tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69347480907927665902024-03-06T01:30:21.449-05:00Books, Personally<em>reading, writing, and books to love</em>books, personallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02702898159597189582noreply@blogger.comBlogger260125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934748090792766590.post-65009838969859504202018-12-31T10:00:00.002-05:002018-12-31T10:00:24.824-05:002018 Reflections: Reading, Writing, Rituals<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><i>Reading</i></b><br />
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Another reading year gone by. While I haven't been on the blog much, it has been a rich year for books, with some of my favorites of the year pictured above. Notably missing is Luis Alberto Urrea's beautiful, autobiographically-inspired <b>House of Broken Angels</b> (it had to go back to the library months ago). Maybe it was life in general or maybe it was the heightened, fraught climate of public discourse that left me more vulnerable, but it was definitely a year for books that got to my heart. House of Broken Angels and Rebekah Frumkin's <b>The Comedown</b> were sweeping, satisfying family sagas which left me dabbing away a few tears, as did Tommy Orange's brilliant and powerful <b>There There,</b> and Anthony Marra's intricately connected story collection <b>Tsar of Love and Techno</b> (for the record, Mr. Marra, you are now two for two in making this reader teary over your books, this latest also inspiring a homemade graphic). Leading the deliciously escapist, suspenseful, devour-in-a-single-sitting category were Claire Fuller's <b>Bitter Orange</b> and Tana French's <b>The Witch Elm</b>. The book which surprised me the most was Monique Roffey's <b>The White Woman on a Green Bicycle</b>, an Orange Prize finalist from years ago, picked up used at a book sale somewhere. This beautifully written novel explores the complexities of race, colonialism and complicity in a pivotal historical period in the Caribbean through the lens of a European woman, frustrated in her marriage, who begins a one-way correspondence with a rising Trinidadian political leader.<br />
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<b><i>Writing</i></b><br />
There wasn't much of it that wasn't work-related this year, although I loved participating in Midwestern Gothic's 2018 Flash Fiction challenge. As always, the photo prompts were awesome - you can <a href="http://midwestgothic.com/2011/01/flash-fiction-series-summer-2018/" target="_blank">learn more and read the winning stories</a> at the MW website. I haven't decided yet whether to try to find a home for my little pieces, or maybe just pop them up here.<br />
<br /><b><i>Rituals</i></b><br />
Some habits die hard, and though #FridayReads seems to have lost its momentum, I still often share mine out of habit. #SundaySentence on twitter has become not only my virtual book club, but also my tribe. Launched years ago by <a href="http://davidabramsbooks.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">David Abrams</a>, devoted readers share a Sunday ritual of observing and sharing one true or beautiful or impactful sentence of the week with other readers and writers. The sentences and their sharers inspire, enlighten, and often introduce me to a new book or author, but they have also created a real community of reading friends around the globe.<br />
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What were your favorites of the year, and what books, dreams, or practices lie ahead for you in 2019?<br />
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<i>Happy reading, and Happy New Year!</i><br />
<br />bookspersonallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776600422633283514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934748090792766590.post-7523537043590347362018-12-30T13:04:00.004-05:002018-12-30T13:04:52.938-05:00Review: And So We Die Having First Slept - Jennifer Spiegel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>How do you tell a love story? And where do you begin? </i></div>
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<i>From birth? In bed?</i></div>
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<i>Don’t you only know it’s a love story at the end?</i></div>
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It is always a special pleasure to be invited to read the latest work of an author whose books you have loved. Many thanks to Jennifer Spiegel - author of <b>Love Slave</b> and <b>The Freak Chronicles</b> - for a complimentary review copy of <b><a href="https://five-oaks-press.com/2018/02/08/and-so-we-die-having-slept-first-by-jennifer-spiegel/" target="_blank">And So We Die Having First Slept</a> </b><i>(Five Oaks Press, 2018)</i>. In the way of the interconnected world in which we live, and by way of disclosure, I've gotten to know Jennifer a little bit - and admire her a lot - in the way one does with people with whom you've become friends on social media.<br />
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This love story begins with Brett, a "very nearly lovely" college student in the early 90's, the requisite young adult friendships and romances; the also requisite scarring of her heart. She and her friends graduate, pursue careers, witness 9/11, and eventually put more distance between them. Brett moves across the country only to soon thereafter experience a life-changing accident. As she grapples with disability and rehabilitation, she meets Cash, a younger man. They too-quickly fall in love and embark on a turbulent marriage and parenthood, through which Spiegel explores a myriad of complex and interconnected issues of self, partnership, love, despair, faith, emotional intimacy, and more.<br />
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Things I loved:<br />
The gorgeous, gorgeous cover<br />
The author's offbeat and irreverent humor<br />
Fervent and frequently beautiful writing<br />
A coming of age, and coming of "a certain" age story so closely aligned with my own personal timeline<br />
A novel steeped both in nostalgia and in the lived wisdom of time and perspective<br />
The movingly raw and deeply empathetic portrayal of a family in crisis<br />
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Brett and Cash's story is told looking to the past, and (largely chronologically) working back toward the present. Occasionally I felt a timeline hiccup: For example, a moment of profound revelation for one character had already seemed quite clear to me as a reader. Spiegel also bravely takes on an examination of lived faith versus professed faith, including a church's potential or failure to help Brett and Cash and their family. This strand didn't feel quite as organically integrated with the characters as I thought I knew them, and with their timeline as it unfolded, and so this one aspect of their story didn't have as much impact for me as it might otherwise have.<br />
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Brett and Cash are not easy characters, and theirs is not an easy love story. As one says,<i> it's complicated.</i><br />
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But then, it wouldn't be interesting if it weren't.<br />
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<i>Happy reading!</i><br />
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bookspersonallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776600422633283514noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934748090792766590.post-53573446793953182052018-09-08T09:12:00.001-04:002018-09-08T09:13:17.725-04:00Review: Shelf Life of Happiness, Stories by Virginia Pye<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Sometimes a book's cover gets it so right. Like the withering flowers of Margaret Buchanan's stunning cover design, the characters in Virginia Pye's <b>Shelf Life of Happiness</b> <i>(forthcoming October 2018, Press 53) </i>are haunting and beautiful not in spite of, but because of, their broken complexity.<br />
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The stories felt very intimate as I read them, exploring intense feelings like secrecy, failure, shame, longing, and regret. In <i>Her Mother's Garden</i>, a woman struggling with her aging parents' decline sells their beloved family home to a trusted friend, only to discover she has been betrayed. A wife planning to leave her husband in <i>Crying in Italian</i> can't help but follow blissful young lovers through the ancient ruins of Rome, leaving her children perilously unattended at a busy tourist site. In <i>White Dog</i>, a fading but fiercely independent artist rejects a stylish and successful young art dealer's attempts to reinvent and resurrect him.<br />
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One of the things I loved best was the way the author conveyed a very visceral sense of these emotions. In <i>Redbone,</i> a man contemplating his life choices swims out beyond the safety zone: waves of water and waves of regret well up, increasing and overwhelming him as he becomes ever more helpless in a surging ocean. <i>Best Man</i> was the first, and my favorite of the stories, and the most striking example: Two college friends, Keith and Don are reunited for a trip to Reno for Don's wedding to Caroline. Don is a gay man dying of AIDS, Keith is a bit of a ladies' man, Caroline is a newer but dedicated force in Don's life. The story is compelling and heartbreaking, as Don grows weaker and the three race against time to have a wedding before it is too late. Don and Keith have a complicated past, and with the entrance of Caroline into Don's life, Keith struggles to make sense of all of it. As I read, I could feel Don's frailty, the feverish heat of his skin juxtaposed against the chills of illness and a Nevada snowstorm, and the practically electric connection between the three in the heightened moment of Don's dying. <br />
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There were a few very small things that didn't work as well, for example, a dad's suddenly severe reaction to his son at the very end of <i>An Awesome Gap</i> felt like just a bit of a leap, undermining a story that had me up until that point; the main character in <i>New Year's Day</i> felt just a little too naive from the start. Overall, however, I loved these stories and with all the images and questions they conjured up. Recommended for fans of short, literary fiction.<br />
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<i>My thanks to the publisher and publicist for a complimentary review copy of Shelf Life of Happiness.</i><br />
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<i>Happy reading!</i><br />
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<br />bookspersonallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776600422633283514noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934748090792766590.post-15715037788140806252018-06-24T08:37:00.000-04:002018-06-24T08:37:14.709-04:00Review: The Comedown - Rebekah Frumkin<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>"Of those who've shut their eyes to the world with few or no regrets, it can be said both that their number is small, and that Leland Abdiel Bloom-Mittwoch Sr. was not among them."</i></blockquote>
Two things I am always excited to find when I first open a novel: a map, and a family tree.<br />
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The presence of either suggests that there is so much more here that you might need a guide to more fully appreciate and immerse yourself in it - complex bloodlines, or perhaps a previously uncharted world. And while sometimes the map or chart is a necessary reference to understanding a book, other times, like this one, it is more of a visual preparation for the journey ahead: don't forget we are all connected.<br />
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From the arresting first sentence quoted above, <b>The Comedown</b> (Rebekah Frumkin, <i>Henry Holt & Company 2018</i>) charges headfirst into a gripping first chapter, which, it will be no spoiler to tell you, culminates in our Leland, to whom we have very quickly become attached, throwing himself from the roof of a Tampa, Florida hotel. To understand why he should do such a thing, we travel back in time to Cleveland, Ohio, where a drug deal goes bad and cascades into a fateful chain of events that become this funny/sad/heartwarming and deeply satisfying family saga.<br />
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The plot is punctuated with exciting elements: dealers, double crossers, murder, and a suitcase full of cash - but the story is really one of family and how the legacy of our actions and mistakes ripple across generations. The structure of the novel amplifies this: chapters move forward and back in time, and rotate through the cast of characters, steadily threading each person and place to another. In some books a timeline like this might get confusing, but I didn't find it so here. Frumkin's characters are so carefully detailed and thoroughly developed that any of them - including two wives, a mistress, a best friend, their children, and their lovers - could be an entire novel unto him/herself. And because they were so complete, and written which such love and humor, I loved them all, even the maddening ones, as if they were my own family.<br />
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Follow the suitcase. Relish the writing. Miss them all when the book is done.<br />
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Happy reading!<br />
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<i>I received my complimentary copy of <b>The Comedown</b> from the publisher. </i><br />
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<br />bookspersonallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776600422633283514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934748090792766590.post-422085612708054982018-05-28T16:41:00.002-04:002018-05-28T16:41:56.344-04:00Review: Left Bank - Agnès Poirier<br />
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If you have ever imagined what it might be to live an intellectual's life in the defiant and heady era of wartime and post-war Paris, pull up a cafe chair, get a good view of the avenue, pour a glass of wine, and commence observing the colorful players in Agnès Poirier's fascinating and a bit dishy <b>Left Bank Art, Passion and the Rebirth of Paris, 1940-50</b> <i>(Henry Holt & Co., 2018)</i>.<br />
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Poirier opens with the French preparing for Nazi occupation - the artwork from the Louvre deftly smuggled to clandestine hiding places in the countryside! - then plunges the reader intimately into the lives and loves of such notable figures in literature, politics, art, music and philosophy such as Simone de Beauvoir, Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Pablo Picasso, Americans James Baldwin and Richard Wright, and many others through wartime and beyond. With their fierce intellects, their passionate friendships, and their highly unconventional romantic relationships, Sartre and Beauvoir are at the heart of this book, anchors of a creative network, and of a movement, whose influence extended far beyond Paris.<br />
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I was most struck that, in a time of repression and significant material scarcity, these talented writers and artists together nurtured such rich creative and political lives. Their food and wine may have been strictly rationed, but they were called to their work by a different necessity:<br />
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<i>"It was the lesson learned from the war: indifference bred chaos. It was time to stare at the reality with lucidity in order to change it. To experiment with life, love, and ideas, to throw away conventions, to reinvent oneself, and to reenchant the world were the new mottos of Paris's young."</i></blockquote>
It sounds quite noble and idealistic, though the reality of their lives was rather messy (think alcohol/substance use, infidelity, etc.). The author tells their stories through a mosaic of day-to-day details pieced against a backdrop of history, and for me this was both the delight and sometimes the frustration of the book. I was often lost in the specifics, and thought I would have gotten much more from it by starting off with a far better prior knowledge of the players. But I enjoyed learning about these brilliant if often deeply flawed figures, and the history overall. And <b>Left Bank</b> reminds us that the question of the role of the artist during times of political injustice or repression is one that will remain forever relevant.<br />
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<i>My thanks to the publisher for a complimentary review copy of <b>Left Bank</b>. Happy reading!</i><br />
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<br />bookspersonallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776600422633283514noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934748090792766590.post-85054245264304107652018-05-05T10:03:00.003-04:002018-05-05T10:03:58.768-04:00Review: The Parking Lot Attendant - Nafkote Tamirat<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>The Parking Lot Attendant </b>by Nafkote Tamirat <i>(Henry Holt & Company, 2018)</i> is the highly intriguing coming of age story of an young woman raised amidst the Ethiopian immigrant community of Boston. Her world is one in which everyone knows everyone, nothing happens without eyes and ears upon it, and news and gossip travel fast. Our protagonist's mother long ago left her to be raised by her father, who like many dads is protective, devoted, but also hard pressed to relate to her. When Ayale - who is charming, older, and a successful parking lot entrepreneur - takes an interest, she falls fast and hard, and unknowingly becomes entrenched in a dangerous conspiracy.<br />
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I was first drawn in by the many aspects of the novel that make this story refreshingly different from other well-trodden journeys of teen self discovery. The novel opens with our narrator and father living in a mysterious intentional community on the island of B - . It isn't going well, and we immediately want to know how and why they are there. I most loved the heart of the novel, the backstory, set in Boston. Tamirat writes about this particular community with love and humor, from individual family dynamics to social and economic networks. Everyone is connected to everyone else, as wonderfully described in the father's immigration story:<br />
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<i>"After three exhausting months, my father's mother found a heretofore ignored uncle, who had a daughter, who knew a hairdresser, who was on fairly good terms with a former radio host, who currently lived in a place or a condition called 'Fall River'. "</i></blockquote>
I also enjoyed that Ayale's parking lot business was one part legit, two parts hustle, and attracted a colorful cast of characters. The underlying nefarious plot was sometimes more challenging to get a clear handle on. Given the extremity of the danger it ultimately put our protagonist in, the details and the stakes might have been a little more explicitly conveyed. But this is a minor quibble. Most importantly, the novel got to my heart. The emotional chasm between the narrator and her father was achingly real; Ayale's magnetism was palpable, and their relationship convincing. Even as things started to go very wrong, I could not discount that by filling a vacant role in her life, he was essential to she needed to become. This tension kept me rapt, and reading.<br />
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<i>Many thanks to the publisher for a complimentary review copy of The Parking Lot Attendant.</i><br />
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<i>Happy reading!</i><br />
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<br />bookspersonallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776600422633283514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934748090792766590.post-50087494944768164582018-03-02T21:14:00.000-05:002018-03-02T21:14:13.464-05:00Review: In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills - Jennifer Haupt<br />
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<i>"It's this place, so beautiful and full of promise. Rwanda, the people and the land, draw you in, take everything you have and make you dig deep within your soul, willingly, to keep searching for more."</i></blockquote>
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Sometimes an author's love for her subject is so strong it is palpable, flowing through every word, every character, every description of a place that is deeply etched in her heart. <b>In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills</b> <i>(Central Avenue Publishing, forthcoming April 2018)</i> is just such a book.<br />
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Ten years after the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, journalist Jennifer Haupt traveled the country, interviewing survivors and aid workers, learning about the impact of this terror and the difficult process of reconciliation. From that trip was born a moving novel exploring themes of love and family, violence and peacemaking, and grief and forgiveness.<br />
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The story centers around Lillian Carlson, a young African-American civil rights worker from Atlanta, inspired to move to Rwanda to found an orphanage following Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination; Henry Shepherd, the white photographer who leaves his family to make his home with her there; and Rachel Shepherd, Henry's daughter. Years later, married and hoping for a family of her own, Rachel experiences the devastating death of her unborn baby. In her grief, Rachel seeks out the father who left her, the last family she has. Rachel's research leads her to Lillian's orphanage, the children she cares for, and Tucker, a young doctor who devotes his time to them. Henry, however, has vanished.<br />
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Rachel arrives to a community still reeling from the violence. Entire families slaughtered, neighbor turned upon neighbor, survivors traumatized. As her search for Henry unfolds, Rachel becomes close to the children, Tucker, and Lillian. Meanwhile, the official reconciliation process begins, and tensions begin to rise again. As the truth of the most horrific act of violence in the village comes out, so does the truth about Henry Shepherd.<br />
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<b>In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills</b> transported me to this beautiful, injured country and made vivid a event that has otherwise been hard to fully comprehend. I loved the way the characters fought to save each other, protect each other, and help each other heal, however best they could. Above all, I loved that this book felt so, so personal. I can only imagine how powerful an experience it was to travel there, to hear the stories, and to bear witness.<br />
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<i>I received a complimentary Advance Reading Copy of In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills from the author.</i><br />
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<i>Happy reading!</i><br />
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<i><br /></i>bookspersonallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776600422633283514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934748090792766590.post-83242449870760393152018-02-17T08:37:00.000-05:002018-03-02T19:59:13.511-05:00Review: This Far Isn't Far Enough, stories by Lynn Sloan<br />
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Grief is not the exclusive province of death and dying in Lynn Sloan's poignant short story collection <b>This Far Isn't Far Enough</b>. Rather, we experience loss, deeply, in the many ordinary gaps and failures of our lives, over and over again.<br />
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In these stories, we meet mothers who ache after the relationships they wish they had had with wayward children, and daughters who only truly know their mothers after they are gone. Lovers and spouses lead secret lives. Coworkers betray their colleagues. Caregivers are torn between the importance of their work and all they must give up to do it.<br />
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What struck me most in this collection was the understanding and compassion with which Sloan explores the complex feelings we have about the different ages and stages and roles in our lives. In one of my favorites, an aging actor acutely feels the loss of his youth and declining career, the loss of his beloved to dementia, and the physical, practical and economic challenges of properly caring for her. The reader feels his love, his frustration, and his sadness, but also is moved by the way in which memories of the theater sustain their connection.<br />
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<b>This Far Isn't Far Enough</b> debuts February 20 from <a href="http://www.fomitepress.com/This_Far.html" target="_blank">Fomite Press</a>. My thanks to the publisher for a complimentary advance review copy.<br />
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<i>Happy reading!</i><br />
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<br />bookspersonallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776600422633283514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934748090792766590.post-31614974917210342902018-02-03T09:39:00.002-05:002018-02-03T09:39:20.932-05:00Catching Up to a New Year<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Every December and January, while the myriad bloggers and columnists and academies and institutions are celebrating and awarding the best of the best of the year gone by, I seem to always be just starting to catch up on everything I didn't get to. The books become my Christmas wish list, and if I'm lucky and Santa shows mercy, my vacation becomes a delicious frenzy of holiday reading.<br />
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This year, I loved Attica Locke's <b>Bluebird, Bluebird</b>, absorbing crime fiction which also tells powerful truths about race, family, history and our justice system. Read back to back with Ernest Gaines' exquisite short story collection <b>Bloodline</b>, and with Jesmyn Ward's <b>Sing, Unburied, Sing</b> recently etched so deeply in my heart, the experience of each book accented and amplified the others, together creating a moving trilogy of outstanding writing and examination of our nation's collective conscience.<br />
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I eagerly dove into two small press books, Jac Jemc's <b>The Grip of It</b>, and <b>A Woman is a Woman Until She is a Mother</b> by Anna Prushinskaya. Jemc proved herself once again to be the master of the unreliable narrator, or in this case, two: a husband and a wife each increasingly consumed by a supernatural force in their house. It was creepily delightful to be drawn deeper and deeper into the story and their growing mistrust of themselves and each other. The title alone of <b>A Woman is a Woman</b> hooked me, even long before the pub date. This brief but smart and engaging essay collection explores the profound personal transformation that is particular to becoming a mother, but also transformation more broadly. I devoured it in one sitting, and suspect it is a book I will go back to from time to time.<br />
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If you have ever had the experience of being gifted a book you have never heard of, and would never have stumbled upon on your own, and yet turns out to be an absolutely perfect fit, you already know that the gift is so much more than the book alone. Multiply by ten when the giver is your own teen daughter, and the book is <b>I Called Him Necktie </b>by Milena Michiko Flasar. Originally published in German, but set in Japan, this perfectly written, heartbreaking/heartwarming novel tells the story of the lifesaving connection forged between a sacked and disgraced salaryman and a reclusive young adult. While the two are extreme examples, this beautiful little book says so much about the fragile balance between our inner selves and belonging to the larger world.<br />
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January ended up a bit of a bust - a tiny coating of snow shut our southern city down for nearly a week, then work, then kid stuff, then, then... but February looks brighter with two promising ARC's and a chance to see Attica Locke speak at the upcoming <a href="https://www.savannahbookfestival.org/" target="_blank">Savannah Book Festival</a>. This morning, the first herald of spring on a neighbor's hurricane damaged but just-holding-on plum (cherry?) tree.<br />
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And yet she persisted. To spring, and to surviving the storms to bloom anew.<br />
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What does the month hold in store for you?<br />
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<i>Happy reading!</i><br />
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<i><br /></i>bookspersonallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776600422633283514noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934748090792766590.post-48918576403681278012017-12-02T15:27:00.000-05:002017-12-02T15:27:39.447-05:00Review: Inheriting the War<br />
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When I was about ten, a Vietnamese student joined our predominantly white, middle-class elementary school. She spoke little English, but was sweet and drew exquisite, exotic-to-my-American-eyes flowers. We didn't talk much, but we smiled often and awkwardly, and drew flowers together, and became friends of a sort.<br />
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Middle school took us our separate ways, and it did not occur to me at the time - or for long afterwards - to wonder how she came to live in our (as eventually canonized by Billy Joel) waning, steel-manufacturing era, Pennsylvanian city. Like many kids, I don't remember being especially aware of current events until my tweens or early teens, and by that time the Vietnam war had been over for several years.<br />
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While the world has its way of moving on, Laren McClung's poignant anthology <b>Inheriting the War: Poetry and Prose by Descendants of Vietnam Veterans and Refugees</b> <i>(W.W. Norton, 2017)</i> makes it clear that, in ways that are deep and profound, the conflict in Vietnam continues to shape the lives of both children of American soldiers and of the children of families who fled to America following the Fall of Saigon.<br />
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The collection is extensive, and it took me several weeks to work my way through, a few stories and poems at a time. As you might imagine, the emotions are powerful, with many pieces conveying painful memories of growing up witnessing parents struggling with divorce, post-traumatic stress, depression, or substance abuse. Among my favorites were Nick Flynn's portrait of his stepfather Travis, who grappled with the moral injury he sustained as a soldier and his personal struggle to find meaning; Andrew Pham's first-hand, unfolding account of living through the Fall of Saigon; Bich Minh Nguyen's affecting story of being an immigrant student in a midwestern elementary school; and Ocean Vuong's gorgeous and piercing elegy for a cousin who took his own life.<br />
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I loved the range of voices - male and female, children of veterans and children who were refugees, American and Vietnamese. Each awakened me to a different perspective, or a new fact, or a detail I hadn't considered before. Some sent me turning to Google for more context. (I learned, for example, that Fort Indiantown Gap, not far from where I grew up, was a designated refugee resettlement camp. How had I not known this? Had my friend's family come through there? What would that experience have been like?)<br />
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Because there are so many writers, and so many pieces, I did think the anthology might have benefited from, if not more curation (for I can see why it would have been difficult to leave any of the pieces out), a clearer thematic structure. I felt this especially for the poems, which while lovely, often felt as if they floated, unmoored between other pieces. But even the prose pieces could sometimes have used a little more context to anchor them in the reader's mental geography or timeline. Nonetheless, I couldn't help but be moved by both the individual pieces and by the collection as a whole, and I came away with a richer understanding of the war and its legacy.<br />
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I must also call your attention to the stunning <a href="https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/reading-the-leaves/" target="_blank">cover art by Binh Danh</a>, whose artistic concept so perfectly expresses the soul of this collection: "The images of war are part of the leaves, and live inside and outside of them."<br />
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Indeed.<br />
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<br />bookspersonallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776600422633283514noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934748090792766590.post-716096557168788432017-11-18T12:06:00.000-05:002017-11-18T12:06:37.504-05:00Review: Little Fires Everywhere - Celeste Ng<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: center;">
<b><i>"But after the burning the soil is richer, and new things can grow."</i></b></blockquote>
The citizens of Shaker Heights, Ohio, are proud to live in a community that boasts thoughtful planning, impeccable schools, and well maintained lawns. These are civil, harmonious folk, who value diversity, civic duty, and community service. But behind the carefully maintained family narratives and idyllic facades, fires are burning.<br />
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Into the tidy, well ordered life of the Richardson family comes a free-spirited artist, Mia Warren, who becomes a lifeline for misfit Izzy Richardson, and Mia's teenage daughter, Pearl, who quickly becomes inseparable from the other Richardson children. Mia takes up the cause of a young Chinese immigrant seeking to regain custody of the baby girl she abandoned in desperation, setting Mia in direct opposition to her landlord and Richardson matriarch, Elena, who is best friends with the adoptive parents. The Richardson family and the community as a whole erupt and divide over the case and their alliances, Elena unearths and reveals devastating secrets from Mia's past, and their world as they know it goes up in flames.<br />
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It took a few chapters for this novel to take hold for me, but once it did, I couldn't put it down. I was drawn in by each of the characters - the dutiful suburban mom; each of the teens with their realistic personalities, friendships and romances; the fiercely supportive but emotionally elusive Mia. The personal stories are very naturally woven together with the larger questions of cross-cultural adoption, and of the narratives we tell ourselves about who we believe we are.<br />
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Sometimes a book comes to you just when you need it most. I don't know if the author knew how timely this book would be, but to me it seemed uncanny. One of the most profound and hard to comprehend aspects of the national and political upheavals of the past year has for me, as I imagine for many people, been the realization that perhaps we had built a common story that idealized who we thought we were as a country, only to watch it implode - maybe because we took it for granted. For me, too, these larger dramas came layered upon a twelve month outbreak of personal wildfires, from which goodness miraculously, but unfailingly, keeps rising from the ashes. We are all Shaker Heights, Ohio. We are each of us both Richardsons and Warrens, parents and children, solitary yet inseparable. We are each of us Izzy, lighting fires where we need to, and we are each of us Mia, creating lasting beauty out of that which is left.<br />
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<i>I borrowed my copy of Little Fires Everywhere from the public library. Happy reading!</i><br />
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<br />bookspersonallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776600422633283514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934748090792766590.post-74071854761843945192017-11-01T08:37:00.001-04:002017-11-01T08:37:32.994-04:00Review: Skating on the Vertical - Stories by Jan English Leary<br />
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I can't remember a time in my adult life when women's voices have seemed more needed than they do today. I spent part of the weekend following tweets from the Women's March Convention, inspired by they way this movement seems to have created a space for voices of many kinds. So what could be more fitting this week to wish a happy pub day to a new collection of short stories which explores the complexities of women's lives and the many-faceted roles they play?<br />
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The characters in Jan English Leary's <b>Skating on the Vertical </b><i>(Fomite Press) </i>are ordinary people, mostly women, chafing against the expectations and boundaries of their roles as mothers, wives, daughters, girlfriends, or teachers. Sometimes they are dealing with specific challenges (eating disorders, self-harm, unexpected pregnancy), but always, it seems, they are struggling most of all to be understood.<br />
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In many of the stories, the rebellions are quietly internal, but in some of my favorites they are more outwardly dramatic. In "Skin Art," Madeline, a corporate wife, accompanies her husband on a business trip to India. She completely botches her first and only official function, then is left - anxious, unattended and ignored - to struggle alone with her urge to begin cutting herself again. She finds a far more creative means of expression, but her husband, to no one's surprise, utterly fails to understand. In "Alewives," a depressed, middle-aged woman still wearing her robe and slippers drops her husband at the morning train and takes off on a day-long, soul-searching jaunt through the neighborhoods of Chicago, where she discovers her inner guerrilla artist. In the title story, one of a few in which the protagonist isn't a woman, a teenager wrestles with the damaged relationships in his family, struggles to balance his own sense of self with his need to fit in with his peers, and his guilt for participating in an act of bullying. His inner conflicts and furies must, and do, combust.<br />
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I found these to be engaging stories. As a reader, I was drawn in by Leary's clear and deep compassion for her characters, including - or perhaps especially - their flaws and secrets. I also liked that she explored difficult subjects in ways that encourage deeper consideration, rather than easy conclusions. Most of all, I loved how each of these characters simmered palpably, their emotions bubbling just below the surface, waiting for the right moment to burst into the open. <br />
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Care. Listen. Come into the world and tell your story.<br />
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<i>My thanks to the publisher for an advance reader copy of <b>Skating on the Vertical</b>.</i><br />
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<i>Happy reading!</i><br />
<br />bookspersonallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776600422633283514noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934748090792766590.post-54580296028651818802017-10-14T10:41:00.001-04:002017-10-14T10:41:16.224-04:00Happiness by Heather Harpham <br />
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The profound love a parent has for her newborn child immediately and inherently carries with it many fears - that you won't be a perfect parent, or maybe even a good enough parent, or quite possibly even fail completely as a parent. There are a million ways you can and no doubt will disappoint your child, or choose poorly, or not rise to the occasion when a situation calls for wisdom, maturity, know-how, or transcendence. At some time you will be and do all of these things, and probably it will be okay. But deep in the heart of every parent also lurks a truly profound terror, directly proportional to the immensity of your love, that something terrible could happen to the fragile and tiny being entrusted to your care. We hope and pray that we will never need to know who we will be called to be in this moment.<br />
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Heather Harpham, author of <b>Happiness: The Crooked Little Road to Semi-Ever After</b><i> (Henry Holt, 2017),</i> was called to this moment. She was not ready. She never expected it, nor did she even expect to become a parent when she discovered she was pregnant. Her partner, the writer Brian Morton, was reluctant to start a family. Realizing she was on her own, Heather left New York City and returned to California, piecing together a supportive network of family and friends to welcome her baby. Not a perfect nuclear family perhaps, but beautiful in its own way, and into this loving and stable world baby Gracie was born.<br />
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Almost immediately, however, it became clear something was desperately wrong. Little Gracie had a rare and life-threatening blood disorder which would send her to countless doctors and hospital visits, and eventually require a bone marrow transplant. <b>Happiness</b> tells the story not only of Gracie's illness and her parents' harrowing quest for a cure, but also of one family's non-traditional path to formation.<br />
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I found <b>Happiness</b> very engaging, and ultimately quite moving. While Gracie's illness is naturally compelling (and as a parent I couldn't help but ache along with every decline, and rejoice with every moment of hope) the real heart and strength of the book for me was Harpham's openness and honesty about her relationship with Morton and her own self-examination. I found her at her very best in the latter half of the memoir, in which Gracie undergoes the transplant, requiring months of round-the-clock hospitalization at a leading transplant clinic. Here, Harpham not only vividly and viscerally conveys the complexities of parenting under the most difficult and terrifying conditions, but also gives us eye-opening insight into the lives of other families whose lives have become centered around a sick child:<br />
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<i>"This was how we told each other our stories, in the margins, in the kitchen, over Styrofoam cups, while washing our hands at the decontamination trough, at the snack machine, without ceremony. Without self-dramatization. Without even the faintest nod to the horror of what was described because the assumption was everyone had horror."</i></blockquote>
Gracie is one of the lucky ones, and it must be noted that she had things going in her favor that many other children might not: access to excellent doctors, health insurance, family who had the opportunity and flexibility to travel with her to find the best care, the connections that helped her find those opportunities to start with, and a community that rallied to raise funds to make her treatment possible. To her credit, Harpham is upfront about and acknowledges these. In a year in which America's health care access is being systematically dismantled for so many, these are even more important to note, for it must be true that many children did not, and many more will not, be graced with the same quality care.<br />
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But even with every advantage, there is still no guarantee of a good outcome. This is what kept me riveted, and which pierced my heart and stuck with me well beyond the end of the story. For this is every parents' deepest fear and frankest reality: sometimes no matter what you do, and what resources you have, there are things completely beyond your control. The universe will humble us, again and again. Happiness left me considering how our deepest challenges shape us and make us who we are, and who will we be called to be, when faced with the worst?<br />
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<i>I received a complimentary copy of <b>Happiness</b> from the publisher. </i><br />
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<i>Happy reading!</i><br />
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<i><br /></i>bookspersonallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776600422633283514noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934748090792766590.post-43783982426851501642017-09-24T10:17:00.000-04:002017-09-24T10:17:38.787-04:00Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN3Uu2il0hetUT8jAePfMhkHqFL2p-83RGEkeZSivWZn3gZm0GoYjU1bBoeDAHCNc3gEMNw1D3eTZO-ObOCM8ZNKKqhPZi2SDfkxVRahbI5cEcnd386epu61_Aq5v9SC4h1Ts_ML4tNWEg/s1600/sing-unburied-sing-9781501126062_lg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="228" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN3Uu2il0hetUT8jAePfMhkHqFL2p-83RGEkeZSivWZn3gZm0GoYjU1bBoeDAHCNc3gEMNw1D3eTZO-ObOCM8ZNKKqhPZi2SDfkxVRahbI5cEcnd386epu61_Aq5v9SC4h1Ts_ML4tNWEg/s320/sing-unburied-sing-9781501126062_lg.jpg" width="208" /></a></div>
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<i>"The weight of time he never bore in life holds him rigid now, cloaks him somber, whittles him sharp as Pop."</i></blockquote>
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When you read Jesmyn Ward, you feel the truth of her words and her stories viscerally. They electrify each hair on your arm, punch you squarely in your gut, and etch themselves deep down in your soul. Her National Book Award-winning <b>Salvage the Bones</b> (2011) hit me this way a few years ago, and I eagerly looked forward to her second novel, <b>Sing, Unburied, Sing</b> <i>(Simon & Schuster, 2017)</i>. But I also wondered if anything could come close to the powerful and raw experience of Salvage. <b>Sing, Unburied, Sing</b> is nothing less than stunning, surpassing any expectation I could have had with a story that is so physical, so devastating, and at the same time so beautiful, it moved me to tears.<br />
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<b>Sing, Unburied, Sing</b> deals with tough subjects - poverty, addiction, race and racism, incarceration, and violence, and so it is not an easy book in many regards. 13-year old JoJo, is the heart. He lives in rural Mississippi with his younger sister, Kayla, his grandparents and primary caregivers, Mam, who is ill, and Pop, who once served time at the infamously cruel Parchman prison. Jojo's mother, Leonie is sometimes present, but even when she is physically there, she is really elsewhere. His father, Michael, who is white, is being released from jail.<br />
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While the journey to meet Michael on his release and to return home as a family is the surface of the novel, the true plot takes place deep within each character, and also deeply in the past. Ward takes us so thoroughly inside that even Leonie, who by almost every measure is a poor mother, becomes vivid, complicated, and sympathetic. The ghosts, too, are as real, present, and compelling as those who are alive. The use of the supernatural reminded me of Toni Morrison and Audrey Niffeneger - haunting, believable, and essential to the story.<br />
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The past is ever-present in <b>Sing, Unburied, Sing</b>, and the connections this book forges across time, place and people not only create a truly striking novel, but also feel timely and true. Newsfeeds sometimes have a way of abstracting real people and real issues, making us feel more removed. Novels have a way of bringing them home and into your heart.<br />
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<i>I purchased my copy of <b>Sing, Unburied, Sing</b>. <a href="http://www.oxfordamerican.org/magazine/item/1224-flayed" target="_blank">Read an exerpt of the novel online at The Oxford American</a>.</i><br />
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<i>Happy reading!</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>bookspersonallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776600422633283514noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934748090792766590.post-69776264807049695732017-09-02T08:40:00.000-04:002017-09-02T08:40:34.542-04:00Goodbye, Vitamin - Rachel Khong<br />
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<i> "Today after you lost a tooth, you cried that you looked like a pumpkin.</i><br />
<i> Today I had to stop by the post office and you looked around and said, aghast, 'This is errands?"</i><br />
<i> Today, while I was changing your brother's diaper, and putting baby powder on him, you burst into tears and begged me not to put too much salt on him.</i><br />
<i> Today you were so readily impressed by me." - Ruth's father's journal</i><br />
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In Rachel Khong's playful yet deeply moving <b>Goodbye, Vitamin</b> <i>(Henry Holt and Company, 2017)</i>, Ruth is a thirty-ish woman with a recently broken engagement who comes home to live with her mother and father after he is diagnosed with dementia. Mom, always an enthusiastic cook, blames the aluminum cookware and quite possibly Dad's past marital indiscretions, and has closed herself off physically and emotionally from the kitchen and from the family. Ruth steps in as Dad's primary caregiver and daily companion, and as his symptoms progress and their roles reverse, their relationship finds a close and comfortable mutuality.<br />
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Food and romance also find their way into Ruth's story. As one recently jilted, Ruth must, of course, find a new and improved love interest. There is just enough romance to feel happy and hopeful for Ruth, without taking away from or taking over the novel. The author, a former editor of Lucky Peach, also brings her culinary sensibility to bear in wonderful ways - Ruth relishes cooking, and the reader delights in the sensory joys of her ingredients and creations, as well as in the ways food brings her closer to her friends and family.<br />
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Above all, I loved and was won over by the author's lovely and engaging balance of humor and grief. The novel's California setting, with its quirky people and places, seems absolutely the right backdrop for whimsically offbeat but strikingly specific observations about Ruth's world. Khong skillfully uses the funnier aspects of Alzheimer's to best advantage, and for much of the novel, one could almost forget the inevitable sadness of the disease. But she doesn't, and we don't, either. One quiet and poignant request from Dad: "could you write it all down, so I won't forget?" leads us, hearts and eyes brimming, to the book's perfect conclusion. <br />
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<i>I received my complimentary copy of <b>Goodbye, Vitamin</b> from the publisher. </i><br />
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<i>Happy reading!</i><br />
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<br />bookspersonallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776600422633283514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934748090792766590.post-62268650762828794562017-07-22T08:03:00.002-04:002017-07-22T08:03:52.746-04:00Muir Woods or Bust - Ian Woollen<div style="text-align: center;">
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You can always look forward to a delightfully madcap cast of characters in Ian Woollen's novels, and <b>Muir Woods or Bust</b> <i>(<a href="http://woollen.coffeetownpress.com/?page_id=90" target="_blank">forthcoming from Coffeetown Press</a>, August 2017) </i>does not disappoint. Gil Moss is a father, recent widower, and leading psychotherapist in the emerging field of Eco-Mood disorders who spends an unhealthy amount of time conversing with his dead wife, Melody. His son, Chum, is a not-quite-launched young adult living at home, a gamer (and likely hacker though Gil would really rather not know) holed up in his room commanding a mission control-like dashboard of screens and devices. Gil and Chum get by, but neither is exactly thriving, living instead in the fringes of life rather than engaged in the thick of it... Until! Doyle Wentworth, an ornery former client and washed-up reality TV star kidnaps Gil and forces him to drive to LA so Doyle can reclaim his standing in the world of entertainment. Hijinks, misadventures, and mischief ensue for all involved, with a good dose of self-reckoning for our unlikely heroes and their supporting cast.<br />
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<b>Muir Woods</b> deftly threads modern environmental anxieties and gaming sensibilities into a story inspired by nature advocate John Muir, and binds them together with humor, playfulness, and a great, great deal of heart. This is the third Ian Woollen novel I have read, and I never fail to be struck by the deep but messy love his characters have for each other, and how they always muddle through and come out on the other side imperfect, but redeemed. In a time in which the daily news tends to leave me overwhelmed with anxiety and cynicism, <b>Muir Woods</b> offered a fun, thoughtful and welcome reminder not only to have faith in, but to absolutely relish our shared, flawed humanity.<br />
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<i>My thanks to the publisher for a complimentary review copy of <b>Muir Woods or Bust</b>.</i><br />
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<i>Happy reading!</i><br />
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<br />bookspersonallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776600422633283514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934748090792766590.post-63038142416846049722017-06-24T10:22:00.001-04:002017-06-24T10:22:46.658-04:00Anklet and Other Stories by Shome Dasgupta<br />
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When well done, fiction and travel share the ability to move you beyond your comfort zone, challenge the steadfastness of your boundaries, and give you a new lens for interpreting yourself and that which you take for granted. In <b>Anklet and Other Stories</b> <i>(Golden Antelope Press, 2017)</i>, author Shome Dasgupta transports us to Kolkata, India, and invites us, in ways at once tangibly real and magically surreal, to unsettle ourselves in the most fundamental of ways.<br />
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The edges we confront in these taut and memorable stories are always organic to the setting - a mystical and fable-like cautionary tale of a boatman on a holy river, a tense altercation in Kolkata's impossibly snarled traffic, or, as in the lovely "Tagore's Kiss," the collective tension in a cafe when a cultural norm is transgressed - but they also powerfully transcend place to more universal experiences. In "Samosa," the narrator stops to witness a homeless man upon the street and pities him, but then, despite his vehement protests, becomes the object of pity and scorn himself. The shift is profound, and visceral. Another favorite, "This is my Head," is a nuanced and beautifully written portrait of a young person's first real encounter with age, illness and death. The disruptions also often have magical elements - blackbirds dropping from the sky, marking our foreheads with their beaks, a young man who is unable to keep himself being thrown backwards across a room - which both engage our imaginations and accentuate our discomfort in the most wonderful of ways.<br />
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I highly recommend the collection for literary short fiction fans, and also call the reader's attention to the gorgeous sketches by Indira Kalyan Dutta in the body of the collection which perfectly complement the stories. It is always a special pleasure to welcome an author <a href="http://www.bookspersonally.com/2011/06/i-am-here-and-you-are-gone-shome.html" target="_blank">back to the blog</a> - my thanks to Shome Dasgupta for a complimentary review copy of <b>Anklet and Other Stories</b>. Learn more about his personal story and the background of the collection in "A Story Behind the Stories" at <a href="http://deepsouthmag.com/2017/06/21/a-story-behind-the-stories/" target="_blank">Deep South Magazine</a>.<br />
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<i>Happy reading!</i><br />
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<br />bookspersonallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776600422633283514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934748090792766590.post-50756769330778754362017-06-10T07:28:00.000-04:002017-06-10T07:37:47.826-04:00How to be Human by Paula Cocozza<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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We lived for a time in the countryside in Western New York. The wide open land and sky were nothing less than thrilling to this suburban girl, and for the many years we were there, not a single day went by that I didn't experience that awe anew. We realized quickly that there we were nature's guests, and not the other way around. Our yard was regularly traversed by turkeys, deer, snakes, and a little red fox who would trot blithely across the lawn and down a trail, the formality of house and property lines and mowed grass mere aberrations in a larger, untamed territory, At night, it was even more clear that this world did not belong to us. We would hear coyotes echoing across the fields, an otherworldly noise like nothing you can imagine. And if you have never heard it before, the scream of a fox calling for a mate will send you running to the phone to summon the police because surely a woman has just been murdered nearby. Could such a bloodcurdling sound come from the same charming fox who looks so soft and companionable in the early morning light?<br />
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In <b>How to Be Human</b> <i>(Metropolitan Books, 2017)</i> Paula Cocozza's beguiling fox lives closer among people, regularly haunting the backyards of a row of London townhomes abutting untamed urban space of their own. His presence alarms most of the neighbors who are quick to entertain plans to call the exterminator. Mary is the exception. Her engagement recently broken, Mary has lived alone for the last months, and is still struggling with the breakup. She is depressed, her job is in jeopardy, and now that Mark is gone, she really has no meaningful human relationships. She alone observes the fox and sees his beauty, sees that they are connected.<br />
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One night, Mary is called upon to sit for the baby next door, and soon after runs into Mark on the street. These two experiences - the tenderness of her feelings for the baby, the visceral reminders of Mark - begin to break something open in her, and this breaking comes to a head the following weekend where she must confront both again at the neighbor's barbeque party. That night, following the party, the baby mysteriously appears on her doorstep, and havoc ensues. Mary and the fox become closely and extraordinarily bound in a suspenseful and remarkable relationship, forcing her to confront her demons.<br />
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I loved every moment of this remarkable novel. Paula Cocozza writes beautifully of Mary's moments of intimacy with this wild creature, detailing fox movements and behaviors so subtle and surprising you imagine she has lived this experience firsthand. I loved, too, that the fox had his own voice, that we read from his point of view through poems of sorts, with fox phrasing and fox cadence. Above all, I loved that the novel brought us right up to the edges of it means to be wild, what it means to be human, to what extent those boundaries can soften, and where the limits must always remain. Highly recommended if ever you have been enchanted by a fox, or any wild creature at all.<br />
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<i>I received a complimentary copy of <b>How to be Human</b> from the publisher.</i><br />
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<i>Happy reading!</i><br />
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<br />bookspersonallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776600422633283514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934748090792766590.post-37979771258836009262017-05-13T11:47:00.004-04:002017-05-13T11:53:01.909-04:00Marlena by Julie Buntin<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Marlena</b>, Julie Buntin <i>(Henry Holt, 2017)</i><br />
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Catherine is a straight-A scholarship student at a prestigious private school, but when her parents' marriage falls apart and she moves with her mother and brother to a remote, rural town in Northern Michigan, an alluring new friendship offers Cat an opportunity to reinvent herself. Unlike Cat, Marlena is exciting and edgy, irresistible yet dangerous, and the girls, each broken in different ways, form a deep bond that both saves and destroys them.<br />
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It's a compelling if sometimes wrenching story. Buntin writes convincingly and often beautifully about the intensity of teen-hood and the complexities of female friendships, and I was drawn in by every subtle shift and nuance in Marlena and Cat's relationship.<br />
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<b>Marlena</b> is well worth reading for this alone, but what especially set the novel apart for me was Cat's keen self-awareness, both as a damaged adult looking back, and within the story as it unfolded. As drawn as she is to Marlena, Cat knows they are not quite the same. Something is always held back, the tension determining their fates.<br />
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Check out this insightful interview with author Julie Buntin over on <a href="http://www.booktalkradio.net/all-episodes/2016/12/10/episode-37-marlena-byjulie-buntin" target="_blank">Book Talk</a>.<br />
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Happy reading (and listening!) <br />
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<i>I received my complimentary copy of <b>Marlena </b>from the publisher.</i><br />
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<i><br /></i>bookspersonallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776600422633283514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934748090792766590.post-61781547932520341072017-04-29T08:01:00.000-04:002017-04-29T08:01:48.651-04:00Two by Tin House<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHiO8oTmHFYN8gWAyzxfkv1lgdekwzpSP_t5hG-M2M_4kngy7IyeBOtlutnnxQVXbcQiv4rJNUSJnWNdeArw4_spBdZKcyOskahT5WbkN0WBk6McN__jyj7FeMWaV3hVuLAbJoHwNICRH1/s1600/Little-Sister.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHiO8oTmHFYN8gWAyzxfkv1lgdekwzpSP_t5hG-M2M_4kngy7IyeBOtlutnnxQVXbcQiv4rJNUSJnWNdeArw4_spBdZKcyOskahT5WbkN0WBk6McN__jyj7FeMWaV3hVuLAbJoHwNICRH1/s320/Little-Sister.jpg" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHiO8oTmHFYN8gWAyzxfkv1lgdekwzpSP_t5hG-M2M_4kngy7IyeBOtlutnnxQVXbcQiv4rJNUSJnWNdeArw4_spBdZKcyOskahT5WbkN0WBk6McN__jyj7FeMWaV3hVuLAbJoHwNICRH1/s1600/Little-Sister.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHiO8oTmHFYN8gWAyzxfkv1lgdekwzpSP_t5hG-M2M_4kngy7IyeBOtlutnnxQVXbcQiv4rJNUSJnWNdeArw4_spBdZKcyOskahT5WbkN0WBk6McN__jyj7FeMWaV3hVuLAbJoHwNICRH1/s1600/Little-Sister.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHiO8oTmHFYN8gWAyzxfkv1lgdekwzpSP_t5hG-M2M_4kngy7IyeBOtlutnnxQVXbcQiv4rJNUSJnWNdeArw4_spBdZKcyOskahT5WbkN0WBk6McN__jyj7FeMWaV3hVuLAbJoHwNICRH1/s1600/Little-Sister.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHiO8oTmHFYN8gWAyzxfkv1lgdekwzpSP_t5hG-M2M_4kngy7IyeBOtlutnnxQVXbcQiv4rJNUSJnWNdeArw4_spBdZKcyOskahT5WbkN0WBk6McN__jyj7FeMWaV3hVuLAbJoHwNICRH1/s1600/Little-Sister.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
<b>Little Sister </b>by Barbara Gowdy<i style="font-weight: bold;"> </i><i>(forthcoming from Tin House, May 2017)</i><br />
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What happens when an everyday life is suddenly infused with magic? Rose Bowan has many blessings - steady if not especially lucrative work managing the family second-run movie theater, an aging mother whom she loves, but who needs increasing supervision due to dementia, a reliable but predictable long-term boyfriend. Not exactly glamorous, but a good life nonetheless. One day, during the height of a particularly unstable Canadian thunderstorm, Rose leaves her own body and finds herself inhabiting someone else - a woman caught up in an unraveling affair. Rose is terrified at first, but as the storms continue and the inhabitances become more frequent, she is drawn further and further into the mystery of this woman, Harriet. Though very different than herself, Harriet also reminds her of her little sister, who died as a child. Rose sets out to find Harriet in real life and save her in a way she couldn't save her beloved sibling. By reaching out to this other troubled soul, Rose is able to reconcile with her past and break open her present. She, too, is saved. <br />
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I very much enjoyed this charming and unique novel. I loved Rose, I could very much relate to her reliance on habit and routine, and I was drawn in to the power of the magic - not so much by the inexplicable circumstances of the storm episodes in and of themselves, but by how the events intensified and deepened her relationship with Harriet. I found Little Sister to be a lovely, moving and suspenseful book. Look for it in bookstores next month.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj92kj0pq-SAq-fTkszRVYb5Gl5wE_TfFRWvGA9Mhx7k56sa2UuJrdg2cMpsNvhjC7w4XVQJzrXQpL-b1ESpKbIgvb70vkSDX2Zc7_B3mEciP4Pqt29rpw4mH6AlHwJC8MerquY2zeuFzrw/s1600/Swimming-Lessons-RGB-388x600.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj92kj0pq-SAq-fTkszRVYb5Gl5wE_TfFRWvGA9Mhx7k56sa2UuJrdg2cMpsNvhjC7w4XVQJzrXQpL-b1ESpKbIgvb70vkSDX2Zc7_B3mEciP4Pqt29rpw4mH6AlHwJC8MerquY2zeuFzrw/s320/Swimming-Lessons-RGB-388x600.jpg" width="206" /></a></div>
<b>Swimming Lessons</b>, by Claire Fuller <i>(Tin House, 2017)</i><br />
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I have been eagerly awaiting <b>Swimming Lessons</b> practically from the moment I finished Claire Fuller's prior novel, the exquisite <b>Our Endless Numbered Days.</b> Like <b>Little Sister</b>, Swimming Lessons, too revisits the past to find healing in the present.<br />
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Twelve years ago, Ingrid Coleman disappeared, leaving behind two young daughters and a philandering, book-hoarding novelist of a husband. All these years later, aging Gil thinks he sees Ingrid and follows her, falling off a pier in pursuit. The accident brings his daughters home to oversee his care, and in doing so, forces the family to address long-simmering resentments, betrayals, and misunderstandings.<br />
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Interspersed through the novel are letters from Ingrid, each tucked away in one of the many books Gil so diligently collects for their marginalia. They are raw and beautiful letters, telling her truth of the marriage, the story she never spoke aloud to him, the things she knew that he didn't think she did. The emerging narrative of the letters pairs brilliantly with the present story as it unfolds, and there is a particular delight for the reader, too, in the notations telling us which title the letter is placed in. Beautifully written, captivating in its structure, and so observant of the complicated relationships that exist inside families, Swimming Lessons is a book to lose yourself in, which I happily did.<br />
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<i>I received a complimentary review copy of <b>Little Sister</b> from the publisher, and purchased my copy of <b>Swimming Lessons</b>.</i><br />
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<i>Happy reading!</i><br />
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<i><br /></i>bookspersonallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776600422633283514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934748090792766590.post-31291692032520551412017-04-15T06:29:00.000-04:002017-04-15T07:27:44.279-04:00An Elegant Theory - Noah Milligan<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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What if life, like molecules of light, existed as infinite possibilities rather than in specific points in time? This question is the elegance of Noah Milligan's <b>An Elegant Theory</b> <i>(Central Avenue Publishing, November 2016)</i>.<br />
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Coulter Zahn is a doctoral student with an impossible thesis proposal: he is going to definitively and mathematically prove the shape of the universe. His professors have warned him against pursuing this fruitless line of research for fear of derailing his studies and his career, his pregnant wife is increasingly frustrated by his obsession and chronic unavailability. Yet he is unable to let it go, day after day sitting alone at the university computer, hitting "enter" after "enter," one by one testing each and every possible yet ultimately rejected equation.<br />
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All his life, Coulter has also experienced inexplicable lapses - but as the baby approaches and his work feels more futile, his stress escalates and the fugues come more and more frequently. Coulter snaps, the consequences are unthinkable, and his life fractures.<br />
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Which is his real life? Which is false? Are both simultaneously real, or altogether false? I enjoyed being drawn in by the puzzle, carefully studying the clues: Is real Coulter the Coulter of the first or third person point view? Could seemingly lapse vignettes come together to form a coherent alternate reality? Is each fragment an entire reality of its own? I loved entertaining all the possibilities, though struggled to be convinced of the emotional probability that our otherwise relatable protagonist could have done a terrible thing... or maybe I just hated to think so. Embracing uncertainty proved to be the best strategy - an intriguing and engaging novel for inquisitive readers and believers in the multiverse.<br />
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<i>I received a complimentary copy of <b>An Elegant Theory</b> from the author.</i><br />
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<i>Happy reading!</i><br />
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<br />bookspersonallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776600422633283514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934748090792766590.post-86913717970391703422017-04-01T06:55:00.000-04:002017-04-01T06:55:10.090-04:00We Could've Been Happy Here - Keith Lesmeister<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Bittersweet stories are my favorite kind, and the stories in Keith Lesmeister's forthcoming collection <b>We Could've Been Happy Here</b> <i>(May 2017, MG Press)</i> strike the perfect balance between humor and sadness, love and loneliness. The collection explores the distances between people, with the most profound chasms often between people standing right next to each other.<br />
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We meet several men who have lost custody of their children, the heartbreak of past failure undermining their paths forward. In "Burrowing Animals" the main character returns, emotionally and financially defeated, to his parent's home. Relapsed into and stifled by old roles and routines, and prevented from seeing his kids even when they visit the grandparents, he reverts to teenhood, hanging out in a camper in the backyard, sneaking girls and smokes. When his father charges him with handling an invasive badger, the task becomes a vector for all the power he has lost in every other aspect of his life. In "Nothing Prettier Than This" and its bookend companion, "We Could've Been Happy Here," another failed dad is also up against nature and himself. He faces a herd of rogue cows which, like his life, have wandered out of his control. Rounding them up seems just about as possible as getting his life back on track, though he gives it his best shot. Meanwhile, in "Nothing Prettier," he finds companionship with a young woman with her own fraught circumstances. They are close, but they also both know the intimacy is temporary. In the closing story, he falls in with a family that reminds him of all he has lost, but in the daughter's grace finds a measure of forgiveness.<br />
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A child's alienation from his or her parents is another common theme, sometimes taking the form of grief. In maybe my favorite story of the collection, the beautiful and heart-wrenching "Lie Here Next To Me," a young woman leaves school and her messy personal life to care for her dying mother. Her mother is alive, but already gone, she is no longer responsive. Sally turns to a beloved but now impractical shared ritual: baking a cake. While Sally's lover tries to reach her by phone and her grandmother shows up to assert her competence, Sally closes them all out, locking herself and the cake in the bedroom with her mother.<br />
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There are also rewarding connections after disconnection - twins whose relationship is disrupted by infatuation with an older idol but who return to each other in "A Basketball Story," a husband and wife who put the spark back in their marriage by robbing a bank and going on the lam in "East of Ely," and a young man who finds solace in an old friendship in "Company and Companionship." Each of the stories is smart and engaging, with compelling characters, memorable situations and just the right amount of humor. They unfold with perfect pacing, and the author nails the endings every time, leaving us perched between resolution and possibility. I unconditionally loved the collection and highly recommend it for fans of literary short fiction.<br />
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<i>I received a complimentary advance review copy of <b>We Could've Been Happy Here</b> from the publisher.</i><br />
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<i>Happy reading!</i><br />
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<i><br /></i>bookspersonallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776600422633283514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934748090792766590.post-67843287959573613462017-03-18T09:25:00.000-04:002017-03-18T09:25:44.771-04:00Piece of Mind, Michelle Adelman<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Sometimes it is all about the voice. In <b>Piece of Mind</b> by Michelle Adelman<i> (W.W. Norton, 2016)</i> we are charmed by the clear, unique voice of Lucy, a young woman who has grown up with a traumatic brain injury. Because of her disabilities, she lives with her aging father, both of them finding comfort in the daily routines they share. When Lucy's father dies suddenly, her younger brother moves her from their quiet, suburban childhood home to his tiny apartment in bustling New York City. In these new surroundings, and unmoored from her father's protection and support, Lucy finds her way to greater independence, and forges a new, more equal relationship with her sibling.<br />
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The novel immerses us in Lucy's world. Because her disabilities are not necessarily visible to others, we must understand the tiny obstacles of her daily life - confusing interactions, decision making, forgetfulness, easily becoming overwhelmed, fatigue. In some hands, these details could be heavy, or the tone didactic, but Adelman takes us there lovingly with Lucy's appealing personality, sensitivity and humor. We gain insight into a life we might easily overlook otherwise, and learn to appreciate Lucy for both her gifts and her flaws.<br />
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The plot, too, is charming. Lucy finds friends, romance, and purpose, especially through her art. The book includes lovely sketches by the author's own sister, who also has a brain injury. They are lovely discoveries as you read and give the book a very personal feel. While the story may feel a bit familiar, the point of view was engaging and refreshing. I thoroughly enjoyed this glimpse of the world through Lucy's eyes.<br />
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<i>I received a complimentary copy of <b>Piece of Mind</b> from the publisher.</i><br />
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<i>Happy reading!</i><br />
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<br />bookspersonallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776600422633283514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934748090792766590.post-7079396441793576892017-03-04T08:14:00.000-05:002017-03-04T08:14:09.540-05:00Book Pairing: Lost and FoundDon't you love finding unexpected connections in your reading? Two novels, two writers I greatly admire. While they could not be more different in tone, style, and the lives their characters lead, both explore grief and personal revelation in touching and insightful ways.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxoHhuChPMmKVvalNS3ENE3LekJ7CcXoFVEUErxnSt2W1c8QVc5GkmA9YmTL1l0HmW6ijSBwwZm13CcTDSyTe__LTDY2azJ9WeZ_J_uNcwzXwhlfUhxc3bgOshPliQ-ZjXvn2EYlICFlzM/s1600/Lost+things.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxoHhuChPMmKVvalNS3ENE3LekJ7CcXoFVEUErxnSt2W1c8QVc5GkmA9YmTL1l0HmW6ijSBwwZm13CcTDSyTe__LTDY2azJ9WeZ_J_uNcwzXwhlfUhxc3bgOshPliQ-ZjXvn2EYlICFlzM/s200/Lost+things.jpg" width="133" /></a><br />
In <a href="http://www.courtneymauk.com/the-special-power-of-restoring-lost-things/" target="_blank">Courtney Elizabeth Mauk</a>'s <b>The Special Power of Restoring Lost Things </b><i>(Little a, 2016)</i>, a vibrant, beautiful young woman goes missing, and her parents and brother struggle, alone and together, with her absence, their grief, and what it means for their identities and their family as a whole.<br />
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As in previous novels, the author writes powerfully about the complicated relationships in families, especially between mothers and daughters. In The Special Power of Restoring Lost Things, the lost girl's brother seeks out her old friends and tries on his sister's lifestyle. Her mother, devastated and consumed, embarks on a dangerous mission of revenge. Her father, the designated-by-default handler of the practical and procedural transactions of their lives, must find a way to reel his son and wife back in. The novel is heart-wrenching - the heartbreak of loss and the family's unraveling ring so true - but also riveting as the mother follows her grief deeper and deeper into perilous delusion.<br />
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In <a href="http://www.marcydermansky.com/" target="_blank">Marcy Dermansky</a>'s funny but poignant <b>The Red Car </b><i>(Liveright, 2016)</i>, a thirty-ish-something, unhappily married writer learns that an estranged friend and mentor has died, leaving her a very expensive red sports car. Leah returns to San Francisco, mourning a friendship that had fallen by the wayside, only to discover that their connection is stronger than ever - and the car is quite possibly possessed. As she did so brilliantly in her earlier novel Bad Marie, the author once again gives us an irreverent and unconventional woman to love and laugh with. Our Leah is a hot mess, making questionable choices and getting into untenable situations, usually as a way of not dealing with her issues, all the while carrying on a conversation with her dead friend. I shook my head, laughed out loud and rooted for Leah, enjoying every moment.<br />
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What surprising book connections have you found recently?<br />
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<i><b>Happy reading!</b></i><br />
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<i>I received my copy of The Special Power of Restoring Lost Things as a gift and The Red Car from my public library.</i><br />
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<i><br /></i>bookspersonallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776600422633283514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6934748090792766590.post-28572632726812463392016-11-19T09:05:00.000-05:002016-11-20T07:49:04.446-05:008th Street Power & Light - Eric Shonkwiler<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>"There are a lot of secrets that go into making a world, Sam."</i></div>
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In Eric Shonkwiler's cool and gritty <b>8th Street Power and Light </b><i>(<a href="http://midwestgothic.com/2011/01/8th-street-power-light/" target="_blank">MG Press</a>, 2016)</i> the author of the moving novel <b>Above All Men</b> once again explores the impact of apocalyptic events on the human soul. In <b>8th Street</b>, the devastating aurora is in the recent past and rebuilding has begun. A small but determined group have reclaimed a city grid, working with whatever they have to restore a sense of order, give people jobs and housing, and keep the power on. It is a bleak and spare world, but these square blocks offer considerably more promise than the wasteland beyond.<br />
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Samuel Parrish returns to the city after a time away, exiled after a confrontation gone wrong ended in violence. He is welcomed back to the team as a security agent of sorts. He walks the city, street by street, policing for drug use and other criminal activity. But as he comes to know his city again, he also uncovers profound corruption that calls the morality of his community and its leaders into question. Parrish, anguished by what he discovers and who he finds responsible, embarks on a lone quest to set things right.<br />
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<b>8th Street</b> has aptly been described as noir, describing well the precision of Shonkwiler's writing, the setting of the novel, and the core of Parrish's character. Parrish is tough yet tender, righteous but violent. There are bars, fights and stand-offs, and Parrish never once loses his composure. It's a good read for style alone, but as in his last novel, the author also immerses the reader into a world and situations that compel her to consider larger questions of the human condition. Is corruption inevitable in every society? What trade-offs are acceptable in pursuing the greater good? It has been a few weeks since I finished reading, and have been letting my thoughts perk as - between hurricanes and elections - the real world is feeling a bit apocalyptic itself. A good reading companion for uncertain times.<br />
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<i>I received a complimentary copy of <b>8th Street Power & Light</b> from the publisher. Happy reading!</i><br />
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<br />bookspersonallyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05776600422633283514noreply@blogger.com0