Welcome to the final post for 2022, beloved book dragons, bibliophiles and others! It's been an exciting and challenging year, but I am proud of the work that I've put into reading and reviewing books on this blog. In only two years Butterfly Books will be 20 years old, and I imagine by then I will have over a thousand posts to look back on. Not bad for a disabled, retired journalist from Iowa. Happy New Year, all, and lets hope 2023 is a happier and healthier one for us all.
I love the idea of Drag Queen Story Time, because it encourages broad-mindedness and allows children to see that diversity is normal and natural, and to be celebrated, not hated. As they say in the LGBTQ community, LOVE WINS.
Drag Queen Story Time: Love Wins!
Drag queen Amanda Villa and Book Keeper
owner Susan Chamberlain. Canadian bookseller Susan Chamberlain, owner
of Book Keeper in Sarnia, Ont., told CBC News that when she had
hosted the bookstore's first Drag Queen Story Time
https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAnbwr0I6alhdhslSQ~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jOCcP1poMLg-gVdw,
"I felt like, 'This is why I do what I do. This is why the store
is here for things like this,' because you could see the kids just
soaking it up."
But during the fourth such event on
November 26, there were protesters. "About 10 to 12 men dressed
completely in black, their faces were masked, some of them had
balaclavas," she recalled. "They were carrying a flag. They
marched across the parking lot toward us, so it was quite a spectacle
to behold."
She added that although most of the
protesters were peaceful, some tried to engage, so she asked if they
wanted to come inside and see the event. No one took her up on her
offer. "I learned quickly that there is no reasoning with them
and that it's best just to be quiet and ignore them."
Chamberlain's next Drag Queen Story
Time is scheduled for January, and despite some pushback, support has
grown, according to Chamberlain. The group Sarnia Lambton Alliance
Against Hate posted on social media that it supports the bookstore,
"against the hate and harmful messages they have received for
their attempts to encourage diversity and acceptance in our
community."
Chamberlain is planning to turn the
next Drag Queen Story Time into a "Love wins" party: "We
hope to fill the exterior of the store with supporters, which I think
will not be difficult. I think we'll have lots of supporters and then
when it's time for the story, time to start, we can all just pile
into the store.... And if the protesters come, I don't think there's
going to be any room for them, to be honest."
I really need to see this TV show, because I think I'm among the many who have become housebound due to the pandemic, and due to continued problems with an immune-compromised system that renders us vulnerable to every new COVID virus variant that comes along. It's a scary world out there if you are disabled in any way. So I look forward to a show that acknowledges that and is also "profoundly insightful and extremely funny to boot."
TV: How to Leave the House
Nathan Newman's upcoming novel How to
Leave the House
https://www.shelfawareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAnbwr0I6alhdhsjEg~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jOCcP1poMLg-gVdwhas
been optioned by This England executive producer Richard Brown's
Passenger production company, along with Chernobyl director Johan
Rencks/Spaceman producer Michael Parets' new company, Sinestra.
Deadline reported that the TV rights were acquired following a
"competitive auction" for the book, which has a spring 2024
pub date.
Brown, Renck and Parets said the book
could be an "instant classic.... Bracingly original, profoundly
insightful and extremely funny to boot, we feel tremendously
fortunate to work alongside Nathan as they shepherd How to Leave the
House into its next life as a television series."
Deadline added that Fremantle "had
acquired Passenger earlier this month and Brown's shingle is also
working on an adaptation of Tess Gunty's The Rabbit Hutch. Sinestra,
meanwhile, was launched in September and is adapting Antoine Wilson's
Mouth to Mouth."
This movie sounds utterly fascinating. I am always interested in behind the scenes biographies of literary legends and their lives, loves and feuds.
Movies: Turn Every Page: The Adventures
of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb
Turn Every Page,the documentary from
Sony Pictures Classics
https://www.shelfawareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAndlekI6alhdRhxTw~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jOD5ShpoMLg-gVdw,
will open in New York and Los Angeles on December 30. Directed by
Lizzie Gottlieb, the film explores the remarkable 50-year
relationship between two literary legends--Pulitzer Prize-winning
author Robert Caro and his editor, Robert Gottlieb--as they race to
complete their joint work.
Their working relationship has forged
one of publishing's most iconic and productive partnerships. Caro,
whose book The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
(edited by Gottlieb) continues to be a bestseller after 48 years, is
now 87 and working to complete the fifth and final volume of his
masterwork, The Years of Lyndon Johnson. Gottlieb, 91, waits to edit
it.
Directed by Gottlieb's daughter, Lizzie
Gottlieb, Turn Every Page "explores their remarkable creative
collaboration, including the behind-the-scenes drama of the making of
Caro's The Power Broker and the LBJ series. With humor and insight,
this unique double portrait reveals the work habits, peculiarities
and professional joys of these two ferocious intellects. It arrives
at the culmination of a journey that has consumed both their lives
and impacted generations of politicians, activists, writers and
readers, and furthered our understanding of power and democracy,"
Sony Pictures Classics noted.
Gottlieb "has
been the editor in chief of Simon and Schuster, Knopf, and the New
Yorker," said Lizzie Gottlieb: "While my father is very
close to many of his writers, there is something different and
special and strange about his relationship with Caro. They have been
working together for 50 years and are now in a race against time to
finish their life's work..... These men are camera shy and not prone
to sharing their process with the public, but I realized that they
might open up to me. If I could capture what goes on between them, I
could open a window into a secretive creative process, a vanishing
world of book publishing, and reveal one of the great untold stories
of creative alchemy."
Three Things About Elsie by Joanna Cameron is a work of literary fiction that tackles an issue more and more relative to aging Baby Boomers, the various types of dementia, death and dying and all the regrets and secrets that pile up over a lifetime. This is the January book for my library book group. I imagine it will spark quite the discussion. Here's the blurb:
The bestselling author of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep delivers a suspenseful and emotionally satisfying novel “infused with warmth and humor” about a lifelong friendship, a devastating secret, and the small acts of kindness that bring people together.
There
are three things you should know about Elsie. The first thing is that
she’s my best friend. The second is that she always knows what to say to
make me feel better. And the third thing…might take a bit more
explaining.
Eighty-four-year-old Florence has
fallen in her flat at Cherry Tree Home for the Elderly. As she waits to
be rescued, she thinks about her friend Elsie and wonders if a terrible
secret from their past is about to come to light. If the charming new
resident is who he claims to be, why does he look exactly like a man who
died sixty years ago?
From the acclaimed, bestselling author of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, Three Things About Elsie “breathes
with suspense, providing along the way piercing, poetic descriptions,
countless tiny mysteries, and breathtaking little reveals…a rich
portrait of old age and friendship stretched over a fascinating frame” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). This is an “amusing and heartbreaking” (Publishers Weekly)
story about forever friends on the twisting path of life who come to
understand how the fine threads of humanity connect us all.
Because my mother is 85, I felt that I understood some things about grumpy, stubborn and yet vulnerable and lonely Florence. Though the story is well written, the prose is exceptionally dense and there's a lot of space taken up with details and events that have nothing to do with moving the story itself along...hence the plot gets bogged down in detail, and the reader is bored with yet another long-winded description or diversion from the characters and the mystery of who killed who and is impersonating another person. I think that some people feel that if a book is to be considered valuable, there must be strife and struggle in reading and comprehending the convoluted plot. Like you have to work for it to be a satisfied literary fiction reader. I think that's BS, personally, because enjoyment of a story for me isn't in the "countless tiny mysteries, and breathtaking little reveals" (they're not breathtaking, unless you count yawning) its in noble characters whom I come to understand and like, who have a fascinating story to reveal and who do so without unnecessary jumping through hoops or literary red tape. Becky Chamber's Monk and Robot series of short novels is an example of this...not a word is wasted, nor a paragraph fluffed with tiddly, fussy little details that ultimately have no meaning. The storyline here didn't get moving until the last 1/4th of the book, and the ending was sad and depressing. I'd give this tiresome tome a C, and only recommend it to those who want to have a peek inside the mind of an elderly woman with dementia.
Fox Creek by William Kent Krueger is a mystery disguised as literary fiction of the highest order. I've read three of Krueger's other novels and have yet to be disappointed by his beautiful and evocative prose that, combined with his sturdy and well-planned plots make for engrossing, page-turning reading. As with all of his other books, I could not put this tome down, and I read it until I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore. Here's the blurb:
The New York Times bestselling Cork O’Connor Mystery Series returns with this “genuinely thrilling and atmospheric novel” (The New York Times Book Review) as Cork races against time to save his wife, a mysterious stranger, and an Ojibwe healer from bloodthirsty mercenaries.
The
ancient Ojibwe healer Henry Meloux has had a vision of his death. As he
walks the Northwoods in solitude, he tries to prepare himself
peacefully for the end of his long life. But peace is destined to elude
him as hunters fill the woods seeking a woman named Dolores Morriseau, a
stranger who had come to the healer for shelter and the gift of his
wisdom.
Meloux guides this stranger and his great niece, Cork
O’Connor’s wife, to safety deep into the Boundary Waters, his home for
more than a century. On the last journey he may ever take into this
beloved land, Meloux must do his best to outwit the deadly mercenaries
who follow.
Meanwhile, in Aurora, Cork works feverishly to
identify the hunters and the reason for their relentless pursuit, but he
has little to go on. Desperate, Cork begins tracking the killers but
his own skills as a hunter are severely tested by nightfall and a late
season snowstorm. He knows only too well that with each passing hour
time is running out. But his fiercest enemy in this deadly game of cat
and mouse may well be his own deep self-doubt about his ability to save
those he loves.
This is the 19th book in the Cork O'Connor Mystery series, and though I've not read most of the rest of them, I still have a strong sense of who Cork is, and how he operates among the Indigenous people/tribes that live on reservations in the "Northwoods" of a vaguely recognizable Minnesota. I appreciate that the Native peoples are represented in a postive light in all of Kreuger's books, and that his sleuth Cork is very much a proponent of the Native Americans in his area because he grew up with them. It's a rare peek inside of the working
collaboration of Native Americans and enlightened law enforcement, such as it is (prejudice is still invasive in American society, folks). But I loved the foxy elder healer Meloux and how he managed to outrun and out think all the mercenaries that were out to get them. I don't want to spoil all the exciting plot points, so I'll just give this wonderful novel an A, and recommend it to anyone who has read any of Kruegers's other works.
Rose & Thunder by Lilith Saintcrow is a paranormal romantic-retelling of the Beauty and the Beast story, complete with the crumbling castle, invisible servants and a brooding, lovelorn "beast" looking for someone to break his curse. There have been a number of YA and romantic fiction, even science fiction retellings of fairy tales lately (within the past 10-15 years), with varying degrees of success in both book form and on stage and screen. I think there's something about love redeeming a man who feels cursed by previous bad behavior and violence that speaks to people from any age, even in the 21st century. Here's the blurb: Isabella Harpe, last in a long line of witches, drifts with the
wind. Her tarot cards always bring in enough to live on, and her
instincts keep her mostly out of trouble. Unfortunately, bad boyfriends
and even worse luck strand her near the most dangerous place for a witch
to land--beside a cursed town, and an even more cursed man.
Jeremy
Tremont's family built their house over an ancient place of power,
turning it into an uneasy, rose-choked sanctuary for the weird and the
dangerous alike. Scarred, quiet, and difficult, he's not Isabella's idea
of a prospective employer, no matter how badly she needs the money.
He's paying well, and there's only one catch: she has to be home by
dusk. Because in Tremont City, bad things happen after nightfall.
Secrets
hide in every corner, an ancient curse cloaks itself in silence, and
Isabella's arrival has begun a deadly countdown. Despite that, she may
have found a home--all she has to do is figure out how to break the
curse. Oh, and survive in the dark.
Isabella seemed like an intensely vulnerable person with the carapice of cynic or a carnie, yet you could tell that she also had an intense longing for connection, for a place to call home permanently. Unfortunately, her curiosity lead her to make stupid and rash decisions, and she almost gets herself killed, only to be rescued by her "beast" Jeremy, whose disfigurement disguises his loving heart. Though there were some tropes and cliches that were thrown into the twisty plot, the delicious prose managed to smooth out the edges of the story arc so that the story itself remains seamless. I'd give this book a B, and recommend it to anyone who is a big fan of modernized Beauty and the Beast retellings.
Wayward Sky by Devon Monk is #3 in the Souls of the Road series, which I've been reading and loving since it's debut. But then, anything Monk writes is a joy to read, and my anticipation of each new book's debut is always high. Monk is one of my all time favorite writers because her prose is always clean, clear and yet still lush and evocative without being fussy, while her plots sail along on angel's wings, and her books are over before you know it. Her sense of timing, drama and comedy are always spot on. Add to that the mythology she creates that actually seems more authentic than Greco-Roman myths and legends and you know that you're in for a treat whenever you pick up a volume by Devon Monk, Portland's author extraordinare. Here's the blurb: Brogan and Lula Gauge have spent a lifetime traveling Route 66,
hunting the monsters that attacked them and left Brogan an earthbound
spirit and Lula a near-vampire. They never wanted to catch the attention
of Cupid, the god of connections and destruction. They never expected
the god to want to strike a deal with them, either. Cupid's
deal brought Brogan back to life, but now they owe the god a favor.
They must find the spell book of the gods. A book of magic so powerful,
it could destroy the world.
The
hunt for the book leads them down the Mother Road, across Kansas and
Oklahoma, and straight into the sights of a seer who is not a seer, a
healer who is not a healer, and a man from their past who carries a
deadly secret. But for a chance
to finally have the life together they want, a life they were cheated
out of years ago, Brogan and Lula will fight any monster, face any
magic, and take on any foe.
Even if that foe is Death himself.
So if you have read any of the other two Souls of the Road books you know that this paranormal mystery/romance is rife with background from not on this series but also the Ordinary Oregon series, where we are treated to the vacation town of the Gods. In this book we get the chance for a bit of crossover action as Thannos, the god of death makes an appearance in his weird t-shirt with his kite-cum-sythe and all. For readers of the OO series, like myself, this was a huge thrill, and provided more insight into what the Gods are up to, even when supposedly on vacation. Meanwhile, Lula and Brogan are fighting to stay alive and complete their mission, while being handicapped by a horrible nightmare from the past. Inbetween the the behind-the-scenes drama, there's the beauty of Lula and Brogan's enduring love and their sweet adoptive family of misfits. I'm always excited to see how the rabbit of the moon is flourishing under the kind care of the Guages, so that provided an extra layer of poignency for me. Unfortunately, it also leaves me wanting more of Monks wonderful stories, so for now I'm having to be patient and wait to see what delights 2023 will wrest from her talented pen. I'd give this book an A, and recommend it to anyone who has read the other two Souls of the Road books.
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