April:
44. Echoes Carry by Serena Agusto-Cox - Another poetry book by one of our own! It's always exciting to buy and read a book by a blog friend (Savvy Verse and Wit) and Echoes Carry is a book I can happily say I enjoyed. Echoes Carry includes poems about Serena's childhood with a Portuguese grandmother, motherhood, work, life during COVID — life and memories and family, both the inspiring and the difficult. I was a bit envious of the lovely memories of learning to cook from her grandmother as I lived far from my grandmothers and one died when I was only 10 years old. I didn't mark any favorite poems because I was enjoying the book too much to stop but there were plenty of quotable passages and I look forward to rereading Echoes Carry in the future.
45. The Silver Arrow by Lev Grossman - Kate's birthday is coming up and she suspects it will be boring. So, she writes to her rich uncle Herbert, whom she's never met because her mother doesn't like him. The next day, Uncle Herbert brings a train — a real steam engine and coal tender — as a birthday gift. She and her brother Tom climb up on the train, The Silver Arrow, and are told to get right back down by their parents. Meanwhile, Uncle Herbert quietly has the train put on tracks in the backyard. When Tom and Kate notice a glow from the engine late at night, they go to check it out and the train takes off on a wild and magical adventure around the world, picking up extra cars (a sleeper car, library car, candy car, etc.) and going to various stations where they find talking animals who become the passengers. The point of the book, it turns out, is to drive home the fact that humans are causing mass extinction and need to think more carefully about how we treat animals and the world but this concept is wrapped in a magical journey. A sweet, middle grade adventure with a great theme.
46. Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin - This month's prompt for the Massachusetts Center for the Book challenge is, "A short story or essay collection" and I've meant to read Mouthful of Birds for a couple of years. Recommended to me by my writer friend Katie, Mouthful of Birds is translated from the Spanish. The short stories in this collection are surreal, often with an element of horror, sometimes a bit bloody or gruesome, and definitely unsettling. A girl who can only thrive if she eats live birds, a man whose urge for violence is translated into paintings of people with bashed heads, a man at a bar telling the story of children who dug a hole and what happened after . . . these are a few of the storylines. Some of the stories feel like they're wrapped up satisfactorily but not all. At least a couple stumped me. But, mostly one just has to enjoy the uncomfortable feelings the stories give you. If you like stories that make you squirm and are a bit grotesque, I particularly recommend Mouthful of Birds for the annual Readers Imbibing Peril challenge, as it's definitely creepy.
47. Starfish by Lisa Fipps - I stayed up way too late because I couldn't put Starfish down. It's middle grade fiction in verse about a girl who is relentlessly bullied about her weight, including by her own family, and must learn how to think outside her "fat girl" identity and stand up for herself. Excellent, highly recommended. In spite of being middle grade, this story is so good at placing you in the feet of someone who is bullied by anyone and everyone — complete strangers come up to her to say, "You're fat" — that I think a lot of adults could stand to read it.
48. The Dragon from Chicago: The Untold Story of an American Reporter in Nazi Germany by Pamela D. Toler - I started The Dragon from Chicago in March as my selection for Women's History Month but I confess that I found it a little dry and would take as much as a week off between days of reading a chapter or two. It tells the story of Sigrid Schultz. Born in Chicago, she only lived there for about 8 years and then her father, a portrait artist, moved the family to Europe, where he went from one country to another, wherever he could find work doing portraits for the wealthy. Because they moved a great deal, Sigrid became fluent in many languages. Finally, she and her mother settled in Berlin, where she ended up working as a journalist and later became the head of the Berlin bureau of the Chicago Tribune.
Schultz was in Berlin during both World Wars and interviewed Hitler himself, as well as Hermann Göring. The Dragon from Chicago mostly talks about her gradual ascent within the news world, the difficulties she faced as a woman, and the challenges of working through war and street battles between the wars. There are quotes from letters but unfortunately no examples of any of her news writing, which I found disappointing. I would have liked to read some snippets of the actual journalistic writing, maybe an interview or two or an article that required some in-depth research. So, not a favorite but I don't regret reading the book as it did give some interesting insight into one very important but probably overlooked writer's life.
49. Clear by Carys Davies - At a little less than 200 pages, Clear tells the story of a minister for the Free Church of Scotland who gets a job evicting a man from his island home — where he'll be replaced by sheep to make the wealthy landowner more money. Arriving at the island during a storm, John Ferguson is soaked so he spreads his clothing out to dry and then walks off and falls over a cliff. Ivar, the sole inhabitant, finds Ferguson and nurses him back to health while Ferguson's wife, Mary, heads to the island after finding out that the job is more dangerous than either of them anticipated. A book I'll likely return to, Clear is compact, beautiful, and hopeful with not a single wasted word. I loved learning about the history of the Scottish Clearances and the Free Church, the exploration of language and communication (the two men don't speak the same language), and the blurring of friendship, love and family. A wonderful little gem, set in 1843.
50. Cat + Gamer, Vol. 1 by Wataru Nadatani (reread) - I read all of the available Cat + Gamer books via Hoopla, last year, and decided I want to own them, partly so I can study the cat art and try to figure out how to draw cats as well but, of course, also because they make me smile. I enjoyed rereading #1 and have a bunch of the others in print, now. But, I didn't buy them all because there were 1 or 2 I thought weren't as good as the rest. At any rate, Volume 1 was just as much fun the second time. Reminder: the story is about a young woman who spends her free time gaming obsessively. When she agrees to take home a kitten found on her work parking lot, she has to learn not only how to care for her new pet, having never owned a cat, but also how to adjust her free time so that she also has time to play with the kitten, Musubi.
51. The Last 8 by Laura Pohl - The Last 8 is the first in a Young Adult duology about an alien invasion. Clover Martinez lives on a farm with her grandparents. She's a terrible driver, has no romantic interest in anyone at all (including her ex-boyfriend), and loves flying planes more than anything. Her abuelo (grandfather) taught her how to fly. When millions of silver objects start landing all over the world, aliens emerge and kill nearly everyone on the planet. Clover survives and travels alone for months before hearing a voice on the radio. A few people have survived, all teenagers, and they're holed up at Area 51. Clover travels there but finds that they're doing nothing to fight back. Instead of just giving up and eventually dying, she insists that they need to figure out how to capture and examine an alien and learn what its weaknesses are to figure out how to save the planet. I found this story mildly flawed but gripping, with some minor elements similar to the story in the Independence Day movie.
52. Chess Story by Stefan Zweig - I've seen loads of people talking about how much they love Stefan Zweig and Chess Story seems to be a particular favorite, so I bought a copy last year and just finally got around to reading it. And, surprise! It's a quick read at 84 pages but yes, I was utterly rapt. A famous chess player is on the same boat from New York to South America (I think Brazil) as the narrator. The narrator decides he must meet this idiot-savant, but the chess champion is vain and doesn't particularly like to communicate with people as he's still got the mannerisms and education of a peasant in spite of his wealth from being the world's greatest at chess. Eventually, an idea arrives: play chess in a place the champion is likely to see and try to draw him in. It eventually works and a group begins to play against him but then along comes another man, mid-game, and he points out that the group has made a tactical error. He gives them advice and it becomes clear that he is also an expert. The man's story is then revealed: how he was held prisoner by the Gestapo and what saved him from breaking. What follows is a final game . . . maybe two. What will happen to the former prisoner, Dr. B, when he starts to become obsessed? OK, I will definitely be looking for more by Zweig. That was quite a gripping tale and I haven't played chess since I was a small child. You don't need to understand the chess moves to appreciate the story.
53. Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke - At Harvard, Natalie meets a handsome and wealthy man whose father is a senator. But, it isn't till after their marriage that she realizes he has no ambition. By then, they have a baby and no income. Natalie comes up with the idea of buying a ranch (with help). There they live and she continues popping out babies till she realizes she can create her own income stream by becoming a tradwife influencer. Her Instagram account takes off and makes money, but there are complications. Then, one day she wakes up to a different set of children, an older version of her husband Caleb, and the same ranch but in the 19th century. Has she been transported through time? Or is this an elaborate hoax? Natalie doesn't know, but while she's trying to figure it out, she must learn how to be an old-fashioned housewife without hired help. The story jumps back and forth between those two storylines: present and maybe-past.
Yesteryear would probably make a great group read because there's a lot to talk about: tradwives and whether they are the real deal or complete nonsense, fundamentalist Christian beliefs, knowing right from wrong, what Natalie and Caleb were like as parents and why they ended up where they did in the end, what it was like living in isolation in the 19th century versus the present day, and what impact their families may have had on how they turned out as a couple and parents, etc. Did I love it? I have mixed feelings. Natalie is not a likable character but that didn't bother me as much as a few bits I found of questionable accuracy. The pages flew because I wanted to know what happened and that's what made it a 4/5 read for me.
54. Their Finest Hour-and-a-Half by Lissa Evans - (Also goes by "Their Finest", the same title as the movie made from the book). I've read Their Finest Hour-and-a-Half, long enough ago that I'd forgotten details but remembered the overall plot. It's the story of a young Welsh woman in London who gets a job working as a screenwriter on a war film during the Blitz. It's both about the making of the movie and how inaccuracies are created for various reasons, but particularly in the name of giving citizens undergoing daily tragedy a reason to have hope and consider volunteering. At the same time, it's a story of life during the Blitz. It's a bit slow for this particular author, probably her longest book, but I loved it the first time (in spite of needing time to get oriented) and I loved it this time even more because I noted some details I don't recall from the first read. I own the movie and even my husband loved it when we watched it, years ago (he hates everything), so I'm quite anxious to watch it again, but so far I haven't located the DVD. At any rate, still highly recommended. I read Their Finest Hour-and-a-Half for book group discussion, this time, and it was a fun discussion. I loved hearing what people loved and hated. Chiefly, we loved Lissa Evans' sense of humor and I admired her attention to detail; friends hated the actor character, who is played by Bill Nighy in the movie, and disliked the length.
55. Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke - Still in an alien invasion mood after The Last 8 and another failed alien invasion read that I DNF'd, I picked up Childhood's End, which I just found in a bin full of books, recently. Aliens have arrived at Earth and caused some major changes. Wars have stopped, the alien "Overlords" exerting pressure to end them. But, the arts have died as well, with no conflict in existence. A single alien communicates regularly with the head of the UN but without allowing himself to be seen. Decades pass till the aliens finally appear; peace continues but not everyone is happy and there are hints that there's something more than benevolence in the plans of the aliens. A rather sad book, in the end, but a good one. I confess that there were moments that I found the book a little difficult and, of course, since it was first published in 1953 there were ideas that appear laughable from our future perspective. But, it's an excellent read with lots of potential discussion material and now I'm eager to get my mitts on a copy of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which I've never read but wanted to read for too many years to count.
So many great reads, this month! If I had to pick a single favorite it would be easy, for once: Clear was impossible to put down and a beautiful read. But, I loved almost everything else, if only for discussability and not for characterization or plot. Starfish runs a close second as favorite — or, maybe is a tie since I loved both but they're wildly different. The two I would consider disappointing were Mouthful of Birds and The Dragon from Chicago. And, yet, the writing in Mouthful of Birds is impressive; I simply found the stories a bit too much. And, The Dragon from Chicago was interesting if not quite what I was hoping for. It was exciting to read yet another friend's book, Echoes Carry. And, I enjoyed rereading one of my favorite authors and discussing her book, Their Finest Hour-and-a-Half.
My favorite cover of the month was Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke. Such a great, classic alien spaceship cover. My copy was printed in 1972.
I always try to read more than one book for National Poetry Month and I failed as I have totally misplaced the second poetry book I started. I am clueless as to where it's gone. Maybe aliens took it. Speaking of which, I'm still in an alien invasion mood so I'm going to scout around to see what else I've got that fits that urge. Anyway . . . on to May.
Happy Reading!
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