Caracabe's books: done withCaracabe's books: done withBooks I read in 2022. (FWIW, I finished every book I started.)
| Title | Women Philosophers of the Early Modern Period |
|---|---|
| Category | Nonfiction |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Margaret Atherton, editor |
| Description | "...this anthology introduces an important selection from the largely unknown writings of women philosophers of the early modern period." |
| Start Date | 2022-12-27 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-12-31 |
| Remarks | I wish Atherton hadn't presented these philosophers almost exclusively by their responses to prominent men philosophers, but still an interesting read. |
| Title | Anoka: A Collection of Indigenous Horror |
| Category | Fiction |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Shane Hawk, author |
| Description | "Welcome to Anoka, Minnesota, a small city just outside of the Twin Cities dubbed 'The Halloween Capital of the World' since 1937. Here before you lie several tales involving bone collectors, pagan witches, werewolves, skeletal bison, and cloned children." |
| Start Date | 2022-12-29 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-12-30 |
| Remarks | A pleasantly bizarre repast with which to end my fiction reading for 2022. I enjoy the story notes at the end, telling a bit about how each story came to be. I wish authors would do that more often. |
| Title | A Collection of Nightmares |
| Category | Poetry |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Christina Sng, author |
| Description | "Hold your screams and enter a world of seasonal creatures, dreams of bones, and confessions modeled from open eyes and endless insomnia." |
| Start Date | 2022-12-27 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-12-30 |
| Remarks | Christina Sng excites me about the possibilities of horror poetry. Reading her makes me want to write, which is high praise. |
| Title | The Lawless: A Triptych |
| Category | Fiction |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Merc Fenn Wolfmoor, author |
| Description | "The Lawless: A Triptych collects three tales of near future America, and the people who fight against the totalitarian regime that wants to destroy them — plus a bonus story about resistance in a dystopian nightmare." |
| Start Date | 2022-12-27 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-12-29 |
| Remarks | Intellectually stimulating and emotionally satisfying work. |
| Title | The Forest Dreams with Teeth |
| Category | Fiction |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Madison McSweeney, author |
| Description | "Records burn in strip mall parking lots, a young woman is sacrificed, and something sinister awakens in the woods. Evil finds a scapegoat in Adam Lloyd, a teen delinquent who escapes his troubled home life through horror movies and sword-and-sorcery novels." |
| Start Date | 2022-12-26 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-12-26 |
| Remarks | An effective tale with a bit of eldritch schadenfreude. |
| Title | Writing Poetry in the Dark |
| Category | Nonfiction |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Stephanie M. Wytovich, editor |
| Description | "Writing Poetry in the Dark brings together some of the most successful contemporary genre poets to discuss topics related to creating dark and fantastical poetry." |
| Start Date | 2022-12-07 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-12-27 |
| Remarks | I'll be returning to this book many times in 2023. |
| Title | Cruel Futures |
| Category | Poetry |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Carmen Giménez Smith, author |
| Description | "Cruel Futures is a witchy confessional and wildly imagistic volume that examines subjects as divergent as Alzheimers, Medusa, mumblecore, and mental illness in sharp-witted, taut poems dense with song." |
| Start Date | 2022-12-22 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-12-26 |
| Remarks | A distinctive voice. The poems are sometimes didactic (not a bad word in my book) but always grounded, delivering an experience as well as a message. |
| Title | Mother: Tales of Love and Terror |
| Category | Fiction |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Willow Dawn Becker, editor; Christi Nogle, editor |
| Description | "Mothers protect, nurture, love, and adore... but what if they are more than just their title? In these 33 stories and poems, we examine what motherhood is and explore mothers of all kinds." |
| Start Date | 2022-11-16 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-12-26 |
| Remarks | I'm impressed with the range of stories and poems inspired by this prompt. Good artwork, too. |
| Title | Talk Smack to a Hurricane |
| Category | Poetry |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Lynne Jensen Lampe, author |
| Description | "This volume of poetics includes righteous and lyrical pieces, erasure work, photo-based ekphrastic, and delicate lines and tracings (like patterns of frost on winter windows) along a chronology of hope and recognition." |
| Start Date | 2022-12-15 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-12-21 |
| Remarks | Lyrical and emotionally resonant. |
| Title | Field Guide to the Haunted Forest |
| Category | Poetry |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Jarod K. Anderson, author |
| Description | "This poetry collection celebrates the impossible truths of the natural world and the magic that hides in plain sight." |
| Start Date | 2022-12-06 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-12-14 |
| Remarks | Anderson's work re-enchants the world, but he often writes past the end of the poem. Recommended nonetheless. |
| Title | The Chinese Eye: An Interpretation of Chinese Painting |
| Category | Nonfiction |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Chiang Yee, author |
| Description | "The Chinese Eye describes the intimate connection which philosophy and religion—as well as poetry—have with painting in traditional China…" |
| Start Date | 2022-11-07 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-12-06 |
| Remarks | An interesting and opinionated look at several centuries of Chinese art. |
| Title | Mummy Eaters |
| Category | Poetry |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Sherry Shenoda, author |
| Description | "Sherry Shenoda's collection… follows in the footsteps of an imagined ancestor, one of the daughters of the house of Akhenaten in the Eighteenth Dynasty, Egypt. Shenoda forges an imagined path through her ancestor's mummification and journey to the afterlife. Parallel to this exploration run the implications of colonialism on her passage." |
| Start Date | 2022-11-22 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-12-05 |
| Remarks | I don't say this lightly: Mummy Eaters is a major work, and Sherry Shenoda is a major poet. |
| Title | Inside the Outside : an anthology of avant-garde American poets |
| Category | Poetry |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Roseanne Ritzema, editor; Hugh Fox, Eric Greinke, & Harry Smith, contributing editors |
| Description | Poets in here include some well-known (such as Richard Kostelanetz), some unfamiliar to me (like A.D. Winans), and two I've published once or twice when I edited print zines (Lyn Lifshin and, again, Kostelanetz). |
| Start Date | 2022-09-28 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-11-21 |
| Remarks | Little of the poetry in here seems especially avant garde or challenging. Notable exceptions are Kostelantetz, Savitt and Sonnenfeld. |
| Title | The Sleepless |
| Category | Fiction |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Nuzo Onoh, author |
| Description | "Set amidst the Biafran War, The Sleepless follows one child's struggles against both the natural and supernatural forces that threaten to end her life before the deadly enemy bombs can do so." |
| Start Date | 2022-10-30 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-11-15 |
| Remarks | Well-written, expertly paced, chilling, and heartbreaking. |
| Title | Haunted Kansas : ghost stories and other eerie tales |
| Category | Nonfiction |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Lisa Hefner Heitz, author |
| Description | "Collects oral histories, eye-witness accounts, and local legends about ghosts, poltergeists, spook lights, and other restless spirits." |
| Start Date | 2022-10-06 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-11-06 |
| Remarks | Unless you have Kansas connections, this book is unlikely to sustain your interest. The writing style would earn an "A" in a high school English class. |
| Title | Convulsive |
| Category | Fiction |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Joe Koch, author |
| Description | "(New museums birth atrocity in every flex)" — whatever that means, it's on the title page. A collection of horror short stories. |
| Start Date | 2022-10-07 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-10-30 |
| Remarks | A remarkable collection, not for the squeamish. |
| Title | Weird Dream Society: An Anthology of the Possible & Unsubstantiated in Support of RAICES |
| Category | Fiction |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Julie C. Day, editor-in-chief; Carina Bissett, co-editor; Chip Houser, co-editor; Gregory Norman Bossert, cover illustration; Steve Toase, social media coordinator |
| Description | "Playful, whimsical, or dark, but always thoughtful and tinged with the inexplicably weird, Weird Dream Society brings together twenty-three stories from the most innovative creators in speculative fiction." |
| Start Date | 2022-09-21 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-10-06 |
| Remarks | A very good anthology of speculative fiction, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, and surrealism. |
| Title | Memoirs of a Beatnik |
| Category | Nonfiction |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Diane di Prima, author |
| Description | "Portrays the coming of age of a young female artist coming of age intellectually and sensually in the beatnik atmosphere of 1950s New York." (I'm aware of the redundancy, just copying and pasting from worldcat.org." |
| Start Date | 2022-09-21 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-10-06 |
| Remarks | A fascinating but uncomfortable read. First published in 1969, the book is liberal with slurs for some ethnicities and sexual orientation. Many graphic sex scenes. Some of what di Prima experienced sexually (and, to be honest, some of what she did) would rightly be called sexual abuse today. Unflinchingly honest. |
| Title | Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse |
| Category | Poetry |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Anne Carson, author |
| Description | "The award-winning poet reinvents a genre in a stunning work that is both a novel and a poem, both an unconventional re-creation of an ancient Greek myth and a wholly original coming-of-age story set in the present." |
| Start Date | 2022-09-12 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-09-27 |
| Remarks | The main character is both a modern-day boy and a winged, red monster, while the narrative takes place in many different levels of reality. Well-written, thoughtful, moving. |
| Title | Against the Grain |
| Category | Fiction |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | J.-K. Huysmans, author; John Howard, translator |
| Description | This "novel without a plot" follows decadent anti-hero Jean des Esseintes's attempt to retreat from life into a world of intellect, aesthetics and sensations. |
| Start Date | 2022-08-29 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-09-21 |
| Remarks | In an early chapter, Esseintes has the shell of his pet tortoise gilded and set with gemstones. The animal dies under the weight. This is not one of those novels where the blue curtains are just blue curtains. |
| Title | Visionary Fictions: Apocalyptic writing from Blake to the modern age |
| Category | Nonfiction |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Edward J. Ahearn, author |
| Description | "Beginning with the appearance of visionary writing in the work of William Blake, Ahearn traces the development of the form in texts by widely scattered authors writing in French, German, and English." |
| Start Date | 2022-08-26 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-09-19 |
| Remarks | Blake comes first, not just chronologically, but as providing a template for Ahearn to discuss the other writers, and the connection between visionary writing and historical events. |
| Title | corpse whale |
| Category | Poetry |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | dg nanouk okpik, author |
| Description | "... a collection of poems that are steeped in the perspective of an Inuit of the twenty-first century--a perspective that is fresh, vibrant, and rarely seen in contemporary poetics." |
| Start Date | 2022-08-11 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-09-11 |
| Remarks | I found the poet's use of multiple simultaneous viewpoints more manageable if I mentally switched among them -- "she" for this phrase, "I" for the next one, etc. |
| Title | Beneath the Rising |
| Category | Fiction: horror |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Premee Mohamed, author |
| Description | "Nick Prasad has always enjoyed a quiet life in the shadow of his best friend, child prodigy and technological genius Joanna 'Johnny' Chambers. But all that is about to end. When Johnny invents a clean reactor that could eliminate fossil fuels and change the world, she awakens primal, evil Ancient Ones set on subjugating humanity." |
| Start Date | 2022-08-15 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-08-27 |
| Remarks | A combination of cosmic horror and coming-of-age tale, with a fresh take on the Cthulhu mythos. |
| Title | The Souls of Black Folk |
| Category | Nonfiction |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | W.E.B. Du Bois, author |
| Description | "This landmark book is a founding work in the literature of black protest." |
| Start Date | 2022-07-26 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-08-25 |
| Remarks | This work seems unfortunately contemporary in many ways, and surprisingly modern in its mix of memoir, statistics, anecdote, and analysis. |
| Title | The Hollow Places |
| Category | Fiction: Horror |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | T. Kingfisher, author |
| Description | "Pray they are hungry. Kara finds the words in the mysterious bunker that she's discovered behind a hole in the wall of her uncle's house. " |
| Start Date | 2022-08-09 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-08-14 |
| Remarks | Marvelous and wonderful, in the full senses of both of those words. All the main human (and feline) characters are decent people, so there's emotional investment to spare. No romance, which is neither a plus nor a minus for me, but I know it matters to some. |
| Title | 365 Days: A Poetry Anthology, Vol. 4 |
| Category | Poetry |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | James Benger, editor Dan Pohl, editor |
| Description | From the "365 Poems in 365 Days" Facebook group. I have poetry in this anthology. |
| Start Date | 2022-07-26 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-08-10 |
| Remarks | I'm flattered to be included with such skillful and incisive poets. |
| Title | The Hearing Trumpet |
| Category | Fiction: Surrealism |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Leonora Carrington, author; Pablo Weisz Carrington, illustrator; Olga Tokarczuk, author of afterword |
| Description | "The novel begins in the bourgeois comfort of a residential corner of a Mexican city and ends with a man-made apocalypse that promises to usher in the earth's rebirth." |
| Start Date | 2022-07-26 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-08-08 |
| Remarks | A visionary take on agism, feminism, and ecological catastrophe. |
| Title | My Heart Is a Chainsaw |
| Category | Fiction: Horror |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Stephen Graham Jones, author |
| Description | "In her quickly gentrifying rural lake town Jade sees recent events only her encyclopedic knowledge of horror films could have prepared her for..." |
| Start Date | 2022-07-22 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-07-26 |
| Remarks | A gripping read that kept me up too late more than one night. |
| Title | The Haiku Anthology: Revised Edition |
| Category | Poetry |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Cor Van den Heuvel, editor |
| Description | "Over 700 of the best English language haiku, senryu and related works." |
| Start Date | 2022-06-05 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-07-25 |
| Remarks | A valuable anthology of haiku and haiku-adjacent poetry. Read it slowly and attentively to get the full value of each poem. (Usually good advice for poetry, though I can think of some exceptions, e.g. Byron's narrative verse.) |
| Title | The Curious Case of H.P. Lovecraft |
| Category | Nonfiction |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Paul Roland, author |
| Description | A biography of the influential horror writer and notorious bigot. |
| Start Date | 2022-07-16 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-07-25 |
| Remarks | Interesting and entertaining, if sometimes amateurishly written. More than once the author uses a word close to his intended meaning (i.e., "gluttonous" when I'm pretty sure he meant "gelatinous"), and his psychological insights are not particularly penetrating. |
| Title | Coyote Songs: a barrio noir |
| Category | Fiction: Horror |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Gabino Iglesias, author |
| Description | "In this mosaic horror/crime novel, ghosts and old gods guide the hands of those caught up in a violent struggle to save the soul of the American southwest." |
| Start Date | 2022-07-17 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-07-20 |
| Remarks | Exciting, thought-provoking, moving. The opening scene is quite evocative (before it turns horrible), and though I have little in common with the young man in the scene, it took me back to my own fishing trips with my father. |
| Title | Your Body Is Not Your Body: A New Weird Horror Anthology |
| Category | Fiction: Horror |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Alex Woodroe, editor; Matt Blairstone, editor |
| Description | "A new weird horror anthology to benefit trans youth in Texas" |
| Start Date | 2022-06-30 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-07-17 |
| Remarks | The best anthology of weird horror I've read in years. |
| Title | The Gnostic Gospels |
| Category | Nonfiction |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Elaine Pagels, author |
| Description | … draws on those [Gnostic] texts to illuminate the world of the first Christians and to examine the different ways in which both the Gnostics and orthodox constructed God, Christ, and the Church. |
| Start Date | 2022-07-01 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-07-15 |
| Remarks | A fascinating look at early alternate versions of Christianity. |
| Title | The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater |
| Category | Nonfiction |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Thomas De Quincey, author |
| Description | De Quincey's autobiographical account of his laudanum addiction. |
| Start Date | 2022-06-04 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-06-30 |
| Remarks | Possibly the first addiction memoir. Well worth reading, but Thoreau justly complained of De Quincey that he leaves nothing unsaid. Long paragraphs are the norm -- the longest about 6 pages. |
| Title | What Can You Say Against a Death Machine? |
| Category | Fiction |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Marty Shambles, author |
| Description | A collection of absurdist flash fiction. |
| Start Date | 2022-06-27 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-06-29 |
| Remarks | A delectable read, not a clunker in the bunch. |
| Title | Manhunt |
| Category | Fiction: Horror |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Gretchen Felker-Martin, author |
| Description | "Beth and Fran spend their days traveling the ravaged New England coast, hunting feral men and harvesting their organs..." |
| Start Date | 2022-06-12 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-06-26 |
| Remarks | I went into this book afraid it had been overhyped, but it did not disappoint. Whatever content warnings you need, this book has that content. Parts definitely made me uncomfortable, but not in a bad way. |
| Title | Queens of the Abyss: Lost Stories from the Women of the Weird |
| Category | Fiction |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Mike Ashley, editor |
| Description | "This new anthology follows the instrumental contributions made by women writers to the weird tale, and revives the lost authors of the early pulp magazines along with the often overlooked work of more familiar authors." |
| Start Date | 2022-05-20 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-06-11 |
| Remarks | None of the writers was unfamiliar to me, but most of the stories were. The only disappointment was Marjorie Bowen's "The Bishop of Hell," where the author drags the supernatural onstage at the last moment to provide a moral. The most pleasant surprise was "The Seventh Horse," by surrealist artist Leonora Carrington. |
| Title | Folly Took a Seat and Laughed in our Faces: A Poetry Anthology |
| Category | Poetry |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Rebecca Rijsdijk, editor; Leanne Kuiper, editor |
| Description | "Sunday Mornings at the River's Quarterly poetry publications, feature the work of contemporary poets from all over the world." This anthology is for Winter 2021. (My review copy is an ebook, but it’s also available in paperback.) |
| Start Date | 2022-05-04 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-06-04 |
| Remarks | I will be posting a review of this book soon. |
| Title | What Is Life? & other scientific essays |
| Category | Nonfiction: science, philosophy |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Erwin Schrödinger, author |
| Description | A variety of essays written for the lay reader by renowned cat killer/non-killer and Nobel-winning physicist Erwin Schrödinger. |
| Start Date | 2022-04-15 |
| Status | In progress; p. 132 / 263 |
| End Date | 2022-06-03 |
| Remarks | Schrödinger writes about science, the philosophy of science, the psychology of science, and the immortality of the soul. Really. |
| Title | Dark Country |
| Category | Fiction: Horror |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Monique Snyman, author |
| Description | "When a ravaged corpse is discovered in Pretoria, South Africa, Esmé Snyder—an occult-crime expert—is called in to investigate." (Ebook, ARC) |
| Start Date | 2022-05-05 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-05-18 |
| Remarks | I will be posting a review of this book soon. |
| Title | The Rehearsal of Misunderstanding: Three Collections by Contemporary Greek Women Poets bilingual edition |
| Category | Poetry |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Rhea Galanaki, author Jenny Mastoraki, author Maria Laina, author Karen Van Dyck, translator and author of introduction |
| Description | The three books included are The Cake, by Rhea Galanaki; Tales of the Deep, by Jenny Mastoraki; and Hers, by Maria Laina. |
| Start Date | 2022-04-15 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-05-04 |
| Remarks | All three poets began writing when Greece was under a dictatorship. That era over, they retained their strategies of subterfuge and indirection to write about the experience of being women in a patriarchal society. Time, location, identity, and language are fluid and ambiguous in these works, and the meaning often resides in what is left unsaid. |
| Title | Another Country |
| Category | Fiction |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | James Baldwin, author |
| Description | "Set in Greenwich Village, Harlem, and France, among other locales, Another Country is a novel of passions—sexual, racial, political, artistic..." |
| Start Date | 2022-03-25 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-05-03 |
| Remarks | A beautiful, brutal work. Another Country was a bestseller, but got mixed reviews from the critics. Some, of course, objected to the homosexuality in the book. Today, a more likely complaint among my circle would be that there don't seem to be any gay characters in the story. (Or maybe one, in a bit part.) The queer men seem to be either bisexual, or "Straight, but I'll make an exception for you." A marvelously written, emotionally complex work. |
| Title | Hand to Mouth: The Truth About Being Poor in a Wealthy World |
| Category | Nonfiction |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Linda Tirado, author |
| Description | "In Hand to Mouth, [Tirado] gives a searing, witty and clear-eyed insider account of being poor in the world's richest nation. She looks at how ordinary people fall or are born into the poverty trap, explains why the poor don't always behave in the way the middle classes think they should, and makes an urgent call for us all to understand and meet the challenges they face." |
| Start Date | 2022-03-30 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-04-15 |
| Remarks | I've been poor, and my experience corroborates Tirado's account of what it's like. The last chapter is an open letter to rich people, but this is a book that everyone should read. |
| Title | New Poets of Native Nations |
| Category | Poetry |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Heid E. Erdrich, editor |
| Description | "New Poets of Native Nations gathers poets of diverse ages, styles, languages, and cultures to present the extraordinary range and power of new Native poetry." |
| Start Date | 2022-03-08 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-04-14 |
| Remarks | I'm not saying you won't find canyons and eagles and feathers and coyotes here (nor am I complaining because they are present), but that isn't all you'll find. Erdrich truly has assembled a diverse selection of Native American poets, voices: some accessible, some challenging, some lyrical, some harsh. Not all of the poetry is in English, and when it isn't, translations usually aren't provided, but I'm at fault for not learning the language(s) of the nation I live in. |
| Title | The Atrocities |
| Category | Fiction: horror |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Jeremy C. Shipp, author |
| Description | "When Isabella died, her parents were determined to ensure her education wouldn't suffer. But Isabella's parents had not informed her new governess of Isabella's… condition, and when Ms Valdez arrives at the estate, having forced herself through a surreal nightmare maze of twisted human-like statues, she discovers that there is no girl to tutor." |
| Start Date | 2022-03-19 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-03-24 |
| Remarks | A delightful bit of weird horror. Shipp has a vividly visual imagination, and a way of throwing out tantalizing hints of stories behind the story being told. |
| Title | Christina Rosetti: A Divided Life |
| Category | Nonfiction: biography |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Georgina Battiscombe, author |
| Description | When published in 1981, this biography of Rosetti was said to be "the first in more than two decades… drawing upon hitherto unpublished materials." |
| Start Date | 2022-03-13 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-03-30 |
| Remarks | Battiscombe spends too much ink debunking an earlier Rossetti biography. On the other hand, she wisely doesn't take the poetry as a reliable guide to the poet's life events. Enjoyable enough, and an easy read. |
| Title | The Changeling |
| Category | Fiction: Horror |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Victor Lavalle, author |
| Description | "When Apollo Kagwa's father disappeared, he left his son a box of books and strange recurring dreams. Now Apollo is a father himself—and as he and his wife, Emma, settle into their new lives… Apollo's dreams return and Emma begins acting odd." |
| Start Date | 2022-02-15 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-03-19 |
| Remarks | It's not clear for quite a while whether this is supernatural or psychological horror, but it is effective either way. It's also obvious, from topics the story touches on where I have some experience or knowledge, that Lavalle did his research thoroughly. |
| Title | Barracoon |
| Category | Nonfiction: biography, history |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Zora Neale Hurston, author Deborah G. Plant, editor foreword by Alice Walker |
| Description | "The Story of the Last 'Black Cargo.'" |
| Start Date | 2022-03-01 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-03-12 |
| Remarks | Hurston's first full-length book, Barracoon was not published in her lifetime—perhaps partly because she let Cudjo Lewis (Kossula) tell his own story in his own words, and perhaps in part because it describes the complicity of some African leaders in the slave trade. The story of Kossula's life is a harrowing and heartbreaking one. |
| Title | A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology |
| Category | Poetry |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Czeslaw Milosz, editor |
| Description | "A collection of the world's greatest poetry from the past two thousand years brings together five hundred works by more than two hundred poets, along with commentary by the editor." |
| Start Date | 2022-01-30 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-03-08 |
| Remarks | A good anthology, with only a few of those poems you find in dozens of other anthologies. Milosz has the tact not to include his own poetry, though he does include a relative or two. The word "things" in the title is as important as "luminous" — Milosz is very much a poet of this world, downright anti-romantic. I found the introductory comments to the poems suprisingly banal, coming as they do from a Nobel literature laureate. Many of them seem more appropriate for a middle school textbook on literature appreciation. In a couple of cases, Milosz seems to be saying the poem (which he selected for inclusion) really isn't very good. |
| Title | Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone |
| Category | Nonfiction |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Eduardo Galeano, author Mark Fried, translator |
| Description | "The unofficial history of the world seen — and mirrored to us — through the eyes and voices of history's unseen, unheard, and forgotten, over 5000 years of history." |
| Start Date | 2022-01-14 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-02-28 |
| Remarks | This book is easy to read in short bursts, but in doing so, you run the risk of missing connections and modulations from chapter to chapter. (Most are shorter than one page.) A succession of chapter titles will give you an idea: "Nijinksy," followed by "Origin of Jazz," "Resurrection of Django," "Origin of the Tango," "Origin of Hollywood," "Origin of Modern Art," and "Origin of the Modern Novel." |
| Title | Certain Dark Things |
| Category | Fiction: Horror |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Silvia Moreno-Garcia, author |
| Description | "Welcome to Mexico City… An Oasis In A Sea Of Vampires…" |
| Start Date | 2022-01-14 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-02-14 |
| Remarks | Not scary, but entertaining and suspenseful. I'm impressed with how economically Moreno-Garcia builds her world, with its subspecies of vampires coexisting with, using, fighting or evading ordinary humans. The ending satisfies, and the journey is enjoyable. |
| Title | Cool Shades of Eventide |
| Category | Poetry |
| Author(s) / Editor(s) / Translator(s) | Nancy Krieg, author |
| Description | |
| Start Date | 2022-01-14 |
| Status | Finished reading |
| End Date | 2022-01-29 |
| Remarks | A delightful book, filled with marvelous images and phrases. The author is a musician, and it shows both in the frequent musical content and in her ear for language. One stanza from the title poem:
emotions
(Disclosure: Nancy Krieg and I are both in the 365 Poems in 365 Days Facebook writing group.)we light them like cigarettes and defile the air of someone else friends cough and choke as they listen |