Hello, reader…
*Note to first time readers: the following is a summary of a discussion by friends who gather monthly in a virtual space called Second Life. Reading notes are lightly edited reflections shared in real time via text chat.
Here are the books that were shared at our October and November gatherings.
Beethoven: Biography of a Genius – by George R. Marek
This was FireWoman’s mother’s book. It’s a big one with small print – FireWoman said that she can read and read and read…and still have read only twenty pages. Beethoven is her favorite composer – and she discovered that he was her mother’s fave as well.
The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands by Sarah Brooks
FireWoman heard about this book from her BFF. Goodreads recommends it for fans of The Midnight Library. It features a dangerous journey, magical landscape and the Trans-Siberian express. A young woman has lived on the train her whole life and new passengers are just getting on. FireWoman is looking forward to reading it.
Philosophy for Passengers by Michael Marder
Sierra shared that this is a book trying to tackle being a passenger as a philosophical thing…so it is kinda in the same set of books about philosophy of travel. She’s had a hard time getting engaged with it.
Why I Read: The Serious Pleasure of Books by Wendy Lesser
Sierra said that this is in another category of books about books & reading…and that she honestly hasn’t given it enough of a chance yet.
What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama
Rethinking Geopolitics by Jeremy Black
Sierra recently purchased these titles. Zoe read the Aoyama book and loved it!
The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
Fantasy Fiction/Occult Fiction. This is a book that is set in an alternate version of Earth where there are “muggle” humans and magical beings. A man named Linus is a caseworker who works for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He’s summoned by Extremely Upper Management to visit a unique orphanage.
So he visits this orphanage on a faraway island and discovers there are 6 children there who are far more magical than the orphans he’s used to seeing. One is a gnome, one is a sprite. There is a wyvern and a shapeshifter and some sort of blob. And – a six year old Lucifer, son of the Devil aka the antichrist.
So Linus is tasked with being there for a month, to see if the orphanage should remain open or be shut down. Zoe said it’s a cozy, heartwarming read.
Green Witchcraft: Folk Magic, Fairy Lore and Herb Craft by Ann Moura
FireWoman mentioned this title when Zoe shared about a recent National Geographic issue about witchcraft.
A set of books by Rudolfo Anaya: The Sonny Baca Novels: Zia Summer, Rio Grande Fall, Shaman Winter, and Jemez Spring
Magical realism. These are set in and around Alburquerque (the original way that it’s spelled). Includes shaman, dreams, shapeshifting – everything FireWoman likes to read. She said that storytelling is Anaya’s focus, and New Mexican history. The one thing that she initially found irritating in the style of writing is that Anaya repeats the same things several times. But then she remembered a Choctaw storyteller telling her that things to be remembered are repeated four times throughout the story.
FireWoman also recommends reading the books on a device so that the Spanish can be easily translated.
My Staggerford Journal and Days with Smoke: A Minnesota Boyhood – two books about Minnesota author Jon Hassler
Jon Hassler wrote My Staggerford Journal in 1975. It’s about his sabbatical year when he wrote his first book, Staggerford.
Days with Smoke is a collection of unpublished stories of Jon Hassler, edited by Will Weaver. Veyot commented that Weaver wrote Hassler’s stories in a way that was interesting to her. He repeated things and made the sentences shorter.
Sweet Land by Will Weaver
Inspired by her Hassler reads, Veyot read this collection of short stories. One of them was made into a movie. It’s about a Norwegian farmer who imported a German wife. His town didn’t accept her.
Another story was titled Sheet Rock. The wife in the story says that she knows all about sheet rock from watching This Old House with Bob Vila.
The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan
Veyot mentioned this one too and asked if anyone had read it. Zoe said it’s on her list and that it features snippets from Tan’s nature journal.
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Irisse has been listening to the audiobook version of this classic novel from old England. She can relate a lot to the main character. She said it’s about inner healing and the healing of others. And bits of magical realism as well. Many of us agreed that The Secret Garden is a special book.
Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune
Zoe is reading Klune’s unofficial “Kindness Trilogy”. It in includes House on the Cerulean Sea, Under the Whispering Door and The Lives of Puppets.
Under the Whispering Door is about a man named Wallace who is kind of a jerk. He dies in the first chapter. He attends his own funeral and is stunned to learn that others view him as a jerk – because that’s not how he saw himself. So Hugo, a tea shop owner and ferryman for the dead, tries to help Wallace with his transition. Wallace ends up finagling on week to reutrn to the living to try to live a different sort of life.
Zoe had only just started this novel so she’ll let everyone knows what she thinks at the next meeting.
Our next gathering is January 12 at 1pm SLT.
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