding a book whose title you’d forgotten would be one Google search away.

It wasn't. 

When I typed “novel about a boy who lives with his celebrity father for the summer,” the top search results were links to the movie Secondhand Lions and the book Beautiful Boy. The third result was a link to an article entitled “Finding a book when you’ve forgotten it’s title.” Thanks, Google.

Thinking I may have read this book when we lived in Ann Arbor, I went to the Ann Arbor Library catalog and searched for divorce, dysfunctional families, and movie star fathers. No dice. Then I tried the “Authors similar to” lists on Goodreads. Matthew Norman, Jonathan Tropper, and Tom Perrotta. Nope.

After these fruitless searches, I created a post on this forum.

Less than 24 hours later, the mystery was solved. Thanks to Brenna, who correctly identified the book as Blind Sight by Meg Howrey. Since I love Howrey’s other books, I hope it will be as good as I remember.

 (Incidentally, her book The Wanderers does have stars on the cover.)

I Spy

Remember those family car trips, playing I Spy, the Alphabet Game, or Who Can Annoy Their Sibling the Fastest? Now that I have teenagers, a trip of any kind has them plugged into their devices. Although I miss the hunt for "q," I don’t mind slipping into my own device for a good book. 

Three summer reads that will capture your attention however you might be traveling these days:

Imposter Syndrome by Kathy Wang 

Julia is a Russian orphan turned tech company COO with a host of household helpers. Alice is a tech support minion, grateful for a steady paycheck. Wang examines the disparate lives of these two women as they each risk their own livelihood seeking to define power and loyalty. Fans of Killing Eve might relish the suspense sans the slaughter.  

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu

Fans of fantasy will be smitten with his imagination. Fans of literary fiction will swoon at his turns of phrase. What if your soul was encapsulated by an ice cube? What if a camera could capture your memory?

What’s Mine and Yours by Naima Coster

The story starts in North Carolina, tragically, with the loss of two men’s lives. Moving back and forth in time and place, we find out how their children cope with that loss. Gee struggles to fit in at a new high school. Noelle finds refuge in theater. One sister becomes an influencer. The other finds companionship in caring for dogs. Eventually we learn how the two families’ futures are intertwined. The story ends, comedically, with a wedding.

Half Empty

I was feeling sooo optimistic just a few weeks ago. Cases were shrinking, athletes were on their way to the Olympics, the eviction moratorium was extended, libraries were opening their doors to patrons. This week, feeling more glass half empty, all I wanted to do was eat delicious vegan ice cream from this place and read books about reality tv hopefuls, has been sitcom actors, and vengeful creative writing students.

Synopses (now, that’s a fun word) below provided by Kirkus Reviews. 

Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake by Alexis Hall

“In this delicious romantic comedy, a British home baker must win a televised cooking competition and navigate her competitors' distractingly good looks to provide a better life for herself and her daughter.”

The Guncle by Steven Rowley

“The children, Grant and Maisie, are 6 and 9, respectively, spending the summer with their Uncle Patrick, or GUP as they call him: Gay Uncle Patrick.”

We Wish You Luck by Caroline Zancan

“Two crafty graduate students plot their revenge when a famous novelist abuses her power.”

 

New Fiction

In a perfect world, my Google calendar would not only keep track of dentist appointments, baseball practices, and birthdays, but it would also remind me of new book releases. Instead, I usually find out my favorite author has a new book by stumbling across it on my library’s Lucky Day shelf or perhaps seeing a post on Instagram.

I’ve posted about these authors before (click on the author’s name to see a previous post), so I will happily add my name to the hold queue for these.

 

Colson Whitehead

Harlem Shuffle (September)

Anthony Doerr

Cloud Cuckoo Land (September)

Liane Moriarty

Apples Never Fall (September)

Miriam Toews

Fight Night (October)

Louise Erdrich

The Sentence (November)

Need ideas for keeping track of new releases? Check out this helpful article from Book Riot.

Curated

 If I’m scrolling through social media, I rarely play videos. However, I always make an exception for Emmymade.  She’s, in a word, watchable. I’m not superfan enough to know her backstory, but I imagined someone like her when reading Hello Sunshine by Laura Dave.

When this novel opens, Sunshine Mackenzie, host of a viral cooking show, is negotiating a Food Network contract and book deal. However, when someone reveals that her carefully “curated” persona is all a fake, she loses not only her fans, but her job and husband. She reluctantly returns home to a sister who begrudgingly lets her sleep on the sofa. Her niece and a friendly fisherman help her find her way back to forming authentic relationships.

The idea of a crafting a persona came up again in the next book I happened to pick up, Sitting Pretty by Rebekah Taussig. She is, in a word, readable.

“I’m pretty sure I spent more time and energy into curating my profile than any other online dating citizen,” writes Taussig in one of the opening essays. Taussig writes about the complications of people wanting to be kind, and her just wanting to be left alone. For example, she says that explaining to a stranger how to assemble her wheelchair from the front seat of her car takes much longer than if she does it herself, as she has thousands of times. In “Feminist Pool Party” she describes how the feeling of being left out at elementary school slumber parties carries over into her colleagues commiserating over #metoo moments. Many of her essays address the need for accommodations, not just because it will help those who need it, but innovations have the potential of helping everyone. She gives the example of curb breaks which accommodate not only wheelchairs, but makes life easier for street vendors, parents with strollers, or a traveler with a rolling suitcase. With humor and a forthright writing style, Taussig is advocating for change in a world that is, for the most part, oblivious to the need.  

Less scrolling, and more listening, perhaps?

Story Worthy

For Father’s Day this year, I gave my dad a subscription to StoryWorth. Each week he’ll receive a writing prompt to inspire him to write down stories from his life. At the end of the year, all the stories will be printed in book form. This week I learned that since his family never went on long vacations as a child, he wanted to make sure that his own kids experienced that. And we did. Annual camping trips to New Mexico and road trips to both coasts, including Disneyland, were a big part of my childhood summers. We also took trips, like he did, to see family, most notably our trips to Arkansas to visit my grandparents. Here’s a repost from 2011 inspired by those trips.

 When my grandparents lived in Arkansas, we used to make the six hour road trip to visit two or three times a year. Our rewards for that much time in a car were afternoons spent listening to my grandmother's stories, a bag of Snickers in the produce drawer, and a coffee table stacked with magazines. My mom and I would settle in on the sofas catching up on Hollywood gossip and the latest his side/her side drama of the advice columns.

My fascination, some might say morbid curiosity, with marriage (troubled or not) led me to pick up a new novel by Carol Edgarian. In Three Stages of Amazement, we are thrown into the marriage of Lena and Charlie. And from the first paragraph, we are almost certain this marriage can't be saved. His failing startup, a baby with medical issues, and an ex-boyfriend (Italian ex-boyfriend) are but some of the factors pulling their relationship asunder.

The others? Well, you'd be amazed. And you might need a Snickers to get you through it all.

Going Viral

I may have mentioned a few months ago I tried reading Stephen King’s The Stand. Definitely too soon.

Being fully vaccinated, and more than a little hopeful, I was still a little hesitant to open one of the books recommended for this week’s challenge. The Pull of the Stars  by Emma Donoghue, as you might expect, also largely takes place in a room. This time it’s in the maternity ward of a hospital in Dublin set during another pandemic, the Great Flu of 1918. Julia, an experienced nurse, cares for her charges despite the scarcity of supplies. In the midst of the inherent drama and uncertainty of childbirth, Julia finds herself drawn to the volunteer helper who infuses the ward with a different kind of life. An added bonus is the inclusion of propaganda signs that might sound more than a little familiar.

Libby’s algorithm also led me to an older book by Alice Hoffman called At Risk. Set during the height of the US AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, it follows a family living in New England. Polly, the mother, has just taken on a new project, photographing the seances of a local seer. Her husband Ivan is an astronomer who has passed his love of science onto their eight-year-old Charlie. Their daughter Amanda is excited about the prospects of her middle school gymnastics team. When Amanda gets sick, her pediatrician decides to check her for the virus.  When the result comes back positive, friendships, school policies, and her parent’s marriage are also tested.

#vanlife

Thanks to Instagram, my daughter wants to live in a van when she grows up. Turns out it's in her genes.

To educate myself more about her aspirations, I sought out Jessica Bruder’s Nomadland. The book follows several van and RV dwellers through temp jobs , caravans, and conventions.

Many in the nomad community support themselves through seasonal jobs. Amazon actively recruits this demographic to work in their warehouses, bending, lifting, and doing repetitive, mind-numbing work, for around $13 an hour. Another popular option is working as a camp host at campgrounds around the country cleaning latrines, picking up trash, and policing noise.

Between gigs they gather in the desert of Arizona with like minded folks, swapping goods, advising the newbies, making treks to Mexico for cheap dental work and prescriptions, and figuring out how to rig their ride to cook, shower, or pee more efficiently.

In a sense, this lifestyle offers freedom from debt, cutting ties from property ownership, taxes, and storage units. For some this is a choice, but for many others in the book, it’s a last resort solution. As Bruder writes, “The last free place in America is a parking spot.”

Home foreclosures, lost jobs, divorces have set them on this path. For others, affording an apartment near their workplace is impossible. Some have retired, selling their home to fund the first leg of their journey.

Although I haven’t seen the movie inspired by the book, I would like to watch it with my daughter. Either the difficulties of the lifestyle will dissuade her, or its joys will entice her even more. Regardless, this book will be required summer reading.

Sonic Youth

The heat wave in Washington this week (it got up to 84, y’all), reminded me of this post from 2009. It makes me nostalgic, not only for air conditioning, but also because that three year old can now drive herself to Sonic.

The air conditioner in my apartment sucks. This is June in Texas after all. So I pile the kids in the station wagon and drive down the block to Sonic. Rolling down the windows lets in a light breeze tinged with the smell of the afternoon’s tater tots. Moments later our drinks arrive. I unwrap the extra straw to keep the nine-month-old occupied, hand back the strawberry shake to my daughter, and open The Red Convertible.

Louise Erdrich’s collection of short stories is part tart, part sweet, just like the cherry limeade in the cup holder. And I even manage to finish a couple of the stories before my three-year-old pokes a hole in the Styrofoam cup, and we find a use for all those extra napkins.

Looking for more summer reads? Try this list for 2021.

 

“It is written, and once written, things aren’t easily forgotten.”

My sister told me that she’s given up watching or reading anything in which women or children are harmed. After reading The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave, I’m inclined to consider adopting the policy.

Set in the 1600s in a remote village in Norway, The Mercies begins with the aftermath of a storm that decimates the male population. Maren loses her father and fiancée, becoming the provider for her aging mother and brother’s widow. Despite the taboo against women fishing, she begins going out each day with a small group in an effort to keep her family from starving.

Meanwhile, another young woman, Ursa, has just found out she’s been promised in marriage to a Scotsman Absalom Cornet. Absalom and Ursa sail to Maren’s village where he’s to investigate rumors of witchcraft. When investigations turn into accusations, the women must suffer horrors greater even than the ravages of the storm.

Although the events portrayed are indeed gruesome, they aren't gratuitous. Sometimes we have to be reminded of the violence perpetuated in the past to keep us vigilant for the potential threats in our present.

Lila and Hadley

Looking for a book featuring a beloved pet where the pet doesn’t die? Honestly, I wasn’t either until this week’s challenge. But then I wouldn't have discovered Lila and Hadley by Kody Keplinger.

After her mom goes to prison, Hadley goes to live with her older sister Beth. Looking for ways to get her out of the house, Beth takes her to the rescue where she works as a trainer. Although Hadley protests that she’s more of a cat person, she comes across Lila, a morose pit bull. Because Lila perks up when she meets Hadley, they decide Hadley should try her hand at fostering, and with Beth’s help, training.

This middle-grade read would be great for a classroom discussion on anger and forgiveness. And the subplot of Hadley learning to cope with her failing eyesight could also spark a conversation on living with a disability. Or if you have a young animal lover, it could also be an engaging summer read, just for the fun of it.

Reframing

 Last week I heard a report on NPR about TCM Reframed, a new series that looks at old movies to discuss why they may be  problematic through a modern lens – or in many cases, why they may have always been problematic. For example, last summer, we watched Grease with our kids and found just as many cringe-worthy as sing-along moments. You may remember this article that Molly Ringwald wrote about watching her own movies with her daughter post #metoo.

As readers, we may find this same experience in looking back at “classics.” Luckily, many authors have done the difficult work for us of reframing many of these stories in ways that are more inclusive and representative.  

Remember the reading challenge? Recently I found two examples through challenge 17 and challenge 8 of classic tales retold.

Roman and Jewel by Dana L. Davis

Fans of Hamilton will revel in the behind-the-scenes drama of a modern spin on Romeo and Juliet. Jerzie Jhames receives her big break when she’s cast as an understudy in a new Broadway musical. Her talent soon catches the attention of the leading man and sparks simmer. When a video of the star’s less than stellar performance goes viral, Jerzie must decide if she’s going to stand by her man or in the spotlight.

 Peter Darling by Austin Chant

“Then his eyes traipsed back to the stranger’s face, to his callous, boyish grin, and Hook’s stomach dropped with sudden revelation.

“You.”

Peter Pan grinned at him.

“Me.”

After many years away, Peter has returned to Neverland. He reconnects with the Lost Boys and is eager to rekindle the war with his nemesis Hook. But as the violence escalates, he begins to remember his first trip out of the nursery window, when he was named Wendy. As the story unfolds, Hook and Peter develop an uneasy alliance which leads to revelation, and eventually release, from a fictional world into a real one.

Whereas

You may have noticed on your social media feed that May 5 is National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. While looking into the history of this, I discovered another news item I missed from April. A unit within the Bureau of Indian Affairs has been created to investigate murdered and missing Native Americans. The unit was recently announced by the first Native American cabinet secretary, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. On a related note, you might listen to this 2020 episode of TAL, featuring a story about Lissa Yellow Bird, who has been investigating missing persons from her community since 2016.

Violence against native American peoples is nothing new in our history. But whether it's taught in our history classes is another matter. One text we might turn to is Whereas by Layli Long Soldier. Through poetry and prose, she offers her lament for 38 Dakota men who were ordered to execution by hanging by President Lincoln. She also responds to a 2009 apology offered by the US government which was buried in the 2010 Defense Appropriations Act. She discusses her response and other reflections on mothering, trusting, and writing in an especially gripping episode of On Being.

"I’m certain
that certain kinds of talk only = pain
excusing myself I paddle deep
in high grass waves I’m safer
outdoors than in /
in those heady grasses the mouth loosens confesses:
I don’t trust nobody but the land I said”
―Layli Long Soldier, Whereas

Buy more books

So it turns out the last Saturday of April is Independent Bookstore Day. Consider supporting your local bookseller or these Black-owned bookstores across the country. If you live in the Seattle area, you can click here for details about Seattle Independent Bookstore Day. Buy a book (or 10)!

I've been on a YA kick lately. Authors I'll be looking for:

Lev Grossman

Leah Johnson 

Adib Khorram 

Jennifer Mathieu (If you liked Moxie, check out this list) 

Angie Thomas 

What's on your shopping list?

good friday

To provide context for today’s (re)post I invite you to listen to this excerpt from This American Life.

Through collage and watercolor illustrations by Bryan Collier, Martin’s Big Words tells the story of Martin Luther King, Jr. Stained glass windows, church steeples, and the American flag illustrate Martin’s message that “everyone can be great.” We read of bus boycotts, marches, bomb threats, accolades, and finally the assassination. A concise history of the great man’s life and work that will have you flipping back through the pages even after your listener has drifted off to sleep.

Martin’s Big Words Words by Doreen Rappaport and Pictures by Bryan Collier

No One is Watching

“The position of my white neighbor is much more difficult…The game of keeping what one has is never so exciting as the game of getting.” – Zora Neale Hurston

So reads the epigraph of When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole

Sydney has agreed to put together a neighborhood tour for the annual Gifford Place block party in Brooklyn. After a difficult divorce, she’s back at home, trying to put her mother’s affairs in order. Finding respite from the heat on her front stoop, she begins noticing all the new neighbors who have displaced the familiar faces she grew up with.

One of those new faces is Theo. He’s living with his ex-girlfriend while they remodel the unit they purchased. He meets Sydney at a neighborhood meeting and volunteers to help her research for the tour. Not only do they begin discovering past injustices perpetrated by white people, but they uncover the sinister plot that is playing out in the present.

Cole aptly portrays the evil of gentrification and white privilege. As events unfold, the horror is not in realizing this would be plausible, but that this is real. 

Love Lettering

Second only to bookstores, stationers are my other happy place. Whether I’m in Ann Arbor or Wenatchee, Dallas or Seattle, I can spend hours perusing greeting cards, pencil bags, and crafty accessories. If I’m stuck waiting somewhere in between books, I simply search for “bullet journal” on Pinterest and the minutes fly by. Therefore, I was delighted to come across a novel of letters in Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn. After all the only thing more romantic than a love letter is the ink and paper with which it was crafted.

Graphic artist Meg has started to make a name for herself in designing custom planners and wedding invitations. She’s just hit a wall in her creative output when a former client reenters her life. Reid, a numbers guy, wants to know how she knew his previous  relationship would fail -due to a cleverly hidden message inked into the invites. After he disparages both her craft and her beloved adopted city, Reid compels Meg to show him what she loves about both. Together they explore various neighborhoods with a new eye on finding typefaces that play against type. Sharing these snapshots, as you might have guessed, also helps them see their friendship from a different angle. This light-hearted romance will make you smile. And may even have you hunting for that calligraphy book you bought that one time.  

"What good is an ark to a fish?"

Although it’s been several weeks since I read Crooked Hallelujah by Kelli Jo Ford, the final section has stuck with me. Now it almost seems like a premonition of the events of the past week in my home state:

“I pad around my house in the morning, turning on faucets and lights to assure myself that the apocalypse is still self-contained over a thousand miles away at my mother’s doorstep.”

Although power is slowly being restored, many Texans are still having to boil water, if they have water, for the next several days if not weeks. Once again a failure of leadership has neighbor helping neighbor, breweries distributing water, and grocery store chains giving away food.

In Ford’s novel, the events leading up to the apocalypse begin in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma in 1974. Justine, or Teeny, is growing up in a household of women, with her sisters, mother and grandmother. Despite the disapproval of her family’s conservative church, she contacts her father, since remarried, who offers to pick her up for a visit: “Life was spiritual warfare, and Six Flags would be no exception.” A date with a local boy leaves her pregnant, and Reney enters the world.

As the story progresses, we see Reney’s self-sufficiency emerge even has she holds a similar longing for a father figure. When Justine meets a jockey from Texas, Pitch offers the two a chance at a new start on his family’s ranch. However, the family pull is strong, and the women don’t completely sever ties with Justine’s mother. When Reney finds herself in an abusive relationship, she finally gets the courage to cut those ties with the knife of higher education.

Ultimately, it’s the end times that will pull her back.

Armchair Travels

COVID travel restrictions have you down? No worries. Two fabulous destinations await!

France and Spain: Two Steps Forward by Anne Buist and Graeme Simsion

Two unlikely pilgrims end up on the French portion of the Camino de Santiago. Zoe has flown to France from California to see an old friend after the unexpected death of her husband. When a scallop charm catches her eye in an antique store, she decides spontaneously to try the walk. Martin, an English engineer, meanwhile has decided he wants to test out a prototype of a pull cart along the route. Martin is methodically equipped with GPS equipment and plans to make reservations at plush accommodations along the way. Zoe has little more than the clothes on her back. In alternating chapters, we follow both as they interact with a common group of fellow travelers, local hosts,  and eventually, each other. This charming account will have you rooting for their success even as the definition of what that means changes with each kilometer traveled.

The Holy Land: The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd

As a young girl growing up in the first century, Ana has to beg her father to be taught to read and write. Eventually, she begins writing down the stories of women on carefully guarded scrolls. Upon the news she is to be betrothed to a widower, she goes to the caves outside of town intending to hide the scrolls her parents plan to destroy. It’s there she first encounters Jesus. And dear reader, she marries him. As political tensions rise, Ana becomes caught up in the drama and must flee to Alexandria. There she discovers a haven of writers and scholars. If you are anxiously waiting the second seasons of this show, this book is a must read.

“the cicadas were the only sound”

 After years of living in the chilly, wet Pacific Northwest, I can barely remember the humid bath that is Japanese summer. Reading The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada (translated by David Boyd) brought it all back, as well as the listlessness one feels living in a small town before making friends.

Asa and her husband have moved back to his hometown. Apart from cooking and some light cooking, Asa doesn’t have much to fill the long, humid days of summer. One day, her mother-in-law asks her to run an errand, so she sets out on a path by the river. Distracted by a strange animal, she falls into a hole.

Although Asa’s rescued fairly quickly, the incident sets off a series of strange events. Since Asa tells the story, we’re never quite sure what’s real, and what isn’t. Although not much happens in the way of plot, the tense mood Oyamada crafts makes this an intense and discomfiting read.

Challenge 3. Read a non-European novel in translation

Biased

Growing up in predominately white spaces shaped how I imagined the world. When I read a book, the characters I pictured in my head were white. When I listened to the radio station, I saw a white DJ or NPR reporter in my mind’s eye. Even now, in my mid-40s, I catch myself falling back into those earlier biases unthinkingly, even though my life experiences, friends, and the books I read have broadened my imagination away from white as the default.

Although I’ve delved into many non-fiction books about antiracism in the past year, I had not yet picked up Biased by Dr. Jennifer L Eberhardt. She gives an overview of the different situations in our society where implicit bias perpetuates inequalities in education and criminal justice. She describes implicit bias as “a kind of distorting lens that’s a product of both the architecture of our brain and the disparities in our society.” She also writes how bias is “not something we exhibit and act on all the time. It is conditional, and the battle begins by understanding the conditions under which it is most likely to come alive.”

Even though she’s a researcher, she’s also a mother of three Black sons. Throughout the book, Eberhardt also includes personal stories of how their observations of social situations sparked both her curiosity and fear.

Reading this book also reminded me of another tool available through Project Implicit. You can test your own implicit attitudes about age, race, sexuality, and more. With self-awareness, we can begin to reset our defaults.

Challenge 2: Read a non-fiction book about antiracism

Homegoing

 

The challenge is back! Since I’m done with my graduate program, I miss the required and recommended reading lists from my classes. That also means I’ve been reading way too many Harlan Coben mysteries. To get my brain back on track, the plan is to read down the list in order  (no procrastinating on the poetry and penguins).

First up: read a book you’ve been intimated to read. If you are unfamiliar with Book Riot’s Read Harder Challenge, they provide handy curated lists for each category to get you started. That’s how I landed on Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi.

Gyasi follows the lineage of two half-sisters from 1700s Africa to present day. Each chapter focuses on one generation, alternating between the lines.  She strikingly shows how the evils and trauma of slavery persist, no matter how many years have passed since its abolition. The stories are richly varied, yet each character faces similar challenges in how he or she relates to the divine, nature, and human power structures. And ultimately survives.

Grappling with mental health aka "quirky"

Years ago, I began labeling books with the moniker quirky after noticing that “quirky situations” merited a movie rating of PG. Although the following list includes some 2020 releases, some are simply those I discovered this past year. Although old favorites made the list (see Kevin Wilson and Aimee Bender), others were included for the unique way the characters grapple with depression, ignition, death, identity, thirst, and divorce, among other more run of the mill challenges. All, fittingly for 2020, are memorable.

Inland by Tea Obrecht

“Might the dead truly inhabit the world alongside the living: laughing, thriving, growing, and occupying themselves with the myriad mundanities of afterlife, invisible merely because the mechanism of seeing them had yet to be invented?”

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

 “A philosophical question: if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? And if a woman who's wholly alone occasionally talks to a pot plant, is she certifiable?”

Ordinary People by Diana Evans

“His life required a dramatic change, a splintering, some kind of scandal or shock or tremor, when he most wanted to flee, to rip off his suit and run screaming from the building, and go – where?”

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson

“We just rode in silence the rest of the way, the radio playing easy listening that made me want to slip into a hot bath and dream about killing everyone I knew.”

The Butterfly Lampshade by Aimee Bender

“The conversation from the Living Room recorder between us all was the only one I could listen to in full, because if was the last I had, and the easiest to rewind to, and didn’t cause the same kind of ache.”

This is How it Always Is by Laurie Frankel

“Just because it’s made up, doesn’t mean it isn’t real,” said Penn. “Made up is the most powerful real there is.”

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

“Most adults claim not to believe in magic, but Klara knows better. Why else would anyone play at permanence--fall in love, have children, buy a house--in the face of all evidence there's no such thing?”