Book of the Day Roundup: April 15-19, 2024
Sheine Lende
A Prequel to Elatsoe
Darcie Little Badger
Rovina Cai, illustrator
Levine Querido
Hardcover $19.99 (400pp)
978-1-64614-379-5
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
In Darcie Little Badger’s compassionate novel Sheine Lende, memories live on through love.
Aided by their ghost dog, Nellie, and their ancestral ability to awaken deceased animals from Below, Shane works with her mother, Lorenza, to rescue missing people. Together, they’ve saved countless lives, often at no expense to the families of the missing. However, on what appears to be a standard rescue mission, Lorenza goes missing. Shane traverses uncharted territory in order to save her mother, other missing people, and herself.
Weaving together the complex stories of Shane and her loved ones, the mysteries of a world with known magic and monsters, the contemporary erasure of Lipan Apache people through displacement and marginalization, and the importance of preserving one’s own history, the novel packs plenty of emotional gut-punches. It also achieves balance via levity, best seen in the relationships that Shane holds close. Its mystery is unpacked one piece at a time, with new questions arising each time another is answered.
The characters themselves are distinct, each with their own complex backstories. Shane is a resilient heroine, though she’s also been hardened by grief. She has shortcomings to overcome; she loses her temper, and she feels just rage over injustices visited upon her family and community. She is not alone in worrying about what elements of her heritage she could lose because of colonialism; she fights against such forces. All the while, she loves her friends and family with undying fierceness and is unabashed in her bravery.
With elements of Lipan Apache oral history, fantasy, and mysteries, the captivating novel Sheine Lende follows found and inherited family members as they persevere, benefiting from the love of a good ghost dog and other fascinating creatures.
NATALIE WOLLENZIEN (February 13, 2024)
The Last Delivery
Evan Dahm
Iron Circus Comics
Softcover $15.00 (140pp)
978-1-63899-129-8
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
A delivery boy tasked with delivering a package faces a series of deadly obstacles in the absurdist graphic novel The Last Delivery.
The story turns with the unpredictable intensity of a dream. Its nameless hero, uniformed and committed to his duty, enters a massive home where a party has been raging for some time. Despite the hordes of attendees who are present—a fascinating menagerie made up of people who are unique in appearance and personality—no one is willing to accept or sign for his delivery, sending the boy on a quest to find “The Resident” himself. He encounters bizarre performances of “The Snapping Hour,” in which someone’s head is removed, and “The Severing Hour,” in which limbs and heads are sliced off. Injured and exhausted, with the package secured on his back, he trudges on through hazards of all kinds, hoping to meet the resident at long last.
With rich illustrations that feature excellent composition, color, and content, and a story that is drenched in dark humor, The Last Delivery is a surreal graphic novel about a dedicated employee who won’t quit until the job is done.
PETER DABBENE (February 13, 2024)
Skybound
Starring Mary Myers as Carlotta, Daredevil Aeronaut and Scientist
Sue Ganz-Schmitt
Iacopo Bruno, illustrator
Calkins Creek
Hardcover $18.99 (48pp)
978-1-63592-815-0
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
The life of Mary Myers takes flight in this captivating biographical picture book about a barrier-busting woman scientist. Mary Myers—who later took on the name Carlotta—was a pioneer in aeronautics, though her contributions have been overlooked. Stunning illustrations with intricate details follow the highs and lows—literally—of her life and career. Her story will inspire budding scientists to let their dreams carry them up, up, and away.
DANIELLE BALLANTYNE (February 13, 2024)
Good Taste
A Life of Food and Passion
Alain Ducasse
Polly Mackintosh, translator
Clare Smyth, contributor
Gallic Books
Hardcover $22.95 (192pp)
978-1-913547-67-7
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
To say that Chef Alain Ducasse, the recipient of 21 Michelin Stars, is a legend in the culinary world would be an understatement. Now, in his memoir Good Taste, Ducasse reveals his vision of cuisine: naturality, or a style of cooking that is first and foremost about interpreting nature. He writes about how he cooks, what influences him, and about food as shared emotions or ineffable stories needing to be told.
Starting with childhood memories of cooking with his grandmother on his family farm, Ducasse traces his growth and development as a young chef. He discusses his restaurants and cooking schools, which are scattered all over the world. All is shaped by his overriding drive to travel, see, and taste the world.
Nature is Ducasse’s muse throughout. He explains that terroir, or an ingredient’s place of origin, is the driving factor of what food should taste like. Yes, a mushroom should taste like a mushroom, but a chef should also handle a mushroom so that the finished dish is the best expression of a mushroom that it can be. This drive to “come up with a flavor, an element specific to everything that nourishes” suffuses Good Taste, a book that will be an inspiration to all who love to cook.
ERIC PATTERSON (February 13, 2024)
The Late Rebellion
Mark Powell
Regal House Publishing
Softcover $20.95 (272pp)
978-1-64603-412-3
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Mark Powell’s brooding Southern novel The Late Rebellion dives into the psychology of a multigenerational South Carolina family whose members rage against the future and cling to the past.
Richard, a bank founder, receives a call from state prosecutors looking into his financial behavior. So begins a disastrous, bourbon-soaked evening that was at first about his son Tom’s homecoming. Further, Richard foregoes his nightly visit to his ninety-four-year-old mother, Rose, who falls in the night, alone in her farmhouse.
There are long-deferred emotions to reckon with: Tom, a minor reality television star, is in the midst of a premature midlife crisis. Jack, Richard’s middle son, wishes for a stronger connection with his disaffected teenage daughter, who in turn wishes that Jack were less needy and more available. And Emily, Richard’s daughter, is caught in quiet loneliness, feeling “the last grains in the hourglass of self trickling out” as her maternity leave ends and the prospect of returning to work investigating sexual assaults looms.
Further, orbiting the family and broadening the novel’s scope are local concerns that reflect the complex legacies of hatred that afflict the American South. These are included in the stories of a pastor-turned-English-teacher, Elias; an American-born child of Mexican deportees, Nayma, who is alienated in the community, despite her academic achievements, because of the color of her skin; and Elvis, a scarred Iraq War veteran. Sliding between the inner worlds of these and other characters, the novel juxtaposes people’s doubts to their secret longings, drawing thematic connections between both. Failings and universal human desires are exposed in each person’s story thanks to the book’s sympathetic and incisive prose.
In the novel The Late Rebellion, love is ferocious, and tragedies occur when that love goes unspoken.
WILLEM MARX (February 13, 2024)
Barbara Hodge
