Podcast #19: Diversifying the Shelves (Part 1) with Guests Author Sarah Ockler & Blogger Racquel of the Book Barbies

Podcast #19: Diversifying the Shelves (Part 1) with Guests Author Sarah Ockler & Blogger Racquel of the Book Barbies

Sarah Moon
Podcast, Podcast: Season Two

In episode 19 of the Clear Eyes, Full Shelves we are joined by author Sarah Ockler and welcome back blogger Racquel of The Book Barbies. This is the first in a two-part conversation about diversifying our bookshelves, how writers can work to authentically represent people of color in their fiction and recommendations for books and authors that do this successfully.

It's important to emphasize that this is most definitely not a comprehensive conversation--if anything, it's framing questions and talking about our personal experiences. We have a second part of this podcast coming soon and hope to continue to explore this topic in future episodes.

A Solid Story Collection: The Firefly Dance by Sarah Addison Allen & Others

A Solid Story Collection: The Firefly Dance by Sarah Addison Allen & Others

Sandra
Books

The title itself of this collection of novellas and short stories, The Firefly Dance, evokes an image of a warm summer evening—beautiful and breezeless, fireflies flittering in the dusk like jewels against a velvet sky. And like that quintessential summer scene, this unique collection brought me smiles, magical wonderment and even a few tears.

In My Dreams by Sarah Addison Allen

Sarah Addison Allen’s In My Dreams was the first novella I read--and the reason I snagged this collection from the library. I had read all of her novels with the exception of this one, and I couldn't bear to skip this one. I dove into it expecting a luscious read. Luscious does begin to express the beauty of In My Dreams.

This lovely tale told in the voice of Louise about her, her mother, her great aunt Sophie and a rich array of characters including her dog Lazarus that she seemingly brought back from the dead.

 

A Feel-Good Novel with Surprising Weight: It Felt Like a Kiss by Sarra Manning

A Feel-Good Novel with Surprising Weight: It Felt Like a Kiss by Sarra Manning

Sarah Moon
Books

But then again, one kiss from someone could mean more than a two-year relationship with someone else. A kiss could change your life.

Sarra Manning’s Unsticky is a novel I recommend all the time—I love how Manning plays with common tropes and archetypes, subverting them into fresh and witty stories. Her newest novel, It Felt Like a Kiss, is no different. And, it has the added bonus of being something of a companion novel to Unsticky, as Vaughn from that novel plays an important role in this one as the owner of the art gallery where It Felt Like a Kiss protagonist Ellie Cohen works.

Ellie lives a carefully-produced life, a reaction to her chaotic, bohemian upbringing with her musician mother.

...when all around you was chaos, you needed to find some area of your life that you could control and let that define you. It didn’t matter that she was on free schoolmeals and had a mother who wore leopard-print catsuits and dressed her in charity-shop clothes, when Ellie had the neatest handwriting in her class and was homework monitor five years in a row. Or when she had a tidier bedroom and better manners than her many cousins, who all lived in two-parent, semi-detached splendour in Belsize Park. When your boss was giving you hell and your flatmates were fighting and you’d been dumped again, there was something cathartic and peaceful in spending the afternoon in your pristine, minimalist office, rearranging your reference books by height and colour. So, a girl who could parade around Glastonbury in a spotless white dress was a girl who was calm and in control. Sometimes you had to fake it to make it.

Recommendation Roundup: Dec. 2013 & Jan. 2014

Recommendation Roundup: Dec. 2013 & Jan. 2014

Sarah Moon
Recommendation Roundup

I combined December and January's recommendation posts due to our year-end List of Awesome compilation. We have a ton of very mixed books to recommend this time--I think the only one we all read was Jennifer Lynn Barnes' super-fun thriller The Naturals, which our book club read in January. 

I had a particularly good run of books over the last couple months, including that I got to read a super-early copy of Lisa Schroeder's lovely new novel, The Bridge from Me to You, which was special to me for a number of reasons (disclosure: including this), but particularly because it reminded me so much of growing up in small town Oregon. 

I was also excited to discover Maureen McGowan's action-packed post-apocalyptic thriller series (Deviants and Compliance), which is a whole lot of fun--especially on audio. And, if you're looking for a charming adult novel about the suckitude of adulting, I have to point you to You Had Me at Hello--it was a bestseller in the U.K. for a reason, let me tell you. 

AND! One one final note, I was thrilled to read another super-early copy of a much-anticipated book, Gabrielle Zevin's The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, which I adored. If you like Zevin's novels, you'll love this one, trust me.

Obviously, Sandra discovered the awesomeness of Sarah Addison Allen this month--hooray for another convert! And I peer-pressured Laura into reading more Liza Palmer, as one does...

Onward to the recommendations!

A Grown-Up Romance for the Rest of Us: Live by Mary Ann Rivers

A Grown-Up Romance for the Rest of Us: Live by Mary Ann Rivers

Sarah Moon
Books

When I heard that Mary Ann Rivers had a series of full-length novels about an Ohio family coming out this year, I was pretty thrilled. I quite liked both of her novellas, one of which--The Story Guy--I recommended here on Clear Eyes, Full Shelves. 

“He hadn’t thought that once Destiny understood where he was going with this, where he believed them to be going, that she would retreat. He had been prepared if she looked at him straight and told him no, that she knew she belonged here. He would know, if she told him in the way she always told him everything she was sure of, that she was right. He wanted to see the world with her because even the bits of it he’d seen would look different with her along. His home was with her.”

Live is the first in Rivers' series featuring the the Burnside siblings of Lakefield, Ohio (which seems quite a bit like a fictionalized version of Columbus, Ohio). The family is deeply-entrenched in their working class city neighborhood. Each of the siblings live in the area where they grew up and one is starting a medical clinic in their neighborhood. The Burnsides' parents have passed away, leaving them physically close to each other, but adrift at the same time. 

This first installment in the series focuses on one of the two Burnside sisters, Destiny (Des), who's never left Lakefield. At 27, she finds herself unemployed and spending her days at the public library searching for job openings and filling out applications online. After six months of job-seeking frustration, she finally loses it in the library after receiving yet another rejection.