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Fabulous Fiction Firsts #618 “All Americans have something lonely about them. I don't know what the reason might be, except maybe that they're all descended from immigrants.” ~ Ryū Murakami
by muffy
Two of the most anticipated debuts this fall take readers deep into the lives of immigrant families.
The Wangs vs. the World * by Jade Chang follows an Chinese-American family as it tumbles from riches to rags. Charles Wang landed in LA as a young man penniless but managed to make a fortune in cosmetics. Now in his fifties, a series of rash business choices and the 2008 financial crisis bankrupted him. Homeless (his Bel-Air mansion foreclosed) and unable to pay tuition for his younger kids, he packs up what he could in the 1950 baby-blue Mercedes that used to belong to his dead first wife, rounds up the kids and a disgruntled second wife Barbra and heads for upstate New York - to daughter Saina's renovated farmhouse.
Unbeknownst to his family, Charles has no intention of settling in the middle of nowhere. His plans is to deposit his family on Saina, and heads to China to reclaim his ancestral lands (and his dignity), lost in the communist takeover. "It turns out that the Wangs can’t function without the trappings of their now-lost lavish lifestyle, a situation that gives the road trip a decidedly wacky bent and infuses the novel with humor. " (Booklist) With each bump on the road, the Wangs might eventually come to see what matters when you think you've lost it all; and what it means to be a family.
Ann Arbor author and a O. Henry Prize winner Derek Palacio's debut The Mortifications *
is praised by Peter Ho Davies as "(a) revelatory tale of Cuba and America, of faith and family, of the spirit and the flesh,... a debut remarkable for its wise and scrupulous insight into the human heart. Palacio feelingly reminds us that all immigrants are also exiles, wounded with loss, striving to make a home even as they yearn for the one they’ve left behind.”
During the 1980 traumatic Mariel Boatlift, Soledad Encarnación took twins Isabel and Ulises and fled to the US, leaving behind husband/father Uxbal, a committed revolutionary, for the promise of a better life. Settling in Hartford, Connecticut, far from the Miami Cuban immigrant community, they began a process of growth and transformation.
While Soledad establishes herself as a court stenographer and finds romance with Henri Willems, a Dutch horticulturalist eager to cultivate Cuban tobacco; Isabel, spiritually hungry and desperate for higher purpose, becomes a nun and works with the dying; Ulises, bookish and awkwardly tall, like his father, finds an aptitude working the soil. When Soladad is stricken with breast cancer, she asks Ulises to find Isabel who has disappeared, thus setting the stage of their homecoming where Uxbal awaits.
"Palacio’s writing is deceptively simple and startlingly original, and his characters, raw, almost mythic in scope, hang on long after the last page....Searching, heartbreaking, and achingly beautiful, the novel is as intimate as it is sweeping." (Kirkus Reviews)
* = starred review
Blog Post
An Encounter with the Elegant and Sensitive Verse of Misuzu Kaneko
by mansii
Early 20th century Japanese poet Misuzu Kaneko inspires wonder and compassion in her writing. Her poems ask questions close to the heart of a child, and step into the slippers of things as plain as the snow under our shoes. The tale of her short life is clouded by hardship, but her poetry brims with a celebration of being alive.
"Snow on top
must feel chilly,
the cold moonlight piercing it.
Snow on the bottom
must feel burdened
by the hundred who tread on it.
Snow in the middle
must feel lonely
with neither earth nor sky to look at."
For the first time, Kaneko's poetry is being made available in North America by a team of translators and journalists passionate about sharing her legacy with the world. Kaneko's work is highly respected in Japan, being standard material in literature classes, and now English speakers have the opportunity to see what is so special about her in the book Are You An Echo?: The Lost Poetry of Misuzu Kaneko.
Written at a child's level, this book narrates Kaneko's life story while presenting a whole collection of her poems in translation, with the original Japanese verse alongside. Besides providing an encounter with this lovely woman of words specifically, Are You An Echo? subtly teaches children how to understand and appreciate poetry in general. This is personally one of my favorite publications of the year.
Blog Post
Short stories from Jojo Moyes: Paris For One
by eapearce
New York Times bestselling author Jojo Moyes, who penned Me Before You and After You, has just published her first short story collection, entitled Paris For One. Fans of Moyes’ charming, irresistible voice won’t want to miss it! In the title story, twenty-six-year-old Nell has never had a romantic getaway anywhere before, let alone to Paris. She’s eagerly anticipating traveling to the City of Love with her boyfriend… but when he doesn’t show up for their vacation she’s forced to make a decision. Should she return home and hole up in bed for the remainder of her time off, or stay alone in the city and prove everyone—including herself—wrong about her ability to be independent and adventurous?
Readers will be happy with the option that she chooses, and will enjoy equally the other eight stories that comprise this collection. In “Love in the Afternoon,” a sexually frustrated man tries to get his wife in the mood by suggesting that they watch “Snakes on a Plane” together. In “A Bird in Hand,” a woman is made even more uncomfortable at a stiff dinner party when she is seated next to a man with whom she had an affair with years before. Overall, the stories tell of transformations and realizations, and remind us all that nobody has it perfect, but we can make do very well with gratitude for what we do have.
Along with Paris For One, Me Before You and After You, Moyes is the author of One Plus One, The Girl You Left Behind, The Ship of Brides, and Silver Bay.
Blog Post
Bedtime Sleepy Style Stories
by manz
This week at storytime Ms. Amanda told some fun bedtime tales! Not ones to make us fall asleep, but ones that involved bedtime rituals and other such fun.
First we met a little chicken who had the habit of interrupting bedtime stories her dad tried to tell her in Interrupting Chicken. This tale includes other favorite stories like Little Red Riding Hood and Little Red Hen, so it reads as stories within a story.
We then met a scaredy cat cowboy in Let’s Sing a Lullaby with the Brave Cowboy as he met up with some shadowy figures as he tried to sing a lullaby. It’s such a cute book! Written by author Jan Thomas, who is a preschool crowd favorite.
And we finished ‘er off with Beep Beep Go to Sleep, where a little boy was trying to get little robots to go to sleep, be he kept hearing the beep beep of the little bots who were stalling.
Blog Post
Fleetwood Mac: the interviews
by eapearce
Fleetwood Mac fans will be delighted with the brand new book Fleetwood Mac on Fleetwood Mac: Interviews and Encounters. The book, edited by Sean Egan, compiles over 40 years of interviews with the band members and stories of their lives. Many of these interviews come from rock magazines of the band’s heyday, like Creem, NME and Mojo, but some have never been published before. Band members Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie and Lindsay Buckingham have always been remarkably candid in the interviews that they give, about themselves and the band as a whole, so this compilation offers a truly in depth look into the lives of each one and the role they played in the creation of Fleetwood Mac’s music and persona. There are 40 total pieces in the book, arranged chronologically, and they span 1967 to 2014, although are certainly focused on the 1970s and 1980s. Egan opens each piece with a helpful paragraph setting the scene for the interview, but from then on the stories are completely unedited, even for corrections (although Egan points them out for readers). Fans of the band will love hearing the dramatic ups and downs of the quintet in their own words, and even casual listeners or fans of just Stevie Nicks will enjoy picking up this book and browsing through.
Not familiar with Fleetwood Mac? Get started with some of their music here!
Blog Post
A Child of Books
by manz
I am a child of books. I come from a world of stories and upon my imagination I float.
That is the first line in a beautiful new picture book, A Child of Books, written by Oliver Jeffers, with Jeffers collaborating with Sam Winston on the illustrations, which are done in watercolor, pencil, and digital collage.
Amid the words that tell the “story” are more words typed and piled up in shapes such as a wave, a mountain, a tunnel, a tree, and a monster. Also in the tiny words are nods to children’s classics – Little Red Riding Hood, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Gulliver’s Travels, and many more.
The book encourages readers to explore and imagine through books and reading, which can take you so many places on so many journeys! It’s a quiet thinker of a book, and will also be adored by adult audiences who enjoy these types of picture books, and who love books and children’s literature. The cool kids' books aren’t just for kids!
Definitely look at the catalog page for this book to check out a preview of the book just at it appears.
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
Blog Post
Sashiko Embroidery
by manz
Modern Sashiko embroidery is often used to embellish clothing or is found on decorative pieces such as wall hangings and pillows. The white thread on dark blue fabric pops and looks ever so elegant.
If you’re curious about the Japanese style of embroidery known as Sashiko, then the books on this public list will further inspire you.
You don’t need to use Sashiko needles or thread if you don’t want to. I’ve found that supplies I have on hand, like embroidery floss and an embroidery needle, will work just fine and produces an effect I’m happy with! If you’re looking for a new craft to get you through winter, this might be it.
Blog Post
New Interactive Kids’ Books
by evelyn
We’ve just received two great interactive books for kids! Storyworlds: Nature will help your little ones tell their own stories. Who Wins? pits historical figures against each other in a text that is as much game as it is book.
Created by Thomas Hegbrook, Storyworlds: Nature, is a wordless book full of gorgeous illustrations of animals in the natural world. The pictures are lovely and related to one another only by layout and color. The multiple panels on each page feature animals moving through time in a single image. In one, an anglerfish is shown luring small fish with her light; in another, a kangaroo joey hops into his mama’s pouch and away they go! The book is designed so that children will be inspired to tell their own stories of what they think the images shows. At the end of the book, text describes what the animals are actually doing in each picture, so children curious to know the science behind the images won’t be disappointed. If your kids like this one, check out one of our other great wordless picture books!
What Who Wins?: 100 Historical Figures go Head to Head and You Decide the Winner! lacks in a snappy title, it makes up for with clever design. By Clay Swartz, with bright, cartoony illustrations by Tom Booth, this book is spiral bound and separated into three independently moving sections. The outer sections feature historical figures, complete with a brief biography, little-known facts, and a ranking of the following characteristics: wealth, fitness, wisdom, bravery, artistry, leadership and intelligence. The middle section has a variety of challenges, including the Indy 500, solving world hunger, and pulling off a bank heist. Moving the three sections results in two historical figures competing to win the challenge. Kids can use logic and biographical information to puzzle out who they think would triumph. This is a great and innovative way for kids to learn about historical figures. For other lovely biographies, take a look here!
Blog Post
Fabulous Fiction Firsts #616
by muffy
The buzz around Brit(tany) Bennett's debut The Mothers * * * is hard to ignore. Vogue and The Washington Post are not alone in their over-the-moon praises, so richly deserved.
A wise and sad coming-of-age story set largely in Oceanside, CA, it is about the tangled destinies of three teens growing up in a tight-knit African-American community. 17 year-old Nadia Turner, smart, pretty, and ambitious is getting out - with a full ride to Michigan, away from her silent father, and away from the grief of losing her mother to suicide; but not before she realizes she is pregnant by the pastor's son, Luke. Her decision to abort creates a web of secrets that will haunt them for decades to come.
Years later when Nadia, now a successful attorney returns home to care for her ailing father, her reunion with Luke threatens his marriage to Aubrey, Nadia's childhood friend as well as the peace of their church community.
Narrated by Nadia and a Greek chorus of gossipy 'Mothers' from the local Upper Room Chapel, who "(f)ar from reliably offering love, protection, and care,...cause all the trouble." (Kirkus Reviews)
"There’s much blame to go around, and Bennett distributes it equally. But she also shows an extraordinary compassion for her flawed characters." (Publishers Weekly).
Brit Bennett (Stanford; MFA University of Michigan), winner of a Hopwood Award as well as the 2014 Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers, will be at Literati Bookstore at 7 pm on Monday, October 17, 2016 for a reading. Get there early.
* * * = 3 starred reviews