It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

 

I finished What My Bones Know (review coming soon) and I picked a new memoir off my stack of memoirs. I actually went through my entire nonfiction TBR and set all the memoirs aside in one pile so I could pick the next with relative ease.

I chose The Dead Are Gods, by Eirinie Carson, a memoir about grief and loss and Blackness, about the author's dear friend. It's very good so far; I'm only a few short chapters in so I don't have tons to say but I've heard amazing things. I've just come back from a vacation and a short trip, and life is going to settle back into my normal routine, and I'm hoping that means more consistent reading. So hopefully that means I'll get back in groove.

Everything else is the same; I got some quality time in on Samantha Irby's new book Quietly Hostile with all the traveling and driving we've been doing.

What are you reading this week? I'm a little slow to moderate comments but I'll catch you when I can.

And my Substack is really where it's at these days; you can subscribe on my "About Me" page.

Review: The Night Flowers, by Sara Herchenroether

 

The Night Flowers, by Sara Herchenroether. Fiction, Crime Fiction. Tin House, 2023.

Tin House is one of my favorite small presses; I almost always love anything of theirs I read. They are one of my go-tos for thoughtful, interesting fiction and The Night Flowers did not disappoint.

Laura MacDonald is a breast cancer survivor and librarian who is also an amateur genealogist; she uses her skills to help her patrons, and to further her own interest in true crime.  As the book opens she's just endured a grueling surgery and health crisis. She's also come upon a murder based in New Mexico; a young woman found dead with two children. In New Mexico, Detective Jean Martinez is working the cold case desk and trying to find the identity of the three dead people after more than twenty years. Laura travels to New Mexico and approaches Jean with what she's found. After a period of hesitation, the two women work together to identify the killer and bring him to justice.

As volume-ones in crime series go, The Night Flowers is a fun, interesting, well-structured read. It's character driven, which makes sense, because we're just getting to know these people- it's like their origin story, or the origin story of their partnership. The setting of New Mexico is vivid and immediate; I could feel the hot sand in my hair. Herchenroether also develops the victims' personalities through intermittent chapters that deepen the suspense and give them a voice. In other words crime fiction is littered with dead women, and while this book is no exception to that trope, it's nice that the author gives them some depth.

The book sort of reminded me of A Bad Day for Sorry, a crime novel I read a long time ago about women seeking justice for other women. I liked how Herchenroether mixed Laura's cancer story, Jean's marriage dynamic, the DNA pieces, and the backstory of the community where all this takes place alongside the victim's detailed story. I found the chapters in the victim's voice to be an interesting break from the traditional narrative. And I hope to see more books with Jean and Laura solving cold cases in the desert.

FTC Disclosure: I received an advance copy from Tin House though no review was promised.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

I finished The Night Flowers while I was away on vacation last week (I may or may not write more about that; that's going into my Substack though for sure). And I bought some things while I was away, including

Crooked Plow, by Itamar Vieira Junior, another story of tempestuous childhood and young adulthood, this time set in Brazil. I got it at Nantucket Bookworks and it just leapt out at me as something I hadn't heard of and sounded so intriguing. It opens with a pretty shocking act of violence and it's written in a way that is just totally propulsive. I love it!

Other than that, same-same audio and craft books.

What about you?

Sunday Salon: Home from Vacation

 

This is where I've been for the past week:

with my face planted in summer. There is ice cream off camera as well, and some books, and naps, and even a little piano practice.

Today I'm back and tomorrow I will be obliged to start real life again. But for today, it's nachos and denial.

Have a great Sunday!

Review: The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron

 

The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron. Tarcher, 1992. Nonfiction.

So I've known about The Artist's Way for a long time; it's a perennial bestseller on creativity and getting over or through creative blocks. I had a copy on my shelf for years. I picked it up at one of the bookstores I worked at and it just kind of sat there. I thought about reading it but  when I opened it up it quickly became clear that rather than your average craft book, full of advice and maybe a handful of prompts, this book is a course you do, not just a thing you read.

I was totally intimidated by the rules, the 3 pages of daily journal-writing, the tasks. The multitude of tasks. At least I was, until I needed to get unblocked vis-a-vis my own creativity earlier this year, and a trusted acquaintance suggested it to me. (Okay it was my therapist.) 

So I started to dig in. I was probably four weeks into it (so roughly in chapter two) before I got started on my own writing. And I haven't been able to stop since. The idea is that you do one chapter a week but the first chapter took me about 3 weeks between this and that.  Life gets in the way; just keep at it. Once I got going I got into a rhythm. Daily pages were no problem; I'm used to keeping a diary and honestly I liked "having" to do them. The tasks were also no big deal. They are basically little journal prompts and I used them as warm-ups before I worked on my own writing.

I kind of love this book and feel a lot of gratitude towards it. Some of the activities are a little dated (who does magazine collages? who even has magazines?) but I swear by its effectiveness. I finished weeks ago and still do daily pages religiously. It's my new "me time" in the morning. It's great. And I have more ideas than I know what to do with and more energy than I ever thought I would have.

This isn't a book to read; it's a book to use, and for me it was really helpful. I love all the positive self-talk, the affirmations, the opportunities for introspection. I just really enjoyed the whole process and recommend it heartily. If you're thinking about it, go get it.

 

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive a copy for review.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

 

I finished If I Had Your Face, by Frances Cha, and I decided to read a crime novel next, 

The Night Flowers, by Sara Herchenroether, a mystery out in May from Tin House. They sent me a galley and I usually love what they publish, so that's easy. This is about an unsolved murder from about thirty years before the book opens and two women determined to solve the case- a detective on the verge of retirement, and a true-crime addict recovering from cancer. It's pretty great so far.

I'm on the same nonfiction and audio-What My Bones Know and Quietly Hostile. 

What are you reading this week?

Sunday Salon: It's Summerrrrrrr and That Means... Reading.

 

Sunday means bagels, TV, chilling out. We're supposed to get storms here today so that means staying home, dressing for comfort and doing some reading and piano and computer stuff for the upcoming week- drafting blog posts, working on my Substack and so on. My Substack will include a feature on free online resources for writers so if that's something that interests you, you should subscribe (you can find the link in the "About Me" tab).

I also got a huge project to work on from YIVO, an 86-page transcription project, describing the photo archive of a photographer and writer named Alter Kacyzne who died in a pogrom in Poland in 1939. He had a US visa and could have left for America at any time, but chose not to. So that's very sad. His daughter survived and lived until 1999, and worked to preserve his legacy. It’s fascinating and I really appreciate both being of service to an organization that does such important work, and the opportunity to learn about Jewish history through the work I’m doing.

So I'm going to be working on that today and picking out a new book to read since I finished If I Had Your Face last night. I'll review it soon.

I have no plans for the Fourth beyond walking down the river to watch fireworks and cooking up some dumplings with my husband. That's ok. Summer fun is on the way, just not right now.

What are you working on today? I hope it's a good nap or a yummy snack. Have a great Sunday!