Book Reviews

How to be a Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals

Sy Montgomery (author), Rebecca Green (illustrator)

Mariner Books (2018)

(from Amazon)

"Part Emily Dickinson, part Indiana Jones," as the Boston Globe has called her, Sy Montgomery has been chased by an angry silverback gorilla in Zaire and swum with piranhas and pink dolphins in the Amazon. To research her books, films and articles, she has worked in a pit swarming with 18,000 snakes in Canada and been hunted by a tiger in India. She has hiked the Altai Mountains of Mongolia's Gobi Desert in search of snow leopards and penetrated the cloud forests of Papua New Guinea to radio collar tree kangaroos. No place is too far to go to bring animals' true stories to adults and children around the world.

Th author of the national bestseller, The Good, Good Pig, as well as 15 other celebrated nonfiction books, Montgomery writes for print as well as broadcast in an effort to reach as wide an audience as possible at what she considers a critical turning point in human history. "We are on the cusp of either destroying this sweet, green Earth or revolutionizing the way we understand the rest of animate creation," she says. "It's an important time to be writing about the connections we share with our fellow creatures. It's a great time to be alive."

I shared so much about Sy Montgomery because she is amazing as well as a prolific writer. Recently she was interviewed on NPR, and I was taken by the excitement and vitality of her voice. I am a fan.

How to be a Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals is not a long read but Montgomery’s memoir through her animal friends is an engaging read for animal lovers. And anyone who enjoys an instructive memoir. These are not just stories about animals but what each animal has taught her and by way of her writing, we learn, too. As a note, there are thirteen sections on a turtle’s back and thirteen full moons in a year – all part of Native American lore.

Each chapter introduces a new animal by name. Chapter 1 Molly is about her first dog, a Scotty. Other chapters are part of her research and travels around the world – emus in Australia, Clarabelle, a tarantula in French Guiana, and Octavia a giant Pacific octopus in the Seattle aquarium. Sy has many chapters about her beloved border collies – Sally, Tess, and Thurber.

“To begin to understand the life of any animal demands not only curiosity, not only skill, and not only intellect. I saw that I would also need to summon the bond I had forged with Molly. I would need to open not only my mind, but also my heart.”

“By allowing me to handle her, Clarabelle had opened to me a spidery world I’d previously never appreciated.”

She writes about a Christmas weasel who attacked her “ladies” (hens): “Like a struck match chases away darkness, this creature’s incandescent presence left no room for anger in my heart – for it had been stretched wide with awe and flooded with the balm of forgiveness.”

Let’s not forget Christopher Hogwood. He was adopted as a wee pig and grew to be hundreds of pounds – loved by all. She said, “He taught us how to love. How to love what life gives you, even when life gives you slops.”

Sy Montgomery is a stickler for facts and at the same time uses lyrical language to alert us to the importance of empathy for all living things.

The close of the book has photos of her many animal alliances and a bibliography for further reading. What a wonderful surprise to find I have read most of the books when they were first published – Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat, Of Wolves and Men by Barry Lopez, My Life with the Chimpanzees by Jane Goodall and more.

Go to YouTube for more about Sy Montgomery and her work.

Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery

www.youtube.com › watch

#PouredOver: Sy Montgomery on Of Time and Turtles & ...

www.youtube.com › watch

Sy Montgomery - WHAT THE CHICKEN KNOWS

www.youtube.com › watch

Sy Montgomery - Secrets Of The Octopus

www.youtube.com › watch

Octopus Consciousness - with Author Sy Montgomery

www.youtube.com › watch

#94: Secrets of the Octopus with Sy Montgomery and Warren ...

www.youtube.com › watch

Sy Montgomery: The Soul of an Octopus

www.youtube.com › watch

The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives by Shankar Vedantam

Random House 2010

Shankar Vedantam is a science correspondent at National Public Radio, based in Washington DC. He was formerly a national correspondent and columnist for the Washington Post, and a 2010 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. He is interested in how insights from psychology and the social sciences can change the way we think about ordinary events in our lives, as well as news events. Learn more about Shankar at www.vedantam.com and follow him on Twitter @HiddenBrain and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/HiddenBrain

I subscribe to one podcast – Hidden Brain by Shankar Vedantam. Brain research is one of my enduring interests. This was particularly true when I was a teacher (and also a learner). From the first understanding of brain plasticity, I was hooked. The book, The Hidden Brain, came out in 2010 but the insights into research remain relevant. Just look at the subtopics in the title.

Vedantam showcases real events to illustrate how discoveries in neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral science affect our daily lives and decisions. What is most important is what the hidden mind is – our unconscious. The unconscious mind makes decisions we are not aware of. He talks about unconscious bias linked to racism, how an ordinary person can be turned into a suicide bomber, and how bystanders can be turned into a mob. The horrifying case of Deletha Word is a testament to inaction. Vedantam is careful about his research. He talks with experts and fact-checks his information. He is also a storyteller which enhances what could be dry facts. He is deeply curious.

One of my takeaways is how recognizing our hidden brain can help in understanding how unconscious bias works. If you are interested, I recommend Shankar Vedantam’s podcast and consider his new book cited below. Or go to hiddenbrain.org for access to previous and current podcasts. For example,

Dropping the Mask: Have you ever downplayed some aspect of your identity? This week, we talk with legal scholar Kenji Yoshino about what happens when we pretend to be someone other than our true selves.

Marching to Your Own Drummer: What would you have done? It’s one of the most enduring questions in psychology. We all like to think that in a moment of crisis, we’d rise to the occasion and show courage. And yet many of us have had experiences where we followed orders and did what we were told to do. This week, we talk with psychologist Sunita Sah about the reasons why many of us silence ourselves and follow orders, and how we can align our words and actions with our values.

Also, by Shankar Vedantam with Bill Mesler:

Useful Delusions: The Power and Paradox of the Self-Deceiving Brain

A Behavioral Scientist Notable Book of 2021
A Next Big Idea Club Best Nonfiction of 2021

Self-deception does terrible harm to us, to our communities, and to the planet. But if it is so bad for us, why is it ubiquitous? In Useful Delusions, Shankar Vedantam and Bill Mesler argue that, paradoxically, self-deception can also play a vital role in our success and well-being.

When You See My Mother, Ask Her to Dance

poems by Joan Baez

David R Godine, Publisher (April 2024)

Joan Baez is a dynamic force of nature. Her commitment to music and social activism has earned global recognition, ranging from induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, to the Ambassador of Conscience Award, Amnesty International’s highest honor. Retired from active performing since 2019, she has devoted much of her time to the “Mischief Makers” series of paintings, portraits that immortalize risk-taking visionaries she has known, who have brought about social change through history, from Dr. Martin Luther King and Bob Dylan to the Dalai Lama and Patti Smith.

Excuse me for indulging in poetry. I know April is poetry month, but every month is poetry month for me. I grew up in the Bay Area in the 60’s. Joan Baez lived south of my home and there were many times she gave talks and was vocal about non-violence. It was a time of cultural change and upheaval. Music, at the time, was at the forefront of political discord. What started as folk music morphed to something more meaningful. Joan Baez and her angelic voice and sincerity captured my heart.

Joan wrote poetry throughout her life and this collection, When You See My Mother, Ask Her to Dance, contains poems that form a personal diary of many important events in her life. Her contemporaries were Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, and Jimi Hendrix. It was a magical time in many ways. Her life was complex, like many of us, we live in the gray areas at times. This is the first time she is sharing her poems which exemplify how to manage a life – like a memoir in poetry. She also wrote a prose memoir, And a Voice to Sing With which you might enjoy.

In the author’s note titled “Poetry and Me”. She buries the lead in the last paragraph – In 1990 I began therapy that led to a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder. That’s clinical-speak for developing multiple personalities as a way of coping with long-term traumas. This surprised me as she was describing a condition my mother suffered with for a period of time. Poems that are labeled by Star or by Yasha are alternate personalities. There is even a poem written by Joan and Yasha. In the Rosy Trumpeteers, Yasha writes in the third person – Long before the illness/she had spoken of her/darkening reveries.

Joan has a witty and sharp sense of humor. I remember a concert in the 70’s. In her set she sang some Bob Dylan songs and did a great parody of his voice. The poems reflect a remarkable grace throughout. For example, she writes poems of her young mother, a twist on This little piggy went to market, and poems for people (Colleen, Thelma, Jimi, Judy and Dear Leonard). Here are small playful gems: Writing is like love,/it can’t be forced/or dies in its own process//Writing is like love/ it can’t be forced/or it becomes/cement/in a tube of toothpaste. Or this twist on Poe, Ravenous/ Quoth the raven:/”I am ravenous.”/And he pecked out/Edgar Allan’s eye. Perhaps this review will bring back memories of a point in time. Perhaps you will recall songs she wrote and many she covered. It surely has done that for me.

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange

Knopf February 2024

Tommy Orange is a graduate of the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. An enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, he was born and raised in Oakland, California. His first book, There There, was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize and received the 2019 American Book Award. He lives in Oakland, California.

I met Tommy Orange at the Gold Rush Writers Retreat in Mokelumne Hill (2021). How fortunate that we had the opportunity to spend time with and interview Tommy about There, There at the time. He had lived in Calaveras County for a while and moved to Oakland at that time. He is a quiet, thoughtful man, not inclined to toot his own horn but rather let his work speak for him. I admit I anxiously awaited this second novel.

Why would we read about things we did not experience? It is an act of empathy to understand what happened to others as well as a pledge to know history. Native Americans know this story. Cellular memories and generational trauma are real in the indigenous cultures of the Americas. Yes, there is tragedy, drugs, violence, addiction. The New Yorker commented about Wandering Stars – it “probes the aftermath of atrocity, seeing history and its horrors as heritable . . . The reader can see what the characters cannot—what forced migration and residential schools have prevented them from seeing and sharing. The reader can see how the addictions and terrors, as well as the capacity for pleasure and endurance, echo across the Red Feather family."

Wandering Stars is in a sense a prequel to There, There. We take a step back through generations in order to follow the journey of the ancestors we met in Orange’s first novel, featuring characters we came to know – Tony Loneman, Octavio Gomez, Dene Oxendene, Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield, Jaquie Red Feather and more.

An oft highlighted quote from the book reveals, “Stories do more than comfort. They take you away and bring you back better made.” There is a sense of redemption in these words. There are parts of the novel that are heart-breaking to read but there is a strength in how the characters face their challenges. Still, there is a great cost to be paid. What heals this kind of trauma?

The prologue brings us back to the Sand Creek Massacre (1864) representative of other massacres in North America. Although it is painful to read because it is the facts of real events, it is here we begin the story of the Bear Shield, Red Feather, and Star families. They represent what has happened to most Native American families in the 19th century. NPR’s review states the themes of Wandering Stars very well -- “An eloquent indictment of the devastating long-term effects of the massacre, dislocation and forced assimilation of Native Americans, [Wandering Stars] is also a heartfelt paean to the importance of family and of ancestors' stories in recovering a sense of belonging and identity.”

Honesty can be painful. History has long sought to diminish what happened to Native American culture. The old adage that it is the victors who write history is abundantly true. Wandering Stars seeks to correct a one-sided view as Bury Me at Wounded Knee and other novels have done in the past. I know several people who were told they were Mexican as children to avoid being known as Indian. That’s how deep racism runs. It also shows the reader the damage of silencing an entire people.

At the same time, Wandering Stars shows us resilience, the importance of family, and how to experience love and loss. “… which is to say that this is a book of life—a necessary story for everyone. For the sake of knowing, of understanding, Wandering Stars blew my heart into a thousand pieces and put it all back together again.” Morgan Talty, best-selling author of Night of the Living Rez.

Here is just one example of Orange’s lyric use of language -- “Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame, wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.” Also, his use of symbolism is woven throughout the novel.

“The bullet Orvil carries in his body after the shooting is symbolic of generational trauma. The wound makes Orvil feel as if something from the past has entered and infected him.”

“Repeating images of birds symbolize freedom.”

“The Carlisle Indian Industrial school to which Jude is taken in Part One is symbolic of erasure. While at the school, Jude is taught that his cultural and ethnic origins are uncivilized and savage. The school robs him of his identity and detaches him from his ancestral origins.”

The need for home and belonging tracks across the generations beginning with Jude with the Sand Creek Massacre. Like so many other displaced people, Jude suffers the loss of his family, culture, land, and people. Orange himself can count himself as a displaced person, living in an urban community far from the origins of the tribes he comes from.

Point of View can be confusing when the novel is written in first, second and third points of view as is Wandering Stars.First person is more brings us closer as it is a character’s voice. Second person involves more narrative. And third person is omniscient, as in the prologue which describe a real historical perspective.

As one reviewer said, “Most of the rest of us don’t deserve this book. But its existence and its sublime writing makes it an obligation to read. Knowing the truth can be healing which is perhaps another strength of Wandering Stars.

The Impossible Life by Matt Haig

Viking 2024

About the author: Matt Haig is the internationally bestselling author of the novels The Midnight Library, How to Stop Time, The Humans, The Radleys, children's novel A Boy Called Christmas, and memoir Reasons to Stay Alive. His latest novel is The Life Impossible, which will be published in summer 2024. His work has been translated into over fifty languages.

The first novel I read by Matt Haig was The Midnight Library. The Impossible Life is a different kind of novel. The first half of the novel introduces us the engaging characters – retired math teacher, Grace Winters; Ibiza (an island can be a character as location is everything); Alberto Ribas and his daughter Marta; and the off-scene character, Christina.

Grace is 72 years old and British. She has led a predictable and boring life except that both her son and husband have died. It is key that she is lonely and suffers tremendous guilt for the death of her son. Her guilt plays out as an inability to have fun or experience joy. Christine, a woman she met and befriended decades earlier, leaves her a humble cottage in Ibiza. The decision Grace makes to travel to Ibiza sets her on a journey into the paranormal and island mythology.

By the middle of the novel, Grace is getting used to the idea of special powers (reading peoples’ minds, telekinesis, and the power to direct peoples’ actions), a ball of light in oceanic sea grass. This causes Alberto to comment, “The difference between a gift and a curse was sometimes just a question of perspective.”

Benedict Cumberbatch commented – “A wry and tender love-letter to the best of being human.” There in is part of the problem. In the last part of the novel, I felt the same as a reviewer on Amazon, “I found the action to be contrived, the environmental angle overstated and preachy.” Although I am fully dedicated to saving habitats and many poets and authors address this issue.

It was jarring to switch from a great read to a statement about environmental protection which felt contrived.

Despite this, another great feature is the length of chapters. They are short which keeps the action moving and interest high. If you’re like me you may page ahead to the length of a chapter. Some teasers: escape of the lobsters, the mean man and his fork, and the chapters titled—Marta and the Second Law of Thermodynamics, Elvis Presley and the Broken Glass, The Workshop of the Forgetful Ones.

That said, I highlighted many thoughtful, lyrical comments:

“The point of desperation is often the point of truth.”

“Reality is merely an illusion. A very persistent one. I think that is what Einstein said. Sometimes the illusion is the reality we don’t understand yet.’”

“And so, the real magic is a mathematical one. It is the one that doesn’t posit simplicity and complexity against each other, but one which finds the truer order within the complexity. Within the mess. The beautiful, spiraling, entropic mess we call life.”

“The guilt of having fun.” “I had believed that I was simply not meant to be happy.”

The Covenant of Water written & narrated by Abraham Verghese

Audio release date May 2023 Hardback - Grove Press (May 2023)

About the Author: Abraham Verghese is the Linda R. Meier and Joan F. Lane Provostial Professor and Vice Chair of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine. He sees patients, teaches students, and writes.

His writing, both non-fiction and fiction, has to do with his view of medicine as a passionate and romantic pursuit; he sees the bedside skill and ritual of examining the patient as critical, cost saving, time-honored and necessary. Previous novels include My Own Country, The Tennis Partner, and Cutting for Stone. Oprah Winfrey purchased the movies rights.

Maxine Hong Kingston in her book, To Be the Poet, calls her novels “long books”. There has been a trend lately of very, very long novels. For me it started with The Overstory by Richard Powers at 502 pages, Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver at 548 pages “Oppenheimer” by Kai Bird & Martin Sherwin at 591 pages and now The Covenant of Water by Abraham Vergese at 776 pages (31+ hours audio). I chose the audio version because it is narrated by the author. Vergese’s ability to capture character dialects, from Scottish to the ages and status of Indian characters is remarkable.

The Covenant of Water was inspired by a 157-page illustrated document Verghese's mother, Mariam Verghese, created for her 5-year-old granddaughter and namesake, who wanted to know what life was like when her grandmother was growing up.

The story takes place in Kerala, India 1900-1977. I must let you know – the first half of the book takes place in Parambil southwest India. It is guaranteed you will become absorbed with each principal character – Philipose - son of Big Ammachi and Big Appachen, Elsie - artist and Phillipose's wife, Ninan - son of Elsie and Philipose, Shamuel - a pulayar (servant) and Big Appachen's friend, Digby Kilgore - Scottish doctor with a tragic past, Celeste Arnold - Digby's first love and his boss' wife. And I do have some affection for Damodan (the elephant) who arrives at Big Appachen’s home every so often and is treated with deference.

The story opens in 1900 with the arranged wedding of a 12-year-old girl to a much older man.

It is a rocky start, and we make the journey with her as she matures and finds she has a home, her own family, and a strange family secret she calls “The Condition” where an unnatural number of ancestors in her husband's lineage an aversion to water and several have died in what would typically be avoidable circumstances involving water.

Midway in the novel Verghese shifts from Parambil to Madras and Scottish doctor Digby Kilgore. I was temporarily confused as Parambil was left behind and a new story started. At this point, I thought each story could be a novel on its own. I hung in as I knew the two stories would come together. I don’t intend to give an exhausted retelling of the story. The large themes include

family, love, multiple tragedies, and the historical background of the diverse cultural life of early 20th century India (including the harsh realities of the caste system).

As a doctor, Verghese, does delve into the progress of medicine through his character Digby. His diagnoses are spot on and reveal the veracity of what was known in the day about leprosy and other maladies. In fact, there are many touching and provocative love scenes which include precise anatomical specificity. I’ve never read about the clavicle in a love scene.

The Covenant of Water deserves a reader’s commitment. Many things signify a remarkable novel. Not the least being a facility with metaphor and its lyrical qualities. Following is the passage that contains the title – "And now (she) is here, standing in the water that connects them all in time and space and always has. The water she first stepped in minutes ago is long gone and yet it is here, past and present and future inexorably coupled, like time made incarnate. This is the covenant of water: that they're all linked by their acts of commission and omission, and no one stands alone."

Certain quotes reveal the power of interwoven themes and cause the reader to pause, to think:

A good story goes beyond what a forgiving God cares to do: it reconciles families and unburdens them of secrets whose bond is stronger than blood. But in their revealing, as in their keeping, secrets can tear a family apart.

Her scars, her burns, and her contractures were all on the inside, invisible...unless one gazed into her eyes: then it was like looking into a still pond and gradually making out the sunken car with its trapped occupants at the bottom.

What is worry but fear of what the future holds?

We are merely renting these bodies of ours. You came into this world on an in breath. You will exit on an out breath.

Even misery, when familiar, has its own comfort.

Remarkably Bright Creatures Shelby Van Pelt

Audio narrator: Marin Ireland

Harper Audio 2022

Shelby Van Pelt is an American writer. She wrote the novel Remarkably Bright Creatures (2022). It has been on the New York Times hardcover fiction best-seller list multiple times. It was her debut novel. She was awarded the 2023 McLaughlin-Esstman-Stearns First Novel Prize and $3000 by the Writer's Center for Remarkably Bright Creatures.

The fictional location is Sowell Bay in Washington state – a small place where everyone knows each other, the good news, and since everyone knows everyone’s business that’s the bad news.

The town has an aquarium and in that aquarium is a giant Pacific octopus named Marcellus. The charm of this novel is the character of Marcellus. His voices weaves in and out of the narrative. He understands sarcasm, cynicism, melancholy, how to escape his lodgings and in the end holds the ring that solves a mystery. As readers, we grow quite fond of this octopus. He is intelligent.

His best friend is the widow Tova who cleans the aquarium at night.

Van Pelt through Marcellus offers us facts about octopi. But also takes us near to the idea of anthropomorphism (thinking animals have consciousness and feelings like humans). While this notion is shunned by many, fantasy and fiction allow us to suspend our beliefs and enjoy animal characters.

Cameron, thirty years old and at a loss with his life, arrives in Sowell Bay lonely, lacking confidence – kind of a loser (so far). He stumbles and fumbles. The theme of friendship and family are a reoccurring theme in Remarkably Bright Creatures. Other characters emerge – Tova’s women friends, lovelorn Ethan, and love-interest Avery.

Marcellus, Tova, and Cameron are all lonely in their own way. Marcellus is trapped in the aquarium. Tova’s son Erik died under mysterious circumstances thirty-years ago. And Cameron is estranged from his mother and doesn’t know who his father his. There is tension – Will Cameron find his father? Will Tova be able to move on from her grief? Will Marcellus die in the aquarium? We read on to find out.

Van Pelt engages us with lyrical thoughts from Marcellus who serves as the philosopher of the novel.

Humans. For the most part, you are dull and blundering. But occasionally, you can be remarkably bright creatures.

Why can humans not use their millions of words to simply tell one another what they desire?

She understands what it means to never be able to stop moving, lest you find yourself unable to breathe.

I googled “What does the octopus represent in Remarkably Bright Creatures?” Whenever they embrace, Tova is left with the characteristic marks of the octopus's tentacles, a symbol which lends physicality to the healing power of touch and the transformational energy of friendship.

Take note: Shelby Van Pelt's novel Remarkably Bright Creatures, affectionately known as “that octopus book,” is officially being adapted into a feature film on Netflix.

I am now reading "The Soul of an Octopus" by Sy Montgomery. It is a great partner to Van Pelt’s novel as it is non-fiction. Waiting in my list of must reads is a new book by Montgomery – “Of Time and Turtles”. Check out her work. I recently heard an interview with her on NPR. Her enthusiasm is contagious, her depth of knowledge vast.

Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce

The Dial Press 2020

Rachel Joyce is the author of the Sunday Times and international bestsellers The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Perfect, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy, The Music Shop, and the New York Times bestseller Miss Benson's Beetle, as well as a collection of interlinked short stories, A Snow Garden & Other Stories. Her books have sold over 5 million copies worldwide and been translated into thirty-six languages. Two are currently in development for film. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book prize and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Rachel was awarded the Specsavers National Book Awards ‘New Writer of the Year’ in December 2012 and shortlisted for the ‘UK Author of the Year’ 2014. Rachel has also written over twenty original afternoon plays and adaptations of the classics for BBC Radio 4, including all the Bronte novels.

Oh, what fun to travel with Margery Benson and her “apprentice” Enid Pretty! This is not to say this is a light or fluffy adventure. The writing is exquisite and the themes substantial – friendship, finding strength in yourself, overcoming obstacles. Two very different characters forge their way through one improbable situation to another. In the end, both are transformed and have the deepest understanding of friendship.

It is 1950’s London. Margery is a spinster, lonely and serious – an teacher and amateur entomologist specializing in beetles. Enid is young, light and fluffy. Only she can wear pom-pom sandals wherever she goes. Needless to say, both have baggage beyond what they lug from London to Noumena, New Caledonia.

The novel has twists and turns. I won’t spoil it for you. If you enjoyed Rachel Joyce’s previous novel, “The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry”, you will appreciate how she develops her characters and spins a tale full of brilliant descriptions. For example, “Sunsets like a sky of geraniums. A mosaic of light and shadow on the trees. The sky snowing butterflies.” Or depths of emotion – “It was too much. The last straw. Margery had thought the hammock was the last straw, and the bat, followed by the night itself, and the crying, then possibly the Spam, as well as the diarrhea, but they had not been the last straws, they had simply been a succession of penultimate ones.”

In the case of Miss Benson’s Beetle, the physical travails of the women as they search for the golden beetle – biting insects, accidents, loss, and danger – left me holding my breath. Yet, there is humor. I couldn’t help but chuckle now and then. Margery’s thoughts about Enid – “She was a sweet person but her intelligence she saved for special occasions.” Or “being silent next to Enid was worse than waiting for a dormant volcano.”

Joyce has such attention to detail. Pardon me, as an entomologist I enjoyed her description of how to pin a beetle – “A specimen must be taken out of alcohol and dried and then it must be pinned while it was still soft. But the pinning was an exact process. The first pin must be guided through the right side of the upper half, taking care that the height of the beetle on the pin was correct: half an inch. The antennae must be carefully positioned, the legs displayed, without flattening them or losing even the tiniest hair, the elytra coaxed open to display the papery wings beneath.”

I bookmarked and highlighted so many places in the story. The writing that made me think and smile and wonder. I guarantee you will come to love Margery and Enid. You will root for them. Will they survive, will they find the golden beetle Margery saw in her father’s book so long ago?

One last quote. It is short but stopped me in my tracks – “guilt is not logical”.

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

Riverhead Books (2023)

Genre: mystery, thriller, suspense, historical literary fiction, Black & African American fiction

Themes: love, community, friendships, survival

Side note: Matthew 24:35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words will never pass away.

James McBride is the author of the award-winning New York Times bestseller, The Color of Water.

McBride is also author of Oprah’s Book Club pick Deacon King Kong and the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird. A former reporter for The Washington Post and People magazine, McBride holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and a B.A. from Oberlin College.

A recent reading streak started with an historical novel about spies, librarians, microfilm and WW II. It was interesting to learn true stories from that era. But I was disappointed with the editing—errors distracted me.

This led me to the next book, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. The novel has been much talked about and is on the short list for several prizes and reading lists and I know why. The writing is exquisite, the editing impeccable, the story magnificent. It is the case of fiction meets reality in a way that is both gripping and humorous. I chuckled until I came to chapter 12. I stopped and had to wait awhile--it was that hard. Thank goodness there is an epilogue and justice was done. Another reader said everything was wrapped up too nicely but considering all the travails I was content.

Back in the day when Europe is gradually being engulfed by Hitler’s shadow, there is not a melting pot of refugees from Germany and Eastern Europe in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. Jewish immigrants and African Americans live side by side on Chicken Hill where Moshe is an entertainment entrepreneur and his wife, Chona, runs the Heaven and Earth grocery store.

The characters have such depth, we get to know them chapter by chapter. McBride works his same magic with sub characters as well. We learn to care about Malachi, Nate and Addie, Bernice, Soap, Paper, and Fatty. Your heart will be stolen by Dodo as the reader slips inside his head and lives the challenges he faces—an explosion that leaves him deaf and later takes his mother. A cruel twist of fate finds him locked in an institution for the insane. The story crystalizes around the small community as they attempt to free Dodo.

McBride understands and portrays the various communities within Pottstown so well. Divisions within the Jewish community (Lithuanian Jews not being the same as Polish Jews), the Black community (Chicken Hill versus Lowgod territory) and the self-righteous superiority of the white population. But as Malachi tells Moshe, “Light is only possible through dialogue between cultures, not through rejection of one or the other.” (I believe we’re still working on that.)

Everything is revealed at the beginning, starting with what happened to nasty old Doc. As the readers, we know none of that, we only know there is a story to tell, and McBride takes us on a heck of a journey.

Drinkers With Writing Problems (2019-2023)

Trace of the Devastation (2023-present)

Podcasts by Scott Thomas Anderson

(Available at Apple podcasts, Spotify)

Scott Thomas Anderson is a California journalist whose work regularly appears in The San Francisco Chronicle and The Sacramento News & Review. A 2018 Fellow for The USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, he’s written for a diverse range of publications, from The Irish Independent to Distiller’s Magazine. Scott has worked a crime reporter for the last 17 years. You can find him at The Sacramento News & Review and contact him at standerson1@live.com.

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My age is showing. I am not one of the end-of-the-alphabet generations. That said, I come to the podcast world late, very late. The excuses that I’m reading or writing or knitting don’t hold, however. A new year and I was advised to try something new. I have listened to podcasts here or there but never committed to one.

That changed when Voices of Wisdom writers had a guest speaker – Scott Thomas Anderson. He was talking about interview techniques as we work on memoir writing. It was a sidenote that he mentioned his podcast, Drinkers with Writing Problems. I decided to check it out and was hooked. This is a documentary podcast series. (I think there are more in the works as it is his “passion project”). The emphasis is on documentary as his work is fact-based and deeply researched.

As it says on his website (scottthomasanderson.com), Drinkers with Writing Problems takes one on a journey “… where drinking culture and creative legacies collide. This series reveals how the histories of beer, wine and spirits are linked to the work of trail-blazing writers”. Scott traveled on both sides of the Atlantic to visit the locales of writers, explore their work, drinking habits, and the culture around both. Not a bad deal visiting pubs in Dublin and Belfast and taking in flamenco in southern Spain.

There are two seasons. S1 Episode 1 is Dublin and Belfast and the Irish writer Brendan Behan and ends with Episode 5 which features one of the best Spanish writers of all time – Frederico Garcia Lorca. Season 2 Episode 6 – “Boomtowns of the American West” has the most listens of any of the podcasts.

Each episode feels like a treat, in large part, due to Scott’s writing style. Although he is a reporter and is sharing information, his podcasts are written with storytelling in mind. He calls his work creative nonfiction and uses literary devices like alliteration and well-chosen adjectives that add color to the strength of his research. I admire the amount of work Scott puts into each episode. They are carefully scripted. It is clear he is delighted with this project.

In recent years, Scott has balanced his hard news focus with cultural reporting and travel journalism, filing pieces on his time spent in Mexico, Greece, Croatia, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Scotland and Southern France. In 2019, he produced his first documentary podcast series, “Drinkers with Writing Problems,” which travels to cities around the world to study the link between drinking culture and creative legacies. That series is live on iTunes and Stitcher. (from Scott’s website: scottthomasanderson.com).

Traces of the Devastation is another kind of podcast. He didn’t come to it easily as ‘Drinkers” is a chance to move away from his crime work. Eventually, he felt it was time to document how two pair of serial killers that lived in Calaveras County (Lake & Ng) and Calaveras and San Joaquin counties (Shermantine & Hertzog) and their effect on a generation of youth, including himself. If you want to hear my extended interview with Scott about “Traces”, go to lindatoren.com and click on the radio tab. It is program # 103.

Because of Scott’s podcasts, I now subscribe to “Hidden Brain” with Shankar Vedantam. I would listen, occasionally on NPR. Now I am a committed listener. This summer he left NPR and is now producing shows through an independent production company. I’ve also listened to all Rachel Maddow’s podcasts – “Bagman” and “Ultra”.

Happy listening and keep reading!

The Book Woman’s Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson

Blackstone Publishing 2022

About the author: Kim Michele Richardson, is a multiple-award winning author who has written five works of historical fiction, and a bestselling memoir. Kim Michele was born and raised in Kentucky and lives there with her family and beloved dogs. She is also the founder of Shy Rabbit, a writer’s residency and scholarship implemented for low-income writers.

Of course, I read any book that has book or library in the title. As it turns out, these two words are in the titles of many books. I read The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson when it first came out and enjoyed it tremendously. I expected the sequel might be as good as the first.

The Book Woman’s Daughter does not disappoint. It takes us back to the rugged Kentucky mountains where Honey Mary Lovett (sixteen) takes on the role of Troublesome Creek packhorse librarian as her mother (Cussy Mary Loveltt) had done. In the remote hollers of Appalachia, Honey takes on her second mother’s book route on her beloved mule Junia. The story reveals the faults in the criminal system and sheer nastiness of locals who threaten Honey at every turn. While some characters are carried forward from the first novel, new characters appear like Pearl Grant – a fire tower worker and Honey’s friend.

Honey’s mother was a full Melungeon. * I didn’t know about Melungeon’s until I read Richardson’s first novel, and I have been learning about their history ever since. Honey’s “blue” shows up in her hands which she hides with gloves as much as she can. Being a “blue” is like being black but a step lower.

It seems like Honey is challenged or in peril each step of the way. But her friendship with Pearl and with the help of Bob Morgan (Honey’s lawyer), Loretta Adams (Honey’s guardian), and long-time friends of her mother like Devil John and his family help carry the day and rescue Honey at every turn.

One of the themes of this novel is friendship and Honey’s determination to overcome obstacles. Following in Cussy Mary’s footsteps is a triumph. Along with these themes, Richardson takes a hard look at the justice system (jailing her parents for a mixed-race marriage) and persecution of “blues” because they are different (a reoccurring social tendency to this day).

As William Krueger, NY Times best-selling author comments -- The Book Woman’s Daughter is a brilliant and compelling narrative - a powerful portrait of the courageous women who fought against ignorance, misogyny, and racial prejudice."

Here are just a few of the many quotes from The Book Woman’s Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson that show the author’s facility with thoughts and language. Each quote would make a good topic for a book club discussion.

“Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.” As long as you have the books, you’ll always have that light. —”

Can’t be angry and smart at the same time. Now, nothing wrong in having the anger, but the two rarely work together. Let’s be smart, darling daughter.

You grow readers, expand minds, if you let them choose, but you go banning a read, you stunt the whole community.

“Laws about females never make a lick of sense because they’re made and run by men and meant to keep us in bondage.”

“It was vital to free folk from illiteracy, to save those imprisoned by its bondage, she’d said.”

“Laws written by men don’t protect females much.”

Notes:

The Melungeon people were described by scholars as being tri-racial isolates. They were of European, African, and Indigenous ancestry who settled in isolated places such as the Appalachian Mountains. Their beginnings have many different theories. Melungeons are descended from a mixture of ethnicities, so they can have a wide range of physical characteristics - light skin, dark skin, straight hair, curly hair, and so on. Some Melungeons are indistinguishable from European Americans, others identify as African American. There is no definitive Melungeon “type.”

Methemoglobinemia, a gene disorder leads to higher-than-normal levels of methemoglobin in the blood—a form of hemoglobin—that overwhelms the normal hemoglobin, which reduces oxygen capacity. Less oxygen in the blood makes it a chocolate-brown color instead of red, causing the skin to appear blue. Doctors can easily diagnose congenital methemoglobinemia because the color of the blood provides the unique clue. The mutation is hereditary and carried in a recessive gene.