at the end of last summer, the family gathered on the edge of Idaho and Utah to see my paternal grandmother off on her journey from this world into wherever we find ourselves after.
from among grandma's things, I was bequeathed an old 70s-style woven and leather bag (I have vague memories of grandma toting her students' papers and homework sheets and such around in it, once). most weeks now, at my house, it is a perfect home to my choir music and a bit of spare lip balm.
but before I brought it home, more or less just as my dad handed it to me, I found a highlighter pen and a few scraps of notepaper in the bag's many pockets. one little note was a list of medications. the other was a list, in soft, properly-formed cursive pencil, of authors and a few titles:
G.G Vandagriff
Lynn Austin
Thomas Perry
Linda Nichols - Not a Sparrow Falls
Chris Stewart - The God of War
Ted Bell - Nick of Time
James Kunstler - World Made By Hand, The Long Emergency
Angie Sage
Jessica Richard Draper
Beverly Lewis
and then, in pen at the end, written slightly larger,
Diana Crawford
when I got home and had a minute, I looked them all up in my local library catalog. of the available options they had for me to put on hold, only one author seemed interesting enough-- James Howard Kunstler. I've read three of his books from the World Made By Hand series now.
they're pretty neat. not all that earth-shattering, as far as post-apocalypses go, but well enough written and engaging. against the premise of oil-shortages and societal collapse, we have a tapestry of colorful characters surviving together. every horse that is mentioned gets described specifically by breed. every antique piece of furniture is given all the fancy labels an auction catalog could ever ask for.
did grandma ever read these too? I'm not sure.
I do know we both liked making things by hand from time to time.
maybe I'll get my hands on some others from her list, eventually.
more recently, I've been poking around at the short list for this year's Tournament of Books. I got my hands on Bunny so that We Love You, Bunny would have more context. not sure I liked the first-- its ending was pretty interesting though-- and we'll see how much patience I can muster up for the self-absorbed and anxiety-ridden MFA student collective that seems to be narrating the next one. at this rate I won't have time to read anything else at all in advance of the tournament, but so it goes.
at dear friend Angela's house last month I perused her library for just a few moments and was tempted by a pair of slightly chubby fantasy novels by Naomi Novik: Uprooted and Spinning Silver. they were just the thing to offset the stress and chaos of a new spring semester. good, deep historical fantasy with rich cultural flavor and complexity of character-- I loved them both so much. the second especially so. it would look gorgeous in a video adaptation, I bet.
so of course now I am in a serious obsession with Naomi Novik novels. the other day I finished, too soon, the audiobook of A Deadly Education-- the first in the author's Scholomance trilogy. I loved it so much I think I'm having withdrawals from the world and the voices and the magic of it. it was all so vivid and gritty and perfect. please let the second and third audiobook copies arrive quickly via Libby, please.
on paper, the series didn't sound that interesting. it is more than easy enough to think we've had enough wizard highschool stories, yeah?
I'm glad I borrowed it anyway. it is a darker take on the international wizard school trope, but not at all trite or twee or annoying. I found it thoroughly enchanting, with superb world building and expertly balanced first-person narration. we inhabit for 13 well-paced chapters a snippy, mixed-race protagonist named Galadriel (El for short) who somehow, despite being perfectly stubborn and rude to all her classmates, is eloquently self-aware enough with her narrational monologues to come across as relatable and even likeable. I kept thinking of this as Kuang's Babel meets Harry Potter meets Wheel of Time. maybe. not the most apt comparison, I'm sure. ah well.
books are awesome.
what have you been reading lately?
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