Curious, Healing

Books about healing, business, and fun

fiction

“Core Awareness” by Liz Koch

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Subtitle: Enhancing Yoga, Pilates, Exercise, and Dance

Recommended to me by: David Mitchell

I enthusiastically endorse this book’s focus on awareness, especially in core areas that we often learn to block out. The psoas muscles connects the front of the lumbar spine to the inside of the pelvis to the inner upper femur, all areas we largely ignore. I like the image of telling small children, “Sense yourself!” rather than, “Be careful!” to avoid injury. My own experience supports that the psoas does not like to be deeply palpated, but responds better to gentle invitations to relax.

At the same time, while Part I is nicely poetic, it desperately [needs citation], as well as an editor who knows how to spell muscle names and types of bodywork. The statement that the psoas only contracts eccentrically is simply false. (More information at wikipedia’s psoas article.)

Part II contains carefully described exploratory exercises to connect with and relax the psoas, illustrated with photographs of people with a diversity of body types.

I recommend this book to explore new ideas around internal awareness, as long as the first part is read as metaphorical. It is helpful to look at a good anatomy book such as Trail Guide to the Body to visualize the psoas muscle.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Long Hidden” edited by Rose Fox and Daniel Jose Older

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Subtitle: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History

I expected this book to contain speculative stories about marginalized people, creating worlds where they/we are not marginalized. I did not expect it to be about the experience of marginalization, and thus dripping with violence. Maybe I should have expected that, but I didn’t.

There was a single story that didn’t contain at least one violent death. That story was about Nordic (white) people.

Loved the diversity in this collection. However, reading stories imbued with that much violence feels intense, overwhelming, invasive. Not a good fit for me.

“The Stone Lions” by Gwen Dandridge

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Recommended to me by: Knowing the author and reading early drafts long ago

I expected this book to feel a little repetitive since I read so many early drafts. Instead, it was riveting! I found myself not wanting to stop to go to bed, and wanting to pick it up again the next morning instead of working. (I did exercise some self-discipline.)

I sent off that copy to my sister for her kids, and ordered a few more to give to families with kids of the right age. I love that it centers on girl and women characters, as well as teaching about Muslim culture, the Alhambra, and a little math.

The only issue I had is that even though characters advocate for mercy toward the villain, we only see him acting in evil ways. In my experience, the worst villains are nice most of the time, especially to people with more power. One-note evil breaks my suspension of disbelief more than mathemagics.

Highly recommended for girls, boys, and anyone who is tired of the same old tropes in fantasy.

Content Note: Some cruelty to small animals, and off-stage violence at the end, so not appropriate for very young readers.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Bloodchild and Other Stories” by Octavia Butler

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Recommended to me by: Marissa Lingen

Octavia Butler wrote apocalyptic science fiction stories full of the rawness of humanity and survival. One story addresses how stranded humans could pay rent on a foreign planet. Another looks at a terrible disease that is genetically dominant. Another is a vignette from a future when an epidemic has wiped out most people’s language abilities. I remembered that story from long ago but thought it was by James Tiptree, Jr., who also writes about terrible epidemics. This second edition has two newer stories as well.

The book includes afterwords for each story, and two autobiographical essays about being the only black female science fiction writer she knew of. Sadly, she died a few years ago before others became more widely known.

Butler’s characters have varying skin-color and ethnicities. She doesn’t write directly about racism against blacks, but her stories are steeped in the difficulties of surviving while being a minority, while being Other.

Recommended as food for thought. Not recommended reading just before bed, since some of the stories blur the line between science fiction and horror.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Pure” by Julianna Baggott

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Recommended to me by: s.e. smith at this ain’t livin’

This is a layered, well-crafted dystopian science-fiction novel offering both entertainment and examination of modern issues. It has scientific advances and their consequences, predictable heterosexual teen romances, well-developed female characters, adventures, violence, nuances of interaction, and a detailed sense of place.

Where many books have default characters who are mainly young, white, male and able-bodied, this book naturally centers on people of color and people with disabilities. It is the young white male able-bodied character who stands out as different.

The plot takes some of the current disturbing trends in the US just a step further. Government and corporate control. Co-opting feminism into another way to support patriarchy. Destruction of the environment. What smart, powerful narcissists will do to achieve their desires.

I read this book late into the night and picked it up again the next morning. It pulled me through despite the distancing violence, despite editing gaffes like a “meaty man [with] fat hands” turned “rail-thin” two pages later. By the end, though, the characters had developed into people I’m not sure I like, molded in service of the revolution.

Available at bookshop.org.

“What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank” by Nathan Englander

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Subtitle: stories

Recommended to me by: KBOO interview with Nathan Englander

These beautifully crafted stories are rich, in the sense that I can’t read too many of them at a time. They are heavy with the everyday pain we cause each other, and with the specific pain of Jews and Judaism.

I didn’t read them all, but I’m adding the book anyway because I’m still thinking about the characters and stories I did read.

  • The pioneers (or interlopers) in the West Bank, carving a Jewish city out of Arab land, losing sons to war, to secularism, and to car crashes.
  • The pioneering woman who used the intricacies of Jewish law and the weight of community collusion to bind a younger woman to her service.
  • The man who knows little family history because unpleasant stories are papered over with other stories.
  • The wife who realizes her husband would not hide her from the Nazis if the Holocaust recurred.

Available at bookshop.org.