Happy 2024!
Wishing you a happy, healthy year of good reading.
Wow! Lucky me! I couldn’t even fit all my Christmas books on the table. Thank you, Chris!
Snow is falling this very minute, so the next day or two will be perfect for staying inside with a big pot of Russian cabbage soup, warm kitties, and new books to read. I planned ahead.
The new year is ushering in my FIRST totally new blog. Other blogs were imported from an earlier web site. Now that my host is Square Space, I can mostly manage the site myself, thanks to Kristine Larsen, the patient, wise, and probably worn out mentor. Let me know (use CONTACT button) if you’d like to consult her.
Now relax and enjoy. Pull up a cozy reading chair, pour your favorite beverage. I won’t tell if you indulge in cookies, too. Please sample my reviews of a few favorite books I read in 2023. I hope you’ll be intrigued enough to read them. I have many more reviews where these came from so please drop by to read more.
Books expand your world, take you back to the past, help you imagine magical futures, let you discover what matters most to you.
***** Reviews from Alarie
Poet Warrior: A Memoir – by Joy Harjo
Two hundred years before my birth, a Native American joined my family. She was largely myth and wishfulness with no name or tribe passed along, but we could see her trace in our faces. Then, thanks to some genealogical research and DNA testing, I found out the rumors were true. Although I carry a very small fraction of her DNA, I’ve begun suspecting that the women in her line have passed along to their daughters a tendency to have colorful, often frightening, and sometimes clairvoyant dreams. Hence, I was soon caught up in Harjo’s accounts about dreams, messages, and the history and beliefs of her people. Some of them were Cherokee like my own.
I’ve enjoyed reading a lot of indigenous poetry, but this collection that merges poems with Harjo’s memoir was more impactful than an earlier book of hers that I read.
Here are a few early passages from poems, from a section titled “Ancestral Roots,” that captivated me.
“….Because you are Girl Warrior you have chosen
A path of many tests. You will learn how to make
Right decisions by making wrong ones.
Those whom you love most will abandon you.
You will find yourself again…”
In a later poem, the Old Ones speak to Girl Warrior.
“....We are sending you, they said,
To learn how to listen.
There is good in this world.
There is evil.
There is no story without one and the other.
You will be gravity.
You will be feather….”
Of course I love the title of the book. I think most poets probably feel a bit like warriors.
Bird Brain – by Guy Kennaway
This book is a wee bit murder mystery, though we know who dunnit from the outset. Mostly, it’s one of the funniest novels I’ve read. It will appeal in particular to dog lovers, since the dogs are in many ways smarter than their owners. There are parts where I think the book drags a bit, but for great originality, laugh aloud moments, and the satisfaction of both bad guys and good guys getting their due, this is an entertaining book.
V Is for Victory – by Lissa Evans
I’ve greatly enjoyed all four novels by Lissa Evans that I’ve read since last July. My only complaint is that she can’t possibly write quickly enough to meet my desire for more. Three of the four books are connected by some overlap of characters and memory. I just happened to read them in the correct order for plotting: Old Baggage (set between the World Wars), Crooked Heart, then V for Victory. The last two are set in WWII. If you’ve read one of the later ones first, it shouldn’t matter. Evans knows how to engage readers and give us a few reminders of the people she mentions without boring us. (The fourth book, Their Finest, (another WWII story, has been made into a movie and was a successful adaptation. It’s independent of the other three books.
I’ve read a lot of WWII novels, and I always learn something new about the circumstances of the times. Both my parents served in that war, which makes me even more interested. My father was even stationed in England. I like how Evans captures the hardships, especially those faced in London during the Blitz, yet keeps the warm human interest stories moving, too. Staging much of the background story in a boarding house is a great way to bring in a varied group of people, all misfits in some way, and see how they come to appreciate each other. There’s a lot of warmth, humanity, and wry humor to keep us engaged through the rougher moments.
Everything Comes Next (Collected and New Poems) – by Naomi Shihab Nye
It took me 10 days to read and delight in these poems after hearing Nye again at a poetry reading here in Kansas City. I took my time to savor and reread favorites. Few authors engage me quite as much as she. For one thing, I owe her a debt. Around 20 years ago, I took her poetry workshop. I so enjoyed it, and was amazed how she could inspire me to write a poem I actually liked in 15-20 minutes. It still took another 5 or 6 poets to convince me I should proudly claim my title and send off my writing. But it wasn’t just her love of teaching that inspired me, it was her worldview and bubbly enthusiasm. You really don’t hear a lot of that in most poet’s books. Even though her own life and family suffered as a result of the Middle East turmoil, which she does discuss with a remarkably balanced point of view, she is warm and joyful, even more so since becoming a grandmother. Many of her most charming poems are about young children. She read a delightful found poem, a compilation of her five-year-old grandson’s comments during a museum tour. When I got home and raved on Facebook, I learned that most of the poets I know have taken her workshops. What a legacy that is!
As for the book, the cheerful, fanciful cover captures the mood. Nye’s hand is holding a pencil that sprouts a small bouquet of different flowers. Perfect! With over 200 poems, most highlighted in some way, I really can’t cite many examples for you. I’ll give you a few excerpts later, but first I want to highlight “Slim Thoughts,” an afterword of only 4 pages that is more effective than many a book about writing poetry, complete with a good list of idea starters.
For years, my favorite Nye poem has been “Wedding Cake,” about the baby girl dressed like guess what, who was left in her lap on a plane while the mom freshened up. We all want that baby on our lap, just as Nye admits, “I did not want / to give her back.” That’s the great thing about blending new and collected poems, you keep bumping into old friends.
Aside from the insight and positivism of her poems, it’s the metaphors that most excite me. Her writing is wonderfully vivid and surprising. You don’t have to wait for huge moments if you have Nye’s tool kit.
Here are a few sections that wowed me.
Remember, I call her a joyful poet, but she is not a Pollyanna. From “The House Made of Rain”:
"In my house tears welled up from underground pools,
shadowy streams we rode from room to room,
paddling….
A girl in my class said she had never
seen her parents sad. I wanted to drown in her life.”
And sometimes you just have to laugh – from “So There.”
“Because I would not let one four-year-old son
eat frosted mini-wheat cereal
fifteen minutes before supper
he wrote a giant note
and held it up
LOVE HAS FAILED”
How’s this for a leap of imagination? From “Famous,”
“I want to be famous
in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole,
not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.”
And to leave you with a laugh, there’s this, from “The Art of Disappearing.”
“When they say, Don’t I know you?
say no.
When they invite you to the party,
remember what parties are like
before answering.
Someone telling you in a loud voice
they once wrote a poem.
Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.
Then reply….”