The Joys of Summer Reading
Serious reading time should be at the top of your summertime to-do list.
Serious reading time should be at the top of your summertime to-do list.
These days I read in bits and pieces. I take a book with me everywhere I go, so I can grab 15 minutes while I’m waiting in the dentist or 10 minutes waiting in the car for the kids to finish class. (I’d read at stoplights if I could.) Our family readaloud time can also get fragmented. We have a strict policy of reading together every night — except when dinner plans didn’t go as planned and we eat an hour later than normal, or someone isn’t feeling well, or we had a rough day homeschooling and my readaloud voice is shot, or whatever. On those nights we might cut our reading time in half, or forgo it altogether in favor of a group viewing of the latest episode of So You Think You Can Dance.
It sometimes feels like my reading progress can be measured in paragraphs instead of pages, so this time of year, I think back with longing to my childhood summers, when I could read uninterrupted for hours at a stretch. I’d pick the thickest books I could find, or check out every book in a series and stack them up beside me, devouring them like potato chips. With few distractions, I could get absorbed in a book in a way that’s much more difficult for me today. I can remember exactly where I was sitting in my grandmother’s living room, heart pounding, as Madeleine L’Engle’s A Swiftly Tilting Planet blew my mind. Another time I was reading science fiction in the hammock on the porch at home and suddenly looked up, startled and alarmed at the idea that I was outside breathing open air — until I remembered that I was on planet Earth and the air was okay to breathe.
A while ago, I was talking with a friend I’ve known since third grade (we bonded over The Chronicles of Narnia) and I said that while I was enjoying reading The Lord of the Rings with my kids, it was a much different experience from reading it on my own, on the long summer days, when I didn’t do much of anything but hang out in Middle Earth and worry about Ringwraiths. “I wish I’d been able to do that,” my friend said wistfully. I didn’t understand what she meant. I knew she was at least as big a Tolkien-nerd as I was, and we’d read the books about the same time.
“Don’t you remember?” she said. “My parents thought I read too much, so after half an hour I had to go play outside.” (My friend was much too well-behaved to do the logical thing and sneak the book out with her.) Clearly, if I had ever known about such traumatic events, I had blocked them from my memory. Of course, now that she is a grown-up with a full-time job and a household to support, it’s very nearly impossible for my friend to go back and recreate the summers she should have had, visiting other worlds and inhabiting other lives.
I’ve used her sad story as a cautionary tale in my own life. Whether we take a summer break or homeschool year-round (we’ve done both), I try to take advantage of the unique flexibility of homeschool life to make sure that my kids have the time and space to find their own reading obsessions. This year my younger son is tracking down The 39 Clues as quickly as the library can fulfill his hold requests, my 11-year-old daughter is matriculating at Hogwarts for the umpteenth time, my teenage daughter is spending a lot of time in various apocalyptic wastelands, and my teenage son is hanging out in small-town Maine with terrifying clowns. I can’t always join them (no way am I voluntarily reading about scary clowns), but I do try to schedule some marathon readaloud sessions, so that we can finally finish the His Dark Materials trilogy or get started with our first Jane Austen.
Occasionally (oh, happy day!) the kids will even ask me for reading suggestions, so I can pull out some recent favorites from the children’s/YA shelf. At the moment that list includes Museum of Thieves by Lian Tanner, about a fantasy world where parental overprotectiveness has been taken to such extremes that children are literally chained to their guardians. Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld, is an alternate-history steampunk retelling of World War I, where the heroine disguises herself as a boy to serve on one of the massive, genetically modified, living airships in the British air force. Garth Nix’s Mister Monday envisions all of creation being run by a vast, supernatural bureaucracy, which our 12-year-old hero must learn to navigate to save his own life and ultimately the world (encountering quite a bit more adventure and danger along the way than we usually find in, say, the average DMV office). Each of these books is the first in a series, fulfilling my requirements for appropriate summer reading.
And as much as possible, I try to carve out some time for myself to grab my own over-large summer book — maybe Susannah Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, or Hilary Mantel’s Tudor epic, Bring Up the Bodies, or maybe I’ll finally tackle Anthony Trollope’s Chronicles of Barsetshire— and snuggle next to the kids to do some side-by-side reading, ignoring deadlines and household chores to get lost in a book together.
The Book Nerd: Planning Our Day Around Readalouds
There are lots of ways to plan your homeschool days — but readalouds are Suzanne’s favorite.
There are lots of ways to plan your homeschool days — but readalouds are Suzanne’s favorite.
Some people begin homeschooling because they want to tailor their child’s education to his or her individual needs. Others want to give their child the opportunity to explore a particular interest or talent. I decided to homeschool because I wanted to read to my kids.
It started with a story on the “new homeschool movement” that aired on NPR many years ago, back when my 15-year-old was a toddler. I don’t remember anything they said about the hows or whys of homeschooling, but I do remember that they had a clip of the mother of a homeschooled family reading Harry Potter aloud to her children as (described by the reporter) they all snuggled together on a large comfy chair. I loved it. It started me thinking that maybe homeschooling wasn’t such a crazy idea after all. It sent me to the library to check out a stack of how-to books, and ultimately it led to 10-plus years of homeschooling for the toddler and his three (eventual) siblings.
I do realize that you don’t actually have to homeschool to read to your kids — all my friends who send their children to school like normal people read to their children on a regular basis — but I found it easy to commit to a lifestyle that involved wearing pajamas after noon, eating dinner surrounded by stacks of curriculum, and lots of snuggling on comfy chairs. And, just like I’d imagined it, we have plenty of time for the intersection of my two favorite things in the world: my kids and books. It’s not a surprise that our days revolve around reading aloud.
We begin each homeschool day with Mom’s readaloud, a tradition that grew out of our daily struggle to get everyone up and out of bed for lessons. The prospect of math wasn’t very motivating first thing in the morning, but now we ease into our day with about 20 minutes of reading aloud. I get to pick the book, so I can sneak in those personal favorites that the kids have not quite gotten around to reading. (This is how I made sure my teenage son didn’t miss out on Little Women.) When we read The Neverending Story by Michael Ende, I found an edition just like the one I checked out from my local library 30 years ago, printed in green ink for the story of young Atreyu and his friend, Falkor the luckdragon, and their quest to save Fantastia, and in red ink for Bastian, who is reading Atreyu’s story and gradually discovering that he may be part of the adventure. I’m sure my library also had a copy of Elizabeth Enright’s The Saturdays, the first book in the Melendy Quartet, but somehow I never discovered it, so my children and I were introduced together to the four Melendy siblings, growing up in pre-World War II New York and pooling their money to create the Independent Saturday Afternoon Adventure Club.
Another new acquaintance was Fern Drudger, modern day heroine of N.E. Bode’s The Anybodies, who discovers that despite being raised by tragically boring parents (they work for the firm of Beige & Beige and like to collect toasters), she actually belongs to a family with magical powers and a very special house made of books, where lunch is green eggs and ham and Borrowers live in the walls. We so enjoyed Fern (and her narrator, who likes to break into the action to complain about his old writing teacher) that we happily followed her through two sequels, The Nobodies and The Somebodies.
Once we’ve gotten around to math and our other morning lessons, we break for lunch and then gather together again on the couch for homeschool readalouds. We’ve done the same cycle of readalouds with each child, beginning with myths and legends from around the world, and moving on to adaptations of classic literature. It can be difficult to find adaptations that are clear to modern readers without sacrificing too much of the original story, but we always enjoy Geraldine McCaughrean, whose retellings of classic stories (from The Odyssey to One Thousand and One Arabian Nights to The Canterbury Tales and beyond) are witty and detailed. Another favorite retelling of an old story is T.H. White’s version of King Arthur’s childhood, The Sword in the Stone, which combines medieval culture and cheerful anachronism as it describes how Merlin turned the Wart (as Arthur was known) into various animals as part of his education. (T.H. White continues Arthur’s story in the rest of The Once and Future King, of which The Sword in the Stone is the first part, but the tone gets considerably darker and more adult, and I haven’t attempted that as a readaloud.) Towards the end of our readaloud cycle, we spend some time with Shakespeare and the best collection of adaptations I’ve found so far is Leon Garfield’s Shakespeare Stories and its follow-up, Shakespeare Stories II. Garfield also developed Shakespeare: The Animated Tales, a series of BBC-produced 30-minute versions of the plays which are fun and entertaining, along with being good warm-ups for full-length productions.
We end our day with evening readaloud, where each child gets to pick his or her own book. We’ve read everything from the Betsy-Tacy series to The Lord of the Rings, and a while back we spent several months working our way through all of Harry Potter, which involved lots of snuggling in Mom’s large comfy bed (as we don’t quite fit on a chair anymore). It was a lovely full-circle moment, but I’m happy to report that there’s no end in sight to our readaloud journey. I look forward to sharing more of our favorites for reading aloud or reading anytime, and I can’t wait to hear about yours. Happy reading!
Great Short Stories for Your High School Literature Class
Suzanne has the definitive guide to the best short stories for your middle school or high school homeschool (or for your own personal reading list).
Suzanne has the definitive guide to the best short stories for your middle school or high school homeschool (or for your own personal reading list). Bonus: You can read most of them online for free.
As Library Chicken readers may already know, the past year or so of my bookish life has been all about falling in love again with short stories. I was an avid short story reader growing up: I read ghost stories, detective stories, classic stories, and all the science fiction and fantasy I could get my hands on, including everything published in the Big Three magazines (Analog, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine). At some point, however, I lost interest in short stories, preferring the complexity (and longer emotional commitment) of novels, even getting to the point where I actively avoided story collections.
Once I decided to focus on short stories in our homeschool-hybrid junior high literature course, though, I had to start reading and rereading for the syllabus, which led to a binge-read that hasn’t yet tapered off, even as we’re about to wrap up the class. (NOTE: For any interested parties, the list of stories we read during the past semester is included at the end of the post.) For my own sake, I wish I’d rediscovered short stories a while back, but I’m really kicking myself that I didn’t use short stories more while homeschooling my own children.
Short stories are WONDERFUL for homeschool. By their very nature, they’re less intimidating than novels for slower and more reluctant readers (and they don’t interfere as much with the stack of recreational reading that avid readers will already have piled by their bedside), and it’s easier for busy parents to work them in as read-alouds or read-alongs. All of the basic concepts of literary analysis and criticism (setting, protagonist, plot, conflict, etc.) can be practiced with short stories, and it’s easy to read a bunch and build up a ‘mental library’ for the purposes of comparison and contrast. It’s a great way to introduce homeschoolers to classic authors and new genres — and if readers hate them, then the suffering doesn’t last very long! If you haven’t already, I highly recommend trying out some short stories in your homeschool curriculum, and if you’re looking for summer reading ideas now that the school year is winding down, short story collections are a great place to start.
So I’m happy to present for your reading enjoyment: Library Chicken’s Top-Ten(ish) Short Story Collections (So Far). (Please note that while I’d have no problem handing any of these to teenage or young adult readers — and many of them to upper elementary and middle school readers — some stories are definitely more adult-oriented and may contain sexual situations, violence, and/or racial or ethnic slurs. If you are considering short stories for your homeschool curriculum, please read them first so you can make the best choices for your own family.)
The Oxford Book of American Short Stories edited by Joyce Carol Oates
The Best American Short Stories of the Century edited by John Updike
100 Years of the Best American Short Stories edited by Lorrie Moore
These three hefty anthologies are great places to start if you’re looking to catch up on American short stories past and present. Many of the best-known and most-anthologized stories (and authors) in our literary tradition can be found here. Don’t be intimidated by massive size of these books — you should feel free to dip in and out and skip around.
The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories by Joan Aiken
ALL AGES. Sadly, I have not done as much reading (and rereading) of short stories for younger readers as I would like, but this collection is a standout. If I had discovered it a few years ago, it would have gone straight into our read-aloud pile; as it was, I immediately bought a copy for our home library. Every Monday (and occasionally on Tuesday) amazing and fantastical things happen to the Armitage family, and you owe it to yourself (and any children you may have wandering about) to get to know them better.
Growing Up Ethnic in America: Contemporary Fiction About Learning to be American edited by Maria Mazziotti Gillan and Jennifer Gillan
Amy Tan, Toni Morrison, Sandra Cisneros, E. L. Doctorow, Louise Erdrich — do I really need to say anything more? (This would be a fabulous text for a homeschool high school literature course.)
American Gothic Tales edited by Joyce Carol Oates
The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer
Short stories are traditionally the home of ghosts and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night, and these two anthologies have some of my favorite and most bizarre examples. They range from deliciously creepy to full-on horror, so read at your own risk!
Tenth of December by George Saunders
Get in Trouble by Kelly Link
What is Not Yours is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi
If you prefer your weirdness to come with a more literary bent, these three acclaimed authors can take care of that for you. (Also see any short story collections by Neil Gaiman or China Mieville.) If you have a middle/high schooler who claims to be bored with reading, definitely consider putting some of the stories collected here on your summer reading list.
...Which brings us to the end of our official Top Ten, but I can’t leave without recommending the following classics to all readers and especially homeschoolers:
pretty much anything and everything by Edgar Allan Poe
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
The World of Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
The Annotated H.P. Lovecraft by H.P. Lovecraft
The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
...and a personal favorite that I DID make all of my children read (because I’m a science fiction nerd):
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
BONUS: Below is the list of stories that we read in our junior high literature class this past session. We typically read and discussed two stories a week. If you are considering coming up with your own list for summer (or whenever) reading, you could go with one story a week and still get a lot of great reading done. Also, when making up your own list, my advice is to start where I started: with the short stories that you love from your own reading AND with the ones (whether you loved or hated them) that still stick in your head from your own school days. If they made a big enough impression that you still remember them (ahem: see “To Build a Fire” below), there’s probably something there worth revisiting.
1. “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe
2. “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” by Arthur Conan Doyle
3. “Big Two-Hearted River” by Ernest Hemingway
4. “The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs
5. “The Luck of Roaring Camp” by Bret Harte
6. “The Courting of Sister Wisby” by Sarah Orne Jewett
7. “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe
8. “To Build a Fire” by Jack London
9. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman
10. “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty
11. “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi” by Rudyard Kipling
12. “There Will Come Soft Rains” by Ray Bradbury
13. “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell
14. “Quietus” by Charlie Russell
15. “It’s a Good Life” by Jerome Bixby
16. “Jeeves Takes Charge” by P.G. Wodehouse
17. “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” by James Thurber
18. “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor
19. “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry
20. “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce
21. “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut
22. “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula Le Guin
23. “The Lady or the TIger?” by Frank Stockton
24. “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson
(I didn’t read them in time for this session, but next time around I’d love to add “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker and “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell.)
Going Out With a Bang! 10 Great Apocalypse Novels for High School
It’s the end of the world as we know it — and sometimes that’s not as bad as it seems. These 10 books about the end of the world are great for starting big conversations with your high school homeschooler.
It’s the end of the world as we know it — and sometimes that’s not as bad as it seems. These 10 books about the end of the world are great for starting big conversations with your high school homeschooler.
I’ve decided to go out with a bang(!) in my book recommendations this summer by listing my Top Ten Tales of the Apocalypse.
I’m actually something of a reading wimp, with a low tolerance for horror and blood-drenched thrillers. For many years, I carefully avoided zombies and other world-ending events (Meteors! Vampires! Really Bad Flu!) in my fiction, but in the past few years I’ve discovered a new attraction to near-apocalypses. Impending death forces characters to deal with the meaning of life — and do some very serious prioritizing — and I think many of us, in our everyday probably-not-the-end-of-the-world lives, struggle with how to separate what is meaningful and necessary from what is unimportant and time-wasting.
Of course, along with bringing up interesting moral issues, apocalypses are usually chock full of violence and death, so (unless otherwise noted) I’d recommend the following books for teen readers and up.
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Two decades after a civilization-shattering pandemic, a small troupe of musicians and actors visits enclaves of survivors to stage Shakespeare plays. Their motto, taken from an episode of Star Trek: Voyager, is “Survival is Insufficient.” This novel achieved both popular and critical success upon its 2014 release and deservedly so. What I love about it, and what sets it apart from so many other popular end-of-the-world sagas (looking at you, The Walking Dead), is its refusal to give up hope. Mandel portrays the darkness in human nature, but she also sees the light — the ability of people to pull together in terrible circumstances and create communities that protect and support each other. By making room for all possibilities instead of focusing only on what is selfish and destructive in humanity, she creates a world populated by characters I can recognize and actually believe in.
The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters
Hank Palace has finally achieved his dream of becoming a detective. Unfortunately, it’s under difficult circumstances: an asteroid is scheduled to hit Earth in six months, causing an extinction-level event, and in this pre-apocalyptic world civilization is starting to break down. If the world is going to end in less than a year, do you keep going to work every day? Is the answer different if you are a police officer, or a surgeon, or someone responsible for keeping the power on? In addition to the murder mystery at the core, there are a lot of fascinating moral questions in this novel, first in a trilogy (which, SPOILER ALERT, does not end well).
The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway
I love this book so much that I don’t even know how to tell you about it. Set after the Go-Away War, where humanity was devastated by the invention of a new weapon that caused people and objects to simply go away (with, not so shockingly, unexpected and terrible side effects), we follow the adventures of two best friends, part of a team of ex-special-operatives, as they take on a dangerous mission. With mimes, ninjas, and pirates! Amazon calls it a “hilarious, action-packed look at the apocalypse” but fails to mention that certain readers may become so attached to the characters that things get very emotional at times. (I only cried a little, OK?) This is one of those books that is not going to work for everyone, but if you’re are in the mood for a novel that is so out there you’ll read most of it with your jaw hanging open in amazement, you should look no further. (Don’t forget to pick up Harkaway’s other two books, Angelmaker and Tigerman, and definitely email me so we can discuss them all AT LENGTH.)
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
Forget Brad Pitt. This novel (which shares a title with the movie version, but not much else) consists of a series of interviews with various survivors of the Zombie War. It’s unique in that it depicts the global scale of the disaster and tells much of the story from the perspective of the military forces involved. Some of the events were so disturbing and haunting that it took me years to work up the courage to reread it, whereupon I discovered that the pieces I found so unsettling were only mentioned briefly in the narrative — the author had succeeded so well in creating the world that I had filled in all the blanks myself without even realizing it. Maybe one day I’ll be brave enough to listen to the audiobook adaptation, which includes Nathan Fillion, Alan Alda, and Mark Hamill among its stellar cast.
The Sundial by Shirley Jackson
In this list I’ve chosen to highlight more recent books, leaving off classics like The Stand, On the Beach, and Alas, Babylon, but I had to include this 1958 novel by Jackson. One of her less well-known works, it follows the Halloran family after Aunt Fanny has a vision of the coming apocalypse. As one would expect in a Jackson story, the Hallorans and their hangers-on are strange, unsettling, and occasionally very funny. Plus there’s a creepy mansion, so that’s good.
The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
Adolescent Julia and her family struggle to deal with massive changes as the rotation of the Earth inexplicably slows. While I struggled a bit with the science (or the massive lack of it) in this particular apocalyptic scenario, that’s not really the point. Instead, as Buffy the Vampire Slayer used a Hellmouth to point out the challenges of high school and teenagerhood, Walker uses the possible end of the world as a backdrop for this coming of age tale, where Julia wonders if she’ll even survive the dramatic changes, both personal and global, taking place in her world. (This is one of the only novels on the list that I’d be okay handing to a middle schooler.)
Zone One by Colson Whitehead
Prior to winning every lit award on the planet with Underground Railroad, Whitehead wrote this zombie novel, following the protagonist and his fellow “sweepers” as they patrol the ruins of New York City, trying to eliminate the remaining infected. It’s a slow-moving, thoughtful take on the zombie genre—at least until everything starts to go horribly, inevitably wrong.
Pure by Julianna Baggott
I’ve read my share of YA dystopias (usually featuring a female lead born to set things right) but the post-apocalyptic world of Pure is unlike anything I’ve seen before. Pressia lives outside, with the other “wretches” suffering the effects of radiation which has caused human flesh to fuse with inanimate objects, while Partridge and his family live among the “pures” in the Dome. This novel, first in a trilogy, was unsettling and unique and memorable, and I couldn’t wait to read the sequels—which, unfortunately, I ended up disliking intensely for many reasons, but mostly because they didn’t live up to the promise of the first volume. Despite that disappointment, Pure was so good that I still recommend it for anyone looking for something new and powerful in the YA dystopia genre, though I wouldn’t necessarily advise continuing on in the series.
All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
Some say the world will end in science, some say in magic — but why choose? In this award-winning science fantasy, two childhood friends take diverging paths — one talks to animals, one builds a two-second time machine—but as they reach adulthood and the planet falls apart around them, they must figure out if they can work together to save the world. I already gushed about this one with Amy on the podcast, but I can’t resist an opportunity to recommend it again.
The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey
I’ve saved one of my very favorites for last—this zombie-apocalypse novel takes on deeply human themes while still being scary and action-packed and gory (as one expects when you’ve got zombies around). It was the inspiration for the high school Apocalyptic Lit class I’ll start teaching in a few weeks at the Academy (which will also cover Station Eleven, The Last Detective, The Sundial, and The Age of Miracles). And I can’t really tell you much more than that, because part of the fun going in is not knowing exactly what’s happening, so email me when you’re finished reading and ready to talk about it. (In the meantime, I’ll be reading the just-out prequel, The Boy on the Bridge.)
A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster by Rebecca Solnit
BONUS NON-FICTION PICK: I sang the praises of this terrific book in a recent Library Chicken Update, so I’ll try to keep it short here, but if you’re interested in what actual human beings do in actual times of disaster (HINT: It’s a lot more like Station Eleven than The Walking Dead) you should pick this up immediately. Even without the occasional solar eclipse, it’s been feeling a bit like the end of the world lately, and I found this book to be both timely and inspirational in its depiction of how human beings can come together to help each other. Fair warning: it’s also frustrating and sad and maddening at times as it details the ways that authority figures have let us down in the past (the Hurricane Katrina chapter is especially difficult), but we can only change the narrative when we understand what’s gone wrong and why.
Here’s hoping that we get through the next year with no mutant-zombie-vampire-pandemics (if there is an apocalypse, I’ll be the one with zero useful survival skills), and I’ll see you next summer!
(We’re Amazon affiliates, so if you purchase something through an Amazon link, we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Obviously this doesn’t influence what we recommend, and we link to places other than Amazon.)
Book Review: Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan Series
Here’s an action-packed, steampunk-inspired YA series for teens that is great for kids who love historical fiction or books about World War II. Suzanne explains why Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan series is summer binge reading material.
It’s got adventure, flying whale-beasts, and a brave and resourceful heroine. What more could you want?
In an alternate steampunk Europe on the brink of World War I, a young woman disguises herself as a boy so she can join the British Air Service and serve on their fleet of giant genetically-modified air beasts. Meanwhile, the Central Powers (or Clankers) are building up their army of steam-powered many-legged machines as the inevitable conflict approaches. You want to read these books already, don’t you? But wait, there’s more! All three books (pick up the hardback editions, if you can) have wonderful full-page illustrations by Keith Thompson, including some of the most gorgeous endpapers I’ve ever seen.
Many people are familiar with Scott Westerfeld’s YA science fiction series beginning with Uglies, but it seems that fewer have heard of this steampunk/biopunk alternate history. Marketed as YA, I’ve been recommending it for middle schoolers and up (including adults) ever since it first came out. It’s got adventure, flying whale-beasts, and a brave and resourceful heroine. The series also makes a great side-read for anyone studying World War I, since Westerfeld uses actual history as his jumping-off point and includes historical figures ranging from Archduke Franz Ferdinand to Nikola Tesla. As a bonus, after you’ve read the trilogy (including an extra final chapter and illustration on Westerfeld’s website) you can check out The Manual of Aeronautics, an illustrated guide (by the fabulous Keith Thompson) to the world and technology of Leviathan. What are you waiting for?
Leviathan
Young Scotswoman Deryn Sharp rejects the dresses that a “proper lady” should wear to disguise herself as a boy and study to be a midshipman on one of the great British air-beasts. Meanwhile, Prince Aleksander, son of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, must go on the run after his parents are killed. Will their paths cross when the ship Leviathan crash-lands in Switzerland? (SPOILER: Yes.)
Behemoth
War has broken out, though Alek (an Austrian Clanker) and Deryn (a British Darwinist) still want to work together for peace. After their mission goes awry, however, the friends are separated and their friendship will be tested as they end up on opposite sides of the conflict.
Goliath
Together again, Alek and Deryn are still in the thick of things as their adventures take them to Siberia (where they rescue Nikola Tesla), California (and William Randolph Hearst’s estate), and Mexico (where they get help from Pancho Villa). And don’t forget the bonus chapter!
(We’re Amazon affiliates, so if you purchase something through an Amazon link, we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Obviously this doesn’t influence what we recommend, and we link to places other than Amazon.)
Summer Reading: Catherynne M. Valente’s Fairyland Series
If Suzanne had to pick one book series for a desert island, the Fairyland series is the one she’d choose. Here’s why.
If I had to pick one series to keep me company on a desert island, one series to pass along to my kids, I think I’d pick Catherynne Valente’s Fairyland books.
I’ve written before about the glorious summers of my childhood, when I could devote long uninterrupted hours to burning through enormous Lord of the Ring-type sagas. I’ve also shared the cautionary tale of a dear friend whose parents made her put down her book and play outside, but I’m sure none of our readers could behave in so dastardly a fashion. (NOTE: I am not entirely against the outdoors and exercise and whatnot, but they made her put down her book. Things like that take years of therapy to get over.) With all that in mind, when Amy asked me to do some Summer Reading posts, I decided I wanted to focus on some of my favorite series for children and young people — but only series that have already come to a satisfactory end, as there’s nothing worse than being stuck with a cliffhanger while you wait for an author to hurry up and write, all the while worrying that before they finish they might die in some sort of freak word-processing accident.
I thought I’d start with my very favorite fantasy series. For decades, if you’d asked me what my favorite series was — the books I’d read over and over, the books I’d have to make sure my own kids read, my desert island books — I would have said the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. I was (and still am) a hardcore Narnia-head. As a child, I reread the series every summer. I wrote Narnia fanfiction (before ‘fanfiction’ was even a word). I love these books. (NOTE: I know that not everyone loves Narnia because of the Christian allegorical aspects. I completely understand that, but it’s not hampered my own love of the series because I was raised ‘unchurched’ and didn’t even notice that it was a Christian allegory until I was in my late teens or 20s. I was <ahem> perhaps not the most observant of readers.) But now, if I had to pick one series to keep me company on a desert island, one series to pass along to my kids, I think I’d pick Catherynne Valente’s Fairyland books.
The Fairyland books, with one exception, are about September, a 12-year-old girl living in WWII-era Nebraska, with a mechanic mother who works in the aircraft factory and a father missing overseas, until — in the tradition of children who get lost in wardrobes and swept up by passing tornadoes — she catches a ride with the Green Wind and his Leopard. They drop her off in Fairyland, ruled by the evil Marquess, where September soon finds herself on a quest to defeat the Marquess and free her friends. These books are for all ages, beautifully written, with a heroine who relies on her bravery, her intelligence, and her friends to save the day. There is little that is black and white in Fairyland: even the villains have complicated histories of good intentions gone bad, and even the heroes can make poor choices under difficult circumstances. I’ve read these books both for my own enjoyment and as readalouds (which is particularly wonderful, as Valente has a gift with language and original phrasing) and I think they belong on every family’s bookshelf.
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
“You seem an ill-tempered and irascible enough child,” said the Green Wind. “How would you like to come away with me and ride upon the Leopard of Little Breezes and be delivered to the great sea which borders Fairyland?”
In book one, September visits Fairyland for the first time and meets her soon-to-be-best friends: A-Through-L, a Wyverary, and Saturday, a Marid. (A marid is a type of ifrit or djinn, and a “Wyverary” is the offspring of a wyvern and a library. And honestly, if that isn’t enough to send you out to find this book immediately, I don’t even know what you’re doing hanging around these parts.) Both of her friends are held captive (one way or another) by the evil Marquess, ruler of Fairyland, and September must defeat her to save them.
FIND MORE SUMMER HOMESCHOOL INSPIRATION
The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There
In book two, September returns to Fairyland to find that its magic is being sucked away by Fairyland Below, ruled by Halloween, the Hollow Queen. September soon discovers that Halloween is her own shadow, left in Fairyland after her previous adventure, and when she reunites with her friends, A-Through-L and Saturday, she finds that they have shadows also.
The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two
In book three, September returns to Fairyland with her new sidekick, a 1925 Model A Ford, and discovers that she’s been named a criminal, specifically a “royal scofflaw, professional revolutionary, and criminal of the realm.” On a mission to the Fairyland’s Moon, she must defeat a mysterious moon-Yeti and figure out what actually happened to all of Fairyland’s missing fairies. Unlike the first two books, this one ends with something of a cliffhanger, but that’s okay because you can go straight to book four...
The Boy Who Lost Fairyland
...which begins not with September, but with Hawthorn, a changeling who was born a troll in Fairyland before being spirited away to the human world. I was all set to be annoyed with Valente for swapping out September for another protagonist, but I immediately fell for Hawthorn, who, in an effort to act like a Normal child starts writing a rulebook of Normal behavior (e.g., “Knives and scissors are sharp, but different than swords, and you can only use them to fight cucumbers and onions and packages from the postman, not Ancient Enemies from Beyond Time,” followed by “There are no such things as Ancient Enemies from Beyond Time”). Plus he hangs out with the best wombat ever in the history of wombats. We catch up with September eventually and another cliffhanger leads us straight into the fifth and final book...
The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home
...where different teams, including September and her best friends (and Hawthorn with his friends) must compete in a Royal Race for the throne of Fairyland. And really, I don’t want to tell you anything more because you should go out and read these fabulous books for yourself.
Happy Reading!
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The BookNerd’s Official Guide to Reading Hamilton
Don't let your obsession stop with the stage: Our Book Nerd's book-by-book guide to indulging your Hamilton obsession will keep you busy until ticket prices go down. (They have to go down eventually, right?)
We’re bringing some of our favorite content out of the archives and back onto the front page.
Far and away, the best thing to happen to our household in the recently-ended Year That Must Not Be Named was our discovery of the musical Hamilton. (Well, okay, and we got a kitten. So maybe the kitten is first. But Hamilton is a very close second.) I’ve been a history buff for a long time, so the musical provided me with the perfect excuse to spend way too much time reading some great biographies and history books. After all, I want to be able to answer intelligently any questions my homeschool students may have after we’ve listened to “Guns and Ships” for the 27th time. From that, I’ve come up with this list for anyone—homeschool student, homeschool parent, or interested bystander—who’d like to take a deep dive into the world of the Alexander Hamilton. I’m happy to present:
The BookNerd’s Official Guide to Reading Hamilton
1. Read Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. The Biography That Started It All. Okay, yes, it’s over 700 pages long, but you can do it! Don’t throw away your shot! (Sorry.) Take a break whenever necessary and listen to a Hamilton track to stay inspired and if you really get bogged down, imagine the witty and erudite conversation you’ll be able to have (after finishing this book) with Lin-Manuel Miranda next time you run into him at the airport or the local sub shop or wherever. Besides, it’s a really good book.
2. Read Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow. Another awesome biography about Hamilton’s buddy and father figure, and c’mon, you know Lin-Manuel’s read this one too. This is actually my favorite bio by Chernow—one of my favorite moments is when the famously undemonstrative Washington had a falling out with Thomas Jefferson and changed his greeting to him in their correspondence from “My Dear Sir” to just “Dear Sir.” WASHINGTON ISN’T PLAYING, PEOPLE.
3. Read Short History of the American Revolution by James L. Stokesbury. Now that you’ve made it through some 1,500 pages of Founding Father biography, you’re probably interested in learning more about the actual fighting during the American Revolution. War histories can be incredibly long and difficult to keep up with, but Stokesbury’s Short History series (he’s also written books on World War I, World War II, etc.) provides great one-volume overviews. These books are great for homeschool shelves and have been highly recommended by My Brother, An Actual History Professor.
4. Read Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis. Ellis is another historian who specializes in taking big historical events and breaking them down into episodes that highlight important turning points. Ellis is always entertaining and this book, with chapters about the Hamilton-Burr duel, the Hamilton-Jefferson-Madison dinner, and Washington’s farewell address, seems tailor-made for Hamilton fans.
5. Read a Burr biography. The bad news is that there aren’t that many Burr bios out there (though I’m sure that is changing even now as publishers scramble to keep up with the Hamilton fandom); the good news is the man was fascinating, so whatever you can find on him will be a good read. Everything that happens with Burr during Hamilton? That’s just the warm-up to the good stuff, when Burr decided to raise a force of armed men and invade Mexico, or maybe Florida, or maybe he’ll just take over New Orleans. Historians are divided on whether he actually committed treason (SPOILER: he definitely committed treason) but Burr being Burr, he managed to avoid legal consequences. I recommend David O. Stewart’s American Emperor: Aaron Burr’s Challenge to Jefferson’s America (which primarily focuses on the post-duel years) and the two-volume biography by Milton Lomask (which I’m still working my way through but is great so far). War of Two: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the Duel That Stunned the Nation by John Sedgwick is also a great read. I can’t help it—I’ve become very fond of Burr. Sure, I wouldn’t let him talk to my daughters and I would NEVER EVER lend the man money, but I bet he would have been great to sit next to at a dinner party.
(Editor's Note: We read Gore Vidal’s fictional Burr for the podcast, where we gushed a lot about the Theodosias. As one does.)
6. Read Lafayette in the Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell. Vowell’s writing here is wildly entertaining, as usual, so I’ll forgive her the fact that this book has a slightly disappointing lack of Hamilton. Really, you should do yourself a favor and read ALL of Vowell’s American history books. She’s a great addition to any homeschool shelf and I highly recommend her to students who maybe aren’t so sure that they’re interested in history. Assassination Vacation and The Wordy Shipmates are two of my personal favorites.
7. You should probably read a Thomas Jefferson biography, I suppose. I’m not the biggest fan of Jefferson, but yeah, he was an important Founding Father and a genius and all that. I don’t have a favorite Jefferson biography—though American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph J. Ellis is not a bad place to start—but there are plenty to choose from. I highly recommend reading The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed alongside whatever Jefferson biography you choose, to provide some additional perspective.
8. And now that you’ve read at least TWO Pulitzer Prize winning books and are an American Revolution history buff, you should definitely reward yourself by reading the official book about the musical, Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter. Except I’m sure you’ve already got it, so now you can reread it and have intelligent and informed opinions on all the choices Miranda made when adapting history for a Broadway musical! Or you can just continue to obsess over its amazing awesomeness, like the rest of us!
EXTRA CREDIT: Do you have room in your heart for yet another amazing Broadway musical about American history? Of course you do! So you must see the movie version of 1776, the musical about the creation of the Declaration of Independence. The music (while wonderful) is more Broadway standard than contemporary, and the cast consists almost entirely of white men, but like Hamilton, the dialogue and verses are based on the actual writings of our Founding Fathers, who show up here as complicated, funny, and occasionally obnoxious men, rather than secular saints in heroic poses. As a bonus, the lead is my personal favorite Founding Father, John Adams, so after you watch this, you can pick up avid McCullough’s John Adams, the biography on which the HBO mini-series was based. Just think of the great conversation you can have with Lin-Manuel now!
Happy reading, everyone!
Library Chicken Best Books of 2019: Horror
I dipped a toe into the zombie-infested waters and am having a great (and terrifying!) time exploring the genre. If you’re not typically a horror reader, I recommend giving it a try—there are books all up and down the scariness/goriness scale, and everyone can find something to suit their sensibilities.
Hello everyone and welcome to another wrap-up of what the BookNerd has been reading!
It’s the most wonderful time of the year: end-of-the-year booklist time! This week I’ll be sharing some of my favorite horror novels that I read in 2019. I’m fairly new to the horror genre, in that I actively avoided it for decades. That’s maybe because I grew up in the 80s, so I thought horror was Stephen King and teen slasher movies, and those aren’t really my thing. (Also I’m a squeamish wimp who gets scared and grossed out easily.) But horror is an extension or a sibling or at least a cousin of my best-beloved genre, science fiction/fantasy, and a lot of my favorite novels by authors like Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, and Jeff VanderMeer could be described as horror-adjacent at the very least, so a few years ago (starting around 2016, though I can’t imagine what could have triggered my interest) I dipped a toe into the zombie-infested waters and am having a great (and terrifying!) time exploring the genre. If you’re not typically a horror reader, I recommend giving it a try—there are books all up and down the scariness/goriness scale, and everyone can find something to suit their sensibilities.
Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant
Speaking of dipping toes into infested waters—Grant’s novel asks the question, “What if mermaids were real? And what if they WANTED TO EAT YOUR FACE?!?” A few years ago, an entertainment conglomerate known for producing “documentaries” about mythical creatures (e.g., Bigfoot) sent a ship full of scientists, actors, and various television producers to the empty waters over the Mariana Trench in search of mermaids. After contact was lost, the ship was discovered adrift and abandoned, with only bloodstains and a few very disturbing film clips left to tell the tale. The younger sister of one of the people lost on that voyage is now an undersea researcher in her own right, and when she is approached to go on a follow-up trip to the same location she is eager for answers. SPOILER: Things do not go as planned. After I’d read and enjoyed this novel (no snorkeling in my immediate future, thank you very much) I realized that Grant’s novella “Rolling in the Deep” tells the story of the first doomed voyage, and though I generally am not a fan of reading things out of order I think you could go either way with this pair. NOTE: “Mira Grant” is the pen name of urban fantasy author Seanan McGuire, so if you enjoy McGuire’s other books as much as I do, consider giving her horror a try!
The Graveyard Apartment by Mariko Koike, translated by Deborah Boehm
From the uncharted ocean depths to the horrors of suburban Tokyo! Housing is always a problem, so when the Kanos find a lovely new apartment for a very reasonable price, they can’t believe their good luck. The mom, Misao, has only one concern: her new home overlooks a graveyard, which seems a bit inauspicious. Koike’s novel, originally published in 1986, is a popular classic of modern Japanese horror that English readers can now enjoy in a translation by Deborah Boehm. This is one of those books where I found myself yelling at the characters, “What are you doing?!? GET OUT ALREADY!” but I enjoyed the slow-building suspense along with the subtle surprises and differences that reading in translation can bring. Not gory but verrrrry creepy.
The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher
Many of the reader reviews for this one contain some variation on the line: “You’ll never look at rocks the same again,” and they don’t mean that in a “Wow, geology is cool!” sort of way. After her grandmother’s death, our protagonist, Mouse, is tasked with cleaning out her house, which is made more difficult by the fact that (1) her grandmother was a terrible person and was estranged from the rest of the family, and (2) she was a hardcore hoarder. Also, there may be Things Lurking in the Woods outside. (SPOILER: There absolutely are.) Fortunately, Mouse has her dog Bongo to keep her company and—this is not a spoiler because the author gives us this incredible gift up front—we know that Bongo comes out okay at the end, so we don’t have to spend the whole book worrying about what happens to the dog! HURRAY! This is an original and very creepy take on the ‘haunted woods’ idea and I’ve been seeing this book on various best-of-the-year lists, so congratulations to T. Kingfisher, who you may already know as Ursula Vernon, author of (among many other wonderful works) the delightfully Eva Ibbotson-esque Castle Hangnail.
A Cosmology of Monsters by Shaun Hamill
This is another 2019 book that has been showing up on various best-of lists, which is impressive as it’s also Hamill’s debut novel. The Turner family has been seeing monsters for a while, and in response, the father became obsessed with building a massive haunted-house attraction, which ultimately becomes an important business for their town and the Turner family’s livelihood. But the monsters don’t go away, and son Noah, like the rest of the family, has to decide how he’s going to deal with that. Does he ignore them and hope they go away, or does he invite them in? This novel has been described as a literary fiction-horror hybrid (and indeed focuses as much on family relationships as it does on the horror aspects) so it’s a good choice for people who are looking to broaden their reading. But mostly I want people to read it so I can talk to them about the ending and figure out what I think. Do I like it? Do I hate it? I’m not entirely sure, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.
The Grip of It by Jac Jemc
Another litfic/horror mash-up: this book follows a young couple with a troubled marriage as they move into a house with a troubled past. I’m a sucker for a haunted house story and this one is very unsettling. One thing I enjoy about horror is seeing what’s happening through the character’s eyes, and realizing (as a reader) that reality is coming apart around them even as the character seems oblivious. It’s a tricky thing to pull off, but Jemc does it well. Also a great entry point to the genre.
Kill Creek by Scott Thomas
So you’ve got a haunted house. Everyone in town knows the stories. Everyone knows it’s totally legit do-NOT-go-in-there haunted. What do you do? Clearly, you invite the country’s most famous writers of horror and ghost stories to spend the night and then see what happens. Best. Publicity. Stunt. Ever. That’s the premise of Thomas’s haunted house story and I am most definitely in. (Also, is anyone making a movie of this book? It should totally be a movie.) I don’t think the later portions of the book hold up quite as well as the beginning (horror as a genre often has a difficult time sticking the landing) but this is a fun, scary, Halloweeny read. This was another debut novel and I’m looking forward to what Thomas does next.
Salvation Day by Kali Wallace
I feel like I’m cheating a bit with this one, because it’s not straight horror—I’d describe it as a science fiction thriller with horror elements—but it does have zombies in space, so that’s got to count, right? In a future of space exploration and ecological disaster, a terrorist group hijacks a transport ship in order to take over the derelict exploration ship House of Wisdom, left abandoned in orbit after a virus killed everyone aboard. Clearly this is a TERRIBLE idea and once again I am here for it. The narration flips back and forth between one of the terrorists (though really, “terrorism” is in the eye of the beholder, right?) and one of the hostages as they explore the ship and discover that the authorities have not been completely honest about what happened to the crew. This is a page-turner with so many great elements (cults! conspiracies! diversity! romance!) that also has something very relevant to say about our present of anti-immigration, anti-refugee rhetoric and us vs. them thinking. A great read and I highly recommend it. This is Wallace’s first novel for adults; I haven’t read her YA novels yet but they’re on hold for me at the library.
Happy Reading and Happy Holidays! Now GO GET SCARED.
(We’re Amazon affiliates, so if you purchase something through an Amazon link, we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Obviously this doesn’t influence what we recommend, and we link to places other than Amazon.)
Library Chicken: Some Great Graphic Novels
Suzanne’s favorite graphic novels of 2019 so far include a new Lovecraft-ian horror classic, a heartwarming chronicle of … wedding planning?, and more.
Hello everyone! I hope you’ve been having a good 2019 so far! As you may have noticed, my Library Chicken updates this year have been happening less on a weekly schedule and more on a <ahem> somewhat quarterly schedule. It turns out that I’m not all that great at juggling the needs of two college kids, two high school kids, a houseful of obnoxious but cute animals, and a new year at the Academy. But I’m back with some of my personal favorites from this year—I can’t resist a good end-of-the-year wrap-up!
You may notice something different this time around: I have stopped posting my Library Chicken points and score. Not because I care that people know how badly I’m losing (I’m definitely losing this year), but because it’s kind of a hassle to keep track of everything and if I just make up the numbers I feel guilty. (Who needs more guilt?) And although the ostensible point of this occasional blog is to share my Library Chicken score, we all know it’s really just an excuse for me to babble on about books, right? So, onward!
This time I’ll be sharing some of my favorite graphic novels that I read in 2019—in part because I always think that graphic novels make really lovely holiday gifts. While you’re doing your shopping this holiday season, keep these in mind for your favorite readers…
Locke & Key written by Joe Hill, artwork by Gabriel Rodriguez
This series began publication in 2008 but is already considered a classic of modern horror. After a tragedy, a mother and her three children move into the old family home (located in Lovecraft, Massachusetts, so you know that’s not good), where strange keys can be found hidden away in various cracks and crevices. The kids soon discover that if they find the lock that matches a particular key, something magic will happen—a key may make you giant-sized, or turn you into an animal, or allow others to see your thoughts. Unbeknownst to the new occupants of the Keyhouse, however, a demon is stalking their family, trying to gather keys for its own dark purposes. The story is compelling and the artwork is gorgeous (and includes a very unexpected but lovely Calvin & Hobbes tribute), and I highly recommend it to all horror fans. Warning: this is not a series for younger readers as it does contain some intense violence. As a bonus: it looks like we’re finally going to get the long-awaited television adaptation on Netflix! Locke & Key, Vol 1: Welcome to Lovecraft is a great place to start, or you could spring for the entire six-volume set as a gift for yourself or, say, your favorite Library Chicken blogger.
written by Clint, Griffin, Travis, and Justin McElroy; artwork by Carey Pietsch
The Adventure Zone (for those unfamiliar) is a long-running Dungeons & Dragons podcast hosted by the McElroy brothers (of “My Brother, My Brother and Me” fame) together with their father, Clint McElroy. In the first series, known as “Balance”, the four of them play a campaign that spans several years, based in the D&D universe but soon becoming something wholly their creation. Full disclosure: I got into The Adventure Zone (often abbreviated as TAZ) because my teenagers would spend hours discussing the various characters and plot twists and I finally had to start listening to the podcast so I could understand what the heck they were talking about. The story starts out goofy, kinda juvenile, and often a teensy bit crass, but as they go along they create something that is remarkably heartfelt, along with being diverse and progressive in many wonderful ways. It’s hard to describe, especially for people unfamiliar with D&D and/or the McElroys and/or podcasting, but I’ve really enjoyed taking the journey. And now the various arcs of the Balance series are being published as graphic novels! The first two volumes are out, and they do a great job capturing the spirit — both the intense silliness and the emotion—of the series. (I should note that while this series has many young fans, it was originally intended for an adult audience, so there is some “adult language.” As always, it’s best to check it out yourself before gifting it to a young person.) Once you’re hooked, we can all listen together to the current season of The Adventure Zone, “Graduation” (set in a magical school for sidekicks and henchmen! it just started and it’s awesome!), while we wait for volume three of the graphic novel series, a road-race arc called Petals to the Metal.
Amphigorey, Amphigorey Too, Amphigorey Also, and Amphigorey Again by Edward Gorey
I’m cheating a little bit by including Edward Gorey’s Amphigorey collections in this list because they’re not exactly graphic novels. They’re also not exactly picture books, not exactly prose, and not exactly poetry, but some disturbing and delightful combination. If you haven’t had an opportunity to appreciate Edward Gorey’s writing and artwork (think Charles Addams but less cutesy) you should remedy that immediately, and one of these collections is a great place to start. I had to update our home library (our copy of Amphigorey Too had been appreciated to death by my kids — helping to develop their sense of the macabre along the way — and I hadn’t even realized that Amphigorey Again had come out in 2007) for a full reread because I was excited about the new biography, Born to be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey by Mark Dery (which I also recommend). The Amphigoreys are lovely volumes and make great coffee-table books for people with slightly goth sensibilities.
French Milk
An Age of License
Something New: Tales from a Makeshift Bride
Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos
by Lucy Knisley
I first found Lucy Knisley through the wonderful comics she posted about her cat, Linney. (If you are at all a cat-lover, google “Lucy Knisley Linney” for a treat.) Once I started following her, I realized I’d heard of her before as a prolific author of graphic memoirs, so I immediately put a stack of her books on hold at the library. They are as delightful as I’d expected, and some even have bonus Linney appearances! French Milk and An Age of License are memoirs of young womanhood growing into adulthood, and the changing relationships and goals along the way. But I have to talk about my absolute favorites (so far): Something New and Kid Gloves. Something New is much more than a story of wedding planning—it’s about figuring out your place in the world and what being in a marriage means, especially to modern women who may not be all that excited about the institution’s patriarchal past. Plus it’s really funny! I immediately put it on my “good gifts for brides-to-be” list. Kid Gloves, about the birth of Knisley’s first child, is funny and moving and powerful. I am in awe of the way that Knisley shares herself emotionally with her readers. Reading her books feels like a private, personal experience that you get to have with her, as if we were connecting one-on-one. I don’t know that I would recommend Kid Gloves as a baby-shower gift, since Knisley has some tragic experiences with a lost pregnancy and then some very scary medical complications during birth, but it’s a lovely lovely book, and a great read. Those of you who are already Knisley fans have probably noticed that I haven’t yet read all of her books—when I discover an author I enjoy, I’m not always too quick to read everything, since I like knowing that there’s a book or two out there that I still get to experience for the first time. (I’m very much looking forward to reading Relish: My Life in the Kitchen PLUS I need to read her picture books and her new middle-grade graphic novel, Stepping Stones.) Knisley fans may also be aware that she shared a sad milestone with her readers recently when the much beloved Linney passed away. Nothing’s good about that, but I was so happy to see Knisley’s announcement that a book entirely about Linney will be coming out in 2021—I’ll be pre-ordering as soon as they put a link up!
Happy Reading!
(We’re Amazon affiliates, so if you purchase something through an Amazon link, we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Obviously this doesn’t influence what we recommend, and we link to places other than Amazon.)
Library Chicken Update: 4/5/19
School’s out for summer, and Suzanne’s reading list just keeps getting bigger.
Welcome to the weekly round-up of what the BookNerd is reading and how many points I scored (or lost) in Library Chicken. To recap, you get a point for returning a library book that you’ve read, you lose a point for returning a book unread, and while returning a book past the due date is technically legal, you do lose half a point. If you want to play along, leave your score in the comments!
It’s that time of year again — the time when I finally give up on reading the entire stack of library books on whatever-flavor-of-history-we’re-doing-in-class that I’ve collected all semester. Around the time I’m starting to think about final projects it dawns on me that I’m probably not going to get to them all before we’ve actually wrapped up the class, which means that I have to return all those books (though not before making sure they’re on the to-read list for the next time we visit this era) and start collecting books for next year’s class. (It’s the American Revolution and the Civil War in 2019-2020!) It also means that my Library Chicken score is going to go negative, so I should definitely schedule more reading time next week. (Sorry fam, I know it’s my turn to make dinner, but you’re on your own tonight — Mom has to get her Library Chicken score into the positive digits!)
Stalin: A Biography by Robert Service
My last WWII book ends up being a biography of Joseph Stalin. For a child of the Cold War, I’m realizing how little I actually know about Soviet Russia. This bio was a good place to start with Stalin, if a bit dry. And depressing. Though I guess that comes along with the topic. (Okay, I lied: this isn’t my last WWII book because I’ve kept back a stash of Eleanor Roosevelt books. And I’m definitely going to get to them Real Soon Now. I’d much rather finish up with the awesome Eleanor than with this guy.)
(LC Score: +1)
Cousin Kate by Georgette Heyer
Charity Girl by Georgette Heyer
Lady of Quality by Georgette Heyer
If you’re going to be reading about one of the great mass murderers of history, it helps to have some Heyer on the side! These three were all new to me, and they were all quick, fun reads.
(LC Score: +3)
The Ghost Stories of Muriel Spark by Muriel Spark
I like ghost stories and I like Muriel Spark, so this seemed like an obvious choice. The longest and most well-known story here is “The Portobello Road,” which I’ve encountered in other collections. It’s a very slim anthology and some of the stories here are only vaguely ghost-related, but it was a nice little break from All the War Stuff.
(LC Score: +1)
The Time Traveler’s Almanac edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer
Whew. At nearly 1000 pages this collection is NOT slim. But I’m always happy to dive into another VanderMeer compilation! Amy and I talked about this one on the podcast, even though I was only about 80 percent through at the time. I did eventually finish it and some of my favorite stories were towards the end: I’ll definitely be on the lookout for more by Bob Leman, Tamsyn Muir, and Carrie Vaughn.
(LC Score: +1)
The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths
This mystery, the first in the Ruth Galloway series, has been on my to-read list for a while, and now that I have finally read it, I have mixed feelings. I was unprepared for the brutality of the murder plot, which involves kidnapping and child murder (and even the killing of a pet animal, which SHOULD COME WITH A WARNING LABEL ON THE COVER, PEOPLE). I enjoyed getting to know Ruth, who is an archaeologist and professor, and I appreciated that she was not a stereotypical protagonist, but I thought that there were some unfortunate cliches in the way Griffiths handled gender issues and Ruth’s concerns about her weight. That said, it was a fast, entertaining read, and I have a feeling that Griffiths was just beginning to hit her stride when she wrote it. I’m looking forward to the next one in the series!
(LC Score: +1)
The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders
Amy and I both enjoyed Anders’s first novel, All the Birds in the Sky (which we also talked about on the podcast), so I was very excited to read her second novel. This one is an ambitious science fiction adventure set on a tidally locked planet, meaning that the planet keeps one side facing the sun and one side facing out to the stars. Humans can only live in the small band where day meets night, and have to learn to deal with never-ending twilight. I loved the world-building here, and the way that Anders thought about all of the different ways that her characters would be impacted by this sort of life. I also loved the diverse relationships. Unfortunately, though, I thought that the plot lost some of its narrative drive and focus at a certain point, so even as we’re building to the climax things just sort of happen. Which was a bit disappointing, if only because I had such high expectations. I’m still thinking about the world that Anders created, however, and I’ll be first on the hold list for her next novel.
(LC Score: +1)
Books Returned Unread: -14
Library Chicken Score for 4/5/19: -6
Running Score: - ½
On the to-read/still-reading stack for next week:
The Janus Stone by Elly Griffiths (Ruth Galloway mysteries #2)
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan (reread after finally seeing the FABULOUS movie adaptation)
The War Before Independence: 1775-1776 by Derek W. Beck (time to start reading for next fall!)
(We’re Amazon affiliates, so if you purchase something through an Amazon link, we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Obviously this doesn’t influence what we recommend, and we link to places other than Amazon.)
Library Chicken: Books You Can Be Seen Reading in Public
Suzanne’s recent reads includes a Gothic-ish murder mystery, children’s literature from Isabel Allende, Lizzie Borden, and a few hyped books that just DID NOT do it for our Book Nerd.
Welcome to the weekly round-up of what the BookNerd is reading and how many points I scored (or lost) in Library Chicken. To recap, you get a point for returning a library book that you’ve read, you lose a point for returning a book unread, and while returning a book past the due date is technically legal, you do lose half a point. If you want to play along, leave your score in the comments!
This school year I’ve been doing a lot of World War II reading for the middle school history class, which means (among other things) a lot of very thick biographies about very terrible people. (I’ve discovered that I’m really not comfortable carrying a Hitler biography around to read in public). I’ll do a round-up post of my nonfiction WWII reading later in the year, but as we’re getting back into the swing of things, I thought I’d focus on my recent non-Hitler-related reading:
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
Turton’s debut novel is a Groundhog-Day style murder mystery where the detective relives the same day over and over again, each time inhabiting a different guest at a house party, while trying to solve the murder that will happen at the end of the night. I am definitely up for this level of weirdness, but I was a little disappointed: it felt like the author worked so hard to get all the puzzle pieces to fit together that he forgot to create interesting characters for me to root for. (LC Score: +1)
City of the Beasts by Isabel Allende
We’ve reached South America in World Lit, which means I get to make my middle schoolers read one of my very favorite authors! City of the Beasts is Allende’s first children’s/YA novel and the first in a trilogy. In it we follow our 15-year-old protagonist up the Amazon river in search of a mysterious yeti-like creature. It’s a little slow to get started and occasionally the prose (translated from the Spanish) can be a bit clunky, but I love the descriptions once the adventure really starts and things get exciting. (LC Score: 0, off my own shelves)
The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz
Horowitz is hit or miss for me. I really enjoyed Magpie Murders, but haven’t fallen in love with any of his other books. This one (coming after Horowitz’s popular Sherlock novels The House of Silk and Moriarty) casts an obnoxious ex-cop as a “consulting investigator” and stand-in for Holmes, with Horowitz himself as first-person narrator and Watson. I have mixed feelings about authors who insert themselves as characters in their own books; I think it creeps me out a bit, not knowing where the reality ends and fiction begins. There are some good plot twists, but I really didn’t enjoy the Holmes character and I don’t think I’ll be picking up the forthcoming sequel. (LC Score: +1)
The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths
A high school English teacher is horrified when her best friend is murdered--and is even more upset when the murder seems to be connected to a famous Victorian ghost story written by an author that she has studied for years — and THEN mysterious messages start to appear in HER OWN DIARY!! So creepy I get chills thinking about it! This one is hard to put down and I’ve got my fingers crossed that Griffiths will write a follow-up with the same investigating officer, a not-quite-out lesbian Sikh who still lives with her parents. (LC Score: +1)
Pandemonium by Daryl Gregory
I already know I love Gregory’s books and this one, his first, was no exception. Since 1950, the United States and the rest of the world has been living through an epidemic of demonic possession, though no one can quite figure out what the “demons” actually are. Are they aliens? Telepaths? Jungian archetypes? Gregory’s worlds are always bizarre and fascinating, and I thoroughly enjoyed this story of one man desperately trying to solve his own demonic possession problem. Plus lots of cameos by celebrities both fictional and non! (Let me know when you read it so we can have a conversation about the true identity of Siobhan O’Connell.) (LC Score: +½, returned overdue)
See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt
I’m always up for a good Lizzie Borden book. (Most recent favorite: Maplecroft by Cherie Priest, which is Lizzie Borden plus Cthulhu.) Schmidt’s book is a retelling of the Lizzie Borden murders, showing us the inside of a deeply dysfunctional family. (Slight SPOILER: I was concerned that it was all going to be about sexual abuse, which I do NOT enjoy reading, but it turns out that there are many ways of being dysfunctional! Hurray!) I maybe wanted to go a teensy bit deeper, but it’s incredibly compelling and I read it in one sitting. (LC Score: +1)
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
Aw, man, I really wanted to like this one. I love the cover and I’m definitely intrigued by the idea of taking a year off to “hibernate,” but I found the protagonist--who is miserable but always (as she keeps reminding us) beautiful--completely unrelatable and borderline unrecognizable as an actual human, capable of actual human relationships. It’s an example of what I think of as a very New York City novel about very New York City people, who are apparently completely unlike the rest of us in the rest of the world? This one, unfortunately, didn’t work for me. (LC Score: +1)
The Broken Teaglass by Emily Arsenault
Adventures in lexicography! While researching etymologies for a new edition of the dictionary, editorial assistant Billy discovers pieces of a story told via the citations collected in their catalog. As he looks for more pieces of the puzzle, he discovers the outline of a mystery, perhaps even involving murder! I found the ending slightly anti-climatic, but it was a very fun read. (LC Score: +1)
Books Returned Unread: -1
Library Chicken Score for 3/22/19: 6 ½
Running Score: 5 ½
On the to-read/still-reading stack for next week:
The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths (loved The Stranger Diaries and can’t wait to read this one!)
Stalin: A Biography by Robert Service (I mentioned all the terrible people, right?)
Cousin Kate by Georgette Heyer (as an antidote for all that WWII stuff)
(We’re Amazon affiliates, so if you purchase something through an Amazon link, we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Obviously this doesn’t influence what we recommend, and we link to places other than Amazon.)
Library Chicken: We're Back! And the Best Books of 2019 So Far
Look! Suzanne is back! And she’s got a big list of her favorite 2019 reads so far.
Welcome to the weekly round-up of what the BookNerd is reading and how many points I scored (or lost) in Library Chicken. To recap, you get a point for returning a library book that you’ve read, you lose a point for returning a book unread, and while returning a book past the due date is technically legal, you do lose half a point. If you want to play along, leave your score in the comments!
HEY GUYS, I’M BACK! Did you miss me? I missed you! I thought about asking Amy to commission a zombified back-from-the-grave version of the Library Chicken logo (which would be AWESOME, am I right?) but then I thought maybe not. Also — and I blame this entirely on the current political situation — I think about a zombie apocalypse waaaay too much.
I hope that your 2019 has been wonderful so far and you have been busily checking books off your to-read list. To get us back in the groove, I thought I’d start out with my own Best of 2019 So Far list.
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer
Part of self-care for me is comfort reading: re-reading old favorites. If you do a lot of comfort reading (ahem), you may find that you need to at least temporarily retire some of those favorites that you nearly know by heart (Jane Austen, The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley, Sorcery and Cecelia by Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer, P.G. Wodehouse, Dorothy Sayers) in favor of relative newbies. These are all on my nextgen comfort reading shelf.
London Falling by Paul Cornell
The Severed Streets by Paul Cornell
Who Killed Sherlock Holmes? by Paul Cornell
Paul Cornell is a talented author and screenwriter (he wrote the Doctor Who episodes “Father’s Day” and — one of my personal favorites — the two-parter “Human Nature/The Family of Blood”). In this series (The Shadow Police) we follow a modern day London detective squad that acquires special powers during a very strange case, allowing them to see the “shadow” London of magic and mystery that exists side-by-side with the everyday world. It’s a great combination of police procedural and urban fantasy, occasionally hard-boiled and dark (the first book, London Falling, involves child-murder) with a dash of weird humor (a witch who kills soccer players who score goals against her favorite team). Very much UNfortunately, according to Cornell, this supposed-to-be-five-books series has been dropped by the publisher, so it’s possible we will never get to see the very end of the story arc. That said, if book three, Who Killed Sherlock Holmes?, does end up being the last one, it is not a bad wrap-up for the series (most of the urgent plot points are dealt with), which is still very much worth reading.
A Cure for Suicide by Jesse Ball
Census by Jesse Ball
How to Set a Fire and Why by Jesse Ball
Jesse Ball is weird and wonderful and I don’t know what he’s doing half the time but I’m totally fine with it. In A Cure for Suicide, we’re transported to a carefully constructed village where people who want to leave their lives behind are taught to live again after having their memories wiped. Census follows a father, recently diagnosed with a terminal disease, and his young son on a journey as census-takers through a world that is not quite our own. How to Set a Fire and Why, a coming-of-age story about a teenage girl with a tragic past (and, almost certainly, a tragic future) is the most mainstream (and perhaps the saddest) work of his that I’ve read.
Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle
I read this immediately following How to Set a Fire and Why, which turned out to be one of those happenstance pairings that works really well. Our narrator, Sean, has severe physical handicaps as the result of an “accident” when he was in high school. He now runs a by-mail adventure game, which has unexpectedly led to tragedy for some of his players. It’s a short novel, but there’s so much good stuff going on here that I look forward to revisiting it some time in the future.
Confessions of the Fox: A Novel by Jordy Rosenberg
This is the bizarre and wonderful story of notorious 18th-century London thief Jack Sheppard, told in parallel via footnotes (I LOVE STORY-TELLING IN FOOTNOTES GIVE THEM ALL TO ME) with the story of the professor who found the mysterious manuscript detailing Jack’s true history (turns out he’s transgender, among other things). It’s weird and compelling and (SPOILER) there is a LOT of explicit sex, which can sometimes turn me off a book (that’s just me) but didn’t bother me here.
Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman
We’re doing biology in the high school and middle school this year, which means I’ve been reading up on Darwin. This nonfiction biography of the Darwins’ marriage (aimed at the YA audience, I believe, but certainly enjoyable for adult readers) shows the challenges and complexities of their relationship, which was long-lasting and, by all accounts, incredibly successful. I love reading about all the Victorians, but Darwin — who was apparently a quite decent and loving human being! — is one of my very favorites.
Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife by Francine Prose
I believe that everyone should read The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank at some point (I prefer The Definitive Edition, edited by Mirjam Pressler and published 1991), and this is the year for my middle school students, since we’re covering the 1930s and World War II in history class. Francine Prose (Reading Like a Writer) explores the diary as a piece of serious literature, along with the history of its publication and popularity, and the (surprisingly!) scandalous production of the play and movie adaptations. This is a great companion to the diary for students and teachers, and a fascinating read in its own right.
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan
More 1930s reading: companion book to the excellent American Experience documentary episode, Surviving the Dust Bowl. It’s hard to imagine what it must have been like to live through this ecological disaster, but Egan does a great job bringing it to life with first-hand accounts.
Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt by H.W. Brands
No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and the Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume One: 1894-1933 by Blanche Wiesen Cook
I may be a teensy bit obsessed with the Roosevelts, and this year I’m getting to indulge my obsession. These are all great accounts of Franklin and Eleanor and their complex relationship. I’ve got another stack of Roosevelt-reading next to the night stand; we’ll see how much I can get through before I have to start studying up for next year’s history class.
We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby
Meaty by Samantha Irby
These two funny, compelling, and occasionally heart-breaking essay collections (by the author of the blog “bitches gotta eat”) cover a wide range of topics including dating, chronic illness, and tyrannical cats. Irby is currently working on the Hulu adaptation of Lindy West’s Shrill (another great book!) starring Aidy Bryant (so many talented women!).
...AND I’m starting fresh for the new year, even though the new year was some time ago, so:
Library Chicken Score for 3/15/19: 0
Running Score: 0
On the to-read/still-reading stack for next week:
Eleanor Roosevelt, Vol. 2: The Defining Years 1933-1938 by Blanche Wiesen Cook (I want to be Eleanor when I grow up)
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (everyone in the world has read this already, including my daughter who is very upset that it is taking me so long)
The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths (don’t know much about it other than that it’s supposed to be a “gripping gothic thriller,” so yes, I’m in)
Pandemonium by Daryl Gregory (Spoonbenders was great, and this looks good too!)
(We’re Amazon affiliates, so if you purchase something through an Amazon link, we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Obviously this doesn’t influence what we recommend, and we link to places other than Amazon.)
Library Chicken Special Edition: Novellas!
I am here to tell y’all that we are living in a Golden Age of Novellas and if you haven’t yet discovered the awesomeness of these short-but-still-substantial reads you are in for a treat.
I will admit that the concept of novellas — too long to be a short story, too short to be a novel — has always gotten on my nerves a little bit. PICK A SIDE, NOVELLAS. But I am here to tell y’all that we are living in a Golden Age of Novellas and if you haven’t yet discovered the awesomeness of these short-but-still-substantial reads you are in for a treat. We can thank the proliferation of e-readers and self-publishing for all this goodness: though novellas are tough to publish and sell at a reasonable price as traditional paper books, they’re a great size for reading on your Kindle/cell phone/tablet and are often very inexpensive (and so a great way to check out new authors). Without further ado, and in no particular order, I present
TEN NOVELLAS YOU SHOULD READ IMMEDIATELY IF NOT SOONER
All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
I <heart> Murderbot! This wildly enjoyable novella is about a security cyborg who has hacked its governor module but would much rather spend the day watching soap operas than killing all humans. As a bonus, it’s first in a series! Murderbot 4-EVA!
The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard
You may not have realized that you are dying to read this Sherlock Holmes homage set in space where Holmes is a brilliant drugged-up Asian detective and her Watson is a traumatized mindship, but TRUST ME YOU ARE. And then we can all go read de Bodard’s Dominion of the Fallen series (first book: The House of Shattered Wings) about a dystopian Paris populated by literal fallen angels while we simultaneously compose emails to de Bodard lobbying her for another ‘Tea Master’ story NOW PLEASE.
River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey
Did you know that an American politician once proposed importing hippos to (1) eat invasive plants choking the Mississippi Delta and (2) help with a meat shortage? Aren’t you so very glad that Sarah Gailey used that true-life fact to inspire her tale of HIPPO COWBOYS who both wrangle and ride these dangerous beasts? Have you already clicked the ‘buy’ button for this first-in-an-amazing-series featuring a diverse cast with a non-binary lead? If not, WHY NOT? Did you not hear about the HIPPO COWBOYS?!?
Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach by Kelly Robson
Climate change has forced people to live underground, but one ecologist (with a prosthetic set of octopus legs) is ready to time travel with her team back to ancient settlements on the Tigris and the Euphrates to research ways of bringing the ecosystem back to life. This one feels like the start of a great novel/series; fingers crossed that Robson writes it for us.
Witches of Lychford by Paul Cornell
A small English town is divided over the proposed building of a big-box superstore, but since this particular town is in a very special spot on the border between our world and Faerie, the stakes are higher than usual: if the store is allowed to open it may well bring about the end of the world! The main characters here are all women and I especially enjoy Cornell’s depiction of female friendships. The sequels (in which our witches tackle other issues, including Brexit) in this ongoing series are also great.
The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
Victor LaValle, a black American author, takes one of H.P. Lovecraft’s most notoriously racist stories (“The Horror at Red Hook”) and turns it on its head in this fabulous and award-winning (many awards! all the awards!) rewrite. Come for the disturbing spookiness, stay for the non-racist characterization! (See, H.P., it isn’t that hard after all!)
Hammers on Bone by Cassandra Khaw
Lovecraft was not only spectacularly racist, he was super sexist too! So I enjoy imagining him spinning in his grave as talented contemporary non-white and/or non-male authors claim his legacy for themselves. Khaw’s mash-up of cosmic horror and film-noir private-eye detection (such a great pairing that I’m surprised I haven’t run across it before) is a great read and (hurray!) first in a series.
Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand
Hippie folk rock band + the spooky old English estate they decide to spend the summer at + SOMETHING BAD HAPPENING = yes, please! This novella features multiple narrators which I always enjoy, but I do think someone might have had the good sense to avoid the Very Clearly Haunted Manor.
The Curfew by Jesse Ball
A surreal tale of a father and daughter living in a vaguely described police state. With Ball I’m often not quite sure exactly what’s happening, but it turns out I don’t mind. (See also his short novels Census, A Cure for Suicide, and Silence Once Begun.)
Speak Easy by Catherynne M. Valente
I’ll finish things off with My Favorite Contemporary Fantasy Writer For Both Children and Adults (Seriously She’s Awesome Read Everything), Catherynne Valente! (If you’ve listened to the podcast, you’ve heard Amy and I geek out over one of her most recent novels, Space Opera.) This Jazz Age fairy tale (a retelling of “The Twelve Dancing Princesses”) is gorgeous in all the ways and will most likely lead you to a debilitating addiction to Valente’s prose. YAY, NOVELLAS!
(We’re Amazon affiliates, so if you purchase something through an Amazon link, we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Obviously this doesn’t influence what we recommend, and we link to places other than Amazon.)
Book Nerd: The Brave New World of Science Fiction
The science-fiction/fantasy genre has never been more exciting — or more inclusive. Suzanne examines the new directions of an old favorite and highlights the genre’s new must-reads.
I’ve loved science fiction ever since junior high, when I found my dad’s copies of Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot and Robert Heinlein’s Citizen of the Galaxy in our home library. Fantasy, via C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, wasn’t far behind. I read everything I could in the genre, clearing out the sf/fantasy shelf at the library and saving up my allowance for trips to Waldenbooks. In those bad old pre-Internet days I did as much as I could to research the genre classics and Grand Old Masters, keeping a list of books to look for at the local used book store. Soon I discovered fandom, and by high school I was going to every sf/fantasy convention around (or at least the ones I could convince my mom to drive me to). The sf/fantasy genre at that time was exciting, smart, perspective-shifting, often funny, occasionally mind-blowing — but one thing it wasn’t was diverse.
Primarily, sf/fantasy was written by white men, with white male protagonists, for (judging by con attendance) a white male audience. Often, even the aliens or far-flung galactic empires behaved in a suspiciously European manner, retelling stories of the Roman empire (or other major events from the history of Western Civilization). Fantasy epics drew on familiar European myths and legends, giving us dragons, elves, unicorns, and princesses that all behaved in predictable ways. Perhaps that’s why I got out of the habit of reading the genre in my 20s and 30s — whether it was military sf, a fantasy adventure, or yet another vampire story (seriously, what’s with all the vampires?!?), it all started to feel a bit samey-samey.
Things have changed, though, and I’m excited. A lot of people who weren’t necessarily white and/or male grew up, like I did, loving the genre and seeing themselves spell-casting or traveling to the stars. And now they’re writing about it for all of us. There are so many great authors publishing right now — N.K. Jemisin, V.E. Schwab, Yoon Ha Lee, Nisi Shawl — that I can’t even keep up. Even better, those stories — with diverse characters, diverse content, and diverse settings — are being embraced by authors writing for children and young adults. I still think you can’t go wrong with Asimov and Tolkien, but if you want to take advantage of what’s out there now and start your budding sf/fantasy fans off the right way, I’ve got a few suggestions.
In The Jumbies, author Tracey Baptiste draws on Caribbean folktales to tell the story of Corinne, a young girl who must save her island village and her family from the monsters in the woods and an evil witch. This is a fun and just-the-right-amount-of-scary story for middle grade readers, and Corinne is a fierce and resourceful heroine. We meet another heroine in Nnedi Okorafor’s Akata Witch: 12-year-old American-born Nigerian Sunny. Sunny is an albino, and between that and her American accent, she finds it hard to fit in with her classmates — which becomes less of an issue once she discovers that she is heir to magical powers and (like Harry Potter but in an entirely different context) begins to explore the hidden magical world that exists within and beside her own. Like Corinne, Sunny must channel her own strength and bravery to save her world and her friends from a supernatural challenge. Fortunately for readers, we have more adventures to look forward to with Corinne and Sunny: Baptiste’s Rise of the Jumbies and Okorafor’s Akata Warrior both come out in fall 2017.
Daniel Jose Older takes us to a diverse Puerto Rican neighborhood in Brooklyn with his acclaimed YA novel Shadowshaper. Teenage Sierra plans to enjoy her summer hanging out with friends and painting wall murals, but when one of the murals begins to weep real tears, she realizes that there’s something strange going on. She learns that she’s inherited the ability to shadow shape — to do magic by infusing art with ancestral spirits — and she needs to get good at it in a hurry if she’s going to defend herself and her community. (The sequel, Shadowhouse Fall, is also due out in fall 2017 — clearly we need to clear our calendars for all the great reading coming up.) Alaya Dawn Johnson’s The Summer Prince takes us out of the world of magic to the far future, on a high-tech Brazilian island called Palmares Tres. Palmares Tres is ruled by a matriarchy (set up after men almost destroyed the world in a nuclear holocaust) and guerilla artist June finds herself unexpectedly in rebellion against the powers that be when she becomes friends with the teenage Summer King. Immediately after finishing this book, I bought a copy for home and showed up at 16-year-old daughter’s bedroom door insisting, “YOU MUST READ THIS NOW, and please pass it on to your sister when you’re done.”
And I can’t leave without mentioning three of my new favorite sf/fantasy novels, beginning with Zen Cho’s Sorcerer to the Crown. I’m a sucker for historical-Britain-plus-magic stories (see Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke, also Sorcery and Cecelia, or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot by Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer), but Cho’s story of Regency England plus wizards is a version I’ve never read before. As the new Sorcerer Royal (and the first one ever of African descent), Zacharias Wythe has enough problems, but he’s really in for it when he has to deal with a woman who believes that she should also be allowed to practice this male-only profession. (My only problem with Cho is that she’s not writing the sequel fast enough!)
Gender roles are upended in an entirely different way in Ann Leckie’s multiple-award-winning story of galactic empire, Ancillary Justice. The sentient AI protagonist of this novel is from a culture that doesn’t bother to linguistically discriminate between genders, instead using only feminine pronouns and nouns. I’ve never before read a book where the gender isn’t actually identified for most of the characters; it’s an interesting and eye-opening experience. Author Ada Palmer plays with gender in yet another way in her novel of 25th century Earth, Too Like the Lightning. In this far future, affinity-based Hives have replaced geographically based nation-states, public discourse on religion has been outlawed, and gender-neutral terms are the norm in polite society. Our narrator, however, has decided to tell us the story in the style of an 18th century Enlightenment novel, so he apologetically uses gender-specific pronouns (and not always the ones a reader might expect) when describing others.
I couldn’t be more excited about the new voices and new perspectives showing up in my favorite genre. If you’ve never explored science fiction and fantasy novels, now is a great time to take a look and see what’s out there. And if you don’t see yourself reflected, maybe pick up a pen — there’s room for everyone on the bookshelf, and I’m always looking for something new to read. Happy reading!
(We’re Amazon affiliates, so if you purchase something through an Amazon link, we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Obviously this doesn’t influence what we recommend, and we link to places other than Amazon.)This column was originally published in the summer 2017 issue of HSL.
Library Chicken Update: 7.5.18
Suzanne’s on a roll with everything from great but depressing World War I novels, weird fiction, cozy mysteries, and plucky autobiographies.
Welcome to the weekly round-up of what the BookNerd is reading and how many points I scored (or lost) in Library Chicken. To recap, you get a point for returning a library book that you’ve read, you lose a point for returning a book unread, and while returning a book past the due date is technically legal, you do lose half a point. If you want to play along, leave your score in the comments!
Hello, everyone — I hope you are enjoying your summer reading! Next week I’m off to our annual family vacation in North Carolina, where I plan to sit around and read as many books as possible, so I’m busy sorting my to-read stack into two piles: Reading For Fun, and Reading For My Classes In The Fall Because It’s Almost July And I Should Really Have A Syllabus Put Together By Now But It’s Fine And I’m Totally Not Panicking (Plus I Like Reading History And World Lit So These Are Fun Too). As usual I will pack way too many books — I’ll let you know how many I get through!
Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller
In a post-war, post breakdown-of-the-climate future, the floating Arctic Circle city of Qaanaaq is home to refugees and the very rich: conflict ensues. Miller’s world-building is original and engaging, as are his characters. This would be a great YA choice for your favorite teen readers (although I don’t believe that it’s marketed as YA) and I loved that one of the main narrators is non-binary. Yay for diversity!
(LC Score: +1)
Shriek: An Afterword by Jeff VanderMeer
Finch by Jeff VanderMeer
More weirdness from my favorite weird author: Shriek and Finch both take place in the strange city of Ambergris, which we first visited in VanderMeer’s City of Saints and Madmen. I’ve seen some reviews that say these can be read out of publication order, but I’d definitely read City first and Finch last. All three Ambergris books have very different tones, but there are mysteries and plot lines that go on throughout. Lots of creepy and disturbing fun.
(LC Score: +1)
Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
What’s that you say? Ireland has written an alternate history zombie novel, where the dead rise during the Civil War, after the battle of Gettysburg? Where black people, ostensibly freed from slavery, are sent to zombie-fighting schools to protect the white folks from danger? WHY YES I WOULD LIKE TO READ THAT VERY MUCH PLEASE. And I’m happy to report that it does not disappoint. I found this book simultaneously upsetting and hopeful, both in its content and the way it resonates with the current political climate. Another great YA choice (I think this one is officially YA? I don’t understand how these decisions are made) and I’m very excited that it appears to be the start of a series — I WOULD LIKE THE NEXT ONE NOW PLEASE AND THANK YOU.
(LC Score: +1)
Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand
This is a short spooky read about a hippie folk rock band and what happens when they spend the summer at an old English manor house. SPOILER: nothing good. Hand uses multiple narrators to gradually unfold the story and as usual, the moral is to avoid old English manor houses at all costs.
(LC Score: 0, Kindle)
Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick
Another summer road trip audiobook - no guest stars this time, but Kendrick’s memoir benefits from being read by the author. This is very much a young woman’s memoir, in that Kendrick is a young woman and hasn’t had all that much happen to her yet, but she’s smart and funny and a great road trip companion.
(LC Score: +1, audiobook)
A Quiet Life in the Country by T.E. Kinsey
Speedy Death by Gladys Mitchell
Two first-in-the-series mysteries with two female sleuths. In Quiet Life, ex-spy(?) Lady Hardcastle retires to the British countryside (circa 1908) with her best friend/maid Flo, and the two of them immediately get caught up investigating a local murder. In Speedy Death (published 1929), psychologist Mrs. Bradley is invited to an English house party and the guests start dying. I’m always looking for a new (to me) mystery series to burn through, but unfortunately I won’t be continuing either of these. Lady Hardcastle and pal Flo are fun, but I found them a little cutesy for my taste, while Mrs. Bradley and the rest of the house party guests are at the other end of the spectrum, so thoroughly unlikeable and annoying that I was ready for a bomb to drop on the place and take them all out.
(LC Score: 0, Kindle)
Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie
This was another not-for-me book. Contemporary romance is one of those genres I’ve never been able to fall in love with (no pun intended), but I keep hoping. Temptation has a lot going for it — including a pair of sisters from a con-artist family — but it wasn’t my cup of tea. I’m always up for suggestions, though, if you have a modern romance author that you think I should try!
(LC Score: +1)
The Nutmeg Tree by Margery Sharp
I’m a long-time fan of Sharp, having read through her Rescuers series several times over as a kid (the Disney adaptations are a lot of fun but be sure to check out the books!), but this is the first time I’ve tried one of her adult novels and it was CHARMING. Julia is broke and not quite sure what to do next when she is contacted by her adult daughter, who she hasn’t seen in years (after giving up custody to her posh in-laws). The daughter needs help with a romance: she’s determined to marry a young man that her grandparents don’t entirely approve of, but slightly disreputable Julia may not be the best person to ask for advice. Did I mention that this novel is CHARMING? Julia is a delightful character and she gets a romance of her own and now I’m off to find the rest of Sharp’s novels.
(LC Score: +1)
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, translated by A.W. Wheen
I’m not sure how to transition from Nutmeg Tree to the horrors of World War I, so I won’t even try. I had never read this classic work, but as I’m teaching a World War I history class in the fall, I decided that it was time. I think the novel as a whole would be too grim and upsetting for some of my middle school students, but Remarque brings the world of the trenches to life in incredibly vivid ways so I do plan to read a selected chapter or two with the class. I would definitely include it on any high school level WWI reading list.
(LC Score: +1)
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, translated by Jacques LeClercq
More reading for the fall — world literature this time. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough time to do the entire novel in class but I plan to do the first few chapters because it’s just so much fun. I haven’t read it in years but I got so caught up in the adventures of d’Artagnan and co. that I zoomed through to the end and will be picking up Twenty Years After next.
(LC Score: +1)
Library Chicken Score for 6/27/18: 9
Running Score: -15 ½
On the to-read/still-reading stack for next week:
The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson (alternate history set in a world where the plague wiped out European civilization)
Possession by A.S. Byatt (because I haven’t reread this in way too long)
Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain (more WWI reading)
Grey Mask by Patricia Wentworth (still looking for a new mystery series!)
Library Chicken Update: 6.6.18
Road trips equal audiobooks and other reading revelations in this week’s catch-up edition of Library Chicken.
Welcome to the weekly round-up of what the BookNerd is reading and how many points I scored (or lost) in Library Chicken. To recap, you get a point for returning a library book that you’ve read, you lose a point for returning a book unread, and while returning a book past the due date is technically legal, you do lose half a point. If you want to play along, leave your score in the comments!
I haven’t posted an update in a while, so this is Catch-Up-Week here at Library Chicken HQ. My summer reading has so far involved a good bit of rereading, since this is about the time of year that I get stubborn about my to-read pile — YOU ARE NOT THE BOSS OF ME, PILE — and wander off to grab whatever looks good from my poor neglected shelves. I’m also busily reorganizing all the books in the house so I can actually find what I’m looking for come the fall, which means, as I’m sure we all know, (a) frequent shopping runs to Ikea for new bookshelves, and (b) leaving new bookshelves half-assembled all over the floor when I drop everything to read this one book I just rediscovered that I forgot I even had.
Lovecraft’s Monsters edited by Ellen Datlow
It’s hard for modern readers to celebrate well-known awful-person H.P. Lovecraft, but his influence on contemporary fantasy/horror is undeniable. The good news is that you can bypass the original Lovecraft stories entirely if you so desire and still enjoy a large selection of Lovecraft-inspired works, written by a diverse set of authors. This excellent anthology, which includes stories by Neil Gaiman, Kim Newman, and Caitlin Kiernan, is a great place to begin — there’s one story in here that caused me to gasp out loud when I reached the final sentence, which is not something that often happens.
(LC Score: 0; read on Kindle)
Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer
City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer
Continuing the 2018 Summer of Weird: I’ve been meaning to reread VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy (consisting of Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance) for a while, so I picked up an edition that collects all three short novels in one book, which I think actually improved the experience (surprisingly, given how much I loved them the first time around). I haven’t yet seen the movie adaptation of Annihilation (has anyone seen it? is it good? is it going to give me nightmares?) but I can’t even begin to imagine how you put this bizarre story on screen. I also started working my way through some of the VanderMeer backlist: City of Saints and Madmen is a collection of stories, narratives, journal fragments, etc., all set in the strange and dangerous city of Ambergris. (Remember to STAY INDOORS during the Squid Festival, folks.) VanderMeer writes my favorite kind of weird.
(LC Score: +1)
HEX by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Wow, what a great premise for a horror novel: a 17th century witch, burned at the stake, continues to haunt the town that burned her into the 21st century. (This book wins the “Best Use of a Fictional SmartPhone App” award hands down.) It grabbed me right away... but as the story went on, I began to have some problems with the execution. Unfortunately, this is one of those premises that you can’t think about for more than five minutes before it starts to fall apart, and it doesn’t help that the author doesn’t seem to have actually figured out the rules of his own fictional supernatural world. My biggest problem was with the misogyny and sexual violence that ran throughout the book. Tied to the original death of the witch, the misogyny might have made sense, but it never really seemed to connect to any larger theme (other than violence against women, unlike men, must always be sexual in nature?) and I found it extremely off-putting. This book also has a strange history, in that it’s translated from Dutch and based on Heuvelt’s original Dutch novel, but when Heuvelt sold the English-language rights, he rewrote the novel to change the setting to America and, in the process, completely rewrote the ending. I’m not sure what to think about all of that, but I don’t think the change in setting necessarily improved matters. I struggled with this one, but in the end it didn’t work for me.
(LC Score: +1)
The Brandons by Angela Thirkell
Before Lunch by Angela Thirkell
Cheerfulness Breaks In by Angela Thirkell
Northbridge Rectory by Angela Thirkell
Time to take a break from the scary and weird and visit Thirkell’s Barsetshire! These books (#7 through #10 in the series) see the arrival of World War II in the little villages of Barsetshire, but mostly life goes on as always. I was going through these like potato chips, but one of the problems with Thirkell’s world is its inherent conservatism. She mostly plays it for laughs in the guise of old-fashioned British country squires and their ridiculous antics, but the books clearly celebrate that old-fashioned world which (in real life, if not in these novels) ultimately leads to racism, sexism, and — especially as the war goes on both in the author’s and the characters’ world — some nasty classism, which is not amusing or adorable in any way. I still love these books, but once I hit a couple of “he’s not really our kind, is he?” comments I needed to take a break.
(LC Score: 0, off my own shelves)
Bel Lamington by D.E. Stevenson
Stevenson is another writer of WWII-era adorableness (see both the Miss Buncle and Mrs. Tim series). This one is a later novel about a lonely but sweet secretary in 1961 London who ultimately finds friendship and love. A pleasant and quick read.
(LC Score: +1)
Buried for Pleasure by Edmund Crispin
Gervase Fen, Oxford professor, takes a break from professoring to run for a seat in Parliament and (of course) solves a couple of murders along the way. Not my favorite Fen, but a fun read nonetheless.
(LC Score: 0, Kindle)
Yes, Please by Amy Poehler
Lafayette in The Somewhat United States by Sarah Vowell
As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales From the Making of the Princess Bride by Cary Elwes
One of my adventures so far this summer has been driving the eldest child up to his summer internship in Omaha, Nebraska. (ROAD TRIP!!!) It was a great opportunity to finally check out some audiobooks from my library. Years ago I was an Audible subscriber, but lately I’ve been more of a podcast gal. Once I installed the Libby app, however, borrowing audiobooks on my phone became super easy. I picked these three to listen to in part because the audiobook versions have the “bonus” content of guest readers, including Seth Myers on Amy Poehler’s book, Nick Offerman (as George Washington) on Sarah Vowell’s book, and an assortment of costars on Cary Elwes’s book. All three were great road trip choices and now I’m searching through the catalog for more options when I have to go up again in August to fetch the kid. (NOTE: Since these audiobooks were checked out from the library, Library Chicken HQ has determined that they absolutely count in the Library Chicken score.)
(LC Score: +3)
Playing Dead: A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud by Elizabeth Greenwood
Why yes, I would like to read a book about people faking their own deaths! The topic is fascinating; the narrator less so. Greenwood’s conceit as she explores the hows and whys of death fraud is that after running up six figures in school loan debt she’s tempted to fake her own death to get away from it all. I found that framing device a little annoying, but the actual stories are interesting.
(LC Score: +1)
Arctic Labyrinth: The Quest for the Northwest Passage by Glyn Williams
Are you watching The Terror yet? Did Ciaran Hinds (aka Sir John Franklin) get eaten by the SNOW MONSTER? Unfortunately, there are no SNOW MONSTERS in Williams’s solid overview of the history of European exploration in search of the Northwest Passage. There is cannibalism and plenty of scurvy, though, so you know I’m a fan. If I could make one request of Mr. Williams it would be to give your poor reader MORE MAPS. Arctic Circle geography is not my strong point. (Nor was it Sir John Franklin’s, apparently. Sorry, Ciaran.)
(LC Score: +1)
- Returned Unread: LC Score: -10 (YOU ARE NOT THE BOSS OF ME, TO-READ PILE.)
- Library Chicken Score for 6/5/18: -2
- Running Score: -24 ½
On the to-read/still-reading stack for next week:
- Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller (Arctic Circle science fiction set in a floating city full of refugees from the climate wars)
- Shriek: An Afterword by Jeff VanderMeer (more about Ambergris)
- Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand (hippie folk rock band spends a summer in a mysterious England manor house)
- Resolute: The Epic Search for the Northwest Passage and John Franklin, and the Discovery of the Queen’s Ghost Ship by Martin W. Sandler (SPOILER: they all die of scurvy)
More Library Chicken
Library Chicken Update: 5.16.18
Suzanne’s winning at Library Chicken despite the fact that the book world is full of dark corners and her husband needs to renew his library card already.
Welcome to the weekly round-up of what the BookNerd is reading and how many points I scored (or lost) in Library Chicken. To recap, you get a point for returning a library book that you’ve read, you lose a point for returning a book unread, and while returning a book past the due date is technically legal, you do lose half a point. If you want to play along, leave your score in the comments!
It’s a dark week at Library Chicken HQ, my friends. First of all, my husband’s library card expired, and since he doesn’t get to the library on a near-daily basis like a NORMAL person (I really don’t know how he spends his time) he hasn’t yet renewed it and suddenly all of the books that he — or, you know, totally well-intentioned spouses — had checked out on that card came immediately due. You can see the casualty numbers towards the end of the post. Secondly, on a sadder note, I reluctantly made the decision to return (unread) two short story collections, one by Sherman Alexie and the other by Junot Diaz. As you may know, both of these esteemed authors have recently been accused of sexual harassment (minimally). Sigh. I think I’ll get back to them at some point, but right now I have so many books on my to-read list that I decided to set these aside. I certainly wouldn’t have enjoyed reading them just now. And speaking of problematic authors: don’t you hate it when you eagerly start a sf novel by one of your favorite authors and it turns out to be a dystopia in which Obamacare — together with married women who choose to keep their own names instead of using their husbands’ — brings about the destruction of the United States? Yeah, well, that didn’t exactly happen this week, but you’ll understand when you read the update.
- EMINENT VICTORIANS by Lytton Strachey
- LYTTON STRACHEY: THE NEW BIOGRAPHY by Michael Holroyd
Girl Who Reads Woolf and Woolf-Adjacent Non-Fiction: Strachey, a core member of Bloomsbury and one of Virginia Woolf’s closest friends, is one of those fascinating people who I love to read about but who probably wouldn’t have bothered to say two words to me if we had ever met in real life. (Actually I think that applies to pretty much all of Bloomsbury.) He was his generation’s Oscar Wilde, shunned by “polite” society because of rumors about his “deviancy” (homosexual acts still being illegal in England at this time) until his snarky little collection of biographical essays on beloved Victorian figures (including Florence Nightingale and General Gordon) became a best-seller and worldwide phenomenon. He was an oversized man (he may have had Marfan syndrome; you can see wonderful portraits of him here and here) who usually spoke in a squeaky high-pitched voice, and who went around falling in love with all sorts of unsuitable people and creating surprisingly stable triangular relationships (again, like pretty much all of Bloomsbury). Michael Holroyd’s 1994 biography is interesting not only for its subject matter, but also because Holroyd’s original 1967 two-volume biography of Strachey (of which this is an update) was controversial when first published because it openly acknowledged Strachey’s homosexuality and relationships with other men.
(LC Score: +2)
- OTTOLINE: THE LIFE OF LADY OTTOLINE MORRELL by Sandra Jobson Darroch
- DECEIVED WITH KINDNESS: A BLOOMSBURY CHILDHOOD by Angelica Garnett
Girl Who Reads Woolf and Woolf-Adjacent Non-Fiction Continued: I love Lady Ottoline. I don’t see how anyone can not love Lady Ottoline. She was a wealthy patron of the arts, including many of the Bloomsbury set, who ran various houses and salons where the intelligent and talented could meet and rub off on each other. (Her hospitality would become very important during World War I, when many of the conscientious objectors among her friends would find sanctuary and government-approved employment at her country farm.) She had relationships with the likes of as Bertrand Russell (turns out he was a massive jerk) and D. H. Lawrence (ditto, but I already suspected that). Unfortunately, Lady Ottoline is also somewhat of a tragic figure, in that while her brilliant friends were using (and occasionally abusing) her generosity, they -- particularly the Bloomsbury folks, who do not come off well here -- were also often ridiculing her in vicious and cruel ways in their letters. Darroch’s biography of Ottoline, while interesting, didn’t do much to illuminate that disconnect for me or explain why she was seen as so ridiculous (apparently Ottoline wore silly clothes? and too much makeup?), nor does it succeed in going beyond documenting Ottoline’s life to showing us what she thought and felt, leaving me wanting more. Another tragic and slightly mysterious Bloomsbury figure is Angelica (Bell) Garnett, daughter of Vanessa Bell and niece to Virginia Woolf. Angelica grew up amid one of those complicated Bloomsbury triangular relationships: while her father was officially Clive Bell, Vanessa’s husband (who no longer resided with her), it was an open secret that her actual father was Duncan Grant, Vanessa’s longtime love-interest who also happened to be gay. At the time of Angelica’s birth, Vanessa lived with Duncan and Duncan’s lover, David Garnett, who (a) was always hitting unsuccessfully on Vanessa, and (b) looked at baby Angelica in the crib and said he’d marry her when she grew up. In a disturbing twist, he did. In 1985, Angelica wrote this memoir of her Bloomsbury childhood and the damage done by the secrets around her parentage. She speaks of being “brainwashed” by Vanessa’s suffocating mothering, but leaves so much unsaid that it’s sometimes hard to understand what exactly went so wrong (beyond the obvious problem of lying to your daughter about who her father is). That something did go wrong is clear in Angelica’s history with Garnett, who looks an awful lot like a sexual predator to modern eyes. Bloomsbury’s inability or unwillingness to protect Angelica from Garnett has to be reckoned as a major failure.
(LC Score: +2)
PASTORALIA by George Saunders
I don’t have much to say about this collection of George Saunders stories except that they are strange and excellent and Saunders should write more quickly so that I don’t have to ration out his older stories so carefully.
(LC Score: +1)
WEEKENDS AT BELLEVUE: NINE YEARS ON THE NIGHT SHIFT AT THE PSYCH ER by Julie Holland
Dr. Holland had some fascinating experiences during her years in charge of the psychiatric ER at Bellevue, but I had a hard time with this memoir, mostly because I had a hard time warming up to the author. She deals with being a woman in a male-dominated profession by being a super-flirty one-of-the-guys gal, and handles the stresses of her job by becoming callous and overly-macho. To her credit, she doesn’t like the “bullying” (to use her own word) side of her that comes out in the ER and works hard to change, but while I appreciate her commitment to warts-and-all storytelling, I have to question Holland’s self-awareness when she implies that she finds sexual harassment to be a huge turn-on. (Which is more than discouraging to read in a book published as recently as 2009.)
(LC Score: +1)
READINGS: ESSAYS AND LITERARY ENTERTAINMENTS by Michael Dirda
This collection of fun little bookish columns from the Washington Post (1993-1999) is just the kind of soothing reading I need these days — and it was especially nice to discover that Dirda is a Mapp & Lucia fan!
(LC Score: +1)
THE ABOMINABLE by Dan Simmons
Sigh. I saved the worst for last. You all know from my last post that I am a big fan of the scurvy-and-SNOW-MONSTER fun fest that is Dan Simmons’s The Terror (are you guys watching the AMC show? is it good? don’t tell me anything!), so of course I was excited to pick up this novel about a (fictional) 1925 expedition to Mount Everest (immediately following the 1924 death of George Mallory on the mountain). Unfortunately, I have to report that there is NO scurvy (I guessed that going in) and (SPOILERS but I don’t even care) NO snow monsters. I knew this book would be something of an uphill climb (LEAVE ME ALONE I’M SAD AND PUNS ARE A COPING MECHANISM) because I am the poster child for “Not Getting It” when it comes to mountain-climbing and Everest-climbing in particular, and Simmons handles some of the uncomfortable elements surrounding the culture of Everest climbers (childish interchangeable sherpa-characters who never become distinct individuals and only exist to be killed off screaming? CHECK!) in less than adroit fashion. Even so, I wasn’t expecting that the first half of this 650-page novel would read like a lecture entitled “Look At All the Cool Research Dan Simmons Did!” (SPOILER: it’s not actually that cool.) But none of this raised the book to Truly Awful status until the ending, where Simmons reveals what is actually “abominable” and yeah, there are Nazis, but even Snow Nazis couldn’t cheer me up with this one. Simmons is one of those authors whose books I (usually) love, but whose politics I can’t stand, as I discovered when I read his other Truly Awful book, Flashback, where Obamacare and women’s lib combine to destroy the country. So why do I keep reading him? He’s a great writer (and really has a way with scurvy) and in books like The Terror, with its almost complete lack of women and liberals, it’s easy to overlook the issues I have with his personal beliefs. During this last reread of The Terror, I was a little uncomfortable with the fact that the one human (i.e., non SNOW MONSTER) villain in the book is gay — which allows the other Victorian-era characters to go on about how disgusting that is — but he actually has a positive portrayal of another gay couple, so... This book doesn’t have that kind of redeeming virtue. NOT RECOMMENDED. And I’ll just be over here in the corner rereading books I ACTUALLY LIKE because YOU’VE MADE ME VERY SAD, DAN, VERY VERY SAD.
(LC Score: +1, but I’m not happy about it)
- Returned Unread: LC Score: -40
- Library Chicken Score for 5/9/18: -32
- Running Score: -22 ½
On the to-read/still-reading stack for next week:
- The Brandons by Angela Thirkell (I’ll just be going back to my Thirkell happy place now)
- Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer (not a ‘happy place’, so to speak, but definitely a good reread)
- Classics for Pleasure by Michael Dirda (I trust that fellow-Lucia fan Dirda will only give quality recommendations)
- Playing Dead: A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud by Elizabeth Greenwood (because that’s an awesome topic and I am here for it)
Library Chicken Update: 4.25.18
Suzanne’s budding obsession with scurvy carries her through some frozen wastelands, plus more short stories, more Woolf-adjacent biographies, and some snarky grammar in this week’s Library Chicken.
Welcome to the weekly round-up of what the BookNerd is reading and how many points I scored (or lost) in Library Chicken. To recap, you get a point for returning a library book that you’ve read, you lose a point for returning a book unread, and while returning a book past the due date is technically legal, you do lose half a point. If you want to play along, leave your score in the comments!
Pour out a glass of lemonade (you’ll see why in a minute) and pull up a chair for this weeks’ stories of scandalous forbidden love, Lovecraftian Old Ones, and SNOW MONSTERS...
- The New Well-Tempered Sentence: A Punctuation Handbook for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed by Karen Elizabeth Gordon
- The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed by Karen Elizabeth Gordon
Now that I’m teaching grammar in the homeschool-hybrid school I’ve been running through my list of “interesting grammar books to check out one day” (which, yes, is a list that I actually have) to see if there’s anything I would like to add to the curriculum. These two are definitely cuter and more entertaining than your run-of-the-mill grammar handbooks, but I wonder if the complexity and playfulness of the text and the examples would make them difficult to use with beginners in the classroom. I do think they’d be fun additions to any homeschool reference shelf.
(LC Score: +2)
Mrs. Keppel and Her Daughter by Diana Souhami
Girl Who Reads Woolf (and Woolf-Adjacent Nonfiction): Okay, so Virginia Woolf had an affair (possibly platonic?) with Vita Sackville-West, who was famous for running away with an earlier lover, Violet Trefusis, who in turn was the daughter of King Edward VII’s mistress, Alice Keppel (though probably not the daughter of Edward himself). Are we all clear? The Vita-and-Violet narrative is a hugely dramatic tale, where the abandoned husbands end up jumping into a two-seater plane (in 1920!) to fly to France to retrieve their wives, and forever after, Vita and her husband (and all their relations and descendants) treated Violet like she was some kind of evil disease that Vita had temporarily caught and had to be kept isolated from for the rest of her life. This biography attempts to give us Violet’s side of the story. (I don’t quite understand the title, as Mrs. Keppel doesn’t figure much into the story except as Violet’s overbearing mother, but whatever.) Violet is certainly not the villain that Vita and co. made her out to be, and it’s hard to condemn her given that she was born into a culture that punished her twice over (for being a woman and for her sexual orientation), but honestly there’s not a lot to admire in her behavior. (I was surprised to learn that—like Vita and Virginia—Violet was a successful published writer in later life. I don’t know what to say about that except what was going on at the time with all these fascinating women writers named ‘V-something’?)
(LC Score: +1)
American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny From the 1940s to Now edited by Peter Straub
This is the second of two anthologies of “fantastic tales” put out by the Library of America (the first is From Poe to the Pulps). Like all Library of America editions, it’s a lovely book, and Straub put together a great mix of genre and non-genre authors.
(LC Score: +1)
Hammers on Bone by Cassandra Khaw
In this novella, a hardboiled film-noir P.I. (who is more than he seems) goes up against Lovecraftian monsters in modern-day London. Good stuff—my only complaint is that I wanted more!
(LC Score: +1)
The Terror by Dan Simmons
I LOVE THIS BOOK. Simmons takes the historical story of Sir John Franklin’s lost 1847 expedition to find the Northwest Passage—which already involves polar bears, scurvy, and cannibalism—and adds SNOW MONSTERS. It is completely and utterly awesome. I first read it about 10 years ago, and immediately went around grabbing both friends and strangers on the street to tell them YOU MUST READ THIS. I quickly learned that 750-plus pages of British sailors stuck in the ice (with occasional guest appearances by the above-mentioned SNOW MONSTER) is not everyone’s idea of a great time which is MYSTIFYING TO ME. Apparently though, AMC sees things my way, as they recently debuted their new 10-part series based on the book, starring Ciaran Hinds as Sir John Franklin. (I’ve had a soft spot for Ciaran Hinds ever since he played another British sea captain—Captain Frederick Wentworth—in the wonderful 1995 adaptation of Persuasion.) We don’t get AMC at my house, but the first two episodes were available for streaming and I’ve watched them about three times now and of course I had to run to the library to get the book again and AHHH IT’S SO GOOD. The SNOW MONSTER only makes a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him appearance in the early episodes, but frankly I’m more worried about the scurvy. (I’m sure you’ve heard of scurvy, but have you ever read about the symptoms? It’s basically the ebola of the sea. DRINK YOUR LEMON JUICE, PEOPLE.) Anyway, I love this book and the show looks great and we’ll have to see if I can hold off buying the remaining episodes until it shows up on Netflix or something. (SPOILER: probably not. I can’t be expected to resist SNOW MONSTERS and scurvy AND Captain Frederick Wentworth. Although—HISTORICAL SPOILER—he probably doesn’t make it past the fourth episode.)
(LC Score: +1)
The Man Who Ate His Boots: The Tragic History of the Search for the Northwest Passage by Anthony Brandt
My initial read of The Terror set me off on an all-things-polar-exploration-related binge, but fortunately since then there’s been another stack of books published. This is a solid overview of the 19th-century British obsession with the Northwest Passage, including noteworthy explorers like John and James Clarke Ross, Edward Parry, and of course the boots-eating man himself, John Franklin. (He became famous for eating his boots on an earlier expedition to the Arctic.) Brandt also details the confusing series of search-and-rescue expeditions that followed Franklin’s final mysterious voyage. There’s more cannibalism, the occasional polar bear, and as always, an abundance of scurvy, but sadly a complete lack of SNOW MONSTERS.
(LC Score: +1)
Returned Unread: LC Score: -15 (Yeah, so there was another stack of neglected books that had to go back. I’d blame all 750-plus pages of The Terror but it really isn’t the SNOW MONSTER’s fault.)
- Library Chicken Score for 4/25/18: -8
- Running Score: +10 ½
On the to-read/still-reading stack for next week:
- Lytton Strachey: The New Biography by Michael Holroyd (more Woolf-adjacent Bloomsbury reading)
- American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny From Poe to the Pulps edited by Peter Straub (yes, I’m reading these out of chronological order I’M DOING MY BEST LEAVE ME ALONE)
- Resolute: The Epic Search for the Northwest Passage and John Franklin, and the Discovery of the Queen’s Ghost Ship by Martin W. Sandler (I’m betting that scurvy will be involved)
- The Good House by Tananarive Due (I’m not sure which is scarier: scurvy or a seriously haunted house, but in any case I’ll need a break from all that ice)
Library Chicken Update: 4.11.18
Suzanne's winning at Library Chicken with a hodgepodge of novels and nonfiction.
Welcome to the weekly round-up of what the BookNerd is reading and how many points I scored (or lost) in Library Chicken. To recap, you get a point for returning a library book that you’ve read, you lose a point for returning a book unread, and while returning a book past the due date is technically legal, you do lose half a point. If you want to play along, leave your score in the comments!
I completed a MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENT this week: I finished moving several years’ worth of to-read wishlists from Amazon (where the wishlist functionality fluctuated almost weekly, making me want to throw things at Jeff Bezos) to GoodReads. Which, yes, I know is actually owned by Amazon. Which makes you think that there’d be a simple way to move information like that over, but no! I had to transfer every single entry by hand. It only took me five months or so! That was fun! With all that time freed up I should now be able to catch up on my reading - except I’m going to start transferring all my LibraryThing entries over to GoodReads also. (LibraryThing is still my main catalog, but I like having the GoodReads functionality. I may be a little obsessed with my book-cataloging systems.)
THE HUNGER by Alma Katsu
It’s been a long while since I last stayed up past my bedtime with a book too good to put down, but this alternate history of the Donner Party was a super-fun, super-scary page-turner. (SPOILER: Even in this version, things DO NOT END WELL.) The only problem with picking the Donner Party as your starting place is that even with the additional of complicated backstories, illicit love stories, and the supernatural, it’s very hard for fiction to top the real-life story. That said, this one is too good to miss.
(LC Score: +1)
THE FAMILY PLOT by Cherie Priest
A family-run salvage business takes on the job of breaking down an old mansion at the base of Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga (hey, I’ve been there!) and the house - DUN DUN DUN - turns out to be HAUNTED. A fun, compelling read, but I was left wishing that the author had taken the premise even further.
(LC Score: +1)
MARGARET THE FIRST by Danielle Dutton
This novella imagines the inner life of the fascinating Duchess of Newcastle, a creative, brilliant, and intellectually ambitious woman born into a time (she lived during the English Civil War and the Restoration) that treated her like a freak of nature. It’s an amazing accomplishment by Dutton that will leave you wanting to learn more about this incredible woman.
(LC Score: +1)
MY HOLIDAY IN NORTH KOREA: THE FUNNIEST/WORST PLACE ON EARTH by Wendy E. Simmons
I have several books about North Korea on my to-read list, but I haven’t gotten around to them, in part because I know they will be difficult emotionally. This one was an easy place to start, but I’m still not sure how I feel about the tone. Simmons went on a 10-day solo tourist trip to North Korea and this book of photographs and short-essay reminiscences is the result. Simmons details her frustration and bewilderment during the trip, every moment of which was stage-managed by government representatives, with sharp-edged humor that can come uncomfortably close to mockery, especially when we’re looking at the visuals of a privileged white American tourist against the backdrop of tragedy that is North Korea. I don’t think her intention was to make fun or be disrespectful, but it’s a difficult line to walk.
(LC Score: +1)
THE ARGONAUTS by Maggie Nelson
This is Nelson’s much-praised book-length essay on gender, identity, sexuality, motherhood, and relationships - particularly Nelson’s relationship with her non-binary partner, Harry. Fascinating and incredibly erudite; reading this felt like attending a graduate seminar that I was totally unqualified to be at but that I’d managed to sneak into somehow. And I mean that in the best possible way.
(LC Score: +1)
- ART AND AFFECTION: A LIFE OF VIRGINIA WOOLF by Panthea Reid
- VANESSA AND VIRGINIA by Susan Sellers
- VITA: A BIOGRAPHY OF VITA SACKVILLE-WEST by Victoria Glendinning
Girl Who Reads About Woolf: The first two books here, a biography of Virginia and a fictional re-imagining of Virginia’s relationship with her sister Vanessa (told in Vanessa’s voice), tell the story of the sisters’ lifelong competition and how it broadened into an ongoing argument about the merits of Art versus Literature. Both books show how one sister was narcissistic, demanding, and deliberately cruel, while the other, although not entirely innocent, was continually bewildered by the viciousness of it all. In the first book, Vanessa is the bad guy, while the second one has Virginia as the villain of the piece. It seems most likely that both books, by creating a ‘good sister’ and a ‘bad sister,’ are simplifying what was, by all accounts, an incredibly complex and often challenging relationship. I enjoyed Reid’s biography (though it was at times hard to follow, with each paragraph absolutely crammed full of quotes, citations, and minute details), but I was less impressed with Sellers’ Bloomsbury fanfic (if you’re interested in something similar, I much preferred Vanessa and Her Sister by Priya Parmar). Meanwhile, Glendinning’s biography of Vita Sackville-West (Virginia’s friend/lover and the inspiration for Orlando) was a very enjoyable read about another amazing woman (it helps that, unlike the previous bio I read of Vita, Glendinning does not appear to despise her subject).
(LC Score: +3)
- Returned Unread: LC Score: -3
- Library Chicken Score for 4/11/18: 5
- Running Score: +18 ½
On the to-read/still-reading stack for next week:
- The Terror by Dan Simmons (reread—had to pick it up after seeing the first episode of the AMC adaptation)
- Mrs. Keppel and Her Daughter by Diana Souhami (a biography of Vita’s lover, Violet Trefusis, to complete my Woolf and Woolf-adjacent collection of women whose names begin with ‘V’)
- Art History for Dummies by Jesse Bryant Wilder (the more I read about the Bloomsbury artists, the more I am embarrassed by my utter ignorance of art)
- American Fantastic Tales: Terror and Uncanny from the 1940s to Now edited by Peter Straub (from the anthology stack)
Library Chicken :: 3.28.18
Spooky stories, murder mysteries, and more good stuff keep Suzanne's library card busy this week.
Welcome to the weekly round-up of what the BookNerd is reading and how many points I scored (or lost) in Library Chicken. To recap, you get a point for returning a library book that you’ve read, you lose a point for returning a book unread, and while returning a book past the due date is technically legal, you do lose half a point. If you want to play along, leave your score in the comments!
We’re almost to the end of March Madness -- I don’t have any idea which teams are playing in the Final Four, but I have been having fun following the Annual Tournament of Books, which wraps up with the grand championship match at the end of the week. As usual, I haven’t read many of this year’s books (too busy catching up with competition entries from years past) but they all sound distractingly wonderful.
AN ENGLISH GHOST STORY by Kim Newman
A dysfunctional family moves into the “most haunted spot” in England, a country manor home previously occupied by a beloved children’s author. This was a fast and fun read, alternating the family’s experience with excerpts from novels written by the previous owner (and other histories relating to the house) and I LOVED it. Next up for me: Newman’s Anno Dracula, an alternate history vampire novel.
(LC Score: +1)
THE NIGHT GARDENER by Jonathan Auxier
I’ve been falling behind on my middle-grade reading, but this spooky Victorian tale by Auxier was a great way to jump back in. Irish orphans Molly and Kip go to work at a country manor where All Is Not As It Seems (And It Already Seems Pretty Scary). (Note to self: When visiting England, stay away from country manor homes.) This would be a fun read-aloud, though it might get a little intense at times for younger listeners.
(LC Score: +1)
THE MOVING TOYSHOP by Edmund Crispin
Gervase Fen mystery #3 (and the most well-known of the series). A British poet visiting Oxford discovers a dead body in a mysterious toyshop -- but the next morning, both body and toyshop have vanished. Fortunately, his old friend Professor Fen is there to help with the detecting. Another cheerfully absurd mystery from Crispin, with a sleuth who occasionally seems to realize that he is in a detective novel. (My favorite 4th-wall-breaking scene involves Fen trying to come up with book titles for his author, the best of which is clearly “Blood on the Mortarboard: Fen Strikes Back.”)
(Challenge Accepted 2018: Read Harder’s “A Classic of Genre Fiction.”)
(LC Score: +1)
THE DEAD MOUNTAINEER'S INN: ONE MORE LAST RITE FOR THE DETECTIVE GENRE by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, translated by Josh Billings
The Strugatsky brothers, sometimes known as the “greatest science fiction writers of the Soviet era,” dive into murder mysteries with this novel (translated from the Russian). A vacationing detective inspector finds himself dealing with a locked-room whodunit set in a remote mountain inn populated by oddballs. Things start out bizarre and only get weirder from there, with a twist or two taking things into the realm of the Strugatskys’ usual genre, science fiction. Very strange but a fun ride and I look forward to tracking down more books by Boris and Arkady.
(Challenge Accepted 2018: Popsugar’s “A Book by Two Authors,” Read Harder’s “A Book of Genre Fiction in Translation,” and HSL Reading Bingo’s “A Book That’s Been Translated to English.”)
(LC Score: +1)
KING AND JOKER by Peter Dickinson
In 1976 London, members of the British royal family are attempting to cut living expenses while dealing with a vicious practical joker. This, however, is an alternate history version of the royals, descended from Edward VII’s eldest son, Albert Victor (who as it turns out did NOT die young in an influenza epidemic). The youngest royal, 13-year-old Princess Louise, just wants to live as much of her life as possible as a “normal” girl, but the upheavals created by the palace joker lead to some upsetting revelations about the unusual private lives of her family. Though a fairly recent convert, I am a sincere fan of Dickinson’s entertainingly bizarre (and/or bizarrely entertaining) mysteries, and I was excited about this one from the opening epigraph (a Lytton Strachey quote from his history, King Victor I). Unfortunately, the ugly racist caricature of a minor character and a reveal at the end of some awful behavior by a main character (that is then brushed aside as no big deal, reflecting the dismal sexual politics of the time) sucked some of the enjoyment out of this one for me. Here’s hoping that the sequel, also starring Princess Louise, will have a bit less racism and misogyny.
(LC Score: +1)
JACOB'S ROOM by Virginia Woolf
Girl Who Reads Woolf: This is Woolf’s third novel and her first major attempt at the style of writing that she would become known for. Here she tells the story of a young man (thought to be at least partially inspired by her deceased older brother, Thoby) through the eyes and impressions of the people (primarily women) around him. I hadn’t read this one before but my love-affair with Woolf’s writing continues, even though not much actually happens here and I don’t always understand exactly what’s going on when something does happen.
(LC Score: +1)
INTERPRETER OF MALADIES by Jhumpa Lahiri
As you can see, I’m getting back to novels this week, but I still have a stack of short story collections to work through. This slim but celebrated collection from Indian-American author Lahiri lived up to its reputation for me: I thoroughly enjoyed her melancholy but fascinating stories of culture clash.
(LC Score: +1)
- Returned Unread: LC Score: -4
- Library Chicken Score for 3/28/18: 3
- Running Score: +13 ½
On the to-read/still-reading stack for next week:
- SKELETON-IN-WAITING by Peter Dickinson (the second Princess Louise mystery)
- ANNO DRACULA by Kim Newman (see An English Ghost Story above)
- ART AND AFFECTION: A LIFE OF VIRGINIA WOOLF by Panthea Reid (Girl Who Reads About Woolf)
- THE BIG BOOK OF SCIENCE FICTION edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (from the anthology stack)
SUZANNE REZELMAN is home | school | life magazine’s Book Nerd. Subscribe to home/school/life to read her brilliant book recommendations and literary musings every issue. Your library list will thank you.