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Walking Home: A Poet’s Journey by Simon Armitage

April 23, 2014 by

Source: Liveright, W.W. Norton
Paperback, 285 pages
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Walking Home: A Poet’s Journey by Simon Armitage is part memoir and part travelogue, and the path he chooses to walk — while contrary to what is outlined in the guidebooks for the Pennine Way in England and part of Scotland — is literally a walk home for him.  He begins in Kirk Yethom, Scotland, and ends more or less in Edale, England, which is in the Peak District.  As a poet, readers may expect a deeper analysis of the journey or the travails he experiences, but as Armitage is nearly constantly accompanied by strangers, friends, fellow poets, and even his family, he has little time to contemplate more than the scant passerby or the physical obstacles in his path.  Much of the travelogue is focused on Armitage re-orienting himself by map or landscape or simply following someone who has offered to guide him over a particular leg of the 267 miles.  The first poem included in the book doesn’t come until he has pass nearly a third of the way through the trail — whether that is when inspiration hit him to write a poem during the journey or whether it was written afterward about that section of the trail is unclear.

“Prose fills a space, like a liquid poured in from the top, but poetry occupies it, arrays itself in formation, sets up camp and refuses to budge.  It is a dissenting and willful art form, and most of its practitioners are signed-up members of the awkward squad.” (page 5)

Armitage has help in coordinating his journey, which includes readings held at the end of each leg either in an inn, a home, a bar, or other venues, and he passes a sock about the room for collections, which he uses to fund his continued journey along the way.  He says that he sets out on the journey to get “out there,” rather than write about far-off places from his desk chair.  In a way, he sees it as a way to “clear his head.”  The path does not seem to clear his head so much as clutter it with more concerns and worries about himself and the physical health of others.

There is a point early on in which he gains a “regular” pace of walking and he feels as though he’s reached his stride, but he’s clearly not reached the most arduous parts of the journey.  Those parts of the journey clearly weigh on his psyche, as does his part of the journey when he is lost in the mist.  He nearly loses his sense of identity, but he continues onward.  Perhaps this is the crux of the prose, that poets lose themselves in the journey and that loss of self can be frightening unless the poet can plod forward.

Walking Home: A Poet’s Journey by Simon Armitage is a journey at the arm of a poet who does not find himself all that interesting and cannot seem to understand the reason why anyone would volunteer to go on the journey with him or even come to listen to him read his poems.  The one interesting moment in the memoir where he talks of spare rooms as the keepers of “family lore” and “memory vaults,” is grossly under-explored, as he seems to want to keep out of the private moments of the people who open their homes to him.  While the landscape is varied and the hardships he faces could be a cautionary tale against these kinds of treks, the journey does not live up to reader’s expectations about what a poet would write about, experience, or explore.

About the Poet:

Simon Armitage was born in 1963 in the village of Marsden and lives in West Yorkshire. He is a graduate of Portsmouth University, where he studied Geography. As a post-graduate student at Manchester University his MA thesis concerned the effects of television violence on young offenders. Until 1994 he worked as Probation Officer in Greater Manchester.

His first full-length collection of poems, Zoom!, was published in 1989 by Bloodaxe Books. Further collections are Xanadu (1992, Bloodaxe Books), Kid (1992, Faber & Faber), Book of Matches (1993, Faber & Faber), The Dead Sea Poems (1995, Faber & Faber), Moon Country (with Glyn Maxwell, 1996, Faber & Faber), CloudCuckooLand (1997 Faber and Faber), Killing Time (1999 Faber & Faber), Selected Poems (2001, Faber & Faber), Travelling Songs (2002, Faber & Faber), The Universal Home Doctor (2002, Faber & Faber), Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus the Corduroy Kid (2006, Faber & Faber, Knopf 2008), and Seeing Stars (2010, Faber & Faber, Knopf 2011).

Armitage’s 2012 nonfiction book Walking Home, an account of his troubadour journey along the Pennine Way, was a Sunday Times best-seller for over a month and is shortlisted for the 2012 Portico Prize.

Book 12 for the Dive Into Poetry Reading Challenge 2014.

 

 

6th book for 2014 European Reading Challenge; this memoir/travelogue takes place in England and Scotland.

 

 

18th book for 2014 New Author Challenge.

 

 

 

 

For today’s 2014 National Poetry Month: Reach for the Horizon tour stop, click the image below:

Filed Under: 2014 European Reading Challenge, challenges, Dive Into Poetry 2014, Events, memoir, national poetry month, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Read in 2014, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

The Late Parade by Adam Fitzgerald

April 17, 2014 by

Source: Liveright, W.W. Norton
Hardcover, 112 pages
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The Late Parade by Adam Fitzgerald strikes a confusing pose upon first glance with its oftentimes odd image pairings and obscured references, but at its heart, there is a deep melancholy and longing in these poems.  There are moments that slip through the reader’s fingers as they slip through the narrator’s fingers, leaving both with a sense of loss.  We’ve come late to the parade and are sad for it.

From "Mid-Harbor" (page 66)

"All such gestures may be inventions of nostalgia,
ways of edging a tea-saucer future forward,
poised perilously on a gilded table's brink.

We glance at ourselves with plaster cables strung
over cheeks, snoozing the forest's alarm, turning
to a charmed gouache with oblivious sentiment."

Fitzgerald deftly melds pop culture with classic reading, cuing it up with a fantastic and unbelievable world of clouds, “buttered air,” and “dental waters.”  Like the poem “Two Worlds at Once” suggests, Fitzgerald is asking the reader to straddle reality and fantasy to enjoy the happiness of moments in love even if they have already passed us by or never came about in the first place — it is their existence and possibility that are the most poignant.

Filled with lush imagery that confuses and contradicts, readers minds will become full, at times overtaxed, but poems that force readers to expand their minds and contemplate every chosen word are those that engage us the most.  The Late Parade by Adam Fitzgerald is a debut collection not soon forgotten.

17th book for 2014 New Author Challenge.

 

 

 

 

Book 11 for the Dive Into Poetry Reading Challenge 2014.

For today’s 2014 National Poetry Month: Reach for the Horizon tour stop, click the image below:

Filed Under: challenges, Dive Into Poetry 2014, Events, national poetry month, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Read in 2014, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Nefertiti in the Flak Tower by Clive James

April 16, 2014 by

Source: Liveright
Hardcover, 96 pages
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Nefertiti in the Flak Tower by Clive James is a collection of rhyming and metered poems that relies heavily on history, particularly that of WWII, to make connections about the resiliency of human kind in the face of horrifying adversity.  The title poem, Nefertiti in the Flak Tower, does use the history of the Nefertiti bust as a German treasure that was moved and protected in a Flak Tower during WWII, towers that were built to protect cities like Berlin from air raids with guns and shelter citizens.  Beyond the historically based poems, there are poems about the life of a writer and his friends and how even these glamorous lives of signing books can become mundane, but there are those moments that make even the most thankless jobs worthwhile.

From "Grief Has Its Time" (page 81)

"Free of such burdens, I pursue my course
Supposing myself blessed with the light touch,
A blithesome ease my principal resource.
Sometimes on stage I even say as much,

Or did, till one night in the signing queue
An ancient lady touched my wrist and said
I'd made her smile the way he used to do
When hearts were won by how a young man read

Aloud, and decent girls were led astray
By sweet speech. "Can you put his name with mine?
Before the war, before he went away,
We used to read together." Last in line

She had all my attention, so I wrote"

James comes across as both romantic and removed.  The rhyming poems can linger in the mind when the emotion is clear and connects with the reader, but there are other occasions when the rhymes seem forced and throw off the rhythm of the poem, creating a disconnect between the reader and the subject.  Nefertiti in the Flak Tower by Clive James is a mix of some really great poems that will leave a lasting impression and those that fall a little flat on first and second reading.

Book 10 for the Dive Into Poetry Reading Challenge 2014.

 

 

 

16th book for 2014 New Author Challenge.

 

 

 

For today’s 2014 National Poetry Month: Reach for the Horizon tour stop, click the image below:

Filed Under: challenges, Dive Into Poetry 2014, Events, national poetry month, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Read in 2014, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

Any Anxious Body by Chrissy Kolaya

April 15, 2014 by

Source: the poet, Chrissy Kolaya
Paperback, 96 pages
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Any Anxious Body by Chrissy Kolaya does not have the most eye-catching cover, but what’s inside will knock your socks off!  Beginning with what readers may see as someone who lived through the Great Depression when saving everything counted toward survival, Kolaya uses early memories and events overheard to not only connect generation to generation, but to weave a thread through each struggle and moment of unease and concern that each moment is fleeting.  Humans are in a perpetually anxious state, sometimes without knowing it, because our lives are finite and each moment has a beginning and end — often ending before we’re ready to deal with it.

From “Fired” (page 17)

His friend —
the one married just out of high school,
runs his eyes over you,
smoothing the skin over your bones.

Kolaya — using notes from a great grandmother who no longer can verbally communicate and a letter from her daughter — has a visceral sense of not only the human body and its reactions to touch, but also the emotional connections between family and lovers. Her verses are fresh and evoke a response from her readers immediately. While there is a sense of contemplation about life events and family connections, the poems also never forget to remind readers that too much thinking can prevent life from happening.

From “Polarity” (page 15)

She wants to talk about how it will work
and I think:
I will move toward you in a moment or two,
and you should do the same.

Any Anxious Body by Chrissy Kolaya has created a reflective collection of poems, a collection that requires the reader to listen to the voices, to the moments, to the memories, but more importantly to open themselves up to the experience.  Each poem’s voice changes perspective, providing readers with the fullest view of living as possible, and sometimes those perspectives can leave you squirming.

About the Author:

Chrissy Kolaya is a poet and fiction writer. Her short fiction has been included in the anthologies New Sudden Fiction (Norton) and Fiction on a Stick (Milkweed Editions). Her poems and fiction have appeared in a number of literary journals.

She has received a Norman Mailer Writers Colony summer scholarship, an Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies fellowship, a Loft Mentor Series Award in Poetry, and grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Lake Region Arts Council, and the University of Minnesota. She teaches writing at the University of Minnesota Morris. Check out her blog and her Facebook page.

15th book for 2014 New Author Challenge.

 

 

 

Book 9 for the Dive Into Poetry Reading Challenge 2014.

 

 

For today’s 2014 National Poetry Month: Reach for the Horizon tour stop, click the image below:

Filed Under: challenges, Dive Into Poetry 2014, Events, national poetry month, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Read in 2014, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

New European Poets edited by Wayne Miller and Kevin Prufer

April 2, 2014 by

Welcome to the 2nd day of the National Poetry Month Blog Tour!

I thought that as so much of National Poetry Month seems to focus on classic poets or contemporary U.S. poets, I would review an anthology of contemporary European poets and their poetry. I hope you’ll click the button below to visit with Laura at Book Snob as well.

Source: Public Library
Paperback,
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New European Poets edited and introduced by Wayne Miller and Kevin Prufer is an anthology of European poetry since 1970.  Each poet selected was translated and each poem has the language from which it was translated and the name of the translator below.  Unfortunately, this anthology does not include the poem in its original language, which some readers would prefer as it gives a visual comparison between the texts.  However, the collection does include the short biographies of the poets included, the translators — to which the anthology is dedicated — and the editors, which provides a great reference for finding more of these authors’ works.

Reading through the poems in this collection is like traveling the undulating and varying landscapes of Europe, with climbs through the mountains, sitting in lounges by the seaside, and hunting in the dark forests.  Many of these poems mirror those that are found in American contemporary poetry, but then there are others that are distinctly European in subject matter and style.  In the introduction, the authors talk about the dialogue between poets in American and those in Europe — how poetry informed each style on either side of the Atlantic.  However, that dialogue has mostly stopped, and the authors strive to rekindle that dialogue with this anthology, a real possibility as more reader-poets pick up this volume and begin leafing through it.

From Spain's Luis Garcia Montero's "Poetry"

"Poetry is useless, it serves only
to behead a king
or seduce a young woman." (page 13)

In fact, this collection serves to disprove this early statement in the poetry anthology. Poetry is more than political protest and seduction — it is a connection of the human spirit and an observation of the human condition.  Ranging from the irreverent in “Kiss My Corpse” by Gür Genç of Cyprus to the heartbreaking emptiness of “The Barren Woman” by O. Nimigean of Romania, these poems share a range of emotions that are universal but in a style that is fresh and inviting.

Each poem leaves the reader — more so an American reader — with a sense of understanding and awe and a new way of thinking not only about emotion, life, and living, but also of poetry itself.  New European Poets edited and introduced by Wayne Miller and Kevin Prufer is a collection that should be savored and returned to again and again over time.  Spend a day in one country or two, but visit them often and with an observant eye.

Book 4 for the Dive Into Poetry Reading Challenge 2014.

 

 

14th book for 2014 New Author Challenge.

 

 

 

5th book for 2014 European Reading Challenge; these poems are from a number of different countries, but since the ones that most resonated with me were from Hungary, that’s the country I’m choosing for this one.

This is part of the 2014 National Poetry Month: Reach for the Horizon Blog Tour, click the button for more poetry:

Filed Under: 2014 European Reading Challenge, borrowed copy, challenges, Dive Into Poetry 2014, Events, Graywolf Press, national poetry month, New Authors Challenge, poetry, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2014, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison by Lois Lenski

March 27, 2014 by

Source: Public Library
Hardcover, 272 pages
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Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison by Lois Lenski is based on the true story of Mary Jemison who was captured as a young 12- or 15-year-old girl in Pennsylvania during the French and Indian War and traveled a great distance from the Ohio River Valley to upper New York to live with the Seneca Indian tribe.  The beginning of the novel outlines the facts that are included in the novel, particularly that the entire Jemison family was captured by Indians in 1758 and that only the two eldest brothers escaped capture and Mary was traded to live with the Seneca Indians.

“Then she saw that with the Indians there were white men, dressed in blue cloth with lace ruffles at their sleeves, speaking French in hurried tones.  She counted.  There were six Indians and four Frenchmen.  Were the Frenchmen wicked, too, like the Indians?” (page 19)

While there is foreshadowing about what happens to Mary — known as Molly to family and friends — the technique is not heavy-handed, though there are moments of repetition that she is the only white girl in the Indian village.  Lenski balances the negativity of life with the white man and Indians, careful not to take sides.  The battles between the French and English across the American wilderness sweep up not only the Native Americans, but also the pioneer and frontier families seeking to build lives for themselves.  Molly learns to fit in with her new family, but always she longs for her true family.  She spends many of her early days crying alone in the woods when she’s sent to fetch water, and its easy to see how devastating this new life could be for a child.

“She was living in two places at once, her body with the Indians, but her spirit where she wanted to be — at home with the white people.” (page 160-1)

The Native Americans expect her to work and adapt to their way of life, and some are more harsh toward her failings and her desire to return to the pale-faces at Fort Duquesne or return to the Englishman that arrive seeking the Iroquois help in their battles with the French.  Indian Captive: The Story of Mary Jemison by Lois Lenski is a good introduction for those ages eight to 12 to the French and Indian war and to the Native American way of life at a transitional period in history.

About the Author:

Lois Lenski was a popular and prolific writer of children’s and young adult fiction. One of her projects was a collection of regional novels about children across the United States.

 

10th book for 2014 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.

 

 

 

 

8th book (French and Indian War) for the 2014 War Challenge With a Twist.

 

 

 

14th book for 2014 New Author Challenge.

Filed Under: 2014 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge, 2014 War Challenge With a Twist, borrowed copy, challenges, Harper Collins, historical fiction, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2014, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Here We Are Now: The Lasting Impact of Kurt Cobain by Charles R. Cross

March 18, 2014 by

Source: It Books
Hardcover, 192 pages
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Here We Are Now: The Lasting Impact of Kurt Cobain by Charles R. Cross is not a biography, but an an examination of Kurt Cobain’s impact as a musician and artist on the music industry, fashion, and yes on the national dialogue about suicide and addiction.  Cross and Cobain did have friends in common, and he has relied on first-hand accounts and statements made by Nirvana’s members and Courtney Love, his wife at the time of his death.  Cobain’s impact on music is clear from the times Nirvana’s albums made the “best of” lists of magazines, alongside the band’s videos.

“I would argue that no rock star since Kurt has had that same combination of talent, voice, lyric-writing skill, and charisma — another reason he is so significant, two decades after his death.  The rarity of that magic combo is also part of the reason Kurt’s impact still looms so large over music.” (page 11)

This slim volume easily makes the case for Cobain’s impact on music before the onslaught of per-song downloads, and his lasting impressions on the Hip-Hop genre.  Readers will get a true dose of how the music world influenced fashion and how in the case of Grunge, which Cobain never understood how it could be attached to him or his music, was harder to bring to high-fashion houses.  Given that flannel and cardigans in Cobain’s style, which was born out of his monetary troubles, were easily obtained for a few dollars at local thrift stores or even just Kmart, fans were not interested in buying $6,000 trench coats or other high-priced fashion items made to resemble those thrift store finds.

“Many rock stars have an impact on fashion, but Kurt’s influence has truly been a bizarre outgrowth of his fame, and one that will last (even if his music will undoubtedly be his greatest legacy.).  Kurt very much planned his musical career, writing out imaginary interviews with magazines in his journals long before he became famous.  But he never considered that if he became a star, his ripped-up jeans and flannel shirts might one day end up on the runway’s of New York fashion shows.” (page 65-6)

Cross touches upon the studies of suicide rates following Cobain’s death and how his death led to the inclusion of resources in reports on suicide to help those in need.  Here We Are Now: The Lasting Impact of Kurt Cobain by Charles R. Cross is a book that focuses on the influence of a music talent on our culture without offering judgment on his personal choices in life.

About the Author:

Charles R. Cross is a Seattle-based journalist and author. He was the Editor of The Rocket in Seattle for fifteen years during the height of the Seattle music mania.

13th book for 2014 New Author Challenge.

Filed Under: challenges, Harper Collins, New Authors Challenge, nonfiction, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2014, review copy, reviews Tagged With: , ,

Three Souls by Janie Chang

March 17, 2014 by

Source: William Morrow and TLC Book Tours
Paperback, 502 pages
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Three Souls by Janie Chang — a stunning debut — is a sweeping novel set in late 1920s China when factions were battling for supremacy over land, wealth, the people, and politics — the Nationalists versus the Communists.  Song Leiyin is the third daughter in a large and wealthy family, and she loves pleasing her father with her good grades and is dutiful to her sisters and her father’s concubine, known as Stepmother.  She’s young and impetuous, and like her father often acts without taking a breath and thinking before she acts.  When she’s introduced to Yen Hanchin, a poet, her heart is captured by his intelligence and charm, and it doesn’t hurt that he’s translated Anna Karenina, which has been banned by her school but that she’s reading anyway.  Leiyin soon discovers that while her father had a Western education he’s still a very traditional man and not as liberal as some of their social peers, and when she pushes his limits of tradition too far, she has to live with the consequences.

“We have three souls, or so I’d been told.
But only in death could I confirm this.” (page 1)

Chang’s approach to story-telling is not unique, but how it is presented is. We know at the start that Leiyin is dead, but like her we learn through her memories — siphoned through her three souls: yin, yang, and hun — how she came to be in limbo and how she lived her life. She was a young, headstrong girl in love with a Communist leader of sorts, who was also a poet and an editor of China Millennium. While he filled her head with new ideas about what China could become, he also filled her naive head with longing and lust. Her infatuation with him led her to defy her father, and while the consequences were overly harsh, they were in line with traditional Chinese thinking and practices.

Chang’s story unfolds slowly and Leiyin is forced to think about her actions without hindsight, but as an observer of her own life — reminiscent of one’s life flashing before one’s eyes before death. However, her struggle is only beginning as she learns how her actions had farther reaching consequences than she ever imagined.  She must come to terms with her behavior, life choices, and learn that things are beyond her control.

With allusions to the Leo Tolstoy novel, Chang brings to life the class struggles in China, the inspiration the Communist movement strove to ignite, and the tangled web of lies that many leaders on both sides pursued to craft future China.  Three Souls by Janie Chang is epic, heart-warming, and multi-layered, incorporating Chinese tradition, class struggle, and the burden of a life cut too short.

About the Author:

Born in Taiwan, Janie Chang spent part of her childhood in the Philippines, Iran, and Thailand. She holds a degree in computer science and is a graduate of the Writer’s Studio Program at Simon Fraser University. Three Souls is her first novel.

Find out more about Janie at her website, follow her on Twitter, and connect with her on Facebook.

12th book for 2014 New Author Challenge.

 

 

 

8th book for 2014 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.

Filed Under: 2014 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge, ARC, challenges, Harper Collins, historical fiction, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, Read in 2014, reviews, tlc book tours Tagged With: , ,

Never Too Little to Love by Jeanne Willis, illustrated by Jan Fearnley

March 11, 2014 by

Source: Gift from Nana
Hardcover, 32 pages
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Never Too Little to Love by Jeanne Willis, illustrated by Jan Fearnley is the cutest little Valentine’s Day gift for a silly little toddler who loves books with peek-a-boos and flaps.  Tiny Too-Little is in love, but to reach his love, he must collect a bunch of things to reach new heights to profess his love.  As each page is flipped, he stands upon small items, taller items, and they stack up and up, until finally, he reaches his goal.  But on the way there, he meets with a big fall and mess, leaving him sad that he cannot give his love a kiss.  But Topsy Too-Tall has other ideas on how they can reach each other.  This cute little book provides a big lesson in love and how it knows no bounds.

Wiggles loves this book so much you can hear her reading it in her own way and she squeals when the mouse and the giraffe reach each other for a nice kiss.

About the Author:

Jeanne Willis was born in St Albans and trained as an advertising copywriter at Watford College. She worked for various agencies creating press adverts and TV, cinema and radio commercials. She is now a full-time writer and has published over 80 books. Her hobbies include gardening, reading (non-fiction), natural history and collecting caterpillars. Jeanne has also worked on scripts for TV, including POLLY POCKET and THE SLOW NORRIS, and a pilot TV series for DR XARGLE. She lives in North London with her husband and two children.

11th book for 2014 New Author Challenge.

Filed Under: challenges, children's fiction, New Authors Challenge, purchased, Read in 2014, reviews Tagged With: , , ,

The Frangipani Hotel by Violet Kupersmith

March 5, 2014 by

Source: Random House and TLC Book Tours
Hardcover, 256 pages
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The Frangipani Hotel by Violet Kupersmith is a fresh short-story collection that spans the Vietnamese culture, myths, and the immigrant experience, straddling reality and the magical.  The Vietnam War hovers in the background of the characters’ lives as the mothers struggle to garner U.S. visas for themselves and their children born of American soldiers in “Guests” or in “Boat Story,” where a grandson asks his grandmother to explain her escape from Vietnam during the war.  Kupersmith’s style is clear and engaging, and the myths and magical moments are told in a storytelling style that is reminiscent of the oral traditions in Vietnamese culture.

“Whatever spirit had reanimated the corpse must have been a feeble one, for the body moved clumsily, legs stiff but head dangling loose as it struggled to keep its balance on the angry waves.  Grandpa sank down to his knees next to me, and we peered over the gunwale in helpless horror as the body tottered closer and closer.” (Page 8 ARC)

From ghosts in the Frangipani Hotel to the spirits in the woods, Kupersmith weaves in magic and myth seamlessly with reality. Her characters are oddities and not; they are rational but also open-minded about the unseen.  From the twin girls who border on feral to the young man who finds a ghost in the hotel, her characters are both real and unreal — they have a mystical quality.  The prose is witty, with a few moments that will leave readers chuckling.  At other times, the stories tackle serious issues like immigration and the soldiers who leave women behind with babies when the war is over, though with a sense of irony that never feels misplaced.

She can lull readers into a sense of complacency before her prose unsettles their world, and the mark of a great storyteller is one that can shift from male and female points of view with ease and who can create stories that will stay with readers long after they’ve been read.  The stories in The Frangipani Hotel by Violet Kupersmith shift in setting and time, but the roots do not change, merely grow and curl as the tales unfold.

***U.S. residents can enter to win 1 copy of Violet Kupersmith’s The Frangipani Hotel by leaving a comment by March 10, 2014, 11:59 PM EST.***

About the Author:

Violet Kupersmith was born in rural Pennsylvania in 1989 and grew up outside of Philadelphia. Her father is American and her mother is a former boat refugee from Vietnam. After graduating from Mount Holyoke College she received a yearlong Fulbright Fellowship to teach and research in the Mekong Delta. She is currently at work on her first novel.

7th book (Vietnam War) for the 2014 War Challenge With a Twist.

 

 

6th book for 2014 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.

 

 

 

 

10th book for 2014 New Author Challenge.

Filed Under: 2014 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge, 2014 War Challenge With a Twist, ARC, challenges, fiction, giveaway, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, random house, Read in 2014, reviews, short stories, tlc book tours Tagged With: ,

Ten Thousand Sorrows: The Extraordinary Journey of a Korean War Orphan by Elizabeth Kim

February 20, 2014 by

Source: Public Library
Hardcover, 240 pages
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Ten Thousand Sorrows: The Extraordinary Journey of a Korean War Orphan by Elizabeth Kim is a memoir from a young Korean War orphan who never knew her father, was shunned as a non-person in Korea, and was subject to further psychological and physical abuse after her adoption.  This woman suffered greatly and mostly in silence for many years before and after her adoption by American, Christian fundamentalists.  The differences between her lush green Korean homeland and her new American desert home reflect the stark demarcations between her old life and being saved.

“There is no record of my birth, or of my name.  There is no record of my mother’s brief life.” (from the Prologue)

Born to a Korean mother, who left her tiny village for Seoul to sing, and an American soldier father, whom she never knew, Elizabeth has no notion of her birth name or date, nor her father’s name.  Her earliest memories are of life as a honhyol, a nonperson of mixed heritage shunned by the Korean culture, with her mother, Omma.  As outcasts in their village, they were subjected to shunning, stone throwing, and other abuses, but they were expected to bow to others and give way to the village leaders, Omma’s father and other family, when walking about.  Omma created a secluded and secure life for her child, though it was not without harsh work in the rice paddies or isolation.  The world they lived in may not have had a great deal of comforts and amenities, but it was certainly filled with calm and love.  In an honor killing, she is left alone in the world and dropped unceremoniously at an orphanage.

“Omma’s brother did all the talking.  He told her the family had discussed the matter again since presenting demands to her that afternoon in the field, and he, his father, and his wife were there to carry out the plan.  A family had offered to take the honhyol–me–into their home as a servant.”  (page 8)

“Sitting in the cage, nails dug deep into my skim, I tried to ameliorate grief by increasing my physical pain.  And just below the awareness of that misery, breathing rhythmically like a monster waiting to devour me, was the knowledge that it was because of me Omma died.  My face and my dishonorable blood had killed the only person I loved and the only person who loved me.” (page 33)

Like her Korean home where women are expected to be subservient to men and obey without question, Elizabeth is whisked across the ocean — to a land her mother described as full of promise — to America and new parents.  Her tiny life has begun again, but darkness descends upon her as she realizes that the American dream she’d thought was there is tarnished by a fundamentalism that snowballs into systematic abuse.  From her abusive parents to her physically abusive husband, Kim’s journey was rough and through it all, she struggled to survive, with the hope that there was freedom and something better in her future.

Ten Thousand Sorrows: The Extraordinary Journey of a Korean War Orphan by Elizabeth Kim demonstrates the clash of cultures between foreign adopted children and American homes, particularly homes with fervent religious beliefs, but also the continued discrimination she felt as a mixed race child, despite her father’s American heritage.  In Korea, she was a nonperson, and in America, she is treated in much the same way — leaving her with a battered and nearly non-existent self-esteem.  This dark memoir, however, does not focus on bitterness or resentment, but on how these events and abuses transformed her into a highly ambitious reporter and mother.  While still broken inside, she manages to give her daughter a loving home and stability as a single parent.  Although there are clearly moments of clear hatred of Christianity, particularly in its fundamental form, the novel is more about redemption and acceptance of oneself despite the outside forces that strive to strike us down.

About the Author:

Elizabeth Kim is a journalist and the author of the best selling novel “Ten Thousand Sorrows”, which has been chronicled in O, Oprah Winfrey’s magazine.

5th book (Korean War) for the 2014 War Challenge With a Twist.

 

 

9th book for 2014 New Author Challenge.

Filed Under: 2014 War Challenge With a Twist, borrowed copy, challenges, memoir, New Authors Challenge, Read in 2014, reviews Tagged With: ,

William Shakespeare’s Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope by Ian Doescher

February 19, 2014 by

Source: Quirk Books
Hardcover, 174 pages
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William Shakespeare’s Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope by Ian Doescher is another entertaining mix of classics and modern pop culture, combining the iambic pentameter and language of Shakespeare with the modern pomp of science fiction movies by George Lucas.  Doescher uses the plot and characters of the original Star Wars movie with an inventive and lyrical play format from Shakespeare.  He combines his knowledge of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and other plays with the pop culture of space travel.

“”O gods above, why have I once again
Been short with R2, sending him away?
I trust he knoweth well I hold him dear,
Though in his presence oft my speech is cruel.
‘Tis words that do betray my better self
When harshly they express my droidly rage.'” (page 21)

What’s most interesting is how he translates R2-D2’s beeps and ticks into thoughts and statements to C-3PO and the other characters.  These droids garner more human-like qualities through the Shakespearean language. Complete with asides and soliloquy, Doescher clearly has studied not only Star Wars but also Shakespeare’s plays and methods. In the back of the book, he talks about the similarities between the two greats and the influence of classic myths and archetypes that came before them.  And like any mesh of pop culture and classics, this novel includes more modern language and drawings to illustrate what would occur on stage.  In some cases, a Greek play-like chorus is used to narrate the action.  One of the best scenes happens when Luke Skywalker, like Hamlet, speaks to the helmet of a stormtrooper as if it were Poor Yorick.

“Forsooth, a great disturbance in the Force
Have I just felt. ‘Twas like a million mouths
Cried out in fear at once, and then were gone,
All hush’d and quiet–silent to the last.
I fear a stroke of evil hath occurr’d.” (page 88-9)

William Shakespeare’s Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope by Ian Doescher is just the first installment in another line of Quirk Books that is bound to find a willing audience.  This action-packed retelling does not stray far from George Lucas’ creation, but what’s intriguing is how Doescher uses Shakespearean language to spice up the drama.  It’s witty and fun, though the term “verily” seems a bit overused.  At any rate, an entertaining novel to spend a rainy afternoon or snowed in evening with.

About the Author:

Ian Doescher has loved Shakespeare since eighth grade and was born 45 days after Star Wars Episode IV was released. He has a B.A. in Music from Yale University, a Master of Divinity from Yale Divinity School, and a Ph.D. in Ethics from Union Theological Seminary. Ian lives in Portland, Oregon, with his spouse Jennifer and two sons. William Shakespeare’s Star Wars is his first book. Visit Ian online at www.iandoescher.com. [Photo by Shan Applegate]

8th book for 2014 New Author Challenge.

Filed Under: challenges, fiction, New Authors Challenge, Publishers/Publicists, Quirk Classics, Read in 2014, review copy, reviews Tagged With: ,