Sue Monk Kidd

Fiction 2020 | 432 pages

Writing this post feels like a sacred act.  For centuries biblical scholars have debated whether or not Jesus married.  The scholars have convened on “no” as the most likely answer.  However, Sue Monk Kidd has wondered all of her life if perhaps there is another story to tell.  She writes this novel from the perspective that Jesus did, in fact, take a wife.  Her name is Ana, and this is her story.  Fully immersed in the stories, fables, truths, realities, and parables that appear in the bible, Kidd adds a layer that will cause you to think, wonder, and enjoy the possibilities.  This is a truly engaging piece of art!

We see Judas (Ana’s brother), Lazarus, Mary and Martha, John, who baptizes new Christ-followers, Herod, Pilate, John and Joseph, Jesus’ mother Mary, and more.  All the context we would expect.  And yet this additional perspective retells the story of Jesus on this earth in a new light, especially the years that bible does not address at all, Jesus between the ages of 12 of 30.

I am not a Christian, and so I wondered how I would engage with this tale.  I found it delightful!  First of all, it is a love story.  A profound, beautiful, enduring love story.  Second, is a magnificent statement on women at the time of Christ … an entire gender we hear little about in the bible.  The women in this novel are surprisingly strong, delightfully self-knowledgeable, intriguingly active.  Ana, of course, portrays a strong and powerful woman who finds her voice, her destiny, and her passion for writing.  And her Aunt Yaltha, her mother-in-law Mary, her sister-in-law Pamphile, Chaya (Ana’s cousin) and numerous other women are not as we might picture them from reading the bible alone ... where they are often depicted as chattel, powerless, demure, hidden.  So, in truth, this is also a feminist novel.  Actually, it is an intriguing and useful accompaniment to the bible.

I highly recommend The Book of Longings and look forward to your comments.

March 2022

by Amanda Gorman

Poetry 2021, 228 pages

I am sure this is a delightful collection of poems. From what I read, Gorman's poems are creative, relevant, easy to understand, stark, and beautiful ... I am simply an unpracticed poetry reader, so I struggled. Please blame my paltry single heart on my own deficiency.  If you love poetry, you will enjoy this collection from the amazing Amanda Gorman, I am certain. (In case there is a bell ringing in your head, but you can't quite place the name, Amanda Gorman is the youngest [age 22] inaugural poet ever to grace the stage at a presidential swearing in.  Joe Biden, 2021).

March 2022

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Kevin Wilson

Fiction 2019 | 254 pages

Ingenious, original, clever, witty, and touching.  Some reviewers say this book is about friendship.  I say it is about love.

Lillian struggles in her life, working at the Save-A-Lot in Franklin Tennessee.  She lives with her estranged mom, in the attic of the house she grew up in and has no friends.  Except for Madison.  Madison is an odd type of friend ... they knew each for a year at a girl's boarding school.  Lillian was thrown out before the end of that first year, taking the fall for Madison for illicit drugs in their room. And now Madison, who stayed in touch through letters, is married to a Senator and living in a mansion.  And she has a job for Lillian.

She asks Lillian to come to the mansion and take care of her husband’s 10-year-old twins, Roland and Bessie.  They had been living with their mother, but that ended when their mother died, and now the Senator has to figure out what to do with them; how to integrate them into his life with Madison and their toddler son Timothy.  Bessie and Roland will live with them for the summer, and Madison hires Lillian as a governess of sorts.

But these kids are not exactly normal.  They spontaneously combust when they get angry, anxious, or scared.  Yes, they literally burst into flames.  It does not hurt them, but the fire is real enough and burns their clothes, and anything combustible in the area. Yes, an odd premise (hence, “original, clever.") Somehow, Kevin Wilson pulls it off.  As a reader, I found I accepted the premise and became a cheerleader for Bessie, Roland, and Lillian. The tone is fun, irreverent at times, but also emotional and serious.  I found the friendship between Lilian and Madison to be intriguing for sure.  But the love that develops between Lillian and her two charges is the soul of this novel, I believe.

This is an easy read, and I do recommend it. The Casting Crew Book Club likes to read short, fun novels in February.   Thanks to Louise for suggesting this one! Nothing to See Here is fun, engaging, and will shift your perspectives on power, politics, and how inconvenient children can be.  The only criticism I have is the title.  I can’t ever remember it.  I would have preferred something along the lines of Fire Children or Fire Starter.

February 2022

bell hooks

Nonfiction 2001 | 238 pages

I am lost.  WHY are we reading this book in my Decolonization book club?  It is a diatribe on everything that is not working.  It begins with multiple chapters that point fingers at parents who lead dysfunctional families and do not teach their children how to love, and it goes downhill from there.  I kept reading, seeking for when she might turn positive, and found a bit of redemption in the chapter on spirituality.  I was hoping there might be more "new visions" (this book's erroneous subtitle) in the chapter on romance, but she begins “Romance” with the assertion that we all have not been "schooled" in love, and therefore don’t know how to do it.  It isn't that hard, Ms. hooks. You open your heart and make a choice.

Plus, she quotes the Bible about 27 times more often than I am comfortable with.

A depressing book ... I can't come up with any reason to recommend it.  She has written 39 (or so) books.  I am not putting any on my reading list.   This ranks near the top of my "books I struggled to finish because I sincerely disliked them" list.

February 2022

Dave Eggers | Fiction, 2021

577 pages

I think of satire as  funny.  And some reviewers found this book hilarious.  Longtime Dusty Shelves blog readers know that I am not particularly adept at finding humor in the written word.  And I found no humor at all in The Every.  I was, well, "terrified" is perhaps too strong a word, but certainly "afraid" and "uncomfortable" fit.  Perhaps it is all my years working in and consulting to technology organizations that led me to find the scenarios in Egger's latest to be too realistic, too possible, too earth-shattering, too controlling, too depressing.

Have you read The Circle?  It isn't necessary to have read The Circle to understand The Every, but it does provide useful context.  The Every is a gigantic monopolistic organization headquartered on Treasure Island, that has bought and engulfed The Circle, along with untold numbers of other businesses.  It is a super e-commerce conglomerate.  The Every controls 82% of e-commerce, which is 71% of all commerce at this novel’s unstated date in the future.

Delaney Wells, a former park ranger, gets herself hired at The Every, with the intention it taking it down.  While she looks for ways to destroy it, she suggests technology products that she expects the company to find reprehensible, and instead, they embrace every single one.  The Every believes everything is measurable and therefore trackable and therefore goal-able and not private. Early in the book, it is technology we know well, like our smart watches and cell phones, that not only give US useful Information about our health, well-being, finances, and steps, but that transmit ALL of it to databases to analyze it and set us up to exercise, sleep, and eat on a schedule that the devices control.  But that is only the beginning.  Soon, we are able to buy our clothes only through an Every-owned project that ensures each piece is environmentally sound.  And then there is the project that tracks our personal carbon use.  Next, the Every is providing live data when you talk on the phone (or your personal cam) with someone, assessing their facial expressions, body temperature, and so forth, that tells you how honest the other person is being.  By the end of the book, every conversation in our homes Is being listened to and analyzed for certain words, phrases, or tones.  If a flagged word, phrase, or tone is heard, the police are promptly sent to your home.  This particular project is developed as a way to prevent child abuse.  And the list of Every projects goes on and on and gets more and more invasive.  Eventually the company comes to fully believe that people want neither freedom nor choice.  And Delaney's attempts to destroy The Every ramp up.

I enjoyed reading The Every, though I do not think it rises to the level of The Circle.  The Every is over-long, and the "projects" become the plot line, which isn't over-compelling.  However, I am glad I read it.  And things heat up about page 400, when Delaney decides it is time to initiate her destruction.

(For those of you who are readers from Bend, know that there is a one-sentence reference to our fair town on page 528.)

Here is the link to the meaning and types of satire.  I found this quite interesting.

https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-satire-definition-examples/

So, do I recommend It The Every?  Well, if you haven't read Eggers and his technology-driven dystopian novels, I would recommend The Circle over this book.  If you read and were moved by The Circle (a book I think about often), I recommend this.  It takes every terrifying technology abuse one (or more) steps further.

January 2022