Correspondents' Choice: Books for January

This feature seems to be growing like a snowball. The more Correspondents' Choice posts we have, the more correspondents recommend books. Well, why not? Google's length limits are the only limits and people have posted full-length doctoral dissertations on their Blogspots. Alphabetically by authors...

Since "natural disasters and survival" have been a theme at this web site, some readers may be interested in Louise Beech's soon-to-hit-the-markets novel about a "Flood Crisis" volunteer. According to Beech, she wrote it during the flood crisis of 2007. Warning: adult content (including a lot of the kind that appeals to teenagers, and may embarrass real adults who live with kids) is positively guaranteed.



This one's available only as a Kindle and I have no idea how well or badly it's written, but doesn't that cover deserve to go viral? Listen up, ISIS goons who know how to read: Muslims did much to keep tolerance and romance alive while Christianity was going through a Dark Age, so why does so much of the Muslim world now seem to be stuck in a Dark Age of its own? The Way of Peace Through Submission to God is not achieved by terrorist thuggery. I believe "Christendom" has been blessed when and because Christians sincerely practiced our beliefs (which include respecting other people's right to practice theirs), and faces real danger from the Islamic world if and because Muslims practice their beliefs sincerely, respectfully, honestly, while Christians devolve into mere "churchians." But God cannot possibly bless ISIS' blasphemy.



Ruby Bridges was one of America's sweethearts in the 1960s. If you (or your school) don't already have her book, you need it. It's a very mature and nice memoir about being a nice, innocent child, chosen because she looked tiny and cute and pitiful, used as a game piece in older people's hateful political game. (I own multiple copies, and reviewed this book for Blogjob.)



This one is advertised as opening a whole series of Mountain Witch stories, for them as likes setch thangs. I have no idea how brilliant or how tacky it may be.



So, is Emma Byrne claiming that using bad language has actual benefits, or is she telling the young it's "good for you" in order to get them to taper off from their addiction to it? Hmm. I wonder whether her research includes any study of the medical effects of saying things like "blasted," "flippin'," and "dang"?



Barnes & Noble recommended this new book by Myke Cole, whom regular readers remember as having said he writes intense adventure stories as a way to deal with post-traumatic stress. He's done regular spy and battle stories; this series gets into fantasy and medieval-style religion. You've been warned...despite the obvious source of its inspiration, this is not another book about St. Jeanne d'Arc.



John Grisham recommends Karen Cleveland's new "thriller," Need to Know, with "brother can she write":



At Wordclerks.com, which is one of the sites you can use to support this web site by paying for the kind of article you want to read, relevant in some way to what you go online to sell or whatever, the writer known as Radiowaves recommends what sounds like a wild adventure-mystery novel by one of Argentina's best writers, calling it "a game for the reader...instead of being straightforward."



Breaking alphabetical order slightly in order to keep two related books together...what about a biology-inspired coloring book for secondary and postsecondary students?



R.O. Kwon at least suggested to me that this novel may be truer, perhaps less triggering...



...than Suzette Haden Elgin's science fiction novel on a similar theme, At the Seventh Level. I've read it, and like it in a way, but it is harrowing. Triggers galore, including a male-perspective sex scene that male readers doubted a woman actually wrote (duh--she asked a few men).



Even more triggers in Neil Gaiman's short stories: the title says it all.



Superstar author Henry Louis Gates (Jr.) has a new book coming out with Scholastic, for kids...Scholastic is sending out press releases announcing Dark Sky Rising before Amazon has even set up a page for pre-ordering, and it won't be out in time for Black History Month, although Black American History is what Dark Sky Rising will be about. (Should non-Black or even non-American readers study Black American History? Absolutely. Whatever causes activate you, Gentle Readers, all activists have much to learn from Black American History. There is no better example of successful nonviolent activism. Thank an older Black American...Thomas Sowell comes to mind. He's out of alphabetical order because, at the time of writing, his book is filling in for Gates' new one.)



However, I'm guessing that Gates will stick to the mainstream, leftist-influenced version of Black American History and overlook (1) the role of supporters of Big Government in setting up segregation, and (2) the voluntary contributions of private citizens toward reversing it...the difference between joyful integration at Berea College and hateful desegregation in New Orleans...y'might want to check out Jim Babka's linky blog post here, in addition to Ruby Bridges' picture book, above, and Mildred Taylor's fictionalized version of her parents' pre-1960s activism, below.

https://www.zeroaggressionproject.org/jim-babka/post-statist-truths-montgomery-buses/

Maria Popova recommends:



Do you have a position on Stephen King? Grandma Bonnie Peters doesn't approve of most of his topics and stories, and several other (envious?) writers don't approve of him on general principles...I've read most of his books once. Some are better than others but I say he has a real gift that includes, but is not limited to, terror, horror, and gross-outs. Even GBP might, if she'd had time to read fiction, have enjoyed some of his more realistic stories. One thing I've enjoyed about his horror fiction is the way it's often used a good, stable marriage for emotional relief from the horror. In this new novel, he looks at a troubled marriage. You have been warned.



Krisleen at Wordclerks recommends Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad. I'm hesitant about endorsing it myself, because rich people can afford risks that the rest of us can't--but I would like to read it.



The Western Telegraph recommends MacFarlane and Morris' Lost Words, sales of which are apparently surging in England: Twenty names for birds and animals were "lost" from a new "children's" dictionary, words like "wren" and "otter," and the authors set out to explain those words to nature-deprived city children.



Jim Geraghty is intrigued by Peter MacLeod's argument that Canadian history influenced U.S. history, after all. To what extent? I've not read the book but I know a lot of people stumble through four years in U.S. colleges without being able to find the Plains of Abraham on a map. If you're one of them, here's a chance to get educated:



Penguin recommended Mary Oliver's Blue Horses. I've read another collection of her "poems"; free verse, as I recall, but I'd be interested in this relatively new book.



GBP herself never dreamed of being an artist, but when she went back to school as an empty-nester, she sold paintings. In honor of that memory, here's another of R.O. Kwon's picks; you can probably still find Kwon's long list of 46 recent "books by women of color" (that's all different colors) here.



Jendi Reiter's poems-or-short-essays definitely contain some "adult content" and won't appeal to some of this web site's older readers either, but if you like edgy, snarky, frank-but-not-foul-mouthed commentary, here's a writer who's done much to help other writers:



Hmm...how to handle this one? Timothy Sandefur's new book is already available in electronic form, if you're willing to read it that way; the Amazon picture link will allow you to buy the Kindle e-book today, or pre-order the printed book when it's printed and shipped. Amazon expects to be mailing out copies in March. Say whaaat? February is Black History Month! March is Women's History Month! Amazon may be giving real bookstores a fair start. The e-mail I received about this book was an invitation to the book party, which is scheduled for February 8, between 4 and 5:30 p.m., at 1000 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, D.C., 20001...the Cato Institute. (Invitations to book parties are addressed to individuals, but I've never heard of a book party to which those individuals weren't encouraged to forward the invitation to as many friends as could pack into the building...and 1000 Mass. Ave. is a large building.) It sounds like a blast; I don't expect to be able to go, but I would if I could. Policy makers, policy wonks, libertarians, socialites, Bright Young Things, aunts, Moderate Republicans, Moderate Democrats, Greens of every shade, and people with personal reasons to lobby for legalizing drugs are likely to attend. If you want to mingle with any of those types of people, click here for more information about the party.



All stories by Nancy Springer (so far as I know) are good--some realistic, some Jungian, some conventional fantasy. This one sounds like a conventional fantasy, not my favorite genre, but Springer does them better (imho) than most people.



Another book from Nassim Nicholas Taleb...this writer is less reviewed than announced...



Mildred Taylor's fictional Logan family re-create stories her parents told her about the early days of the civil rights movement, before it was popularized by the left wing, when it was simply about civil rights and when it was faced with violent hate on both sides. Although the stories are told from children's point of view and some are formatted as picture books, I don't recommend them as children's books. They are too bitter, too hateful, and--if children want to read the whole series--too violent. Teenagers get raped and murdered offstage; teenagers get beaten up by full-grown men onstage. They do, however, portray a genuine grassroots movement in which people who had abundant reasons to agonize chose to strategize, and, as we all know, their strategy worked. Read them as a mature, educated adult who wants to celebrate how far nonviolent individual efforts can come.



Somebody's trying to push "e-books" by e-mailing lists of popular books that are now available in electronic form. Bah. I like books because they're not blinking boxes that plug into walls. Anyway the advice very rich people give to the less wealthy is always interesting.