Stacy Abrams Fights Book Bans, Robert Gray on Book Blogs, Who Pays For the Arts?, Brandon Sanderson Building a Bookstore, The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson, Charlotte Illes is Not a Detective and is Not a Teacher by Katie Siegel, and Fyrebirds by Kate J Armstrong

BOO! Welcome to October, my fellow readers! Though I know that many of you read and recommend horror novels during "spooky season" I'm not a fan of being scared or of blood and gore, so I will just continue to recommend (or not, if it's not a good book) books that I've read and enjoyed that are most definitely outside of the horror genre. Meanwhile, here's some interesting tidbits.

 

I love this! Stacy Abrams, in addition to being a kick ass politician and a guest star on Star Trek Discovery, is fighting the fascist book bans that are creeping through our country in direct conflict with our constitution.

 

Avengers Assemble

Stacey Abrams is a lawyer, a politician, a voting rights activist, an author, and now, she’s also a podcast host. Her new show Assembly Required is all about “connecting the people and pieces in order to make our union a little more perfect.” On the latest episode, Abrams speaks with her mom (a former librarian!) and national treasure LeVar Burton about fighting book bans and defending the freedom to read . If you need a shot in the arm from some legit American heroes, this’ll do the trick.

I also started a book blog (this one) in the early aughts (2005) and while I realize that blogs have become, shall we say, passe, I still find this book review blog a good outlet for my writing itch. Robert Gray doesn't share this opinion, but I always find his musings funny and insightful.

 

Robert Gray: Revisiting a Book Blog--What Was I Thinking? 

Earlier this month, a somewhat notable date passed by without fanfare:

September 12 marked the 20th anniversary of my first post on a new blog

called Fresh Eyes: A Bookseller's Journal.

Back then, I'd hoped to explore the book business from the perspective

of a frontline bookseller. That initial post would eventually (June 2006 to be precise) grow up to become this weekly Shelf Awareness column, though I

sure as hell didn't know that when I started.

In olden times, there weren't as many blogs around, especially in the

book world. I had been a bookseller at that point for 12 years, and was

fascinated by what a business consultant/customer called "the last three

feet," that mysterious point of contact when a product or service

transfers from a business to its customer. Frontline booksellers were

one of those points of contact. I just wanted to write about them, about

us. Here's what I said initially:

"It would be tempting to begin a journal like this on a day that might

serve as an official portal into the bookselling world--the first day of

the year, for example, with the journal reaching its climactic finish

during the mad holiday season. But bookselling isn't a dramatic

profession. Often people who envy booksellers do so because they imagine

some idyllic little bookshop myth, where the bookseller reads peacefully

at a counter, his well-fed cat sleeping near his elbow, and when the

little bell over the door rings, announcing a customer's arrival, he

looks up casually from his book and welcomes the newcomer to

biblioparadise.

" 'Nothing's worth noting that is not seen with fresh eyes,' Bashō

observed..... His writing blends the random observations, poetry, and

sharp imagery he captured on his travels through Japan with the twin

lenses of his heart and mind. He collected experiences and strung them

together like prayer beads. Fresh eyes. Let's begin the trip."

In the early blog posts, I wrote about topics like Decoding Customer

Requests ("a daily task, a Holmesian moment in which clues are presented

and deductions made, elementary and otherwise"), Discovering Books

("every reader 'discovers' books, but a bookseller gets to do this

before the publication date, thanks to the never-cresting wave of

Advance Reader Copies (ARCs) that flood our buyers' offices on a daily

basis"), and For Writers: The Fine Art of Choosing a Bookseller ("That

point of contact, of course, is in the casual yet pointed conversations

between booksellers and readers on the sales floor. These foot soldiers

are often overlooked when writers wonder why their books seem to get

lost in the biblioshuffle.").

Time passed. A couple of years later, as my work at Shelf Awareness

expanded, the Fresh Eyes blog drifted away quietly. During the winter of

2007, I revisited the blog's origin story in one of the final posts,

noting that "its modest mission has altered over that brief time, but

one aspect that hasn't changed is the original wellspring, the journals

and poetry of Bashō. Publishing industry headlines are still rife with

closing indie bookstores and evolving technology that may threaten the

very existence of 'fiber-based' texts. Should we be afraid, like

medieval peasants terrified by the prospect of what army or disease

might be coming over the hill to annihilate their village next?

"I'm a reader. I look ahead with faith. I look back with gratitude. This

blog has been, as it was intended to be, a travel journal of one

bookseller's trip. I'm not a fan of itineraries, however, so even though

there has been an unavoidable chronology here (today's entry is posted

today, etc.), the illusion of time moving forward breaks down regularly.

Memory often plays a role, and memory is a sieve. I've been looking for

signs of what books mean and why we value them, not just timelines of

progress and destruction."

Bashō wrote, "A lifetime adrift in a boat or in old age leading a tired

horse into the years, every day is a journey, and the journey itself is

home." And so, happy 20th blog birthday to the late Fresh Eyes: a

Bookseller's Journal. I began with just one question--What am I

thinking?--to which there have been, and continue to be, an

ever-changing series of momentary answers.--Robert Gray

This is an ongoing conundrum, and one that has been building, especially in the past 5-10 years, when funding for the arts has been cut to the bone. Then the pandemic closed down a lot of art venues, and their budgets took a huge hit. The arts are an important part of humanity, and they should be supported by everyone, including the government.

 

Who Pays for the Arts?

The money, for art as for anything, has to come from somewhere. This piece in Esquire looks at a recent decline in private giving for arts organizations and how they are trying to figure out what’s next . Iceland is held up as a model in governmental support (one of the more striking facts in the world of books and reading that I have ever read crops up again here: 1 in 10 Icelanders will publish a book in their lifetime), but like private giving, government support is subject to changes of heart, fashion, or politics. Could crowd-funding and subscriptions offer a way forward? These are essentially recurring micro-philanthropy payments, which diversifies the risk of a big donor walking away. For profit companies, including this one, have already seen the ballast that direct cash from audiences can provide. The question becomes will your listeners or readers or attendees sign up to support you, outside of buying the books themselves as they come out, forever?

I just finished the second book in Brandon Sanderson's wildly popular "Mistborn" series, as my son has read 3 of his series via audiobooks, and LOVES them. He gets together with his former boss and has book group nights, in fact, during which all they discuss is Sanderson's works. So he will be thrilled that "Brando Sando" as they've nicknamed him, will be opening his own bookstore, though it is far away in Utah, the land of the Mormon religion. While my son is an atheist, he still loves Brando's works, and would really love to visit his bookstore, when it opens.

 

Author Brandon Sanderson Unveils Plan to 'Build a Bookstore'

Bestselling author Brandon Sanderson's Dragonsteel Entertainment has

purchased land next to the former Evermore Park in Pleasant Grove, Utah,

with plans to eventually open a bookstore there. The Salt Lake City

Tribune reported that Sanderson announced his plan Saturday during a FanX

appearance at the Salt Palace Convention Center.

"We're going to theoretically build a bookstore," he said on Saturday.

The area will be called Dragonsteel Plaza. Sanderson also revealed that

Dragonsteel's headquarters is now located in a warehouse in Pleasant

Grove, which fans cannot visit, but he did show a few photos of the

property at the panel.

Dragonsteel had a pop-up store on the vendor floor all three days of the

convention. Sanderson's wide-ranging panel featured slides that shared

his art process for books, upcoming book bundles fans can buy, plans for

Dragonsteel Plaza, a q&a session, and a reading from the fifth

Stormlight book, Wind and Truth.

The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson is the second book in the Mistborn series, which is a fantasy dystopia series that my son Nick all but forced me to read, as he has read most of Sanderson's series (via audiobooks) and loves them dearly. I plowed through the "desperately in need of an editor" Mistborn, though it took me nearly two weeks, and while I wasn't as enthralled as my son, I could see why he liked the book, because the characters were quirky and funny and there was plenty of swordplay and gory battles with swords and magic...just what the doctor ordered for someone in their 20s. For someone in their early 60s, though, who has read much more widely than my son, Mistborn read like a latter day LOTR without the fine prose and the rigorous plot. Here's the blurb: The Mistborn Series has the thrills of a heist story, the twistiness of political intrigue, and the epic scale of a landmark fantasy saga.

The impossible has been accomplished. The Lord Ruler -- the man who claimed to be god incarnate and brutally ruled the world for a thousand years -- has been vanquished. But Kelsier, the hero who masterminded that triumph, is dead too, and now the awesome task of building a new world has been left to his young protégé, Vin, the former street urchin who is now the most powerful Mistborn in the land, and to the idealistic young nobleman she loves.

As Kelsier's protégé and slayer of the Lord Ruler she is now venerated by a budding new religion, a distinction that makes her intensely uncomfortable. Even more worrying, the mists have begun behaving strangely since the Lord Ruler died, and seem to harbor a strange vaporous entity that haunts her.

Stopping assassins may keep Vin's Mistborn skills sharp, but it's the least of her problems. Luthadel, the largest city of the former empire, doesn't run itself, and Vin and the other members of Kelsier's crew, who lead the revolution, must learn a whole new set of practical and political skills to help. It certainly won't get easier with three armies – one of them composed of ferocious giants – now vying to conquer the city, and no sign of the Lord Ruler's hidden cache of atium, the rarest and most powerful allomantic metal.

As the siege of Luthadel tightens, an ancient legend seems to offer a glimmer of hope. But even if it really exists, no one knows where to find the Well of Ascension or what manner of power it bestows.
The first 200 pages of this book are truly boring, with a lot of reflecting back on what happened in the first book, a lot of teenage girl angst from Vin (whom I must say I didn't like in Mistborn, and I liked her even less in the WOA), and a great deal of descriptive info dumping that will make your eyes glaze over, unless you are one of those people who really gets into miniscule details that have no bearing on the story at large and slow the plot to a crawl. If you make it past page 350, things start to heat up, and it doesn't slow down again until the last 175 pages of the novel. The ending was unsurprising, and the love affair between Elend the wussy king and Vin the nasty teenage assassin (and realistically, I believe most girls between the ages of 13-18 would make excellent, remorseless assassins...most of the ones I met were vicious, heartless creatures, and I was one of them for a time),finally gets to the point where they must admit that they need each other as lovers/partners. The "big surprise" reveal that Oreseur is dead and was taken over by TenSoon early on wasn't worth the hype, and ended up being more sad than satisfying. Because I love my son, I will read the final book in the trilogy, The Hero of Ages, but I plan on doing so only when I'm out of other, better books to enjoy that aren't over 350 pages long. I'd give this book a C, and only recommend it to those who enjoy epic fantasy that is unedited and full of phat prose/paragraphs.

 

Charlotte Illes is Not a Detective and Charlotte Illes is Not a Teacher by Katie Siegel are humorous, cozy YA mysteries starring a young woman, Charlotte or Lottie, as she was called as a child, who is dragged back into solving mysteries by her cadre of over-eager and often irritating friends and family, who seem willing to run her life since she can't seem to find herself. Here's the blurb: 

For everyone who grew up wanting to be Harriet the Spy or Nancy Drew, this witty and charming series from a TikTok sensation offers a modern, millennial-friendly spin on cozy mysteries, featuring an irresistible heroine and one-time child detective who’s now a directionless twenty-something—until another mystery comes calling.

The downside about being a famous child detective is that sooner or later, you have to grow up.
 
As a kid, Charlotte Illes’ uncanny sleuthing abilities made her a minor celebrity. But in high school, she hung up her detective’s hat and stashed away the signature blue landline in her “office”—aka garage—convinced that finding her adult purpose would be as easy as tracking down missing pudding cups or locating stolen diamonds.
 
Now 25, Charlotte has a nagging fear that she hit her peak in middle school. She’s living with her mom, scrolling through job listings, and her love life consists mostly of first dates. When it comes to knowing what to do next, Charlotte hasn’t got a clue.
 
And then, her old blue phone rings . . .
 
Reluctantly, Charlotte is pulled back into the mystery-solving world she knew—just one more time. But that world is a whole lot more complicated for an adult. As a kid, she was able to crack the case and still get her homework done on time. Now she’s dealing with dead bodies, missing persons, and villains who actually see her as a viable threat. And the detective skills she was once so eager to never use again are the only things that can stop a killer ready to make sure her next retirement is permanent.

The déjà vu is strong for 25-year-old former kid detective Charlotte Illes when she lands back in Frencham Middle School – this time as a substitute teacher with a sideline in sleuthing – in the second zany mystery.

Mention “returning to the scene of a crime,” and people don’t usually picture a middle school. But that’s where kid detective Lottie Illes enjoyed some of her greatest successes, solving mysteries and winning acclaim—before the world of adult responsibilities came crashing in.

Twenty-something Charlotte is now back in the classroom, this time as a substitute teacher. However, as much as she’s tried to escape the shadow of her younger self, others haven’t forgotten about Lottie. In fact, a fellow teacher is hoping for help discovering the culprit behind anonymous threats being sent to her and her aunt, who’s running for reelection to the Board of Education. 

At first, Charlotte assumes the messages are a harmless prank. But maybe it’s a good thing she left a detective kit hidden in the band room storage closet all those years ago—just in case. Because the threats are escalating, and it’s clear that untangling mysteries isn’t child’s play anymore. 

There's a lot of frustration in these two books as Charlotte, time and again, caves into the mysteries brought to her by her annoying friends and family, whom apparently she's unable to say NO to, or even to set boundaries with, when it comes to her life and career. Not only was Charlotte reluctant and often confused, but she only seemed able to put the clues/pieces of the mystery together in the last 10-20 pages of the novel, while the rest of the time she's flailing around lamenting the fact that she was in her prime problem-solving years as a child, and that while she wants to find a different purpose to her life, she can't seem to be a functioning adult because she's still stuck, in her mind, as a brilliant, immature child. Her child self was fearless, in other words, while her adult self is plagued by doubts...none of which are resolved during the course of these two books. While they're amusing to read, they're also irritatingly stupid, and I'd have to give them both a B-, and recommend them only to those looking for a "beach read" that doesn't require too much brain power or attention.

 

Fyrebirds by Kate J. Armstrong is a YA fantasy with a bit of romance and a dark mileau, and it's also the sequel to the well received Nightbirds. Here's the blurb: 

With tensions rising and their powers no longer a secret, the Nightbirds must decide for whom and for what they are willing to fight for and how far they will go in the spellbinding sequel to the international bestseller Nightbirds.

The Nightbirds were once their city’s best-kept secret, but now the secret’s out. What’s more, they can do feats of magic no one has seen in centuries. They’re like the Fyrebirds of old: the powerful women who once moved mountains, parted seas, and led armies. Some say that when four join together, they become a force that shakes the earth and sends magic rippling through it. It does seem as if something has awoken in Eudea, but the four girls responsible don’t want the world to know the full extent of what they can do—at least not yet.

As the new leader of Eudea works to lift the prohibition on magic, the churchmen who do not support it—and the gang lords who profit from it—whisper rebellion. The secret resistance who once sheltered the Nightbirds is rallying, too. Smelling blood in the water, an ambitious Farlands king threatens to take Eudea. As war looms, and the empire’s fate hangs from a knife’s edge, the Nightbirds have to decide if becoming more than that are—Fyrebirds—to protect Simta is worth losing themselves entirely and the lives and loves they might have had.

 

Though I enjoyed Nightbirds, I wasn't expecting this sophomore effort to live up to the original, and was therefore surprised when I found the feminist coloring of the plot to be riveting reading. The drug that the men of the kingdom plan on using to take away young women's free will and keep them as magical slaves, called "sugar" sounded a lot like cocaine or "roofies" of the 80s that were often slipped into women's drinks and used to keep them compliant while they were raped and abused. That Matilde, Sayre and the others all are fighting the patriarchy and men who would enslave women was heartening and made the firey plot combust with action. Sadly, some women don't make it, so there are parts of the story that add realism to the plot. The prose is vigorous and the plot swift and full of action that leads to a HFN ending, making me think that another book in this series must be on the way. I'd give it a B, and recommend it to anyone who likes YA magic stories with young women who know how to fight back.