Book of the Day Roundup: December 2-6, 2024
Telling the Bees
An Interspecies Monologue
Dominic Pettman
Fordham University Press
Softcover $24.95 (192pp)
978-1-5315-0849-4
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Made up of journal entries written between 2019 and 2023, Telling the Bees is Dominic Pettman’s insightful, ironic, and brooding meditation on COVID-19, political unrest, technology, and urban isolation.
Writing from his New York City apartment during the COVID-19 shutdowns, the book considers how the pandemic changed the city and exacerbated the empty “pseudo-communication” associated with social media. Citing a long tradition in folklore as well as works by Maurice Maeterlinck, Pettman addresses his journal entries to the bees, which he describes as curious, intelligent, industrious, and highly social creatures sometimes viewed as “winged messengers of the gods.” His book includes several clever passages about bees’ behaviors and social structures: for instance, Pettman contrasts the wintertime “hum-huddling” of bees in their hive with the anxious buzzing of humans in their “lonely home-combs” with a “million separating walls.”
Describing his “deepening sense of trepidation” and his craving for “new horizons,” Pettman finds comfort in these reflections on and odes to bees. He writes about meandering walks through the woods of the Ramble in Central Park, visits from a raven and a starling, and his practice of qigong, too. Believing that humans lost touch with the “essential texture of life” and true companionship, he describes global disorientation due to politics as well, covering the “reign” of Donald Trump (called the “Idiot King”), the January 6th insurrection on the Capitol, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and regressive Supreme Court rulings in addition to floods, shootings, and current events. He also reflects on his work as a college professor in New York and Amsterdam and his neighbors in various city apartments.
The memoir of a disillusioned academic who felt isolated during COVID-19 shutdowns, Telling the Bees is a searching, insightful, and witty text that offers catharsis aplenty.
KRISTEN RABE (December 2, 2024)
Keep It in the Dark
Justin Arnold
Tiny Ghost Press
Hardcover $21.99 (284pp)
978-1-915585-22-6
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
In Justin Arnold’s steamy fantasy novel Keep It in the Dark, young men at a boarding school navigate a tumultuous romance that’s threatened by supernatural forces.
Seventeen-year-old Rowan is the unofficial king of Mockingbird Prep. Though his senior year promises to be extraordinary, he is thrown by his new roommate, Casper. Casper’s family enrolled him at Mockingbird Prep in order to help him harness his new vampire powers. Should Casper be able to last the year without anyone learning that he’s a vampire, he’ll be ushered in as the prince of the Belamy vampire clan and whisked away on a debauchery-laden tour of Europe. All is complicated when the boys fall madly in love with each other, despite the challenges of Casper’s immortality and the murderous group after him.
These hefty themes are leavened by the fact that both Casper and Rowan lean into humor when they talk. Sometimes, this is used to cover their true feelings for each other. The book’s intense and dramatic moments become heartfelt, though, when the boys lower their guards, speak honestly, and are tender with each other.
Beyond its supernatural intrigue, the novel’s emotional core rests in Rowan’s first forays into understanding his sexual orientation. Herein, vampirism functions as an allegory for LGBTQ+ orientation: Rowan’s attraction to Casper confuses him. Still, the two cannot stand to be apart. Their romance is beset by slayers—bigoted individuals who are mired in the past, even though modern vampires don’t feed on humans without consent. Still, though a showdown between the slayers and Rowan is inevitable, the story still ends on a satisfying and optimistic note.
Keep It in the Dark is a hopeful fantasy novel that uses sensuality and vampirism to chronicle an LGBTQ+ coming-of-age.
JOHN M. MURRAY (October 14, 2024)
Introducing Sandwina
The Strongest Woman in the World!
Vicki Conrad
Jeremy Holmes, illustrator
Calkins Creek
Hardcover $18.99 (48pp)
978-1-66268-015-1
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Ladies, gentlemen, and children of all ages will delight in this biographical picture book about a circus strongwoman who bucked social expectations. Evoking vintage circus posters, the illustrations apply a strict palette of golden yellow, red, and teal, tracking Katie Brumbach’s journey from a child in a family of circus performers to taking on the mantle of Sandwina. She raised a family under the lights of the Barnum and Bailey Circus before settling down and hanging her shingle on a restaurant in New York.
DANIELLE BALLANTYNE (October 14, 2024)
The Way
Cary Groner
Spiegel & Grau
Hardcover $29.00 (304pp)
978-1-954118-42-3
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
In Cary Groner’s dystopian novel The Way, a reclusive Buddhist wonders about his place in a changed world.
Will is living on borrowed time in the postapocalyptic American Southwest, where his circumstances feel hopeless. Now in his fifties, he is one of the few people left who is old enough to remember the world before it collapsed. Wildlife and diseases surge into the gaps left by human beings, prompting wonderment and presenting deadly challenges. Still, nature finds ways to help people survive.
Accompanied by a cat and a raven while on the run from a mysterious but brutal enemy, Will is determined to stay true to his principles despite what he faces. He moves toward what used to be California, determined to complete a vital mission and give humanity a fighting chance. Still, he worries more about the karmic effects that his actions may have than he does about the personal dangers he faces. Indeed, he ruminates on his past and present situations with a mix of nostalgia, wry humor, and disappointment with human shortcomings, even as he is pushed toward his physical and moral limits.
Along the way, Will makes meaningful but fleeting connections with his friends. Collectively, their voices reflect a brutal frankness that is both logical and heartbreaking. At the same time, Will mourns for Eva, his love who died long ago; her memory is a sentimental beacon home in the midst of his suffering and misery. And despite what he’s lost, he opens himself to parental affection for a jaded teenage orphan with whom he learns tough lessons.
Open-ended yet optimistic, The Way is a hopeful dystopian novel in which a man searches for peace and beauty at the end of the world.
EILEEN GONZALEZ (October 14, 2024)
The Last One
Rachel Howzell Hall
Red Tower Books
Hardcover $32.99 (496pp)
978-1-64937-440-0
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Rachel Howzell Hall’s fantasy novel The Last One is a tale of magical creatures, mysterious magics, budding romance, and self-discovery.
In a forest in the realm of Vallendor, Kai wakes up injured and in the process of being robbed by Olivia. Meanwhile, Vallendor is on the precipice of being torn apart by an unstoppable sickness, the Miasma, and by power-hungry Emperor Wake, an authoritarian who names himself the supreme of all the land, exiling all other deities and magic. Kai remembers nothing from before and is plagued by questions about her identity, including about who she might become. What follows is an action-packed trek in which Kai and her allies run from and fight Wake’s men, otherworldly beasts, and dangerous Elyn, all of whom are determined to catch or kill Kai for reasons unknown.
Vallendor is fleshed out in fascinating detail as Kai awakens to its particulars, fighting her way through a world that she’s forgotten. Its rich histories, intriguing creatures, and magical systems make it lush with intrigue. The mages and their different lineages are covered, as are otherworldly beasts like giant, flesh-eating battabees and giant wolf burnu.
Kai is a complicated heroine—confident but uncertain, strong but sensitive, and always grappling to fit the puzzle pieces of her previous life back into her present. Her interactions with others are the catalysts for her developing theories and knowledge about herself. She flirts with Jadon, and their relationship grows. She also feels deepening affection for Jadon’s sister Olivia; Olivia’s love, Philia; and other people and creatures whom she meets. She oscillates between the opposing forces within her, weighing temperance against revenge and rage against peace, resulting in a compelling and very human tale.
The fantasy novel The Last One introduces an intriguing universe full of love, intrigue, and revelations.
NATALIE WOLLENZIEN (October 14, 2024)
Kathy Young
