Book of the Day Roundup: January 15-19, 2024
Twinkind
The Singular Significance of Twins
William Viney
Princeton University Press
Hardcover $35.00 (224pp)
978-0-691-25475-3
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
Researcher William Viney’s dazzling, illustration-rich book compiles scientific knowledge about, and cultural representations of, twins throughout history.
Assisted reproductive technologies like in vitro fertilization increased the incidence of twins, Viney notes: there are 1.6 million pairs born each year, and the frequency varies by geographical region. There are towns in India and Nigeria with a higher than average rate of twin births. Twinsburg, Ohio, hosts a popular annual Twins Days Festival. And while a set of twins is a group all its own, Viney says, there are also wider communities of support.
Viney is, himself, a twin. His brother, George, lived with him in London when they were in their twenties. He opines that the very existence of twins “challenges folk wisdom and scientific expertise in equal measure.” He therefore devotes a similar amount of page space to the science and cultural importance of twins, with disparate topics including medical studies on twins, advances in technology, myths and legends, the entertainment sector, and the paranormal. And the book bursts with images from antiquity to the present, including engravings, statues, mosaics, paintings, and photographs, with subjects of inquiry including nature versus nurture and patterns of autism, divorce, and homosexuality.
In mythology, Viney discovers, twins are “often a product of transgressive contacts between gods and humans.” Twins are sacred or taboo in different cultures, thus “not valued equally” worldwide. They have, however, made perennial cameos in literature and visual media. William Shakespeare and Mark Twain built plots around twins. Twins have been used to advertise plays and products, and even appeared as sideshow curiosities, as with Chang and Eng, the original “Siamese twins.” The public imagination is still captured by twins’ potential for mischief and paranormal experience.
Twinkind is a fascinating, wide-ranging compendium of facts and stories about twins through the centuries and around the world.
REBECCA FOSTER (December 27, 2023)
The Divine Proverb of Streusel
Sara Brunsvold
Revell
Softcover $16.99 (336pp)
978-0-8007-4299-7
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
A heartbroken woman who’s estranged from her father confronts her relationship fears while exploring German cooking in Sara Brunsvold’s homespun Christian novel The Divine Proverb of Streusel.
Though her boyfriend, Isaac, is eager to plan for their future, Nikki is more hesitant. Her father, Chris, left her mother after twenty-nine years and soon remarried; Nikki feels betrayed, and her resentment alienates Isaac. Meanwhile, Nikki’s family members—including her uncle, Wes—also contend with the fallout from Chris’s decision. They are patient with Nikki’s raw feelings—and with the fact that she seems to be running from her problems.
For Nikki, the family farmhouse beckons. There, she discovers her ancestors’ cookbook. She follows the cookbook’s recipes, which are accompanied by notes and faith-filled advice. She makes a hoppel poppel (a leftovers-and-eggs casserole); she bakes crumb cake. Through this work, she comes to understand the strains in her family better, and her sense of her heritage blooms.
Warm and wise, the novel’s focus alternates between Nikki and her relatives. Wes is nonjudgmental and calm, and there are intriguing hints about his past—as well as some sweet romantic interest. An elderly aunt of Nikki’s is involved in an enthusiastic ladies’ league, whose members are a fun counterpoint to Nikki’s brooding.
In time with her cooking experiments, Nikki works on restoring the farmhouse. This work is complemented by religious ideas of rebirth, which are also made to apply to the book’s relationships. There are also themes related to healing with the help of one’s community; shared stories; and fanciful musings concerning kitchen creativity—and the foresight involved in leaving one’s descendants a guidebook in disguise.
In the empathetic and uplifting novel The Divine Proverb of Streusel, a woman at a crossroads is drenched in family nostalgia and considers forgiveness.
KAREN RIGBY (December 27, 2023)
The Beaver Theory
Antti Tuomainen
David Hackston, translator
Orenda Books
Hardcover $26.99 (300pp)
978-1-914585-96-8
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
An actuary-turned-business-owner races the clock to find a killer in Antti Tuomainen’s thriller The Beaver Theory.
Henri’s life has become quite exciting of late: he moved in with his girlfriend, Laura, and her daughter; a sketchy new adventure park threatens to put his park out of business; and he is suspected of stabbing his rival to death with a steel ice cream cone. With time running out to save his business and prevent his headstrong employees from starting an interpark war, Henri takes the greatest chances of his life to stop a violent killer.
Henri’s dry observations and precise way of viewing the world make him an engaging, sympathetic hero. The others in his life are just as memorable: the rough-around-the-edges employees who show heartwarming loyalty, the police officers whose boyish demeanors cannot hide their desperation for long, and the optimistic fathers at Laura’s daughter’s school who draft Henri into ping-pong tournaments and bake sales.
Henri uses mathematics to confront familiar difficulties, such as discovering the impetus behind threats from competitors and cleaning up the mess that his ne’er-do-well, formerly dead brother left behind him. He faces new challenges too, like learning how to find a work-life balance and grappling with an unexpected twist in his relationship with the detective inspector who so often brings him trouble. Though math has always been his solace and salvation, Henri comes to realize that, in families, as in murder investigations, some spontaneity is essential. An explosive climax gives Henri the chance to test the power of “going with the flow”—and to confirm that he has ended up exactly where he needs to be.
The last book in a trilogy, The Beaver Theory is a fun and clever thriller in which a hero finds the right balance in all pursuits.
EILEEN GONZALEZ (December 27, 2023)
The Exile’s Cookbook
Medieval Gastronomic Treasures from al-Andalus and North Africa
Ibn Razīn al-Tujībī
Daniel L. Newman, translator
Saqi Books
Softcover $35.00 (352pp)
978-0-86356-992-0
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
The Exile’s Cookbook, Daniel L. Newman’s translation of Ibn Razīn al-Tujībī’s medieval gastronomic tome, is part history text, part cookbook. Featuring a lengthy introduction, it includes the contextual history behind its recipes alongside a brief biography of al-Tujībī and an extended explanation of the food that al-Tujībī (a gourmand as well as a keen amateur cook) wrote about: Andalusian cuisine shared by a diverse, multicultural group made up of Iberian Muslims, Jews, and Christians.
While not all the recipes can be feasibly reproduced (some require the use of whole animals, or use bygone cooking methods) others would make delightful additions to any dinner, as with the book’s six easy variations of mujabbanas (fried cheese buns). For more adventurous cooks, recipes for dishes like mirqās sausages present a challenge; it requires beating meat into a paste, kneading, and a complex stuffing process. Be forewarned that there is little offered in the way of exact measurements. Al-Tujībī often advises his audience to use their own judgement, with phrases like “remember this, and do as you please” punctuating recipes.
With its fascinating, detailed descriptions of medieval dishes, The Exile’s Cookbook is a perfect addition to serious cookbook collections.
ERIC PATTERSON (December 27, 2023)
Eli Harpo’s Adventure to the Afterlife
Eric Schlich
Abrams
Hardcover $28.00 (352pp)
978-1-4197-6912-2
Buy: Local Bookstore (Bookshop), Amazon
A boy who died and saw heaven as a child grapples with his perceptions of the experience, Christianity, and his newfound sexual orientation in Eric Schlich’s humorous, introspective novel Eli Harpo’s Adventure to the Afterlife.
Eli heads to Bible World, an infamous theme park, twice—once as a teenager, once as an adult. The plot hinges on his initial visit, which is preceded by his mother’s death from cancer. At the park, Eli decides that he does not believe in heaven after all. The visit ends because Eli kisses Jesus as a way of coming out to himself, even if it takes him almost another decade to come out to his family.
The novel is keen and insightful in addressing the strictures of being a “Heaven Kid.” For Eli, Christianity is toxic; he grows up gay and ashamed. His teenage years are marked by religious highs and lows but also by confusion; his sexual orientation is forced into an afterthought position. It takes time, and a tragedy, for Eli to come to terms with himself—and with the fact that his father and older brother, who are steadfast in their beliefs, are unlikely to change their positions on his queerness.
As the novel progresses, Eli matures, coming into his queer identity. Still, even as an adult, he holds stagnated views that lead to discomfiting moments. There are mentions of Eli’s fatness when he’s a teenager and of his bad relationship with his weight; Eli still comments on his body and the bodies of others as an adult. For him, losing weight is equated with shedding other realities too, including his constrictive religion and his impulse to conceal being queer.
In the novel Eli Harpo’s Adventure to the Afterlife, a teenager has to figure out his differences alone while growing up in a zealous household.
RACHEL TELLJOHN (December 27, 2023)
Barbara Hodge
