Curious, Healing
Books about healing, business, and fun
Recommended to me by: Sarah Pinsker
This book has no words, only illustrations. Whimsical and menacing by turns, the images tell the story of an immigrant’s parting with his family and arrival in a new land where everything is unexpected and askew. It was unclear until the end whether the macabre or the whimsy would win.
This book is far more serious than “picture book” would imply. The sepia-toned art is magnificently expressive.
Recommended to me by: Sumana Harihareswara
A fun fantasy book, first of a four-book series. The main protagonist is an intelligent, curious, capable woman, and the book easily passes the Bechdel Test. There was more casual violence than I’m comfortable with these days, although it wasn’t enough to make me stop reading.
It reminds me of The Riddle-Master of Hed series by Patricia McKillip, except with more explicit violence than I remember in that series.
You can read the first chapter for free here.
ETA: I have been reading the rest of the series as they become available at the library. The second was even more violent than the first. The third is a little less violent, but there is still mayhem. Nevertheless the world, characters, and relationships pull me through the books.
Recommended to me by: Reading Volume 1
This graphic novel is the second half of Mike’s visit to his dead husband’s brother’s family in Japan. It’s a quick read, and at the same time touches on a lot of emotionally powerful themes. The meaning of “family.” Making things right after a family member has died suddenly. Being in the closet, and out of it, as a gay man in Japan. Politeness, and its difference from kindness and courage.
For example, young Kana and her friends openly welcome her gay uncle Mike, in contrast to the more guarded welcome of the adults. Yaichi (Kana’s father) does come around in the end.
Recommended for learning more about Japanese culture, and for seeing how hidden homophobia can change under gentle pressure.
Recommended to me by: Sequel to The Calculating Stars
Elma York goes to Mars. Like in The Calculating Stars, the characters in this book do not flinch from talking about racism and sexism in a system and society they can’t fight or escape.
The plot is more action-driven than the first book. Some characters grow and change in surprising ways. Grief is included as a major emotional force, rather than being glossed over as happens in many books.
The subject is brought up directly in the book, but there is still a big hand-wave on the impracticality of evacuating even a small percentage of the earth’s population to another planet, and how the resources required for that would take away from resources to address problems on earth. Of course the usual biases would affect who stays, who goes, who gets help and who doesn’t.
I still love that Elma’s Judaism weaves through the book with an ongoing cascade of familiar details. I love the conscious inclusiveness of Black characters, a Muslim character, a relationship between men, (minor) characters with disabilities.
I can’t imagine that an organization would put people with known major relational stresses on a 3 year mission together in a small ship. I can’t imagine that people would be able to manage that. Makes me wonder how sailors handle it on long trips.
My suspension of disbelief wobbled on this book. The contrast between doing calculations by hand and making a colonizing mission to Mars was too big. Still a fun read!
Recommended to me by: Rachel Manija
A well-plotted murder mystery story plus a quickly developing romance plus a young woman main character who is healing from childhood trauma. It’s not nearly as grim as all that makes it sound. I like the way the main character, Amelia Jones, observes the world and herself from slightly outside it all, and moves from conversation to conversation as she unravels the mystery.
Highly recommended as an entertaining read with an underlying understanding of the effects of neglect on children.
Recommended to me by: Marissa Lingen
Elma York is a math whiz with a Ph.D. in math and physics now working as a computer (as in, one who computes) for the space program in the US in the 1950’s. She deals with run-of-the-mill, life-is-just-like-that sexism, and also I’m-out-to-get-you intentional harassment. By the way she’s also a crack pilot who can land a plane after the motor goes out.
She’s also married to the lead engineer of the program, and they have a lovely supportive passionate relationship. She has a supportive relationship with her brother, too. I find myself reading for supportive relationships these days.
Also they are both Jewish, and the book addresses both the positive details and the negative anti-semitism that arises from that. Also they stay with an African-American couple, and they learn to recognize their racist biases and notice when a group “just happens” to be all white.
This book is both old-time spaceflight science fiction, and modern inclusive science fiction, which means it grapples with all the ways that women and people of color are kept out, and still manage to succeed despite that. It addresses global warming and the lack of political will to do something about it. It addresses anxiety as an illness that deserves compassion and treatment. The world-building details are satisfyingly solid.
I was also a Jewish younger female student who was really good at math. (Not as good as Elma!) It feels good to see myself reflected in a book like this, even if I responded differently to the stresses of the situation and took a different turning in my life.
Recommended as a quick, exciting read that’s both heart-warming and heart-rending in the ways it reflects minority and marginalized experiences.