The Book Report by Rebecca Traver - Our Online Bookshop Curator
Welcome to the Book Report!
This New Moon, I want to shine a bright light on what can be a delicious, but shadowy subject…Tales of Magic, Myth + Enchantment: Stories to Curl Up With. I find that in times of turmoil and upheaval, both inner and outer, it can be a counter-intuitive yet winning strategy to go deeper into the dark places of psyche, place, story, and circumstance. It is often there in the darkest places where we find the gifts, companionship, and support for moving forward.
Also included in this report is a selection of New + Newly Discovered titles; a special group of Books for Young and Young at Heart Readers; and a couple of Just Because + Just for Fun offerings.
And, please take note that Ebooks are now plentifully available in our online Bookshop.
“The bell above the door chimes, and magic tingled at my fingertips. The scent of ink and freshly printed paper swirled invitingly in the air as I followed my parents in the bookstore.”
~Julie Abe
FEATURED LIST: TALES OF MAGIC, MYTH + ENCHANTMENT: STORIES TO CURL UP WITH
The Enchanted Greenhouse by Sarah Beth Durst tells the story of Terlu Pernu who broke a magical law by casting a spell that created a magically sentient spider plant because she was lonely. As punishment, she was turned into a wooden stature and tucked away into an alcove in the North Reading Room of the Great Library of Alyssium. Magic, plants, and a library?? What’s not to love? Funny, kind, and forgiving, The Enchanted Greenhouse is a story about giving second chances – to others and to yourself.
Arcana Academy from Elise Kova brings us Clara Graysword who, upon escaping from Eclipse City, is thrust into a world of arcane magic and royal intrigue, where one misstep will send her back to prison or worse.
The Secret Market of the Dead by Giovanni De Feo is an enthralling Italian-inspired gothic historical fantasy about a young woman named Oriana who finds her power in the nocturnal realm that lurks beneath her hometown of Luceria, an 18th-century city in the kingdom of Naples.
The Alchemy of Flowers by Laura Resau is set in the South of France where a young woman frustrated with feeling stuck and hopeless, answers an ad in a French gardening magazine looking for a gardener for the ancient Jardins du Paradis, unique and rustic lodging provided, off the grid in all ways. Within the high garden walls, Eloise starts to learn the strange rules of the elusive estate owner as well as the strange ways of the garden itself. As magic and healing unfold, she finds forgiveness and a second chance at happiness.
The Library at Hellebore from Cassandra Khaw takes us to The Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted, a premier academy for the dangerously powerful - the Anti-Christs and Ragnaroks, the world-eaters and apocalypse-makers. Fortunately, a group of young students is up for the tasks ahead as they do something they were never taught: work together. If they don’t, this school will eat them alive!
A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna is a whimsical and heartwarming novel about a witch named Sera Swan who has a second chance to get her powers – and her life – back on track. Running an inn, reclaiming lost magic, and staying one step ahead of an assortment of obstacles in her path is a lot for anyone, but Sera is about to discover that she doesn’t have to do it alone.
The Book of Lost Hours from Hayley Gelfuso is a sweeping, unforgettable story following two remarkable women moving between postwar and Cold War-era America and the mysterious time space, a library filled with books containing the memories of those who bore witness to history. Perfect for fans of The Midnight Library and The Ministry of Time, exploring time, memory, and what we are willing to sacrifice to protect those we love.
To round out this selection, I offer three books about those wonderful, magical beings who live in the forest. First up is this delightful coloring book, Enchanted Autumn: 48 Mandalas & Woodland Creatures. Next comes How to Spot a Magical Woodland Creature: A Field Guide to Enchanted Forest Animals by Sarah Glenn Marsh with illustrations by Lilla Bolecz. And last, but not least is The Little Encyclopedia of Enchanted Woodland Creatures: An A-to-Z Guide to Mythical Beings of the Forest.
For the complete list, click here.
“I address you all tonight for who you truly are: wizards, mermaids, travelers, adventurers, and magicians. You are the true dreamers.”
New + Newly Discovered
Numerology: Your Plain & Simple Guide to Numbers, Names, and Destiny by Anne Christie is an ally in learning more about ourselves and our future that doesn’t require any psychic ability, mathematical skills, or any special equipment. This information is based on a series of numbers, and by following systems dating back to the Greek mathematician and astrologer Pythagoras and the Jewish Kabbalah, we can learn the basics of how to use numbers to help explain our lives and guide us forward.
Ubac and Me: A Life of Love and Adventure with a French Mountain Dog by Cédric Sapin-Defour, translated from the original French by Adriana Hunter, is essentially a love story – one between a lonely single gym teacher and mountain climber and a Bernese Mountain Dog. As their lives evolve they brave the world together, hate to be apart, crave the mountains and the natural world, and protect each other.
How to Be Enough: Self-Acceptance for Self-Critics and Perfectionists from clinical psychologist Ellen Hendriksen and author of How to Be Yourself is a clear and compassionate guide for learning how to be good to ourselves. While it may sound like a straightforward process, in truth, it is anything but. That said, it’s good to have wise counsel and companionship along the journey, and these books are just that.
Are You Mad at Me?: How to Stop Focusing on What Others Think and Start Living for You by Meg Josephson, LCSW show us that people-pleasing is not a personality trait, It’s a common survival mechanism known as “fawning”: often learned in childhood as a strategy to become more appealing to a perceived threat in order to feel safe. The author weaves her own moving story into its pages, along with those of fascinating clients and thought-provoking exercises in order to shed behaviors and patterns keeping us stuck in the past so that we can live our most authentic present.
Gardens of Awakening: A Guide to the Aesthetics, History, and Spirituality of Kyoto's Zen Landscapes by Kazuaki Tanahashi with photographs by Mitsue Nagase reveals the deep, inner spiritual connections that Zen gardens can foster, with over 75 stunning full-color plates of the masterpiece gardens of Kyōto, Japan. The gardens are presented in terms of seven qualities that arise from Zen practice: direct, ordinary, vigorous, gleaming, pivotal, nondual, and inexhaustible. Relating these qualities to the development of Zen culture and its influence on Japanese art, Gardens of Awakening invites you deep into the heart of Zen.
The memoir We Should All Be Birds from Brian Buckbee with Carol Ann Fitzgerald follows Brian, unable to read or write due to a never-ending headache, as he dictates the end of his old life – as an adventurer, an iconoclastic university instructor, and endurance athlete – through his relationship with a pigeon he names Two-Step who comes to define his present. Limited to dictation, Brian teams up with Carol Ann Fitzgerald, an editor who channels the details of his story to the page. This is a very special book.
Wild Life: 50 Projects to Rewild Your Life from the Home to Outdoors by Anne Carlile is a beautiful gift book introducing the concept of rewilding. No matter whether you live in the mountains, by the coast, along the banks of a river, or in the inner city, this book is your passport to disconnect from one world and reconnect with another. You’ll want to close your eyes and listen to the birds, kick off your shoes and forage for seaweed. You’ll reconnect with your roots, and somewhere along the way, find yourself again.
Ethel Marie: How a Minnesota Farm Girl Helped Me to Understand Life, Love, and Human Destiny by Kelly Nicholson is, in part, a memoir of the author’s youth and subsequent adventures. In addition, beneath its surface, lies the enduring question of how we might acquire a sense, amid a world of competing influences, of what life means and where we are ultimately headed. Its thesis is that we gain insight not merely from analytical scholarship, but also from our daily flesh and blood encounters with those around us.
The Answer Is in the Wound: Trauma, Rage, and Alchemy from Kelly Sundberg is an affecting memoir-in-essays which examines the fractured, nonlinear nature of life after trauma. In this remarkable account of her own road to healing, the author challenges a culture in which violence against women is normalized and writes against the implicit demand to “get over it”.
As titles go, Sex with a Brain Injury is a sure-fire attention grabber, wouldn’t you agree? Annie Liontas tells her story of, after suffering multiple concussions in her thirties, she shares what it means to be one of the “walking wounded”. The author weaves history, philosophy, and personal accounts to interrogate and expand representations of mental health, ability, and disability – particularly in relation to women in the LGBTQIA+ community.
This Happened to Me: A Reckoning from Kate Price is another powerful memoir of struggle and transformation. Within these pages we follow the author as she describes how she broke free of that which had defined her childhood and went on the create a purpose-driven life and family, on her own terms. Let us be inspired by her journey.
Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian's Journey Home from Chris La Tray is a testament to the power of storytelling, to family and legacy, and to finding home. Infused with candor, heart, wisdom, and an abiding love for a place and a people, Chris La Tray’s remarkable life is both revelatory and redemptive.
The Magic Words: Simple Poetry Prompts That Unlock the Creativity in Everyone by Joseph Fasano guides us to discover the magic of putting our feelings into words and to be inspired by poems submitted by people of all ages and walks of life. Exploring themes like friendship, love, grief, gratitude, and hope, these inclusive, accessible poems express powerful emotional truths – written by ordinary people like us.
Lately: New & Selected Poems by Laure-Anne Bosselaar collects many of the poet’s most widely-taught, memorable, and timely poems, as well as previously unpublished work. I invite you, dear reader, to treat yourself to her writing…as I am convinced you will be deeply moved and your heart opened up in the process.
For the entire list of new discoveries, click here!
Books for Young Readers + the People Who Love Them
Tying back to this report’s featured list, I offer five outstanding reads for our younger bibliophiles, beginning with The Library of Curiosities by Jenny Lundquist which introduces us to 11-year-old Rowan Fitzgerald who discovers the library her estranged grandfather runs is filled with magical objects – but only one holds the key to her family’s mysterious past.
The Magic Fish is a graphic novel by Trung Le Nguyen telling the tale of young Tien who comes to find that the only way he can communicate with his Vietnamese immigrant parents is through fairy tales. But how will he find the words to tell them that he’s gay? This is a powerful book about family, identity, and the enduring magic of stories.
The Green Kingdom by Cornelia Funke with support from Tammi Hartung and illustrations by Melissa Castrillon brings us young Caspia whose summer is transformed when she discovers a bundle of letters containing ten botanical riddles. Each letter contains clues leading her to a different plant and a new adventure.
Accidental Demons by Clare Edge is about Bernadette Crowley, the youngest in a long line of witches who, upon being diagnosed with diabetes, inadvertently summons a demon every time she tests her blood sugar level. Unsurprisingly, chaos follows, but Ber and her older sister Maeve are up to the challenge.
I’ve included Impossible Creatures from Katherine Rundell in a previous report, but I like it so much that I’m sharing it again. Here, we meet young Christopher who saves a baby griffin from drowning and inadvertently changes the course of his life. Everything changes after discovering a cluster of unmapped islands called the Archipelago where magical creatures of every kind have thrived for thousands of years. You’ll have to read the book yourself to find out what happens next.
“All cats are slightly magical, don’t you know? It’s why they’re so smug all the time.”
~Julie Leong
For more books for young readers click here!
Para libros para lectores jóvenes en Español haga clic aqui!
Just Because + Just for Fun
The Salmon Cannon and the Levitating Frog: and Other Serious Discoveries of Silly Science from Carly Anne York shines a light on how unappreciated, overlooked, and simple curiosity-driven science has led to important breakthroughs.
The Complete Kennections: 5,000 Questions in 1,000 Puzzles by television’s Jeopardy! champion and host Ken Jennings involves a series of trivia questions whose answers have something in common. The challenge is in finding the “Kennection” that links all five answers. For example, what do feet, McDonald’s, fingerprints, and St. Louis have in common? They all have arches!
“Play is our brain’s favorite way of learning.”
~Diane Ackerman
Please visit our online Bookshop to see our full selection of lists and titles.
Thank you for supporting local, independent bookstores!
We love connecting with you in the shop and online.
May you be inspired, supported, and enriched by what you find here.
