Summer Reading Do's and Don'ts

 Hello to my three "Gods Are Bored" fans! Today I learned a valuable lesson. It's my second day of summer vacation, and it only took me four emphatic removals to dissuade my cat Omega from trying to nap on the laptop. Now she's sleeping in her usual spot. Four seems like kind of a low number for a determined cat. Maybe I got a good cat, or maybe she's just lazy today.

Today's sermon involves my own personal "do" and "don't" for your summer beach read.

DON'T go to Barnes & Noble and get suckered into buying the sequel to Fourth Wing. If you haven't heard of this novel, it's a passable fantasy about a military school with dragons and enemies and whatnot, sufficiently entertaining and meant for an adult audience. When I say "adult audience," I mean that it has a five-page sex scene drawn in precise anatomical and sensory detail, so lurid I can't even put it out for high school seniors in good faith. Fourth Wing was somewhat diverting and ended with a cliff-hanger, so when I saw a big ol' table with the sequel on it, I shoved my fist into my pocket for the ducats to buy it. A big mistake. I should have waited for the community book sale copy. The sequel is dull and uninspired so far, graphically violent and directionless. I will finish reading it because I spent money on it, but when I say I put it down to read a book about how Silicon Valley is altering the creative relationship between writers and readers, I think you get the point.

DO instead consider buying a copy of Whisperlights, by Brendan Myers. Also fantasy, this is a sturdy little story with a nice plucky heroine (two, actually) that does what Fourth Wing does without the slobbery sex and ridiculous length. Whisperlights is by a Canadian author who is a college professor, but the story is not at all pedantic. It moves at a nice pace. The publishing house does work with gamers, and this book kind of reminded me of my LARP -- a good group of heroes and villains, moving from adventure to adventure, with a goal that we all can get behind: asking the Gods why They do what They do. I guess that's why the book resonated with me, since I've been interviewing Gods and Goddesses for 20 years, basically asking the same question.

I put the link to Whisperlights above so that you can order it from a source other than Amazon. Long-timers here know I will dig under a rock to find an item before purchasing it from the evil empire. I definitely liked Whisperlights better than Fourth Wing, and I prefer it infinitely to the Fourth Wing sequel.

And speaking of sequels, word has it that the author of Whisperlights is working on his own sequel, as well as some other projects involving the same characters. You'll like lugging this one to the beach. And I can in good faith put it on the shelf for my students. Good stories don't need to be larded with devious tongues and throbbing man-parts.

Summer Reading! Fever Beach, by Carl Hiaasen

 "Gods Are Bored" fans, I have to work until June 24. That is a late, late, late end date. It has to do with how long our Xmas vacation was, I guess. Administration always has its rationale.

But weep not! I teach seniors. As far as they are concerned, it's already summer! Can't say I blame them. Feels like summer to me, too. Nap time!

Summer wouldn't be summer without beach reading. And we are in a world of good luck this summer, my friends. Carl Hiaasen is out with a new novel called Fever Beach, and it slays.

I read all kinds of stuff, from Great Classics to self-published friend fiction. Hands down, Carl Hiaasen is my favorite modern humor writer. He stands alone. His novels are all set in Florida, and most of them feature at least one Florida Man. (For those of you who don't know, Florida Man is what you Google if you want to see the most ridiculous things on the Web.)

Fever Beach is this author's best effort in a while. It has a great, grand cast of loathsome miscreants, a hero who has featured in other books, and several scrappy heroines.

Anne loves her a scrappy heroine.

Carl Hiaasen offers up the best escapist fiction around. Every one of us would just love to punch a Neo-Nazi. Yes, I am speaking for you. Admit it. You would love to punch a Nazi. Well, in Carl Hiaasen's books, Nazis get punched. Repeatedly. But in story after story, it's the villains' own stupidity that finally does them in. This, too, is rewarding.  It's quietly satisfying, and it seems perfectly plausible.

I'm sure there are many sensitive Floridians who have watched the state get slathered in asphalt and high-rises and just wept quietly into their hankies. Carl Hiaasen rages against the machine. In his fiction, greedy developers get their just desserts. And politicians? Whoa, baby, they get roasted like a rump of fine Angus beef.

Fever Beach has all those good things I gobble up. There are knuckle-dragging Florida men, the aforementioned scrappy females, a strong leading man, and a satisfying plot. I didn't just read the book, I wallowed in it. Before summer's end, I will read it again.

In order to enjoy Carl Hiaasen, you have to have a fairly sick sense of humor and not get rattled by sex toys and perverts. Sometimes I don't like such things in my fiction, but Carl does it right. So, the book is not for prudes, but for those of us who like our smut to be funny, it's the champagne of the genre.

So if you're looking for a great beach read, I heartily recommend Fever Beach. If you've already read Carl Hiaasen, you're probably as excited as I am. If you haven't ever heard of the guy, start with his classics: Stormy Weather and Sick Puppy. Native Tongue is also a side-splitter. You can get all of those in cheap paperback. But if you are caught up on this great humorist (as I am, alas), go plunk down your ducats for the hard cover of Fever Beach. 

Carl Hiaasen makes me laugh. And I need to laugh right now. We all do.

The Magic Boost

My friends, I sit here every day doing more or less the same thing, which is next-to-nothing. My state is open, but I don't go anywhere except the grocery store and the pharmacy.

That will change when September rolls around. I will be expected to report to my classroom. There have been no plans revealed about what that classroom capacity will be and how my students and I will be protected from the novel coronavirus.

Having worked in a school for 15 years, I'm here to tell you it's a swirling miasma of contagion. In January, just before Covid, I had a virus that had me coughing for weeks. My English department colleagues all caught it too.

I listen to the news obsessively, so I know what I can do to protect myself: masks, hand-washing, face shield, hand sanitizer, don't touch face, social distancing. I'm prepared to do all of that.

But one never wants to leave any tool on the table, so I have turned to magic for a boost in my protection. Magic doesn't replace the mundane safety measures, but it can enhance them.

If you're looking for a good place to start learning about a magical practice, I highly recommend John Beckett's new online course Operative Magic. John is a Druid and a very reasonable, approachable person. His course is six sessions, homework optional (mostly to get his very helpful feedback). John gives a nicely-done history of magic, the philosophy of magic, and then concrete information on how to create a spell. The course is $50, which I call money well spent. I only have one session left to complete, so I've gotten a good view of it.

There are also two books I will recommend if you feel any affinity for organic magic stemming from Appalachian traditions. The first is Staubs and Ditchwater by Byron Ballard. Byron is a hedge witch working as a Pagan. The other book is Backwoods Witchcraft by Jake Richards. Jake works through the Christian tradition, which is to be expected -- generations and generations and generations of Appalachians have been Christians. But what's interesting about Backwoods Witchcraft is how ancient and British Isles it feels. Both of these books show you how to do spells using items you have all around you in your house and yard.

Skeptics might say, "Why turn to magic? Isn't that just a bunch of superstition?"

My answer is, "Why not? And what you might call 'superstition' I call 'covering the mystical bases.'"

This pandemic is the most dangerous existential threat to my existence since I was a blithe teenager doing stupid, reckless stuff. I'm not leaving tools on the table. That would be foolish.

Guest Post: Mark Kram Jr. reviews Glimpsing Heaven:The Stories and Science of Life After Death

     To the eternal question -- "What happens when we die?" -- the human species has searched for answers in a wide range of spiritual and scientific realms. Though I am not affiliated with any organized religion at the moment, I have always tended to think something happens, if only because of our inability to grasp the complexity of the question. I have an uncle who is of the belief that nothing happens, that we should enjoy the here and now because we end up as food for earthworms. Science has persuaded him of this, yet I am just as certain that there are aspects to our existence that are unknowable.

     So I came with an open mind to Judy Bachrach's book, Glimpsing Heaven: The Stories and Science of Life After Death. But I also approached it with the eye of an experienced journalist, which is to say I held the author to high standards of reporting and writing. Happily, she exceeded both. Drawing on interviews with an array of people who have had what is commonly called "near death experiences" -- but what she refers to more accurately as "death experiences" -- Bachrach exhibits the same journalistic skill that has distinguished her as a contributor to Vanity Fair. All had been declared legally dear, yet they retained a consciousness that existed outside of their bodies. They came back and spoke of experiencing "pure unconditional love," of seeing deceased relatives and being overcome with enlightenment. And, yes, they remembered being drawn to a "white light."

     One "experiencer" Bachrach spoke with was Bill Taylor, a computer analyst who had suffered a heart attack. "The next thing I knew, I was out in space, looking on all the stars and planets ... There were threads connecting all of the bodies in the universe. And I am also connected to all these forms ... The threads were energy -- and it was love that connected everything to everything."

     Interviews with doctors and scientists who have explored this subject are woven into the narrative, which Bachrach moves along at a highly readable pace. There would appear to be agreement among them that something indeed happens when we die, although it is not yet clear how or why. No book of this sort could possibly answer all of our questions, but it does give us the "glimpse" it promises into a realm that exists beyond the wall of time. And it reminds us again how little we know.

Mark Kram Jr. is the author of the PEN/ESPN Award-winning narrative Like Any Normal Day: A Story of Devotion.

Hunger Games

Well, everyone's weighing in on The Hunger Games, and since I hadn't heard a thing about it until a few weeks ago, I girded my loins and ventured into Barnes & Noble for a copy of Volume 1.

This was an intensely dismaying book for me.

Dystopian fiction always bothers me (I couldn't even read 1984 the whole way through; it was too unnerving). This one bothered me too, because some teenagers growing up on this sort of fare will find it appealing for re-enactment -- not a good thing by any stretch.

Last night I was reading some comments from Appalachian bloggers about the book, since the heroine is clearly, explicitly, from a region that was at least once called Appalachia. As a protagonist she fulfills most of the stereotypes of "good" Appalachians, in that she can fend for herself off the woodlands, she's athletic, smart, compassionate, and a good shot with bow and arrow. The bored deities are satisfied with her self-sacrifice and underdog status.

It's not this part of the story that riled me. The part that riled me was the depiction of the society as a whole.

There is a strong tendency in literature to paint the future in the grim grays of failure. Truth is, the human race is an up-and-down species. The excesses of Ancient Rome became so vile to its citizenry and its nearby neighbors that it was overthrown by invasion and religion. As far as I'm concerned, the Nazis and their Holocaust, and America and its atom bomb, represented a new low in human affairs from which we have rebounded.

Will we descend into Nazi hell again? Of course! Will other human beings resist that? Of course! It's never so easy as novels make it look.

And Hunger Games went a bit too far. I simply cannot fathom a country where the entertainment consists of a yearly pageant of teenagers slaughtering each other. There are twelve Districts in the book. A Thirteenth was destroyed because it resisted.

So, when the Thirteenth got its back up, what did the others do?

If the only colony that had rebelled against England was Massachusetts, we'd all be God Saving the Queen. But Massachusetts called on the other colonies, and together this bunch of poorly-fed, poorly-armed, non-soldiers faced down the best military might of the era.

Does anyone remember why the Americans won the war? Heck, they lost almost every pitched battle.

They won because France provided soldiers, guns, money, and a navy. France. "Lafayette, we are here."

As I was reading Hunger Games, I found myself asking, "Where's Lafayette? Where are the Chinese?" Oh yes, and even, "Where's Che?" although the author sort of indicates that Che's type of army would be no match.

I'm predicting that this trilogy will end with a destruction of this evil dystopia from within. It would make more sense if Air France came to the rescue.

But what do I know? I couldn't get a publisher for my book, and this author is raking it in. Call me sour grapes if you will. Guilty as charged. Stomp me into wine.