A couple of weeks ago, it was Independent Bookstore Day, and I was thrilled to read on Shelf Awareness of all the participating bookstores around the US. I have my favorite indies, of course, most notably Powells City of Books in Portland, Oregon, and closer to home The Sequel in Enumclaw and Island Books on Mercer Island.
Across the country
on Saturday, book lovers celebrated their local
independent
bookstores, who put on a range of creative, thoughtful and
fun events.
Some of the Shelf
Awareness crew at Eagle Harbor Book Company
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz36854899,
Bainbridge Island, Wash., one of the early stops on
their impressive Seattle Bookstore Day
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz36854900
journey: 12 hours, two ferries,
19 bookstores!
(Or, as Marilyn put it: "125 miles, 19 stores, 2 ferry
rides, rain, 3
croissants, 3 molasses ginger cookies, 3 bananas, too
much coffee, 15
books, 3 shots of tequila.")
There has been, this year, a huge outcry by women against powerful older men in the movie, TV and book industries who use their power to sexually harass and abuse women (and girls) who work for them or with them. Actor and comedian Bill Cosby was just convicted of drugging and raping several women (some when they were teenagers) this past week, and authors Sherman Alexie and Junot Diaz have both been accused by many women of sexual harassment and public humiliation, often leading to the suppression of these women's work. It seems like nearly every day, some scumbag like Harvey Weinstein is accused of heinous acts against women over decades that the women are only now able to reveal, because they wouldn't have been believed before this, and were rightfully afraid of reprisals from men in power. So it was unsurprising that the Nobel Prize for Literature has had to be cancelled this year in the wake of a sexual assault scandal by a photographer. The whole "MeToo" movement has become a tsunami that I hope will change how men perceive and treat women who work with them (preferably with more respect) or even just live in the same area as they do. It is also my hope that more women will become directors, actors, authors, movie moguls, etc., and be paid the same wage as men for the same work.
2018 Nobel
Literature Prize May Be Skipped (Update, NLP Will Not be Awarded Until 2019)
The crisis at the
Swedish Academy has become so serious that the head of
the panel that
awards the literature prize--the most prestigious book
award in the
world--has said the prize may not be awarded this year
the Bookseller
reported.
At the core of the
crisis are accusations of assault by 18 women
"against
French photographer Jean-Claude Arnault, who is married to an
Academy member,
Katarina Frostenson. Arnault has denied the allegations.
The photographer
is also accused of being part of a breach of the
Academy's secrecy
rules by leaking the names of past Nobel prize-winners
in advance, which
again he has denied."
In addition, the
Swedish Academy last week released a statement
confirming that
"unacceptable behavior in the form of unwanted intimacy"
had taken place at
its functions and that the literature prize's
reputation had
"suffered greatly" from publicity surrounding recent
events.
Nobel Prize in
Literature Postponed Until 2019
The Swedish
Academy has decided to postpone the 2018 Nobel Prize in
Literature, with
the intention of awarding it in 2019. In a statement
Carl-Henrik
Heldin, the Nobel Foundation's chairman of the board, said
that according to
the Swedish Foundations Act, the Nobel Foundation "is
ultimately
responsible for fulfilling the intentions in the will of
Alfred Nobel.
During the past several weeks, we have pursued a
continuous
dialogue with the Swedish Academy, and we support Thursday's
decision."
I have long been a fan of John Scalzi, who was nice enough to allow me to interview him about 10 years ago. He's smart, funny and an amazing wordsmith. I just finished reading the second book in his Lock In series, Head On, and it was a delight, very much a page-turner, filled with wit and brilliant storytelling. BTW, I loved "Zoe's Tale," as I loved all the books in his Old Man's War series.
Reading with...
John Scalzi
John Scalzi's
debut, Old Man's War, won
him science
fiction's John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. His
other books
include Lock In, The Last Colony, Fuzzy Nation and
Redshirts, which
won the 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel. He has two new
books in 2018: the
near-future thriller Head On (Tor, April 17, 2018)
and The Consuming
Fire (Tor, October 16, 2018).
On your nightstand
now:
The Calculating
Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal. (I'm reading a galley
copy. It's very
good.)
Favorite book when
you were a child:
The Dark Is Rising
Sequence by Susan Cooper
Your top five
authors:
Mark Helprin,
Dorothy Parker, Gregory Mcdonald, N.K. Jemisin, Douglas
Adams
Book you've faked
reading:
None. If I haven't
read a book, I'll tell you.
Book you're an
evangelist for:
Grass by Sheri
Tepper. It has all the worldbuilding chops of Dune, with
a fantastic (and
complicated) woman protagonist.
Book you've bought
for the cover:
Snow Crash by Neal
Stephenson (the text was pretty good, too).
Book you hid from
your parents:
None. The rule was
"if you can reach it, you can read it." My wife and I
used the same rule
for our daughter.
Book that changed
your life:
Cosmos by Carl
Sagan. So much excitement to explore the universe in it.
Sagan is one of my
heroes.
Favorite line from
a book:
"This
indiscriminate liquidation of cops must stop." --from Stranger in
a Strange Land by
Robert Heinlein
Five books you'll
never part with:
Only five? Ha!
Book you most want
to read again for the first time:
In Cold Blood by
Truman Capote
Book of yours
you're the happiest to hear people say they liked:
Zoe's Tale. It was
difficult to write for the point of view of a
16-year-old girl. I'm happy when women tell me
I did a good job of it.
Eruption, the
Untold Story of Mount St Helens by Steve Olson is the book that we are reading for my Tuesday Night Book Group at the local library. This is, obviously, a non fiction book about the springtime eruption of the volcanic mountain in 1980. While I didn't live in Washington state until 11 years later, I recall reading about the ash that covered everything in that part of the state, and how there were more than a few people who had died while camping on or near the mountain (which seemed rather foolish to me, at the time, but then, I have never been a fan of camping). Olson's prose style is engaging, and while he adds too many charts and maps for my taste, I felt that he did try to make a case for conservation of forest land and for the protected acres surrounding Mt St Helens today, which stands as a monument to those who perished and as a place of scientific study into the whys and wherefores of eruptions. Here's the blurb:
A riveting history of the Mount St. Helens eruption that will "long
stand as a classic of descriptive narrative" (Simon Winchester).For
months in early 1980, scientists, journalists, and nearby residents
listened anxiously to rumblings from Mount St. Helens in southwestern
Washington State. Still, no one was prepared when a cataclysmic eruption
blew the top off of the mountain, laying waste to hundreds of square
miles of land and killing fifty-seven people. Steve Olson interweaves
vivid personal stories with the history, science, and economic forces
that influenced the fates and futures of those around the volcano.
Eruption delivers a spellbinding narrative of an event that changed the
course of volcanic science, and an epic tale of our fraught relationship
with the natural world.
That said, I found this book a real slog to read, as they didn't even get to the eruption of the mountain until page 142. Prior to that readers are treated to the history of logging in the US, most notably the history of the Weyerhaeuser family, and of George Weyerhaeuser in particular. It was like reading a textbook, very dry and boring, and I really don't think it was necessary to know all of that about George Weyerhaeuser and his booming timber business to understand the eruption and devastation of the mountain. Olson even cautions readers (in a very condescending way) against "fatalism" when talking about those who perished on the mountain and down around the sides and nearby, yet at the end, he tells readers that no one in North America is 'safe' from the wrath of Mother Nature, as there are hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and volcanoes everywhere. So we're all going to die horrible deaths by an enraged Mother Earth, anyway. If that isn't fatalism, I don't know what is. So I'd give this dry, boring and depressing book a C-, and only recommend it to those who are fascinated by natural disasters.
Stone Mad by Elizabeth Bear is the second book in her Karen Memery series, which follows the adventures of Karen, a former prostitute in 19th century Washington, and Priya, her lesbian lover who is also an ace mechanical engineer and former enslaved prostitute as well. The prose is colloquial and amusing, but still dances along the swift and lean plot like a spider on an oil spill. I love the steampunk inventions that the characters come up with, and the situations that call for the women to be heroic are a true delight. Here's the blurb:
Now Karen is back with Stone Mad, a new story about
spiritualists, magicians, con-men, and an angry lost tommy-knocker—a
magical creature who generally lives in the deep gold mines of Alaska,
but has been kidnapped and brought to Rapid City. Karen and Priya are out for a night on the town, celebrating the purchase of their own little ranch and Karen’s retirement from the Hotel Ma Cherie, when they meet the Arcadia Sisters, spiritualists who unexpectedly stir up the tommy-knocker in the basement. The ensuing show could bring down the house, if Karen didn’t rush in to rescue everyone she can.
Though I believe it is meant to be a wild adventure story, this slim novel contains many interesting ruminations on love, the reality of living with another person who loves you and wants you safe, and each individual's need to keep their own counsel, especially when it comes to living out their own morality and need for justice and balance. All in all, a nicely done tale that deserves no less than an A-, with a recommendation for anyone who likes steampunk lesbian stories.
An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson is a YA fantasy novel that I'd heard many good things about, so I picked up a copy at the library. I was surprised by the complexity of the plot and the well-woven prose that was almost an enchantment in and of itself. Isobel is an amazing artist, and Rook, her fae inamorata is just as complex, beautiful and frightening as one would expect a fairy prince to be. Here's the blurb:
Isobel is an artistic prodigy with a dangerous set of clients: the
sinister fair folk, immortal creatures who cannot bake bread or put a
pen to paper without crumbling to dust. They crave human Craft with a
terrible thirst, and Isobel’s paintings are highly prized. But when she
receives her first royal patron—Rook, the autumn prince—she makes a
terrible mistake. She paints mortal sorrow in his eyes—a weakness that
could cost him his life.Furious, Rook spirits her away to his kingdom to stand trial for her crime. But something is seriously wrong in his world, and they are attacked from every side. With Isobel and Rook depending on each other for survival, their alliance blossoms into trust, then love—and that love violates the fair folks’ ruthless laws. Now both of their lives are forfeit, unless Isobel can use her skill as an artist to fight the fairy courts. Because secretly, her Craft represents a threat the fair folk have never faced in all the millennia of their unchanging lives: for the first time, her portraits have the power to make them feel. Publisher's Weekly: Seventeen-year-old Isobel is a master of her “Craft”—painting portraits—in the town of Whimsy, where it is always summer and which borders the forest where the “fair folk” have their kingdoms. When the fairies’ autumn prince, Rook, requests a portrait, Isobel’s world is upended. Petulant and beautiful Rook, whose eyes hold “sorrow, as raw as an open wound,” frightens and beguiles Isobel; when he is upset by what his portrait reveals to his kingdom, he abducts her so that she might stand trial for the affront. Rogerson’s moody debut novel is suffused with an intoxicating and palpable romantic longing. As Isobel and Rook break the “Good Law” by falling for each other, Rogerson turns forbidden love into fresh adventure with danger, chases, a glorious ball, and unexpected narrative turns. Readers will delight in her interpretation of classic fairy themes and lore, and in the humor laced into the story (Isobel’s rowdy younger sisters began life as goats, before being ensorcelled by a drunk fairy).
Though I am not a huge fan of straight romance novels, the romantic longing and love that Rook and Isobel display for each other is remarkably realistic and beautiful, in its way. I found that I desperately wanted to see the two together as a couple, and though the HEA isn't industry standard, it's still well done and heartfelt. I'd give this novel an A, and recommend it to those who like artistic fantasy with strong romantic elements.
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