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After you've finished Colson Whitehead's Underground Railroad
by endless
If you're one of the hundreds of patrons who have checked out and enjoyed Colson Whiteheads award winning novel, Underground Railroad, you might be looking for another narrative journey about slavery, freedom and the routes in between. These novels are rich with historical detail, sense of place and the weight of telling long-hidden stories. Their flinty, insightful heroines struggle against systems that define them as property, and also against the pull of "home" with their enslaved family and friends.
James McBride's novel about a runaway slave who learns to follow a "code" of five knots invokes oral histories of maroons, parables about freedom and captivity, and the fierce will of it's main character to live a free life. Sue Monk Kidd's recently well received novel, The Invention of Wings tells the story of Hetty "handful" Jackson/Grimke, who grows up belonging to the famous 19th century abolitionist and feminist Sarah Grimke. Hetty's nickname is well earned, and this novel tells the story alternating between her inner monologue and Sarah's, giving readers an intricate picture of slave and free black society at the time. Edward Jones's pulitzer prize winning The Known World which follows Frederick Douglass' journey to Ireland and back, before and after his manumission.
Octavia Butler's Kindred is the foremother for all of these more recent novels about captivity and escape. Kindred uses science fiction tropes of time travel to explore the dangers of living in Maryland as a free black woman during slavery, and as a black female author telling a story about slavery. Like The Known World, Kindred jumps between slavery and freedom, questioning how one state depends on the other.
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Enjoying and Understanding Outlander
by ballybeg
I just got around to reading Outlander. It is only the first long, complex book, of a long, complex series of books, loaded with characters, details, symbolism, history, and inter-weaving, multi-layered plots. The television series is another dimension of the Outlander phenomenon, also rich with period detail, language, folklore, and a dizzying array of settings and characters.
I was surprised and gratified, therefore, to discover these aids to appreciating the books and films, with some Scottish history and background, and lots of details to enhance the understanding of Gabaldon’s highly imaginative series.
For the television series, The Making of Outlander: The Official Guide to Seasons One & Two, adds interest and depth to the filmed version.
For the books, The Outlandish Companion Volume One is an elaboration of the first four books, and The Outlandish Companion Volume Two highlights details from books five through eight. Included are synopses of the plots, commentary by the author, glossaries of Gaelic language, bibliographies of books Gabaldon used when researching and writing the books, but also fiction series, by other authors, she recommends to enjoy and which complement hers (I got some good reading ideas here), and so much more.
For really fascinating detail about the rich world of Outlander, this book is a must: The Symbolism and Sources of Outlander: The Scottish Fairies, Folklore, Ballads, Magic, and Meanings That Inspired the Series. Here you can find: all about the mythologies of standing stones, sun and fire feasts; voodoo, Native American and Scottish folklore; the symbolism of plants, jewelry, animals, clothes, kilts and tartans (and what about that dragonfly in amber?); references to literature (the Bible, classics, Shakespeare and the English romantic poets) and music explained; and all about magic, witches, second sight, herbs, the sword dance, kelpies in the loch, La Dame Blanche, and more.
Then, just for fun, because everything ends with food, and who can resist oatmeal scones with clotted cream?, Outlander Kitchen: The Official Outlander Companion Cookbook.
Blog Post
"Who Builds Anything in this Country"
by endless
When the heroine of Colson Whitehead's National Book Award winning novel, The Underground Railroad, asks who built the system of passages and caves that burrow throughout the southern states, a conductor answers "Who builds anything in this country?" It's a rhetorical question in the novel, but Whitehead's novel itself challenges our mythology of the underground railroad. From middle school history lessons through to the Underground Railroad museum in Cincinnati, white Americans have used the underground railroad as a way to imagine ourselves on the right side of history. And yes, there were white underground railroad conductors, many of them Quakers. But more often escaped slaves were smuggled by free blacks, branches of the African Methodist Episcopal church, or gained freedom by purchasing it from their masters. Whitehead includes these characters in The Underground Railroad: Ceasar, who was promised freedom when his master's wife died, only to be sold off to settle his debts, the elderly free black "proctors" at Cora's state run community in North Carolina with their pressed dresses and their equally pressed respectability politics, and Cora's mother who ran off when Cora was a small girl, choosing freedom and abandoning her daughter to slavery.
The Underground Railroad owes "our" ability to engage with it as a literary topic to a wave of stories about Harriet Tubman, the engaging Underground Railroad Museum that opened in Cincinnati in 2012, and the popular Jim McBride novel Song Yet Sung Tracy Chevalier's The Last Runaway, andSue Monk Kidd's The Invention of Wings. White Allies with a penchant for magical realism will appreciate this last book, as well as "Song Yet Sung." If you liked Whitehead's second most popular novel The Intuitionist, Paul Beatty's White Boy Shuffle and Baratunde Thurston's How to be Black deal with similar themes with more of Whitehead's usual sardonic tone.
This book is perfectly pitched to be an Oprah’s choice, to form part of high school curriculums, or to be a freshman reading experience novel at the U of M. The violence is off stage or muted, the history is traceable, and it answers a question we grapple with today – what are the benefits and violence on all sides of interracial solidarity?
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Fabulous Fiction Firsts #624 “I've always wanted to play a spy, because it is the ultimate acting exercise. You are never what you seem.” ~ Benedict Cumberbatch
by muffy
Ascension, the first book in a new series by Gregory Dowling is set in 18th century Venice in the weeks leading up to the Feast of the Ascension.
Alvise Marango, having grown up in London, is back in Venice, the city of his birth, alone, barely making a living as a cicerone, if not for his command of the English language. Rescuing an unsuspecting Mr. Boscombe and his tutor Shackleford from some shady characters at the gondola landing, he is hired as guide as they continue their Grand Tour.
After a series of gruesome murders, with the latest being that of Shackleford, Mr. Boscombe is arrested, along with Marango as his accomplice. With a solid alibi and his intimate knowledge of Venetian history and politics, Marango impresses the authority enough to be recruited as a spy.
From the grandest palaces to its darkest alleys, he follows the trail of a missing book that might lead him to a secret society and its sinister plan to destroy the city on its most important and spectacular holiday. That is, if he manages to stay alive.
British author Gregory Dowling moved to Venice in 1981, where he teaches American Literature at Ca' Foscari University of Venice.
Readers partial to the setting and time period might also enjoy Beverle Graves Myers' Tito Amato series (many of them available for download), featuring an opera singer who is also a spy; and Jason Goodwin's The Bellini Card that takes Investigator Yashim of the Edgar Award-winning series to Venice.
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Fabulous Fiction Firsts #623
by muffy
In the same vein as fictional biographies such as Mrs. Poe by Lynn Cullen; The Paris Wife by Paula McLain; and Mrs. Engels by Gavin McCrea - in which intelligent women whose own aspirations and contribution were marginalized in favor of their spouses. Marie Benedict's debut gives us the story of Mileva Maric, a brilliant physicist and an extraordinarily gifted mathematician.
In 1896, before she was The Other Einstein, Mileva Maric´ was the only woman studying physics at Zurich Polytechnic and easily fell under the spell of a charismatic fellow student. Their courtship was kept secret not only due to the disapproval of the social-climbing Einsteins, but also for disappointing her father who held great hopes for her. An unplanned pregnancy, and failed qualifying exams sent Mileva home alone without any support from Albert.
When they eventually married, it was anything but the promises of being treated as an equal in both love and science. As a devoted mother of 2 boys, she was increasingly treated like a servant. The self-centered, womanizing Albert has no compunctions about deleting her name from papers they assiduously work on together, as a matter of fact, it has been hotly debated for over a century that Mileva might be the mastermind behind his 1905 groundbreaking ideas about relativity.
Benedict draws on many sources, especially letters from Albert, Mileva, and her friend Helene Kaufler, many of them now available at Princeton University's The Digital Einstein Papers Website. "Benedict insightfully portrays Mileva, Albert, and other European intellectuals of the time and dramatizes the difficulties a woman faced when attempting to enter that world. She also vividly captures the atmosphere, the cafes, the boardinghouse, and the customs of Mileva’s world, making for an engaging and thought-provoking fictional telling of the poignant story of an overshadowed woman scientist." (Booklist)
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Fabulous Fiction Firsts #622 “You're my star, a stargazer too, and I wish that I were Heaven, with a billion eyes to look at you!” ~ Plato
by muffy
Former research physicist Helen Sedgwick's The Comet Seekers * will transport readers to the magical world she creates as her protagonists grapple with the big issues of love, family, freedom, and loneliness. See a recent New York Times review.
Róisín, an Irish scientist and François, a French chef, meet at a research base in the frigid wilds of Antarctica in 2017, there to observe a comet. More than their expressed purpose, they both suffered devastating loss and share an indelible bond that stretches back centuries.
"Sedgwick tackles a centuries-spanning interconnected narrative by placing each chapter within the context of a comet’s appearance in the sky. The sections...that explore Róisín and Liam’s star-crossed romance are the standouts, both quietly moving and delicately portrayed. Uniquely structured and stylistically fascinating, the multilayered story comes full circle in a denouement that is both heartbreaking and satisfying." (Publishers Weekly)
Reminiscent of the works of Amy Bloom and Elizabeth Strout (Booklist) for their intimate stories of family drama; its setting and story line will appeal to fans of Midge Raymond's My Last Continent.
In The Blind Astronomer's Daughter * by John Pipkin, Caroline Ainsworth, accidental stargazer, is grief-stricken when her astronomer father Arthur, throws himself from his rooftop observatory. Having gone blind from decades of staring at the sun and driven mad by unremitting jealousy of William Herschel's discovery of Uranus, Arthur has chosen death.
Unable to remain in Ireland, Caroline heads to London, and reluctantly resumes her father's work, aided only by Arthur's cryptic atlas that might hold the secret to finding a new world at the edge of the sky; while leaving behind Finnegan O'Siodha, an extraordinary telescope-maker and the love of her life.
"This lyrical, philosophical book both frustrates and delights. Its focus on discovery is similar to that in Michael Byers’ Percival’s Planet, and Pipkin’s poetic language will remind readers of Dava Sobel’s essay collection, The Planets (2005). Herschel’s story is also fictionalized in Carrie Brown’s The Stargazer’s Sister (2016). (Booklist)
* = starred review
Blog Post
Must-reads for Stephen King fans or newcomers
by eapearce
End of Watch, Stephen King’s spectacular conclusion to the mystery trilogy that began with the Edgar Award Winning Mr. Mercedes, was released earlier this year, shooting to the top of the New York Times Bestseller List. King has revealed that he’s hard at work on his next book, titled Sleeping Beauties, which will be released sometime in 2017, but for King fans who don’t want to wait that long, it’s time to take a trip down memory lane and revisit some of his best earlier works.
Stephen King is one of the most versatile and prolific authors alive today. Although he is best known for his horror writing—stories like Carrie, Christine, Cujo, The Shining and It—are familiar to almost everyone, even if they haven’t read the books, he’s also written general fiction, science fiction and mysteries, including some under pen names. If you’re a long-time King fan looking to reread, or a first timer delving into the often twisted world of King’s work, the following titles will have you turning pages faster than you ever thought you could!:
The idea for 11/22/63 first came to King in the 1970s, but the book wasn’t published until 2011. It tells the riveting story of Jake Epping, a Maine schoolteacher who discovers a “time bubble” that transports him back to 1958. Convinced by his friend that he must attempt to stop the JFK assassination and thus alter the history of the world for the better, Jake embarks on a five-year quest to do just that. But, time is obdurate—as King emphasizes frequently in the book—and stopping the assassination is no easy feat. Part time travel adventure, part love story, part historical fiction, part thriller, 11/22/63 is the ultimate definition of a page turner.
Needful Things, one of King’s slightly lesser-known books, is set in Castle Rock, Maine, where several of his stories take place (The poor residents of Castle Rock have been through a lot). A new shop opens up in town, selling a wide variety of curiosities. In fact, anyone can go into the store and find whatever it is that their heart desires most. But buyer beware—although nothing in the store costs money, there’s a high price to pay for “purchasing” your deepest wants.
The Stand is one of King’s most epic works—the full version clocks in at 1153 pages. The riveting story opens with a patient who escapes from a biological testing facility unknowingly carrying a strain of super-flu that ultimately wipes out 99% of the world’s population in just a few weeks. The few that remain are terrified and in need of someone to lead them. The two leaders that do emerge are polar opposites: one an elderly woman who urges the survivors to create a peaceful community in the American West and the other the mysterious “Dark Man” who has evil intentions and delights in chaos. As both leaders begin to gather power, everyone left on earth will have to choose who follow—and that decision in turn will determine the fate of all of humanity. Although reading The Stand is no easy feat, if for nothing else than the sheer length of it, as the New York Times Book Review says, it has everything: “Adventure. Romance. Prophecy. Allegory. Satire. Fantasy. Realism. Apocalypse. Great!”
Blog Post
News of the World: an exquisite, morally challenging Western
by eapearce
News of the World, the brand new novel by Paulette Jiles, is a riveting, complex story of the Old West that features two unlikely characters. In the aftermath of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels across North Texas reading the news to paying audiences hungry for news of the end of the war and the world in general. He enjoys his itinerant, solitary existence, and is torn when he’s offered $50 in Wichita Falls to deliver a young orphan to her relatives in San Antonio. The ten-year-old girl was kidnapped by a band of Kiowa raiders when she was just four years old. Although they killed the rest of her family, they spared the little girl and raised her as one of their own. Now, being torn away from the only “family” she remembers and having forgotten the English language entirely, Joanna presents a unique challenge to Captain Kidd. As the two embark on a 400-mile journey south to San Antonio, the two lonely survivors—both used to only themselves for company—gradually develop trust in one another. And when they reach San Antonio and realize that the “relatives” Joanna is to be delivered to are a cruel aunt and uncle who want nothing to do with her, both the Captain and the young girl have a terrible choice to make.
News of the World is a beautifully written story that asks readers tough moral questions and goes far beyond the scope of a typical Western. This is a great read even for those who do not typically read historical fiction.
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #619 Spotlight on UK Mystery Debuts
by muffy
Referencing the New Testament parable, The Trouble with Goats and Sheep * by Joanna Cannon is set during the scorching summer of 1976 when 10 year-olds Grace and Tilly take it upon themselves to look for their neighbor, friendly Mrs. Creasy who disappears without a trace.
As the girls go door to door in search of clues (and God), the neighborhood starts to give up its secrets. "In a masterfully constructed plot, Grace—who sniffs out the lies told by her adult neighbors—learns a lesson about loyalty and true friendship, as secrets born of shame are gradually revealed. This understated, somewhat quirky debut novel is remarkable for its structure, characterizations, pitch-perfect prose, touches of humor, and humanity. Cannon, a psychiatrist, is an author to watch." (Booklist) Will appeal to fans of the Flavia de Luce series by Alan C. Bradley.
The House Between Tides by Sarah Maine, is an atmospheric psychological mystery set on Muirlan Island in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides, where Londoner Hetty Deveraux hopes to turn Muirlan House, inherited from a distant relative, into a luxury inn. The shocking discovery of the century-old remains of a murder victim plunges her into an investigation of Theo Blake, the acclaimed painter and his troubled marriage to Beatrice who vanished from the island in 1910.
"Maine skillfully balances a Daphne du Maurier atmosphere with a Barbara Vine–like psychological mystery as she guides the reader back and forth on these storylines... The setting emerges as the strongest personality in this compelling story, evoking passion in the characters as fierce as the storms which always lurk on the horizon." (Kirkus Reviews)
I Let You Go * * by Clare Mackintosh, "a twisty, psychological thriller with an astonishing intensity” ~ (U.K) Daily Mail opens with the hit-and-run death of 5 year-old Jacob on a rainy afternoon in Bristol. Shortly afterward, Jacob's mother disappears.
Wrecked with guilt, sculptor Jenna Gray relocates to the isolated Welsh village of Penfach. Back in Bristol, Det. Insp. Ray Stevens and detective constable, Kate Evans are frustrated with the lack of results in their investigations but push on despite official orders. Their persistent efforts eventually pay off.
"Mackintosh, a former police detective and journalist, weaves a complex tale out of seemingly straightforward circumstances." (Publishers Weekly). "But her real skill is in the way she incorporates jaw-dropping, yet plausible, plot twists into the already complex story-line." (Kirkus Reviews). A new author to watch for fans of Tana French, Paula Hawkins, S.J. Watson and A.S.A. Harrison. I particularly enjoyed the audio format, beautifully read by Nicola Barber and Steven Crossley.
* = starred review
* * = 2 starred reviews
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #617
by muffy
Mischling * * * by Affinity Konar is at once horrific and brimming with life and hope, even with humor in the most unexpected of places.
Brown-eyed and fair-haired, 12 year-old twins Pearl and Stasha Zagorski were often mistaken for "mischling" (mixed-blood, persons deemed to have both Aryan and Jewish ancestry) according to the Nuremberg Laws.
Arriving at Auschwitz with their mother and grandfather in the fall of 1944, they were immediately plucked for the experimental population of twins known as Mengele's Zoo. While Stasha was, bold, impulsive, and given to storytelling; Pearl was more restrained and observant. Narrating in alternative chapters, the twins realized early on to survive, they would have to "divide the responsibilities of living between (them) - Stasha would take the funny, the future, the bad, (Pearl) would take the sad, the past, the good". Little did they know how that would become their destiny.
When Pearl disappeared during a winter concert orchestrated by Mengele, Stasha grieved for her twin, but remained hopeful that Pearl lived. As the camp was liberated by the Red Army, Stasha escaped the death march with Feliks, a boy bent on vengeance for his own lost twin. Together, they endured starvation and unspeakable war devastation, encountered hostile villagers, Jewish and resistance fighters, sustained only by the hope that Mengele might be captured and brought to justice.
Readalikes: Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly, and All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.
* * * = 3 starred reviews