July reading roundup #2

July is (almost) over, and while sweating through a heat wave, here’s what I have been reading:

The Mimosa Tree Mystery, Ovidia Yu
As World War II rages, the Japanese have occupied Singapore, and Chen Su Lin finds herself coerced into helping them solve the murder of her neighbor, Mr. Mirza. Much grimmer than Su Lin’s first three adventures, this is a sobering look at life under Japanese occupation and a compelling mystery.

The Murder of Mr. Wickham, Claudia Gray
I loved this fun mystery (recommended by Anne) that brings together the main characters from many of Jane Austen’s novels for a house party hosted by Emma and George Knightley. Mr. Wickham (that cad!) shows up uninvited, and before long he ends up dead. Juliet Tilney, Catherine’s daughter, and Jonathan Darcy, son of Elizabeth, band together to find the killer. Witty and entertaining, with some interesting subplots. I’d absolutely read a sequel.

Welcome to the School by the Sea, Jenny Colgan
I usually enjoy Colgan’s gentle British rom-coms, often set in charming small towns. This is an older book of hers, reissued, and it shows: there are some fun moments, but the character development is thin, and there is so much fat-shaming. First in a series.

Where There’s a Whisk, Sarah J. Schmitt
Peyton Sinclaire believes she has one shot to escape her trailer-park life in Florida: winning the Top Teen Chef reality show competition. But when she arrives in Manhattan and starts navigating the show’s cooking challenges and interpersonal dynamics, she learns a thing or two she didn’t expect. I loved this sweet, foodie YA novel, especially the way it wrapped up.

Finding Me, Viola Davis
I’ve been impressed by Davis as an actor, but didn’t know her story. She tells it at a sometimes breakneck pace – from growing up in abject poverty in Rhode Island to college to Juilliard to success on stage and film, to marriage and complicated family dynamics. A brutally honest account of her life; so much trauma, so much grit and hard work, and finally some joy. Recommended by Anne.

For the Love of the Bard, Jessica Martin
Miranda Barnes – literary agent, middle child, YA writer under a pseudonym – goes back to her Shakespeare-obsessed hometown for its annual Bard festival. While there, she has to deal with scary health news for a family member, festival committee politics, and – oh yeah – the guy who broke her heart back in high school. I loved this theater-nerd romance with complex sibling dynamics, totally relatable life struggles and a swoony romance. Found at the wonderful Phoenix Books in Burlington, VT.

They Called Me a Lioness: A Palestinian Girl’s Fight for Freedom, Ahed Tamimi and Dena Takruri
Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi made international news after a video of her slapping an Israeli soldier went viral. This memoir recounts her childhood, her family’s life under the Israeli occupation, her arrest and imprisonment (and other traumas), and her continuing fight to liberate Palestine. Short, but heavy and heartbreaking. An important perspective we don’t often get in the U.S. To review for Shelf Awareness (out Sept. 6).

The Marlow Murder Club, Robert Thorogood
I picked this one up on a whim at the library and blew through it in two days. Judith Potts, age 77, is swimming naked in the Thames (her daily ritual) when she hears a gunshot from her neighbor’s garden. It turns out he was murdered – but by whom? Judith joins forces with local dog walker Suzie and the vicar’s buttoned-up wife, Becks, to solve the case. Witty and clever and so British. I loved it.

Most links (not affiliate links) are to my local faves Trident and Brookline Booksmith. Shop indie!

What are you reading?

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Poetry Friday: Tracy K. Smith

UNREST IN BATON ROUGE

after the photo by Jonathan Bachman

Our bodies run with ink dark blood.
Blood pools in the pavement’s seams.

Is it strange to say love is a language
Few practice, but all, or near all speak?

Even the men in black armor, the ones
Jangling handcuffs and keys, what else

Are they so buffered against, if not love’s blade
Sizing up the heart’s familiar meat?

We watch and grieve. We sleep, stir, eat.
Love: the heart sliced open, gutted, clean.

Love: naked almost in the everlasting street,
Skirt lifted by a different kind of breeze.

Smith is the current U.S. poet laureate. This poem is from her newest collection, Wade in the Water, which came out last week (April 3). I also enjoyed Smith’s memoir, Ordinary Light. And the New York Times had a fantastic piece about her this week.

April is National Poetry Month, and I am sharing poetry here on Fridays this month, as I do every year.

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Learning to protest

Yesterday afternoon, my husband and I took the subway downtown with some friends, to join thousands of our fellow Bostonians in Copley Square. We were protesting the recent executive order banning travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries, which (as you know if you’ve been reading the news) has resulted in people being detained at airports and denied entry to the U.S.

This was my second protest in as many weeks – my second protest ever, to be honest. I have a feeling it will not be my last.

I’m deeply afraid, on many levels, that this is only the beginning of the terror and injustice we’ll see under Trump’s administration. I am furious, heartbroken, fearful, and determined not to simply stand by in silence. So I’m learning – as are so many others – to protest. (It makes my bookish heart glad that both protests I’ve attended so far have happened on the steps of public libraries.)

Protesting, as you might have guessed, doesn’t come easily to me. I’m not inclined, by temperament or by cultural training, to rock the boat. And what I really want to do, in light of every single horrifying headline we’ve seen lately, is to gather up the people I love and hug them until we all feel a little less afraid. But that’s not physically possible – my loved ones are scattered far and wide – and it won’t stop the evil coming out of Washington. So I am listening, reading, asking questions, writing postcards. And protesting.

I know these marches are only a beginning: there are many ways to use our voices, and we also need our elected officials to step up and use theirs. (I’m proud of my Massachusetts senators for doing just that.) I welcome ideas and advice from folks who have been doing this longer than I have. This bigotry and injustice didn’t start with this election, and it won’t end here. But we can – and must – speak out against it.

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“What if the mightiest word is love?”

I spent most of the last week in New York City, first attending a work conference and then enjoying a long weekend in Brooklyn with my husband. We walked and wandered: around Fort Greene, across the Brooklyn Bridge, up through SoHo and what felt like half of Manhattan. On Sunday afternoon, we joined the crowd on the steps of the New York Public Library’s main branch for the PEN America Writers Resist event.

It’s always worth gathering to listen to writers read their own words and the words of other writers whom they treasure; to hear them speak in impassioned defense of free speech, a free press and the vitality of individual voices. We stood on the steps for an hour, listening to poets and novelists, essayists and short-story writers and singers, lifting their voices in praise of creativity and free expression.

In a moment of serendipity (or magic), we arrived just in time to hear novelist Alexander Chee read Elizabeth Alexander’s inaugural poem “Praise Song for the Day,” from which this post takes its title. I stood there among a crowd of passionate strangers and felt tears prick my eyes. (As regular readers know, Alexander’s poem “Ars Poetica #100: I Believe” has been in my head for months.)

Lately, the loudest words in this country have seemed to be fear or division or prejudice. We are entering a time of political transition with many unknown factors, and I know a lot of us are struggling with fear and anger, every day. I can’t pretend that the protest solved that, for me or for anyone. But I believe it was important to show up and listen.

“In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, / any thing can be made, any sentence begun,” Chee read. I needed that reminder, and I’m sharing it in case you need it too. Pick up a pen, a paintbrush, a musical instrument – whatever tool you can use to make and remake the world. We need you: your work, your voice, your love. We are louder – and stronger – together. Let’s walk forward in that light.

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