Book of the Day Roundup: February 27-March 3, 2023

The Sky at Night

Easy Enjoyment from Your Backyard

Book Cover
Tim B. Hunter
The University of Arizona Press
Softcover $22.95 (208pp)
978-0-8165-4812-5
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon

Lifelong stargazer, amateur astronomer, and astronomy columnist Tim B. Hunter’s The Sky at Night is a trove of mind-boggling facts and astounding mysteries that will captivate astronomy sophisticates and children alike.

The book, based on years of “Sky Spy” columns that Hunter wrote for the Arizona Daily Star newspaper, gives backyard stargazers a wealth of information about the moon, planets, and stars; the myths, legends, and stories of the constellations; and astronomers and astronomical events throughout the ages. Dazzling tidbits reveal that “Terminator” has nothing to do with Arnold Schwarzenegger; that Zubenelganubi and Zubeneschamali can be found hiding near the tail of the Scorpion; and that over one million asteroids streak overhead each night.

Here, the sky is “a tough taskmaster” that reserves some of its most glorious celestial events for just after midnight or just before dawn. Hunter advises starting small, but says that his book, naked-eye viewing, and an inexpensive planisphere are enough to have fun exploring the mysteries of the cosmos all year long.

KRISTINE MORRIS (February 26, 2023)

The Nature of Spring

Book Cover
Jim Crumley
Saraband
Hardcover $24.95 (256pp)
978-1-912235-37-7
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon

Forthright and poetic, The Nature of Spring belongs to a quartet of Scottish nature writer Jim Crumley’s books.

Heading into the Highlands and islands in “the backward spring of 2018,” Crumley pursued customary signs and creatures of the season despite his creeping suspicion that all was not right in this time of “global climate chaos.” Past the first day of meteorological spring, a late storm dropped eighteen inches of snow: “it got cold again … and that troubled this watcher of nature.” And flooding and late migration meant that Crumley’s totem for the start of the season (the return of sand martins to a local bay) failed him for the first time in thirty years. These moments were a source of constant “disquiet” as he moved on to indulge his love of mountains and “island addiction” across the northern UK.

The book’s undercurrents of anxiety do not detract from Crumley’s joy over getting to know species and individual animals through prolonged observation. Such “moments of enchantment” are plentiful: he encountered badgers, eagles, ravens, and stoats. In one peaceable surprise, he watched a pine marten and a fox touch noses, then carry on their separate ways.

A spirit of pilgrimage infuses Crumley’s work, with traditional religious destinations like Iona and Lindisfarne also providing communion with nature. He imagines connections crossing time, too: “The trees I hold dearest are those that remember wolves.” Crumley references poets and nature writers in his epigraphs, but also contributes verses of his own. Here and in prose, alliteration and vibrant imagery reign: “April is often a poor thing in Shetland, grey-faced and hollow-cheeked, withered by winter and flayed by … ocean winds.”

The Nature of Spring celebrates the season with lyricism, but also sounds an environmental alarm.

REBECCA FOSTER (December 27, 2022)

Love at Six Thousand Degrees

Book Cover
Maki Kashimada
Haydn Trowell, translator
Europa Editions
Softcover $17.00 (128pp)
978-1-60945-819-5
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon

An unhappy housewife learns to cope with loss and trauma in Maki Kashimada’s novel Love at Six Thousand Degrees.

One day, for no apparent reason, a woman leaves her child at the neighbor’s and runs away. Her morbid fascination with atomic bombings draws her to Nagasaki, where she starts a diffident affair with a much younger man. Though she began her journey with the intention of exploring death and chaos, she ends up finding a way to express feelings that have long eluded her.

In between spending time with the young man and visiting local sights, the woman falls prey to morose, rambling thoughts about religion, literature, and her past, including those of her abusive mother, her alcoholic brother’s suicide, and her unsatisfying relationships with men. Nagasaki itself, with its still-visible signs of tragedy, fuels her inner darkness. Generational and personal traumas meld to create a jaundiced, unhealthy view of life that drives her to drink and despair—and, ultimately, to run away from home. Reflecting her sense of isolation and disconnect, almost none of the characters are named. They are little more than anonymous specks in an unfair world.

The affair, based on mutual suffering rather than affection, withers even before the woman is ready to return home. Yet she is not unaffected by the fleeting nature of the relationship. Even if her home life remains the same, she has changed: she has learned that words, as limited and imperfect as they are, give her a weapon against bleak thoughts and obsessions. Simply giving voice to her experiences is enough to take away their power and to give her an identity of her own.

Love at Six Thousand Degrees is a novel about learning to acknowledge bad memories rather than hide them away.

EILEEN GONZALEZ (December 27, 2022)

Clytemnestra

Book Cover
Costanza Casati
Sourcebooks Landmark
Hardcover $26.99 (448pp)
978-1-72826-823-1
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon

Violence, passion, and murder abound in Constanza Casati’s stunning historical novel Clytemnestra.

The daughter of King Tyndareus and Queen Leda of Sparta, headstrong, intelligent Clytemnestra lives a charmed life as a princess. Surrounded by siblings, cousins, courtiers, and slaves, she lives for the hunt and shares all her secrets with her sister and confidant, Helen. Then Clytemnestra falls in love with, and marries, King Tantalus of Maeonia. She could not be happier.

Clytemnestra’s idyll is shattered when two brothers, Agamemnon and Menelaus, arrive in Sparta. Having been cast out of their kingdom, Mycenae, they seek Tyndareus’s support in plotting their revenge and return to power. Unable to intervene, Clytemnestra watches as Helen falls under Menelaus’s spell, while Agamemnon sets his sights on separating Clytemnestra from Tantalus.

Tyndareus and Agamemnon scheme to decide on Clytemnestra’s fate. After her child is born, Agamemnon slays Clytemnestra’s husband and son before her eyes. She’s forced by her father to accept Agamemnon as her new husband. After a violent wedding night, she is taken to Mycenae to start her new life as a queen. Devastated by loss and driven by hatred, Clytemnestra swears vengeance against those who have wronged her.

Clytemnestra is a great literary achievement that gives voice to characters who, due to their genders, have been vilified and silenced throughout the millennia. They include Helen of Troy, who made the world go to war to force her husband’s respect; Leda, who carries the mark of shame after Zeus had his way with her; and Penelope, who outwits the greatest trickster of them all. Most formidable among these women is Clytemnestra, the hunter who plots her revenge and waits for the right moment to arrive.

Clytemnestra is a literary tour de force—a novel of passion and vengeance set in Ancient Greece.

ERIKA HARLITZ KERN (December 27, 2022)

The Witches of World War II

Book Cover
Paul Cornell
Valeria Burzo
Jordie Bellaire
TKO Presents
Softcover $19.99 (160pp)
978-1-952203-18-3
Buy: Amazon

People known for their involvement with the occult take up the mantle of defending England during wartime in the entertaining historical novel The Witches of World War II.

Doreen Dominy, a witch who also happens to work at England’s Bletchley Park code-breaking facility, is called to her country’s service for a top-secret mission. Motivated by the death of her husband after a German U-boat attack, she accepts. Along with Aleister Crowley and several other masters of magic, she works to use the occult beliefs of Nazi leaders against them and attempt the capture of a prominent member of the party.

The story is based on actual events, though exaggerated and embellished for effect. The result is an exciting adventure in spycraft that makes use of the substantial legend surrounding Crowley while introducing readers to Dominy (later known as Doreen Valiente) and Gerald Gardner, considered two of the founders of modern paganism. Other key members of the occult anti-Nazi team include Violet Firth (alias Dion Fortune) and Rollo Ahmed. The group member’s differences in beliefs, methods, and ethical guidelines feed internal distrust and antagonism, creating a tense undercurrent to their larger, mutual goals.

The art is excellent, with accurate period details, convincing likenesses, and clear storytelling throughout. Afterwords by history professor Ronald Hutton and Paul Cornell illuminate the truths behind the story. The Witches of World War II is a graphic novel tale of high-stakes espionage with the unique, fascinating addition of magic.

PETER DABBENE (December 27, 2022)

Barbara Hodge

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