Book Recommendations: Back in the [Writing] Saddle Again

It's not true that I got NO writing done while Tilly the Lovable Dog was here ... but every bit of writing time was hard-earned, with Tilly often licking my elbows as I typed. So it's been all about priorities. She went back to NJ on Wednesday, and I think I've done the inevitable grieving at not being able to keep her (the scariest part of her knocking me down was being afraid I'd fall on top of her and hurt her). So, onward.

First, writing itself. I've got a couple of novels out being read by editors, which is always a good feeling (if also totally unpredictable). Memoir segments will catch up soon. Poems always underway. I've been taking a Zoom'd class in poetry-in-response-to-art, and I've learned nothing in it about how to do strong poetry in this framework, but I've made the most of the art end.

Now for some Book Recommendations!

Love a relaxed summer mystery that plays fair with the clues and keeps you feeling good about the amateur sleuth? Pick up Barbara Ross's new Maine Clambake mystery, releasing June 27; I have a review of it in the New York Journal of Books and will add the link here when it posts: Hidden Beneath is the title, and the action takes place on an island off Maine's rocky coast. This is a good one for a summer hostess gift, too.

Most important book of the year (IMHO): Eventide, Water City, by Chris McKinney (Soho Press). You want to know what damage AI like ChatGPT can do? This is the ultimate nightmare, framed in a highly readable action adventure. I couldn't put it down. Release is July 11 but don't wait. Pre-order now if you've got a moment ... it's book 2 of a trilogy but even if you haven't read Midnight, Water City, you'll get right into this speculative near future and the powerful sense of agency of the dad who's got to save his kid (and incidentally the world). Soho is releasing book 3 this fall, an unusual move of two books packed into one year, so you won't have long to wait for the finale of the series.

Historical mystery with punch and a great feel for how women's roles were changing at the end of the 19th century: That's Katharine Beutner's Killingly, a title that didn't light up for me but with a very unusual plot involving college-age girls, illicit love, missing person(s), even abortion access. It's set at Mount Holyoke College, in western Massachusetts. Although I wasn't a complete fan of the plot pacing, the issues make this a must-read for women's fiction in particular, and it's definitely a worthwhile response to all those Boston-based college murder books, with extra insight on effects of class at the time. Also from Soho.

If humorous mysteries with good twisty plots tickle you, try Death Comes to Marlow by Robert Thorogood. Ignore the lame cover. I love the author's comment about the seventy-somethings he's tapping as amateur sleuths in a British village group of aging friends (the earlier title was The Marlow Murder Club, also funny): Thorogood said, "They solve the murders without reference to any forensics or the science that goes behind it all. It's proper old-fashioned Agatha Christie, walking around a town and solving the crime by talking to people." Right, what he said ... with some memorable scenes in the nearby river, some naked. Already available from Poisoned Pen Press.

My reviews of historical material -- mostly novels but sometimes nonfiction -- usually run in Historical Novels Review, where the (in press) summer issue includes my attention to Ravage & Son by Jerome Charyn -- a must if you love New York Jewish history, in this case framed around The Forward -- and a remarkable and hefty novel of Denmark's resistance in World War II, Hamlet's Children, from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Kluger. The lightly fictionalized The Girls Who Fought Crime by "Maj. Gen. Mari K. Eder" didn't suit me (how women entered the NYC police force; the writing wasn't my cup of tea).

You've caught me in another re-read of books 1 and 2 of William Gibson's latest trilogy: The Peripheral, and Agency. Gibson's books give me a shuddering awareness of the perils of our time -- and a very small crumb of hope. Plus they're an amazing read, powerful and lively and full of expressions that brand themselves into my thoughts. 

Summer is for reading. And a bunch of other stuff. Don't get me started on my gardens.

Book Recommendations: A New Review Feature on This Author Blog

Grieving under the wildfire smoke.

This 'n that, first: As usual, I'm working on four writing projects at once. One's a mystery novel that's gone through a couple of major revisions -- since the focal point of the crime had to change entirely, when Vermont laws changed. I'm looking for a publisher for book 3 in my Winds of Freedom series; the one who'd eagerly said "yes please" discontinued its Frontier Fiction line as the pandemic wrapped up. I've always got poems underway and am taking a course in ekphrasis, poems that respond to or interact with visual art. Wild! And in that magical moment just before sleep recently, I saw a way to entirely rewrite Queen of the Kingdom (a Northeast Kingdom contemporary novel) that I think I've got to indulge, for the fun of it.

That's the "output." I need good "input" to do all this -- some comes from daily walks, some from friendships, some from sorting the past in my ongoing memoir on Medium.

But for me, the biggest and best influences are conversations about books, and reading good ones. Here are some I'm recommending:

Tom Piazza, The Auburn Conference. A young college professor in 1883, Frederick Olstead Matthews, is desperate to make his mark and impress the college (and wider public). So he invites a handful of prestigious authors to come talk about The Future of America. Do you expect Mark Twain to get along with Frederick Douglass? Walt Whitman to treat well Harriet Beecher Stowe? What about Herman Melville's personal despair ... and what may happen when a local and equally eager journalist decides to spark things up by personally inviting a group of suffragettes, or when Twain turns mischief maker? At just under 200 pages, this short lively novel turns out to be a perfect frame for merriment, grief, and a timely look at American Dreams. University of Iowa Press (bless their heart).

Nilima Rao, Disappearance in Fiji. No sign here of being a debut novel -- Rao, a Fijian Indian Australian author, spins a deft tale of a religious Sikh whose police career has self-destructed, landing him in a racist work environment on the island of Fiji in 1914, as the world heats up for major war. Akai Singh holds human values and justice dear, which takes him digging more deeply than desired into the case of a disappearance: searching for a vanished immigrant worker, a mother from India, practically enslaved on a plantation where Akai's investigation is totally not wanted. Timely in its framing of the evils of colonialism, the book offers both a tidily told mystery and multiple cultural perspectives. From Soho Press under the ambitious and global Soho Crime imprint.

Rebecca McKanna, Don't Forget the Girl. What have true crime TV shows and books done to us? Hardened us about victims, fed a fascination with killers? McKanna's thriller poses one nasty situation after another. I hated reading it, because every chapter made me more miserable, but ... it sure gave me a lot to think about. If you're a true crime junkie, grab a copy. Sourcebook Landmarks.

I'm also re-reading A God in the House: Poets Talk About Faith, a set of interviews with poets about their religious backgrounds, discoveries, and passions. Ukrainian-American Jewish poet Ilya Kaminsky (find his poems elsewhere, online and in his books) and New Hampshire novelist Katherine Towler asked hard questions, and persuaded Carolyn Forché, Gerald Stern, Kazim Ali, Jean Hirshfield, Jean Valentine, and other heroes of modern narrative and lyric poetry to answer from personal experience and heartache -- and joy. I keep adding more bookmarks to my copy, for provocative assertions that I want to consider further. The book came out in 2012 from Tupelo Press; I should schedule another re-read for myself every couple of years. SO worth it.