The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker

I listen to a fair number of podcasts. One of these recently centered around a book I had on my TBR list. The title of that episode was “What Makes a Good Gathering?“. I’ve been thinking recently about how to start a local book club, and I thought the ideas in this book might be helpful, so I finally read it.

It is a guidebook for how to gather people. My first thought when I put this on my list to read was that it was about how to host a cocktail party. And it is. But it is also about so much more. Are you in charge of raising money for a small non-profit? This book is for you. Do you hold or attend meetings at work? This book is for you. Do you occasionally have friends over to your house for dinner? This book is for you. And it isn’t about logistics or etiquette. It is about the planning.

Lot’s of people think that planning stifles spontaneity. The author and I disagree. Plans never come off perfectly, but without a plan things often or usually go sideways or in an entirely unexpected direction. In this guide, the author shows how important it is to decide why you are really gathering, to not be a chill host, to never start with logistics or end with thank yous, and to cause controversy (the good kind). It is a short book filled with practical advice that I can’t wait to use the next time I am tasked with hosting a meeting of any kind.

My rating: 4.5/5

Here by Richard McGuire

I first learned about this book from a movie trailer I randomly came across on YouTube. The director who made Back to the Future, Cast Away, and Forrest Gump is directing the movie Here staring Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. To be honest, the movie didn’t look that interesting to me. The fact that it told the story of one corner of a house throughout thousands of years of history just seemed too limiting to make for a very interesting movie. But when I heard that it was based on a graphic novel, I was intrigued. As a book, that concept might work. So I requested it from my library.

The graphic novel focuses on a corner of a living room in a house somewhere in North America, perhaps New England. The panels on each page show things from different times in that same room. Here is a sample of how it looks.

There are very few words on the page. The “reader” is left to contemplate the juxtaposition of the collages on each page. It explores how similar we are across the ages, while at the same time illustrating the enormous change across our planet over the millennia. It’s not a riveting piece of storytelling. But it is a unique experiment in storytelling. It doesn’t take very long to get through and is worth each moment spent in contemplation.

My rating: 4/5

Saga, Vol. 11 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

I learned about the comic/graphic novel series Saga many years ago. Every time a new volume in the series is released, I immediately put it a request for it at my local library. Not too long ago, my request for volume 11 came in. Quick warning, minor spoilers ahead for the action that took place prior to volume 11.

Volume 11 picks up after Marko has been murdered and Alana and Hazel (their daughter) are stranded when their spaceship is destroyed. They continue to be hunted by both sides of a war because Marko and Alana, representing a union of adversaries, and their daughter are perceived as a threat to the ongoing conflict that others are ideologically or financially committed to. This volume continues the stellar artwork and storytelling of the previous volumes.

If you haven’t yet read any of Saga, I highly recommend it. Just be aware that its themes and artwork are very much aimed at adults and therefore definitely not safe for work (NSFW).

My rating: 4/5

Ink Blood Sister Scribe by Emma Törzs

I can’t recall how this book got on my list of books to read. It sounded interesting but never really grabbed me. Must have been on some “best” list or recommended by someone whose opinion I respect. Unfortunately, I didn’t record that when I added it to my list. I finally picked it up when it was selected by my book for our June read for Pride Month. It was way better than I ever expected.

The story is about a family that finds and protects magic books from a mysterious group of people known only as the Library who are buying up all the magic books they can get their hands on. The focus is on the two sisters, one who can hear that the books are magic and can read their spells into being (Joanna) and the other who can’t hear the magic but has a special role to play nonetheless (Esther). The action opens with Esther, who moves every year, in Antarctica as she decides to stay for another year for her girlfriend who she is falling in love with. At the same time Joanna is still at home renewing the wards every year that protect her home and the magic books in the basement vault, having taken over for her father who died when he read a spell from a magic book that drained all his blood. Esther finds some worrying things happening in Antarctica that leave her questioning her decision to stay. Things simply take off from there.

This is the best book I have read so far this year. The storytelling is cinematic and propulsive. There are numerous twists and turns that I never saw coming. I may have been able to but the story had me turning the pages so quickly I didn’t have time to think or analyse too deeply. The family relationships, which are a big part of the story, pull you in while still feeling real enough to happen. This is truly a tale well told that I highly recommend to anyone who enjoys a good thriller.

My rating: 5/5

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann

Earlier this summer, my partner and I took a week-long vacation in northwestern Montana. A big part of the trip was the beauty of Glacier National Park. Learning about the park involved learning about the Native Americans who were there before white people moved in and took over, particular at Two Medicine Lake. The park also butts up against the reservation of the Blackfoot tribe to the east of the park. This reminded me of a book I had queued up to read called 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann. I started reading it the night before we left.

Since I was a teenager, I have been fascinated by the history of the Americas before they were invaded and plundered by Europeans. What was here before my ancestors came? How did they live? What could we learn from them? The consensus at that time was that there wasn’t much to learn. They were just small bands of tribes sprinkled throughout the Western Hemisphere living with and respecting the land. The premise and research of this book show something else entirely.

There are two main takeaways for me. The first is that the Americas may not have been quite so sparsely populated as scholars previously thought. In fact, there may have been more Indians in the Americas than in all of Europe. So where were they when the colonists of the Americas started showing up? It is likely that many, if not most, were dead from disease. Smallpox was brought by the first explorers. With no natural immunity to such diseases, as much as 90% of the population may have been killed. By the time colonists arrived, the populations were sparse and no longer able to maintain their previous ways of living.

And that is the second takeaway. The previous understanding of the natives of the Americas is that they were nomads who lived with the land, never changing it, farming very little if at all. New discoveries have changed this thinking. One mind-blowing idea shared is that the Amazon River basin (referred to as Amazonia in the book), was cultivated! No, it wasn’t one big native garden. But rather than simply accepting nature for what it was, they nurtured it to their betterment and the environment’s. Indians often used fire to manage their surroundings. In Amazonia, they burned only to charcoal (not ash) which made the soil more fertile, planting orchards that today we think of as fruitful jungle.

This book is filled with new ways of understanding and thinking about the experience of Native Americans before the Europeans arrived. And this brings a whole new perspective to what happened after the arrival of the first Europeans. We still have much to learn from those who lived here before our ancestors arrived. Hopefully one of those lessons will involve a greater respect for the native people where we live.

My rating: 4/5

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book One by Emil Ferris

I am a big Cory Doctorow fan, of both his fiction and his technology and privacy advocacy. I follow and read his blog. On that blog, he will occasionally recommend a book to read. Recently, one of those books as My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two. It is the sequel, naturally, to My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book One by Emil Ferris. After reading Doctorow’s glowing review of Book Two, I immediately requested Book One from my library and took it with my on a recent vacation.

The book is a graphic novel about and told by a young girl who wants to be a monster. She is picked on at school and feels like an outsider. Her logic is that if she was undead, she could get back at those who pick on her or her family. One day, a neighbor woman who was always kind to the author is found dead in her bed. She was apparently shot in her living room but found in her bed. And the apartment was locked from the inside. The police call it a suicide and close the case. But the author isn’t so sure and begins to try to figure out what happened.

The art in this book is beautiful. Each “chapter” opens with the cover of an old horror magazine. In fact the whole book has that feel of something dark and ominous that the art communicates masterfully. The murdered woman was a holocaust survivor and much of the book is learning of her experience. Another focal point is the author’s relationship with her brother who is much older that she is. They were close once but he has become more distant recently. The book ends on a cliff hanger that leaves the reader reaching for the sequel. I am so lucky that it is available now from my local library. This book was originally published in 2017 but the sequel didn’t come out until this year. I can’t image having to wait so long to find out what happens next!

My rating: 4/5

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

I am fascinated by storytelling. It is a large part of why I read so much. I also love to learn about the art of storytelling and writing. So much so that I listen to a podcast called Writing Excuses. What is it? In their words, “Writing Excuses is a fast-paced, educational podcast for writers, by writers. Our goal is to help our listeners become better at their craft. Whether they write for fun or for profit, whether they’re new to the domain or old hands, Writing Excuses has something to offer. We love to write, and our listeners do, too.” In their latest season they have been talking about “world building” and using the Hugo-award-winning novel A Memory of Empire by Arkady Martine as their text.

I had thought about reading this book many times but always decided to pass. On the cover is a prominent quote that, in part, refers to it as “space opera“, not one of my favorite types of science fiction. I didn’t really relish reading about war in space. But as I listened to this season of the podcast, I discovered that this novel is less about space war and more about culture, language, diplomacy, colonization, and empire. I became very interested in reading this book and finally picked it up.

The story centers on a young woman named Mahit who grew up on a small space station on the edge of the empire. When suddenly the empire requests a new ambassador from the station, Mahit is sent. She has studied the empire and its language and culture almost her entire life. She is fascinated by it as well as troubled by its power and threat to her home station. When she arrives, she learns that the former ambassador is dead, possibly murdered. With little knowledge of what happened to him and almost no one to help her, she sets out to discover what happened to him and protect and represent her home.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I loved that it delves into the culture of the empire and how it both fascinates and troubles Mahit. One of the episodes in the podcast is an interview with the author. In it I learned that she combines aspects of the Byzantium and Aztec empires to develop the empire in the book. The world building happens in the context of telling the story so there is little exposition about the empire or the world. It all happens organically in an intriguing story that grabs you by the scruff of the neck and takes you along for the ride with Mahit as she struggles to navigate this new world that she loves and fears and has for so long wanted to be a part of. But as the story unfolds she starts to wonder if that will ever be possible. A unique look as colonization and it effects on the colonizers in the shape of a compelling story that is hard to put down.

My rating: 4.5/5

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

I’ve had this book on my To Be Read pile for almost three years. Last week it caught my attention when I was considering what to read next. I finished in less than a week.

The story takes place on a future Earth where a way has been discovered to travel to alternate universes. This allows Earth Zero (the one that discovered and developed the technology) to begin a brisk trade with alternate Earths. The challenge of traversing, as its called, to these other worlds is that you can only do so to worlds where the alternate version of you is no longer alive. The main character is valuable to the company employing those who traverse because she is dead in more alternate worlds than anyone else. But what happens when she is sent to a world where her alternate self isn’t actually dead? That happens, kicking off a fantastic thriller of a novel.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It has everything. A likable but mysterious protagonist. A driven plot with multiple twists that are hard or impossible to see coming. Character development that happens in line with the plot and provokes considered thought about the human condition. And a love story that feels as genuine as possible in a complex and dangerous world. I found this book un-put-down-able.

My rating: 4.5/5

Hum by Helen Phillips

I learned about this book from the Summer Reading Guide on the What Should I Read Next? podcast. It won’t be published until August 6. I was able to read it early by getting an advance reader copy from Netgalley in exchange for this honest review.

The story is about a mother in a near future where AI robots called “hums” and public surveillance are everywhere. The first part of the book is a depressing litany of the living poor in a high tech world succumbing to climate change and slowly losing jobs to automation. After being let go, the mom gets paid to have a procedure to make her face unrecognizable to facial recognition. She uses the windfall to pay back rent and for a vacation at the Botanical Gardens with her husband and two children. While there, a crisis with her children is the event that sets off the main conflict of the novel.

This tale is well-told and realistically evokes the everyday struggles of the working poor trying to raise a family in a world that seems to keep them down at every turn. Additionally, it explores the struggle of parents to raise their kids to be well-rounded adults with all the distractions that technology affords. Unfortunately, I found the balance of the story to be off a bit too much for me. The bleakness heavily outweighs the message. It reminds me of an episode of Black Mirror on Netflix. It gives me that same vague horror of something that could really happen but never should without the same storytelling punch that series delivers.

My rating 3.5/5

Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle

With the recent release of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, I decided to read the book that started the movie franchise that now includes a total of ten movies. The original novel was published in 1963 in French by Pierre Boulle with the English of Planet of the Apes.

The story starts out with a couple doing some solar sailing through space when they come across a bottle floating in their trajectory. Upon retrieval, they discover that the bottle has a short manuscript in it. With the exception of the final chapter, the rest of the book is the manuscript of a mission to the Betelgeuse system where the astronauts find a planet called Soros that is populated by sentient apes and savage humans unable to speak.

I liked this book, but I definitely felt its age. The twist is clever and different than that of the movie. That surprised me. But the ending in the book in much more thought provoking. The rise of apes and the fall of man on Soros was due to man numbing himself to his surroundings. In that way it reminds me of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley or The Shallows by Nicholas Carr.

My rating: 3.5/5