Quote of the Day, Hugos Swept by Women Authors, Malorie Blackman Joins Doctor Who, Phinney Books Expands, A Study in Honor by Claire O'Dell, Geekerella by Ashley Poston,Hull Metal Girls by Emily Skrutskie, and Another Side of Paradise by Sally Koslow

Quotation of the Day

"If we want to become a nation of readers, you need to have more

bookstores.... I always say the best way to die is to be just sitting in

a chair reading a book, and to suddenly just expire. But throughout my

life, I remember the individuals who've left a huge mark on me, whether

teachers, parents or friends. I think that's the most valuable thing. In

your toughest times, you look back and know that those individuals have

propped you up, put you on their shoulders so you can walk better.

Hopefully, I can be that support for others in my personal and business

life."

--Kenny Leck, owner of BooksActually

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz38004128 bookstore, Singapore, in an

interview with Channel NewsAsia

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz38004129

Women authors swept the Hugo awards this year at Worldcon, and I couldn't be happier! I am particularly excited for NK Jemisin's third award for her Stone SF series, which I read and found fascinating, though I can't say it's the type of series you enjoy, per se. It's a groundbreaking work, but it's also political and dark and desperate in it's insights. Congratulations to all the winners.I only wish Ursula LeGuin was still around to see all her compatriots sweep the awards this year.

Awards: Hugos; John W. Campbell

The winners of the Hugo Awards and for the John W. Campbell Award for

Best New Writer were announced by Worldcon 76 yesterday in San Jose,

Calif., and can be seen here

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz38001447.

Among the many winners:

Best Novel: The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)

Best Novella: All Systems Red by Martha Wells (Tor)

Best Novelette: "The Secret Life of Bots" by Suzanne Palmer

(Clarkesworld, 9/17)

Best Short Story: "Welcome to your Authentic Indian Experience™"

by Rebecca Roanhorse (Apex, 8/17)

Best Related Work: No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters by

Ursula K. Le Guin (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Best Graphic Story: Monstress, Volume 2: The Blood by Marjorie Liu,

illustrated by Sana Takeda (Image)

Best Series: World of the Five Gods by Lois McMaster Bujold (Harper

Voyager; Spectrum Literary Agency)

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer: Rebecca Roanhorse

I'm so excited for the new season of Doctor Who, which debuts on BBC America in October, with the 13th Doctor, played by Jodie Whittaker, a woman. That they've got a famous YA author on board just makes it that much more thrilling. 

TV: Malorie Blackman Joins Doctor Who Writing Team

Malorie Blackman, author of more than 60 books for kids and young adults

and a former U.K. Children's Laureate, is "one of the writers

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz38027931

working on the new television series of Doctor Who," the Bookseller

reported, noting that Blackman is "the first black writer to pen an

episode for the series." She joins Ed Hime, Vinay Patel, Pete McTighe

and Joy Wilkinson, all of whom were announced this week by the BBC as

writers for the series, which launches this fall with Jodie Whittaker as

the 13th Doctor.

"I've always loved Doctor Who. Getting the chance to write for this

series has definitely been a dream come true," said Blackman, whose

short story "The Ripple Effect" was published in 2013 to celebrate the

50th anniversary of the show.

"We have a team of writers who've been working quietly and secretly for a long time now, crafting characters, worlds and stories to excite and move you," said Doctor Who

showrunner Chris Chibnall. "A set of directors who stood those scripts

up on their feet, bringing those ideas, visuals and emotions into

existence with bravura and fun. Hailing from a range of backgrounds,

tastes and styles, here's what unites them: they are awesome people as

well as brilliant at their job. (It matters!) They love Doctor Who. And

they've all worked above and beyond the call of duty in an effort to

bring audiences something special, later this year."

I will admit that when this gentleman opened this fancy new bookshop in the Phinney Ridge neighborhood of Seattle, where Jim and I used to live when we first landed here in the PNW, I was unsure he'd be successful.  I'd watched the wonderful used bookstore down the street, The Couth Buzzard, be sold off to become a coffee shop with a bookstore attached (and moved far down the street towards Greenwood). However, Nissley has managed to pull it off, and now he's opening another branch in tony Madison Park. Best of luck to him and to the new store! 

Phinney Books Owner Opening New Seattle Store

Tom Nissley, owner of Phinney Books

Seattle, Wash., is planning http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz38042389

to open Madison Books in the city's Madison Park neighborhood by

November, the Madison Park Times reported, adding that the store will be

"filling a void felt in the neighborhood for more than a decade."

"We just get that there's this hunger for having this store right in the

middle of everything," said Nissley, who has owned Phinney Books in

Phinney Ridge since 2014.

Madison Books wasn't his idea, "but that of longtime resident Susan

Moseley, who spent some time reaching out to potential partners before

tapping Nissley," the Park Times noted.

"I think she's been trying to get a store in the neighborhood ever since

Madison Park Books closed in 2005," he said. "I had not been looking to

expand. Susan got in touch with us, and just the more that we talked

about it, the more appealing it sounded."

A Study in Honor by Claire O'Dell is a fresh and intelligent take on the Sherlock Holmes/Dr Watson stories with an exciting plot and beautiful prose that transports you to the thoughts and feelings of the characters. Here's the blurb from Publisher's Weekly:This riveting mystery (fantasist Beth Bernobich’s first work under the O’Dell pseudonym), set in near-future Washington D.C., spotlights delightfully fresh adaptations of Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous characters. After Dr. Janet Watson loses her arm in an attack by the New Confederacy, she is discharged from the Army and returns home. She meets the fascinating, if infuriating, Sara Holmes, and they become roommates in Georgetown, Va., where, as two black women, they are not entirely welcome. Watson observes troubling patterns in her new job at the VA, and these, along with prompts from Holmes’s top secret connections, send the women on a high-stakes search for answers. As the mystery unfolds, it departs from direct Doyle parallels and takes on an entertaining life of its own. Attention to detail about futuristic elements, such as Watson’s mixed feelings about her temperamental mechanical arm, helps construct a believable setting. Readers who pick this up for the novelty of Watson and Holmes as black women will be impressed by how well O’Dell realizes them as full, rich characters. This is a real treat for fans of Conan Doyle and SF mysteries.

I completely agree with the PW reviewer's assessment, that the characters are fully realized, and the book itself a treat to read. I couldn't put it down, and though I despise political novels, the politics herein were germane to the story and gave it an air of reality, as if you could visit Watson and Holmes in DC at any time. Their lives as black women of different social castes (Holmes is rich while Watson is poor) makes them all the more intriguing, yet it also provides readers with a view into the reality of being a woman of color in America, where you're bound to encounter prejudice and sexism no matter how much money you have. I'd give this ripping yarn an A, and recommend it to anyone who likes a good dystopian SF mystery.

Geekerella by Ashley Poston is a clever YA novel that takes the Cinderella story and fine tunes it for today's celebrity culture in Hollywood, California. While it has fun protagonists in Elle and the celebrity who hates being famous,Darien, (standing in for the handsome prince), the whole story comes off as a bit too glib and goofy, with moments of eye-rolling cliche residing right alongside poignant moments in which readers empathize with orphaned Elle trying to find her way around a cruel stepmother and ugly-on-the-inside stepsister (the stepsisters are twins, but one of them is actually a nice lesbian who apparently doesn't have the spine to stand up to her evil twin). Here's the blurb:

Cinderella goes to the con in this fandom-fueled twist on the classic fairy tale romance.
Part romance, part love letter to nerd culture, and all totally adorbs, Geekerella is a fairy tale for anyone who believes in the magic of fandom. Geek girl Elle Wittimer lives and breathes Starfield, the classic sci-fi series she grew up watching with her late father. So when she sees a cosplay contest for a new Starfield movie, she has to enter. The prize? An invitation to the ExcelsiCon Cosplay Ball, and a meet-and-greet with the actor slated to play Federation Prince Carmindor in the reboot. With savings from her gig at the Magic Pumpkin food truck (and her dad’s old costume), Elle’s determined to win…unless her stepsisters get there first.
Teen actor Darien Freeman used to live for cons—before he was famous. Now they’re nothing but autographs and awkward meet-and-greets. Playing Carmindor is all he’s ever wanted, but the Starfield fandom has written him off as just another dumb heartthrob. As ExcelsiCon draws near, Darien feels more and more like a fake—until he meets a girl who shows him otherwise.

The prose is clean and zippy, but even though we all know how Cinderella ends up with the prince, Poston manages to seed the plot with enough twists that you don't mind waiting to get to the HEA. A beach read for those who like modern reworkings of fairy tales, I'd give this book a B, and recommend it to anyone looking for a fun read.

Hull Metal Girls by Emily Skrutskie wasn't really what I was expecting at all. This YA science fiction novel sounded like a fierce feminist take on Halo-like SF, but it became more of a social science fiction story with Doctor Who's Cybermen overtones. The prose is precise and the plot, while seemingly straightforward, gets mired in political messes way too often. Here's the blurb: Aisha Un-Haad would do anything for her family. When her brother contracts a plague, she knows her janitor's salary isn't enough to fund his treatment. So she volunteers to become a Scela, a mechanically enhanced soldier sworn to protect and serve the governing body of the Fleet, the collective of starships they call home. If Aisha can survive the harrowing modifications and earn an elite place in the Scela ranks, she may be able to save her brother.
Key Tanaka awakens in a Scela body with only hazy memories of her life before. She knows she's from the privileged end of the Fleet, but she has no recollection of why she chose to give up a life of luxury to become a hulking cyborg soldier. If she can make it through the training, she might have a shot at recovering her missing past.
In a unit of new recruits vying for top placement, Aisha's and Key's paths collide, and the two must learn to work together—a tall order for girls from opposite ends of the Fleet. But a rebellion is stirring, pitting those who yearn for independence from the Fleet against a government struggling to maintain unity.
With violence brewing and dark secrets surfacing, Aisha and Key find themselves questioning their loyalties. They will have to put aside their differences, though, if they want to keep humanity from tearing itself apart.

There was so much pain and suffering from the converted Scela soldiers that I found it difficult to get past that, and also difficult to get by the politics of adults who would sacrifice children for their own agenda (to remain in power). The bitterness and ugliness of these children and teenagers who are used as pawns is nearly overwhelming at times, and it detracts from the space opera plot. It's one of those books that you'd enjoy if you like reading dystopian robot stories with political subplots. Not really my thing, so I'd have to give it a C, and recommend it to those who don't mind brutality and politics (and abused children) in their SF.

Another Side of Paradise by Sally Koslow was something of an impulse buy, because I've always been a fan of F Scott Fitzgerald and his troubled wife Zelda. This book is based on the journals and letters of Fitzgerald's amour Sheilah Graham, a Hollywood gossip columnist whom he lived with and loved until his death. I have to say that I was drawn in to the whole world of Fitz and Sheilah during the late 30s, and while I was aware that he was an alcoholic, I was not aware that he had months of sobriety where he'd try to work and create and love the women in his life. I never thought of Fitzgerald as a weak man, but this novel paints him as immature, weak, cruel and self destructive. Sheilah, who suffered every kind of abuse from Fitzgerald, was a fool to continue to return to him after one of his benders, but she was seemingly unable to let him go, for some bizarre reason (I think they had a toxic codependent relationship). Here's the blurb:

In 1937 Hollywood, gossip columnist Sheilah Graham’s star is on the rise, while literary wonder boy F. Scott Fitzgerald’s career is slowly drowning in booze. But the once-famous author, desperate to make money penning scripts for the silver screen, is charismatic enough to attract the gorgeous Miss Graham, a woman who exposes the secrets of others while carefully guarding her own. Like Fitzgerald’s hero Jay Gatsby, Graham has meticulously constructed a life far removed from the poverty of her childhood in London’s slums. And like Gatsby, the onetime guttersnipe learned early how to use her charms to become a hardworking success; she is feted and feared by both the movie studios and their luminaries.
A notorious drunk famously married to the doomed Zelda, Fitzgerald fell hard for his “Shielah” (he never learned to spell her name), a shrewd yet softhearted woman—both a fool for love and nobody’s fool—who would stay with him and help revive his career until his tragic death three years later. Working from Sheilah’s memoirs, interviews, and letters, Sally Koslow revisits their scandalous love affair and Graham’s dramatic transformation in London, bringing Graham and Fitzgerald gloriously to life with the color, glitter, magic, and passion of 1930s Hollywood. Pulbisher's Weekly:Koslow takes on the tumultuous affair of ambitious Hollywood gossip columnist Sheilah Graham and literary lion F. Scott Fitzgerald in this dishy interpretation of Graham’s memoir, Beloved Infidel. Here, Koslow plays off the “weakness and self-deception” of British expat Graham, who reinvents herself in America to hide a poverty-stricken childhood in a London Jewish orphanage and a sexless first marriage to a salesman. Fitzgerald, who comes to Hollywood to reignite his writing career while battling alcoholism, is preoccupied with thoughts about his mentally ill wife, Zelda, and his own fading fame. Though generously peppered with the big names and gossip of the 1930s, the narrative is driven by the tortured relationship between Graham and Fitzgerald in which both succumb to the worst in each other. This version aims to excuse and soften Graham’s unrepentant opportunism—“telling lies” is “no harder than breathing,” she says. And it plays up a version of Fitzgerald as a diligent craftsman and mentor rather than as a mean and abusive drunk. Koslow may be rewriting a feel-good version of the Graham-Fitzgerald romance, but it’s an intoxicating one.

I didn't really feel this was an "intoxicating" romance, it was a sadly codependent one, with the self-hating Graham seemingly unable to leave Fitz, even after he beats her up. There's also not a whiff in this book of the scandal of Fitz consigning Zelda to a prison-like insane asylum, even when she was able to gain control over her alcoholism. There were also many who felt that Zelda wrote and edited several of his books, which was why he wasn't as successful writing anything in later years. I've been a fan of Fitzgerald's prose since I was a preteen, but after reading this book, I want to burn all of my copies of Fitzgerald's works because he was as much of a misogynistic asshat as Hemingway. Though the prose was strong, I felt the plot was slow, and I disliked reading about the domestic violence and abuse that Fitz rained down on Graham during their years together. I'd give this book a C, and a trigger warning for domestic abuse survivors.

RIP V.S. Naipaul, Quote of the Day, Moffat Takes on Time Traveler's Wife, This Mortal Coil by Emily Suvada,The Last Magician by Lisa Maxwell, The Cosy Tea Shop in the Castle by Caroline Roberts and When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

Though I only read one of his books (A House for Mr Biswas), I feel sad at the passing of Mr Naipaul, because of his documentation of the Indian experience. RIP.

Obituary Note: V.S. Naipaul

V.S. Naipaul

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz37918287,

the Nobel laureate "who documented the migrations of peoples, the

unraveling of the British Empire, the ironies of exile and the clash

between belief and unbelief in more than a dozen unsparing novels and as

many works of nonfiction," died August 11, the New York Times reported.

He was 85. Naipaul "was born of Indian ancestry in Trinidad, went to

Oxford University on a scholarship and lived the rest of his life in

England, where he forged one of the most illustrious literary careers of

the last half-century," the Times noted, adding that he was an "often

difficult man with a fierce temper."

He won the 1971 Booker Prize for In a Free State, and was knighted in

1990. His many books include A Bend in the River, A House for Mr.

Biswas, The Middle Passage, The Mimic Men, The Enigma of Arrival, A Turn

in the South, Half a Life, Miguel Street, and Among the Believers.

While Naipaul's supporters

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz37918288 "hailed him as a

towering intellect--delivering an original, scorching critique

refreshingly devoid of political correctness: attacking the cruelty of

Islam, the corruption of Africa and the self-inflicted misery he

witnessed in the poorest parts of the globe," BBC News wrote that for

"his numerous critics, Naipaul's writing was troubling and even bigoted.

They recognized his literary gifts but saw him as a hater: an Uncle Tom

who dealt in stereotypes, paraded his prejudices and bathed in loathing

for the world from which he came."

I believe that if anyone can stand against the might of Amazon, it is the many beloved indie booksellers around the world who present a more personal way to purchase books.

Quotation of the Day

Booksellers 'Ideally Placed to be the Vanguard' Against Amazon

"I actually think that because booksellers were the first to have to

combat Amazon (because Amazon initially started off selling books), we

are ideally placed to be the vanguard--we know what it takes to attract

customers in the twenty-first century and are in a good position to look

at a new format for the high street."

--Nic Bottomley, Booksellers Association president and owner of Mr. B's

Emporium of Reading Delights http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz37945631 in Bath,England, responding to news the government may levy an "Amazon tax"

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz37945632

to help "rebalance the playing field" between physical and online

retailers."

I'm intrigued to see what Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffatt can do with this novel that was ill used in the movie, in my opinion.

TV: The Time Traveler's Wife

HBO has landed The Time Traveler's Wife

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz37972804,

a drama from Steven Moffat (Dr. Who, Sherlock) and based on Audrey

Niffenegger's 2003 novel, with a straight to series order, Deadline

reported, adding that "the project had been pursued by multiple outlets,

including Amazon whose topper Jeff Bezos was involved in the effort."

"I read Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife many years ago,

and I fell in love with it," Moffat said. "In fact, I wrote a Doctor Who

episode called 'The Girl in the Fireplace' as a direct response to it.

When, in her next novel, Audrey had a character watching that very

episode, I realized she was probably on to me. All these years later,

the chance to adapt the novel itself is a dream come true. The brave new

world of long form television is now ready for this kind of depth and

complexity. It's a story of happy ever after--but not necessarily in

that order."

Moffat, Sue Vertue and Brian Minchin will executive produce through

their Hartswood Films. Deadline noted that the company "produces in

association with Warner Bros. Television, which has rights to the title.

Warner Bros.' New Line division was behind the 2009 feature adaptation

of the book that starred Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams."

HBO president of programming Casey Bloys said that Moffat's "passion is

evident in every project he's written and we are certain that his love

and respect for this mesmerizing and textured novel will make it a

quintessential HBO series."

This Mortal Coil by Emily Suvada is a surprisingly intense YA science fiction medical thriller that could easily stand beside anything written by Michael Crichton of Andromeda Strain fame. Here's the blurb: In this gripping debut novel, seventeen-year-old Cat must use her gene-hacking skills to decode her late father’s message concealing a vaccine to a horrifying plague.
Catarina Agatta is a hacker. She can cripple mainframes and crash through firewalls, but that’s not what makes her special. In Cat’s world, people are implanted with technology to recode their DNA, allowing them to change their bodies in any way they want. And Cat happens to be a gene-hacking genius.
That’s no surprise, since Cat’s father is Dr. Lachlan Agatta, a legendary geneticist who may be the last hope for defeating a plague that has brought humanity to the brink of extinction. But during the outbreak, Lachlan was kidnapped by a shadowy organization called Cartaxus, leaving Cat to survive the last two years on her own.
When a Cartaxus soldier, Cole, arrives with news that her father has been killed, Cat’s instincts tell her it’s just another Cartaxus lie. But Cole also brings a message: before Lachlan died, he managed to create a vaccine, and Cole needs Cat’s help to release it and save the human race.
Cat's journey from isolated young woman barely surviving to kick butt hero hacker is a wonder to behold, and with all the twists and turns of the plot (that I didn't see coming until they were nearly upon me), enabled by surgically precise prose, I couldn't put this novel down. I'd give this book a hearty A grade and a recommendation for anyone from older teenagers to seniors to read it and realize that the science in this book is probably only a generation or two away from being reality. 

The Last Magician by Lisa Maxwell is another YA novel that doesn't really seem like YA, but would appeal to anyone who enjoys well written fantasy. I hate to use the word "spellbinding" but that is how thoroughly I was engrossed in this tale of time travel and magic wielders hunted by those who wish to use them for money and power. Here's the blurb: In modern-day New York, magic is all but extinct. The remaining few who have an affinity for magic—the Mageus—live in the shadows, hiding who they are. Any Mageus who enters Manhattan becomes trapped by the Brink, a dark energy barrier that confines them to the island. Crossing it means losing their power—and often their lives.

Esta is a talented thief, and she's been raised to steal magical artifacts from the sinister Order that created the Brink. With her innate ability to manipulate time, Esta can pilfer from the past, collecting these artifacts before the Order even realizes she’s there. And all of Esta’s training has been for one final job: traveling back to 1902 to steal an ancient book containing the secrets of the Order—and the Brink—before the Magician can destroy it and doom the Mageus to a hopeless future.

But Old New York is a dangerous world ruled by ruthless gangs and secret societies, a world where the very air crackles with magic. Nothing is as it seems, including the Magician himself. And for Esta to save her future, she may have to betray everyone in the past.

The tone of this book reminded me of The Prestige by Christopher Priest, with its old world magical duels and creepy after effects of machines on magic. But Maxwell's prose is less fussy and provides a clean and elegant style that compliments the fascinating and intricate plot down to the ground. Another A with a recommendation to those who like turn of the century "wild" magic vs industrial greed and power stories.

The Cosy Tea Shop in the Castle by Caroline Roberts is a romantic comedy/drama novel that takes place in England and felt to me as if it were written by someone who read a guidebook on "how to write a romance novel." All the tropes and cliches are in evidence here, from the meet-cute of the female protagonist, Ellie, with the castle manager, Joe, who just happens to be the hot illegitimate son of the castle owner, Lord Henry, to the silly euphemisms for body parts that are a plague on every sex scene in nearly every romance novel I've ever read ("throbbing manliness" and "heaving boobs" included). Of course Ellie is a petite but big busted blonde, (they're the only kind of woman who can attract a man in romance novels...anyone with dark skin, or dark hair or larger size need not apply) who still lives at home with her over protective family at age 26. She's been jilted by a former fiance, and she finally decides to leave home to run a tea shop after padding her resume and lying about her catering experience to the lord of the manor. Insert eye roll here. Here's the blurb:

When Ellie Hall lands her dream job running the little teashop in the beautiful but crumbling Claverham Castle, it’s the perfect escape from her humdrum job in the city. Life is definitely on the rise as Ellie replaces spreadsheets for scones, and continues her Nanna’s brilliant baking legacy.
When Lord Henry, the stick-in-the-mud owner, threatens to burst her baking bubble with his old-fashioned ways, Ellie wonders if she might have bitten off more than she can chew. But cupcake by cupcake she wins the locals over, including teashop stalwart, Doris, and Ellie’s showstopping bakes look set to go down in castle history!
Now all that’s missing in Ellie’s life is a slice of romance – can Joe, the brooding estate manager, be the one to put the cherry on the top of Ellie’s dream?

Ellie comes off as being too innocent and childish to be 26 years old, and Joe comes off as a sexist jerk who only thinks with his penis, but of course that's okay, as Ellie has the hots for him, too. If you're looking for a book with simplistic prose and a plot that is akin to a children's book without the depth, all wrapped up with unintentionally funny sex scenes, then you'll love this novel. I'd give it a C+ and only recommend it to someone looking for empty calorie reading.

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi is the memoir of a neurosurgeon and philosopher whose quest to understand death becomes more personal when he is diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. This is one of those non fiction books that gets a ton of good ink and everyone claims it is so insightful and amazing that it will change your life. I beg to differ. I found Dr K to be an arrogant prick for most of the first 100 pages of the book. He seems to think he's cornered the market on insight into life and death with his research and philosophical literature background. Once he decides to become a doctor, to get closer to an understanding of death, as a surgical resident he develops the ability to distance himself from feeling guilty or really caring about whether or not his patients die on the table for whatever reason. Having worked in nursing for years, I realize that it is important to try to be professional when dealing with patients, but my mom, who was a nurse for over 40 years, never ceased to be compassionate and caring about her patients, dying or not. But then, nurses don't have the luxury of swanning in with a diagnosis and medication and then leaving the actual day to day patient care to someone else. Anyway, here's the blurb:  

At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,” as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.
What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir.
Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything,” he wrote. “Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’” When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.

I don't feel that this book is "brilliant" or life affirming, I think it's an egotistical stab at leaving a legacy, just like ensuring that his wife was pregnant so he'd leave a baby behind when he passed. He doesn't really answer the question of what makes life worth living, nor did I feel moved by his nattering on and on about his career and his pain. Lots of people get cancer, and they all experience pain and suffering, and anyone who hasn't been hiding under a rock realizes that the most important thing in life is family, particularly children. So Dr K tells us nothing new here, he just wants us to feel sorry for him because he died young, which is, admittedly, sad. I found his prose stilted and boring, and the afterword by his wife was too long and martyr-like, as if her husband were the first person to experience an untimely demise. I'd give this short but dull memoir a C, and I would only recommend it to anyone who hasn't read better books on cancer survivors or victims. 

Something Different: A List of Books For My Friend Jenny

My dear friend Jenny Z asked me to make a list of books that have inspired me over the years, books that I am passionate about recommending for one reason or another, to her book group at her local Unitarian Universalist Church. Here's what I came up with after a couple of edits, but before I edit it down to a proper 2 to 4 pages. 

To A God Unknown and Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck

By the time he set out on a cross-country trip with only his standard poodle, Charley, as company, John Steinbeck was already a Great American Author. He'd made his living writing stories about the American people. In 1960, he decided he needed to actually go and meet more of those people, and traveled with the questions, "What are Americans like?" and “How is America changing?” Travels With Charley is a memo from a time, and an America, much different than our own, yet some of the same problems encountered by Steinbeck, such as racism, are still a plague on our nation. Travels With Charley is less a travelogue and more a novel that Steinbeck forged through real conversations and observations. It'll inspire you to take a road trip and adopt a “real” dog “not one of those little yappy things,” as Steinbeck said.

To A God Unknown was a revelation to me when I read it on the advice of a bookstore owner (The Couth Buzzard Bookstore on Phinney Ridge in Seattle, RIP) who was amazed that I counted Steinbeck as one of my favorite classic lit authors, and yet I’d never read this gem from his canon.   The Bard of America, as Steinbeck was nicknamed, is never more evident than in the poetic prose of To A God Unknown. There were sentences that made me weep, and paragraphs that destroyed me for knowing that I would never be able to create something so gorgeous with my own pen (or Blackhawk pencil, which is what Steinbeck wrote his novels with, longhand, on legal pads).

The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom

There are people who assume that Albom’s works are like old 60s B movies, fun and interesting to watch, but ultimately cheesy. These people haven’t really read his books, or given them a chance. I found the Five People You Meet in Heaven when I was contemplating why my life had taken a couple of left turns that I’d not seen coming, and why I was having to suffer through monumental changes not only to my career, my body and my environment, but why I was here in the first place…what was my ultimate purpose? The protagonist of this book dies, and meets up with five people in the afterlife whose lives he changed dramatically, just by being himself. Like a heavenly Twilight Zone episode, this book will make you think about how important all our lives are, and how interconnected we are, whether we realize it or not.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman and The Story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg

Ove, a Swedish widower, has lost the will to live, mainly because without his beloved wife to temper his misanthropy, he’s finding it hard to suffer the fools around him in his neighborhood and community. However, while he’s planning his suicide, a new neighbor asks for his help, he rescues a disreputable cat and circumstances catch him off guard, until he finally goes from feeling like he’s useless to being a well-loved community curmudgeon who helped others and cares for them.  

The Story of Arthur Truluv is similar to Ove, except Arthur isn’t as grumpy and sour as Ove, but he’s also feeling all at sea as a widower. However, once a starving pregnant teenager pops into his life, and his nosy neighbor lady decides to move in as well, Arthur’s life takes a dramatic turn for the better. Finding purpose and happiness in helping others is a major theme in these two books, and both point to the desperate need we have as we grow older for human connection and purpose.  Seniors are often considered disposable in our society, and these books show what a mistake it is for people of all ages to not utilize the wisdom and capabilities of our elders.

Born A Crime by Trevor Noah and Born With Teeth by Kate Mulgrew

Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.

Born With Teeth

We know Kate Mulgrew for the strong women she's played—Captain Janeway on Star Trek; the tough-as-nails "Red" on Orange is the New Black. Now, we meet the most inspiring and memorable character of all: herself.

I met Mulgrew when I was all of 22, a senior theater major at Clarke College, where Mulgrew briefly attended, and I was riveted by her tales of stage and screen celebrities and actors and crazy rock icons like David Bowie. When asked the one thing we could do to become better actors, Mulgrew responded “READ. Read everything you can get your hands on, and learn from your life, mistakes and triumphs, both.”

True Colors, the Nightingale and The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

True Colors is the story of a woman who is a disabled veteran of the recent wars in the Middle East. This is a POV we rarely see, of a woman’s struggle in and out of the military, dealing with a husband and family, as well as a disability.  The Nightingale is also a novel that has a women’s POV, in this case it’s two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France—a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women. The Great Alone is a unique story of a teenage girl (who was born the same year that I was) growing up with an insane, abusive father and a beautiful but weak and broken mother during the 1970s in rural Alaska. The terrifying choices that the teenage protagonist and her mother must make to survive shine a light on how women and children deal with domestic violence, and how women’s lives are considered less valuable by the government and the courts than men’s lives. Hannah’s books excel at showcasing the female experience and POV.

A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman

Diane Ackerman's lusciously written grand tour of the realm of the senses includes conversations with an iceberg in Antarctica and a professional nose in New York, along with dissertations on kisses and tattoos, sadistic cuisine and the music played by the planet Earth. This is one of those books that make you feel glad to be alive and sensate.  Each essay exploring the five senses is rooted in science, but enlivened by Ackerman’s wonder at the beauty of the human machine.

The Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly

This book shines a light on a forgotten POV of World War II, the women and children who were medically experimented on in Ravensbrück, the notorious Nazi concentration camp for women. Though the story is fiction, it is inspired by the story of a real life survivor of the concentration camp.

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore is a non fiction story detailing the horrendous effects of radiation exposure on young women’s bodies, (Women who were employed as luminous watch-dial painters, and were told that radium was a healthy substance to ingest from their paintbrushes) and she spares nothing in relaying the intense emotional suffering of their friends and families during subsequent medical investigations and court battles. This book isn’t an easy read, but it is an important one because it shows the results of corporations valuing money over human lives, more specifically, the lives of women.

Winter Rose by Patricia McKillip

McKillip is another author who can do no wrong, mainly because her prose is gorgeous and satiating, and reading her books is a luxurious experience for writers who love fine wordsmithing.  I’ve been reading her books for over 40 years, and she never disappoints.

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

This book destroyed me when I first read it 10 years after it was published in 1976, when I was a teenager. I cried for days. Then I read it again when I was in my late 20s, and it still left me sobbing. This is what makes a classic novel a classic, in my opinion, if it has the power to move people 50 plus years after it was published just as easily as it did when it was new. The crux of this book is that what makes us intelligent isn’t always what makes us good, compassionate people.

Gift From the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindberg

I read this book when I was 19, embarking on my college career, and floundering at life. It was a revelation of calm, intelligent perspective, though it was about a woman many years my senior. I read it again when I turned 50, and got a different nuance from it then, having had a life of experience, career and family to look back on. Though the book is over 50 years old, it contains timeless insights into what it means to be a woman.

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K LeGuin

People assume that gender identity is something of a “new” concern, a hot topic for young people of today who are wondering about what their role is in society and how it fits in with how they feel about their birth gender on the inside, and whether that matches their outsides. When I read The Left Hand of Darkness as a teenager in the 70s, it blew my mind, because few people were talking about gender identity (at least in Iowa) at that time, and fewer still were even aware of the word transgender.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon incorporates a host of elements that could each sustain a thrilling read, it’s a historical mystery with a romantic sub plot woven throughout a book that is about books and the love of words and literature and freedom. There’s even a secret “Cemetery of Forgotten Books” that claims to have a copy of every book ever written in its cavernous walls. This is the kind of book that will stay with you long after you read every glorious paragraph, made all the more amazing because it’s been translated from Spanish to English and retained every ounce of lyricism.

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Truman Capote’s true crime masterpiece is a classic for good reason. It is largely credited with igniting the trend of narrative nonfiction, particularly in true crime, and is lifted by Capote’s skillful storytelling and chilling, beautiful prose. What truly makes In Cold Blood such a compulsive thriller, however, is Capote’s clear fascination with murderer Perry Smith.

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
The German poet Ranier Maria Rilke wrote a series of 10 letters to a 19-year-old cadet, who sought the poet's advice on his own literary career. In the letters, Rilke explores the ingredients for a good, authentic life. His words of wisdom and intelligence have stuck with me for a lifetime.

Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury
Even if you're not a writer per se, you will still feel your confidence as a creative person surge when you read this slender volume of wonderful advice from the master of the short story (and social science fiction) Ray Bradbury. His first compilation of short stories that were written in the 50s, 60s and 70s is full of works that were often ripped off by other writers for use in their book series (such as a story he wrote about a vampire family who are discovered by a young girl who falls in love with one of the vampires, thereby exposing them to the world. There's a war with werewolves and a host of other similarities to Twilight, except Meyer's prose is horrible, while Bradbury's is the opposite.) and his famed works such as the Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451 continue to be classics of the science fiction genre. But Bradbury's enthusiasm and love of wordsmithing will fill you to bursting with the urge to grab a pen or keyboard and jot down those thoughts and ideas.