Pablo Neruda's Nobel Prize Speech, Edinburgh Book Fest Cancelled, Quote of the Day, RIP Patricia Bosworth, Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Lim, An Ember in Ashes by Sabaa Tahir and Just Listen by Sarah Dessen

The CORVID 19 Quarantine is still in place, as I face my 6th week of home isolation. I've been reading some of my TBR, and finding to my dismay that some of the books on my book cart were great in theory, but in reality they're dull and boring, poorly written or a combination of the three. Still, there have been exceptions, and I have three books to review today, my first post in April. 

Since April is National Poetry Month, I'll start today off with the words of one of my favorite poets, Pablo Neruda: 

Pablo Neruda’s Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech Excerpt from Brain Pickings: There is no insurmountable solitude. All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And we must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence in order to reach forth to the enchanted place where we can dance our clumsy dance and sing our sorrowful song — but in this dance or in this song there are fulfilled the most ancient rites of our conscience in the awareness of being human and of believing in a common destiny. Our original guiding stars are struggle and hope. But there is no such thing as a lone struggle, no such thing as a lone hope. In every human being are combined the most distant epochs, passivity, mistakes, sufferings, the pressing urgencies of our own time, the pace of history. Lastly, I wish to say to the people of good will, to the workers, to the poets, that the whole future has been expressed in this line by Rimbaud: only with a burning patience can we conquer the splendid City which will give light, justice and dignity to all mankind.

In this way the song will not have been sung in vain.

Visiting Edinburgh Scotland has been on my bucket list for a long time. Visiting the International Book Festival was also high on the list,and I was sad to read that it's been cancelled, like most other festivals and concerts and conventions this year due to the Coronavirus outbreak.  

The Edinburgh International Book Festival http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43821062,scheduled for August 15-31, has been canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Festival director Nick Barley wrote: "This is not a decision we have taken lightly, but it has been reached in unison with Edinburgh's other August festivals. Whether it's our authors, audiences, supporters, staff and suppliers, or citizens and visitors to our wonderful city, the health of the people we exist for is of paramount importance.

"I am aware that the Book Festival is an important supporter of literary activity not only in Scotland but in all four corners of the earth. My heart goes out to everyone who will miss out this year.... We will be working hard in the coming months to ensure the Book Festival Charity survives this unprecedented time and is able to continue to provide a place where writers and readers can converse and connect."

 This quote really hits the nail on the head. Books are essential during this pandemic. I would not have been able to keep sane without them.

Quotation of the Day

'Bookstores Are Essential Because Books Are Essential'

"Why should it be easier to buy marijuana than a good book at a store in Los Angeles during the coronavirus shutdown?... Books are essential goods and that ought to mean bookstores are exempt from shutting down during the coronavirus pandemic. As are bread and milk, gas and aspirin, alcohol and marijuana, books should be available, with safety precautions in place, at the usual places we buy them in our neighborhoods.... We readers can help. Until bookshops fully reopen, we can use our discretionary income to order books directly from ndependent booksellers. We can buy gift cards to help the bottom line too....

"Finally, we can also let our city, county and state leaders know how much we need bookshops and their staffs as the shutdown goes on, and once it's over. Books provide spiritual nourishment, education, enlightenment, role models, diversion. As Lori Gottlieb, therapist and author puts it, 'One way to feel understood and part of something bigger, less alone, is to immerse ourselves in stories. They help us see ourselves'.... Bookstores are essential because books are essential."--Author Wendy Paris in a Los Angeles Times op-ed headlined "If marijuana is essential during the coronavirus shutdown, why not books? http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43882512"

We've been losing many great authors, songwriters and musicians and others, such as Prime Minister Boris Johnson, to Coronavirus this month. Most were over the age of 65, (some were, like me, in their 50s) but it's still been horrifying to watch. I fear for the lives of some of my favorite authors who are seniors.

Obituary Note: Patricia Bosworth

Patricia Bosworth http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz43882560, the actress, biographer, memoirist and journalist, died April 2 from the coronavirus. She was 86.

The New York Times wrote that while she had "some success as an actress"--learning method acting alongside Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe, appearing in some major roles onstage and with Audrey Hepburn on film--"she always wanted to write, and she found material in the many friendships she had cultivated with luminaries in Hollywood, the theater world and elsewhere--Brando, Montgomery Clift and the photographer Diane Arbus among them." And she was a successful journalist: she wrote for a variety of publications and was a longtime contributing editor at Vanity Fair.

Her memoirs included Anything Your Little Heart Desires: An American Family Story (1997), which "centers on her charismatic father, a lawyer who defended two of the Hollywood Ten in the postwar anti-Communist hysteria and saw his career destroyed by the blacklist," the Times wrote, as well as The Men in My Life: A Memoir of Love and Art in 1950s Manhattan (2017), about her coming-of-age and emergence as a writer.

Her biographies included Montgomery Clift: A Biography (1978), Diane Arbus: A Biography (1984), Marlon Brando (2001), and Jane Fonda: The Private Life of a Public Woman (2011).

Next year, Farrar, Straus & Giroux is publishing her last book, Protest Song: Paul Robeson, J. Edgar Hoover, and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Equality.

Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Lim is a YA Asian fantasy novel that was fascinating in unexpected ways. While I realize that women/girls are treated like second class citizens in places like China and Japan, and historically were treated like slaves in their own households, I still wasn't fully willing to suspend disbelief when the protagonist, Maia, isn't allowed to fully inherit or represent her family's tailoring shop (though she is the only one of her siblings with any talent for sewing) merely because she's female. She has been carrying the family business on her shoulders for years, due to her father's infirmity and her brothers stupidity and complete lack of talent or inclination for the sewing trade. Yet she takes care of them all, (and adores them, despite their being arrogant asshats) and when her first two brothers are killed in the war, her youngest brother goes off and becomes disabled, so that he is unable to meet the demand of the emperor for their family entry into a sewing competition for the Emperors bride to be. So in true Mulan fashion, Maia dresses as a boy, takes her younger brothers identity and goes to the palace to try and win the competition, and support her family back home. Here's the blurb: Project Runway meets Mulan in this sweeping fantasy about a young girl who poses as a boy to compete for the role of imperial tailor and embarks on an impossible journey to sew three magic dresses, from the sun, the moon, and the stars.

Maia Tamarin dreams of becoming the greatest tailor in the land, but as a girl, the best she can hope for is to marry well. When a royal messenger summons her ailing father, once a tailor of renown, to court, Maia poses as a boy and takes his place. She knows her life is forfeit if her secret is discovered, but she'll take that risk to achieve her dream and save her family from ruin. There's just one catch: Maia is one of twelve tailors vying for the job.
     Backstabbing and lies run rampant as the tailors compete in challenges to prove their artistry and skill. Maia's task is further complicated when she draws the attention of the court magician, Edan, whose piercing eyes seem to see straight through her disguise.
     And nothing could have prepared her for the final challenge: to sew three magic gowns for the emperor's reluctant bride-to-be, from the laughter of the sun, the tears of the moon, and the blood of stars. With this impossible task before her, she embarks on a journey to the far reaches of the kingdom, seeking the sun, the moon, and the stars, and finding more than she ever could have imagined.
     Steeped in Chinese culture, sizzling with forbidden romance, and shimmering with magic, this young adult fantasy is pitch-perfect for fans of Sarah J. Maas 

So while I realize that Chinese history is steeped in misogyny, I was still surprised at the way the author normalized the court magician, who is older, stalking young teenage Maia until she "falls in love" with him, mainly because he's the only male in the book who is nice to her and isn't trying to use her or kill her.I realize, too, that tales like this are based on legends and myths of the Chinese culture, and are colored by the inherent strictures of that time period, but I was hoping that the author could tailor the narrative to flip some of the prejudice on its ear by making Maia have a great life of her own, or be gay and not have to continue to be subservient to all the men in her life. Even at the end, SPOILER, Maia basically sells her soul so that Eden can be freed from servitude. She gives and gives, and all the men in her life take and take. At any rate, the story is still well told, with neat prose and a tidy plot. I'd give it a B+ and recommend it to those who like Chinese folklore.

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir is another YA book that seems to run along the lines of folklore/mythology, and yet it was way too bloody and grim for me, perhaps because it lacked the hope of most YA novels that good will prevail. Here's the blurb: Laia is a slave. Elias is a soldier. Neither is free.

Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear.
It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire’s impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They’ve seen what happens to those who do.
But when Laia’s brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire’s greatest military academy.

There, Laia meets Elias, the school’s finest soldier—and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he’s being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined—and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.  

First of all, this novel is overwritten. An editor was needed to cut out some redundant paragraphs and get rid of the persistent gratuitous violence that is highlighted in nearly every chapter. There are tortures, beatings, murders and bloodbaths aplenty in a book that isn't within the horror genre, but very well could be, just by volume of pain and death and torture alone. Second, I didn't find the romance between the two protagonists, Laia and Elias, terribly credible at first. It got better as the novel moved along, but even then, it seemed too convenient and fast to be real. By the cliffhanger ending, however, I was on board with their helping one another to survive, even if it's just surviving the sociopathic evil that is Elias's mother, who is terrifying. But the slog through all the depressing bloody death and beatings wasn't worth it, at least to me. The prose was, as I've said, overblown, and the plot slowed to a crawl more than a few times. In an over 450 page book, Tahir can't afford to wander off into all the gory details. Still, though I'm not compelled to read the sequel, I'd give this book a C+, and recommend it to those who like bloody tales of love and revenge.

Just Listen by Sarah Dessen is yet another YA novel, this time about high school misfits and "popular" girls and the price one pays for having an in with the bullies at the top of the social pyramid. Having never been anywhere near the popular girls and the "in" crowd, I was somewhat interested in the dynamics of what it takes to survive the "Hunger Games" style brutality that I always suspected ruled these cliques. According to this novel, it's not only more cruel than I'd imagined, it's a haven for rape culture and boys who sexualy abuse young girls and then use their own fears to force them to keep silent about the crime. While the subject matter is nauseating to me, as a rape survivor, Dessens gleaming prose and engaging plot keep everything moving swiftly to a satisfying conclusion. Here's the blurb: Annabel Greene seemingly had everything: cool friends, close family, good grades, and a part-time modeling career in town. But it all came crashing down, and Annabel has spent the summer in shaky, self-imposed exile. She finds herself dreading the new school term and facing, well, everyone again. The last thing she wants to do is revisit old friendships while the losses are painful, the secrets behind the rifts are almost unbearable. Her solid family seems fragile, too. What happened to cause the stiff silences and palpable resentments between her two older sisters? Why is no one in her loving but determinedly cheerful family talking about her middle sister's eating disorder? Annabel's devastating secret is revealed in bits and snatches, as readers see her go to amazing lengths to avoid confrontation. Caught between wanting to protect her family and her own struggles to face a devastating experience, Annabel finds comfort in an unlikely friendship with the school's most notorious loner. Owen has his own issues with anger, but has learned to control it and helps her realize the dangers of holding in her emotions. Dessen explores the interior and exterior lives of her characters and shows their flaws, humanity, struggles, and incremental successes. This is young adult fiction at its best, delving into the minds of complex, believable teens, bringing them to life, and making readers want to know more about them with each turn of the page. Roxanne Myers Spencer, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green

 Though I found Annabel to be a serious wimp, I remember being a teenager and fearing what everyone else would think, and being ashamed of anything that wasn't deemed "normal" or that didn't fall in line with what my peers found acceptable, though that was a very narrow parameter. So though I get why she didn't tell anyone about being sexually molested by the skeevy boyfriend of her horrible bully of a best friend, I found myself wishing that she'd grow a spine a lot faster. And I didn't like her parents, either, or their "glass house" that afforded them very little privacy. That alone would have driven me nuts when I was growing up, to have everyone who drove or walked by able to stare at you while you are eating and sleeping and going about your daily business. I mean why couldn't they at least put up some curtains? The character I liked best was Owen,who reminded me of a friend that I had in high school, Rog, who loved music and often had me over to his house so we could listen to his curated selection of record albums. Rog used to lament my taste in music, too, just as Owen laments Annabel's taste in pop music (no guys appreciated bands like Journey or Heart back in the mid to late 70s...of course, I loved them).  I know that sexual abuse in my teenage years was swept under the rug, and no one talked about it, so I was surprised that 20 plus years later, there was still difficulty in prosecuting rapists and getting them out of circulation. Even today there are still roadblocks, but with the MeToo movement, it has become easier to hold men accountable for rape and sexual abuse and harassment. I'd give this book an A-, and recommend it to any teenage girl who has trouble speaking up for herself and who feels that she's all alone with her pain.