Review 301: Bound for Canaan

Bound for Canaan: The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America's First Civil Rights Movement by Fergus M. Bordewich
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Definitely an Epic Story! Well researched and well written history all about underground railroad from the early beginnings and until it dismantled with the start of the Civil War. This wasn't a fast read by any means, took me almost an entire month, but it was fascinating and gripping at moments.

Interesting fact: the underground railroad predates railroads in the country. Once the railroad (steel and metal kind) became something used as transportation the language became tied to the movement of helping people escape and find their way to freedom, often in Canada.

I'm so glad I read this book as my understanding was vague before, knowing the general gist of this transformative movement along with a few of the key people. The book covers many of the people who were significant in helping develop networks to help people find freedom and yet are lesser known. This was an excellent book to learn about this awful time in American history.

Review 300: The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections

The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections by Eva Jurczyk
My rating: 2.75 of 5 stars

A mystery: who took the old, very expensive, book the library just purchased? It was supposed to be in the safe! The library director had a stroke, remained in the hospital in a coma and Liesl Weiss is now acting director. She’s having a hard time with colleagues undermining her authority and the university president strongly claiming police must not be called. Liesl has her hands full already, but now Miriam has turned up missing. Could the missing book be related?

The story has all the elements to be a great read, but it missed the mark for me. There are brief moments of “fifteen years ago” (or something similar) as an awkward way to bring in backstory. I was frustrated with Liesl’s way of dealing with the situation and it hardly got better for me with the main character. Turned out to be a mediocre read for me, despite loving the setting.

Although I listened to the audiobook from the library, I want to thank Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.

Review 299: Damnation Spring

Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson
My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

Redwoods are my favorite trees, so approaching a book about cutting down these majestic giants did leave me with some trepidation. My thought was there would be an epiphany for the main characters, something with hope. It didn’t turn out that way.

Set in the late 1970s, an aging Rich and younger wife Colleen have a young son nicknamed Chub, they struggle to get by as money is always tight. Colleen is obsessed with having another child, distraught over it and she serves as a mid-wife to the small logging community, yet whenever she is around a pregnant woman, she feels anguish and longing. She lost many herself, eight all told, with the last one being the most difficult for her and Rich. He shuns her sexually now, not wanting her to become pregnant again.

Meanwhile Rich’s occupation of logging is becoming hampered by the state park and the few places left to harvest the giant redwoods they name “pumpkins”. These trees bring in the payday, as they are paid by board feet. Rich takes a chance to purchase one of the last areas of land with some trees and one really large pumpkin still standing. Without telling Colleen Rich takes out a loan, using the last of their savings as a deposit, now if he could only get a road in order to bring out the trees once downed and cut, they’d be set.

Colleen’s ex-boyfriend turns up, a scientist who’s back to help out with his mom who has cancer. He starts talking about chemicals in the water, all the spraying that is done to keep down the “weed” trees, the damage it does to animals, to people. His presence brings up questions for everyone.

The book felt belabored at times. There was too much daily detail and not enough thrust of a plot. We have short chapters with Chub’s viewpoint that don’t add very much to the story other than length. When the plot starts moving forward it then falters and stalls with more characters and situations that don’t add to the overall arch of the story. The end of the book throws in some drama that seemed unnecessary and didn’t save the book for me at all.

Review 298: The Glitter in the Green

The Glitter in the Green: In Search of Hummingbirds by Jon Dunn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is dense! Full of the hunt for hummingbirds along with history, science, and tales about these little birds. Jon Dunn travels around the Americas searching for specific types of hummingbirds, such as a Spatuletail or Coquette. Along the way we get stories: such as how this particular bird was discovered, or a societal association (often how the birds were being used by humans), or a little bit on his own travels. When reading the book you cannot help but to learn a little something about these tiny birds.

The book felt more geared towards birders than someone new to bird watching, but it isn’t just for them. The stories of how Dunn is successful, or not, in finding the right bird propels the narrative along. We meet some people along the way, not in any depth, but they are caretakers of the hummingbirds. I was surprised to find there are several places in South America that cater to the travelers searching for specific species of hummingbirds, so hummingbirds are feed and looked after.

The print book should contain some images, likely from the author himself and he is known for being a nature photographer. My copy did not have photos, as I listened to the audiobook. The narration was well done.

Review 297: Mister Abracadabra

Mister Abracadabra by Charonne Wali
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

North of Moon…South of the Earth…East of the Sun…and West of the North Star…Abracabraland!

Tommy and Suzie are getting tucked into bed and have many questions for mom. After she leaves the room they wish and wish, then a bright star comes down and into their room appears Mister Abracadabra. He takes them on a short journey across the universe to Abracadabraland, where they met a variety of characters. Here everything is alive and talks, benches, fishes, bridges, scarecrows, and everyone seems happy with the children.

They come across pirates in their adventure, who want gold or they must walk the plank, but the pirates turn our harmless with some of Mister Abracadabra’s magic. Soon the children realize they must return home and off they go back into their room and bed. 

It has a feeling of Peter Pan with a bit of other children classics mixed in. The illustrations have multitudes of colors and patterns mixed, it’s a busy blend of imagery. The writing fills up several pages, then turning the page you may see an image for the scene with a very small bit of writing repeated. There are chapters with this book too, although not exceedingly long.

Certainly I read this several times as a child, but it didn’t remain with me, as I forgot the book entirely. It is a whimsical book.

Review 296: I Must Betray You

I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A harrowing tale of what a tyrannical government looks like, told through the eyes of a teenage boy in Romania 1989. Everyone is trapped by the “Secu” security that enforces the draconian rules of the leader, which there are many. Everything is owned by the state, including the people. They are starved, brutalized and scared into silence, and nearly everyone could be an informer.

Cristian is put into a position where he must become an informer, despite how much he despises the system. “Paddle Hands” says he will get medicine for his sick grandfather, and really Cristian doesn’t have a choice, they knew he had a US Dollar bill, illegal to own foreign currency. Besides, Cristian would do anything for Bunu, his beloved grandfather.

This is a quick read, written for teenagers, which likely will be horrified as anyone would. Yet this is based on fact, what did happen not that long ago. Perhaps it is something that is happening now in other countries, like North Korea. Isolate the people from the rest of the world, control the media, control everything, then to enforce it have informants, a network of spies by the citizens themselves. They will fear everyone and can trust no one, they will behave. Until they don’t.

When the wall comes down in Germany and Communism collapses, Christian is wondering if the world will forget about Romania, will they be left alone?

Thanks to Philomel Books/Penguin Random House and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.

Review 295: The Annual Migration of Clouds

The Annual Migration of Clouds by Premee Mohamed
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A short book, novella that took nearly a third for me to feel grounded in this world; a post-climate change at some unknown point in the future, generations later.

We begin with teenage protagonist Reid who receives an acceptance letter to Howse University, a place in a dome. Everyone is elated for her, except her mother who says this is a fantasy, the place doesn’t exist. What is right? She would have to go out alone to get there, perhaps it is a ruse.

Reid, her mother, and many others are sick with a fungus. The semi-sapient fungus, Cad lives inside, sometimes controls the muscles, forces the infected to stay safe when needed, it appears with tree-link branches on your skin, passed on generation to generation.

This group of survivors live in an old university campus, taking classrooms or offices as living quarters. The community must all work together with some projects to make it work. It's a hard life. If Reid leaves it may harm the overall community, but if she went her life, their lives, could be improved. What does Reid choose, she only has two short weeks to get there, to decide.

I can see this being a start for another book extending out this world. The writing is decent, although as mentioned the setting took some time for me to feel settled into this world, a bit long for such a short book, which makes me hope there is more to this story.

Book rating: 3.5 stars

Review 294: The Paris Bookseller

The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An historical novel of the founder of Shakespeare & Company, an English bookstore in Paris France. Sylvia Beach is an American living between the wars in Paris and she went after what she desired: running a bookshop, having a relationship with a woman, and having writers as friends. A Lost Generation of American writers in Paris, though seems like a golden era now, circled around this bookstore, with it’s lending library a big part of the bookstore besides selling books.

The bulk of this novel centers on publishing Ulysses the novel by James Joyce, banned in America before it was even finished. Despite the massive difficulties in publishing the book, Sylvia felt it was an important piece of literature that must be published. Later the novel became a way to support the bookshop, and it did give it fame. Sylvia’s friendship with Joyce is also a main aspect of the book, along with her relationship with fellow bookstore owner Adrienne Monnier.

The one thing that somewhat irked me was Sylvia’s smoking. It did harm her health to some degree, but the frequency it was mentioned in the book seemed to signal graver health concerns due to the smoking. It’s not, but it makes me wonder why such significance of smoking was put into the book.

The extensive author’s note at the end helps to identify all that was fictional, with the attempt at more fact than fiction. Of course specific conversations are fiction, and there are other bits, but the main gist of the story are true events.

Thanks to Berkley Publishing and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.

Listened to the audiobook and found the narration done well, to my ears, with the French and Irish accents.

Review 293: Truly Like Lightning

Truly Like Lightning by David Duchovny
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This novel’s plot is centered around Bronson Powers, an ex-stuntman from Hollywood that inherited an extremely large plot of land in the desert next to Joshua Tree National Park. The catch was he had to become Mormon. Being an auto-didactic Bronson took the faith back to the original writings and created his polygamous family. It’s more blended than it looks, with several of the children from prior relationships and the women being bisexual.

Twenty years they lived harmoniously until a drugged-up woman on mescaline discovers their homestead. Working for a greedy megalomaniac developer she devises a convoluted plot to get their land. A test of homeschooling versus public school for a year, sending three of the children out into the “real world” along with one of the mothers. There is no way this is going to work out well for anyone involved. The family is doomed from the moment an outsider decided to interfere.

The book reads like an over-the-top farce at many points. It reminds me a bit of Hollywood, but who can blame an actor with an ex-stunt man at the heart of the tale. If you can go with the flow, then it becomes an exciting saga. There are layers contained and the book throws in plenty of social issues, with climate change and politics not being left out