The Last of Earth by Deepa Anappara (audiobook)

genre: historical fiction

The Last of Earth is a story of Tibet in the 1860s, a harsh and rugged land that has forbidden outsiders to cross its border.  But for two travelers from England, the belief that this rule does not apply to them means that they find themselves with tents and local guides helping them traverse this unfamiliar country.  Told from two different points of view, we see the world through the eyes of colonialism, racism, and even classism.  One of narrators is a the surveyor for a blustering English captain whose goal is to chart a particular river the runs through Tibet.  He has a large band of paid labor to help him cart all his stuff and aide him with his surveying.  The other narrator is a 50 something year old woman who just has desperate dreams of exploration.  

I'm just not feeling particularly literary right now in my thoughts about this book.  It was slooowww going for me, unfortunately.  I appreciated learning about Tibet and some of the geographical features of the area.  I liked when the two storylines would just occasionally intersect for a hot minute before going separate ways again.  It definitely made me think about the impact of British colonization, both in huge and small ways - and then to see the flip side of it, where the Tibetans were having NONE of this, refusing to have their land and culture be Anglicized.  The superiority complex of the British over the native people is so hard to look at, it's so deeply offensive, even though I know it is accurate to the time period.

Am I glad I stuck it out?  I can't decide, honestly.  The ending was rather blah and so the whole thing, while definitely a journey with a few lovely minutes, just leaves me feeling only spent, not exhilarated or redeemed or really anything other than meh.

Daily Life in the Age of Charlemagne by John J. Butt

genre: history, non-fiction

Yes, this is niche title.  But I need to learn about Charlemagne and I found so many books that looked far too long and too boring, even for me.  This was just right.  A straight up history book only JUST about Charlemagne and his time period.  The chapters are divided up nicely into lots of small chunks so my brain could handle it, ha ha.  I actually learned SO MUCH I am on the verge of embarrassed by how little of my European history is still in my brain. I'm sorry Mr. Mitchell, teacher of AP European!  My mind is so full! But now I remember about the huge impact Charlemagne had on literacy and education.  I learned about Carolingian science and medicine, how their economy worked and what people ate.  I even learned about writing scripts and sword production!  It's pretty repetitive and not particularly exciting, ever, but I ended up even reading with a pen because I was learning some cool stuff.  I love that even with giant gaps in our knowledge, we can piece together what life was like the 700-800s surprisingly well.  

The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater

 genre: magical realism

The Avallon Hotel and Spa is a special kind of place, it's elegance might as well be a world away from the closest town in the hills of West Virginia.   With its' trusty General Manager, June "Hoss" Hudson, it survived the Depression intact and now June is confident it can withstand a world war as well.  Until a curveball is thrown at her that she could have never seen coming: the State Department is going to take over her hotel to house Axis Diplomats until they can be repatriated.  And there really isn't anything June can do about it - except continue to do her job the only way she knows how.

This was a fast and interesting read for me, a love an upstairs/downstairs story, a hotel story, a wartime story, a love story.  Also, I do love some magical realism sprinkled in and in this one, the magic lies in the sweetwater that flows through the pipes and fountains at the Avallon.  June knows the sweetwater, can feel what it needs to keep the hotel humming with the kind of happy energy required to make it as special as June knows it can be.  I genuinely enjoyed the historical fiction aspect, I've never thought of what America did with all the German, Italian and Japanese folks who were living here as America entered the war.  I liked thinking about wealthy versus luxury and how different that can look for every individual.  I liked June's spunk and capability and compassion.  All the little threads interested me enough that while I can't bring myself to give it 5 stars, it deserves four shiny solid ones.

Bog Queen by Anna North

genre: historical fiction/contemporary fiction

A patch of mossy bog.  A forensic anthropologist.  A Celtic Druid living on the cusp of a new historical age.  As we switch between storylines in this sparse and interesting story, we don't just have to imagine the life of a bog body, we get to experience it as threads between time uncover mysteries that have sat untouched for centuries.

This scratched a particular itch for me, as someone who is strangely fascinated by bog bodies and other crazy old human remains.  Our anthropologist is far more comfortable with the dead than with the living but as she finds herself a part of a conflict over land-use and the preservation of an ancient living organism, the issues become far less clear cut than her mind would like.   I liked the directions this book took me and the things I got to think about while read.  Just a good story that ties us both to our past and to the ground we stand on.

The Secret Astronomers: A Novel in Notes by Jessica Walker

 genre: young adult fiction

In a West Virginian high school library is an old, and I mean OLD, physics textbook.  If you happen to find this book, you'll discover the notes between two students, strangers, and the mystery they try to uncover.  One of these students was born and raised in a West Virginian holler and another is a transplant from San Fransisco with family ties to the area.  Their different ways of looking at the world will show up time and and again as they get to know each other and as they navigate the complications of high school life.

I really appreciate creative storytelling, and I found this book to be just the kind of creative that surprises me.  This epistolary story is told in the length of a textbook with drawings and doodles and artwork all over pages that teach us about how scientists understood our world back in the late 1800s.  The mystery isn't some kind of huge reveal but by the end I realized, the mystery isn't the point.  The point is that these two students have stretched each other's minds, they've examined their own biases and also recognized biases in others.  City vs rural and liberal vs conservative, that is a part of this book too and I liked they even when they called each other out, they managed to still stay connected.  Four stars for creativity and a good example of how to handle it when people show up in ways that we know don't feel good.

The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston (audiobook)

 genre: contemporary romance/time slip

Clementine is a career-focused publicist, good at her job and proud of how far she's come.  Even with all the pleasure she's finding at work, though, a gaping loss is leaving her at odds with everything she's always loved.  Here is where the time slip part of the book comes in: the apartment that her aunt left to her in her will is actually a finicky portal in time that takes certain residents back in time seven years.  And seven years ago, in Clementine's apartment, is a young and ambitious cook who wants to be a chef - and soon seven years seems like hardly anything at all and also everything, at the same time.

This is a fast paced romance with a dreamy love interest and a deeply grieving main character.  Her grief is a big part of this story and how Clementine shows up in the world and in her relationships.  I have to be honest, this book's writing is super repetitive.  I heard certain phrases SO many times that I just really wanted the author to stretch.  I just could NOT suspend my disbelief enough, for some reason. I think because my brain just had so many questions about how the time slip could work and I couldn't sort them out.  So for a fun story to pass the time, it really did that.  My weekend chores flew by as I listened.  But as a written work, it didn't live up for me as much as other books in the genre.

The Last Suspicious Holdout: Stories by Ladee Hubbard

 genre: fiction short stories

This compilation of stories have just enough familiar threads between them that people and places pull at strings in your mind as you read.  There are neighborhoods where it seems like second chances don’t exist and homes with love that takes the edge off all the hard outside the door. Drugs and poverty and everyone cheating on everyone else but sometimes a tiny ray of hope.  I’m not a particular lover of short story collections in general, so my hot take should be taken with that in mind.  I actually wanted more connection, I think, more familiarity so I could dig a little deeper into their experiences.  What I do know is that it is always good for me to spend time in my mind with lives that are both so different than mine while also built of the same longing for community and family and the kind of stability that can be a foundation to build on. 

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (audiobook)

 genre: epistolary fiction

When we meet Sybil Van Antwerp, she has already lived most of her life.  She has retired from her work in the law, her children are grown and she takes pleasure in all the ways one can entertain one's self.  What makes Sybil's life unique, though, is that for hours each week, Sybil dedicates herself to her correspondence.  With a piece of stationary and a pen, her life is expounded and explored and, like other epistolary novels, we as the readers are left to piece together what is said and unsaid as we read both what Sybil puts out into the world and what comes back to her.  And the task is such an engaging one.

I know I'm the last person ever to listen to this book and yes, you all were right, the audio is absolutely the way to go.  The voice of each of our letter writers and recipients and how these people interact with the indomitable Ms. Van Antwerp make the book move along quickly.  Keeping everyone straight does take a little brainpower but soon I felt like these were familiar old friends.  As much as Sybil can be a tricky person, as the book goes on we can understand why and my heart filled with so much compassion for her and for the people that she loves and that love her back.  I just kept FEELING so much as the years of letters went by: grief, hope, more grief, joy.  I think what I also really loved about this book is that it reminds me that life can constantly be full of surprises - new people and new experiences - and that it is never to late to find peace.

Canticle by Janet Rich Edwards

 genre: historical fiction

In medieval Bruges, the Church is the scaffolding on which a life is created.  And if you want to be close to God, you'd better have a man with some kind of authority to be your guide.  For Aleys, who is raised on the stories of female saints, Jesus is more than a tale.  He is a real presence that she soon realizes she needs to dedicate some part of her life to - but its not as though a medieval woman can just go ahead and do what she wants without everyone around her having an opinion about it.  And the weight of some opinions can lead to disaster.  

The lovely book centers, first and foremost, women who have a desire to have their own kind of relationship with a divine being that feels tangible to their own lives.  Aleys is a gorgeously written protagonist.  She is passionate and capable and her journey as a religious person is such an intriguing one. While Christianity is no longer my spiritual home in the way it once was, my grandmother prayed to the saints for me and my heart still knows the pathways of belief in a divine being.  There is so much of value in this pages that reach toward the realms of miracles and saints and things we cannot understand but dearly want to.  I loved the focus on the written word and how it is so powerful that popes and kings lost their minds over common people having access to it.  Canticle is a slow read, and while there is definitely plot there is mostly Aleys's inner life and the inner lives of the men of the church that have power of her mortal body - but what you come to realize is that no one has power over Aleys's beautiful soul.

I, Medusa by Ayana Gray (audiobook)

 genre: mythology, fiction

What we do we know of Medusa?  She has snakes for hair.  She can turn a person to stone with her eyes.  But how did she get to this place?  What is HER story?  This is an origin tale about power and powerlessness, set on islands and in cities, in castles and temples.  It is about fickle Olympian gods and simpering lesser gods and mortals with seemingly little to offer except service.  It is about priestesses and sisters and finding your own purpose. 

It got a little repetitive for me, as Medusa has to face her own rage over and over again, sometimes managing it well and sometimes really making her own life harder, but I liked that we could understand her motivations.  As a coming-of-age story, we are watching Medusa learn some really hard and upsetting lessons about body autonomy and consent, shining a sharp contrast between those who can get away with hurting others and those who just have to standby and either watch people get hurt or get hurt themselves.

This was an interesting re-telling and if you enjoy Olympian Myth stories, I would recommend this one.  The audio is solid.