Powell's Condon Outpost, Face Movie, Bookstore Cats, Banned Books in Texas, Book Bans Should Alarm Every American, RIP Hilary Mantel, The Ability by M.M. Vaughn, Flame Kissed by Annie Anderson, and When Sparks Fly by Helena Hunting

Greetings Bibliophiles and other book lovers, to the third week of September already! Its been another rough month for my family, with lots of health issues and medical bills, but there have also been a number of new streaming shows on Disney +, Netflix and Amazon, the latter of which just posted Top Gun Maverick at a really reasonable 6 bucks for rental streaming. I watched it just an hour ago, and was surprised and delighted that it did not disappoint, but instead delivered a wonderful cinematic experience. I laughed, I cried, I drooled over shirtless flyboys playing football (so sue me, I'm an old lady, not a dead one!). My only complaint was that the sound track wasn't as good as the original. Can't beat Kenny Loggins, and all the other artists on the original album/cassette tape. Meanwhile, I've been trying to get in as much reading as possible. I'll review below starting after the usual obits and tidbits.

I have always loved going to the mecca of book lovers, Powell's City of Books in the middle of Portland, Oregon. It's a splendid cave of delights for book dragons, with four floors of great books and bookish accessories. Now I find out that there's a small Powell's outpost in a tiny town in Oregon that I've never heard of...those who live in Condon are very lucky people! Where I live the population is vastly bigger than theirs, yet we don't have even a miniature bookstore. 

Powell's Books Outpost Still Going Strong in Condon, Ore. (Pop. 760)

"Against all odds," Condon, Ore.--population 760--is home to a little-known outpost https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscATenuUI6alnKh0jSw~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jDDJ-tpoMLg-gVdw of Powell's Books, the Oregonian noted in its profile of Powell's Books at Condon Local, a retail store that features a coffee shop, soda fountain and, in the back, a small bookshop.

Michael Powell, founder of the Portland bookstore, launched the Condon outlet in 1993. "People do a double take, and then they come back and say, 'Is it true? Is it real?' " he said. "Yep. That's us."

For 34 years, the business, owned by Darla Seale, was known as Country Flowers. "The idea of being in Condon appealed to me," Powell added, "but mainly it was Darla's personality that made it happen."

Her floral business gradually expanded to "sell an assortment of knickknacks, kitchenware, clothing and greeting cards. Seale also added a soda fountain and deli counter. Hers was the first cafe in the county to get an espresso machine," the Oregonian noted.

Powell discovered the store around that time after purchasing vacation property in the neighboring community of Spray and becoming one of Seale's regular customers. Then the idea of a Powell's Books outlet came up.

"It just seemed like a good idea at the time," Powell recalled. "I got to know Darla. It didn't take her very long to say, 'How would you feel about putting some kind of a book presence here?' " In the early years, Powell's sent someone to restock the books. Later, Seale would bring a vanload back herself when she visited Portland.

Both businesses have changed. Powell retired and his daughter, Emily Powell, is now owner and president of the company. Earlier this year, Seale sold Country Flowers to Jeremy Kirby, who had managed the business for more than two years before purchasing it in April and renaming it the Condon Local. The Powell's Books outlet remains a big draw, and he plans to move the books to a more prominent location at the front of the store.

"When people find it, they're usually pleasantly surprised," Kirby said. "They spend a bunch of time going through books. They get coffee and food and make a day out of it. And usually, they fall in love with Condon."

This looks like a great movie with a wonderful cast...I hope that I'm able to see it.

Movies: Face

Mary-Louise Parker (Weeds), Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix franchise), Isabelle Fuhrman (The Novice) and Liana Liberato (To the Bone) will star in Justine Bateman's upcoming film Face https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAeIwb4I6alndRx0Tg~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jAWsD2poMLg-gVdw, based on her 2021 book, Face: One Square Foot of Skin.

Written by Bateman, the movie "consists of 14 vignettes, both comedic and dramatic, which look at women's faces getting older, and why that makes people angry," Deadline noted. "While much of society appears to assume that women's faces are somehow broken and need to be fixed, Face reveals some of the many ways in which women, and those around them, allow this idea to take root at all."

The project will begin production in Los Angeles in late fall, with Bateman producing under her Section 5 banner, along with Veronica Radaelli (Violet, 9 Bullets). Cassian Elwes (Mudbound, Dallas Buyers Club) is exec producing. Bateman is also the author of Fame.

 I love kitty cats, though I'm allergic to their dander. But I love that many bookstores now have cat mascots or employees who help people find books and are generally there to be soothing and seek scritches.

Bookstore Cats

"Cats and books are a comforting match," Catster noted in the piece headlined "Page-Turning Bookstore Cats https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAeJke8I6alndRAlSQ~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jAW5CnpoMLg-gVdw." "The combination drums up idyllic thoughts about sun-dappled afternoons spent in the company of your faithful feline while relaxing in a comfy chair and leafing through a captivating tome. So, it's no surprise that a growing number of kitties have decided to further their literary ambitions by taking up residence at independent bookstores across the country. Here's a spotlight on a highbrow clowder of cats who love nothing more than lounging on a pile of your favorite author's latest release."

More and more books are being put on "banned" lists by small minded people who generally don't read anyway, but are afraid of new ideas and diverse people. Texas has come under fire, too, for abortion bans that are medieval. So that booksellers and libraries are fighting back is a heartening thing.

Cool Idea of the Day: Special Banned Books Week Donation in Texas

"During this #BannedBookWeek, it's come to our attention that some school libraries in town have refused to add https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAeKlboI6almIx12HA~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jAWJTypoMLg-gVdw the award-winning and Texas Bluebonnet Award nominee, Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre by @caroleweatherford to their collections," Nowhere Bookshop , San Antonio, Tex., posted on Instagram. "One @northeastisd elementary library went so far as to censor the book from a list of Bluebonnet Award finalists provided to students claiming they did so because the book was not in the library. We offered to donate two copies to the library and the library declined.

"This picture book tells the history of the Black community of Greenwood and the 1921 Tulsa Massacre, a story that has been obscured from history for the past 100 years. We believe elementary students here in San Antonio need access to this important work and we'd like to see this book in as many elementary school classrooms as possible.

"So, we're donating up to 250 copies of Unspeakable by @caroleweatherford to educators in our local school districts. If you want a copy for your classroom, just fill out the form linked in our bio and we will contact you when your free book is ready for pickup at our store. A special thank you to all of our local educators who believe books should challenge you and change you."

Book Bans 'Should Alarm Every American'

"The wave of book bans that has swept across our country in recent years is a direct attack on First Amendment rights and should alarm every American who believes that freedom of expression is a fundamental pillar of our democracy. The efforts to remove books from schools and public libraries simply because they introduce ideas about diversity or challenge students to think beyond their own lived experience is not only anti-democratic but also a hallmark of authoritarian regimes. During this Banned Books Week, we must call attention to these threats to freedom of expression, reaffirm our commitment to protect First Amendment rights, and, most importantly, read banned books." --Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.), chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee's Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

Though  I've read only two of her books, I did love her elegant prose and felt she was a remarkable writer for making history so sexy and dark that even non readers read her books or watched the movies based on them. RIP.

Obituary Note: Hilary Mantel

Hilary Mantel,author of the Wolf Hall trilogy and twice the winner of the Booker Prize, died yesterday at age 70 of a stroke https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAeKn-gI6almIxFzTA~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jAWJ6gpoMLg-gVdw, according to the New York Times.

She won the Booker for the first two books in the trilogy, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. Bring Up the Bodies also won the Costa Award. The third book in the trilogy, The Mirror & the Light, was published in 2020, was longlisted for the Booker and won the Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction. Her many other titles included Learning to Talk: Stories, Giving Up the Ghost: A Memoir, A Place of Greater Safety, Beyond Black, Fludd, An Experiment in Love and The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher: Stories.

Mantel's longtime editor Nicholas Pearson, former publishing director of Fourth Estate, said, "The news of Hilary's death is devastating to her friends and everyone who worked with her. Hilary had a unique outlook on the world--she picked it apart and revealed how it works in both her contemporary and historical novels--every book an unforgettable weave of luminous sentences, unforgettable characters and remarkable insight. She seemed to know everything. For a long time she was critically admired, but the Wolf Hall Trilogy found her the vast readership she long deserved. Read her late books, but read her early books too, which are similarly daring and take the reader to strange places.

"As a person Hilary was kind and generous and loving, always a great champion of other writers. She was a joy to work with. Only last month I sat with her on a sunny afternoon in Devon, while she talked excitedly about the new novel she had embarked on. That we won't have the pleasure of any more of her words is unbearable. What we do have is a body of work that will be read for generations. We must be grateful for that. I will miss her and my thoughts are with her husband, Gerald."

"E-mails from Hilary were sprinkled with bon mots and jokes as she observed the world with relish and pounced on the lazy or absurd and nailed cruelty and prejudice. There was always a slight aura of otherworldliness about her, as she saw and felt things us ordinary mortals missed, but when she perceived the need for confrontation she would fearlessly go into battle. And all of that against the backdrop of chronic health problems, which she dealt with so stoically. We will miss her immeasurably, but as a shining light for writers and readers she leaves an extraordinary legacy. “

The Ability by M. M. Vaughn is more of a middle-grade than a real YA novel, but my husband found a copy of this fantasy fiction at a garage sale and immediately bought it for me because he knows how much I enjoy Harry Potter style stories. It's apparent that Ms Vaughn has read Harry Potter series, because there are several stylistic and plot points that are similar to JK Rowling's epic tales. But Vaughn puts her own spin on things, stripping down the narrative and using clean prose to make the character's stories take center stage. Here's the blurb:

Delve into the extraordinary abilities of the twelve-year-old mind in this “fast-paced, superhero-tinged spy novel” (Publishers Weekly), the thrilling start to a middle grade series that expands the possibilities of power.

No one has any confidence in twelve-year-old Christopher Lane. His teachers discount him as a liar and a thief, and his mom doesn’t have the energy to deal with him. But a mysterious visit from the Ministry of Education indicates that Chris might have some potential after all: He is invited to attend the prestigious Myers Holt Academy.

When Christopher begins at his new school, he is astounded at what he can do. It seems that age twelve is a special time for the human brain, which is capable of remarkable feats—as also evidenced by Chris’s peers Ernest and Mortimer Genver, who, at the direction of their vengeful and manipulative mother, are testing the boundaries of the human mind.

But all this experimentation has consequences, and Chris soon finds himself forced to face them—or his new life will be over before it can begin.

For a middle grade novel which is for tweens and early teens, this book deals with a number of adult themes, including a parent brainwashing and abusing her children for her own use as a weapon against those whom she perceives have wronged her. These wrongs, which were not the fault of most of the people the parent is after, seem to have turned her from a regular person to one who will accept nothing less than lifelong torture as payment. I've seen this trope in many movies and TV shows and books, and it's always a woman who is at or near middle age who suddenly becomes obsessed and crazy, while men of the same age are still spritely and sane, I guess because they're men. This misogynistic trope of being afraid of women of menopausal age because they're wise and often widows or divorcees goes back forever in history, but was very evident in the Salem Witch trials. Men seem to fear women who don't need them anymore, and women who have agency over their reproductive systems because they can no longer be forced to bear children. At any rate, I did enjoy this book and the world building, but the sexism will keep me from reading other books in the series. I'd give it a B- and recommend it to Harry Potter fans who are teens or tweens.

Flame Kissed by Annie Anderson is a fantasy, paranormal romance novel that I got for a great price from the publishers website. Anderson has another series that I read 7 books or so, the Arcane Souls/Grave Talker series, and though I enjoyed them they all began to sound/read the same, with half the book being taken up with explaining what happened in the last book. Still, I enjoyed that series enough to give this one a try as a cheap ebook, and was surprised at the low quality of the novel as a whole, considering the stout prose from the other series. Anyway, here's the blurb:  

You can’t outrun fate.

As a phoenix on the run from her Legion, I’ve done my best to stay one step ahead of the hunters on my tail. So far, I’ve managed to hide from everyone—everyone except Rhys.

Bonded against my will, I’ve avoided my mate for the better part of a century—hating him for the life he stole from me. But he’s always there. Waiting. Watching.

When I’m found, it’s my mate who saves me from a fate worse than death. It’s the mate I rejected who keeps me free. But being this close to him comes at a price—one I don’t want to pay.

Because if we’re going to survive, choosing him may be the only option I have left.

If you love strong heroines, scorching hot heroes, and non-stop action, then check out Flame Kissed, the first book in the Phoenix Rising series.

I actually didn't find the heroine all that strong...I mean she was a warrior, which is great, and she loves to kick butt whenever she can, but though the man who she was bonded to
against her will (kind of like a rape situation, but instead he just pervs on her for over a hundred years, watching her every move...yikes! So creepy, but of course we're meant to think all that possessiveness and horny commentary is not abusive, but romantic...blech...misogyny much?) has murdered her husband and stabs her in the gut killing their unborn child, somehow she accepts, in record time, his version of the story that it is, of course, all the fault of this psychopathic evil seer who wants the protagonist and everyone around her dead. We're never given a clear reason why she feels the need to cause them pain and suffering, but again, she's a woman, so the ultimate evil is of course bound up in her mad mind. And our protagonist, meanwhile, forgives her "bonded" soldier and they have wild sex every spare moment that they're not fighting the forces of evil. She, of course, just can't get enough because she's been in love with him for so long! EWWW. Why would you be in love with a murderer who killed your husband and child? This is where I found the protagonist to be weak sauce. No one would find that guy sexy in real life. It strains the reader's credulity. I don't care how good looking he is, he's an asshat. Anyway, there was too much sex and not enough background or  females kicking arse action. So I'd give this book a C, and recommend it only to those who find killers irresistible. 

When Sparks Fly by Helena Hunting is a cozy rom-com of a book, with a lot more emphasis on the romantic than the comedy. Here's the blurb:  

Avery Spark is living her best life. Between her friends, her sisters, and Spark House, the event hotel her family owns, she doesn’t have much time for anything else, especially relationships. She’d rather hang out with her best friend and roommate, Declan McCormick, than deal with the dating scene. But everything changes when she is in a car accident and needs someone to care for her as she heals.

Declan avoids relationships, giving him a playboy reputation that he lives up to when he puts a one-night stand ahead of a promise he made to Avery. While he may not have been the one driving the car, he feels responsible for Avery’s injuries and is determined to make it up to her by stepping into the role of caretaker.

Little did they know that the more time they spend in compromising positions, the attraction they’ve been refusing to acknowledge becomes impossible to ignore. When they finally give in to the spark between them, neither is prepared for the consequences. Their love is fragile and all it will take is a blow from the past to shatter it all. 

This is a sort of fun book, however, once again readers have to wade through a lot of cliches and tropes, and with that, a lot of sexist BS that will rankle anyone with even a smidgen of feminism in them. Poor Declan, he lets his jealousy about his best friend Avery going out on a date, and when he doesn't help her drive to where she needs to be (ever since her parents were killed in a car accident, she's had trouble driving, which is fair) she gets into a horrendous accident, and Declan, out of guilt, insists on helping her recover, since half of her body is encased in casts. All of which is great, except suddenly Avery becomes aware of the fact that she can't masturbate without her dominant hand. Suddenly readers are supposed to imagine that a young woman with multiple fractures and bruising all over her body is more frustrated by lack of sex than by not being able to go to the bathroom by herself or having a ton of pain (I had a small broken bone in my ankle and I was howling in pain for weeks) every time she moves or is moved. So guess who comes to the rescue?! Of course, it's her friend Declan, who enjoys getting her off, and she returns the favor, of course, and then we're lead to believe that because she's involved in sports, she has a "high sex drive" and wants sex all the time. WTF? So running around a field kicking a ball makes you a horndog? Really? Declan also, unsurprisingly, has a high sex drive, so apparently for awhile they're going at it like bunny rabbits. For Declan this is seen as "normal" because he's secretly in love with Avery, and men are all supposed to be big sweaty horndogs, right? But now he's found the perfect woman, one who loves sports and is just as horny as he is, and then, because he can't admit his feelings for her, he tries to ruin their relationship, mainly because his parents are divorced assh*les whose sexual dramas ruined him, because now he can never build trust in relationships. Again, WTF? My parents divorced when I was 18, and yes, there was infidelity on both sides. Did I become a massive ahole and never trust anyone in a relationship because of it? No, I did not. Since 50 % of marriages end in divorce, I suspect I'm not alone. All that sexist nonsense and tropes about guys being commitment phobic and "damaged" by their parents wears really thin, really fast. Also the sexist BS about women's sex drives was irritating. So I'd give this book a B-, and recommend it only to those who don't mind a bit of sexism in their romance novels.

RIP Peter Straub, The Storied Life of AJ Fikry Movie, Representative Katie Porter in Conversation, The School for Good and Evil Movie, Belladonna by Adalyn Grace, No Funny Business by Amanda Aksel, Daughter of Sparta by Claire Andrews, A Psalm For the Wild Built by Becky Chambers, and No Rings Attached by Rachel Lacey

Hola fellow book dragons! It's the second week of September, and while we're still struggling with health issues in my house, things are starting to even out. I've been reading up a storm, and after my office chair broke, I was able to find a larger sized red one that suits my needs perfectly. My son just finished putting it together for me, thank heaven. He's a great person and I'm so proud of the helpful and compassionate young man he's become. I've got 5 books to review but I might hold one back for next week. Meanwhile, here's some obits and tidbits for all ya'all.

Though I'm not a fan of the horror genre, even I've heard of Peter Straub. I believe I read one of his ghost books, which were early works for him, but I didn't read any of the later more scary novels.

Obituary Note: Peter Straub

Peter Straub https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscASOl7gI6alnIRojHw~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jDXJbwpoMLg-gVdw, "whose literary novels of terror, mystery and the supernatural placed him in the top ranks of the horror-fiction boom of the 1970s and '80s, alongside writers like Ira Levin, Anne Rice and his close friend and collaborator Stephen King," died September 4, the New York Times reported. He was 79.

"He was a unique writer in a lot of ways," said King. "He was not only a literary writer with a poetic sensibility, but he was readable. And that was a fantastic thing. He was a modern writer, who was the equal of say, Philip Roth, though he wrote about fantastic things."

A fan of Henry James and John Ashbery, Straub published several poetry chapbooks before turning to novels, and began writing about the supernatural after two more conventional novels were unsuccessful. Julia (1975) "was a novel that involved what turned out to be a ghost, so it was a horror novel," he told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in 1996. "I didn't know much about the field at that time. I just wanted very much to write a novel that would make money so I wouldn't have to get a job. With the first sentence, I felt this enormous relief. I felt at home right away."

His next two novels, If You Could See Me Now (1977) and Ghost Story (1979), were also bestsellers. Both books were adapted into films, the former as Full Circle in 1977 and the latter in 1981. Julia was also filmed, as The Haunting of Julia.

King, who wrote a blurb for Ghost Story, recalled: "We got it at the post office. It was all kind of split open. And so I was driving and my wife opened it and she started to read it to me. And by the time we got back to our house, we were both really excited, because we knew that this was really sort of a masterwork."

King and Straub would team up in the early 1980s to write The Talisman (1984). They reunited in 2001 to write a sequel, Black House, and were discussing a third book, but it was still in its earliest stages at Straub's death.

Overall, Straub's books and stories were nominated for a dozen World Fantasy Awards, winning four, and 14 Bram Stoker Awards, with 10 wins, among many other award nominations. He was named a World Horror Grandmaster in 1997, won a Stoker award for life achievement in 2006, was named an International Horror Guild living legend in 2008, and received a life achievement World Fantasy Award in 2010.

In a tribute to her father on Twitter,

Emma Fusco-Straub, author and co-owner of Brooklyn's Books Are Magic wrote, in part: "Ok this is going to be long and rambling but here goes. My father, Peter Straub, died on Sunday night. He was the f-cking best, and here's why, with photos.... This Time Tomorrow was all about him dying, which is a weird thing to give your parent when they are, in fact, still alive, but I am so glad I did.

Every bit of my love for him is in that book, and it is one of the great joys of my life that he read it (so many times) with so much pleasure and pride. That book, and our mutual understanding, meant that when he died, I didn't doubt for a second that he knew how grateful I was to be his, and vice versa. I leave you with the sportiest Big Pete ever looked. Now go read one of his books."

 I'm really looking forward to this movie, as I read the book and enjoyed it.

Movies: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Vertical Entertainment has released the official trailer https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscASPxLgI6alnIRFxEg~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jDXcXwpoMLg-gVdw for The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry based on the 2014 novel by Gabrielle Zevin, Collider reported. Directed by Hans Canosa from a script by Zevin, the film stars Kunal Nayyar, Lucy Hale, Christina Hendricks, Blaire Brown, Lauren Stamile, David Arquette and Scott Foley.

Zevin also serves as a producer on the film alongside Canosa, Claude Dal Farra, Brian Keady, and Kelsey Law. Nayyar, Hale, and Hendricks are executive producers.

 I love this interview because this is a representative who actually cares about the workers and working poor of the country, and California in particular. She's a rare politician who actually wants to work to change things for the better...and she's an author.

CALIBA Fall Fest: Katie Porter in Conversation

"Thank you for all of the work you do," said Representative Katie Porter (D.-Irvine) during a keynote conversation at the California Independent Booksellers Alliance Fall Fest https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscATZkb8I6alnKxtwHA~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jDC5D3poMLg-gVdw in Sacramento, Calif., Saturday morning. She was in conversation with American Booksellers Association CEO Allison Hill to discuss her background, her experience being a congresswoman as well as a single mother of three, and her upcoming book, I Swear: Politics Is Messier Than My Minivan (Crown).

"In my job I get to see a lot of what makes our communities vibrant, and I think during the pandemic we saw a lot of that go away," she continued. "So I just want to thank you all for being part of the fabric of your communities. For being small business owners as well as people who are sharing education and literacy and culture with the communities you work in."

Porter recalled her viral "whiteboard moment" with Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, when she used a whiteboard to illustrate the financial challenges facing a single mom working full-time as a bank teller at a Chase branch in Irvine, Calif. When she asked Dimon what the woman should do--take out pay-day loans or even skip meals--he answered that he didn't know and he'd "have to think about it."

As frustrating as those answers were, she said, much more upsetting were the responses of her congressional colleagues, who all said the same thing: How did you ever think to ask that? "And I thought, do you not see the person who sweeps the floor? Do you not see the person who works in the bank when you walk in there?"

Expanding on her time in Congress, Porter noted that when people talk about members of Congress, the general sentiment seems to be that they only work when they're in Washington and are on vacation at all other times. She disputed that, saying that the "most important" parts of her job all happen when she is at home in her congressional district. Her time in Washington, meanwhile, entails fielding 15-20 appointments each day while trying to stay on top of upcoming votes, which can be a frustrating and bewildering process. "So if it seems to people like we don't always know what we're doing, it's truly because we don't," she remarked.

Porter has never accepted corporate donations or lobbyist money, and said she's tried to "pull back the curtain" on fundraising. She pointed out that there's a strange double standard with fundraising, where a congressperson is supposed to talk about it with every potential donor they meet, but they're "never supposed to talk about it with anyone else."

She added that she "actually likes campaigning" and even fundraising, because "every conversation is with somebody who cares about our democracy." The only reason voters should give money to her, "is if you think you're investing in a better democracy."

Porter suggested that booksellers reach out to their congresspeople and ask them to visit the store and speak to staff and customers. Booksellers could also host town halls with congresspeople at their stores.

Discussing her reading life, Porter said she reads a lot to her kids and briefly did a "boy book blog," featuring books that reflected "what my boys really are like." When it comes to personal reading, she mostly turns to romance, particularly romantic comedies like Beach Read by Emily Henry and The Unhoneymooners Christina Lauren."I need to be inspired that my meet cute is out there somewhere," she said. "Probably not in the halls of Congress, but out there somewhere." --Alex Mutter

 This also looks like a move I'd really love to see, because it is based on a fun book series and it has a magnificent cast.

Movies: The School for Good and Evil

Netflix offered a first look at The School for Good and Evil https://www.shelfawareness.com/ct/x/pjJscATblb4I6alnKx52SA~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jDCZT2poMLg-gVdw, a movie based on the book series by Soman Chainani, Entertainment Weekly reported. The cast includes Sophia Anne Caruso, Sofia Wylie, Charlize Theron, Kerry Washington and Laurence Fishburne. The film premieres October 19.

Director Paul Feig was first brought the script more than three years ago and couldn't get the story out of his head: "I'm always looking for female friendship stories--those are my favorite movies to make--and I've also always wanted to create a world, and I've never really had a chance to do that. I got to scratch the surface of it with Ghostbusters, but that was still our world. So this just had everything I wanted. It was only after I read the script that I started reading the books, and I fell in love with everything in them. They're very dense books, very inventive and fun, like Alice in Wonderland."

Feig added that he worked closely with Chainani on the adaptation and "was really jonesing to get to work with visual artists to create something new. If you look at all my movies, you'll notice I always take on a different genre every time. I want to work my way through all the genres, but fantasy was never a genre that I thought I would end up doing. It is a hard genre to do, and is a very specific genre. But once I read this and could visualize the world of it, it was really fun."

EW added that if all goes according to plan, Feig hopes to explore this new world further with sequels. "The goal is definitely for this to be a franchise," he said. "I mean, this cast is just stellar. I have to pinch myself every time I watch the movie. From Charlize, and Kerry, and Laurence, to Michelle [Yeoh], and Cate Blanchett as the voice of the [Storian], to this amazing new young cast who are just so deep and wonderful, inventive and charismatic, it was really a thrill."

 

Belladonna by Adalyn Grace is a beautiful YA romantic take on the short gothic story Rappaccini's Daughter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. If you haven't read the story, which was published in 1844, I urge you to do so, because it's beautiful and dark and reads like Gail Carrigers more steampunk noir books. Anyway, Bella is also a young woman who believes herself cursed by Death, the physical entity, since infancy, when everyone around her died, but Death passed her by due to her being able to see him and not fear him at all. AS she grows she alternately fears and is fascinated by the shadowy form of Death, and the two develop a kind of relationship, though it is not without it's twists and turns and near-death convos. Here's the blurb:

New York Times bestselling author Adalyn Grace brings to life a highly romantic, Gothic-infused world of wealth, desire, and betrayal.

Orphaned as a baby, nineteen-year-old Signa has been raised by a string of guardians, each more interested in her wealth than her well-being—and each has met an untimely end. Her remaining relatives are the elusive Hawthornes, an eccentric family living at Thorn Grove, an estate both glittering and gloomy. Its patriarch mourns his late wife through wild parties, while his son grapples for control of the family’s waning reputation and his daughter suffers from a mysterious illness. But when their mother’s restless spirit appears claiming she was poisoned, Signa realizes that the family she depends on could be in grave danger and enlists the help of a surly stable boy to hunt down the killer.
 
However, Signa’s best chance of uncovering the murderer is an alliance with Death himself, a fascinating, dangerous shadow who has never been far from her side. Though he’s made her life a living hell, Death shows Signa that their growing connection may be more powerful—and more irresistible—than she ever dared imagine.

Grace's prose is entrancing and lush, and her plot is velvety smooth and though there are surprises at the end, it still feels like you're cocooned in the deadly beauty of the story and the shock is muffled by that softness. Even the cover of the book is delicious and delightful in a sensual way. I would give this beautiful book an A, and recommend it to anyone who likes dark fantasy and/or Rappacinni's Daughter....or Neil Gaiman's Sandman series.

No Funny Business by Amanda Aksel is a YA rom-com with a lot of heart, but I personally didn't find it all that funny. I only LOLed twice, which is paltry compared to the time I've laughed when reading other books that laid no claim to comedy. The prose was snappy and the plot brisk and straightforward, which is all to the good, but I could have used more yucks for my buck. Here's the blurb: Two down-on-their-luck comedians embark on a road tour and find more than a few good laughs on the way.

Olivia Vincent dreams of stand-up comedy stardom. Bustling around a busy Manhattan law office by day and hustling from club to club by night, she can’t catch a break. Work is falling through the cracks, and after ditching a major client to make a performance, Olivia gets the boot.  

Determined to pursue her dreams, she snags an audition in Los Angeles for a coveted spot on late-night TV. But the only way to get there is to join seasoned stand-up Nick Leto on a cross-country road tour. She agrees on one condition—no funny business.

Icky comedy condos, tiny smoking nightclubs, and Nick’s incessant classic rock radio are a far cry from life on the Upper East Side. Reality sets in, and Olivia wonders if she can hack it in showbiz or if she’s just a hack. As Nick helps Olivia improve her act along the way, sparks begin to fly and ignite what they thought was an impossible flame. Maybe being stuck with Nick in a Jeep isn’t so bad. As long as it doesn’t get in the way of Olivia’s actual funny business.

My problem with the whole "enemies to lovers" trope here is that Nick is kind of an asshat. He strings Olivia along and then tells her at the end that he is done with stand up and looking to do something else, even though he's making a good living doing comedy and apparently is talented and handsome. But then, he's also a jerk. So that makes me think that Olivia is kind of a shallow, stupid person who only finds very handsome guys interesting but is willing to ignore a crappy character and mean personality because of those looks. This made me sad and I felt that Olivia could have done better. That said, the book sailed along and I read it in a day. So I'd give it a B, and if you're looking for a distracting book about up and coming standup comedians and all that they have to sacrifice for their careers, then this is the book for you.

Daughter of Sparta by Claire Andrews was a surprisingly fast-paced mythological fantasy romance that was so compelling I couldn't put it down. It retells/reworks the story of Daphne and Apollo from Daphne's perspective, so that we learn what this teenage girl has to go through to save all the gods on Mt Olympus. Here's the blurb:

In this thrilling reimagining of ancient Greek mythology, a headstrong girl becomes the most powerful fighter her people have ever seen.

Seventeen-year-old Daphne has spent her entire life honing her body and mind into that of a warrior, hoping to be accepted by the unyielding people of ancient Sparta. But an unexpected encounter with the goddess Artemis—who holds Daphne's brother's fate in her hands—upends the life she's worked so hard to build. Nine mysterious items have been stolen from Mount Olympus and if Daphne cannot find them, the gods' waning powers will fade away, the mortal world will descend into chaos, and her brother's life will be forfeit.

Guided by Artemis's twin—the handsome and entirely-too-self-assured god Apollo—Daphne's journey will take her from the labyrinth of the Minotaur to the riddle-spinning Sphinx of Thebes, team her up with mythological legends, such as Theseus and Hippolyta of the Amazons, and pit her against the gods themselves.

A reinterpretation of the classic Greek myth of Daphne and Apollo, Daughter of Sparta by debut author Claire Andrews turns the traditionally male-dominated mythology we know into a heart-pounding and empowering female-led adventure.

That last line of the blurb is entirely true...it is a heart-pounding adventure led by a young woman who refuses to give up or to give in, even when the odds and gods are stacked against her. In the original myth, Daphne is a nymph who, after Apollo was struck by Cupids arrow, was pursued by Apollo without cease, (she'd been stricken by Cupid as well, but with an arrow of loathing, so she hated Apollo), though she wanted to remain a virgin and said so many times. When Apollo finally catches her, she begs Gaia, or Earth, to remove her looks so she won't have to be raped by Apollo, and the Earth hears her and turns her into a laurel tree. Apollo then takes the leaves from the tree and makes a crown of them as a symbol of his undying love. In this retelling, Daphne believes herself to be a regular human who has worked all her life to become a Spartan warrior, though she's reviled because she's a woman and an outsider who wasn't born there. She ends up on the journey with Apollo because she's such an excellent warrior, and because Apollo turns her friend and brother into animals and tells her that he won't turn them back unless she helps to retrieve the Muses from captivity. I enjoyed this retelling and the stout heart of Daphne the warrior, so I'd give this book an A, and recommend it to anyone who likes re-tooled Greek myths.

A Psalm For the Wild Built by Becky Chambers is a short science fiction novel that takes place in the far future when humans have overcome climate change and have worked in harmony with the planet, after the robots became sentient and were allowed to leave humanity and live in the wilderness for 200 years. Chambers creates such realistic and odd characters that you find yourself yearning to meet them in real life. Here's the blurb: Winner of the Hugo Award!

In A Psalm for the Wild-Built, bestselling Becky Chambers's delightful new Monk and Robot series, gives us hope for the future.

It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend.

One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered.

But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how.
They're going to need to ask it a lot.

Becky Chambers's new series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?

What's fascinating about this book is how it takes religion, or rather a free form sort of spirituality and asks the reader to figure out how that spirituality plays out when it comes to sentient beings like robots who work via logic and study, and who don't have human needs to take into consideration. The aforementioned Tea Monk is a good guy, but he's got a hole in his soul that nothing can seem to fill...until he meets the robot, and they begin a dialog. I won't spoil any more for future readers, but I found this book, with its Japanese anime austerity prose and twisty, off road plot, to be tender and gentle and poignant. I'd give it a B+ and recommend it to anyone who likes Chambers works, or who enjoyed The Name of the Rose or A Canticle for Leibowitz and their fascinating monks.

No Rings Attached by Rachel Lacey is a lesbian romance from a series in which I'd read and enjoyed the first book. Though it had a few slow moments when the author had us going over every emotion in her main character's heads for the 50th time, there were still some great love scenes and some great chemistry between the protagonists. Here's the blurb:

From award-winning author Rachel Lacey comes the second installment in the Ms. Right series: a captivating romance about a reluctant bookseller finding love in unexpected places.

Lia Harris is tired of being the odd one out. She’s never quite fit in with her uptight family, and now that her roommates have all found love, she’s starting to feel like a third wheel in her own apartment. Fed up with her mother’s constant meddling in her love life, Lia drops hints about a girlfriend she doesn’t have. But with her brother’s London nuptials approaching, she needs to find a date to save face. Lia turns to her best friend, Rosie, for help, and Rosie delivers—with the fun, gorgeous Grace Poston.

Grace loves to have a good time, hiding her insecurities behind a sunny smile. Her recent move to London has provided her with a much-needed fresh start. Grace isn’t looking for love, and she hates weddings, having weathered more than her fair share of heartache. Friendships are different, though, so for Rosie’s sake, she reluctantly agrees to pose as Lia’s adoring girlfriend for the wedding festivities.

Both Grace and Lia are prepared for an awkward weekend, complete with prying family members and a guest room with only one bed. As it turns out, they get along well—spectacularly, in fact. Before they know it, the chemistry they’re faking feels all too real. But is their wedding weekend a fleeting performance or the rehearsal for a love that’s meant to last?

I wanted to love this book, but there was just too much family and friend drama that seemed over the top to me. I enjoyed the look into the sex lives of lesbian couples, and I liked that the characters weren't perfect, but Grace seemed like she had enough mental illness to really need some time with a therapist/psychiatrist. Lia also seemed kind of a bore, always wanting to discuss every single emotion or decision to death. But somehow they work it out for a final HEA. I'd give this book a B-, and recommend it to anyone who enjoys books about lady loves and going for your dreams.

 

The Caine Mutiny Movie, Virginia Book Ban Dismissed, Quote of the Day, Fatty Fatty Boom Boom Review, Obit for Barbara Ehrenreich and Sterling Lord, Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen, Stranded: A Romantic Time Travel Mystery by Rosalind Tate and Wild and Wicked Things by Francesca May

Welcome to September! Last month was pretty rough for my entire family health wise, but we're hoping that this month we will all begin recovering and start to enjoy cooler temps and longer nights of rest and relaxation. There's a lot of tidbits in this weeks post and some of my reviews at the end.

I remember reading the Caine Mutiny and watching a couple of movies made from it, but nothing was ever as evocative as the book. Let's hope Wouk can rectify that with this latest version starring the delicious Kiefer Sutherland.

Movies: The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial

William Friedkin (The French Connection, The Exorcist) will direct and Kiefer Sutherland (24) will star (as Lt. Commander Queeg) in The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAXew-wI6aoxchp1HA~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jCDMKkpoMLg-gVdw, using a 50-year-old play script written by Herman Wouk from his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Deadline reported that the project "is being plotted for a January start, and casting is just getting underway.

Annabelle Dunne and Matt Parker are producing. Sutherland's deal is being finalized."

"I've looked at a lot of scripts in the last 10 years, and I haven't seen anything I really wanted to do," said Friedkin. "But I think about it a lot, and it occurred to me that could be a very timely and important piece, as well as being great drama. The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial is one of the best court-martial dramas ever written."

The original novel, the 1954 film with Humphrey Bogart and a Robert Altman-directed 1988 TV adaptation of the play were set during World War II, but Friedkin said: "The original piece was written for WWII, and Wouk included all the pent-up anger in this country over Pearl Harbor.

I've updated it so that is no longer Pearl Harbor. I've made it contemporary, involving the Gulf of Hormuz and the Straits of Hormuz, leading to Iran."

He added: "There never was a mutiny in the United States Navy. Herman Wouk virtually created the first and only mutiny in the United States military. His dialogue is terrific, right to the point. It's set at a trial, but it's all really by the book, in terms of accuracy. But there never was a mutiny in the United States military. He invented it and all that would take place around it, based on the laws that cover it."

YAY! Fascists LOSE! Freedom of speech wins! Censorship is EVIL.

'Total Victory': Virginia Book Ban Case Targeting B&N Dismissed

In what defendants called "a total victory," a Virginia Beach Circuit Court judge yesterday dismissed the case brought earlier this year https://www.shelfawareness.com/ct/x/pjJscASIlbkI6aoxch53Sw~k1yJoKX-hs8x6jDWpTxpoMLg-gVdw seeking to have Maia Kobabe's Gender Queer: A Memoir (Oni-Lion Forge) and Sarah J. Maas's A Court of Mist and Fury (Bloomsbury) declared obscene and to bar Barnes & Noble from selling the books to minors without parental consent--an expansion in the current efforts to ban books in schools and libraries.

In dismissing the case, judge Pamela S. Baskervill ruled that under Virginia law the court didn't have the authority to declare the books obscene and that applicable Virginia law was unconstitutional because its use of prior restraint violates due process. She also threw out a previous order finding probable cause that the books might be obscene.

The plaintiffs were two Virginia Republicans: Tommy Altman, who lost his bid for Congress in the June primary, and his attorney Tim Anderson, who serves in the Virginia House of Delegates. They had filed a motion for a temporary restraining order against B&N.

Defendants included the authors, publishers and friends of the court, including local booksellers Prince Books in Norfolk and Read Books in Virginia Beach, as well as the American Booksellers for Free Expression, the Association of American Publishers, the Authors Guild, the American Library Association, the Virginia Library Association and the Freedom to Read Foundation.

AMEN to this quote...I don't regret all the money spent on books, either.

Quotation of the Day

'I Am Poor Because of All the Money I’ve Spent in Indie Bookstores, & I Don't Even Regret It'

"Independent booksellers have taken so much of my money and I'm not

complaining about it. I have never not gone into a bookstore and spentall my money there! Honestly, I love it. The thing [with] independentbookstores is that you can get so many book recs and you can really findso much stuff. I tend to gravitate toward romance novels, and I have apretty good idea of what's out there, but there are so many other thingsthat I just don't know are out there. I usually find out through booksellers and opportunities at independent bookstores.

"As an author, I can't even begin to thank independent booksellers for

the way that they have sold my book and generally talked it up. So it'sreally twofold the way they have impacted me. Mostly the fact that I am poor because of all the money I've spent in indie bookstores, and I don't even regret it."

--Ali Hazelwood, whose novel Love on the Brain (Berkley) is the #1 pick for the September 2022 Indie Next List 

 

I really want to read this memoir, it sounds wonderful. And as someone who has been a larger person for most of her life, I know how it is to be harassed and abused because you're bigger than other people and don't live up (or down) to their expectations of all women being thin and waifish and powerless over their own bodies.

Review:  Fatty Fatty Boom Boom: A Memoir of Food, Fat and Family

Fragrant, delectable homemade Pakistani dishes are central to Rabia

Chaudry's touchingly warm and intimate narrative in Fatty Fatty Boom

Boom: A Memoir of Food, Fat and Family. A woman who grew up besieged by harmful comments about her weight and appearance, Chaudry is an uplifting storyteller and her humor-laden anecdotes balance the underlying gravity of her story with grace and skill.

Born in Lahore, Pakistan, Chaudry moved with her parents to Northern

Virginia when her veterinarian father was offered a job at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the 1970s. Misguided efforts to make their scrawny toddler look like her American counterparts included feeding her two bottles of half and half daily and letting her gnaw on frozen butter sticks. Her family discovered the U.S. through their taste buds, astounded by the bounty, affordability and convenience of fast food offerings. A neighbor introduced them to the cheesy deliciousness of Italian-American cuisine.

As an overweight girl with a dark complexion, Chaudry was constantly reminded of her "future unmarriageability" by an immigrant community preoccupied with their daughters' marriage prospects. She got married early, while in college, to an unsuitable boy in an effort to disprove the naysayers. Food was Chaudry's family's love language; her cherished memories include restaurant hopping with her feuding uncles, feasting before sunrise and after sundown during Ramadan, and drinking copious amounts of steaming chai.

Chaudry is an attorney, podcast host and author of Adnan's Story: The

Search for Truth and Justice After 'Serial'. An advocate for Adnan Syed, the young man convicted of murdering his high school ex-girlfriend in 1999, Chaudry was an executive producer of an HBO documentary based on her book. Being in the media spotlight made her self-conscious about her weight and frustrated that she couldn't take control of her own body.

Eventually, her path toward improved health and fitness and inner contentment, plagued with many false starts, came with the hard-won wisdom of someone accustomed to being criticized for her appearance. It turns out that, for Chaudry, wresting control of her own narrative from those eager to pass judgment ultimately opened the door to self-acceptance.

Readers of Chaudry's memoir are in for a treat at the very end of Fatty

Fatty Boom Boom: she shares easy-to-follow recipes for some of her favorite foods, complete with the extra touches that have made the author a cooking legend among her family and friends. --Shahina Piyarali, reviewer

 

The nest two obit notices are for literary titans. Ms Ehrenreich's book was ground breaking and brilliantly written. I remember thinking this was the first time I'd ever read a book from a reporter who understood, through her own investigation, how hard it is to work minimum wage jobs and try to have a decent place to live and food to eat and, in my case, medicine to take for your asthma. There were many times when I had one of the three, or, if I was lucky, two of the three, and otherwise I had to sleep on the streets, or go without meals or go without any medication for my breathing in a city of smog and polluted air. It's frustrating as heck that many of the most important jobs, like teaching or being a CNA and taking care of the sick and elderly or disabled children is paid so little and valued so little that you're left worse off than those who are jobless and getting welfare checks and government housing. RIP to this amazing author. 

Obituary Note: Barbara Ehrenreich

Author, journalist and activist Barbara Ehrenreich https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscASLkusI6alnIhAjGw~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jDWZOjpoMLg-gVdw, whose Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (2001) is considered a classic in social justice literature, died September 1. She was 81. The New York Times reported that the book's genesis was a casual lunch meeting at which Ehrenreich "was discussing future articles with her editor at Harper's magazine. Then, as she recalled, the conversation drifted. How, she asked, could anyone survive on minimum wage? A tenacious journalist should find out. Her editor, Lewis Lapham, offered a half smile and a single word reply: 'You.' "

The resulting book, Nickel and Dimed, was "an undercover account of the indignities, miseries and toil of being a low-wage worker in the United States." Working as a waitress near Key West, Fla., Ehrenreich "quickly found that it took two jobs to make ends meet. After repeating her journalistic experiment in other places as a hotel housekeeper, cleaning lady, nursing home aide and Wal-Mart associate, she still found it nearly impossible to subsist on an average of $7 an hour. Every job takes skill and intelligence, she concluded, and should be paid accordingly," the Times wrote.

"Many people praised me for my bravery for having done this--to which I could only say: Millions of people do this kind of work every day for their entire lives--haven't you noticed them?" she said in 2018 in an acceptance speech after receiving the Erasmus Prize.

In more than 20 books, Ehrenreich tackled a variety of themes: the myth of the American dream, the labor market, health care, poverty and women's rights. Her motivation came from a desire to shed light on ordinary people as well as the "overlooked and the forgotten," said her editor Sara Bershtel.

Ehrenreich quit her teaching job in 1974 to become a full-time writer, selling a number of articles to Ms. magazine in the 1970s. In addition to her essays and articles for many publications, Ehrenreich's critically acclaimed books included The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment (1983), Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class (1989), The Worst Years of Our Lives: Irreverent Notes from a Decade of Greed (1990) and Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War (1997).

Nickel and Dimed, however, "resonated with working Americans and became a turning point in her career," the Times wrote. After the book's success, Ehrenreich "applied her immersive journalism technique to works about the dysfunctional side of the American social order," including Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream (2005), Smile or Die (2009), and a 2014 memoir, Living with a Wild God. Her most recent book, Had I Known: Collected Essays, was published in 2020.

Ehrenreich ultimately came to believe that individuals could tell their own stories if they had greater support. She created the Economic Hardship Reporting Project , which focused on helping the work of underrepresented people get published and providing economic assistance to factory workers, house cleaners, professional journalists and others who had fallen on hard times.

Sharing the news of his mother's death on Twitter, Ben Ehrenreich wrote: "She was, she made clear, ready to go. She was never much for thoughts and prayers, but you can honor her memory by loving one another, and by fighting like hell."

 If you've been a bibliophile for as long as I have, and you've read the classics, you will have heard of high powered agents like Sterling Lord and their high powered editor friends like Maxwell Perkins or Harold Ross. There are so many stories that float around in publishing about the book gods like Lord, that you can't not appreciate his amazing over half century of work at the pinnacle of publishing. RIP, Sir.

Obituary Note: Sterling Lord 

Sterling Lord, who for more than 60 years was one of New York's most successful and durable literary agents, died September 3. He was 102. The New York Times reported that although the list of well-known writers he represented is long, "his success began with an unknown named Jack Kerouac and his hard-to-sell novel On the Road."

Lord was a fledgling Manhattan literary agent in 1952 when Kerouac "walked timidly into his office, a basement studio on East 36th Street, just off Park Avenue.... Inside Kerouac's weather-beaten knapsack and wrapped in a newspaper, Mr. Lord recalled, was a manuscript that Kerouac handed gingerly to him. It took Mr. Lord four years to sell the book, for a measly $1,000. But at last count, On the Road has sold five million copies and burned just as many gallons of gas as generations of young people have set out in search of either the America Kerouac saw or the ones that have taken its place," the Times wrote.

In 1987, Lord joined the agent Peter Matson to form Sterling Lord Literistic. Although Lord gradually yielded day-to-day management of the company and eventually sold his stock, "he continued to work, and into his 90s remained the highest-earning agent in the office," the Times noted, adding that his "last years with the agency were unhappy, however, as he came to feel that some of his colleagues were undermining him. In 2019, though suffering from the macular degeneration that had stopped his tennis game, he set up a new literary agency on his own."

The late Joe McGinniss said in 2013 that "Sterling's career encapsulated the rise and fall of literary nonfiction in post-World War II America. He was the last link to what we can now see not so much as a Golden Age, but as a brief, shining moment when long-form journalism mattered in a way it no longer does and may never again."

His client list included Jimmy Breslin, Art Buchwald, Willie Morris, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Howard Fast, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gordon Parks, Edward M. Kennedy, Robert S. McNamara, Frank Deford, David Wise, Nicholas Pileggi, Jeff Greenfield, Ken Kesey and the Berenstain Bears, among many others.

Lord "embraced Merry Pranksters and mobsters as well as more conventional types," the Times wrote, noting that his clients "appreciated his gentility, which appeared in ever-sharper relief as the book business became increasingly commercial and cutthroat. Dining with him, Mr. Greenfield recalled in another 2013 email, 'you felt as if you were in a different time--as if Maxwell Perkins might show up for coffee.' "

"A number of things about this business have really caught me and made it a compelling interest, https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscASMkOwI6alnIk90GQ~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jDXpGkpoMLg-gVdw" Lord told the AP in 2013. "First, I'm interested in good writing. Second, I am interested in new and good ideas. And third, I've been able to meet some extraordinarily interesting people."

 

Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen is yet another triumph of magic realism married with a lux romanticism that absorbs you into the story and will not let you go until the final chapter. I've read everything that this author has written, and have yet to find one word, one comma out of place. Her prose is filled with beauty and light and her plots are like a calm, sparkling lake at sunset...perfection. Her characters are always fascinating, whether they're quirky or odd or just layered in mystery. Here's the blurb:

From the acclaimed author of Garden Spells comes a tale of lost souls, secrets that shape us, and how the right flock can guide you home.

Down a narrow alley in the small coastal town of Mallow Island, South Carolina, lies a stunning cobblestone building comprised of five apartments. It's called The Dellawisp and it's named after the tiny turquoise birds who, alongside its human tenants, inhabit an air of magical secrecy.

When Zoey Hennessey comes to claim her deceased mother's apartment at The Dellawisp, she meets her quirky, enigmatic neighbors including a girl on the run, a grieving chef whose comfort food does not comfort him, two estranged middle-aged sisters, and three ghosts. Each with their own story. Each with their own longings. Each whose ending isn't yet written.

When one of her new neighbors dies under odd circumstances the night Zoey arrives, she's thrust into the mystery of The Dellawisp, which involves missing pages from a legendary writer whose work might be hidden there. She soon discovers that many unfinished stories permeate the place, and the people around her are in as much need of healing from wrongs of the past as she is. To find their way they have to learn how to trust each other, confront their deepest fears, and let go of what haunts them.

Delightful and atmospheric, Other Birds is filled with magical realism and moments of pure love that won't let you go. Sarah Addison Allen shows us that between the real and the imaginary, there are stories that take flight in the most extraordinary ways.

Even Allen's ghosts are bizarre and sometimes sweet, but never dull or uninteresting (or one dimensional). Each character is so well delineated that you feel like you know them, that they're real people, by the end of the novel. Though this is supposed to be Zoey's story, I found Charlotte, Mac and Frazier equally, if not more fascinating. I was especially fond of Mac, with his rescue cat and his corn flour-dusting ghost, and his kind and generous way of making people food to love and nurture them, just as he was loved and nurtured by Camille. I'd give this perfectly delightful novel an A, and recommend it to anyone who loves magic realism or light contemporary fantasy. 

Stranded: A Romantic Time Travel Mystery by Rosalind Tate is book one of the Shorten Chronicles, which I managed to get for a very low price for my Kindle. I wanted to love this ebook, but I found that it started to flag and become predictable and dull halfway through. Here's the blurb:

One million pages read. Time travel meets Downton in this acclaimed fantasy series!

Sophie Arundel is stranded in history, stuck in a grand house in 1925 England. Thankfully, she has her faithful dog Charlotte with her. Oh, and fellow student Hugo, annoying and charming in equal measure.

Baffled by upper-class rules, courted by boring suitors, Sophie is desperate to get back to the twenty-first century. But the only way home is through a hidden portal — and she must work with Hugo to unlock its secrets.

As one clue leads to another, Sophie and Hugo discover that history is unfolding differently. Mobs rule the streets. And when chaos turns into a deadly revolution, anyone in a grand house is fair game.

I didn't find any of Downton Abbey's lovely upstairs/downstairs drama and delightful characters in this book, but the mystery was what kept me reading past the first 100 pages. The ending leaves you hanging, and I don't really think the book inspired me to go further in the series. The prose was pedestrian and the plot uneven and slow in spots. I'd give this novel a B-, and only recommend it to those who are seriously interested in 1920s England and semi-cozy mysteries.

Wild and Wicked Things by Francesca May is one of those books that is mutton dressed as lamb. The PR people are hyping it as a tale of wicked, haunting and thrilling dark magic, when it's actually the tale of a wimpy, wispy mouse of a woman named Annie who comes to Crow Island to deal with her estranged father's estate. What she finds there instead is madness and chaos caused by her truly narcissistic and sociopathic friend Bea, who is just an awful person (but no one seems to see her that way because of her supposed dazzling beauty and charm...I felt that she had neither, but everyone else pants after her like she is the last woman alive).  Bea has essentially used the Island's "witches" or magic practitioners to get her an abortion and to get her a rich and powerful husband whom she wants to love her like no other and marry her, which he does...but the reality of being obsessed with someone like Bea is that her husband ends up being violently possessive and abusive, which is not what Bea wanted...so now, instead of paying the blood debt she owes for these two magical influenced things, she demands that they be undone, and refuses to pay the blood debt (to be collected from her husband) so that Emmeline, the lesbian witch who is also obsessed with her is now bleeding herself dry, nearly to death, instead of Bea owning up to her responsibility.  Here's the blurb: In a world of 1920s decadence and excess, Francesca May's irresistible debut weaves a glittering tale of dark magic, romance, and murder. 

On Crow Island, people whisper that real magic lurks just below the surface.

Magic doesn’t interest Annie Mason. Not after it stole her future. She’s on the island only to settle her late father’s estate and, hopefully, reconnect with her long-absent best friend, Beatrice, who fled their dreary lives for a more glamorous one.

Yet Crow Island is brimming with temptation, and the most mesmerizing may be her enigmatic new neighbor. 

Mysterious and alluring, Emmeline Delacroix is a figure shadowed by rumors of witchcraft. And when Annie witnesses a confrontation between Bea and Emmeline at one of Crow Island’s extravagant parties, she is drawn into a glittering, haunted world. A world where the boundaries of wickedness are tested, and the cost of illicit magic might be death.

To those who are bright and young; to those who are wild and wicked; welcome to Crow Island. 
 

There is very little focus on the "wild and wicked" and more on the consequences of magic, which are pain and suffering for the practitioners, who live a hand to mouth existence because their clients don't want to pay for the magic that they receive. Annie, meanwhile, is continually tempted and lured by her lesbian desires to Emmaline, with whom she feels she has a heart to heart connection. But, as with everything, Annie is a wee timorous cowering beastie who can't bring herself to actually confront her feelings or help her friend Bea or deal with all the magic surrounding her. She laments this constantly, being a cowardly mouse when she wants to be a lion...but that's all she does, whine about it instead of growing up and growing a spine and moving forward with her life. Ugh. I loathe wimpy female protagonists. It's sexist and stupid. I'd give this book a C+, and I can't really think of who to recommend it to, because the prose is dank and dreary and the plot plods along on tired and repetitive feet.