Bess's Picks
A sweet book about love, courage, trust, wisdom, and the power of words.
Headley infuses a tradition of staid translations with a vibrant performative quality and feminist, humanizing empathy. Her language embraces Old English words along with social media jargon ("hashtag: blessed") creating a lively, entertaining, and energetic text. She allows Grendell's mother complexity, inviting the reader to empathize withher, a woman who is all too often and easily reduced to a one-dimenstional monster.
Kirshna worked with her mother, Ritu, to record favorite family recipes -- delicious and accessible mashups of traditional Indian flavors and techniques and more typical American influences. Two of my favorites are dahi toast dipped in ketchup and nachos with chaat spices and chutneys. The uncomplicated recipes celebrate flexibility and improvisation over stricltly traditional fare.
In North's alternate history of late 19th-century America - where an undefined plague has decimated the population, destroyed the young US, and enabled a variety of extreme gender expectations - woman's purpose is entirely bound up in bearing healthy children, and those who are barren are shunned or even hanged as witches. Resisting these constrictions, a group of outlaws (inspired somewhat by the Sundance Kid and crew) provide a different possible life. They are outcasts who don't conform to society's roles. Outlawed shows us the trauma of enforcing gendered roles, and the freedom provided by open sexual and gendered expression.
This is an enthralling story of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. It covers the '70s to the '90s and the influence on the present. It's a gripping story of politics, family, murder, conviction, and paramilitarism. Keefe's writing is engrossing and reads like a political thriller or murder mystery.
Beautiful. Reading this is like learning (about Zen, quantum mechanics) and then applying that knowledge to the text—almost like a really gripping textbook. A main character named Ruth was quirky I thought, but it wasn't until near the end that the quantum mechanics gives this choice some weight and meaning. I loved the characters, and it was wonderful to have so many of them. It's a totally engrossing book.
Miuko isn't a beauty of particularly clever. She's average, often a klutz, and completely unextraordinary. But then she's kissed and cursed by a demon and she must go on a quest to find a cure. She's aided and impeded by spirits, gods, monsters, and even other demons. These supernatural characters are utterly human in personality and actions. This Japanese-inspired fantasy is engrossing and humorous. Every page is welcomingly and entertainingly readable.