Curious, Healing

Books about healing, business, and fun

fiction

“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.

“Tender Morsels” by Margo Lanagan

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Recommended to me by: Meloukhia

This is a fairy tale, but no child’s story. It starts with incest and pregnancy and abortion, and continues with gang rape. Then Liga is magically placed in a world that matches her heart’s desire, peaceful and safe.

While examining the consequences of assault and the consequences of avoiding trauma, the story sings along, full of prickly, kind characters and vivid details.

Recommended, for a true look at life in fairy tale guise.

An interview with Margo Lanagan.

Jody Hewgill (the cover artist)’s portfolio.

Available at bookshop.org.

“The Bear That Wasn’t” by Frank Tashlin

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Recommended to me by: A client.

This children’s book was written in 1946 about a bear who emerges from peaceful hibernation to find that a factory has been built around his cave. The factory managers tell him to get to work. When he protests that he is a bear, one manager after another tells him he is a silly man who needs a shave and wears a fur coat. Eventually they wear him down and he comes to believe them.

This is a classic example of gaslighting – making someone doubt their own reality.

The book is beautifully illustrated with Tashlin’s line drawings. The only downside to the book is blatant sexism in the illustrations. For example, each (male) factory manager has a series of shapely female secretaries. Aside from that, I wholeheartedly recommend the book, which supports the idea of listening to your own truth and not letting yourself be outvoted by other people’s opinions.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Wishing for Tomorrow” by Hilary McKay

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Subtitle: A sequel to A Little Princess

Recommended to me by: Badgerbag

My copy of A Little Princess (yes, I still have it) is dated 1982, but I think I read it before then from the library. As a young girl grieving, surviving and in need of rescue, I connected deeply with the story of young Sara Crewe and the maid Becky grieving, surviving and being rescued.

This sequel, written not by Frances Hodgson Burnett but by Hilary McKay 100 years later, follows the secondary characters at Miss Minchins Select Seminary for Girls after Sara’s departure. It is a much lighter wish-fulfillment book, plot driven, with one note characters. We are told about their emotions, but they don’t resonate.

The new maid, Alice, takes no nonsense from her employers and refuses to live in the attic, not-so-subtly implying that Becky just needed to stand up for herself. Of course, Alice is in London to “see the sights” and has a loving family to return to if her employment doesn’t work out, unlike Becky who had nowhere to turn.

A Little Princess was about finding resources within and choosing our behavior in hard times. Wishing for Tomorrow, aptly named, seems to be about marking time until everything works out.

Available at bookshop.org.