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Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward (audio)

October 19, 2023 by

Source: Purchased
Audible, 9+ hrs.
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Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward, narrated by January LaVoy, is set in the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, follows the family of Esch, Skeetah, Randall, and Junior as their alcoholic, single father does his best to keep a roof over their heads and protect what little they have from the storm, Hurricane Katrina. Over the course of 12 days, Ward tells the story of this loyal family, not unfamiliar with sacrifice.

Skeetah hopes that his prize-winning pitbull will provide a litter of pups the family can use to earn some cash, at least some of which could be used to help their brother Randall play summer basketball at a camp their father cannot afford. Esch, unfortunately, has no motherly guidance and is surrounded by brothers and relied on too much by her father as a mother to the others. She falls in love with her brother’s friend Manny, but it is clear he’s only interested in what she can give him, and as all things naturally happen, she gives him everything for only heartache in return.

The narration is engaging, even if there are far too many details on some occasions and some of the details are repeated far too many times.

The heart of this story is salvaging from what has been lost — whether that is the lost “love” or what’s left after one parent dies or after a devastating hurricane destroys everything.

Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward is a stark look at what it takes to survive in a world where racism and poverty are all anyone sees when your father drinks too much and works hard for so little and when you have no discernible parent there to guide you. Like the dogs who fight in the pit, this family is struggling for survival even before Hurricane Katrina hits.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Author:

Jesmyn Ward received her MFA from the University of Michigan and has received the MacArthur Genius Grant, a Stegner Fellowship, a John and Renee Grisham Writers Residency, the Strauss Living Prize, and the 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. She is the historic winner—first woman and first Black American—of two National Book Awards for Fiction for Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) and Salvage the Bones (2011). She is also the author of the novel Where the Line Bleeds and the memoir Men We Reaped, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize and the Media for a Just Society Award. She is currently a professor of creative writing at Tulane University and lives in Mississippi.

Filed Under: audiobooks, Bloomsbury, challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, purchased, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: , , , ,

Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space by Amanda Leduc

October 18, 2023 by

Source: Public Library
Paperback, 251 pgs.
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On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space by Amanda Leduc, which was my next pick for my work’s book club, is a series of essays examining the myths, fables, and the comic book universe through the lens of disability exclusion and how some of the characters in these stories are often disfigured or disabled in some way and must embark on a quest or journey that transforms them into an able-bodied, perfect version of themselves in order to obtain their happily ever after.

“But it is never society that changes, no matter how many half-animals or scullery maids are out there arguing for their place at the table. It is almost always the protagonists themselves who transform in some way — becoming more palatable, more beautiful, more easily able to fit into the mould of society already in place.” (pg. 41)

“For many able-bodied people in the world today, the idea of disability comes shrouded in darkness. It is inconceivable to so many that someone could be disabled and also happy, because we as social beings have been taught, through the books we read and the films and television we watch and the music we listen to, the stories we tell one another, that to be disabled is to be at a disadvantage: to be a lesser body, to be a body that cannot function at the same level as other bodies in society.” (pg. 48-9)

While the Beast in Beauty and the Beast is under a spell to look unpleasing and Ariel in The Little Mermaid wants to have legs like humans to meet her prince, these characters are disabled because they do not fit into society’s version of who they should be, according to Leduc. But, they can be their best selves as they are, even without societal approval and achieve happiness to a certain degree, like all of us. She reminds us, “I was never there in fairy tales. I never saw myself.” (pg. 89) Representation matters.

The text, however, gets a bit dry in some parts, which forced me to skim over some of the historical details that I don’t think made her points any more poignant than they were in the first place. I wasn’t sure why she included her medical notes from her surgeon and doctors, except to provider her own background. I think for me, it interrupted the flow of her essays. I would have preferred her to parse out the relevant parts and included them in the narrative of each chapter rather than add-ons.

Leduc raises a number of points through her essays on disability as seen in fables and other stories, including Disney interpretations of those princess stories. Her parallels are solid, and she admits that charity is a societal way of excluding the disabled because it focuses too much on helping individuals, rather than embarking on larger societal change. “Fairy tales and fables are never only stories: they are the scaffolding by which we understand crucial things. Fairness, hierarchy, patterns of behaviour; who deserves a happy ending and who doesn’t. What it means to deserve something in the first place; what happy endings mean in both the imagination and the world.” (pg. 233-4) On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space by Amanda Leduc provides a great deal to think about, particularly as we continue to expose our children to fables and fairy tales. We need to think how these stories will skew their worldview.

RATING: Tercet

About the Author:

Amanda Leduc is the author of the novel THE CENTAUR’S WIFE (Random House Canada, 2021) and the non-fiction book DISFIGURED: ON FAIRY TALES, DISABILITY, AND MAKING SPACE (Coach House Books, 2020), which was shortlisted for the 2020 Governor General’s Award in Nonfiction and long-listed for the 2020 Barbellion Prize. She is also the author of an earlier novel, THE MIRACLES OF ORDINARY MEN (ECW Press, 2013). She has cerebral palsy and lives in Hamilton, Ontario, where she serves as the Communications Coordinator for the Festival of Literary Diversity (FOLD), Canada’s first festival for diverse authors and stories

Filed Under: borrowed copy, challenges, essays, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear

October 11, 2023 by

Source: Public Library
Hardcover, 320 pgs.
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Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear, which I found through The Book Connection, is something I needed at the right time. As a poet, rejection is part of the publishing wheel, and like everyone, it gets me down. Clear points out that when we want to make behavioral changes, it takes a Herculean effort or it really takes a shift in our focus. It is not will power that will sustain the adoption of new habits or some bottomless pit of passion, it takes practice and hard work every day. Showing up for the good habits and making the bad habits unattractive to ourselves.

“True behavior change is identity change. You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you’ll stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity. … Improvements are only temporary until they become part of who you are.” (pg. 34)

“Your behaviors are usually a reflection of your identity. What you do is an indication of they type of person you believe that you are …” (pg. 34)

I think many of us believe our identities are merely our family or our occupation. Some even view their status as a winning athlete as their identity, but we are more than those items. What happens when those criteria no longer exist? Do we cease to have an identity? If you are no longer a professional athlete, who are you? Behaviors and values are other criteria we can look to as we characterize ourselves.

What’s important about Clear’s book is that it is not about setting goals, such as “I will write 25 pages per day on my novel?” It is about changing the processes behind goal setting to make behavior change more successful and achievable. We should all strive to do 1% better in our attempts to change behavior every day and through this long-term practice, we can achieve behavior changes over time. Our intentions should be clear and attractive to us, such as “I will write 1 new page of my novel at 12 p.m. in my office on Mondays.” These intentions will make it doable and with minimal pressure and provide a time and location.

Clear also discusses the idea of habit stacking in which you start new habits right after ones that you wish to continue and can signal to you that it is time for the new habit. For instance, if you grab a cup of coffee early in the morning, you can stack it with the habit of meditating for 1 minute with the cup in your hands, if your goal is to meditate more. There are lots of ways that habits can be stacked to make achieving change easier. Inserting habits where you can can ensure that a new habit becomes more automatic. Clear says, “The more attractive an opportunity is, the more likely it is to become habit-forming.” (pg. 104) This is something the advertising industry knows well, which is why we consume new products, social media applications, and other items so easily.

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear is definitely a great book if you are looking to ditch bad habits or form new ones. Want to hike more, this book can help you start and maintain the habit. Want to write more, same thing. He does warn that “when preparation becomes a form of procrastination, you need to change something. You don’t want to merely be planning. You want to be practicing.” (pg. 143) But remember, “the human brain loves a challenge, but only if it is within an optimal zone of difficulty.” (pg. 231).

RATING: Cinquain

About the Author:

James Clear is a writer and speaker. He is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Atomic Habits and the popular 3-2-1 newsletter.

Filed Under: borrowed copy, challenges, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, Penguin, Publishers/Publicists, random house, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: ,

Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell

October 4, 2023 by

Source: Public Library
Hardcover, 352 pgs.
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Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell, my final book for the 12 books recommended by 12 friends reading challenge, is part biography and part critique of his work as a sermon writer and poet. Donne was considered to be one of the most romantic poets of the time period, which also included William Shakespeare and others. Much of what Rundell pieces together from Donne’s life is from fragmented time lines and very few complete documents, as he liked to destroy documents written from his friends after they had died. He also often wrote fragments of poems on napkins or other scraps, which were given to others or thrown away or lost.

In one section of the book, Rundell points to a copyrighted book called “Amours” by J.D., with other sonnets by W.S., but it is unclear if it is even Donne’s work or that of Shakespeare. The author admits it is impossible to know who wrote the work or the sonnets inside.

Rundell is clearly a lover of Donne’s work, and she admires his intimacy with his subject, and while she does humanize rather than exalt Donne, with very few documents to demonstrate his movements, etc., she’s piecing together his life from scraps. What is known of Donne is that he did indeed love his young wife and family, despite the hardship of family life and earning a living at a time when Catholics were persecuted, killed, and shunned/snubbed. His brother died in jail after being found to have hidden a priest in his home. Donne also lost two of his 12 children in childbirth, including the twelfth and then lost his wife. His life was hard, somewhat of his own doing and decisions, but also because of the political and religious landscape at the time.

I will be honest there were parts of this book that got too academic and I skimmed them. I was disappointed that there was not more about the poems and the actual life that could be verified, but that is not the author’s doing. Her writing style was a bit dry at times, even as she seemed to talk directly to the reader. Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell does its best to pay homage to the man, including his faults, while highlighting his contributions to poetry and religion. I will leave you with a poem I memorized in school:

Death, be not proud
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.


RATING: Tercet


About the Author:


Katherine Rundell is a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, where she works on Renaissance literature. Her bestselling books for children have been translated into more than thirty languages and have won multiple awards. Rundell is also the author of a book for adults, Why You Should Read Children’s Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise. She has written for, among others, the London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Review of Books, and The New York Times, largely about books, though sometimes about animals, night climbing, and tightrope walking.


Click the image below to see all of my reviews for this challenge and maybe add some to your own reading lists.




Filed Under: borrowed copy, challenges, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: , , , 
Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica (audio)


September 19, 2023 by  
Source: Purchased

Audiobook, 6+ hrs.

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Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica, narrated by Joseph Balderrama, is a translated work in which a dystopian world of cannibalism emerges after a virus makes all other meat inedible. Marcos is the main character who is the supervisor of the local “specialty meat” plant. His father has dementia and he is paying for all his care, but his wife left him and his only child is dead.


Much of this book is stomach-churning, and while I see it as a commentary on the meat production industry and the industry/money driven industry’s influence over government policy. It’s interesting to me that the author chose this topic after I learned that Argentina is one of the largest meat consumers in the world. Marcos is so detached from his family, his emotions, his interactions with others, and while the gift he is given later on is supposed to make us believe he is reconnecting with his humanity, I don’t believe it. I was unconvinced. The ending wasn’t a shock.


I can see how this would be a good book club selection because there are a number of themes to explore and discuss, but the characters were very flat and didn’t evolve much throughout. Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica is an odd dystopian novel set in Argentina where cannibalism is the norm out of necessity, but little is examined about the moral or ethical challenges of this decision. What’s worse is the conspiracies about it being a government hoax are never explored.


RATING: Tercet


About the Author:


Agustina Bazterrica is an Argentinian novelist and short story writer. She is a central figure in the Buenos Aires literary scene. She won the prestigious Premio Clarin Novela for her second novel, Tender Is the Flesh, which has been translated into twenty-three languages. Several of the stories in Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird have also won awards, including First Prize in the 2004/2005 City of Buenos Aires Awards for Unpublished Stories and First Prize in the Edmundo Valadés Awards for the Latin American Short Story, among others.


Filed Under: audiobooks, challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, purchased, Read in 2023, reviews, Simon & Schuster Tagged With: , , , 
Dancehall by Tim Stobierski


September 14, 2023 by  
Source: the poet

Paperback, 90 pgs.

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Dancehall by Tim Stobierski, touring with Poetic Book Tours, is a collection in a five-act play format with poems that crescendo into an unforgettable love story. Stobierski’s poems are tender and full of emotion. In Act One, you’ll be enchanted by “Just as Sparrows,” in which a lover is compared to sparrows looking through the grass for that perfect morsel — holding the narrator’s heart gently but for what seems like just a moment. In that moment, a heart is captured and the journey of love begins.


And like a word (pg. 8)

I ache to be spoken--
to cling to your lip
and fall from your tongue--

to crack in your voice
and catch in your throat.

Speak me into being.


There is longing, desire, love, and so much wonderment at attachment and love. The opening act is like that initial rush of lovers who have eyes only for each other. It will bring you back to those early days. 


“Press into me/as night/presses/into a canyon.//” says the narrator in “Want.” (pg. 20) We’re moving into the full love of this relationship and navigating the early relationship awkwardness. The narrator is opening up to this feeling of love and discovering the depths of it, nearly losing himself but reveling in it. But of course, what relationship is complete without disagreement? 


Don’t we all try to bend and fit in a narrative not our own, make ourselves smaller and appease our lovers. “If I am too much to hold,/fold me in half/so I will fit in your arms.//” (“Crease”, pg. 30) Readers are now moving into the maturing of a relationship and realizations that all is not paradise, but the love still binds the narrator to his lover. In “If this is it,” the narrator says, “rest your head upon my chest/one last time,/and I will run my fingers/through the soft hairs/at the nape of your neck.//” (pg. 33)


Dancehall by Tim Stobierski is a beautiful collection full of tenderness and ache, and the poems will invest you in this love story from the start. Stobierski’s lines and images are endearing and heartbreaking. Don’t miss this collection.


RATING: Cinquain


About the Poet:




Tim Stobierski writes about relationships. His work explores universal themes of love, lust, longing, and loss — presented through the lens of his own experiences as a queer man. His poetry has been published in a number of journals, including the Connecticut River Review, Midwest Quarterly, and Grey Sparrow. His first book of poetry, Chronicles of a Bee Whisperer, was published by River Otter Press in 2012.


To pay the bills, he is a freelance writer and content strategist focused on the world of finance, investing, fintech, insurance, and software. In his professional writing, he prides himself on his ability to help the reader understand complicated subjects easily, a quality that informs his poetry.


He is also the founder and editor of Student Debt Warriors, a free resource for college students, graduates, and parents who are struggling to make sense of the complex world of student loans. Follow Tim on Instagram.




Filed Under: ARC, challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: , 
Inheritance by Taylor Johnson


September 13, 2023 by  
Source: Gift

Paperback, 100 pgs.

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Inheritance by Taylor Johnson, who is Takoma Park, Maryland’s Poet Laureate, is deceptively quiet. It opens with a poem, “Since I Quit That Internet Service,” that speaks to community and finding your voice. It is such a hopeful beginning to a collection that delves into the depths of our nation’s capitalism, what role gender-ization plays in society and how it forces us to view ourselves as something we seem to have no control over, and the pressures of race, a societal box to check, and all its baggage.


All of these poems ask us to carefully consider the word “inheritance” whether that be what we’ve carried from our families, our DNA, what we’ve been given by relatives after they pass, and so on. Johnson, for example, widens his definition of “inheritance” to include the spaces between us and strangers and the slight nods of acknowledgement we give and receive in passing. Johnson’s poems are witnesses and participants at the same time — we all can relate to that if we take the time to pause and listen, watch, and consider the complex world and our participation in it.


Chiaroscuro (pg. 42)

Whereas I come into the into to talk with my shadow.
From you I've not hid my face.

For in the morning I make, and am made by you:
beautiful projection, boy in the mirror, boy in my mind.
I separate my flesh from my flesh to become more
like you, to drown in your holdings.

O young lord of my desire, you are the light
I ride toward, I run from. I eat less and avoid
being hailed. Anonymous interstitial prince
of my undoing, redeemer of my yes, I want

to grow into you, and then abandon your
imprecise naming. I am bequeathed violence—
your inheritance — and your rough glamour.

I am made to tarry, here, with you,
thus illumined by your tenuous light.


Inheritance by Taylor Johnson is a collection to read aloud and read again as you listen to each word, envision each image, and hear the truth of life and its complexity. We try so hard to simplify a world that is far more layered than our brains can comprehend, perhaps we should just live it, not try to wrangle it into submission.


RATING: Cinquain


photo by S*an D. Henry-Smith


About the Poet:


Taylor Johnson is from Washington, D.C. He is the author of Inheritance (Alice James Books, 2020), winner of the 2021 Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. His work appears in Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review, The Baffler, Scalawag, and elsewhere. Johnson is a Cave Canem graduate fellow and a recipient of the 2017 Larry Neal Writers’ Award from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and the 2021 Judith A. Markowitz Award for Emerging Writers from Lambda Literary. Taylor was the inaugural 2022 Poet-in-Residence at the Guggenheim Museum. He is the Poet Laureate of Takoma Park, Maryland. With his wife, Elizabeth Bryant, Taylor curates the Green Way Reading Series at People’s Book in Takoma Park.


Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, purchased, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: , 
A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum


September 5, 2023 by  
Source: Borrowed

Hardcover, 352 pgs.

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A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum was our August book club pick at work, and even though I had to miss the meeting for another meeting, I’m so glad I read this one. Deya is a high-school student in Brooklyn, N.Y., and her traditional Arab family from Palestine has her meeting with suitors before graduation, despite her hopes for a college education. To preserve their culture in which women are the silent backbone of the family, young women are married to men in their teens to have children and raise the next generation. Like her mother, Isra, Deya is expected to marry someone she barely knows and to start a family.




“A woman is no man,” is an oft repeated refrain from Deya’s grandmother. Told in alternating chapters by Isra and Deya, the narrative is threaded with the past of the grandmother, Fareeda, who also married young but was fortunate enough to flee Palestine after being evacuated to a refugee camp. Her strength is in her faith, but she also is the backbone of her family and the driving force behind their move to America. While both Deya and Isra see the move to America as a gateway to freedom and more opportunities, Fareeda sees it as something that must be guarded against because it will destroy their Arab culture. However, it is clear that Fareeda’s and Isra’s view of their culture stems from similarly abusive relationships with their fathers, and now husbands.


“…yet something about them seemed so American. What was it? Deya thought it was they way they spoke — their voices loud, or at least louder than hers. It was the way they stood confidently on the train, not apologizing for taking up the space.” (pg. 107)


The tension in this book is broken wide open by a family secret. For her entire life, Deya has been told her parents died in a car accident, but the truth will set them free in many ways, allowing a granddaughter and grandmother to bond, a daughter to understand her deceased mother better, and a daughter to have hope that her own hard-line mother may change.


Peeling back these layers chapter by chapter will slow the pace, but Rum’s narrative is this way to demonstrate the repetitive cultural oppression these women experience every day. As a modern reader outside the Palestinian culture, it will seem repetitive and unnecessary, but I would argue it is with purpose that Rum adopts this slower progression. We need to feel that pressure, that weight of oppression and constant restriction to understand how hard it would be to break free from it even as an American immigrant.


A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum is an emotional roller coast, and it will have readers shouting at these women to take advantage of their freedom and run away. But when you leave all that you know, it leaves you bare to the harsh realities of being alone in an unfamiliar world. Which is better? Sticking with the devil you know, or striking out into the unknown? Rum has created a multi-layered story that looks at the oppressive nature of the Arab community and religious expectations and the lure of freedom with consequences.


RATING: Cinquain


About the Author:


The daughter of Palestinian immigrants, Etaf Rum was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She has a Masters of Arts in American and British Literature as well as undergraduate degrees in Philosophy and English Composition and teaches undergraduate courses in North Carolina, where she lives with her two children. Etaf also runs the Instagram account @booksandbeans.


Filed Under: borrowed copy, challenges, fiction, Harper Collins, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: , 
What Follows by H.R. Webster


August 16, 2023 by  
Source: Purchased

Paperback, 70 pgs.

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What Follows by H.R. Webster is a debut collection of poems that shed light on the darkness and the scars left in the wake of turbulence. The opening poem, “What Follows,” sets the tone immediately: “Every house I’ve ever lived in was filled with snakes./” and “The snakes I live with now leave/quieter marks.” (pg. 3)


These poems try to make sense of the darkness in the world, the men who catcall at every woman and the boys that love the danger of the flips and tumbles of the skate park. What follows that darkness, what’s left behind? Shame? Heartbreak? Desire? It’s not the harm or the dark emotions but the glimmer of light that remains, the hope of beauty and satisfaction. “Look at the stain/in the diamond. It’s not the thing itself,/but what’s left of the light that was swallowed./” (“Occlusion”, pg. 36)


What Follows by H.R. Webster explores the space in between the before and after trauma, reminding us that there is some light in the darkness. Her poems use language that doesn’t focus directly on the trauma. The poems state what the trauma isn’t, outlining the pain with pain that is easier to understand. Readers will learn so much in these poems, through the poet’s dark humor and explorations of deep desires and lashing out. It’s a deeply human collection that reflects on our darkest thoughts and feelings — many of which we bury deep.


RATING: Quatrain




About the Poet:




H.R. Webster has received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center, Vermont Studio Center, and the Helen Zell Writers’ Program. Her work has appeared in the Massachusetts Review, Poetry Magazine, Black Warrior Review, Ninth Letter, 32Poems, Muzzle, and Ecotone.




Filed Under: challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, purchased, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: , , 
The Unempty Spaces Between by Louis Efron


August 15, 2023 by  
Source: the poet

Paperback, 62 pgs.

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The Unempty Spaces Between by Louis Efron, which is on tour with Poetic Book Tours, is a debut poetry collection that brings readers on a journey of exploration in the natural world to find not empty spaces that must be filled, but spaces that have hidden treasures. In the opening poem, “Beautiful Trees,” readers are shown the dead branches and passed fruit and leaves that have yet to fall, but as the narrator takes us into the earth, we are shown how the rain seeps down and the roots have dug deep and continue to do so. It’s a living being beneath the surface of the earth and it is beautiful.


One of my favorite poems in the collection is “Empty Attics,” in which dusty items sit and wait in the dark forgotten places. Imagine all those souvenirs bought and hidden away, tarnishing in the darkness. “our treasures/memories unlit/by such neglected bulbs/still failing to see ourselves/illuminated/as dust settles again/on the balconies of our mind/” (pg.25) Here we see attics filled with trinkets and memory, but they are rarely accessed. Does this mean we are unknown? Are we in darkness even about ourselves? Efron is showing us the introspection he himself is engaged in through his poems, and on this journey with him, we are exploring the identities of ourselves.


Another poem that will capture the storyteller and listener in all of us is “Rooms Without Nightlights” as Efron takes us inside the dark bedrooms of our past and the fairytales we know by heart. He sheds light on the shadows that scared us from sleeping and kept us on edge in our basements. He asks us to leave those “ruffled sheets/to tend to their own ghosts” but also to be wary of the “inviting masks/fooled only by our children/framed on forbidden trading cards/in palmed devices.” Vigilance can be a tricky skill.


The Unempty Spaces Between by Louis Efron allows readers to fall into the cracks and explore the emotions of our childish nightmares against the backdrop of more adult concerns. In many ways, we are looking for ourselves in that darkness and seeking the truth of it before the door of finality closes on us. What is in those spaces between?


RATING: Cinquain


About the Poet:


Louis Efron is a poet and writer who has been featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, Chicago Tribune, POETiCA REViEW, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Academy of the Heart and Mind, Literary Yard, New Reader Magazine and over 100 other national and global publications. He is also the author of five books, including The Unempty Spaces Between, How to Find a Job, Career and Life You Love; Purpose Meets Execution; Beyond the Ink; as well as the children’s book What Kind of Bee Can I Be?


Filed Under: ARC, challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: , , 
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke


August 14, 2023 by  
Source: Public Library

Hardcover, 272 pgs.

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Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, is my 11th book for the 12 books recommended by 12 friends reading challenge, is a novel written with Greek mythology at its base, particularly the labyrinth and its connection to madness or mental health. In Clarke’s novel, Piranesi is given his name by the Other, the only other living person in the House, which is packed with giant statues and a maze of halls — some of which are flooded or partially flooded. From time to time, the main character is visited by birds and he fishes in certain halls for food when the tides are high. He’s a recordkeeper, tracking what’s in each hall and the tides. The Other, however, seems to have access to real-world supplies and knowledge, but relies on Piranesi to map the House for him as he continues his search for the secret knowledge.


This is a mysterious tale with slow reveals, and while clues are dropped along the way, readers may find they, too, are duped by the labyrinth. Who are these mysterious people and how do they have knowledge of the real world if they have only ever lived in the House. What is the point of all this record keeping and traipsing back and forth if there are only two people alive here? Why can they not simply live in one place together and be a society unto themselves? It is clear the relationship is not reciprocal and is lopsided in the power dynamic from the beginning.


The start of this book left a lot to be desired. It was a slow narrative that left me bored initially. I wasn’t interested in the characters for about 40 pages. However, once I got past that point, I started noticing some kernels of how this world was not necessarily real but an amalgamation of things from the real world and that it was not a post-apocalyptic world like I initially thought. Piranesi is the main protagonist and because he doesn’t initially have all of the information needed to unravel this House and its mysteries, neither does the reader. This can be tiresome, but ultimately, the novel revealed itself through a series of events and the dynamic with the Other was more intriguing and less sterile.


Piranesi by Susanna Clarke is a book that can try your patience and it was not a beach read, which is what I was looking for last week. However, it was interesting to unravel the secrets of the labyrinth. It was more satisfying than I thought at the beginning. I’d recommend this for readers who like to think outside the box and who like mysteries where you are unraveling them with the protagonist.


RATING: Quatrain


About the Author:


Susanna Clarke was born in Nottingham in 1959. A nomadic childhood was spent in towns in Northern England and Scotland. She was educated at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, and has worked in various areas of non-fiction publishing, including Gordon Fraser and Quarto. In 1990, she left London and went to Turin to teach English to stressed-out executives of the Fiat motor company. The following year she taught English in Bilbao.


She returned to England in 1992 and spent the rest of that year in County Durham, in a house that looked out over the North Sea. There she began working on her first novel,  Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. She lives in Cambridge with her partner, the novelist and reviewer Colin Greenland.




Filed Under: Bloomsbury, borrowed copy, challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: , , 
Exits by Stephen C. Pollock


July 20, 2023 by  
Source: Poet

Paperback, 54 pgs.

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Exits by Stephen C. Pollock, which is on tour with Poetic Book Tours, focuses on the ultimate exit we all must make and speaks to the fear and acceptance of our mortality. The collection includes not only poems, but also photographs and artwork that inspired some of the poems. They complement one another well.


The opening poem, “Arachindaea: Line Drawings,” and accompanying photograph of a spider in its web begin a symphony to life’s unexpected beauty: “your finest threads are strung with pearls/and you, a brooch with a clasp./” But then darkness comes when we “magnify the shiny spheres/to divine that each conceals/a miniature, an image/of struggling wings, of life undone.” (pg. 1) The poem is multi-layered in its exploration of the predator-prey dynamic, demonstrating the beauty alongside the ultimate demise of the prey. The strings of the web begin a tune, one that cannot be escaped.


Throughout this collection, Pollock looks to nature for not only music, but also beauty in mortality. The flowers in “Seeds” give up everything to insects and birds, breeding new life from their own deaths, ending a lifecycle but also beginning it anew. “So many seeds were borne by each alone,/so many lost with loss of those I’ve known.//” the narrator says. It’s the mortality and the remembrance of those gone before us that enables them to live on, like the seeds from the dying flowers in our garden.


Through a variety of forms and styles, Pollock takes us on a breathtaking journey that reminds us that through the sadness and finality of death and mortality, there’s also things that live on. There are pieces of us in other lives and other places that we’ve touched. In many ways Exits by Stephen C. Pollock is a hopeful collection — a collection looking to provide peace.


RATING: Quatrain


About the Poet:


Stephen C. Pollock is a recipient of the Rolfe Humphries Poetry Prize and a former associate professor at Duke University. His poems have appeared in a wide variety of literary journals, including “Blue Unicorn,” “The Road Not Taken,” “Live Canon Anthology,” “Pinesong,” “Coffin Bell,” and “Buddhist Poetry Review.” “Exits” is his first book.


Filed Under: ARC, challenges, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Poetry Reading Challenge, Read in 2023, reviews Tagged With: ,