Book of the Day Roundup: November 28-December 2, 2022
Paradise Sands
A Story of Enchantment
Levi Pinfold
Candlewick Studio
Hardcover $18.99 (40pp)
978-1-5362-1282-2
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Haunting and surreal, this fantasy tale for young readers follows four siblings on a melancholy trip to visit their ailing mother. On the way, they stop to gather flowers; they enter into a mysterious palace that threatens to hold them there forever. The youngest among them—a determined girl—bargains for their freedom, walking a dangerous line whose implications her mother later recognizes in her eyes. Photorealistic and dazzling, the illustrations capture the fine details of spaces both real and imagined in precise, lasting terms.
MICHELLE ANNE SCHINGLER (October 27, 2022)
Queen of Snails
A Graphic Memoir
Maureen Burdock
Graphic Mundi
Hardcover $25.95 (232pp)
978-1-63779-036-6
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Maureen Burdock traces the emotions and events of her life in Germany and the US in her excellent graphic memoir Queen of Snails.
From her perspective as an adult, prompted by her mother’s death, Burdock looks back on the twists and turns of her life. Gaining insights through her own memories, dreams, and musings, as well as through photographs and discussions with others, she delves into the secrets and strange behavior of her parents and grandparents, as well as art, religion, World War II, an eating disorder, sexual abuse, and her own sexual identity.
The book’s transitions are organic, imparting a constant urge to see what will be revealed next. The text is further enriched by a wide range of cultural allusions, notes, and references. These are as varied as a digression about people’s longtime fascination with being tiny and scientific observations about snails. Memorable turns of phrase abound, as with “Memory Shrapnel,” referring to the “shards of stories” inherited over the years.
The art is just as creative about communicating Burdock’s story. A notable example is an overhead view of her childhood bedroom that encompasses her childhood world in a single image. The drawings, rendered in colored pencils, are warm, inviting, and intimate.
The rich, fascinating graphic memoir Queen of Snails addresses a personal history and heritage; it is a book that contains multitudes.
PETER DABBENE (October 27, 2022)
The Acrobat
Edward J. Delaney
Turtle Point Press
Softcover $17.95 (280pp)
978-1-885983-03-9
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
In Edward J. Delaney’s historical novel The Acrobat, Cary Grant is at the height of his career. He navigates reconciling his past with his present and turns an eye toward embracing his future.
Archie Leach dreamed of treading the boards, the surest way to escape his dreary home and stultifying school environment. He could not know then that he would become Cary Grant, star of the silver screen. Being “Cary Grant,” however, has taken a toll, and his usual ways of coping are no longer successful. Turning to the professionals, he starts psychiatric treatment to reveal and solidify the sense of self he had thought of as only accessible through his characters.
The novel reads like a short story collection. The self-contained chapters, each with their own title, follow the same format. They start with a memory-like scene that introduces the theme that informs the direction of the rest of the chapter; these include brotherhood and the meaning of success. The narrative then toggles between the past and the present. In the present (1959), Grant is in therapy using monitored LSD trips, preparing for new roles, and reminiscing about old ones. In the past (the early 1900s leading to 1959), Archie is a stagehand in theaters in England before coming to America with a pantomime troupe.
The broad strokes of Grant’s life, his upbringing, his career, and his relationships are familiar. Using these as touch points, the book settles into a balance of action and introspection, imagining the private events and conversations that led to public articles and falling outs. The intermingling of fiction with truth captures the essence of Grant as a Hollywood leading man, but also as just a man, with foibles, hopes, and fears.
The Acrobat is an artistic biographical novel about one of the greatest actors of all time.
DONTANá MCPHERSON-JOSEPH (October 27, 2022)
Nonverts
The Making of Ex-Christian America
Stephen Bullivant
Oxford University Press
Hardcover $29.95 (288pp)
978-0-19-758744-7
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
One in four Americans belongs to no religion, the majority of those having been raised in, and having left, Christianity. In his engaging book Nonverts, Stephen Bullivant unearths the stories behind these statistics and presents cogent theories for the cultural and historical factors involved.
While “not an easy group to pin down,” typical “nonverts” or “nones” (the latter a broad term for nonbelievers) are white former Christians; just over half are men. Political and religious nonaffiliation might go hand in hand. For some, a lack of compassion toward mental health issues and sexuality precipitated leaving religion. However, this does not always equate to atheism: 21% of nonverts claim an unshakable belief in God.
Survey results and graphs make the situation plain, but Bullivant remains committed to discovering the real people beyond the numbers. The book is based on 70 interviews and concentrates on four Christian groups: Mormonism, mainline Protestantism, Evangelicalism, and Catholicism. While respondents express gratitude for aspects of their upbringing and affection for church people, hypocrisy and legalism often repelled them. Some blame the Trump presidency for their disillusionment, too.
Bullivant proposes convincing explanations for why the proportion of nones has soared since the 1990s: the waning Cold War connection of atheism with communism, paired with the intensifying demonization of Islam; generational weakening of religious affiliations; readiness to speak out about nonbelief, thanks to public atheists like Richard Dawkins; and the expansion of the internet, where like minded people congregate for “free therapy.”
This methodical, conversational work intersperses its argumentation with colorful portraits of individuals who embody standard development routes. While the focus is on the recent past, Bullivant also casts an eye toward the future, wondering about the COVID-19 effect and whether the nonvert course will decline as immigration bolsters churchgoing populations.
Forecasting the dawn of a less religious nation, Nonverts is an accessible, personality-driven guide to recent religious trends.
REBECCA FOSTER (October 27, 2022)
Motherland
A Jamaican Cookbook
Melissa Thompson
Interlink Books
Hardcover $35.00 (304pp)
978-1-62371-801-5
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Melissa Thompson’s enticing Jamaican-inspired cookbook Motherland combines a solemn history of the Caribbean island nation with notes about its delicious food and spirited reputation.
The daughter of a Jamaican father and Maltese mother, Thompson grew up in England. Her father made Jamaican food to ease his homesickness; for Thompson, both her father’s and grandmother’s cooking awakened an ancestral connection and made her feel less displaced in her mostly white, British neighborhood.
Motherland details how Christopher Columbus and his Spanish crew came to the Caribbean seeking gold and soon after began a brutal campaign to dominate the native Taino people. In the 1600s, the barbaric transport of African slaves to Jamaica by the British provided free labor for sugar, coffee, and other agricultural plantations. Like North American slaves, Jamaican forced laborers were given less desirable animal parts to consume. The book’s traditional dishes, like slow-simmered Stewed Oxtail and Cow Foot, are testaments to the creative culinary skills of early African Jamaican cooks.
More familiar recipes like Curry Goat, Ackee and Saltfish, and Jerk Chicken are featured, along with Thompson’s crisp Cassava Fries and Mango and Grapefruit Salad. Healthy “Ital” or Rastafarian diet offerings tend to be plant-based, like the Red Peas Soup and Apple Coleslaw. Thyme, ginger, and scotch bonnet peppers are mainstays of Jamaican cooking, as well as sweet potatoes, plantains, and coconut milk. For desserts, pears poached in sorrel, or hibiscus, offer a lighter alternative to the often-used red wine sauce; and the distinctive and delightful Tamarind and Bay Caramel Brownies are made with tamarind paste, chocolate, and espresso. Creamy, festive beverages like Peanut Punch can be served with or without rum, along with the bracing refreshment of home-brewed ginger beer.
Spicy, sweet, rich and varied, the recipes of Motherland evoke the unique wonders of Jamaica’s enduring spirit.
MEG NOLA (November 27, 2022)
Barbara Hodge
