Drawn richly from scientific and botanical ideas, Everything the Light Touches is a swirl of ever-expanding themes: the contrasts between modern India and its colonial past, urban and rural life, capitalism and centuries-old traditions of generosity and gratitude, script and “song and stone.” Pulsating at its center is the dichotomy […]
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Back to the Indie Corner series This month I talk with Amy Smiley, author of Hiking Underground (Atmosphere Press, January 2023). Mary: Hi, Amy! So good to meet you. I have a few questions about your new novel Hiking Underground. We can start with what propelled you to write this […]
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Heavy Weather: Tempestuous Tales of Stranger Climes: Since Odysseus’ curious crew first unleashed the bag of winds gifted him by Aeolus, the God of Winds, literature has been awash with tales of bad or strange weather. From the flood myths of Babylon, the Mahabharata and the Bible, to 20th century […]
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Having lost her home to changes in the current, Maggie, a mayfly, is searching the stream for the richest of foods with which to nourish her brief flight in the world of air. But the stream, with its ever-changing currents, seems a confusing array of possibilities. Where are the richest […]
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Harvest Moon is an anthology of loves and lives, of stories that thrive where borders and edges meet and where fates merge and collide like bodies of water seeking oceans and tides encountering clouds and landfall, habitats and hives. This anthology of 30 images and over 30 poems, stories, and […]
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The Most Important Comic Book On Earth: Stories to Save the World is a global collaboration for planetary change, bringing together a diverse team of 300 leading environmentalists, artists, authors, actors, filmmakers, musicians, and more to present over 120 stories to save the world. Whether it’s inspirational tales from celebrity […]
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An environmental fairytale that speaks eloquently to the most pressing issues of our times. -Booker Prize-winning author of The Famished Road Ben Okri’s Every Leaf a Hallelujah is beautiful and wise—a true fable for our time. And Diana Ejaita’s illustrations are spectacular. -Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sixth […]
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According to Macmillan, this novel comes out in the summer of 2022: Ruthanna Emrys crafts a novel of extraterrestrial diplomacy and urgent climate repair bursting with quiet, tenuous hope and an underlying warmth. A Half-Built Garden depicts a world worth building towards, a humanity worth saving from itself, and an […]
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Coming in April 2022, this novel nods to Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel, and follows a teenager named Edwin into a Canadian forest and wilderness. In this beautiful natural surrounding, he hears a violin…from possibly a later time? I am looking forward to another book by St John Mandel! […]
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In The Island of Missing Trees, prizewinning author Elif Shafak brings us a rich, magical tale of belonging and identity, love and trauma, memory and amnesia, human-induced destruction of nature, and, finally, renewal. –Penguin Elif Shafak hardly needs any introduction. Her beautifully designed books can be found everywhere, from airports […]
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Thanks to the author for sending in information about her series. The following comes from her Bookshop info: Tree Magic (Book 1): A life fractured into parallel worlds. A quiet magic to accept or ignore. A decision to make. Escape from difficult family dynamics is teenager Rainbow’s desire. When she […]
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The rich and privileged have fled the city, barricaded it behind roadblocks, and left it to crumble. The inner city has had to rediscover old ways-farming, barter, herb lore. But now the monied need a harvest of bodies, and so they prey upon the helpless of the streets. With nowhere […]
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Middle Grade Fiction Reviewed by Kimberly Christensen Shuffled off to his aunt and uncle’s house in San Francisco while his mom takes a work assignment in China, everything looks bleak for 12-year-old Julian Carter-Li. No one besides his cousin and his best friend seem to care much about what happens […]
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From the world of Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls comes the historical novel based on the life of Dr. Wangari Maathai, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist from Kenya. Wangari lives in a magical place in rural Kenya where the soil is rich for planting, the trees abundant, and the […]
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Yes, it’s the Dave Matthews we all love. For his debut novel, Dave Matthews found inspiration close to home.He was recording music in New Orleans years ago when he started imaging the story of “If We Were Giants.” His twin daughters were 6. While they played in the trees, the […]
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