Book Review: The Light Pirate

•  Author: Lily Brooks-Dalton

• Where I bought this book: The Book Loft, Columbus, Ohio 

• Why I bought this book: My first daughter strongly recommended it. 

*******

   

    The story here is excellent -- futuristic fiction that is a cautionary tale of where society is headed, and in some cases, may already be.

    The characters, particularly the protagonist, Wanda, who we see grow from an infant to old age, are well drawn and realistic. Even the supporting roles, the minor characters who round out and give depth to the story, are whole people, even if we wish we could know more about them.

    But ... but ... but -- it does have some flaws. It gets to be, in certain places, just a wee bit more melodramatic than I care for. And the ominous narrator who appears at the end of some chapters to deliver a foreboding message is unnecessary, and quite frankly, a bit annoying.

    Still. 

    The book is set in a Florida where the effects of climate change are seen daily in the climbing temperatures, rising ocean levels, and raging storms. Indeed, the state is going under, both literally and figuratively. Infrastructure is disintegrating, and government, with no money and few people left, are being shut down. People are getting out. Miami has been abandoned. The small town of Rudder is breaking down as the gulf waters encroach on the land.

    Meanwhile, the Lowe family is also falling apart. Kirby, a lineman who is vainly trying to keep the lights on in and help save his hometown, is not dealing well with his pregnant wife, his two boys, and the oncoming Hurricane Wanda.

    Afterwards, we follow Wanda from her birth during the storm, as she grows up while Florida and the country fall apart around her. She is portrayed as a survivor who adapts to a different lifestyle than the one we know, but one that brings constant challenges and devastating losses. 

    She also has a special glow about her whenever she touches water -- again, both literally and figuratively. Whether it's science or magic -- and after all, isn't science just magic with an explanation -- is yet to be told.

    One of the messages that I -- an aging geezer who is set in his ways and dislikes change --got from the book is that I'm glad I have lived most of my life when I did. And I am sorry my generations really, truly, screwed things up.

TWIB: 13th Ed.

     So, I visited the Book Loft in Columbus today -- and while the two-hour drive took closer to four hours because of a massive delay on Interstate 71 (I have no idea why; traffic just stopped for an hour) -- it was an enjoyable experience. A late lunch with my daughter at Fourth & State, a vegan cafe downtown, and then on to add to The TBR Stack.

The latest haul, ready to be read

    

        The Light Pirate, by Lily Brooks-Dalton: I have no idea what it's about, but my first daughter told me to "but it and read it next." Also, the title is fantastic, and the author's first book, Good Morning, Midnight, was a good read (and another compelling title).

    Babel, by R.F. Kuang: I have seen this title all over the place. So I grabbed it in the store, and after reading the description -- about languages, learning, and imperialism -- I could not put it back.

    How It Went, by Wendell Berry: When Kentucky's greatest living author -- and perhaps its finest living person -- puts out a new volume of stories about Port William, Ky., you just have to give it a go. Berry, after all, taught this Kentucky immigrant everything I've learned about the state.

    The Other Black Girl, by Zakiya Dalila Harris: What it's like when two Black woman work in the same office, as told by a Black woman. I think I'll learn something from this.

    Tread of Angels, by Rebecca Roanhorse: Read this description from the book flap: "High in the remote mountains, the town of Goetia is booming as prospectors from near and far come to mine the powerful new element Divinity. Divinity  is the remains of the body of the rebel Abaddon, who fell to Earth during Heaven's War, and it powers the world's most inventive and innovative technologies, ushering in a new age of progress. However, only the descendants of those who rebelled, called the Fallen, possess the ability to see the rich lodes of the precious element. That makes them a necessary evil among the good and righteous people called the Elect, and Goetia a town segregated by ancestry and class."  Yep, me too.

    Galatea, by Madeline Miller: It's short, but it's the first book in a while from Miller, the goddess of reinterpreting the perspectives of the Greek legends.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Sandra Cisneros

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to story telling -- in prose and in poetry, in art and in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books.

Today is the story of Dec. 20th

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    It is the 354th day of the year, leaving 11 days remaining in 2022. 

    

    On this date in 1954, the poet and novelist Sandra Cisneros was born.

    She tells her stories about the struggles and triumphs of Chicanas, often from a personal perspective. While she write mostly in English, she never hesitates to incorporate Spanish into her stories, as a sense of place, or to heighten her descriptions. 

    Her poems, short stories, and novels often mirror her life as a woman between two cultures but never feeling comfortable in either. Yet, she and they survive, and girls and women overcame the hinderances of living a dual life that rarely appreciates their contributions.

    Cisneros was born into a Mexican family in Chicago, the only daughter in a family that included six sons. The family moved between Chicago and Mexico City, leaving Cisneros with the feeling of being part of neither culture. She took to writing, and mostly wrote poetry in her teenage years. After college, she attended the writers' workshop at the University of Iowa, where she found her voice.  

  

    Her first novel, The House on Mango Street, was published in 1983. It was semi-autobiographical, telling the story of a Mexican girl growing up in Chicago. It won several awards, and has become a classic coming-of-age story often taught in schools.

    Her awards have included a MacArthur Genius Grant. Her short story collections, Women Hollering Creek and Other Stories, came out in 1991 and won a PEN Award.

    She has written numerous books of poetry, from Bad Boys, published in 1980, to Loose Women, in 1994. Her latest collection, published in 2022,  is Women Without Shame: Poems. 

Almanac of Story Tellers: Steven Spielberg

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to story telling -- in prose and in poetry, in art and in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books 

Today is the story of Dec. 18th

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    It is the 352nd day of the year, leaving 13 days remaining in 2022.

 

   On this date in 1946, the director and screenwriter Steve Spielberg was born.

    He told his stories on the movie screen, in blockbuster films that he wrote, produced and directed. He told family stories; he told stories about extra-terrestrials. He told stories about heroes  and stories about villains. He told action-packed adventure stories, and he told stories about the human race.

    He has won three Academy Awards and numerous other honors. 

    He made his first movie when he was 12; it was a home movie about a train wreck involving his toy trains. At 13, he wrote Escape to Nowhere and filmed it with a cast of his schoolmates; it won first place in a statewide competition.

    After graduating from California State University at Long Beach, he directed several television episodes, and in 1974, directed his first feature film, The Sugarland Express. The next year, he helped create the summer blockbuster with Jaws, about a killer shark terrorizing vacationers at a New England beach town. Some of the then-young director's actions were praised as being akin to Alfred Hitchcock.

    His later films covered a variety of themes, including a hero of the Holocaust, Schindler's List; visits from extra-terrestrials, E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind; period dramas, Lincoln, The Color Purple, and Empire of the Sun; and the Raiders of the Lost Ark series.

    Spielberg's latest movie was 2022's The Fabelmans, a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age drama he wrote with Tony Kushner.

Almanac of Story Tellers: John Kennedy Toole

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to story telling -- in prose and in poetry, in art and in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books 

Today is the story of Dec. 17th

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    It is the 351st day of the year, leaving 14 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1937, the American author John Kennedy Toole was born.

    Toole had one story to tell, and he told it remarkably well, with wit and verve. It is a picaresque novel with a spot-on character, Ignatius J. Reilly, who epitomized the appealing rogue. 

    But Toole never got to see his book, A Confederacy of Dunces, get published and  win the Pulitzer Prize. How it did is just as much of a picaresque tale, with a realistic, if ultimately sad, touch.

    Toole was born and reared in New Orleans, the son of a domineering and overprotective mother. She thought her son was a genius who should not play with the children in his neighborhood.

    He became a teacher and writer, and was drafted into the Army, where he had enough much free time he was able to write his book. It was based in the city he lived in, and filled with characters similar to those he had met in life. He sent the manuscript to a publisher in New York, who ultimately rejected it. 

 

    Depressed, Toole began drinking heavily. He started dressing and acting oddly, ranting at his students. He disappeared in January 1969. Two months later, his body was found in his car, dead of carbon monoxide poisoning from a tube that he had connected from his exhaust pipe though a closed window of his car.

    He left a suicide note, but his mother, Thelma Toole, destroyed it. She also found a copy of his completed book, was convinced it was a masterpiece by her brilliant son, and spent a decade trying to get it published. She eventually persuaded Walker Percy, a professor and writer, to read it. He did, also thought it was wonderful, and found a publisher.

    It hit the shelves in 1980. It won the Pulitzer in 1981. Critics have praised its writing and its structure. It has been called a "brilliant, weird, and surreal tale." Percy said the Reilly character was "a mad Oliver Hardy, a fat Don Quixote, a perverse Thomas Aquinas rolled into one, who is in a violent revolt against the entire modern age."

    (Toole did author another book, The Neon Bible, when he was a teenager. He thought it was junk juvenilia. It was published posthumously. It was little remarked on.)

Almanac of Story Tellers: Arthur C. Clarke

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to story telling -- in prose and in poetry, in art and in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books 

Today is the story of Dec. 16th

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    It is the 350th day of the year, leaving 15 days remaining in 2022.

 

    On this date in 1917, the scientist and writer, Arthur C. Clarke, was born in Somerset, England.

    He told his stories about science, sometimes the real, unvarnished truth, and sometimes the fictional possibilities from the recesses of his inventive mind. Occasionally, both would merge, and the facts and the fictions would become one.

    One of those times was during World War II, when Clarke, then a radar technician and instructor for the Royal Air Force, wrote an article for Wireless World. It foresaw a communications satellite system that would relay radio and television signals around the world in an instant. The system became operational some two decades later.

    By 1946, he was selling his short fiction to magazines in the United States and Great Britain. His first novel, in 1948, was Against the Fall of Night.

    A devoted proponent of the possibility of space travel, Clarke's 1951 book, The Exploration of Space, was used to persuade U.S. President John F. Kennedy to launch the idea of mankind landing on the moon. Clarke later joined CBS newsman Walter Cronkite during the 1969 landing of Apollo 11 to help describe and explain what was happening.  

    For much of his life, Clarke, Robert Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov were known as the Big Three of Science Fiction writing. His works, which included Childhood's End, The Songs of Distant Earth, and The Hammer of God, won a number of Hugo and Nebula science-fiction awards. His short stories include The Nine Billion Names of God and The Star, about the findings of the ruins of a distant civilization whose sun-star became a supernova, which turned out to be the State of Bethlehem,

    But perhaps his best known work was the 1968 movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, for which he co-wrote the novel and the screenplay with Stanley Kubrick. 

    In 1956, Clarke moved to Sri Lanka to continue his love of scuba diving. He died in 2008.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Roy DeCarava

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to story telling -- in prose and in poetry, in art and in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books 

Today is the story of Dec. 9th

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    It is the 343rd day of the year, leaving 22 days remaining in 2022.

   

    

    On this date in 1919, the American photographer Roy DeCarava was born.

    He told his stories in black-and-white photography, turning pictures of African-Americans and jazz musicians in his Harlem neighborhood into fine art. He stressed that his images aimed for a creative expression and penetrating insight into his subjects that he said only another African-American could produce.

    He was an artist, a professor, and a man who promoted the idea that photography was an art that should be shown and admired. He published five books of art photography and had more than 15 solo exhibitions of his work around the United States.

    He was a professor at Hunter College in New York.

    DeCarava's portraits of jazz musicians in concert -- including such greats as Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, and Billie Holliday -- were exhibited at Harlem's Studio Museum in 1983. Later, many were published in The Sound I Saw: Improvisations on a Jazz Theme, in 2001.

    In 1952, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the resulting book of photographs was published as The Sweet Flypaper of Life in 1955. In 1994, he exhibited The Nation's Capitol in Photographs at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington.

    He was awarded the National Medals of Arts in 2006.

    DeCarava died in 2009.

Almanac of Story Tellers: James Thurber

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to story telling -- in prose and in poetry, in art and in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books 

Today is the story of Dec. 8th

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    It is the 342nd day of the year, leaving 23 days remaining in 2022.

   

    On this date in 1894, the humorist James Thurber was born.

    He told his stories in a whimsical fashion, with a befuddled character (usually male, sometimes autobiographical) taking off on a flight of fantasy over his mundane life. Sometimes, he told satirical fables with anthropomorphic characters and a moral. He also drew simple if peculiar cartoons, befitting the early days of The New Yorker magazine.

    He wrote mostly short stories, first published in The New Yorker, and later collected in volumes or anthologies, Several have been adapted for the stage and screen. 

    Perhaps his best known tale, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, first published in 1939, was adapted twice: first in 1947, starring Danny Kate, and then in 2013, with Ben Stiller in the title role. The story tells the tale of a timid, henpecked husband who retreats into fantasies while on a shopping trip with his wife.

    Indeed, several of Thurber's tales have similar characters -- the shy if meticulous man, and a domineering, ineffective woman. In 1942, he published The Catbird Seat, about Mr. Martin, a fussy office clerk whose work is turned upside down by a female associate. It tells how Mr. Martin turned the tables.

    A 1941 story, The Male Animal, shows a rare foray into politics, telling the tale of a college professor who wants to use an unpopular speech on a controversial topic as a way to portray persuasive writing techniques.

    Thurber died in 1961

Book Review: Daisy Jones & The Six

 

•  Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid

• Where I bought this book: The Book Loft, Columbus, Ohio 

• Why I bought this book: I read another book by the author, and my daughter recommended this one

*******

    The faux oral history style is a wonderful way to tell this story. It was like reading a long, detailed magazine article about a defining moment in the history of rock and roll. A friend of mine said after reading the book, she googled the band to learn more about it.

 

    Yep, it seems that real.

    Of course, it's nothing of the sort; rather it is the imaginings of a creative mind who took a tale and ran with it.

    Part of the fun of the book is trying to figure who, if anyone, the characters are based on. Daisy, of course, has shades of Janis Joplin in her soul. But Billy Dunne, the founder and lead singer of The Six? Well, I am far from being an expert in the history of '70s rock, but every time I thought of someone he might resemble, I shook my head and moved on. Maybe a little? I thought. But whom am I leaving out, if not most of the era's rock stars?

    So I took the tale as it was, an overview of a band that started slow, pulsed and throbbed for a while before it hit the big time, and then moved on. It's a good story, done well. The almost realism gives it a special glow.

    Of course, the tale of a big-time rock band leaves little out of the mixture: drugs abound, talent and fragile egos go hand-in-hand, a rock-solid spouse holds things together. But morals come into play -- deep down, despite their problems and failings and weakness, these are generally good people.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Harry Chapin

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to story telling -- in prose and in poetry, in art and in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books 

Today is the story of Dec. 7th

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    It is the 341st day of the year, leaving 24 days remaining in 2022.

 

    On this date in 1942, the folk singer Harry Chapin was born.

    He told his stories in song. They were folk stories, sometimes of real people and real events, set to music. Some were love stories; some were cautionary tales; some told stories of the down and out; many were about people with sad stories about their lives. 

    Perhaps his most famous story-song was also one of his biggest hits, Taxi, released in 1972. It told of a taxi driver picking up his last fare of the night, who turned out to be an old flame. Years ago, they went on their separate ways -- "She was going to be an actress/ I was going to learn to fly/ She took off to find the footlights/ I took off to find the sky."

    In the end, they sorta, kinda found their dreams. "And here, she's acting happy/ Inside her handsome home/ And me, I'm flying in my taxi, taking tips and getting stoned/ I go flying so high when I'm stoned."

    Chapin was at his best during the 1970s, putting out an album a year, touring regularly, getting some radio play, having a few hits. But in the era of sub-three-minute hits, his songs were too long for comfortable radio play -- Taxi clocked in close to 6 1/2 minutes. One, There Only Was One Choice, was nearly 15 minutes long, taking up the entire side of an LP released in 1977.

    He did have other hits, though. Cat's In the Cradle -- about a father who cannot find time for his son who learns his son cannot find time for him -- was a No. 1 single in 1974. W*O*L*D, about an aging radio disc jockey, was an international hit in 1973.

    He was also a playwright. The Night That Made America Famous was nominated for two Tony Awards in 1975. He wrote the music and lyrics for Cotton Patch Gospel, which sets the Gospels according to Matthew and John in 1970s rural Georgia. It ran off-Broadway for 193 performances in 1981.

    But he was more than story teller and old folkie -- he was a humanitarian who cofounded the organization World Hunger Year, and who spoke incessantly during his concerts about the need to end hunger. 

    Chapin died in 1981.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Jay-Z

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to story telling -- in prose and in poetry, in art and in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books 

Today is the story of Dec. 4th

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    It is the 338th day of the year, leaving 27 days remaining in 2022. 

   

    On this date in 1969, the musician Jay-Z was born in Brooklyn.

    He tells his stories through hip-hop and rap, populating his lyrics with first-hand experience, mastering the flow of his words with smoothness and clever wordplay to bring out the rhythms and rhymes in his head.

    With his successful music business that includes producing and mentoring younger rappers, he is one of the most influential artists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.  

    He grew up listening to the soul and Motown music of the 1970s. Starting in the 1990s, he recorded his own music and sold CDs out of his car. With several others, he created Roc-A-Fella records, and his first album on his label, Reasonable Doubt, reached No. 23 on the Billboard charts.

    With Def Jam releasing his next albums, sales took off. Collaborations with Mariah Carey and other stars showed his talent and brought him fame. One album, Vol. 2: Hard Knock Life in 1998, brought his the first of many Grammys.

    In 2004, Jay-Z became president of Def Jam records, and while continuing to record albums and perform -- despite an announced retirement -- turned his attention to other aspects of the music industry. This included mentoring others, including Kanye West and Beyoncé, whom he later married.

    He also created a clothing company, a film-production company, and bought a stake in the New Jersey (now Brooklyn) Nets of the NBA.

    In 2021. Jay-Z was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Joseph Conrad

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to story telling -- in prose and in poetry, in art and in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books 

Today is the story of Dec. 3rd

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    It is the 337th day of the year, leaving 28 days remaining in 2022. 

   

    On this date in 1857, the writer Joseph Conrad was born in the Russian empire, in what is now part of Ukraine.

    He is widely considered one of the great English writers, although he didn't speak the language until he was in his early 20s.

    Still, he told his stories with the stylings of great prose, with the richness of the language. He wrote about the individual against nature, of humans' inherent evil, and the inner battles between good against evil. He was considered an impressionist, a modernist, and a realist.

    The book that best summed up his world and his writings was Heart of Darkness, a critique of European exploitation of Africa. He tells the story of a sailor, Charles Marlow, and his search for an ivory trader, Kurtz, who straddles the world of the "civilized" and the "uncivilized." It is known to Americans for its adaptation into the 1979 film Apocalypse Now, set during the U.S.-Vietnam War.

    Conrad's parents were Polish, living in the Russian Empire, and were arrested and sent into exile in Northern Russia when Conrad was 4 years old. By the time he was 12, both his  parents were dead and Conrad was sent to live with family in Poland. At 16, he went to work as a merchant marine in France, and later in Britain.

    He gained much material at sea for his writing career, and in 1895, his first novel, Almayer's Folly, was published. He wrote Lord Jim, about a sailor coming to terms with abandoning his ship, in 1900. His final novel, The Rover, was published in 1923.

    Conrad died in Kent, England, in 1924.

Almanac of Story Tellers: Ann Patchett

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to story telling -- in prose and in poetry, in art and in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books 

Today is the story of Dec. 2nd

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    It is the 336th day of the year, leaving 29 days remaining in 2022. 

   

    On this date in 1963, the author Ann Patchett was born.

    She tells her stories by exploring relationships between disparate people, sometimes members of the same family. Her searing, poignant works sometimes criss-cross decades of time and history, reaching across barriers often erected by the characters themselves.

    She has written non-fiction articles, short stories and novels. Her works have been nominated for, shortlisted or won awards such as the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Faulkner/PEN Award, and the Orange Prize.

    In addition, she is part-owner of Parnassus Books, a bookstore in Nashville, and has found a niche as a spokeswoman and promoter of the independent shops.

    Patchett began her career writing for Seventeen magazine and similar publication, before branching out into fiction and non-fiction books. Her first novel, The Patron Saint of Liars, about a pregnant young women who leaves her married life in California to determine her future at a home for unwed mothers in Kentucky, was published in 1992.

    She has gone on to write close to a dozen other books, including the novels Commonwealth, The Dutch House, and State of Wonder. Her non-fiction works include Truth and Beauty: A Friendship, and This is the Story of a Happy Marriage.

    Her most recent work is a collection of essays, These Precious Days.

    Patchett lives in Nashville with her husband.