BG's Reads

December 13, 2023

Searching For Happy by Venus Knight

Searching For Happy by Venus Knight is the author’s debut novel. This would be a great gift for someone or yourself for the holidays. It was simply a wonderful page-turner. Ms. Knight is Brooklyn, NY based and is a childhood friend of my sister. This talented writer has been writing short stories and poems for years, so of course, I had to get a copy and give it a read. It deals with the everyday struggles of a young woman, her mental instability, the causes, her crushing, emotionally and physically paralyzing symptoms and the brave steps she takes to find peace and help herself. And it was great reading a realistic book that takes place in Brooklyn, from an author that knows – Brooklyn!

The novel opens with a prologue called Mr. Charlie. A nice man, a veteran, married, living an ordinary, routine life, witnesses something he decides he has to make right. Mr. Charlie murders his coworker. Ok, so it starts off with a bang. Now as a reader, when I finish reading a prologue, it leaves me wondering about the story that follows, how the event fits into the rest of the plot. Right? So definitely, approaching chapter one, you’ll want to keep reading.

The main character, Happy Williams, a high school teacher, who is not doing well mentally, struggles to get through her daily routine. She lacks the drive to get out of bed in the morning, has panic attacks and self-worth issues. Having an abusive adoptive mother, in addition to being in a relationship with a married man, isn’t a help to Happy’s well-being. Happy knows that she isn’t alright. She knows she could be in a better place mentally. But how can she get there?

She doesn’t know the exact steps to take, but she follows her instincts, step by step. First a road trip to connect with her family, possibly to find answers about her past. And through this journey, things begin to unravel and fall into place for her. Throughout Happy’s trials and experiences, the author through her storytelling delves into what a person may experience with mental illness. This was woven into the story with humor and thoughtfulness. While reading, you are literally laughing out loud at some points and tearing up at others.

And oh, the prologue. It has the novel kicking off with a great exciting start and we know it is linked to the story in some way – but how? It begins to unfold with matching names, family history and revealed secrets. So, while you are enjoying and being moved by Happy’s journey, you have to pay attention as the answers unfold – I enjoyed that and it was well done. It all comes together, giving the reader closure. I’m not giving details on purpose, because I don’t want to spoil the read for you!

This book was just wonderfully written. It was funny, moving, relatable, and a page-turner. It’s not just the story that’s good – it’s just a nice literary ride! The language, the poetry – brilliantly done! Searching For Happy is a great debut from this author! Venus Knight definitely should write many more novels – can’t wait to read her next one!! Congratulations Venus!

October 29, 2023

Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu

BG’s Copy First Published 1872, Published by Pushkin Press 2020

It’s Halloween month and I recently went to see the play Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors, a spoof of Bram Stoker’s Dracula that was first published in 1897. The production was very entertaining and extremely funny. They even had Bram Stoker’s book on sale. But was anyone aware that there was a vampire story published by another Irish author in 1872? I wasn’t, until I found this title while browsing in the Posman Books store in Chelsea Market. Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu was published more than 25 years before Stoker’s novel.

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August 30, 2023

Drowning by T. J. Newman

Drowning written by author T J Newman, is an ex-flight attendant, so she really knows what the responsibilities and capabilities of flight attendants are. She brought them to the forefront of this story and gave them authentic power and relevance.

Crashed and submerged in the ocean, passengers aboard a commercial airplane come together to survive. The author educates us about the dynamics of the ocean, diving to its depths, and capabilities of underwater rescue. There are ten people aboard the submerged plane.

Will Kent and his eleven-year-old daughter, Shannon, are aboard a flight between Honolulu and his daughter’s summer camp in California. Minutes after take-off, one of the engines burst into flames, followed by system failures of the aircraft, forcing the crew to land on open water. They did not have the capability to turn around or reach anywhere else on land. Air traffic control is aware of their situation and approximate location, by way of the crew’s last communications. The crew has informed them they have to land on the ocean below them.

Will, an oil rig engineer is familiar with the environment and conditions of the ocean, and advises the surviving crew not to leave the cabin of the plane, which sounds crazy to the other passengers, who believe it’s the obvious course of action to go out to the open water away from the plane to be picked up by responding rescue crews. But Will explains that the engulfing fires outside combined with the trade winds over the open water, a slow-moving emergency raft or a person swimming, could not outmaneuver the unpredictable moving bodies of flames. Anyone going outside would eventually be burned alive. Some take his advice, some don’t. A short time after most of the passengers leave the plane, the engine explodes and the plane sinks to the ocean floor with the remaining passengers inside and the inferno above with the other passengers, with the rescue teams on their way.

Once submerged the author explains the dynamics of the ocean, how deep it is and the dangers of the pressure changes below. The ocean is broken into five zones, with the top five percent being the most inhabited sunlight zone. The remaining four were darker, colder, and subject to extreme pressure. Once the rescue teams arrived, they discovered that the plane was banked, nose down on the summit of a sunken volcano, that was now a broad shelf or cliff – they were within reach, 55 meters (180 ft) down. But how to get 10 people out of a sunken container without drowning them was the puzzle.

The co-protagonist in the novel is Will Kent’s wife, Chris, who is the owner of an underwater construction and rescue/recovery diving company. She is an expert diver and architect of new designs to fit unique situations that may arise in the marine environment. She believes her crew has the knowledge and capability to rescue the remaining crew and passengers of the submerged plane, however, being civilians among Navy and Coast Guard personnel, their expertise is sidelined and undermined, expending precious time and oxygen of the people below the surface. Not to mention failure could also mean compromising the vulnerable positioning of the submerged plane, sending it over the edge to the dark pressurized depths below.

The novel is fast paced, with technical mentions and explanations of the plane’s design, deep diving technique, and underwater rescue, which was interesting and intense. Relating this knowledge informed the reader just how dangerous and precarious the situation really was and that no one was safe, not the submerged passengers or those attempting rescue.

Simultaneously, on the emotional end, the experiences of the passengers and the plane’s crew are brought to life skillfully by the author, sometimes with tearjerking intensity. I loved the interactions between the passengers and the technical/rescue teams above, just great! Drowning by T J Newman is an action-packed thriller of a read, with tensions building right to the very end. I recommend this one for sure!

July 29, 2023

On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed

On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed, is part history and memoir by an insider, an African American’s prospective on Texas by a Texan. The author, Annette Gordon-Reed, is a proud Texan, because her family’s roots are in the state. It’s where her family has been for generations – It has been, and is, their home. But because of her family’s African heritage, she also is aware and mindful of the more layered history of the state of Texas and what was for generations an African American holiday in Texas, Juneteenth.

June 19th, 1865, shortened to Juneteenth, was the day that African Americans, held under the yoke of slavery, were told that they were free. It was two years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation (January 1865) and two months after the Confederate forces surrendered to the Union forces at Appomattox, Virginia. Major General Gordon Granger of the United States Army, arrived in Galveston Texas and issued General Order No. 3, which stated that all slaves were free with equality of personal and property rights and the relationship between master and slave was now employer and employee (do I have to tell you guys that the part in italics became a problem?)

The author relates the history of Texas and its racism toward people of color and especially those of African descent. Texas was formed by white settlers, who were originally welcomed by Mexican residents of the area (Tejanos) and the government of Mexico who wanted aid and protection against Native Americans. The white Texans, who embraced the enslavement of Africans and refused to end the practice, later fought against their Mexican allies to secede as an independent territory in 1836. This new Texan republic’s constitution welcomed all free white people with their slaves, said that all slaves would continue to be slaves in perpetuity, and excluded all free Africans and Indians from citizenship and privileges. Years later, in 1845, Texas would join the United States as a slave state and later, secede to form the Confederacy.

Put simply by the author, “Texas is a White Man”. They decided who claimed the country as their own and who had the right to be a citizen – they had the power and wrote the state’s constitution after all, solidifying their beliefs, enslaving others for generations. The author points out that General Order No. 3 was based on the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves “in states rebelling against the Union”. So, it only affected states in the Confederacy – ten in all – South and North Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, Virginia, Arkansas, and Texas. Slavery was still legal in slave states that did not secede – Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri and Delaware! Slavery was not abolished in all states until the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified by the necessary number of states (be aware, not all states ratified this amendment originally). And may I point out, even this amendment had an exception – “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, EXCEPT as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the US, or place subject to their jurisdiction”. The 13th Amendment stands as is to this day.

So, given this history, it is no surprise that white Texans resisted freeing their slaves or treating the African with any type of respect or equality. They believed that the African was inferior, and being enslaved to the superior race was a natural condition. The free labor of Blacks was intertwined with the success of the white economy of Texas. The author gives a history of the violence and discrimination of Black people and her family’s in the state of Texas throughout the years and after slavery as common practice, and how the holiday of Juneteenth was celebrated among Black Texans for generations.

This book gives an informative, interesting, personal family account of the history of Juneteenth in Texas and Texas itself. There is definitely more than one version of history, depending on who is telling it. This book is filled with personal, family, and local narratives from the author that gives a truly valuable, interesting inside view of history. On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed is really an excellent read!

June 1, 2023

WE HEREBY REFUSE: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration by Frank Abe and Tamiko Nimura

This graphic title, We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration, by Frank Abe and Tamiko Nimura, was also part of a panel of graphic novelists from the October 2021 Brooklyn Book Festival (see February 2023 post). The author, Frank Abe, explained he was born after World War II and his family did not speak of the internment camps. As American Japanese, patriotism, passive denial, and loyalty are their traits. He wrote this graphic novel to make the story more epic and make the reader feel more empathy for the characters. If a group of people don’t feel comfortable telling their story for whatever reason, it doesn’t mean their story isn’t worth telling. Therefore, this graphic history is so important.

It’s always hard for me to read about the history of injustice and ill-treatment of a group of people simply because of their race, ethnic background, religion or whatever. But I find it a necessary thing to do, especially if the account is being told by a member of that group. Learning about these events and keeping them in the sphere of our minds, may prevent anything like it from happening again.

We Hereby Refuse concentrates on the story of three young first generation Japanese Americans – they were born in the United States, describing their lives before being removed, their experiences in the camps and their release, 1942 – 1946. Hajime Jim Akutsu, 22, lived in a home his family owns in Seattle. The family owned a shoe repair business, and he was an engineering student in college. He was imprisoned for refusing to sign yes on a loyalty questionnaire. Hiroshi Kashiwagi, 19, lived with family on a farm outside Sacramento, with an ill father in a sanitorium. He was waiting to enroll in college. He resists government pressure to sign a loyalty oath, yields to family pressure to renounce his citizenship and must fight in courts to regain his status. Mitsuye Endo, 21, had a California state job, with a brother enlisted in the military and lived with her family in Sacramento. She filed a lawsuit contesting her imprisonment; it reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

An excellent narration is given of the events that lead to the roundup and their imprisonment. By law, immigrants from Japan were not allowed to apply for citizenship and they and their children became easy targets of hatred and bigotry during the war. The problem, these feelings didn’t just come from the general population, American politicians and leadership in the military also held bigoted views and acted upon them. Military zones were created excluding Japanese Americans and laws were created making internment or wartime incarceration legal.

The Japanese American Citizens League – JACL – made up of US born members of Japanese ancestry – capitulated to authorities, hoping to prove they were nothing like the enemy, even reporting people they thought were suspect and encouraged people to fill out and sign loyalty pledges. The leaders of this organization worked with authorities to have Japanese Americans relocated, encouraging them to accept relocation without a fight as a show of patriotism.

People of Japanese ancestry were sent to 16 sites on the western coast in temporary assembly centers until the Army’s Western Defense Command and Fourth Army Wartime Civil Control Administration (who comes up with these names?) could complete War Relocation Centers. They were told to bring only what they could carry. They lost everything – businesses, property, savings, jobs – and were not compensated. Leaders of the JACL became administrators of these centers.

Once moved to the Relocation Centers, one described as, located at a desolate location near the Oregon border with 64 blocks of wooden barracks, surrounded by barbed wire and watch towers, they were asked again to fill out questionnaires agreeing to serve in the military, if called, and pledging loyalty to the US government and renouncing loyalty to Japan. Many refused to sign this questionnaire, feeling that denouncing loyalty to Japan would be an admission of being loyal to Japan at some point. Some also took issue with pledging to serve in the military while they and their families were being segregated and held in these camps. If they were stripped of their rights as citizens, how could they be expected to serve in the military? Young Akutsu in particular, refused to sign both questions and was sent to prison for his resistance.

This graphic title, We Hereby Refuse, by Frank Abe and Tamika Nimura, gives an excellent account of the segregation and internment of Japanese Americans in these horrible camps. The detail of the conditions, treatment they endured and the resistance among them, is detailed and well researched. The illustrations and layout are also just excellent. As I said at the beginning of this post, we should all read about these events. Becoming aware and learning about our past helps us understand how our time may be similar or different. It gives us a point of reference, so that an internal alarm may go off, hopefully preventing anything like this from happening again. We Hereby Refuse, I hope you all give it a read.

May 2, 2023

A Prayer For The Crown Shy

A Prayer For The Crown Shy, is the second book from author Becky Chambers, telling the story of monk, Sibling Dex, and his robot companion, Mosscap. The first book was A Psalm For The Wild Built. As I explained in my May 2022 post, these novellas are in the sci-fi subgenre of solarpunk, environmentally-focused and optimistic, nature and technology grow in harmony. A Prayer For The Crown Shy continues Dex’s and Mosscap’s journey as they leave the forest and venture into the villages.

The story takes place on Panga, a moon with one continent which is half wilderness and half human inhabited. It’s a utopian world, where humans live in harmony with nature and everyone’s feelings and needs are considered. Sibling Dex, seeking personal fulfilment, travels to the forest and meets one of a population of robots, named Mosscap, separated from humans long ago. Mosscap and Dex decide to travel together and help one another – Mosscap in particular is on a scouting journey for the robot population, wanting to know how humans are coping without them.

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January 31, 2023

The Yeti by Rick Chester and Jack Douglas

The Yeti by Rick Chester and Jack Douglas, about climbers to Mount Everest, on the Nepalian side of the Himalayas, wasn’t what I expected at all. It’s not about climbers being picked off, one by one, by some gruesome beast, although the imposing threat of the creature is always there. It’s about Everest, the challenges of the climb and why men and women risk their lives to climb it. The Yeti is a soul-searching, action-packed adventure, sci-fi, thriller!

This thriller opens with two Sherpa in the mountains of Nepal, following very large tracks of something, which leads them to a fatally wounded climber, who tells them that a Yeh-Teh (snowman) attacked him before he dies. The Sherpa are not sure what to think, the Yeti are legend, not real.

Back in Rhode Island, Zach Hitchens, an evolutionary biology professor, plans to take a trip with his wife to Nepal to climb Mt Everest – his wife is the climber. Before they leave, she dies in an accident, and he decides to take the trip and have her ashes released on the mountain. As mentioned, his wife was the climber, and Zach throughout the story is the novice, who has climbed smaller peaks before but nothing like this.

Once in Nepal, the author introduces us to the climbers and Sherpa guides on Zach’s climbing outfit, and the steps they have to take to first acclimatize to ascend to Mt Everest, the equipment that must be used and the competition between other climbing outfits. The group first takes a small plane to the starting point, a Sherpa town of elevation 9,000 feet. They would then have to acclimatize, giving their bodies a chance to adjust to the higher elevations and then move higher on to Base Camp, which would take several days. Failure to acclimatize could result in altitude sickness, which would be fatal. The climbers would have to go through this process of acclimatization at each camp while climbing higher toward the summit. The doctor in Zach’s group also describes to he climbers the stages of hypothermia and snow blindness, very interesting! Loved the attention to detail.

At this Sherpa town, shrieks of something large is heard by one of the climbers overnight in the forest, and by morning, most of the group’s yaks were brutally ripped apart, slaughtered in their pen, with the ones left, huddled in a corner in fear. The lead Sherpa guide tells the group that only one beast can kill in this manner – the Yeti. Zach, and the other climbers, of course just shrug this off as another myth believed by local, superstitious people.

As they climb up higher and higher from Base Camp to Camp 1 and beyond, they continue to hear loud noises, shrieks that don’t sound like rock fall or avalanche. We also get to know the individual climbers and why they are on this mountain risking their lives. Some are on the mountain because they don’t want to face the reality of the world below – Zach continually struggled with the circumstances of his wife’s death. Some were trying to prove their worth. And, a couple climbers were on the mountain to find the elusive Yeti.

The author also visits the past of the creature and why it was stalking these climbers, which was a nice twist. I don’t want to give away too much information and spoil the experience of these climbers not only having to deal with the challenging surroundings of Mt Everest, but also being watched by a fierce creature.

This novel takes you on a wild, suspenseful, thrilling ride while climbing mount Everest. It is also a learning journey if you don’t know much about climbing in these elements. The Yeti, by Rick Chester and Jack Douglas, was a great read, well written and well researched. I hope you read this one.

October 31, 2022

When We Were Birds by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo

Halloween month – graveyards, the dead, the unexplained. The title When We Were Birds by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo, takes place on the Caribbean island of Trinidad, the locations and places within the novel are fiction, however. The author is from Trinidad and Tobago – it’s her first novel. I was looking forward to reading this one, since my family is from Trinidad.

This mystical novel opens as an elder, Catherine, tells her granddaughter, Yejide, how the forest changed during a war with animals and man, with parrots changing to the Corbeaux – flesh-eating birds, to balance the living and the dead.

Darwin, a young man from a village in the country, travels to the city of Port Angeles, for the first time to find work at the island’s government office. He is assigned to a cemetery as a gravedigger. This type of work goes against his Rastafarian upbringing of not dealing with the dead, but he desperately needs the work to help his ailing mother, even though she rather he did not leave his village to do this kind of work. She is afraid he will end up like his father, who years ago went to the city to work and, without a word, never returned.

The author alternates chapters between Yejide and Darwin, describing their childhoods, their relationships with their mothers. Both Yejide’s grandmother and mother have passed. Her grandmother, Catherine, passed when she was a child and she was never close to her mother. Her mother seems very angry and resistant to her place in life. It’s her mother, however, who tells Yejide of their relationship to the dead, which is the opposite of Darwin’s beliefs. Her mother tells her that the living must take care of the dead, so they can be at peace and in turn, the dead take care of the living.

After her mother dies, the gift of seeing and communicating with the dead, that has been shared by generations of women in her family, is passed on to Yejide, who like her mother, is resistant to receiving this gift. She can see people’s light or energy; she can see death. As she receives this gift, she travels to a cemetery and sees a young man alone in this cemetery and he sees her.

Darwin struggles with working in the graveyard among so many dead. His first grave digging assignment is difficult, emotionally and spiritually, taking something from his spirit. He feels he is betraying his beliefs. He also thinks he’s seeing things as well that aren’t real, but he’s not sure – a young woman at the gates one evening, a Rasta man walking through the grounds and also fresh graves that his crew did not dig.

Yejide travels to Darwin’s cemetery to make arrangements to bury her mother. Darwin is summoned to escort her to her family’s plot – they recognize each other immediately and feel a connection. He worries about getting involved with her, while having questions about her and also about the mysterious events happening at the cemetery.

Darwin soon finds out about the fresh-looking graves in the cemetery – bodies are delivered to the cemetery at night for his crew to bury and they are also grave robbers. As Darwin is pulled into this scheme, he gets in trouble with his crew of gravediggers, who will have no problem getting rid of a young guy from the country that they believe no one will miss.

Darwin and Yejide find closure and understanding of their family’s pasts as they find a path toward each other. The language of the novel, the storytelling, which was always oral in my family at least, is familiar and refreshing to read in book form. The ending literally choked my up, so, please give When We Were Birds a read. I’m looking forward to see what the author, Ayanna Lloyd Banwo, comes up with next! And for the Trini’s reading this post – please give this novel a read and let me know what you think!!

Side comment, I had to publish from my phone today, due to a wifi outage at home. So, couldn’t do all the optics I wanted.