"no one in the world is a reliable source for their own story"

Recently my library curated a list of novels based on historical figures. From that list, I found two completely engrossing reads.

Booth by Karen Joy Fowler

Fowler takes us into a deeply troubled, yet fascinating family. Although the action culminates in the event that made this name infamous, the stories of John’s siblings are equally, if not more, dramatic. Nothing less would be expected from the offspring of a Shakespearean actor.

The Mayfair Bookshop by Eliza Knight

In this novel, we enter the world of Nancy Mitford. A struggling, though not impoverished writer, Mitford longs for acclaim. As her 30^th birthday approaches, she enters into a marriage of convenience and soon discovers her husband lacks what it takes to be the breadwinner. So Mitford turns her family’s foibles into the perfect plot for her next project. Fast forward to the present, Lucy, a young library curator, travels to London on assignment. She lands in Mitford’s bookshop and begins searching for clues to solve a long-running mystery in her own family.

For more titles, see this list. 

Writers Written

Lately I’ve been following this Insta account, which as the name implies, frames the artist as subject. I then realized I’ve read several books in the past few weeks which feature real life writers as fictional characters.

Love and Fury by Samantha Silva

This novel examines the life of Mary Shelley’s mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, an early feminist who wrote about women’s rights in the 1700s. Her unconventional relationships, interest in the natural world, and tumultuous childhood are given a lyrical treatment by Silva. The birth scene that opens resignedly, “Another girl. In this world” ends with celebration, “Another girl, in this world!” And if you haven’t read Silva’s Mr. Dickens and His Carol, what the deuce!

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

The only thing that gets Tookie through her period of incarceration was books. She lands a job in a Minneapolis bookstore and has a ready recommendation for anyone who walks through the door. That includes her most challenging customer, Flora, who upon death, decides she’s not ready to leave. As Tookie deals with Flora’s presence, and a powerful book she left behind, the bookstore’s owner, an author named Louise, must figure out how to keep the store running as a mysterious virus begins spreading. (Did I mention this is 2020?) Darkly humorous, the novel presents the events that are so fresh in our memories from the perspective of the essential employees who kept many of us sane, booksellers. And reflects on how the Native community responded as the racial reckoning erupted.

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?

“some images of historical smoking”

Apparently this warning has been around for about a decade, but I first noticed it a few weeks ago while watching a film on Netflix. 

Now, every time I read about a character smoking in a novel, the phrase pops into my head.

Most recently it was when I was reading The Best We Could Do, an illustrated memoir by Thi Bui. Bui chronicles her family’s escape from Vietnam in the 70s. After a winter in the Midwest plagued by illness, the family decides to move to California. As she and her sibling try to adjust to their new life, their parents continue to work and attend night school. Of her father, "I remembered he smoked a lot." The boxes depicting those afternoons with her father are bisected with somewhat menacing plumes of his cigarette smoke. Her childhood memories are framed by her experience as a new mom. At the same time, she is trying to figure out how to relate to her own parents now that she truly feels she is an adult.

Filaments of smoke also drift through a novel I picked up on the sale table at this bookstore last week. Amor Towles’ Rule of Civility is set in the 1930s. Katey Kontent and her roommate Eve strike up a conversation with a young man they meet in a bar on New Year's Eve. This chance encounter with Tinker Grey opens a small window into a posher social circle. Through Tinker’s connections, Katey finds work at a fledgling Vanity Fair type magazine and friendship, if not romance, with Tinker’s friend Wallace. Towles, a master at dialogue (and setting – be it a hunt club or “quasi-Russian demimonde”), whisks the reader into the action, leaving her quite breathless.

And not because of the second-hand smoke.  

Turning Ten

Like all good origin stories, this one begins in a garage. No, wait. With a birth.

Ten years ago, my son was born at the tail end of August. I had a semester off from teaching, so I felt like I had a little time on my hands to do some writing. A coworker suggested I try a blog. So I did.

Four cities, four libraries, four book clubs later, I somehow have kept it going – in all weathers.

Only recently have I begun sharing my posts on Facebook. Before that, I would intermittently  send out an email, casually mentioning the link. After I shared it with a Moms book club I belonged to, I heard about the following conversation:

“That blog M* sent out. It’s so funny and smart.”

“Morningstar writes it.”

 “She does??!!”

Since the blog turns 10 this month, I’ve compiled a list of 10 of my favorite posts I hope you’ll enjoy reading (or re-reading).

Because, well, that’s kind of the point.

2008 That thing is Toad!

2009 Candy, Nuts and Ladies Underwear

2010 One Night Stand (or the other)

2011 Under the Wire

2012 Happenstance

2013 Care of Wooden Floors

2014 “The pulse of the post-strip-club shopping crowd”

2015 In Storage

2016 I Have My Own Quirks

2017 “Barbie and Ruth”

"The cottage sat at the edge of the lough..."

Traveling to Bainbridge Island this past weekend, we happened upon this bookstore.  Browsing in the clearance section, I found a copy of TransAtlantic by Colum McCann. Standing in the aisle I flipped through it. Even though the words were familiar, I had read it a few years ago, I was mesmerized again.Taking it up to the cash register, I was charmed by the sales clerk who was so pleased I had found it. And on sale!

The title refers to journeys taken by wind, sea, and plane. Two pilots attempting to fly from Newfoundland to Ireland agree to carry a letter written by a journalist. Frederick Douglass makes an appearance on a book tour of Ireland and inspires a housemaid to seek her freedom in America.  A Senator is well-known to the transatlantic crew of British Airways for his trips back and forth from Ireland to New York, tasked with brokering peace. The journalist’s granddaughter, herself advanced in years, attempts to sell the original letter which has remained unopened.   

TransAtlantic manages the rare feat of beautifully blending plot and poetry. Read it once for the writing. Read it again for the story. And read it a third time to savor both. 

Advent

My daughter had to give a presentation at school about her family’s holiday traditions. She chose to talk about Advent. When she had finished speaking, a boy in her class raised his hand and asked, “Do you still celebrate Christmas?”

Actually, this year we may be just celebrating Christmas since, in the move, I’ve managed to misplace our Advent wreath, children’s nativity set, and Advent calendar, a book called The Storyof Christmas. 

Those objects are replaceable of course, but one of the nice things about traditions is unpacking the ones you have used year after year. The corners may be dog eared, the wreath may be splattered with pink and purple wax, and the donkey may be missing a tail, but that is part of what makes them yours.

Whether you are starting a new tradition or supplementing an old, perhaps one of these books will add to your Advent season:

The Light of theWorld: Daily Meditations for Advent and Christmas by Phyllis Zagano

Advent of the Heart: SeasonalSermons and Prison Writings - 1941-1944 by Alfred Delp

A Gift for the ChristChild: A Christmas Folktale by Anne Wilson and Linda Schlafer

Manger edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins

Light Upon Light: ALiterary Guide to Prayer for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany compiled by Sarah Arthur

Who Built the Stable?: A Nativity Poem by Ashley Bryan

Pretty Paper by Willie Nelson and David Ritz

"The pulse of the post-strip-club shopping crowd"

I took the opportunity this past summer to take my kids here. Rather than finding it intriguing, they were spooked. I have not doubts they would have found Robin Sloan’s Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore equally spooky.

Clay, an out of work web designer, begins working the night shift at Mr. Penumbra’s. Of his job search he says, “At first I had insisted I would only work at a company with a mission that I believed in…After that I decided it just couldn’t be evil. Now I was carefully delineating my personal definition of evil.” Eventually it is not evil but boredom that drives Clay to begin investigating the customers. Rather than buy books, these characters check out titles from the mysterious multistoried collection in the back of the store. He goes through the log of book loans and maps the patterns of their borrowing. In doing so, he begins unraveling the mystery in weeks that most customers have spent lifetimes solving.  

Sloan manages, in the course of these events, to bring a little romance into Clay’s life. Clay falls in love with a Googler who attempts to help him to crack the mysterious code. “Books: boring. Codes: awesome. These are the people who are running the Internet.” But ultimately the romance fails since he and his other friends have a more romantic view of the world: “I have waited my whole life to walk through a secret passage built into a bookshelf.”

I shudder to think which side my kids would choose.  

Bargain Book Bonanza

I wandered into the clearance section at Half Price Books the other day. Expecting to find nothing more than a few dozen copies of Manny or titles like Real Vampires Have Curves, I was pleasantly surprised to find some old favorites. Seeing as they were only a dollar (!) each, little E. decided to go ahead and get my Christmas present out of the way. So now in our permanent collection we have:

The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
The God of Small Things: A Novel by Arundhati Roy
The Map of Love: A Novel by Ahdaf Soueif

P. is thinking about going back next week to see what she can find for me.