Hello Book lovers! I hope you are all enjoying some sunshine and spring weather. Though it's been a bit chilly and rainy here in the PNW, the Rhododendron bushes are in full bloom, as are the Azaleas and the purple flowered bushes, all for the enjoyment of people and bumblebees alike. When the sun peeks out from under the clouds, it's glorious and warming. I've been warming up to a lot of gorgeous new books of late, so I'll get right down to it. Here are some great tidbits and three reviews.
I wish that I could return to Ireland, but barring that, I would love to stop by NYC for these productions from the Irish Rep.
Book to Stage: Yes! Reflections of Molly Bloom
Irish Repertory Theatre in New York City has announced two upcoming shows that are adaptations of novels: a new production of Yes! Reflections of Molly Bloom https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscADcnrgI6apvcUsgGg~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jHDp_wpoMLg-gVdw and the world premiere of the new musical The Butcher Boy https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscADcnrgI6apvcUsgGw~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jHDp_wpoMLg-gVdw, Playbill reported.
Yes! Reflections of Molly Bloom is a stage adaptation of James Joyce's Ulysses by Adenn Moloney and Colum McCann. Directed by John Keating and starring Moloney, the solo show begins previews June 8 on the W. Scott McLucas Studio Stage and officially opens June 15, running through July 17.
Moloney "read Ulysses as a young girl and has developed her interpretation of Joyce's Penelope chapter since then through performances of passages," Playbill noted. "With McCann's encouragement, Moloney worked on the show's development beginning with the audio recording Reflections of Molly Bloom in 2017. Yes! Reflections of Molly Bloom made its world premiere at Irish Rep in 2019 and was produced for Irish Rep Online during the pandemic."
This sounds like one of those books that I would have read to Nick when he was little, if it had been available. It probably would have made me cry, and it sounds like one of those classic children's books that will be read for decades to come.
Children's Book Review: My Love Will Never Leave You
A wise old tree teaches his young sapling all that she needs to know about life, love and carrying on after a loss in the touching, warm and reassuring My Love Will Never Leave You.
The old tree has been devoted to the sapling ever since she was a seedling. He's "watched over and cared for her," "pointed her to the \sky" and "helped her branches grow true and strong." He's sheltered, shaded and supported her with his love. One morning, the curious little tree wants to know about the heart-shaped leaves covering his branches.
He answers, "These are memories of the life I've led." When the sapling asks if she will grow similar leaves of her own, the old tree realizes that it's time for the little tree to "see and learn" for herself. The pair walk upon hills, sit by streams, study the birds who "find refuge in their branches" and enjoy the fragrance of flowers. The old tree teaches the young sapling many things as they travel and, lo and behold, one day soon the little tree has her own leaves, "all heart-shaped, fresh, and green."
All is well until autumn, when the sapling discovers that some of the old tree's leaves have fallen, and as the weather grows colder, his leaves become fewer. At last, the old tree must go, but not before assuring the young one, "Each time the wind blows, in your leaves is where you'll find me." In time, the little tree understands that her "bright memories" will keep her safe and warm and can guide her home.
Hogtun's text is relatively spare and poetic. His choice to use trees as walking, talking stand-ins for humans is an inspired one, infusing a sense of fantasy into the weighty discussion of mortality. While the trees are familiar figures who inspire reflection on loving and nurturing (as well as on the loss of someone special), the approach leaves much up to readers to fill in for themselves. The luminous illustrations convey plenty of emotion and conjure a pervasive sense of dreaminess and wonder. This allegorical offering gently inspires readers to understand that while "we cannot stop the seasons," sorrow will almost certainly be followed by joyful moments of surprise and renewal. --Lynn Becker, reviewer, blogger, and children's book author
The news of Patricia McKillip's death gutted me when I read about it a few days ago. Patricia McKillip was my favorite Fantasy fiction author. Her prose was magnificent and unmatched, her characters otherworldly and her plots elegance itself. I've read everything she's ever written, and never found one typo or grammo, never one word out of place or misused. When I had the chance to meet her years ago, I jumped at it, but standing in line with 35 years worth of novels and stories, and then getting to the head of the line and hearing her say in a whisper-weary voice, "Can't you have me sign half of them and then go back to the back of the line and I can sign the rest?" was devastating, because I'd already stood in line for over an hour, and I couldn't stand any longer, my knees and lower back were killing me. The woman behind me in line had huge plastic totes/bins that were full of many copies of the authors work, and no one suggested that she take her handtruck full of books she was obviously going to sell in a store or online, and go to the back of the long line out the door. Though McKillip was disappointingly weak and frail and dull, I will still always love her work, which is a great legacy to the world.
Obituary Note: Patricia A. McKillip
Patricia A. McKillip, the fantasy author best known for The Forgotten Beasts of Eld and the Riddle-Master trilogy, died on May 6 https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscADdxb4I6apvcBF-Tw~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jHD8T2poMLg-gVdw, Locus magazine reported. She was 74.
McKillip's writing career began in 1973 with the publication of The Throme of the Erril of Sherill and The House on Parchment Street, both for younger readers. In 1974, she published her first adult novel, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, which won a World Fantasy Award, and followed that soon after with the Riddle-Master trilogy, consisting of The Riddle-Master of Hed (1976), Heir of Sea and Fire (1977) and Harpist in the Wind (1979). The trilogy's final book won a Locus Award and was a finalist for both the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards.
Along with fantasy novels, she would go on to write science fiction novels such as Fool's Run (1987), contemporary fiction like Stepping from the Shadows (1982) and books for both children and adults. In addition to winning the Locus and World Fantasy Awards, she won the Mythopoeic Award four times, for Something Rich and Strange (1994), Ombria in Shadow (2002), Solstice Wood (2006) and Kingfisher (2016). In 2008, she received a World Fantasy Life Achievement Award.
I can hardly wait for part two of Dune, which will doubtless be as thrilling as part one.
Movies: Dune: Part Two
Denis Villeneuve "is adding another high-profile talent to an already-loaded cast," according to Deadline, which reported that Christopher Walken (The Outlaws, Severance) will play the Emperor in Warner Bros. and Legendary's Dune: Part Two https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscADeleUI6apvcE1-GA~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jHDJStpoMLg-gVdw.
Walken joins the ensemble that includes Timothee Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya and Josh Brolin, who are expected to reprise their roles, as well recently announced cast members Florence Pugh and Austin Butler. Villeneuve will again write, direct and produce. Production is expected to start in the fall, with the film set to bow on October 20, 2023. Jon Spaihts is returning to co-write script with Villeneuve.
A bookmobile bus! What a great idea! I want to shop in this bus in the worst way, but I don't know if I can get my son to take me to Folklife or the Fremont Fair this summer.
Blue Kettle Books Comes to Seattle, Wash.
Blue Kettle Books https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAOInuoI6apuIRslGw~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jEWp-ipoMLg-gVdw, a mobile bookstore with an all-ages inventory, made its debut at Cairn Brewing in Kenmore, Wash., on Friday evening, the Seattle Times reported.
Owner Monica Lemoine carries an inventory of around 800 titles in her bookshop, which is built inside of a 22-foot-long 2014 Ford StarTrans bus. About 40% of the inventory is children's books, and there is a selection of sidelines sourced from small businesses and craftspeople of color.
Blue Kettle's adult titles are shelved in themed categories such as "Love Lighter Lit," full of romance novels and humor; and "Take a Thrill Ride," for page-turners. Lemoinie told the Times that with shelf space at such a premium, she asked family and friends to send her a list of their "absolute favorite" books when she was assembling her opening inventory.
Through the rest of the summer, Lemoine will set up shop at various family-friendly events and festivals in the Seattle area, such as Northwest Folklife in Kirkland, the Fremont Fair, PrideFest and the Mill Creek Festival. Eventually she would like to find a few businesses that would allow her to park her bookmobile in their parking lots on weekdays, and she isn't opposed to opening a bricks-and-mortar store someday.
Before opening an indie bookstore, Lemoine was a teacher for nearly 20 years. While serving as an English teacher at Highline Community College in Des Moines, Wash., she learned that the majority of her students "could not recall the last time they had picked up a book for pleasure."
That inspired her to start a book club with her students, which proved to be a hit. She came to love the feeling of introducing someone to the joys of reading. Lemoine noted that while she still loves teaching, the book club "sparked in me this realization that I would love to open a bookstore."
I adore Elizabeth Warren, she's the most awesome Senator there is, and right now she's one of the very few sane voices on Capitol Hill in DC. I hope and pray that she can keep fighting for women's rights for a long time.
Image of the Day: Elizabeth Warren at the Strand
On Friday, May 6, The Strand Book Store https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAOInuoI6apuIRsiHg~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jEWp-ipoMLg-gVdw in New York City hosted Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) for a discussion moderated by professor and civil rights activist Maya D. Wiley to mark the paperback release of Warren's Persist (Metropolitan).
The two discussed the Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade. Warren emphasized, "It's the poor women in the United States who will suffer when the right to have a safe and legal abortion is no longer available," and she urged attendees to "get angry" and then go out and vote.
The Strand staff created a booklist centered on women's reproductive rights, with 20% of the proceeds going to Planned Parenthood. "Strand has an obligation to our customers and to our community," said Laura Ravo, COO of the Strand. "We remain steadfast and committed to using our voice to make a positive impact on the world and causes we believe in. The book collections we've curated show the history of the fight for reproductive rights and share the narratives of people who have had abortions. Both are vital in understanding the stakes of the current moment."
This is so exciting, that everyone involved, especially Neil Gaiman himself, took their time in finding the right actor to play Morpheus for the Sandman TV series. This is going to be amazing, folks, mark my words.
TV: The Sandman
Neil Gaiman and actor Tom Sturridge talked with Entertainment Weekly about this summer's highly anticipated release of The Sandman https://www.shelfawareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAOInuoI6apuIRsjEg~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jEWp-ipoMLg-gVdw, based on the legendary comic series created by Gaiman, Sam Kieth and Mike Dringenberg. "Of all the questions the creators of Netflix's upcoming Sandman show had to answer, one loomed above the rest: Who will play Morpheus?" EW noted.
"I think I have personally seen 1,500 Morpheus auditions," Gaiman said. "I hesitate to imagine how many [casting director] Lucinda Syson and her team have seen.... Having watched all those other auditions, we were able to go to Netflix and say, 'it's Tom'.... We know it's Tom."
Sturridge said the long process was "entirely necessary, because this is a character who is so utterly beloved--by me more than anyone. That requires you to spend time with a human being to discover if they can live up to the dream you have of who he is. I think The Sandman pervades culture. Even the name Morpheus, King of Dreams, kind of haunted me in my youth."
Gaiman observed that "Morpheus' dialogue is incredibly specific. It was probably the thing I was most obsessive about. Someone would have written a fabulous script, [showrunner] Allan Heinberg would have rewritten a fabulous script, and I would have seen it at every iteration, but there would always be a point at the end where I would still be noodling on the Morpheus dialogue: Making sure the words were right, that the rhythms were right."
Sturridge added: "I remember you said to me that everything he says has to feel like it was etched in stone. He's never improvising. He has experienced and perceived every thought, dream, and moment, and therefore he knows what you're going to say. That was very helpful.
The cast also includes Gwendoline Christie, Boyd Holbrook, Charles Dance, David Thewlis, Jenna Coleman, Stephen Fry, Patton Oswalt, Joely Richardson, Asim Chaudhry, Sanjeev Bhaskar and Kirby Howell-Baptiste. Allan Heinberg is the show runner and an executive producer. Also on the project as exec producers and co-writers with Heinberg are David S. Goyer and Gaiman. The series is produced by Warner Bros. Television.
Spear by Nicola Griffith is an historically infused, elegant retelling of the Arthurian legend from the perspective of Perceval, here called Peretur, a lesbian woman who dresses as a man in order to fight with Arthur and the other knights of the round table. Peretur grows up wild in what seems to be ancient Wales, drinking from a magic cauldron with her mother, who seems to be a mad witch. The cauldron is actually what the grail was taken from, but done with a female mythology behind it, rather than the Christian "cup of Christ" background. Here's the blurb: "If Le Guin wrote a Camelot story, I imagine it would feel like Spear:
humane, intelligent, and deeply beautiful. It's a new story with very
old bones, a strange place that feels like home." ―Alix E. Harrow,
author of A Spindle Splintered
She left all she knew to find who she could be . . .
She
grows up in the wild wood, in a cave with her mother, but visions of a
faraway lake drift to her on the spring breeze, scented with promise.
And when she hears a traveler speak of Artos, king of Caer Leon, she
decides her future lies at his court. So, brimming with magic and eager
to test her strength, she breaks her covenant with her mother and sets
out on her bony gelding for Caer Leon.
With her stolen hunting
spear and mended armour, she is an unlikely hero, not a chosen one, but
one who forges her own bright path. Aflame with determination, she
begins a journey of magic and mystery, love, lust and fights to death.
On her adventures, she will steal the hearts of beautiful women, fight
warriors and sorcerers, and make a place to call home.
The legendary author of Hild returns with an unforgettable hero and a queer Arthurian masterpiece for the modern era. Nicola Griffith’s Spear is a spellbinding vision of the Camelot we've longed for, a Camelot that belongs to us all.
I completely agree with Alix Harrow, this is a story with old bones that feels somehow familiar and right, as if the other Arthurian legends were bastardizations of this tale, which feels like the original. Griffith's prose is lean, spare and beautiful, and her plot flows like a swift river. Her attention-grabbing characters weave through the narrative in such a hypnotic fashion that you'll find yourself adrift on the final page, wondering how you got there so quickly. Though it's a slender volume, not a word is wasted, and I'd give this beauty an A, and recommend it to everyone who loves a good LGBTQ story and those who love beautiful legend updates that are engrossing and include fascinating perspectives.
By The Book by Jasmine Guillory is a YA contemporary rom-com (that is a take on Beauty and the Beast) with people of color taking center stage in a real page-turner of a story. The whole "regular young woman meets famous guy of her dreams, only to discover he's a hot mess and she's the clean up crew" trope has been done dozens of times in recent memory, but Guillory's adept and delightful prose, along with her saucy plot and realistic, witty characters handily keep the book from falling into cliche territory. I could happily have stayed in this world for another few hundred pages, I was that engrossed in the storyline. Here's the blurb:
I loved, loved, loved Izzy, who was smart and funny without falling prey to the stereotypes of romance novels (being the Manic Pixie Dream Girl or perfect petite blonde, in other words) and I enjoyed her interactions with Beau, who, though somewhat immature, still manages to be charming and sexy enough that you don't loathe him by the end of the novel. I'd give this book an A, and recommend it to anyone who likes spunky rom-com heroines and witty banter between main characters, as well as a cool new retelling of Beauty and the Beast.
Erotic Stories For Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal is a contemporary adult romance novel that got great ink/reviews when it was first published, but since I'd already read another of this author's works (and I was not impressed), I decided to ignore the hype and skip this one. Unfortunately, I no longer have that option as this book was chosen by my library book group for their June read. As group leader, I'm required to read all the books listed each month, even ones that I don't like. Not that this novel was horrible, the prose was fun and the characters fascinating, though the plot seemed a bit too convoluted at several points (it slowed down with all the different sub-stories and too many characters to keep track of), it was still an engrossing read. I just found it hard to like many of the widows, who seemed comically ribald and lusty while also insisting on traditional male and female roles in the home, as well as upholding the horrible tradition of marrying female children to much older men, treating these girls as breeding cattle/chattel. The whole bending to the patriarchy because it's part of the culture of your country of origin makes no sense to me. Women shouldn't have to suffer and die just to appease men and their egos and need for control/power. Here's the blurb:
A lively, sexy, and thought-provoking East-meets-West story about community, friendship, and women’s lives at all ages—a spicy and alluring mix of Together Tea and Calendar Girls.
Every woman has a secret life . . .
Nikki lives in cosmopolitan West London, where she tends bar at the local pub. The daughter of Indian immigrants, she’s spent most of her twenty-odd years distancing herself from the traditional Sikh community of her childhood, preferring a more independent (that is, Western) life. When her father’s death leaves the family financially strapped, Nikki, a law school dropout, impulsively takes a job teaching a "creative writing" course at the community center in the beating heart of London’s close-knit Punjabi community.
Because of a miscommunication, the proper Sikh widows who show up are expecting to learn basic English literacy, not the art of short-story writing. When one of the widows finds a book of sexy stories in English and shares it with the class, Nikki realizes that beneath their white dupattas, her students have a wealth of fantasies and memories. Eager to liberate these modest women, she teaches them how to express their untold stories, unleashing creativity of the most unexpected—and exciting—kind.
As more women are drawn to the class, Nikki warns her students to keep their work secret from the Brotherhood, a group of highly conservative young men who have appointed themselves the community’s "moral police." But when the widows’ gossip offers shocking insights into the death of a young wife—a modern woman like Nikki—and some of the class erotica is shared among friends, it sparks a scandal that threatens them all.
I felt that there was too much stereotyping of women in that they were always gossiping, taking care of their husbands and thinking of "erotic/pornographic" stories that were 99 percent cis/het romances with predictable positions and actions, leading to the idea that "all women" like, for example, their breasts to be suckled by their lovers. There was little variety or originality when it came to their fantasies. I would have liked to have read more about LGBTQ fantasies or kinks or even thruples. Still, the book was engrossing and held my attention all the way through. So I'll give it a B, and recommend it to anyone who enjoys female centered Indian expat stories.
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