An Avalanche in Summertime?

Unusual, even here in Colorado, but it's definitely happening. I have so many books piled up to talk about with you, and plenty more waiting at my fingertips, aching to be read. 

Of course, I'm reading a couple of books right now, including Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire. Apparently, her Every Heart A Doorway won a pile of awards last year but I just stumbled across this little gem at the library. So glad I did, because she's the real deal - a fantasy writer who's here to stay. If you need irrefutable proof that McGuire isn't going to waste your time, look no further than this:

There are worlds built on rainbows and words built on rain. There are worlds of pure mathematics, where every number chimes like crystal as it rolls into reality. There are worlds of light and worlds of darkness, worlds of rhyme and worlds of reason, and worlds where the only thing that matters is the goodness in a hero's heart. The Moors are none of those things. The Moors exist in eternal twilight, in the pause between the lightning strike and the resurrection.

I just want to plaster that bit of beauty onto my clavicle, or sleep with it under my pillow - whatever it takes to make it seep into my bones, you know? 

My own aspirations have turned to writing full time as of late. I've wanted to be a writer since I learned to read, and although various events and adventures led me to plaster over that dream well, words keep sneaking through, leaking out and out, wearing thin the little walls that I erected. So, writing. I've circled back around to the dreams and wishes of little girl me. She's the one with wisdom, the one who always knew best. Kids usually are, I guess. Especially when they devour books like Seanan McGuire's! 

On that note, I'll be back in a twinkling to discuss some of the kid lit I've read and loved so far this year. Happy reading! 

A New Approach

I've been thinking it over and I really wish I'd become a librarian. Or had my own bookstore. So I decided to solve my problem by building a Little Free Library. I literally would LOVE the chance to curate my own little library and stick little comments about each book on a bookmark placed inside...I would grease the little hinges and get up in the night when there was a storm, just like a farmer, and trudge out to check on my brave little library outbuilding and all the books nestled there, making sure there weren't any leaks or doors flapping open and that the books were snuggled in, cover to cover and cozy...and then I would bravely hike the six or seven steps back to my house and go inside...after stopping to take a last little look out into the swirling darkness, fogging up the glass of the front door as I struggled to see the outlines of the perfectly pitched little roof. And I would decorate it on holidays with itty bitty wreaths or banners cleverly made from newspaper clippings or old books that had fallen apart and needed upcycling...

The only obstacles to making my dream a reality are two-fold: I don't appreciate the building arts, and I'm not all that good at following directions to put together furniture and whatnot (well, now that I think of it, following any directions is not my strong suit...but I digress). But! I figured I would do an end run around these problems and ask for this priceless and most important gift (a gift not only for me, but for my neighborhood community!) for Mother's Day. So, I shared my dream with my handsome and amazing husband, Nick, who indulges my whims and requests on a regular basis and is my knight in shining armor, my best friend and confidante, who regularly inspires me with his generosity of spirit and ability to manage even the most dire of situations with a heart-stopping smile... And can you believe it?! That rat bastard* said NO!

Why did he cruelly dash my hopes, tear my dearest wish into bits of filthy confetti, and attempt to quash my heart's desire? Well! I'll tell you why: RULES! Yes, that's right. Over the many years we've spent together, I've come to understand that genuinely good and ethical people (such as my husband) have a big problem: they respect rules and regulations. I find this puzzling, because somewhat morally ambiguous people (such as myself) see rules as generally helpful and necessary, but also have no problem ignoring, circumventing, and/or undermining rules that they understand are unfair and/or stupid. 

So, our HOA says we can't add any structures to our front lawn. And sure, I understand the intention behind the rule: no one wants some rogue element building a duck blind or putting out a huge salt lick in hopes that a deer will wander up or erecting an eight foot tall martini glass that doubles as a birdbath. But a Little Free Library? It is none of those things! Actually, homes from now on all should incorporate Little Free Libraries into their landscaping, because they are: 

1. Beautiful and loveable, as explained above
   
2. Necessary in order to keep our shelves, desks, and tables from collapsing under the weight of no longer needed books
3. Enriching for the community, young and old, especially since elementary and middle schoolers walk past our home on the reg
4. Beneficial for the stewards of the libraries (that is, me), because they (I) might make new friends who love books as much as they (I) do!

These are airtight arguments and should not be questioned. But alas, despite my well-crafted commentary and even a bit of eyelash fluttering proved insufficiently persuasive to bring him around to the Dark Side, and thus, when Mother's Day rolled around, I did not receive the library of my dreams. Instead, I received a very nifty dummy-proof herb garden (complete with little pre-seeded pods, an adjustable grow light with timer, and an automatic watering system!), because in addition to not being able to follow directions, I also am not able to keep plants alive unless they're succulents. And yes, yes, fine! The garden has been a continuous source of entertainment and interest for all of us. All six pods have sprouted and the resulting little plantlets appropriately named by whomever discovered the first bit of greenery (Michael Jackson the Thai Basil; Herb the Genovese Basil; Precious Thyme; Dill Pickles; Penny the Mint; and Parsley, Sage). Furthermore, a tiny jumping spider even showed up this morning to protect the plants from insidious bugs (and children's fingers, since they are afraid of spiders)! It's an altogether delightful and educational gift that I didn't even know I wanted. 

But I still want a Little Free Library. 

I've considered the "ask forgiveness, not permission" route and the "maybe Nick won't even notice it if I camouflage it with leaves" approach; I've even entertained the notion of installing it right in the border with our neighbor and then blaming said neighbor...but in my finer moments, I recognize that Nick IS a simply wonderful human and shockingly low maintenance (whereas me? not so much with the low maintenance), so I probably should let this one go and use it in the future as an example of my selflessness and boundless love for him. 

So. In the spirit of letting things go, I've decided to make this space right here my virtual Free Little Library! Yes, my bookish friends, you are the lucky beneficiaries of my dashed dreams. I don't have the time to properly and consistently create the long posts I had been writing, so instead I'll write up a short note on books I've read that would have gone into my library, and design my own little bookmarks and everything, just like I had planned! And really, I'll be able to share an even larger number of books with a broader population, since I tend to read a lot of e-books, especially when reading for fun. AND! If I DO comment on an actual book that I have and no longer need, I will give that book away to anyone local who wants it, complete with bookmark and my recommendation note! I would promise to send the books to whomever claims it first, but honestly, I'm not great at getting to the post office in a timely manner and I don't want to pay postage. But I suppose that if you want to pay postage, we could work it out. I dunno. I'll think on it. Any thoughts about this? Chime in! 

I can't wait to get started and breathe some life back into this little blog! I've been missing sharing books and all things bookish with you. Look for an update with the next few days. 

In the meantime, I hope you have a relaxing long weekend ahead that prepares you for a summer chock full of books - books that make you laugh and cry, books that leave you pleasantly satiated and books that leave you starving for more, books that challenge, confuse, reward, and enlighten you, books that help you make the messy, amazing, treacherous, precious experience of living a little more meaningful. Books and books and books. 

And now you may pretend that you - or I! - are falling into an enormous nest of books and curling up for a little rest. Happy book dreams to us all! 

*Nick is NOT, of course, a rat bastard and I love him with all my heart and soul. I may have gotten a tiny bit carried away.

Lit Quick Picks .5: International Women's Day Edition

I didn't think to write this post until late in the day yesterday, which was of course actually International Women's Day, and then I worried that I was too late to do it. But then I thought, eh - it's probably yesterday somewhere, right? And then I thought - heck! It's suddenly about 85 years ago here in America, and that settled it: I had all the time I needed. 

First of all, I love that International Women's Day received so much attention this year. It offered me the opportunity to think about the girls and women of my literary life whom I hold most dear. Here are a few. Do you have a few, too? Who? Tell me!

Helen Keller.  I must have bought my first book about Helen Keller through the Scholastic Book Club in first or second grade, and I had to have read it at least 40 or 50 times. I can still see the cover of that poor book in my mind's eye, its creased and somewhat mutilated cover, with a blue sky and rolling green hills, and an illustration of Helen herself (after Annie Sullivan awakened her, of course - all sweet looking and pigtailed, holding Dolly). Her story moved me so deeply, and inspired me so much as a child. Blind and deaf - and a college graduate, a motivational speaker, an independent and principled young woman. Beautiful, well-mannered, and with a gentle sense of humor. I used to wrap a scarf over my eyes and ears and walk through the house, trying to absorb it with just my fingertips, ever more impressed with Helen's poise and perseverance. And the best part about Helen was that the more I learned about her, the more amazed I became at her strength and courage. She was an outspoken political activist, a socialist and advocate of women's rights, who showed me that ambition was alright for girls and women. She lived what she believed and did it all without losing faith in herself, in her support network, in humanity. Whenever I'm having a tough day, Helen invariably surfaces in my mind and gently but firmly urges me onward. Such an extraordinary woman. I wish I could have met her. My first personal hero, and she's never left my heart.   

Madeleine L'Engle. "It was a dark and stormy night." So begins the phenomenal adventure A Wrinkle in Time. L'Engle takes the most mundane of opening lines and leads her readers by the hand into a world of terrible and astonishing adventures. She never fails to crack her characters wide open, relentlessly exposing their most humbling faults and imperfections - and then building on those very vulnerabilities to give us girls and women (and stars and monsters) who are strong and brave and talented not in spite of those flaws, but because of them. No one had ever dared me to look at my faults like that before Meg Murray came along (followed close behind in my literary life by Vicki Austen, the teen girl at the center of L'Engle's beautiful "Meet the Austens" series, which featured the most functional and finely-made family I'd ever encountered, and they made my heart beat a little differently forever after); no one had asked me to really look at my faults at all, really.  Don't we all want to present our best selves? And don't we often offer our children our own rose-colored views of them and their accomplishments in order to encourage them? Of course we do. But L'Engle challenged me to try something new, and I find myself thinking of her work more often as my children grow and step more completely into themselves, learning of their own blind spots and beauties and rough bits and all the good stuff that we often don't learn to embrace until we're far along the timelines of our own lives, if we're lucky enough to ever learn to embrace it at all. 

Annie Dillard. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek spilled itself at my feet the first time when I was a second year college student. It was a revelation. I had no idea people could write like that: bold and thoughtful and quizzical and true.  It was my introduction to the literary essay, and I fell in love with that format and never really looked back, now that I think on it a little.  Dillard's work sets the well-known Proustian adage* on fire: she doesn't just offer us the opportunity to look at the world through her new eyes - she beguiles you to do the same. A snail, a lake, a bloody catprint on the windowpane: Dillard gives us flights of fancy one moment and measured scientific consideration the next, then skips off through the looking-glass of her Although Pilgrim remains my favorite, I have a soft spot for An American Childhood, which made me laugh out loud and left indelible pseudo-memories in my brain. Dillard's mom refused to change her address even though they moved several times...and the post office just rolled with it! She used to trap the baby's drawstring under her foot so that the baby just kept crawling and crawling and crawling to nowhere! Dillard herself had to take social dancing and etiquette lessons (and despite the damp palmed horrors of it all - or maybe because of that - I knew I had missed an excellent opportunity) and had secret spaces for writing and reading and drawing! Annie Dillard is just the best. I hope I never meet her because then I might have to admit that the memories I adopted from her aren't really mine. I think she'd understand. At least, I imagine she would.

Bonus! I simply must pay homage to the literary character who lives most deeply in my literary heart of hearts: 

 Harriet the Spy. Man. If there was one literary character I encountered in my childhood who I really, really, REALLY wanted to be, it was Harriet the Spy. But she shocked me to no end, so I knew I just couldn't be her. I guess she was my secret alter ego. I mean, Harriet wrote all sorts of things (and so did I), but she wrote about people she KNEW - and she wrote mean things! Petty things! Even about Sport and Janie, her very best friends, and even about Ol' Golly! (Insightful and astute things, too, of course, but that didn't shock me.) I could hardly believe my eyes. And she SPIED on people - not the run-of-the-mill creep to the top of the stairs and listen to your parents kind of spying, oh no - she spied on strangers. She crept around the outsides of their homes (and even hid in the dumbwaiter at the rich, stupid lady's house! The nerve that girl had!), peering in their doors and windows - even in through their skylights, for Heaven's sake. Harriet the Spy just sort of blew me away. I didn't know a girl could be so - so singular. So remarkably herself. Harriet. I love her still, of course. And I think I've learned to let my inner Harriet really shine, which makes 9 year old me remarkably proud. 

...Also:

A list of women authors I've really enjoyed as of late (in no particular order, really):

1.Gail Carriger

2. Nnede Okorafor

3. Fatima Mernissi

4. Deborah Harkness

5. Chimananda Ngozi Adichie

6. Jesmyn Ward

7. Maria Semple

8. Liz Moore

9. Samantha Mabry

10. Liane Moriarty

(Match them with their pictures and then you can click through to see what they've written!)

  

Oooh! One last thing: Peek inside my Bookbag! 

Yup! A sneak peek of what's coming down my personal pipeline: books by women that are already up to literary bat or are warming up in my book batting cage. After writing up that favorites list, I see that I really need to add some Central/South America and Asia authors to my (already-teetering) TBR pile. Any suggestions? 

1. The Mothers by Brit Bennett

2. Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

3. Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

4. We Too Sing America by Deepa Iyer

5. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

6. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

7. Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien

8. To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey

9. The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

10. The Gardens of Consolation by Parissa Reza

11. Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimananda Ngozi Adichie

12. What I Told My Daughter: Lessons from Leaders on Raising the Next Generation of of Empowered Women by Nina Tassler

...And now, I gotta jet. As you can see, I have a lot of reading to do! Thanks for stopping by! 

* "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." - Marcel Proust

Hunk-a hunk-a burning...airplanes?

I have been, as those in the know call it, in a book funk. Unable to read, unable to focus, paralyzed by the reality of a decimated political culture and - let's be honest here - the machinations of  an unethical, uninteresting, possibly illiterate boor sitting in the place of the Presidency. I can't look away from the daily chaos and humiliation that the United States must now embrace with this guy at the rudder. I will admit that I've begun to just meditate on pictures of Justin Trudeau, of Obama windsurfing in the Virgin Islands, of Jack Kennedy standing around looking fine. Where did we go wrong, as a nation? Honestly, I have a number of thoughts about that but they haven't quite yet come together, so we will save that rich topic for another day. But the good news - the great news! - is that after my daily Trudeau meditation today (I love to see him boxing - a head of state with a tattoo?! He's so Gen X!), I decided to clean my kitchen and tidy up my home and then, with Facebook and Twitter removed from my phone (as they should be, really), I sat down to read.

I finally settled on Shadowbahn by Steve Erickson.  The premise of the story is this: the Twin Towers suddenly arrive in the South Dakota Badlands, 20 years after 9/11. And then it starts to get weird.

I'm not through it yet, but I'm mesmerized and excited. I might actually finish a book this weekend! Maybe this is the breakthrough I've been looking for!!

If you're not busy with a book right now, I dare you to dive in and read this one with me. Don't you need a break from reality, anyway?

Bookbaggin' Its Best Books of 2016: The "they're probably all in paperback now" Edition

Why? Why has this taken me so long to do? I could explain that it was the holidays, or health issues, or indecision over what my favorite books were last year,...but the honest truth is that I just slacked off and then lost my motivation. And now...Now I just want to start talking about the new books I've read so far this year, but I don't want to leave any loose ends from yesteryear. So, enjoy my list of favorites from 2016 and know that I'm making good progress on my TBR list so far this year and will have a lot to share with you in the weeks and months to come!

Last year, by my calculations, I read 99.5 books for pleasure. It sort of kills me to admit that I didn't finish the very last book of the year to make my 100 books goal a reality, but honestly, I didn't like the book I picked and I just ran out of time. C'est la vie. You can't like every book, after all.

That said, I found MANY of my choices this year to be insightful, provocative, compelling, and deeply satisfying. I tend to read mostly new works and it's very reassuring to discover that so many people are publishing so many solid new works. Artistry and devotion are still very much alive in the 21st century, which can be forgotten amidst the cacophonous slog of daily news here and abroad, leaving human misery and disappointment in its wake, such a disheartening mass of information that one can barely wriggle out from underneath its weight. But books! They take us on journeys, they force us to abandon our twitter feeds and news alerts, they even help filter out the sounds of my children bickering with each other. Miraculous little suckers, aren't they?

I should note that I read many of the blockbuster books this year (The Nest, Underground Railroad, My Name is Elizabeth Barton, The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo, etc) and enjoyed most of them very much. The books that made my favorites list, though, are books that I didn't really see on a lot of other best of the year lists. Variety is the spice of life and all that. So. In no particular order, here are the books that made my dreary days more bearable and my beautiful days even better:

The Best in Fiction:
1. The Unseen World by Liz Moore
Moore creates an utterly believeable world that orbits around the relationship between a girl and her increasingly eccentric genius of a father. A beautiful, intelligent, moving investigation of the meaning of love, the vast interior world of memories, the breathtaking possibilities of technology, and what it means to make a family. Enchanting and provocative.

2. Underground Airlines by Ben Winters
This novel bases itself on the assumption that the civil war never happened and that slavery still exists in several Southern states early in the 21st century. It's a warped and utterly engrossing story, so well constructed that it's easily believed, and the longer you read, the more uncomfortable you become, because of course you can't help but recognize that perhaps this imagined existence is really not so far from our own true one. The implications of trauma, the reality of fractured identities, and the awful tension between self-preservation and ethical conduct are front and center here. A really successful novel that deserved much more attention than it actually received, in my opinion.

3. Beauty is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan
I hadn't read anything by an Indonesian author when I picked up this book on a whim at the bookstore one day. It drew me in quickly and completely, and I could barely stand to put it down.  The author's ability to balance the book on a foundation that was outrageously funny, absolutely gritty, and even plain otherworldly in turns mesmerized and excited me. Felt a little like Marquez to me at first, but then it (or, more likely, I) found its stride and unfurled a mischevious tale of epic yet utterly readable porportions.
 
4. Fellside by MR Carey
Carey won me over with his recent bestseller The Girl with All the Gifts, a dystopian thriller featuring an unusually bright and blighted young girl (that is being made into a movie this year, I believe #ReadTheBookFirst) at the center of the action, so I jumped at the opportunity to devour another one of his tales, and this one, although quite different from the last, did not disappoint. It begins with a woman being sentenced to prison for a crime that she doesn't remember committing. As she settles into the eerie and claustrophobic world of the woman's high-security prison - the Fellside of the title - she attempts again and again to will herself to remember the moments leading up to and including her crime. But as she works to regain her memory, she also begins hearing voices, coming from the very walls of the prison itself. As she sinks deeper into the unknowns, strange things begin to happen at Fellside...This is a thrilling mystery that offers answers I never saw coming. My skin is prickling again just thinking about this book.

The Best in Non-Fiction:
1. The Light of the World: A Memoir by Elizabeth Alexander
Alexander relates the story of suddenly losing her beloved husband. How does a mother and her children recover from such a loss? Alexander shows us that with heart, with art, with honesty, you never recover, but you can gather yourself together and go on. This searing memoir will leave you in tears but it's worth every sniffle. A truly beautiful tribute to an extraordinary man and the family he left behind.

2. Negroland: A Memoir by Margo Jefferson
Set in my hometown of Chicago, this story of a young woman growing up in an upper-middle class enclave of black America during the Civil Rights era offers an eloquent and insightful look into a black community that rarely gets book-length treatment.

3. The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elizabeth Tova Bailey
Suddenly bedridden by a mysterious illness and the complicated autoimmune disease that follows, Elizabeth Bailey goes from an active, full life to almost no life at all. She's too exhausted and ill even to read or watch tv, and thus spends her days lying in bed in the semi-darkness. A friend stops by with a potted plant that has a little snail living in it, though, and much to Bailey's surprise, she becomes enchanted by her new roommate, who helps her reframe her situation and find new hope. A truly sweet and enchanting little book.

4. In the Country We Love: My Family Divided by Diane Guerrero
I've never seen "Orange is the New Black," so I'm not even sure why I picked this book up. It may have been the cover, which features Guerrero holding a giant cone of cotton candy. In any case, it was a terrific find. Guerrero tells the story of her family: she was born in America to undocumented workers who had arrived (via visas, as the majority of undocumented workers do) from Colombia. Her childhood is one spent in the shadows, living within a vibrant community of Latinos (many documented, some not) but always afraid that INS will arrive and take her parents away. When the worst DOES happen, the teenage Guerrero suddenly finds herself having to patch together a life for herself mostly on her own (shockingly, neither INS nor the appropriate agencies within HHS follow up with her and guarantee her safety as an American citizen and a minor). Her ability to hide her trauma and life situation from her fellow classmates and friends is remarkable, as is her dedication to making her dream of college a reality. Guerrero's story should be required reading for anyone interested in learning more about the realities of families divided due to citizenship.

Favorite New Author Discovery: Gail Carriger
Gail Carriger writes funny, appealing stories of (young) women who just happen to be "intelligencers" (spies), supernaturals, or a combination of the two. Hobnobbing with the London elite, which in her steampunked Edwardian setting includes influential members of the werewolf and vampire classes, Carriger's characters get caught up in all kinds of complicated plots. When they're not saving the British from themselves, her antagonists are floating through the skies in airships, drinking lots of tea, and (despite their best efforts) falling in love. Sitting down with one of Carriger's books automatically makes me happy. I blew through the Finishing School series, The Custard Protocol series, and the The Parasol Protectorate books in just a few weeks - and then I set out to reread them. She's started publishing novellas to provide the backstories of some of her best characters, and every time one appears, I can't stop clapping. She also has a most pleasing public persona; I wish I could meet her for tea some time.

Lit Quick Lit Picks, .4

The Answer, My Friend, to Who Won the Nobel in Literature this year, is Blowin' in the Wind 

The biggest news to hit the literary world within the last two weeks, as far as I'm concerned, has been the awarding of the Nobel Prize for Literature to Bob Dylan - and the reclusive singer's notable lack of response to winning the much heralded award. The decision to award Dylan with the prize was quite controversial. His lack of response to the award has also been controversial, with one member of the Committee calling him "arrogant," while writer Will Self urged him to reject it because of the prize's ties to an explosives and armaments fortune.  

Personally, I find this unexpected and beautiful news. To recognize that literature doesn't have to be confined to the pages of a book breaks new ground and gives the nod to societies (such as Somalia) that have long relied on oral traditions to create and sustain culture and society. I also can't help but wonder (although this may be my American solipsism shining through) whether this is a nod to the racial injustices currently making headlines across the country, especially when you stop to consider Dylan's work. "How many ears must one man have/before he can hear people cry?/ And how many deaths will it take til he knows/ that too many people have died?" Something to consider.

Of course, it would have been cooler if Dylan hadn't snubbed the awards committee. But as I'm an avid Dylan fan (my children heard so many repetitions of "Blowin' in the Wind" during their infancies that they probably know the song by heart without even realizing it), I will give him the benefit of the doubt and suggest that he likely was quite surprised by the award, and probably had some deep thinking to do about his reaction to it.

Speaking of ground-breaking work...

Marvel Comics' latest hero? A mom of five living in Madaya, Syria. They've taken the true story of a woman who has been living with her young children in the besieged city for over a year and made it into a graphic novel/comic book format. I can't tell you how appreciative I am that I found this source, because I will be teaching an online version of Intro to Global Issues and World Affairs next semester and I love using offbeat formats. It's a remarkable story and really brings the reality of living in Syria into focus. By and large, the citizens of Syria are now caught within a maelstrom of horror and violence, in which foreigners have largely taken control of the rebellion, and Assad has the help of Hezbollah, Iran, and Russia as he relentlessly works to crush his own society - his own people! - out of existence. All in the name of victory. No one will win this war. But Marvel's "Madaya Mom" does offer us a different and meaningful way of framing and understanding the cataclysm that has engulfed Syria, and gives us the war's true hero: the Syrian family. 

Navel Gazing with Jessica:

Maria Semple's new book, Today Will Be Different, is almost as absorbing, funny, and attractive as her previous novel (which, let's face it, was nearly perfect). But I am SO over the trend of writing with flashbacks. If I take the book apart and reorganize it to my satisfaction, will anyone report me to the reading police? 

Now that I've been considering this idea of reorganizing the book, especially within the context of this particular story,  it makes me wonder: would it still be the same book? Would I no longer be merely a reader, but something more substantial? Would it dissolve the already porous boundaries between artist and audience? Producer and consumer? Or is it no different, really, from reading for my own enjoyment and analysis? I can't stop thinking about this. Where does the artistry end and the reader begin? It's so much more difficult to discern those differences than it is most other art forms: ballet, cinema, theater. For a book to really come alive there needs to be a collaboration between author and reader. And the author has no say, beyond the work itself, as to whether and how the collaboration will occur. What shape does the final version of the narrative take? The final draft isn't what winds up in the reader's  hands - it's what winds up in the reader's head. What an act of faith each author makes! 

"Paris is a Moveable Feast": Shakespeare and Company Makes Literary Waves, Again

I have been a die-hard Sylvia Beach fan since I was in college, possibly because she was the first historical figure I "met" who struck a chord in me - another bibliophile! A kindred spirit! When I was attending high school and college in the early 1990s, women like Beach didn't often make the cut in literary or historical discussions, and so I clutched her tight. I was so proud to have stumbled onto her and her legendary bookshop, Shakespeare & Co. (1922-1941) all by myself whilst deeply immersed in the works and biographies of the "Lost Generation" and their modernist movement.  An American, Beach opened a little bookshop in Paris as the Roaring Twenties began, and kept it going until forced to close during the Nazi occupation of France; although Hemingway reportedly "personally liberated" the shop in 1945, it never reopened with Beach at the helm. Her shop and her vibrant personality attracted perhaps the most star-studded list of bookworms in modern history: Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, and so many more made Shakespeare & Co. their second home. When Joyce could not find a publisher for his ground-breaking masterpiece, Ulysses, Beach published it herself, in 1922, under the Shakespeare & Co. moniker - and helped change the face of modern literature. She also stocked banned books of all kinds, and allowed patrons to buy or borrow volumes.  

Sylvia Beach and Ernest Hemingway in front of
Shakespeare and Company, circa 1928

In 1951, George Whitman opened his own bookshop on Paris's Left Bank, and after a few years he renamed it Shakespeare and Co. in honor of Beach; it's been open ever since. Whitman also named his daughter after Beach: Sylvia Beach Whitman took over Shakespeare and Co. in 2004 and continues to run the shop today. Why am I telling you all of this? Well, first, because Sylvia Beach rocks. Secondly, because the shop's motto: "Be Not Inhospitable to Strangers Lest They Be Angels in Disguise" is one we all could stand to remember in this day and age. And last but not least, because Beach and her shop have been back in the literary news of late with the publication of a new volume dedicated to the history of Shakespeare & Co! Shakespeare and Company, Paris: A History of the Rag & Bone Shop of the Heart dropped on September 26, and contains dozens of essays, poems, interviews, and illustrations that together reportedly create an extraordinary collage of the life and times of literary Paris over the last century.  I can't wait to get my hands on it. If you don't have the money for a hardback, here's a little history of Beach and her shop. I also highly recommend Beach's memoir, Shakespeare and Company, and Noel Riley Fitch's beautiful work, Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation: A History of Literary Paris in the Twenties and Thirties, which has been close to my heart and next to my bed for the last 20 years. 

That's all for now! I had hoped to offer you more this time, but then the Cubbies made it to the WORLD SERIES so I'll be jetting home to Chicago for some celebrating this week! #CubsNation 

Book Review: Bite sized Books

Sometimes, all you have time or patience for is a bite sized book. Or perhaps you haven't picked up a book in so long that even the prospect of settling into a long read just creates anxiety rather than relief. With these slim volumes, you'll be back on the reading track in no time! Moreover, you'll probably feel pretty satiated because even though these novels are slim, they each pack quite a literary punch.

I didn't plan to write a review about stellar novellas; I just realized I had very recently read a quartet of quality shorter works and so I had to share them with you. They have nothing in common, really, aside from their brevity. But sometimes an eclectic mix is better - no burning out on a genre or theme. 

I hope you choose to read at least one of these - let me know what you choose! 

1. Brightfellow by Rikki Ducornet
A slim book that somehow beguiled me into taking it home from the library. And once I opened the cover, I was enchanted; after all, how many stories begin with "The linoleum swells with stories."? And then we meet Stub, a small child, all alone with his thoughts, with his incredible capacity for creating worlds where the rest of us only see the pedantic properties of everyday life. He lives a solitary existence in a tiny rural cabin with his mother and dad. Neither seems to pay him much mind, and so his unschooling continues, rising within his wildfire imaginative mind and sent soaring through a combination of curiosity and little understood desperation. 

Time passes; circumstances change and for a short time Stub finds camaraderie with his caretaker, Jenny, but it doesn't last (although her personal obsession with the literary work of reclusive genius Verner Vanderloon will take root in Stub's own mind), and he soon strikes out in his own, embracing the campus of a small nearby college as his own. Stub's adventures there I'll leave for you to discover, but know that Ducornet imbues the world of this lonely Peter Pan man-child with an evanescent, lyrical beauty. As Stub cautiously flits in and out of the school faculty's social circle, he finds wonder, love, confusion and disenchantment in unexpected corners. 

Although the volume fills only 143 small pages, it exemplifies Salman Rushdie's adage: "To understand just one life, you have to swallow the world." The bright innocence of Stub's persona lands in your lap without warning time and again, and his ruminations on any number of topics - from the soul: "They say...they say we each have a bird within us. A bird of breath, a bird of fire. Longing for...release..." to loss of innocence: "It's as if he has seen angels tearing off one another's wings..." - will leave you satisfied that art and creativity continue to pilot our peculiar human existence. 

Ducornet's biggest achievement is that she manages to deliver this work without succumbing to pretension or preciousness. Truly a must read for anyone interested in ripe characters, a bit of introspection, or struggling with the privilege and pain of writing. It's a Holy wafer on the tongue of your overwhelming everyday life. 


2. Everything is Teeth by Evie Wyld
Evie Wyld's slip of a book illustrates why the graphic novel format at times truly outshines the traditional format. The main character finds herself obsessed with sharks as a young girl, drawn to and repelled by their mysterious, silent, lethal nature.  As the novel progresses, the shark becomes shorthand for Evie's anxieties and fears related to death and loss of safety - she moves through the world with trepidation, and at every turn, she sees danger potentially lurking. Literally, "everything is teeth." Hands down,this book offers the most vivid and moving illustration of what it's like to live with generalized anxiety disorder that I've ever found in print. 

That's not to say that the work is perfect. Wyld's work intrigued and surprised me, but ultimately left me disappointed. Too much brevity! I wanted more context, richer storytelling, some kind of acknowledgement or resolution of the underlying themes.  But that doesn't happen. This version almost seems like a storyboard for a future, much more developed piece of literature. All the same, its power is undeniable and the work deserves to be read. 

3. Now and at the Hour of Our Death by Susana Moreira Marques
"Our almost instinct almost true: what will survive of us is love." 

I like this publishing house, And Other Stories. They have off-beat, truly quirky and interesting books that you won't find anywhere else. This book is a perfect example. Writer Susana Moreira Marques traveled with a palliative care team to northern Portugal and visited rural patients and their families. Obviously, the book is about those who are dying, but it's much more: its a meditation on life and its legacies; a treasure trove of lives lived; ruminations on the everafter; a quiet window into the love and devotion within families. These themes play themselves out against the backdrop of a way of life that is coming to an end. 

There's an aching kind of beauty that permeates this book, and (especially in the first half) a sort of defiance that I really appreciated. It was almost as though the book created its own five stages of grief, to some degree - opening with defiance and anger ("it took an average of thirty-eight days for a person to die in their home...If you don't want to know the answer, don't ask the question"), urging readers to remember that Death is beyond what man can erase: "Man is not God. Man is not God...we should scrawl this in notebooks, filling page after page. We should be punished for thinking we can control everything, even death...", then moving into a bracing attempt to create a lasting memory of the patients she comes to know through documentation of their lives, and closing with hope: "rather than believe the world ends with each death, believe that, with each birth, the world begins anew." All in all, a wide-ranging, challenging and peripatetic approach to illuminating death and dying. 

4. Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yurri Herrera

I am the first person to admit that my geographical and historical blind spots fall squarely within the purview of Latin and South America. I know the basics, of course, and the native history, but never spent time on the modern histories and cultures of the region. My understanding of Mexican writer Yurri Herrera's powerful slip of a book, then, may be completely off base. But "[y]ou can't dictate how people are going to react to the books you write. It depends on what they're bringing to it when they open it." (Anonymous)

Herrera opens the book with Mexican teenager Makina poised on the precipice of a yawning sinkhole, the end of the world. As she draws back from that edge, she soon finds herself in another uncomfortable position: she is tasked with crossing the border to find her brother in America, and cannot do so successfully without the assistance of the local drug lords. 

The crossing of the border is not only physical, but also spiritual, linguistic, cultural. Confident that she can traverse readily between two very different worlds, Makina sets forth with few supplies and plenty of confidence - or at least bravado.  The resultant journey quickly takes on the aspects of the Odyssey. She descends into the darkness, is raised to light, plunges forth again. The America she encounters is dark, garish, grim - yet also strikingly familiar. And there's that incessant feeling that once you've crossed over into the true Underworld, there's no turning back...

In 107 pages, Herrera fascinates, educates, and titillates his audience. He gives us much more than a griping, precise narrative - there are layers upon layers here, and the end of the world as Makina knows it certainly seems to creep towards her from every direction; darkness (and a brittle brilliance) lapping at her feet even as she finally pads across the good, soft earth to an unknown fate in the final pages of the book. 

This is worth an hour or two of your time; reading it and considering the various possibilities and subtleties left me with a new set of perspectives and ideas. That Herrera is able to tie together themes of love, loss, family, imperialism, and (not) belonging in a profound yet casual approach. Be sure to read the translator's note before you dive in.