No preamble. Let’s get to my favorite reads in 2017:
This is also tied with his chapbook, Story Problems.
WHAT BOOKS WERE ON YOUR LIST OF FAVORITES FOR 2017?
It’s Just Nerves: Notes on a Disability by Kelly Davio
October 12, 2017 by
Source: purchased
Paperback; 144 pgs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate
It’s Just Nerves: Notes on a Disability by Kelly Davio, on tour with Poetic Book Tours, is a candid collection of essays and vignettes that illustrate how having an autoimmune disease not only affects how you live, but also sharpens your perspective on pop culture, healthcare systems, advertising, trite statements from well-meaning people, and much more. Her writing is precise and sharp, forcing readers to reassess their views on disability and how to engage with those whose bodies are not “healthy.” Even the term “healthy” takes on new meaning in these essays.
Davio is serious and funny, and what she has to say is something that we all need to listen to. All people deserve respect and compassion, and no one should be made to feel like they are worthless or not who they once were should disease strike. Compassion is a tough business, but we have a duty to defend it and to engage with it head on. Stories like hers will make you yelp in shock, and make you angry that others treated her as they did. But what’s even more telling is how Davio views herself. Has society played a role in how we view ourselves and aren’t those lenses just a little bit too cloudy with other people’s judgments? I think so.
It’s time to be real with one another and with ourselves. Davio does nothing less in this essay collection. A stunning read and one you won’t want to put down once you get started. I know I didn’t. I read it in one sitting. It’s Just Nerves: Notes on a Disability by Kelly Davio is a memoir and essay collection in one.
Don’t forget to enter to win:
ENTER THE GIVEAWAY (3 copies up for grabs for U.S. residents, age 18+; ends Oct. 31, 2017)
RATING: Cinquain
About the Author:
Kelly Davio is the author of Burn This House (Red Hen Press, 2013) and the forthcoming The Book of the Unreal Woman. She is the founding editor of Tahoma Literary Review and the former Managing Editor of The Los Angeles Review. While in England, she served as the Senior Editor of Eyewear Publishing. Her work has appeared in Best New Poets, Verse Daily, The Rumpus, and others. She earned her MFA in poetry from Northwest Institute of Literary Arts. Today, she works as a medical editor in New Jersey.
Mailbox Monday #448
October 9, 2017 by
Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia at To Be Continued, formerly The Printed Page, has a permanent home at its own blog. To check out what everyone has received over the last week, visit the blog and check out the links. Leave yours too.
Also, each week, Leslie, Martha, and I will share the Books that Caught Our Eye from everyone’s weekly links.
Here’s what I received:
It’s Just Nerves: Notes on a Disability by Kelly Davio, which I purchased and is on tour with Poetic Book Tours.
With equal parts wit and empathy, lived experience and cultural criticism, Kelly Davio’s It’s Just Nerves: Notes on a Disability explores what it means to live with an illness in our contemporary culture, whether at home or abroad.
Jane & Me: My Austen Heritage by Caroline Jane Knight, audible review copy from the publicist.
Caroline Jane Knight is the last of the Austen Knight family to grow up at Chawton House, the sixteenth-century English manor house on the ancestral estate where Jane Austen lived and wrote. Caroline ate at the same dining table, read in the same library, explored the same country lanes and shared the same dreams of independence as Jane Austen did.
But when she was seventeen, Caroline and her family were forced to leave the home her family had lived in for centuries. Heartbroken and determined to leave all things Austen behind her, this is the story of Caroline’s journey from an idyllic childhood in which she baked cakes with her Granny for Jane Austen tourists, through personal crisis and success to her eventual embrace of her Austen heritage and the creation of the Jane Austen Literacy Foundation.
A contemporary and dramatic story, it is also a major contribution to the library of works about Jane Austen, including information thrillingly new to Jane Austen’s readers and scholars.
What goodies did you get?
Join Us Oct. 7 — Poetic Book Tours and Kelly Davio, author of It’s Just Nerves
October 6, 2017 by
JOIN Poetic Book Tours and Kelly Davio, author of It’s Just Nerves, for a Facebook book launch event.
Oct. 7, 2017, at 7 p.m. EST
Join us on Facebook.
Ask burning questions about her candid essay collection, ask her about her writing life, and more.
