KELLY MICHELLE BAKER
  • About
  • Books
  • Fan Art
  • Artwork
  • Ecology
  • Blog
  • Contact

Blog

Books 2022

1/6/2023

0 Comments

 
Favorites:
  1. Fuzz by Mary Roach. Fuzz is an entertaining primer in human-wildlife conflict. Hell, I'm in that field and learned a lot (mostly concerning wildlife outside of North America). Some of her claims needed more context, especially for nonlethal tools and methods. As a certified tree-hugger, I prefer nonlethal against all mitigation strategies, especially inhumane trapping and poisoning. However, Roach's claim that "lethal removal doesn't work" is, regrettably, not true in all cases (at least in the short term). Lethal removal can be an effective method in curtailing damage, but that's not an endorsement. We must continue to improve Best Management Practices and redefine humaneness, and Roach is certainly an advocate for both.
  2. Diary of a Misfit by Casey Parks. Two biographies in one! On the day she comes out to her family, Casey's grandmother pulls her aside and says she knew "a woman who lived as a man" back in the 50s/60s. Casey navigates her sexuality through a strict, evangelical upbringing in rural Louisiana. At the same time, she investigates dairies, newspapers, and interviews friends who knew Roy--a man who never quite had the language to describe his identity. Props to this Portland-based author! 
  3. Playing with Myself by Randy Rainbow. I laughed, I cried, I almost overcame my aversion to high heels.
  4. Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton. Exactly the kind of book I want to write, but I'll settle for reading the works of far more capable authors. Perfection. The sequel is great too.
  5. Shout Your Abortion by Amelia Bonow et al. SYA seeks to normalize abortion by letting women/people with uteruses tell their own stories. Effective and moving.
  6. Watership Down by Richard Adams. I reread this old favorite on my trip to England. Holds up.
  7. Art and Fear by David Bayles. I regret not having my own copy. There are many, many sections worth highlighting.
  8. Rosewater by Tade Thompson. Aliens land in Nigeria, a select few humans are capable of heightened communication (sort of like internet installed in the brain), and the dead are mysteriously resurrected once a year. That’s just a dollop of this rich and ever-twisting world. Sequels are great too.
  9. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi. The was the first book I loved that didn’t star anthropomorphized animals. Still great 25 years later.
  10. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. I can’t remember the fine line between synopsis and spoiler. You’re just going to have to trust that it’s great. 
  11. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. How did this classic escape me for so long??
Skip:
  1. Dopamine by Anna Lembke. Lembke's thesis: Mental illness and/or neurodivergence can be "cured" with good ol' will power. Kids today; too many participation trophies made them soft and squishy. Now they can't handle an iota of mental or physical pain, turning to pills and weed for relief. SSRIs are bad. Stimulants for ADHD patients are bad. Just stop it, folks. You can do it. The takeaway: Yes, over prescription of medication exists, as does abuse of stimulants and alternative drugs. But only once does the author champion medication as necessary treatment for millions and millions of patients. Her attitude towards young people is condescending and some of her comments on sexuality and expression lean towards puritanical.
  2. Red Notice by Bill Browder. Fascinating story, but I wish someone else had written it. Browder is self-aggrandizing and lauds his heroic motives from the start of his career. Dude, you were in it for the money when you got into this business. The conscience came later. Second, he describes women as either super sexy or dog-ugly/cold/wears-too-much-makeup, depending on where they fall on his moral spectrum.
Complete List
Rosewater (The Wormwood Trilogy, #1)
Tade Thompson

Homegoing
Yaa Gyasi

Death of a Showman (Jane Prescott #4)
Mariah Fredericks

My Policeman
Bethan Roberts

In the Garden of Spite
Camilla  Bruce

The Rosewater Insurrection (The Wormwood Trilogy, #2)
Tade Thompson

Rock Paper Scissors
Alice Feeney

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, #1)
Becky  Chambers

Murder on the Orient Express (Hercule Poirot, #9)
Agatha Christie

Wishful Drinking
Carrie Fisher

A Conjuring of Light (Shades of Magic, #3)
V.E. Schwab

The Princess Diarist
Carrie Fisher

The Rosewater Redemption (The Wormwood Trilogy, #3)
Tade Thompson

The Nightingale
Kristin Hannah

Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law
Mary Roach

Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas
Natasha Dow Schüll

Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence
Anna Lembke

Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation
Anne Helen Petersen

I Could Have Sung All Night: My Story
Marni Nixon

The Push
Ashley Audrain

Truth of the Divine (Noumena, #2)
Lindsay  Ellis

Playing with Myself
Randy Rainbow

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou's Autobiography, #1)
Maya Angelou

Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town
Jon Krakauer

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Betty  Smith

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games, #0)
Suzanne Collins

Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Ibram X. Kendi

The Office BFFs: Tales of The Office from Two Best Friends Who Were There
Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey

Hollow Kingdom (Hollow Kingdom, #1)
Kira Jane Buxton

Shout Your Abortion
Amelia Bonow

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Tales of Terror
Robert Louis Stevenson

Feral Creatures (Hollow Kingdom, #2)
Kira Jane Buxton

Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle
Fiona Carnarvon

Lady Catherine, the Earl, and the Real Downton Abbey
Fiona Carnarvon

Watership Down (Watership Down, #1)
Richard  Adams

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
Avi

Once There Were Wolves
Charlotte McConaghy

Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot
Mikki Kendall

I'm Glad My Mom Died
Jennette McCurdy

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
Carl Sagan

Iron Widow (Iron Widow, #1)
Xiran Jay Zhao

Project Hail Mary
Andy Weir

Women Talking
Miriam Toews

Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking
David Bayles

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Taylor Jenkins Reid

How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question
Michael Schur

Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World
Barry  Lopez

Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice
Bill Browder

Migrations
Charlotte McConaghy

My Heart Is a Chainsaw (The Lake Witch Trilogy, #1)
Stephen Graham Jones

Diary of a Misfit: A Memoir and a Mystery
Casey Parks

All Things Aside: Absolutely Correct Opinions
​Iliza Shlesinger
0 Comments

Books 2021

1/8/2022

2 Comments

 

Favorite Fiction:

Axiom’s End. I have a Lindsay Ellis bias, but it’s genuinely clever and well-written scifi.

A Death of No Importance. The first in a series, a Death of No Importance is an all-American Downton Abbey….with murder!
​

Favorite Non-fiction:

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Title says all.

Early Riser. Jasper Fforde imagines an alternate universe where humans hibernate. Early Riser had unforgettably nuggets in its world-building (i.e. the titular characters of Romeo and Juliet failed to fatten up for winter and perished).

Shit, Actually: The Definitive, 100% Objective Guide to Modern Cinema. Like anything by Lindy West, it’s best enjoyed via audio. Yes, she rips Twilight a new one. Yes, I’m still laughing at Twilight.  

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family. The Galvins have twelve children, six with schizophrenia and decades before it was properly recognized in the medical field. Fun fact: Hidden Valley Road is in my parents’ neighborhood.  

The Less People Know About Us: A Mystery of Betrayal, Family Secrets, and Stolen Identity. You can hear the short version of this book on the Criminal Podcast. Obviously, the book dives deeper into the psychology and familial destruction surrounding identity theft.

Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite. My absolute favorite of 2021.

The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World—And Us. Title says all. Ends with a few chapters on anthropological mate choice and how it might frame human sexuality. 



ALL BOOKS:

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Diamond, Jared

Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Jazz Chickens
Izzard, Eddie

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
Cho, Nam-Joo

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
Carreyrou, John

Trust: America's Best Chance
Buttigieg, Pete

The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth’s Past #1)
Liu, Cixin *

Their Eyes Were Watching God
Hurston, Zora Neale

A Promised Land
Obama, Barack *

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
Criado Pérez, Caroline

Axiom's End (Noumena, #1)
Ellis, Lindsay *

A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor (The Carls, #2)
Green, Hank *

When No One is Watching
Cole, Alyssa *

Harrow the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #2)
Muir, Tamsyn *

And Now She's Gone
Hall, Rachel Howzell *

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays
Chee, Alexander *

The Last Town on Earth
Mullen, Thomas *

Battle Angel Alita, Vol. 1
Kishiro, Yukito

One by One
Ware, Ruth *

The City We Became (Great Cities #1)
Jemisin, N.K. *

A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic, #1)
Schwab, V.E.

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia
Hamid, Mohsin

Early Riser
Fforde, Jasper *

Shit, Actually: The Definitive, 100% Objective Guide to Modern Cinema
West, Lindy

Handbook of Bird Biology
Ornithology, Cornell Laboratory

The Less People Know About Us: A Mystery of Betrayal, Family Secrets, and Stolen Identity
Betz-Hamilton, Axton

The Best School Year Ever (The Herdmans #2)
Robinson, Barbara

The Song of Achilles
Miller, Madeline *

Nine Perfect Strangers
Moriarty, Liane *

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family
Kolker, Robert *

The Witches Are Coming
West, Lindy

A Gathering of Shadows (Shades of Magic, #2)
Schwab, V.E.

Whose Names Are Unknown
Babb, Sanora

The Thirty Names of Night
Joukhadar, Zeyn *

Ruthie Fear
Loskutoff, Maxim *

Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite
Kim, Suki *

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?
Kaling, Mindy *

Men Who Hate Women - From Incels to Pickup Artists: The Truth about Extreme Misogyny and How It Affects Us All
Bates, Laura *

Somebody's Daughter
Ford, Ashley C. *

The Golden Compass Graphic Novel, Volume 1
Melchior-Durand, Stéphane

Mars and Mayhem
Hasling, K.M. *

The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time
Weiner, Jonathan

The Overstory
Powers, Richard

The Only Good Indians
Jones, Stephen Graham *

World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments
Nezhukumatathil, Aimee *

The Golden Compass Graphic Novel, Volume 2
Melchior-Durand, Stéphane

Birds Art Life: A Year of Observation
Maclear, Kyo *

The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World—And Us
Prum, Richard O.

Passing
Larsen, Nella

Apples Never Fall
Moriarty, Liane *

Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life
Miller, Lulu

How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
Smith, Clint *

A Death of No Importance (Jane Prescott, #1)
Fredericks, Mariah *

Eulalia! (Redwall, #19)
Jacques, Brian

Death of a New American (Jane Prescott, #2)
Fredericks, Mariah *

Death of an American Beauty (Jane Prescott, #3)
Fredericks, Mariah *

 

2 Comments

BOOKS 2020

12/30/2020

0 Comments

 
  1. Red at the Bone—Jacqueline Woodson
  2. Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theories and Their Surprising Rise to Powers—Anna Merlan
  3. Scream of the White Bear—David Clement-Davies
  4. Fall Back Down When I Die—Joe Wilkins
  5. Doomwyte—Brian Jacques
  6. The Library Book—Susan Orlean
  7. The Testaments—Margaret Atwood
  8. Good Omens—Terry Pratcheet and Neil Gaiman
  9. Round Ireland with a Fridge—Tony Hawks
  10. Under the Banner of Heaven—Jon Krakauer
  11. The Kiss Quotient—Helen Hoang
  12. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck—Mark Manson
  13. How to Change Your Mind—Michael Pollan
  14. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark—Michelle McNamara
  15. The Bluest Eye—Toni Morrison
  16. The Mysterious Affair at Styles—Agatha Christie
  17. Mildred Pierce—James Cain
  18. She Said—Jodi Kantor
  19. White Fragility—Robin DiAngelo
  20. The Courage to be Disliked—Ichiro Kishimi
  21. The Plague—Albert Camus
  22. I’m Still Alive—Kate Alice Marshall
  23. Dubliners—James Joyce
  24. Such a Fun Age—Kiley Reid
  25. Atomic Habits—James Clear
  26. All Systems Red—Martha Wells
  27. Everything I Never Told You—Celeste Ng
  28. Religion for Atheists—Alain de Botton
  29. Decisive—Heath Chip
  30. All My Puny Sorrows—Miriam Towes
  31. The Fifth Season—NK Jemison
  32. This is Your Brain on Music—Daniel Levitin
  33. The Obelisk Gate-NK Jemison
  34. Blowout—Rachel Maddow
  35. The Stone Sky—NK Jemison
  36. Born a Crime—Trevor Noah
  37. Devil in the White City—Erik Larson
  38. It Didn’t Start With You—Mark Wolynn
  39. Shrill: Notes from a Load Woman
  40. Unfollow—Megan Phelps-Roper
  41. Dear Girls—Ali Wong
  42. Priestdaddy—Patricia Lockwood
  43. Wildlife Damage Management—Russel Reidinger
  44. In the Garden of Beasts—Erik Larson
  45. The Hidden Life of Trees—Peter Wohlleben
  46. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest—Ken Kesey
  47. Blonde Roots—Bernardine Evaristo
  48. I Have Something to Tell You—Chasten Buttigieg
  49. How Long ‘Til Black Future Month?—NK Jemison
  50. Rebecca—Daphne du Maurier
  51. Leave the World Behind—Rumaan Alam
  52. The Umbrella Academy, Volume I—Gerard Way
  53. Shortest Way Home—Pete Buttigieg
  54. Beloved—Tony Morrison
  55. Gideon the Ninth—Tamsyn Muir
  56. The Seven and a Half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle—Stuart Turton
  57. Memorial—Bryan Washington
  58. Anxious People—Fredrik Bachman
  59. On Immunity—Eula Biss
  60. The Searcher—Tana French
  61. Teaching a Stone to Talk—Dillard Annie
  62. Your Money or Your Life—Vicki Robin
  63. The Cousins—Karen MCManus
  64. Rakkety Tam—Brian Jacques
 
Favorites
  1. The Library Book. This is simply a biography of one library. That sounds dry but it’s a journey, I assure you!
  2. Mildred Pierce. I love every adaptation of this story. I can finally confirm that the source material is great too!
  3. The Fifth Season. Earth bending meets the apocalypse. This and its sequels are the best works of fantasy I’ve read in years.
  4. Born a Crime. A personal account of growing up mixed-race in South Africa during apartheid.
  5. Shrill: Notes from a Load Woman. Funny and thought-provoking.
  6. Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westburo Baptist Church. Title says all.
  7. Devil in the White City and In the Garden of Beasts, both by Erik Larson. Both true, both terrifying.
  8. The Seven and a Half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. Imagine Doctor Who getting stuck in an Agatha Christie novel!!
  9. On Immunity. A suddenly prescient primer in inoculation. 
 
Disappointments
  1. The Kiss Quotient. So…… I thought this was going to be about a woman struggling with mental illness and/or disability as she tries to form relationships, similar to Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (which I enjoyed). And it’s exactly that…..but a romance novel. It wasn’t for me. 
  2. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. I tried to read more in the psychological field. This book capitalizes on the F word without much substance.
  3. It Didn’t Start With You. Too often this felt like one of those reality shows where a "psychic" speaks to the dead and unearths covert family stories to impress the viewer. The author overwhelmingly relies on anecdotal evidence to back up his thesis of inherited trauma. Inherited trauma may be a real phenomenon and play a role in treating mental health afflictions. But the lack of peer reviewed publications set off my pseudoscience alarm-bells. The author excessively points to events in the lives of great-great grandparents to explain the insomnia, anxiety, and even suicidal behavior of his patients, where there likely are far more direct issues at play. Surely he's aware of them as a therapist. But their omission in the narrative implies that stress behaviors can be solely blamed on an ancestor with a tragic backstory--a foolhardy and dangerous assertion. Yes, mental health issues can be inherited (ODC, depression, etc). But events? If inherited family trauma is truly a part of gene expression, and is potent enough to manifest over multiple generations, show me the data, not just stories. 
  4. The Hidden Life of Trees. "The Hidden Life of Trees" takes complex biological concepts and puts them in layman's terms. This would be great if the terms didn't range from misleading to false. The author repeatedly disobeys a cardinal rule of science: calling supportive data "proof" and making wayward conclusions. "Tree canopies don't overlap each other. This shows that trees are friends." "Trees send each other chemical signals. Therefore they have olfactory systems." No and no. Not since "It Didn't Start with You" (which relied on anecdotal evidence) has a book so actively pissed me off. Tree ecology and the networks they use to communicate is a fascinating science. The author's personifications and verdicts insult his references and the science itself. Pseudoscience is a plague on credible, hard earned data. There is a way to explain tree relationships without calling them "friends who can smell each other." No, I don't think misleading conclusions about trees are going to harm the average reader. Deceit wasn't the authorial intent. But those seeking to learn about root networks should start with a Google Scholar search before reading these failed oversimplifications.
  5. Rebecca. This book is fabulous, and was an ending away from making the favorite list. Without giving too much away, I’m frustrated in the same vein as I am with Jane Eyre. 
0 Comments

Books 2019

12/25/2019

0 Comments

 
 Asterisks denote rereads
 
Favorites: *His Dark Materials, The Chaperone, The House of Spirits, Where the Crawdads Sing, Story of Your Life and Others, Becoming, *The Goldfinch, Educated, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Amity and Prosperity

  1. *The Golden Compass—Phillip Pullman
  2. *The Subtle Knife—Phillip Pullman
  3. The Marriage Plot—Jeffrey Eugenides
  4. The Art of Fielding—Chad Harbach
  5. The Chaperone—Laura Moriarty
  6. *The Amber Spyglass—Phillip Pullman
  7. Freshwater—Akwaeke Emezi
  8. Lab Girl—Hope Jahren
  9. A Field Guide to Getting Lost—Rebecca Solnit
  10. Beautiful Country Burn Again—Ben Fountain
  11. Furiously Happy—Jenny Lawson
  12. The Very Worst Missionary—Jamie Wright
  13. Simon vs the Homo Sapian Agenda
  14. Milk and Honey—Rupi Kaur
  15. Fear: Trump in the White House
  16. We Crossed a Bridge and it Trembled—Wendy Pearlman
  17. Where’d You Go, Bernadette—Maria Semple
  18. On the Come Up—Angie Thomas
  19. The Bookshop of Yesterday—Amy Meyerson
  20. Crazy Rich Asians—Kevin Kwan
  21. If Beale Street Could Talk—James Baldwin
  22. The House of Spirits---Isabel Allende
  23. Calypso—David Sedaris
  24. Where the Crawdads Sing—Delia Owens
  25. The Tattooist of Auschwitz—Heather Morris
  26. There, There—Tommy Orange
  27. Circe—Madeline Miller
  28. Educated—Tara Westover
  29. An American Marriage—Tayari Jones
  30. The Great Believers—Rebecca Makkai
  31. The Yiddish Policeman’s Union—Michael Chabon
  32. The Power—Naomi Alderman
  33. China Rich Girlfriend—Kevin Kwan
  34. Story of Your Life and Others—Ted Chiang
  35. Moll Flanders—Daniel Defoe
  36. Bad With Money—Gaby Dunn
  37. The Vegetarian—Han King
  38. Sadie—Courtney Summers
  39. Song of Solomon—Toni Morrison
  40. Turn of the Screw—Henry James
  41. *Machinal—Sophie Treadwell
  42. Mountains Beyond Mountains—Tracy Kidder
  43. Motherhood—Sheila Heti
  44. Becoming—Michelle Obama
  45. Amity and Prosperity—Eliza Griswold
  46. *The Goldfinch—Donna Tartt
  47. I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness—Austin Channing Brown
  48. The Summer Book—Tove Jansson
  49. The Handmaid’s Tale (Graphic Novel)—Margaret Atwood
  50. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine—Gail Honeyman
  51. High Rhulain—Brian Jacques
  52. It—Stephen King
  53. Sex and the City—Candice Bushnell
  54. Howl’s Moving Castle—Diana Wynne Jones
  55. Rich People Problems—Kevin Kwan
  56. In God We Trust: All Other Pay Cash—Jean Shepard

Some Selected Reviews:
 
1) Beautiful Country Burn Again—Ben Fountain
I didn’t love it. Not because it was bad, but because I was there. This is a rehash of the dumpster fire. If you want to go forward in time, ten years from now (if humanity makes it), this book can serve as a reminder on what went down. But if you are looking to learn something new, I’d say skip it.
 
2) Furiously Happy—Jenny Lawson
With maybe the exception of Catcher in the Rye, I don’t like the stream-of-consciousness writing style. This is a preference thing. I can see where Lawson would be hilarious to other people. Her observations and interpretations of mental illness are funny. I just never laughed. But I would love recommendations for more humor authors.
 
3) We Crossed a Bridge and it Trembled—Wendy Pearlman
Overwhelming. It’s a series of short personal stories from Syria prior to and during the rebellion. It’s excellent in that it takes you out of the statistics and the news surrounding Syria and puts you on the ground with its people.
 
4) The Very Worst Missionary—Jamie Wright
This is about a cynical Christian woman serving as Missionary in Costa Rica. I don’t read a lot of literature about religion, especially from the perspective of a devoutly religious person, so this was a fresh perspective. Furthermore it surprised me because, in spite of her faith, she calls out the crap in being Missionary. As non-religious person, I felt I wasn’t quite the target audience. She has long passages about her love for God that I just can’t identify with. But that’s personal bias and does not reflect the quality of the book. It was an interesting journey and I enjoyed it.
 
5) Simon vs the Homo Sapian Agenda—Becky Albertalli
There is a place for high-school based dramas. I’m glad they exist, especially if they address an issue. This one is about a closeted teen grappling with everything that comes with being a closeted teen. It’s clever. It’s fun. It has heart. But YA just isn’t my genre…. except for some fantasy YA here and there. 
 
6) Milk and Honey—Rupi Kaur
My goodness. This was the first poetry collection I’d read since high school and I don’t think I could have picked up anything heavier. I recommend it as an awareness piece, but with great digression. It has graphic descriptions about assault, so if that’s a trigger for you, please skip it. I can’t say poetry is my genre, but I’m glad I read it.
 
7) Fear: Trump in the White House
Keeping up with politics is becoming and act masochism. Like many of you I teeter between being shocked by the bullshit….and not being surprised at all. If you crave more examples of how corrupt, heartless, and downright stupid the president is….and I guess part of me does?.....this is your book. But holy crap it’s exhausting.
 
8) Where’d You Go, Bernadette—Maria Semple
This book should be read because of its narrative structure alone. Much of it is told through emails, written records, etc. It’s done well and it’s a good story.
 
9) On the Come Up—Angie Thomas
It’s hard to read this book without comparing it to The Hate U Give. It’s by the same author and addresses similar social issues. Both are great, but I liked On the Come Up just a teensy bit more. The Hate You Give uses tragedy to explore the Black Lives matter movement. On the Come Up uses an incident that was less violent but salient in explaining the everyday fears of impoverished black communities. Plus I like the lead protagonist. She makes mistakes, she’s impulsive. She’s rocketed into a problem she isn’t emotionally ready to tackle and is resistant to the advice of her elders. You know, a kid.
 
10) The Bookshop of Yesterdays—Amy Meyerson
Do you like the “we have to save the small business just in time” trope? Do you like predictable love triangles? Do like brooding and mysterious sexy guys? I don’t. It has a decent twist and a scavenger hunt. I like scavenger hunts. But next.
 
11) Crazy Rich Asians—Kevin Kwan.
A little formulaic. I walked into this knowing it was a romantic comedy, I just thought it would be a little more avant-garde. But it’s enjoyable. I plan to read the sequel.
 
12) The House of Spirits
This is Ken Follett meets…… well, I’m not sure who it meets. It’s like Ken Follett but with a quirky twist. It has a smaller scope of characters with a spiritual bent. And the alternations between third person and first person with the villain is unlike anything I’ve read before. 5 stars. Read it.
 
13) Calypso—David Sedaris can’t write a bad book. He can’t do it. As always with Sedaris, if you can get it on audio, do. His delivery makes the stories better, 10-fold.
 
14) Where the Crawdads Sing—Delia Owens
This book is getting a lot attention….. and………yeah! It’s a solid story, and about an amateur ecologist. *wave hands*
 
15) If Beale Street Could Talk—James Baldwin
I’m not sure about this one. The author wasn’t clear about his attitude on abusive relationships. And this one had an intimate scene that got rapey. But it wasn’t framed as assault throughout the rest of the book. It was a little cringy.
 
16) The Tattooist of Auschwitz—Heather Morris
World War II dramas, especially true personal account like this this one, are always worthy of our attention.
 
18) There, There—Tommy Orange
It’s not a bad book but it has a thing in it (“thing” because I don’t want to get spoilery) that’s just hard to read. It succeeds in addressing multiple social issues, it’s just really brutal.
 
17) Circe--Madeline Miller
I’m not a Greek mythology buff. My knowledge ends at Homer’s the Odyssey which I read in school like everybody else. I can’t comment on the book’s faithfulness to source material, but it was alright.
 
18) Educated—Tara Westover
Excellent. This book will make you frustrated, almost unbearably, but without giving too much away, you will be satisfied by the end. Personally I just love accounts of people, especially impressionable young people, getting out of bad situations. 

0 Comments

Books 2018

12/29/2018

1 Comment

 
We have a nice list. We have a naughty list. As for everything in between, I still give them a hardy nod.
 
Asterisks denote rereads
 
  1. Silent Spring—Rachel Carson
  2. Legion and the Emperor’s Soul—Brandon Sanderson
  3. Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives—John Palfrey and Urs Gasser
  4. *Mrs. Dalloway—Virginia Woolf
  5. The Circle—Dave Eggers
  6. The Internet of Us—Michael P. Lynch
  7. We Have Always Lived in the Castle—Shirley Jackson
  8. Dragonflight—Anne McCaffrey
  9. The Hours—Michael Cunningham
  10. Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex—Mary Roach
  11. The Fishermen—Chigozie Obioma
  12. The Wind in the Willows—Kenneth Grahame
  13. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Next—Stieg Larsson
  14. Ready Player One—Ernest Cline
  15. A Head Full of Ghosts—Paul Tremblay
  16. Remains of the Day—Kazuo Ishiguro
  17. Come As You Are—Emily Nagoski
  18. Big Questions—Anders Nilson
  19. A Gentleman in Moscow—Amor Towles
  20. Middlesex—Jeffrey Eugenides
  21. The Well of Ascension—Brandon Sanderson
  22. The Disaster Artist—Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell
  23. Phaeton—Marc Hobbs
  24. I Am Malala—Malala Yousafzai
  25. Speak No Evil—Uzodinma Iweala
  26. A Sand County Almanac—Aldo Leopold
  27. Into the Wild—Jon Krakauer
  28. Edge of Eternity—Ken Follett
  29. *The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke—Suze Orman
  30. How Democracies Die—Steven Levitsky
  31. East of Eden—John Steinbeck
  32. Jude the Obscure—Thomas Hardy
  33. *Maus—Art Spiegelman
  34. Theft By Finding—David Sedaris
  35. The Hero of Ages—Brandon Sanderson
  36. Archy’s Life of Mehitabel—Don Marquis
  37. Eating Animals—Jonathan Safran Foar
  38. A Tale of Two Cities—Charles Dickens
  39. Never Cry Wolf—Farley Mowat
  40. *Holidays on Ice—David Sedaris
  41. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
  42. The Polygamist’s Daughter—Anna LeBaron
  43. The Looming Tower—Lawrence Wright
  44. Track of the Cat—Nevada Barr
  45. And Then There Were None—Agatha Christie
  46. The Bees—Laline Paull
  47. The Color Purple—Alice Walker
  48. Storm Front—Jim Butcher
  49. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing—Hank Green
  50. The Catcher in the Rye—J.D. Salinger
  51. Fool Moon—Jim Butcher
  52. Six of Crows—Leigh Bardugo
  53. The Haunting of Hill House—Shirley Jackson
  54. Grave Peril—Jim Butcher
  55. The Two Towers—J.R.R. Tolkein
  56. If You Come Softly—Jacqueline Woodson
  57. Summer Knight—Jim Butcher
  58. The Godhead Game—David Clement-Davies
 
 
Best of the Best of the Best:
 
Middlesex
I enjoyed this one on audio and it’s especially good. I’d put it up there with My Antonia narrated by Patrick Lawlor for favorite listening. It’s a wonderful story spanning three generations culminating in one young man who was born female. I look forward to listening again one day.
 
We Have Always Lived in the Castle—Shirley Jackson
I love it. I love it. I love. If Tim Burton tried to write a Lemony Snicket book, this would be the result.
 
 
Pretty Great:
 
The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, and Broke—Suze Orman
Almost everyone I know in my generation is struggling with student loans, car payments, saving for retirement, and kissing goodbye any hope of ever being a home-owner (myself included). This is not a book of miracles, but gives advice in plain language on how to overcome debt and make investments. I highly recommend it to anyone who falls into one or several of the above categories.
 
How Democracies Die
Overwhelming. Everyone should read this book, but I fear its readership will play choir to the authors' preacher. We have so much work to do as a nation, and yet the examples of our peers are so very bleak. 
 
Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex—Mary Roach
This book is for everyone. Who doesn’t want to read about historical and modern experiments in sexual behavior? It borders on cringy too bizarre, all of it engrossing.
 
Archy’s Life of Mehitabel
I doubt you’ve heard of this one, but for being about a cricket and a cat, it’s oddly profound (and hilarious).
 
The Catcher in the Rye
I’m not sure why I enjoyed this one so much. Stream-of-consciousness stories usually don’t appeal to me. Maybe I just love a good anti-hero.
 
Other mentions include the Mistborn Trilogy, Silent Spring, Maus, The Disaster Artist, The Color Purple, and everything by David Sedaris.
 
 
Skip
Dragonflight—Anne McCaffrey
Maybe it’s petty jealousy, but I have yet to fall in love with a dragon book. The late McCaffrey has oodles of fans. She doesn’t need me. But domestic abuse and bland protagonists aside, I thought it was boring. I’m sorry.
 
Wind in the Willows—Kenneth Graham
Again, maybe it’s petty jealousy at far more lucrative animal-authors. But it went on. And on. And on. And on…. in under 300 pages. If you want personified English wildlife, read Redwall.
 
The Circle-- Dave Eggers
Science fiction demands some degree of suspension of disbelief. But this takes place in the real world in the not-too-distant future, and yet our dumbass protagonist doesn’t question the total relinquishing of privacy. She just dances through the book happy to have a 24 hour twitter feed. The message is a good one, but the execution didn’t hit the mark.
 
A Tale of Two Cities—Charles Dickens
I don’t like Charlies Dickens. There. I said it.
 
Ready Player One
Putting this on the skip list might be a little harsh. It’s not the worst thing ever. Some of it’s clever. But it gives into bad-teen-romance bull-crap you can smell from a mile away. 1) Girl says she is hideous and you can never look at her---you know it’s going to end up being some barely visible birthmark. Spoiler: it is. 2) Girl tells guy to leave her alone. A life-threatening situation compels him to send her another message. Unnecessarily tacks on “P.S. I saw a picture of you in RL and you’re super hot.” Bite me.
 
 
 
What did you read? What did you love! Let me know!!
 
Happy New Year,
Kelly
1 Comment

An Indie Author’s Guide to Books and Audio

2/20/2018

0 Comments

 
​“Where is the audiobook?” is the second-most asked question I get from readers, right after, “who the heck are you?” I love audiobooks. They make up about thirty percent of my yearly reading list (I count them as reading… fight me). Thus, it made good sense for me to pitch Nyra snout-first into the MP3 world. A friend loaned me a Blue Yeti Microphone, I learned the basics of Audacity, and got to work.
 
You’ve never heard so much swearing.
 
Nyra doesn’t lend itself to out-loud reading, at least not for me and my self-ascribed dyslexia. They are my words, and yet I couldn’t read them. Every other sentence was a stumble. A single chapter took days to record, edit, and refine, and even so, the final product was subpar. I needed a professional, one who could machete through the mayhem. My fellow indies recommended the Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX) where I could find a reader for a split royalty. Harkening back to my first FAQ, my expectations were low. The Roy Dotrices (A Song of Ice and Fire) and Patrick Lawlors (My Antonia) of the universe had contracts with far more prestigious authors. At best, this would be a passion project between two amateurs doing their best with what they had.
 
In a few days of auditioning, I found my Patrick Lawlor, or rather, he found me. Andrew Pond (yes, his name looks very good on a water-themed cover) crafted a soundbite that felt like a piece of theater. He did the accents, he did the voices, he had urgency, and he had patience. Whether his storytelling abilities came from his career as an actor/playwrite or an innate ear for narration, Mr. Pond did, what I'd deemed, the impossible.
 
Collaborating with him was joyous and at a breakneck pace. He turned out top-notch chapters one after another, finishing MONTHS before the deadline. He incorporated my edits but brought his own flavor to the production, and by flavor, I mean entire recipes. There are over twenty speaking parts in Volume I. Mr. Pond came up with voices for ALL of them. Let me repeat that: ALL OF THEM, even characters with a couple of lines.  Much like the D'ysquiths in ‘A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder’, he bounced seamlessly between many people (er, dragons). It’s transfixing to the point it makes me a little jealous. As I said, theater. If I’m ever in Chicago, I’ll be bee-lining to his theater company to catch a show.
 
I won't go so far as to say my book is great, but I can assure you the audiobook is. Very great. D’ysquith great. All of that credit goes to Mr. Pond’s passion and perseverance.
 
The release is tentative, but I expect it will be available in the next few weeks. You’ll find it on iTunes, Amazon, and Audible (for which your first download is free... and we still get paid). I can’t wait to share it with you.

Please visit Andrew Pond at his website and twitter. 
 
Maple trees and lots of sap,
Kelly
0 Comments

Books 2017

12/26/2017

1 Comment

 
Asterisks denote rereads
 
  1. Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls—David Sedaris
  2. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk—David Sedaris
  3. The Beatrice Letters—Lemony Snicket
  4. Prodigal Summer—Barbara Kingsolver
  5. The Animal Game: Searching for Wildness at the American Zoo—Daniel E. Bender
  6. The Last Policeman—Ben H. Winters
  7. Countdown City—Ben H. Winters
  8. World of Trouble—Ben H. Winters
  9. To Say Nothing of the Dog—Connie Willis
  10. Station Eleven—Emily St. John Mandel
  11. The Phantom Tollbooth—Norton Juster
  12. *Island of the Blue Dolphins—Scott O’Dell
  13. The Hate U Give—Angie Thomas
  14. The Silver Eyes—Scott Cawthon
  15. Fun Home—Alison Bechdel
  16. A Man Called Ove—Fredrik Bachman
  17. A Feast for Crows—George R.R. Martin
  18. The Handmaid’s Tale—Margaret Attwood
  19. Fellowship of the Ring—JRR Tolkien
  20. Angela’s Ashes—Frank McCourt
  21. Into Thin Air—Jon Krakauer
  22. *Lord of the Flies—William Golding
  23.  Columbine—Dave Cullen
  24. Fahrenheit 451
  25. The Bridges of Maddison County—Robert James Walter
  26. A Walk to Remember—Nicolas Sparks
  27. My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She’s Sorry—Fredrik Backman
  28. Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl—Carrie Brownstein
  29. Crocodile in the Sandbank—Elizabeth Peters
  30. Watchman—Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons
  31. A Dance with Dragons—George R. R. Martin
  32. The Invisible Man—H.G. Wells
  33. Crime and Punishment—Fyodor Dostoevsky
  34. A Column of Fire—Ken Follett
  35. Turtles All the Way Down—John Green
  36. Red Mars—Kim Stanley Robinson
  37. Big Little Lies—Liane Moriarty
  38. Little Fires Everywhere—Celeste Ng
  39. The Magician’s Nephew—C.S. Lewis
  40. The Virgin Suicides—Jeffrey Eugenides
  41. The Girl on the Train—Paula Hawkins
  42. Mistborn—Brandon Sanderson
  43. The Vagina Monologues—Eve Ensler
  44. All Over But the Shoutin’—Rick Bragg
  45. Modern Romance—Aziz Ansari
  46. Everyday Sexism—Laura Bates
  47. The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History—Elizabeth Kolbert
  48. Dead Until Dark—Charlaine Harris
  49. Are You My Mother?—Alison Bechdel
  50. You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me—Sherman Alexi
  51. The Anvil of Dust and Stars—Damon Alan
  52. Wuthering Heights—Charlotte Bronte
 
 
Best Reads:
To Say Nothing of the Dog was my absolute favorite. It’s a witty time travel story where a single cat disrupts the space-time continuum. Suspense and hilarity ensue. Other favorites included:
--The Last Policeman (an officer trying to do his job six months before an asteroid will destroy humanity)
--Station Eleven (Alternating flashes before and after a pandemic)
--The Hate U Give (Addressing the Black Lives Matter movement through a young woman)
--A Man Called Ove (The first five minutes of Up, but funny too!)
--Fun Home (Graphic novel chronicling the life and suicide of the author’s father)
--The Handmaid’s Tale (American women lose all reproductive rights)
--Turtles All the Way Down (A teenager’s struggle with OCD)
--Big Little Lies (Kindergarten-mom wars turn into murder)
--Little Fires Everyway (A struggling artist reveals a hidden past)
--Mistborn (Basically metal-bending from Avatar The Last Airbender with a LOT more detail)  
--You Don’t Have to Say You Lovely (The absolutely true story of a Spokane Native American)
 
Skip
The following may have value to you. They didn’t do it for me:
--The Silver Eyes (Poorly written cash-in on the Five Nights at Freddy’s game series)
--The Bridges of Madison County (I couldn’t care less about the breeding pair in this story)
--Fahrenheit 451 (Why do they so vehemently destroy books just because they’re obsolete? It’s like having a special CIA just to find and burn VCRs)
--Dead Until Dark (Are there any vampire books out there that DON’T glorify sexual/domestic abuse? I’m swiftly losing faith in the whole mythology)
--Wuthering Heights (Some extremely unpleasant people fall in love. The End)
 
Recommendations for 2018 welcome!!! 

​~Kelly
1 Comment

How My Worst Novel Made Me a Better Storyteller (Sort Of)

4/17/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture

Let me be clear: the title of this blog implies I am a good storyteller. This isn’t necessarily true (I have a chronic fear of overstating my abilities). The following story is not about how I became a great novelist but how I became a better novelist, the word 'better' being contingent on how much you may or may not like old-school animal fiction and long-winded nostalgia.
 
During an ill-timed bout of colitis (note: they’re all ill-timed), I punched out the final sentence of The Waters of Nyra on September 5th, 2011. This was it: the magnum opus. The next Redwall, the next Watership Down—you know, the best seller debut authors think they've write on the first try. I sought out test audiences online—my last chance to bask in anonymity before I skyrocketed into a gig with Penguin.

This needs to be halved, said the first reviewer. As the first comment, I attributed it to be poor taste. Then came the second. Tell less. Show more. Okay, another person who doesn't appreciate talking animals. Then came a third reviewer, another, and another, each saying a version of the same thing, each a little punch to my formerly-recalcitrant ego. This isn't to say they clobbered Nyra. For each smart tap against the verbose prose, I got a compliment on the story or character development. Maybe my peers were being polite, but it was a saving grace. I was down, but they didn't kick. On the proverbial pavement, I took notes but remained in denial. I wouldn't swallow the bitter pills. Instead they lathered in my mouth, making me begrudge the taste rather than reap much benefit. Thus my rewrites were few. I believed the audience for Nyra was out there and I'd find it in due course. I searched. A lot. In my first attempts to find representation I was rejected in the ballpark of 200 emails. Still, I kept trying, waiting for the market to change, waiting for a publishing house or agency to realize my genius. It didn't come.

Grad school did. 

Autumn of 2012 buried me in a new and far more promising career goal (although we can quibble about job security as a wildlife biologist in another blog). I had papers, projects, and a master's thesis to scribble out before I fell off my parents' health insurance. However, I didn't stop writing recreationally. Exhausted by my previous life of minimum wage and the ever-present dragon that went with it, I turned to a new idea: paranormal young adult fiction. It defied my self-ascribed dignity. Don’t get me wrong—it’s a fine genre. Reading is reading. Stories are stories. But at the time, my only exposure to paranormal YA was the glorified domestic abuse of Twilight. It left me disgruntled, yet I read it over and over. My interest in Stephenie Meyers’ sparkly vampires lingered entirely for the sake of satire. So, as a literary experiment, I would copy it with its most hackneyed tropes,  including an underdeveloped romance, obvious villains, and magical abilities existing purely to move an already-feeble plot. Furthermore, I would defy Nyra and write as simplistically as possible. No flowery language. No lush descriptions. Dumb it down. Appeal to the popular market and clipped attention spans. That was surely the key to cracking through the wall of success.
 
I tapped the manuscript out at 55,000 words, writing in the evenings and weekends when I had a low homework load. The finished product was rife with clichés, told through a protagonist as bland as Bella Swan: Grade-A satire. But after the first (and only) read through, I slammed on the breaks. It was a parody, but unfunny. It was simply a bad rip-off. It had no snark, no Douglass Adams or Terry Pratchett-style wit. I halfheartedly wrote a few representatives but quickly gave up. I didn’t’ care if this was marketable (and it likely wasn't). I didn’t want my name on it. I threw myself back into school, a bit older but far, far wiser.
 
I might have puttered along forever had it not been for Nikki. Nikki was an old friend from high school. We hadn’t been in touch, existing to one another as occasional posts on news-feeds. But sometime in 2013, Nikki caught my eye again: she’d self-published a book. I’d never known an author before, not with which I’d had sleepovers and discussed guppy breeding techniques. Nikki had written an adult scifi novel and, unlike me, had successfully captured the wit and wonder of Monsieurs Adams and Pratchett. It might have been my first instinct to revisit the paranormal novel and “funny it up.” But for whatever reason, I didn’t. Instead, I went back to the dragon, dusted her off, and read her with clearer eyes.
 
At long, long last, I saw her properly: a decent story told with several thousand words too many. I chopped. I cut. I pasted. I pared. Volume I (the first half) lost about 10,000 in mostly adjectives. Friends jumped in with their own scissors. In 2014 I went live, and though Nyra still has shortcomings, my few readers were kind and anxious for the sequel.
 
So what changed between the pre and post Nikki eras? Several things, I suppose. For nearly eight years I’d been writing one novel or another (sans my penultimate semester of graduate school, which I dedicated to my research). The paranormal crap-manuscript made up one of those years, at the critical juncture between Nyra’s completion and her intensive editing process. Much as I despise the crap novel, dismissing it entirely was based on hot-tempered prejudice for its antecedents. Yet in creating it, I'd tightened my prose in a way I'd once thought excessive. In retrospect, though, I was slimming down to a new writing style, one much more amenable. Yes, it’s still a bad story. No, you can’t see it. But perhaps the very bland Josephine Jakes (the protagonist) gave voice to a dragon struggling to speak.
 
Author Maurine Johnson once said you have to suck a LOT before you make anything worthwhile. New York Times bestselling authors are no exception. I am not a New York Times best selling author. I don’t expect to be one anymore. Even after editing, The Waters of Nyra is unrepresented, which is either my fault or that of the outside force known as ‘the market.’ Likely both. I haven’t bridged past the “suck point” yet (nearly 400 rejections for Nyra are telling). I may have given up on her. I have given up on full-time authoring. I have not given up on writing.
 
I was once in a writer’s group where a veteran member pushed new members down, kicked them, kicked them again, then spat their ‘better’ writing down in their faces. Do not be this person. Pushing is okay. Pushes helped me. They still do. I was lucky to avoid kicks (well, most of them). Everyone is learning. Those who claim otherwise are missing the point of the art. But spare them your kicks too. We want them to keep writing. We want them to learn how to learn. They may just need more pushes.

Cheers,
Kelly
 
Image credit: “Dragon Writer” by 25kartinok
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Dragon-Writer-276492375
 
Excerpt from Satan’s Secretary (aka The Crap Manuscript):
 
I became employed at the Sector, some hundred miles into the Earth’s mantle.  Or so I assumed.  No one ever told me, but I pictured the Sector deep beneath the mortal surface; a grotto for the grimly employed.  After all, Grim itself hired me, to read, to analyze, but mostly to click.  Click for Heaven, click for Hell, and give not input otherwise.



0 Comments

Books 2016

12/31/2016

0 Comments

 
Asterisks denote rereads
 
  1. *The Fault in Our Stars—John Green
  2. *O Pioneers!—Willa Cather
  3. My Mortal Enemy—Willa Cather
  4. The Color of Magic—Terry Pratchett
  5. The Kill Seekers—Marc Hobbs
  6. Library of Souls—Ransom Riggs
  7. The Professor’s House—Willa Cather
  8. Parable of the Sower—Octavia Butler
  9. Go Set a Watchman—Harper Lee
  10.  Me Talk Pretty One Day—David Sedaris
  11. *Where the Red Fern Grows—Wilson Rawls
  12. *My Antonia—Willa Cather
  13. *Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire—JK Rowling
  14. Breathing Underwater—Alex Flinn
  15. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child—JK Rowling
  16. The Road—Cormac McCarthy
  17. The Picture of Dorian Gray—Oscar Wilde
  18. *Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix—JK Rowling
  19. 1984—George Orwell
  20. *The Bad Beginning—Lemony Snicket
  21. A Storm of Swords—George R.R. Martin
  22. *Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince—JK Rowling
  23. *The Reptile Room—Lemony Snicket
  24. *Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—JK Rowling
  25. *The Wide Window—Lemony Snicket
  26. *The Miserable Mill—Lemony Snicket
  27. *The Austere Academy—Lemony Snicket
  28. *The Ersatz Elevator—Lemony Snicket
  29.  *The Vile Village—Lemony Snicket
  30. *The Hostile Hospital—Lemony Snicket
  31.  *The Carnivorous Carnival—Lemony Snicket
  32. *The Slippery Slope—Lemony Snicket
  33. Angela’s Wife—Jonni Pettit
  34. *The Grim Grotto—Lemony Snicket
  35. Holidays On Ice—David Sedaris
  36. *The Penultimate Peril—Lemony Snicket
  37. The Grapes of Wrath—John Steinbeck
  38. *The End—Lemony Snicket
  39. *Animal Farm—George Orwell
  40. When You Are Engulfed In Flames—David Sedaris
 
 
Great Reads
O Pioneers, My Antonia, Harry Potter, and Where the Red Fern Grows remain favorites. Among books you won’t find in stores (yet) I recommend The Kill Seekers by Marc Hobbs (science fiction) and Angela’s Wife by Jonni Petit (the true story of a transgender woman and her family). Go Set a Watchman had extremely mixed reviews, but I thought it beautiful portrayed the fragility of our expectations. Lastly, everyone should read The Picture of Dorian Grey, which is both imaginative and frightening, as well as 1984 by George Orwell. While you’re at it, reread Animal Farm, which is still relevant decades later.
 
Good Reads
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris had me in absolute tears from laughing (When You Are Engulfed in Flames was great too). I reread the Snicket books in preparation for the Netflix adaption. Although the author leaves some major questions unanswered, I’ll always love the dark humor. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is enjoyable, as was Storm of Swords and The Grapes of Wrath. Finally, The Fault in Our Stars remains John Green’s best with its atypical approach to teen romance.
 
I don’t have any specific reading goals for 2017 other than my minimum thirty and adding more classics to my repertoire. Also, I hope 2017 will be the year I FINALLY start and finish Lord of the Rings. But, given the nature of the world today, I’m hoping to fall in love with some dystopia: new if it’s good, but preferably books that were before their time (i.e. I’ve had several recommendations for The Handmaid’s Tale). If you have something in mind, in this genre or anything else, I’m interested. Please let me know in the comments!
 
~Kelly
0 Comments

Frith's Speed

12/27/2016

0 Comments

 
If I inquired about your cultural heroes, smart money is you’d rattle off a list so long I’d regret asking in the first place. Don’t worry. I’d be guilty of the same charge. Then suppose I asked you to pare it down to five, or gave you a category, like scientist or filmmaker? Even then you’d have many. But who would win the most kudos for their craft?
 
Today, the category is author, and the person is Richard Adams. I put him at the top not because of his recent passing or because he gets top billing as my favorite author. In fact, the latter isn’t necessarily true. Still, for me and most animal fiction authors, Adams was the totem pole base for creatives who wrote for adults, children, or no one in particular. He was not the first to personify animals, not by centuries. But he was the first to do so by preserving the integrity of animal nature. He did not seek allegory in the way George Orwell told Animal Farm (although this was brilliant in its own respect). Watership Down was perhaps equally political, but with the aim of surrounding us in a fresh universe, reading more like an epic than a fable. Adams would batter through rejection and incredulous publishers to lay a new foundation in literature, with other bricks following suit, including Shardik and The Plague Dogs.
 
Some years back I wrote to Adams. He was elderly, retired, and off the grid for fan mail. After tracking down a few publishers I managed to find an in-the-care-of address. I’ll never know if it made it his way (despite promises from a very kind editor that my letter was in good hands). But as is the impulse of admirers, we want our heroes to know we love them. Love, of course, is a loose word. I knew Mr. Adams no further than his rabbits and a Wikipedia page. Yet in the sense that our creations are a piece of us—ones that we so tenderly share with the world—I do believe I loved Mr. Adams very much indeed.
 
Frith’s Speed.
 
~Kelly
 
“All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.”
Picture
0 Comments

    Author

    I'm prone to rambling.

    Archives

    January 2022
    December 2020
    December 2019
    December 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    April 2017
    December 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • About
  • Books
  • Fan Art
  • Artwork
  • Ecology
  • Blog
  • Contact