Book Review 20/07/16

The Great Indoors, by Emily Anthes (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 220 pages)

In any other year, a book about “the great indoors” arriving at the start of summer would seem strange, a publishing mistake.

In 2020, however, it’s perfect.

We’ve all been under house arrest, and whether you’ve enjoyed it or are one empty-toilet-paper-roll away from strangling your housemates, the quality of the experience may have much to do with the design of your house. Science writer Emily Anthes explains why, in what she promises is “the surprising science of how buildings shape our behavior, health and happiness.”

The average American, Anthes writes, spends 90 percent of his or her time inside a building, to include offices, stores, restaurants, gyms, theaters and everything else we’ve been missing during the pandemic.

Our love of the outdoors, it seems, is fantasy, or myth. Outdoors is rain and mosquitoes. Indoors, a fridge and sofa. If you’re like Anthes, “anxiety-prone and risk-averse,” you prefer to enjoy the outdoors from your window. But until recently scientists mostly concerned themselves with the environment outside the home rather than in it. But that, Anthes says, is changing, and new research is emerging on how the design of buildings affects our brains, our moods, our productivity and our choices; and how features of buildings, such as windows, affect our mental health.

Some of these findings are intuitive: “Warm, dim lighting makes schoolkids less fidgety and aggressive. Fresh, well-ventilated air boosts office workers’ cognitive function.” Some make sense upon reflection: People who live on the highest floors of a skyscraper are the least likely to survive a cardiac event. But some are simply surprising.

Take, for example, the idea that a more challenging environment might extend life.

One couple in Japan took this to an extreme, building a nine-unit apartment complex that looked “less like a home than an oversized carnival fun house.” The homes were designed to befuddle. They had circular living rooms with kitchens in the center, round studies, ladders that led nowhere and what amounted to speed bumps in the floor. The creators were artists who believed death to be “immoral” and thought it could be cheated and that brain-stimulating architecture was one way to do it. They also created “destabilizing” parks and single-family homes.

Unfortunately, they died, so there were limits to the couple’s genius. Their work could be dismissed as the legacy of passionate fools, but for this: Lab animals housed in stimulating, challenging environments live longer and are healthier than animals confined to boring cages.

And, as Anthes writes, it’s long established that challenges are important for human flourishing. “Start lifting weights, and your muscles will swell. Learn to speak a new language and your brain will sprout new connections.” So who’s to say that a living room with shocking colors and speed bumps on the floor won’t positively affect us like a wheel and maze will stimulate a rat?

But not all changes need to be exhilarating. Anthes writes about a neonatal intensive care unit in Rhode Island that was redesigned from the traditional crowded ward to single rooms equipped with sleeper sofas where the parents could stay instead of just visiting. The infants fared dramatically better in the family rooms.

Having convinced us that the right buildings matter, Anthes embarks on a tour of the great indoors, from her own bathroom, where microbes seethe in the showerhead, to redesigned school lunchrooms in New York City, to a community in Phoenix, Arizona, designed for adults with autism to live their best life. She also takes on the housing of the incarcerated, controversial for those who think prisons shouldn’t be humane. (“We should send fewer people to prison, and we should treat them better while they’re there,” Anthes says.)

And she examines two disparate types of housing: that of the most basic shelter, such as the sustainable huts made out of sandbags fastened together with barbed wire, which an Iranian-American in California invented (locking doors are made out of shipping crates), and the high-tech, Jetson-like homes of the affluent, which could allow more seniors to age in place.

But the Jetson-stuff is passe now. What is really cutting edge in buildings are “buoyant foundations” that literally allow homes in flood-prone areas to float when water rushes in. This is part of a new interest in “amphibious architecture” that will allow humans to stay near the coasts as the oceans creep in. Anthes admits that amphibious homes are “more of a curiosity than a bona fide building trend” and that’s unlikely to change in the U.S., as long as these structures are not eligible for subsidized insurance policies, as is now the case. Still, the possibilities fascinate.

In closing, Anthes takes on buildings in space — what it would take to build a village on the moon or on Mars. “The irony is that our continued existence may hinge on figuring out how to live in environments that are literally lethal,” she writes. You’d think there’d be no research to draw from here, but Anthes sniffed out people who are already designing space cities for a living, such as the CEO of a California company called Mars City Design. (True, it’s in California, and its website says to email the company for its research, so invest carefully.)

“Blueprints for the Red Planet” is the shortest chapter and the least fulfilling, filled as it is with speculation. But the rest of The Great Indoors is a solid and satisfying read, even if its title might induce a nap. B

BOOK NOTES
You cannot predict elections by book sales, but if you could, President Donald Trump’s campaign should be worried.

The No.1 and No. 2 best sellers on Amazon last week were literary grenades thrown at the president: Too Much and Never Enough, a memoir by first niece Mary Trump, and The Room Where It Happened by former national security adviser John Bolton. Both portray the president as immoral and inept.

To find a conservative viewpoint, one that Trump voters would relish, you had to plunge all the way to No. 27, where Ben Shapiro’s How To Destroy America in Three Easy Steps sat three places above Sean Hannity’s Live Free or Die.

To be fair, Hannity’s book was No. 1 in the “elections” category, and it doesn’t release until Aug. 4. But that’s also the release date of Stephenie Meyer’s Midnight Sun, which is Twilight from Edward’s point of view and everyone knows how it ends. It’s still selling like toilet paper (the new hotcakes), at No. 8.

There’s no good recent data that easily explains why there are more liberal/progressive titles than conservative in Amazon’s top 30. Occasionally, a study asserts that Democrats read more than Republicans, but a 2012 survey of GoodReads readers found that supporters of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney read the same median number of books a year: 26.

If none of these appeal (and for the record, Hannity’s book appears to be nothing about New Hampshire), there’s a rollicking good time to be had in Scott Conroy’s Vote First or Die, which is actually about New Hampshire and its outsized role in the election of presidents. Published in 2017, it’s a whimsical look at the path to the 2016 election and a timely reminder of how we got where we are.

Also, new and notable this week isLet Them Eat Tweets, How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality, by political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson.

Book Review 20/07/09

The Madwoman and the Roomba, by Sandra Tsing Loh (W.W. Norton, 276 pages)

Can we say that it’s a little more than ironic that a woman who found fame leaving the stifling prison that was a 20-year marriage is now rhapsodizing affectionately about the “domestic mayhem” that is her life?

But that is where Sandra Tsing Loh has arrived 11 years after the publication of her celebrated Atlantic piece titled “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off,” which was an explanation of why she ended her marriage and an invitation for other people to do the same.

A year earlier, she’d found fame and acclaim for Mother on Fire, an acerbically funny memoir of parenting, and many of her fans were surprised to find her ringless a year later, although it did much for her career. I tend to be stoutly judgmental about such things, but I’m willing to forgive a lot for a laugh, including “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” and another mildly disturbing Atlantic essay in which she said she wished her 91-year-old father would die. That’s probably a character flaw in me, which is why I like Loh even as she tramples on my fundamental values. She has plenty of her own, on public display in two books that portend a long-running series, 2014’s The Madwoman in the Volvo, My Year of Raging Hormones and now, The Madwoman and the Roomba, My Year of Domestic Mayhem.

There is a pleasant afternoon to be had envisioning what comes next: The Madwoman in the Face Mask? The Madwoman and the AARP? The Madwoman and the Depends? Loh (pronounced “low”) has built a devoted following, so it’s a safe bet that Roomba won’t be the last. Loh, who the New York Times once crowned a worthy contender for “publishers’ holy grail, ‘the female David Sedaris.’” Like Sedaris, she is reliably funny and specializes in understated comedy built around the adventures of a strange family that feels vaguely familiar but, under the microscope, is really nothing like yours. (How unlike yours? Her father, for starters, had a rock song written about him by a band named Boy Hits Car. The song contains the line “Mr. Loh’s not afraid to be naked.” There you go.)

But she imagines herself this red, white and blue everywoman, trying earnestly to be one of “us” rather than one of the dastardly “them,” all the while showing that she’s not really poor and struggling, but just seems to have too many stupidly rich friends. As a technique, this is generally opaque, and she wears peasant clothes well in one of the stronger chapters in the book, titled “Stanford Swimming.”

In the essay, Loh makes comic hash out of an evening spent with friends at a New York estate that “looks like a large villa you’d find in Europe, protected by lush non-native hedges.” The friends, of course, are “thems” and if you hadn’t already figured this out, you will when the wine comes out and the friends say, winsomely, that it isn’t expensive but was on the Zagat list of “great wines under $40.”

“Charlie and I raise eyebrows amusedly at each other. For us the price cap on a bottle of wine is eight dollars,” Loh writes. The next nine pages are essentially “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” had Mr. Smith been sardonic, an easy-going, fish-in-a-barrel takedown of people who have personal cooks and tennis courts and sons who win swimming scholarships to Stanford. Loh, in comparison, says that she’s not even sure her teenage daughters can swim, and they come to the table, one looking like an L.A. gang girl “edging into drag queen,” the other a “painfully thin” child evocative of Ichabod Crane who is “less eating her salad than worrying it.” She worries that when lacrosse is mentioned, her daughters will think the conversation is about sparkling water.

“Stanford Swimming” is one of the longer essays in a collection that ostensibly runs the length of a year, Loh’s 55th. As Madwoman in the Volvo was about menopause, it’s more difficult to define what Madwoman and the Roomba is about, other than maybe trying to pay off a tax bill born of an IRS audit detailed in a chapter called “A very Hindu audit.” It’s here, among other places, that Loh’s everywoman credentials seem just a tiny bit overstated, as she exclaims worriedly about the IRS challenging $25,000 in business expenses and says she only gets massages when Groupon is involved.

There is a lot of exclaiming in this book. There also are a worrisome number of exclamation marks, making it seem that a stern editor wasn’t one of those business expenses, and an overabundance of Loh’s trademark dashes, which she seems to use as a calling card and a stand-in for ellipses. Example from a bit of dialogue: “‘You cannot lumber after waiters like an extra from The Walking Dead, knocking over priceless Louis Quatorze art along the way —’”

It’s a small quibble, and maybe you love it, but David Sedaris doesn’t do it.

At the end of the year Loh’s father finally dies, and at first she seems to have all the remorse and grief that you would expect of someone who has been grousing for years about why he had the nerve to live so long, given the “giant money leakage of his care.”

There is an important conversation to be had about whether science is extending life for too long, and Loh’s most shocking statements may be more shrewd calculations than heartfelt emotions; her undergraduate degree, after all, was in physics. But the reader still has the right to be shocked when, upon going to her father’s house soon after his death, Loh decides to take a selfie with her father’s corpse. Is this a thing? If so, it would seem more the action of a millennial than a baby boomer “at the dropping tail of the boom.”

It’s hard, however, to dislike any writer who calls a mortuary professional a “Styx crosser” regardless of other offenses. A-

BOOK NOTES
Since The New York Times once said Sandra Tsing Loh (reviewed above) was a candidate to be “the female David Sedaris,” it seems appropriate to see who else has earned this honor, and more importantly, whether they’re in paperback so we can take them to the beach.

Sedaris, of course, is the sly humorist made famous in 1992 by an essay about playing one of Santa’s elves at Macy’s, the broadcast of which is now an NPR holiday tradition. His books, which include Me Talk Pretty One Day and Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls, seethe with weapons-grade humor softened by a folksy tone and a surprising depth of wisdom and lived pain.

Why do we need a female Sedaris? Hard to say because there is no equivalent search for a male Anne Lamott.

But the contenders, according to Google, include not only Loh but these authors:
Lauren Weedman,Miss Fortune (Plume, 304 pages)
Sloane Crosley, I Was Told There’d Be Cake (Riverhead, 230 pages)
Susan Reinhardt, Chimes from a Cracked Southern Belle (Grateful Steps, 384 pages)
Susan Jane Gilman, Hypocrite in a White, Pouffy Dress(Grand Central Publishing, 369 pages)
Faith Salie, Approval Junkie (Three Rivers Press, 288 pages)
Jen Lancaster, Bitter is the New Black, (Berkley, 416 pages)

To be fair, there are others, but some women seem to have given the title to themselves on their blogs. I make no guarantees as to how Sedarisian these women are, but note that Crosley has especially good reviews.

Or you could just wait for a new Sedaris book to come out. The New York Times recently reported that there are two in the queue, The Best Of Me, a collection of previously published essays, due out in the fall (pandemic willing), and Carnival of Snackeries, more selections from the diary he has kept for more than 40 years, scheduled next year.

Book Review 20/6/25

What is the Grass: Walt Whitman in My Life, by Mark Doty (W.W. Norton, 288 pages)

Most everyone with a high school diploma has read Walt Whitman; if not the entirety of “Song of Myself,” then at least “I Hear America Singing” or “1861,” which seems even more prescient in the current arm’d year.

But for many Americans, Whitman fast receded after American Lit, and his iconic Leaves of Grass is best remembered for an infamous toilet scene in the AMC show Breaking Bad.

It seems a sorry fate to be forever associated with idle bathroom reading.

To the rescue rides Mark Doty, a poet and Rutgers University professor whose latest book is a searing and worshipful ode to Whitman, who he considers the first “truly American poet.” A gay man once married to a woman, Doty accepts as canon the widespread belief that Whitman was gay, saying that there is a “deeper level of scandal” that exists in Leaves of Grass, most visible to those familiar with same-sex longings.

Doty explores those longings — not only Whitman’s, but his own — in What is the Grass, which swells beyond the confines of conventional memoir to explore the importance of Whitman’s work and its surprising relevance to events of today. The book is a gorgeous contemplation of mystery and transcendence, and of the confluence of two men separated by a century and a half, but not by fact that one of them is long dead.

“The dead persist audibly in language,” Doty writes, displaying an admirable ability to take a truth that is plain and make its expression exquisite, like the difference between generic flour and King Arthur’s.

Whitman was a writer who, for much of his life, walked a pauper trail; at midlife, he was living in a small apartment in New York with his mother and five of his siblings. He essentially self-published Leaves of Grass in 1855; having worked in printing since the age of 13, he set some of the type for the initial 200 copies himself.

It was, Doty writes, a strange book of verse “at odds in format and content with essentially everything in print in its day.” Whitman’s name was not on the cover. There was no indication in the lackluster reception that one of those volumes would one day sell at auction for $305,000, as it did in 2014, or that future generations would say “its best pages breathe an air perennially new,” as Doty describes them.

Whitman was a splendid mass of contradictions; a man believed to have once spent an afternoon in the embrace of Oscar Wilde, he once denied being attracted to men when asked directly. He possessed, Doty writes, “a radiant sense of connection to the bodies of others,” yet was a “perpetual outsider.” Today, his sexuality is discussed in some circles with reluctance; it is an ethical conundrum whether to out the dead.

Doty, however, frankly discusses his own relationships, from the “painful comedy” of a marriage to a woman twice his age, to his explorations in sex clubs and more fulfilling long-term relationships. The stories, while frank, are not titillating or gratuitous; they are earnest disclosures of a seeker who wants to know why Whitman has so profoundly affected his life, and that of American literature.

While there is structural analysis of Whitman’s poems here, it is not the dry stuff of lectures, but the invitation of someone who deeply cares about a subject and wants the rest of the world to share his enthusiasm. In this he succeeds; a chapter in, and I’d gone looking for my own dusty copy of Leaves of Grass, a gift stiff from disuse.

While on one level a meditation on sexuality, What is the Grass is evidence of Whitman’s unifying theory, that “every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” In other words, Doty’s experience is not my own, nor was Whitman’s, but there exist other, more important, commonalities, such as reverence for beauty and nature and passion and books, the latter of which, Doty believes, collide at the intersection of soul and time.

“The dead are not lost, but in circulation,” Doty writes. Like the poet who haunts him, he celebrates the “self without boundaries” while paying homage to the pocked and needful bodies tethered to earth. Whitman, wherever his atoms, must be proud. It’s a masterful work worthy of its subject. A

BOOK NOTES

A few years ago, Time magazine reported that human beings now have the attention span of a goldfish, which can focus on something for about nine seconds without losing interest. That was quickly debunked by researchers who say that 10 to 15 minutes is more realistic.

And that is why the maximum length of a TED talk is 18 minutes, and why the ideal summer book should be not a novel or a 592-page White House memoir but a collection of essays or short stories.

When the heat sucks your energy like a bug zapper, there is pleasure in short bursts of reading equivalent to the time it takes to sip a frosty adult beverage. Consider these, which will not drain your energy or consume time better spent on the water or in the woods:

The Inner Coast: Essays, by Donovan Hohn: philosophical reflections on nature. Opening line: “I was, at age nine, a god of snails.” (W.W. Norton, 256 pages)

26 Marathons: What I Learned About Faith, Identity, Running and Life from My Marathon Career, by Meb Keflezigihi: inspiration from the long distance runner, Olympic athelete and Boston Marathon winner. Opening lines: “The first thing I see is the finish line behind me. For a moment I’m confused. Why am I lying on the ground with my head cradled in my hands?” (Rodale, 256 pages)

Nothing is Wrong and Here is Why, by Alexandra Petri: acerbic, partisan humor from a Washington Post columnist. Opening line: “You may feel that you understand what has been happening for the past four years, but I assure you, you do not.” (W.W. Norton, 240 pages)

The Best American Science and Nature Writing of 2019, edited by Sy Montgomery. Honestly, anything in the “Best American Series” works, depending on your interests; there is also Best American Short Stories, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Mystery Stories, Sports Writing, Food Writing, Comics, Essays, and most intriguingly, “American Nonrequired Reading.”

But we’ll go with this one, edited by Montgomery, since she’s a Granite Stater. Her opening: “Several years ago I was invited to speak to kids and teens at the Boston March for Science. On a cold, rainy day in early April, I looked out at a sea of young faces framed by dripping umbrellas and the hoods of ponchos, and spoke to them about tree kangaroos.” (Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 384 pages.)

Summer bookcation

Laughs, adventure and more for your summer reading list

For this year’s summer reading guide, we asked local library staff and indie booksellers to recommend some of their favorite fun or inspiring reads published since June 2019, and they came up with more than 50, including memoirs, offbeat graphic novels, self-improvement guides, magical tales, page-turning romances and more.

Fiction

Contemporary

Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout
Published: October 2019
Plot: Meet Olive, a cantankerous but lovable old lady.
Recommended by: Dianne Hathaway, Director at Goffstown Public Library. “Olive is funny, speaks her mind and may remind you of your own old lady family member.”

The Summer Deal by Jill Shalvis
Published: June 2020
Plot: Three friends reconnect over the summer and must discover forgiveness and trust.
Recommended by: Natalie Ducharme, Interim Director at Kelley Library in Salem. “A fun mix of humor, romance and family.”

Fantasy

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin
Published: March 2020
Plot: Five of the Earth’s greatest cities are alive, and five people unexpectedly become the living embodiments of New York City’s five boroughs.
Recommended by: Yvette Couser, Library Director at Merrimack Public Library. “A tale of magic, culture, fantasy and adventure.”

The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune
Published: March 2020
Plot: Linus Baker, a case worker for the government agency in charge of the welfare of magical youth, is sent to inspect a classified orphanage on a beautiful hidden island.
Recommended by: Angela Sylvia, Technical Services at Bedford Public Library; Julie Andrews, Reference Librarian at Nashua Public Library; and Dianne Hathaway, Director at Goffstown Public Library. “A character-driven story about kindness, finding a place to belong, and fighting harder than one knew they could in order to keep it,” Sylvia said. “A funny, gentle, heart-warming story about love and found family,” Andrews said.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
Published: September 2019
Plot: A young woman discovers a world of magic within a mysterious book.
Recommended by: Michael Herrmann, owner of Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com). “Achingly beautiful.”

Historical

The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes
Published: October 2019
Plot: A group of volunteer traveling librarians finds new strength and independence as they deliver books to people in rural Tennessee.
Recommended by: Katie Spofford, Young Adult and Reference Librarian at Wadleigh Memorial Library in Milford. “This inspiring tale touches lightly on issues women faced in the 1930s and includes a bookish romance.”

Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld
Published: May 2020
Plot: What if Hillary Clinton never married Bill? This alternate history imagines that, after several years of dating, Hillary decides to go her own way instead of tying her fate to Bill’s.
Recommended by: Caitlin Loving, Head of Circulation at Bedford Public Library. “Sittenfeld perfectly captures what I imagine Hillary’s inner voice sounds like and creates a completely compelling narrative. A perfect beach read for political junkies or anyone who wants a juicier version of HRC’s biography.”

We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry
Published: March 2020
Plot: The 1989 Danvers Field Hockey team will do anything to win the championship, even if that means summoning dark powers through an Emilio Estevez spiral notebook.
Recommended by: David Gain, bookseller at The Toadstool Bookshop in Nashua (375 Amherst St., toadbooks.com, 673-1734), and Caitlin Loving, Head of Circulation at Bedford Public Library. “This novel is hilarious and clever, but also heartwarming. Come for the comic relief and late ’80s references, stay for the true-to-life characters, female friendships and fist-pumping girl-power feels,” Loving said.

Romance

Beach Read by Emily Henry
Published: May 2020
Plot: A romance writer and a literary fiction writer spend the summer next door to each other and trade genres.
Recommended by: Tom Holbrook, manager at RiverRun Bookstore (32 Daniel St., Portsmouth, 431-2100, riverrunbookstore.com). “This is pretty light fare, but with a quick wit and some unexpected perceptions.”

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman
Published: July 2019
Plot: At the beginning, you might think Nina’s life is lonely, but by the end, you’ll see the richness of her new family and friends.
Recommended by: Amy Lapointe, Library Director at Amherst Town Library. “The quirky, sweet, introverted heroine of this romantic comedy will absolutely charm you.”

Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes
Published: June 2019
Plot: A widow and a washed-up professional athlete find themselves and each other.
Recommended by: Amy Lapointe, Library Director at Amherst Town Library. “Warm and uplifting … this book strikes just the right balance between romantic, humorous, quirky and sweet.”

The Happy Ever After Playlist by Abby Jimenez
Published: April 2020
Plot: Sloan and Jason have intense chemistry, exchange flirty texts and share a great sense of humor.
Recommended by: Amy Lapointe, Library Director at Amherst Town Library. “A fun beach read that might keep you up all night trying to see how the couple can get past their different situations.”

Not That Kind of Guy by Andie J. Christopher
Published: April 2020
Plot: A hard-working lawyer struggling with student loan debt and a failed relationship meets a wealthy younger man who understands her struggles without judgment.
Recommended by: Alexa Moore, Circulation & Reader Services Librarian at Amherst Town Library. “A fun, lighthearted romance with a realistic look at what a millennial dream romantic encounter would include.”

Nonfiction

Memoir

Dirt: Adventures in Lyon as a Chef in Training, Father, and Sleuth Looking for the Secret of French Cooking by Bill Buford
Published: May 2020
Plot: Buford’s memoir follows his trip with family to spend time in France trying to master French cooking.
Recommended by: Tom Holbrook, manager at RiverRun Bookstore.

Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through Every National Park by Conor Knighton
Published: April 2020
Plot: The author chronicles the year he spent visiting every national park.
Recommended by: Natalie Ducharme, interim director at Kelley Library in Salem. “[Knighton] brings the parks to life with humor and charisma.”

Little Weirds by Jenny Slate
Published: November 2019
Plot: A collection of essays from comedian and actress Jenny Slate about the little things that make us who we are.
Recommended by: David Gain, bookseller at The Toadstool Bookshop in Nashua. “Both profoundly deep and laugh-out-loud ridiculous, Slate shows us about our eccentricities and how they bring us all together.”

Running with Sherman: The Donkey with the Heart of a Hero by Christopher McDougall
Published: October 2019
Plot: The author tells his story about adopting a neglected donkey and giving it a new life and purpose as a burro racer.
Recommended by: Sarah St. Martin, Head of Technical Services at Manchester City Library. “I enjoyed how this story transcends cultures and generations. The author depicted otherwise ordinary people as charismatic characters drawn together to achieve a unified goal.”

Sigh, Gone: A Misfit’s Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In by Phuc Tran
Published: April 2020
Plot: Tran writes about growing up as an immigrant in a predominantly white Midwest town.
Recommended by: Jasmin Brooks, assistant manager at Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester, 836-6600, bookerymht.com). “Hilarious, poignant and inspiring, this book reads like a good work of fiction with real-world implications.”

Wow, No Thank You.: Essays by Samantha Irby
Published: March 2020
Plot: Upon turning 40 years old, Irby writes about aging, marriage and settling down in a small town.
Recommended by: Jasmin Brooks at Bookery and Katrina Feraco, frontline bookseller at The Toadstool Bookshop in Keene (12 Emerald St., 352-8815; toadbooks.com). “This collection of essays will help you fight the Covid blues by reminding you that you never really wanted to leave the house anyway. Irby uses self-deprecation to help us see that we are all hilariously imperfect beings,” Brooks said. “This collection of essays is heartfelt, funny and irreverent. Showcasing Irby’s charismatic voice and pitch-perfect storytelling, this book is perfect for a little bit of escapism and a lot of laughing,” Feraco said.

You & Me: Reflections on Becoming Your Dad by Dan Szczesny
Published: June 2020
Plot: Szczesny reflects on fatherhood and the passage of time as his young daughter grows up.
Recommended by: Yvette Couser, Library Director at Merrimack Public Library.

Select Topics

Beneath the Tamarind Tree: A Story of Courage, Family, and the Lost Schoolgirls of Boko Haram by Isha Sesay
Published: July 2019
Plot: A story about the faith and courage of the Nigerian school girls who were abducted by Boko Harum.
Recommended by: Prudence Wells, bookseller at The Toadstool Bookshop in Nashua. “This wonderful story… highlights the strength of the girls, families and communities.”

Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman
Published: June 2020
Plot: An exploration of the idea that humans are intrinsically kind and cooperative, despite the nightly news.
Recommended by: Tom Holbrook, manager at RiverRun Bookstore. “Obviously, a fresh, original take on our global situation.”

Splash!: 10,000 Years of Swimming by Howard Means
Published: June 2020
Plot: A look at the cultural and social history of swimming, from Egypt, ancient Greece and Rome and the Middle Ages to today’s Olympics.
Recommended by: Natalie Ducharme, Interim Director at Kelley Library in Salem. “A fun, readable book that helps us understand why water calls to us humans and why we can’t resist splashing in it.”

You Are Home: An Ode to the National Parks by Evan Turk
Published: June 2019
Plot: A journey across the country discovering the gifts and treasures hidden in our national parks.
Recommended by: Heidi Deacon, Library Director at Smyth Public Library in Candia. “For those who may not be able to visit any parks in person this summer, here is a beautiful way to discover them through the animals who inhabit them via lovely illustrations.”

Self-Help

How to Be Fine: What We Learned from Living by the Rules of 50 Self-Help Books by Jolenta Greenberg and Kristen Meinzer
Published: March 2020
Plot: The authors share their findings after testing out a variety of self-help methods to see what works and what doesn’t.
Recommended by: Sarah St. Martin, Head of Technical Services at Manchester City Library. “I liked being able to quickly scan multiple strategies rather than deep diving into one particular method. The authors use an entertaining and light style, even when presenting serious scenarios.”

Weird: The Power of Being an Outsider in an Insider World by Olga Khazan
Published: April 2020
Plot: Khazan discusses the sociology, psychology and power of being “weird,” and how the traits that make you feel like an outsider can actually help you stand out in the world and reach your greatest potential.
Recommended by: Jasmin Brooks, assistant manager at Bookery in Manchester. “Khazan’s writing is well-researched and very entertaining. … I learned a better way to celebrate and embrace my weirdness.”

Children’s

Picture Books

Happy Right Now by Julie Berry
Published: October 2019
Plot: A young girl shows us how to find gratitude and joy amidst the not-so-great moments of our lives.
Recommended by: Heidi Deacon, Library Director at Smyth Public Library in Candia. “What a beautiful way to share with children that we all have things that try to rob our happiness … [and how] to march right past them into living … in thankfulness every moment.”

The Hike by Alison Farrell
Published: October 2019
Plot: Three little friends and one eager pet go hiking and find a trove of delights along the way.
Recommended by: Heidi Deacon, Library Director at Smyth Public Library in Candia. “This darling tale shows the spirit of adventure outdoors and what surprises are around each corner.”

I’m Sorry! by Barry Timms, illustrated by Sean Julian
Published: March 2020
Plot: Two best friends, an owl and a squirrel, must learn how to live together in a shared space, despite their differences.
Recommended by: Heidi Deacon, Library Director at Smyth Public Library in Candia. “As these two sweet creatures discover, their respect and love for each other win, and they realize that compromise is better than they imagined it could be.”

Llama Unleashes the Alpacalypse by Jonathan Stutzman, illustrated by Heather Fox
Published: May 2020
Plot: As a llama goes through his day and prepares his many meals, chaos ensues.
Recommended by: Betsy Vecchi, Head of Children’s Services at Pelham Public Library. “It is very funny for both grownups and kids, and we all need some humor these days.”

Sofia Valdez, Future Prez by Andrea Beaty, illustrated by David Roberts
Published: November 2019
Plot: A little girl named Sofia decides to do something about the trash heap in her town, so she goes to City Hall to demand change.
Recommended by: Daniele Guest, Youth Librarian at Kimball Library in Atkinson. “A clever, well-written rhyme scheme and cute illustrations … [and a message] of empowerment for kids, [which] feels especially valuable today.”

Summer Song by Kevin Henkes, illustrated by Laura Dronzek
Published: April 2020
Plot: A book about the magic of summer.
Recommended by: Katharine Nevins, owner of MainStreet BookEnds (16 E. Main St., Warner, 456-2700, mainstreetbookends.com). “The perfect read-aloud book for bedtime and to snuggle with an amazed child.”

Things That Go Away by Beatrice Alemagna
Published: March 2020
Plot: This book shows kids that all things — good and bad — will eventually go away, except for a parent’s love.
Recommended by: Patty Falconer, Children’s Librarian at Dover Public Library. “A very timely book with an important lesson for everyone to learn.”

When Grandpa Gives You a Toolbox by Jamie L.B. Deenihan, illustrated by Lorraine Rocha
Published: March 2020
Plot: A boy is disappointed with his grandfather’s gift until he learns that he can use it to build exactly what he wanted with his own two hands, with a little help from his grandfather.
Recommended by: Yvette Couser, Library Director at Merrimack Public Library. “A clever story that celebrates kindness, hard work and community.”

Wild Honey from the Moon by Kenneth Kraegel
Published: November 2019
Plot: A mother shrew goes to the moon to find the medicine that will heal her child.
Recommended by: Nancy Sheridan, Children’s Services Librarian at Colby Memorial Library in Danville. “Beautifully illustrated with intricate details, this book is a comforting adventure … that shows that there are no limits to a mother’s love.”

Middle Grade

Contemporary Fiction

The Best at It by Maulik Pancholy
Published: October 2019
Plot: Rahul Kapoor is on a search to be the best at something, and it has to be cool.
Recommended by: Ji-Eun Alice Ahn at Water Street Bookstore (125 Water St., Exeter, 778-9731, waterstreetbooks.com). “[It’s] about following your instincts, [being] who you are without fear and allowing yourself the room to breathe if something gets to be too much.”

Chirp by Kate Messner
Published: February 2020
Plot: Twelve-year-old Mia moves to Vermont and spends her summer making new friends, helping her grandmother with her cricket farm, solving a mystery and finding the courage to speak up about a past trauma.
Recommended by: Patty Falconer, children’s librarian at Dover Public Library. “This book deals with a sensitive subject in a very accessible way for young children, and it is wrapped up in a mystery.”

Con Quest! by Sam Maggs
Published: June 2020
Plot: Two friends attend the most popular comic con in the world and set out to win The Quest, a giant scavenger hunt that requires participants to complete odd and bizarre tasks, so they can meet one of their favorite celebrities.
Recommended by: Alexa Moore, Circulation & Reader Services Librarian at Amherst Town Library. “This is a fun, fast-moving story that makes you really want to dive into the world of fandoms. My favorite part [is] trying to identify all the fandoms represented throughout this book and chuckling at the cleverness.”

Here in the Real World by Sara Pennypacker
Published: February 2020
Plot: Ware prefers to spend his time alone, dreaming of other worlds, but when his parents sign him up to spend the summer at the rec center against his will, he must learn how to find his place in the real world.
Recommended by: Heather Weirich Roy, children’s book buyer at Gibson’s Bookstore. “This is a sweet book for all the introverts and kids that see the world in a different way.”

The Lonely Heart of Maybelle Lane by Kate O’Shaughnessy
Published: March 2020
Plot: Maybelle has never met her father. When she learns he is judging a singing contest in Nashville, she becomes determined to overcome her stage fright and embarks on a road trip to Louisiana to sing in the contest.
Recommended by: Patty Falconer, children’s librarian at Dover Public Library. “I’m a sucker for a road trip book.”

Mañanaland by Pam Muñoz Ryan
Published: March 2020
Plot: A young boy, seeking answers about his missing mother, finds himself on a perilous journey to help someone in danger that will test his strength, courage and determination.
Recommended by: Betsy Covert, children’s book buyer at The Toadstool Bookshop in Keene. “A beautiful tale, lightly brushed with magic, that speaks to the heart and reverberates with issues faced by contemporary society.”

The One and Only Bob by Katherine Applegate
Published: May 2020
Plot: Three zoo animals discover the meaning of friendship and family as they set out on a dangerous journey after their zoo is hit by a hurricane.
Recommended by: Heather Weirich Roy, children’s book buyer at Gibson’s Bookstore in Concord.

Fantasy

A Royal Guide to Monster Slaying by Kelley Armstrong, illustrated by Xavière Daumarie
Published: August 2019
Plot: Royal twins — one destined to be the ruler of her kingdom, and the other a Royal Monster Slayer — long to switch roles. When a family tragedy forces them into battle with both humans and monsters, the twins must work together to save their kingdom.
Recommended by: Nancy Sheridan, children’s services librarian at Colby Memorial Library in Danville. “Not only is this rollicking adventure full of humor, nonstop action and plenty of monsters, but it turns traditional roles upside down.”

Graphic Novel

Cub by Cynthia L. Copeland
Published: January 2020
Plot: An aspiring journalist apprentices at her local newspaper while balancing family, friends and romantic interests during her middle school years in the 1970s.
Recommended by: Katrina Feraco, frontline bookseller at The Toadstool Bookshop in Keene. “A charming and relatable read [that’s] perfect for middle grade readers and those who enjoy graphic novels.”

The Okay Witch by Emma Steinkellner
Published: September 2019
Plot: The daughter of a witch starts to develop special powers of her own and must learn how to navigate the world of magic.
Recommended by: Daniele Guest, youth librarian at Kimball Library in Atkinson. “The theme of the book … [is] valuing your roots, knowing your history and using that knowledge to choose how to move forward.”

Stand Up, Yumi Chung! by Jessica Kim
Published: March 2020
Plot: Eleven-year-old Yumi, an aspiring comedian, struggles with stage fright, a moral dilemma and pressure from her parents to excel academically and help out at their family restaurant.
Recommended by: Azra Palo, Head of Youth Services at Nesmith Library in Windham, and Betsy Covert, children’s book buyer at The Toadstool Bookshop in Keene. “A fun relatable book just in time for summer,” Palo said. “Full of well-rounded characters and tons of humor,” Covert said.

Stargazing by Jen Wang
Published: September 2019
Plot: A girl, who has visions of celestial beings telling her she belongs among the stars, develops an unlikely friendship with her new next-door neighbor.
Recommended by: Angela Sylvia, technical services staff at Bedford Public Library. “Wang’s cartoony art gives vibrant life to a middle school tale of friendship.”

This Was Our Pact by Ryan Andrews
Published: June 2019
Plot: Ben wants to fit in, but social outcast Nathaniel just won’t leave him alone. When the two of them make a pact to find out where their floating lanterns go every year after the equinox festival, they’ll have to work together to make it back home.
Recommended by: Rachel Stover, office assistant at Manchester City Library. “Full of charming illustrations and a quiet wonder reminiscent of works by Studio Ghibli. A great pick-me-up for fans of magical realism.”

Young Adult

Contemporary Fiction

Paul, Big, and Small by David Glen Robb
Published: October 2019
Plot: Three high school misfits find solace in rock climbing and learn how to face their bullies.
Recommended by: Katie Spofford, Young Adult and Reference Librarian at Wadleigh Memorial Library. “A heartwarming story of friendship and finding advantages in the disadvantages.”

Tweet Cute by Emma Lord
Published: January 2020
Plot: Two high school students at a highly competitive private school in New York City try to navigate the pressures of school while also helping their respective family businesses after a Twitter feud begins between the two competing businesses.
Recommended by: Alexa Moore, Circulation & Reader Services Librarian at Amherst Town Library. “This adorable romance accurately portrays the pressure students feel in high school and the difficulty they have balancing school, work, friends and family.”

Graphic Novel

Check, Please!, Book 2: Sticks & Scones by Ngozi Ukazu
Published: April 2020
Plot: An unlikely romance develops between a closeted gay professional athlete and a baking college athlete.
Recommended by: Lincoln Wert, bookseller at The Toadstool Bookshop in Keene. “The support shown from [the main characters’] friends and family is fantastic and entertaining. The artwork and writing work perfectly together to tell this fun story.”

Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell, illustrated by Faith Erin Hicks
Published: August 2019
Plot: Two friends are determined to make their last Halloween working at the pumpkin patch together count — one, by talking to his longtime crush, and the other, by eating every fair food she can get her hands on.
Recommended by: Angela Sylvia, technical services staff at Bedford Public Library. “A hilarious graphic novel about friendship and last chances, with detailed, expressive art.”

Bookstores
• Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S. Main St., Concord, 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com)
• Bookery (844 Elm St., Manchester, 836-6600, bookerymht.com)
• RiverRun Bookstore (32 Daniel St., Portsmouth, 431-2100, riverrunbookstore.com)
• The Toadstool Bookshop (375 Amherst St., Nashua, 673-1734; 12 Emerald St., Keene, 352-8815; toadbooks.com)
.• Water Street Bookstore (125 Water St., Exeter, 778-9731, waterstreetbooks.com)

Libraries
As of June 15, the Governor’s Economic Re-Opening Task Force has permitted libraries to reopen their physical locations to the public, with some precautions. Not all libraries have reopened yet, but those that remain closed may have alternative ways to check out books, such as curbside pickup for hard copies or virtual platforms for e-book borrowing. Check with your local library for updates on how it is operating.

Book Review 20/6/18

Somebody’s Gotta Do It, by Adrienne Martini (Henry Holt & Co., 240 pages)

On one hand, Adrienne Martini suffered from terrible timing, her new book coming out amid a global pandemic.

On the other, it’s a book about running for public office, and it’s out amid the most social unrest since the 1960s. Hillary Clinton tweeted about it. By these measures, it should be on everyone’s best-seller lists.

Somebody’s Gotta Do It is Martini’s account of running for — and winning — a decidedly unsexy office: district representative for Otsego County in rural New York. It’s also a call for you to stop the doomsday scrolling and do the same, wherever you live. This is not just because the world seems to be imploding before our eyes, but because of what Martini calls “a ripe, juicy opportunity ready to be plucked,” the redistricting that will happen next year, establishing electoral maps for the next decade.

Before your eyes glaze over at the prospect of being lectured to by the District 12 representative from Otsego County (home to Cooperstown, if you’re trying to place it), know that Martini is genuinely funny, despite being a middle-aged woman who knits. A marathon runner who writes a biweekly column called Dry Martini on a running website (anothermotherunner.com), she is a reliable source of a laugh. That said, if you disagree with her political views and can’t take jokes aimed at your team, steer clear; you will only get angry. A previous memoir, 2010’s Sweater Quest: My Year of Knitting Dangerously, may have the distinction of being the only knitting memoir savaged by Amazon reviewers for being too political. “If you want to tell the world of your political views, then WRITE A POLITICAL BOOK,” one said.

Regardless of your political leanings, Somebody’s Gotta Do It is a fine manual for the aspiring politician (or public servant, if you’re less cynical than me). It begins with Martini’s meltdown after the election of President Donald Trump. (The president’s supporters would call this the onset of Trump Derangement Syndrome.) Suffice it to say, Martini was not pleased, and after the inauguration, she decided it was high time she got involved in the political process.

The campaign itself was revelatory. But so was plunging into the work. At the first budget session for new members, during which she realized that the salt-and-sand budget for her county “could pay for my house three times over,” she concluded that running for office was kind of like pregnancy, in that she had spent nine months being “obsessed with the wrong things.”

“I owned every book on pregnancy and delivery, but had no skills or knowledge about, you know, infants.” Similarly, she said, “I’d approached running for office armed with research and numbers and opinions about how to win, rather than collecting information about what happens once you’re sworn in.”

While much of the book is about her own experiences, Martini delves a little into history, including the violence done to women’s suffragists, and also research on the gender divide in elected office. Although more women than men go to college, fewer hold public office, because fewer of them run. Martini suggests that this is as much about a lack of confidence as it is lack of role models. “Give every woman the confidence of a middle-class white guy, and we’ll run the world,” she writes. However, when women do run, they’re as likely as men to win. It’s just getting them to agree to be on the ballot that’s the problem, she said. That looks to be changing, at least among pro-choice Democrats. The political action committee Emily’s List reported that 920 women asked for information on running for office in 2016; in 2018 the number was 26,000.

Martini shines when applying her “Dry Martini” wit to the indignities of seeking office, as in her list of things she learned while doing that quintessential politician task: knocking on doors. One person, she reports, told her they couldn’t open the door because everyone in the house had tuberculosis, “which can’t possibly be true, but whatever.” The humor, however, comes and goes amid instruction on how to ask people for donations, design mailings, and answer seemingly impossible questions such as, “What would you do to combat the opioid epidemic in the county?” If we get a little impatient between jokes, it’s because we’ve been conditioned for them and expect them at the end of every paragraph, a la Sedaris.

In addition to learning how to run for public office, readers of Someone’s Gotta Do It will emerge with fresh revulsion for the typical coroner system, in which people of any background can be elected to determine how someone died, so long as they’re 18 or older and live in the county.

Martini’s revulsion for that system, however, is surpassed by her revulsion to Trump, whose election, she writes, left her literally shaking.

Like the nonplussed knitters upset by Martini’s political leaning in her previous memoir, some people won’t be able to get past the Trump hate to find anything useful or inspirational here. But for those who can, or those who share her views, Somebody’s Gotta Do It is a breezy, informative look at the grassy roots of politics, with the cheerleading of an overweight marathon runner who knows what it’s like to persevere while in pain. “Running very slowly while crying is still moving forward,” she writes. “So is walking while muttering [expletive, expletive, expletive].” B+

Covers for two books. Salvage the Bones, handwritten font tangled in the black silhouette of a tree, a swirly blue sky and yellow ground. The cover for Difficult Women, a black background with thin light pink font, and a heart made from pink color splashes.

BOOK NOTES
The most interesting thing in publishing last week was not in book stores but on Twitter through the hashtag #publishingpaidme.

The hashtag started as a means to expose disparity between advances paid to black and white authors, but wound up also showing differences between genres, and also the courage of authors who chose to participate.

Roxane Gay, a black writer of fiction and nonfiction, said she was paid $15,000 for her 2014 essay collection Bad Feminist, $100,000 for 2017’s Hunger: A Memoir of My Body, and $150,000 for The Year I Learned Everything, expected next year.

Those numbers horrified Mandy Len Catron, an American writer and professor currently living in British Columbia, who revealed that she received a $400,000 advance for her 2017 memoir How to Fall in Love With Anyone.

For perspective, Catron confesses that she was “a totally unknown white woman with one viral article” — which was “To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This,” published in The New York Times in 2015. Without revealing sales numbers, Catron also said that three years later she is “laughably far from earning out that advance.”

I wish I could recommend we all buy a copy of How to Fall in Love With Anyone just to support Catron for her honesty. But I just found my review from three years ago, and all I could muster was a “B.” Better to buy something written by Gay (I gave her 2017 short-story collection Difficult Women an A) or anything by novelist Jesmyn Ward.

Ward revealed on Twitter that her advance for 2011’s Salvage the Bones, which won a National Book Award, was $20,000 — about $13,000 less than the average car loan taken out this month.

Book Review 6/11/2020

Breath, The New Science of a Lost Art, by James Nestor (Riverhead, 304 pages)

The pandemic has forced publishers to delay the release of dozens of books that didn’t seem appropriate to bring to market as a potentially deadly respiratory disease was spreading.

No such problem for Breath, journalist James Nestor’s examination of how generations of us became mouth-breathers, and how the practice is ruining our looks and our health. You with the sleep apnea. Me with the perpetually clogged sinuses. Nestor bids us to breathe only through our nose, “the gatekeeper of our bodies, pharmacist to our minds and weather vanes to our emotions,” and to adopt a pace of inhaling and exhaling that comprises what he calls “the perfect breath.”

There’s a formula that seems to show God likes math: Inhale 5.5 seconds, exhale 5.5 seconds equals 5.5 breaths a minute, for a total consumption of about 5.5 liters of air.

Some years ago, Nestor became interested in a subset of extreme athletes called freedivers, people who can hold their breath for more than five minutes and dive deep in the ocean without breathing equipment. His exploration of that culture led to 2014’s Deep, Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves. He also took a class in mindful breathing that, while boring at the time, resulted in more focus and calm the next day.

So he began studying super-breathers, people who believe that how we breathe is intimately connected to how healthy we are, and noticing the differences between them and ordinary people who can hold their breath for maybe 20 seconds without thinking they’re going to explode.

And he concluded that most of us don’t really know how to breathe, even though we do it 50,000 times a day. We breathe sloppily, through whatever orifice happens to be open at the time. We take short, shallow breaths, many more times a minute than necessary. We can breathe like this, but we’re not meant to, Nestor argues. And the combination of a soft, modern diet that doesn’t require energetic chewing, and poor breathing habits, is rearranging our skulls, not for the better, he says.

This is not a new idea. In 1862, an artist named George Catlin traveled through reservations of native Americans and documented their remarkable good health and straight teeth, which in his book The Breath of Life he attributed to breathing only through the nose. The native Americans, like other civilizations 1,000 years before Christ, were convinced that mouth breathing led to ill health. Mothers would watch their sleeping babies and gently pinch their mouths closed if they opened, so children would grow into adults who only breathed through their noses.

If this seems weird, you should know that there live among us modern humans who put a piece of tape on their mouths before going to bed at night, to achieve the same goal. For a while, Nestor was among them.

As part of his research, he became half of a two-subject study to monitor the effects of spending 10 days breathing only through his mouth, and then 10 days breathing only through his nose.

Nestor emerged from his experiment convinced that the ancients were right, that we sacrifice much of our health and vitality by ignoring the quiet, constant intake of air, which we take for granted until our capacity becomes diminished. Research has shown that we absorb 18 percent more oxygen when we breathe through our nose than through our mouth. Air taken in through the nostrils is substantively different from air processed through the mouth.

Believers include a Silicon Valley dentist who tells his patients that chronic mouth breathing causes periodontal disease, cavities and bad breath and suggests that they use “sleep tape” on their mouth at night to break the habit, and a woman convinced that breathing therapy can heal scoliosis, among other conditions.

The modern tendency to breathe with both the nose and the mouth has effects beyond our perpetually clogged noses. Our nasal cavity atrophies when it’s not robustly used, and even our lungs suffer when we’re not using them to their potential; they further deteriorate with age. But, according to Nestor, and the Tibetians, “The internal organs are malleable, and we can change them at nearly any time.” Exercise helps, and so does proper breathing, which can also decrease anxiety and improve sleep, among myriad other improvements, Nestor promises. It did for him, although he warns that there is no breathing exercise that can dissolve an embolism or heal cancer. In short, better breathing can improve your life, but not save it.

“The glories of nasal breathing” is not the sexiest topic, but Nestor is persuasive and his narrative sings, at least for the first hundred or so pages. Later, he drills down into techniques he calls Breathing+, which he admits is a sort of “respiratory gauntlet” and not nearly as appealing as shutting your mouth and counting to 5½.

But in a culture where some of us are so perpetually stressed and distracted that we forget to breathe for a half-minute — a phenomenon known as “email apnea” — we could use a breathing coach. Breath suggests that we should all shut our mouth, but for eating and brushing our teeth. B+

BOOK NOTES
For a couple of pleasant hours during the last week of May, it looked like the nation was going to turn its eyes to … birdwatching.
Before rage over the death of George Floyd exploded nationwide, rage over Amy Cooper’s tirade against birdwatcher Christian Cooper in Central Park had spun off a delightful Twitter diversion, #Blackbirdersweek.
The virtual celebration was begun by a Georgia grad student, Corina Newsome, who studies seaside sparrows. It was quickly eclipsed by other, more momentous events, but in times of trauma there seems something healing in putting down the phone and picking up the binoculars. And there are a couple of new books out to assist.
Celebrated nature writer Jennifer Ackerman’s The Bird Way is an examination of how birds “talk, work, play, parent and think” (Penguin, 368 pages). And Massachusetts naturalist David Allen Sibley has a new guide called What It’s Like to Be a Bird (Knopf, 240 pages). And Todd Telander has written a new Falcon Pocket Guide called Birds of New England (Falcon Guides, 192 pages).
Useful as they are, none of these are selling as well as the new Hunger Games prequel, Suzanne Collins’ The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
Meanwhile, it’s not as useful as a $1,200 stimulus check, but Publishers Weekly, the venerable trade magazine about books and publishing, recently made its digital edition available for free to anyone who signs up on its website. It’s not clear how long this will last; the website says “free during the Covid-19 crisis.” But there’s an extraordinary amount of content that is usually behind a paywall, including current and past bestseller lists and a database of reviews going back to 1895. Not bad in exchange for an email address.
Another pandemic freebie is available from Audible, which has made a collection of children’s stories free “as long as school is on pause.” Go to stories.audible.com.

Category: Books