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This is a 200 page prose-poem in which nothing happens. And what doesn’t happen is so deeply observed and poetically revealed it reminded me a bit of Nicholson Baker’s The Mezzanine. But its a very different book. It’s hard to describe what it’s about exactly. The devolution of identity I suppose, in the context of what Vonnegut, in Cat’s Cradle, called a duprass: “A valuable instrument for gaining and developing, in the privacy of an interminable love affair, insights that are queer but true,” and “a sweetly conceited establishment.” That’s kind of like what’s depicted here, except the duprass of Bell and Sigh in Seven Steeples is dingy and somehow dark. I suppose any life this closely and minutely detailed would be dingy in its way, and maybe that’s the point. As a somewhat fastidious person I was definitely grossed out from time to time.

And then …

This, the third book in a series, was the first I read. I didn’t even know it was part of a series at first. I was at the Changing Hands bookstore in uptown Phoenix picking up a gift for a friend several years ago when the cover caught my eye. It’s a beautiful, evocative cover, but also Beverly in this picture looks so much like my wife did when she was fourteen — when I first met her. She had the same sad and expressive eyes. I knew and admired Kate DiCamillo from Because of Winn-Dixie and The Tale of Despereaux, so I bought the book.

I’m not sure what I expected, but what I found is one of my favorite works of children’s literature. Beverly, Right Here is a remarkable book. Beverly is a remarkable character. She is tough, courageous, and hurting. She’s sometimes badly behaved, and she …

This is the second in a trilogy of sorts, starting with Raymie Nightingale and ending with Beverly, Right Here. And while there are hints of magic in Raymie, Louisiana’s Way Home is full of it. It’s a self-aware fairy-tale set in the real world. And like all the books in the series, it tackles major themes and real tragedy with exquisite grace.

I honestly think DiCamillo’s work here is flawless, and this book, at the heart of the series, is itself driven by pure heart. It is set in a world full of peril, but full of beauty and kindness too. And it acknowledges that even those who hurt us aren’t all bad.

This is, perhaps, the thesis statement of the entire series:

The world was beautiful. It surprised me, how beautiful it kept on insisting on being. In spite of all the lies, it was beautiful.

There …

I love this book, and its sequels, Louisiana’s Way Home and Beverly Right Here, with my whole heart. I’ve read them several times. My daughter and her fiancee were reading them together, and kept quoting them to me until I decided I had to read them once more.

I love the way DiCamillo portrays a child’s universe. It is magical, dangerous, confusing, and full of meaning from unsuspected sources. And of course through my eyes it is just this here – the universe we all inhabit. It is Raymie’s perspective that brings back into it some of what I’ve long since forgotten.

Raymie is such a sweet child and her harebrained schemes are so pure in their intent and so honest in their execution that you can’t help but want them to succeed even though you know they cannot.

In the hands of a lesser author they very well …

I immediately followed The Parable of the Sower with this, its sequel and conclusion. This book is more cynical than Sower, perhaps in answer to criticism, or perhaps because it comes from the mind of an older author.

It cuts between perspectives and timelines, sometimes from the protagonist of the first novel, and sometimes from her adult daughter many years later. This is a clever trick for an epistolary novel. The struggles of the mother carry more weight as we have information she does not, information about her own future.

Having finished the pair, it is obvious to me why these stories are on so many favorites lists. They are deeply though-provoking, deeply compassionate, and ultimately deeply hopeful. I really needed some of that right now.

I’ve had a story idea rattling around in my head for years about a character with a supernatural degree of empathy. I was talking to a friend about this idea and he mentioned Octavia Butler’s Parable series. If you haven’t read them, they revolve around a young woman with a “hyper-empathy” condition – she feels acutely the pleasure and pain of those around her. This is not the central driver of the plot, but it is an interesting characterization, and an idea I’ve been fascinated by for years.

This post-apocalyptic story is strangely prescient, a novel written in the 80s that you would swear is imagining a near-future post-Trump America. But that also isn’t the central driver of the plot.

Rather, this story is driven by Earthseed, a quasi-religion that seems to be loosely influenced by Buddhism, but with an evangelical flavor. I really admired Butler’s frank and self-assured …

A recommendation from my poet-child, Isabel, Red Comet is an intense and deeply engrossing thousand-page biography of Sylvia Plath. Full disclosure: I’ve never seriously read Plath’s poetry. I’ve never even read The Bell Jar. (Both I plan to remedy soon).

Red Comet twines Plath’s poetry with her life story. Given the deeply personal and autobiographical nature of her poetry, this turns out to be a beautiful way to come to understand her better. All along, as we read about her life, we read as well about what she was writing. This is sometimes deeply revealing, and sometimes shockingly incongruent, which speaks both to her honesty and her craft. I only wish everybody left us such a passionate inscrutable delirious treasure map to their psyche. As often happens with biographies, I came away with such an admiration for Plath’s unique brilliance.

And that brings us to the end. Like …

This book was on my list and I can’t for the life of me remember how it got there. But still, I’m glad it did. I knew absolutely nothing about it going in. Based only on the name I expected something more philosophical. What I got was a kind of story I adore: A deep and sometimes obsessive dive into one little nook of the human experience (in this case, life on an early 20th century gunboat) wrapped up in an intense, character-driven story.

In a way it reminded me of Nevil Shute’s On The Beach—one of my favorite novels—in the minutia and the introspective protagonist. I wouldn’t say The Sand Pebbles is as good (to me) as that, but it is very good.

Content warning: this book (authentically) portrays major anti-Chinese racism in its characters.

It’s a book that made me sit quietly and think for some time …

A friend recommended this to me. I read The Omnivore’s Dilemma years ago and really enjoyed it. This book is also a nice read, in line with what I expect from Pollan: Light science and history, in a thoughtful and somewhat poetical context. I especially liked the section on the Apple, with its side eye at some classic American hagiography.

All in all a fun and interesting read.

Something I read recently led me to Li Bao’s beautiful poem, “Zazen on Ching-t’ing Mountain”. I took a note to seek out more. For those who don’t know (I didn’t), Bao (sometimes spelled Po) was an 8th century Chinese poet, and one of the most beloved figures in Chinese literary history. I am, sadly, unable to read the originals so I compared a few poems from a few collections. The translations of David Hinton were my favorite. So I read his book, The Selected Poems of Li Po.

This is a full and diverse collection. Some of it philosophical, like this from Autumn River Songs:

Looking down at the river flowing past,

I call out to its waters: So how is it
you’ll remember nothing of me, and yet

you’d carry this one handful of tears
so very far— all the way to Yang-chou?

Some of it …

This book is a novel length, often funny, sometimes touching illustration of the double empathy problem. At times you’ll find Cassandra annoying, but usually you’ll just want to cheer for her as she comes to the inevitable realization. The story is occasionally too tidy, but it is charming enough that I didn’t mind. And <spoiler>the mysterious-other-person subplot</spoiler> is genuinely moving and rewarding.