Books of the Last Year: A Recap

The past year has been a whirlwind, in good and terrible ways. But that doesn't mean I haven't been reading, and today I'd like to acknowledge some of the finest books I've read (relatively) lately. A mention here constitutes endorsement, and I plan to place reviews in the appropriate sites.

The House at the End of Hope Street by Menna Van Praag. I wanted something to read on the plane to Spain, but I don't recall how I came across this author. I loved the sense of women's history and empowerment here.

 Modern Girls by Jennifer S. Brown. A fellow Launch Lab alum wrote this perfectly researched and imagined historical fiction about some of the most universal women's struggles.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. I had this book recommended to me many times before I finally picked it up at my then-local bookstore, Antigone in Tucson, Arizona. It was the last in a long and hallowed line of books I read to my husband. He hadn't grown up with adults reading to him, so I started reading him my favorites and exciting new books to him before we were married. When my voice would give out, he would often pitch in, especially if we were at a really good part. This is why my husband put Harry Potter in our wedding vows. I had a lot of trouble getting into The Night Circus. Though my husband enjoyed it, I couldn't see that it was coming to any particular point. We didn't quite finish before my husband checked into the hospital, and after he lost consciousness, I read the last three chapters to myself sitting in a chair next to his bed. Of course, that's when the story all comes together and I ended up finally understanding why so many people recommended it to me.

A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin. I was nervous to get into this book because the great Manolo García, my idol in all things creative, recommended it to me when I met him in May 2016. If it was no good, what would that say about this artist I so admire? I purchased this book at Antigone two days before my husband passed away, which you might think would mar it for me. But I remember going to pick the book up with my sister-in-law as a much-needed break from the hospital, a slice of normal in a world that was quickly turning upside-down. I needn't have feared any of this. Lucia Berlin's writing is so overwhelmingly fantastic, this book is the only thing I remember about the first month after my husband's passing.

Monterey Bay by Lindsay Hatton. A tour-de-force by a fellow Launch Lab alum.

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald. On point and familiar, even though everyone's grief is different, with the added benefit of falconry drama—doubly unforgettable. I wish I'd read this before publishing the goshawk scenes in Seven Noble Knights!

The Grief Recovery Handbook by John W. James and Russell Friedman. Useful and no-nonsense exactly when I needed practical coping mechanisms.

The Creeping Shadow by Jonathan Stroud. This author was a favorite for my husband and I to read to each other, and I was comforted to be able to read this book when it came out on our wedding anniversary. I loved the mind-blowing imagery of life after death and how the two worlds might intersect. And I'm glad Lucy didn't abandon Lockwood & Co. for long.

Odd Adventures with Your Other Father by Norman Prentiss. I came across this gem by a fellow Kindle Press author when we did a cross-promo together. Whimsical, touching, and shocking in all the right places, this book made me realize I love some kinds of horror writing. The end is an unspeakably beautiful fantasy for someone who's lost a loved one to cancer.

Narrow River, Wide Sky by Jenny Forrester. I earned an internship at Hawthorne Books this winter, and focused on setting up the book tour and other publicity concerns for the wonderful author.

The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch. Thank goodness I came across this daring and truthful memoir in the Hawthorne offices! Read it. Now. You'll thank me.

Dora: A Headcase by Lidia Yuknavitch. A hilarious examination of the gender and age bias in traditional psychotherapy. It made me want to read every other book Lidia Yuknavitch ever produces.

Life is Short—Art is Shorter by David Shields and Elizabeth Cooperman. Astonishingly effective in their brevity, the pieces here inspire you to experiment in this age of short attention spans.

Death's Dancer by Jasmine Silvera. Another wonderfully imaginative book by a fellow Kindle Press author.

The Miniature Wife and Other Stories by Manuel Gonzales. I picked this up because I've been accepted into the prestigious Tin House Summer Workshop, and I'm thrilled I'll be working with Manuel Gonzales in July. Every one of these stories excited me for its approach, its novel logic, its turns of phrase, or the proliferating concepts I sensed behind the imagery, which was always exactly as crazy as I needed it to be.

Violation by Sallie Tisdale. Some of the best essays by one of the best essay writers.

Watch Me Disappear by Janelle Brown. I won this advance readers copy via Goodreads. I think disappearances and faked deaths are a whole genre in themselves. This one had compelling characters and interesting twists.

New Boy by Tracy Chevalier. Another Goodreads ARC win. Othello is my favorite Shakespeare, and the way the author transferred it to a 1970s middle school playground is fascinating. Great pop culture references run through the interesting and believable decision to make the action take place over a single school day.

Option B by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant. After a tragedy or trauma, you no longer have Option A available. I'm doing a lot of thinking about what my Option B is, and this book helps with that as well as with not feeling so alone.

I'm astonished I've read so much when concentration has often been a challenge this year—I've left out plenty of books here! Thanks for checking out my recent literary path. Straight an narrow it ain't!

A lovely surprise: Five-Star Review of Unpredictable Worlds

Well darn. I've had to modify the cover of Unpredictable Worlds. What terrible inconvenience has led to this drastic measure? A five-star review at Readers' Favorite (which, in truth, is the best thing in the world for a writer!).

Any review is a big deal for me. A five-star recommendation from this lovely institution includes a peachy-keen silvery sticker to put on the book's cover.

A wonderful alchemy of words and circumstances collided to find just the right reviewer. Amazingly, Carine Engelbrecht "got" the book. Read it in full here, and see two major highlights here:

For a collection of stories that stray delightfully off the beaten track of cookie cutter characters and plot lines without any roadside surprises, you can do a lot worse than venturing around inside Unpredictable Worlds: Stories by Jessica Knauss. While the stories are widely divergent, they are grouped around a series of themes that serve like hubs for the author's imagination to take off....

I enjoyed taking a trip through the author's imagination—that is exactly what Unpredictable Worlds: Stories by Jessica Knauss was, a journey of wonder. 

I'm impressed that the reviewer loves the rhino stories. I've started a rhino novel, but since I didn't know how I would find people who both love to read fiction and find out about rhinos, I abandoned that idea. This review gives me hope and the idea to maybe resurrect it as a shorter piece.

I get a particular frisson of authorial delight when the reviewer singles out some stories that never found a home before I published them in Unpredictable Worlds. Many of the stories in this book have been published elsewhere, and therefore had that outside validation any writer seeks. It's music to my heart that a reader I've never met is reading and enjoying stories that mean the world to me, but haven't made an obvious impression on anyone else before this point. Calling "Threads Woven" "a rich tapestry of creativity and character" when it's had no other feedback (other than form rejection letters)—I wonder if any reader knows how easy it is to give an author the ultimate gift. It goes to show: you never know who is going to respond to which story.

It's nothing short of wonderful that the reviewer points out the relationship between some of the stories. True interaction with my texts. I couldn't ask for more.

So here's that new cover, proudly displaying the shiny five-star badge. Plans to make the ebook available in venues other than Amazon have been in the works for a while now. Find your updates here!

The Price of Blood by Patricia Bracewell

I treated myself to The Price of Blood a few months ago. I say "treated" because I had high hopes and it met every one of them.

I was looking for a novel that immersed me in a time long past. You'll think your memories of this book really took place a thousand years ago.

I wanted specifically to know what it would have been like to be Queen Emma, faced with important men and Viking attacks. Bracewell's Emma is easy to sympathize with and the historical stakes are clear without it ever feeling like a textbook. I took away a vivid image of Emma and Athelstan looking out at London from the castle that I don't think comes from any film I've seen. It comes completely from Bracewell's evocative skill.

I wanted characters whose motives I could understand while the plot maintained historical authenticity. I didn't expect to be so disgusted by King Aethelred while still feeling the same political and family pressures that made him act in such outwardly bizarre ways. I didn't expect the Elgiva subplot to be so fascinating and to give the reader another female character possibly even more vibrant and true than Emma.

This novel exceeded any expectations I could have had in the way it keeps the suspense going even when the snippets from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle at the beginning of the section give away some of what's going to happen. I found Emma's big scene at the end of the novel, where she really comes into her own, so amazing as to make me want to recommend the book to every reader, everywhere. It's even more amazing now that I know the scene was the author's creation, an imagining of what must have happened in order to produce the results seen the history books.

The Price of Blood is all that I hoped a historical novel could be. It's even more impressive because it's the second in a trilogy.

Novels I've Read in 2015: 

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Along the Far Shores by Kristin Gleeson

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

A Kiss at Kihali by Ruth Harris

Mermaids in Paradise  by Lydia Millet

Raven Brought the Light by Kristin Gleeson

The Price of Blood by Patricia Bracewell

Lucky Us by Amy Bloom

The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan

Love in Infant Monkeys by Lydia Millet

The Map of Chaos by Félix J. Palma

The Map of Chaos by Félix J. Palma

I made a vague New Year's resolution to "read more." I thought that might look like reading ten novels over the course of the year. Either I underestimated myself, or that gift card I got at work really did help, because I've already exceeded that goal. The last book I was able to buy with the gift card was The Map of Chaos by Félix J. Palma.

This is the book I've been waiting for since I finished The Map of the Sky in 2012. When I saw that it would be available in July this year, I preordered the ebook without consideration for when it would arrive or how much it would cost. The years of yearning!

It all paid off. The Map of Chaos wraps up all the adventures from the first two books in the biggest way imaginable—by describing all the possible universes. How does all that fit into a single book? In the best way. For much of the book, it seems this final chapter will be quieter than world-destroying Martian invasion of The Map of the Sky. And then all the possible universes collide! The reader gets to feel the flash of recognition not only of characters from the previous books, but also of other personages from history. It would be difficult and pointless not to take pleasure in the overarching concept of this novel, which provides a unified theory to explain apparent time travel, ghostly visitations, and authorial inspiration.

Sound complex? It is, and I was often frustrated I hadn't purchased the print version because I wanted to page through what I'd already read in order to update my theory of what was really going on as I got more clues. But in the end, that's part of the fun, and I needn't have worried, anyway, as each element of the universe Palma has created gets its own capsule summary at the last possible important moment.

I mentioned in my review of The Map of the Sky that the characters weren't exactly prime examples of development (but that it didn't matter in the midst of so much action). As the reader witnesses the multiverse unfolding, the more meditative pace of some sections of this book allows for subtleties of character even between the different universes' "twins." Finally, The Map of Chaos is the crowning glory of an exploration of the meaning of love—true, complicated, ugly, and beautiful. Read the trilogy for the romance taken it to its furthest extreme if for no other reason. Above all, it is an ode to imagination and possibility.

The only question remaining is, when will they make the series based on this trilogy? Viewers love complicated plots and alternate history of the Victorian Age. It seems right that the BBC should produce the series, since the stories are so focused on London (in every possible universe). I'm ready, whenever they want to start. I've noticed that Eleanor & Park and Mermaids in Paradise are slated for movie versions. I'm sure it's because of my reviews ;) so let this serve as a stronger hint.

In short, there is no other trilogy like this one, which began with The Map of Time. The best books of the decade, and maybe of all possible decades.

Novels I've Read in 2015: 

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Along the Far Shores by Kristin Gleeson

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

A Kiss at Kihali by Ruth Harris

Mermaids in Paradise  by Lydia Millet

Raven Brought the Light by Kristin Gleeson

The Price of Blood by Patricia Bracewell

Lucky Us by Amy Bloom

The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan

Love in Infant Monkeys by Lydia Millet

Love in Infant Monkeys by Lydia Millet

If I had known that each of these stories takes a different point of view on human relationships with animals, I would've picked up Love in Infant Monkeys sooner. Shocking and sensitive all at once, Lydia Millet delivers in a concentrated short story format all the impact of her novels. Each story is a memorable mixture of fact and fiction and each gives the reader something new to think about, some aspect of the way humans act in the world and how our behavior affects the other residents of this planet.

I was appalled to learn that the title story was inspired by a real-life study and intrigued by the possibilities of Edison's obsession with his film of an elephant execution (which is now digitized for anyone to view). A story about a Komodo dragon who attacked Sharon Stone's husband becomes a meditation on the meaning of celebrity and the relative value of life.

My favorite story is "Girl and Giraffe." Here Millet presents a realistic version of the humans who worked with the lions in Born Free and what they think and feel about the animals they work with, and then proceeds to bear witness to some lion behavior that no human can understand. For me, the behavior isn't below human experience, but transcends human comprehension.

Love in Infant Monkeys is not for faint-hearted readers, surely, but is an exquisite book. But everyone else knew that already!

Novels I've Read in 2015: 

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Along the Far Shores by Kristin Gleeson

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

A Kiss at Kihali by Ruth Harris

Mermaids in Paradise  by Lydia Millet

Raven Brought the Light by Kristin Gleeson

The Price of Blood by Patricia Bracewell

Lucky Us by Amy Bloom

The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan

A Third Five-Star Review of Unpredictable Worlds: Funny, Touching, Thought-Provoking, Anger-Inducing, and Faith-Affirming

Ask and you shall receive?

I placed Unpredictable Worlds on NetGalley for a significant fee. (Get it free for review there!) As you can see, I've got quite a few thumbs-up on the cover there, but it really started to pay off just after I point-blank asked for a review by someone I wasn't already acquainted with.

I received a great review at The Fish Place! She says, "This collection is by turns funny, touching, thought provoking, anger inducing, and faith affirming. It’s great." 

Wow! The real gobsmacker is that this reader, who has an honest review policy, also seems to get what I'm trying to do with these stories. She pays me the ultimate compliment when she singles out the rhino stories as her favorites and says I'm "the literary PR person for the species."

I'm so flattered all I can think to do is make it more true. I've been daunted lately about my rhino novel project. I hope this encouragement will help me blow past the mental block. The rhinos are certainly worth it!

The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan

Like many of books I've read lately, The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan features the end of civilization. But although it takes place some undefined time after the end of life as we know it now, the characters are concerned with their present and most consider whatever came before to be as useless as legend.

In The Gracekeepers, the sea level has risen over cities and towns and only small islands remain. Some people cling to the land and a sense of heritage, but because there isn't enough to go around, many live permanently on boats. These sailors have to come to land to refuel, meet social obligations, and in the case of North's circus, perform for landlockers to earn food and survive. The landlockers don't much cotton to damplings, as the sailors are known, and the chief tension in The Gracekeepers is certain characters' longing either for land or for sea—we never do seem to be given what we really want, do we?

North loves the sea and would be perfectly content to live out her days there. But the ringmaster wants to marry her off to his son and buy a house on land for her, and what he says goes. Not only does North feel unsteady on land, but she also is going to give birth to a selkie's child. The word is never used in the novel, but the mysterious selkies must have been inspired by the Celtic legends of merpeople.

The other main character, Callanish, is the offspring of a woman and a selkie: her webbed fingers and toes shout it to the world. In order to do her duty as a Gracekeeper, she must wear shoes and gloves at all times. Callanish is not free in any way. Gracekeepers live all alone and perform funerals that involve the starvation of a small bird, a grace, to mark the end of the mourning period.

The writing is so magical and atmospheric that I didn't want The Gracekeepers to end. The strongest parts were the sections from the main characters' points of view, and some of the importance of the other characters is left totally up to the reader to decide. The omission of explicit explanations contributed to the sense of magic. One theme of the novel seems to be waiting, and the reader waits for something to happen, but the drama at the end of The Gracekeepers isn't the strongest part. This is the novel for a reader who wants to be swept into a mysterious land where the reader must decide on the meaning of people, animals, and actions based on only the most subtle of hints.

The Gracekeepers debuts tomorrow!

Novels I've Read in 2015: 

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Along the Far Shores by Kristin Gleeson

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

A Kiss at Kihali by Ruth Harris

Mermaids in Paradise  by Lydia Millet

Raven Brought the Light by Kristin Gleeson

The Price of Blood by Patricia Bracewell

Lucky Us by Amy Bloom

Review: Mermaids in Paradise by Lydia Millet

Lydia Millet’s trilogy that began with How the Dead Dream and ended with Magnificence has an astounding authorial voice with a knack for choosing the right words and at the same time, it adapts to her chosen protagonist’s thought patterns. Mermaids in Paradise, ostensibly fluffier, continues to display Millet’s versatility with a narrator who starts out unsympathetic although comical. As the book goes on, Deb, a new bride on a Caribbean honeymoon with her perfect husband, is drawn into the events and sloughs off the defensive sarcasm she’s learned from her best friend, showing some of her depth and becoming easier to sympathize with.

The plot, too, seems distant and standard for some time. The eventual introduction of the mermaids stands out for the magical description of Deb’s experience, but larger society’s reaction to the mermaids is on the zanier end of predictable.

Then the climax hits like a ton of bricks, giving meaning to the entire novel. I adored the way the mermaids were saved from exploitation. Deb rhapsodizes about the progression of humans from Australopithecines to Homo sapiens, figuring that nothing much happened for five million years, but then came speaking, and then writing, and here we are today, with all the destruction that the technology made possible by writing has wrought.

My takeaway, influenced by the amazing whale-filled climax (and the rash of end-of-civilization literature I’ve been exposed to, no doubt), is that people must not assume we can or should control the natural world. We are part of nature, not separate from it.

And then another unforeseen revelation hits like two tons of bricks, giving another meaning to the novel. Deb could possibly arrive at my takeaway even with this last surprise, but, drugged up after some injuries, she just kind of gives it an “oh well,” which returns us to the meaninglessness of the beginning. Devastating, in typical Millet style. I've seen complaints about the ending, and I assume it's this last-page shocker that bothers others. I don't think it could be a Millet novel without the rug being pulled out from under the reader. The phenomenon fascinates me but turns others off.

Make no mistake: Mermaids in Paradise is a complex novel with incredible expertise behind it. All that and mermaids (and whales!), too!

Novels I've Read in 2015:

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Along the Far Shores by Kristin Gleeson

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

A Kiss at Kihali by Ruth Harris