M Train by Patti Smith is a collection of essays written later in her life while sitting in some of her favorite cafes around the world. Smith is one of my favorite writers/poets/musicians and spending a little time inside her head is always a joy. There are reflections of her early life with Fred Sonic and their young children before his death, and pilgrimages Smith makes to Mexico City and Tangier, among other places around the world. Smith also shares…
The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi tells of an Indian girl in the 1950’s escaping and abusive arranged marriage and making her way alone to Jaipur to become a henna artist for the wealthy ladies in the city. Lakshmi overcomes so many challenges to make it on her own and when she is finally about to finish building a home of her own, a younger sister she didn’t know she had left behind shows up and turns her world upside…
I was so excited to read The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner, but after reading it, my favorite thing about it is the cover. Caroline, a modern day aspiring historian, finds an old bottle in the Thames while on a trip to London, which leads her to discover the ruins of a mostly forgotten 18th century apothecary run by women. The apothecary harbored a secret room where things much stronger than normal healing teas and herbs were brewed. The men…
Vesper Flights is a collection of essays by Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk. Macdonald has a keen eye for observation and writes about birds and nature in a way that is original, fully her own, always giving the reader a unique perspective and a new way of seeing the world. However, I am always left feeling slightly unsettled by her writing. Macdonald refers to herself an “amateur gothic naturalist” which in and of itself is interesting, but…
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler is partly a science fiction/time travel novel and part historic African American fiction. Dana, a modern black woman in CA, is celebrating her 26th birthday when she is transported back in time more than 150 years to the antebellum South. There in the slave quarters she learns that she is in the home of her ancestors. Tied to a white boy whose life she saves, she is pulled back and forth through time over and…
Clock Dance by Anne Tyler follows the life of Willa Drake, focusing on defining moments in her life that should have been transformational, but never really were. Because it jumped decades forward at a time, I found it hard to truly get to know or care about Willa. The last section was the longest and in the later part of her life, Willa finally seemed to come into her own. Tyler is a very prolific writer and this is an…
The Truths We Hold: An American Journey by Kamala Harris was published in 2019 as Harris was about to make her run for President and before the start of the Pandemic and in some ways reads like a campaign book. I wanted to learn more about our now first woman Vice-President and Harris does give some stories of her childhood, specifically about her Mother and sister and where she grew up, along with some nice photos, but I found it…
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry is a novel set in Victorian England. When her husband dies, Cora, a natural scientist, leaves England with her son in tow and heads to Essex, searching for fossils and whatever else she might discover there. She finds herself in a small town full of rumors of the legendary Essex Serpent. She befriends a Vicar and his family and although science and religion clash, they have more in common than she would have thought….
The Liar’s Dictionary by Eley Williams is a funny and very clever debut novel following two story lines; Malory a young intern in present day England is working to digitize the dictionary and taxed with finding and eliminating any “Mountweazels” that might exist, while Peter, a Victorian lexicographer, is becoming increasingly disillusioned with his job and life and attempting to exert some artistic freedom into his work. Mountweazel n. the phenomenon of false entries within dictionaries and works of reference….
Inland by Tea Obreht is historical fiction based on the little known Army Camel Corps, when camels were brought from Turkey to the Western United States in the late 1800’s to explore the new territory and be used as pack animals. Two stories converge, Nora a frontierswoman dealing alone with a drought and unsure where the men in her life have gone, and Lurie a wanted man who forms an unusual bond as he travels across this desolate landscape. This…