The Flight: A Monthly Book Sampler (August 2020)
Board member Andrea Humphries’ book review column is back for 2020! Here’s her reflection on August 2020:
August was a pretty good month - I read more than five books for the first time since April and finally started to feel more like myself again.
This month’s book by a Black author was Womanist Midrash by Dr. Wilda C. Gafney. Y’all. This one blew my dang mind. If you’re not familiar with the definition of either word in the title, you’re probably in good company. The most basic definition of “womanist” is, per Alice Walker, “A black feminist or feminist of color.” But that’s just a fraction of her full, 4-point definition which you can find here. And I strongly recommend that you read the full definition. Midrash is a millenia-old Jewish interpretive practice of asking questions of the text, interpreting it, and/or crafting new parables based on the text. You can find a quick primer here. If you’ve read Rachel Held Evans’ last book, Inspired, you’ve read some very moving contemporary Christian midrash. In Womanist Midrash, Dr. Gafney focuses on two groups of women: the women of the Torah - the first five books of the Christian Bible, also known as the Pentateuch - and the women of the throne - the mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters of the kings of Israel and Judah. In addition to the midrashim you’d expect from the title, as a Hebrew scholar, Dr. Gafney also provides her own translation of many of the passages that describe these women and offers a critique of existing well-known translations, particularly of how those translations erase the presence and even existence of women. One of the appendices at the end of the book is on, as Dr. Gafney calls it, “the art and science of translation” and she provides some extremely helpful further insights into her approach and process. Plus, there’s a line about how we got the name Jehovah for God that made me laugh out loud. As both a language and a theology nerd, this book took me straight to my happy place. It also made me ask a lot of questions that have never occurred to me before. I’ll definitely be picking up Dr. Gafney’s previous book, Daughters of Miriam: Women Prophets in Ancient Israel because a) I now need to read everything she’s written; and b) I really need to read her take on Proverbs 31.
When Reading While Black first appeared in the list of books I had the opportunity to get an advanced copy of, I wasn’t sure if I should snag a copy. It didn’t seem like I - a vampirically pale white woman - was part of the target audience and my existing TBR pile is as long as I am tall - and I’m almost 6 ft. But I've followed Dr. Esau McCaulley on Twitter for several years and have consistently appreciated his perspective on things and given my commitment to read more books by Black authors, I downloaded the book. I still wasn't quite sure what to expect when I picked it up, but my goodness am I glad that I did. From beginning to end, it's chock full of wisdom, history, solid theology, and powerful criticism of racism and white supremacy. Because I’m a history nerd and bookworm, I was familiar with some of the history and background that’s covered in the book, but there was a lot I had no idea about. Reading the book in the week following the shooting of Jacob Blake by the Kenosha, Wisconsin, police was particularly powerful. I tweeted out a couple quotes as I was reading (one was the second-most liked and RT’d tweet I’ve had all year) and I could’ve easily shared a couple dozen more that practically leapt off the page at me. Reading While Black is a really helpful primer and I hope that it’ll find a wide audience, especially among white people.
The other non-fiction book I read in August was my friend, Gina Dalfonzo’s latest book, Dorothy and Jack: The Transforming Friendship of Dorothy L. Sayers and C. S. Lewis. There are a couple things you should know before I continue: 1) I’ve been praying for Gina and this book for a couple of years, so I had zero chill about finally getting my mitts on a (digital) copy. 2) I have been a Lewis fan for literally as long as I can remember - I don’t remember not knowing about Narnia and Aslan and talking animals and wicked witches. Ok, so with that in mind, I really enjoyed reading this book. I devoured it in a single afternoon. I haven't ever read any of Sayers' work, but despite that deficit in my reading background, this exploration of the deep friendship between Dorothy and Jack was a pleasure to read. I particularly loved the way that Gina, a fellow single woman, celebrates platonic male-female friendships, especially when it's possible that, given the current cultural climate, those friendships might be even harder to forge and maintain than they were in the middle of the 20th century. As someone whose closest friendships for most of my life have been with men, reading about these two brilliant people who clearly cared deeply about each other, who approached their relationship as that of siblings in Christ, was both comforting and encouraging. And though Gina clearly loves her subjects, she doesn't hesitate to point out their flaws and foibles, which not only gives a clearer picture of their true personalities, it also lends credence to her praise of their strengths and virtues.
I haven’t really talked a lot about The Dresden Files on here before. In short, I love them at least as much as I love The Chronicles of St. Mary’s. Also, like St. Mary’s, I am a devotee of the audiobooks, which are narrated by James Marsters (aka Spike from Buffy). I grabbed the first book in 2017 and proceeded to plough through the rest of the series - a total of 15 novels and two collections of short stories. I listened to all of it twice. And then I joined the legion of fans impatiently waiting for the next novel. Peace Talks finally came out in July, but with the craziness leading up to my sister’s wedding, I didn’t have a chance to listen to it until the middle of August. Whew. I loved it. I laughed, I cheered, I teared up. I did not full-on cry, which I appreciated, because the second half of this duology comes out next month and I am positive that I will be ugly crying for a decent chunk of that one - there’s an enormous battle about to take place and we (the fans) know that not everyone survives. I had two favourite moments in Peace Talks. The first has a character reflect that he needs to play it smart because his daughter might need him to walk her down the aisle one day. The fact that it wasn’t described as a certainty was really lovely and, I expect, reflective of author Jim Butcher’s long-standing friendship with at least one aro/ace woman. The second was a far nerdier moment - a fairly blatant Babylon 5 reference. B5 is my all-time favourite sci-fi show and it’s a well-known fact among Jim Butcher’s fans that he was a B5 fan, too - it’s actually how Harry Dresden got his last name. Anyway, there’s a pivotal scene smack-dab in the middle of the series when Captain John Sheridan calls his father, David, because things are about to get ugly. At the end of their brief conversation, David asks John, “What was the first lesson I ever taught you?” John promptly responds, “Never start a fight, but always finish it.” The lesson gets repeated several times over the two and a half seasons that follow. In Peace Talks, Harry Dresden and his mentor mimic that initial exchange almost verbatim and it just gave me the warm fuzzies. I’m both eagerly anticipating and dreading the release of Battle Ground in a few weeks because I want to know how the battle plays out, but I don’t want any of my favourite characters to die. We know five characters - six, if you count Mouse, the dog, which you should - survive and that’s it. Have I mentioned my tendency to get overly emotionally attached to fictional characters?
As soon as I finished Peace Talks, I hit play on the next St. Mary’s novel, Plan for the Worst. The print book, in all its forms, came out in April, but due to COVID, the recording and release of the audiobook had to be pushed back to August. Despite my impatience, I’m so attached to the audiobooks, that I decided it was worth the wait. I was doing so well and then, a week before the audiobook dropped, I accidentally read a major spoiler. Argh! But you know what, despite having that unwanted info, I still was not prepared for the emotional rollercoaster of the book. It picks up just after the events of Hope for the Best and Max’s world goes topsy-turvy all over again. As per usual, I laughed ‘til I cried and then legit cried at other parts. And even knowing that major spoiler, it wasn’t until it was resolved/revealed at the end of the book that everything made sense. There are some fantastic character moments that build on groundwork that’s been laid across several novels and short stories. Each one feels like a great reward for the time I’ve invested in the series. In many ways, the conclusion wraps up some of the major arcs of the series up to this point and sets up some entirely new ones going forward. I can’t wait to see how St. Mary’s resident Disaster Magnets are going to handle things.
At some point late last fall, the audiobook of A Monster Calls, written by Patrick Ness and narrated by Jason Isaacs went on sale for just a few dollars. I’ve been a fan of Jason Isaacs (whom most people my age know as Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies) for ages and the synopsis of the book sounded interesting, so I grabbed it. It’s the story of a young boy whose mother has late-stage cancer and the yew tree in his backyard (or, more correctly, his back garden, since it’s set in England) that comes to life. I can’t really tell you much more without spoiling it, but it’s a really lovely, poignant story and I went through too many tissues at the end.
And last, but not least, I very much enjoyed A Pretty Deceit, the fourth installment of Anna Lee Huber’s Verity Kent mysteries. Admittedly, it’s taken me much longer to warm up to the characters in this series than in the Lady Darby Mysteries, but I loved this book. It picks up more or less where Penny for Your Secrets, the previous novel, left off with Verity, her husband, Sidney, and their friends trying to unravel a sinister conspiracy that's already cost several people their lives. At the same time, they try to assist Verity's aunt and cousin with mysterious events at their estate. This is by far my favourite of the series. It’s got great character development and lays the groundwork for several future developments for both plot and characters. And now I have to wait a year to find out what happens next.
