Book Review: WORDS TO LOVE A PLANET

Title: Words to Love a Planet: An Illustrated Lexicon of Landscape, People and Possibility

Author: Ella Frances Sanders

Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing

Pages: 233

My GoodReads Rating: 

The book is divided into Seasons, Land, Time, Water, Weather, Home and Being.

The author has also drawn the accompanying illustrations. Each word is supported with information about the kind of word it is (noun, verb etc), its language of origin, pronunciation, etymology, meaning, and the word, as written in the original script.

There are 200 words in all, hailing from several Aboriginal languages, besides Norwegian, English, Old English, German, Japanese, Russian, Sanskrit, French, Ukrainian, Swiss German, Latin, Irish, Finnish, Farsi, Italian, Greek, Dutch, Bahasa Indonesian, Malay, Catalan, Swedish, Cornish, Euskara, Portuguese, Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic, Malayalam, Orcadian Scots, Lithuanian, Croatian, Scottish Gaelic, Georgian, Telugu, Icelandic, Galician, Scots, Turkish, Shetland, Cantonese, Polish, Egyptian Arabic, Maori and Swahili. Quite a diverse list!

 

WHAT I LIKED:

The aim of this book is commendable: trying to expand the language for talking about the earth. I liked the way the author called our attention to the myriad things around us, slow and gradual, that announce the changing of the seasons.

I believe that civilization and modern development has taken away the words for many of these ephemeral yet deeply significant things. The author reminds us that we are supposed to be tethered to the humming cycle of this planet. She tells us that we are supposed to be reading the seasons the same way we read books, and that colonization has stripped languages of these beautiful words.

The words that she has highlighted for us help us to be more attuned to the tiny shifts around us that have caused the rhythms of the planet to go askew. The research she has done is commendable. I was introduced to concepts I hadn't thought had a name at all, conceptss such as the relief skin feels when exposed to morning sun and leaves falling in a way that suggests letting go is acceptable.

 

Some of the words that stood out for me were:

Solvegg (Norwegian): a sun wall – a great blessing on cold days

Rummescent (English): the smell of leaf decay combined with misty morning

Tulir (Tamil): a bud or new leaf but also thriving in the case of something that started small or from scratch

Kertik (Malay): the sound made by dry leaves and twigs underfoot when walking

Smultronstalle (Swedish): “a wild strawberry spot”, meaning a place or period of time where one feels safe

Oogly (Cornish): how the sky looks when wild, dark, powerful weather is coming

I liked that the author presented words in their original non-Roman scripts. These scripts included Devanagari for Sanskrit, Tamil, Farsi, Greek, Arabic, Malayalam and Telugu. Some of the words contained mentions of other words with similar or related meanings in Korean, Portuguese, Welsh, Uzbek,  Romanian, Mongolian, Hindi, Somali etc.

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE:
The main introduction was unnecessarily formal and florid.

 

ALL SAID AND DONE:

This was an amazing read. I felt that the limits of my knowledge of the natural world had expanded, thanks to my acquaintance with these words. It’s amazing how so many cultures have multiple names for variations of some aspect for nature. How bereft the English language seems in comparison!

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)

Book Review: THE WRITER'S PROCESS

Title: The Writer's Process: Getting Your Brain in Gear

Author: Anne H Janzer

Publisher: Cuesta Park Consulting

Pages: 200

My GoodReads Rating: 

It was a 10^th anniversary edition with many changes, including chapters on AI, and chapters re-written on the basis of newer research on writing, and the author’s own experiences in the field. The edition is quite different from the first one, given that the author’s own writing has evolved. Her goal, she says, is to help us find the writing process that is suited to us, the process that makes our sentences sing.

I’ve only recently begun to hone in on my own writing process. Here, the author talks about her own writing process, a mix of reading about the subject, and taking notes, outlining, writing in sprints of 90 minutes or less. The book isn’t specific to fiction. The writer writes from her experience as a marketing writer in the technology industry, who has written blog posts, website copy, case studies etc.

The book is divided into three parts. Parti I is The Writing Brain, where we learn to motivate the Muse and strengthen the Scribe. Part II is called A Recipe for the Writing Process. Part III is called The Writing Process in Real Life.

 

WHAT I LIKED:

The author explains how we need both the Muse, the creative process, and the Scribe, the analytical one. Successful writers work with both the Muse and the Scribe in parallel. So our inspiration and creativity are boosted by discipline and focus. We cannot have one of these overpowering the other.

She speaks about the merits of Open Attention, as opposed to Focused Attention. In Open Attention, the brain is allowed free rein to play with random elements and make connections between things that the conscious mind cannot. Her ideas for enabling the Muse to assert itself and allowing the Scribe to weigh in are sound.

Her suggestions about how to induce a state of “flow”, in which the Muse and the Scribe work together, are welcome.

The author substantiates her theories through true examples and the results of research studies into processes. She says that

 

A quote I liked:

What can we offer as writers if not our own slant on the world, unique to our experiences, stories and lenses on life?

 

The author likens the process of writing to baking bread, where there is a basic process that must be followed, but there can be untold variations that yield varieties of baked goods. Through each pf the stages, the Muse and the Scribe work in phases. The author’s analogy to describe this process is like soccer teammates, passing a ball back and forth as they cross the field. The better the passing game, the more successful the team.

A lot of it seemed more for non-fiction writing, but I tried to see where I could use it in fiction.

In the chapter on AI in the Writing Process, the author addresses the question of where, how and when one might use AI. I don’t use AI in my writing or even in ideation, but I read the chapter to see what her views on it were. She recommends trying to understand the technology to figure out what the model is trying to do and how it is achieving it and also what context it is applying to your work. She advises not giving up responsibility, particularly on high-stakes writing projects.

In Part III, the author shows us how to deal with common problems like Procrastination, Perfectionism, Writer’s Block and Imposter Syndrome. 

 

WHAT DIDN’T WORK FOR ME:

The chapter on AI.

 

ALL SAID AND DONE:

A useful read. The section I liked the best was the one about inviting the Muse in and getting the Muse and Scribe to work together.

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)

Book Review: HIROSHIMA BOY

Title: Hiroshima Boy

Author: Akiko Mikamo (as told to her by Shinji Mikamo)

Publisher: Monoray

Pages: 240

My GoodReads Rating: 

Shinji Mikamo is a 19yo in the Army when the Japanese government orders his family to demolish their own home and leave the area in order to prevent the house from catching fire when the Americans bomb their city, Hiroshima. Times are tough; food is rationed but no one knows that things are about to get much worse.

On August 6, 1945, Shinji takes leave from work in order to help his father demolish their home when the city is bombed by the US. Shinji’s body is badly burnt. Their home is just 1200 metres from the epicentre. Despite having his skin peeled, his troubles are not over, as he has to drag himself physically to ensure movement. At this difficult time, it is his father’s determination that keeps him alive.

Soon after the explosion, they flee to the river, and experience a huge fire and a tornado and have an encounter with two cruel Japanese soldiers. Since shinji has a civilian job with the army, he is consider gunzoku, belonging to the military, and transferred to the army hospital. His father is not. Father and son never meet again.

Shinji takes us through the painful course of his treatment, when he is nearly on the verge of death, the strange illnesses that people suffer as a result of exposure to radiation, how, one by one, he lost his father, mother, and older brother, and his grief as each new blow hit. In Japan, an orphan is considered no better than a street rat. The work he begins to do for the military, how he meets the girl who will become his wife, the family they build together.

 

The book is written in the first person of Shinji by his second daughter, Akiko, who begins her Afterword at the 91% mark. Looking at her father’s experience from her perspective as a psychologist, author and speaker, she writes, my wish is that people may read this story, relate to the universal notions of forgiveness and empathy, and find a means to apply it in their own lives.

 

WHAT I LIKED:

The author paints a picture of the chaos and the carnage.

The writing is simple and matter-of-fact, acknowledging the situation, and steeped in gratitude for what they have, for the kindness that people show them along the way.

 

The writing brings out the sense of pain and destruction, as experienced by the father and son. The author tells us of fires breaking out everywhere, and jagged pieces of glass getting stuck in people’s bodies. People are desperate to get away, and save themselves and their loved ones. It’s an eyewitness account.

 

In a situation where nearly everything is destroyed, there are no doctors, no medical aid of any kind. It is the kindness of friends and strangers that keeps them going. A friend, Teruo, takes them to another place where they can get better help. A stranger gives them miso soup, while the mother of his friend, Teruo, brings them umeboshi, a pickled plum, with rice, a rare meal in wartime. The soldier who covers Shinji’s body with his jacket.

 

The black and white pictures add to the authenticity of the testimony. We see images of Shinji and his parents, the mushroom cloud that was visible after the bombing, Shinji’s neighbourhood in Hiroshima in the aftermath of the explosion, the Toshu-gu shrine where Shinji and his father sought refuge for a while, a pocket watch belonging to Shinji’s father, which stopped at 8.15 am by the heat of the bomb, the house key and medal that were chained to Shinji’s father’s pocket watch, Miyoko, Shinji’s wife, and her family before the Second World War, the Fukuya department building, shot a month after the bombing, Shinji and Mikoyo as a couple, after World War II, besides pictures of Takaji, Shinji’s older brother, and a pic of Shinji, Miyoko and their family.

 

ALL SAID AND DONE:

This is a story about love and the family’s faith in Buddha which keeps them going. Shinji’s father says that if he could exchange his relatively uninjured body with that of his badly wounded and burned son, he would gladly do it. An instance of love that drives the family.

It is amazing that after such destruction, Japan rose up to build its infrastructure and its spirit. 

 

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)

Book Review: THE TAKEN GIRLS

Title: The Taken Girls

Author: Glenn Cooper

Publisher: Head of Zeus

Pages: 321

My GoodReads Rating: 

One morning, American Dane Jesper Andreason, his Italian wife Elena and their two daughters, Elizabeth and Victoria, disappear from their holiday home, leaving their phones, wallets and everything else behind. Jesper’s father, billionaire Mickey Andreason spares no resource in his search for his family, but is forced to concede failure, when every lead leads to failure.

Four years later, the girls return, without having aged a single day. They say that they were taken by aliens. That’s when Mickey realizes that it is just as a psychic, Celeste Bobier, had predicted four years ago. The church thinks that it might be a miracle. But Marcus is sceptical, even though there are many who think that alien abduction is a very real thing. When a series of murders takes place, the police are even more baffled.

In Part II, we start with Marcus’ story. His wife, Alice, is sick with terminal cancer. He is busy trying to get a Russian spy to defect only to find the spy trying to ‘turn’ him. The case blows up and Marcus leaves the CIA to join Andreason, just as the case of the missing family is blowing up in the media. Pretty soon, Mickey’s entourage grows with Celeste and a UFO investigator joining.

Has the family really been taken by aliens, as Celeste has seen in her visions? Or is there something truly sinister afoot? And what explanation could there be for the girls not having aged a day?

The story is written in the 3^rd person past tense PoV of Elizabeth and Victoria together, Marcus and the antagonist.

 

WHAT I LIKED:

The writing was good, and the author gave us the right amount of backstory on each character to keep us invested. The pace was right; I never got the feeling that I was reading extraneous information on the page. The chapters in which we learn how Marcus loses his wife, Alice, were especially well written.

As a premise, the story might sound like something from the Fantasy genre, but the author holds our interest throughout.

 

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE:

The story was well told but the ending was rushed. The manner in which the climax was effected left me wanting closure. Given the buildup through the story, I felt that the resolution failed to touch our emotions.

Marcus has his heart in the right place. He’s brave and courageous, but for someone who spent decades working for the CIA, he seemed woefully untrained. Even if he had a desk job, I can’t imagine real CIA people going around identifying themselves as such, that too in a foreign country.

 

WHAT DIDN’T WORK FOR ME:

There were three characters whose names started with M, Mickey Andreason, Mitch O’Connor from the American embassy and Marcus Handler, Mickey’s right-hand man. Of course, only 1 was important, but generally speaking, these things should be avoided, particularly when both are in the same scene together.

There was a character named Gunar, who was meant to be menacing but his actions didn’t quite project the level of menace the narration led us to expect.

The story is set is Italy and Spain, but the governments of the two countries are strangely uninvolved with the story. The girls are not interviewed, neither by the US Federal authorities nor by their Italian counterparts. Does the grandfather’s money hold foreign governments in thrall too?

 

ALL SAID AND DONE: An interesting premise, but the vigour of the plot tapers out towards the end.

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)

Book Review: HOUSE

Title: House

Author: Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker

Publisher: Thomas Nelson

Pages: 362

My GoodReads Rating: 

Jack and Stephanie Singleton, he a published author, she a country singer, are a married couple who are drifting apart. They are heading to a counselling session when a patrolman causes them to lose their way. Later, the cop, Morton Lawdale, gives them directions to where they want to go, but they still end up in the back of beyond where a rubber mat with steel spikes in the middle of the road messes with their tyres, leading them to seek shelter at the Wayside Inn.

There they meet hotelier Randy Messarue and his partner, psychologist Leslie Taylor, who have met with a similar accident and have sought shelter at the Inn. Later, the four meet the house owners, Stewart and Betty and their son, Pete. From the beginning, it is apparent that there is something off about these houseowners.  

At this point, a man wearing a tin mask, the Tin Man, crashes a car into the front porch, then throws a tin can into the house. The can contains a sheet of paper with three rules. 1) God came to my house and I killed him. 2) I will kill anyone who comes to my house as I killed God. 3) Give me one dead body, and I might let rule two slide. Game over at dawn.

Before long, the houseowners and then the guests are trying to serve up one dead body, in the hope that they will be able to leave. Then they meet a young girl called Susan who has been hiding out in the House. The Tin Man wants the guests to kill her in exchange for freedom. What they don’t know is that the House has an appetite, and they might never leave.

 

 

WHAT I LIKED:
The patrolman rolled his head to crack his neck was such a potent image of menace and aggression.

 

The tension shows up pretty early in the story. The tension between Jack and Stephanie was so intense that by the time they reached the inn, it was clear that this was a horror story with the tropes of haunted house and crazy killing ahead. This tension was also evident when the seven sat down to the evening meal. The meal itself is a classic horror trope, rotting meat with maggots crawling in it.

 

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE:

I didn’t like this sentence: Hated the terror that had him squealing like a schoolgirl in his own mind. Isn’t fear a raw human emotion that affects both genders equally? Why couldn’t this sentence be rephrased so the misogyny was removed?

I found Stephanie very selfish and self-centred. The others showed better character under duress, at least initially. Why she began to hate Leslie almost at sight sounded very petty and trivial.

 

The narrative induced neither fear nor chills. The house is alive, and keeps changing the layout constantly, and bad things begin to happen. The house serves up double and later, multiple, versions of the characters. And there’s no way for us to figure out whether what’s happening is real or an illusion. The premise sounded good, but it made for exhaustive reading and became tiresome. There were no dips and crests, just lows and more lows. Nothing to help us catch our breath.

 

At one point, the narrator tells us that Betty looked at Jean, several paragraphs before Betty has even introduced herself to the newcomers in her house.

 

WHAT DIDN’T WORK FOR ME:

Technically, the Tin Man’s three rules are only 1 feeble rule, Rule 3. The first is a confession, the second a stated intention.

 

For a horror story to win, the reader needs to care for the characters and what happens to them. I didn’t feel invested in any of the characters, not even in Jack, who had the most agency and whose limited PoV the story was written in.  

 

It would have helped if the authors had revealed something, but as late as the 78pc mark, we have no clue why these four are in the soup they are in.

 

The allusions and references are Christian, but their impact is nullified as they weren’t clear in the context of plot events. Unlike say, Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant or CS Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. How and why Susan is revealed to be what she is revealed to be makes no sense. The advice she offered was utterly vague. After 400 pages, I came away feeling relieved the book was over.

 

As a concept, it may have sounded fine at the idea stage but reading it doesn’t give us a sense of having encountered some dark night of the soul. Susan’s words don’t resonate with us. And after all of that, her identity was never properly clarified.

ALL SAID AND DONE:

This was my first book by either of the two authors. Given their reputation, I expected something better than this.

 

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)