Fly Me Away!

The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Bird King is the kind of book that spoils you from reading others for a few days. It's going to be one of my favorite novels of the year, perhaps all time. (Though Wilson's previous book moves to the top of the TBR pleasure pile.) This book stands on its own as a darkly luminous fantasy novel, but it's also a work of art, created to please on more than one level of perception, as are all the best stories; I mean, of course, it lifts us into the territory of myth. Such fast-paced adventure: a slave girl and a magic map maker flee the Holy Inquisition at the fall of Granada, the last Muslim emirate on the Iberian peninsula. And there are djinn, (not the usual depiction, thanks!) and magic. Worth the read just for the adventure and coming-of-age story. Then there's the exploration of relationships and love. This is a novelistic homage to the great poem written by the Sufi poet that inspired Hafiz and Rumi, Attar. It's not poetic at all, except in its themes. It's true to the spirit of mysticism but it's not a poem or a retelling of The Conference of the Birds. The writing has the flavor of both Salman Rushdie and Guy Gavriel Kay, in reverence and irreverence, in facility with Islamic and history concepts and nostalgia for a past that might have been. There is not a wrong note emotionally, spiritually, psychologically as questions of loyalty, good and evil, free will, service and dominance, sin and goodness are dealt with along the journey. And of course, your own beliefs about those issues are highlighted as you go along. Is there a land of freedom, where justice and mercy are married in balance, where kindness is the law, where people can live in harmony no matter their beliefs? If there's not, does the fact that we can imagine it mean that we can create it, even after ten thousand years of failure? Are Camelot and Granada, Themiscyra and America only meant to last a few lifetimes, perfect in idealism, imperfect in practice--or is goodwill among humans sustainable? Do you have to follow tradition, accept injustice, be the spoils of war? Or do you flee death and look for a future? Must you lay in the bed you made, or is there forgiveness, repentance, more chances at friendship, honor, and life? Once you've been possessed by a demon, are you ever free? You don't have to think about that stuff as you read, but I love the books and authors that make it possible. Highly recommended!


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Heart and Humor Win the Day

Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss by Rajeev Balasubramanyam
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a great book for book clubs! Professor Chandra and his Cambridge colleagues thought he would get the 2016 Nobel Prize in economics, but on announcement day he’s passed over; put on furlough for calling a female student an imbecile; run into by a bicyclist, and finds out he's had a silent heart attack. He spends his 70th birthday alone: rich, respected, divorced, and mostly estranged from his kids. He has moments of kindness to protégées, but he's a grumpy old man. His son is rich from telling people how to succeed in business through affirmations, his oldest daughter is a radical and doesn’t talk to him anymore, and his ex lives in Boulder with her psychologist husband and the youngest daughter, a high school senior who gets involved with drugs. This allows Chandra to escape from the mess of his life in England. He goes to Boulder in attempt to fix his daughter. Professor Chandra is not a likeable dude—until he punches laid-back Steve ("Kids experiment!") in the nose, and Steve manipulates him into a weekend retreat at Esalen. "Being Who You Are at Summer Solstice" is not where or who Chandra wants to be, but he starts asking some questions and observing himself. Conservative intellectual meets emotional woo-woo, and the humor and growth begin. It’s challenging to read about your country from a foreigner’s viewpoint, just as it’s challenging to see yourself through someone else’s eyes—and yet modernity has shown us we’re all more alike than different, adopting what pleases us and complaining about the rest. So much fodder for book club exploration and talk: generational, cultural, political and societal divides, with heart and humor the only options for authentic connection. This is really a story of coming to an accommodation with an ever-changing, confusing world, coming to terms with life as an elder. I’d love to know what other folks think about it, too: the best kind of book club book. Recommended!
(Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a digital review copy!)


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Welcome the Howls of Spring

Wolf Rain by Nalini Singh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Way better than the last one, and worth the hardback price if you’re a collector. (Series beginners should go all the way back to enjoy the complete journey.) So in addition to a love story for Alexei, wolf lieutenant, we get to learn more of how empathy can save the Psy. I’ve always been a fan of Singh’s world building, and she gets back to it in this one. There’s a lot to be treasured in the exploration of how body, mind, and spirit balance, and that’s one of the major themes of the Psy-Changeling series. This book explores the strange bond between psychopaths and empaths—in the context of the Psynet, not the romance. Alexei rescues an empath who’s not aware she’s an empath, and tries very hard not to mate with her. We know from the beginning how that’s going to work out; it’s the mystery of who’s the stealth Psy that’s trying to kill all the empaths that drives the larger story. There’s enough closure to be satisfying, and a clue to the elevation of suspense coming in the next book...if only it didn’t take so much longer to write than to read, because now I’ve got to wait another year until the next one! (Thanks to the First To Read program, I got a temporary digital copy)


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The Eyes Have It!

Death of an Eye by Dana Stabenow
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’ve read most of Stabenow’s books (wish she had continued sci-fi!) and this historical mystery is up to her usual standard. The Eye of Isis is the pharaoh's investigator; Cleopatra's has been murdered whilst investigating a stolen currency shipment, and Cleopatra replaces her with an old friend. I've never before seen Cleopatra through the eyes of an almost-peer, a schoolmate. There's humor, eye-rolling, and a very human perspective of Egypt's divine queen, but most of the story does focus on the mystery, and that's fun, too. Once I got over the shock, I enjoyed the book very much. Recommended! (I received a digital copy from the publisher for review.)


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True American Treasure

Louis l'Amour's Lost Treasures: Volume 1: Unfinished Manuscripts, Mysterious Stories, and Lost Notes from One of the World's Most Popular Novelists by Louis L'Amour
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Louis L’Amour was the West’s greatest storyteller, and given time and permission to step outside the box, he’d be more widely appreciated. This new presentation of story fragments and ephemera put together by his son Beau gives a peek into Louis’ creative process—story fragments, alternate beginnings, movie treatments, Louis’ handwritten notes and musings, photos of certain places, etc.—interspersed with Beau’s own memories of Louis’ life events and personal stories.
The book will please any fan and could be useful to aspiring authors and pulp fiction historians—before he made it big, Louis also wrote rousing international adventures for the story magazines. Though many of his stories ended up as radio dramas, television shows, and movies, his book characters, especially women and minorities, have more depth than that allowed by American culture of the 1950s-1990s. Louis had a strong interest in philosophy and metaphysics, proposing a TV series on serial reincarnation in the 1950s. He was a historian, also, and with all his novels—the Sackett novels intentionally—he painted a grassroots history of the United States through the stories of the people who lived it, the pioneers and Indians and rustlers and gold hunters trying to make a life despite robber barons, faraway legislators, and the hard trials that come along with living. Included in this book are Louis’ notes for a book on the Trail of Tears and a book about Louis Riel, who was a Metis statesman in Canada. Reading (& rereading) the breadth of his work, one finds Louis’ grand vision of America as the land of refugees, every wave of human settlement on both continents from time's beginning being an escape from some tragedy either of climate or public or private war—a vision recently confirmed by ancient DNA.
Here’s some advice he wrote to himself, and it’s the reason so many love his books, Westerns or not: “Make this a definitely superlative book...Discuss books, politics, painting, jewels, beliefs, folklore, magic, etc. Make this something really fine. With a great suspense yarn and a beautiful love story. Make the writing something very special.”
This volume is for L'Amour fans primarily, but if I've inspired you with this review—and especially if you're new to the West--there's no better introduction to the true Western sensibility than L'Amour.


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How to Live In Beauty

Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness by Ingrid Fetell Lee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

January brings thoughts of fresh new beginnings and makeovers of body, mind, spirit—and surroundings. If you want to refresh your life this year, “Joyful” can help you on all levels. Readers may recall Alexandra Stoddard, who wrote “Living A Beautiful Life” in the 1980s—Lee’s new take on an older idea is updated with the latest scientific research revealing the neurological underpinnings of humans’ persistent belief (and experience) that surrounding yourself with beauty can make you happy. Here’s how to reach for happiness and beyond without having to hoard things or break your budget.

Lee breaks out elements of joy into 10 different qualities, tells us how to recognize their essence in sensory details like colors, shapes, and textures, and sets us free to explore the possibilities. Without “woo-woo,” but using anecdotes, interviews, studies, some necessary drawings, and exposition, Lee walks you through her journey into the human made material world, then to the environmental qualities that inspire makers and back again to a potential synthesis of joy and beauty. There might be too much theory of aesthetics in the book for some, but this is not only a how-to book, it’s a how-come book.

I still found myself wanting some photos; the lack made me the most excited I’ve ever been to discover charts and worksheets in the back of a book. We are left to our own devices as to how we want to apply the strategies in the book, but the tools Lee gives us are great: “Whether you want to give your life a full joy makeover, tackle a specific project (like redesigning a room or throwing a party), or simply sprinkle a bit more joy here and there, these exercises will help you bring more joy into your world.”

Theory and practice, inspiration and good tools for renewing your life. Recommended!


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Defiant Optimism

Dear Mrs. Bird by A.J. Pearce
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Young Emmy is awfully perky but endearingly earnest and naive, and adult cynicism just can't stand up to the onslaught. She gets over her head when a seemingly small deception piles up complications. It's London, during the Blitz of WWII; Emmy has landed an internship with a newspaper and dreams of being a brave war correspondent. But really she's hired to be the assistant for the advice columnist of a tired women's magazine.

Mrs. Bird won't give advice that's really needed, keeping her column to beauty advice and admonitions to keep calm and carry on. Love advice? Fear of bombs? Out of ration cards? That Sort of Thing is Not Acceptable — and goes in the trash.

Emmy is our window into the daily struggles and joys that continue on in people's lives, even and especially when there's a war on. She's got a huge heart, and wants to help people. So in addition to "war work" volunteering, of course she answers letters from the trash bin … and of course the lesson of growing up is that helping people, even with good intentions, is never as simple as it seems.

With a great balance of sentiment, reality, and humor, the author reveals the grit and grace beneath the calm when bombs fall and break your life apart. Because they do.

This book reminded me why we have such nostalgia for WWII. It might have been the last war of idealism, for nowadays we know war has touched us all in some way — all around the globe. Many of us exist because of parents and grandparents who met during a war or because of a war; despite the wars to end wars, war's ongoing all the time.

But in all our different ways what we, as individuals, fight for is each other. We want there to be naive young men and women and children who don't go to bed hungry and happy lovers. Life does go on in the midst of tragedy and loss, and life is good. Whether we fight with words or guns, no matter the motives of war-makers — the mission in most soldier's hearts is peace.



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