Fever Dreams, Tempests, Wild Winds, Wrong Todays, and How It Ends
Staff Review Round-up, 3/6/2018
Welcome to Literati Bookstore’s round-up of recent staff favorites, and an occasional place for useful links and news from around the literary web regarding upcoming events at the store.
Recent Staff Favorites (in Hardcover)
Heart Berries: A Memoir, by Terese Marie Mailhot
There have been times in my life when I’ve thought that nothing could possibly make me feel any better, any less alone, any less like the world is caving in. As I write this, I am just coming out of one of those moments, or at least learning how to deal with it. I am full of grief, and full of rage, but I am also full of this book. This little book, this little companion of love and hurt and healing that feels like coming back to life. This is a memoir in raw, naked, necessary essays, but it is also a light, cutting through the dark. As Roxane Gay put it, “These essays are too intimate, too absorbing, too beautifully written, but never ever too much.” I hope this book finds you at just the right moment.
“My relationship with you felt integral. Many things were infinitesimal. Combined, there’s a whole thing I can’t bear. I needed you.” — Claire
Tempests and Slaughter (the Numair Chronicles, Book One), by Tamora Pierce
Calling all lovers of fantasy! Tamora Pierce has given us something new! I’ve been a longtime fan of Pierce’s work, and this new series does not disappoint.! We follow a young mage, Arram Draper, as he studies at the Imperial University of Carthak, with his two close friends, Varice and Ozorne. Pierce is unparalleled her craft, setting relatable and compelling coming-of-age stories against a vivid and wonderful fantasy world. I ate this book up and can’t wait for the next one! — Charlotte
Wild is the Wind: Poems, by Carl Phillips
I’ve marked time, now, through adulthood, with Carl Phillips’s collections, starting in 2011 with Double Shadow, which — as with all of his subsequent titles — was designed by Ypsilanti-based poet and graphic designer Jeff Clark. Bearing Clark’s distinctive design hallmarks (let’s face it — I’m a bookseller, I see a lot of books, the cover is the first way I know them), it is difficult for me not to think of Wild is the Wind as part of, now, a quartet of collections that have indelibly shaped my interior life, its epiphanic moments (“there’s a kind of love that / doesn’t extend itself both ways / between two people equally because it doesn’t have to”) always finding eerie, but never unwelcome, personal resonance. It is true to say that I look forward to these collections, that I anticipated them — but more than that, I have to admit that the feeling is more akin to “awaiting instruction,” or, at least, trusting its arrival; the next opportunity to experience the heightened reflection this poet’s work always provides. Look — they are simply beautiful poems, and I hope you enjoy them. — John
Recent Staff Favorites (in Paperback)
Fever Dream, by Samanta Schweblin
Reading this rather dystopian novel was like being caught up in a dream and then trying to make sense of it in the following days. The characters are at once vivid yet nebulous, the action arresting yet vague, then though there is something unknowable about it, you sense a deep connection to your life. IT is both a cautionary tale of the dangers that lurk in our increasingly toxic environment, but also a tender depiction of what may save us — something as simple, yet complex and powerful as a mother’s love for her child. In answer to the persistent question from my therpaist, what I felt while reading this “dream” was fear, but also hope in the power of love to turn a nightmare into a dream, and also fascination with what Schweblin created from nothing. Just as my dreams fascinate me for their coexistent relevance and elusiveness, so does this novel. — Jeanne
All Our Wrong Todays, by Elan Mastai
This book is exactly what its protagonist Tom loves the most in art — weary, cheeky, and wise. Part goofy romantic love story, part science fiction romp, with a whole lot of heart, this novel will win you over from the first page. You can’t help but root fro Tom as he narrates this gloriously ridiculous story of alternate futures and concurrent realities. Matsai keeps you guessing and you really, I mean really, never know what is going to happen next. But it is more than just a propulsive plot with cheeky dialogue. Ultimately, Tom shows us that while the present may be less than idea, it’s what we’ve got, and it can be a wondrous thing. A humorous, thoughtful, and uniquely life-affirming book. — Hilary
Tell Me How it Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions, by Valeria Luiselli
During a green card glitch, Luiselli decides to volunteer as a translator for undocumented children, refugees from Central America’s Northen Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras). With wisdom, curiosity, and compassion, Luiselli guides us through the cruel absurdities of the 40 question intake interview, only an introduction to “the vast legacy of chingaderas” perpetuated by the US and Luiselli’s native Mexico, in both countries’ responses to the Central American refugee crisis. “Partir es morir un poco/ llegar nunca es llegar.” Read it to better understand our current chingadera — I promise it contains hopeful glimmers too. — Gina
