The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo

 

Reviewed by Christy

            In Chinese mythology, the fox spirit can take many forms and, depending on the story, can be benevolent or malevolent. In Yangsze Choo's The Fox Wife, Snow is a fox who looks like a young woman, and who is on a mission of revenge. Bao is a private investigator in his sixties, hunting down whoever is responsible for a young woman found frozen to death. As their points of view alternate, their stories slowly start to converge.      

            This isn't my usual type of reading but the cover would catch my eye every time I came across it. I picked it up on a whim, and I'm glad I did! I really enjoyed Snow's chapters – her quiet frustration with silly humans and her wry humor. I struggled more with Bao's chapters mostly because procedural detective stories are not generally my thing. But Bao is a sweet man who is hard to dislike, and he grew on me even more as their stories came together.

            Choo occasionally leaves little footnotes throughout to explain some of the mythology. As she clarifies in her notes at the end of the book, footnotes and reactions in the margins are a Chinese literary tradition. She wanted to fill the book with such annotations but was afraid of alienating her readers, so she used them sparingly (personally, I loved them).

            If I had to give a critique, the book is often very slow with not much happening. It can also be a little repetitive with the clandestine meetings and whispers between the same characters. Even so, there is still something engaging about the story and specifically the character of Snow. There's also a few minor reveals that keep things interesting.  And I enjoyed learning about the fox folklore!

Nevermore: Goddesses in Older Women, Above the Fire

 

Reported by Rita

Goddesses in Older Women: Archetypes in Women over Fifty by Jean Shinoda Bolen

The sequel to Goddesses in Everywoman highlights life-affirming archetypes for women over fifty that emphasize such key principles as wisdom, humor, compassion, decisive action, and more.

  This sequel is a fascinating update.    – MD    5 stars

 

Above the Fire by Michael O'Donnell

Laboring under a shared loss, Doug and his young son, Tim, set out on a late- season backpacking trip through the White Mountains of New Hampshire. They find beauty and solidarity in the outdoors, making friends along the trail and falling into the rhythms of an expedition. But when reports of warfare and social collapse reach the ranger station,  Doug--seeking to protect the only family he has left--withdraws even further into the backcountry.

It's a very interesting story – I highly recommend it.   – WJ     5 stars

 

Other Books Mentioned

Nobody Said Not to Go: The Life / Loves / and Adventures of Emily Hahn by Ken Cuthbertson Two Trains Leave the Station: A Meditation on Aging, Alzheimer's, and Arithmetic by Catherine Landis

Two Women Walk Into a  Bar by Cheryl Strayed

Return the Innocent Earth by Wilma Dykeman

Listen to the Wind: the Story of Dr. Greg and Three cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson

 

New Books

A Field Guide to the Apocalypse: a Mostly Serious Guide to Surviving Our Wild Times by Athena Aktipis

The Sweet Blue Distance by Sara Donati

Preserving Family Recipes: How to Save and Celebrate your Food Traditions by Valerie J. Frey

 Reviewed by Jeanne

Every family has its own special dishes.  Some appear mainly at festive get-togethers like Fourth of July where Aunt Mary’s potato salad is in high demand along with Uncle Joe’s legendary BBQ and Cousin Tammy’s red velvet cake.  Other recipes may be favorite family dinner fare, like chicken and dumplings or green bean casserole.  Whatever the recipes, there are always little touches that make them unique to a family, and become dishes around which memories are made.

Valerie Frey begins her book by telling the story of her mother’s introduction to her new husband’s family favorite mulligan stew—made with squirrel, complete with skeleton and skull.  While the dish didn’t really catch on with Frey and her siblings, it became a cherished family story.  And yes, eventually she did ask her uncle for the recipe, only to find he had never written it down.  When at last she got a copy of the recipe, it had been done from memory and best guesses.  (Thankfully, the uncle had substituted chicken for squirrel in the recipe he sent!)

This is a wonderful guide to preserving family memories through food. Frey offers a lot of inspiration, encouragement, and tips.  It’s easy to get overwhelmed with projects like this, and she has suggestions to keep it going, such as making it a group project.  She also points out the value of tying family stories and memories to recipes. She also advocates modifying recipes to suit modern tastes when necessary.

The book has a wealth of other information, including a section on older food measures (a lump of butter is equal to a rounded tablespoon, a noggin is a half cup), older kitchen gadgets, how to decipher handwriting, figuring out who a recipe might belong to, how to organize the recipes you collect, questions to ask the cooks in the family, and so much more.  I found it entertaining as well, since Frey recounts many cooking stories as examples of some of the types of information you may want to include. Frey even goes over formats for printing your recipe and story collection, including scrapbooking and print on demand. She also suggests having a working copy of the recipes that are used and an archival copy to keep for future generations.

Even though I don’t cook and have no ambitions to make a family cookbook, I still enjoyed browsing Preserving Family Recipes.  It reminded me of some of my own family’s food related stories and brought back a lot of memories. And who knows—I really like the idea, so I might put together a keepsake type book with just a few recipes tied to memories.  They would make fabulous Christmas gifts for family.  So thank you, Ms. Frey, for some super ideas!

Little Encyclopedia of Fairies by Ojo Opanike

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

While setting up our cryptid display, I was a bit sidetracked looking at other creatures in folklore.  This small volume with a charming cover is subtitled “An A to Z Guide to Fae Magic” and includes creatures from cultures all over the world.  Unlike the Disney versions, many of these creatures aren’t cute or fond of humans, except perhaps as a snack.  Many are small, some can shape-shift, and they mostly are connected with nature.  Some are helpful to humans; others are indifferent or malevolent; some can be all three, according to their mood.

For many fairies, giving them a place to stay or offerings of food will encourage them to help or bring luck to humans, or at the very least to not create mischief.  Some appear as small humans, while others like the Alpine Aguane are beautiful but who have hooves.  The Abatwa of South Africa are so small that they ride on the backs of ants but they can bring down large game with their poisoned arrows. You can curry favor with them by saying they appear large.

While many were new to me, some readily recognizable ones are also included, such as Brownies or Boggarts. One feature I particularly liked in this book is that the author will often mention a literary appearance although the Boggarts of Harry Potter are different than the traditional forms. Traditionally, a mistreated Brownie becomes a malicious Boggart.

While I’ve read other books on fairies, most have concentrated on European folklore.  This one has global coverage, including entities from Native American tribes.  The entries are mostly brief and there are a few illustrations.

This is by no means a comprehensive look, but it is a fun browser’s book.   

Nevermore: American Spirits, Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, The Warmth of Other Suns

Reported by Rita 

American Spirits by Russell Banks

Three interlocking tales about the locals in a rural New York town, including two criminals who kidnap an elderly couple to blackmail their grandson and a man who is hounded on social media after selling his property to a stranger.

  The stories are sad, but it is a fast read and a good book.    – KM     5 stars

 

Tom Stoppard's Arcadia by Tom Stoppard

Focuses on the lives of those who visit the Derbyshire house, Arcadia, throughout the years. 

  Very uplifting and funny – so good.   – DC     5 stars

 

The Warmth of Other Suns : the Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson

In an epic history covering the period from the end of World War I through the 1970s, a Pulitzer Prize winner chronicles the decades-long migration of African Americans from the South to the North and West through the stories of three individuals and their families.

 

Informative and very eye-opening. Worth reading.   – VC     5 stars

 

Other Books Mentioned

Ball, Bat, and Bitumen: A History of Coalfield Baseball in the Appalachian South by L. M. Sutter

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

Lionboy: the Chase by Zizou Corder

Lionboy: the Truth by Zizou Corder

The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck

The Book of Doors: A Novel by Gareth Brown

Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America by Leila Philip

The Whispering Room by Dean R. Koontz

The Bone Garden: the Chilling True Story of a Female Serial Killer by William P. Wood

Until August  by Gabriel Garcia  Marquez

Family Family: a Novel by Laurie Frankel

 

New Books

 

Super-scenic Motorway: A Blue Ridge Parkway History by Anne Mitchell Whisnant

Says who? : a Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words by Anne Curzan

The Mystery Writer: a Novel by Sulari Gentill

British TV Mysteries

 

For those of us who still enjoy watching things on DVD, the library has a good selection of British mysteries. While all of these may have on-going story lines, the mystery is usually wrapped up in a single episode.  Here are a few of my favorite series:

Death in Paradise: The premise of this long-running series has a very British police detective being sent to the French Caribbean island of St. Marie to handle murder investigations.  There have been four of these inspectors so far, and a new season will introduce a fifth.  The first was Detective Inspector Richard Poole, played by Ben Miller, who hates the heat, the sand, the sea, the food, and pretty much everything except his co-workers.  The cast is excellent, the mysteries intriguing, and the scenery (filming is in Guadeloupe) is gorgeous.  We also have the first season of a spin-off series, Beyond Paradise, which picks up the story of Detective Humphrey Goodman who has taken up a post in Devon, England. The series has a wonderful sense of humor about it as well.

Madame Blanc Mysteries: When Jean Blanc’s husband is found dead in France while on an antiques buying trip, she must travel there to tie up his affairs. Complications ensue when she suspects her husband was murdered and ends up staying and solving mysteries. It’s a wonderful cozy series with a bit of romance, good friends, and an intriguing storyline.

Shakespeare and Hathaway: When hairdresser Lou Shakespeare invests in a financially struggling detective agency run by ex-police officer Frank Hathaway, the last thing Frank expects is that Lou is going to want to take an active part in the investigations.  This is a fun series with some improbable crimes and delightful detectives.

My Life is Murder: Okay, so this one is Australia/New Zealand instead of English but it’s still very watchable.  Lucy Lawless of Xenia fame plays Alexa Crowe, a detective who retired after the death of her husband. She’s taken up a hobby of bread-making and sells loaves to a local café as well as continuing to (reluctantly) consult with the police department. She’s a complex character. The first season was shot in beautiful Melbourne, Australia while the later season are set in equally beautiful Auckland, New Zealand.  Bonus: she has a cat!

Professor T:  Ben Miller stars as the prickly and obsessive criminologist Professor Jasper Tempest, a teacher at Cambridge.  He has little respect for regular detectives and even less for his students.  It’s a darker show than most of the others, but well written.  Jasper’s artist mother is a gem of a character, played to perfection by Frances de la Tour. 

If anyone else has favorites, let us know in the comments!

Secret Appalachian Highlands: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure by Robert Sorrell

 

Reviewed by Jeanne

Did you know that Kingsport claims to be the birthplace of Long Island Iced Tea?  Or that Kingsport claims Sensabaugh Tunnel to be one of the scariest places around? How about those stories of Al Capone in Johnson City, or the hidden cemetery at Tri-Cities Airport?  Remember where the movie “The River” was filmed in the area? Did you know that the “Copperhead Road” from the song is real and in Johnson County, Tennessee? Author and journalist Robert Sorrell has gathered nearly 200 interesting stories and places to visit, making this book a browser’s delight. 

I was familiar with many of the entries—Hank Williams and the Burger Bar, for instance, and the early history of Mountain Dew—but others were new:  Granny February of Elizabethton, the Gray Quarry, and the Tiffany window in Abingdon. There are also suggestions of fun places to visit, making this a great summer guidebook.  I have never made it to see the dinosaurs of Backyard Terrors, but that has been on my list and while I knew about drowned Butler, Tennessee I didn’t know there was a museum I could visit.  There’s also information on where to walk across a swinging bridge (I’ll pass, thanks) or visit wild ponies or the Devil’s Bathtub.  I was delighted to see information on Bank Street in Bristol where there is a glorious mural, as well as the Caterpillar Crawl and information on The Channels. Some of the entries are very timely:  one is about Big John, the Indian Statue at Pratt’s BBQ which has just announced that it is closing.

The entries are brief, but that makes it all the more tempting to read just one more. The book features beautiful full color photographs as well. It also makes me want to visit a lot of these places, like the General Shale Brick Museum or the Woodbooger statue.

Sorrell provides addresses, contacts, and other information on each entry.  This is a gem of a book packed with information and best of all, there’s an index!

Nevermore: Nettle & Bone, Kamogawa Food Detectives, Greenlights

Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

To save her sister and topple a throne, Marra is offered the tools she needs if she completes three seemingly impossible tasks with the help of a disgraced ex-knight, a reluctant fairy godmother, and an enigmatic gravewitch and her fowl familiar.

 

Okay, but not great.     – MH     4 stars  

 

The Kamogawa Food Detectives  by Hisashi Kashiwai

Down a quiet Kyoto backstreet,“food detectives” Koishi Kamogawa and her father Nagare, the proprietors of the Kamogawa Diner, through ingenious investigations, recreate dishes from a person's treasured memories, which hold the keys to their forgotten past and future happiness.

  It's a good book – very descriptive.     - MS     4 stars

Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey

Drawing on the Academy Award-winning actor's journals and diaries from the last 40 years, this book presents a uniquely McConaughey approach to achieving success and satisfaction. 

Listened to the audiobook -  absolutely delightful.     -CW

 

Other Books Mentioned

Julie of  the Wolves  by Jean Craighead George

The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden's White House and the Struggle for America's Future by Franklin Foer

All Bleeding Stops: Life and Death in the Trauma Unit by Stephen M. Cohn

Until  August  by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Short Stories by Ambrose Bierce by Ambrose Bierce

Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

Home  How-to-Handbook: Electrical by Rick Peters

They Included Me: A Five-Decade Teaching Career by Jerry L.  Jones

The Bone Garden: the Chilling True Story of a Female Serial Killer by William P. Wood

 

New Books

A Quantum Love Story by Mike Chen

The Book of Doors:  a Novel by Gareth Brown

Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America by Barbara Mcquade

Cryptids in Fiction

 

Round up by Jeanne

Sometimes in fiction, you just want to have a different monster, something other than a vampire or werewolf or ghosts, superstars though they are.  While some authors want to create their own creatures, others enjoy taking a lesser known mystery beast and putting their own spin on it. Here are some novels that do just that:

Morgan Carter, amateur cryptozoologist, is often called on to investigate strange happenings, which may or may not involve creatures unknown to science.  In the first book in Annelise Ryan's  Monster Hunter series, A Death in Door County, bodies are turning up on the shores of Lake Michigan with strange bite marks. Is there something in the water? Morgan also owns the Odds and Ends bookstore which has some things that are odder than usual—like a mummified Gold Rush miner.

There’s definitely something in the water in Steve Alten’s book The Meg. This was the first of several books he’s written featuring a megalodon shark and was the basis for the movie of the same name.  He’s also written another series, The Loch, in which a man seeks to unravel the mysteries of a certain famous Scottish lake. Fast paced and suspenseful, these are for those who love creature features.  

In Jessica Johns’ debut novel Bad Cree, a young Native woman named Mackenzie is tormented by bad dreams after the deaths of two family members. Is it just grief—or is there something lurking? She knows she will have to return home for help in this haunting tale of generational trauma.

Reality show dating is the premise for Samantha Allen’s novel, Patricia Wants to Cuddle. While contestants vie for the attentions of a tech company entrepreneur on a deserted island, there are soon hints the island might not have been quite as deserted as they thought. Kristin reviewed this book here.  

American socialite Maddie, her husband Ellis, and friend Hank travel to Scotland to try to find the Loch Ness Monster which Ellis’ father claimed to have photographed some years ago.   It’s 1945, and as Maddie points out, it’s probably not the best time to be traveling a sea crawling with U boats.  At the Water’s Edge by Sara Gruen is a historical novel with flawed characters, a romantic triangle, and possibly a creature.

Creature X  Mystery series by J.J. Dupuis begins with Roanoke Ridge when science blogger and cryptid skeptic Laura Reagan goes to Oregon to investigate the disappearance of her former mentor.  The area where he vanished is the site of a Big Foot Festival and sightings in the area have been on the rise.   These are well done mysteries that explore both the science and myth of cryptids in an entertaining fashion.   Read Jeanne's full review of Lake Crescent here.

Bittersweet in the Hollow by Kate Pearsall is a debut novel set in West Virginia.  The women in Linden’s family are known to have unusual abilities; Linden is able to taste emotions.  More than that, she’s known as the girl who went missing the night of the Moth Winged Man festival, only to be found hours later with no memory of what happened to her.  When another girl disappears at the same festival and only to be found dead, pressure mounts on Linden to remember. All she knows is that there is definitely something in the woods.   This is an engaging fantasy novel with a sequel due out in 2025. Jeanne’s full review of this book is here.  

Cryptids!

 

So what exactly is a cryptid?  It’s a creature unknown to science but rumored to exist.  Some of the most famous are Bigfoot aka Sasquatch aka the Yeti, the Loch Ness Monster, and Mothman, but there are many others.  While stories about them have been around for years, they seem to be enjoying a resurgence recently in books, movies, TV shows, and in art—just check out some of the offerings in local craft shops.  In fact, HollerHouse in downtown Bristol is having an exhibition, The Cryptozoologist, starting June 7, 2024.

We all thought this was such a fun idea that we put up a book display. Okay, so Andrew did all the work. Anyway, if we have piqued your interest, here are some of the non-fiction books we suggest:

The West Virginia Book of Monsters by George Dudding and John Dudding note that West Virginia is known for “punching above its weight” in several areas and cryptids is a prime example.  West Virginia is home to the iconic Mothman and a personal new favorite, the Flatwoods Monster.   But wait, there’s more! In this book you will also learn about the Grafton Monster, the Wampus Cat, and the Snallygaster, just to name a few.

Chasing American Monsters by Jason Offutt covers the fifty states in alphabetical order, giving brief reports on some of the most notable creatures spied there.  This is a good choice if you are only interested in cryptids in particular states.  The book claims more than 250 beasts are described within, and the author even tells us the one that started his lifelong fascination:  Momo, the Missouri Monster, who is a Bigfoot like creature.

The United States of Cryptids: A Tour of American Myths and Monsters by J.W. Ocker is a sea to shining sea tour of creatures and beings.  Ocker begins in the Northeast and heads west, visiting not only the iconic creatures but the lesser known ones as well. This is a well-written, very entertaining guide with a sense of humor.  As Ocker explains, most of those who love crypids “love the idea of them; we love the stories.  And whatever you may think about cryptids, the stories are true.”  In other words, whether or not the creatures are real, the stories are—and that’s what attracts us. He goes on to say that believing in cryptids helps us to believe the world still holds mysteries and wonder. So he’s ready to show us the Lizard Man, the Tennessee Terror, the Batsquatch, the Jackalope, and, yes, the Woodbooger!